Politics::Election2008: January 2008 Archives
Republicans Unite; Democrats Divide - Michael Barone (usnews.com)
"Every Republican candidate's strategy failed. Including John McCain's.... Every Democratic candidate's strategy has failed or is failing." A review of how the McCain campaign came back from the dead, and how we got where we are now.
The Campaign Spot on National Review Online: Looking Ahead to Super Tuesday
Jim Geraghty is running the numbers on next Tuesday's events and thinks at the end of the day McCain will wind up with about 500 delegates, Romney with 325, and Huckabee at 230. Click through for state-by-state analysis.
ScrappleFace: Rudy Giuliani's Defective Campaign Aborted Early
Satire: "Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani plans to abort his presidential campaign today after a preliminary test in Florida showed significant defects.... 'It was completely my choice to end it early in the primary cycle, the first trimester of 2008,' said Mr. Giuliani, 'because at this point it's a just cluster of cells with potential, and not yet recognizably organized.'"
An NRO Symposium on Republicans in 2008 on National Review Online
John Hood, chairman and president of the John Locke Foundation, writes: "The conservative movement constitutes an alliance of those who accept unchangeable facts rather than trying to wish fantasy into reality, remake human nature, or avoid economic tradeoffs. Traditionalists embrace timeless morals, even when they deny one immediate gratification. Libertarians embrace the sovereignty of consumer demand and the sometimes-disorienting effects of technological change, even when the result isn't to one's personal liking. And hawks embrace the reality that America lives in a dangerous neighborhood, one full of bullies, pirates, and fanatics who respond to gestures of good will with contempt, larceny, and brutality."
Hood urges against settling for the "most electable" candidate: "To those tempted by these facts to endorse a GOP candidate who dislikes and alienates key elements of the conservative coalition, remember that there are worse things than losing an election. Given the odds, such a desperate gambit will probably still result in a November loss, but with lasting collateral damage to political alliances, institutional credibility, and personal integrity."
The Judge Report - Wake Me When It's Over
I feel his pain: "In the name of God, why would anyone vote for Mike Huckabee in a Republican primary? Oh, the democrats field guys like this all the time, political dwarves who are clueless about the great issues and philosophies of the day. Usually they'll win a primary or two and then fade away, as Huckabee surely will as well. But meanwhile his presence has managed to block any potential conservative candidate from saving the party from the RINOs, and probably driven a stake into the Thompson campaign."
Los Angeles Times: Super delegates may sink the Democrats
If no one has a majority of delegates going into the Democratic National Convention, the nominee may be decided by the super delegates, party leaders and elected officials who are not bound to support any candidate. Joshua Spivak says that may undermine the legitimacy of the nomination in the minds of the voting public.
JunkYardBlog: How does Vice President Lindsey Graham Strike You?
Ugh. Fred better win Saturday. I have no second choice. "Once he gets the GOP nomination, McCain is done with the base. D-O-N-E. He's got us by the fleshy extremities, because he knows we're not going to defect to Hillary or Obama.... And at the risk of repeating myself, how does Secretary of State Richard Armitage grab you? That backstabbing creep jeopardized the war effort by giving the Left ammunition to go after Rove and Libby when he was the one who fingered Valerie Plame to the press all along. HE'S LEADING MCCAIN'S FOREIGN POLICY TEAM. Great personnel choice, McCain."
Michigan Presidential Primary Facts and Statistics
The on-again, off-again legislative history of the Michigan primary, with past results and interesting trivia. Did you know that Henry Ford won the Republican primary in 1916 and the Democratic primary in 1924? Herbert Hoover finished fourth in the 1920 Republican primary, but won the Democratic primary that year. And Donald Trump won the 2000 Reform Party primary.
ToddSeavey.com: Thompson Unbracketed! (and a review and ranking of all the viable candidates)
Having written off Ron Paul, this libertarian writer considers his options. "...I have little patience for the view, which to me seems naive, that a vote is supposed to be some profound expression of exactly what I believe. Philosophy is a profound expression of exactly what I believe. Blogging is at least a shallow expression of what I believe. Voting is tactical -- I want (to the extent I am, in principle, setting an example for like-minded people) to foster the least-bad outcome, where 'outcome' means all the foreseeable fallout for the rest of time, not just the election itself."
Fact Checker: Huckabee's Cut-and-Paste Job
"Seven of the nine points in the Huckabee [immigration] plan were copied, in some cases almost verbatim, from a plan that [Mark] Krikorian outlined nearly three years ago in the National Review. Rather than hammer out its own immigration policy, the cash-starved Huckabee campaign simply lifted a ready-made one off the shelf.... In Huckabee's defense, it must be noted that his Web site credits Krikorian for some of his ideas on immigration. On Thursday night, however, he implied that it was his own plan, rather than a hasty cut-and-paste job. Authors usually put quotation marks around phrases they copy from other authors. If the governor had said that he had 'created' part of his plan, he would have been correct."
washingtonpost.com: Sebastian Mallaby - A Nobel Laureate's Primary
"Just like badly designed auctions, the primaries encourage 'strategic' behavior that conceals true preferences.... What elections ought to do is discover which candidate would beat each of the other candidates in head-to-head matchups. Eric Maskin, one of last year's Nobel laureates for mechanism design, will suggest how a better system could do that in a lecture Thursday at Georgetown University. Maskin's argument is that voters should list candidates in order of preference, so we wouldn't have to guess whether Clinton would have beaten Obama in a two-person contest."
Would a President Ron Paul be able to return us to constitutional limited government? "Written constitutions were an experiment. The data are in. The experiment has failed. If Dr. Paul would prefer USG to return to the Constitutional interpretation of 1789, or 1889, or 1926, or whenever, he of course is free to say so. And I agree. Certainly, compared to the USG we have today, the structure of 1789 strikes me as quite appealing. But why should we assume that, if Dr. Paul managed to return the US to the Constitution of 1789, it would stay that way? We once had a Constitution of 1789. Then stuff happened. And now we don't. Does this sound like a success to you?" At once thought-provoking and disheartening.
The American Spectator: Deroy Murdock: Mitt's Mythical "Mass. Miracle"
"One could take Romney seriously as an architect of economic redevelopment if he had displayed such skills as Massachusetts governor. Instead, his reign was a parade of economic stagnation and retreat. He even advocated an SUV-tax increase that would have hammered the very same domestic automotive industry he now says he champions.... While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years."
The Corner on National Review Online: Count Delegates [David Freddoso]
"While I'm at it, let me make a note about those Iowa delegates that people supposedly won. They did not win them. In fact, in the Republican caucuses (in contrast to the Democrats), there is no relationship between the vote count on caucus night and the allegiance of the precinct delegates who are sent to the March 15 county conventions. The vote count you saw from that night is totally non-binding and comes in a secret ballot. The delegates are elected afterward, when many of the caucus-goers have left."
Atomic Trousers: The Woman Who Changed the World
Details from a bitter divorce case opened the door for Barack Obama's rise to the U. S. Senate. "With Barack Obama's meteoric rise topping the news these days, many people have forgotten the bizarre series of events that paved the way to his stunning ascendance. It's especially interesting given that some personal and minor details, thought at the time to be insignificant, could now eventually shape the world we live in - given that Obama has a realistic chance to win the presidency. In retrospect, Obama's presidential run was the candidacy that almost never happened."
RealClearPolitics - HorseRaceBlog: Is 1992 the model?
If Hillary Clinton loses New Hampshire and loses the aura of in-Evita!-bility, she might take comfort by the fact that Bill Clinton didn't win a primary until Georgia on Super Tuesday in 1992. But Jay Cost says this year's Republican race looks more like the Democrats in 1992, when early primaries were split between several candidates and no one emerged early on as an overwhelming favorite, allowing Clinton to prevail after several early losses.
Redstate: Duncan Hunter Cries Wolf, Beclowns Self
"Because really, the only announcement anyone is interested in hearing anymore from Duncan Hunter's campaign is the one that says the campaign is over. So, the press and pundits tuned in to see what Duncan had to say in closing. Instead, we got treated to video of some clown griping about being left out of the New Hampshire debates despite winning a delegate in Wyoming. It was an ugly, petulant, whining performance from a man clearly desperate for media attention. Sad, because we've come to expect better from a guy who we all thought was a serious guy focused on the issues."
"Sen. Thompson positioned himself as willing to serve, not for an enlarged ego, but out of a deep desire to serve his nation. He has desire to make our nation better for his children and grandchildren. Far from a slick Branson like presentation, he presented himself as a dedicated patriot willing to serve if we, the American people, were willing to have him do so."
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTU3YmRmNmM0OTM2MzE4MjE5NmVkMDY3ZjQ3ZGEzYzI=">The Corner on National Review Online: A Romney Supporter... [Rich Lowry]
Why Romney can lose New Hampshire and keep going, according to one of his supporters who e-mailed Rich Lowry: "When everyone said 'Romney has to win the first two states and catapult' it was at the time that Giuliani had 45-60% national numbers and the conventional wisdom was that the ONLY way for Romney to catch Giuliani was to win IA and NH.... Simply, the catapult meme means nothing now that Giuliani has been knocked down nationally."
The Corner on National Review Online: Thanks, Mitt [Byron York]
"Mitt Romney was [Des Moines radio station] WHO's second biggest advertiser in 2007. Second biggest - behind the number-one advertiser, Monsanto farm chemicals, and ahead of the number-three advertiser, Bayer farm chemicals. WHO is by far the biggest radio station in Iowa, and Romney pumped about $1 million into its bank account last year."
The GOP's Time for Choosing - WSJ.com
Would Huckabee take the Republican Party in the direction of the Christian Democratic parties in Europe? "The political debate for the last decade has been between a Democratic Party which essentially argues America should be more like Europe -- more statist, more secular, more pacifist -- and a Reagan-influenced GOP which argues America should be more like its historical self. The Mike Huckabee/Christian Democratic movement is an attempt to break this logjam by looking to a different European model, one that says we can be more statist without being more secular or pacifist. In deciding how to react to the Huckabee challenge, Reagan's GOP descendants now face their own time for choosing."
The Judge Report - The Judge Does Manchester
Robert N. Going visited New Hampshire to pick up a Fred '08 button and to attend a National Review symposium, featuring Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, and Rob Long. "Not since I saw The Producers on Broadway with the original cast have I laughed so hard over two hours." He also peeked in next door on the preliminaries to a Hillary! rally featuring Slick Willie: "This was an all-union event, with the crowd bussed in at union expense apparently for the sole purpose of cheering Bill for the cameras. We had arrived early and every once in a while we would hear all this hootin' and hollerin' outside in the hallway and when we checked it out, nothing was really happening except there were people teaching the crowd how to hoot and holler."
New York Times: David Brooks: The Two Earthquakes
"Huckabee won because he tapped into realities that other Republicans have been slow to recognize. First, evangelicals have changed. Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He's funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he's not at war with modern culture." Campy?
Meghan Cox Gurdon: Calm is out of style on the hustings - Examiner.com
"A little over 16 years ago, in the week before my wedding, I began to notice a certain gloom settling over my husband-to-be. It was disconcerting. Wasn't this supposed to be the giddiest time of our lives? If he couldn't be enthusiastic now, on the very threshold of married life, did he really want to cross it?
"My fiance sought to explain. He wanted the outcome, but hated the process. He wanted us to be married, not to get married.
"In political terms, he was an excellent candidate ideally suited to the office, who dreaded the public rigmarole required to secure the job -- and it showed. Had I been an Iowa Republican, rather than a bride, I might well have caucused with someone a bit more fervent -- and for me it would have been a mistake."
The American Spectator: Quin Hillyer: Angry Old Man
"Such regular muggings of conservatives [on campaign finance reform and judicial nominations] by McCain helps explain why so many in the conservative movement are unmoved by McCain's story of personal heroism, his stances against wasteful pork barrel spending, and his undeniable leadership on matters of defense.
"In contrast to McCain and Huckabee, the three other 'major' GOP candidates -- Giuliani, Romney, and Fred Thompson -- all actually governed very much as conservatives when they had the chance. And Thompson has a record of both talking and walking the solid conservative line that is almost entirely unblemished by any heresies against the most basic of conservative issue stances."
Tonight, Madison County, Iowa, Republicans will gather to hear speeches supporting each presidential candidate before breaking out into their precinct meetings. Here's the speech that a Fred Thompson supporter plans to deliver at that event.
Iowa caucus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Good overview of the process, history, and development of the significance of the caucus, with results for each party going back to 1972 for the Democrats.
Fred File - Question on Global Warming in Waterloo IA
Question to Fred Thompson: Will you have the spine to stand up to the global warming alarmists? Part of Fred's answer: "Whether or not this is a part of an era, we do not know the extent to which man has caused this. We do not know what the results would be for certain remedies that people have suggested. What we do know is that if we do things precipitously, before we have the answers to some of these questions, it could ruin our own economy while the entire world just kind of took a pass at it. So we can't have that and we are not going to have that."
Townhall.com: Andrew Tallman: What if Mormonism Was the Issue?
"When I go into a voting booth, I'm not picking a friend or a conversation partner. I'm picking a leader. I want leaders that I would trust my money and my children with ... since I sort of am. And that means that I consider a person's religious views. Because religion matters, and it matters to me. Why is that so wrong?... You seem to think that simply because it is illegal to require a religious test for office that it should also be illegal to consider a candidate's religion. Should it also be illegal to ask about it or for him to describe it to us?"
The Corner on National Review Online: Rudy's Official Strategy [Lisa Schiffren]
Why Rudy Giuliani is writing off everything before Florida and isn't worried about his falling poll numbers everywhere.
Instapundit.com - FRED THOMPSON: Too sane to be President?
"Thompson is running the kind of campaign -- substantive, policy-laden, not based on gimmicks or sound-bites -- that pundits and journalists say they want, but he's getting no credit for it from the people who claim that's what they want. It's like in Tootsie when Dustin Hoffman tries doing the things he's heard women say they want from men, only to discover that they don't really want those things at all...."
The New Republic: Young and in Love
Eve Fairbanks spends time with volunteers for Ron Paul's Christmas Vacation in Iowa: "Actually, if the candidates were judged by the quality of their young supporters, I would now be voting for Ron Paul. Beyond just being polite, the Paul volunteers have an incredible passion for the technical mechanics of the American constitution and body of laws."
Ace of Spades HQ: Giuliani Cooked? & Other Campaign News
Russ from Winterset: "It's not about Huck or his personal attributes. Any candidate with evangelical cred would have taken off in Iowa this year. The party's pissed that the so-con candidate for governor in '06 lost in the primary to Jim Nussle, a RINO congressman who ran a lack-luster campaign. They feel (and I can't totally blame them for this, unfortunately) that they've been told to shut up and vote for people who don't support the so-con agenda on abortion & gay marriage enough times that a bunch of them are going off the reservation to support a candidate that meets their approval on these two issues. It doesn't help that a county judge in Polk County (where Des Moines, the State Capital is located) ruled this summer that Iowa's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and allowed one couple to marry before overturning his own decision & sending it up the chain to the appeals court."
DMR on 527s: "It should be beyond question that any individuals or groups should be able to spend their own money to support whatever cause or candidate they wish without having to get permission from the government. At the most, they should be required to declare the source of their funding. And the best way to respond to those who lie or distort in the exercise of free speech is with speech that corrects the record."
Ace of Spades HQ: Intriguing piece of information
Russ from Winterset, Ace's correspondent from Iowa, hears that the Madison County GOP chairman's phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from Catholic and Evangelical Protestant Democrats curious about details of the Republican caucus. This entry also explains how the Madison County precinct caucus will be organized, with all the precincts meeting in classrooms at Winterset High School. (Madison County has only 10 precincts: Winterset, the county seat, is divided into two precincts, and the county's seven other cities and 16 townships are combined to form the other eight precincts. Compare that to more than 183 precincts in Polk County, home to Des Moines.)
RealClearPolitics - Politics Nation: Republicans Battle For Show
Why third place in Iowa may be enough.
"Now, something as absurd and counterdemocratic as this can be so only if the media say it is so, and every four years for as long as I can remember, the profession has been promising to swear off the bottle and stop treating the Iowa caucuses as if they were a primary, let alone an election."
