November 13, 2007

11/13: They Were Never That In To Him

We enjoyed the Washington Post's 11/12 article on the troubles the then nascent Fred Thompson campaign faced this spring and summer, but we did want to comment on one line in particular. Michael Shear quotes a former Thompson staffer: "There was an irrational exuberance for Internet campaigning. When this exaggerated faith in the Net collided with reality, the impact was pretty severe. Once the real campaign began, an organization that placed no premium on having a real campaign was ill prepared to deal with it."

We agree that it was unrealistic to believe a successful campaign could exist entirely online, but we also think it should be made clear that Thompson was simply never that popular among online conservatives to begin with. Yes his Michael Moore/Cuba video was popular and yes his he had some key online sympathizers (RedState's Erick Erickson leading the pack), but he was also no where near as widely popular online as Howard Dean was in '04. From day one colleagues would ask us if we saw any strong Thompson movement online. We never did. Some day there may be an Dean like GOP phenomenon, but WH '08 is not that year.

THOMPSON: The Official Anybody But Rudy Candidate?

The Nationals Right to Life Committee's endorsement of Fred Thompson spurred more talk about what this means for NRLC than it did about Thompson speculation. Reactions include:

• The Corner's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "Fred seems like a real gamble - that would either give him a kick with some pro-lifers or make NRL look a little irrelevant if it doesn't. Huckabee would certainly be safer."
• Soren Dayton: "This is a shocker to me. ... My understanding is that the internal debate revolved around (1) stopping Rudy and (2) whether Mike Huckabee was an acceptable endorsement either together or separately. My understanding is, additionally, that John McCain and Mitt Romney were deemed not acceptable because of their positions on stem cell research. But it is news in its own right that an anti-HLA candidate is NRLC material."
• The Corner's Kate O'Beirne: "It's unclear to me what ruled out Mitt Romney. It can't be that the folks at NRLC frown on his pro-choice past because their ranks have many converts to their cause - including Bernard Nathanson. ... It appears that a "viability" calculation prevented an endorsement of Mike Huckabee. But Romney has Huckabee and Thompson beat on "viability" for the nomination."
• AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "I'm not sure I understand why National Right To Life will be endorsing Thompson. It can't be betting on the winner/getting on the bandwagon. ... This certainly makes for a perfectly fractured pro-life leadership so pro-life advocates can I suppose claim that anyone who wins did so with their help."
• The Corner's David Freddoso: "As Kathryn notes, there is a danger that Fred is already toast, and that would take a lot of power out of their endorsement."
• Captain's Quarters: "The NRLC's selection may be even odder than Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, especially considering that Thompson spoke of his opposition to a Constitutional amendment banning abortions ... Thompson does have a strong pro-life voting record -- but then again, so do Mike Huckabee and Duncan Hunter. ... One has to wonder whether their constituencies will follow along, or see both as cynical ploys for better access later.
• The Corner's Ramesh Ponnuru: "So is this the first time the NRLC has endorsed a presidential candidate who opposed a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution?"
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "The NRLC's Thompson endorsement shouldn't come as a surprise. ... Some have questioned why they would endorse a candidate who opposes a human life amendment, but as far as I understand, the NRLC has long advocated an incremental approach on the abortion issue."
• Freddoso, again, looking ahead: "Of the top 5 GOP candidates, who do you think the NRA will endorse? ... If the answer is Thompson, and there is certainly no guarantee it will be, then FDT will have pocketed 2 core conservative GOP endorsements while having done... not much - that you can report on anyway."

GIULIANI: Results Matter

Conservatives commenting on a conference call with Rudy Giuliani manager Michael DuHaime and pollster Brent Seaborn include:

• RCP Blog's Tom Bevan: "The main point that DuHaime drove home is that Rudy Giuliani is the only candidate who will enter February 5th with a big block of delegates (201, or 1/5th of the total at stake) more or less locked down. If things go as planned, regardless of the outcome of the early contests, when the dust settles on February 6, Rudy Giuliani will emerge as the delegate leader in the Republican race. ... DuHaime conceded they're pursuing a non-traditional path to the nomination, but suggested the calendar this year makes such alternatives very possible. In their view the early contests will not serve to slingshot anyone so much as they will serve to eliminate certain candidates and Rudy, DuHaime said, is not one of the candidates in jeopardy of being eliminated."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "This seems like a plausible scenario -- more plausible than the view that, because no one since Estes Kefauver in 1952 has won a string of early primaries yet lost the nomination, a string of early wins by Romney will end the race."
• AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "Their main message: if you count the delegates and don't buy into the "Iowa/NH momentum trumps all" theory, Rudy is well positioned to take the nomination. ... Bottom line: they continued to stress that Rudy has "multiple paths to victory" and declined to label their effort as only a "February 5" strategy. We'll find out in a couple of months whether they are right."

In less positive Giuliani blogging, Campaign Standard's links to Giuliani comments defending Giuliani friend/ex-NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik record in NY and blogs: "It's an interesting - almost Clintonian - argument: Don't judge the man, judge the performance. It's an argument Giuliani has made before. And as his private life receives additional scrutiny over the next two months - and it will - we will probably hear this line again."

For those looking for resources on the Kerik/Giuliani connection, Talking Points Memo has a "mega-Kerik scandal list here."

HUCKABEE: The Headache That Won't Go Away

Commenting on The Club for Growth's latest Mike Huckabeehit jobRCP Blog 's Tom Bevan blogs: "You knew this was coming: a chubby Mike Huckabee tells the Arkansas legislature - which was overwhelmingly Democratic, by the way - in 2003 that he's kosher with raising taxes on tobacco to generate revenue. I'm not sure this is the poison pill Huckabee's opponents think it is, however."

Cornerites seemed to agree. David Feddoso comments: "Boy, oh boy. Does the Club for Growth have it in for Mike Huckabee." K-Lo adds: "The good news for Huckabee is that most Republican candidates campaigns sent me that video this morning - some more than once. He's a headache they really want gone."

RedState's Erick Erickson tracks Evangelical Outpost's Joe Carter's continued efforts to discredit CFG and writes: "CFG has been bashing the mess out of Huckabee for his record in Arkansas. Joe is firing back, pointing out a donor to CFG is also a huge porker. ... I understand where Joe's coming from on this, but would suggest he might want to refute the message instead of trying to discredit the messenger. ... Let's all be honest - on social policies, there are few if any candidates better than Mike Huckabee. ... But, we need more than the social conservatives to win this thing and Mike's message on executive salaries and carbon offsets scares the crap out of the business community."

PAUL: There's A War Going On Where Now?

Listening to XM Radio, Instapundit reports: "Driving home this afternoon I heard a Ron Paul radio commercial on XM and he's downplaying the war issue, which was his big schtick not long ago. Now it came third, after "amnesty" on immigration and uncontrolled federal spending. And the commercial never used the words "Iraq" or "war" -- it was all about opposing "nation-building" in foreign countries. Apparently the Paul campaign shares my view that the improving situation in Iraq can be turned into a plus for Paul's candidacy, not a minus, if the issues are pitched right."

ROMNEY: Not Messing With A Good Thing

Commenting on AP reports that Mitt Romney is not planning to give a Mormon speech, Campaign Standard's Terry Eastland blogs: "My sense is that he'll not give such a speech so long as he continues to receive endorsements from evangelical pastors and theologians - evangelicals being the least inclined among religiously defined groups to support a Mormon for president. Of importance here is that Romney's evangelical endorsers can speak in terms Romney himself cannot."

RCP Blog's Jay Cost adds: "If Romney is not going to give such a speech - we can infer that his advisers believe that the speech will not increase his share of the vote. Indeed, they might even believe that it will diminish it. To me, this makes intuitive sense. At this point - Romney seems to be doing well with evangelicals in certain regards. ... giving the speech would only draw attention to the one major difference between Romney and Christian conservatives. If they are starting to support him, why do that?"

CLINTON: Edwards Last Best Hope

David Sirota is up in multiplelocales hitting Hillary Clinton for first promising a 'time out' on trade deals but then promising to vote for the Peru trade agreement. Sirota writes: "Sure, I guess technically the two statements don't contradict each other - just like I guess you could technically debate what the definition of "is" is. ... No, I'd say this is talking out of both sides of the mouth."

At The Huffington Post, Katrina vanden Heuvel asks: "Isn't it Time for Mark Penn to Leave Burson-Marsteller?"

EDWARDS: He Didn't Start The Fire

Ben Smith's report that John Edwards strategist Joe Trippi was seen cheerleading Barack Obama chants of "Ready to go. ... Fired up!" fueled growing conspiracy talk on where his loyalties truly lie in the campaign. The Plank's Noam Scheiber (who dismissed the idea) comments: "I'm not sure I'm any closer to buying the idea of Trippi as a double-agent, but, at the very least, he's got a little 'splainin' to do this morning."

Matthew Yglesias adds: "Of course, while it would be inconceivable to me for Trippi to be hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign, one could imagine Barack Obama capturing the nomination and hiring Trippi for something or other so maybe Trippi has perfectly good reasons for playing footsie like this."

OBAMA: Thatcher, Reagan, Bush ... Obama?

Andrew Sullivan's Barack ObamaAtlantic piece is not exciting sympathetic voices:

• Charles Kaiser: "The bottom line here is that Barack is Andrew's latest infatuation. The fact that Sullivan's previous love objects have included Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan ... makes this endorsement slightly less exciting for the rest of us. Personally, despite some of his missteps, I'm still pulling for Barack."
• Ankush at Ezra Klein: "I should've taken Charles Kaiser's advice and skipped Andrew Sullivan's cover story for The Atlantic, about how Barack Obama is the second coming of Christ. It is a stunningly bad piece of work -- reductive, overwrought, bloated, and, perhaps above all, patronizing. ... The remarkable thing here is that I'm an admirer of Obama's, so I'm hardly opposed to people writing about how much they like him. But The Atlantic can do better than this -- much better than this."
• Atrios on Sullivan's "national consensus": "In other words, there's a sensible middle just waiting to be united around stuff... stuff Andy Sullivan believes! It's the "extreme haters on both sides" - those who don't agree with Andy Sullivan about stuff - who prevent the national unity torch from growing large. And if only there were a charismatic candidate who Andy could project all his hopes and dreams into then that candidate would be the uniter! Until he disappoints, and Andy gets a new crush.

More direct doubting of Obama from Ari Melber, this time on Iran: "Obama's Iran resolution aims to check the executive branch in two strokes. First, it purports to define the boundaries of past congressional action. Second, it reiterates the constitutional fact that the president cannot start a war without congressional approval. The first goal is likely to backfire and the second is irrelevant."

RICHARDSON: 2013 Or Bust

The Left Coaster's Ken Camp plugs Bill Richardson's new website 2013 Is Too Late playing off of Hillary Clinton's, Barack Obama's, and John Edwards' failure to commit to withdrawing all troops from Iraq before the end of their first term. Camp pitches: "Unless the war in Iraq is ended as Governor Richardson promises, you can forget the promises other candidates have made regarding universal healthcare, significant action on climate change and the reforms necessary to give our children the finest education system in the world. The money won't be there."

NM SENATE: So Um, Apparently Markos Doesn't Like Martin

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas posts internal Rep. Tom Udall (D) numbers showing Udall comfortably ahead of Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez and comments: "Everyone wants Chavez out of the primary, suggesting he run for one of the House seats opened up by this Senate race. Me, I'd rather see Chavez' career destroyed by Udall in this primary once and for all. The last thing we need is his corrupt ass in Washington in the House, stinking up the Democratic brand and making Latinos look bad. So I hope he's stupid enough to stay in the Senate race. I'll have fun seeing him go down in flames."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Luck, Strategy, And People Skills ... Not Bad Things To Have On A Campaign Either

Monopoly fan Tim Darling posts a "Surefire Strategy" to win at the classic board game and comments: "Monopoly is a game of luck, strategy, and people skills. No strategy will guarantee you a win; that's one of the reasons Monopoly is so interesting. In any given game, a newcomer can beat a lifetime champion. Still, there are a few strategic tips that came out of the computer simulations that will help you best play the odds: you may not win any given game, but in the long run, you'll come out ahead. The "people skills" element isn't captured here. But as a general rule, think about what your opponents want and see if you can engineer a trade with them that's a win/win for you both. That type of negotiating is as vital in Monopoly as it is in real life."

LEST WE FORGET: The End Is Near

The Huffington Post's Dave Hill catches up on his science reading:

Shockwaves rippled through the scientific community and also through most of my apartment today when I read a story on the Internet about a hammerhead shark in Omaha, Nebraska that had experienced a "virgin birth," which is to say that it totally gave birth to a baby hammerhead shark without ever having been banged before.
Scientists from all over the world have been studying the case of the virgin shark birth around the clock and have come to the conclusion that the female hammerhead shark of Omaha gave birth to the baby hammerhead shark through a process known in medical circles as parthenogenesis, which is a Greek word that apparently means "hammerhead shark birth in the absence of hammerhead shark banging, especially when the hammerhead shark in question is totally not a ho even though everyone used to think that but whatever." Greek is a seriously efficient language.

Posted by Conn Carroll at November 13, 2007 12:33 PM