August 14, 2007

8/14: Like Preseason Football, The Ames Straw Poll Is Not Meaningless

Just as the Washington Redskins 4-0 '02 preseason record did not guarantee success in Steve Spurrier's first season with the team (they went 7-9), Mitt Romney's first place Ames straw poll finish does not guarantee him the nomination, let alone the IA Caucuses. But as an NFL scout told Sport's Illustrated's Peter King this week: "I don't care about the score of the game in the preseason. I care only about watching individual players." We should apply the same lesson to Ames. While the final results of the straw poll aren't predictive, underlying stories are.

When we look closer at Ames, we can see some important messaging lessons for GOPers as they draw up their game plans for the contests they really count. First, there is a lot more grass roots support for the FairTax.org's consumption tax than there is for the Club for Growth. FairTax produced at least 20 busses of supporters to the straw poll, while the Club for Growth dumped $85K into television ads attacking Huckabee on taxes. Huckabee's win shows which message better resonates with primary voters (fellow social conservative Sam Brownbacksupports the flat tax ).

Second, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter have positioned themselves as the immigration enforcement candidates. However, Tancredo is much more willing to embrace inflammatory rhetoric on the subject (see his Miami and Havana comparisons below), and is the only candidate in the field advocating an end to legal as well as illegal immigration. IAans awarded Tancredo 14% and fourth place, while Hunter finished ninth with 1%. It's possible that support for Tancredo's positions maxes out at 14% of the GOP base, but judging from Rudy Giuliani's post-straw poll response to Romney attacks on immigration, the issue is on the radar.

AMES STRAW POLL: New Yorkers Really Hate IA

Conservatives continued debating 8/11's Ames, IA, straw poll throughout 8/13. New York Sun's Ryan Sager led the league in IA-hating: "The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's little more than Jesus Christ's running mate. The pandering from the stage told the story. ... This all may fly in Ames. But it won't in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the interior West, all of which will be battlegrounds in this presidential election and for many elections to come. Republicans need to broaden their appeal in this tough environment, and the first step is to turn their sights away from Ames and toward the rest of the nation."

Others commenting on the importance of Ames and IA include:

• The Corner's John Podhoretz downplayed Ames: "Getting 14,000 people out to Ames when 23,000 went last time is precisely a mark that Ames is nothing ... if Rudy and McCain and Fred Thompson had chosen to go for it, more than 23,000 people would have shown up. In any case, that 14,000 only counts in terms of Iowa, one of the most unrepresentative states in the union and one whose caucuses are usually unimportant.
• so did Townhall's Dean Barnett: "Since the Ames event wasn't competitive, it became a non-event. Does anyone who knows anything about Republican politics think Mike Huckabee has a chance to win this race?"
• The Corner's Rich Lowry defended IA: "Four years ago, John Kerry was dead everywhere, staked everything on Iowa, won by a few points and was swept to the nomination. Every nominating contest is different, of course, but the experience of past primary seasons is that there is no substitute for winning-success tends to build on success. So I think it's a mistake for some Rudy fans to posit a nominating contest that will stay in neutral for three weeks or so, until Rudy can (theoretically) win somewhere.
• The Corner's Ramesh Ponnuru joined Lowry: "Let's not forget, amid the grumbling about Iowa over the last few days, that it is a genuine swing state: It went for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004. It was one of three states to switch. Now maybe Giuliani will change the electoral map completely and put states such as New Jersey and New York in play. In a difficult year for Republicans, however, places such as Iowa and Wisconsin might be more sensible targets."

GIULIANI: No Out Flanking Rudy On Law Order Issues

Conservative reaction to Rudy Giuliani's push back against Mitt Romney's recent stepped up attacks on Giuliani's immigration record include:

• AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "It is a misnomer to say New York was a "sanctuary city" for illegal aliens. Several Massachusetts cities -- Orleans, Somerville and Cambridge -- did declare themselves as such while Romney was Governor. It appears Rudy, like all mayors, coped as best he could with the influx of illegals while he was also dealing with crime and other metropolitan issues. Did he publicly call on the Feds to do more? It seems so."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "In April of 2006, way before there was even a Giuliani campaign, I wrote that the immigration issue represented a major opportunity for Rudy. Specifically, his record on fighting crime as mayor gives him credibility to argue he's the one to gain control of our borders Even if other candidates are tougher on immigration rhetorically, there's a case to be made that in the real world, Giuliani is the man who could actually get it done."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Team Rudy is spotlighting that their man was tough on border security not just before the most recent Kennedy deal, but before the 1986 deal. ... Hmmm. Emphasizing a consistent record going back decades... that wouldn't be an effort to draw a contrast with a rival accused of being a johnny-come-lately on the issue, would it?"

HUNTER: Unlike Bush's Fake Border Enforcement Efforts

Duncan Hunter answered fifteen questions from Free Republic readers including:

• FREEP: How soon after you take office could we expect to see real results with respect to strong internal enforcement regarding illegal aliens and REAL efforts on sealing the border?
• HUNTER: I wrote the law that mandated the construction of the border fence in California that reduced smuggling of people and drugs by more than 90% in our sector. I also wrote the bill, signed into law on October 26, 2006, which extends the California fence 854 miles across the smuggling routes of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. As, President I will build the border fence, all 854 miles, in six months. If you examine the record throughout my entire career in the US Congress, you will see that no one has put in more effort to force the Federal government to enforce the existing internal laws. As President, I will do so, without question.

ROMNEY: But Which Answer Was Worse?

The Corner's Ramesh Ponnuru notes Mitt Romney's recent troubles explaining why none of his five sons served in the military and flags a 6/07 Romney answer to a similar question that was equally awkward: "Each of my five sons gave two years of their life to the service of their church and I consider that service to be laudable. But I very highly value those who serve in the military. But it is a volunteer military. And I hope we keep it that way."

Ponnuru comments: "Talk about confusing church and state!"

TANCREDO: Miami Is Nothing Like Havana ... They Have A Much Better Baseball Team

NRO's Jim Geraghty is worried about what Tom Tancredo's strong fourth place finish says about the GOP base since no "squish on illegal immigration" Duncan Hunter finished a distant ninth: "Tom Tancredo has also made stopping illegal immigration his signature issue - but he's a bit more likely to shoot his mouth off, and cause racially-tinged controversies in the process. ... He's called Miami a "Third World Country" and said "there isn't much of a difference" between Miami and Havana. ... Two candidates, both tough on border security, but with two very different styles and approaches. I would call one serious, one reckless. And we see where seriousness gets you."

CLINTON: I-what?

Blogger reviews of Hillary Clinton's first television ad (running in IA) were mixed:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "I have watched it three times now, and it is difficult to describe her first television ad as anything except boring ... If this is the sort of bland, boilerplate stuff we can expect from Hillary Clinton's campaign, then I think there is a real coattail problem for Clinton, just not in 2008."
• Talk Left's Jeralyn Merritt: "The Sopranos' video it isn't, but I think it's what plays in Iowa. I don't think Hillary needs to keep pointing out Bush's failures ... he's not running against her. I'd like her to compare the current Republican candidates with Bush and explain how she will be different than them."
• IA's Bleeding Heartland's Chris Woods: "To me, the one place that it does fail is with the background music. I'm sorry, but it just seems cheesy and distracting. The content of the ad, what Clinton says, is the real substance and I think it is quite good for a re-introduction. ... And if she expects to build any more traction with committed activists and Democrats who will turn out in force on caucus day, she'll have to start airing an ad about Iraq."

CLINTON II: Swift Boat Tested

Clinton's first television ad aside, HRC had a good day 8/13. Those with nice things to say include:

• TAPPED's Ezra Klein: "Hillary Clinton proves surprisingly brutal in taking down a questioner who accuses her of supporting socialized medicine -- and she seems to have fun doing it. It's great fun to watch. Clinton has a much more natural fluency with the details of health policy than do the other candidates, and her willingness, in this video, to forthrightly defend universal systems based on the advantages of uniformity and the performance of Medicare is an optimistic sign that she may be more willing to fight on this issue than she's yet demonstrated."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers on polling showing Clinton with higher negatives than other Dems right now: "Further, it should be pointed out that this margin could very well decrease as time goes on, or even be eliminated entirely. For example, immediately after the Iowa caucuses, John Kerry polled better than Hillary Clinton in general election matchups against Republicans. However, after the swift-boating campaign of 2004, Hillary Clinton began to poll better against Republicans than did John Kerry. So, while Clinton does worse than Obama against Republicans now, that does not necessarily mean she will do worse than Obama in the actual election. Polls like these can, and will, change."
• TPM Cafe's Greg Sargent on an advance copy of a HRC letter to the WH demanding Pres. Bush clarify his position on the draft: "The Hillary letter will put pressure on the administration to clarify its position on this hot-button issue, a move that also helps Hillary politically because her aggressive standoff with military brass over Iraq is likely to appeal to Dem primary voters."

EDWARDS: The Edwards Reality Bus Tour

John Edwards 'online guru' Tracy Russo will be guest blogging from Edwards' "Iowa Bus Tour" at Bleeding Heartland for the next week. Russo blogs: "Below the fold, you can find the scheduled stops for the tour. We hope you can join us out on the road! You can also join us online, check out this MySpace group, especially for the Iowa Bus Tour!"

At TPM Cafe, Elizabeth Warren praises Edwards Business Week interview call for more regulation of credit card "tricks and traps." Warren blogs: "Edwards isn't looking for a few quick changes that will leave the industry largely undisturbed. He is pushing for systemic change. There are a lot of issues in play during the primary season, but I am very glad to see John Edwards carry this one forward."

OBAMA: Losing That Change Brand

The Huffington Post's Jennifer Donahue reports from Nashua, NH: "With each town hall meeting in New Hampshire, Obama seems to speak in a more confident, winning voice. His answers are more spontaneous. ... Obama on the stump is not Obama in the debate or Obama sparring through the press with Senator Clinton. The candidate has loosened up, answers questions freely and improvises."

Also blogging from NH, Blue Hampshire's Dean Barker sat down with Obama and eight Upper Valley residents, but came away most touched by a an older women who only recently became politically active. The woman told Obama that after Dems failed to push back against Bush after taking over Congress she has "pulled back" from politics. Barker comments: "In the wake of the Democratically enabled Iraq funding bill, and the likewise assisted, and despicable, FISA bill, I have to wonder if Democrats truly understand that they are losing their momentum with the people every time they back down from a fight with George W. Bush."

At TPM Cafe, Greg Sargent links to CNN polling showing only 27% of Dems say Obama "is most likely to change the country" compared to 40% who chose Hillary Clinton. Sargent comments: "The usual caveats aside -- this is a national poll, etc. -- it's worth noting that this comes after Obama has aggressively sought to link Hillary to the D.C. foreign policy and political establishment, and to argue that he's the race's real change agent."

RICHARDSON: Let's Just Pretend This Whole Episode Never Happened

TPM Cafe's Eric Kleefeld posts Bill Richardson's defense of his 8/10 claim that homosexuality is a choice. Richardson told Sirius radio: "And, I always love the word 'choice.' I'm for freedom of choice, I have in my health care plan a choice where everybody can keep their health care plan. And so I always kind of feel it's a golden word, and I didn't think through what Melissa was asking me."

Kleefeld responds: "Yes, Governor, "choice" really is a nice word. Perhaps one might choose to steer clear of this topic going forward?"

ROVE: Is Turd Blossom The Most Appropriate Nickname Ever?

Conservative reaction to Karl Rove's departure was mixed. His tactical political skills were honored, but a story line on his lasting legacy is far from settled:

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Rove is 5 for 6 in the big elections he has skippered, and despite more attacks than any presidential aide in history, he is strolling out of the White House with a smile on his face and the admiration of nearly everyone in the GOP. If he gets bored, there will be plenty of opportunities for him to return to the thing he does best --beating Democrats in November. When he does return, Dems will panic again."
• Townhall's Patrick Ruffini: "Today, my hat is off to Mr. Rove for six and a half years of dedicated service to the President he more than anyone was responsible for electing and then re-electing against the odds. Without him, it would have been President Al Gore on 9/11. ... And what of the permanent Republican majority Rove was supposed to build? That's on hold, overtaken by events, and specifically Iraq. It will be left to the next generation to build it."
• Michelle Malkin: "Imagine how much better off the White House and the Republican Party might be now if he had, in fact, left a year ago. Yes, there's the legacy Rove should ponder as he puts his feet up."
• Captain's Quarters: "I'd argue that in this instance, Michelle's making the same mistake as many on the Left do about Rove. Karl Rove did not make policy ... I would agree with her about the lack of political preparation on the Dubai ports deal, but I'm not so sure that Rove was the man to blame for that as much as it was Andy Card and the White House press team."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "I think it might be more a case of unloading some dead weight before the Iraq showdown next month. Bush needs whatever public support he can scrounge up in the interim. This won't hurt on that count."
• Right Wing News: "Rove is generally considered to be a political genius and undoubtedly, he knows a lot about politics and running a campaign. However, his reputation seems a bit undeserved given how disastrous the last two and a half years of the Bush Administration have been."
• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "The Bush White House initially started out brilliantly in terms of its political operations. Now, those operations are sputtering at best. I might add that I don't want to hear another thing about "compassionate conservatism" ever again, since 'compassionate conservatism' is just politicalese for 'big-government conservatism.'"
• AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "I think Rove is a cautionary tale for the GOP candidates on a couple of fronts. ... after you win you have to govern. ... Criticism which lapses into disdain for government makes for poor governance. ... Although Republican may not have the same faith in the efficacy of government as Democrats they need to have a committment to making the government we do have effective and minimally competent."
• Andrew Sullivan: "The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. ... Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so."

IRAQ: Another September Preview

Glenn Greenwald's 8/8 interview with Brookings Scholar Michael O'Hanlon (posted 8/12) about his pro-surge 7/30 New York TimesOp-Ed is being widely linked to in netroots circles. Greenwald comments: "O'Hanlon's answers, along with several other facts now known, demonstrate rather conclusively what a fraud this Op-Ed was, and even more so, the deceitfulness of the intense news coverage it generated." Greenwald highlights this O'Hanlon answer to his question about how O'Hanlon's meetings with Iraqi military and civilian personnel were set up:

Well, a number of those -- and most of those were arranged by the U.S. military. So I'll be transparent about that as well. These were to some extent contacts of Ken and Tony, but that was a lesser number of people. The predominant majority were people who we came into contact with through the itinerary the D.O.D. developed.

Reaction to Greenwald's interview include:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "At what point does the media give up on the so-called "scholars" and "experts"? At what point do they recognize that these are the people that got Iraq wrong from the very beginning, from the WMD to the myth of the purpled-fingered elections to the success of the escalation? How many times do the Very. Serious. People. have to get it wrong to finally lose credibility in the real world?"


• The Huffington Post's David Bromwich: "It turns out to have been an army-guided tour from start to finish. In a political world that valued honesty, the reputations of both men would now be smoking rubble; for it is plain that neither, going into the trip, possessed the slightest local knowledge of Iraq beyond that of a citizen of average diligence."


• firedoglake's TRex: "In short, this "remarkable", "eye-opening" Op-Ed is every bit as spurious and intentionally misleading as Judy Miller's "scoops" in the NYT about Saddam's WMD's. Unfortunately, our national media is so trained to roll over and play dead on command that this patently false representation of the current situation in Iraq was paraded through the city gates and greeted with cheers and accolades and is still being used as a dray horse in the war debate. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, will they ever learn?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Politics Permeates Everything

Talk Left's Big Tent Democrat seconds Moira Whelan's thoughts on foreign policy and politics at Democracy Arsenal:

The O'Hanlon/Pollack issue illuminated and many have done a great job digging into the problem we all need to confront. The "Foreign Policy Community" should not be something different and escape accountability or responsibility for Iraq or anything else. The fact is that unlike what some foreign policy specialists would like to believe, these issues have long been partisan because those in charge of the final execution of policy are always partisan. ... Sitting back and expecting that everyone will walk towards the light that is the sound foreign policy as presented by whoever is writing the piece, simply ignores the political realities that exist. Ignoring political realities that exist in other countries is considered irresponsible in foreign policy wonk circles. ... The line between "foreign policy" and "politics" exists only in the minds of some in the Foreign Policy Community.

LEST WE FORGET: Means, Medians, And Patriarchal Master Narrative Cards

Matthew Yglesias pokes fun at those claiming a New York Timesitem explaining how its mathematically impossible for men to have different number of sex partners debunks gender sterotypes suggesting "men are relatively promiscuous, women relatively chaste." Yglesias blogs:

Here's the only problem. When I got my Patriarchal Master Narrative card, I was taught that while men are promiscuous, women come in two types -- virgins and whores. This is perfectly consistent with the basic math saying men and women have to have the same mean number of sex partners. The story just as to be that men have a higher median number of sex partners than do women, and it's a handful of sluts who are making up the difference. Is that accurate? Perhaps not. But these stereotypes are a bit more robust than a simple mathematical screw-up.

Posted by Conn Carroll at August 14, 2007 12:46 PM