Is in its turnout assumptions: only 50% of the sample are Democrats... 40% are independents and 5% are Republicans.
This could mean two things:
1. Independents love Obama and say they're going to caucus for him but won't
2. Independents love Obama and will go to the caucus, register as Democrats, and caucus for Obama
In any event, the poll suggests that independents are asserting themselves in a way that's confounding the pollsters and the establishment.
Note: Obama's internal polling does not show this high a proportion of independents choosing to caucus.
The Edwards Campaign Responds To The Register's Poll
Here's the Edwards campaigns' internal take on Register poll, which shows them in third.
Is the poll accurate? There are good reasons to think it is NOT.
-The poll was conducted during the holiday AND over the weekend. There is plenty of evidence that either of these would make it more difficult to obtain a representative sample. The combination makes the problem of obtaining a valid sample GEOMETICALLY [sic] worse.
-The poll is at odds with history. The poll says that 60% of Democratic caucus participants will be first timers. Usually, the number of first-time caucus goers is no more than 20%.
-The poll also says that 45% of those at Democratic caucuses will be Independents or Republicans.
The poll is at odds with other polls. Other polls show a close race with other candidates leading.
-Yepsen himself highlights the fluidity of the results rather than the horserace.
What does the poll really say
-The poll says the race is close. With a margin of error of +/-5, any of the top 3 Democrats could be in any of the top 3 positions.
-The poll says the race is yet to be decided. 34% say they could change their minds, and 6% do not express a preference. This means 40% are yet to decide.
-As Yepsen points out, 21% of those in the 2004 entrance poll [said they had made their decisions in the last 3 days -- something this poll cannot capture.
Independents Fuel Obama's Lead / Huck Leads, McCain's In Third Among GOPers
The poll reflects continued fluidity in the race even as the end of the yearlong campaign nears. Roughly a third of likely caucusgoers say they could be persuaded to choose someone else before Thursday evening. Six percent were undecided or uncommitted.
Thirty percent of the poll's respondents said a candidate's ability to bring about change is the most important, followed by 27 percent who said their priority is choosing a candidate who will be the most successful in unifying the country.
Asked which candidate would do the best on these themes, caucusgoers most commonly name Obama. The first-term U.S. senator has argued in the closing weeks of the campaign that his newness to Washington, D.C., would help him bridge a politically divided nation and improve its standing overseas.
Having the experience and competence to lead, which has been the crux of Clinton's closing argument, was seen as the most important to 18 percent of caucusgoers, with Clinton as the candidate most commonly rated best on this trait.
Clinton has made an aggressive effort to court female, first-time caucusgoers, especially younger women and those who are retired. Women account for 58 percent of caucusgoers, according to the survey.
Clinton has rebounded among female caucusgoers in general, pulling even with Obama at 32 percent after losing her edge among this key group to him in the previous Register poll.
Clinton receives more support from women 55 years old and older than her rivals, and she and Obama draw evenly from the pool of female caucusgoers between 35 and 54 years old.
However, she trails Obama badly among women under 35, with just 15 percent to his 57 percent.
The support from non-Democrats is significant because a whopping 40 percent of those planning to attend described themselves as independent and another 5 percent as Republican. Only registered Democrats can participate in the caucuses, although rules allow participants to change their party registration on their way in to the caucuses.
Clinton Raises $100M + In 2007
A Clinton aide said tonight that the campaign has raised more than $100M in 2007.
The aide did not provide a breakdown of how much was raised into an account earmarked for the general election, and would not say how much money Clinton has to spend now.
A $100M tally for the year suggests that Clinton raised more than $20M in the fourth quarter.
Edwards Behind The Scenes
A tipster writes:
John and Elizabeth just did a campaign-wide conference with staff in Iowa, NH, SC, Nevada, and Chapel Hill. Got an update from the Iowa team, and an update from the road. They both thanked the staff for their devotion to the cause. Urged staff and volunteers to remember the people they’ve met along the way (James Lowe for example), how they’re the ones we’re really fighting for… talked about energy they see on the ground, that’s what keeps them going as the move into 36-hour tour.
The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll
.... is out at 9pm CT, 10pm ET.
The Daily Five: Negative Wind Chill Edition
1. ABC News and Fox News may leave candidates Biden, Dodd, Kucnich, Hunter and Paul out of their debates next week.
2. Anti-war activists are arrested outside Huckabee's headquarters......Bay Buchanan endorses Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.....Romney responds to Huckabee's non-negative ad/negative ad by pointing out the weird press conference and offering reporters a slice of pizza......
3. Dave Contarino, the campaign manager for Bill Richardson, sent this message to senior staff today:
* Momentum! Every crowd down the stretch has been overflow and standing room only. In the last 24 hours, over 350 in Ames, 500 in Des Moines with voters lined up outside waiting for a chance to come inside to meet the Governor or have their pictures taken with him as he departs. In some cases, we are getting triple (Onawa and Carroll) the size being expected by local organizers. The Governor's Des Moines speech was interrupted by raucous applause at least a dozen times, and I don't know if I've seen a more excited crowd. When he finished his speech, the Governor walked into the crowd and was immediately swarmed by supporters. It took him more than twenty minutes to leave the event because there were so many people who wanted to talk to the Governor.
* We have over 2,000 organizers, staffers and volunteers across the state.
* On caucus night we'll have over 1,500 precinct captains with over 90% of the state's delegates covered.
* We have made well over half a million phone calls and knocked on more than 200,000 doors.
* We have already confirmed over 18,000 caucus supporters through pledge cards, phone confirmations and home door signups. We expect to reach 22,000 by caucus night. That number alone without any additional unidentified support will get us nearly 20% on caucus night based on previous turnout numbers.
* And we're the confirmed second choice of at least 25% of the caucus goers.
* Our nightly calling is showing a surge. In some precincts, we see 25% of the undecideds breaking our way. We have been moving significant numbers of leaners from the Biden, Obama, Edwards and Clinton columns into our own. Our internal data shows that the Iraq message has been particularly successful in bringing voters to our side. So push it on caucus night! 2013 is far too long to wait for our troops to come home!
4. Joe Biden's communications director, Larry Rasky, sends along some thoughts about electability:
In the closing days of this race for the Democratic nomination for President, voters and reporters alike have heard former Sen. John Edwards make the same electability case over and over again. Edwards argues that with his southern roots he can compete in more states than any other Democratic candidate in the general election.
Last week in New Hampshire, Edwards said: “I think people want someone they know can win in the general election. I think the evidence is overwhelming that I’m very strong, the strongest general election data. . . . I’m the one Democrat who has won in a Red State, who can go into any place in America and be successful.”
However, the evidence that Edwards is more electable is at best thin and is probably misleading.
The first question mark is that Edwards was unlikely to hold onto to his North Carolina Senate seat in 2003 when he decided not to run for re-election. In short, if John Edwards is so electable, why couldn’t he be re-elected in his home state?
Indeed, Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report noted at the time, “Edwards is not that strong.” [The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC), 2/16/03] Research 2000’s poll for the Raleigh News and Observer taken from July 13-16, 2003 showed that Edwards’s re-election number stood at 34 percent. In that same poll, only 45 percent of North Carolinians approved of Edwards’s job as their junior Senator.
Edwards fared no better as the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate in 2004. After being selected as John Kerry’s running mate, Edwards said, “I think we will be very competitive in the South, particularly in those states in which national Democrats need to be competitive to be successful.” [Associated Press, 7/10/04] Unfortunately, Edwards failed to carry his home state. Edwards lost his home county—Moore County—by more than eleven thousand votes, 24,714 to 13,555. He also lost his hometown by more than 300 votes, 506 to 191.
At the end of the day, despite repeated assurances, Kerry-Edwards also failed to win a single southern state. So it’s understandable that this time around, even John Edwards’s own people are acknowledging his vulnerability: Rob Tully, a former state party chairman and Edwards backer, said “if he doesn't win Iowa or come very close this time, ‘we're done.’” [USA TODAY, 12/12/07]
In addition, there are serious doubts about Edwards’ message. A recent Edwards ad asserts, “It’s time to tell the truth. These big corporations and their greed, they are stealing your children’s future. We will never change this country unless we are willing to take those people on.” Some are arguing that this will not go over well with general election voters. In a column, respected political analyst Stuart Rothenberg wrote, "Edwards certainly would dispute that there is an inherent contradiction between his populist rhetoric and his alleged middle class appeal. But his approach to problems is likely to frighten many voters, including most middle class Americans and virtually all Republicans." [The Rothenberg Political Report, 12/31/07]
So who has what it takes to carry the southern vote? Well, with so much riding on his southern electability argument, “native son” John Edwards actually fares only 4 points ahead of Joe Biden in the most recent Insider Advantage poll out of South Carolina. And if one thing is certain in the 2008 race, it’s that no Democrat will win using the same 20-plus-five strategy that has failed in the last two elections. In this general election, Joe Biden has set a 15-18 red state strategy, which not only sets him apart from the top tier, but gives him the most realistic shot at victory next November.
Furthermore, Joe Biden has historically and consistently won by large margins. In 1972, Joe Biden staged a huge upset, unseating two-term Sen. Caleb Boggs, a popular former congressman and governor. Since then, Joe Biden has consistently won re-election by over 15 percentage points, and always garnering more than 57 percent of the vote.
Sen. Biden’s victories have also come during times of strong Republican presence in the Delaware, in the form of both a Republican Senator (William Roth) and Republican Governors (du Pont, Castle and Wolf). Rep. Mike Castle consistently wins statewide, earning 57 percent in the last election. The Delaware State House has split leadership, with Democrats controlling the Senate and Republicans controlling the House.
These are the facts.
Wishing you all a happy and thoughtful New Year. Larry
4. The Des Moines International Airport sent a press release to Iowa newsrooms that contains this kicker line:
Many national and international media personnel will be attempting to leave Central Iowa. It will take the cooperation of everyone to ensure this happens efficiently and that the nation gets a good picture of the capability of Central Iowans.
5. Here's an AtlantiCam interview with Mike DuHaime, Rudy Giuliani's campaign manager. In it, I almost get run over my a car. Enjoy.
Ellen Malcolm And EMILY's List
It's interesting how much scrutiny the Edwards campaign is getting over a 527 run by a former campaign manager....
Well, EMILY's List's Ellen Malcolm was one of the earliest major endorsers of Hillary Clinton....serves as a national co-chair of her presidential campaign...still serves as president of EMILY's List....even as EMILY's List is running an independent expenditure campaign in Iowa on Clinton's behalf.
Not that there's anything wrong with that....but the ties between Malcolm and the Clinton campaign are provably more tight than the ties between Baldick and John Edwards (although Edwards has taken to calling Baldick "a guy who used to work for me," which, while true, is a little too cute...)
Malcolm has said that she's created a firewall between herself and the independent expenditure efforts.
Edwards Spox Asks Obama To Stop "Lying"
IOWA -- CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic**, traveling with the Obama campaign in Jefferson, IA, recorded this answer of Barack Obama's to a questioner who wanted to know why he should chose the senator from Illinois over the former senator from North Carolina:
"If you are then choosing between Edwards and myself, then I would say this. He is a fine person, with a beautiful family who's run a very good campaign. But I would say that if you look at the track records of who has really brought about change when then were in a position to do it, then I can make a claim that you can trust, that you can count on. When I was in the senate I fought and got the power of lobbyists reduced, that’s not something that John has invested in, even though he’s talking about it now."
"When I talk about getting troops out of Iraq, I was opposed to the war at the start when it was unpopular to be against the war.
"John was for it. When I talk about trade, and that we should have environmental agreements in out trade agreements, I didn’t support NAFTA, didn’t vote for permanent trade relations for China, John did."
"When I talk about the hardships of working families and some of them for no fault of their own because they got sick become bankrupt and there were laws passed pushed by the credit card companies that made it harder to get out of bankruptcy and John voted for that provision. I had rejected similar provisions."
"I am saying this only because you have to look at where somebody has been to know where they are going. He says now that those were mistakes and I have no reason to doubt that he believes that but I guess the point I am making is in my gut, there is a consistency of who I am fighting for, what I believe in, choices I have made in my life that can give you some assurance of when I get into the White House. I am going to be fighting for you and I am not going to be different as time goes on."
Read these remarks by CBS's Aaron Lewis, John Edwards's spokesman, Mark Kornblau, said:
""Barack Obama should stop lying to Iowans about John Edwards's record. Really."
** = Disclosure: I put CBS's reporters output on this blog because (a) I'm now a consultant to their news division and (b) they tend to have the best stuff, the fastest. But if you're cynical, you can just go with (a).
A Conversation With Myself About "Negative Ads"
I’ve always tried to keep a distinction between negative ads and contrast ads.
Maybe it’s a losing cause, as voters don’t seem to appreciate the difference, and if they don’t, than those of who cover politics probably shouldn’t either. But to me, an ad is “negative” when it attacks someone’s personal character. John McCain uses the Concord Monitor to call Romney a “phony.” That’s negative.
When Romney runs an arguably misleading ad that tries to draw a contrast between himself and McCain on a matter of public policy, he’s not resorting to an ad hominem attack.
Huckabee Decides Not To Air Those Nasty Ads...And Then Airs A Nasty Ad
The Romney campaign is already calling this a "meltdown." Whatever it is, it's a little bizarre.
So Mike Huckabee schedules a news conference to talk about the negative ads he's decided to run against Mitt Romney. The campaign staff dutifully prints up large placards highlighting points from the ad. A few minutes before the press conference is set to begin, Huckabee apparently changes his mind and asks his staff to pull the ads -- they'd already been sent to television stations.
But -- what the heck -- Huckabee decides to play the ad he won't broadcast for the media at the press conference, presumably hoping that gullible news executives will run the ad that Huckabee is too much of a saint for not airing -- for free.
CBS's Joy Lin transcribed Huck's quote:
“We prepared it, sent it to the stations, supposed to start running at noon today. This morning, I ordered my staff to pull the ad; I told them I do not want it to be run. If it was run at all, it would be until the stations pulled it off their schedules. And we are now committed, from now through the rest of the caucuses, that we will run only the ads that talk about why I should be president, and not why Mitt Romney should not. I know that some of are up saying, well did you really have an ad? Well, I’m going to show you the ad. You’ll get the chance to find out.”
The Dallas Morning News seems to buy the Huckabee spin:
In a news conference Monday designed to launch an all out assault against Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee said he would instead remain positive. "At some point we have to decide can we change politics and the level of discourse?" he said.
Most reporters did not.
They started to laugh.
A Giuliani Campaign Memo: We Ain't Sweating...
Strategy Memo: Looking Good Today
TO: TEAM RUDY
FROM: BRENT SEABORN, STRATEGY DIRECTOR
RE: Looking Good
DATE: December 31, 2007
Read the memo after the jump.... but here are two accompanying charts.
Via Ben Smith, an evaluation of a thinly-veiled, fairly intellectually attempt to tie Barack Obama to the Muslim faith...from a writer, Daniel Pipes, who is clearly not a fan of the Muslim faith.
More significantly, how would more mainstream Muslims respond to him, would they be angry at what they would consider his apostasy? That reaction is a real possibility, one that could undermine his initiatives toward the Muslim world.
What's so interesting is how easily and quickly, after just a few early news accounts, the false notion that Obama is or was ever Muslim has made it into mainstream discourse. (The distinction between being raised in a family associated with a certain religion and being -- assuming -- the identity of a practitioner of said religion is, I think, a distinction worth preserving, particularly when we're talking about a little kid. The available evidence suggests that Obama was raised by his Christian mother, was exposed to a variety of religions by his family and friends growing up, and later solidified his Christian faith by formally accepting Christ as his lord and savior.)
In a conference call with reporters today, Barack Obama's campaign manager gave a detailed brief for Obama's viability in Iowa and the primaries through Jan. 5. He spent considerably time gently eviscerating (thanks, Mark Leibovich, for the phrase) John Edwards's chances after Iowa, contending that he has no organization to speak of in most of the states following Iowa and is severely limited as to what he can raise and spend.
The timing of the call isn't unusual, but some more skeptical wags will suggest that Plouffe might have been trying to pre-but the campaign's nagging snese that the Des Moines Register poll out tonight may include unfavorable news for Obama. (Does it? I have no idea.)
Plouffe asserted that Obama "has the dominant field organization in Iowa" and is well positioned to win "with even the most aggressive turnout models." And Obama is strong outside the cities, Plouffe said. "We believe we're going to be viable in every county, in every precinct."
Internal research, Plouffe said, showed that Obama is the strongest second choice preference among those Democrats most likely to caucus.
Plouffe was forward looking. On the Feb. 5:
"Sen. Edwards will have no operation to speak of in the Feb. 5 states. I believe Sen. Clinton has political or field organizations in five or six of those states. We have, I believe, 17 of the 22 states covered."
## Plouffe said his campaign number crunchers estimate that John Edwards, who has accepted federal financing and its attendent caps, can spend only $17M more between now and Democratic National Convention.
## He insinuated that the campaign's internal polling shows Obama leading in New Hampshire.
## Plouffe said that the campaign estimates turnout among African Americans in South Carolina will be well above 50%. "We don't think there's any way it's going to slip below 50," he said, referring to public polls suggesting a black voter turnout of less than 45%.
## "We believe that by Feb 6., we'll be turning our attention to the general election."
A power point presentation accompanied Plouffe's: here are the most interesting slides:
Alert: Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll Out Tonight...
Edwards Buys Register Ad, TV Time For 2nd And 3rd
John Edwards's campaign has purchased sixty seconds worth of ad time on Iowa evening newscasts on both the 2nd and 3rd...and has also requisitioned a full page advertisement in tomorrow's Des Moines Register...
How Did Mike Huckabee Spend His Sunday?
Shooting television ads...some of them mentioning Mitt Romney and a certain quality Huckabee associates with him.... ads which will begin running today.
Huckabee has a noon CT news conference at the Marriott (zing!) -- to talk about the ads and whatever else reporters have on their minds.
Atlantic Umpire: Is Edwards A Campaign Finance Hypocrite?
In a blistering memorandum sent to reporters on Saturday, Barack Obama’s campaign manager accused John Edwards of sanctioning an effort by his former campaign manager to surreptitiously spend millions worth of unregulated contributions on Edwards’s behalf.
“John Edwards, who is running in large part on a recently adopted campaign platform of taking on the big corporate interests in Washington, is relying on a former aide to run an unregulated 527 operating outside campaign finance limits to support his candidacy,” manager David Plouffe writes.
“Even as he was decrying such influence last week, his former campaign manager was spending $750,000 on television ads in Iowa. If Edwards can’t stand up to his own former aides how can stand up to the special interests in Washington?”
The Politics
That the campaign would issue a memo in Plouffe’s name suggests a degree of frustration, be it with the press for not covering the issue sufficiently or a general sense of anxiety about the atmosphere in Iowa. That Plouffe would descend into the weeds with Edwards over a 527 is suggests that the Obama campaign really wants to have this debate, and have it publicly, right now, five days before the Iowa caucuses. Indeed, for days, Obama himself has been flaying Edwards for hypocrisy, often by name.
On Sunday, Obama told Kay Henderson:
The main concern is that if you have undisclosed donors, people writing half-million dollar checks to finance your campaign, then you're basically circumventing the campaign finance laws and that's not the way we're going to bring change in Washington. You know, you can't on one hand argue that you're going to go after the fat cats and then we have hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in from who knows who and it means that there's less accountability, less disclosure, and if that's the game that we play then there's nothing to prevent those same corporate lobbyists that John Edwards decries from doing the exact same thing to us so there's just go to be some consistency and, you know, straightforwardness in how we approach these issues."
The implication is that Edwards is coordinating with this 527, the Alliance for a New America (AFNA), and is slyly sanctioning their efforts. Obama even claims that someone is writing "half million dollar" checks to Edwards's campaign.
Are these charges true? Is Edwards guilty of hypocrisy? Is he acting in bad faith?
Says Gov. Mike Huckabee, in an interview with two friends, the Post's Perry Bacon and Time's Michael Scherer:
I can hire people, once I raise the money, who can come up with all kinds of proposals. That's fine. That's good. But the real question is: Am I going to be able to be a leader? You know there is a difference between a leader and a manager.
And Huckabee points to a definitional moment for him:
To me, [there] was a seminal moment, in Dearborn, when we were at that debate, the CNBC-MSNBC debate. And the question was asked, 'How do you think the economy is doing?' And down the line Republicans go, 'Ah it's going great, just terrific.' They are all quoting RNC talking points-22 consecutive quarters of great economic growth-telling us all these things that are right off the page. And they came to me, and I took a lot of criticism for it, but I said, 'Well for a lot of guys on this stage the economy is doing really well. But there are a lot of guys out there driving the cabs, handling the bags and serving the food at the tables, and they have a very different picture about how this economy is doing.' And I think that is where I sense the disconnect. I wonder sometimes: 'Did you talk to the guy? Have you ever sat down and not just said, 'Hi, how you doing? Thanks for coming.' But have you had the conversation-'Tell me what you are worried about?' That's the question you ask. What are you worried about? And it's not so much what is happening in Iran. That's important to him. He may not understand every day how important that is. But you know what is important to him? If gas is $3 a gallon, can he afford to put enough of it in his tank to get him to and from work, every day this week? That's real. That's real for him.
December 30, 2007
McCain Changes Mind; Will Continue To Tweak Romney In Ads
What John McCain said yesterday about moving on from Mitt Romney -- check that.
The campaign will continue to use the medium of television advertising to push the notion that Romney is deliberately misleading New Hampshire Republicans and independents about McCain's record.
"You know, I find it ironic that Mitt Romney would attack me on the issue of immigration. This is the same Mitt Romney who called my plan "reasonable." Before I can win your vote, I know I have to win your respect. And to do that, you know I'll always be straight with you. And on this issue, I've learned that we've got to restore trust in government and secure our borders."
The ad was previewed on ABC's "This Week" this morning, but it was unclear, initially, whether the ad would be sent to stations for broadcast.
"We're getting such a great response from the ad citing NH newspaper's assessments of Romney that we're re-evaluating whether we want to switch gears," a McCain aide said of the decision.
One Person Who Won't Be Serving In An Edwards Administration
is one of the architects of his sharper populism, Joe Trippi.
Edwards says that anyone who's ever served as a lobbyist for a foreign country or agent would be forbidden from serving as a political appointee in his administration.
Trippi worked for a guy who was paid $200,000 by then Nigerian vice president Atiku Abubakar for help creating a telephone-based get-out-the-vote system in the country's 2006 elections. Trippi was duly registered with the State Department.
(Note: Trippi never lobbied on behalf of a foreign government...)
Incidentally, Trippi tells me he's thinking of working with the Nigerians on a text-messaging campaign to distribute information about HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases... which is a good thing.
The Morning Five.
The biggest sign that something is happening in New Hampshire: John McCain is starting to have to pool his events....
The biggest sign that something is happening in Iowa: Hillary Clinton's starting to draw standing ovations in her speeches...
Sunday Must Reads
1. Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny on the Iowa field wars. Among their observations: Obama's looking for independents under 50; HRC is looking for single women; Edwards is looking at lists.
Desperate to detect a trend in this land of deadlocked Democratic polls, I telephoned Teesha (a vocational rehabilitation specialist) on Thursday to gauge the sentiments of this one-woman focus group. "I still don't know," she said, after describing herself sitting in an empty room aside from a single chair and her laptop. "It all comes down to who has the best chance of winning."
Electability may be the most important factor churning in the minds of the undecided and loosely aligned voters whose last-minute decisions will tilt the caucuses. "The undecideds are just sitting there," said Julie Jensen, the Iowa coordinator for Chris Dodd. "We had an event in Des Moines last night for 100 people -- and half of them were undecided."
4. A Mitt Romney campaign research document: " Huckabee's Bogus Foreign Policy "Advisers" (it's after the jump).
To watch today: HRC and McCain on This Week with George S.; Thompson on Fox News Sunday; Huckabee and Obama on Meet; Face has John Edwards; Late Edition gets Dodd and Biden;
Also: Edwards and Obama continue to clash over ethics and 527s; Obama's manager, Plouffe, sends a memo blasting a pro-Edwards 527 run by ex-mgr Nick Baldick, insinuates that it coordinated with the Edwards campaign and questions donation by 97-year-old Mellon heiress;
Edwards announces plans for his "Marathon for the Middle Class" tour and then promises to bar corporate lobbyists from working in the White House; Obama campaign responds skeptically. CBS's Maria Gavrilovic notes that Obama has decided to name names:
"He has said this in the past but has added this line to the closing argument speech today. “Voting because we are afraid of what Mitt or Rudy will say, just won’t do!” Obama also referenced polls in which he is beating the Republicans, “Have you seen the polls? In every pool that I am up against a Republican, I beat them! I beat Huckabee and McCain,” Obama shouted into the mic. He then took it a step futher, “John Edwards doesn’t do that! Hillary Clinton doesn’t beat all of the Republicans! I do!”
The AP notices that Edwards no longer includes a reference to the Mellon family when he recounts the villains of the Gilded Age.
Trust Huckabee's on the air in New Hampshire with this ad:
Barack Obama, more than most, has the power to inspire. The positive tone of his campaign is not a gimmick. He is a serious candidate with sober ideas. For reasons symbolic and substantive, he would also be a nominee Democrats could feel proud to vote for. But Hillary Clinton's unique combination of smarts, experience and toughness makes her the best choice to win the November election and truly get things done.
One of the campaigns has taken to calling me the "Size Guru;" that can be interpreted any number of ways.
But John Edwards drew more than 1,000 people to a Des Moines rally tonight.
And there are no Illinois license plates in the parking lot...
(The size estimate comes from a CBS News reporter on the scene...not from the erstwhile Edwards campaign.)
Earlier in the day, 200 showed up to hear Edwards in Muscatine, 300 showed up at a small venue in Washington, where staircases and even a second floor were used for overflow crowds; and then 300 in Knoxville, where the campaign claims they expected 125.
Huckabee Has Heart, And It May Be Enough
INDIANOLA, IOWA -- A string of foreign policy gaffes has made it clear to the national political press corps that Mike Huckabee is manifestly unqualified to be president. Those questions dogged Huckabee at a press conference in Iowa today, and Mitt Romney's campaign is taking steps to ensure that his gaffes are indelible.
But what if none of this matters?
To some observers, the issue landscape in 2008 reminds them of 1992; voters seem to be inwardly-focused; Democrats, in particular, seem to want change; Republicans seem to be equally as frustrated that the government doesn't work for them. It's a weird disjuncture because the paramount conflicts of the day are outer-focused; Pakistan, Iraq, global climate change, worldwide economic instability. But none of those issues -- on either side -- has ticked the needle in any direction. Republicans are moved by immigration; Democrats, by health care; Democrats seem to want competence; Republicans seem to want authenticity.
And the reasons why Iowa Republicans fell in love with Mike Huckabee don't seem to have anything to do with nuclear proliferation or with any prospective evaluation of his fitness as a leader. They really like him; his personal attributes are megavolts more powerful than any of his rivals; his unvarnished evangelical worldview is enough.
Owen Walker, a farmer from Indianola, became a convert today. "He's got.. he's got heart. He's a good man," he said. A fundamentally decent guy. "A down to earth person who we're going to be able to trust."
His friend, Jim Meadows, told me: "When I really came to realize that he'd be a good candidate is when he demonstrated during the debates that he showed a lot of wisdom in the way he answered the question. The man is a genuine next-door neighbor type."
And all the criticism? It makes these men more convinced that Huckabee is their guy.
Mitt Romney will air a second ad drawing distinctions with John McCain on immigration, campaign aides said last night. Here's an exclusive preview:
The ad dispenses with the friendly "both good men" sentence and gets right into the details. It's not a negative ad -- McCain's the one who dropped the "phony bomb"-- but some of the details are misleading.
McCain did not favor extending Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants -- only that, when a certain percentage of them were given legal status after paying a penalty, that they then become eligible. The vote in question would have permitted regularized immigrants to claim Social Security credit for some work they did while illegal -- not exactly the same thing as extending benefits to illegal immigrants. And before he ran for president, Romney was more congenial to the approach he now excoriates, and had nice things to say about McCain's comprehensive reform proposals.
Remember, these ads aren't designed to pull folks away from McCain -- they're designed to keep folks comfortable with Romney.
GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: "I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message."
ANNOUNCER: "Mitt Romney and John McCain on immigration.
"McCain championed a bill to let every illegal immigrant stay in America permanently.
"He even voted to allow illegal immigrants to collect Social Security.
"Mitt Romney said 'no' to driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
"'No' to tuition breaks for illegal immigrants, and he authorized his State Police to enforce federal immigration law.
"On illegal immigration, there's a big difference."
December 28, 2007
Obama Outdraws Edwards In Davenport...
At least 850 Iowans showed up to hear Barack Obama speak.... and not more than 350 are hearing John Edwards speak at the same time in the same town...
There may be external reasons why the crowd sizes differ (proximity to Illinois?), but I'll bet the Edwards campaign would have enjoyed a larger crowd.
McCain's Response Ad In New Hampshire: Romney's A "Phony"
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The Daily Three: Dead Heats
1. New KCCI poll to be released at 6pm ET.... tight races all around in Iowa.....a Lee Enterprise poll shows a three-way Dem tie in Iowa...
2. On a conference call, Mike Huckabee says he has roughly $2M cash on hand and expects to have raised approximately $5M over the internet this quarter. .... Fred Thompson raises $240,000 online .... Ron Paul will wind up having raised $20M this quarter....Reporter estimates that Mitt Romney has spent $80M so far....
3. Obama runs an endorsement ad in NH and an ad decrying special interest cash in IA.....Huckabee runs an ad mentioning "the creator" and one decrying negative ads....Romney ad in Iowa cites Condi Rice as calling Huckabee's foreign policy contentions "ludicrous"....HRC runs ad on mortgage crisis....Edwards has two new ads... "Born For" and "Native Son"
4. Correction: In case it wasn't clear, Iowa PIRG registered 54,000 young people to vote in 2004 and 2006, not for the January 3rd caucuses this year, program director Sujatha Jahagirdar e-mails.
Gut v. Head
In attempting to aggressively to shape the political afterquakes of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to their closing argument, the Obama campaign may have deliberately violated their “Never Let Them See You Sweat” rule.
The Clinton campaign wanted to let the story speak for itself, betting that the general atmospherics are more potent than the specific type of precipitation – that anything that speaks to the need to have a credible Commander in Chief helps her, even when the specifics – a resurgent Al Qaeda, Middle East chaos, -- might remind Democrats of her war vote. It's a distinction between gut and head; if you're a Democrat, your gut sends you to safe harbors; your head sends you to the candidate who got it right.
If the atmospherics benefit Hillary Clinton, it's because the assassination itself is less important to voters than the general feeling of instability that emanates from the Middle East; War is the ultimate existential threat. Nuclear terrorism is the existential threat of our age.
If the atmospherics benefit Barack Obama, it's because voters went beyond their gut feelings and engaged their brains; listened to Obama's argument and then recalled their anger (another emotion!) at Democrats in 2002.
If you want to know why pundits are suggesting that Clinton might find the circumstances more congenial, it's because an affective response is instantaneous, and an affective response like fear is usually indelible; it takes a few more microseconds for that prefrontal cortex to engage, to call on those arguments stored in the hippocampus, and to cogitate.
Michelle Obama -- A Not So Secret Weapon In South Carolina
For black voters – especially black women voters -- in South Carolina, the two biggest concerns they voice about Barack Obama are (1) the fear that he’ll be a martyr and would get shot and (2) the conviction (or fear) that conviction that white people won’t vote for him, thus balkanizing his candidacy and setting back the cause of civil rights for a generation.
Obama has the support of well more than half of South Carolina's black Democratic men, but he splits the votes of black women with Hillary Clinton.
The panacea has always been a win in Iowa – if those white folks found Obama acceptable, then black Democrats would be socially cued to accept his candidacy as potentially transformative.
But Obama’s campaign believes that they're beginning to succeed in wooing black voters away from Hillary Clinton well before a single person has caucused.
The secret is a famous woman -- but not the Big O -- the Big M -- Michelle Obama, whose campaign stops in South Carolina are devoted to the story of how she, too, had similar fears, and how she came to cast them away.
A turning point may be have been a big M.O, speech in on November 20, Orangeburg, where she told hundreds of black voters that she’s “so tired of being afraid” and didn’t want her daughters to grow up being afraid. She speaks of her proud, South Carolinian grandfather, who taught her that “my destiny had not been written before I was born.” Her family “gave her the strength and courage to overcome the doubts” that she faced as a young girl growing up on the south side of Chicago.
A few years ago, the Obamas met Coretta Scott King, a “woman so graceful and dignified”… King told her to “not be afraid…that God was with us, and that she would always keep us in her prayers.” “This is a woman who overcome other people’s doubts and ignorance…”
King, in other words, conferred her blessing on the Obamas.
So -- how to spread this benediction to voters?
The campaign made DVDs out of Michelle Obama's “Fear” speech and plays them regularly -- at house parties, at events, at organizing conclaves, at beauty parlors and barber shops -- what the campaign calls its B and Bs.
Voters who listen to Michelle Obama’s reasoning are said to be quite impressed and if they had reason to doubt, are invariably much more comfortable with the idea of Obama’s candidacy.
“If Michelle Obama could speak with every voter,” an Obama aide said, “We’d run away with the election.”
(Judge for yourself: the 30 minute speech is right here.)
Against McCain, Romney Takes The Plunge
The risks of running a contrast ad against John McCain are large. This cycle, everyone seems to like McCain in New Hampshire -- 20 editorial boards, even the Union Leader -- and the local press seems to be in an aidin' and abetin' mode.
Several Romney aides said that the script for the advertisement had been approved yesterday after an internal debate.
The benefit in running the ad, according to these aides, is that it will remind core Republican voters -- Romney's New Hampshire base -- about the differences between the two men. The ad doesn't necessarily intend to dissuade Republicans from voting for McCain as much as it intends to persuade Republicans intending to vote for Romney that they've made the right choice.
Early reaction to the ad is muted. The New York Times's Santora calls it misleading in several respects.
Rumor: McCain has formally accepted federal financing for his primary campaign and thus is subject to its limits...
Fact: McCain has secured a loan using his campaign's assets as collateral...but not future funds from the federal match... and has not opted in to the nomination funding system. The FEC has approved million of dollars worth of matching funds, but McCain can't spend them until March and hasn't decided whether he'll need to.
McCain advisers believe that a victory in New Hampshire will ease his money woes considerably...(although the same argument was made in 2000...)
Not to pick on Gov. Huckabee, but -- again -- in times of crises, little details count. Pakistan shares its western border with Afghanistan ... Not an eastern border.
GOV. HUCKABEE: People who questioned my view of foreign policy probably need go back and read the speech that I delivered back in Washington in September. I talked about Pakistan and the delicate situation and the fact that at that time when the three people, Sharif, Bhutto, and Musharraf all in the bid for the leadership position, how delicate it was and how while Bhutto probably brought the most pro-American position, both she and Sharif brought essentially centrist and secular perspectives to the government. We have seen what happen in the Musharraf government, he has told us he does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists. but on the other hand, did he not want us going in.
Pastors Urged To Caucus By Huckabee Supporters
Here's an explicit example of how Mike Huckabee is relying on an outsourced Get-Out-The-Caucusers effort and on the implied support of pastors -- under the radar.
Pastor Rick Scarborough is hosting a conference call with Iowa pastors to discuss the caucus... joining him are Dr. Tim "Left Behind" LaHaye and Dr. Michael "Home School" Farris.
All three are committed supporters of Mike Huckabee. An e-mail sent to Iowa pastors advertising the call doesn't mention Huckabee -- that wouldn't be legal -- but does say that pastors "have a duty" to keep their congregants "informed" and to lead them to "participate" in the caucuses.
Farris has been a senior unpaid adviser to Huckabee from day one and was key in helping to organize the families of home schoolers to attend the Republican straw poll in Ames last summer.
This is all, again, legal, provided the pastors stay within certain guidelines. But it's very easy to see that a mobilization of pastors and their congregants helps a single candidate. And given how successfully evangelicals have knocked and dragged their voters in the past, their might -- even uncoordinated -- could overwhelm the most established of Iowa organizations on caucus night.
(Note: I've cut and pasted from the original e-mail in order to make the e-mail fit ... I only deleted the dial-in information.)
December 27, 2007
Weird Connections
Those of us who've had the privilege to write for the Harvard Crimson might find this interesting. It seems that Benazir Bhutto was a sports comper in 1972.
AtlantiCam: Bhutto's Assassination And The Primaries
Yes, I have a radio face. And my jowls aren't that big in person. But..
AFSCME Steps Up Anti-Obama Spending
According to their latest FEC filing, an American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees politics fund plans to spend around $40K to distribute informational cards through the mail in New Hampshire that oppose candidate "Barrack Obama."
That's Barack with one "r," guys.
A separate AFSCME political committee reported spending $70K today on pro-Clinton mailings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Axelrod Amplifies His Remarks About Clinton and Pakistan
I just recieved a call from David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, who told me that "in no way" was his comment about Hillary Clinton "meant to be an unprovoked, sort of strategic foray."
"It was an answer to the question -- in no way was I implying that she was personally responsible for what happened."
I asked whether Axelrod meant to imply that her vote was in part responsible for creating the conditions that led to an Al Qaeda resurgance.
"All I’m implying is [about] the policy that the war in Iraq that Obama said in 2002 was going to distract us from Afghanistan and Pakistan and Al Qaeda, and that they would regenerate themselves and that they would become more powerful and influential. He exercised good judgment. She’ll have to explain her position."
Axelrod acknowledged it was fair to say that he was pointing out that votes have consequences, and that the Iraq vote Clinton took in 2002 had specific consequences that may have helped lead to an emboldened Al Qaeda.
"Everyone who was there understands the context. There were 20 reporters there and only one who wrote that. I know that [Clinton spokesman] Phil [Singer] and [communications director] Howard Wolfson are ...trying to stoke the meager, flickering embers, but there's just no fire there."
The Daily Five: On Pakistan
Barack Obama's closing argument, in Des Moines:
"The truth is, you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change. I believe deeply in those words. But they are not mine. They were Bill Clinton's in 1992, when Washington insiders questioned his readiness to lead,"
... MSNBC counts nine separate "distinctions" with Edwards and Clinton in the speech.... Obama's team dismisses questions about whether he percieves Edwards as a real threat to be "absurd" but leading Edwards adviser in Iowa acknowledges as much to reporters.....privately, candidate is update and confident....Obama team teases about "major" South Carolina endorsement it'll soon recieve, but it won't be Rep. James Clyburn......
2. Ex-defense lawyer John Edwards previews his closing argument, scheduled for tomorrow in an old labor town of Dubuque:
"“Why on earth would we expect the corporate powers and their lobbyists – who make billions by selling out the middle-class – to just give up just because we ask nicely? Nobody who takes their money and defends the broken system is going to bring change. And, unfortunately, nobody who thinks we can just sit down and talk them into compromise is going to bring change either. Compromise and conciliation is the academic theory of change. It just doesn’t work in the real world. Fighting for conviction is the historic reality of change.”
3. Hillary Clinton's campaign spends hundreds of thousands (in excess of $1 million?) to purchase two minutes of television airtime on every 6pm newscast throughout the state.
4. Well-regarded GOP operative Jay Ragley rejoins South Carolina Republican Party as its executive director. The immediate past ED Hogan Gidley will serve as a senior adviser.
5. Attention Paul Tewes: Iowa PIRG's "New Voters Project" estimates it has registered more than 54,000 18-to-30 year olds to vote in the caucuses...(most of them Democratic - that's my assumption), and has made nearly 100,000 voter contacts. A PIRG official says that young voter turnout in Iowa was the 4th highest, percentage-wise, in the nation in 2004, which is significant because Iowa's an old state.
A bonus:
6. Romney allies point to campaign's robust early voting program in Florida as a sign of strength. Normally loquacious advisers decline to discuss but hint that Romney is banking thousands of votes.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards talked with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf early this afternoon (Iowa time). Here's Edwards talking about the situation (mp3 runs 2 minuates)
Henderson: "In regards to the situation in Pakistan, if you were president, what would you be doing?"
Edwards: "If I were president I would do some of what I've already done. I spoke with the Pakistani Ambassador and then a few minutes ago I spoke with President Musharraf, urging him to continue on the path to democratization, to allow international investigators to come in to determine what happened, what the facts were so that there would be transparency and credibility about what actually occurred and also about the upcoming schedule of elections and that the important thing for America to do in this unstable environment is first of all focus on the tragedy that's occurred. Benazir Bhutto was a strong woman, a courageous woman, someone that I actually spoke at a conference with a few years and she talked about the path to democracy in Pakistan being baptized in blood so she understood the extraordinary risk that she was taking by going back and it's a terrible tragedy for the people of Pakistan, but it's important for America to be a calming influence and provide strength in this environment."
Henderson: "How did you get in touch with Musharraf? What's the relationship there?"
Political reporters and analysts are unapologetically trying to determine the political ramifications of the Bhutto assassinations, yours truly included. And while many of the presidential campaigns have incorporated the day's events into their campaign argument explicitly, Barack Obama's big cheeses aren't holding back, and neither is a surrogate of Hillary Clinton's.
Maybe I'm parsing this too much. Judge for yourself.
Bhutto’s death will “call into issue the judgment: who’s made the right judgments ... Obviously, one of the reasons that Pakistan is in the distress that it’s in is because al-Qaeda is resurgent, has become more powerful within that country and that’s a consequence of us taking the eye off the ball and making the wrong judgment in going into Iraq. That’s a serious difference between these candidates and I’m sure that people will take that into consideration."
He continues, according to the account on Time.com:
“She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit, was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today, so that’s a judgment she’ll have to defend.
In other words: Clinton's judgment helped create the conditions that led to Bhutto's assassination. (The failure of American foreign policy helped create the conditions that led to Bhutto's assassination. The judgment of the American people -- who, like Clinton, supported the war in 2002 -- helped create the conditions that led to the assassination of Bhutto.)
An Obama aide says I'm "absurd" for drawing this conclusion-- after all, I'm sitting at a desk in Washington and wasn't present for the Q and A with reporters. "He didn't draw a straight-line relationship," another aide said.
The second aide passes along more of what Axelrod said, so read it for yourself:
Well, it puts on the table foreign policy judgment, and that's a discussion we welcome. Barack Obama had the judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, and he warned at the time it would divert us from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, and now we see the effect of that. Al Qaeda's resurgent, they're a powerful force now in Pakistan, they may have been involved we've been here, so I don't know whether the news has been updated, but there's a suspicion they may have been involved in this. I think his judgment was good. Sen. Clinton made a different judgment, so let's have that discussion
The Clinton campaign bites back by not biting: Writes Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson:
"This is a time to be focused on the tragedy of the situation, its implications for the U.S. and the world, and to be concerned for the people of Pakistan and the country’s stability. No one should be politicizing this situation with baseless allegations."
One Clinton surrogate went a little off message, too... Sen. Evan Bayh, per MSNBC:
He added that in a general election, Republicans would likely raise the specter of international attacks in attempt to garner votes. “When there are unfortunate calamities like this, the Republicans [will say], ‘See. See what we told you? We have to have someone who’s strong to defend America at a time of concern.’ Well, Senator Clinton is strong,” he said. “And she’s experienced. And she’s tough enough to defend this country and do it in a way that’s true to our values, the civil liberties we cherish, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m supporting her.”
Speaking after the event, Bayh again emphasized the need for experience. “I think they know we live in a dangerous world, and tragedies like this just remind us that we need someone with the seasoning, the experience and the strength to be commander in chief during uncertain times,” he said. “The job of the next president is not to be entertainer in chief. The job of the next president is to move our country forward to make the substantive changes that will matter in our daily lives, and to protect us in an uncertain and dangerous world. And that’s why in a field of very good candidates, I believe Senator Clinton has the right combination of experience and strength to accomplish all of those things.”
NB: Here's a CNN report:
Mitt Romney's Not Dead Yet
Opponents say that Mitt Romney is in a “tailspin,” or that he is “flailing,” or that his pathway to the nomination has somehow been blocked by the gravity-generated bodies of John McCain and Mike Huckabee.
It’s clear that John McCain has edged up a few points in New Hampshire ( in part because Rudy Giuliani has pulled out and those voters are shifting back to McCain) and that Mike Huckabee has a polling lead in Iowa.
But Romney’s support in both states hasn’t bottomed out; he’s standing on a solidly built platform of what his campaign now likes to call “full spectrum” conservative Republicans, and he has been disqualified by no means. This is important, I think. Romney’s big problem is that his claim to the mantle of “conservative leader” is new -- he was always more conservative than his public image would attest to, but he never really embraced it -- and a bit synthetic, and he has never been identified with a single cause or a single attribute. (Think: McCain = the war, or apostasy; Giuliani: 9/11, or personal life problems; Huckabee: evangelical; Tancredo: immigration.)
The campaign tried to find a single cause but wound up looking like the guy who tries on lots of sweaters at the department store: some fit (fiscal conservative, veto-man), some don’t (immigration) -- none is blockbuster.
But his big asset is that, aside from anti-Mormon bigots, he’s still in the running -- he still draws second-choice voters; he has plenty of money; he is a supporting player in the stories right now. In Iowa and New Hampshire; he seems to be on the rise in some of the other early states. If he wins Iowa and New Hampshire -- not sure things, but not unbelievable, either -- he's probably going to win the nomination.
The Christmas break was good for Romney, if only because it allowed him to get out of his own way. The MLK march gaffe was both silly, from an empirical perspective, because Romney probably relied on hazy childhood memory and didn’t filter his thoughts -- and damaging, in that it occupied about 72 hours of campaign time.
Now -- the unprecedented personal attacks from two New Hampshire newspapers are kind of stunning and will serve to focus on the attention on Romney for the next few days…. But the world is his candy corn, and more than Huck or McCain, Romney determines Romney’s fate.
Total Flux
An AP survey estimates that 40% of Republican primary voters (and 20% of Democratic voters) have switched their allegiances since November.
The AP bases its conclusions on interviews with the same, 2000-person national sample.
Other findings:
## Half of the sample still doesn't know enough about Mike Huckabee to know whether they like him or not, which is a fairly strong confirmation of the hypothesis that he's running a very narrow campaign. More than 50% of white evangelicals switched candidates, and more than 60% of the switchers chose Huckabee.
## Fred Thompson's support in the sample has been cut in half.
## 20% of Republicans who insisted they wouldn't change their minds did so anyway -- and only a third of Democrats who said they probably would change their minds did.
## Republicans who tend to be more concerned about corruption were more likely to shift away from Rudy Giuliani.
## 6 In 10 supporters of Obama and 6 in 10 supporters of Clinton say they've made up their minds and won't change.
Huckabee Flubs A Pakistan Question
CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes writes about Mike Huckabee's newser in Orlando, FL today:
He made a bad choice of words when saying the U.S. needs to consider “what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continuing in Pakistan.” He should have said whether or not martial law will be reinstated – it was lifted nearly two weeks ago. A minor slip, maybe, but not a subject he wants to mess up on when he is already considered weak in the area of foreign policy.
It's not the mistake itself that will raise eyebrowses -- it's Huckabee's lack of intellectual ease, his lack of felicity, with foreign policy at a critical moment when everyone is paying attention.
Mitt Romney, for example, may have the same degree of experience, but he's boned up and is much more comfortable answering complicated questions about foreign policy.
The Bhutto Assassination And The Presidential Race
ITETT* just how the events overseas will focus the minds of Iowa voters, if at all, on what's really important.
But two leading** candidates -- Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani -- are closing the year with arguments that incorporate a perilous world.
Here is how one of Clinton's top aides describes her closing argument:
"After all the rallies, town halls and campaigning the last year, it is time to pick a president. Caucus Goers need to ask themselves who would be the best president? America faces a war abroad and a troubled economy at home – at this critical moment the answer is Hillary Clinton because she is tested, and ready to lead on day 1.”
And Rudy Giuliani, per an equally as a senior aide:
"Over the next few days, you will hear "leadership tested during times of crisis" as an umbrella for two major issues - national security and economic prosperity. In the context of those issues, you'll see Giuliani set himself apart from the others based both on his past performance and his vision for the future."
Mitt Romney, with his "radical Jihad" and John McCain, with his arguments about the linkages between the war in Iraq and Islamic terror, can re-center their stump speeches, too.
In late 2003, the capture of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces boomeranged on Howard Dean, who (correctly, as it turns out, but clumsily) said that his capture had not made America any safer. The press response was vicious; Dean began to spiral; etc. etc.
Voters tend to process events more quickly these days, so it's unclear how long the topic of conversation will be Pakistan and terrorism.
* -- It's Too Early To Tell
** This is Joe Biden's wheelhouse, of course.
Here is his statement:
“This is a terrible day. My heart goes out to Benazir Bhutto’s family, friends and followers.
“Like her father before her, Benazir Bhutto worked her whole life – and gave her life – to help Pakistan become a democratic, secular and modern Muslim country. She was a woman of extraordinary courage who returned to Pakistan in the face of death threats and even after an assassination attempt the day of her return, she did not flinch. It was a privilege to know her these many years and to call her a friend.
“I am convinced Ms. Bhutto would have won free and fair elections next week. The fact that she was by far Pakistan’s most popular leader underscores the fact that there is a vast, moderate majority in Pakistan that must have a clear voice in the system. Her assassination makes it all the more urgent that Pakistan return to a democratic path.
“This fall, I twice urged President Musharraf to provide better security for Ms. Bhutto and other political leaders – I wrote him before her return and after the first assassination attempt in October. The failure to protect Ms. Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and security services that must be answered.
“I know that Benazir’s followers will be tempted to lash out in anger and violence. I urge them to remain calm – and not play into the hands of the forces of destruction. I urge Pakistan’s leaders to open a fully accountable and transparent investigation. We must find out who was behind this and bring those responsible to justice. And the United States should offer any assistance necessary, including investigative teams, to get to the bottom of this horror.
“The way to honor Benazir Bhutto is to uphold the values for which she gave her life: democracy, moderation and social justice. I join with the Pakistani people in mourning the loss of a dear friend.”
Giuliani's September 11th Ad
Or his Tom Brokaw ad.
It'll run through January 2 in three markets in Florida -- Ft. Myers, Orlando and Tampa. (No South Florida?) and nationally on Fox News at a cost of more than $410,000. The ad is also on traffic schedules in New Hampshire, on WMUR and on cable.
This is a national ad -- keep that in mind.
MAYOR GIULIANI: “Right before September 11 and months before I had read this book about the greatest generation written by Tom Brokaw.
And the book explains how brave, and how persistent, and how courageous the people were in the generation that won the second world war.
And during the day of September 11 living through the things that I saw and observed.
Immediately, when I saw people helping each other.
I saw the picture of the firefighters putting the flag up at ground zero.
I said these are the children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the greatest generation.
They have the same resolve. The same understanding.
When you challenge Americans, there’s no country that stands up stronger and better than the United States of America.
When you try and take something away from us like freedom, my goodness, Americans are going to be one in resisting you.
So, the Islamic terrorists would make a terrible mistake if they confuse our democracy for weakness.
Our democracy means we disagree with each other, but when you come and try and take away from us our freedom.
When you try and come here and kill our people.
We’re one and we’re going to stand up to you and we’re going to prevail.
I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.”
Little Kittens
It’s going to be hard for the candidates to avoid treating the (40%? of) undecided voters in Iowa like fluffy little Christmas kitties who are drawn to the shiniest new toys and have the attention span of, well, kittens, who will find something else to play with in a femtosecond.
The shiny new things can sometimes be old favorites like John Edwards, whose steadiness as a campaigner and depth of support in Iowa have been underrated, or they can be the New New things, like Mike Huckabee, whose genuine populism -- he is perhaps the purest heir to Dick Gephardt’s Democratic caucus-winning populism in 1988 of any of the candidates -- is as much of a reason for his rise as was the publication of his decision to accept Christ as his lord and savior.
(Is it not a surprise that, during the mortgage crisis, the credit crunch, a downturn in consumer spending, hints of a possible recession this year, the candidates on either side who are most comfortable talking about economic issues are doing well? )
When the spotlight’s not on, the newest toys often languish. I hate to belabor the metaphor, but the press seems to be paying attention to, in rough order:
NH -- McCain’s “rise” / Romney’s “tailspin”
Huckabee’s rise
Edwards’s rise
Giuliani’s health
Barack Obama has to earn the top spot in the rundowns these days.
If the lead story on the day of the caucus is akin to “Democrats have chance to make history” or some Hegelian headline like that. (The mechanics: momentum = turnout; high turnout = Obama’s victory). But he’s not the story today: Benazir Bhutto is.
The Forecast For January 3 in Iowa: Clear
(so far).
That's probably good for HRC -- easier to turn out those old ladies that way. I'm not being mean -- she has to turn out a lot of little old ladies. And probably good for Barack Obama -- easier to turn folks out, generally, when the weather is nice. And if nice weather = higher turnout, then it's probably good for Mitt Romney, too. But also for Mike Huckabee, if he's relying on a lot of first-time caucus goers.
Thank goodness we're not in 1971: on January 3, 13 inches of snow fell. Last year, and the year before, the weather was clear and mild.
December 26, 2007
HRC To End On .... A Majestic Score
The type of music that generally accompanies patriotic imagery... upbeat and somber, both at once. No narrator.
Giuliani's Doctor
A "STATEMENT FROM DR. VALENTIN FUSTER, THE MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER, MAYOR GIULIANI'S PERSONAL PHYSICIAN"
"I have been Rudy Giuliani's personal physician for more than seven years.
I was informed late Wednesday evening that Mr. Giuliani was suffering from a significant headache and fatigue. These symptoms can be described as possibly "flu-like."
As Mr. Giuliani's personal physician, I stayed in contact with the doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis throughout the course of the evening. Because of the significant headache, it was important to have as much information as possible and err on the side of caution.
Mr. Giuliani underwent the following tests at Barnes-Jewish Hospital: CT-MRI of the brain, ultrasound of the carotid arteries, and spinal fluid evaluation. These tests all came back normal.
Furthermore, a PSA taken within the past month was negligible or undetectable, and routine laboratory tests were normal. Upon returning to New York City, Mr. Giuliani came to me for an examination and a further test, a transesophageal echocardiogram, which was normal. I confirmed there was no change in his health status.
Mr. Giuliani was not prescribed any medication and I recommended that he lighten his schedule only for a few days.
It is my medical opinion that Rudy Giuliani is in very good health."
Valentin Fuster, M.D., PH.D.
Professor of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Dr. Fuster serves The Mount Sinai Medical Center as Director of Mount Sinai Heart, the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health. Among the positions of distinction he holds, Dr. Fuster is former President of the American Heart Association, immediate Past President of the World Heart Federation, a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and a former member of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Advisory Council.
December 22, 2007
The Saturday Five: Romney Knows Who His Opponent Is
1. A Boston Globe poll of New Hampshire out tomorrow morning will show Sen. John McCain within breathing distance of Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney, and Romney sure knows this:
New Hampshire: Taking aim at a rallying John McCain, New Hampshire front-runner Mitt Romney said Saturday that his Republican presidential rival had failed to follow in the path of President Reagan by twice opposing President George W. Bush's tax cuts. Romney also sought to turn McCain's well-known maverick streak — a central theme in his campaign ads — against the Arizona senator. McCain's go-it-alone attitude, Romney suggested, will breed more divisiveness in Washington if he wins.
McCain's New Hampshire co-chair, ex-Rep. Chuck Douglass, responded later:
"From his claims of being a 'lifelong hunter' to receiving the NRA's endorsement to marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., it's clear that Mitt Romney has trouble with the truth. His latest attacks are yet another example of his complete inability to level with the voters of New Hampshire. The facts are clear: Romney refused to endorse the Bush tax cuts he now claims to champion, maybe because he was too busy raising taxes in Massachusetts by over $700 million per year -- more than any other state in his first year in office. New Hampshire voters expect and deserve integrity and authenticity in their leaders, not someone who changes his positions to fit the politics of the moment and can't seem to tell the truth."
2. The FEC will shut down, basically, as of the new year, as Congress clashes with the Bush administration of the Hans A. von Spakovsky nomination.
3. Hillary Clinton has dinner with her traveling press corps. Off the record. ,,,, Says Barack Obama:
In fact you could argue that there are a bunch of ex-Clintonites supporting me, in fact you could argue that there are more foreign policy experts from the clinton administratin supporting me than Senator Clinton should raise some pretty interesting questions. Why is the national security advisor, the secretary of the navy for Bill Clinton, the assistant secretary of state for Bill Clinton, why are all these people endorsing me? It's not just because I give a good speech. They apparently believe that my vision of foreign policy is better suited for the 21st century, and is not caught up in the politics of fear that we've been seeing out of George Bush for the last seven years.
The Clinton campaign releases a list of 85 names in response...
4. The New York Times' Michael Luo analyzes the semantics of Mitt Romney:
Indeed, with many of these instances, there has often been at least an element of truth in his claims. But for a candidate who has featured his business background and made much of his propensity for careful analysis of data, Mr. Romney is not always precise. Asked about it on Thursday, he said he would correct whatever was wrong.
5. A consortium of SEIU affiliates advised by former Edwards campaign manager Nick Baldick has purchased $750,000 worth of television ads in Iowa, and Sen. Barack Obama does not like the symbolism at all.
"I don't just talk the talk, I walk the walk, I've been doing this all my life, and John has not had that same record," he said. "John yesterday said that he didn't believe in 527s," he said. "We found out today that there's an outside group spending $750,000...and the individual who's running the group used to be John Edwards' campaign manager." "You can't say yesterday you don't believe in them and today you're having three quarters of a million dollars being spent for you," he said.
Playing umpire for a bit: in 2004, Jonathan Prince, currently an Edwards deputy campaign manager, left the campaign to run a 527 on Edwards's behalf. Baldick wouldn't tell me whether he contacted the SEIU or the SEIU contacted him, but he insists he's had no contact with the Edwards campaign for quite a while. Nevertheless, a pattern is developing, and Edwards, the reformer's champion, is being helped by independent groups who are advised by Edwards partisans.
Here is how Edwards responded today, courtesy of CBS's Aaron Lewis:
"The way the law operates as everyone here knows already... The way the law operates is we're not allowed to be involved in this. The campaign's not allowed to be involved, I'm not allowed to be involved. I found out about this probably after most of you did through the news media...
"I'll say a couple things about senator Obama. First, you know I guess he's seeing the same thing on the ground that we're seeing here which is why he's started talking about me, which is that we're moving."
"Second, I'm proud of the fact that I've never taken any money unlike senator obama - never taken any money from a washington lobbyist or a PAC.
"But from my perspective, this is not an academic or a philosophical question. This is about who has the toughness and fight to take on corporate greed and win. And I have been doing it my entire life"
Everyone has an opinion on this week's news that Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. (Over 62,000 readers responded to an Usmagazine.com poll on whether Spears is setting a bad example; the results were split.)
Even Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee – a Baptist minister and the former governor of Arkansas – entered the fray.
"It's a tragedy when a 16-year-old who is not really prepared for all the responsibilities of adult life is going to be now faced with all the responsibilities of honest-to-goodness adult life," he told CBS News in Iowa.
"Apparently, she's going to have the child and I think that is the right decision, a good decision, and I respect that and appreciate it," Huckabee continued. "I hope it is not an encouragement to other 16-year-olds who think that is the best course of action."
"But at the same time I'm not going to condemn her," he said. "I just hope that she will make another right decision and that's to give that child all the love and kindness and care that she can."
Tell Us: Should Spears be commended for her decision?
December 21, 2007
The Daily Five: Pick The Real Tour Name
1. Giuliani's first event since he got the vapors? He's raising money in Rochester, New York tonight..... Rush Limbaugh is apparently in reruns until the caucuses, per NRO...former NH Sen. Bob Smith endorses Duncan Hunter...
2. Good for her: an Iowan actually has the temerity to question ethanol subsidies......The nation's leading gay newspaper, the Washington Blade, endorses Hillary Clinton.....Chelsea and Dorothy Rodham join
3. Five of the following campaign tour names are entirely made up. The rest, unfortunately, are real.
(a) The Big Challenges, Real Solutions Tour
(b) America Rising
(c) Fighting for America's Voice Tour
(d) Working for Change, Finding Common Ground Tour
(e) The Ignore What Bill Says Now But Remember How Great A President He Was Tour
(f) Every County Counts Tour
(g) Every Kum - n Go Counts Tour
(h) Stand For Change Tour
(i) Lean For Change Tour
(j) The "Clear Conservative Choice: Hands Down!" Tour
(k) The Happy Fun Lucky Candidate's Tour
(l) The Optimistic Words That Everyone Can Agree With Tour
4. A correspondent objects to a comment that repeats the libel about Obama and the Muslim religion. As much as I despise the sentiment the writer expresses, I really don't have the time or inclination to delete comments that, however dimly, have bearing on the subject at hand, although I do reserve the right to delete comments at will and with no prior or subsequent explanation.
People's reactions are their reactions, and some of them may be odious, like this one. Comments represent the views of those who write them; I will not excuse the writer's ignorance by giving the writer the satisfaction of seeing his (or her) assertion declared out of bounds.
In general, comments by you folks do not represent the views or opinions of The Atlantic (apparently, no longer the Atlantic Monthly), the Atlantic Media Group, its editors, executives, authors, financiers, fans or IT technicians.
(5) The final installment of this edition of The Table. Again, I'm not much to look at, but this isn't about me, is it?
Huckabee, Limbaugh, Saltsman, York And I
Reader Jim Welsh writes:
You don't give the name of the Huckabee ally. To be fair just becauses some unnamed Huckabee supporter criticises Rush doesn't mean the whole Huckabee campaign is against Rush. Rush's beef should be with the "Huckabee ally" instead of the Huckabee campaign. Allies are not necessarily official campaign spokespersons.
Very true.
The person quoted was not a campaign spokesman. But neither is he or she a person who prayed on my gullibility to identify as a Huckabee ally. After hearing and reading about Limbaugh's criticism, I put the question to someone I knew was familiar with the thinking of many (though by no means all) of Huckabee's campaign advisers. And the response I received was the response I printed.
Chip Saltsman, Huckabee's campaign manager, tells a curious Byron York that he's a huge fan of the man behind the golden EIB microphone.
And while it's certainly correct to suggest that one ally does not represent the view of the Huckabee campaign, from what I've been able to gather from conversations with various members of Huckabee's team, on this one issue -- the motivation of Rush Limbaugh -- neither does the campaign manager.
I wish I could name names, but I won't, and if that presents a credibility problem then so be it. The truth is that Limbaugh does not want to see Huckabee nominated, and it's not terribly surprising, or terribly newsworthy, that folks who think Huckabee should be nominated have developed a theory or theory to explain his opposition.
Sen. Barack Obama, in Exeter, New Hampshire, December 20.
Why Am I Silent About The Romney Verbiage Controversy?
Hard to know what to make of it. There's no good reason to lie about an easily verifiable fact, and Romney has been known to dip into literary language occasionally, especially when he's trying to illustrate a point of history.
The facts seem to be that Romney's father put himself at political risk to march on behalf of civil rigthts; Mitt and Scott Romney may have heard, as young men, that his father marched "with" MLK in the sense that the preposition is used by a politician who says he "stands" with workers... that Romney's efforts to explain himself were pedantic and, judging by the response, easily mockable... and that, so far, Iowans don't seem to be hearing about this all that much from their own press...
The Kerry comparisons have to hurt, though.
BTW: Here's Romney's newest ad in Michigan. It's personal to him.
Why Don't I Mention The New Hampshire Gallup Polls?
Well I will. HRC and Obama are essentially tied; McCain is within 7 points of Romney.
It's an orange to everyone's apple. Now -- I happen to like both fruits just fine, although I'm a plum guy myself, but NH poll that Gallup just conducted has to stand by itself. It's based on the firm's very famous (or controversial) likely voter model, which asks respondents to answer questions, which are then scored along an 8 point probability scale.
Because the built in penalty for those who were not old enough to have voted in previous elections Gallup gives extra points to those age 18-21. They also give an extra point to those who did not live in New Hampshire in 2006 but say they "always" or "nearly always" vote.
What's good about this model is that it seems to work well right before an election, perhaps more accurately capturing individual voter intensity when everyone is paying attention. And we're pretty close to an election.
Did HRC Flip-Flop On Iraq?
This is what she said yesterday:
"“I think we can bring home one to two combat brigades a month,” she said. “I think we can bring nearly everybody home, you know, certainly within a year if we keep at it and do it very steadily.”
In truth, that's pretty much in accord with her previous statements. Unlike Bill Richardson, she'd leave a residual force in Iraq, but at the rate of two combat brigades a month, most of the troops would be redeployed in a year. Clinton isn't able to say that not a single US troop would be in Iraq by the end of her first term, although Richardson has made explicit that promise.
So -- not a flip-flop. But still a good way for Richardson to draw attention to himself.
Pathways To The Nomination
Five Republicans now have a credible route to the nomination.
Mike Huckabee's pathway.... Huckabee wins Iowa convincingly, helping John McCain to beat Romney in NH narrowly, causing Romney to falter; Huckabee, skipping Michigan, wins South Carolina handily, having grabbed conservatives from Fred Thompson... he loses narrowly to Rudy Giuliani on Jan. 29, in Florida, but Huckabee has enough momentum, delegates and money to make a run at the southern states (Georgia Alabama) who hold contests on Feb. 5; Giuliani wins the northern states, and for the next few weeks, Huckabee and Giuliani battle for d decisive delegate edge. Giuliani's social positions prove too onerous; Huckabee cleans up in debates, and Huckabee slides to victory, narrowly.
Or;
John McCain could win the nomination if.... McCain comes in a surprise third in Iowa, or not; he wins New Hampshire, wins or ties in Michigan, which merits him a second look in South Carolina. Those big fundraisers recruited by John Weaver and co. finally are able to find donors willing to contribute the max to a candidate on the rise, and money swarms in via the Net. The press writes the McCain rising story. By this point, Huckabee and McCain are competing for the votes of conservatives and Giuliani is a non-factor, his support having dissipated. McCain edges Huckabee in South Carolina (or comes close) and puts himself in the catbird's seat for Jan 29. What would help: Thompson drops out and endorses McCain. Clinton beats Obama and independents vote for McCain in New Hampshire.
Or;
Rudy Giuliani could win the nomination if.... He finishes dismally in Iowa, but the press doesn't really cover it that much because they're covering the vanquishing of Hillary Clinton; Giuliani finishes a strong third in New Hampshire, a strong third in Michigan, fourth in South Carolina...by this point, he'll have not won a single contest (with the exception, perhaps, of Nevada) but won't be all that far behind in the delegate race. He'll have spent millions on television in Florida; he wins Florida; and suddenly the momentum swings back to him and he wins enough contests on Feb. 5 to turn the race into a two-man sprint ... Giuliani and a social conservative. And he beats the conservative.
Or;
Mitt Romney could win the nomination if.....Romney wins in Iowa and New Hampshire; wins or places second in Michigan; South Carolina becomes a firewall...either Huckabee re-emerges...Romney outpolls Giuliani in South Carolina and turns the contest, by Florida, into a two-man sprint with Giuliani; or, Giuliani's support crumbles without an early state victory...
Or;
Fred Thompson could win the nomination if..... Thompson hangs in there, benefits from a Huckabee fall in Iowa -- i.e., Huckabee CANNOT win Iowa in this scenario, which means that Romney wins Iowa which means that Romney probably wins New Hampshire; Thompson somehow wins South Carolina and wins Southern states on Feb. 5; Romney and Giuliani battle in some northern states (and Romney maybe even wins one), and Thompson lives to fight Giuliani or Romney as the conservative alternative.
Other scenarios? Write in and I'll publish the best ones.
Jabbing At Hillary
First, Barack Obama, speaking last night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (per CBS News's Maria Gavrilovic)...
This argument that somehow well, you know, Obama, for whatever reason I keep on defying this notion that somehow the American people are not ready for me. That just is not borne out. And right now among all Democratic nominees or Democratic candidates I do better in a general election match ups than the other candidates. And this argument is being pushed by the way by a candidate who starts off with a 47% disapproval ratings. You know, so, I’m not going to mention names but I mean the notion that a viability or an electability argument is being made by somebody who starts off with almost half the country not being able to vote for (pause and laughter) them doesn’t make sense. (someone in the audience yells, welcome to American) But you know in the end don’t vote your fears, I’m stealing this line from my buddy Deval Patrick who stole a whole bunch of lines from me when he ran for the governorship but it’s the right one, don’t vote your fears, vote your aspirations. Vote what you believe. (applause)
Obama's aides have been making this argument privately for eight months, but it's the first time I've ever heard Obama say it himself. The wrote Clinton campaign response -- and having asked Mark Penn this question many times, I can recite it my heart is that "by the time of the convention, both the Republican and Democratic nominees will be equally as polarizing." History bears that out, but the premise of Obama's campaign is that he would be different. As he told an audience of independent voters in Exeter, New Hampshire today, "there will not be a litmus test in my administration." He meant that his approach to problem solving would be collaborative and he would select experts and policy-makers without regard to policy. In Congress, though, Clinton has plenty of bipartisan credentials on her own.
And Bill Richardson called the New York Times unprompted to accuse Hillary Clinton of flip-flopping on how fast she'd be able to withdraw troops from Iraq.
“Senator Clinton’s comments are a stunning flip-flop — she’s been saying she would keep troops in Iraq for five years, until 2013, and now she comes up with an inconsistent, incredible turnaround,” Mr. Richardson said.
As the Times notes, these are not the comments of a vice presidential wannabe. A Richardson aide points out to me that Richardson is the only candidate on the air now with an Iraq war ad, although he would not say how big the buy was.
December 20, 2007
The Daily Five: How Do You Figuratively March?
1. Rudy Giuliani cancels his New Hampshire schedule for Friday, keeps schedule for Saturday and Sunday. .... Clinton has events in New Hampshire; same with Obama. Edwards announces eight-day bus tour to the caucus; Mitt Romney cancels Friday event in New Hampshire; Huckabee and Thompson continue in Iowa;
2. Obama draws 900 to Portsmouth....bad weather grounds Clinton chopper in Iowa....
3. Boston Herald endorses McCain....Romney holds event at Orange, City Iowa company that makes high-tech products for the military; CBS's Scott Conroy writes that an Australian reporter was barred entry under international arms control guidelines....Romney says Huckabee would make a great VP....Peta to Romney: " The Best Way to Fight Global Warming and Rising Health-Care Costs Is to Tax Meat."
4. The Democratic Party makes fun of Mitt Romney thusly:
"... quess what? Even if he doesn't win this time around, he has ALREADY become THE most powerful social conservative in America. The old guard of so-called "Christian leaders" are gone."
The Table: Religion IS Fair Game
Thanks to producers Jennie Rothernberg Gritz and Terrence Henry. And yes, the head turn is supposed to be funny. And yes, I'm not much to look at.
News Update
As sort of predicted here, but not really: Tancredo didn't tell very many people before his announcement. He endorsed Mitt Romney.
And Rudy Giuliani is out of the hospital (or, "out of hospital," as they say in Britain), his somewhat elongated stay fueling plenty of speculation that he was sick... but the doctors were just waiting for all the tests to come back...various Giuliani sputum cultures and such... and he has a clean bill of health. A statement from his campaign:
"Mayor Giuliani is being released from Barnes Jewish Hospital with a clean bill of health. Doctors performed a series of precautionary tests and the results of all the tests were normal. The Mayor is heading back to New York this afternoon and he continues to be in high spirits."
Assessing Giuliani's Strategy
Rudy Giuliani's "29 Inning Strategy," as he called it yesterday, was based on several assumptions.
One was that the compression of the calendar created the conditions for several candidates to win early state contests. With the field scrambled, momentum would not flow to any single candidate, and would be available for the taking to the candidate who existed Feb. 5 with the most number of delegates.
A second was that delegates matter. Giuliani's campaign manager, Mike DuHaime, worked closely with Republican allies in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to change the delegate allocation rules from proportional to winner-take-all.
The third was that Giuliani would established a sandbar in Florida (heavy campaigning among the Cuban-American community, the New York ex-pats in South Florida, etc) and would maintain his lead through the primaries.
A fourth was that the evangelical base would not coalesce around a single candidate, but would, through the strength of Giuliani's commitment to fighting the war on terror (read: radical Islam) would wash away, to some extent, lingering doubts about his personal life.
These were sound assumptions. But three of them are in danger of being proved untrue. The evangelicals have found their candidate, and regardless of whether Huckabee drops out, they will be unified and in a mood to force their will on the rest of the party.
Giuliani faces a challenge from them -- either in Florida or beyond -- maybe even at the convention. Mitt Romney's careful cultivation of Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire and his efforts to burnish his national image are steadily narrowing the gap between him and Giuliani, and there is no reason, so long as Huckabee is still in the race, why Romney _has_ to win South Carolina in order to get the nomination.
In Florida, the sandbar has been breached. Mike Huckabee, who was nowhere a month ago, is suddenly either beating Giuliani or placing a close second to him. And this is before a single vote has been cast -- before any real momentum has been transferred to him.
The most important insight, I think, still holds: delegates matter. And Giuliani is in a position to exit February 5 with the most delegates. For now. His biggest threat remains a Mitt Romney, having won Iowa and New Hampshire and opened his checkbook... which is why, despite the downside risk, the Giuliani campaign is comfortable with Mike Huckabee's rise.
AtlantiCam: McCain's Architect
An interview with Mike Dennehy, the national political director for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and the architect of his comeback strategy. I asked Dennehy about comparisons to 2000, independents, and for specific evidence that McCain is moving in the right direction in the state.
A Huckabee Ally On El Rushbo
What's the Huckabee universe's take on why Rush Limbaugh does not like the man from Arkansas? I asked a prominent DC-based Huckabee ally:
"Honestly, because Rush doesn’t think for himself. That’s not necessarily a slap because he’s not paid to be a thinker—he’s an entertainer. I can’t remember the last time that he has veered from the talking points from the DC/Manhattan chattering class. If they were praising Huckabee, he would be too."
"Also, I have to think that he’s dying to have Hillary in the White House. Bill Clinton made Rush a megastar. Having another Clinton back in power would make him the Leading Voice of the Opposition once again."
On Tom Tancredo
He can argue, legitimately, that the one issue he set out to bring to the forefront of the debate has, through sheer force of the Republican base, traveled there.
Before Tancredo, the GOP presidential candidates didn't take the anti-immigration sentiment they heard on talk radio all that seriously.
After Tancredo, it sometimes seems as if it's the only they issue they do take seriously. They scramble to out-Tancredo each other; any hint of sympathy for the undocumented worker is now verboten. "Misplaced sympathy," is what Fred Thompson called it yesterday.
Tancredo -- and Tancredoites in Congress and millions of Americans -- have forced at least four candidates -- Huckabee and McCain are two -- to completely change the way they talk and think about immigration. Even Democrats call for border security first.
Tancredo gave voice to a burbling reservoir of anxiety and can fairly be said to have the most effect, policy-wise, of any presidential candidate. Politically, too, some Republicans believe that Tancredo-style immigration politics may have irreparably damaged the GOP's efforts to incorporate Hispanics into their coalition.
Tom Tancredo is an outsize figure in our politics.
Will he endorse? Unclear. If he does, the betting is on Thompson or Romney, although advisers to both men expect the other to get it, if it's gettable. Note that Bay Buchanan is a member of the LDS church and is said to be pushing Tancredo to endorse Romney as a way of repudiating Huckabee, somehow. We'll see.
December 19, 2007
The Daily Five: Late Edition
1. Most of the presidential candidates will take only two days off next week. Huckabee, Thompson, Romney, Clinton, Edwards, Biden and Dodd are in Iowa. John McCain raises money in Louisiana. The rest of the field is in New Hampshire.
2. Rudy Giuliani's standing in the pollscontinues to plummet. A new NBC/WSJ poll shows him tied with Mitt Romney -- hey, Romney is on the rise, nationally. And remember: national polls tend to sample relative to population, so New York, Florida and California are well represented. .... In Iowa, Mike Huckabee leads Mitt Romney by seven points in the new ABC News/Post poll, and is winning three-to-one among weekly churchgoers. The poll shows that Huckabee's personal attributes, his religion and Romney's religion kindled his rise....the smart Jennifer Rubin sees a McCain rise nationally... Ron Paul says he'll keep $500 donation from white supremacist Don Black...apparently, there exists in this world a white supremacist named Ron Black....The Politico's Roger Simonsays Thompson lived up to his lazy stereotype, but Thompson campaign calls the column unfair and untrue...
3. So far, no sign of an Al Gore endorsement before the holidays. Spokesperson Kalee Kreider says Gore has no public schedule over the next few weeks......A Hillary Clinton Christmas
href="http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/87.aspx">present... Katie Couric: "Harry Truman said a man not honorable in his marital relations is not usually honorable in any other. Some voters don't feel comfortable supporting a candidate who's not remained faithful to his or her spouse. Can you understand their position?" Barack Obama's answer to this question:
Some of our greatest presidents haven't always been terrific husbands. And some who have been wonderful husbands have been rotten presidents. So i think that other countries have typically taken a little more casual an approach when it comes to the personal lives of elected officials and i think that there has to be some space for privacy. I mean, there are some people who might say that the fact that i indulged in drugs when i was young disqualifies me. I mean, there are a lot of ways that you can apply that kind of morality. What i'm always hopeful of is that people judge our public servants based their passion, their commitment, their ....integrity, how they operate with that public trust.
Here is how Hillary Clinton answered:
Well, i can certainly understand why some people would feel that way and that is their perfect right to do so. But i think that would be a tough standard for most of erican history to be able to meet when we look at people who've made a big difference in our country. I think there's more to someone's honor and integrity and to their public service. I think sometimes we confuse the private and the public in ways that are not necessarily useful. So of course it's a deeply personal matter that i take personally, but i think on the public stage, there are a number of people who have represented our country, led our country, accomplished great achievements on behalf of our country who might have some challenges in their personal life but have made a great contribution.
4. 12 candidates qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, but not Chris Dodd....Christian Science Monitor begins series on religion and politics...
5. Richelieu, the nom de plume of a prominent Republican strategist who has advised at least two presidential candidates, thinks I'm gullible:
The Edwards campaign is trying hard to generate a sense of momentum in Iowa. I recognize a few trusty old dodges, mirrors, and other tricks from the spinmeister's toolbag in their spiel; they are pulling record (even Goldwater-esque) crowds, internal metrics like web visits, sign-ups, bumpersticker hand-outs, and my favorite of all "volunteer calling" all show growing support, etc., etc. (The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder falls hook, line, and sinker for it here .)
I'm more doubtful. It reminds me of Howard Dean's 41,000 committed and identified supporters on the eve of the last Iowa caucus. Still, an Edwards surprise win in Iowa is not impossible. Polls show him in the hunt , and he did well there in the past. He is a good campaigner. Hillary is on the rocks. But it is easy to mistake the final enthusiasm of your supporters, especially if they suspect the end is nigh, for a surge. We'll see what the world looks like right after Christmas.
Meanwhile, my gut tells me the Huckabee surge is fading now in Iowa. It might not be so bad for Romney after all. A narrow loss will look like a comeback after the original Huckabee polling leap knocked Romney's out-of-control expectations back down to earth. Plus, my Iowans tell me the new Romney comparison spots are starting to have an effect.
The Table: Premiere Edition
Marc Ambinder, Ross Douthat, and Matthew Yglesias predict which candidates will win the primaries and debate whether Hillary's slide is a media fabrication. (Part 1 of 4).
Tancredo Scuttle
The scuttle is:
Rep. Tom Tancredo will drop out of the presidential race tomorrow and endorse either Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson.... neither of those candidates know who, just yet.
But the scuttle is probably wrong. Tancredo has been critical of all his opponents, and, given his issue's saliency, he does not need to endorse. His party sounds like him, now, on immigration.
Mier's identity may have been grounded in being born again as far as Bush was concerned, I have no idea. In fact, while I opposed her, this is the first I learned anything about her religion. She was opposed because she was mostly a cipher when it came to the Law and no one was comfortable in the belief that she would somehow represent a conservative ideology on the Supreme Court. That was it, pure and simple. There's no there, there as regards Marc's assertion as regards her religion and all that sort of sentiment does is create a divide on the Right which doesn't actually exist. I read legal blogs and listened to Mark Levin in formulating my opposition to Miers, neither of those sources ever mentioned her religion, so far as I recall. It is irrelevant. But this below by Marc is the most troubling of all:
So far, these bad feelings haven't filtered down the chain of tissue to Iowa Republicans, but is there a cause, in recent memory, that the conservative echosphere hasn't influenced?
"Echosphere"? "Influenced"? "Filtered down"? If Marc thinks that Allah at Hot Air or Ace influence my opinions, or I theirs - or Rush any of ours - he's just plain wrong. I suspect we all agree on much, but far from all. Read around. And that concept holds true for talk radio and its larger number of conservative listeners, as well. People read right-side media and listen to talk radio because they mostly agree with it going in, it isn't a top down affair.
It's insulting to suggest it, though I imagine that wasn't Marc's intent. But he doesn't understand what is happening as regards Huckabee, who is already flattening in the polls, by the way. I predicted it a week ago and it didn't require Rush Limbaugh or blogs to make it happen, though they certainly facilitate his fall by introducing him to people more quickly than would happen were it only being done by opposing campaigns.
Huckabee could have the same background, religion and the same career and were he a solid conservative with the record to support the claim, ... add in his charisma, Damn! I'd almost kill to have him carry the Republican nomination in the Fall. On that score, it's perhaps only a few of his more extreme past statements, on gays, for example, that give me any pause. He seems a bit intolerant, frankly. But I doubt very much all Evangelicals are.
McCain's Iraq Ad, Targeted At Independents In New Hampshire
Who's Behind A Third Pro-Edwards 527? (UPDATED)
UPDATE: An Edwards spokesperson said the form was filed in error; the group is basically inactive; Jarding isn't affiliated with the committee; there's no there there.
There's Working for Working Families, funded by the Carpenters' union.
The New America Alliance, funded by wealthy SEIU branches.
And now, there's the John Edwards One America Committee 527, which re-organized, officially, on December 5, according to the group's filing with the Internal Revenue Service.
After the 2004 election, the 527 committee, an adjunct of Edwards's hard dollar political action committee, allowed donors to contribute without limit to the PAC, which helped fund Edwards's public activities between November of 2004 and the beginning of his current campaign.
Steve Jarding, a former senior adviser to John Edwards, is listed as the executive director.
But Jarding, in a telephone interview, said he has no idea why he is listed, having amicably departed from the Edwards orbit after the 2004 elections.
"I am very much not affiliated with the organization, whatever it is," he said. "It's a mystery. I'm not involved in anything on behalf of John Edwards or the presidential campaign right now."
After a reporter called Jarding to ask him about the group, Jarding began to investigate. He said he tried to contract the two other names listed on the IRS filing, a treasurer, Lora Haggard, and Jeannette Hyde, a director, but was not able to get in touch with them. Jarding is currently helping Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) with his re-election campaign
The committee has a Raleigh post office box but there is no telephone listing for the group.
The Committee's purpose, according to its organizational statement, is to "Help Democratic Candidates who support a reform agenda for giving people greater control over their futures."
There's no sign of any current spending by the 527, which suggests that it might have been formed to help Edwards after Iowa and New Hampshire, and would be in a position to raise money to run television ads in the spring, should Edwards win the nomination. Edwards is participating in the federal financing system and cannot raise and spend more than 50.9M through the primaries.
Edwards's lawyers are exploring the option, should he accumulate enough delegates to win the nomination, of declaring him the nominee before the convention and then beginning to raise and spend general election money right then and there.
In 2004, Edwards aide Jonathan Prince resigned before the Iowa caucuses and established an independent 527 in Edwards's benefit. He has said that he did not coordinate with the presidential campaign.
Obama Gains On Health Care, A Little, In New Hampshire
Buried in the latest CNN/WMUR poll of New Hampshire is this intriguing stat:
On the question of which candidate would do a better job on health care, Clinton has always led. But in a month that saw Clinton deride Obama's plan for its lack of a mandate, the gap has narrowed by 16 points. All the other issues were relatively static.
Still, Clinton has a sizable, 21-pt advantage. But perhaps the increased attention to Obama's plan helped Democrats become more familiar with it.
BTW: 40% of New Hampshire voters say they're undecided and only 4% claim they'll be influenced by Iowa...
Richardson's Holiday Ad... Is A Contrast Ad On Iraq
Nice counter-programming... and back to square one.
Kerry's Endorsement -- When? If?
It may happen soon, it may never happen.
A source close to Sen. John Kerry underscores the point that he has not decided whether to endorse, although, the source acknowledges, the season for such things is coming to an end soon.
Stay tuned...
Now Everyone Has A Holiday Ad...
Obama (with adorable girls):
Giuliani (a web video with Santa...)
Not 1. (But 12)
A defensive-sounding Gov. Mike Huckabee on Today this morning:
VIERA: so the people understand what you're talking about, he says you granted over 1,000 pardons and clemencies while you were governor.
HUCKABEE: not one was walking out of prison who had been a murderer. he brags that he denied them all. one of them was a young kid who at age 13 shot a bb at another kid, department break the skin, hit him in the arm. later that kid worked his way through college, enrolled in the national guard of massachusetts and went to the iraqi war and became a decorated soldier, came home and wanted to be a police officer but needed a pardon to do it. mitt romney refused. i would say that the fact that i gave a kid who was 25 years old the opportunity to go to culinary school because when he was 19 he took a joyride as a passenger in a car, that pardon enabled him to go to culinary school. otherwise, he couldn't have. you let the people of america decide which person you'd rather have president, one who looked at his own political fortunes or one who actually tried to do the job and make decisions that were responsible for the people you're supposed to serve.
But the records show that Huckabee commuted the sentences of 12 convicted murderers.
First Look: Romney's "Searched"
You're getting a first look at the most personal, most provocative television ad Mitt Romney has aired so far...
It's called "Searched." It tells a story familiar to readers of Romney biographies. Robert Gay was a partner at Bain Capital; his 14-year-old daughter disappeared in New York City in 1996, and when the investigation stalled after three days, Romney emptied the Boston office, transported everyone to the city, set up a command center, printed 300,000 fliers, and searched for the girl.
The Bain team was credited by police with helping to find her (safe and sound), and in the ad, Robert Gay says: "The man who helped save my daughter was Mitt Romney."
What's this about?
Romney's personal character; a video holiday card to Iowans; the father figure who protects vulnerable young women; a businessman who knows that family is more important than profit; a look into Romney's soul.
It's tempting to see this ad as a direct rebutal to Mike Huckabee's lugubriously Christian efforts, but a Romney aide said the ad was filmed at least two weeks ago. The Gay family agreed earlier in the campaign, the aide said, to tell their story to Romney's videographers.
It's going to be hard not to interpret the ad as a slap of sorts against New York City, and its mayor at the time -- one Rudy Giuliani -- as documentation provided by the campaign makes clear. Romney told the Boston Globe in 1996:
"Now back in school and fully recovered, Melissa and her parents are doing well, Romney said. The partners, however, are still taking stock of their visit to the dark corners of New York, putting up posters and talking to runaways outside seedy nightclubs and peep shows. Romney said he can't escape some of the images he carries with him from his week in the New York underworld. 'It was a shocker,' he said. 'The number of lost souls was astounding.."
Here's the script:
My fourteen year-old daughter had disappeared in New York City for three days. No one could find her.
"My business partner stepped forward to take charge. He closed the company and brought almost all our employees to New York.
"He said, 'I don’t care how long it takes – we’re going to find her.'
"He set up a command center and searched through the night. The man who helped save my daughter was Mitt Romney.
"Mitt's done a lot of things that people say are nearly impossible. But for me, the most important thing he’s ever done is to help save my daughter."
GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: "I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this message."
A Real Edwards Surge
Is John Edwards's surge a media-created phenomenon, a collective reaction formation to the media's desire to see a three-person race, or guilt for building up Barack Obama? Does the media really have that power?
Or are we seeing something more organic?
On Monday, the Edwards campaign recorded more e-mail sign-ups than almost any day in its history.
Over the weekend, the campaign was forced to add four new servers to handle all the web traffic.
Contributions are up online: Thursday and Friday, the two days after the debate, made for one of the highest 2-day totals they've seen in months. (He's been ubiquitous on national television -- morning shows and Sunday shows.)
Those are national totals.
What about Iowa? There are two metrics, one of which we don't have available: their hard count of confirmed caucus goers. The other is crowds.
Not only has Edwards been greeted by unusually large crowds for him, he is outdrawing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton head-to-head. In Des Moines Monday, Edwards drew 400 to Hillary Clinton's 200; in Mason City on Saturday night, Edwards drew 600 to Obama's roughly 300.
The campaign tracks undecided caucus goers through nightly rounds of phone banking: the Edwards folks claim they're hearing more about their campaign's unique holiday card than they are about HRC's Des Moines Register endorsement. (Note: HRC and Edwards's universes don't overlap too much, so it's not that surprising.)
Still -- at almost every event in recent days, Edwards has gotten standing ovations. At the end.
I've been to dozens of Edwards events since the beginning of the cycle, and I've seen such enthusiasm for him only a few times.
The Edwards campaign is not conducting nightly tracking polls, so advisers can't pinpoint
day-to-day movement.
Democrats with access to the internal polling data of some of Edwards's presidential rivals say that he may be winning back male voters he lost to Barack Obama and is consolidating his strength with the union electorate in Iowa.
Are we reading too much into the fact that Obama has started to peer in Edwards's direction? It is possible that the Obama campaign has detected a flight of soft supporters abandoning the nest. But it's also possible that Obama campaign wants to shave four or five points off Edwards's margins in order to solidify a lead they know they have.
December 18, 2007
Huck = Harriett Miers?
Huck = Harriett Miers?
A conservative counter-revolution is breaking out in the talk radio universe and on prominent conservative blogs.
The same forces that joined to force the White House to withdraw Harriett Miers' Supreme Court nomination, a tender by the president that was as explicitly grounded in Miers' identity as a born again evangelical as Huckabee's presidential campaign surge is based on his choice of career and religious affiliation.
Rush Limbaugh, still the most listened-to talk radio host on the planet, has taken to calling Huckabee the "Huckster." Not even Mitt Romney, in his most profane of moments, goes there.
Limbaugh theorizes that the media is rooting for Huckabee because they know he's the kiss of death in the general election. And he has compared Huckabee unfavorably to Jimmy Carter -- as a snake oil salesman in Southern Baptist garb who later sold his soul to liberals.
On the major conservative blog sites, Huckabee has almost no proud partisans; even the Club for Growth, perhaps Huckabee's biggest critic, has quietly receded into the background, allowing others to take up the attacks. Some conservative bloggers are suggesting that the only thing Huckabee's good for -- or bad for -- is a brokered convention.
Other conservative intellectuals have taken to arguing that he can never unite economic conservatives and national security conservatives, and that, in some ways, Hillary Clinton's instincts on defense policy might be better than the other man from Hope's
So far, these bad feelings haven't filtered down the chain of tissue to Iowa Republicans, but is there a cause, in recent memory, that the conservative echosphere hasn't influenced?
Huckabee's "Army" Plans A Major Fundraiser
Online supporters of Mike Huckabee have pegged Dec. 27 as the day of their major grassroots fundraiser, trying to replicate the astounding success of another prarie fire candidate, Ron Paul, who raised more than $6.6M in a day.
Can Huckabee turn his turn at the wheel into a movement?
Dear Huck's Army Members,
Dec27th.com is a test of whether what we've created is truly strong. This
is an effort started by HucksArmy.com and endorsed by the official
campaign. If this can't work, nothing will.
The good news is that it is already working. In just our first day we
received pledges from nearly 200 supporters for a total of almost $40,000.
Our last fundraising effort took two weeks to reach the same levels.
Here's what you can do to continue the momentum:
====================================
1) GO PLEDGE AT: http://www.dec27th.com
The amount you pledge is not as important as that you participate. Even "A
Buck For Huck" helps. Unless you have already maxed out your contribution
limit, there is no reason not to participate.
2) SPREAD THE WORD HOWEVER YOU CAN:
Again, this is the one grassroots effort that everyone can get behind. The
campaign has expressed the excitement and approval. This will be big if we
all push together!
====================================
As we've already said: EVERYONE NEEDS TO PARTICIPATE. Even if you only
pledge $5 we need you to stand behind Governor Huckabee. We can't let him
down now.
This is our time.
Let's Roll,
Alex and Brett Harris
Planned Parenthood
Optic wise, it sucks, yes.
But Is there anything new to be said about Gov. Mitt Romney and abortion? Horrors. Not only did his wife contribute to Planned Parenthood. In 1994. But -- the contribution was drawn from the couple's joint account. And -- Romney attended the fundraiser. In the midst of a busy campaign, Where he attended dozens and dozens of fundraisers.
Really?
Mitt Romney has admitted changing his mind on abortion. He's never denied the fact of his pro-choice inclinations. And can he be possibly expected to remember from precisely which bank account -- remember, he's a rich guy, and he has a lot of them -- he wrote a check from?
There's no real story here -- nothing telling about Romney today and his fitness to be president. Only that a rival campaign, desperate to discredit Romney, is piggybacking on an old story to twist the knife in his back. And it may work.
Caption Contest: And The Winner Is...
In third place: "Rock paper scissors to see who brings up Rezko." ( David Mizner )
In second place: "I've got nothing, captionwise. The only thing that comes to mind is that Carson looks kind of hot in that picture. But he works for Clinton now, you say? Darn." (Former Deaniac)
And the winner... who will recieve a prize of to-be-determined content at to-be-determined time is:
"Joe tells his one-time ally Jay, "I miss the old days. This campaign can't even afford to re-fill the paper towel holders."
Congratulations to "Paul."
Iowa Will See McCain Once More
SALEM -- Sen. John McCain plans a final visit to Iowa before the caucuses, a campaign aide said today, sometime between Christmas and New Years. Despite the surprise endorsement of the Des Moines Register, McCain and his aides aren't rethinking their decision to concentrate resources in New Hampshire and are more than happy to let Mike Huckabee beat Mitt Romney, softening him up for New Hampshire.
Whouley Consults For The Clinton Campaign -- But Not In Iowa
Magical. Mysterious. Scary. All those adjectives to the Bostonian named Michael Whouley, probably the most famous, least-attention seeking and most-regarded political organizer of his generation. If there is a vote to be gotten, he is the best getter.
According to a campaign official, Mr. Whouley has been brought in an as extra set of eyes for the Clinton campaign. He's finishing a review of the campaign's New Hampshire field operation at the moment.
So far, so good: Whouley apparently likes what he sees.
Fieldwise, Clinton's top generals are in Iowa. And it is perhaps a sign of confidence -- or a gesture meant to be interpreted as a sign of confidence -- that Mr. Whouley has not been asked to take a gander at the campaign's Iowa operation. (Yet.)
David Barnhardt and Karen Hicks, both Whouley protege, helped design the campaign's sophisticated turnout program, he as caucus director and she as the planner. And then there is Clinton's Iowa state director, the extremely well-regarded Theresa Vilmain, whose legend in the Democratic world is eclipsed only by Mr. Whouley's (and, perhaps, by Steve Hildebrand, a deputy campaign manager for Obama who now lives at a Des Moines hotel.)
Clinton's national political director, Guy Cecil, a younger, less bald, less profane version of Whouley, is in New Hampshire, and his supervision of a field organization put together by state director Nick Clemons, apparently passed Whouley's bow-to-stern inspection.
In 1992, Whouley served as national field director for the Clinton-Gore ticket.
In 2000, Whouley is credited with forcing Gore to engage in more retail policking, a decision that helped to save his campaign in New Hampshire against Bill Bradley.
In 2004, he helped John Kerry turn around his fortunes in Iowa. He was Kerry's annointed field czar in the general election, and, horrors, actually found himself conducting telephonic phone briefings with the press.
In 2007, he waited for Kerry to decide whether to run; when Kerry did not, he privately agreed to help the Clinton campaign.
(Note: the Page reported on 12/14 that Whouley was a secret "conscript" in Clinton's army.)
Obama's Contrast Mailing In New Hampshire
Hillary Clinton _and_ John Edwards are included in the un-love from Barack Obama today.
Something new: the Des Moines Register reports that Obama said that he, not John Edwards, was the champion challenger to special interests.
"Nobody in this race has worked harder and been more successful at reducing the special interests' influence in Washington," than himself, Obama told more than 200 people, including a number of high school students, at Spencer High School.
"Senator Edwards, who is a good guy, he's been talking a lot about 'I'm going to fight the lobbyists and the special interests in Washington,' " Obama said about Edwards, a former North Carolina senator. "Well, the question you have to ask is: Were you fighting for (citizens) when you were in the Senate?"
Words have meaning; Edwards may be encroaching on some turf held by Obama. Let's watch this over the next few days to see if Obama continues to incorporate a contrast with Edwards. (Remember: Clinton: change means the ability to get stuff done. Edwards: throw the bums out; the corporate interests have corrupted politics; Obama: transformational change.)
Back to familiar territory. Obama's new New Hampshire mailing responds to charges that his health care plan does not cover everyone. Horse pellets, Obama says, in not so many words.
Why, even Hillary has said that every Democrat "is for universal health care." (Clinton meant that every Democrat wants universal health care -- Obama just doesn't have a plan to achieve it.) And he cites experts agreeing with his view, but he does not provide the names of said experts.
The first page of the mailing quotes Obama as saying: "We can end division and petty attacks and finally provide health care to every American."
On the last page, it says: "On January 8, let's remind Hillary Clinton that New Hampshire's primary won't be won by launching misleading, negative attacks."
That Obama's campaign would respond to Clinton's charges in this way suggests that a needle in some focus group or another moved a little to far to the left... or that a few too many people were called into the campaign's New Hampshire headquarters asking for clarification. The frame around the contrast is interesting: Clinton's "attacks" are just part of the same "petty" divisiveness that is poisoning our politics.
December 17, 2007
A Madrassa, Bob Kerrey? A Madrassa?
Speaking on CNN tonight:
BOB KERREY: "It's something by the way I have told Barack Obama when I've met with him. It something that I've spoken about before. So this is not something that just sort of came out of the head birth out there in Iowa. I've thought about it a great deal. I've watched the blogs try to say that you can't trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite. I feel it's a tremendous strength whether he is in the United States Senate or whether he's in the White House, I think it's a tremendous asset for him.
And we wonder why Barack Obama cringes when journalists and others try to explain or interpret his lineage or his upbringing.
If a guy like Bob Kerrey -- former senator, war hero, 9/11 commissioner, rock-ribbed Democrat, can be counted on to repeat a complete falsehood -- that Obama attended a madrassa -- think of all the connotations that world entails --, that he later "chose" Christianity, as if he was born with a different a religion, if If Bob Kerrey wasn't engaging in paralepsis -- if he wasn't making an ad hominem attack under the guise of discrediting one -- then Obama is in real trouble.
If Bob Kerrey actually believes that Obama attended a madrassa, then it stands to reason that many less enlightened voters believe the same, or worse.
The Daily Five: Clinton Steals A Georgia Endorsement From Obama
1. Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama remain in Iowa, John Edwards campaigns in New Hampshire, as does John McCain; Rudy Giuliani has fundraisers planned for tomorrow, and Mike Gravel apparently has come down with the flu. And Ned Lamont kind of told us so. Here are the latest Gallup numbers.
2. Hillary Clinton is endorsed by Georgia's two black statewide elected officials, Attorney General Thurbert Baker and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. But in October, Obama touted Baker's endorsement....."I believe John Edwards can win," Iowa first lady Mari Culver said today.......A teary-eyed BFF of HRC's, Betsy Ebeling, introduced her in Johnston this way: "She's our friend and I'm going to have to share her with the rest of the world, but right now I'll share her with Johnston. I introduce you to my very special friend, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton" ..... Obama's new ad in Iowa is titled "Candor" -- a response of sorts to the Des Moines Register:
And HRC touts her DMR endorsement:
3. In 1998, Mike Huckabeeequated liberal environmentalism with homosexuality, and homosexuality with necrophilia...At Beverly Hills press avail, Huckabee takes questions almost entirely on events in his past......Rep. Jack Kingston formally endorses Mittt Romney for president....in South Carolina radio ad, Sen. Lindsey Graham says McCain is the only candidate who is ready to be Commander in Chief from "day one..."
4. The number of times Hillary Clinton's name appears in the earmarks section of the omnibus budget act: 50 times. The number of times Barack Obama's name appears in the earmarks section of the omnibus budget bill: 22. The number of times John McCain appears: 0.
5. McCain's manager, Rick Davis, sends out a fundraising appeal entitled "We're gonna win..." A McCain aide confirms that the campaign has secured a line of credit to fund itself through the early part of the primaries, and has put up hard assets -- and not the promise of federal matching funds -- as collateral. That means that McCain can still opt out of the federal financing system for the primaries providing he does not begin to use federal matching funds.
The National Journal Political Futures Market: An Update
For the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton is trading at 56.9%, Obama is trading at 36.1% and John Edwards is trading at 4.6%....
Clinton is down about 13 percentage points from her all-time high, whereas Obama has risen precipitously -- about a 200 percent increase in a month.
For the Republican nomination, Rudy Giuliani's contract trades at 35.2%, Mitt Romney is trading at 24.4%, John McCain is trading at 10.0%, Ron Paul is at 8.9%, Fred Thompson is trading at half that, and Mike Huckabee has shot up to a little more than 16%.
Are these markets BS? Do they reflect elite opinion? Public opinion? Media opinion? The opinion of those who have time to participate?
Regardless -- the political stock exchange attracts tens of thousands of players each day. Shares of Hillary Clinton, for example, have exchanged hands 74,000 times in the past 24 hours alone.
The questions are easy: do you think that there's a greater than 16.3% chance that Mike Huckabee wins the nomination? If yes, you can bid on a higher value. If no, you can bid on a lower value.
The ads start with the familiar epanaphoric sentences: "Two pro-life governors..."
As in: hey: Romney is also a social conservative. Don't let Huckabee bamboozle you. Here's what you don't know about it. Don't worry: you won't risk anything by supporting Romney.
As the Page says, it plays the Clemency card, the Meth card -- a huge issue in Iowa -- and the murderer card.
"Christ."
Mike Huckabee's new ad will begin airing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. It throws the viewer for a loop, starting off with a red-sweater-clad Huckabee asking if "we're about warned out of all the television commercials we've been seeing..." the camera pans slowly to reveal a Christmas tree as the bars of "Silent Night" become recognizable. "What really matters," the former Southern Baptist pastor says, is "the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and our friends."
How explicitly Christian. Forget coded appeals to evangelicals: if it were any more full-frontal, it would get an X rating.
(Has a politician ever before run a television advertisement wishing voters a Merry Christmas?)
But who can criticize an ad celebrating Christmas? Many of those anti-Huckabee conservatives who will bristle at the ad are probably the first to bristle at attempts by the establishment to rid the public square of Christ during Christmas. So why not extend the spirit of orthodoxy to politics?
Funny: the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol, but, hey, this isn't a history class.
Here's the script:
“Are you about worn out of all the television commercials you’ve been seeing? Mostly about politics. I don’t blame you. At this time of year sometimes it’s nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and our friends. I hope that you and your family have a magnificent Christmas season. And on behalf of all of us, God bless and Merry Christmas. I’m Mike Huckabee and I approve this message.”
An Epidemic of Political Paralepsis
To damn with faint praise; or to pretend to praise, while damning; or, to surgically excise tissue that you told the patient you'd leave alone. It's a slimy rhetorical parry, one that might have worked in previous cycles but is doomed to failure in a news cycle where every comment is instantly dissected for motive.
Endorsing Sen. Hillary Clinton, Ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey said of Obama:
"I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim," Kerrey is quoted as saying. "There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal."
A compliment on its face, but in Iowa and elsewhere, a dangerous link to make about Obama. Not only is Obama not Muslim and betrays no influence of having been a Muslim, there is, even among Democrats, a healthy amount of anti-Muslim prejudice. By the same token, Obama appeals to many in the elite precisely because of the symbolism Kerrey invokes: as Andrew Sullivan has written, imagine what a young Pakistani boy watching a Barack Obama inauguration would think of the man Americans just elected their president. They would identify with him in a way that furthers American interests.
Paralepsis verdict: probably guilty.
Then there's this:
Paralepsis verdict: probably, guilty, given how angry this exchange made Penn's associates in the Clinton campaign.
And what about Mike Huckabee and Mormonism? By reminding voters that he's a Christian Leader, by pointing out, oh by the way, here's something about Mormonism he doesn't know -- whether Lucifer and Jesus were brothers (answer: sort of) --
The press is complicit, too.
Endorsements Galore!
1. Rep. Steve King, (R-IA), endorses Fred Dalton Thompson (pace Bob Kerrey, we're using middle names today). King is one of those conservative politicians who drives the more established media crazy with his gut-generated utterances. He is very well respected in Western Iowa, however, and his endorsement provides critical validation of Thompson's conservativism.
WTF? Mitt Romney's team gathered at the back of the room, expecting his endorsement. But at the last moment, King said he had chosen Thompson.
Good for Thompson, who is well on his way to a third place finish in Iowa, and horrible, horrible news for Mitt Romney, who needed a dose of good news in Iowa, and who apparently assumed he would get this nomination.
2. Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA) endorses Barack Obama. This one wasn't a surprise, given Loebsack's politics and his congressional district's affinity for Mr. Obama. "Obama is energizing, organizing, and mobilizing ordinary Americans to get involved in their democracy in a way I haven't seen in a long time," Loebsack says.
Paul's $16M Haul... Impressive. No Buts.
There's no question that Ron Paul has tapped into a unique, hitherto hidden vein in the Republican body politic, and it's proved quite lucrative: he says he's raised $16M this quarter and pulled in a record $6.6M in a single day.
He's spending the money on television ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, radio ads, and, if you're driving through Iowa these days, ubiquitous billboards.
The challenge he'll face from us MSMers is simple: so far, he's proven that he resonates with a vocal minority of Republican primary voters -- a smaller minority than, say, the 40% of evangelicals in Iowa who are sustaining Mike Huckabee's rise, and the 20% of McCainiacs in New Hampshire.
It might not seem fair, but in the projective calculus of the Republican nomination, the ability to put together a broad coalition of voters is a necessary limit. This is harder than it sounds: "Ron Paul is pro-life and so he'll get pro-lifers when they tire of Huckabee" -- that's the start of the argument, not its end.
What's great, in one sense, about the Ron Paul phenom is that we don't know where it's going to end. We don't know how it's going to scramble the order of finish in the early states. And while we don't think Paul is going to win the nomination, we dismiss his impact at our peril.
ATLANTICam: Ex-Gov. Terry Brandstad On The Republicans
(yes, the video inexplicably wanders up, but that adds to the realism, doesn't it?)
December 16, 2007
Ron Paul Raises $3.7M
In less than a day, from 30,000 donors (and 13,000 new donors.)
A Major Endorsement For Edwards Tomorrow?
Rumors abound on the campaign trail today that a big Iowa voice is set to endorse John Edwards. His campaign is mum, but Democratic sources in Iowa believe that Mari Culver, the wife of Gov. Chet Culver (D), is set to endorse the former North Carolina senator tomorrow.
The governor himself is said to be remaining neutral, but if his wife endorses Edwards, the larger Culver orbit will be seen to have descended on Edwards's campaign. (Mari Culver endorsed Edwards in 2004).
Gov. Culver's chief of staff, Patrick Dillon, worked for Edwards in Iowa in 2004, and his is married to Jennifer O'Malley, Edwards's state director. Another Edwards alum serves as Culver's communications director.
In 2004, Gov. Tom Vilsack's wife, Christie Vilsack, endorsed Sen. John Kerry at a critical moment late in the primaries. Vilsack ostensibly remained neutral.
New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch hasn't endorsed, but his wife has -- Hillary Clinton.
Four Edwards spokespersons declined to comment, and a spokesman for Culver did not return an e-mail request seeking comment.
Lieberman To Endorse McCain...
Democratic and Republican sources say that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut and fierce supporter of the war in Iraq, will formally endorse Sen. John McCain tomorrow in New Hampshire.
A McCain spokesperson declined to comment.
A source familiar with the endorsement said that the two will appear of NBC's Today Show tomorrow morning and at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire.
The endorsement could help McCain with independents in the state. Combine that with news that Rudy Giuliani is scaling back his advertising buy there, that the Boston Globe endorsed McCain, and that McCain's rivals are spending most of their time in Iowa.
The endorsement is further evidence of Lieberman's slow drift to the right in American politics and is bound to generate intense anger among Democrats who support him. But Lieberman and McCain have often walked in lockstep together on the prosecution of the war, have traveled to Iraq together, and have worked together on domestic issues like climate change.
The move will heighten speculation that McCain might ask Lieberman to join his ticket.
(1) It's a major boost for Clinton. And for her campaign staff, who've need some good news. Many Democrats in Iowa unquestionably consult the Register's editorial voice before deciding whom to vote for.
(2) The Register endorses Clinton's theme: inspiration is nice, but in order to get things done, you need experience.
In the Senate, she has earned a reputation as a workhorse who does not seek the limelight. She honed knowledge of defense on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She has proactively served rural and urban New York and worked in the national interest, strengthening the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Clinton is tough. Tested by rough politics and personal trials, she’s demonstrated strength, resolve and resilience.
Can she inspire the nation? Clinton is still criticized in some quarters as being too guarded and calculating. (As president, when she makes a mistake, she should just say so.)
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Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence. Each time we met, she impressed us with her knowledge and her competence.
(3) The Obama campaign really wanted this endorsement, although they were not terribly sanguine about their chances to get it.
(4) The endorsement of McCain is a surprise, given that he has all but written off Iowa. Still -- it says something about the Register's view of the rest of the field. (The Register's endorsement won't have too much impact with Republicans).
"Yet, for all their accomplishments on smaller stages, none can offer the tested leadership, in matters foreign and domestic, of Sen. John McCain of Arizona. McCain is most ready to lead America in a complex and dangerous world and to rebuild trust at home and abroad by inspiring confidence in his leadership. In an era of instant celebrity, we sometimes forget the real heroes in our midst."
The Register's Endorsement Of Clinton and McCain
McCain:
“Time after time, McCain has stuck to his beliefs in the face of opposition from other elected leaders and the public. He has criticized crop and ethanol subsidies during two presidential campaigns in Iowa. He bucked his party and president by opposing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. A year ago, in the face of growing criticism, he staunchly supported President Bush’s decision to increase troop strength in Iraq.
Clinton:
Readiness to lead sets her apart from a constellation of possible stars in her party, particularly Barack Obama, who also demonstrates the potential to be a fine president. When Obama speaks before a crowd, he can be more inspirational than Clinton. Yet, with his relative inexperience, it’s hard to feel as confident he could accomplish the daunting agenda that lies ahead.”
Register Endorses CLINTON and MCCAIN...Developing...
It is true that all the other Democratic contenders have more conventional resumes, and have spent more time in Washington. But that exposure has tended to give them a sense of government’s constraints. Obama is more open to its possibilities.
McCain’s views differ from those of this editorial page in a variety of ways. Yet McCain’s honesty has served him well. As a lawmaker and as a candidate, he has done more than his share to transcend partisanship and promote an honest discussion of the problems facing the United States. He deserves the opportunity to represent his party in November’s election.
Obama On Negative Campaigning
At a press conference today, Sen. Barack Obama took several questions about whether his campaign ever crossed the line in digging for opposition research about the Clintons.
Question of Obama, asking whether his campaign operatives are gathering "personal" information about rivals.
"I have been very clear to my staff. Look, every campaign is doing comparitive research on policy," Obama began.
Questioner interrupted with clarification.
"I understand, so I'm just going to answer your question. Every campaign is going to be looking at, you know, did they flip flop on a health care issues or, you know, are they consistent on their trade policy -- that I think is exactly what presidential debates should be about and I have no problem with that at all. I have been very clear to my campaign. I do not want to see research that is involved in trying to tear people down personally. If find out that somebody is doing that, they will be fired. I've been absolutely crystal clear about this and I've been clear about this for a very long time and, you know, you're free to talk to my campaign manager who is around here somewhere for confirmation of that. That's not what I believe in. That's not who I am and frankly just from a practical, political perspective it's contrary to the kind o fmessage of change that I've been talking about in this campaign."
Follow up to clarify where the line is and whether raising questions about Clinton library financing, records there is fair.
"Well, the only issue that's come up with respect to the presidential library is when during the last debate when Russert asked ab out it and I was asked about it and I indicated at that time that releasing records and transparency in terms of tax records, for example, that I don't consider to be trying to undermine somebody. It has to do with us making sure that we are transparent and accountable and open to the public," Obama said.
So why did members of your staff go to the Little Rock Library?
"That I can't answer because I don't know that for certain, but they would not be looking for personal items. They'd be looking, again, keep in mind that -- and this is the argument that I made earlier -- Senator Clinton's argued that her experience as first lady is relevant. That means we and what I said publicly was if you are saying that this is your relevant experience, we should know what decisions you were involved in in the White House. That is part of her public function and part of the argument she's making publicly in terms of why she would be a better president," Obama said.
Read them and decide for yourself whether Obama has more explaining to do.
Another tension in process campaigns is behavioral. Practitioners can become handcuffed by their own idealism. Having pledged to run “a different kind of campaign” that wouldn’t traffic in the mudslinging and personal attacks so common to politics today, Obama boxed himself in. “The campaigns shouldn’t be about making each other look bad,” he declared in his brief appearance at the DNC winter meeting. “They should be about figuring out how we can all do some good for this precious country of ours. That’s our mission. And in this mission, our rivals won’t be one another, and I would assert it won’t even be the other party. It’s going to be cynicism that we’re fighting against.” This kind of sentiment is a large part of Obama’s appeal. But it’s also a good illustration of why process-oriented campaigns often run into trouble. Committing himself to a higher standard of conduct meant that either Obama would refrain from doing much of what campaigns do to jockey for position or he would endure criticism for failing to live up to his own standard. In a campaign staffed by talented, though conventional, operatives, this would prove problematic.
In June, Obama’s staff slipped reporters a memorandum about the Clintons’ financial ties to Indian American entrepreneurs who benefited from job outsourcing—an act well within the norm of political conduct, though the memo did have a rather tasteless title (“Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab”). A Clinton aide caught wind of it and, no doubt inspired by Obama’s call for better conduct, persuaded a reporter for a Capitol Hill newspaper to disclose its source. Obama was forced to apologize.
But he pointedly did not pledge to refrain from disseminating such information about his opponent. Belatedly, his campaign has learned to fight back. In August, Obama’s team scored a significant hit by helping to place a story in several newspapers revealing that Norman Hsu, a major Clinton donor, had skipped town after having pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft 15 years earlier and still faced an outstanding warrant. Hsu fled once more (he was captured in Colorado in September) and ignited a costly media frenzy for Clinton, who decided to return $850,000 in donations that he had arranged for her. (Hsu had also contributed to Obama.)
But Obama seemed to recoil from many of the tasks that have come to be expected of someone serious about running for president. Cerebral and loquacious, given to lengthy disquisitions, Obama chafed at the sound-bite culture of politics and disliked criticizing opponents by name. One day in New Hampshire, caught up in the moment, he called Hillary “Bush-Cheney lite”—a phrase he never again repeated. Occasionally, Obama behaved as if conventional expectations were beneath him and an insult to voters’ intelligence. “The one thing I am absolutely certain of,” Obama told me, “is that if all I’m offering is the same Democratic narrative that has been offered for the last 20 years, then there’s really no point in my running, because Senator Clinton is going to be very adept at delivering that message. What makes it worthwhile for me to run is the belief that we can actually change the narrative and create a working majority that we haven’t seen in a very long time—and that, frankly, the Clintons never put together.” Though he dislikes cattle-call interest-group forums, he prepared diligently for a June forum on black issues at Howard University in Washington, D.C., understanding that, by dint of his race and life experience, he had a chance to shine. Obama believed he’d excelled during the debate, and was stunned when press coverage focused on a single applause line—from Hillary Clinton. “If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause [of] the death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country,” she had declared. Obama, by contrast, was chided for his long-winded answers. “He was very, very frustrated,” one of his friends recalls.
Two weeks later, at an NAACP forum in Philadelphia, Obama, according to The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, “played to the crowd.” The press rewarded him. A friend e-mailed him a note of congratulations. “Well, but all I did was throw sound bites back at them,” Obama wrote back.
His campaign staffers, too, have become frustrated by the focus of the media’s attention, specifically that the press has not covered Clinton in the way they expected it would. During an interview this summer, Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett said to me, unbidden, “He is a man who is devoted to his wife. There aren’t going to be any skeletons in his closet in terms of his personal life at all. Period.” And at a campaign event in Iowa, one of Obama’s aides plopped down next to me and spoke even more bluntly. He wanted to know when reporters would begin to look into Bill Clinton’s postpresidential sex life.
A Republican Bass Becomes An Independent To Vote For Obama
** Note: Fernald wrties to say that Bass has registered as an independent, not a Democrat.
A correspondent in New Hampshire writes in:
At today's Obama 2nd CD delegate caucus, former State Sen. Mark Fernald announced that former Republican Perkins Bass has changed his party registration to Democrat to vote for Barack Obama.
He is a member of the Bass political dynasty in New Hampshire.
His father Robert P. Bass was a Republican Governor from 1911 to 1913; Perkins Bass was a Republican Congressman from 1955-1963 and his son Charles F. Bass was a Republican congressman from 1994 to 2006.
That is -- Ex-Rep. Charlie Bass's father supports Obama!
Des Moines Register Will Drop Endorsements Soon
....probably in the early evening... and no one knows who... although all the campaigns have guesses, and at least one of them has an office pool.
Now -- the Register endorsement has been historically important, but it has not translated into victory...
The Register endorsed John Edwards in 2004....Bill Bradley in 2000....No one in 1992....Paul Simon in 1988...
And the Republicans don't really care.
Giuliani's Speech: "Bold Leadership" "Optimism"
Ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's closing argument kicks off in Tampa, FL today, and here are excerpts from his speech. The theme seems to be "bold leadership and optimism"... Here, finally, is an argument from a candidate whose message to date has been biographical and oriented principally around finding an acceptable niche in the party.
America needs a leader. I am running for President of the United States because I believe that I can lead America into a new era …with bold leadership, optimism, determination, and distinctly American solutions.
If you are looking for perfection, you are not going to find it. Not in me and not in any candidate. But if you are looking for a leader who has been tested in times of crisis. … A leader who is ready to lead right now. … A leader who has achieved results – results that some people thought were impossible – a leader who believes that there is no problem too serious for American solutions and a free, American spirit … I believe I am that leader.
Some people look at the challenges we face as a nation and they fear the future
I welcome it.
I welcome the opportunity to defeat the Islamic terrorists who are at war with us because of our freedoms.
I welcome the opportunity to restore fiscal discipline to Washington D.C. while we empower millions of people to move out of poverty and achieve the American dream
And I welcome the opportunity to win this election…leading a revitalized, 50-state Republican Party into the White House.
As I travel across our country, I’ve begun to hear a murmur that somehow America has lost its ability to achieve great goals
Some good people have come to believe that our country is on the wrong track. Middle Class families feel that the American Dream may be slipping away – they’re worried the future might not be as bright as the past.
It does not have to be that way. We can decide America’s direction. We determine America’s future. That’s what an election is all about.
We’re at war. The American people want to see victory in Iraq and Afghanistan – not humiliation and defeat. They want their children to live free from the fear of Islamic Terrorism. They’re telling us: Get it done. And we will.
Washington’s culture of wasteful spending is out of control. The American people want to see real fiscal discipline. They’re telling us: Get it done. And we will.
Americans have heard presidents talk about energy independence for three decades. Now they are paying more at the pump and seeing their money flow into the hands of our enemies. They’re telling us: Get it done. And we will.
The American people are angry that the federal government has failed to secure our border. They want to see legal immigration reconnected with Americanization. They’re telling us: Get it done. And we will.
What America needs in 2008 is a proven leader who will get things done.
I believe in the strength and wisdom of the American people.
Look at our history and you’ll see why.
Because no matter when or how your ancestors came to our country, we are all the proud descendants of pioneers and patriots.
Their optimistic American spirit…the defiant determination to do what some consider impossible – that is our greatest inheritance.
December 14, 2007
Bill Clinton ... Well, He Just Puts Everything On The Table. Read It.
In a hard-changing interview with Charlie Rose tonight, Bill Clinton said Americans who are prepared to choose someone with less experience, are prepared to "roll the dice" about the future of America. "It's less predictable, isn't it? When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service before he's running?"
"What do you want to do -- whether you think it matters that, I mean, in theory, no experience matters," Clinton said. "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentators and let them run. They'd have only one year less experience in national politics..."
And Clinton said the notion that experience led the politicians to sanction the Iraq War is "absurd."
"That's like saying that because 100% of the malpractice cases are committed by doctors, the next time I need surgery, I'll get a chef or a plumber to do it."
Towards the end of the interview, Rose indicated that Clinton's staff was asking producers in his show's control room to get them to have Rose end the interview.
And Clinton said: "Somebody will parse this interview..." to take his quotes out of context. "It is stupid... I think we are fortunate in having people..I think the relevant question from me is, who will be the best president who has a proven record of making change in the lives of other people."
They may parse his body language. Toward the end of the interview, his hands began to shake and his face reddened as he discussed the political thicket his wife finds herself in.
Please read this rough transcription of Clinton's take on why his wife isn't doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Really, really interesting, that I've heard Sen. Obama a dozen times making some fairly derisive comment about Hillary...saying, you know, she had a decades old plan to be president...repeating this total canard that...totally fabricated account from an anti-Hillary book...as if it was something bad that he didn't have a decades-long president...so on their website they put reports that he had been planning to run for president...and they put this thing when he was in kindergarten that he planned to run for president..but the Obama people got the press on their side..."
Rose asked Clinton whether he was nervous about the state of the campaign.
"Well, no. Let me back up. In January, when on New Years Day, she said she was finally going to try and do this... I said I'll make you a prediction...allt he press will say you will coast to the nomination....I think you will have a difficult time getting nominated, and if you are nominated, you'll win the general election handily.....[HRC asked why]...you'll have to run in Iowa, which is the single most difficult state...but Sen. Edwards has a well-earned, huge cadre of support in Iowa because he's worked it for seven years...Sen. Obama is next door, that matters.
Rose: "You think that's the reason for the polls...""
Clinton: "On Edwards, there is no doubt...So, look I've done this before. When I lost in New Hampshire to Paul Tsongas, I lost the first 10 miles next to the Massachusetts border. I carried everything from 10 miles north up to the Canadian border. There are thousands of Illinois students in Iowa colleges...who have never caucused before...[insists he's not lowering expectations.]..he's been to 75 counties, she's been to 50..so my view of this is that I never thought she had a big lead in Iowa...the Iowa people have been really fair to her...they've listened to her and they've given her a chance, and she might win there...and it is astonishing...from the beginning of this race, she had a lead in 36 of 38 states...and not having good luck...what has really happened...what i have been frustrated about has nothing to do with her campaign...the challenges in the polls in the moments will be overcome..I can feel in Iowa, it depends on what people think the answer is...in New Hampshire...the Republicans have been attacking her in all the debates...those attacks affect independent voters...she is not in a position to answer back what the Republicans are doing in the primary...that has not been good..."
"In Iowa, nobody wants to go negative on television, so really it's a war underneath the radar screen and it has more to do with how the press interprets it than anything else...what broke her momentum there was the extraordinary attention given to her not very great answer on the driver's licenses....the press should have a common set of standards..."
"He is great, Edwards is really good..."
"It's a miracle she's got a chance to win."
Richardson, Biden, Dodd are ready to be president, Clinton says.
"Obama has got great skills. It depends on what the American people think is more important....[do they] have somebody who is very his very nature a compelling, very attractive, highly intelligent, visible symbol of transformation, or is it more ...[important] to have someone who would also symbolize change...but who has done a significant number of things to change other people's lives."
Remembering John Alexander
I don't usually use this blog to write about matters personal to me, but the platform sometimes permits an indulgence.
Yesterday, John Alexander, a friend from my days at ABC News, died suddenly while on assignment in China. His short career included productive stints at ABC, at NPR, and now, at the Discovery Channel, where he helped produce documentaries for Ted Koppel.
John was 26.
His sense of humor ranged from the bawdy (he had an unbelievably profane LBJ impersonation) to the brilliant, and he could turn it at a switch. He was vivacious, in the best way a heterosexual male can be vicacious; an intense charmer, a young man of both deep faith and persistent skepticism, open-minded and a bull when we was arguing a cause he thought just.
He loved to travel and talk about his travel; he also really loved to work. He loved the medium of broadcasting and would have been, had he been born a few decades earlier, one of Murrow's boys, for sure. He was also just a really, really nice guy.
Those of us lucky enough to enter network television out of college always felt out of place. We were, in some sense, imposters, just mirroring what we saw and learning as we went along. John quickly mastered the intricacies of television and so quickly became an integral part of the Nightline culture that you would have thought he was a lifelong member. He was mentored by Tom Bettag, the greatest television producer in the medium's history, and though he was a few years younger than I was, John was a mentor of sorts to me.
I remember once learning of some internal Nightline gossip and went to John to see if it were true. Kindly, he told me he could not say, even knowing that I wouldn't tell a soul. He did not like to violate people's confidences. It is very rare to find someone so young with such a well-developed sense of integrity.
I did not watch Nightline last night, where John's death was announced. I learned of the news this afternoon from someone John met only once; a casual contact. But John was just that memorable.
The Daily Five: Magic!
1. Fred Thompson kicks off " “Clear Conservative Choice: Hands Down;" Hillary Clinton will set foot in all 99 counties in Iowa over the next week; she's in NH tomorrow...campaign rents "Hill-I-Copter" for the Iowa tour....John Edwards plans major statewide canvas...Magic Johnson will campaign in Iowa for Hillary, along with Bill....
2. A new poll of Michigan Republicans and independents gives John McCain a narrow lead in the state....Mike Huckabee makes fun of New Hampshire, just a little bit, by noting "Live Free or Die" motto and pointing out how the state has no seat belt laws. Huckabee: "They take that motto seriously!"....In announcing Ed Rollings as campaign chair, Huckabee press release inadvertently calls his new "campaign manager".....new blog "The Field," which emphases on how presidential campaigns campaign in rural areas, launches...Huckabee lashes http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/14/huckbees_critiques_bush_in_for.htmlBush in Foreign Affairs article...
3. Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines does battle with unnamed Senate source over whether Hillary Clinton had a role in passing legislation requiring FEMA director to have more experience than tending to Arabian horses....For 2008 caucuses, the Nevada Democratic Party announces 520 caucus locations, more than the total number of polling sites in the 2006 election....Quad Cities Times poll shows Obama with large lead in Iowa....FEC commissioners agree that money bundled through ACTBlue won't count toward federal funding match....SEIU locals 1199 and 32BJ, representing more than 400K workers in the Northeast, endorse HRC....Hotline/Diageo poll shows tied Demo race in Iowa and large Huckabee lead; Clinton trails Obama and Edwards in terms of second-choice preference....
4. The Republican Nat'l Committee releases a report detailing delegate allocation and selection plans for the states and territories. Read it here.
5. Joe Biden campaign sends following e-mail (the X's are mine) to supporters:
The Biden for President Campaign would like YOU to go to IOWA. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would allow you to see a caucus and presidential campaign first-hand in the earliest voting state. We need your help, so please join us as we strive to get Senator Biden elected the next PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Dates: Anytime between December 14, 2007 - January 4th, 2008
Accommodations: Provided by the campaign. (Contact for more details)
Please join us for this INCREDIBLE opportunity. If you would like to find out more information, please e-mail our campaign: Becky McAndrews at XXXX@joebiden.com or Josh Kagan at XXX@joebiden.com with the subject line: IOWA. You may also call the campaign at (302) XXX-XXXX!
Thank you and we hope to see you out in IOWA!
Fred Thompson's New Iowa Mail
On Huckabee and immigration.
Unusually Dark, Edwards Sees The Light With Debate Performance
Before yesterday's Des Moines Register / Iowa Public Television debate, John Edwards was dark. Not pessimistic. But in the lingo ad buyers use, his campaign had almost no ads on the air in Iowa. The reason wasn't related to money -- the campaign insists it has enough to stay on the air through the early states -- it was, somehow, strategic. No further details have been tendered.
But today, the campaign, basking in the sun after a lauded debate performance, is rushing two new ads to TV stations.
One of them, according to an Edwards spokesman, was ordered by the candidate himself after he watched recorded segments from the CNN and Fox focus groups. The undecided voters in them really liked what Edwards had to say about the economy, and so Edwards asked his team to produce one on the subject. The other ad is a health care testimonial.
The campaign spokesman said the new ads will run at full capacity.
It's interesting to note, as Edwards advisers always do, that the campaign was basically dark until seven weeks before the caucuses, whereas rival campaigns had collectively spent millions on TV before that point.
The point is used to further the argument that Edwards is super-strong in Iowa after spending four years cultivating Iowans.
Caption Contest
Joe Trippi, former Dean campaign manager and currently a strategist for Ex-Sen. John Edwards, and Jay Carson, former Dean campaign press secretary and currently an adviser and press secretary to Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Keep the entries clean -- this is The Atlantic, for goodness sakes.
The winner gets... something. Not sure yet.
AtlantiCam: Joe Trippi and Jonathan Prince
An Edwards campaign strategist and a deputy campaign manager shoot on the caucuses, the financial state of the Edwards campaign, hair, and each other.
The Romney campaign this a.m. is dropping this video....
December 13, 2007
The Daily Five: Will Crist Endorse?
1. Hillary Clinton visits New Hampshire, spends a day in Iowa, and one in Washington, D.C...then plans a five-day bus tour in Iowa next week. ...Obama, Edwards continue bus tours.......Giuliani will step up campaign appearences next week, his fundraising schedule mostly finished for the year. He's in Florida this weekend...Huckabee is in New Hampshire.
2. Rumors abound that Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) is going to endorse a presidential candidate next week, but knowledgeable Republicans say he will not.....amendment banning same-sex marriage in Florida qualifies for November 2008 ballot..... As candidate Ron Paul flies two Arkansas legislators to Iowa to make the case against Huckabee, Huckabee marhsals four Arkansas Republicans to respond....AP story bylined Little Rock, AR says Huckabee's "women's rights record is called into question....".....Mitt Romney now calls himself the underdog in Iowa....Giuliani promises to "end illegal immigration" in new NH ad...
3. In an extraordinary display of campaign muscle, the Obama campaign claims to have organized 1,000 precinct parties in Iowa tonight to watch a rebroadcast of the Des Moines Register debate....Markos calls Sen. Barack Obama the true anti-Hillary, and some of his readers aren't happy..,...Obama manager David Plouffe, in an e-mail: "If 5,000 people donate in the next 24 hours, we can show their campaign that we reject this kind of divisive politics. Make your donation of $25 now."
4. A long line of angry journalists waited for an hour in the Iowa cold while U.S. Secret Service and Iowa state police conduct delayed security sweep of the Iowa Public Television complex today. Sweep wasn't finished until a mere one hour, fifteen minutes before the broadcast, and one only dog was used to reece the building. In the middle of the sweep, a a tree branch fell into a power line, which blew out a circuit breaker, shutting power to the complex for twenty minutes until a generator was discovered. For the second time this cycle, members of the Secret Service's Uniform Division operated magnetometers at entrances. Lucky journalists who arrived at the site three hours early were allowed to stay indoors and had early access to a catered lasagna lunch. CNN's Candy Crowley does a live shot from the darkened bat cave of a spin room.
Pro-life advocates are heading to New Hampshire to take a pro-life stand against abortion as voters there prepare to head to the state's presidential primary on January 8. Meanwhile, one pro-life advocate is going to the Granite State to specifically oppose the nomination of pro-abortion Republican Rudy Giuliani. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition tells LifeNews.com that pro-life advocates are headed to the second presidential battleground state to work with local pro-life groups. They will hold an event called the New Hampshire Awakening on each of three days prior to the primary
Shaheen Steps Down
BIly Shaheen's statement:
“I would like to reiterate that I deeply regret my comments yesterday and say again that they were in no way authorized by Senator Clinton or the Clinton campaign. Senator Clinton has been running a positive campaign focused on the issues that matter to America’s families. She is the best qualified to be the next President of the United States because she can lead starting on day one. I made a mistake and in light of what happened, I have made the personal decision that I will step down as the Co-Chair of the Hillary for President campaign. This election is too important and we must all get back to electing the best qualified candidate who has the record of making change happen in this country. That candidate is Hillary Clinton.”
Shaheen Steps Down As Clinton Co-Chair In New Hampshire...
A statement is forthcoming.
Is Billy Shaheen About To Be Bounced From Clinton Campaign?
Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, answered a question about New Hampshire co-chair Billy Shaheen's standing as a member of the campaign by telling reporters to "ask someone else about that later."
A Clinton spokesman refused to elaborate but hinted that an announcement about Shaheen would be released later today.
Democratic Debate: First Take
Everyone had a good debate.
(Campaign pull-quote compilers, take note.)
But who did best? The audience is undecided Democratic caucus goers. Who stood out? Who was different? Who seemed most presidential? Who parlayed their strengths? Who gave people reasons to believe in the negative stereotypes about them?
On balance, Clinton and Edwards.... Why them, and not Obama? Because Clinton and Edwards repeatedly wove their answers into a larger argument, and Obama generally kept his answers to his answers. He did well though. No calls, Chicago. No calls.
Repeatedly, Clinton cast herself as a champion of middle class material concerns. “They feel as though they are standing on a trap door,” they said, and If you listened carefully, you heard her say that she would raise taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.
Almost every other phrase out of John Edwards’s mouth contained the words “corporate power..” or “entrenched interests.” And Edwards wasn’t aggressive. He wasn’t angry Johnny. He was nice Johnny boy, although he did snip at the moderator at one point and couldn’t resist a jab at Bill Richardson.
Clinton’s opening statement was very strong and pointed.
“Everyone wants change. Some believe you get change by demanding it, and some believe you get change by hoping for it. Some believe you get change by working hard for it. That’s what I’ll do as president."
It’s a great line. But in saying this, she conceded that she was scrounging on territory claimed by Obama and Edwards. Also, Iowans don’t like lines. They like nice. Saccharine even. Pure rhetorical glucose, though, and not a sugar substitute.
Biden, Dodd, and Richardson. Exceedingly mature, gave folks on the fence about them a reason to keep liking them, but neither stood out enough to move too many votes. Richardson had some strong, early, detailed answers on balancing the budget (he thinks it’s feasible immediately, others don’t) and on budget priorities, and on education.
Biden turned a tricky question about his penchant for gaffes into a very good moment wherein
Obama personally attested to his hard work on behalf of racial justice. Iowa nice.
Say what you will about the format, the graphics, the moderator, the theme music, the staging, the stage lighting: every candidate had enough time to be strong, and every candidate was.
To the extent that it matters, Fox News’s dial group loved Edwards and not Hillary Clinton. (They also liked Obama.)
The Register’s editorial endorsement is set to drop on Sunday
New Year's Resolution
1. Clinton: Personal sides to it. Spending time to family. Do the very best job I can in this campaign. To Rebuild the optimism of the American people. To run a campaign that Democrats can be proud of, and that independents and Republicans can support."
2. Edwards; "Somewhere in America tonight,a child will go to bed hungry..."
3. Dodd: a lot of things. That Iowans caucus. And caucus correctly.
4. Richardson: "to lose weight.: And I'm going to do it again." "I wish that the Congress and the president end their dysfunctional relationship."
5. Biden "Try to remember what it was like when things were really bad..."
6. Obama: "I want to be a better father, and a better husband, and I want to remind myself constantly that it is not about me...enormous strain on family..." tells story of spending time with his family yesterday.
Obama and Hillary: A Moment
Moderator: "With all of the Clinton advisers on your campaign,how are you going to offer a clean break from the past?"
Obama:
HRC: "I'd like to hear the answer to this..."
Obama: "Well, Hillary, i look forward to you advising me as well."
HRC: laughs. REALLY loud.
Biden Asked About Gaffes; Another Moment
"I have my whole career... I got involved in public policy because of the civil rights movement..." "I may have phrased those things wrongly....but..." they're building families (the Indians)...inner city Washington, well, Barack made the same point, "I was making the same point..." "...It may be possible that because I speak so bluntly, that people misunderstand."..."If you take a look at my record....my credentials are as good as anyone who has ever run..."
Everyone on the stage say "Here, here"
Obama testifies on Biden's behalf. "Joe is on the right side of the issues and is fighting every day for America."
Here's A Moment
Hillary Clinton:
Talking to Iowans, she knows that "Everyone wants change. Some believe you get change by demanding you, and some believe you get change by hoping for it. Some believe you get change by working hard for it. That’s what I’ll do a president."
Clinton On Farm Policy
Good line...
“I have been following Sen. Harkin’s lead on what we should do with the farm bill.”
Tom Harkin "has been working like a trojan to get it done."
The filing room is giggling.
Still giggling. "Trojan?"
"What did she say?"
"trojan?"
Edwards Campaign Actually Watches Fox!
From an Edwards campaign adviser via Instant Message: "i assume you guys are not watching Fox dial groups – all Edwards answers literally off the charts."
Richardson's Opening Statement
"I’m going to thank the people of Iowa for putting us through this great, great process."
Wants to talk about Iraq...
Clinton Apologized To Obama For Shaheen Comment
A Clinton spokesman confirms:
"Senator Clinton personally apologized to Senator Obama for Mr. Shaheen's comments. They were not authorized or condoned by Senator Clinton or her campaign. She made it clear that negative personal remarks will not have any part in our campaign."
The apology happened in the Senate this morning.
No word on Obama's response.
NAFTA
Clinton: "it should be changed..." ...says there are winners and losers...:"I want to be a president who focuses on smart, pro-American trade..."
Obama: "We have to stand for human rights...it is harder for us to do it when we have situations like Guantanamo...to the extent that we are not being true to our values and our ideals..."
Medicare, and A Whoopsie from Edwards
Clinton: ticks off how to reform it...reign in HMOs, allow govt to negotiate lower drug prices, bring costs down.... repeats Social Security commission idea...Republicans and Democrats are going to have to agree that the changes are necessary.
Obama: emphasizes how important prevention and cost-savings can be...has a Huckabee-esque line about obesity...Obama turns to message: "We're not going to make some of these changes if we change the way politics works.."
Richardson: HuckabeeHuckabeeHuckabee-sounding lines about health
OPENING Statements
Obama: "fierce urgency of now..." .. "confident that we can meet these challenges...."
Edwards: "What makes America...is at risk...because of corporate power and corporate greed...can't make a deal with them... I want every caucus goer to know that I've been fighting these people and winning my entire lift..."...says we'll make American "better than we left it."
China: US's Banker
(it holds so much of the federal debt.)
Richardson: "we should have a relationship based on a recognition that China is a strategic competitor.
Dodd speaks knowledgeably about intellectual property theft and labor relations.
NOTE: RNC's first rapid response is about Obama and taxes.
The Democratic Debate Begins: Clinton Will Raise Taxes
Skipping the first question...asked and answered... next question is on which taxes are most appropriately raised...
Richardson wants to repeal Bush high-income tax cuts...
Clinton concedes she will "raise taxes on wealthy corporations and individuals..."
Clinton's "Values"
In a spate of new advertising, Sen. Hillary Clinton abandons the voice of God approach and offers real people saying real things about the candidate.
Radio ads airing in Iowa feature families touting the virtue of Clinton's "universal" health care plan.
And for the first time, Hillary's mommy, Dorothy, vouches for her daughter's core values in a television ad. A matte in the ad helpfully informs the viewer that Dorothy now lives with her daughter.
DOROTHY RODHAM: What I would like people to know about Hillary is what a good person she is.
She never was envious of anybody—she was helpful. And she’s continued that with her adult life with helping other women.
She has empathy for other people’s unfortunate circumstances. I’ve always admired that because it isn’t always true of people.
I think she ought to be elected even if she weren’t my daughter
HILLARY CLINTON: I’m Hillary Clinton and I approved this message.
Minutemen Bash Founder Over Huckabee Endorsement
Jim Gilchrist likes Mike Huckabee, but the organization he founded sent a "special message" to members blasting Huckabee. The headline: "Real Minutemen Do Not Endorse Huckabee."
Here's the full text:
No National Minuteman Group has endorsed Mike Huckabee.
One individual Minuteman has personally endorsed him.
For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the Minuteman
Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the nation's largest Minuteman organization,
is a 501(C)4 non-profit organization and cannot and does not endorse any
candidate for public office. MCDC is not associated with Mr. Jim
Gilchrist, who today endorsed Mike Huckabee for president.
Jim Gilchrist’s erstwhile Minuteman Project is itself an organization
which by its own representations as a non-profit civic group cannot
legally endorse candidates. It does not have any volunteers who observe
illegal border activity. It has no border fence building projects. Jim
Gilchrist here speaks only for Jim Gilchrist, he does not speak for the
Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of
most patriots in the "Minuteman movement" – who under no circumstances
could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous “plan”
recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee. The national media needs
to recognize that Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement is his own personal
statement, nothing more.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps emphasizes policy dealing with
national border security. The only "plan" to ensure border security that
is acceptable to our constituency would be a candidate policy statement
declaring that his first act as President will be to hold a press
conference and announce to the American people an executive order to
immediately deploy and fund 30,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S.
Borders (25,000 to the southern border and 5,000 to the northern border)
to complement a massive increase in U.S. Border Patrol Agent field
personnel, and a bilateral effort to secure our frontiers, smash the
drug cartels, shut down the human smugglers and protect the public
safety of the citizens who reside along the borders on both sides of our
national boundaries.
Unlike this last-minute opportunism attempted by Huckabee, many of the
other GOP presidential candidates have actually helped push the issue of
national border security forward for some time. Tom Tancredo’s many
years of hard work on the border crisis and illegal immigration issues
have all the candidates striving to sound like him. Duncan Hunter can
take personal credit for getting the highly effective San Diego border
fence built. Ron Paul has been to the border with us first hand and
aggressively pushed positive border legislation. Alan Keyes has done
more than anyone to support the organizational development of MCDC, and
personally participated in the Minuteman Border Fence Groundbreaking –
advancing a citizen’s construction effort which has forced Congress to
finally get the Feds building physical border fence.
Only one Minuteman group is conducting regular multi-state border
security efforts, building fence and aggressively monitoring Washington
DC: Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. We would like to extend an invitation
to all the presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, to come to
the border and see what is really happening on our nation’s frontier.
Not to take the safe little government photo-op helicopter ride, but see
the lay-up sites full of trash and debris. See the rape trees. See the
violent crime in the border towns. Walk on the pathways of destroyed
environmental terrain trampled by tens of thousands of invading foreign
migrants. See what the American elites’ support of broken borders,
unfettered illegal immigration and sanctuary cities is doing to our
fellow Americans who live on our borderlands, and how these failed
policies imperil our nation’s safety, security and prosperity.
With your support MCDC continues to make Border Security and Illegal
Immigration a national priority that must be resolved. Now more than
ever we need your help to continue the fight.
OK my friends, I think this will do it -now spread my words far and wide!
Volunteer NOW - Donate NOW!
*YOU can make a REAL DIFFERENCE*. So, for your sake, for the sake of
your children, your grandchildren, and for generations to come, *please
help MCDC* continue its fight to protect and preserve the United States
of America and defend our Constitution.
Sincerely for these United States,
Chris Simcox, President
Minuteman Civil Defense Corps
A Facebook Group For Billy Shaheen Not-Fans
Established within hours of his comments....
December 12, 2007
Billy Shaheen Apologizes
The Clinton campaign has released this statement from NH co-chair Billy Shaheen:
“I deeply regret the comments I made today and they were not authorized by the campaign in any way."
The Daily Five: Talk Radio Days In Iowa
1. Democrats participate in the Des Moines Register debate. Same format. Same moderator. No Kucinich or Gravel. Rudy Giuliani cancels a trip to Oklahoma..."Lesser Known Candidates" debate in New Hampshire....Mitt and Ann Romney are in Iowa...John McCain has town hall meetings in Davenport and Sioux City, IA.....Ron Paul campaigns in Nevada.....
2. Clinton wins endorsement of chain of NH weekly newspapers, the first to endorse in NH. Combined circulation is bigger than the New Hampshire Union Leader. ....SEIU releases comparison of presidential candidates' health care plans, says that Clinton's plan achieves "universal coverage," while Obama's achieves "near-universal coverage."
3. Rudy Giuliani launches a new radio ad in New Hampshire, called "Deliver..."......Details Mag calls Andrew Giuliani one of the most influential young people under 45 because he could sink his father's presidency. Giuliani blames the New York Times for giving people that impression.....McCain launches new television ad in New Hampshire, called "Trust," which highlights McCain's tax relief plan.....Thompson fails to qualify for the Feb. 5 Delaware ballot....
4. Tomorrow, 22 national talk radio broadcasters descend on the Des Moines Marriott for "2007 Talk Radio Row." The topic this year: immigration. Per a release: "Iowa 2007 Talk Radio Row invites all Public Officials of every party, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and Greens to make use of free airtime to talk to voters in Iowa and across America about immigration."
5. Actor Martin Sheen e-mails Richardson supporters, says he's going to to Iowa, invites supporters to "share a meal" with him. Handyman Bob Vila will campaign for HRC In Iowa. Obama campaign readies ads using Oprah footage but hasn't decided whether to air them.
ATLANTICam: Huckabee Apologies To Romney
A few hours ago, at Des Moines University.
Gee, Thanks, Billy (Updated With Clinton Campaign Response)
A Clinton co-chair in New Hampshire has handed the Obama campaign an enormously valuable gift.
By publicly raising some as-yet unanswered questions about Obama's use of cocaine as a teenager, Billy Shaheen virtually guarantees that Obama will never be asked those questions or that if he is asked, he'll use a valid excuse to opt out of answering them. ("Why," he might say, "should I respond to a Clinton smear?")
The Clinton campaign cannot say that Shaheen is a minor nobody; he's a major somebody, a former state party chair, the husband to Jeanne Shaheen, and an adviser who talks to Clinton's state director daily.
"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."
A separate issue is whether the questions are valid, and whether Shaheen's sense of the GOP playbook is correct.
Do voters want to know whether Obama used cocaine beyond his teen years? Is it relevant? Has Obama, by conceding the mistake, satisfied the concerns of the public and the press? Arguably, so far as the Democratic primary goes, he has.
But Shaheen is probably correct that some Republicans will try to bring up the issue in some forum if Obama is the nominee. But nominees John McCain and Rudy Giuliani probably would not.
Regardless: this unforced error will hurt. Billy Shaheen wants Democrats to think about Obama and cocaine, but what they'll think about, instead, is how the Clinton campaign is raising the issue. It's fair to assume that Shaheen's comments were not sanctioned by Arlington.
"Senator Clinton is out every day talking about the issues that matter to the American people," said Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign's communications director. These comments were not authorized or condoned by the campaign in any way."
A Reflection On Electability
Does Edwards have a more plausible electability argument?
In national polls, he beats Republicans by a larger margin than Clinton does -- or by the same margin. In the two states holding special elections -- Ohio and Virginia, Edwards consistently outperforms Clinton general election head to heads. And the two new Republican members of Congress did invoke Hillary Clinton in their campaigns. In Virginia's first congressional district, Republicans sent a mail piece headlined, "As we get to know Phil Forgit, we see that he is just another tax and spend liberal like Hillary Clinton." And in Ohio's fifth congressional district, Republicans used a web video to attack Democrat Robin Weinrauch's "extreme liberalism," which they compared to that of Hillary Clinton.
There's no way to know whether these anti-Clinton attacks hurt the Democrats, both of whom lost for more obvious reasons. And because base voters are so important in special elections, there is a premium on demonizing the opposition and firing up your own side.
First Take: The Final Republican Debate
The headline is that no one laid a glove on Mike Huckabee. And that Mitt Romney had a hell of a good afternoon. He seemed more sinewy than usual, less programmed, quite (dare we say) presidential, and even-tempered.
The debate format was not given to exchanges, and the moderator peremptorily took immigration off the table. The audience did not cheer, really, or validate, or boo.
Romney and Huckabee were like two cultivars of fine Iowa maize.
Both appealed directly to middle class Iowans. Romney said he was concerned about the tax burden on middle class families and promised health insurance for all by the end of his first term.
Huckabee invoked his humble origins and said that elected officials ought to “not represent the elite, but represent the ordinary.” Romney arguably had the stronger day, but he needed to upstage Huckabee without seeming to attack him. Romney repeatedly returned to his core message, and had ample time to remind Iowans of his executive experience and his record on education and health care.
Giuliani was challenged on the mistress security expense issue and used the occasion to remind people that he is mortal. “On the issue of transparency, I can’t think of a public figure who has led a more transparent life.”
Fred Thompson was smart, funny, irascible and consistent, and probably helped his standing here. He even got in a good dig at Romney.
John McCain seemed tired, Ron Paul was Ron Paul, and Alan Keyes wasn’t making sense.
Huckabee Video
Attacks Romney's framing of his faith. "I have faith but it doesn't impact me at all" is how he characterizes it. (He doesn't say Romney's name."
McCain talks about the balance between the right to privacy and the need to protect the country.
Giuliani On The Expense Account Issue
“On the issue of transparency, I can’t think of a public figure who has led a more transparent life.”
Their First Year?
Rudy: make country secure against terrorists, end illegal immigration, reduce size of federal government, tax cuts, move towards energy independence...
Paul: end the war, bring troops home. "Become diplomatically credible."
Tancredo: guess...
Thompson: tell the American people the truth. Establish credibility.
Romney: "I want to do more than talk in my first year." Strategy to end global jihad. End expansion of entitlements. End growth of federal spending. Reduce tax burdens to middle class. Health insurance for everyone in America. (Admits it'll take four years.)
Huckabee: The first priority of the next president is to be a president of all the United States. We are a polarized country which has led to a paralyzed government." We've got to be "the united people of the United States."
McCain: "We must make America safe."
Keyes: "Abolish income tax." "Executive order" ending abortion.
Education Standards?
McCain: gives standard Republican answer. (school choice, reward good teachers, charter schools, etc.)....ribs Giuliani by noting that one of his successor's school chancellors is doing well in reforming NYC schools...
Giuliani: standard Republican answer.
Hunter: "Jaime Escalante."
Role of federal government?
Romney: "Education is an important topic, and the president was right to fight for No Child Left Behind. " Same effort in Massachusetts. Gives detailed answer. Federal standards, he supports.
Huckabee: "The whole role of education is a state issue. The worst thing we can do is to shift more ... authority to the federal government, when it needs to go to the states." Calls for more arts funding.
Keyes: "We allowed the judges to drive judges to drive God out of our schools."
Thompson: "The NEA." (Huckabee just accepted their endorsement, but Thompson didn't point that out..."
Fuel Mandates? And A Candidate Dares To Question Ethanol
Huckabee: Not willing to enforce whatever mandates the moderator says, and talks about global warming and praises John McCain.
Hunter: "Ethanol is not the greatest thing in show business."
Note: the question was not about "man dates." Most of the Republican candidates are irrevocably opposed to man dates.
But it's fun to play with the word?
"A "man date" never works out right." Etc.
Global Climate Change Is Serious Threat? -- Moderator Loses Control;' Thompson Snaps At Moderator
Moderators asks for a show of hands:
Thompson: "I'm not going to play hand games."
Moderator asks him question.
Thompson: "Well, if you want to give me a minute to answer that?
Moderator: "No."
Thompson: "I'm not going to answer that."
Giuliani starts to talk. McCain starts to talk.
McCain: "It is serious."
Giuliani: "I agree with John. Climate change is real, it's happening, I believe human beings are contributing to it."
Romney: "That I agree."
Hunter: "He said contributing ..
Romney: "Can you let us answer?"
Giuliani: "I think that it should be an issue our party should embrace?"
The moderator has lost control of the debate.
Opening Statements
Thompson: "On all these issues, I've been a strong, consistent, common-sense security. But the most important issue facing our country is national security..." He touts his experience.. "I would ask people to think one thing before they cast a vote...."
Alan Keyes Interlude
He says: "Ask yourself, who represents the people that they don't let you hear from?"
The elites, "who year after year after year..."
Moderator tries to interrupt.
Thompson: "I agree with Alan Keyes's position on global warming."
(good save!)
Alter Trade Policies With Countries Supporting Terrorism?
McCain: "I will open every market in the world to Iowa's agricultural products. I will also eliminate subsidies to ethanol and other products..." He challenges opponents on subsidies, saying they can't be fiscal conservatives if they support subsidies.
On NAFTA: Giuliani: "The reality is that NAFTA is a good thing.:"
Thompson: a good thing. Doesn't talk in specifics.
Tancredo: NAFTA is a disaster.
Opening Statements
A very subdued McCain. Tired eyes with luggage racks under them. "I have one ambition which is to achieve America safe...."
Who Pays More Than A Fair Share Of Taxes?
Wealthy? Middle class? The poor? Alan Keyes bashes the moderator and talks as if there's an audience. "Stop listening to these phony." McCain: "We've got to reform the tax code...nobody understands it, nobody believes it." Huckabee: Fairtax, Fairtax. Romney: "I don't stay awake at night worrying about the taxes rich people are paying. I'm worried about the... middle class..." A very strong answer that kind of plays to the moderator's question... "We need to reduce the burden on middle income families in this county.." Thompson: "My goal is to get into a situation where I'm like Mitt Romney and not worry about taxes." Romney: "I want to be in your situation: Thompson: "You're getting to be a pretty good actor.!" Giuliani: ignores the question and instead talks about his tax-cut plans.
Sacrifices?
Sacrifices... "Most importantly, the federal government has to restrain its spending..."...."major reductions in civilian spending..." RWG wants 10% spending cuts.. What about folks who rely on this 10%? "That would require they're trying to figure out other ways to do it...:" Basically: throw them to the wind. .... Paul: "I think it's absolutely unnecessary to sacrifice.. give people more of their own money."...... Huckabee: "Sometimes, it's not so much doing things so that people sacrifice, it's doing something...differently." Calls for a prevention-based health care system. Wants to "kill the snake," rather than to kill a "snake bite..." Romney: would he be willing to run a pay for certain crucial programs? "We can eliminate the things that aren't critical."...proposes to cut down to "one or two" the governments' programs to combat teen pregnancy....Thompson: "Yes." Military, security of our people, infrastructure, research ... a different answer than the rest...and the only one to prioritize infrastructure. Thompson ends by an "honest" assessment of the entitlement problem.
On The National Debt...
30 seconds answers....Is the debt a threat to our national security? "I wouldn't call it a threat to our national security..." Giuliani talks specifics...numbers and facts...seems well-prepared for this question..... Hunter says "yes," and brings up $800 trade deficit...Paul: "Yes." -- "We can't support the foreign policy that we needed."....Tancredo says yes...Thompson gives some talking points...."it affects our national security for one reason: it's squeezing military spending." Thompson wants more guns, less butter (and by butter he means creamy Social Security..." Romney: "This is indeed a time of extraordinary challenges in Washington...but this is not a time for us to wring our hands and think that the future is bleak, when, in fact, the future is bright...".... Romney the cockeyed optimist....Huckabee: "Yes" Who feeds us, who fuels us, who helps us to fight...of course our national security is at risk." McCain: "Yes," and talks about oil and energy independence."
Liveblogging The Republican Debate
Yes, Alan Keyes is here.
Clinton Will Close On Electability, Readies Contrast Ads Obama
Inexperience and Unelectability it is.
The Clinton campaign has settled on its final argument against Barack Obama, and is using two new national polls to kick start an aggressive campaign in the national media designed to raise questions about his competence and experience.
In a variety of conference calls over the next few days, in surrogate appearances, and in memos distributed to reporters, the campaign will directly challenge Obama on points of his resume, on past statements of his, on the details of his current policy plans, and on his campaign's pushback that it is Clinton who is not electable. By significant margins, Democrats believe that Clinton is the most electable Democrat and that she will win the nomination, and that she has the requisite experience to be president.
The Clinton campaign wants to spread the idea that Obama would be crushed in a general election by a Republican nominee who is more experienced and more glib than he is. They're prepared to question his credentials from Obama;'s right and left, pointing today, for example, to a 1996 report that he favored registering hand guns.
Campaign aides have said that Obama's support for retroactivity in drug sentences would kill him with tough-on-crime white independents. But the Supreme Court, in a 7 to 2 decision yesterday that included Antonin Scalia, endorsed the view that judges could ignore sentencing guidelines when handing down prison terms for distributing crack versus powder cocaine, and a Bush administration panel today voted seven to nothing to impose retroactivity.
The approach carries risk. Polls show that Clinton is judged to be running the most negative campaign of all the Democrats, and if voters come to perceive her campaign as being in attack mode, her own favorability ratings could suffer.
But the upside is obvious. In 2004, Iowa voters swung towards John Kerry during the final month after he presented himself as the candidate best able to take on President Bush, and as Howard Dean repeatedly and publicly committed unforced errors that raised concerns about his own viability.
With 23 days to go, Clinton needs to move now. Already, some advisers to Bill Clinton are speaking to reporters in hushed tones about what they see as strategic miscues by the current Hillary Clinton leadership team.
Bill Clinton himself is "concerned," one adviser said, but knows that his wife has complete confidence in her choices. And, truth be told, none of the mistakes that have hurt Clinton in Iowa have had anything to do with senior management. Much of Barack Obama's recent success is attributable to Obama himself and his campaign's formidable Iowa field organization, which was developed by state director Paul Tewes. The Obama campaign regularly attracts more than 70 Iowans to its mock caucuses, a figure suggesting that Obama's support is wide and deep.
Of most concern to Clinton's team is the notion that her support has topped out in Iowa and that few undecided Iowans will break her way. That's led them to recalibrate the way they describe her path to the nomination to reporters. Right now, the campaign emphasizes her strength in New Hampshire and its penchant for judging candidates independently of Iowa. (No word on yet on what the Clinton campaign thinks of the new WMUR/CNN poll.)
Clinton has two challenges in Iowa: she cannot let Barack Obama beat her -- the campaign would much rather lose to John Edwards. But she cannot come in third, unless the margins separating all three top candidates are really close.
Both the Obama and Edwards campaigns believe that an Iowa loss would be a severe psychological blow to Clinton's chances in more respects than one. Voters on the fence about Clinton -- and Clintonism -- would feel less dissonance about voting against her if they saw their peers in Iowa force her to third place.
“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”
The man who asks this question is Mike Huckabee, according to a New York Times magazine cover story written by Zev Chafetz.
The Huckabee campaign says the quote should be read in context.
So here's the context.
On the road to Pella, Huckabee talked about the enthusiasm he now encounters everywhere he goes. For example, he said, his driver in California not only declined payment but also wrote the governor a $50 personal check right on the spot. It was, I thought, a dangerous anecdote to tell within earshot of a professional driver traveling along an icy highway at high speed, but Huckabee was feeling invulnerable, and the driver, I later realized, was already on the governor’s team. Huckabee normally starts his mornings by running 6 to 10 miles and reading a chapter from the Book of Proverbs. Today he was too pressed to do either, but he planned to catch up later. Anyway, he knew much of the day’s assignment, Chapter 3, by heart. ‘‘Trust in the Lord,’’ he quoted, ‘‘and lean not upon thine own understanding.’’ Not a bad motto for a campaign that is still too broke to do any independent polling.
Chapter 3 also contains the admonition to ‘‘keep sound wisdom and discretion.’’ Huckabee is, indeed, a discreet fellow, but he has no trouble making his feelings known. He mentioned how much he respected his fellow candidates John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The name of his principal rival in Iowa, Mitt Romney, went unmentioned. Romney, a Mormon, had promised that he would be addressing the subject of his religion a few days later. I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. ‘‘I think it’s a religion,’’ he said. ‘‘I really don’t know much about it.’’
I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ‘‘Don’t Mormons,’’ he asked in an innocent voice, ‘‘believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’
In this unpredictable primary season, Mike Huckabee’s surge in Iowa — and beyond — is perhaps the greatest surprise. Iowa was supposed to be a pushover for Mitt Romney. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, began working the state more than a year ago. He commands an army of trained professionals and a vast ad budget. Mitt Romney’s message flows like Muzak out of every radio and TV in the state. All this effort has reportedly cost Romney more than $7 million. Huckabee, by contrast, has spent less than $400,000 in Iowa. His paid staff in the state is not much bigger than a softball team. Televised Huckabee ads have been harder to catch than ‘‘I Love Lucy’’ reruns.
Is Gilchrist An Endorsement A Candidate Should Embrace?
It's not difficult, after a few Google and Nexus searches, to conclude that Minuteman Civil Defense League founder Jim Gilchrist has a penchant for saying what he thinks, and for saying things that might give more polite company some pause.
He is also controversial within the movement, having been fired by the Minuteman board this year after an internal dispute.
Tuesday, Huckabee said that “No one can question Jim's commitment to this country and the immigration problem. He has mobilized a group of volunteers to go to the border and draw attention to the issue of immigration."
As recently as 2005, Mr. Gilchrist was prone to the type of statement that makes most opponents of illegal immigration wince, hitting all the stereotypes that such opponents are nativists.
For Gilchrist, the immigration problem is cultural and ethnic.
To the Orange County Weekly, he said that in 40 years, "The United States is going to have 100 tribes with 100 languages and no common bond." On his website that year, Gilchrist wrote that undocumented immigrants "and their offspring will be the dominant population in the U.S. and will have made such inroads into the political and social systems that they will have more influence than the U.S. Constitution over how the U.S. is governed. That ugly consequence is already taking place."
He has decried the "colonization" of parts of California by Mexican immigrants. He supports mandatory testing of immigrants for a variety of diseases, urges candidates to form a cabinet-level "Department of Mexico" to deal with the immigration problem, and, notably, whether candidates support in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
1.Republicans gather in Johnson, Iowa for the Des Moines Register debate....Democrats travel to Des Moines for Thursday's debate.... Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) announces plan to use Iowa caucuses to convince Americans to "rethink Iowa," come visit here, come spend money here, and ultimately come move here. Iowa, for example, features "more nine-hole golf courses than any state in the nation."
2. Fred Thompson gets the endorsement of legendary conservative activist Morton Blackwell.........EnglishFirst group asks Huckabee six questions, including:"In 2006, Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) led an effort to eliminate mandatory multilingual ballots. Do you believe American elections should be conducted in English?".....Huckabee agrees to meet with the family of AIDS victim Ryan White....
3. Bill Richardson's campaign promises a "sharp contrast" with Democratic rivals on job creation during a Sioux City, Iowa speech tomorrow.....Poet Maya Angelou records radio ads for Hillary Clinton in South Carolina......
4. What to do on a snowy day? Break your car from ice chamber, cancel your campaign events, and, if you're Mike Huckabee, get the founder of the Minutemen Civil Defense League, Jim Gilchrist, to endorse you. And then get yourself a long-overdue haircut.
5. WhyTuesday, a pro-election reform group, will arrive at tomorrow's Des Moines Register debate in a horse-drawn carriage. Question: will the horses enjoy the frigid temperatures and the six inches of accumulated snow and slush?.... and the ONE Campaign begins $1.6M -- that's the right figure -- television ad buy focusing on AIDS and poverty......
AtlantiCam: A Few Minutes With Mitt Romney
Obama/Clinton Bracket War
A bracketing war of sorts erupted today between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Maybe the war was a little one sided -- the Obama campaign refused to bite.
The scene was set by Obama's big endorsee: Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a hero of liberal New Hampshire Democrats. His campaign scheduled a conference call for 2:00 pm ET.
About 1:30 pm ET, the Clinton campaign announced a conference call of its own, featuring Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and (theoretically) Sen. Evan Bayh. The topic was the new CBS/New York Times poll, which showed that Democrats believe that Sen. Clinton is by far the more electable of the two candidates. Jackson Lee called Obama "inconsistent." The attorney general of Arkansas said that no Democrat had won the presidency in modern years without winning Arkansas.
The campaign also pointed to a story in the Politico, which obtained a 1996 questionnaire under Obama's name wherein he supported a single payer health insurance system, supports hand gun registration, and otherwise liberals it up. The Obama campaign had no comment, aside from saying that the questionnaire was filled out by someone who worked for Obama at the time and not Obama itself.
Romney Explains Decision To Air Contrast Ad
DES MOINES -- In an interview today, Gov. Mitt Romney said he authorized his campaign to air his new ad, which takes Gov. Mike Huckabee to task on immigration, because he believed that Huckabee's sudden rise hasn't been accompanied by the type of scrutiny generally given to top-tier presidential candidates.
While national media outlets have begun to scrutinize Huckabee's record in earnest, Romney said he saw much less of that sort of coverage in Iowa.
And Romney hinted that immigration is only the start of his comparisons. On taxes, pardons and commutations, he said Huckabee's record compares unfavorably with his.
I spoke with Romney at the Marriott in downtown Des Moines a few minutes before he headed into a prep session for tomorrow's debate. I called the ad a "contrast" ad, not a "negative" ad -- trying to preserve the distinction between the two -- and Romney seemed to much prefer that characterization.
The full interview / podcast will be posted later.
Clinton's Health Care Lit Drop Criticizes Obama
Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign is distributing the flier below at campaign events... it's the first time the campaign has mentioned an opponent in an official communication. The target is Obama's health care plan and three of the four pull quotes are from the New York Times's resident economist/columnist, Paul Krugman.
Snowed In
Well, the Embassy Suites is nice this time of year. Canceled events include a Bill Clinton swing through eastern Iowa, a Michelle Obama tour, several Mike Huckabee events, and a joint press conference with the Republican Party of Iowa and the Iowa Democratic Party.
Bill Clinton at Grinnell College
GRINNELL -- The first caucus ward here in Poweshiek County is the most potent political precinct in the state. About one fifth of one percent of the statewide delegates are allocated in the ward, which is a lot, considering that there are about 1,800 precincts. John Edwards has appeared at Grinnell, drawing 1,500. When Barack Obama spoke, a fire marshal shut the doors before all those who wanted in, got in.
Hillary Clinton hasn't been to Grinnell; it's not her crowd. Last night, Bill Clinton showed up, a mite too late for the tastes of some Clinton supporters. The audience was of a respectful size -- about 1,100 - and they were clearly eager to see him. Him. A very few audience members waved Clinton signs, despite the dozens that were passed out by campaign volunteers.
For the first fifteen minutes, Mr. Clinton lectured:
For the second fifteen, he wrapped a sustained argument for his wife's nomination in a passel of
stories that usually ended with Hillary changing policy for the better.
Beginning now, we're going to rank both the Democrats and Republicans each week. Look for new GOP rankings in a few days.
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 the old Republican rankings.
1. Hillary Clinton -- The margin between Clinton and Obama is as narrow as it's ever been. She's ahead because there's a plausible scenario for her to win the nomination even if she loses Iowa and New Hampshire; that scenario does not exist for Obama. Still, the tide is moving in the wrong direction for her.
2. Barack Obama -- He's on a roll, but is it too soon? Momentum's a powerful thing, but one has to have it at the right time; Edwards got it a few days too late in '04, or he would have been the nominee. Obama's big test may actually be after New Hampshire, when he could start to get REAL front-runner treatment from the media. For now, he is still getting gee-whiz coverage, to the chagrin of the Clinton camp.
3. John Edwards -- The biggest hurdle in Edwards' way? It's Clinton, not Obama. Edwards and Clinton share more supporters than Edwards and Obama. Edwards is hoping for the blue-collar, older Dem support. That's the heart and soul of Clinton's support.
It means that the Romney campaign has decided that the press won't cover Huckabee fairly -- in Iowa.
It means that the campaign is willing to risk a backlash in order to hit Huckabee where he is most vulnerable.
It means their internal polls confirm what the public polls are saying.
It means that Romney is now wedded to an engagement model -- that is, he now has to attack Huckabee daily.
The decision to run this ad is not universally popular within Romney's campaign, judging from some early e-mail traffic.
The Daily Five: Shea-Porter Endorsing Obama?
1. CBS/NYT poll will be released at 6:30 pm ET....Tomorrow, Mitt Romney, Ann Romney campaign in Iowa. Tagg Romney campaigns in Michigan. Mike Huckabee campaigns in Western Iowa and then Des Moines. John Edwards continues his bus tour. Bill Clinton stumps for his wife in Iowa. Barack Obama has events out west; he'll start a 5-day bus tour on Friday. Fred Thompson plans a single public event in Iowa after Wednesday's DMR debate.
2. Hillary Clinton launches "New Beginning" ad in Nevada; Obama is already on the air in the state. Edwards adviser Jonathan Prince says the campaign budgeted for January with the notion that the FEC would not allow $4.3M in bundled Act Blue contributions to be applied to Edwards's matching funds total.....Emma Jack and Claire will join their father on his bus tour at some point...generally pro-Clinton blogger Jane Hamsher upset at HRC's support for review of video game ratings after ManHunt 2 receives "M" rating....
3. Giuliani spends most of the week raising money in anticipation of expensive January....Mike Huckabee has two new ads in rotation...his Iowa ad focuses on immigration enforcement...accuracy of Giuliani's latest ad is called into question...Huckabee campaign hints at a major Iowa endorsement tomorrow...The line is drawn? Huckabee refuses to release the text of his sermons...
4. A rival campaign estimates that Romney's campaign has purchased 17,000 gross ratings points worth of television ads nationwide since he launched his campaign...
5. The New Hampshire Union Leader's breaking news alert has Rep. Carol Shea-Porter endorsing Sen. Barack Obama tomorrow...
Anuzis-Dingell: The Future Of The Primaries?
Two political stalwarts, one Republican and one Democrat, both frustrated with the primary system as it stands, are tag-teaming the national parties this week with a plan to create a series of regional primaries ahead of the 2012.
Saul Anuzis is the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. Debbie Dingell is a Democratic National Committee member from Michigan and the spouse of Rep. John Dingell.
Their plan:
"....would divide up states into six regions. There would be six sub-regions set up in each region, designating a representative cross section of America. The national parties would then set six distinct dates for when contests would be held. A lottery would determine the dates each designated sub-region could hold a presidential primary or caucus and no one region could be selected to go first for two consecutive presidential cycles, eliminating incentives for states to break the rules."
Both Anuzis and Dingell will present the plan to their respective parties this week. Dingell's plan faces opposition off the bat and will rub some in the party the wrong way. But there is bound to be some sort of rules committee fracas over the calendar at the Democratic national convention, and the Anuzis-Dingell proposal might be seen as a launching pad for more discussion.
Anuzis's success or failure may well be determined by whether the next GOP nominee and his designated RNC chair are keen on the plan.
America's Rising, And It's Raised A Bus
There it stood, in the center of of a convention hall at the Polk County Convention Complex. A massive tour bus, emblazoned with the slogan for John Edwards's final message iteration: "American belongs to us."
The theme to that slogan is "America rising." Positive. Crisp. Easily remembered thanks to a Bruce Springsteen song.
For the next eight days, Edwards and his entourage will brave the icy highways, traveling to medium-sized cities and small rural hamlets.
Edwards began his final stump speech with a joke about Hillary Clinton and the "silliness" of the end-of-year campaigning.
Then he said: "You are the guardians of what kind of human beings we'll have as the next president of the United States."
"We must," Edwards said later, "have a president of the United States who can restore trust between the American people and the president."
Here Edwards is reaching out to those Obama supporters who are inclined to choose Edwards second -- trust and accountability are the central organizing principles of the final, final stump speech Edwards will give.
Toward the end, he said: "Are we going to be looking for careful political calculation, or are we going to be looking for bold, strong leadership for the United States?"
He finished speaking, and the crowd, mostly inorganic, mostly uniformed union members, cheered.
And the bus rolled off stage left. And then somehow, it made it to the street level, one floor below.
Polling In Iowa: Why A Lead Might Be A Tie
It's not impossible to poll the Iowa Democratic caucuses accurately, but it is very hard, and results have to be taken provisionally. The caucus rules skew the math so weirdly that pre-Caucus polls often over-capture momentum surges and understate core strength.
It's clear, from a variety of recent polls, that Barack Obama has marginally improved his standing among likely caucus voters since September, and that Hillary Clinton's standing has marginally dropped. (John Edwards is standing still, roughly).
But a poll of likely caucus goers -- roughly 5% of adults, requiring an initial sample of 3,500 or so -- does not really capture and cannot really project delegate allocation ratios.
One reason is that a surge or decline in turnout can completely muck up the model. And it only takes about 20,000 troops to implement this surge.
More fundamentally, the caucuses themselves can vary wildly. You might show up supporting candidate Green but be forced to support candidate Blue because of the alignments of that particular caucus. Some caucuses may be entirely for one candidate or another; others may be split. .....
And the allocation of the delegates itself is not proportional to population. Bonus delegates are awarded to Democratically performing areas. Certain smaller counties pack the same punch as bigger counties -- a caucus of 50 in one part of the state can yield the same number of delegates as a caucus of 100 in Des Moines.
As a totally unscientific rule of thumb, some analysts tend to subtract three points from Barack Obama's percentage in a good poll -- he does better in urban and suburban areas than he does in rural precincts ... and tend to add a few points to John Edwards's tally. He has many second-tier counties locked up.
Do not put much stalk in Democratic polls.
More "Values Voters" Help For Huckabee In Iowa
A values voter barnstorm is coming to Iowa. And chances are, one candidate -- Mike Huckabee -- will benefit.
The Iowa Family Policy Center, whose founder, Chuck Hurley, endorsed Huckabee last week, kicks off a seven day bus tour through Iowa today. The barnstormers will stop in three cities per day, and will, according to an e-mail sent to participants, encourage
"Iowans of faith to register and vote their values. We also have a great lineup of speakers to encourage you to use your influence with friends, to make our voices heard at the caucuses, and to elect candidates who will help restore America to her historical Judeo-Christian heritage. The effort will be completely non-partisan and values driven."
The tour starts in Davenport this morning, stops in Dubuque and noon and ends the day in Cedar Rapids. Tomorrow, there are stop sin Cedar Falls/Waterloo, Waverly and Independence.
A separate group, Hear the Cry, is organizing pro-lifer voters as part of the mobilization.
The Values Voter barnstorm will be led by Pastor Rick Scarborough, an early Huckabee endorser. Participants include R. Randolph "Randy" Brinson, an iconoclastic social conservative doctor from Alabama who possesses a huge list of Iowa pastors and Christian conservatives. He's also the head of ReedemTheVote, which was active in 2004 and 2006 as a voter registration vehicle for young evangelicals.
The Barnstormers don't have to reveal their funding sources provided they don't directly provide aid to a candidate. But it's hard to see how any candidate but Mike Huckabee will find comfort from this tour.
December 9, 2007
Here Is Hillary Clinton's Latest Ad In Iowa
December 8, 2007
Huckabee To Be Endorsed By Rubio
Republicans in Florida confirm that ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee will be endorsed Monday by Marco Rubio, the charismatic speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.
Rubio, who has gubernatorial and national ambitions, was the driving force behind the move to change Florida's primary date to Jan. 29.
Huckabee's Response On AIDS
(Note: no repudiation of his anti-gay sentiments).
“In the late 80’s and early 90’s we were still learning about the virus that causes AIDS. My concern, as a Senate candidate at the time, was to deal with the virus using the same public health protocols that medical science and public health professionals would use with any infectious disease.
Before a disease can be cured and contained we need to know exactly how and with near certainty what level of contact transmits the disease. There was still too much confusion about HIV transmission in those early years. Recall that in 1991, Kimberly Bergalis testified in front of Congress after contracting HIV from her dentist, and that summer a study was published showing that HIV was transmitted through breastmilk more easily than had been thought. But the federal government provided some guidelines: Also in 1991 the Centers for Disease Control recommended restrictions on the practice of HIV-positive health care workers.
At the time, there was widespread concern over modes of transmission and the possibility of epidemic. In the absence of conclusive data, my focus was on efforts to limit the exposure of the virus, following traditional medical practices developed from our public health experience and medical science in dealing with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
We now know that the virus that causes AIDS is spread differently, with a lower level of contact than with TB. But looking back almost 20 years, my concern was the uncertain risk to the general population – if we got it wrong, many people would die needlessly. My concern was safety first, political correctness last.
My administration will be the first to have an overarching strategy for dealing with HIV and AIDS here in the United States, with a partnership between the public and private sectors that will provide necessary financing and a realistic path toward our goals. We must prevent new infections and provide more accessible care. We must do everything possible to transform the promise of a vaccine and a cure into reality.
Furthermore, I am proud that the United States has led the global battle against HIV/ AIDS. We have both a strategic interest as the world's only superpower and a moral obligation as the world's richest country to continue to do so until this scourge is a memory.
I supported the current Administration’s proposal to double our initial commitment from $15 billion to $30 billion over the next five years for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). PEPFAR has already done an extraordinary amount of good, by providing drugs for over a million people and care for four-and-a-half million people, but it expires in 2008 and must be reauthorized. I support an increase in our commitment to the Global Fund. Through PEPFAR and the Global Fund, we can do our fair share to meet the Millennium Development Goals we affirmed in 2000, which include universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care.”
O!
HY VEE HALL, DES MOINES -- 1300. It's the number that best explains the maximal effect that Oprah Winfrey's appearance here with Barack Obama will have on the Iowa caucuses.
Between the day three weeks ago when the Winfrey-a-thon was announced and today, the Obama campaign signed up more than 1300 new volunteers directly through the media of pre-Oprah publicity.
And the second number to keep in mind is the roughly 12,000 new names and e-mail addresses that the Obama campaign obtained in the Des Moines area alone in exchange for tickets. Many were Republicans and were curious. (At least one was Australian and thus ineligible to vote.)
The massive amount of media attention was almost tertiary, although every network evening newscast has done at least two stories about the campaign stops during the past two days.
As Oprah Winfrey introduced Obama, his chief strategist David Axelrod stood on the press riser, beaming. Paul Tewes, Obama's Iowa state director, stood behind the risers, pacing.
“Despite the speculation and the hype, I understand the difference between a book club and free refrigerators,” Oprah began, “I understand the difference between that and this critical moment in our nation’s history.”
A few minutes later: "I'm here to tell you Iowa, he's the one."
18,500 people went wild.
I asked one of Obama's senior advisers whether he was surprised that the Clinton campaign had tried to bracket the doubles Os by bringing Chelsea Clinton to Iowa this weekend.
"Nah. It's kind of like bringing a knife to a bazooka fight."
O!
HY VEE HALL, DES MOINES -- 1300. It's the number that best explains the maximal effect that Oprah Winfrey's appearance here with Barack Obama will have on the Iowa caucuses.
Between the day three weeks ago when the Winfrey-a-thon was announced and today, the Obama campaign signed up more than 1300 new volunteers directly through the media of pre-Oprah publicity.
And the second number to keep in mind is the roughly 12,000 new names and e-mail addresses that the Obama campaign obtained in the Des Moines area alone in exchange for tickets. Many were Republicans and were curious. (At least one was Australian and thus ineligible to vote.)
The massive amount of media attention was almost tertiary, although every network evening newscast has done at least two stories about the campaign stops during the past two days.
As Oprah Winfrey introduced Obama, his chief strategist David Axelrod stood on the press riser, beaming. Paul Tewes, Obama's Iowa state director, stood
“Despite the speculation and the hype, I understand the difference between a book club and free refrigerators,” Oprah began, “I understand the difference between that and this critical moment in our nation’s history.”
A few minutes later: "I'm here to tell you Iowa, he's the one."
18,500 people went wild.
I asked one of Obama's senior advisers whether he was surprised that the Clinton campaign had tried to bracket the doubles Os by bringing Chelsea Clinton to Iowa this weekend.
"Nah. It's kind of like bringing a knife to a bazooka fight."
Huck and AIDS
Mike Huckabee's 1992 comments about homosexuality -- "sinful," he says --- aren't going to be terribly controversial with his supporters in Iowa, although the press may harp on them (to his benefit, probably).
His belief, back then, that AIDS patients should be quarantined -- completely (willfully?) ignoring the mechanism of transmission -- is much weirder and harder to defend.
CBS' Joy Lin is on the trail with Huckabee in South Carolina this morning and reports that the governor did not take questions about the AP questionnaire per se, but did do a little pre-speech inoculation.
“Many of you know that I’m a human being that’s going to make a whole lot of mistakes, in fact you’re going to hear that I am a human being that’s made a lot of mistakes. In fact, if you don’t know that yet, just keep reading all the press releases from my opponents,” said Huckabee to a chuckling audience. “And when they can’t find enough, they’ll make some up.”
In any event, Huckabee is nowhere near his 1992 position today. He supports dramatic increases in HIV/AIDS prevention funding.
Oprah, Meet Dorothy
DES MOINES -- How to bracket Oprah Winfrey? That's the challenge facing the Clinton campaign this weekend. The answer they've arrived at seems to be: we'll keep our head down. As Barack Obama barnstorms with Ms. O, Clinton will campaign via bus through South Central Iowa.
But Clinton is bringing a special woman along. Her mother, Dorothy Rodham. The first time she's ever been with her daughter on the campaign trail. And Dorothy Rodham's first visit to Iowa in nearly 50 years.
The contrast: Obama has his celebrity -- Hillary has her mother -- a stand in, of sorts, for the older, female caucus-goer demographic that is so critical to a Clinton victory.
December 7, 2007
Thompson's Upping His Iowa Presence
DES MOINES -- In a brief stop at a farm bureau exhibition here, Fred Thompson promised a small gaggle of supporters that he'd soon "bring the kids" and plant himself in Iowa.
"We're going to crank up the bus and go from one end to the other."
A spokesman said that Thompson would spend the majority of his time in Iowa after December 17, save for a short Christmas vacation.
Atlantic Video: Romney Grilled, Grills
DES MOINES -- Maybe it was a way of saying, "Welcome to the Big Time." Mitt Romney held his first media avail -- we like to shorten words like "availability," which itself is a fancy word for "press conference" shortly after a stop at Ft. Des Moines, where Ronald Reagan became a 2nd lieutenant. The questions came fast and none were softballs.
Matt Stuart of ABC News wanted to know why Romney excluded people of no faith from his "freedom requires religion" formulation. Romney was a little testy, explaining that he meant that religion seeded the value of freedom for the country.
Jonathan Martin asked Romney whether he thought his speech would help calm evangelical concerns in Iowa. Romney wouldn't bite.
And here's Romney's fairly contentious exchange with CNN's Dana Bash:
Newsweek Poll A Gift To Mitt Romney?
Bear with me... yes, it shows Mike Huckabee at 39% to Mitt Romney's 17%.
[beat].
But -- Iowa now may be Huckabee's to lose and Romney's to win.
And it's always easier to beat expectations when you're expected to lose.
This poll's sample size is huge -- 1,400+ voters -- the telephone calls were Wednesday and Thursday. The margins of error for the likely caucus goer subgroups are +/- 6%.
The Democratic race: a tie. Though Obama's supporters are more likely to caucus than Clinton's, at this point. Edwards still hovers around the 20 percent mark, and his campaign released its own internal poll today showing a tied race. All three Democratic campaigns agree that the race is essentially tied, but all three believe that their candidate has an organizational edge.
The Daily Five: Verizon Unionless
1. Oprah/Obama kicks off tomorrow in Des Moines at 4:30 pm ET, just in time for the evening news broadcasts to get a piece on the air. Obama campaign office in Des Moines was handing out tickets by the handful this a.m...Hillary Clinton won't bracket the day but will embark on a multi-city Iowa bus tour.....Mike Huckabee starts a three-day sojourn to South Carolina...Fred Thompson campaigns in Iowa....John Edwards has a big bus tour in Iowa planned for next week...Republicans head to Miami for Univision Debate...Giuliani does "Meet the Press" this weekend....
2. In Manchester, the Verizon Wireless Arena is unionless, and the AFL-CIO has been brought in to mediate the dispute between the Obama campaign and the stage hand union that's trying to organize there. But just two weeks ago, New Hampshire firefighters hosted an event there, and Hillary Clinton spoke at a June commencement. New Hampshire Union Leader's DiStaso runs the story as "breaking news," guaranteeing big play in the Granite State. DiStaso says labor is "deeply concerned" about Obama's decision; other labor sources say the issue has been blown out of proportion...Edwards campaign boasts that it is so union friendly, its campaign manager refuses to speak through non-union microphones........Hillary Clinton's traveling press corps stuck in Manchester Airport, misses connecting flight to Des Moines.....Obama set to air ad on special interests in Nevada, the first campaign '08 spot to hit that state, Jon Ralston reports.
3. After "The Speech," Mitt Romney receives congratulatory phone call from James Dobson....Jeri Thompson will campaign in South Carolina next week....in Ohio, Fred Thompson questions Huckabee's ignorance of the NIE...
4. What Scrutiny? Mike Huckabee has been taking incoming fire on Wayne Dumond, his ignorance of the National Intelligence Estimate, waterboarding and closing Guantanamo, immigration and in-state tuition for illegals, and even conservative criticism on his tax-and-spend record. Cable networks and national outlets are all over it; the Iowa press corps (with some exceptions) is not. Are they tired of issues? Too in love with the horse race? Trying to demonstrate their independence?
5. New Hampshire hotels sold out from Concord to Manchester for five days preceding Jan. 8 primary, but plenty of hotels in West Des Moines, Iowa have vacancies.
Bill Clinton Praises America's Mayor
Not Rudy Giuliani.
But Michael Bloomberg, who last week had a well-publicized breakfast with Barack Obama.
Mr. Clinton was speaking in the Bronx this morning and called Bloomberg, who insists he's not running for president while doing everything he can to show some leg, called Bloomberg a "leader."
"None of this would be possible if it weren’t for the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg."
" No city has a more comprehensive, effective plan to get this job done for America and for its own people than New York. So for me, I’m profoundly grateful to the Mayor and glad that he’s given us a chance to work and glad that he’s given me an excuse to come back to the Bronx."
(The context is Bloomberg's work with the New York City Housing Authority to reduce greenhouse emissions.)
For Obama Campaign, a Hobson's Choice
Democratic presidential candidates go out of their way to avoid offending organized labor. All campaign materials are printed under union aegis. They endeavor to stay in unionized hotels whenever possible. And they never, ever cross a picket line.
Barack Obama's New Hampshire campaign finds itself in a Democratic dilly of a pickle. Overwhelming demand by Democrats wanting to see Oprah Winfrey campaign for Obama on Sunday convinced them to seek a larger venue in Manchester. The Verizon Arena on Elm Street was available. 1,000 can fit in the floor alone. Unfortunately, the arena is in the middle of a labor dispute with the nation stagehands' union, IATSE.
The state Democratic Party recently decided not to host its 100 Club dinner there in 2008 in part because of the labor troubles.
IATSE won't be picketing Sunday, but you can be sure that rivals of Obama will claim he crossed a virtual picket line of sorts.
Romney: "When It Wasn't Politically Correct..."
Mitt Romney's latest ad is aimed squarely at social conservatives in New Hampshire. It pokes at a bundle of resentments against the elites, and claims Romney isn't one of them willy-weak-kneed PC types. Instead, he speaks his mind...
More Dirty Tricks In Iowa?
This tactic is fairly common.
Identified supporters of Mitt Romney in Iowa received telephone calls at 6:00 am CT on Thursday.
But those calls weren't initiated by Romney's campaign.
So a rival campaign, hoping to make Romney supporters angry at Romney's campaign, did the deeds.
More Help For Huckabee: Pastors Conferences Planned For Early States
Sources say that the Renewal Project, whose organizers are partial to Mike Huckabee, is planning three pastors conferences in Florida, one conference in New Hampshire (scheduled for Dec. 13 and 14) two in South Carolina and at least on in Michigan.
Huckabee's opponents suspect the Project is a campaign adjunct in disguise. Its backers are wealthy and anonymous. Last week in Des Moines, they paid for 350 pastors to stay at downtown hotels, fed them good meals and paid Newt Gingrich's speakers fee.
And only Mike Huckabee was invited to speak.
(The project's organizers insisted that all the other candidates were invited, but, funnily enough, no other candidate seems to have gotten the invitation.)
How will these pastors help Huckabee? T
They can't legally endorse him from the pulpits.
They can, however, distribute voter guides. Problem is: because other candidates have answered questions the same way Huckabee has, for the guides to be effective in moving votes toward Huckabee, they'll have to be revised somehow.
When combined with TrustHuckabee, a 527 that serves as a surrogate paid voter identification and contact effort, Huckabee has the makings of a complete field campaign. And his campaign is paying for none of it.
And short of proof of coordination, it's all legal.
A side note: Yesterday, Pastor Rick Scarborough's "Patriot Pastors" tour was supposed to begin its sojourn through Iowa, although a snowstorm may have postponed the kick-off.
Oprah Events Not Sold Out In Iowa
DES MOINES -- Oprah's celebrity is HUGE in South Carolina and pretty big in New Hampshire, but the enthusiasm is simmered down in Iowa.
Where Barack Obama's campaign had to change venues in South Carolina to accommodate the interest and where they rented the largest stadium in New Hampshire for the joint campaign stop there, the two events scheduled for Iowa tomorrow afternoon haven't sold out.
That's not to say that Oprah doesn't command large audiences in Iowa -- she does.
Maybe it's the winter. Maybe it's the 10,000+ seats the campaign has to fill at each venue.
Or maybe it's the skepticism that Iowa Democrats have for celebrity endorsers.
What Mitt Romney Did
Let's pause and take a moment to appreciate what Mitt Romney has done today for his campaign. Looking presidential, speaking at a lectern with the presidential seal on it, speaking before the largest press corps ever assembled to hear him speak, speaking just 28 days before the Iowa caucuses, speaking -- reading -- a text that he wrote, giving a complex and nuanced argument about faith in America -- he may accomplished the improbable: giving a speech that actually moves hearts and moves, a speech that actually persuades, a speech that may have succeeded in moving the public's perception of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from outside the circle of "normal" to a few lengths inside it.
With this speech, Romney may have mainstreamed Mormonism and injected a fresh dollop of energy into his presidential campaign.
To be sure, the notion that theology and doctrine don't matter in politics is just plain wrong. It has mattered and has always mattered; of course voters consider belief -- and not just belief as a vessel, but belief as a vessel full of specific messages -- when they vote for politicians. Where government refuses to impose religious tests, voters always have. And religion -- not faith, but religion -- informs how politicians vote on issues and how voters feel about them. Opposition to same-sex marriage or support of same-sex marriages isn't explicitly rational; it's a gut judgment to which we append our rational arguments. More often that not, if you consider yourself pro-life, you cannot explain your beliefs in the public square without specific reference to a tenet of your religion. Nor should you be forced to. Evangelicals, Catholics and conservative Jews; liberal Catholics, liberal Christians, secular humanists, have formed coalitions and found common cause on certain issues. To the ire of small-c-catholics, they've sublimated doctrine to consensus. But most believers aren't so orthodox and the principle of pluralism is enough to paper over differences so long as the differences aren't that profound, so long as there is social pressure to tolerate.
For most non-Mormons, the social pressure to tolerate the quirks and vicissitudes of that faith has been absent. Pre-Romney. Post-Romney, that pressure is there. Opponents of the LDS church ought to be forced to respond to Romney's argument and explain why the LDS church ought to remain outside the circle of tolerance.
If Romney's speech hit a false note, it was only in its conflicted view about the wisdom of bracketing the content of one's religious views when making political arguments. Again, this is plainly impossible and it's not how humans work out these things. But maybe Romney was making a normative statement: we "ought" to bracket those parts of our belief system that aren't consonant with the common civic creed. Philosophically, two ideas are in tension. Where do we draw the line? How do we preserve the contours of our religion without permission -- or social consent -- to argue vociferously on behalf of that religion in public?
Back to politics. Universal praise (from Dobson, Colson, Dick Land, bloggers). Excellent television coverage. Excellent visuals. Unadulterated, unfiltered Mitt Romney, direct to camera. Romney aides are ecstatic.
AP/IPSOS: Still A Sizable Clinton Lead Nationally
December 6, 2007
Fred Thompson Drops Contrast Lit Against Mike Huckabee
DES MOINES -- Hitting mailboxes soon: a hard contrast mail piece paid for by Fred Thompson that takes Ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee to task for his tax record as governor as Arkansas. The cover shows Huckabee posed with a fellow governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton.
Heads Up: Mike Huckabee's Immigration Plan
Mike Huckabee's staff is securing what Huckabee calls is "Secure America Plan." See the bolded portion. Huckabee's come a long way from last year...
A 9-Point Strategy for Immigration Enforcement and Border Security
Overview: Implement a broad-based strategy that commits the resources of the federal government to the enforcement of our immigration laws and results in the attrition of the illegal immigrant population.
1. Build the Fence
• Ensure that an interlocking surveillance camera system is installed along the border by July 1, 2010.
• Ensure that the border fence construction is completed by July 1, 2010.
2. Increase Border Patrol
• Increase the number of border patrol agents.
• Fully support all law enforcement personnel tasked with enforcing immigration law.
3. Prevent Amnesty
• Policies that promote or tolerate amnesty will be rejected. • Propose to provide all illegal immigrants a 120-day window to register with [immigration] and leave the country. Those who register and return to their home country will face no penalty if they later apply to immigrate or visit; those who do not return home will be, when caught, barred from future reentry for a period of 10 years.
4. Enforce the Law on Employers
• Employment is the chief draw for most illegal immigrants and denying them jobs is the centerpiece of an attrition strategy.
• Impose steep fines and penalties on employers that violate the law.
• Institute a universal, mandatory citizenship verification system as part of the normal hiring process.
• Prevent the IRS and the Social Security Administration from accepting fraudulent Social Security numbers or numbers that don't match the employees' names.*
5. Establish an Economic Border
• Move toward passage of the FairTax.
• The FairTax provides an extra layer of security by creating an economic disincentive to immigrate to the U.S. illegally.
6. Empower Local Authorities
• Promote better cooperation on enforcement by supporting legislative measures such as the CLEAR Act, which aims to systematize the relationship between local law and federal immigration officials.
• Encourage immigration-law training for police. Local authorities must be provided the tools, training, and funding they need so local police can turn illegal immigrants over to the federal authorities.
7. Ensure Document Security
• End exemptions for Mexicans and Canadians to the US-VISIT program, which tracks the arrival and departure of foreign visitors. Since these countries account for the vast majority of foreigners coming here (85 percent), such a policy clearly violates Congress' intent in mandating this check-in/check-out system.
• Reject Mexico's "matricula consular" card, which functions as an illegal-immigrant identification card.
8. Discourage Dual Citizenship
• Inform foreign governments when their former citizens become naturalized U.S. citizens.
• Impose civil and/or criminal penalties on American citizens who illegitimately use their dual status (e.g., using a foreign passport, voting in elections in both a foreign country and the U.S.).
9. Modernize the Process of Legal Immigration
• Eliminate the visa lottery system and the admission category for adult brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens.
• Increase visas for highly-skilled and highly-educated applicants.
• Expedite processing for those who serve honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces.
• Improve our immigration process so that those patiently and responsibly seeking to come here legally will not have to wait decades to share in the American dream. Governor Huckabee has always been grateful to live in a country that people are trying to break into, rather than break out of.
*This policy will be drafted to comply with the final federal court decisions on this issue.
Note: This plan is partially modeled on a proposal by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. (“Re: Immigration: Ten Points for a Successful Presidential Candidate,” National Review, May 23, 2005.)
Clinton's Economic Turn
For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton's "major economic address" Wednesday symbolizes the turn, generally, away from Iraq, generally, and the turn toward bread and -- less/guns more..butter. Voters are uncomfortable with Obama's lack of foreign policy experience; they are NOT anxious about his lack of domestic policy experience.
So Clinton's task to convince voters that Obama's lack of domestic policy experience matters. Talk about tough trails to trod: Clinton has, for eight months, successfully injected skepticism into voters' perception of Obama on foreign policy.
Voters get Clinton's argument: she was by her husband's side, she knows what the WHite House environment is like, she knows how to navigate the cross-pressures of Washington. Now that voters are beginning to care more, in relative terms, about their own bottom lines, their health care, their children's education, they're giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. They don't see how his experience differs all that much from hers.
Now -- the Clinton campaign believes that IF Obama's domestic policy credentials are called into question, his support among women drops off precipitously. The task is to convince, persuade Iowa voters that the question is worth their posing. How? By pointing out gaps in his plans, by calling his trustworthiness and honesty into question, by suggesting that he just doesn't get it -- he's too green to leave the important work of governing.
So far, Clinton has been inartful in this new phase. Some of her allies concede that her campaign press release that used an essay Obama wrote as a kindergartener to make a point about his ambitions was fairly poorly received and suspect that it will come back to haunt her. The coverage she's gotten in the national press has been process-oriented -- she's "going negative" -- rather than substantive. It's been about 50/50 in Iowa.
Anti-Romney Forces Plan To Bracket The Speech
A trio of Michigan conservatives, all of whom have supported Romney opponents, are holding a teleconference with reporters later today to respond to Romney's speech. These folks haven't been friendly to Romney before, and it's safe to assume that they will react critically. They are: AFA pres. (Michigan) Gary Glenn, Michigan pro-life activist Jerry Zandstra and Prof. Harry Veryser.
Romney's Speech, Annotated
This address is, at once, a plea to voters, an argument about religious tests, a defense of the role of Christian faith in American politics, and a political document.
At the outset, he sets to describe how faith -- some measure of faith -- is relevant to the tests facing the United States. His first invocation of freedom is distinctly Anselmic:
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."
He invokes JFK and continues:
"Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.
This he has said before.
The law, Romney says, is "sovereign."
And he elaborates:
"As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' – the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.
And then:
"There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers – I will be true to them and to my beliefs.
This is the first reference to his specific faith.
Romney then makes a curious argument next. Curious -- because he seems to pre-emptively invalidate it.
"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.
Notwithstanding the rhetorical ledgermain -- the constitution prohibits government, not voters, from imposing religious tests (and, indeed, did not originally prohibit states from imposing religious tests) -- Romney wades into the paragraph above after specifically raising, and then answering, a question about his religion.
“There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths.”
Jesus is the central figure of Christianity; redemption relies, in fact, on the precise beliefs a church holds about Jesus. Romney opens up a can of proof-texts, here.
Romney moves to more solid ground.
"It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
This is a very sound argument. He does not admonish voters; he suggests that, in the affairs of state, church doctrines ought to matter less -- much less -- than the powerful effects of religion in the public area. That is, effect ought to precede cause for voters. Judge me, in other words, by the actions informed by my creeds, not by my creeds themselves.
There is an objection here, but it thin. Do creeds matter? But Romney is not arguing that faith ought to be separate from the public square, or even that convictions derived from faith have no role in politics. What he is arguing is that particular creeds -- creeds that divide Americans -- are dangerous. A creed is common and worthwhile if it advances the health and welfare of the Republic and if it is elemental to all our of major faiths.
"
These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways to people nearby, and in just as consequential ways in leading national volunteer movements. I am moved by the Lord's words: 'For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me...'
"My faith is grounded on these truths. You can witness them in Ann and my marriage and in our family. We are a long way from perfect and we have surely stumbled along the way, but our aspirations, our values, are the self-same as those from the other faiths that stand upon this common foundation. And these convictions will indeed inform my presidency.
So how does Romney's faith inform his political arguments about non-majoritarian issues? abortion? Civil unions? -- Romney implies that the question is unfair. Maybe, but it's implied by his speech, and it's fundamental in trying to figure out whether the specific practices of his faith ought to be relevant in a voter's calculus. But the question is unanswerable. No one thinks about these questions rationally. Our gut, as much as any argument, dictates our conscience. We are left with the same question we mulled over at the beginning of the speech, because different creeds lead to different beliefs and vastly different public policies. Conservatives may object to Romney's preference for majoritarianism, with its assumption that all faiths are similar enough, and liberals might object to the application of his majoritarianism.
Read the full speech after the jump and tell me what you think.
Just in case you've missed this: two days ago, Huckabee was asked about the NIE yesterday and he indicated that he didn't know a new one had been released. His statement was met with incredulity -- don't candidates have, you know, staff, for things like that?
In many ways, though, Huckabee barely has a campaign. He hasn't needed one. His rise in the polls has been generated largely by the image that he projects as speaker and as as conservative Christian.
In campaign terms, where Mitt Romney has a juggernaut, Huckabee has a cult of personality, with everything orbiting around the sun. He has little time for policy -- indeed, aside from the Fair Tax, I had to Google "Huckabee" and "policy" to remind myself what he's proposed to do.
One conservative likens Huckabee to Jimmy Carter, possessed with enormous self-confidence about his ability to learn the stuff of foreign policy....but.. Incidentally, conservative bloggers have been savaging Huckabee for this lapse.
With low turnout projected for the Iowa caucuses, though, a candidate needs more than a face. He needs bodies on the ground, rapid response (and in that, his new hire, Joe Carter, performs just fine), policy surrogates (none yet), thousands of identified supporters (he's building the list), money to keep pace on television (Huckabee is buying time at less than half Romney's rate in Iowa)
Nothing Underscores The Gravity Of A Speech
When a candidate releases a photograph of the candidate preparing for it.
Excerpts From Gov. Romney's "Faith In America" Speech>
(The bolds are mine)
"There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams's words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.'
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."
"When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."
"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."
"It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.
"The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation 'Under God' and in God, we do indeed trust.
"We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'"
…
"These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways to people nearby, and in just as consequential ways in leading national volunteer movements."
…
"My faith is grounded on these truths. You can witness them in Ann and my marriage and in our family. We are a long way from perfect and we have surely stumbled along the way, but our aspirations, our values, are the self -same as those from the other faiths that stand upon this common foundation. And these convictions will indeed inform my presidency."
...
"The diversity of our cultural expression, and the vibrancy of our religious dialogue, has kept America in the forefront of civilized nations even as others regard religious freedom as something to be destroyed.
"In such a world, we can be deeply thankful that we live in a land where reason and religion are friends and allies in the cause of liberty, joined against the evils and dangers of the day. And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion - rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."
LAT Times: Immigration Poll: Americans Punitive In The Short Term, Welcoming In The Long Run
The outlines for a consensus are pretty clear, according to the latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey.
** About 60% of Democrats, Republicans and independents support "a path to citizenship by registering, paying a fine, getting fingerprinted, and learning English, among other requirements." (Opponents label this approach "amnesty." So most Americans support some form of amnesty, whether they know it or not.
** A majority of Americans oppose allowing illegal immigrants to receive emergency room care, and sixty percent oppose letting illegal immigrants' children attend public schools.
December 5, 2007
The Daily Five: Check Out What Fred's SC Co-Chair Says About Mormonism
1. Clinton in NH for "organizing for change" rally tomorrow; has fundraiser with John Grisham tomorrow night in DC; Edwards goes home to Seneca, NC and visits Charleston, SC; Giuliani campaigns in and raises money in Florida; Romney is in College Station, Texas for his speech on "Faith In America.";
Politico's Smith obtains anti-Obama e-mail sent by Clinton volunteer; Clinton staffer Ryan Callahan was cc'ed on the original e-mail. Some Nevada supporters of HRC have been similarly off-message; HRC endorsed by newspaper in Vinson; Obama recieves endorsement of Iowa State Daily; In speech at NASDAQ market site, Clinton urges Wall Street to "do its part" in solving the foreclosure crisis;
3. Huckabee campaign angry that ABC did not contact them to provide an "opposing perspective" on the Wayne DuMond case...According to the AP, Huckabee's name ID has risen from 31% in August to nearly 50% today...Fred Thompson's S.C. co-chairpredicts that Romney's Mormon speech will hurt him; calls doctrines of Mormon church "vastly different" from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish doctrines...Thompson gets Nat'l Right To Life Endorsement...
4. Saturday's Obama-Oprah venues in Iowa still not sold out; New Hampshire event is at capacity, and campaign moves South Carolina event to accommodate demand....Federal judge in Florida.upholds right of DNC to enforce its primary rules, turning away a challenge from Florida Democrats.
5. WV Gov. Joe Manchin named chair of the Democratic Governors Association; vice-chair will be MT's Schweitzer. DGA hopes to fund $18M+ political program for '08.
Clinton County Chair In Iowa Is Asked To Step Down After Sending Anti-Muslim E-mail
A county chair for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has been caught sending an e-mail casting aspersions on Sen. Barack Obama's religion, and today, the Clinton campaign asked the person, a volunteer, to leave the campaign.
A Dodd supporter in Iowa wrote about the e-mails on the Daily Kos site, and the Clinton campaign.
The ever vigilant Clinton web guru Peter Daou emailed a response:
There is no place in our campaign, or any campaign, for this kind of politics. A volunteer county coordinator made the mistake of forwarding an outrageous and offensive chain e-mail. This was wholly unauthorized and we were totally unaware of it. Let me be clear: No one should be engaging in this. We are asking this volunteer county coordinator to step down and are making it clear to every person involved in our campaign that this will not be tolerated.
Ret. Gen. Wes Clark Decries "Politics" Against HRC In New Iowa Ad
A new HRC ad in Iowa. Here's the text.
"I see that Hillary's opponents have started to attack her. That's politics. What this country needs is leadership. I'm Wes Clark, and I commanded our forces in Europe when we won the fight against ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. I've known Hillary Clinton 24 years. I know she has it takes to end the war on Iraq, avert war with Iran, and restore our standing in the world. These are tough times, and Hillary Clinton is the right choice for America."
Some Questions About Mitt Romney and Mormonism
Seems to me, before we can consider the political ramifications of the speech Mitt Romney intends to give, the political universe ought to grapple with a couple of fundamental questions.
(1) Generally, should the content of a candidates religious practice inform a voter's perception of a candidate?
(2) Are those who object to Mormonism on theological and doctrinal grounds religious bigots?
(3) Is a certain amount of "religious bigotry" necessary in a pluralistic democracy where people are encouraged to live according to their beliefs?
(4) Is there a difference between deciding not to vote for Mormon politicians and deciding not to rent a house to a Mormon family?
(5) Is Mormonism weird? Weirder that Christianity? Judaism? Atheism?
(6) Should candidates for office be forced to discuss and endorse the particular quirks of their faith?
(7) Is Mitt Romney proud of the tenets of his faith? Is he an orthodox Mormon? Are these questions appropriate?
(8) Is Mormonism objectively similar to widely accepted variants of evangelical Christian theology?
Barack Obama wins the Democratic race, followed by Hillary Clinton, followed by John Edwards.
Major Las Vegas Union Won't Endorse Until January
Responding to rumors on the internets that Barack Obama was about to receive the extremely influential endorsement of Culinary Workers' Local 226 in Las Vegas, the local's parent union. UNITE-HERE.
The 226 endorsement will be unveiled in January.
UNITE-HERE's Midwest Regional Joint Board has endorsed John Edwards and will work with other Edwards endorsees, like the SEIU.
Wayne DuMond Case: Is Huckabee Responsible?
Yes, says the mother of Carol Sue Shields, a 17-year-old woman murdered by paroled Arkansas murderer Wayne DuMond in 2000. In this version of the story, Huckabee commuted the sentence of, and convinced the state parole board to parole DuMond; DuMond raped and murdered again; Huckabee bears some responsibility.
The emotional links are fairly solid, and it's hard to say otherwise to a grieving mother. But the logic chain suggests a more complicated, tiered regime of blame.
First, note that the state parole board -- all seven members of whom were appointed by Democrats -- agreed with Huckabee's recommendation that DuMond be freed. Some said they felt pressured, but it is hard to argue that Huckabee was responsible for nefariously swaying the minds of seven rational adults. Huckabee is persuasive, but the board's members acted of their own accord.
Clearly, Huckabee misjudged the character of DuMond. Or maybe he didn't.
DuMond claimed he had found God; he was a model prisoner; he gave the state no reason to believe that the prison experience wasn't reforming; there weren't any signs that DuMond had any intention of offending again.
What Huckabee misjudged is his ability to judge the character of a convicted murderer and rapists, a lapse out of a character for a pastor who believes in the sinful nature of an -- or a lapse in character for a pastor who believes in redemption. DuMond may have been predisposed to violence, or some external event had a triggering effect on his violent behavior. In any event, we're talking here about criminology and psychology, domains that Huckabee had no expertise in, and domains that, arguably, politicians ought to keep at brain's length.
Yes, Arkansans elected Huckabee to exercise his judgment. In that state, though, the governor cannot determine whether a prisoner is elgible for parole. He can, however, commute a sentence to make a prisoner eligible for parole. But Huckabee did not grand clemency to DuMond: A Democratic governor, in fact, made DuMond parole eligible.
Here is how Huckabee describes the fateful meeting he had with the parole board:
I made a visit to the parole board early in my tenure as a governor at the request of chairman, because you gotta remember, every member of that parole board had been appointed by Jim Guy Tucker or Bill Clinton. Not one of them appointed by me. I’m a new Republican governor, they’d never seen one. I think they had real concern on how to interrelate or how to relate to me. And what kind of attitude I had in general to crime, attitude, parole, etc. So at their invitation, I went to the meeting; someone brought up this case. Frankly, it was simply part of a broader discussion; I did not ask them to do anything. I did indicate it was sitting at my desk; and I was giving thought to it. But this was probably in, I’m thinking maybe September or October when that meeting was held; I can’t remember exactly. The parole board, the following year, early 97 approved his parole plan after I had denied the further commutation.
Even if this account is false -- even if Huckabee bowled over the Democratically-appointed members of the parole board, it still doesn't follow that Huckabee is responsible for their decision.
The following argument might be straw-man-ic -- conservatives believe that criminals are mostly responsible for their crimes -- but conservative who criticize Huckabee might want to make sure they apportion blame properly.
Another straw-manic argument: something like this seems to have happened to every candidate in this race with executive experience ... Huckabee probably favored dozens of parole grants without further incident. None of that comforts the families of the victims, but it ought to be noted, at least.
A third straw-man-ic argument: while he awaiting trial for his original murder, two men broke into DuMond's home, raped him, beat him up, and castrated him. The police in that county didn't try to find these offenders. The county, in fact, seemed to be thrilled with the example of vigilante justice. The spectacle offended many Arkansans, including Huckabee, and including some of his political opponents.
Huckabee's version of the DuMond case leaves out one important caveat. Huckabee never commuted DuMond's sentence, it's true. But that's because the board of parole pre-empted his decision, just four days before he had to finalize it. Three months earlier, Huckabee announced his intention to commute DuMond's sentence to time served. The parole board's decision allowed him to avoid officially commuting the sentence. So technically, Huckabee never commutated squat. But he wanted to.
The story has other complexities: was Huckabee's decision to speak about the DuMond case to the parole board unusual? Did Huckabee personally lobby members of the board to parole DuMond? Did the board members fear the loss of their appointed positions if they failed to accede to the governor's wishes? Was Huckabee insensitive to the family of the original murder victim?
Unanswered, as of yet.
So is Huckabee responsible? If so, how responsible is he? What do you think?
This Cartoon Is On The Front Page Of Des Moines Register
Deb Kennedy, a Lebanon elementary school teacher, said afterwards that Clinton was a phenomenal speaker. "I thought he was going to cry, I really did," she said, referring to his final sentiment, "and yet he was in total control of that moment. This whole room was silent, but I am absolutely not going to vote for his wife."
(1) Proof that positive media can help a candidate: Huckabee doubles his numbers in a month.
(2) Proof that negative press coverage isn't the worst thing in the word: Hillary Clinton has in this poll (and even in the Gallup poll) a double digit national lead over Barack Obama.
(3) 4 in 10 Democrats and 5 in 10 Republicans are undecided.
(4) The Democrats have lost their political advantage on Iraq.
(5) Huckabee's biggest challenge, according to the poll, is illusory: only 6 percent of Republicans think he'll be the nominee. This number will shoot up if he wins or places a strong second in Iowa. Giuliani still holds an edge in this category -- ok, more than a edge, an entire wall -- 38% think he'll be the GOP nominee.
(6) Huckabee has stolen conservatives from Giuliani and Thompson. Thompson is cratering.
The Morning Zeitgeist, December 5
What the "new news" is:
1. Wayne DuMond / Romney and illegals
What the cablers will obsess over:
1. Wayne DuMond. Huckabee gets negative press, nationally.
2. Romney's unforced error on illegal immigration
3. Giuliani's new New Hampshire ad
News that ought to be covered, but might not be:
HRC's big speech today in NYC and what it says about the issue matrix of the Dem electorate.
Romney's still strong in New Hampshire (per the Post/ABC poll)
Edwards at the NPR debate, heard by more Iowa liberals than any other debate...
What the next will be at the end of the day:
Romney's "faith in America" speech.
Giuliani's Tough New New Hampshire Ad
Rudy Giuliani's new New Hampshire ad ("One Hour") is his first on the subject of national security. And it's eye-opening. The subject matter is Iran -- but not Iran of the present century -- Iran of the 1980s, and specifically, Iran's perception of the United States when Jimmy Carter was in power versus that same perception the moment Ronald Reagan became president.
“I remember back to the 1970s and the early 1980s. Iranian mullahs took American hostages and they held the American hostages for 444 days. And they released the American hostages in one hour, and that should tell us a lot about these Islamic terrorists that we’re facing. The one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which Ronald Reagan was taking the Oath of Office as President of the United States. The best way you deal with dictators, the best way you deal with tyrants and terrorists, you stand up to them. You don’t back down. I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approve this message.”
Now -- this ad, the Giuliani campaign says, was cut way before the new National Intelligence Estimate was released; it is not meant to reinforce Giuliani's specific policies towards Iran today -- just, generally, his "peace through strength" foreign policy message.
Last year, when Mitt Romney learned that his lawn care company, Community Lawn Services, used illegal immigrants to tend to his Belmont property, he promised immediate action. That action, apparently, was just a warning.
Today, Romney was forced to fire the company after he learned that, once again, undocumented workers had been allowed to cut grass on his property.
Romney, in a statement today:
"Today, I fired a landscaping company that I learned was employing people who are not permitted to work here in the United States. After this same issue arose last year, I gave the company a second chance with very specific conditions. They were instructed to make sure people working for the company were of legal status. We personally met with the company in order to inform them about the importance of this matter. The owner of the company guaranteed us, in very certain terms, that the company would be in total compliance with the law going forward. The company's failure to comply with the law is disappointing and inexcusable, and I believe it is important I take this action."
Point to Romney: the current system is untenable; employers and consumers can't be held responsible for enforcing immigration laws; Romney is very busy running a campaign and can't possible be bothered to check on such things; should he check the employment status of everyone with a "funny" accent who works on his lawn:?
Point to Giuliani/Romney's rivals: "Sanctuary Mansion" -- again? Why did Romney not fire the company last year? He warned them last year and let them off....he continued to use their services until he found out, again, that they were employing illegal immigrations.
This is a political embarrassment. An unforced error. One that his opponents will use to whip him. Is he really committed to cleansing the republic of the stain of illegal immigration? Or is he just talking tough for the sake of impressing Republican primary voters? Is he really a pro-comprehensive-reform businessman at heart, unable to survive without undocumented labor? And how many Republican primary voters use lawn care companies?
Now, a Thompson or Giuliani can run a contrast ad using this example. It's unfolding in real time.
1. Clinton plans "major economic policy address" in NYC tomorrow at NASDAQ marketsite....Obama has campaign events in Iowa; Giuliani raises money in Florida; Edwards in Iowa; Thompson in South Carolina; candidates scrum on Iran in NPR debate; Richardson skips to attend soldiers' funeral.
2. John McCain moves into second place on Real Clear Politics' national average.....Romney campaign plans 1/8 national call day to raise money for general election. Fundraisers received e-mail today alerting them to start raising money in anticipation. Romney plans to write check in excess of $5M for rest of primaries. Candidates Thompson and Giuliani spend much of this week raising money for their primary campaigns.......Romney campaign complains to Iowa Attorney General about "TrustHuckabee" work, contending that it is using unregulated money to intervene in federal elections..........Huckabee endorsed by Georgia Right To Life PAC.....Huckabee endorsed by numerous Iowa pastors.....Republicans (Thompson, Norman Podhoretz" cast doubt on intel cmte's assessment of Iran; Podhoretz suspects a conspiracy.......Monday sees selection of Kansas City grand jury investigating 107 felony counts against Planned Parenthood; pro-life forces trying to bring the issue to the attention of presidential candidates.
3. Contained within the items seized by federal prosecutors from Norman Hsu: a saxophone autographed by Bill Clinton.......Iowa state sen. Joe Bolkcom endorses Barack Obama.....Obama to give "major speech" on national service in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.....Bill Clinton, per the AP: "''One percent of the press coverage was devoted to their record in public life. No wonder people think experience is irrelevant. A lot of the people covering the race think it is (irrelevant)"....Biden becomes fifth candidate to be eligible for federal matching funds.
4. Rumors swirl about an Obama visit to Las Vegas scheduled for Monday. Will he recieve the endorsement of the powerful Culinary Workers' local 226? Not likely -- sources say the group is still deliberating. And Nevada journalist Jon Ralston's sources confer.
5. South Carolina Republican Party charters plane to ferry journalists from Manchester, NH to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina the day before debate. Plan would shave hours, hassles, off journalists' trips.
Interesting conclusion. Let's see if Rove backs it up.
By Karl Rove
Karl Rove is more of a workmanlike writer than a graceful writer. I realize the irony in my writing this. But if you wanted graceful writing, then you'd be reading Ross Douthat's blog.
TO: Senator Barack Obama
FROM: Karl Rove
SUBJECT: How to Beat Hillary
Not that you have asked for advice, but here it is anyway: Iowa is your chance to best her. If you do not do it there, odds are you never will anywhere. You are way behind her in most national polls. The only way to change that is to beat her in Iowa so people around America take another look at you. You did a smart thing organising effectively in the early primary states. But you can take advantage of that only if you win Iowa and keep her from building an overwhelming sense of invincibility and inevitability.
Seems like this paragraph was written several months ago when Clinton really seemed to have that sense of invincibility and inevitability. John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have contributed to its undoing. Obama is not shooting up in the Iowa polls; this tells me that voters in Iowa are still looking for the right argument, the right biography, the right message.
The good news is you have again got “the buzz”. Polls are looking better for you in Iowa and the other early states. Your press is improving, with your performance at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner a big help. Hillary Clinton has made unforced errors. But she is still the frontrunner and there are several things you need to do quickly to win.
Dude -- (Can I call you Dude?) -- Obama has always had the buzz, and his press has been pretty terrific.
So far, Mr. Rove hasn't really tendered any hard advice...
First, stop acting like a vitamin-deficient Adlai Stevenson. Striking a pose of being high-minded and too pure will not work. Americans want to see you scrapping and fighting for the job, not in a mean or ugly way but in a forceful and straightforward way.
Nice imagery, but has Rove seen Obama campaign in Iowa? Or he is looking only at Obama's debate performances or reading his interviews? In the latter media, the high-minded, holier-than-thou Obama comes out, but I wonder why Rove thinks that Iowa voters are aware of this. Those most off-put by Obama's sense of inner confidence and disdain for the trappings of politics seem to be, so far, the press and the political elite.
Hillary may come over as calculating and shifty but she looks in control. You, on the other hand, often come over as weak and ineffectual. In some debates, you do not even look at her when disagreeing with her, making it look as if you are afraid of her. She offers you openings time and again but you do not take advantage of them. Sharpen your attacks and make them more precise.
Rove probably wanted to write "effete" here. Walter Shapiro has noticed that Obama has a preternatural desire to put his gloves on after he takes them off, so this is what Rove is getting at. In re: the precision of Obama's attacks -- Obama has started to cut at Clinton, rather than graze her.
Take the exchange in the Philadelphia debate about Bill and Hillary keeping documents hidden about her role as first lady in his White House. She was evasive. You spoke next. You would have won a big victory if you had turned to her and said: “Senator, with all due respect, you and your husband could release those documents right now if you wanted to. Your failure to do so raises questions among a lot of Americans about what you’re hiding and those questions would hurt our party if you were our nominee.” But your response was weak as dirty dishwater. Do not let other great opportunities pass by.
Here's the first real nugget of advice. Stop basing your criticism on process -- elites care about process -- and start basing it on substance. But arguably, Obama's criticism helped fuel several bad news cycles for Clinton.
Second, focus on the fact that many Democrats have real doubts about Hillary. They worry she cannot win, will be a drag on the ticket and that if she got to the White House it would be a disaster. You know better than most what they are worried about; they have told you their fears. It is why you have done so well raising money from Bill’s backers and gaining support from Clinton administration officials. Talk about those doubts. Put them in a bigger context than just the two of you. Remind primary voters that these shortcomings will hurt Democratic chances.
In other words, be John Edwards.
Third, when you create controversies do not pick issues where you are playing the weaker hand. For example, you attacked her for lacking foreign policy experience. It is true she was first lady, not secretary of state, and nobody will ever mistake her for James Baker III. But your qualifications are even thinner; you were a state senator and lived in Indonesia when you were six. Big deal. Americans think she has more foreign policy experience than you – and she does.
This seems to go against the core advice Rove gives to Republicans: attack 'em where they think they are strong. And John Edwards's campaign will tell you that voters in Iowa seem to be anxious about HRC and Iran.
Fourth, when you disagree with her be clear about what you believe. You cannot afford more garbled responses like the one you gave in Las Vegas on drivers’ licences for illegal aliens. Answer yes or no. Do not give voters evidence you are as calculating as her.
Mr. Obvious.
Fifth, you need to do a better job explaining what kind of change you represent. The change theme is a good one and Democratic voters know you were against the war and represent the idea of something fresh. But they do not know who you really are, what you want to do and where you want to take the country. Taking her down a few notches is step one; telling people who you are is the next. Both are necessary.
Lots of words here and no real advice.
Sixth, find a way to gently belittle her whenever she tries to use disagreements among Democrats as an excuse to complain about being picked on. The toughest candidate in the field should not be able to complain when others disagree with her. This is not a coronation. Democrats do not like her sense of entitlement. She is not owed the nomination. It does not belong to her simply because her name is Clinton. So blow the whistle on her when she tries to become a victim. Do it with humour and a smile and it will sting even more.
It is hard to gently belittle someone, and Obama does, in fact, ridicule Clinton when she plays the victim card.
Hillary comes across as cold, distant and conspiracy-minded, more like Richard Nixon than her sunny, charming husband. During the Clinton presidency she oversaw a disaster (the effort to sell Hillarycare) and argued hard against welfare reform, one of the promises on which he had campaigned. She is a hard-nosed competitor with a tough and seasoned staff.
Who's calling who "cold, distant and conspiracy-minded?" -- Just kidding.
But her record is weak, her personality off-putting and her support thin. If she wins the nomination it will be because her rivals – namely you – were weak when you confronted her and could not look her in the eye when you did. She is beatable but you have to raise your game. Iowa is your great chance for a breakthrough. Win it convincingly and you can build on it in the contests that follow. Lose it and victory becomes much more difficult.
No. If she wins the nomination, it will be because she earned it; because voters bought into the idea that she has matured as a political figure; that she represents measured change and solid "I was there" experience; that she is ready to lead from day one;' that your former boss, Mr, Rove, was so polarizing that ANY Democrat could plausibly blame the change mantle; that Obama's relative inexperience turned out to be a real problem for him.
Re: I See Your "Silly" Charges And Raise You 25 Bucks
Is there any consumer marketing data on the willingness of e-mail recipients to open unsolicited e-mails with the "re" prefix in the subject line?
Using a "Re:" prefix, here's how Barack Obama's campaign is responding to Patti Solis Doyle's charges of nastiness:
Marc --
When I decided to run for president, I accepted that my opponents would dig through my record looking for something to attack.
I didn't realize they'd go all the way back to kindergarten.
I'll respond to each of the Clinton campaign's desperate attacks directly and honestly. But when I respond to each attack, I want to be able to say that I am not alone.
I want to be able to say that 10,000 people responded with me in the first 48 hours. And we're almost there.
Respond now with your donation of $25, and show our opponents that this kind of negativity will only make us stronger in our determination to bring about the change America needs:
https://donate.barackobama.com/costofnegativity
It's going to take all of us to change this game once and for all.
Thank you,
Barack
McKenna Joins Bill Clinton's Office
Finally, Jay Carson can stop doing two jobs.
The traveling press secretary for Hillary Clinton has spent the past two and a half years tending to the communications shop at the office of William Jefferson Clinton.
For months, he's straddled both worlds.
Today, he gets help. Matt McKenna, currently the comm. dir. for Sen Jon Tester, will be named Bill Clinton's campaign press secretary.
So reporters: direct all those interview requests to him.
McKenna was an early adherent to the cause of electing Tester, and his rise to the creme de la creme of press jobs has been rapid.
As a bonus, McKenna remains in close touch with reporters in the Mountain West and the populist political bloggers who helped elect Tester.
2008 Race Rankings: The Republicans
1. -- Rudy Giuliani -- Giuliani is the principal beneficiary from the rise of Mike Huckabee, with whom he seems to have signed a nonaggression pact. But what a nightmare week he had otherwise. So far, the media hasn't found anything, BUT primary voters are being reminded that Giuliani had an extramarital affair a few years ago -- not decades ago, but in this century. The expense story seemed to wake up the NYC press corps to begin re-reporting "gotcha" stories from five years ago. Will this keep Giuliani on the defensive for a while, or willit fade? Will something else trump it? Meanwhile, Iowa is working out about as well as the campaign could hope for, but Giuliani still needs to pop in an early state. New Hampshire is the place, and Romney losing in Iowa is the opening.
2. Mitt Romney -- This is make-or-break time for everyone, but perhaps no candidate has more pressure on him than Romney, since he's more reliant on an early state strategy than the others. This week, he has a chance to either get the Mormon issue behind him once and for all, or see the dream of the presidency fade away. In some ways, Thursday's speech is a layup for Romney because the mainstream press will be impressed simply by him giving it. But the target audience isn't the MSM, it's evangelicals. What will James Dobson say? What will Rick Warren say? What will key undecided pastors in South Carolina say?
3. Mike Huckabee -- The Iowa press is giving him a free pass, but the national press is starting to scrutinize him. The thing Huckabee needs to prove between now and the end of the month is his viability beyond Iowa. Will his momentum start showing up in New Hampshire polls?
4. John McCain -- A sudden rise for McCain in New Hampshire is not out of the question, given Romney's problems. No analysts have been more pessimistic about McCain's plan for the nomination than we have been. But maybe we shouldn't be so pessimistic. With the Union Leader endorsement in hand, Huckabee on the rise in Iowa and Giuliani under fire with the NYC tabloids, why not McCain? The "last man standing" plan seemed ridiculous six months ago. Now? Not so much.
Democratic Courage, the liberal group that's promised to begin airing an anti-Clinton television ad in Iowa, is keeping its plans pretty close to the vest.
A Democratic ad buyer can't find the ad in Iowa. There's no ad time purchased on network affiliates or on major cable systems.
Is the ad a video press release designed to get the press to help the group raise money to run the ad?
Dirty Tricks?
From an e-mail sent to Clinton supporters last night:
Dear XXXX,
I wanted to let you know immediately about reports our campaign has received about possible dirty campaign tactics in Iowa and New Hampshire -- and ask for your help.
In Iowa, we have heard reports that Hillary supporters are getting calls that tell them incorrect caucus locations. Supporters have also told us about push polls -- when they tell the pollster they support Hillary, they are given negative talking points about her and asked which attacks are the most effective.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, we have heard that Obama staffers are berating Hillary supporters on the phone with negative attacks against her.
Here is one report we got from someone who received a push poll in Iowa:
I do want to let you know, Saturday afternoon, I had a phony pollster call from "an independently owned polling service" ... With my first choice as Hillary and undecided 2nd choice. I was asked if I approved of the direction the country was taking. The question then shifted. "Which of these three options best defines your candidate? 1) Inconsistent on major issues. 2) A weak contender in the general election. 3) Not able to bring change to Washington." I told them I would not answer because it was not a polling question ... I asked where they were calling from. Repeatedly the response was that they were calling from the United States and it was paid for by an independently owned polling firm.
Here is another report from a letter to the editor in an Iowa paper:
The bullying coming from some of the other Democratic candidates is childlike and not what the Democrats stand for. I even had some guy call me from the Obama camp and start bullying me over the phone when I said I supported Hillary. He started arguing and got aggressive on the phone. I did tell him his behavior was not appropriate.
And here is a report from New Hampshire:
When my father informed them that he was supporting Hillary they proceeded to talk to him about her failure to reform health care when she was First Lady. He said it sounded like they were reading something that was already prepared.
These reports are invaluable to our campaign! It is vitally important that we know about any unethical tactics our opponents may use. And as one of our best supporters in Iowa, you are in the best position to keep us informed. If you or any of your family, friends, or neighbors receive negative push poll calls or any misleading information about the election, please contact our Iowa headquarters immediately to let them know. Here is contact information:
Thank you for helping us make sure this election is a fair one, and for everything you do for Hillary.
Sincerely,
PSD
Patti Solis Doyle
Campaign Manager
Hillary for President
An Non-Endorsement Endorsement From Grover Norquist?
In a letter to Rudy Giuliani's campaign, the maestro of tax cutting says that Giuliani's record as a tax cutter "clearly stands out" among the other Republicans.
He wrote:
You cut the income tax, business taxes, sales taxes, property-related taxes, and nuisance taxes. You are the most successful tax cutter in modern New York history and, on balance, the most successful tax cutter in the Republican field today. If you are elected president, I will look forward to working with you to reduce and reform taxes, restore fiscal discipline, increase government transparency, and pursue pro-growth policies that will improve America's competitiveness in the global economy.”
I asked Norquist whether his praise constituted an endorsement.
Here's his response:
I was very pleased that the Mayor stated that he will not raise taxes both in his recent public statements and his letter to me. His willingness to put this public commitment to the American people in writing is very good news for all taxpayers. His record of fighting for pro-growth tax cuts is very strong. It is praiseworthy. I have not endorsed a candidate for the nomination.
That's as close an endorsement as you'll get from Mr. Norquist.
December 3, 2007
Too Many Ads, Not Enough Ads
Radio Iowa's Kay Henderson watched the news and found herself saturated.
At the end of the Des Moines’ NBC affiliate’s six o’clock newscast (the WHO TV newscast break after sports):
1. Clinton ad (the “it’s the economy stupid” ad: -- all white people, lots of seniors)
2. Huckabee ad (the faith ad; embraces a black child in a classroom)
3. Obama ad (the bio ad)
4. Romney ad (the experience ad; all white people)
5. Edwards ad (the generations ad; all white women, plus two kids)
6. Fred Thompson (the bio ad)
Anchors come back on screen to quickly say goodbye.
7. Clinton economy ad again
Gary Bauer Questions Huckabee On Immigration
His letter, to his Working Family list, after the jump.
1. 10 inches of snow stymie campaigns in New Hampshire...Ron Paul cancels campaign stops today and tomorrow..... More snow expected in Iowa later this week. Fred Thompson begins three day South Carolina swing on Wednesday; both he and Giuliani have several high-dollar fundraisers planned for this week. Bill Clinton is in Keene, Clairmont, and Lebanon, NH. Curt Schilling campaigns for McCain in NH on Wednesday; McCain continues statewide bus tour; Romney returns Tuesday. Latest Gallup: Clinton drops 11 points; Giuliani drops; Huckabee rises.
2. American for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist is kind to Huckabee. The movement "can accept converts," he tells CBN's David Brody........a body language excerpt tells Newsmax's Ron Kessler that Mike Huckabee is "very genuine"......Rudy Giuliani "assailed" the Fair Tax concept today, says it would "not be a good time" to end the home mortgage deduction.....Newsweek questions Giuliani's Qatari connections.....Fred Thompson appears on Charlie Rose show tomorrow.....Romney says his "Faith in America" speech on Thursday will not duplicate JFK's famous speech; his campaign offers anchor interviews to preview it.
3. Ex-Clinton labor sec. Robert Reich: "I just don’t get it. If there’s anyone in the race whose history shows unique courage and character, it's Barack Obama. HRC’s campaign, by contrast, is singularly lacking in conviction about anything. Her pollster, Mark Penn, has advised her to take no bold positions and continuously seek the political center, which is exactly what she’s been doing."....Obama mgr David Plouffe sends out fundraising email entitled "When Hillary Attacks....".......New AP-Pew poll: " In all three early states, Democrats trust Clinton more than her rivals on Iraq, though by smaller numbers than she gets nationally from her party...."...Edwards tops latest Iowa Independent power rankings....
4. NRSC releases web ad comparing Sen. Mary Landreiu to Hillary Clinton. "Democratic Courage" group plans to release its first anti-Hillary ad tomorrow. No buy details were available.
5. The South Carolina Republican Party charters a plane for journalists to fly directly from Manchester, NH to Myrtle Beach, SC for the SC GOP debate on Jan. 10. (Otherwise, try flying US Airways through Charlotte or Delta through Detroit). .... Carl Bernstein joins CNN as election analyst...
McCain: Genie Is Back In The Bottle, Campaign Asserts
According to an internal campaign memo needlessly marked confidential and distributed to New Hampshire staff today, John McCain is poised for a precipitous rise in the polls and has with a month to go, hit his stride in the Granite State. "He's BAAAACk," writes Mike Dennehy, McCain's national political director and de-facto New Hampshire campaign runner.
Dennehy finds good news in the cross-tabs of a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, including the fact that "McCain is the second choice of 45% of Romney Voters."
Though McCain is seen by New Hampshire Republicans as able to mount less of a challenge to Hillary Clinton than Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney, Dennehy argues that McCain is best able to keep the "Reagan conservative" coalition together.
And he asserts that Giuliani faces a national electability problem: "Rudy Giuliani puts states that are normally reliable electoral votes such as Virginia at risk – a state that John McCain leads significantly."
Interestingly, Dennehy warns his staff to expect "vicious, negative" advertising from Mitt Romney:
Because Romney can’t afford to lose New Hampshire, we expect he will stop at nothing to win. And that unfortunately is likely to include some vicious, negative television advertising. We know that New Hampshire voters reject negative campaigning and will see through this desperate attempt, but we need to prepared for these attacks and expose them when they hit.
Hillary Clinton has dispatched her campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, and Solis Doyle's deputy, Mike Henry, to the state of Iowa from now until the Jan. 3 caucuses.
A Clinton aide confirmed the moves but said that they had been long-planned. Solis Doyle is one of Clinton's most loyal and trusted advisers, and her near-permanent presence in Iowa will be seen as a sign that the campaign considers the contest a must-meet-expectations state. Solis Doyle will continue to run the national campaign.
The campaign added roughly 100 employees to the Iowa roster over the past month, and Clinton herself plans to spend more than half her time in the state between now and the end.
For two months, Clinton has either led narrowly in Iowa or deadlocked with rivals John Edwards and Barack Obama.
Late this spring, in a memo that was leaked to the New York Times and the AP, Henry advocated that Clinton skip Iowa. But the campaign quickly denied that the idea was ever under consideration and recommitted itself to the state with a series of high-profile campaign events.
Henry supervises the campaign's political and field programs in the early states, working with senior advisers like Karen Hicks on targeting and voter modeling.
Earlier this fall, Clinton appointed Teresa Vilmain, a well-regarded operative with extensive Iowa experience, to lead her campaign there, replacing JoDee Winterhoff. In mid-September, Vilmain fired Clinton's caucus director, Angelique Pirozzi, reportedly over concerns that the campaign had failed to meet projected precinct captain recruitment numbers.
Mr. Huckabee also said that Divine providence was responsible for his recent surge in the polls in Iowa, as he noted that he is the candidate with much less capital firepower than his rivals. Despite his fundraising shortfall, his message seems to be resonating with voters.
"Trust Huckabee" Tied To Huckabee Donors; Faces Legal Questions
Trust Huckabee, the new pro-Mike group that's making persuasion phone calls in Iowa, calls itself a project of Common Sense Issues, which is organized under section 501(c)4 of the tax code.
An extension portion of the TrustHuckabee website is devoted to recruiting, signing up and training precinct captains.
But 504(c)4 groups cannot legally recruit precinct captains for an electoral contest, much less for a specific candidate. It's a soft money operation paying for a basic presidential campaign function, which some campaign finance lawyers might
And it begs the question: if there were no coordination, then the group could very easily duplicate effort and mess up Huckabee's own field efforts. That is -- campaign precinct captains needs to coordinate in order to make sure they're not turning out the same voters. The campaign can't turn over field responsibility to this group, and they can't figure out together where to place people.
The TrustHuckabee operation is extensive.
An internal e-mail obtained by this column from a TrustHuckabee precinct captain states that the group plans to make 695,000 voter identification calls between November 5 and Dec. 5. Beginning today, three phone banks will call all identified Huckabee supporters to recruit captains for all 1,784 precincts.
Next week, the group will send the precinct captains lists of Huckabee supporters in their area. Beginning December 20, the precinct captains will contact the supporters in their precincts and ask them to caucus on Huckabee's behalf.
Who's behind this group?
Well, Common Sense was founded in advance of the 2006 cycle by two Proctor and Gamble executives, Harold "Zeke" Swift and Nathan Estruth.Swift is listed as the consumer product giants' Global Privacy Director.
Swift and Estruth are major Huckabee donors, according to a copy of a fundraising invitiaton obtained by this column. They're listed as members of the host committee for a November 19 fundraiser in Mason, Ohio.
The Politico's Martin reports that Patrick Davis, a former NRSC political director, is running the group. I've called Davis and will pass along any answers to these questions he might provide.
An Edwards Stat
On a conference call held to talk about Iowa and the new Bruce Braley endorsement of John Edwards, deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince said that the Edwards campaign has trained at least two precinct captains in more than 87 percent of caucus precincts statewide.
Generally, campaigns don't release this kind of info, but in Edwards's case, it reinforces the case made by rival campaigns privately: if the caucuses were held tonight, based on organization alone, Edwards would probably win.
Edwards launched a new ad today focusing on universal health insurance for children. It does not mention his opponents by name.
Perspective Check: Clinton's Not Plummeting In The Polls
Hillary Clinton's campaign points out two new polls showing Clinton with leads exceeding five points in Iowa. At this point in the cycle, you can pick and choose your polls in the same way you can pick and choose your preferred campaign narrative.
The reality is that Iowa is very hard to poll, and it is very hard to discern a trend. It's probably accurate to say that Iowa is as tied as best we can figure out.
So is Hillary Clinton losing support among women? The Des Moines Register poll shows her down five points in the crosstabs to Obama, but the AP poll shows her up 8 -- more than 33% of all women support her.
Who is right? Note that the AP poll was conducted over two weeks, from Nov. 7 to Nov. 25, and so it incorporates two weeks worth of electoral flux.
Where Did Those Fairtaxers Go? An Update
Last week, I wrote that Americans For the Fair Tax COO David Polyansky left the group.
Turns out that he's now the chief operating officer of one Mike Huckabee For President, Inc.
"He was instrumental in bringing in the FairTaxers in Iowa and has a plan for getting them out to the caucus next month," a Huckabee spokesman says.
Romney's Religion Speech: Pros and Cons
"We have a lot of states about to vote in rapid succession and voters want to be comfortable with who candidates really are," a senior adviser to Mitt Romney says., "If we waited any longer, folks would be voting and you couldn't give the speech and not have it get caught up in political moment."
--------------------------
Note that Romney's campaign statement asserts that he decided to deliver the speech "sometime last week" -- i.e, before the latest round of polls.
The pros of giving the speech:
1. it’s a ubiquitous issue, there’s a lot of misinformation about the religion, and there perhaps are some voters who would be comforted by having Romney explain precisely how his faith would inform his decision-making.
2. Perhaps Romney is personally aggrieved by the public and private attacks on his religion and he feels compelled to defend it.
3. The Romney campaign is collecting information about an under-the-radar campaign to directly attack Romney on his religion and wants to pre-empt it
4. Maybe some voters who are inclined to hold Romney’s Mormonism against him will feel guilty when Romney cites the principle of religious tolerance.
5. By laying a marker, Romney makes sure that when reporters write about his religion, they have to cite excerpts from his speech, thereby guaranteeing that Romney’s point of view gets expressed.
6. Romney raises the level of awareness about under-the-radar attacks on his religion and thereby makes it more risky that any campaign caught perpetrating them will be castigated.
The Cons:
1. A large tranche of voters in Iowa will blanche at Romney’s attempt to make them feel guilty about their objections to Mormonism.
2. Christian conservatives do not like to be lectured to; depending on what Romney says, they might feel as if he lecturing to them.
3. Romney’ speech guarantees a week of in-depth, public debate about the specific practices of Mormonism.
4. Romney is now taking ownership of every single practice, of every single historical quirk of his religion.
5. The press will spend the days leading up to the speech speculating that Romney is giving it because he is panicked about losing Iowa.
6. Any under-the-radar efforts by Romney opponents to play up his religion can be abandoned because Romney himself will bring it up.
Huckabee To Address Hundreds Of Pastors In Des Moines
But you won't find it on his public schedule.
Today or tomorrow, Huckabee is a featured guest at the latest pastor briefing of the "Iowa Renewal Project," which aims, in the words of an e-mail Don Wildmon sent to pastors, to "encourage pastors and their congregations to take a stand for morality in their daily lives."
Don Wildmon, is, of course, the president of the American Family Association, one of the Project's key sponsors. He's also endorsed Huckabee.
There is no overt coordination between the project, which has affiliates in South Carolina and New Hampshire, and the Huckabee campaign. But to the extent that pastors who attend the project's briefings are familiar with Huckabee and Wildmon's support for his candidacy, Huckabee's rivals worry that the group amounts to a "campaign organization for pastors" operating on Huckabee's behalf.
As an aside, note that former Sen. Maj. Leader Bill Frist helped underwrite the Iowa Renewal Project two years ago when he was attempting to jump-start his presidential campaign.
The briefing takes place the Des Moines Marriott and is closed to the press. Huckabee is listed as a guest on the invitation but does not list the event on the schedule his campaign distributed to reporters Sunday.
Clinton Plans A Week Of Bread And Butter
Sen. HIllary Clinton, in a policy speech today in Iowa, will call for a five-year hold on the rates of adjustable rate mortgages and a three-month freeze on home foreclosures, her campaign confirmed last night.
Clinton gave two interviews Sunday to two respected financial dailies, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
The Journal said her housing crisis proposal goes further than her colleagues and that parts of it are similar to ideas that Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson has floated.
In the Financial Times, which has a wide overseas readership, Clinton indicated she would not be eager to revisit the Doha round of trade talks without a serious review.
There are thirty more news cycles between today and Iowa, and Clinton's campaign thinks Clinton can play her trump cards when the focus is on the economy and bread and butter issues.
"Substance counts," an aide said.
December 2, 2007
Romney To Give "The Speech"
What a curious statement by the campaign:
“Governor Romney has made a decision to deliver a speech titled “Faith in America.”
“The governor has been invited to The George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas to deliver this address on Thursday, December 6.
“This speech is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor’s own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected.
“Governor Romney understands that faith is an important issue to many Americans, and he personally feels this moment is the right moment for him to share his views with the nation.”
“Governor Romney personally made the decision to deliver this speech sometime last week.
While identifying a venue for this address, the campaign consulted with President George H.W. Bush’s office last week about Governor Romney’s decision. President Bush was gracious enough to extend an invitation to deliver the speech at the presidential library.
“The invitation to speak at the presidential library is not an endorsement of Governor Romney’s campaign.
December 1, 2007
Huckabee, Obama** Lead DMR Poll
The newest numbers from the BEST public pollster in Iowa, Ann Selzer, who conducts the Des Moines Register poll.
** Clinton loses 12 pts among union households; running roughly equal with Obama among women (he leads within the subset margin). But 7 in 10 women are not choosing Clinton.
** Clinton most presidential, knowledgeable and ego-driven
** Obama most principled, likeable
** Huckabee shoots up among self-described born agains
** Romney seen as most presidential
** The margin of error is +/- 4.4%, so Obama technically does not lead outside the margin of error. Huckabee does.
Clinton, Obama, Edwards Differ On Retroactivity
The term applies to the application of balance to crack and powder cocaine sentences, retroactively.
Clinton opposes this, and Edwards and Obama support it.
(Proponents of retroactivity believe that those convicted of dealing crack cocaine should see their sentences retroactively reduced in the wake of new U.S. sentencing commission guidelines. There's generally a huge disparity in sentencing between those convicted of power cocaine offenses and those convicted of crack cocaine offenses).
Confirmed: New Hampshire Union Leader To Endorse John McCain
Three years of careful courtship and a relentless focus on the Iraq war have paid off for Sen. John McCain.
Republican sources confirm that the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state's influential conservative daily based in Manchester, will endorse McCain in an editorial to be published tomorrow morning.
McCain first sat down with Union Leader publisher Joseph McQuaid three years ago and spoke at the Nackey Loeb dinner, honoring a beloved former publisher of the paper. McCain and wife Cindy have even contributed to the paper's Christmas fund. In 2000, the paper's editorialists attacked McCain and endorsed Steve Forbes. Then, McQuaid called McCain "the most liberal guy on the Republican side.) The paper endorsed Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996 and, er, Pete DuPont in 1988.
But this year, McQuaid has praised McCain for his foresight and sticktoitiveness on Iraq in several front page editorials.
McCain's campaign aides declined to comment.
Monday, his campaign begins a six-day bus tour in the state.
The DNC Strips Michigan Of Delegates
As expected, the Democratic National Committee has stripped Michigan of all its national convention delegates.
Michigan's Jan 15 primary violates DNC rules.
Now, it's likely that the committee of the whole at the convention will restore the delegates in time for the nomination itself.
But they will not be counted when delegates matter most -- as they are being accumulated in real time in January.
Earlier this year, the DNC stripped Florida of all delegates in the wake of the state party's decision to endorse a Jan. 29 primary.
The politics of all this: good for anyone who doesn't currently lead in those states. Anyone, that is, but Hillary Clinton.
Remember that the RNC also penalized Florida and Michigan (and three other states) but by half of their delegates.
So those GOP primaries still matter.
Marc Ambinder, an Atlantic associate editor, blogs about politics and Washington. He might also write the occasional post about aviation, national security, and cognitive neuroscience. Mostly politics, though.
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