5/16: With Enemies Like These ...

May 16, 2007 12:49 PM | Permalink |

The GOP's two big winners 5/15 (one from the debate, one not) both benefited greatly from picking fights with opponents they knew they could dominate. In SC, Rudy Giuliani cemented his debate victory by taking advantage of a strongly worded exchange with Ron Paul over the causes of 9/11. As good as the moment was (the video is widely posted this morning) Fred Thompson's 38-second video response to a Michael Moore invitation to debate drew even more praise. While drawing contrasts with frontrunners in the GOP field is sometimes necessary, it is far better to score points with base by battling those already firmly outside the party's mainstream.

GOP DEBATE: The Torture Test

NY Sun's Ryan Sager tells "the dreaded MSM" why Rudy Giuliani and not John McCain won 5/15's debate:

To the liberal or centrist eye, Mr. McCain had some big moments tonight, particularly as relates to the round of questioning dealing with torture. He was eloquent. He got to talk about his POW experience. And he got to take the moral high ground. ... But there's a very substantial reason this doesn't count as "winning" in a GOP primary debate. In short, the Republican base is pro-torture. Or, at the very least, pro-enhanced-interrogation-techniques. If one paid attention to the applause during the terrorism-torture round of the debate, one would have to note that Mr. McCain didn't receive any.

Blogger polling backs Sager's point up, all showing Giuliani as the clear winner among those who debated (although as the Instapunditpoll shows, Fred Thompson may again have been the real winner).

DEBATE GIULIANI: Ron Paul's Biggest Fan

The Corner's Rich Lowry: "The Paul-Rudy exchange probably means Rudy won this debate."
Captain's Quarters: "Team Rudy should send a hundred roses to Ron Paul -- yellow roses, of course -- after the Congressman essentially tossed the debate to Giuliani."
RedState's Rob Bluey: "If Giuliani goes on to capture the nomination, his response to Ron Paul will be one of the moments that is replayed years from now. It was so powerful that I found myself cheering him on in front of the TV."
The Corner's Yuval Levin: "On the whole you have to conclude this was Giuliani's night, and not only because of the Ron Paul fiasco. He was confident and in control, seemed serious and thoughtful, he handled himself like the front-runner. His abortion answer, while certainly not satisfying on substantive grounds (to me), was the best he's done on this issue-infinitely better than he did even earlier this week."
AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Tonight Giuliani demonstrated why he is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. The Rudy who showed up tonight was the tough as nails prosecutor who took down the mob, the crime-fighting mayor, the leader who displayed steely resolve on the darkest day in American history."
Michelle Malkin: "Giuliani had more pep and fight tonight than the last go-around. He gets points from me for bringing up Fort Dix and continuing to invoke it in post-debate commentary on Hannity and Colmes."

DEBATE MCCAIN: Less Angry, Still Wrong

Captain's Quarters: "John McCain did considerably better than his Angry Man performance in the first debate, coming across as measured and poised."
Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "[A]lthough the "big three" all spoke well, I strongly disliked the substance of several of McCain's answers, and suspect that many other conservatives did too."
The Corner's Michael Graham: "Attacking Romney personally was a mistake, particularly when he was supposed to be defending himself. The attack against Romney was not on policy. It was on politics. The fact that McCain made such a mistake raises the same question as the last debate: Is McCain up for this race?"
a Corner reader via Kathryn Jean Lopez: "I am surprised that the Corner as a whole is granting McCain a pass on his stubbornly convicted, but ethically challenged position on interrogation techniques. His equation of water boarding as torture is not supported by the electorate as a whole, or by those on the front lines of the intelligence effort."
Instapundit: "The McCain people have already -- 5 minutes after the debate ended -- sent me this YouTube video of McCain's response on Campaign Finance "Reform." Nice effort, but my use of quotation marks demonstrates that I remain unconvinced."

DEBATE ROMNEY: Not Leaving No Child Left Behind Behind

The Corner's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "He had some moments, but he didn't win."
Power Line's John Hinderaker: "In the first debate, Mitt Romney far outperformed the field. That wasn't true tonight. Romney did well, as he always does, but he didn't outclass his main competitors."
NRO's Mona Charen: "Romney was smart and smooth as usual but not quite on point. His long riff about Washington being broken and how he would make it more streamlined, less wasteful blah, blah, blah, sounded hackneyed."
The Corner's Ramesh Ponnuru: "Romney likes No Child Left Behind ... Surely you can think testing makes sense without supporting that legislation?"
Michelle Malkin after Romney supported NCLB: "No one's booing. But I am: BOOOOOOO...."

THE SEVEN DWARFS: Ron Paul Is Against The War ... The Civil War

The Corner's Michael Graham: "Is It Me? Is it just me, or is Brownback channeling Pat Robertson? Or at least Al Franken doing Robertson?"
The Corner's Jonah Goldberg: "Jim Gilmore has a great Virginia accent, but he strikes me as an incredibly humorless man."
Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "I thought that Huckabee was again the most impressive. He would probably might a good vice presidential candidate.
Townhall's Dean Barnett: "Unlike the guys who mention their lame-o backgrounds as governor, Hunter actually has a resume that you gotta love. Also, I think he comes across impressively. In a better world, he would be a top tier candidate.
Andrew Sullivan on why Ron Paul is the second coming of Abe Lincoln: "So empire is the new Republican consensus: an empire built entirely for security reasons, and an empire which somehow manages to make us less secure. Paul, in contrast, had the balls to state the classic Republican position, and to defend it in the wake of 9/11.
Townhall's Barnett: "Tancredo is completely unready for primetime. He halts when he speaks, and is oddly unsure of himself."
Michelle Malkin: "Another lame, non-answer from Tommy Thompson. Goler asks him to name three programs he would cut. He can't name three."

GOP DEBATE II: Random Thoughts

The Corner's Michael Graham: "How many Americans spend as much time in their adult lives thinking about abortion as the candidates have spent speaking aloud about it tonight? Abortion is an icky issue. It's also not an issue that most voters believe impacts them directly. But for many casual voters (who, fortunately, are watching House right now) the GOP sounds like the 'Let's debate abortion' Club."
RedState's Erick Erickson: "Fox, unlike MSNBC actually asked cogent questions, the moderators stayed out of the debate, and they - dare I say it - researched the candidates' records and asked pointed questions to all of them about their prior statements, votes, and positions. ... That would so utterly confuse and confound the Democrat candidates, it is no wonder they are avoiding Fox."
The Corner's Stephen Spruiell: "Ron Paul made a point about the underlying causes for 9/11 that inadvertently made the case that we had no alternative but to invade Iraq. Rudy Giuliani's response was superficially strong but wrongheaded. ... Paul was correct to point out that U.S. pre-invasion policies toward Iraq - the no-fly zones, the military bases protecting Saudi Arabia, the economic sanctions - were front and center in Osama bin Laden's 1996 declaration of war against America. In a post-9/11 world, the status quo toward Iraq was no longer tenable. Neither, though, was the alternative - lifting the sanctions, leaving the Middle East defenseless against Saddam's expansionist fantasies, letting him massacre the Kurds, letting him develop nuclear weapons and continue to fund terrorism, etc."

ROMNEY: Not In The Business Of Setting Goals He Can't Meet

RCP Blog's Blake Dvorak sat in on a Mitt Romney campaign conference call touting a "Sign Up America" online plan to sign p 24K supporters in 24 hours. Dvorak blogs: "It'll be interesting to see whether the Romney campaign meets its "24,000 In 24 Hours" goal, though I suspect that a campaign wouldn't set itself up like this if it wasn't quite certain it would reach it. It'll be even more interesting if those 24,000 newly signed Romney boosters can make a difference."

THOMPSON: That Would've Been A Fun Debate

Thanks to Michael Moore, Fred Thompson may have upstaged the entire GOP field with out even showing up to 5/15's debate. Unhappy with a Thompson NRO item criticizing Moore's recent trip taking Ground Zero workers to Cuba for medical treatment, Moore wrote a letter to Thompson challenging him to a debate on his health care lobbying past. Thompson responded with a Breitbart.tv video declining Moore's invitation on scheduling grounds and then asking Moore if he was familiar with Castro's placement of filmmaker Nicholas Guillen in a mental institution. Thompson closes: "Mental institution Michael. It might be something you ought to think about." Bloggers went gaga:

Instapundit: "If this is a foretaste of a Thompson campaign, it's pretty potent."
Kausfiles: "More important ... the video is itself evidence of Thompson's actual presidential qualifications. You can't make a quickie spot like this unless a) you know what you think (or have a really fast pollster) b) you can react to new situations quickly, and c) you have some sense of theater. Those are all extremely important things for a president to have."
Captain's Quarters: "It's 38 seconds of a down-home rhetorical spanking that manages to both address Moore and belittle him. I'm thinking Jack Palance in City Slickers, telling Bill Crystal, "I crap bigger than you." ... Man, I could watch this over and over again. Talk about pitch-perfect."
NRO's Jim Geraghty: "In a way, if every GOP candidate on stage tonight plays it safe, a potential candidate bit- er, slapping around Michael Moore might actually spur more discussion in GOP circles."

DEM FIELD: HRC At 6% With A Bullet

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas closed out 5/07's online straw poll. Results include:

John Edwards 39%
Barack Obama 24%
Bill Richardson 8%
No Freakin' Clue 7%
Hillary Clinton 6%

Edwards fell 3 points of his 4/07 showing (42%), while Obama held steady. Richardson fell for the first time ever in a dKos straw poll from 13% to 8% (probably due to his weak 4/27 debate performance). HRC beat 'other' for the first time in the polls history.

DODD: We'll Let The Dem Bashing Slide For Now

New Chris Dodd blogger Matt Browner Hamlin introduced himself to Blue Hampshire readers: "I want to be sure that members of the Blue Hampshire community know what's going on with Senator Dodd's campaign and that I am available to you if you have questions. Check out Senator Dodd's first TV commercial of the 2008 election. The ad is up in Iowa, New Hampshire, and on national cable.

Commenting on Dodd's new ad, MyDD's Chris Bowers compares it John Edwards latest effort: "I am not going to begrudge either Edwards or Dodd for targeting fellow Democrats in their ads. They are, after all, running for the Democratic presidential nomination right now, not against a Republican Congress. Still, I think Edwards does a better job of targeting Bush as well as encouraging his fellow Democrats, while I think that Dodd's commercial is superior stylistically."

EDWARDS: College For Some

Matthew Yglesias can't find any fans of John Edwards "college for everyone" plan linking to The Quick and the Ed criticism: "I worry that this program would end up leaving out the students who need the most help, and inadvertently shift grant aid to students who tend to receive more in other forms of financial aid, like tax credits, loans, and merit-based institutional aid."

OBAMA: Honesty Wanted

Talk Left's Big Ten Democrat has big issues with Barack Obama's statement in support of the Reid-Feingold measure to end the Iraq war. Obama released: "Tomorrow, I expect cloture votes on two other proposals. One is the Reid-Feingold plan, which would begin a withdrawal of troops in 120 days and end all combat operations on April 1. . . . I will support both, not because I believe either is the best answer . . ."

BTD links to Reid-Feingold's "Prohibition on Use of Funds" language and adds: "Nothing in any of Senator Obama's proposals contains the concept of NOT funding the Iraq Debacle after a date certain. Senator Obama needs to be forthright on this issue- either he supports not funding the Iraq Debacle after a date certain, or he does not. His "support" of the Reid-Feingold framework is phony and false. To me, this is the WORST possible answer he could have given. I would have preferred honest disagreement. Instead Senator Obama gives us disingenuous "support." Bad show."

Daily Kos' mcjoan also doubts Obama's plan to find the 16 votes needed to override Pre. Bush's veto: "Those illusory 16 Republican votes (and the 75+ that will also have to be rounded up in the House) sure seem like a pipe dream now, in May, 2007. All I can say is good luck with that one, Senator. The important thing is support for Feingold-Reid and the underlying concept that Congress will have to assume the responsibility for this one, by ending the funding."

BLOGGERS VS. BELTWAY: Just Don't Call Him Kos

Erick Erickson's effort to block Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) from the Apps. Cmt. has sparked some dissention in blogging ranks. Townhall's Dean Barnett says Erickson is right on the merits but fins his prose "needlessly purple and hostile." Barnett explains: "Students of the left wing blogosphere will find this message and Erick's entire campaign strikingly similar to a Markos Moulitsas operation. The sense of grievance and the naked lust to empower the blogosphere are things that could have easily sprung from Kos mode."

Fellow RedStater Rob Bluey moved to defend Erickson's efforts: "Barnett confirms what I've said is the rightosphere's biggest problem: a lack of activism online. Erickson is using Calvert to fire up the base and send the GOP establishment a message. Barnett, however, would rather play the role of pundit -- an interesting position for someone writing at Townhall, which boasts its own "Action Center" for conservatives."

Townhall's Matt Lewis then batted for Barnett: "Rob has always had a bias toward using blogs for activism. My only argument would be that I think we all bring different things to the conservative movement -- and that the movement is big enough for different kinds of bloggers. ... In terms of the hypocrisy argument, it is entirely possible that, in the past, Dean felt it was appropriate to send a message to the NRSC. He may now feel (I'm only guessing here) that it is entirely another thing to launch a series of attacks on GOP Legislators."

Undaunted by Barnett's trepidation, Erickson compares Calvert unflattering to ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) and names Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) as the target of 5/16's calling campaign.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: If Tiger Can Get Lasics...

Slate's William Saletan reports on a sprinter with prosthetic legs effort to get the Olympics to change their rules so he can compete with everyone else:

His legs were amputated below the knees in infancy due to a birth defect. He has replaced them with carbon-fiber blades. He has run the 100 meters in less than 11 seconds, is faster than the world's top female sprinters, and won second place in South Africa's national championships. Arguments for banning him: 1) The rules forbid technological aids such as springs and wheels. 2) The blades could lengthen his stride, giving him an unfair advantage. 3) If we let him race, healthy athletes might start adding carbon-fiber devices to their shoes. Rebuttals: 1) The Olympics already allow transgender athletes and other enhancements. 2) Carbon legs are less efficient than natural legs, so they give no advantage.

LEST WE FORGET: So Then Who's Fredo?

AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein had a Francis Ford Coppola flashback while watching 5/15's debate: "Come to think of it, wasn't Ron Paul's comment like Tom Hagen's in the flashback scene of the Godfather Part II when, on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, he says, "We should have been expecting it after the oil embargo." Giuliani played the Sonny role: 'Oil embargo or not, they got no right dropping bombs.'"