’08 Election

8 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

new hampshire results

It’s Hillary beating the juggernaut Obama and McCain dealing a second straight silver medal to Mitt Romney. You might have been able to predict McCain’s win over Romney, and maybe even Huckabee over Romney in Iowa, but the media got it all wrong about the Democrats/independents in New Hampshire. I would like to believe that Hillary’s win wasn’t because she got all weepy one day about how hard it is for a woman running for President. (You know…there’s an easy way to handle that — just drop out and let Barack have the nomination.) Maybe it’s just because I don’t like Hillary, but every time I see the clip of her crying, it annoys me instead of making me feel sympathetic toward her. It’s easy to figure out why McCain won, but he’s no frontrunner — at least not with conservatives in this country. The Republicans still don’t have a frontrunner.

Romney may be a terrific businessman, but he has yet to close the sale with voters. It’s true that he has a lot of money and has put together a great organization in many of the important primary states, but it’s hard to see how Romney wins the nomination if he loses Michigan. South Carolina is hardly a sure thing for Romney, even though he has a lot of support here. There is also a lot of support for Huckabee and some for Fred Thompson. Huckabee has enough momentum with his win in Iowa and surprising third-place finish in NH to be a serious threat.

Those predicting a McCain win in South Carolina may be underestimating the strong anti-McCain sentiment around here as a result of his positions on a variety of issues, mainly his views on illegal immigration. So I think it’s between Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee. Why not Romney? I don’t get the impression that South Carolina conservatives completely trust his conversion on social issues or his commitment to the 2nd amendment, based on his record on guns in Massachusetts. I think Huck wins SC, and I hope I’m wrong. I can’t see conservatives here supporting McCain or Romney for the reasons I’ve previously mentioned. It would be an upset for Fred if he pulls it out, but I just don’t see how it’s possible.

As for me, I haven’t decided who I will vote for next weekend, but it’s not going to be Huckabee. Like I said before, he’s not ready for the job.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Republicans

the state of the race

Congratulations to Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee on winning in Iowa. It was a well-deserved win for each of them. Mitt Romney got a second-place finish out of his millions. He’s not dead yet, but he has some work to do to stay in this race until the end, especially if he loses New Hampshire. The Iowa results aren’t the end of the story. Hillary isn’t going away. Mitt isn’t going away. Fred is still alive…and his third place result showed that there are some conservatives who aren’t willing to settle for Mitt and Huck just yet. McCain might win New Hampshire, and if that happens, while it would be another setback for Romney, it still indicates that nothing will be decided this early in the primaries.

There are glaring deal-killing flaws in McCain and Huckabee (in my view anyway). McCain’s sins against conservatism are many, and the negatives outweigh the positives, especially on illegal immigration. Even if he has heard the voice of the people and decided to emphasize border security as a first priority for immigration reform, we can’t trust him not to cut deals with the Democrats whenever it is politically convenient. That’s his record. That’s what he has done in the Senate.

There are many things to like about Mike Huckabee as a person.  Christian conservatives love his boldness about his Christian faith and that he is pro-life.  We appreciate the fact that he is willing to allow his faith to influence his decisions, both personally and politically.  He would make a great pastor for a megachurch.  If he had a daytime talk show on TV, he might even draw a crowd there.  But are we seriously going to nominate Mike Huckabee to represent all Republicans as our nominee for President of the United States?  He’s not ready for the job now, and I don’t think he would be even if he had four more years to prepare for another run at the Presidency.

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3 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

difference

Matt Bai on Bill and Hillary:

This may be the defining difference between the candidacies of Bill Clinton and his wife, between Clintonism and Hillaryism, if such a thing can be said to exist. Like most successful outsiders, Bill Clinton directly challenged the status quo of both his party and the country, arguing that such a tumultuous moment demanded more than two stark ideologies better suited to the past. By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign to this point has been mostly about restoring an old status quo; she holds herself up as the best chance Democrats have to end eight years of Bush’s “radical experiment” and to return to the point where her husband left off. It has been a strong but safe campaign, full of nondescript slogans (“I’m In to Win!” “The Change We Need!”) and familiar, if worthy, policy prescriptions. That might be a shrewd primary strategy, but winning a general election could well require a more inspiring rationale. Nonincumbents who go on to win the White House almost always take some greater risk along the way, promising changes more profound — if potentially more divisive — than a return to normalcy. The reformer runs great danger. The more cautious candidate merely runs.

A vote for Hillary is not a vote for change — it’s a vote for the 90’s and a vote for a promise that she won’t be any different than her husband if she’s elected. To some Democrats, this may be exactly what they want. I know some Democrats who would vote Bill in again if they could. But this world isn’t the same as in 1992. We need a President who is capable of dealing with the new problems and challenges we face in this changing world. If you are someone whose main objective is radical change from the policies of George W. Bush, then you will get that from Obama and Edwards. Hillary is a candidate who is less likely to step out and take political risks. If you liked the first two Clinton terms, then Hillary’s your girl. The Clintons need to stop thinking about the past, and start thinking about the future, because Obama’s still out there.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

romney’s speech

Read it all here.

Watch it here.

I’m going to pull some excerpts from his remarks and make a few comments on the parts of the speech that stuck out when I read them.

Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate’s religion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I will answer them today. Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for President. Like him, I am an American running for President. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith. “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 may be an unpopular view to some religious conservatives, but Romney is absolutely right. Being a Christian, or a Mormon, or a person of any other faith should not be a qualification or disqualification for public office. It certainly doesn’t speak to a person’s ability to govern the country, as Jimmy Carter has shown us. Mike Huckabee is a a great guy. We all agree on that. He is someone who agrees 100% with all of the social conservative issues. He’s not the guy I want as President, because he has the same kind of faith in diplomacy as the Democrats. Huck should be working on getting some serious foreign advisors, and he should have someone on his staff read and brief him on the latest NIE, so he is prepared when reporters ask questions about it.

But back to Romney…he’s the guy I see as someone who will surround himself with experts who can give him the best advice, from domestic/economic policy to foreign policy. He did this as a CEO, and that’s been his pattern throughout his business career and his political career. That’s the kind of approach to government I want to see in a President. While it’s important to have a nominee who shares our values, it’s just as important to have one who can handle the job of being President. That’s why given the choice between Romney and Huckabee, I’m still going with Romney.

Here’s more of his speech:

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.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.

Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.

Romney should be given credit for saying that he would not change his religious beliefs to win an election. He says that Americans do not respect “believers of convenience”. He’s right. They don’t. Neither do social conservatives. The problem many conservatives have with Romney has more to do with conveniently-timed conversion on other issues than it does about his Mormonism. They don’t trust him because they don’t believe that he has deeply-held principles about anything, and that he would say anything to get elected. They think that Romney is one of those who would “jettison their beliefs” for political advantage. I’m not sure that making promises not to change on his Mormon faith addresses those concerns.

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. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.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.

This is what Romney should have said at the debate, or a shorter version of what he said here. He appeared to be blindsided by the question about the Bible, and he kept repeating “The Bible is the Word of God”, hesitating on whether he should add anything else to that answer. It is a strength of our nation, not a weakness, that we have such diversity in our religious beliefs. That’s something our country has always had from its inception. He goes on to give examples of that diversity, and to explain what people of all religious faiths have in common.

I love this part in particular. (If Romney wrote this himself, the man is gifted with words…)

I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life’s blessings.

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.

This speech hit many hot buttons for a conservative audience. The idea that separation of church and state also means that the state can’t interfere with the free exercise of religion — that’s an article of faith for most social conservatives. He even indirectly mentioned the “war on Christmas”. There is much to like about this Romney speech, but I’m not sure if he wins any converts from Huckabee by it. Maybe he doesn’t have to. If the goal was to make Romney look less scary to everyone else, then mission accomplished.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

mr. irrelevant makes a threat.

Joe Biden threatens to call for impeachment for President Bush and Vice President Cheney if they bomb Iran without Congressional approval. Surely this will be the strategy that gets his poll numbers all the way up to 5%. Brilliant. He has to know the President would never do this, and that he will never have to follow through with this threat. I guess I was wrong in assuming he was above pandering to the lefty netroots. If you want to be different from the rest of the Democratic field, why follow their playbook? Nothing will make any difference for Biden right now, but I’m disappointed that he has to resort to playing the scary Bush card. He has more to offer as a candidate than a promise of change from Dubya’s policies.

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Posted on '08 Election

hard to defend

I hear the argument that Republicans need to increase their reach online so that we can get our message out to more people. I agree with that. There is an undeniable benefit to the organization of the lefty netroots community that has been translating into real votes for their Democratic candidates. We saw some of this in the 2006 election. However, these CNN/YouTube debates are not the best way for Republican candidates to achieve this goal. Those of us who are plugged in to conservative blogs and other alternative media recognize CNN’s bias for what it is. The average American may not get how slanted CNN has made these debates. It is damaging CNN’s credibility even further when they do not take the time to check if those asking questions have an agenda to push, or whether they are even undecided voters. There’s nothing wrong with Democrats asking questions of the Republicans. The format allowed for people from both parties to ask them questions. CNN should have allowed more questions from Republicans than Democrats, since we are the ones who will pick our nominee. That’s not what happened here.

CNN never hesitated to name the affliation of Grover Norquist (who is hardly an impartial observer in this debate) to his Americans for Tax Reform. With just a little homework on their part, they could have found out about the Democrats asking questions without any disclosure of their affliations with Hillary, Obama, and someone belonging to a union supporting John Edwards. This is a joke. A bad joke. If the Republicans decide to boycott CNN from now on, I would support that completely.

As for the debate itself, I don’t know who won. The fireworks between Romney and Giuliani was quite entertaining. But I’ve stopped keeping score. There were no winners in the audience, because CNN totally abdicated its responsibility to run an honest debate for the Republicans.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Republicans

low expectations

The best argument for Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani is that Hillary (or Rudy) would be the candidate most likely to beat the other in a general election matchup…at least you would think so from the press coverage they get. Republicans are told that Giuliani is the only Republican candidate who might possibly be able to beat HER.  Because of this “fact”, we shouldn’t care about his lack of social conservative credentials or his messy personal life, or that being mayor of NYC doesn’t automatically qualify him to be president of the United States.  We might be giving up a whole bunch of red states to (maybe) gain a few blue ones if Giuliani is our candidate.  That’s ok with us, as long as we have a chance to beat Hillary, right?

There is no great love for Hillary out there as the Democrats’ preferred candidate. The netroots gravitate toward Edwards, or one of the other “no chance” candidates.  Those disenchanted with the status quo or Washington insiders have their guy in Obama.  But until that debate where we saw Hillary stumble just a little bit, many of us bought into Hillary’s inevitability as the Dem nominee. It’s still difficult to see how Obama can gain enough ground to knock her off, but several wins in early primary states, such as Iowa, can throw a monkey wrench into Hillary’s coronation plans. 

Obama does have the opportunity to pull this off as Democrats start to doubt that Hillary is their strongest possible nominee. That’s the whole point of all these increasingly sharp attacks on Hillary’s experience (or lack thereof) — to make them doubt her viability.  Maybe it will work.  Maybe not.  Hillary has experience where it counts with Democrats — successfully fending off Republican attacks.  This should be enough to get her to the Democratic nomination.

Is this the kind of contest we want?  Would we be satisfied with a contest between two candidates each party nominates by default?  Wouldn’t we rather nominate candidates with the best vision for the country, and the two people who we feel have the best ideas to solve the country’s problems?  Hillary and Rudy may be those two candidates.  But we don’t seem to care much about vision and ideas, just as long as our candidate is the most electable. It’s the most practical way to look at the election, but there’s no joy in the choice.

Jason Zengerle explores the electability argument further in New York Magazine.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

yes

Tony Blankley asks this question:

“Is the national media actually going to accept without even a murmur of skepticism Hillary Clinton’s claim to possess all the experience gained by her husband as president?”

Yes they are. It’s easier to ignore that little detail when Hillary’s chief rivals for the Democratic nomination don’t challenge her on taking credit for the work of the Clinton administration. Barack Obama and John Edwards don’t want to get into a discussion about experience, since they both have less then she does, even if you don’t count her time as co-president. Now if Joe Biden and Chris Dodd continue to bring the subject up, perhaps she will be forced to address it. We need to know what qualifications she has, other than being an inconsequential junior senator from New York whose husband used to be President of the United States.

This kind of resume by osmosis doesn’t usually happen in the business world. How many spouses of CEOs have acquired the knowledge to replace their husbands when they step down or retire? I would say — not very many. So why is it Hillary gets any credit for the Clinton years? We had only one (official) President during the Clinton administration. The person who was elected to that post was Hillary’s husband.

If she takes credit for Bill’s accomplishments, will she also take the blame for his failures? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

unarmed combat

If you read most of the press on last night’s Democratic presidential debate, you will learn that Hillary managed to rebound from her uneven performance in the previous debate (and the paralyzed reaction to the question about illegal alien driver’s licenses). If you actually watched the debate, you might have a different reaction to what you saw Thursday night. Obama and Edwards were right to call her out on her sketchy answer to the illegal immigration question. The problem is that Wolf Blitzer and Barack Obama allowed her to recover from that by allowing her to change her mind yet again with a one-word answer. (Her current view is that no, they shouldn’t get driver’s licenses. I doubt this position will change.) Obama seems to be intent on shooting himself in the foot. When criticizing an opponent for not giving straight answers, it’s important to give them yourself, especially on a question guaranteed to be asked in this debate. Obama didn’t do this. It took him forever to finally say that yes, he’s for illegals getting driver’s licenses (but only for public safety purposes). This blows my mind. Richardson gave a better defense than Obama did, and he has no shot of winning the nomination. Maybe that’s the reason he was willing to defend his “yes” answer.

Will Hillary get a better fight from the Republican nominee than she’s getting from Obama, Edwards, and all the rest??? I sure hope so. At least Wolf pretended to ask hard questions.

I continue to like some of the things I’m hearing from Biden and Dodd. They make more sense on foreign policy than any of the rest except Hillary. I also give Dodd credit for trying to explain to the other candidates why giving driver’s licenses to people who are here illegally is a bad idea. Domestic policy is another story. I don’t trust any Democrat on that topic.

Kucinich will always be Kucinich, God bless him. He’s still not convincing anybody that he’s presidential material.

As it turns out, CNN is not above screening questions for this debate, and telling questioners which one to ask. The crowd was unquestionably pro-Hillary. It was a very hostile environment for Obama and Edwards, and we shouldn’t have expected anything less this late in the race. I’m not going to blame CNN for the crowd. Who knows how the Hillary campaign might have stacked the deck in her favor by bringing in all those favorable audience members? But I don’t think Wolf Blitzer treated Obama and Edwards the same way he treated Hillary. Whether the bias was conscious or unconscious,  the sentiments of the crowd and of the moderators were obvious. I’m not surprised by it. That’s the way CNN is. They are just as biased for Dems as Fox News is for Republicans.

If you want to read the transcript, go here.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

get over it

If you want to read about how all those mean ol’ men beat up on poor defenseless Hillary,  feel free to read what Margaret Carlson and the NYT’s Gail Collins had to say about that last debate. If you want to hear whining about how unfair they are being when Russert dares to ask her tough questions and when Edwards, Obama, and Dodd call her on her inability to give a straight answer to those questions  — it won’t be difficult for you to find articles about that either. This strategy may have worked with Rick Lazio.  It’s not going to work this time.  If Hillary can’t answer tough questions, if she can’t make tough decisions without waffling a few times, and if she can’t take a principled stand on any important issue facing our country today, maybe she would be better off staying in the kitchen and baking cookies (or doing whatever feminists do when they are not running for office).  Her problem is not that she is female.  It’s certainly not that she can’t handle whatever abuse she gets, whether it’s because she’s a woman, or because she is the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race.   She can handle it because she has the Clinton machine behind her spinning valid criticisms into personal attacks.

Hillary chose this battle.  Maybe she expected it to be an easier ride than it has been for her so far, but surely she had to know that the harder questions were coming at some point. She knew the risks involved, and she decided to take that chance anyway.  Politics is an ugly business.  She should know this better than just about anyone.  If she can’t stand up to your Democratic opponents (who weren’t all that close to mortally wounding her) and Tim Russert, that raises some serious questions in my mind.  She survived the debate without much damage inflicted from Obama and Edwards, but her uneven performance in the latter half is more her fault than theirs.  She does herself no good by blaming others for her own mistakes.  Unfortunately, this will not stop her from getting the nomination, but she can be stopped.   We have a good chance to take advantage of her mistakes in the general election.  We just need someone who knows how to do it.

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