Catholic V. Protestant In Iowa?

One of the less publicized, most salient change in politics since the 1980s has been the political coalition built by conservative Catholics and evangelicals even as the doctrinally-sensitive Southern Baptist Convention became the dominant force in evangelical politics. The '04 re-election of George W. Bush showed how powerful that coalition can be.

Will it endure? Sam Brownback is a Catholic convert, Mike Huckabee is a Southern Baptist, and Mitt Romney is a member of the LDS Church. There have been skirmishes so far between supporters of Brownback and Huckabee on one side and Romney on the other. But until this week, the fact that Brownback is a Catholic (convert) and Huckabee is a Protestant hasn't been deemed relevant by anyone.

The following e-mail was sent to a number of Iowa evangelicals. The author is Rev. Tim Rude, a pastor at the Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights, Iowa.

Here's the full text of his e-mail:
Dear XXX and XXX,
>
> Pastors XXX and XXX relayed to me that you are both supporting Sam
> Brownback for President. It sounds like there is, in fact, regular
> contact with Senator Brownback and yourselves. I applaud your
> participation in the selection of the next president of the United
> States. It is our duty as Christians to take our stewardship of
> this country extremely serious. And I am sure that you are aware
> that our entire Walnut Creek leadership staff, to my knowledge, is
> supporting Mike Huckabee.
>
> On July 20, we drove up to Ames and spoke with pastors XXX and XXX
> about our position and were well received. However, it sounds like
> you are the men we need to communicate with about our advocacy.
>
> I am interested in your decision to support this candidate. As you
> know, both candidates are down in the polls. Nation-wide polls
> show Brownback at 1% and Huckabee at 3% amongst Republican candidates.
>
> About 3 weeks ago, I met the Governor personally. I learned that
> he was a Southern Baptist pastor for 12 years. The Governor told
> us that he concluded that people needed to gain positions in the
> government in order to safeguard our Christian values. People need
> to make that sacrifice. He served as LT. Governor prior to serving
> as governor for 10 and a half years.
>
> The second time he ran for Gov. he gained over 48% of the black
> vote. That is remarkable and it conveys he can really broaden his
> base. I think he is electable. He is a remarkable communicator.
> I believe as people listen to him, just like in Arkansas, they will
> like what he says and like him personally. I have listened to him
> in private and over the radio. He is the best communicator I have
> ever heard run for office. President Reagan was a great
> communicator but he did not as closely represent a Christian
> perspective as does Huckabee, although Reagan did a very good job.
>
> Huckabee is an evangelical. He has not learned how to speak to
> evangelicals; i.e. Bush 41 & 43. He is one of us. I know
> Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly,
> as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about
> his discernment when compared to the Governor's. I don't if this
> fact is widely known among evangelicals who are supporting Brownback.
>
> The one criticism of Huckabee is that he raised taxes in Arkansas.
> First of all, is that he had to raise money to meet some Federally
> imposed funding initiatives. When he took office, Arkansas was
> 47th ranked state in education. When he left office, they were
> 23rd rank. The roads were in horrible shape in the aftermath of
> the Clintons. He raised money for them. This is a
> constitutionally sanctioned responsibility of government. He cut
> taxes 86 times in Arkansas. He left with a budget surplus that was
> significant. He also left office with an 86% approval rating. He
> can build consensus even in a primarily Democratic state.
>
> Michael Ferris of the Home School Legal Defense Association
> enthusiastically endorses him as does the former Promise Keeper
> magazine New Man.
>
> There is much more to say. Like you, we are trying to make a 1st
> or 2nd place showing in the Iowa Straw Poll to give our candidates
> a boost and viability. Money and media attention would be gained to
> the winners. All Huckabee needs is exposure in my opinion. The
> money will come and will the volunteers. I would ask you to
> reconsider your support of Senator Brownback; and lead your people
> in not splitting the Christian vote among the two candidates. I
> have been impressed with the pastors across the Greater Des Moines
> area switching their support or giving their support for the
> Governor. We are in Iowa for 'such a time as this'.
>
> XXX church is trying to gain 1000 votes of people who were not
> planning on going to the Iowa Straw Poll from our efforts alone.
> Would you join us in accomplishing this goal?
>
> Brownback is a good man but there is a better candidate in my
> opinion. One that will gain momentum as he is heard. The Gov. is
> of true presidential character.
>
> Well, I thought I would give this a shot. I know it is hard to
> change horses in the middle of the stream but I know you will
> prayerfully consider what I have to say.
>
> Your brother and friend,
>
> XXX

Update: Pastor Rude has apologized.

Thompson Raises $3.4M, Spends $625,700

$3.4m is more than enough to start up a campaign -- and a not un-impressive sum for a non-candidate to raise. Too bad that unnamed Thompson aides had set expectations for $5M. Heading into July, when he expanded his staff significantly, Thompson had about $2.7M on hand.

Some details, courtesy of the campaign (er, the committee)

The biggest single expense: web hardware, at $66,750. 7,500 or so donors contributed a total of $771,783 through the web. Payroll accounted for $106K. The average donation was $469.8. 148 donors were from Florida, 111 from Georgia, and 780 were from Tennessee -- about 30% of his itemized total. About $282,000 came from lawyers and lobbyists, though only three donors listed their occupation as "lobbyist."

Thompson reimbursed himself $2800 for travel. Departed campaign manager Tom Collamore was paid more than $14,000. The firm employing Michael Toner, Thompson's legal counsel received about $25,000. Jeri Thompson did her work for free.

Squibs 7/31 Part II

1. A good observation: "Mindful of the power they wield, Iowa social conservatives straddle the line between purity and pragmatism." This, from Ben Weyl of the Iowa Independent.

2. Will Mitt Romney win the general election? Ask his New Hampshire co-chair.

3. Romney has a 30-second ad spot about immigration.

Obama's Television Ad: Take It Back

http://www.barackobama.com/takeitback.html

Lots to say about this third television ad of Barack Obama's, but for now, just know that it's remarkable how confidently Obama's wields his consensus-bipartisan message in front of partisan Democratic audiences. The ad begins tomorrow. The size and duration of the buy are unknown at this point.

OBAMA SYNC: I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But, I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

ANNCR V/O: In the Senate, Barack Obama challenged both parties to pass tough new ethics rules and rein in the power of lobbyists.

And he’s leading by example, refusing contributions from PACs and Washington lobbyists who have too much power today.

OBAMA SYNC: They think they own this government. But we're here today to take it back.

Squibs, 7/31

Southern Baptist poobah RIchard Land says abortion is more important than Mormonism to pro-life voters but cautions that a Romney speech equating Mormonism with evangelical Christianity could hurt.

Apparently, the picture of Barack Obama on the cover of Vibe was taken by a photographer who likes things raunchy.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) probably won't endorse, he says. This is kind of a win for... well, it's hard to say.

I hear... the Republican National Committee smartly sent a tracker to the College Demcorats convention in South Carolina last week. How did she get in? She flirted her way past the credentialing desk.

White House 2008 Rankings: The Republicans

Each week, NBC News political director Chuck Todd and I present our rankings on the likely order of finish for the presidential candidates.

In our opinion, Rudy Giuliani had the best July, followed closely by Mitt Romney.

(These will be our last rankings for a month, not because we don't like to write them, but because we want to pause for a month and revisit the race after Labor Day, when a restart is inevitable.)

These rankings are ordered by likelihood of winning the Republican primary and are based on a number of factors, including organization, money, buzz and polling. Click here for Democraticrankings.

1. Rudy Giuliani -- John McCain's campaign collapsed and is slowly rebuilding; Fred Thompson froze in place. These events bought Rudy time to get his organization going. As McCain was floundering, Giuliani was rolling out dozens of Iowa endorsements: legislators, entrepreneurs, county chairs. He's beginning to campaign like a real presidential candidate, spending two full days on small events in Iowa. Without much attention, he's busily rolling out a detailed policy agenda. For the first time, Rudy's campaign feels as if it is on the right track. Plus, he never lost his national front-runner status and still polls best against Clinton/Obama, which will matter more to GOP primary voters than some believe.

2. Mitt Romney -- He's still number two, but a day doesn't go by without us noticing something innovative and savvy about his campaign. Because he can write his own check, he'll face less of a time crunch over the next few months than his rivals. The campaign has an ambitious budget and Romney is willing to spend his own money to meet projections, even if his fundraising begins to dry up. He's worked aggressively to sew up endorsements in the McCain-Thompson gap, and we'll know by Labor Day whether it has paid off. That said, the lack of progress in South Carolina compared to Iowa and New Hampshire has to scare the campaign a bit.

3. Fred Thompson -- His campaign is not in chaos. Jeri Thompson is in control. But his margin for error is less than it once was. Thompson needs to find a way to resolve his optics problem. He is on the verge of failing to meet the prodigious (and unfair) expectations placed upon him. Announcing in prime time (i.e. after Labor Day) means he will get a lot of attention, so everything will be magnified -- the good and the bad. Thompson folks hate the Wesley Clark comparisons, but if we were Thompson, we'd make a call to Clark and just, well, chat.

Continue reading our Republican rankings.

Updating The Michigan Primary

Here's an update about the malestrom that is the Michigan primary. There are almost too many factions to keep track of.

A bill scheduling a joint primary for Jan. 29 was supposed to clear the state senate last week. It did not. Backers still expect the bill to pass. But what happens when it goes to the House is anyone's guess. And even if it passes, there's no guarantee that Gov. Jennifer Granholm, facing lots of internal Democratic opposition, will sign it.

Today, Sen. Sam Brownback's campaign announced its opposition to an internal Michigan Republican Party rules change that would institute a nominating convention, rather than a caucus or primary, if the bill fails to pass.

Rob Wasinger, Brownback's campaign manager, said the "proposed rule changes as posted on www.migop.org would take authority away from District Chairs and party activists and put it in the hands of paid staff members and other appointees of the chair who may be biased in the Presidential contest and who do not have the experience of running district caucuses. The authority should remain where it has been for years: in the hands of grassroots Republican activists elected by Republicans across the state."

Mark McClellan Hasn't Endorsed Giuliani

Though ex-Medicaid/Medicare dir. Mark McClellan participated in this morning's call with Giuliani health care advisers, he hasn't endorsed Giuliani.

"He's talking to lots of candidates and their staffs," said Gary Karr, a former McClellan aide who keeps in touch with his ex-boss. "This is not an endorsement."

McClellan has consulted with several other Republican campaigns, including Mike Huckabee's, Karr said.

In fairness, the Giuliani campaign did not call McClellan an adviser; he's not mentioned in a press release announcing the Giuliani health care group and was described in an earlier press release as being among those "health care leaders advising Mayor Giuliani."

It's not clear whether McClellan will endorse any candidate. He's just been appointed the founding director of the Brookings Institution's Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform.

Don't Dare Call It A Plan

What is Giuliani's health care plan, and how does it differ from what other Republicans will propose? It's hard to say. Giuliani has previously called for a $15K-per-family health deduction and an expansion of health savings accounts, but his speech tomorrow will be less of a detailed plan and more of a statement of principles. In fact, Giuliani doesn't seem to like the word "plan" because it suggests a one-size-fits all approach.

His health care advisers broadly sketched the outlines on a conference call closely monitored by Giuliani's campaign manager, Mike DuHaime.

Giuliani wants to control health care costs by reducing the distance between health care decisions and those who pay for them -- what one of his advisers called "value based purchasing decisions." The federal government's role would be to provide incentives to states to, well, it's not clear. Giuliani opposes state insurance mandates like the one Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. The overall goal -- the way to make sure people can pay their medical bills -- is a process for "a better set of insurnace products that would match the needs" of the market, Goldsmith said. No individual mandates, then, and moving away from employer mandates.

ABC's Jake Tapper wondered whether there was anything in the proposal that big Insurance or big PhRMA would find objectionable.

Goldsmith started to answer, but DuHaime cut him off saying that Giuliani might want to answer that one.

"Ok, I can take that hint," Goldsmith said. We'll put that off."

Not asked or answered was why Giuliani believes that a less fettered free market approach to health care would reduce costs, or what degree of market freedom would be required to achieve the savings, or how the market should be contoured or incentivized to handle that type of medical care that is inherently profitless. Also unclear is why Giuliani views health care as a commodity: People get older and want the latest test or the best treatment. Perhaps they might demand less if they knew they're responsible for more of the cost...sort of a health care Pigout movement... but social and economic engineering on this scale is daunting.

Ezra Klein? Brad DeLong?

Giuliani's Health Care Advisers

As he rolls out his health insurance plan today, the Giuliani campaign is uneviling a roster of health care advisers. One of them is a heavyweigh: Dr. Mark McClellan. McClellan the former head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is an economist and medical doctor, was a former FDA commissioner, and is considered one of the leading lights in the Republican health care policy world. Pres. Bush nearly made him a cabinet secretary. McClellan was the FDA commish when Plan B was rejected for over-the-counter sales.

Also: Donald W. Moran, a former Reagan administration official, and Sally Pipes, a conservative activist who has criticized the Massachusetts insurance mandate sheparded by Mitt Romney.

And then some younger advisers: Daniel P. Kessler, a young Hoover Institute fellow who studies health care economics, Dr. David Gratzer, a Manhattan Institute fellow and a practicting doctor in Canada.

Giuliani's top domestic policy advisor is former Indianapolis Mayor/Bush adviser Stephen Goldsmith.

Is The Surge Working? And Other Articles To Read

Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, fresh from a trip to Iraq, are suddenly a bit bullish on the surge and were given prime New York Times real estate to make their case. Watch for this one to stir a blogosphere debate today. Meanwhile: could the drawdown begin next April?

Barack Obama e-mails CBN's David Brody to chat about religion. Meanwhile, Slate's popular Achilles Heel series continues today with the question for Obama: what the heck has he done? Over the weekend, the New York Times' latest bio essay about Obama concluded that his tenure in the IL state legislature matched his rhetoric.

Rivals of Hillary Clinton are pushing around this clip today. The Los Angeles Times looks at her courtship of Indian American businesses and their penchant for outsourcing. The AP's Pickler wrote about Hillary Clinton's strengths in South Carolina.

Your daily dose of Parse The Gingrich.

Icky Nashua Telegraph headline of the morning (courtesy of the Hotline's Wake Up Call) : Got an itch in a warm, moist place? It could be fungus

Novak Reveals Top Secret/Codeword Operation?

It sure sounds like it. Bob Novak writes of a secret briefing by Defense official Eric Edelman (he's the one who came close to accusing Hillary Clinton of disloyalty) to inform members of Congress about a covert miltary operation to help the Turkish government "supress Kurdish guerrillas" to "forstall" Turkey from invading Kurdish Northern Iraq.

Edelman's listeners were stunned. Wasn't this risky? He responded he was sure of success, adding that the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied. Even if all this is true, some of the briefed lawmakers left wondering whether this was a wise policy for handling the beleaguered Kurds who had been betrayed so often by U.S. governments in years past.

A week later, the details were leaked to Novak, ostensibly by someone from the legislative branch.

Classic "Conditioning"

In Iowa this morning, Sen. Obama admonished the Beltway press corps for using horse race criteria to judge his debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton instead of focusing on the differences between the two of them.

Fair enough.

Obama would meet with the Evil Five "without preconditions" but under "certain conditions." By plain reading, his position contradicts itself. Based on how Obama has subsequently explained his answer, it seems that he meants to say that he would not require the other countries to agree to diplomatic preconditions but that he would not simply meet Hugo Chavez as the Venezuelan Camp David unless he were reasonably certain that Chavez didn't intend to spit in his face. The United States may or may not come to the table with demands.

Clinton would initiative diplomatic overtures immediately but would be skeptical if, say, Holocaust-denying president of Iran decided to invite her to Tehran or to, say, speak at a conference on Zionism. The U.S. has moral leverage in this situation and Clinton would not easily abdicate it.

Both Clinton and Obama say they would be "tough" with these leaders and relentlessly press the United States's interests. Both have said, repeatedly, that they would practice diplomacy to Bush-Cheney cowboy approach.

Charitably, these positions are different by about four cents on the dollar.

Obama goes further. He may even stipulate that Clinton says the right things, but he is making a broader argument: Obama represents a break with the old order and Hillary exemplifies it. Clinton has baggage, history, and promotes a Washington-centric, consensus national security liberalism. Obama would engage these leaders from a different vantage point. And Clinton might agree about that last point: it's not that the issue is whether the Bush-Cheney diplomatic track is reversed, but how.

Calling Clinton "Bush-Cheney lite" is a political charge though, so we go back to politics.

If we string back to the matrix of policy positions, Obama is either trying to manufacture differences where aren't any, or he is suggesting that Clinton is too much of an establishment, dynastic figure to break away from the Bush-Cheney approach which somehow, in Obama's mind, represents a continuation, rather than a break with, the establishment thinking on foreign policy.

In other words, Obama wants to focus on how Clinton originally positioned herself (rather than what she meant) because Obama clearly believes he and Clinton approach foreign policy from a fundamentally different place even if, in this particular situation, they agree on the remedy. The onus on Obama is to show, clearly, how both his approach and his operationalization would be different.

Vilsack Brackets Obama For Clinton (UPDATED)

Gov. Tom Vilsack, acting as a surrogate for Sen. Hillary Clinton, blasted Sen. Barack Obama this morning for deliberately attempting to "mask" the similarities between his position on meetings with foreign leaders and hers,

Earlier in the day, Obama told Democrats in Des Moines that it was "time to turn the page on the Bush-Cheney diplomatic strategy that has isolated America from our allies and reduced our moral standing in the international community." On Thursday, he called Sen. Clinton's position "Bush-Cheney Lite."

Vilsack, on a conference call with national political reporters, called Obama's comments "certainly audacious but not particularly hopeful." "It's not the Iowa way," he said, and it "flies in the face of the promise Sen. Obama gave to all of us at the beginning of this campaign to avoid negative politics."

Vilsack, citing Obama's pre-debate interview with Miami Herald where he suggested he'd meet with Hugo Chavez "under certain conditions," said that Obama "agrees" with Clinton's. view but is trying to "confuse" the issue by stepping up his rhetoric.

Also Saturday, Obama's campaign mailed a letter from ex-Iowa Min. Leader Richard Myers, a Korean War veteran, who wrote that “Senator Obama offers a dramatic change from the Bush administration’s seven-year refusal to protect our security interests by using every tool of American power available – including diplomacy. In short, his view of American diplomacy reflects our values.”

The letter was mailed to "thousands of undecided Iowans" who have told the Obama campaign that foreign policy was their top voting issue.

Update: Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman, e-mails a response to Vilsack:

The politics of hope requires us to shake up the establishment status quo that has to change. Obama has been crystal clear in saying that he be the most aggressive in fundamentally changing our nation’s foreign policy.

This is a substantive debate during which she called Obama irresponsible and naive. Obama has been entirely consistent -- he never said he would invite dictators over for a cup of coffee and he said he wouldn’t let these dictators use him as a propaganda tool. What he did say was that he would be willing to meet with them.

It's Hard To Be A Rogue Leader

It must be confusing to be a rogue leader right now. Witness:

Right before the Democratic debate, Sen. Barack Obama told the Miami Herald that under "certain conditions" he would meet with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

"Under certain conditions, I always believe in talking," Obama told the Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer. "Sometimes it’s more important to talk to your enemies than to your friends."

At the debate, Obama answered "yes" when asked if he would meet with rogue leaders "without preconditions." Strategist David Axelrod later clarified that Obama simply meant that he would be willing to meet with them face-to-face without any pre-arranged concessions from those leaders.

It's not clear the circumstances Obama was thinking about when he was being interviewed by the Herald writer are akin to diplomatic "preconditions" -- perhaps he simply meant he would not immediately invite Chavez to the White House... but use of the word "conditions" does sound like Hillary Clinton's. Mr. Obama has tried to force some daylight into the two approaches: hers is allegedly "Bush-Lite" -- but he will now be challenged to describe how his conditions differ from hers. (One clue as to how he might respond: Obama said on a Thursday conference call with reporters that Clinton is "somehow maintaining is my statement could be construed as not having asked what the meeting was about. I didn't say these guys were going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon. From what I heard the point was… well, I wouldn't do that because it might allow leaders like Hugo Chavez to score propaganda points. I think that is absolutely wrong.")

And a further apparent complication, particularly if you're getting your news from soundbites. Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton was asked by MSNBC's Keith Olbermnann whether she'd "reach out immediately to the Syrians and the Iranians." Yes, she said, and "I don't see that as a sign of weakness, I see it as a sign of strength. ... I would immediately open a Democratic track."

Conclusion: Clinton will open a diplomatic track immediately; Obama would meet, quickly, directly with the principals themselves, provided he was satisfied he was not a propaganda tool.

The Week That Was: O Really?

BIll O'Reilly did the Clinton campaign an enormous favor by deeming YearlyKos unacceptable for sober presidential candidates to attend. Clinton aide Howard Wolfson did his boss good by showing up and defending the Kossacks.

Ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani is wrapping up a great month for the campaign, one where the Thompson Freeze and the McCain collapse have allowed him to fill some organizational gaps and concentrate on making his economic policy case in New Hampshire. On the other hand, the Michigan Republican Party might throw a wrench in his campaign's Feb. 5 strategy. We'll know more next week.

Bill Richardson is touting another poll showing momentum in Iowa. His debate performance was middling. It's just not his format.

Mitt Romney continued to draw contrasts with Democrats.

Monday's YouTube debate launched the Turning Point of the race so far, as Obama and Hillary engaged in a substantive debate (played out over three days and ending in some nanny-nanny boo-boo) about foreign policy. Obama showed he is capable of being ballsy. Clinton demonstrated that M. Albright and R. Holbrooke still won't get on a conference call together. Both sides proclaimed victory; the press deemed HRC the victor early and then changed its mind.

Jeri Thompson is guiding her husband's presidential quest. Deal with it.

John Edwards set the bar for Democratic economic plans; he's raise taxes on the rich and cut them for the middle class. Despite the hullabaloo over Obama-Clinton, Edwards managed some pretty good press from the MSM and Dems, and some pretty critical jabs from Republicans, which is exactly the right mix for him right now.

What's Next

August begins! Next weekend, the Dems do YearlyKos in Chicago -- it's a mile away from Obama's campaign headquarters. Republicans stump in Iowa ahead of the straw poll. They debate on "This Week" With George Stephanopoulos next Sunday. Fred Thompson hosts a fund raiser in DC.

The Atlantic's Boldest
(our corrections)

1. The name of the DNC's research chief is Mike G-E-H-R-K-E, not Gerkhe.

2. Sam LeBlond was not "the" lead political advance guy for Fred Thompson. He was "a" lead advance guy for Fred Thompson.

3. I made a reporting error.

Joe Trippi's Renaissance

The day he resigned as Howard Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi packed his truck and drove down I-95 from Burlington, Vermont to his Maryland retreat, swearing to everyone who reached him on the telephone that he was done, forever, with presidential politics.

The Dean campaign, once the life of the primaries, was bradycardic. Trippi, who tends to ruminate, was convinced that his reputation was ruined. He expected to be blamed for collapse of the Dean campaign after he put body and soul building it. Indeed, his critics thought his mismanagement contributed to Dean's woes. Trippi allies point out that he never had full control over the campaign's finances.

Trippi was also sick. Years of unchecked diabetes and a diet consisting principally of snack food and Diet Pepsis enervated his ambition. He suffers today from diabetic neuropathy, and will, in mid-conversation, double over in silent pain.

After the falling out, Dean was angered by, then bemused by Trippi. Many consultants poked fun at his foibles. He has an outsize personality, is at turns loyal and generous and critical and demanding, thinks laterally and narratively, and tends to fill a room. He would be the first to admit that he is not easy to get along with. Having covered the Dean campaign, I've been yelled at by Trippi many times, often for writing stories he did not like, occasionally for asking silly questions, and inexplicably, for simply writing about him.

He dissolved his longstanding business partnership with Steve McMahon, noodled around at home, tried to bring the old band together after the Dean collapse (remember the Cummings Creek Compact?), and helped a few down-ballot campaigns on the side. He was an MSNBC commentator for a while, wrote a successful book, and was a fairly well-recieved speaker on the circuit.

All the while, the Democratic Party adopted Howard Dean as party chairman, employed the tactics, and puzzled through the ideas that Trippi was among the first to articulate. As chronicled in Matt Bai's new book about the "billionaires and bloggers" who remade the Democratic Policy, liberals began to build an infastructure to harness the energy that propelled Howard Dean's candidacy. If Howard Dean's ideas elected Democrats in 2006, so did Trippi's brand of politics.

This cycle, three presidential candidates courted him. He signed on with ex-Sen. John Edwards after bonding with Elizabeth Edwards -- there's a whole separate story here about how he's fitting in. But he's in. That "Hair" video -- vintage Trippi. Edwards hired Trippi in part because Iowa is Trippi's specialty -- he helped Walter Mondale and Dick Gephardt win the caucuses -- and Edwards needs to win the caucuses.

The small-dollar Internet donor base attracted by the Dean and flogged relentless by Trippi has transformed the party's fundraising. Democrats actually counterpunch these days. Every single campaign uses Trippi-patented tactics to raise money. The men and women Joe Trippi cultivated on Dean's staff have stormed the gates and occupy positions of power in major party and campaign offices.

This isn't Hagiography Friday. It's just a rare story of redemption in politics.

A Man Says To The Universe: I Exist! The Universe Replies..

From NBC's First Read:

John Edwards took a shot at Clinton and Obama's dispute -- telling the National Urban League convention in St Louis:

"If you’re looking, if you're looking for what’s wrong in Washington, why the system is broken, why the system doesn’t work, one perfect example is what's been happening over the last four days. We’ve had two good people, Democratic candidates for president, who’ve spent their time attacking each other, instead of attacking the problems that this country’s faced.

“I got your attention with that one, didn't I?”

Another Thompson Departure

The Politico's Jonathan Martin scoops that Tom Frechette, the would-be deputy campaign manager, has resigned. Like his former boss-to-be Tom Collamore, Mr. Frenchette was given a "senior adviser" title.

Martin also notices that Sean Hannity didn't ask Mr. Thompson a single question about his campaign on his appearance last night.

All Fred's men (and Women)

Chris Cillizza wrote about, and now you can see it -- after the jump, the full list of Fred Thompson staffers and ... recent staffers as compiled by a rival campaign.

Continue reading "All Fred's men (and Women)" »

Edwards: Bold, Brave, Or Foolish?

Nothing original to say about John Edwards's tax overhaul proposals, but they deserve some attention. Edwards would raise the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 28% -- the Dow's slide today is an interesting frame -- he'd greatly expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and would create some tax breaks for the middle class.

The news is bleak for those in the higher income brackets: Not only would private equity and hedge fund execs have higher rates on “carried interest,” but executives will also see a $1-million cap on how much they can defer into their pensions.

Mr. Edwards also said he would “declare war on tax havens” by giving the IRS the authority to investigate offshore tax breaks.

The politics is interwoven with the policy: both the establishment and insurgent wings of the Democratic Party worry about the politics of taxes, and Edwards is the first Democrat of national stature to confront this sacred cow. Most Democrats are willing to scrap the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; few are willing to acknowledge that they can't fund their "investments" without sacrifice, and unless they embrace supply side economics, they're going to have to deficit spend or raise taxes. Edwards has once again pledged to raise taxes on the wealthy and cut taxes for the middle class. His rivals will be challenged to follow his lead. It could be political suicide, or it could be audacious enough to draw a real contrast between Edwards and the field. Populists have been aching for a clash of ideas about taxes for a long time. They have one now.

Here's the best of what I've read:

Peter Baker sees a broad turn to the left.

Dan Balz asks whether Edwards's ideas can move voters?

Some quirky headlines from Google News:

And Mitt Romney goes to town:

"[Y]ou ought to be able to save your money and you ought to have a special tax rate [on your savings]… the tax rate ought to be absolutely zero. … [Edwards is] going to announce today that he's in favor of a plan that let's you save $250 tax free. That's not going to pay for college, or retirement, or a car – maybe a bike…"

The Red Arrow Cafe

The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut on the best place to have breakfast in Manchester.

Update: Rudy Likely To Opt Out Of YouTube Debate

A Giuliani campaign source says that the ex-NYC mayor will most likely opt out of the 9/17 CNN/YouTube Debate in Florida. The reason: unspecified scheduling conflicts.

GOP Candidates Invited To Attend YouTube Debate

The Republicans take their turn answering unpredictable YouTube questions on September 17 in St. Petersburg, FL. When the the debate was announced by the state party, CNN and YouTube last Friday, Sen. John McCain immediately RSVP'd. Since then, silence from the other campaigns.

Mitt Romney didn't like some of the more frivolous trappings and told the New Hampshire Union Leader that "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."

Several campaigns report receiving a formal invitation today.

Bill Sammon Responds To Newt's "Pgymies" Claim

The D.C. Examiner's Bill Sammon was kind of enough to e-mail the transcript of his question and Newt Gingrich's answer.

Here's the context, which speaks for itself:

Q: “A lot of people say, you know, he’s the most brilliant guy that could be considered for this, and yet he has baggage that might make him unelectable. How to you address that fundamental objection?”

A: “I don’t. That’s not my problem. I’ll take the first half of his sentence and suggest you watch the six-hour briefing. It’s not my problem. This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?' I have no interest in the current political process. I have no interest in trying to figure out how I can go out and raise money under John McCain’s insane censorship rules.”

Fred Speaks!

Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson just sent out this calming e-mail to his list:

In the past few months, I've traveled the country talking and listening to folks. I've been discussing where I see America going, about what we need to do to keep our nation secure, what we must do to keep this remarkable economy growing, and the challenges we must address together for the next generation of Americans.

I believe the United States is at a crossroads, and what I'm hearing on the road is that a lot of people agree with me. They're ready to move forward together to meet our challenges here at home and abroad. They aren't buying into the defeatist talk about our security, our economy, and our future.

During this "testing the waters" effort we've undertaken, I've been saying the political waters feel pretty warm. It's allowed us to start laying the foundation of a good team across the country and to keep up this national conversation we've been having. Now we're going to take that conversation to a different level.

On Tuesday, August 7th, we're inaugurating a new weekly "I'm With Fred" email, complete with news, updates, and photos from the road. We're also working on the ImWithFred website 2.0, in order to keep in touch on a daily basis and to give you more opportunities to join us at events, help us organize, and spread the word about our efforts.

I'm excited about what I'm seeing out on the road. I appreciate everything you're doing for our effort.

Sincerely,

Clinton Responds To Obama

Sen. Hillary Clinton responds to Sen. Barack Obama in an interview to be aired later on CNN.

SEN. CLINTON: “Well, this is getting kind of silly. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but I’ve never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney certainly. We have to ask what’s ever happened to the politics of hope?

“I have been saying consistently for a number of years now, we have to end the Bush era of ignoring problems, ignoring enemies and adversaries. And I have been absolutely clear that we’ve got to return to robust and effective diplomacy. But I don’t want to see the power and prestige of the United States President put at risk by rushing into meetings with the likes of Chavez, and Castro, and Ahmadinejad.”

Exodus Continues: More Staff To Leave Team Thompson

Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson's lead political advance operative*, Sam LeBlond, resigned this morning, associates of Thompson said, and several other advisers were expected to quit before the end of the week.

Mr. LeBlond is nephew to President George W. Bush.

He joined the Thomspon committee less than two weeks ago.

Update: Chris Cillizza reports that Mary Matalin, a longtime friend of Jeri Thompson's, will not be departing.

** = perhaps I should have written "one of" here. The Thompson campaign is disputing the word "lead." Part of the problem is that several folks there were promised jobs with the same title. Mr. LeBlond was part of the advance staff. He was not an intern. He anticipated taking a lead role. And now he's resigned.

Gingrich Responds: "Pygmies" Taken Out Of Context

Newt Gingrich insists that he didn't call the lot of Republican presidential candidates a "pathetic" bunch of "pygmies" and instead was the victim of a reporter who did not understand his historical reference.

On Tuesday, the D.C. Examiner's Bill Sammon wrote that he pressed Gingrich to address "

whether his political baggage renders him unelectable, Gingrich compared himself to a famous French statesman. "This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?'" he said."

Professor Gingrich strikes back, courtesy of his press secretary, Rick Tyler.

It was clear to anyone in the room that when Gingrich said, “This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?” that he was referring to the French analogy of a broken political system and not any of the candidates running for President.

More from Tyler:

Gingrich as a young man lived in France under de Gaulle and earned a Ph.D. in modern European history. His comparison, which Sammon ignored, was significant and relevant to today’s dysfunctional political process and government bureaucracies.

This line is especially brutal:

Sammon either did not understand the reference or he chose to quote Gingrich out of context. I am inclined to believe the latter because Bill is a smart person.

You can read the whole letter to the Examiner after the jump.

Continue reading "Gingrich Responds: "Pygmies" Taken Out Of Context" »

Clinton Wins A Round: The DoD Is Planning For Drawndown

Defense Sec. Robert Gates, in a letter to Sen. Hillary Clinton, said that senior military commanders are drawing up contingency plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, calling the work a "priority" for the Department of Defense.

Gates said he won't share specifics with Congress but is willing to loop Congress in on the "conceptual thinking, factors, considerations and objectives associated with drawdown planning."

Responding to Clinton's complaint that Under Secretary for Policy Eric Edelman denigrated the value of congressional oversight, Gates called it "fundamental" to the American political system, said the congressional debate on Iraq is "constructive, appropriate and necessary," and is explicit in saying that he does not believe that the debate about oversight "does not embolden our enemies."

Gates ends the letter by expressing his support for Amb. Edelman. Then he apologizes. "I truly regret that this important discussion went astray and I also regret any misunderstanding of intentions," Gates writes.

A Clinton aide responds:

While Senator Clinton is disappointed that Secretary Gates does not repudiate Under Secretary Edelman’s unacceptable political attack, Senator Clinton nevertheless welcomes Secretary Gates's acknowledgment that congressional oversight of the war in Iraq is essential to our national debate. She continues to believe strongly that there is absolutely no room for impugning the patriotism of those who rightfully engage in Congressional oversight

Senator Clinton also welcomes the disclosure that the Department of Defense, according to the Secretary, is indeed planning for the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq, and looks forward to receiving the department's briefings. To ensure that Secretary Gates’ sentiments are fulfilled, she will continue to pursue with Senator Kerry their legislation mandating that the Pentagon brief Congress on contingency planning to ensure the safe and secure redeployment of our troops from Iraq.

Fred Thompson's Week In Context

Two days of high profile resignations, an NBC News report that fundraising has slowed down considerably, open anxiety from Thompson supporters -- it seems like a hex has been cast on his presidential bid.

What's going on?

To a certain extent, these growing pains are normal. It's extraordinarily difficult to quickly build a presidential campaign from scratch. Back-end tasks include creating a budget, renting headquarters, hiring lawyers and compliance experts, dealing with the press, dealing with allies, dealing with potential fundraisers, recruiting political operatives, recruiting supporters, managing expectations -- and lots more. As new employees come aboard, the number of voices, the levels of vetting, the procedural hurdles all multiply. Campaigns at this stage often require a single puppet master. Good Ole' Fred has one: wife Jeri Kehn Thompson.

Thompson unwisely allowed tension to develop between his wife and the rest of the campaign staff. Ex-campaign-manager designate Tom Collamore did not mesh with Jeri Thompson and the friction between the two was evident to the rest of the staff. At times, Kehn Thompson would simply countermand Collamore's instructions. She has final hiring authority -- something that every campaign manager needs and Collamore never had. The Thompson presidential staff will be her staff more than Fred's.

J.T. Mastranadi is one of the Republican Party's best opposition researchers. His "ground" skill -- his ability to unearth new information -- is the envy of many competitors. He was hired two weeks ago, and when he began to plan for the campaign, he found it difficult to get his questions answered. He quickly concluded that Thompson had yet to get his affairs in order, friends say.

Now -- the strong hand of Jeri Thompson is not necessarily a force for evil. Spouses can be good campaign managers: Jenny Sanford managed her husband Mark's first four successful congressional and gubernatorial campaigns in South Carolina. But Thompson's press has been brutal and borderline sexist, a consequence of her many detractors speaking on background to reporters. Thompson has worked as a professional political consultant and knows the basics of putting a campaign together. And Fred Thompson trusts her to make decisions. Incoming staffers need to accept that Jeri is first among equals. It is unclear whether any adviser will rise as a counterweight to the spouse. Probably not: Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Edwards, Bill Clinton and Ann Romney are probably the most powerful quartet of spouses to exert influence in a presidential race ever. No one on their respective campaigns comes close, although John Edwards and Hillary Clinton have been known to weigh the advice of others against the influence of wife and husband.

It took about eight months for John McCain to discover that lines of authority matter. Presidents ought to be competent managers. If a candidate can't get his campaign right, then it's fair to wonder how he'd structure the White House staff, what power he'd delegate to the cabinet, who would make decisions in his absence and more. The presence of a single decider, in and of itself, should not count against the Thompson campaign and is probably essential at this point. The resignations and backbiting suggest that the campaign cannot control its own image, and the responsibility lies solely with the candidate. Ole Fred has to fix the problems. His supporters will lose faith in him if he dawdles and his fundraising will dry up even more.

As Chuck Todd points out, one reason why two resignations matter is that there is nothing else that matters -- Thompson isn't making news or campaigning.

The role of ex-Sen. Spencer Abraham is unclear, but integrating him into the campaign will help. He is one of the party's best practitioner-strategists and has experience running campaigns nationwide. He's less of a grassroots guy, but he can raise money from the grasstops. One Republican on the outer circle of the campaign said that Abraham will be the campaign's chief liaison to politicians and fundraisers and will be one of its public faces. Randy Enwright, as has been widely reported, is one of the main reasons why Florida is only barely competitive for Democrats anymore. He is that good.

"We're on track," communications director Linda Rozett said yesterday. The message from the survivors on the campaign staff seems to be: a few scuff marks only matter to the press. Maybe. But Thompson is losing fair-weather fans. The opinion elite at National Review Online often pull base opinion behind them, and they're starting to get mighty anxious.

Thompson expects to open a presidential committee (and call it an exploratory committee) in August -- although probably after the ABC News debate on August 5. Thompson is slated on the Ames straw poll ballot, so he might well establish the committee in the week between the debate and the straw poll. Thompson's formal announcement tour is planned for the first week after Labor Day.

Obama's Counterpunch

Hillary Clinton is nothing if she's not the candidate of strength and experience, and Barack Obama will not concede the points. Nicked by the press after Monday night's debate, Obama's campaign has ferociously counterpunched the last two days, giving an on-camera interview to NBC News and repeating his comments this morning with a gentle taunt: prove you're different than Bush-Cheney.

"I think we've got her on her heels," one adviser bragged to me last night.

Speaking of bragging:

One thing I'm very confident about is my judgment in foreign policy is, I believe, better than any other candidate in this race, Republican or Democrat," Obama said

This bravado, according to the dogged Jake Tapper of ABC News, was Obama's at an "off-the-record" event hosted by Time Magazine in New York two nights ago. Tapper was tipped off by attendees.

Such superlatives are uncommon for presidential candidates and uncommon all the more for Barack Obama. The audacity! Well -- Obama believes it!

Obama and Clinton talk about experience in different ways. Clinton has the more conventional definition. Experience is resume; the requisites for the job. Obama's definition hinges on lived experience; varities of experience. In Obama's mind (and I am getting this from his friends, not from the ether), true experience produces wisdom; and wisdom leads to judgment, and judgment leads to, well, the ability to see around the corner on Iraq.

He told Lynn Sweet this morning:

The debate is not just about life experience, although obviously that informs my perspective. It also has to do with perspective with how the United States should project its interests and ideals around the world. it's a debate over the same conventional thinking that led people to authorize the war in Iraq without asking question versus and approach to foreign policy that allows people to ask questions and is informed by a knowledge and perspective of cultures like those in Iraq and is not trapped by a lot of received wisdom.

A Change

Tuesday, Clinton was charging at Obama; Wednesday, Obama charged back, and the Clinton campaign sent out a defensive statement from Richard Holbrooke.

Obama:

The notion that I was somehow going to be inviting them over for tea next week without having initial envoys meet is ridiculous," he said in an interview outside his Senate office. "But the general principle is one that I think Senator Clinton is wrong on, and that is if we are laying out preconditions that prevent us from speaking frankly to these folks, then we are continuing with Bush-Cheney policies."

Then:

Later Wednesday, the Clinton campaign issued a statement by former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who is supporting her candidacy, taking issue with Obama's comments and saying she would bring an end to "the cowboy approach of the Bush years."

Day Three: Obama To Clinton: Prove You're Different Than Bush-Cheney?

Barack Obama just completed a conference call with reporters -- ostensibly, he was there to brag about his endorsement by Rep. Paul Hodes. "Paul overcame a lot of the predictions that he couldn’t beat an incumbent because he was a fresh new voice and spoke the truth and people appreciated that he could be an agent of change."

And then he took questions, and national reporters really only wanted to hear Obama talk about one subject. Mike McAuliffe with the New York Daily News noticed how Obama had compared Hillary Clinton's debate answer about diplomacy to the Bush-Cheney approach. Does he really believe that?

A beat.

Obama: “I don’t just believe it, I think that’s the record. The Bush administration’s policy is to say that we will not talk to these countries unless we meet explicit preconditions. And that is the question that was asked at the debate.” He continued: “You’ll have to ask Sen. Clinton: what differentiates her position from theirs?”

Obama elaborated. “If I sit down with a leader of Iran I will send them a strong message that Israel is our friend and that we will assist in their security and that we don’t find nuclear weapons acceptable… that’s not going to be a propaganda coup for Iran, but what it does do is allow us to send a message to the rest of the world that we are willing to sit down and talk. [What she said] during the debate and subsequently was that she would not meet with various leaders unless certain preconditions were met. Now, if that’s not what she means, she should say so. But that was the question that was posed at the debate. You need to get clarification from her if they are walking back from the position that we stated."

Stop Hillary!

"Anything goes." "Hillary Care." "Liberal."

A new fundraising plea by RNC chairman Mike Duncan features all the Clinton-bashing innudeno the RNC's e-mail crafters could conjure up. It reads like a blast from the past, but the real turn is in the text itself: the RNC is afraid that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee and that she will overwhelm the Republican Party's fundraising capability.

Duncan points out that the RNC is the only authorized federal committee allowed to "directly support" the GOP nominee; the implicit mesasge is that there will be plenty of outside groups seeking anti-Hillary donations, but only the RNC can exploit the full panoply of speech options afforded by federal law.

Scary thought: the "Hillary Clinton fundraising juggernaut" referenced in the letter isn't the biggest fundraising juggernaut there is, of course.

The legacy of Joe Trippi and Howard Dean lives on: an energized Democratic Party with a broad new fundraising base is forcing the Republicans to beg for general election money more than a year before the party convention.

Dear XXX,

The Hillary Clinton fundraising juggernaut keeps on rolling.

Through the first six months of the year, Hillary has raised a whopping $63 million. Unfortunately, that's just the start. She is expected to raise more than $100 million before the end of 2007.

Hillary and her campaign manager, former Democrat Party chief Terry McAuliffe, are hoping her massive haul of campaign cash will pave the way to her coronation as the Democrat presidential nominee and provide her with early money to attack our GOP presidential candidates.

XXX, if we are to stop Bill and Hillary from returning to the White House, we must act now. As the only GOP organization allowed by federal law to directly support our presidential nominee, the Republican National Committee is leading the drive to keep the Clintons from another extended stay at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Please help the RNC counter Hillary's growing war chest by making a secure online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 today to support our eventual Republican presidential nominee.

We must prepare for the 2008 presidential election now. Back in 1995 -- 16 months before he was re-elected -- Bill Clinton began spending $85 million on negative ads aimed at the GOP and our eventual presidential nominee, Bob Dole. Hillary wants to follow the same playbook.

Hillary is criss-crossing the country raising tens of millions of dollars from Hollywood elites, Big Labor, and trial lawyers. She's dispatched her husband, the Fundraiser-in-Chief, to headline events and remind liberals of the "Two-for-One" package you get if the Clintons are in the White House.

And you know what that would mean:

The return of Hillary-Care -- the one-size-fits-all health care system Hillary tried to force through in 1993 that would put bureaucrats in Washington in charge of your health care choices instead of your doctor.
Higher taxes for all Americans to pay for her big government plans. As Hillary said earlier this year on the campaign trail, "Fairness doesn't just happen. It requires the right government policies."
The appointment of more liberal judges and the further expansion of the federal government into your daily life.
XXX, we cannot allow a return of the big government, high taxes, anything goes style of governing that Hillary Clinton embodies.

The RNC must raise the funds now to support our eventual nominee if we are to compete with the Clinton/liberal special interest money machine. That's why today I'm turning to our Party's top supporters -- Sustaining Members like you -- once again. Please click here to help stop Hillary.

Electing a new Republican president and keeping Bill and Hillary from a return stay at the White House begins with you, XXX. Please make a secure online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to support the RNC's efforts today.

The $63 million Hillary now has for her presidential campaign is just the tip of the iceberg. Your immediate support is crucial to countering the Clinton money machine. Thank you.

Best Wishes,

Robert M. "Mike" Duncan
Chairman, Republican National Committee

P.S. XXX, you can be certain Bill and Hillary will be hitting up their liberal special interest allies for tens of millions more as the primaries near. The RNC is counting on your continuing generous support to help us lay the foundation for electing a new Republican president in 2008. Your donation of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 is vital to our cause. Thank you.

Michigan Republicans Fighting Over Primary, and Giuliani and McCain Are In Bed Together

In Michigan, proxies for three leading Republican candidates are fighting a back room battle over the state's 2008 Republican primary. Trying to mediate is the state party chair, Saul Anuzis, who must negotiate between his constituents -- the Republicans in Michigan -- and the presidential campaigns.

Yesterday, Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), a supporter of ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, wrote to members of the Republican state committee to protest rules changes that she claims will help a small cadre of conservative activists at the expense of other Republicans.

Here's the background: the state party and the presidential candidates have publicly endorsed a jointly-held presidential primary run by the state on Feb. 5 or earlier. This will happen only if the legislature passes and Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) signs a bill setting the date. The state senate is expected to send its version of the bill to the state house as early as Thursday. If the bill gets to Granholm's desk, she'll sign it.

Both parties have fall-back options in case the bill fails. The Democrats might hold a caucus; that benefits labor and potentially a labor-allied John Edwards. Or they could hold a regular primary, presumably to the advantage of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. DNC rules require a "closed" primary -- only registered Democrats can participate.

Miller's complaint is threefold. First, she worries about the "or earlier" part of the bill. That's because the RNC has promised to penalize any state that holds a delegate selection contest before Feb. 5.

And she's particularly worried about the preference of the GOP state party's presidential committee to prepare a delegate selection convention on Jan. 25-26, just in case.

"I cannot understand why we as a party would want to suffer the consequences that holding a convention...would bring," Miller writes in the letter, a copy of which was sent to this column by a sympathizer. "I believe this process does nothing to broaden the electorate, garner our party any valuable information, or improve our appeal as a party."

Anuzis, in an e-mail, said he is aware of Miller's objections.

"I have made Giuliani's, McCain's and Romneys' preferences and strategy known to our entire State Committee and county chairs," Anuzis said in an e-mail. "I fully understand the Congresswomen's concerns about our fallback position of holding an early state convention to chose our national delegates."

In her letter, Miller insists she is not writing on the Giuliani campaign's behalf. But her concerns mirror those expressed by Giuliani's political advisers. For them, it's most convenient, strategy-wise, for Michigan to choose delegates on Feb. 5 or later. Going earlier breaks with their master plan, which is to use momentum from a Florida victory on Jan. 29 to collect hundreds of delegates on Feb. 5. If Michigan holds a primary on Jan. 29, it will dilute the momentum effect provided by Florida. Giuliani could still do well, but he'd have to work for it from the same starting position as the other candidates.

If Michigan Republicans held a convention -- that most narrow of delegate selection processes that favors party activists -- on Jan .25, Giuliani would not, needless to say, be the frontrunner. Florida would not have that week to itself. McCain doesn't want a convention either, but his team -- including the RNC committeeman Chuck Yob -- has won them before.

Other rule changes rankle the McCain and Giuliani campaigns and have the potential to deprive incumbent Republicans in Michigan of some of their institutional advantages All contested voting will be done by paper and by secret ballot. Campaigns will therefore be deprived of leverage. Real voting machines will tabulate the ballots. And alternate delegates would be given the freedom to support whichever candidate they wanted.

McCain's backers in the state object to a provision granting precinct delegates a leg up in becoming state convention delegates. In their mind, that violates the principle of majority rule. The change would effectively make it more difficult for a majority of, say, 51% to own the delegate selection process or for a precinct or district chair to award delegates en masse to their preferred candidates.

Miller and some of the presidential campaigns argue that Michigan is a diverse state and the delegate selection process ought to reflect it. Anuzis considers it his duty to give Republicans in the state a say in the '08 nomination process.

Needless to say, if the primary is held on Feb. 5, none of this matters. If it's held after Feb. 5, it matters less -- no one's Feb. 5 strategy is upended.

Obama Endorsement Is Paul Hodes

See the post below. I know CNN confirmed this hours ago, but I was on a flight back from Chicago, and that's a good enough excuse for me.

A Big Obama Endorsement In New Hampshire

The Obama campaign is bragging about a "major" addition to the "national" campaign tomorrow -- an endorsement, in other words, that merits more than a press release. Obama will be joined by the mystery addition in Concord, NH.

Who is it? The adjective "national" may throw some people off. But I'd bet that the endorsee is tied to New Hampshire, and the buzz around the state today is that it will be none other than Rep. Paul Hodes who represents New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district. Hodes upset GOP Rep. Charlie Bass in last year's election. Hodes's colleague, Rep. Carol Shea Porter, has yet to endorse.

Obama's campaign declined to comment; I couldn't get in touch with Hodes's operatives.

White House 2008 Rankings: The Democrats

Each week, NBC News political director Chuck Todd and I present our rankings on the likely order of finish for the presidential candidates.

We're headed into an August stasis, so don't look for these numbers to change much over the next 30 days.

These rankings are ordered by likelihood of winning the Democratic primary and are based on a number of factors, including organization, money, buzz and polling. Click here for Republican rankings.

1. Hillary Clinton -- Tactics matter at this stage, and Clinton is running a better tactical campaign. There's just no other way to put it. The straw man spat with the Pentagon was proof of just how good their communications operation is. Very impressive.

2. Barack Obama -- Probably the best way to describe this campaign right now is that Clinton is going 75 mph; Obama is going 50 and has plenty of gas to spare. Obama looks like he can eventually go faster in his campaign car, but he's not doing it yet.

3. John Edwards -- At what point is Elizabeth Edwards becoming too involved? Or, because of Bill Clinton's shadow, will nobody ever dare to hold her against her husband?

4. Bill Richardson -- Richardson, once again, is making progress (in Iowa polls, in national polls) when the spotlight is shining elsewhere. Can he handle media attention? Our guess: not yet

5. Christopher Dodd -- Dodd's got money for Iowa and seems more determined than ever to stick it out. Hey, you never know, right?

6. Joseph Biden -- Biden has serious money problems. Can he really run an "I'll just show up for the debates" campaign? It worked Monday night, but come Tuesday...

7. Dennis Kucinich

8. Mike Gravel

Another Resignation From Team Thompson

The day after his would-be campaign manager was replaced, Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson has another senior staff position to refill.

J.T. Mastranadi was hired just a week and a half ago to be the campaign's director of research. He resigned this morning, a friend of his said. The friend said that Mastranadi was "fed up" with the "lack of structure" and was unclear about his role in the coming campaign.

Thompson's spokesperson, Linda Rozett, confirmed that Mastranadi submitted his resignation this morning. "He did it for personal reasons," she said.

Mastranadi was a former NRSC research director and is considered one of the best investigators in the business. Most recently, he worked with Thompson friend David Bossie on an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary.

Rozett dismissed the significance of the second resignation in two days.

"Everything is on track," Rozett said. "Friends of Fred Thompson continues to add people."

Who Does The DNC Deem The GOP Frontrunner?

Ok, unfair question to ask. But there IS a metric. The DNC's research and press shops have sent dozens of research documents to reporters over the past year. The memos are an attempt to make the target softer for the Democratic nominee. (The Dem candidate researchers don't coordinate with DNC research czar Mike Gehrke, but they are uniformly grateful for the DNC's assistance). When a nominee is chosen, Gehrke will hand over a huge, ready-made research book, just like the one the Republicans' research director, Shawn Reinschmiedt, is preparing for the Republicans.

As of last Friday, Mitt Romney was featured in 59 seperate DNC releases, according to an entity that keeps track, followed by John McCain at 48 and Rudy Giuliani at 45. Fred Thompson is next at five, but obvious caveats apply.

What this means, simply, is that the DNC is paying more attention to Mitt Romney right now. Or maybe it means that the DNC has so much material on Romney that they can't help but release it in spurts. Or maybe it means nothing. Under the direction of DNC communications director Karen Finney, Gehrke has set up an integrated research shop that draws from resources in the Democratic state parties; Iowa's Democratic Party is especially aggressive. The DNC urges caution before we read too much into the numbers of releases.

Gerhke's team acknowledges the lesser-known candidates, too: Mike Huckabee's had four releases, Duncan Hunter has had two. Sam Brownback is the least of Gehrke's concern: he's been named in one release.

When joint attacks are included (yes, someone actually keeps tabs), Romney's tally jumps to 78.

Here are some of the titles:

Nothing Peachy About Romney’s Debate Reviews, Poll Numbers
Temper, Temper: Immigration Outburst Shows Pressure Getting to McCain
McCain’s Principles Can’t Keep Him Off the Campaign Trail
Rudy Giuliani's Crumbling Credibility Takes Toll on Candidacy
Giuliani's Credibility Crumbles as He Continues to Overstate Mayoral Record and Adoption Numbers
Which McCain Will be the "Last Man Standing"?
What We Didn’t Hear at Last Night’s GOP Debate
Fred Thompson Wanted to Cut Funding for AIDS Research
McCain’s Crumbling Campaign Comes to Michigan
Must Read: Giuliani Firms Had Potential Conflict of Interest
GOP Displays More Failed Leadership At Debate
More of the Same Failed Energy Policy from Rudy Giuliani

Obama Compared To Dukakis; Willie Horton Makes An Appearance

With the headline "Democrats Play Dirty In Charleston," the Palmetto Scoop blog published what it said was a flier found affixed to fence posts near the Citadel, the location of Monday night's Democratic debate.

The pamphlet, suggestive of an appeal to racial prejudice, visually links Barack Obama to Michael Dukakis and to Willie Horton, the convicted rapist whose furlough in Massachusetts became a controversial television ad during the 1988 presidential race, and it goes on to accuse Obama of favoring early release for sex offenders.

The charge leveled at Obama lacks evidence and the citation appears to distort a 1999 state senate vote on prisoner sentencing. The legislation expanded "good times credits" for convicts.)

When it first aired in the fall of 1988, the Horton ad was immediately criticized for exploiting latent racial prejudice. (It was created by ad maker Larry McCarthy on behalf of the Virginia-based National Security PAC; McCarthy and the PAC denied any racial intent.)

Of the Obama-Horton flier, a witness, Felton Barns, e-mails to say that

"It was all over the area surrounding the debate. ... [T]he road leading up to the citadel gates with all the candidate yard signs was lined with these flyers. The high school band group chanting Obama's name was tearing these flyers down and leaving them."

So who's behind the flier and what's the intent?

The Palmetto Blog post says that Obama's team blames Hillary Clinton's campaign.

That's not true. Obama's South Carolina campaign doesn't know where it came from and therefore has no one to blame. Clinton's campaign disclaims any knowledge.

Shenanigans are common in South Carolina politics. But this is a few steps beyond the norm. Is the culprit a misguided, Machiavellian supporter of a rival candidate who thinks he or she knows how to move a message but winds up embarrassing their candidate of choice? Maybe it's a member of the opposite party trying to start a fight? This being South Carolina, it might be something else entirely.

A side note: coincidentally, Obama's campaign launched its first radio ad in the state yesterday. The 60-second spot describes Obama as a Christian and civil rights leader.

Clnton And Obama Talk Past Each Other

Matt Yglesias writes:

This is interesting. One way of looking at the little Clinton-Obama exchange over talking to "enemy" foreign leaders was that Clinton was simply trying to underscore her experience level by adding a little nuance to the picture. That seems not to be the case, as she and surrogate Madeleine Albright are using the issue to hit pretty hard at Obama.

And, of course, if you construe what Obama said to mean that he intends to jet off to Pyongyang without any advance work having been done, I suppose that really would be "irresponsible and frankly naive," but that hardly seems like a fair assessment. It's strange for the front-runner to go on the attack like that, and especially odd given the political climate for her to be going out of the way to emphasize the idea that she's substantially more hawkish than Obama.

That depends on the composition of the political climate. If Democratic primary voters choose their favorite on the basis of who was right in 2003, then Clinton will lose. If they choose like they generally use -- on a mix of attributes, attitudes and issues and electability, then the argument supporting the track of the primary race is three dimensional.

Obama and Clinton are running two very different campaigns. Clinton does not need to prove her mettle to the Democratic base, and the base has, so far, given her a pass on Iraq. Her assumption is that she's crossed the change threshold and can focus on her core competency, which is "experience and strength." It's politically brave to be making the electability argument now, as she is doing, or it is dumb if it alienates her base. So far, it hasn't alienated her base -- maybe because the base buys the Clinton worldview of what's presidential.

Obama's strategy is more risky: his idealism rings resonant with liberals, his anti-Iraq-war proclivity clearly helps him get second looks, but his contant critiques of both parties are probably not warmly recieved by the partisan Democrats who vote in primaries (except New Hampshire). Obama's other problem is that the anti-Iraq war vacuum in Iowa has been filled by John Edwards.

Hence, Obama's declaration today that what was really "naive" and "irresponsible" was voting for the war in the first place is, one, a critique of Clinton's judgment and Edwards's judgment, and two, an attempt to change the subject back to Iraq.

Clinton and Obama are talking past each other.

Fred Thompson: Testing The Waters And Shaking Them Up

The Associated Press reports this afternoon that Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson has replaced his would-be campaign manager, Thomas J. Collamore, with former Sen. Spence Abraham and political adviser Randy Enwright's . No explanation was provided; Collamore will remain an adviser.

I cannot as of yet advance the story, and I do not know the circumstances behind the change. When Collamore was brought aboard, he was described to me as the "campaign manager in waiting." That suggests that either his desire to slog through a campaign changed or his relationship with the candidate did.

The star in Thompson's orbit is his wife Jeri, a former RNC official who has given no interviews since Thompson began to speculate about a run. Jeri Thompson is his most ardent supporter and Thompson associates credit her with encouraging him to run. Thompson is said to trust her judgment explicitly. Others, particularly some of the newer advisers and allies, are wary. Still, this election cycle features several powerful spouses -- Elizabeth Edwards, Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Ann Romney -- so some of the criticism can be chalked up to sexism mixed with envy.

Some of Thompson's supporters-in-waiting worry that his delay in entering the race cuts off avenues of support and fuels speculation that reinforces the negative parts of Thompson's reputation. He recently lost a key potential social conservative endorsement to Mitt Romney -- the Judicial Confirmation Network's Wendy Long.

The news today will reinforce doubts about whether Thompson is ready to run a real campaign.

That said, Enwright's is a top notch strategist and campaign hand. So if Thompson is going to proceed with the campaign, having Enwright's at the helm (rather than a tobacco lobbyist -- no offense to Mr. Collamore) is a good thing.

A Clinton Counter Memo: "Strength And Experience"

To: Interested Parties

From: The Clinton Campaign

RE: Strength & Experience

There was an important moment in last night’s debate where Hillary Clinton distinguished herself and showed that she has the strength and experience to be the next President of the United States.

The two buzzwords: strength and experience. Again, note the forward lean /
in the direction
of the general
election.

Last night, a YouTube questioner asked: “In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?”

In response Barack Obama said: “I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration – is ridiculous.” [CNN Debate, 7/24/07]

Immediately following the debate, Obama’s top advisers sought to clarify their candidate’s comments. David Axelrod claimed Obama didn’t mean any such meetings would actually take place. “He said that he would be willing to talk,” Axelrod explained. “And what he meant was, as a government, he’d be willing and eager to initiate those kinds of talks, just as during the Cold War there were low-level discussions and mid-level discussions between us and the Soviet Union and so on. So he was not promising summits with all of those leaders.” [National Review, 7/24/07 ]

Never good to have an adviser say "what he meant was."

In response to the same question, Hillary Clinton said: “Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration. And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy.

“And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be. [CNN Debate, 7/24/07]

There is a clear difference between the two approaches these candidates are taking: Senator Obama has committed to presidential-level meetings with some of the world's worst dictators without precondition during his first year in office. Senator Clinton is committed to vigorous diplomacy but understands that it is a mistake to commit the power and prestige of America’s presidency years ahead of time by making such a blanket commitment.

If David Axelrod speaks for Obama (and I assume he does), then Obama and Hillary seem to want the same thing. But Obama himself couldn't articulate the position as well as his adviser did, and the Clinton campaign eagerly tries to take the advantage. This is a political problem: the candidate needs to say what he means.

Hillary’s performance last night underscored why she has the strength and experience to be our next President and was consistent with what she has done in the debates thus far, going back to the first one last April when she stood out with the response she gave when the candidates were asked how they would react to a terrorist attack.

Hearkening back to the first Dem debate (also in South Carolina) where Clinton answered the terrorist scenario question crisply and Obama emphasized recovery and response.

Answering the commander-in-chief question is the threshold for any presidential candidate because the essence of being president is knowing what to do when the unexpected happens. It’s knowing how to deal with rogue states that threaten America’s safety. It’s knowing how to end the war in a safe and responsible way.

Hillary Clinton is proving that she has the strength and experience to be President and to deliver the change Americans want.

Annotating An Obama Campaign Memo

TO: Interested Parties

FR: Obama Communications

RE: Obama Wins Debate and Commander in Chief Test

DA: July 24, 2007

Can he be commander in chief? This is a threshold Obama knows he must cross. The campaign probably didn't like the tone of the media coverage. HRC was annointed as presidential for insisting that she would not be a propaganda tool for foreign governments and Obama's answer was her foil.

Here is a meta-problem: Obama is clearly ready to start making clear distinctions with Clinton, but something about the debate format stymies his nerve. It's one thing to say out loud that Hillary Clinton exemplifies Washington double speak. It's quite a bit less powerful to say it in a memorandum sent to reporters.

Last night at the debate, Obama displayed the judgment he will exhibit as Commander in Chief that impressed focus groups conducted by both Fox and CNN.

Debate focus groups are useful, but they come with a caveat: often, people in groups say they expect others want to hear.

He showed his willingness to lead and ask tough questions on matters of war and he offered a dramatic change from the Bush administration's seven-year refusal to protect our security interests by using every tool of American power available – including diplomacy.

Senator Hillary Clinton, however, did nothing to dispel questions that have arisen as a result of her support for the war in Iraq, even as the National Intelligence Estimate has found that our focus on Iraq has hindered our ability to track down and destroy al Qaeda. When pressed, she gave no explanation for not demanding an exit strategy before we invaded a country riven by deep ethnic rivalries that portended civil war and a long, uncertain occupation. Obama warned of such an outcome in 2002, and said the war would undermine us in the battle against Al Qaeda, as has now proven true.

This might be the most direct charge ever lobbed at Hillary by Obama's campaign.

From the debate -- Obama: …one thing I have to say about Senator Clinton's comments a couple of moments ago. I think it's terrific that she's asking for plans from the Pentagon, and I think the Pentagon response was ridiculous. But what I also know is that the time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in. And that is something that too many of us failed to do. We failed to do it. And I do think that that is something that both Republicans and Democrats have to take responsibility for. When I am president of the United States, when I send our troops into battle, I am going to be absolutely sure that it is based on sound intelligence, and I'm going to tell the truth to the American people, as well as the families who are being asked to sacrifice.

On issues of national security, Obama made clear that making America safer would require using tough diplomacy with countries like Iran and North Korea that have seen dramatic expansions of their nuclear programs during the seven years of the Bush presidency.

From the debate -- Obama: Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward. And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We've been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.

The questioner asked whether Obama would agree to meet with these leaders "without preconditions," the assumption being that the grandees of our least-favorite countries would be expected to take as much from us as they were willing to give. To Hillary, that's a moral equivalence she would not concede.

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton claimed: I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. [Associated Press, 4/23/07]. She reversed herself last night, disagreeing with Senator Obama's assertion that we should use every tool at the president's disposal to address problems before they become threats.

And she said as much in the debate last night. What she didn't say in April, and what she refused to say last night, was that she would approach these countries with a tabula rasa.

Obama's tough but smart approach to America's diplomacy is exactly the kind of change and new thinking that excites voters about an Obama presidency. In the focus group conducted in New Hampshire by CNN, voters showed they were hungry for this approach.

"Tough but smart" is an Evan Bayh phrase, incidentally.
....

The American people choose straight talk over Washington double-speak, and they know that change must be more than a slogan.

Meeting With Castro And Chavez

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards suggested Monday that they would meet with two leaders who top South Florida's most-hated list: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

That's the news lead of the Miami Herald's story on the debate.

Hair Versus The World

Up to 25,000 YouTube views now.

The video was produced by Edwards adviser Joe Trippi.

A Surrogate Debate Worth Watching

Surrogates debates can be very boring, but here's one worth paying attention to: the Center for U.S. Global Engagement launches its 2008 presidential effort today and the marquee event is a debate among foreign policy surrogates for the major presidential campaigns. Often, these surrogates speak more freely than the candidate.

Rep. Frank McGovern is speaking for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Rep. Brad Miller is speaking for Sen. John Edwards, Rep. Adam Smith is speaking for Sen. Barack Obama, Rep. Mark Udall is speaking for Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Peter King is speaking for Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Dan Lungren is speaking for Sen. John McCain, Rep and Pete Hoekstra is speaking for Mitt Romney.

Moderators include Gerry Seib of the Wall Street Journal and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post.

The Michigan Primary: A Question Mark

Michigan legislators intend to pass a bill changing the primary date to Jan. 29, and there are ramifications for all the '08ers. Another bill sets the date on Feb. 5. But both state party chairmen -- Dem Mark Brewer and Republican Saul Anuzis -- worry about the glut of larger states holding primaries that day, and want to ensure that their state has influence.

If the legislature doesn't change the date, Brewer and Anuzis might act unilaterally. Because the state wouldn't pay for a primary, the Dems might, under that scenario, hold a caucus and the Republicans would probably hold a convention. A Democratic caucus would benefit candidates who have already organized lots of activists and those who've won the endorsement of the state's powerful labor unions.

A Republican convention would limit participation to all but the most die-hard party regulars -- they tend to be conservative, although an organized coalition of moderates could take advantage of divisions in the right.

Here's an analysis from MIRS News, a great MI news service, of who would benefit:

Several Democratic observers shared with MIRS their speculation that unions
may not be as thrilled about opening up the primary to the general public
because the results may not be as controlled. The state's unions appear to
be leaning more toward former U.S. Sen. John EDWARDS (D-N.C.). It's argued
their ability to get a higher percentage of their voters to participate is
increased with a caucus rather than a primary election.

On the other hand, it's argued supporters of frontrunner U.S. Sen. Hillary
CLINTON (D-N.Y.) or U.S. Sen. Barack OBAMA (D-Ill.) would do better in
Michigan with a public election. Brewer discounted these "conspiracy
theories" as typical talk from those without knowledge of how the Democratic
Party's system works. He said unions have no problem having a joint primary
as long as an agreeable arrangement can be worked out.

Some Republicans also wouldn't be heart-broken if talk of public primary
fell apart. Consider this: as things stand today, the Republicans have four
candidates who could conceivably win a primary election in Michigan - former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt ROMNEY, U.S. Sen. John McCAIN (R-Ariz.), former New
York City Mayor Rudy GIULIANI and former U.S. Sen. Fred THOMPSON. All four
had between 20 and 14 percent support in the latest poll (See "Giuliani,
Clinton On Top Of Mitten," 7/12/07).

In a convention, where only a few thousand of the state's grassroots pick
the nominee, only two have a realistic shot - Romney and McCain. Only Romney
and McCain have substantial on-the-ground forces in Michigan. And only
Romney and McCain have announced support from district chairs, county chairs
and the like.

Final Thoughts On The Debate

** The press seems to be very keen about Clinton's answer to the dictator meeting question. Whatever "presidential" means to the press -- and it seems to be mean non-pandering, serious, grave and reflective -- Clinton's answer was very "presidential." Do those Democrats who watched the debate on television agree? And did John Edwards's solid answers on health care and Obama's strong finish dilute the effect of Clinton's great moment?

** Clinton's team uses her performance in these debates to argue that she's broadly acceptable as a general election candidate. That is, their take-away is more '08 oriented than '07 oriented. She's anti-big government, not a "liberal," aware of the tough challenge of leaving Iraq, etc. The amazing thing -- so far -- is that she can say all of this and still not have her Democratic credentials questioned.

** Barack Obama moves into his comfort zone when the argument is about change; when it's about strength and experience, Clinton (and Biden) excel. Monday night, the argument was about change, and HIllary was peppered with some hard questions, and if there is a disjuncture between the press's evaluation of Obama's performance and the voters' evaluation of his performance, it can probably be attributed a larger change orientation in the Democratic primary electorate. Focus groups conducted by CNN and Frank Luntz gave Obama the win.

** At the same time, Hillary Clinton, heir to a dynasty, evoking her husband's legacy, is judged by primary voters to be an agent of change. Perhaps Obama is more of a change agent, but perhaps Hillary is enough of a change agent -- she crosses the threshold -- to make her stronger argument, which is that she knows how to be president. The irony here is that the desire for change might be so great, all the Democrats cross the threshold and Obama has to go to greater lengths to portray himself as the true change agent. Ok, that's a lot of "change agents" for one paragraph, but this question really lies at the heart of the primary right now. If the biggest story of the Dem primary race so far is Clinton's ability to overcome the Iraq problem and present herself as a change agent, the biggest worry for her team is that voters who pay attention find themselves more inclined to Obama. Maybe this is where the hidden reservoir of Bush-Clinton dynasty fatigue lives.

** To some extent, Edwards and Obama advisers are frustrated that Hillary's experience credential hasn't come under greater scrutiny. They ask the question: when she was put in charge of something, did it usually fail or succeed? What specific decisions has she made? Is there anything more to her argument than "I can put together a government?" To no avail.

** Chris Dodd and Joe Biden were heavyweights. It's frustrating to them and their advisers that they don't get more credit for the good nights they had. As one Edwards supporter put it in an e-mail: "Ok, so why is it every time I watch one of these, it takes me an hour to remember why Joe Biden wouldn't be a good president?"

Other Takes On Winners, Losers And Moments

Other reviews:

It was Hillary's night. (Jennifer Rubin)

"While the dominant dynamic of the night was between Clinton and Obama, it was former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) who seemed the boldest of the three in his call for bold action. (Chris Cillizza)

" Senator Clinton continued her weak and defeatist rhetoric on the War on Terror, Senator Obama continued to flail about with his advocacy for sex education for kindergartners, and the rest of the supporting cast were falling over each other to either raise taxes, spend more money or gain favor with special interests and the status quo running Washington, D.C." (Mitt Romney)

"

"The leading Democratic candidates have had three debate opportunities to utter the name of our nation's biggest enemy but have refused. America needs a leader who can not only say the words 'Islamic terrorists' but can also stand up to them. Tonight, voters shouldn't be surprised if the leading Democratic candidates once again refuse to acknowledge that Islamic terrorism is at the root of the Terrorists' War on Us." (The Giuliani campaign)

"Obama:" -- The Drudge Poll

"Score one for Edwards" (Chuck Todd)

The questions. (AP)

Everybody. (ABC News)

Debate Postview: Updated

The differences between Sen. Hillary Clinton and her chef rivals were drawn out in sharp relief tonight, perhaps more so than in any previous debate.

Clinton acknowledged -- and demanded that her rivals acknowledge -- that withdrawing from Iraq would be a lot harder than the party's soundbites would suggest.

And she refused an invitation to cater to the left wing of her party by saying she'd meet with out-of-step world leaders in the first year of her presidency.

"Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year," she said. "I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are."

Barack Obama answered without hesitation -- he'd meet "without preconditions" with the leaders of Syria, North Korea, Iraq, Cuba and Venezuela.

"And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them," he said. "We've been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because
they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses."

The debate's setting and staging detracted from the seriousness of those exchanges. There were musical questions, sotto voice questions, skits about Al Gore, kind-of-funny campaign videos, and other visual paraphernalia. Anderson Cooper got to ask some follow ups. Mike Gravel complained about his time.

Tonight's debate was supposed to be different, but many of the questions were a variation on the same theme: how do we, the voters, know that you guys, the candidates, are for real? In that way, the format gave a lift to the change agents.

And there are two of them in the Democatic race: Obama and Clinton. To borrow a Harry Potter analogy, "change agent" is the snitch and Obama and Clinton are competing seekers. (That Hillary Clinton is seen as a change agent is remarkable at this point, attributable to her status as a Democrat, the earliness of the race, or the hard work of her campaign. It raises the question: change from what? The old order? Or just President Bush?)

The third-to-last question, in fact, was just that, from a guy named Cris Nolan. Wouldn't Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton represent continuity, not change? "I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000," Clinton began. She asked to be judged on her own merits. Obama: "I think every question we've heard you see cynicism about the capacity to change this country. The question for the American people is: who has the track record of bringing about change?"

"Big change. Real change. Bold change," says John Edwards, who cast his two opponents as "our insiders" in the sense that the Democrats shouldn't exchange "our insiders for their insiders."

Do voters really want change? Five leading candidates took a private jet to the debate. Richardson wants all residual troops out of Iraq. That's a change. Joe Biden wants to intervene in Darfur. That's a big change. Dennis Kucinich wants a department of piece. There's more change in the lower tiers than in the higher tiers. So maybe it's not about change.

A brief report card in no particular order:

Hillary Clinton -- If you want to know how a Clinton presidency might differ from other Democrats, study this debate carefully.

Joe Biden -- on the ball about Iraq and foreign policy, especialy Darfur. He loves South Carolina and this debate loved him.

John Edwards -- He seemed on his game, although a noisy audience deprived him of the chance to impress a questioner on gay rights. His calling out of audience members didn't seem forced.

Barack Obama -- Debates are not his format, although he threw some good sound bites tonight and generally comported himself well.

Mike Gravel -- he complained about how little time he was getting.... and took up a lot of time in the process.

Dennis Kucinich -- he made little progress tonight. He had few friends in the audience.

Chris Dodd -- his best debate so far.

Bill RIchardson -- he did his best to draw contrasts with the frontrunners on Iraq.

A Press Release From The Club For Growth

Pigs Fly in South Carolina Tonight; Hillary Clinton Says She is not a Big-Government Liberal

On Iraq, Intellectual Honesty from Clinton and Biden?

Gov. Bill Richardson dared his fellow candidates to debate him on the issue of residual troops in Iraq, and boy did they bite. Joe Biden was plain: it's extremely hard to withdraw troops, and you can't dare vote to cut off funding for them and leave them vulnerable in the process of withdrawing.

And Hillary Clinton seemed energized by the question.

Her "three point plan" starts with "moving" the troops out as quickly as possible. Clinton:

"I have done extensive work on this. We can probably move a brigade a month ...[more] if we really acceerate it. My point is, we're not even planning for that for it. Until we get this president and the Pentagon to begin to at least tell us they are planning to withdraw, we are not going to be able to start... With all due respect, we want to [withdraw]... safely and orderly and carefully. It's time for us to admit that it ['s going to be complicated]. Let's start right now."

It's very hard for Democrats to admit that withdrawing troops will take a lot of time and might make the troops even more vulnerable in the near term. Clinton and Biden seem to be arguing that as president, the American people will understand this dilemma and allow the new president some lee-way. Clearly, in a Clinton administration, it'd take quite a number of months before a hefty chunk of the troops would be home.

You can almost hear Clinton screaming silently at her opponents.. 'Do you guys have any idea what it takes to actually run a government?"

"Without Preconditions"

Well, here is the moment of the debate so far. A very good question that draws out a very important difference in how Obama, Clinton and Edwards would conduct foreign policy and even set up their administration.

Stephen Sorta asks whether the Dems would meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. "without preconditions" in the spirit of Sadat's gambit with Israel.

Said Obama: "I would."

Not Clinton."I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during the first year. I think that it is not that you promise a meeting at that level ... I do not want to be used as a propoganda piece. Certainly, we're not going to have our president meet with [those leaders] without knowing what the way forward wll be."

A new approach versus executive experience. Encapsulated.

Obama Draws A Contrast

In a debate of few moments, here was a brief moment of contrast drawn by Sen. Barack Obama about HIllary Clinton, who had touted her exchange with the Pentagon over troop redeployment.

"The time to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before went in."

Another good sound bite for Obama. He's uncomfortable speaking in sound bites, but when he does, it works for him.

Three Questions In A Row About Race (and Gender)

Anderson Cooper protests: these aren't my questions! Dude -- yes they are! You chose them.

But race it is.

Obama, asked to respond to hypothetical charges that he isn't black enough, revived this line:

"When I'm catching a cab in Manhattan, I've given my credentials."

Hillary Clinton:

"When I'm inaugurated, it's going to send a great mesasge for a lot of little girls and boys around the world."

Edwards had something to say: "Anyone who's considering not voting for Sen. Obama because he's black or Sen. Clinton because he's a woman, I don't want their vote." Weird -- one assumes that to be the case. Is he responding to charges that his electability criticisms of Edwards and Obama are somehow raced and gender-based?

Q: Will African Americans ever get reparations?

Edwards "is not for reparations."

Obama: "I think the reparations we need right here in South Carolina is investment in our schools." (That's a standard politician line, allowing Obama to avoid saying that he does not support specific grants of money to black citizens) but the audience loved it.) John Edwards essentially pivoted to the same argument but Obama, strangely, decided to throw some sound bites at the audience, and it worked.

Dennis Kucinich does support reparations.

That's a question journalists wouldn't ask ourselves, so kudos to CNN for choosing it.

Hillary Clinton Insists She's No Liberal

Asked by a questioner how they're _really_ going to change things if they're creatures of Washington, Chris Dodd talked about "bringing people together" and Barack Obama was in his element entirely and said he was a change agent.

A questioner had the gumption to ask Dennis Kucinich how he differs from Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton: "The only one who voted against the war from the beginning." Wait -- the questioner actually asked how Kucinich would differ as president. He didn't really answer and fell back on his "strength through peace" line. Wasn't this debate supposed to be different?

Clinton, on he horn, said Democrats "are united for change. ... The issue is which of us is ready to lead on day one. I have 35 years of being an instrament and agent of change." Obama's answer was a little different: " I don't think this is just a Republican problem. I think it's a problem across both parties."

Boyee -- a guy named Rob asked CLinton to define the word "liberal." "It was a word that originally meant that you were for freedom... but it has been turned on its head and made to be a word that describes big government. I prefer the word progressive." A "proud modern American progressive."

Sen. Gravel isn't a progressive or a liberal, he says. And, Barack Obama, "he has 134 bundlers." Which Gravel somehow equates with lobbying money.

BTW: can you imagine any Republican candidate shying away from labeling themselves a conservative? And is Hillary Clinton openly rejecting "big government?"

Liveblogging The Democratic Debate

On a broadband connection from O'Hare International Airport's baggage claim number 12. Long story.

Some Pre-Debates Notes

-- At the urging of the DNC, each campaign has produced biographical videos in YouTube format. Edwards's campaign promises his video will be "something different." The Clinton campaign solicited submissions for its video and promises something fun as well.

-- After the debate, John Edwards will spend thirty minutes answering more YouTube questions.

-- Supporter rallies: Obama will drop by a debate-watch party at the International Longshoreman's Union hall on Morrison Drive. Edwards will stop by an event hosted by local firefighters. Clinton's schedule is tbd.

Waiting For The World To Change, Or The Plane To Arrive

My friends Anne Kornblut and Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post joining me in Concourse A of DCA as our 11:20am flight now shows a departure time of 3:55pm. We might not make it to the 7pm debate in time, which would mean that we'd have to (gasp) watch the debate like normal people, providing we can find a cable television set. Still, we'd have to miss the Google party...

CNN/Google/YouTube Debate Is Not A Radical Departure From The Norm. Discuss.

The flight to Charleston, South Carolina being two hours delayed, this column will miss a private reporters' lunch featuring the two founders of YouTube. Later tonight, after the debate, Google will fete reporters after deadline at Charleston's Visitor Center Bus Terminal (which apparently is nicer than it sounds). Apparently, the event features live music from an artist with the last name of McCain.

This debate is supposed to be new and innovative and a radical departure from the norm. Maybe.

For one thing, giant corporate sponsors are plying reporters with food and drinks. That's the norm of the presidential debates. Since when do companies sponsor primary debates? Are we going to see a GOP debate sponsored by Bank of America?

The best way to contextualize today's debate is to see it as a joint production of two giant media conglomerates -- Google (YouTube), Time Warner (CNN) -- a slightly flashier variant, in other words, of the usual.

Ostensibly, the press is supposed to focus on the wonder of citizens submitting their own questions through YouTube. Some of the questions will be unique, and it's always a good thing to vary the voices involved in vetting the candidates.

The trouble is that the rate of technological progress advances so quickly, our expectations and beliefs about what's "new" and "innovative" revise themselves automatically, and YouTube is no longer "the latest" in campaign technology.

With some exceptions, the campaigns have mastered the art of using YouTube to saturate opposition research and few, if any, independent YouTube submissions have changed the course of the primaries since George Allen's Macaca video was broadly disseminated by the Webb campaign. Maybe it's too early, or maybe those who are paying attention today already suffer from YouTube Oversaturation Syndrome.

In any event, Google is a dominant and vertically integrating force in the media universe today. It plans to try and take over the lucrative but esoteric practice of media buying, just as it has revolutionized web-based advertising and marketing.

With the Democratic Party and CNN's assent, this debate is an attempt by Google stamp their brand on a technology they did not invent and an openness they are struggling to endorse. That's smart of them.

Sam Feist, the executive producer of CNN's Situation Room, and Robert Yoon, CNN's chief political researcher, are helping Anderson Cooper select and order the questions. So the same "corporate media" that comes in for criticism is serving as somewhat of a filter.

Thompson's Mail Firm And Sam Brownback

I reported last Friday that HSP Direct, the vendor chosen to be Sen. Fred Thompson's mail firm, had a "falling out" with Sen. Sam Brownback campaign. The characterization came from a Republican who had direct knowledge of the situation and from the deduction that a content vendor generally doesn't work for two presidential candidates at once.

According to a scour of the Federal Election Commission's website by PoliticalMoneyLine.com, Brownback's campaign paid HSP Direct more than $80,000 for direct mail expenses. Now, HSP Direct is slated to work for Thompson, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Today, Jamie Hogan, HSP's chairman, and Rob Wasinger, a Brownback aide, both disputed the characterization and insisted that the Brownback campaign and HSP have a "very close" relationship. They said a rival mail firm spread the story about a falling out.

Hogan declined to comment last Friday, although in fairness to him I did not ask specifically about Brownback's campaign. I should have checked with Wasinger before attempting a description of their relationship. Wasinger said in an e-mail that HSP Direct will continue to work for Brownback. In the face of these denials, I hereby retract the contention that HSP and Sam Brownback's campaign had a "falling out."

Romney Flexes Muscles In Dems Direction

Mitt Romney, in a sign that he is comfortable as the early-state frontrunner, aims to up his national profile by aggressively bracketing the Democratic presidential candidates over the next few weeks, aides said this weekend.

The campaign hopes the regular reproaches will be seen as signs of confidence and strength and will help to reduce the friction that prevents Romney from being seen as the leader of the Republican pack. His national poll ratings regularly lag those of his better-known rivals.

Aside from the benefit to his own candidacy, Romney's aides are worried that Republicans generally aren't doing enough to soften up the Democrats most likely to be their party's nominee.

On the trail, Romney will spend a little more time analyzing "The Romney vision versus the Democrat vision," according to one aide. He will compare his proposals -- metaphorically, a three-legged stool of strong families, strong national defense and a strong economies, to what he'll call a comparatively shaky and liberal grounding of the Democrats' proposals, the aide said.

Romney regularly compares Hillary Clinton's economic philosophy to Karl Marx's. This weekend, he said America wasn't read to take a "left turn" and "follow Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama." He continued: "Their solutions are Big Brother, big taxes, and big government, and that is not the right answer for America."

In recent days, Romney has begun to elaborate. He called Clinton's "course" one where "government manages your life." The Republican course, he said, is "let the individual and personal responsibility lead and guide."

In a more personal poke, Romney said Clinton "wouldn't be elected president of France today, never mind the United States." [French bashing is still cool, apparently, even though the voters there just elected a (sort of) conservative and Romney has spent more time in the country than all of the Democrats combined.]

On health care, Romney will try to damn Barack Obama with faint praise, saying this weekend that "at least Barack Obama had the "courage to admit that his plan means higher taxes." He also jumped on Obama's remarks last week at a Planned Parenthood conference that it was OK to teach age-appropriate sex ed to kindergarteners, a characterization that Obama said masks the more nuanced reality of his record.

Though the media counter-attacked, pointing out that the Massachusetts sex-ed curriculum under Romney included plenty of non-conservative teachings, Romney's campaign professed to be pleased by how conservative activists responded to the controversy. They dismissed the attempts to bring attention to Romney's ideological evolution as unsound. But this weekend in New Hampshire, Romney again made the contrast, suggesting that the campaign believed the comparison was sound.

Though Romney has called for a new course in the country's approach to terrorism, he has lambasted Edwards for saying the "War on Terror" phrase is "just a bumper sticker."

Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have both picked spots to attack Democrats and have, as of late, stepped up their rhetoric.

Giuliani Drops Radio Ads In New Hampshire And Iowa

Rudy Giuliani will drop three radio advertisements in New Hampshire and Iowa Tuesday morning, the campaign's first paid media effort in early states.

The three ads touch on the economy and government. They feature snippets from Giuliani's stump speeches. Each runs for one minute.

"I believe that you collect more money from lower taxes than you collect from higher taxes. I believe it because I saw it work," Giuliani says in an ad called "Garbage Can." He brags about reducing the city's income tax rate and promises to reform the tax code.

The campaign believes that voters, aware of the candidates' biographies and anticipating the fall, are beginning to compare the candidates' issue positions. Mitt Romney is Giuliani's biggest rival for the mantle of the race's "true fiscal conservative," and Romney has aired more than $1M in television ads, almost certainly contributing to his polling lead in the state.

In March, Giuliani aired national radio advertisements touting his new websites.

These news ads "are the first of many ads our campaign will release in the months to come," said Brent Seaborn, Guiliani's strategy director, in an e-mail to reporters.

Advisers have warned against expecting television ads before Labor Day

Will Edwards Step Up Tonight?

If his campaign manager's appearance on CNN's Late Edition yesterday was any indication, yes, John Edwards will enter the debate hall tonight fully charged.

"With all due respect … the Clintons did not deliver on health care," Mr. Bonior said. "They had a very important choice to make back in '93: whether to do the North American Free Trade agreement or health care. They implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement that put literally millions of workers out of work in this country and destroyed, basically, our good trading relationships we had around the world. And then in the interim, they lost any capital they had to get health care passed. … The fact of the matter is it's been an absolute disaster on health care."

(Hat tip to Josh Gerstein.)

Fred And Newt

Rich Galen confirms to readers of his Mullings column that he's signed on to be an adviser to Fred Thompson's presidential bid.

This probably means that Newt Gingrich won't run for president this year. Galen is one of Newt's top (informal) advisers, and it's hard to imagine that Galen wouldn't seek and obtain Newt's blessing before joining Thompson.

Where's Jay Garrity When You Need Him?

Actually, it's just cool that TMZ.com is paying attention to the presidential race, thus giving all of us who check TMZ when we're on the clock a new excuse.

The Week That Was: It All Comes Back To T&A

On a week that ended with a focus on President Bush's colon and Hillary Clinton's breasts, Mitt Romney stumbled into an inter-party spat over body parts and appropriateness, criticizing Barack Obama's words but ignoring (not realizing?) the substance of Obama's positions on sex-ed in kindergarten.

By the end of the week, Romney was the target of some rough national press coverage, although it remains to be seen whether the activists to whom Romney targeted his message are as criticial. For the first time in a while, the press blew air into the Romney-as-flip-floper storyline despite a yeoman's effort by Romney's alter ego, Eric Fehrnstrom, to defend the candidate.

Ann Romney's solo tour of South Carolina drew big crowds and excellent press coverage. She introduces her husband as a "Yankee governor with Southern values."

My how the political times have changed. When Republicans used to accuse Democrats of being disloyal, Democrats would whine about the charge and generally slink away. Ben Smith is spot on -- the Pentagon has given Hillary Clinton an enormous opportunity to engage the Democratic base by suggesting that any talk of a timetable assists the enemy.

John Edwards ended his poverty tour to a mix bag of coverage. The national media seemed to report on the politics of the poverty. The local coverage was better. And at the end of the week, four news organizations featured a story about how Edwards is defining the terms of the policy debate for the Democratic presidential nominees. It's more true for domestic issues like health care and poverty than it is for Iraq, but this is a storyline that Edwards's team has been pushing for a while now. Edwards began to air a new ad in New Hampshire featuring wife Elizabeth, who vouches for Edwards's toughness as a leader. And Elizabeth, in an interview with Salon, provoked Rube Goldbergian interpretations by suggesting that Clinton was both running to be the first female president but failed to fully leverage that position to stump on behalf of women's causes.

Rudy Giuliani stumped for two whole days in Iowa; Barack Obama stumped through Iowa and New Hampshire. Speaking of: on a rainy, humid day, Obama drew 500 to Sunapee, NH.

We learned that Fred Thompson plans to announce his candidacy after labor day, that he plans to announce his fundraising totals at the end of the month, and that his name will be on the straw poll ballot in Ames. Records showing he lobbied for an abortion rights group were released. Some of Thompson's allies are looking more closely at his record as a result. And how can a guy with a "testing the waters" committee allow his supporters to say things like this? Rep. Zack Wamp: " I see right now the plans being put into place for the 60 days after the announcement It's been like drinking out of a fire hose. You see people being added to this team every week. He's doing everything a presidential candidate would do without being in the race."

A poll showing Bill Richardson's New Hampshire gains brought cheer; the campaign released a new ad on Iraq.

Lede of the week

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

The author is Phil Elliott of the AP in New Hampshire.

Next week:

Monday, CNN, YouTube and Google put on some kind of debate at the Citadel in Charleston, SC. On Tuesday, John Edwards campaigns in South Carolina. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Democrats attend the National Urban League convention in St. Louis. Fred Thompson raises money in Alabama Saturday, Massachusetts Monday, and Texas Thursday. Rudy Giuliani is in California on Monday; McCain is in Iowa on Monday and Tuesday. The rest of his week is mostly political: he's in NH on Wednesday and Thursday. Romney's schedule is tba.

Thompson Hires A Direct Mail Firm: HSP

In a new sign that Fred Thompson is readying a full-on campaign launch, he's chosen a direct mail fundraising firm, HSP Direct, which is well wired into conservative circuits.

HSP Direct -- Hogan, Schenk and Paul, Inc -- is based in Virginia.

At the beginning of the cycle, Sen. Sam Brownback's presidential campaign used HSP as their direct mail vendor, but the campaign and the company had a falling out.

HSP's chief executive, James Hogan, was trained in direct mail by Republican legend Bruce W. Eberle.

The firm found itself in the news recently by raising money for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.(There's a bit of controversy, chronicled here.)

HSP has also raised money for the College Republican National Committee, the Center for Individual Freedom, the Young Republicans of America, '06 WV SEN candidate Hiram Lewis, and others.

A footnote: Joel McElhannon, a veteran of Georgia Republican politics, is headed to Nashville to take a senior role in Thompson's campaign.

Debating Electability

This week's National Journal features a piece by YT on the electability question and Hillary Clinton. Subscribers can read the full piece here, but I've pasted an excerpt that includes a theory I had not considered before: in a super-saturated media environment where Congressional candidates can define themselves through earned and free media, the coattail effect is diminished.

Continue reading "Debating Electability" »

John Edwards, The Hair Cut, And A Response To Readers

Some polite readers of the blog are John Edwards are requesting -- nay -- demanding some sort of a response, or an apology (?), or at least some sort of self-flaggelating statement.

Else, I risk extending my turn as the latest pinata for the capital-letter brigade.

Best to restate and elaborate on some points. I will update this post as warranted.

1. A good chunk of the national political press corps (maybe at most 30%) doesn't like John Edwards. (Ask the Edwards campaign about this -- they'll revise the percentage upwards). This 30% includes columnists and pundits and a few reporters. Many are capable of, and generally do, when the situation warrants, write favorable or balanced stories about Edwards. But their predispositions can skew their coverage of the bad stuff, and occasionally, as in all institutions (like, uh, the commentosphere, or whatever), groupthink gets in the way of independent thinking. This is a fairly mundane point.

2. The hair cut story was legitimate but not very significant.

3. Personality and character matter. It's challenging to cover these subjects.

4. Presidential candidates deserve to be held to a level of scrutiny that is both high and difficult to describe.

5. If poverty is your issue, it's appropriate to examine your wealth and how you spend it.

Actually, forget about the first phrase. The general principle stands. If you're running for president, it's appropriate to examine your wealth, how you spend it, how you comport yourself.

If you choose to base a presidential campaign on the issue of combating poverty, if you suggest that your background and experiences provide you with an unusual empathy for poor people, if you ground your presidential campaign on the premise that there are two Americas, if the quality, habits and character of the messenger matters _at all_, then the hair cut story is marginally relevant and interesting because it speaks to your political judgment -- and to the lengths you'll go to present yourself as a capable, acceptable, handsome messenger for the cause. Edwards does not just talk about poverty. He advances himself as the champion of regular people. His surrogates tout his ability to identify with the concerns of regular people. He goes out of his way to present himself as a regular guy.

His mammoth house, his lucrative deal with a hedge fund, his charity under press scrutiny for its charity-ness, a poverty center questioned about its poverty-center-ness -- it is reasonable, in this context, to write about a $400 haircut.

6. Edwards is not a hypocrite and those who call him a hypocrite do not actually know the word's definition.

In 2006, a good chuck of the press corps (maybe 30%), was very wary of a post-presidential John Kerry, who turned out to be quite prescient about the politics of the issue of the day. And Bob Somerby made himself a household name by chronicling how the press was unfair to and simply didn't like Al Gore. Edwards may be this cycle's version of Al Gore and John Kerry.

Discuss.

The American Funk

Chuck Todd writes on the one trend that no one notices but is arguably the most influential of all.

Al Gore's Rider Revealed!

Gotta love The Smoking Gun.

He costs $100K. He demands a sedan, not an SUV. His assistant gets a $1,000 per diem. (Thanks Emily Goodin for sending this along!)

Yet More On That South Carolina Poll

A veteran observer of Democratic politics points out:

** Four of the last six polls gave Sen. Hillary Clinton a lead of at least 15 points in SC.
** If you increase the percentage of black voters in the sample, since Clinton has a bigger lead among blacks than among whites, her margin would be greater.
** The 2004 exit poll shows that whites made up about 51% of the Democratic primary electorate.

Recent SC polling I've found:

This latest one, with HRC at 43%, Obama at 27%, Edwards at 17%.

ARG polled June 26-30 and had Hillary at 37%, Edwards at 22 percent and Obama at 21%.

Mason Dixon, which polled from June 13 to June 15, had Obama with a 9 point lead over Clinton, 34% to 25%.

A May 31 PPP poll gave Obama a lead within the margin of error.

And a May 16 Winthrop/ETV poll gave Clinton an eight point lead over Obama.

ARG's May sample gave Clinton a 16 point lead over Obama, with Edwards in second place.

Obama's Team Not Happy With The CNN/ORC

This is not a good South Carolina poll for Sen. Barack Obama, and his advisers are already beginning to push back a little.

"First, this poll is clearly an outlier from all the other public polls in SC," an adviser tells me.

Second, whites make up 53% percent of the sample, which is "just wrong," the adviser said. "Blacks make up a slight plurality." And the pollster "has such small samples here that your margin of error is really large on groups that make up roughly 50% of the electorate."

Obviously, the voter screen is important too. Primary turnout is generally about 15% of the eligible adult population. CNN interviewed 1,052 adults and filtered a sample of about 380 of them.

The adviser wouldn't say whether Obama's private South Carolina polling conflicts with the public poll, but, well, given the push back, I'd say that it does.

Obama's Foreign Policy Voice Is Called Up

A fascinating item from today's subscription-only National Journal, presented below with the hopeful acquiescence of the fine NJ editorial team. The author is Marisa Katz.

Barack Obama is losing his top foreign-policy adviser to active military duty. Mark Lippert, who has helped to write every major Obama foreign-policy speech and is known as “an expert at nailing down details,” has been called up by the Naval Reserve. He’s in training now but says his orders don’t specify where or how long he’ll deploy. This will be the first tour for the lieutenant junior grade, who signed up for the Reserve about three years ago.

Obama’s office has yet to formally announce a successor, but Obama advisers say that Denis McDonough, a Latin America specialist and onetime foreign-policy adviser to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, is stepping up his involvement in Lippert’s absence.

Lippert, 34, received his master’s in international policy from Stanford University and joined Obama’s office after five years on the Senate Appropriations panel’s Foreign Operations Subcommittee. He accompanied the senator on his three international trips and helped to formulate his positions on issues as diverse as aid to Africa and policy toward Israel. “He’s able to get inside the senator’s head,” said Dan Shapiro, Middle East advisor to the Obama campaign. “He always has a pretty clear and accurate sense of what the senator’s views would be and what type of language he would be comfortable expressing those views with. He’s like an alter ego.”

Of course, the foreign-policy issue that has overshadowed all others is Iraq. Obama supports a “phased redeployment” of American troops, and his campaign homepage boldly declares, “The war in Iraq should never have been authorized, never have been waged, and it must end now.” Lippert had a hand in that position, too. In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes about visiting Iraq with Lippert, who at one point asked a senior U.S. military officer “what he thought we needed to do to best deal with the situation.” Obama had been out of earshot. “What did he say?” he later asked his aide. “Leave,” Lippert replied.

Other Obama foreign-policy advisers acknowledge that Lippert’s departure is a significant loss. Shapiro called him “an incredibly valuable part of Sen. Obama’s team.” Samantha Power, a human-rights scholar and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, said she was particularly impressed by Lippert’s “rigor.” She added, “He really pushes back on every idea, forces you to get your game up, brings the best out in the people he’s coordinating.”

Clinton Plans Counterattack On Edelman Letter; Teams Up With Kerry

In baseball terms, Eric Edelman pitched a lollipop at Hillary Clinton, and she's about to hit a four-bagger.

In a new letter to Defense Sec. Bill Gates, Clinton calls Edelman's contention that congressional oversight helps the enemies of the U.S. a "political attack."

And now, as a direct result of the letter, she plans to introduce, with Sen. John Kerry, legislation requiring the Pentagon to tell Congress about its contingency plans for Iraq withdrawal.

"Senator Clinton sent a serious letter on a matter of national security to the Secretary of Defense, and in response, received an unacceptable and outrageous political attack from an under secretary," a Clinton aide said.

Kerry and Clinton will hold a joint press conference with reporters this afternoon. The latest Clintion letter can be found after the jump.

Continue reading "Clinton Plans Counterattack On Edelman Letter; Teams Up With Kerry" »

An Outlier, Maybe, But Clinton Likes This SC Poll

A few days for their debate with Google and YouTube, here's a new CNN/ORC poll of the great state of South Carolina.

Clinton   39%
Obama   25%
Edwards 15%
Gore   10%
Richardson  2%
Biden  1%
Dodd     *       
Gravel    *      
Kucinich *       

                  Blacks   Whites
Clinton            47%       30%
Obama             31%       18%
Edwards            4%       27%
Sampling error: +/-8% pts

The Atlantic's Boldest** -- A Weekly Corrections Column

** -- wherein New York's Boldest refers to the officers of the Department of Corrections.

In an article about the Clintons, I transposed a letter and rendered "tough" as "touch."

Former McCain communications director Brian Jones is from New Jersey, not New York.

To mourn the withdrawal of ex-VA Gov. Jim Gilmore, I composed a haiku and neglected to mention that my muse for news haikus was Jake Tapper, the ABC News correspondent.

ABC News' Jake Tapper
Brilliant, Incisive, Witty
Master of Haiku

Finally, I confused On Message Inc's Brad Todd with CNN's Brian Todd.

Apologies all around.

Obama, Romney, And Sex, Sex, Sex

A thought experiment: if Zorban from the planet Juteriope landed in Loudoun County today and was provided with biographical sketches of the three leading candidates from each party, which party would he think was more conservative about sex?

During a campaign stop in Colorado last night, Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney said he was "shocked' to hear that Sen. Barack Obama told a liberal pressure group that sex education ought to be taught in kindergarten.

"I heard a quote today from Sen. Barack Obama which puzzled me. He said that we should have sex education in kindergarten. I'm not kidding you. And I scratched my head when I heard that," said Romney, his face locking in a grimace. "How much sex education ought to be age appropriate for a five year old? In my view, zero."

Let the sex wars continue. (To skip ahead to the ending, click here.)

At the broadest level of public opinion, there are unmistakable signs that conservatives are losing; there is a growing, though circumscribed tolerance for homosexuality; pornography is ubiquitous and impervious to attacks; abortion rights (again, circumscribed) are fairly well ingrained in the culture; the percentage of self-identified atheists in the public square is Babel-towering; sex is inevitable and amoral.

But primary politics remains largely an exercise in irritating the triggering points within the musculature of the political parties. It’s in the self-interest of conservatives to exploit the sex wars; it’s in the interest of liberals to flee the battles.

Since the 70s, when confronted with the public policy dimensions of sex, Democrats have tended towards a defensive crouch. Those voters most concerned with sex -- evangelical protestants and conservative Catholics -- have found refuge in a Republican Party that pays lip service to their concerns and occasionally acts on them. The modern Republican Party mastered the political language of sex while Democrats were still prattling on about economic redistribution.

Romney has always been a sexual conservative, even as his political views shift from the center to the right. One of his closest friends told me last year that Romney believes that homosexuality is probably more chosen than innate; that he was never one to banter about sex; that he views it more as a sacred communion of souls than an instrumental expression of pleasure. Romney reflects the general disposition of about half the Republican base. That they tend to be the voting half is important.

Sexual conservatives blame the bad trends on the spread of procedural liberalism, which has empowered "judicial activists." In their view, elite Democrats are sexual modernists. The party's secular (or non-evangelical) ideological base has an instrumental, liberationist view of sex; in the realm of public policy, it is legal formalism -- private relations governed by consent, with no single arrangement privileged. When it comes to , moral regulation, government quite literally abstains from judgment.

I'm not so sure if this portrayal is accurate.

Continue reading "Obama, Romney, And Sex, Sex, Sex" »

2008 Race Rankings: The Republicans

Each week, NBC News political director Chuck "Chuck" Todd and I present our rankings on the likely order of finish for the presidential candidates.

There's still no number one in our rankings. No one deserves the front-runner label, and our top three all have a plausible chance at the nomination. The ramifications of the John McCain campaign meltdown might not be evident for a while. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised, after a few weeks, to see his numbers bump up a little in New Hampshire.

These rankings are ordered by likelihood of winning the Republican primary and are based on a number of factors, including organization, money, buzz and polling. Click here for Democratic rankings.

1. No One -- Blank (for now).

2. (tie) Rudy Giuliani -- The day McCain's brain trust resigned, Giuliani announced the addition of Southwest Iowa field staffers. He's finally staffing up, finally focusing on endorsements in the early states, and is catching up to Romney on the organization front in some of the bigger Feb. 5 states. One sign that the campaign isn't adept at or interested in building crowds at the moment: Elizabeth Edwards at one point outdrew him in New Hampshire last week. But with terrorism front and center this summer, though, Giuliani has a natural message hook.

3. (tie) Mitt Romney -- That's some burn rate, mister! Romney really needs Fred Thompson to start campaigning in the early primary states, or else face the risk that the other top-tier candidates will abandon them entirely and let Romney win them easily. His victories will matter only if they're real victories over a competitive field in January. Note his campaign's greater use of Ann Romney as a not-so subtle contrast with Judith Nathan and Jeri Thompson. Spending aside, this campaign is about as technically competent as a campaign can be, and even the skeptical press corps is beginning to view Romney as a plausible nominee.


3. Fred Thompson -- Last Ranking: 2 -- The media and the conservative elite are running out of patience. Just get in already -- or announce an exact date. McCain's seeming collapse is an opportunity to strike now; waiting could bring regrets. A campaign cannot run on fumes, nor can it run on a weekly Sean Hannity armpit snuggle. The longer Thompson waits, the more likely the story becomes the waiting rather than the candidate.

Continue reading our race rankings.

Maybe Not After Labor Day....

Will Fred Thompson get in by August 11? The Iowa Republican Party is making that bet.

Two Numbers From The UNH Poll In New Hampshire

Both good for Hillary Clinton. Here's the data.

First, Clinton is essentially tied with Barack Obama among independents.

And second, nearly 50% (47%) of potential Dem voters in New Hampshire view Hillary Clinton as electable -- the most electable, in fact, of the field. Her electability number exceeds the margin by eleven points.

One number that gives cheer to Obama: More than three fourths of the 75% of New Hampshire voters who aren't currently supporting Obama would consider supporting him.

(Obama's three point bump in the head-to-head is meaningless, at this point).

Richardson's PI: An Update

The Richardson campaign takes issue with my short post about the private investigator hired by Richardson's presidential staff. That Richardson's campaign paid $12,500 to one Michael Corwin, a PI, is not in dispute. But Richardson's communications director, Pahl Shipley, said that Corwin does not perform opposition research -- in fact, no member of the Richardson campaign does. Corwin performs background checks on Richardson's own staff.

The campaign contracted with a company to perform public records background checks and research potential hires and others associated with the campaign- a standard practice. He does not do research on opponents. If the other campaigns are saying they don’t do those kinds of internal checks, they’re not telling the truth. You’ve been around long enough to know better.

Let me be clear- the campaign has not hired anyone to perform research on opponents. I could have told you that in a quick phone call.

The better Governor Richardson does in the polls and the more attention he gets the more dirt other campaigns try to shovel. It’s a shame that it is apparently so easy to have others do the dirty work for rival campaigns. Unfortunately your credibility also takes a hit.

Governor Richardson is keeping to his pledge of not engaging in negative campaigning, as difficult as that is given what the other campaigns are doing. Think about it- when was the last time our campaign sent you something negative about another candidate?

Fred Thompson, Meet Sidd Finch

In looking for a good metaphor to describe how the other Republican presidential candidates are framing Fred Thompson these days, the mind first thinks of acting, and then southern fried potatoes, and then a rented red pickup-truck.

How about the New York Mets?

To his rivals, Thompson is the Sidd Finch of the 2008 presidential race.

To those who don't remember, Finch, a rookie, was said to be the great hope of the New York Mets in 1985 -- a pitcher of uncommon skill and quickness -- a 168mph fastball! -- a fascinating character who went to Harvard, practiced yogic flying and wore a single shoe. Victory-hungry Mets fans put their trust in him.

He was, in fact, a creation of the white matter of George Plimpton, an April Fool's hoax.

Tomorrow: another Fred Thompson metahpor proposal.

The Conservative Blogs Respond To Thompson's Abortion Rights Lobbying

A question of ontology: is the Fred Thompson abortion story a legitimate big deal regardless of whether the MSM wants it to be a big deal? Or is it a big deal because the MSM is so invested in the idea of bringing Thompson down a few rungs?

Many conservative bloggers are still giving him a pass.

Riehl World View:

As Fred might say, Friends ... the way I see it, we just got done almost sendin' a good man to prison, ... still made quite a mess of his life, I reckon, for nothing more than, well, perhaps nothin' more than mis-remembering a simple conversation, or two. And, now, oh, well, hell, this was about twenty or so years ago, wuddn't it?

Captain Ed: "This story is essentially a yawn."

Powerline blames the media. (No joke!)

What's interesting, I think, is that the news outlets that are pushing this story are not conservative. They seem to think that the story will somehow discredit Thompson among conservatives, presumably because conservatives are too dumb to understand how law firms and the legal process work. The appropriate response from the right would be, I think, a yawn. So far, that's what we've seen.

James Joyner is an exception.

The story itself is rather innocuous; that his first instinct was to lie about it, though, says something about the man’s character. My guess is that this won’t seriously damage his candidacy. After all, most people think “lying politician” is redundant. Still, to the extent that Thompson’s appeal is that he’s not a professional politician, this hurts.

Yuval Levin is also clear-headed.

On the abortion question, Fred Thompson has so far managed to gain the trust of pro-lifers without actually saying anything about either principle or policy—what specifically he believes, or what kind of laws or rules he might support or oppose

The Morning Verbs, July 19, 2007

John McCain snaps at reporters. Meanwhile, eCampaign Director Christian Ferry ascends to the post of deputy campaign manager.

Patrick Ruffini predicts that Ron Paul will finish second in Ames.

Rightwingers lash Mitt Romney.

Harry Potter lives.

Ross Douthat believes John Edwards's problems like with his capacity to ooze.

Andrew Sullivan laughs at neocons.

M. Yglesias gets real.

Charles Franklin reads the Giuliani trendlines.

Howard Wolfson blasts Bill O'Reilly.

The placebo effect explained: the mind expects a reward.

Richardson's Private Investigator

(An update, with an explanantion of what Corwin does, is here.)New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson challenged his opponents in February to sign a pledge to run a clean campaign. And he's apparently hired a private investigator to enforce it.

A rival campaign noticed and sent along a line from his second quarter disbursement schedule showing a payment of $12,500 to one Michael Corwin, a PI from Albuquerque.

It's fairly unusual for a campaign to hire a licensed PI for its research team. Judd Legum, Devorah Adler and Christina Reynolds are the research directors of the Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns respectively. Difference is: you can't hire them if you want to find out whether a spouse is cheating.

Most opposition research these days is done by lap-top and involves the occasional trip to a courthouse or state records warehouse.

Al Gore Defends Rupert Murdoch

This was buried in a New York Times article on the News Corp. acquisition of the Dow Jones Company. Former Vice President Al Gore defends Rupert Murdoch as a man of his word.

In an interview, former Vice President Al Gore defended Mr. Murdoch as someone who supports independent voices and keeps his word. Mr. Gore was referring to his own experience negotiating a contract to carry Current TV, a cable channel he helped found. Mr. Gore, who has spoken out against media consolidation by conglomerates like the News Corporation in the past, said that he was mainly concerned with ownership of broadcast outlets. “That’s an issue — but on the question of his openness to independent points of view, I want you to know that my experience has been that when he gave his word, he kept his word.”

Paying for Pollsters: The Democrats

Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal has crunched the numbers on what each Democratic campaign spent on polling this quarter, and finds that:

Not surprisingly, the two biggest fundraisers during the second quarter - Clinton and Obama -- also spent (or accounted for) the most polling. The Clinton campaign shows $729,021 in payment or debt to its pollsters** compared to the $655,526 listed for the four pollsters engaged by the Obama campaign.

Setting aside the amounts, the most striking thing about these reports is contrast between the Clinton and Obama campaigns in the way they are dividing up the work and the implied generational shift in the pollsters working for Obama.

Mark Penn, who has been polling for political clients since the 1970s, is handling virtually all of the Clinton survey research. Bendixen & Associates, the firm of pollster Sergio Bendixen, specializes in "multilingual" research and and "Hispanic marketing." The $30,000 debt to that firm is most likely for a survey of Hispanic voters.

On the other hand, the Obama campaign is dividing its polling dollars among four lesser known consultants who collectively represent a new generation of rising stars that have emerged from more established firms. The four are Paul Harstad, the pollster for Obama's 2004 Senate campaign with roots at Garin-Hart Research; Cornell Belcher who served as an internal pollster at the DNC in recent years but previously worked for Diane Feldman; Joel Benenson, who served as internal manager of the Clinton-Gore polling in 1996 for Penn & Schoen and whose firm polled for several hotly contested Senate races in 2006; and a new addition, San Francisco pollster David Binder.

Read the whole thing.

A post on Republicans is coming.

Hillary's Message To Anti-War Iowans

A conversation with Sen. Hillary Clinton on Iraq is dropping direct to DVD.

The campaign is mailing thousands of Iowans an infomercial about the Senator's "plan to end the war." "A Conversation With Hillary: Bringing Our Troops Home" was filmed by Mandy Grunwald's team and recorded two weeks ago in Iowa.

The message is two-fold. One is that Hillary is a Midwesterner -- we learn this from Tom Vilsack. The other is that plenty of anti-war Democrats believe in her plan to end the war.

Like Amb. Joseph Wilson and Dr. Julie Thomas, identified by chyron as "Anti-war Caucus goer," in case you needed an explicit reference to the theme of the project.

Dissolve to an establishing shot of Strawberry Farm in Muscatine.

Hillary enters center stage.

She sits in a well-lit dining room with a smorgasboard of Iowans. A lav mic is attached to her bright red jacket.

Then -- boom -- a cut -- it's a multi-camera shoot.

In this small setting, HRC works. The Iowans not their assent as she excoriates the administration for its prosecution of the war.

Watch the full video at HillaryHub.

BTW: there are no extras on this DVD. Next time, throw in some outtakes, at least!

A Fred Fundraiser In Massachusetts

Some more money-gathering for ex-Sen. Fred Thompson. He's hosting a fundraiser in North Chatham, Mass on July 21.

Tickets are $1000 a piece.

What Newt's Up to In September

This e-mail was sent to friends of Ms. Bocskor's. It fills in some detail as to what Mr. Gingrich is up to in September, the month he's holding his meta-mega conferences and deciding whether to run for president.

-----Original Message----- From: Nancy Bocskor <[]@americansolutions.com> Subject: American Solutions, Newt Gingrich and me

Good afternoon!

[SNIP]

On the evening of September 27 (the 13th anniversary of the unveiling of the Contract with America), and during a day-long workshop on Saturday, September 29, American Solutions will host its inaugural “Solutions Day” activities and reach out across the country to activists, volunteers and all 511,000 elected office holders in America, their staff, and the citizens who are serving or seeking to serve in these offices. Newt will be live from Georgia for these events.

For a “preview” of our September activities, you can a workshop live or via webcast on Monday, July 23 from noon to 6 p.m. that Newt is hosting at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here in Washington, D.C. Just register at www.americansolutions.com.

American Solutions wants to help create a new wave of transformational change which will move government into the 21st century, will strengthen and revitalize our core values, and will help us protect America against its enemies. The goal of the September workshops is to make these solutions available to activists, volunteers and every candidate from both parties in every elected office in the country.

I’ll make sure all of you will have “Action Packs” and “Tool Kits” so your workshops will be successful. We have an amazing interactive website and other cool tools so anyone in the world can participate. (Yes, I said the “world”!)

Best,

Nancy Bocskor

Education Director
American Solutions

Bill Richardson's Latest Iowa Ad

I’m Bill Richardson … and here in New Mexico, we’ve lost too many soldiers in Iraq … just like Iowa and every other state. We have to end this war now. The one thing the Iraqis agree on is they want us to leave. Our troops have done everything we’ve asked and I don’t want to see any more die. I approved this message because Congress has to stand up to this president. We need to get all of our troops out of Iraq. George Bush won’t do that. But I will

A New Edwards Ad Tests The Upper Reaches Of Elizabeth's Appeal

The genius in Elizabeth Edwards being Elizabeth Edwards, in the campaign's sanctioning her role as the Edwards who speaks truth to the Clinton's power, is that she is a stealth fighter -- capable of dropping bombs but extremely hard to shoot down. Her national popularity, combined with the sensitivty around her ongoing battle with cancer, do not make her vulnerable to counterattacks. Woman to woman, she can stand up to Hillary Clinton and even peel Democratic women away from the frontrunner. Even if Hillary Clinton was inclined to respond to Edwards's jibes about feminism, doing so would be frought with risk.

(Compare this dynamic to Bill Clinton's role in questioning Barack Obama's credentials. Bill Clinton is a tough messenger for Obama to rebut.)

The downside of this approach is that she is arguably** a more popular, more respected public figure than her husband. ** = very arguably. I haven't found polling to support this contention. So -- ignore this sentence entirely.

Generally, a spouse appears in a campaign ad to fill in a picture, or to inflect a certain quality in her hubby that has been lost, or that needs to be heightened. Ann Romney's ads for Mitt Romney highlight his warm, fuzzies -- his humanity, his devotion to his family, his Judeo-Christio(Mormon) everyman side. With Ann Romney, there's no concern that she'll eclipse the principal.

In the new New Hampshire ad, Elizabeth Edwards employs all of the trigger points -- cancer, family, her own steel will -- to vouch for her husband's inner toughness. "I've been blessed," she narrates, "for the last thirty years to be married to the most optimistic person that I've known."

But "at the same time, he has an unbelievable toughness, particularly about other people, and that is, his ability to fight for them. They're not going to outsmart him. He works harder than any human being I know. Always has. It's unbelievably important that in our president we have someone who can stare the worst in the face. And not blink."

The catch. On a conference call this morning, an NBC News reporter asked Edwards deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince whether Elizabeth Edwards has become the "dominant" voice of the campaign.

(Eclipsing? Emasculating her husband? Granting voters permission to compare John TO Elizabeth?)

"That's silly," Prince responded.

"Clearly, John Edwards is clearly the most dominant voice of this campaign."

Later, the AP's Beth Fouhy asked whether Elizabeth was (in Joe Klein's phrase) a "bulletproof cannon" and who would assume the attack dog role against Hillary Clinton.

Prince accused Fouhy of responding to Matt Drudge's characterization of Elizabeth's interview with Salon, rather than what Elizabeth said.

"No, I actually read the article," said Fouhy.

Trippi interrupted: "Shock, surprise, breaking news, Elizabeth Edwards supports her husband."

Mark Halperin wanted to know if John Edwards agreed with everything Elizabeth said in her Salon interview.

And ABC's David Muir asked whether there wasn't an element of sexism in the focus on Elizabeth v. HRC.

"That's a question for all of you to ask yourselves," Prince said.

And Muir asked about the CNN-WMUR poll that characterizes Edwards's position in the state as "sputtering."

"We'd characterize that poll as July," Prince said.

Romney Puts Competition On The Campaign Table

Midnight Ride Media, a new Virginia-based television and radio advertising firm, owes its existence to a single client with a zest for internal competition: the presidential campaign of ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney.

That’s because Romney borrowed a page from Republicans campaigns past and has integrated his advertising, production and media buying teams into a single new entity overseen by a single campaign strategist.

The Midnight Ride team includes Alex Castellanos, a veteran of 5 presidential campaigns, Larry McCarthy, the admaker who created Progress for America’s “Ashley Ad,” Brad Todd, a partner with OnMessage, Inc. (and the man behind that Michael Steele ad featuring the cute dogs.), and Curt Anderson, a former RNC political director.

“It goes to the theory that you get the best product with a competitive model,” said Beth Myers, Romney’s campaign manager. “We wanted to come up with a way to have competition flow naturally in a non-combative sense.”

Myers appointed Alex Gage, Romney’s head of strategy, to manage the company within a campaign.

When the five creative whizzes settle on an ad, the raw footage, scripts and storyboards are sent to Jillayne Smith’s team at National Media and Cold Harbor films for stitching together.

Planning and placement is the next step – and Robin Roberts, a co-founder of Maverick Media, consults with Feltus to determine when and where to place the ads. Because different people watch television and listen to the radio at different times, media buying is as much an art as it is a craft, and thousands of dollars are spent to segment and target the television audience.

"We take our data and look at the inventory out there and try to compare the alternatives based on how much they cost and ... come up with a plan," said Feltus, who performed the same function for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. "It's two thirds numbers and one third judgment."

The entire process from idea to execution is horizontally integrated.

"This makes it easier for the campaign, instead of having to deal with six or eight different vendors or consultants, to deal with one entity," said Feltus.

The name itself is a clue to the goal of the undertaking. Todd came up with the name of “Midnight Ride” to evoke an obscure farmer’s quest to warn compatriots at the British were on his way – a “campaign” that was full of risk and ended in the start of the American Revolution. Paul Revere stopped at Boston’s Old North Church along the way; the top of the church is visible from Romney’s campaign headquarters. Revere did not become a folk hero until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a poem in the 1861 Atlantic Monthly commemorating his trans-Boston run.

(Gage said he wanted to call the group the "Charles River Project" -- the campaign's headquarters abuts that body of water. Gage was overruled.)

So why is Gage -- "a non-advertising guy" by his own admission managing the project? "There's a lot of intellectual firepower there and a lot of creative passions," he said.

Continue reading "Romney Puts Competition On The Campaign Table" »

The Edwardses Dominate The News Cycle

Who knew Elizabeth Edwards was in Rashomon?

Look, I'm sympathetic, because when I worked as a lawyer, I was the only woman in these rooms, too, and you want to reassure them you're as good as a man. And sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues. I'm sympathetic -- she wants to be commander in chief. But she's just not as vocal a women's advocate as I want to see. John is. And then she says, or maybe her supporters say, "Support me because I'm a woman," and I want to say to her, "Well, then support me because I'm a woman." The question is not so much how she campaigns -- that's theater. The question is, what does her campaign tell you about how she'll govern? And I'm not convinced she'd be as good an advocate for women. She needs a rationale greater for her campaign than I've heard. When she announced her candidacy she said, "I'm in it to win it." What is that? That's not a rationale. Same with Senator Obama -- I've yet to hear a rationale. John is extremely clear about what he can accomplish and why he's the one to do it.

Ben Smith has a better parse than the one I started to write.

How/when/where has HRC NOT talked about women's issues? And is Elizabeth Edwards criticizing her for talking too little -- or too much -- about being a woman? And somehow, does Hillary's "women's movement" talk mean that she's too much of a man? All this confusion over gender roles! Paging Judith Butler.

(Ex-parte HRC: Hillary's campaign rationale, so far as one gathers from her stump speeches, is that she has the experience to restore competence to government and the strength to restore America's place in the world.)

In other Edwards outrageousness (kidding)... here's what John said today about impeachment the president and vice president, a la MoveOn.org's fondest desires.

From Air America:

Rachel Maddow: Do you think that there are grounds for impeachment?

John Edwards: I think the president and the vice president have engaged in illegal behavior. And there are multiple examples; just one is the fact that they have illegally spied on the American people in blatant disregard for the law. So, do I think they have engaged in illegal behavior, I do. And I know and totally understand the frustration that people have that would lead them to start thinking about whether we should impeach George Bush.

But speaking for myself, I would rather us focus our attention on ending the war, universal healthcare and winning the next election because I think that’s the way to bring about the change this country needs.

The Best Of The Brothers

The incomparable James Fallows writes on how David Petreaus is getting the "full New Jesus" treatment from President Bush. Fallows notes:

Before he went to Ft. Leavenworth, David Petraeus' assignment was to create an Iraqi defense force -- to allow them to "stand up" so Americans could "stand down." His approach was shrewd, intelligent, wise, and an improvement at what had gone before. But it failed. The problem was bigger than he wa

The intelligent Ross Douthat and the indubitable Matthew Yglesias debate Harry Potter.

The in-love Andrew Sullivan posts a very cute picture of Barack O.

The NIE and The '08 Campaign

The question, answered in the affirmative by Hillary Clinton and in the negative, first, by John Edwards then Barack Obama, is whether "we" as in U.S. citizens are safer today than we were in 2001.

The National Intelligence Estimate released today says... not really.

We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years.

Then it says... "yes." (bolds added).

We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11.

Then says... well, maybe not.

We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.

The 2007 NIE is more equivocal on the point than the 2006 NIE.

Has the war in Iraq fueled jihadist sentiment throughout the Muslim world and in doing so directly enhanced the threat to the US?

The NIE says that Al Qaida's association with Al Qaida in Iraq (AQI) helps to "energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks."

Sounds like a yes.

Ok, I'll Write About Dodd Cam. You Won.

.

This is today's schedule for D-TV. D-TV stands for Dodd-TV. Dodd, as in Chris Dodd. Dodd TV today advertises an unprecendented behind-the-scenes look at a presidential campaign.

It's a fun applet, and the Dodd campaign does seem to have have the market cornered on technology snazziness, but to what end?

D-TV Schedule 12:00 Chat with Communications Director Hari Sevugan 12:10 Live office camera 12:30 Chat with Deputy Campaign Manager Matt Butler 12:45 Live office camera 1:00 Chat with Policy Director Amos Hochstein 1:15 Live office camera 1:30 Chat with Internet Director Tim Tagaris 1:45 Live office camera 2:00 Chat with Political Director Scott Arceneaux 2:25 Live office camera 2:45 Chat with Scheduler Jennifer Goodman 3:15 Chat with Blogger Matt Browner-Hamlin 5:00 Nightly newscast 5:30 Chat with Finance Director Vince Frillici

Overheard in the Dodd TV Chat room:

NYChris: Why support Chris Dodd? NYChris: We've seen YouTube and Myspace, Facebook and more, but what's next for the Internet as it relates to the campaign?

Why Does The "Marist Poll" Trigger Frasier Memories?

Should we declare a hiatus from analyzing national polls until after Labor Day? The editors might not like it, but it's hard to find new things to say about the race.

The Hotline's Quote Of The Day:

"

He is the only one who has shown interest. But if Obama comes, because he's an African-American, he'll probably win here."

-- Edwards supporter James Figgs, on Edwards' poverty tour in MS, Raleigh News & Observer, 7/17

The AFL-CIO gives reporters another reason to spend the early part of August in October. YearlyKos -- and then the biggest labor forum of the year on August 7. It'll run live on MSNBC and will be hosted by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. All the Dems will attend.

Fairtax.org Revs Up Iowa Bus Tour

I've so far been unimpressed by the seeming dozens of well-funded outside groups that are spending literally millions to influence the presidential election this cycle. Save two: The anti-poverty One Campaign has the ear of the top-tier candidates from both parties.

And Fairtax.org has built sizable crowds at major events in every early primary state and its activists have managed to pin the presidential candidates down on what had been a fairly obscure public policy proposal: a non-regressive national sales tax.

FairTax plans a 25-city "Dare to be Fair" bus tour through Iowa beginning July 26. It will end two weeks later at the Ames straw poll, where the group plans a major rally. The group claims to have 700,000 supporters and has drawn thousands to events in Orlando and Atlanta. The group has spent approx. $500K on radio and direct mail int he past three months. Radio host Sean Hannity supports it; libertarian radio jock Neil Boortz is the father of the movement.

The Democrats are paying the group no heed.

Republicans are always asked about it. Rudy Giuliani was booed two weeks ago when he said the tax was unworkable; Mike Huckabee endorses it. Fred Thompson says he's "looking very closely at the fair tax." It's not part of Mitt Romney's platform, but he recognizes its appeal.

BTW: Americans For Fair Taxation is a 501(c)4 founded in 1995 by rich Texas businessmen.

Romney Wore Makeup; Film At Eleven

I tend to agree with Glenn Greenwald, with a caveat: John Edwards's haircut was a valid story to cover, although its impact and signifiance were magnified beyond reason and sanity.

But learning that Mitt Romney's face powdered is akin to learning that George W. Bush likes to get theraputic back rubs.

The Politico found a neat little item in Mitt Romney's second quarter disclosure forms -- $300 he spent on make-up in advance of television debates. It's kind of funny for a half a second -- man wears make-up, ha-ha. $300 is close to $400, which is what John Edwards spent on a haircut.

Why doesn't John Edwards's hair equal Mitt Romney's face paint?

The primary difference is definitional: The centerpiece of Edwards's campaign is his anti-poverty efforts; he presents himself as a dedicated messenger for the cause, and he likes expensive haircuts, bought a gimungous house, etc. etc. His credibility as a messenger comes into question when he spends money ostentatiously. (The haircut was inadvertently billed to the campaign, a spokesman later said).

There is a difference in the political reality: fairly or unfairly, a healthy chunk of the national political press corps doesn't like John Edwards.

Fairly or unfairly, there's also a difference in narrative timing: when the first quarter ended, the press was trying to bury Edwards. It's not so much interested in burying Romney right now -- many reporters think he's the Republican frontrunner.

Your Guide To Bob Novak's Sources

In his 650-page memoir, report-cum-columnist Bob Novak recounts the stories that made him famous. And he reveals dozens of sources, deliberately, having sought and received permission from his formerly secret contacts to go public for the sake of history.

Many of the sources are no longer active in politics and some are dead. But a good dozen are still forces, and it’s going to be tempting to read future Novak columns in light of his disclosures about the following:

Sen. Trent Lott – wonder where those anti-John Weaver columns came from? Sen. Lott is an often-used source for Novak.

Karl Rove – The public record in the Plame case aside, Rove is Novak’s chief White House source.

Vin Weber – this ex-Rep and current WH adviser also advises Mitt Romney.

Bill Daley -- The former Clinton commerce secretary, Gore campaign chairman and Chicago grandee is one of Novak’s best Democratic sources. Mr. Daley right now is a top adviser to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, so one would assume that Novak’s Obama scoops are – at the very least – run by Mr. Daley for confirmation. Check out page 450 of the book, where Daley gives Novak a blind quote about the 1988 Democratic convention, which featured a raucous speech by Jesse Jackson: “For those who watched television, what they saw looked like a black party.” The quote was attributed to a “Midwestern” Democrat. Novak writes that Daley “feared that the disasterous candidacies of George McGovern, Fritz Mondale and now Mike Dukakis posed a bleak future for traditional Democrats.”

Does Novak have a source in Hillary land? Ex-MI Gov. James Blanchard may be one, but it’s not clear from Novak’s text.

Bob Shrum – Novak admits that Shrum is a very regular, very good source.

John Sununu – the former WH CoS. What does he know about Fred Thompson’s alleged lobbying for an abortion rights group?

9/11 commission member/ex-Navy sec. John Lehman – a regular source on arms control matters in the 1980s

Richard Perle – a big Novak source in the 80s; their relationship soured after the War in Iraq

David Stockman – a great Novak source until Stockman revealed all to the Atlantic in 1982.

Henry Kissinger – he was an occasional Novak source in the Nixon administration and remains a Novak source today.

John Negroponte – the former DNI is a Novak source. Or was, in the 1980s.

Carl Cameron – an enthusiastic young Cameron helped Novak wade through the late-in-the-campaign disclosure that George W. Bush had been arrested for drunk driving.

Ex-Sec/def/Sen. William Cohen – called a “longtime” source. Cohen is still a highly-regarded voice of wisdom on defense issues and is well-connected.

Other revealed sources: Lee Atwater, Don Rumsfeld, ex-Sec/Def. Mel Laird (called one of Novak’s best sources EVER), American diplomat John Paul Vann, ex-Texas l.g. Ben Barnes, ex-FBI dir. William Ruckelshaus, Sen. Scoop Jackson, ex-Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, Cox press secretary James Doyle, ex-Sen. Al Gore Sr., ex-Reagan mgr. John Sears, Dem pollster Pat Caddell, “homosexual” Alan Baron, ex-Sec/Treas. Paul O’Neill, ex-Reagan adviser Stu Spencer, curve economist Art Laffer, Ex-Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, David Gergen, James Baker, Pat Buchanan, Carlyle Group partner David Rubenstein, ex-Treasury aide Manuel Johnson, ex-Reagan cabinet secretary Alfred Kingon, conservative activists Dan Devine and David Keene, ex-Sen. Bob Bennett, Rep. Dan Lungren,

Interestingly, nowhere does Novak write about Steny Hoyer; the Dems majority leader in the House is assumed by many to be Novak’s chief source among Congressional Democrats.

Who’s the “best source” Novak “ever had?” – conservative activist John Carbaugh, a former aide to Jesse Helms and a general fixer for right-wing causes.

The Inevitable Parody Of Romney's Latest Ad

What Obama Spent On Polling (And Other Facts)

## -- In the second quarter, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign spent more than $514K on polling, spread among four different firms. He also spent $116K on online advertising, including $17K to Yahoo.

## -- Hillary Clinton recieved a $2300 donation from Rupert Murdoch.

## -- George Clooney, an Obama donor, did not list an occupation. I think he's an actor.

## -- Clinton spent more than $694K on polling and strategy. That sum was paid to Penn, Schoen and Berland, the home firm of chief stategist Mark Penn.

## -- Both Clinton and Obama use NGP for their fundraising software. NGP seems to brag about... Obama.

## -- Clinton's highest paid outside consultant is Karen Hicks, who works in New Hampshire and is heading microtargeting efforts for the campaign.

RNC Encourages Questions For Dem Debate

From the GOP's website. Mischevious, but if enough Republicans submit questions, one or two might slip through.

Obama And The Armenians: The Trouble Begins

Ben Smith can't help but report the latest bizarre details in the case of that guy who was arrested with a knife near Barack Obama's hotel. Someone, the local Armenian community is angry at ... Barack Obama, for nothing, really.

The Daily Bombast, 7/16

*** HRC's endorsed by Amb. Joe Wilson. Yee haw.

*** Rudy Giuliani unveiled 14 Northwestern Iowa endorsements today, including Terry Lutz, the former of Ft. Dodge, ex-state sen. Jim Kerstein, a state co-chair, and eight Republican county chairs.

*** Marlys Popma, a major pro-life activist and Iowa political organizer, is now a free agent. She's the latest to resign from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. BTW: Guess who lead in SC fundraising? You can't lose them all.

*** Tommy Thompson's out with a new radio ad on immigration.

*** Some news from the home office, which is cool:

National Journal Group, Washington’s leading publisher of political and policy news and analysis, and Intrade, the leading prediction market allowing people to trade on political, financial, weather and other events, today announced an exciting new online partnership in which Intrade will supply its leading prediction market technology to National Journal Group, allowing readers and users of NationalJournal.com to predict and trade on political news and events from the 2008 election.

National Journal Group and Intrade will now work together to build the online prediction market on topics relevant to National Journal Group’s extensive audience of Washington insiders and political junkies. Once the site is live, the market will be open to the public on NationalJournal.com, and will include information and analysis to inform the users’ trades. Users will be able to compete against each other, using play money as the currency to predict political and current events.

Fred Thompson's Disclosure Conundrum: Solved

As co-architect of McCain-Feingold-Thompson, the federal campaign finance reform legislation, would-be presidential candidate Fred Thompson has skirted the interstitial space between the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission, using a mish-mash of competing laws to avoid disclosing his donors.

That ends on July 31, according to Thompson campaign sources. His "Friends of Fred Thompson Inc." plans to file form 8872 -- a schedule of contributions and expenditures -- with the IRS that day, which will give him leeway to formally announce his candidacy whenever he wants.

On June 4, Thompson's finance committee organized a 527 committee with the IRS after incorporating in Tennessee. Friends of Fred Thompson Inc." is a "testing-the-waters" committee, and regulations allow Thompson to raise and spend money to take the temperature of the electorate -- he can poll, he can travel to early primary states, he can hire a small staff.

If Thompson files with the FEC as a candidate, he'd lose the residuals he's paid by NBC for Law and Order. He'd also be a real candidate and there’d be pressure on him to "launch" his candidacy immediately. At the same time, if he files with the FEC before July 31, he gets an exemption from having to disclosure and contributors until October 15.

If he doesn't file with the FEC in July, his testing-the-waters committee is required to tell the IRS the identity of donors and the size of their donations about $500. If he's not raised that much, he could be embarrassed by a poor showing. If he’s raised a lot, it’s fodder, along with his own statements and language on his website, for a charge that his actions have lifted out of the testable waters and thrown him into the candidate ocean. That could cost him his residuals, too.

For example: his campaign website allows potential donors to sign up to make automatic monthly contributions. But testing the water candidates aren't allowed to line up seed money. Also: a legal disclaimer on his website cautions that contributions "will be used in connection with federal elections" and are "subject to the limits and prohibitions of federal law."

If the campaign does nothing -- if they fail to file as a federal candidate and fail to file form 8872 -- all contributions would be subject to a 35% tax and Thompson could be liable for civil penalties.

The politics of filing an FEC complaint over Thompson is sketchy, so don't expect any rival campaigns to bother.

But they'll watch the issue of residuals closely.

One scenario has Thompson waiting until the new season of Law and Order kicks off -- September -- before formally opening his campaign. But that would open him up to charges that he cares more about his Hollywood money than he does his presidential campaign.

Obama's Cool Burn Rate

The most interesting figure available to us today, as we pour over the 2nd quarter financial disbursements, is the average burn rate, which is calculated by adding the money spent plus ddebt, and dividing that by the amount of money raised for the primary elections.

In Obama's case, that's $16M spent + 0.92M debt divided by $32M raised -- or 53%.

Even though Obama spent more than Clinton -- either a little if you count debt or a lot -- he managed to keep half of what we took in. His fundraising will simmer down a bit in the third quarter, but it's fairly easy to imagine that he'll gave $25M or so in the bank come January, which will give him more than enough money to blanket the early (and later) primary states with those biographical ads that Obama's team loves to make.

Clinton burned through 73 cents out of every primary dollar she raised. That's a lot, but it's still an impressive figure. John Edwards spent 74 cents out of every dollar raised; Bill Richardson spent about 71 cents for every dollar raised.

Joe Biden spent a whopping 104% of his receipts, and Chris Dodd spent nearly 133% of his primary money raised.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney spent nearly 100% of what he raised -- he had to kick in $5M or else his burn rate would have approached Dodd-like levels. John McCain spent 128% of his receipts. Rudy Giuliani saved 28 cents on every dollar with a burn rate of 72%.

One More McCain Resignation

Tim Miller, McCain's Iowa communications director, has also resigned.

That brings today's total to six.

The Peggy Noonan Metaphor Ad: Romney's latest

Added to the campaign's rotation today in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina is a Mitt Romney meditiation on the "ocean" of perversity, filth, sluge and (Drudge?) that surrounds "our kids today. It's the purest family values ad that Romney has broadcast so far. The visual consists of an ocean! And then kids playing in the ocean!

"I'm deeply troubled about the culture that surrounds our kids today.

"Following the Columbine shootings, Peggy Noonan described our world as 'the ocean in which our children now swim.'

"She described a cesspool of violence, and sex, and drugs, and indolence, and perversions.

"She said that the boys who did the shooting had 'inhaled too deeply in the oceans in which they swam.'

"I'd like to see us clean up the water in which our kids are swimming.

"I'd like to keep pornography from coming up on their computers.

"I'd like to keep drugs off the streets.

"I'd like to see less violence and sex on TV and in video games and in movies.

"And if we get serious about this, we can actually do a great deal to clean up the water in which our kids and our grandkids are swimming.

"I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."

It's Official: McCain's Press Staff Resigns

Sen. John McCain's top three press aides resigned this morning, Republicans close to the campaign said and one of those aides confirmed.

The campaign's research director and two other press staffers also stepped down.

The departure of Brian Jones, the communications director, Danny Diaz, his deputy, and Matt David, another deputy, had been widely anticipated since last week's resignation of campaign manager Terry Nelson. All three were Nelson's proteges and worked closely with departed strategist John Weaver.

But all three showed up in New Hampshire last Friday to staff McCain's two-day trip through the state. Jones carefully attended to McCain at a press conference and Diaz staffed him on a blogger conference call. The Wall Street Journal reported that day that the three would resign Saturday. They did not. They did, in fact, share a farewell drink with the Senator.

"This is not an acrimonious departure. We're doing everything we can to keep the transition smooth," Jones said. He said he and the others informed campaign manager Rick Davis before a senior staff meeting this morning.

Last Tuesday, as word of the Nelson and Weaver resignations was sent out to the press, Jones essentially ordered his staff to stay put. "No one is leaving this week," Jones said. And no one did. The goal was to get through the week and through McCain's trip to New Hampshire.

Jill Hazelbaker, currently McCain's New Hampshire communications director, is likely to take over as national communications director, a Republican briefed on the changes said. She's worked closely with McCain's new team, worked well with his old team, and has no dog in the fight but McCain.

"If he's going to turn this campaign around, it's probably going to have to start in New Hampshire," the Republican said.

Davis said in an interview that he expects a downsized press operation: with spokespeople in the early states included, before today's resignations, there were 12 McCain staffers dedicated to media and research.

"Frankly, the priority was to try and sustain as much as we could in communications but they were one of the best shops that we had," Davis said.

Jones was the RNC's communications director during the 2006 cycle, and was a senior adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004. Diaz was Jones's RNC deputy and supervised regional communications. And David worked with Steve Schmidt, another former McCain adviser, on the 2006 Schwarzenneger re-election campaign.

McCain staffers Amanda Hennenberg and Adam Temple also resigned, sources said, as did the campaign's research director, Brian Rogers.

Davis said that Susan Nelson, a principle at a firm owned by Tom Loeffler, another McCain adviser, will serve as finance director. Davis said that a new Iowa state director would be appointed soon and that more staff would be added to the pared down campaign operations in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

"The states are going to be the beneficiary of the budget crisis," Davis said.

Looking Through The 2nd Quarter Candidate Financials

Gov. Bill Richardson's biggest expense was media: about $1.3M. The campaign spent $100,000 to buy the Iowa Democratic Party's voter file, and another $15K for voter files in Nevada. Richardson's staff is about a third of the size of his '08 Democratic rivals Clinton and Obama: only about $500K was spent on salaries. $147,000 of Richardson's receipts are stored in the campaign's general election account. He has more than $7.1M to spend in the primaries.

Political Money Line.com notes that Wes Clark's presidential committee is still open.

Joe Biden's FEC report is loaded with consultants -- media and fundraising. He paid out approx. $500K in salaries. He has about $2.7M on hand.

Chris Dodd spent more than $1M on television and more than $800K on salaries. He spent more than $166K on outside consultants. Dodd spent more than $35K on polling this quarter. He has about $6.4M on hand.

Sen. Sam Brownback has a thread-bare staff: he spent about $150K on salaries. He has $460K on hand.

Jim Gilmore's Exit. A Haiku

Jim Gilmore drives home.
Remember the car tax and
Rudy McRomney

"I Bought An RV!"

One fun item from Mitt Romney's financial disclosure forms:

Mr. Romney raised $61,435.66 in contributions from "The Candidate" this cycle.

And he donated a $61,435,66 Winnebago.

The Campaigns Begin To Release Their Financial Statements

MANCHESTER AIRPORT WAITING FOR A FLIGHT -- So now we know why ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney wrote himself a "nightmare" $5M check at the end of the second quarter: he spent more than five million more than he raised. Put together, Romney's burn through about 99% of his receipts.

Romney's campaign filed its second quarter report with the FEC today. Friday.

Romney aides insist that the campaign is on budget, and judging by the size of the check he wrote, Romney has promised to fill in the gap between receipts and expenses.

But raising money is tougher in the third quarter, and it will especially hard if Romney stays low in the national polls. It's unclear whether Romney can sustain the pace he's achieved: nearly $5M in television advertisements, $2.3M in salaries and insurance, and $1M in donor prospecting and list rental.

The $5M or so spent in television advertising appears to have paid dividends in the polls. Assuming that the campaign increases its ad buys by 50%, and assuming the cost of buying ad time in the early primary and caucus states increases, as it almost certainly will, Romney could win up spending $13-15M more on television ads by the end of the year if he elects to stay on the air through the Iowa caucuses.

Romney's expenditures also include nearly $690,000 for survey research. Two firms -- one run by Romney's microtargeter and the other by Romney's pollster -- were the beneficiary. These expenses mean that Romney's campaign has begun to model the Republican primary electorate. Watch microtargeting expenses to increase over the next few months.

Other large expenses for telephone persuasion efforts, mail and postage, and GOTV consultants show that Romney's campaign is making lots of voter contacts -- another reason why his poll numbers have risen. And looks matter: the campaign spent more than $170K this quarter for "staging."

Romney has a healthy $12.1M on hand.

Rudy Giuliani has much more. And his spending rivals Romney with two important exceptions. One is that Giuliani seems to be spend less on polls and microtargeting. And he's spent zero on television. In fact, he doesn't even have a media firm yet. Giuliani paid $25,000 for a "ballot access fee" in South Carolina, which is weird because the state will pay for South Carolina's primary in 2008. All the other Republicans have also paid the fee. It's weird because... it's kind of not fair to the candidates.

Home Is Where The Heart Won For McCain

CONCORD, NH -- "I think we should give the new strategy and leadership a change to succeed. The consequences of failure will be grave."

That was Sen. John McCain on New Hampshire Public Radio this morning. In case it's unclear,
McCain was speaking about Iraq, not making a plea about his campaign.

The newspaper stories about McCain's visit to New Hampshire this morning are full of the prefix "re" -- as in "restart" -- "rejuvenate" ... "remake" ... "recapture."

This is New Hampshire. It’s McCain’s state. As long as a candidate has a national platform and a state, he’s not dead. Reporters came to Concord today to cover a funeral, and what we found instead was a juiced up candidate who doesn’t really need journalists to give him a second life.

After a speech on national security and Iraq – fallow ground for McCain, he decided to let the audience quiz him. That wasn’t planned. McCain’s counselor-cum-co-author Mark Salter looked at Mike Dennehy, the national political adviser. “Did you plan this?” “Nope,” Dennehy said. “Me neither,” Salter said. The timing got tough – McCain had a half dozen television interviews lined up.

McCain met with his New Hampshire leadership team for an hour this morning. “He was upbeat. In really good spirits,” said Steve Duprey, his state chairman. “McCain told us, you know guys, we’re going to do fine. We’re going to run the kind of campaign we did last time.”

“I said to John McCain, at least we have the strategy we should have. I mean, we realized a month in that we weren’t going to be the frontrunner,” Duprey said.

“We know what events work,” he said. “I don’t need some 25 year old who’s run one campaign in Washington telling us what works for the state senator in Georgia telling us what we need in the schedule. “

Being outside of Washington and in New Hampshire “is where he needs to be,” Salter said.

At a press conference after the speech, Salon’s Walter Shapiro asked this unanswerable question: “Senator, which are you more optimistic about: progress in Iraq or you winning the Republican nomination?”

On his way out of the conference hall, Time’s Mark Halperin asked him whether he’d lost the aura of the excitement/insurgent candidate again. “I can be again,” was how McCain answered.

He shot Halperin an insouciant look.

McCain then held court on a call with conservative bloggers.

In the past few days, new campaign manager Rick Davis has done a fairly serviceable job at filling in some of the holes left when the departure of his old campaign manager and chief strategist started a mass exodus of senior staff. He's brought back McCain's longtime finance chief, Carla Eudy, McCain's 2000 pollster, Bill McInturff, and a handful of outside advisers.
As Dennehy was leaving the conference hall, he noticed that one of the table guests had left several McCain handbills unmolested – and in relatively mint condition. “Hey,” he said to McCain’s state director, Jim Barnett, “we should recycle these. We gotta cut costs.” He was smiling, so he was joking. Sort of.

The Clintons Keene On Keene

KEENE -- At 9:55 am ET, Sen. Hillary Clinton was in Washington, D.C., waiting to cast her final vote of the week -- a bill to increase the bounty on Osama Bin Laden's head.

Four hundred forty seven miles away, a capacity crowd of about a thousand residents of Keene, NH and environs fidgeted on a football field. Their call time was 9:30.

There was no warm up act -- no "The Twenty" -- but there was music -- an endless loop of campaign perennials like "We Can" and, thanks to good advance work, food and water. It was hot, but it was dry, and there was a nice breeze.The point of all this is to say that sometimes even being a spectator or a fan can be grueling.

Hillary and Bill Clinton arrived at 11:30. A few minutes later, just as Hillary Clinton began to speak, myself, along with much of the national press corps, were racing to Concord to hear Sen. John McCain speak.

An Evening With The Romneys

WOLFEBORO, NH -- All I can really say is that Mitt Romney, wife Ann and four of five sons welcomed a contingent of the national political press corps to their Lake Winnipesaukee home last evening for... well, we agreed to keep the universe beyond threshold of the driveway off-the-record, so I won't say.

These events drive media critics crazy. The theory is that such OTR get togethers are the currency of a press corps that is too willing to cozy up to sources, or to powerful people, and they inevitably reduce the critical distance that is so crucial to a functioning press.

I strongly disagree, for so many reasons, but I generally tend not to pay much heed to theorists who aren't practitioners of the actual craft of political journalism.

Except that one major media organization refuses to allow its reporters to attend events like these to avoid even the appearance of cozying up to powerful interests. (It rhymes with Shoo Fork Thymes).

I'll try to develop some ideas on this topic throughout the year. And if you're _really_ that curious about what went on on the shores of New Hampshire's largest lake last night, I think I convinced one of the Romney brothers to blog about it.

McCain Redoubles War Effort After Tough Week

In his first non-Senate appearance since Terrible Tuesday, Sen. John McCain checks himself, balances on his two feet and stands up tall. He'll restart his presidential campaign in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, and is returning to his roots. In a speech this afternoon, McCain will steel his audience to prepare for a "Long War." And he challenges Democrats and Republicans to explain how they'll fight it.

“I want to talk today about the national security challenge of our time, the war which radical Islamist extremists have been waging against us for the better part of three decades, and in which Iraq, according to the commander of our forces there, General Petraeus and our enemies, is a central front. My father’s generation successfully fought the Second World War. Succeeding American generations successfully fought the Cold War. And, my friends, we will successfully defend ourselves against this new and very dangerous threat. But as we have done in the past, we must not take counsel of our fears, nor avert our eyes from the imminence and complexity of the threat, nor let our will weaken because of the sacrifices we have already made and the false assumptions and tactical mistakes we have made in Iraq and in the wider struggle against enemies who are as determined to harm us as we must be to defeat them.

More:

“Today, our goal must be to effectively counter the plans of our enemies not simply with military force but with all the other tools at our disposal—economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and ideological. We must not only track down and capture or kill confirmed jihadists, we must stop a new generation from joining the fight. This Long War is not with Islam but within Islam – a small minority of extremists against the majority of moderates…

“To talk about the struggle against Islamic extremists is, of necessity, to talk about our war with al Qaeda in Iraq. Many Democrats claim this is a conflict we cannot win. They ignore the consequences of a US defeat at the hands of al Qaeda – and some ignore al Qaeda altogether. Just this week, Senators Clinton and Byrd wrote an op-ed about the war in Iraq and never once mentioned al Qaeda or the terrorist presence in Iraq. Foreign jihadists—Al Qaeda operatives--are responsible for at least 80% of the suicide bombings that are the driving force of sectarian strife. They are in this war to win and we cannot let them.

“Defeatism will not buy peace in our time. It will only lead to more bloodshed—and to more American casualties in the future. If we choose to lose in Iraq, our enemies will hit us harder in Afghanistan hoping to erode our political will and encourage calls in Western capitals for withdrawal and accommodation with our enemy there as well."

“These are the decisions confronting American voters in this election, and they will confront the person you elect President. In November, 2008 the American people will decide with their votes how and where this war will be fought or if it will be fought at all. I have told you how I intend to fight this war. Other candidates will argue for a different course. Democratic candidates for President will argue for the course of cutting our losses and withdrawing from the threat in the vain hope it will not follow us here. I cannot join them in such wishful and very dangerous thinking. Peace at any price is an illusion and its costs are always more tragic than the sacrifices victory requires. I will stand where I stand today and trust you to give me a fair hearing. There is too much at stake in this election for any candidate to do less…”

All This Really Means Is That The RNC Thinks HRC Will Win The Democratic Nomination

From an e-mail sent to the Republican National Committee's list last night:

Dear Marc,

Click Here for Video!Elephants never forget, so let's remind Hillary Clinton of her past positions on Iraq and cure her memory loss.

On October 11, 2002, she cast her vote supporting the President's resolution to go to war. She said her vote was cast with the "conviction" that the war authorization "best serves the security of our nation."

Hillary also said that she rejected setting a timetable to withdraw from Iraq. Her exact words:

"I reject a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit, and I reject an open timetable that has no ending attached to it." (Associated Press, 12/3/05)

You can watch the video of these statements by clicking here.

But in recent months and days, Hillary has voted against providing funds to support our troops and their safety. The legislation she voted against provided $1.6 billion for body armor, $2.4 billion to help combat IEDs, and $3 billion for mine resistant vehicles.

And now she is saying that "this is not our fight." She wants to withdraw.

The President and the Republican Party will not forget our commitment to protecting Americans at home and abroad. Neither should Hillary Clinton. Remind her of her past positions and her support of our troops by contacting her here:

Sen. Hillary Clinton
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3204
(202) 224-4451
E-mail form: http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm?subj=issue

Sincerely ,

Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan
Robert M. "Mike" Duncan
Chairman, Republican National Committee

A Creative Way To Fundraise

I'd like to get Mike DuHaime's autograph, but Rudy's will do. This is a fairly creative way to raise some money.

July 12, 2007 Dear Friend,

You know what it takes to win.
Baseball
It takes a strong team, with motivated individuals who step up and deliver.

You joined Rudy’s team early because you
know Rudy is a strong leader who is ready to
lead America.

Right now states are voting to move their Primaries earlier than ever before. Rudy needs your help now to grow the team and get more early decision-makers, just like you, to step up to the plate.

Will you join me in finding more Team Players?

Will you help Rudy build our team and then lead us to victory?

Please say “yes” right now. Click here and, together, we’ll go build Team Rudy.

In return for helping grow our team, I’ll say thank you. For those Team Players who help grow our team the most, I’ll send:

* a baseball personally autographed by Rudy, or
* a Rudy Giuliani original baseball card, or
* a Team Rudy pennant so you can show others you’re on the winning Team

Right now, you can make a difference. Please say “yes ” and help Rudy win today.

The NAACP's GOP Forum...

(per the Detroit News)

Two More McCain Advisers Leave

Ed. Failor, Jr. and Karen Slifka have left Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, Republican sources said today. Both were senior advisers.

Slifka was the midwest regional political director on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign and was close to McCain's former campaign manager, Terry Nelson. Failor, Jr. is the executive vice president of Iowans for Tax Relief. In '04, Failor headed the RNC's Victory '04 operation in Iowa. Both are native Iowans.

In an e-mail to reporters, Failor said that his "fondness for McCain" aside, he decided to resign because "the leadership team I trust and agreed to serve is no longer in place."

He continues:

Karen and I both orally agreed to continue with the campaign in our positions in a voluntary capacity for a few months beginning July 1. I agreed to do this because I believe in the leadership of Terry Nelson and the candidacy of Sen. McCain. These are the same reasons I agreed to serve the campaign in the beginning.

Romney's New Radio Ad Features Ann Romney

A new radio ad airing in Iowa and New Hampshire today features Ann Romney describing the qualities she loves about her husband Mitt. Theirs was an All-American romance; high school sweet hearts; five children, ten grandchildren.

This ad promotes the Romney brand: a great father, devoted to his children, a stable relationship with his wife of 38 years.

Hillary Clinton is not the only candidate who can use her spouse to validate her campaign platform. Romney's metaphor of choice for the principles of the Republican base is a three-legged stool, with each leg representing one broad category of policy -- strong military, strong economy, strong family. Romney's none-too-subtle message: the way I've lived my life exemplifies these principles. (There's no need to draw contrasts with the lives of the other candidates -- they're already drawn implicitly.)

Here's the script:

ANN ROMNEY: "The most common question I get is 'How did you guys meet?' It's always so fun to tell that story."

ANNOUNCER: "Ann Romney talks about her husband Mitt Romney."

ANN ROMNEY: "We met in high school at a party, and we've been going steady ever since.

"We've been married 38 years. We have five sons, lovely sons, and ten grandchildren.

"I was always looking for that girl. I had to wait until my first granddaughter. Finally, I get to buy pink!

"Mitt says his greatest success is being able to say 'I've been a good father, and a good husband.'

"Sometimes, I'd be home with those five boys, and it was rough. They were, they were pretty crazy boys. And they were wild.

"He'd call home and remind me that what I was doing was much more important than what he was doing.

"Mitt says there's no work more important than what goes on within the four walls of the American home. And that's the way it was in our home.

"I'm Ann Romney, and if you see us on the campaign trail, please come up and say hello. Or, you can get on the website at MittRomney.com."

GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: "I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."

ANNOUNCER: "Paid for by Romney for President. MittRomney.com."

To listen to "Ann On Family," please see: (LINK)

Rudy Campaign Hopes "Rudy: An Urban Legend" Idea Becomes Urban Legend

Like Chris Cillizza, I think that the aggressive attempt by Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign to prebut the IAFF's "documentary" video is a revealing example of the opportunities and dangers of modern politics.

The decision by the Giuliani campaign to get out in front of the story reflects the post-Swift Boats, post-Macaca world of campaign politics. In previous campaigns, responding to a web-based video would have been considered poor form; it would have almost insured the video would get more attention than it might have gotten on its own.

But, in the new viral world of politics, a link is a link. Giuliani's campaign knows that if the video catches on in the world of YouTube and Drudge it could get out of control very quickly. By seeking to discredit the messenger before the video even hits the Internet, the Giuliani campaign hopes it can deaden the impact before it has a chance to grow.

I agree, but one thing we'll never know is how far and wide the video would spread if the campaign hadn't decided to call so much attention to it. It seems to be that the campaign is more worried about the spread of the meme -- Rudy's 9/11 Sheen Is Undeserved-- rather than the video itself, which is rather transparently intemperate.

(The video peddles the claim that Giuliani was more concerned about a vat of gold stored in a vault near Ground Zero than he was about the firefighters' recovering their comrades' bodies. The reality is, ah, much more complex and much less sexy.)

The IAFF's video purports to be about Giuliani and the firefighters, but it really targets, in no particular order:

## -- Giuliani's judgment
## -- Giuliani's tempermanet
## -- Giuliani's personality
## -- Giuliani's reputation

It's safe to assume that many Republican primary voters aren't predisposed to look askance at the IAFF, so it's incumbent upon the Giuliani campaign to remind them that it is a labor union and is predisposed to attack Republicans.

Check out this acrimonious exchange between an IAFF spokesperson, and MSNBC's Tucker Carlson.

The Giuliani campaign's complete response follows the jump.

Continue reading "Rudy Campaign Hopes "Rudy: An Urban Legend" Idea Becomes Urban Legend" »

McCain Debt

McCain's Campaign To Report Debt On July 15

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is in debt, again. Campaign sources say that the balance sheet reported to the Federal Election Commission on July 15 will include debts of more than $1.5M, including $700,000 owed to an e-technology firm.

In the meantime, McCain plans an aggressive late-summer / early fall schedule of fundraisers to keep money flowing to the campaign. Sources said that about $1.5M per month will be allocated to all overhead costs -- staff salaries, field offices, equipment, travel -- and the rest will be saved for late-cycle television advertisements.

McCain advisers late yesterday dismissed speculation about the campaign's political plans, saying that McCain could continue to compete in Iowa, for now. The advisers did not deny reports that reducing his presence in Iowa was one option, although McCain's campaign chairman, Dave Roederer, told a reporter yesterday that he was "quite confident" McCain would mount an aggressive campaign in Iowa.

The advisers also said that McCain isn't ready to opt in to the federal primary matching fund system, just yet, preferring to wait for a few months to see if the campaign accumulates enough money. McCain's major donors were said to be outraged when former campaign manager Terry Nelson floated the matching fund possibiity during a conference call with reporters.

Finally, the campaign is bracing for the departues next week of more senior staff members.

A side note: McCain's Florida co-chair, State Sen. Bob Allen, was arrested this week on charges that he solicited an undercover police offcer for oral sex.

Rudy Blasts Back: FIrefighters Are "Partisan"

Ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign blasted back at the nation's largest firefighting union today, e-mailing reporters a quote from a firefighter who calls the IAFF's criticism of Giuliani "unfortunate" and "not surprising" for "union bosses."

Here's the statement from Lee Ielpi, who served on Manhattan's Ladder 2.

“It’s unfortunate but not surprising that the IAFF union bosses have once again taken the low road in a move clearly out of step with their membership. In 2008, I expect these same union bosses to endorse Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards, so today’s comments are just a first step in that process. Fortunately, rank and file firefighters know the difference between politics and leadership.”

The IAFF plans to release a web documentary video today at 5:00pm

The campaign also e-mailed reporters a research document showing the IAFF's ties to the Democratic Party. It's unusual for Rudy's campaign to respond to attacks in this vein; it means that the IAFF"s criticism is taken seriously (and personally).

The IAFF is a labor union, and it leans D. But it's also among the more independent unions in the country, regularly hosting briefings with top Republican leaders and endorsing GOP candidates. Several Republicans attended its presidential forum earlier this year One of the two unions that produced today's video endorsed Pres. Bush in 2004.

Kirk.... KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRK

About 4 percent of my retina and a corresponding percentage of my brain have been reading the debate in these columns about Alan Wolfe's evisceration of conservative theorist Russell Kirk. I confess that I am not smart enough to pick up on the nuances of the debate, so here is my (small) contribution in the form of some questions to which I do not know the answers: which conservative politicians today claim to be linear descendants from Kirk? What policy ideas can be traced to the tracks in his mind? Did he contribute meaningfully to resolving (or exacerbating) the uneasy truce between political conservatism and Christian moralism? Aside from the conservative intellectual elite, who counts Kirk as an intellectual influence? Would conservatism today be the same if Kirk had never lived? Is Kirk the conservative equivalent of Lionel Trilling? John Rawls? (How many liberals have even read John Rawls?) Actually, the Rawls question is unfair. Liberals might not know much about him, but his writing and thinking underpin the modern Democratic Party theory of redistributive rights and expansive government.

As an actual practitioner of politics, what should I know about Kirk?

Or should I go back to wondering why Rudy Giuliani's team of bodyguards always looks at me with growling eyes?

Andrew Sullivan For Gay Debate Moderator!!!

The Corner thinks it's a brilliant idea, and I'm on board too. It'll never happen, but then again, John Weaver's resigning from the McCain campaign -- I thought that would never happen, either.

Catching up: McCain in Iowa, Rudy and Florida, Thompson And Abortion

## O. Kay Henderson has the chairman of McCain's Iowa campaign not exactly confident that McCain will compete in Iowa this cycle.

## The dogged Jennifer Rubin has sunk her teeth into the Fred Thompson/abortion lobbying story and won't let go. Here's a portion of her latest dispatch:

n his interview with Hannity yesterday, Thompson at first distinguished between a lawyer and his client, contending he represented many types of clients in his 35 years of law practice. Then he made this statement: " I called Sununu. I said 'You remember this?' He said 'No.' And that was the end of that." Contacted last night Corallo denied, despite Thompson's on air comments, that Thompson had called Sununu to compare memory and/or question Sununu's recollection. Corallo did not respond when pressed as to what Thompson then meant by his remark to Hannity. Corallo did confirm that Thompson denied lobbying Sununu or for that matter anyone at the White House.

## Rudy Giuliani beefed up his Florida field staff today, adding seven salaried Republicans to his campaign there.

Fred Thompson On The Sununu Lobbying Call...

Link: sevenload.com

This is from yesterday's Freedom Fest with Sean Hannity. About 2 minutes in.... it's... equivocal.

BTW: Thompson also says "yes," he's made up his mind about whether to run. But he won't say what his his made up mind looks like.

Quietly, Edwards Works New Hampshire

BEDFORD -- This is a quaint, upper-middle class suburb of New Hampshire, and because it lies catty-corner to vote rich Manchester, presidential candidates generally don’t campaign there too much. So it was a little impressive that Elizabeth Edwards was able to pack about 200 Bedfordians into a very small single-family home yesterday. (That's about 40 more than Rudy Giuliani attracted to his town hall meeting in Concord yesterday).

John Edwards’s New Hampshire campaign manager, Beth Leonard, is adamant: for all the talk of Edwards putting all of his chips into winning Iowa, his campaign is investing heavily in New Hampshire, too. The campaign has ten field offices open now and Leonard oversees 40 full-time staffers. Those totals rival the Obama and Clinton campaign presences in state.

Leonard is a veteran of John Kerry’s Iowa state operation in 2004, and she is therefore very methodical. Edwards isn’t so much interested in endorsements, which is good because he’s getting very few, and he’s not interested in splashy day-long canvasses involving hundreds of volunteers. The campaign has identified hundreds of potential precinct campaigns and is targeting them. (One early source of recruits: the campaign of congressional insurgent Carol Shea Porter.)

If Edwards does well in Iowa, his New Hampshire operation needs to be strong in order to harness the momentum. Edwards couldn’t translate a strong, second place showing in Iowa to New Hampshire: the campaign had only seven paid organizers that year.

The Bedford house party was packed so tightly yesterday that Leonard and Edwards's staff couldn't get in. "To get a crowd this big especially after July 4th for a candidate's wife, that's pretty good," Leonard said. Leonard's challenge is to keep these folks engaged for another six months.

It's a a slog. Elizabeth Edwards attended two more house parties yesterday.

And next week, the campaign will host 14 across the state – none featuring the candidate or spouse.

Leno On McCain...

As transcribed by a current McCain staffer:

"Sen. John Edwards began what he's calling his poverty tour today. He's visiting people who have no money and no hope. His first stop: John McCain's campaign headquarters."

The Nelson Resignation E-Mail

A Bit Of History

Will McCain Skip Iowa Again? "Everything Is On The Table"

"Everything is on the table."

That's according to a senior McCain adviser who has spoken with Rick Davis and other remnants of McCain's top campaign staff. The adviser said that the campaign's new early-state strategy was up for reconsideration, with some McCain allies pressing McCain to once again skip Iowa, putting all of his resources into New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The thinking is that McCain has a much better chance to win South Carolina this cycle in a crowded field with a Mormon candidate among Southern Baptists (Romney), a cultural liberal (Giuliani), and Fred Thompson, who has yet to build an organization in the state. McCain has earned most of the state's top endorsements and has a strong field operation there. There is no George Bush standing in his way.

So long as McCain won both New Hampshire and South Carolina, and provided that no one expected him to do well in Iowa, he could repeat, break through the firewall that kept him from winning last time.

The push back is fairly obvious: McCain did well in South Carolina in '00 and nearly beat Bush there because he did so well in New Hampshire and defied expectations. And McCain quickly ran out of money.... and has very little to spare now.

McCain's Exodus Continues; 10 Senior Staff Members Gone Or Going

MANCHESTER, NH -- On the eve of yesterday's campaign shake-up, McCain aides and volunteers retired to the Strange Brew taverns to try and forget, just for a moment, the day when their world collapsed. One McCain aide said he was "physically there" but "mentally gone." Another did not know whether he was still on staff, although he said he still received press clippings -- "Robert Terra e-mails" after the staffer who sends them around -- so he assumed that he was still on board.

At least ten senior staff members are gone or going. Besides ex-mgr Terry Nelson, ex-strategist John Weaver, they include McCain's political director, his finance director, Mary Kate Johnson, Nelson's deputy and Weaver's deputy.

McCain also lost his Nevada state director, and campaign advisers said they expected Jon Seaton, McCain's Iowa director and national field director, to quit in the next week.

Late yesterday, McCain and aide Mark Salter telephoned several other top aides to urge them to stay put.

The Gay Debate; Thompson's Troubles; Edwards, Clinton and Obama

Matt Drudge just loves this headline he wrote: "FIRST PRESIDENTIAL 'GAY DEBATE' ANNOUNCED."

But the August 9 debate is indeed an accomplishment for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights lobby. It suggests that the Democratic presidential candidates either no longer believe gay rights is a real wedge issue, or that they don't care anymore -- gays deserve rights. The debate will be one hour long and will air on LOGO.

One Republican points out that Dems won;'t agree to a Congressional Black Caucus debate (on Fox News)... trying to stir up some civil rights v. gay rights pressure. Hard to imagine that happening -- just this week, the NAACP and other civil rights groups held a press conference in favor of expanding hate crimes protections to include gays.

By the way: which Democratic presidential candidate used a variant of the "F" word in public?

2. Richard Viguerie doesn't trust Fred Thompson.

3. O. Kay Henderson has the wrap-up from Iowa, where Sen. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama jetted in, made speeches, shook hands, and flew back to Washington for votes. John Edwards held a conference call with Iowa reporters. Seems as if both Clinton and Obama managed to build pretty big crowds very quickly.

Updating McCain's Campaign Crisis

** It's not clear how many staffers brought to the campaign by departed manager Terry Nelson will remain. Three work in the press office -- Brian Jones, Danny Diaz and Matt David. Nelson's hand-picked deputy campaign manager resigned today, along with Rob Jesmer, McCain's political director.

** McCain and interim manager Rick Davis held a conference call with the campaign's national finance team this afternoon. Davis just released a short statement saying that "the campaign has always been about John McCain and his vision for reducing federal spending, defending traditional values, and winning the war against Islamic extemists. Today we are moving forward with John's optimistic vision for our country's future." In other words -- McCain isn't dropping out.

The McCain Decimation: The Inside Story: UPDATED

From a half dozen Republicans close to the campaign here is, best I can tell, what happened:

Republicans close to Sen. John McCain said today that McCain was under "enormous pressure" by friends and advisers outside the campaign to fire campaign manager Terry Nelson because these advisers felt that Nelson was incapable of containing campaign spending and refused to run a more efficient campaign.

These Republicans also said that Nelson first considered resigning ten days ago when the campaign reported a disappointing second quarter campaign tally and was left with only $2M on hand. At the time, McCain told an intermediary that he would not accept Nelson's resignation and wanted him to stay. Other Republicans advised Nelson to tough it out. Nelson spent the next few days cutting the campaign payroll, laying off many hands that he had hired.

In the intervening period, McCain suggested that Rick Davis, who was McCain's manager in 2000, officially move to a position of co-equal power with Nelson. That crossed a "line in the sand" for chief strategist John Weaver, who has sparred with Davis over campaign strategy and tactics.

Some Republicans close to the campaign say that Davis pushed McCain to fire Nelson.
McCain's refusal to give Nelson absolute authority over the campaign "cost McCain both Weaver and Salter," one source close to the campaign said.

Salter will remain an adviser and help with speechwriting, but he is no longer part of the campaign and won't be paid for his work. At present, he will not return to McCain's Senate office, where he served as chief of staff. In a brief interview, Salter declined to comment on Nelson except to say that "he was not fired." He also said that a new strategist would be hired shortly. Another campaign aide said that Salter remains in McCain's good graces and will occasionally join the candidate on the road.

Sources said that Nelson's position as campaign manager was precariously positioned from the start because McCain did not envision or endorse a campaign structure that would have given Nelson absolute authority over messaging, finance and strategy.

Republicans directly familiar with the negotiations to bring Nelson aboard said that McCain promised Nelson that no one but him would have the ultimate say in making and executing campaign decisions. But McCain did not follow through on those promises, these Republicans said. That McCain had collected too many cooks for the kitchen long worried McCain's allies. Nelson, Weaver, counselor Salter and former manager Davis are all forceful personalities.

Long-time advisers to McCain were free to counsel the candidate and frequently told the press about strategy disagreements. In the first quarter, the campaign spent money, at times, with McCain's approval and not Nelson's.

After the end of the first quarter, Nelson wrestled responsibility for fundraising away from long-time McCain aide Carla Eudy, but he was unable to contain spending. And Nelson was furious, campaign sources said, when several McCain advisers were quoted as saying that McCain would need to raise $20M in the second quarter in order to stay viable.

Republicans outside the campaign said that Nelson's campaign strategy was based on an assumption that the campaign would raise $100M and would dominate the Republican field. He began to build field organizations in early states that matched the expensive operations opened by candidates with more money, like ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney. McCain has raised a fourth of that tally so far and has spent more than $23M.

Nelson decided last night to resign, a campaign official said.

"Terry and John are smart, effective, loyal and hard-working. Obviously, everyone is disappointed with the situation," said Ken Mehlman, the former party chairman. "But at the same time, anyone who worked with those guys understands how effective and hard-working they are."

Davis, who had been serving as the campaign's chief executive officer, will become the interim campaign manager.

Weaver was responsible for guiding McCain through the perilous precincts of Republican party politics. He grew personally close to McCain through the 2000 presidential campaign and in the wilderness years of the early Bush presidency, advised McCain to ask Nelson to be the manager on his 2008 race.

Nelson has served as political director for the Bush-Cheney re-election and nurtured a generation of Republican talent. Many remain on the campaign, including communications director Brian Jones and his deputy, Danny Diaz.

More On McCain Campaign Decimation: UPDATE

One Republican directly connected to today's events said that Mark Salter, McCain's long-time chief of staff and co-author of his five books, had also left the campaign payroll.

But Salter will remain as an adviser.

"Outside of my family, on this planet, there is no one more important to me than John McCain," he said in a brief interview. "I will continue to help in any way I can."

McCain's Top Two Advisers Abruptly Resign

Sen. John McCain's chief campaign aides suddenly resigned this morning, leaving no explanation for their departure. John Weaver, McCain's longtime strategist, and Terry Nelson, his campaign manager, released short statements announcing they were leaving the campaign effective immediately.

The news shocked McCain's allies and was especially surprising in light of last week's campaign redesign, which was orchestrated by Weaver and Nelson.

Nelson's statement reads:

"This morning I informed Senator McCain that I would be resigning from his presidential campaign, effective immediately. It has been a tremendous honor to serve Senator McCain and work on his campaign. I believe John McCain is the most experienced and prepared candidate to represent the Republican Party and defeat the Democratic nominee next year."

Here is Weaver's statement:

"As of today, I have resigned my position as chief strategist to John McCain's presidential campaign. It has been my honor and a distinct privilege to serve someone who has always put our country first. I believe that most Americans will come to the conclusion that I have long known there is only one person equipped to serve as our nation's chief executive and deal with the challenges we face, and that person is John McCain."

En Route To MHT

Heading to Manchester, NH today aboard one of those oft-delayed U.S. Airways Express flights out of DCA.

Ostensibly, I was headed to the New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord to hear Giuliani unveil Principle 2 of 12. But -- heed the "SUBJECT TO CHANGE" warning on the schedule. He's now delivering that principle in Michigan Thursday.

Still, he has five open press events tomorrow including two hall meetings where he'll take questions. Giuliani likes to talk about the economy and his NYC record in New Hampshire. But he is often asked about Iraq, and you can bet that the local press is more hungry for his comments on the latter subject than the former subjects.

On Friday, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton bring their tour to three NH cities and John McCain plans a speech on Iraq and terror.

Iowa was the center of the political universe last week; New Hampshire gets that distinction this week.

A Clinton Strategy Memo: Annotated

To: Interested Parties

From: Mark Penn, Chief Strategist

Date: July 9, 2007

Re: After 6 Months

With two quarters of 2007 behind us and just 6 months to go until the Iowa caucuses it is a good time to see where Hillary stands and why.

Fair premise, but consider that such a memo would not have needed to be sent if the campaign believed that the right premises -- i.e., those laid out in this memo -- were the cornerstones of conventional wisdom.

The bottom line? Hillary’s electoral strength has grown in the last quarter and she is better positioned today than ever before to become the next President of the United Sates. Recent polls have her at or near 40% with leads of 15-20 points over her nearest competitors. Voters yearn for change and they say that Hillary has the strength and experience to actually bring about that change. Hillary’s message: that her strength and experience will bring real change that America needs, is resonating strongly with voters.

The chicken-and-egg question: does Feb. 5 mean that national polls matter more? Do they oversample independents (and thus distort Barack Obama's strength among independents one way or the other)? Is she winning among those who are paying attention? Is her national base larger than her state-based base?

Despite unprecedented early publicity for all the candidates, Hillary’s support in the last few months has strengthened nationally, in key states and in the general election. This improvement has occurred as voters have learned more about all of the candidates. In other words, as all the candidates’ name ID’s have increased, so has Hillary’s lead.

The Clinton campaign likes to argue that Sen. Barack Obama is as well known as a Democratic nominee, and therefore that his personality alone isn't sufficient to move the polls in states. The Obama campaign responds that while many Democrats know Obama by name and by broad reputation, they know very little about his life story, personal qualities, and message. The more those qualities are filled in, argue the Obama advisers, the better Obama will do.

Also: "key states" here means New Hampshire, and some incremental progress in Iowa. In some public polls, Clinton lags behind Obama in South Carolina. She is leading in Nevada and in Florida, although Obama and Edwards might try to skip that state.

So far the debates have been the key moments where the voters get to see all the candidates side by side and they have shown just how ready Hillary is to be president and how she has the strength and experience to make change happen. She won the debates overwhelmingly and they are a key indicator of how this race will play out in the next 6 months and in the general election. There will be another debate every month from now until the end of the year, and each debate provides Hillary with another opportunity to demonstrate her experience, talk about her record on the issues, and show voters why she is the person best qualified to be president.

In the latest Newsweek poll, which fielded after the 2nd quarter fundraising numbers were released, Hillary's lead in the Democratic primary nearly doubled from 12 points in May to 23 points now. Hillary's favorability has risen to 57% among all Americans, and they say overwhelmingly she has the experience to be a good president (70%). Nearly two-thirds say there is a good chance or some chance they will vote for her (62%). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19623564/site/newsweek/

In the general election, Hillary leads top Republican Rudy Giuliani by seven points (51 percent to 44 percent) in the last Newsweek poll, up from just three points a month ago. The next closest Democrat leads Giuliani by only five points (49 percent to 44 percent), down from seven points in May. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19373524/site/newsweek/ In fact, Hillary leads Giuliani in all the latest national polls – CNN, Fox, Gallup, Newsweek, NBC/Wall Street Journal, Quinnipiac and Cook/RT Strategies. And Hillary is tied or ahead of Giuliani in key battleground states which Democrats lost in both 2000 and 2004, including Florida, Ohio http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/sw/sw06272007.doc and West Virginia. http://www.wvmetronews.com/index_forsub.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=19789

Obama also leads these guys, and in some polls, Edwards does too. But as Penn will admit, general election polls mean very little right now.

Democratic Primary

As observers like Charlie Cook have pointed out, Hillary has the coalition of support (women, strong Democrats, lower, middle-income and working families, Hispanics and African-Americans) that has traditionally won Democratic primaries. http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0707/070307op.htm The profile of voters supporting other contenders, according to Cook, resembles the "support profiles of Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Tsongas in 1992 and Bill Bradley in 2000. The numbers are splashy and significant but not sufficiently broad-based to capture a nomination."

Hillary's support is highest among key voter groups who make up the core of the Democratic coalition: women, Hispanics, African-Americans, strong Democrats and lower, middle-income and working families. Her lead in the Democratic primary widens to 29 points among non-whites. The latest Gallup http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28000 and CBS polls http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/062907_campaign.pdf confirm the extraordinary enthusiasm for Hillary among women http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27676&pg=1 , Hispanics http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-27-hispanics-dems-cover_N.htm and African-Americans http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28006 . And according to another recent Gallup poll, Hillary has a 22 point lead over her closest competitor among those who earn less than 50 thousand dollars per year.

Every major poll shows Hillary’s lead increasing in the Democratic primary. In the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, Hillary has a 14.3 percentage point lead, a widening of 5.5 percentage points in the last 3 weeks. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/charts/?poll_id=191

In recent election cycles, any time a candidate has had as much as 35 or 40 percent of the vote consistently across polls in a multi-candidate field, that candidate has gone on to win the nomination. In the last race, Joseph Lieberman was in the teens at this point while Walter Mondale’s numbers in the 1984 Democratic primary were comparable to Hillary’s now.

Recent national polls show just how strong Hillary has become with voters nationally. (Top 3 candidates only shown below)

CBS News June 26-28: HRC 48 / Obama 24 / Edwards 11
May 18-23: HRC 46 / Obama 24 / Edwards 14
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/29/opinion/polls/main2999400.shtml

Cook/RT Strategies June 21-23: HRC 35 / Obama 24 / Edwards 15
June 15-17: HRC 32 / Obama 22 / Edwards 16
http://www.cookpolitical.com/races/report_pdfs/2007%20poll_tpline_june25.pdf

CNN June 22-24: HRC 43 / Obama 25 / Edwards 17
May 4-6: HRC 41 / Obama 27 / Edwards 14
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/06/25/poll-bloomberg-could-have-perot-like-effect/

Fox June 26-27: HRC 47 / Obama 21 / Edwards 13
June 5-6: HRC 41/ Obama 26 / Edwards 15
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/062807_release_web.pdf

Gallup June 4-24: HRC 41 / Obama 24 / Edwards 14
June 1-3: HRC HRC 37 / Obama 35 / Edwards 13

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28024

NBC/WSJ June 8-11: HRC 39 / Obama 25 / Edwards 15
April 20-23: HRC 36 / Obama 31 / Edwards 20
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/070613_NBC-WSJ_Release.pdf

Newsweek June 20-21: HRC 43 / Obama 14 / Edwards 14
(No tracking)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19373524/site/newsweek/

Why has Hillary’s lead grown as voters are exposed to all candidates?

Debates -- Each time the voters have had the opportunity to compare the candidates head-to-head in a debate, Hillary has come out the overwhelming winner.

Clinton's advisers say that more folks watched the debates or read news coverage about it than is generally believed.

In the June 28 Democratic debate in Washington DC, 27 out of 33 participants in a Luntz Maslansky dial group (81%) said Hillary won, compared with just 2 (6%) for her closest competitor.

And Hillary was also the overwhelming winner in the New Hampshire debate.

Who won the debate?
NH D Primary Voters (Franklin Pierce June 4)
Among all D Primary Voters: HRC 45 / Obama 8 / Edwards 4 / Richardson 3 / Biden 3
Among D Primary Voters Who Watched Debate: HRC 47 / Obama 11 / Edwards 6 / Richardson 4 / Biden 3
http://www.fpc.edu/pages/institutes/poll/poll_07_0604.pdf

Read the rest of Penn's long memo after the jump.

Continue reading "A Clinton Strategy Memo: Annotated" »

The 2008 Race Rankings: The Democrats

Each week, NBC News political director Chuck "Chuck" Todd and I present our rankings on the likely order of finish for the presidential candidates.

For our first Democratic ranking of the second quarter, we're dividing the candidates this week into four separate tiers -- front-runners, second-tierers, solid long shots and the rest of the field.

These rankings are ordered by likelihood of winning the Democratic Party primary and are based on a number of factors, including organization, money, buzz and polling. Click here for Republican rankings.

1. Hillary Clinton -- Last Ranking: 1 -- We shy away from reading too much into any single metric, but there has to be some reason why Barack Obama is raising more money than the Clinton machine. There is a hunger in the Democratic base for a Clinton alternative, a hunger that Clinton herself cannot ignore without repercussions. It was hard to tell whether the large Iowa crowds that cheered the Clintons last week were there because they got to see Bill. One political upside: If you listened carefully, you could tell that Bill Clinton was making the argument, wherever he went, that Obama wasn't qualified to be president. Allowing Bill Clinton to make that argument instead of Hillary puts Obama in a bit of a bind; challenging the former president is a perilous proposition for any candidate, much less Obama. But is trotting out Bill the only way Hillary can make that argument?

2. Barack Obama -- Last Ranking: 2 -- The discipline demonstrated by Obama's inner circle regarding their second-quarter fundraising tallies paid off -- they said little and waited, and then received a well-earned booster shot of press coverage. Its afterglow will last for at least several weeks. Last week, Obama stumped in Iowa in front of (relatively) smaller audiences and didn't receive the celebrity greetings that he's used to. But he's grown more comfortable with the rigors of the campaign trail. On Tuesday he gave his best performance of the day in the evening after two long outdoor campaign events and about a dozen press interviews. His stamina held up nicely. One smart observer told us to check out how the crowd reacts to Obama when he begins shaking hands; there's a look in their eyes that no other candidate gets. Michelle Obama is also proving to be a natural on the campaign trail and a ferocious advocate for her husband. Over the next two months, watch to see whether Obama starts to make an explicit argument against Hillary Clinton.

3. No One -- Last Ranking: -- This is blank to denote a separation of tiers.

4. John Edwards -- Former North Carolina senator Last Ranking: 3 -- Yes, Joe Trippi seems to be consolidating power in the Edwards campaign. But there were more mundane reasons for some of the staff additions. For one thing, the campaign didn't exactly function like a modern campaign needs to function. It had a bevy of talented press folks and advisers but lacked a full-time communications director. David Bonior, as Edwards has admitted, is not a traditional campaign manager and never really took to the actual managing thing very much. Bringing in a day-to-day show-runner makes sense. So does the addition of a chief financial officer to keep tabs on spending. For now, Edwards is clearly at the top of the second tier and seems to have enough money to persevere. Plenty of Iowans still prefer him to Obama and Clinton. But he has a HUGE image problem thanks to the never-ending haircut story. It's silly on one hand, but still very revealing. Has any candidate ever won a nomination AFTER losing control of his image?

Continue reading our 2008 race rankings on National Journal.com

Vitter's Apology And 2008

Yes, there is a connection.

Freshman Sen. David Vitter apologized last night after documents released by the D.C. Madam, Deborah Jane Palfrey, revealed that he had patronized her high-end, fantasy escort service at least once before he was elected to the Senate.

Recall that Vitter was among the first Republicans to endorse the presidential candidacy of Rudy Giuliani and has come to serve as one of Giuliani's chief liaisons to social conservatives. He is also Giuliani's chief whip in the Senate and serves as the Southern regional chairman of his campaign. This revelation won't break up that relationship, but it does cast doubt on Mr. Vitter's ability to be a messenger between Giuliani and his critics.

Stoneyfield Farms Yogurt Guru Endorses Obama

Everyone stops at Stonyfield Farm Yogurt of Londonderry, NH. Run by Gary and Meg Hirshberg, it's the largest organic yogurt concern in the U.S. The Hirsbergs are also major Democratic donors, and theyv'e just endorsed Sen. Barack Obama:

“America is badly divided and in desperate need of new solutions, new ideas, and a new way of conducting politics,” Gary Hirshberg said. “Barack Obama is the candidate who can best help Americans focus on our common strengths and dreams, rather than our differences. We must move forward into the 21st Century and not back to old divisions and Barack will catalyze the change we need—in our disastrous policies, but also in the way the world sees us, and how we see ourselves. Meg and I are thrilled to get to work for Barack here in NH and across the US.”

McCain To Speak On Iraq And Terrorism In New Hampshire

Just back from Iraq, Sen. John McCain is planning a scene-setting speech on terrorism and the war.

A McCain aide said that McCain will speak in Concord, NH at 1:00 pm ET Friday. The event is sponsored by the Concord Chamber of Commerce.

He'll be counterprogramming against Sen. Hillary Clinton, who visits three New Hampshire cities with Bill Clinton that same day.

Young Republicans Defend Their Straw Poll

Young Republican convention organizer Brian Graham defended the straw poll against the accuastions it was rigged for Mitt Romney.

Graham, a Romney supporter, sent key Young Republican officials this e-mail, which this column has obtained.

Some folks have gone on to some blogs to try to make our convention look bad. They are complaining about non-YRs voting in the Straw Poll. You will see the issues addressed below. I ask that none of you speak with the Media, instead send them to Jon Woodard to handle.

1. All attendees who purchased meal tickets were allowed to vote in the Straw Poll. 2. The dinner event alone included YR delegates to the convention, YR alternates to the convention, YR guests of the convention, numerous Florida and Broward County YRs, members of the YR Alumni Network, members of the local senior Republican Party, and whomever purchased meal tickets online via the YRNC 2007 website. 3. At the highest point in the convention, there were a total of 600 attendees. 4. There were a total of 366 votes cast in the Straw Poll. 5. The Broward County Supervisor of Elections conducted the Straw Poll. 6. YRNC 2007 never claimed the Straw Poll was open only for delegates/alternates to the convention. It was always made clear that anyone who was registered or purchased meal tickets could vote in the straw poll. 7. All presidential campaigns were aware of the Straw Poll policy prior to the convention and none had voiced opposition to the policy. 8. The convention committee has members who support various Presidential campaigns. 9. The convention was sponsored by several Presidential candidates including Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, and Rudy Giuliani.

And finally:

10. Straw Polls are intended to be fun, not to be scientific.

Will McCain Pull A Dole? Not Likely...

U.S. News's Washington Whispers writes that some advisers to Sen. John McCain are urging to him to leave the Senate, as Bob Dole in 1996, to devote all of time to the presidency.

Before he falls out of the top tier of GOP White House hopefuls, chief advisers to Sen. John McCain are urging him to quit his day job and become a full-time presidential candidate. "Just resign," one says he told McCain. "Show you're all in." Advisers .

A McCain aide responds that the story is ridiculous. "Complete bullshit," is the quote. No chief adviser is advising McCain to drop his Senate seat, the aide said.

So Mitt Romney Packed A Straw Poll....

Jennifer Rubin makes the point: although Mitt Romney's team may have gamed the straw poll and taken advantage of the voting rules...is not a deficiency on their part.

This organizational finesse of course is how straw polls are won and should serve as a warning to the Thompson team as they head from testing to running. Romney’s organization is running on all cylinders and has learned the basics of running an event, corralling its supporters and tabulating a win. Enthusiasm without organization does not win elections.

For some reasons, straw polls are supposed to reflect the "natural" preferences of the voting pool, and judging by the applause alone, Thompson might have been the favorite of those who paid to attend the convention. But Romney was able to get his voters to the poll. In the end, the latter matters. Thompson has yet to build the harness for the enthusiasm he generates.

Voter pools rarely exist in a vacuum of information. Romney's team has shown that it is very good at generating the level of atmospheric pressure necessary to win straw polls.

Kirstin Gore On The Clinton White House?

Over the weekend, I finished Kristin Gore's new book, Sammy's House.

It's fiction, it's not a roman a clef, but hey, when one of Al Gore's daughters writes a book about a president with an embarassing secret, a herotic, loyal-but-realistic vice president, a dramatic scene where the president denies the charges against him, with the vice president standing stoically behind him, a White House in crisis, talk of impeachment proceedings -- it ain't beanbag.

At one point, vice president Robert Gray (RG for short) asks the protagonist, Sammy, "what would you do if you were me?" "Your partner, your boss, lies to world. And there's no going back. The damage is done. He doesn't give a crap about your reputation, your sacrifices, about your plans for the future. He only cares about himself. And he's willing to jeopardize everything we've worked for ... for... what?"

At the end, after the president resigns -- yes, this embarassing president had the guts to resign, Gore writes: "The traits for which RG had been previously criticized were now coveted. He was steady and honest and thouhgtful. He wasn't a showman, he didn't do tricks."

The President's wife Fiona "had a reputation for being fiercely loyal to her husband and aggressively protective of his interests." Among her inner circle, her "paranoia was legendary, though her staff did everything they could to prevent ousiders from getting wind of it."

There's also a continuing subplot involving New York Times reporter "Chick Wallrey," who "described everything the administration did in the darkest and most cynical terms." She is "short and rotund, with dyed black hair and raccoon eyes courtesy of heavy eyeliner." The press office posits that Wallrey is "deeply unhappy in her personal life" and "bitter towards everyone." I think I have an idea who this is supposed to describe, but I don't want to libel anyone.

There's a Drudge Report-like Internet rag sheet -- LyingWye.

The Daily Brownbacker

That's the name of Sen. Sam Brownback's new blog.

Hillary Leads in... West Virginia?

According to a poll conducted by a Republican firm, Hillary Clinton defeats Sen. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani in head-to-head match-ups, there.

Romney Tries To Pack A Straw Poll But Thompson's Stock Is Rising

The Young Republican National Federation's annual convention ends tonight in Ft. Lauderdale with the announcement of its straw poll results -- a poll that, in all likelihood, Mitt Romney will win, and then use to tout as an example of how Young Republicans are enthusiastic about his campaign.

But Romney had a few legs up. For one thing, the Young Republican's executive director, Jon Woodward, is the St. John's County chair for Romney. The convention's chief organizer is Brian Graham, who is also a Romney backer. Romney's campaign helped to sponsor tonight's dinner. And the YRNF convention corporation, according to Erick Erickson at RedState, decided for some reason to allow non YRers to vote in the straw poll. That allows organized and well-monied campaigns to bring in supporters, so they should choose.

The perception among YRs I've been corresponding with tonight is that Romney is trying to pack the straw poll. Maybe it's not true. But that's what these YRers believe.

One real, dues-paying Young Republican e-mailed to note that his identification was not checked when he cast his ballot. Another noticed that reams of Romney supporters, many of them not terribly young, had "flooded" the convention on Saturday. One delegate -- Neil Miller of Virginia -- wrote a resolution urging the bifurcaton of straw poll results into credentialed convention attendees and visitors, but for some reason he decided not to present it to the convention, and it died without being born. It would not have been binding; the convention operates as a separate legal entity from the YRNF.

All that effort, and the reports I'm getting suggest that Fred Thompson's Friday night appearance was the piece de resistance of the conference. He was introduced by Mary Matalin, who, in what attendees assumed was a swipe at Romney, called Thompson the race's true "principled" conservative. After his speech, Thompson spent a half hour shaking hands with the crowd. His stock is rising; perhaps it's a short term rise -- most Republicans are day traders, at this point. But you can't "rig" enthusiasm.

Two independent witnesses, one of whom was a Romney backer before tonight, e-mailed me to say that Thompson heard more applause than Romney.

Fred Thompson And Abortion Rights

1. The NYT and the LAT have the same story on the same day..... which means that, yes, one of Thompson's opponents peddled the story.

2. Before passing judgment, Riehl World View wants to see Sununu's lobbying records.

3. A correspondent in Miami e-mails to say that Thompson got a raucous reception last night at the Young Republicans conference there, and seemed to hint that he was on the verge of announcing.

"Breathtaking Arrogance"

It's what Bill Richardson says about the sentence commutation of Scooter Libby, not a reference to Richardson himself.

But you sure wouldn't know that by looking at his website. Might want to fix that, guys...

Fred Thompson, Abortion Rights Lobbyist?

Did Fred Thompson lobby for an abortion rights group in 1991?

His spokesman says no. And John Sununu doesn't think so.

Evidence, and fairly specific recollections of five on-the-record witnesses say yes.

Leave Fred Thompson aside for just a moment.

Since I'm occasionally an optimist about politicians and I like to give alleged panderers the benefit of the doubt, why do most Republican candidates (at all levels) who appear to have changed their minds about abortion remain deathly afraid to just say so? Why do they have to insist that they've NEVER changed their minds? That they've always believed EXACTLY as James Dobson does? I wonder how authenticity polls these days...

Mitt Romney is an exception. You might not believe his conversion, but at least he presents a credible case for a change-of-heart.

And John McCain has been pro-life for a long, long time. I've heard all the explanantions, and I still can't understand why some (not all) pro-life groups so distrust John McCain, despite the fact that, you know, he's really the only guy in the top tier who has hasn't given them reason to doubt that he is personally and irresolutely pro-life? (The sanctity of getting corporate donations must outweigh the sanctity of life. For some -- not all -- of these groups).

Back to Thompson.

Which is more credible? Fred Thompson denying that he ever departed from the pro-life orthodoxy? Or literally a half dozen questionnaires, news accounts, and numerous eye-witnesses who insist he did?

The Atlantic's Boldest**

** Wherein New York's Boldest is the moniker for the Dept. of Corrections, this is my weekly corrections column.

1. Wednesday, I spelled Oskaloosa, Iowa incorrectly.

2. Thursday, I confused "tale" with "tail." Have fun with that, will you?