November 20, 2007

11/20: Dirty Phone Calls

Yesterday's Mark Hemingway article on NRO, which investigated that rumor that Mitt Romney's supporters paid for the anti-Mormon phone calls in order to gain sympathy for their candidate, provoked angry denials from both the Romney campaign and TargetPoint Consulting. In the conservative blogosphere, however, the speculation and finger-pointing continues unabated. It remains to be seen whether this scandal will have a lasting impact on the race or will simply blow over in the next couple of days.

ROMNEY: Overplaying The Bigotry Card?

The Directors at Red State accuse misguided Romney backers of funding the calls: "Today, we want to be clear that whatever the case is, we do not blame Mitt Romney personally for these phone calls...And as for Alex Gage and the Romney associates who are apparently behind these efforts: in a campaign where the faith of your candidate has been respected by the overwhelming majority of voters and activists, you've managed to create out of thin air the kind of bigoted attack that cheapens the process and expects the worst of the American people. Nice strategy, folks. We hope you're happy."

The Red State Directors also take a direct shot at Romney defender Hugh Hewitt: "Most of us here at Redstate have favored candidates in the presidential primary, and even The Directors of this site have different views. But most of us do not so willingly lose our objectivity at the drop of a hat that we cannot see reality beyond our preferred campaign's or judicial nominee's spin."

Soren Dayton examines Romney spokesman Kevin Madden's increasingly vague statements of denial and writes: "You can smell the rubber of the backtracking."

Campaign Standard's Richelieu, on the other hand, suspects the Huckabee campaign: "At the bottom of all this, I think, is a trembling pollster connected to the Rudy, Thompson, Huckabee, or Ron Paul campaigns or a sympathetic 527 group, who conducted this poll and is now terrified to admit it...My guess is Huckabee. He's raising more money of late and has probably begun doing polling work now which better-funded campaigns already did earlier this year; those other campaigns' devious Mormon testing is already in the can."

ROMNEY II: The Best Choice For SoCons?

In more positive news for the Romney campaign, Redstate's Leon Wolf explains why he is endorsing Romney: "The bottom line for me right now is that for all my personal naysaying and doubting, I have to admit in the end that Romney has worked the hardest, run the smartest campaign, and outlasted all other Republican comers save Rudy, and we all know how I feel about Rudy. In the end, if I had to choose between seeing Romney and Rudy standing, it wouldn't even be a close call. When I examine the field, I see only one candidate left standing with a reasonable shot of winning the White House who would govern as a conservative, and that candidate is Mitt Romney. So from now on, I'm tossing in with him, for better or worse."

Wolf also addresses Romney's shift on social issues: "I'm going to maintain some intellectual honesty about all of this. I think a lot of his positions are staked out based on his estimation of what the voters he needs want. That's not exactly the most comforting feeling in the world, even if you're in the group he needs at the moment (as us SoCons are). But I have to think at this point that, at least on abortion, he doesn't have another flip left in him, and I think he knows it. So that's good enough for me."

At The Corner, K-Lo takes a similarly pragmatic view of Romney's record on social issues: "I'd like Romney to relay to people what I've long understood his story to be: He was a businessman. Abortion wasn't really his issue. He said what he needed to say to get elected in Massachusetts -- that he would not change the laws (and yes, protect a woman's right to choose -- gag) and when he faced issues he never really cared to make his political career about -- life, marriage -- he studied them like he studied business and law, and he changed his mind."

Meanwhile, NRO's Byron York interviewed Romney for an article about former governor's efforts to convince so-cons that his conversion to the pro-life cause was genuine. During the interview, Romney asks frustratedly at one point, "I changed my view. Is that so difficult to understand?"

K-Lo likes what she sees: "I like, even, that he gets a little testy, too with Byron ('I changed my view. Is that so difficult to understand?'). It shows he cares."

MCCAIN: Time To Give Up On Iowa?

Last Friday, Time's Ana Marie Cox wrote an article in which she asks why McCain is still spending time and resources in Iowa when most analysts agree that he must win New Hampshire.

Campaign Standard's Richelieu dismisses Cox's article as "hopelessly uninformed" and writes: "...as every serious political journalist and campaign manager knows, is that one of the biggest drivers in New Hampshire is what happens the week before in Iowa. With the New Hampshire primary highly likely to occur just five days after the Iowa caucus, Iowa's 'bounce' effect on New Hampshire is certain to be stronger this year than ever before. You have to truly know very little about presidential primary politics -- which seems these days to be a first rate media credential -- to think a candidate can prosper by building a sand castle in New Hampshire and then ignoring the inevitable 50-foot tidal wave days later that brings three big surfers from Iowa."

Campaign Standard's William Kristol disagrees: "I wonder if Richelieu is being too clever by half. For one thing, he underestimates, I suspect, how hard it would be for McCain to snatch third in Iowa. For another, this year's nominating dynamics could turn out to be more complicated than the usually reliable "three tickets out of Iowa, two out of New Hampshire." The way this year seems to be shaping up, I'd say Romney and Huckabee almost have to take the top two places in Iowa, given their strategies. Thompson probably needs to be in the top three. Giuliani can probably afford a respectably close fourth...As for McCain, getting third in Iowa over both Giuliani and Thompson would be tough. Rather than invest in Iowa TV ads and fall short, I'd be inclined to put all my chips on New Hampshire."

THOMPSON: Dropping Like A Rock In The Granite State

We've already written about Fred Thompson's failure to gain any traction in the conservative blogosphere. Last night's UNH/WMUR/CNN poll, which shows Thompson's support among likely NH GOP voters at 4% (down from 13% in September), really drove the point home for several bloggers.

In his endorsement of Romney on Redstate, Leon Wolf writes: "For a while, the Fred Thompson campaign gave me hope for someone who might be a little more solid on the [abortion] issue, but looking at the polling right now leads me inescapably to the conclusion that Fred Thompson is toast. He's not polling any higher than third in any state right now, and Romney has even moved into second in the crucial state of Florida. I just don't know that Thompson has what it takes to get back up off the mat right now."

At The Corner, David Freddoso notes that 50% of NH GOPers will not support Thompson "under any circumstances" (up from 30% in September) and comments: "An ominous trend in NH for Thompson." In a separate post, Freddoso observes: "One important caveat about Thompson's numbers is that his people don't expect to do well in New Hampshire. There's a lot of market saturation there, as Romney, Rudy and McCain (and now Paul) are all super-active in the state, spending tons of money. Thompson must spend his money on Iowa and South Carolina -- that's always been his only way of winning."

Freddoso also posts an email from a reader suggesting that GOP southerners never do well in NH: "I remember in particular Senator Phil Gramm, who's Texican drawl in 1996 was genuine, but must certainly have sounded off-key, even like a 'put-on' in New Hampshire. First Affinity with Gramm, among New Englanders, was not possible. It takes conscious effort for some New Englanders to overcome the First Impression that Southern Accent doesn't equal perhaps deliberate ignorance...With a field like this, Senator Thompson has to win outright and strong in Conservative and early Red States that don't share New England's unconscious prejudice against Southern people."

Mark Steyn agrees that NH voters tend to be turned off by southern accents, but he doesn't think that explains Thompson's decline in the polls: "I don't think Fred has an accent problem up here. He has a no-show problem. You can't win the NH primary unless you show up for it. You don't need to win it if you're the establishment candidate with all the money and all the endorsements (like Dole in '96 and Bush in '00). But that's not Fred Thompson, and I don't understand his reluctance to get in the game."

The netroots, of course, were only too happy to note Thompson's troubles.

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas links to a CQ article that reports that many of Thompson's House backers are losing faith in their candidate. Markos writes: "Fred Thompson was supposed to bail out the listless GOP presidential field. Somehow, that hasn't necessarily been the case."

TPM's Eric Kleefeld also links to the CQ article and writes: "Remember that Thompson was endorsed by many of these people before he'd even declared his candidacy, because conservatives had been looking for a stronger candidate. And so far, they're not getting it."

TPM's Ben Craw is even harsher: "One of the great stories of the 2008 campaign has been the non-story of Fred Thomspon, his almost complete irrelevancy to the progress, discussion and direction of the campaign so far."

CLINTON: Too Hawkish For Progressives?

Kevin Drum links to a Hillary Clinton endorsement by Princeton Univ. historian Sean Wilentz on Andrew Romano's Newsweek blog and writes: "Wilentz is making an argument against Barack Obama (a Stevenson-like candidate) and in favor of Hillary Clinton (a political candidate). And it's a good one. Every four years the press falls in love -- momentarily -- with a candidate who strikes them as a fresh voice. Someone who tells people what they don't want to hear. Someone who doesn't waffle or hedge. Someone who's a truth teller. But these candidates never win. Never. Bradley and Tsongas didn't win, and neither did John McCain or Gary Hart or John Anderson. That's because most people want to vote for someone who agrees with them, not someone who stands aloof from their most deeply held beliefs."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias is not convinced by Wilentz' argument: "[Wilentz] explicitly draws the conclusion that Clinton is like Kennedy and Obama is like Stevenson and that this is the reason to support Clinton. This doesn't make a ton of sense to me....the reality of the Kennedy Administration -- as opposed to the Myth of Camelot -- is precisely what makes people leery of Clinton. A 50%+1 win followed by a domestic agenda that goes nowhere in congress and a drift toward foreign policy disaster driven in part by a unshakeable fear of looking soft on defense."

In a separate, longer post, Yglesias elaborates on his anxieties about Clinton's foreign policy views: "The basic reality is that each and every time the candidates stake out a position on something, Clinton takes a less-liberal line. Then each and every time Obama starts getting traction with the argument that Clinton is too hawkish, she backtracks and makes the argument that there's no real difference here. And it's true that if you look at any one thing with a microscope, the "no difference" argument can be made to stick. But it's the pattern that matters -- the initial support for Iraq, the more hawkish caste to her advisory team, the 'naive and irresponsible' line, the meager carrots she's prepared to offer Iran, her weird position on nuclear disarmament, her campaign's courting of CANF and AIPAC, her vote for Kyl-Lieberman -- all point in the same direction and it's a frightening one."

Over at TAPPED, Ezra Klein echoes Yglesias' concerns: "Matt's anxiety about Hillary Clinton's foreign policy program is well-put, and widely-shared. She has not sought to convince anyone that statements like 'We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table,' are general election posturing, or should be taken to mean something other than 'if diplomacy fails, I will bomb Iran in order to disrupt their nuclear program.'"

Drum acknowledges Yglesias and Klein's concerns, but he still does not see a substantial difference between Clinton's foreign policy views and Obama's: "As Matt and Ezra say, the biggest progressive beef with Hillary Clinton is that her foreign policy is too hawkish. That's how I feel too, though trying to define what any of us really mean by this is maddeningly difficult. To a large extent, after all, the biggest difference between Hillary and Barack Obama is simply that Hillary refuses to tie herself down. Basically, she wants maximum freedom of action when she takes office, and in the case of foreign policy this isn't necessarily a bad thing to want."

OBAMA: This May Not Be The Wisest Line Of Attack...

TPM's Greg Sargent links to a Newsday article indicating that Obama is beginning to use the allegation made by Hillary Clinton biographers Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta that the Clintons had a "20-year-plan" to win the presidency first for Bill, and then for Hillary. Sargent comments: "It's hard to see how the use of Gerth's allegations could possibly play well among Dem activists. Many of them dislike Gerth for his role in 'breaking' the Whitewater story and see Gerth's book as an anti-Hillary hatchet job."

Open Left's Chris Bowers doesn't understand why Obama is embracing a line of attack that (a.) echoes a GOP talking point, and (b.) is not (at least in Bowers' view) particularly damaging to Hillary: "...unlike most attacks against Hillary Clinton from Democrats in this primary campaign, this one actually does echo Republican lines of attack against her. It has been a long-term claim from conservatives that the Clinton's have had a plan in place to make Hillary Clinton President...[but] why is it a negative that Clinton has been preparing for this for twenty years? Is there something wrong with having a life plan, or dreaming of being President? If there is, I'm not sure what all of those career days in high school and college were for."

On the other hand, Bowers does have mixed feelings about the "unprogressive" nature of a second Clinton presidency: "...it is not exactly as though the Clinton's come from a wealthy family. Bill Clinton grew up in a single parent home in Arkansas and went to the local public school, for crying out loud. That is hardly the stuff of aristocracy and privileged pedigrees. Further, Hillary Clinton would be the first woman President, and women are by far the largest demographic group in the United States to never have a representative in the Presidency. That would quite obviously, at least in one way, be progress...Still, the idea of a Clinton dynasty feels fundamentally unprogressive to me in a way that Hillary Clinton herself can do nothing to avoid."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Trouble For Hillary In Iowa?

With the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll pointing to potential trouble for Hillary in Iowa, Slate's Mickey Kaus gleefully speculates about what could happen if Hillary's Iowa numbers fall: "In, say, 25 days, with Hillary behind by 10 points and not gaining ground, she starts deemphasizing the state -- pulling out staff, campaigning elsewhere, effectively conceding Iowa and choosing to make her stand in other states. Humiliating, but not as humiliating as trying and losing -- and Hillary is a cautious type. She also doesn't seem like a late surger. Her aides will convince her she doesn't need Iowa to win -- focusing on Iowa in the first place was just an attempt to land a knockout punch. The punch having missed, she'll settle in for the full 15 rounds. ... She could even make some mischief by having some of her Iowa troops vote for the anti-Hillary candidate she wants to keep alive (who looks like [John] Edwards at the moment but may look like Obama by January)."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff points out: "The good news for Clinton is that she doesn't need to win the Iowa caucus."

LEST WE FORGET: Anyone Watch The AMAs?

The Hater's Amelie Gillette takes a look at "Award Shows You Didn't Know (Or Care) Existed, 2007":

"I'm not sure what the point of the American Music Awards is -- to induce seizures, to remind everyone that Celine Dion still exists, to give Americans a soundtrack for their collective depression that prominently features Alicia Keys, a Fergie medley, and a bluegrass version of 'Irreplaceable' -- but the best part about it is that it's live! Anything can happen! Of course, nothing really does, except for the guy from Rascal Flatts saying something about 'cockin' that may or may not have been a song lyric."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at November 20, 2007 12:50 PM