June 27, 2007

6/27: Hitting Soft Balls

As Fred Thompson's 5/15 smackdown of Michael Moore showed (and as Elizabeth Edwards' 6/26 televised phone call to a certain blonde pundette is reinforcing), sometimes the best thing to have in a crowded primary is the right opponent. One has to wonder if Edwards managed to capitalize on his PR gift as well as Thompson did. Thompson's video response to Moore's call for a debate on the relative merits of Cuban style health care hit on all of Thompson's strengths (ease with set creative pieces, mastery of the medium, humor, etc). But in what ways did Team Edwards response highlight any of J. Edwards strengths?

DEM FIELD: First Time's Free

The Huffington Post's Miles Mogulescu pleads with 6/28 Dem debate host Tavis Smiley to press the big three on single payer health care. Mogulescu blogs: "The leading Democratic candidates - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama - criticize America's broken health care system and call for fundamental change with great rhetorical flair. But when it comes to proposing the most effective plan for change - Medicare-For-All - they don't show an audacity of hope. They show a paucity of courage. ... Obama's, Edward's and Clinton's timid half-way measures are as likely to be attacked by Republicans, big pharma and the insurance industry as a Medicare-For-All. Why not do it right the first time?"

CLINTON: At Least The Non-Profit Didn't Pay For The Haircut

Picking up on Politicocoverage of a Daily Kos diarist's recent run in with Mark Penn's PSA Interviewing field polling firm, TPM's Greg Sargent revisits a 6/8 story about a similar call received by a Jason Eness-Potter in IA.

Ennes-Potter confirmed to Sargent that his 6/7 account to IA Independent was accurate including the description of a question testing whether the John Edwards $400 haircut story "made the respondent more or less likely to approve of Edwards." Sargent also tracks down a second IA resident, Ellen Ballas who confirms the haircut question.

Sargent goes on to link back to the Daily Kos diarist's 6/24 call from PSA in NH. The diarist reports that Penn's firm has added the New York Times/non-profit story to its list of possible anti-Edwards memes. Sargent concludes: "Penn and the Hillary campaign didn't respond to requests for comment."

Also in HRC news, DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas notes that Clinton is the only Dem hosting her site with the "evil empire" (Microsoft), while the rest of the field has chosen to go with Linux.

EDWARDS: Weak And Incapable Of Defending Himself

Ann Coulter logged a full 2 days as convenient foil for the John Edwards campaign 6/25-26. AMERICAblog's John Aravosis posts video of Coulter kicking off her 6/25 AM telling Good Morning America that she wished Edwards had been killed in a terrorist assasination plot. Aravosis comments: "If you or I said this, we'd be arrested. And we certainly wouldn't be given TV time on ABC, NBC or any other show than FOX."

TPM's Greg Sargent then reported that early 6/26 the Edwards campaign sent out a fundraising email featuring the Coulter video, followed up by Elizabeth Edwards phoning in to Hardball to confront Coulter. Sargent comments: "Elizabeth is basically now the lead front-woman for attacking the wingnuts -- standing up for her man, and all that. ... This is clearly a storyline being laid out by the campaign, and for good reason. (Cue up the pundits who will claim this makes Edwards look weak and incapable of defending himself.)"

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong asks: "Why does Hardball and ABC legitimize her by giving Ann Coulter a platform to say these things in the first place?"

EDWARDS II: Blogger Conference Calls Are Always More Entertaining

The Huffington Post's Anna Burger takes the New York Times to task for their 6/22 coverage of Edwards non-profit org: "Insinuation and hyperbole seem to be part and parcel of today's campaigning. But to suggest ... that John Edwards' work on poverty is anything less than honorable is just plain wrong. Worse than that, it's insulting to the workers around the country he's lent his tireless support to over the years. ... To call into question the motivation of a person who has done so much to advance the cause of workers is unwarranted and unjust."

Also mentioning the Times story, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong sat in on a MSM conference call set up to promote Edwards new NH ad buy, but reports non-profit questions dominated the inquiry: "Another question on the non-profit organizations. It seems pretty clear that the reporters are all focusing on the non-profit organizations which Edwards worked for in '05-06, one reporter asked "why did you publicize it"; which is such a stupid question. ... Blogger conference calls are much better."

OBAMA: Less Than Ideal

While announcing that she won't give a penny to any of the Big Three due to their equivocating on gay marriage, The Huffington Post's Nancy Goldstein singles out Cass Sunstein's profile of Barack Obama for special abuse: "Sunstein takes this bigotry-as-religious-belief-and-respect even further in this past May's New Yorker profile of Obama ... In a dazzling display of University of Chicago law school pyrotechnics, Sunstein suggests that Obama might be more liberal than he lets on re: marriage equality while spinning his colleague's failure to publicly support it as a healthy outgrowth of Obama's penchant for compromise and his respect for - of all things - difference."

In more mixed Obama blogging TPM Cafe's MJ Rosenberg likes Obama's latest statement on the Israeli-Palestinian situation for it's "emphasis on the need for US leadership to help move the two sides to the two-state solution" but bemoans Obama's insistence on " buying into the idea that we can isolate Hamas forever and create a Palestinian state while rejecting the elected Palestinian government." Rosenberg, however, is clearly grading on a curve: "I don't judge candidates statements on the Middle East against the ideal but against the pander garbage almost all of them cynically and invariably put out. By that standard, this is fine.

RICHARDSON: We Thought The Seventh Day Was For Resting

MyDD's Nate Willems reports that Bill Richardson laid out his top six priorities to over 200 Dems at the Iowa City, IA, Public Library 6/26 ("1) Get the Untied States out of Iraq; 2) Create an "Apollo Program" for energy independence; 3) Unveil a plan for universal health care; 4) Unveil a plan to upgrade America's school systems; 5) Unveil a plan to reinvigorate the economy; 6) Redefine what the United States stands for.")

When "one of the first questioners from the audience suggested that on the 7th day Richardson should get the Employee Free Choice Act passed into law ... Richardson heartily agreed and touted his labor record in New Mexico." Willems notes though: "Labor issues, though, did not make it into his top six priorities."

BROWNBACK: The Next McCain?

After noting that Sam Brownback's 'yes' vote on cloture for the immigration bill "is probably going to lead to some hostile questions on the campaign trail," NRO's Jim Geraghty shares "Team Brownback"s clarification: "Senator Brownback voted in favor of cloture on the motion to proceed to the immigration bill today. That means he voted to bring the bill back to the floor for debate and for amendments to be offered. This does NOT mean that Senator Brownback supports the immigration bill itself - he feels the bill needs to be improved. "

GIULIANI: Admits He Couldn't Keep It Up

The Brody File breaks his 15 minute interview with Rudy Giuliani into seven chunks titled: Giuliani Says No to Federal Marriage Amendment...For Now; Giuliani on School Prayer and Separation of Church and State; Giuliani Responds to Those Who Want to Take Him Down; Giuliani Responds to Catholic Criticism; Giuliani Says No to Priesthood Because "Celibacy Was Something I Wasn't Sure I Could Keep."; Giuliani Won't Say if Roe is Bad Law; and Giuliani on the GOP Platform.

HUCKABEE: Farris' Day Off

Race 4 '08s Kavon Nikrad sat in on a 6/26 blogger conference call with LIFE Outreach International's Dr. James Robison and Patrick Henry College Chan. Michael Farris. Farris told callers that Mike Huckabee "is the most able political communicator he has ever met in his life, which includes over twenty years in Washington D.C."

On immigration, Huckabee assured participants "that he cannot support the bill due to it's failure to address border security and to properly identify the people who have entered the US. He remarked that he still must show his ID when he returns to his own home town and believes that most Americans would love to pay the $2000 fine to the IRS rather than the much greater amount of income tax that they have had to pay in. It simply unfair to give this option to non-citizens."

MCCAIN: Following The Leader

Townhall's Patrick Ruffini explains why John McCain's attempts to tag his opponents as flip-floppers is, and will, not work: "Sure, all of them took McCainiac positions at some point or another. On some issues, they followed and McCain led. But that's the problem isn't it? McCain led. He led on BCRA. He led on CIR. He led the fight against the Bush tax cuts. He led the Republicans for the Kyoto treaty. All of [Mitt] Romney's flip-flops don't change the fact that McCain is responsible for the abomination that is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Whenever McCain leads, it's usually in the wrong direction. That's why conservatives don't trust him."

Also trying to explain McCain's inevitable demise, a Rich Lowry reader at The Corner explains why Stu Rothenberg's prescription for McCain to focus on his bio will fail: "[B]iography doesn't work very well once voters are familiar with and have internalized the biography. ... for many of the same reasons that Jonathan Rauch's "14-year-rule" makes sense: the longer a pol is in office, the more his actions in office will cloud out the (often loftier) achievements before he was in office."

PAUL: Some Of Us Have To Waste Our Time Listening To Them

IA Voice congratulates the IAns for Tax Relief for their decision not to invite Ron Paul to their 6/30 debate in Des Moines, IA. IA Voice comments: "Good idea. Just because someone declares themselves a candidate does not mean the rest of us need to waste our time listening to them. Ron Paul has no chance to win; he doesn't even appear to have a chance to frame the debates in any way. He's a non-factor."

Also in anti-Paul blogging, AmSpec Blog's Shawn Macomber hits Paul for supporting NH tax protester Ed Brown. Macomber writes: "Does Paul really wanted to be associated with someone who is currently stockpiling weapons for a confrontation with law enforcement, threatening another Waco should anyone attempt to make him do the time he was tried, convicted and sentenced to serve for tax evasion?"

F. THOMPSON: A Freding Fenzy

RedState's Mark Kilmer and Race 4 '08s Tommy Oliver both post plenty of video from Fred Thompson's visit to the Old Fall School Building in Nashville, TN 6/26. Kilmer reports that Thompson will probably use the building as his HQ should he run, and Oliver adds: "Thompson's homecoming has dominated the Tennessee airwaves for the last day and a half. This state is truly in a frenzy unlike any other. It really is amazing the amount of universal support he is receiving. You'd have to see it to believe it. The newspapers and local news channels have been falling over themselves. ... Even our Democrat governor, Phil Bredeson, has had only nice things to say about Thompson."

F. THOMPSON II: Rebel With A Cause

Power Line's John Hinderaker wasn't done hitting back at the AP for their Thompson lobbying story after just one post. Hinderaker does some digging and discovers that the AP author, Travis Loller, normally covers "Hispanic issues and general assignments" and was once reported my Mother Jones to have an "extensive activist history" including "protests against the Gulf War, the Rodney King verdict and Propositions 187 and 209." Loller always was "deported from Mexico on April 12, 1998 for alleged collusion with the Zapatista rebels (EZLN)."

Hinderaker comments: "As a former radical, I'm not unsympathetic to Ms. Loller's history. For all we know, her politics may be very different today from what they were in 1998. At a minimum, though, it's an interesting background for a reporter for the Associated Press, an organization which is still regarded by many as a neutral and objective wire service.

NRO's Jim Geraghty adds: "Boy, that must just shine on a resume submitted to AP, huh? 'Experience agitating for Mexican Separatists? Why, yes, that's exactly what we're looking for in our Tennessee bureau!'"

IMMIGRATION: It's The Morning Of Just Week 2 ...

Conservatives are seemingly confident that despite their 6/26 defeat, they will manage to find enough votes to defeat 6/28's impending cloture vote. AmSpecBlog's Quin Hillyer names names: " According to Insider(s), Burr, Brownback, Gregg, Nelson of Nebraska, and Webb are VERY good targets for switching against cloture (or perhaps not being there, which amounts to the same thing). Pryor, Bond, and Coleman are other serious possibilities. I am told, too, that Barbara Boxer remains decidedly unhappy with the bill, and is still a definite possibility to switch to the anti-cloture, anti-amnesty side."

RedState's Rob Bluey urges: "Conservatives need to continue educating their senators about the dangers of the bill. 'We need to give it all we've got over the next 48 hours,' one conservative ally told me. 'The second cloture vote will be the most important vote of the year.'"

Michelle Malkin is urging GOPers that have given money to candidates and party committees in the past to call back and demand a refund. The Corner's Mark Krikorian lists the anti-GOP ads conservatives have created attacking pro-compromise Senators including: Muchas Gracias, Senor Graham; The Love Song of Edward M. Kennedy; John McCain - Weak on Immigration; Trent Lott - Bad for America; Trent Lott Sells Out Mississippi to Illegal Aliens; Come Home, Lindsey; Lindsey Graham on South Carolina Bigots; and Lindsey Graham to Taxpayers.

Not all are optimistic, particularly about the future of the GOP. Instapundit heads a post "R.I.P. G.O.P." and blogs: "Out in the car I heard a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh talking about the immigration bill moving forward. I think the Republicans' situation is looking pretty grim, and I wonder, what impels them to make such a self-destructive move? Limbaugh was wondering too." An Instapundit reader later urges primary challenges for compromise supporters, Kausfiles seconds the idea. Riehl World View is just done with the whole party: "Having voted Republican in every election for the past 30 or so years, it is increasingly difficult to comprehend how I am going to be able to pull the lever for a candidate aligned with that party in the future, unless or until they get their act at least halfway together."

The Corner's Kate O'Beirne notes: "A veteran Senate aide reminded me that the essential function/core responsibility of a Senate majority or minority leader is to represent his party on procedural issues. This responsibility doesn't rest with other members of the party's Senate leadership. Speaking for his party on procedural issues defines the job of a Senate leader. A majority of Republican senators voted against cloture and Senator McConnell voted on the other side. Apparently, that's unprecedented."

IRAQ: Another One Bites the Dust

Taking a break from immigration blogging, conservatives are beginning to react to Sen. Richard Lugar's (R-IN) call for a change in Iraq policy. The Corner's Rich Lowry concludes Lugar is "basically saying ... that the war is lost, and all the rest of it - a diplomatic offensive, forging progress on the Arab-Israeli conflict, etc. - is window dressing" and that he'll now do more to impose a timetable.

The Corner, Andy McCarthy responds noting that what Lugar, the great GOP "Foreign Policy Doyen" is saying, is that the US has lost a way against "rag-tag terrorist cells....and, knowing that, he would have us run away anyhow." McCarthy posts later on Lugar that he's "hardly a singular voice here," but from his personal experience jihadists "really do think they can and will win."

Michael Ledeen replies The Corner that he's glad Lowry likes Lugar, but the Senator is a "foreign service officer masquerading as a political leader." Ledeen writes he can't "recall a moment of courage" in the 30 years he's watched Lugar. As Foreign Relations Chair for many years, "What did he accomplish? Nothing." As RightWingNewsJohn Hawkins notes, "Get Ready for Republicans to Start Abandoning The War in Iraq" and adds: " I think the political tide has irrevocably turned against Iraq, even amongst Republicans."

TPM'sJosh Marshall blogs the latest CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll shows 69 percent believe things are going badly in Iraq and anti-war sentiment among GOPers has suddenly increased. As long as "the vast majority" of GOPers oppose Dem attempts to end the war, "that will keep" Dems "from really going to the mat over it." But "eventually" public opposition "will become so overwhelming that" Dems "may be willing to really force the matter and not worry about lacking any bipartisan cover." Or maybe by Sept '07, enough GOPers will see the numbers to give Dems a veto-proof majority.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Doing The Jobs American Corporations Are Definitely Willing To Do

Wired's Jason Pontin recounts a probably apocryphal story of a programmer who outsourced his own job to India for $12K and then pocketed the difference between that and the $67K his employer paid him, and comments:

It's a case where everyone wins. By subcontracting out the generic parts of his job, the programmer gives himself a promotion. The Indian developer is well paid. The employer gets good code. In the US, the debate about outsourcing often focuses on large companies laying off employees. ... The wisdom of outsourcing applies to businesses great and small. When companies have some of their operations performed elsewhere, they reduce costs and allocate capital and labor instead to those activities that cannot, or should not, be subcontracted. When businesses use capital and labor efficiently, they can better explore expanding markets. And faster growth creates a need for new workers. The result is almost always a net gain in employment.

LEST WE FORGET: Beware The Muslim Werewolves

Cracked.com details the past gaffes of WH '08ers and predicts what Future Faux Pas will doom some candidates, including:

• Hillary Clinton: "Radio interference during a fundraiser speech will definitively reveal what conservatives have long suspected: that Hillary is, in fact, a cold, lifeless robot."
• John Edwards: "In a humiliating, Al Gore-like defeat, Edwards will fail to win the South Carolina primary, despite being born there. Shortly thereafter, he will fail to hit the side of a barn with an underhand softball pitch from a distance of five feet and forget how to tie his shoes."
• Bill Richardson: "While watching Ocean's Thirteen with his wife, Richardson will fail to comprehend that the secretive group led by George Clooney is, in fact, a criminal enterprise, pleading with his wife for days afterwards that, "they seemed so honest." And if that's not humiliating enough, GOP insiders will leak the secret that Richardson looks suspiciously like this guy from Dances With Wolves, but with more neck fat."
• Rudy Giuliani: "Elaborating on his reputation as an excellent judge of character and a realist, Giuliani will claim, in all earnestness, that if a Democrat is elected president, Muslim werewolves will break into your home and peel your nipples right off of your chest like Buddha says in the Koran."
• Fred Thompson: "Loudly inhaling a foam microphone cover as he snores like a Looney Toon on stage at the next debate."

Posted by Conn Carroll at June 27, 2007 12:37 PM