June 21, 2007
6/20: It's Up To You, New York
There tends not to be much middle ground in the blogosphere. Voices on the left rail against those on the right, and vice versa. When we want a conservative or liberal viewpoint, we know which sources to go to. All of this makes a Michael Bloomberg ($-NYC) candidacy all the more interesting. In the early going, many bloggers want to write him off, but in the end there seems to be no consensus view of the NYC mayor and which party he hurts the most. The left is nervous that he'll spoil what appears to be a favorable environment. The right is divided as to whether his moderate-to-left policies or his business background will be stronger in helping or hurty the GOP's chances in '08. Some say Hillary Clinton must be uncorking champagne, while others fear an all-New York election.
But so far, no one thinks he can win. Can Bloomberg turn that around? That's the $1B question.BLOOMBERG: Stuck In The Middle With You
Word of the Bloomberg switch came late afternoon. And speculation followed instantly.
Sister Toldjah: "Will Chuck Hagel be next, to complete a future 'Independent' presidential ticket?"
At MyDD, Jonathan Singer looks at polling that showed Bloomberg helps Hillary in a matchup with Rudy Giuliani. "The quick unweighted average of this polling indicates that a Bloomberg run could help Clinton or the Democratic nominee by as much as a couple points across the board. In 10 states, a Bloomberg run boosts Clinton's net margin; in 3 states it boosts Giuliani's net margin; and in 2 states it has no net effect. At the least, these numbers seem to undercut the notion that a run by Bloomberg would hurt his first party, the Democrats. At the same time they seem to point to the possibility that a Bloomberg run could hurt -- potentially in a significant way -- the party he just left, the GOP. Either way, this is a lot of tea leaf reading, but it's still worth thinking about for a few moments."
Hugh Hewitt thinks a Bloomberg candidacy "has to help Mitt Romney. ... Not only does Romney have the best fund-raising network -- by far -- he also has considerable personal wealth at his command, and -- crucially -- a network of entrepreneurs and experienced and successful investors who believe enough in his abilities to form the sort of 527s that would level the financial playing field." Later, Hewitt says Bloomberg's candidacy is another argument against McCain-Feingold. "Political power is deeply connected to money, and McCain-Feingold greatly favors the very very rich while limiting the ability of everyone else to compete. ... Political speech shouldn't be rationed to begin with, but it certainly shouldn't be rationed when self-funding billionaires can spend all they want. Wealth should not confer an advantage this enormous in the political arena."
Don Surber calls him "H. Ross Bloomberg." Dan McLaughlin: "Remember the first, and perhaps only, rule of even modestly noteworthy third parties in our system: they must be organized around some issue on which the two major parties agree. The gravitational pull of the major parties is too strong to overcome simply by fielding a candidate who is charismatic (as the bloodless Bloomberg most assuredly is not) or who picks a different set of positions from the menu than either major party candidate. I've argued for some time that the sweet spot for an impact third party in 2008 would be anti-abortion, anti-war, anti-immigrant, anti-spending, anti-trade and perhaps anti-racial preferences, and almost none of that describes Bloomberg."
Huffington Post contributor Glenn Hurowitz: "In a three-way race, it's easy to envision Bloomberg and the Democrat splitting the anti-Republican vote, and letting another hard right Republican slip back into the White House without majority support." The solution? "The Democratic candidates should enthusiastically invite him to join the Democratic primary contest. The first gutsy candidate off the mark could say something like: 'The country and the world can't afford to elect another Republican administration that will continue the failed Bush-Cheney policies. A three-way election could put a Republican back in the White House with only minority support, leaving the rest of the country sadly and dangerously disenchanted with our democracy.'"
James Joyner: "Whether he'll take more from the Democrat or the Republican is an interesting question that will largely depend on who the nominees are. It's not inconceivable that we'll wind up with an all-NYC general election, with Rudy Giuliani facing off against Hillary Clinton, with Bloomberg in the role of spoiler. That would be interesting, indeed."
John Hawkins goes issue by issue and concludes: "It's too early to say for sure who Bloomberg would hurt the most given that we don't who the Democratic candidate will be and which issues will move to the forefront in 2008, but given that Bloomberg is well to the left of center, you'd have to think he'd take a bigger bite out of a Democrat than a Republican."
Some shied away from electoral math and focused simply on the person: Michelle Malkin: "He was always a Republican in name only, so I don't know what the big deal is now. Slow news day, I guess." Allahpundit: "He has no discernible principles aside from avoiding the limelight and trying not to screw anything up. As a governing philosophy, you can do far worse than that; as an organizing ethos for a messianic presidential campaign, it's pathetically wanting." Glenn Reynolds: "I'd like to see a third-party candidate, but I'd like one who stands for more freedom, not less, and the nannyish Lee Kuan Yew-wannabe Bloomberg clearly doesn't fit that description."
GIULIANI: So You Had A Bad Day
The day started with a tough Newsday report about his role with the Iraq Study Group. By noon, his IA chairman was snatched away by Pres. Bush. And when dinnertime rolled around, he saw his endorsed successor as mayor abandoning the GOP, and his SC chairman being charged with cocaine posession. Ouch. Still, the blogosphere focused on the Newsday story, which hinted that America's mayor quit to make some more money giving speeches.
Josh Marshall thinks the story is "the kind of thing that ends campaigns. ... His whole campaign is about him as Mr. War on Terror. ... But the upshot of this little story is that Rudy's real priority is money. He literally doesn't have time for finding a solution to the problem we face in Iraq. Couldn't make the meetings." Kos: "Help figure out a solution to the mess in Iraq, or make $11.4 million. The battle between 'Rudy the businessman' and 'Rudy the presidential candidate' wasn't even close. On this one, it really was one or the other."
MyDD's Todd Beeton: "Clearly Giuliani wanted a place on the panel to bolster his warrior facade but didn't want to have to do any work. Good for Baker for making Giuliani choose: 'either attend the meetings or quit." Jonah Goldberg agrees with Greg Sargent: "Giuliani's case for blowing off the ISG is pretty weak."
Paul Mirengoff: "Giuliani's decision will be portrayed as Newsday portrays it -- a case of putting his personal finances above service to his country. But this assumes that, at the time he made his decision, he thought that serving on a study group led by James Baker and various Democrats would advance his country's interests. Giuliani may seriously have doubted that anything worthwhile could come from the ISG and feared that the ISG's recommendations would be perverse. If so, his doubts and fears proved well-founded."
DEM FIELD: Take That Back
Joe Sudbay briefly reviews Dems at the AFSCME conference. This morning, HRC got another tough reception at the Take Back America conference. More on that to come.
Meanwhile, Kos looks at Hillary's growing lead in the nat'l polls. He had believed that "the more voters realize there are alternatives, the more they'll stray from Hillary." That's not happening yet, he notes. Still, nat'l polls in '04 turned out to be meaningless. "Will they be as irrelevant this cycle as in 2004? Perhaps. We have a de facto national primary this year, so they may be a bit more relevant. Or maybe the country will bend its will to Iowa and New Hampshire again, as they did four years ago. These are uncharted waters."
HILLARY: The Friendly Skies?
HRC's "Sopranos" spoof was received mildly. But TPM Cafe's Election Central finds a Financial Times report that Hillary's new song, "You and I," was originally written for an ad campaign for AirCanada. Interesting to see how that plays out.
RICHARDSON: Say What?
TNR's Ryan Lizza wonders what Bill Richardson was talking about when he attacked other Dems for supporting recent legislation on Iraq. "What is the nefarious legislation Richardson's opponents supported? The text of Richardson's speech includes a footnote pointing to two bills: the version of the Iraq supplemental that would have required Bush to begin withdrawing troops, and the Feingold-Reid amendment, which would have cut off funds for the war next March. Since Richardson argued today that the difference between him and his opponents on these two bills is a fundamental dividing line in the campaign, it's only fair to ask what Richardson said about the bills when they were moving through Congress. "
SCALIA: There He Goes Again
A few on the left note a report on Justice Scalia using Jack Bauer as a case study in how terrorism changed all the rules. SusanG: "Got that? Fictional super-heroes are perfectly reasonable to introduce into panel discussions about the legality of torture. International judicial opinions, on the other hand, are to be discarded as un-American. Next up: How H.G. Wells' The Time Machine made irrelevant the Bush administration's failure to provide for post-invasion Iraq."
BLOGGERS VS. THE MSM: You're Playing Hardb#@$
Chris Matthews' dust-up with the audience at an AFSCME forum got some laughs. MyDD: it's definitely cringe-worthy must-see viewing. How does Hillary manage to come off as the reasonable one when she's essentially just ducking a question?" Crooks and Liars catches Chris Matthews dropping the S-Bomb again. Matthews, while discussing Bloomberg speculation: "We're all reacting here and putting on shit. We have nothing."
Meanwhile, even folks at TownHall are questioning Politico's biases after seeing this John Edwards headshot.
IMMIGRATION: Trent Warfare
Mark Krikorian isn't happy with Sen. Trent Lott's (R-MS) appearance on a talk radio station. "Lott is rapidly turning into a parody of himself." When presented with a petition asking him to stop supporting the immigration bill, Lott answered: "To think you are going to intimidate a senator, any senator, that way." Krikorian: "Well, at least he didn't say anything about 'outside agitators'!"
DIGBY: Nice To Meet You
At long last, anonymous Digby was unveiled at Take Back America. Crooks and Liars shows her speech. Atrios' take: I'm not sure if Digby and Candy Crowley should be allowed in the same room together. Matter/anti-matter, rift in the space-time continuum, etc..."
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Building An Army
Firedoglake's Eli wonders what the netroots might do if Dems take the WH and maintain congressional majorities in '08. Up until now, some had been willing to support electable Dems rather that ideological soulmates in the interest of winning. But: "If the 2008 election pulls us back from the brink of disaster, then our support for the Democratic Party does not need to be unconditional. If Congressman X isn't supporting progressive interests or values, then progressives don't need to support him -- the free ride is over. We can focus all our money and time on making sure the Blue America type candidates get elected, and even back some primary challengers against the worst of the Blue Dog and pro-war Dems. And needless to say, we should only give to individual candidates, never to the DSCC or DCCC. The Democratic establishment and corporations can help their buddies, but we won't. Will that be enough for them to win anyway? Maybe, but that's not our problem - unless we're backing their primary opponent, of course."
Of course, it's debatable as to whether we should even be supporting faithless Democrats now (I sure as hell don't plan to help any of them), but it will be much, much harder to scare us into donating if the 2008 elections go well. Which makes me worry that the Democrats might tank them deliberately"
LEST WE FORGET: Like A Bat Out Of Hell
TownHall's Dean Barnett weighs in on steroid allegations and Barry Bonds, who is closing in on the all-time career home run record. He agrees with baseball writer Bill James, who apparently "is the reason I became a conservative in spite of growing up in a hotbed of hysterical liberalism," that other factors are at play.
"In the past two decades, the handles of baseball bats have shrunk down to almost nothing. That means hitters generate more bat-head speed at impact. A lot more. So the ball goes farther. James doesn't mention the additional effect of hitters becoming more selective at the plate. The homerun hitting Barry Bonds shows remarkable and indeed historic discipline waiting for a pitch that he can drive." Lest we excuse Bonds, however, Barnett adds: "No one should infer from the preceding that I'm disputing the irrefutable fact that Barry Bonds is one of the most obnoxious baseball greats of all time."
Posted by Conn Carroll at June 21, 2007 06:54 AM
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