August 15, 2007

OBAMA: Bombs Away

Barack Obama's "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there," line in Nashua, NH, drew broad conservative attention (Instapundit, Red State, Townhall, Hot Air, RCP Blog, Power Line, Captain's Quarters, and NRO all posted).

MyDD's Jonathan Singer tracked the RNC's response to Obama and scored the round for Barack: "Instead of cowering at the hands of the Republicans, the Obama campaign held its ground and was rewarded with a fact check by the Associated Press that showed that Obama was completely correct with his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. Indeed, The Politico ... deems this a "win" for Obama."

OBAMA II: A Confidence Gap

The Plank's Michael Crowley singles out what he believes to be the most relevant parts of ex-colleague Ryan Lizza's GQ profile of Obama:

One day this spring, Obama's pollsters were crunching numbers, and they discovered something odd. For as long as Obama has been in national politics, his approval ratings have been stratospheric. His whole campaign strategy rests on translating that enthusiasm into actual votes, turning those who are temporarily enthralled by Obama's celebrity into real supporters.

Now Obama's pollsters were finding alarming evidence that their candidate was vulnerable to the same phenomenon. When they compared the percentage of Democrats who said they strongly approved of Obama with the percentage who said they would vote for him, they found that the latter number was significantly lower than the former. Inside the campaign, aides dubbed this "the Gap." It was a sobering, hard number that quantified the difference between vague enthusiasm and actual votes.

Crowley comments: "As others have noted, I'm not sure that an appearance on the cover of GQ will do a lot for Obama's effort to seem more like a tested leader and less like a celebrity." The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum adds: "This is interesting on its own terms, but I also find it interesting that apparently this was news to Obama's campaign team. This "gap" seems like the kind of thing that perhaps people like me have never heard of, but is common knowledge among political pros. But apparently not. Or at least, not among Obama's political pros."

The Huffington Post's Thomas de Zengotita does not mention the GQ profile, but his post reads like he would agree with the premise: "My days of voting for Nader are over. Not that Obama is a Nader. Still, there's an aura around of him of radical alternative possibility. But I've had enough of radical conceits ... I want a Democrat who can win. ... I could write a book about how much I hate what the Clintons did to the progressive left in this country during the 90s. I loath them for it.... I want to believe in Obama. But, right now, Hillary looks like the warrior."

OBAMA III: This Must Be That 'Character' That Andrew Was Talking About Earlier

Andrew Sullivan shares a reader report from an 80 person 2/19 fundraiser in San Francisco, CA: "He was asked about gay marriage ... In that small setting, without ever saying so outright, Obama made it very clear that his decision not to support gay marriage was political and not principled. In a perhaps anxious attempt to get us to understand his predicament, he drew an analogy. ... In effect he was saying, I can't do this now - I can't even say anything more ... We have to wait. It almost felt as if he was winking at us in some solemn way (I can't say it, but I am with you!)."

Sullivan responds: "The best response is Hannah Arendt's ... She believed that marriage equality was the sine qua non of the civil rights movement. ... We've had some success reorienting the movement, but its natural state of entropy is, sadly, still leftist. I'm unsurprised Obama won't challenge this. But I am quite sure he will be more supportive of gay equality than Clinton."

GIULIANI VS ROMNEY: No One's Finding Sanctuary On This Issue

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney both drew blood in exchanges over immigration 8/14. Romney hit Rudy for saying, while mayor of New York, "If ... you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect." Rudy hit back pointing out that Somerville, Cambridge, and Orleans, MA, were all sanctuary cities while Romney was governor. There was no consensus winner on the latest "flashpoint between the two frontrunners":

• The Corner's Rich Lowry: "As I've said before, the way Rudy has handled immigration has been nearly flawless. ... What Rudy has done on immigration gives me hope on abortion: he still has room to move right on it while staying pro-choice. To the extent he does, he becomes an even stronger candidate for the nomination and a stronger candidate in the general election where he will have to be firmly to Hillary's right on cultural issues or he'll kick away a key Republican advantage."
• AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "I think the bottom line is that as to sanctuary cities Romney did exactly nothing. ... The danger of the story -- highlighted by the Mayor of Somerville -- is that voters perceive this squabble on his part as political opportunism. ... this is not the first issue on which Romney has been accused of political opportunism."
• SC's The Shot: "Honestly, we're just a little disappointed that Rudy, who did so much on 9/11, could be so naive that he would INVITE undocumented, illegal aliens into the USA's largest city and offer them protection simply based on whether they're "hard working" or not."
• PoliPundit: "Rudy Giuliani ABSOLUTELY declared New York a sanctuary city for illegals ... I attended a conference where the speaker said that if one of the terrorists from 9/11, who was here illegally, was detained by police in New York on 9/9, under Rudy's policy as Mayor, he would have been released in time to carry out the 9/11 attacks, and that is just plain scary."

Posted by Conn Carroll at August 15, 2007 12:52 PM