December 07, 2007

12/7: Well, How Did He Do?

Conservative bloggers' reactions to Mitt Romney's speech were largely positive. Most bloggers felt that Romney spoke well and looked "presidential." However, bloggers were split as to what the ultimate impact of the speech would be. Romney's fans (such as Hugh Hewitt and Kathryn Jean Lopez) believe that Romney did a masterful job of re-introducing himself to the electorate and making a personal case for his candidacy. Other bloggers are doubtful that Romney's appeal to evangelical Christians -- emphasizing their shared faith and downplaying their doctrinal differences -- will succeed in convincing them to support him over Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee. NRO's Jonah Goldberg summarized the views of these doubters when he wrote:

"It would have been a great speech had he already won the nomination. But there wasn't a whole lot in there about why he should get the nomination in the first place...I still think he needs to sell evangelicals willing to overlook his Mormonism (but are still concerned by it) why they should vote for him over the much easier pick of Huckabee. And for that he needs to talk about electability, taxes etc. He didn't mention those things today, and he won't have another venue like that again before the voting starts."

ROMNEY: His Day In The Sun

The positive reactions to Romney's speech ranged from lukewarm to rapturous.

CBN's David Brody: "The speech was sweeping, lofty and presidential. He looked natural and spoke passionately. Mitt Romney didn't just look like a President today. He sounded and behaved like one too...if Romney really wanted to make a concerted pitch to Evangelicals in Iowa, he would have played to them more. He didn't. Instead, he came off looking presidential. It felt like a pre-inaugural speech or a State of the Union with faith as the main topic."

Hugh Hewitt: "Mitt Romney's 'Faith in America' speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst. On every level it was a masterpiece. The staging and Romney's delivery, the eclipse of all other candidates it caused, the domination of the news cycle just prior to the start of absentee voting in New Hampshire on Monday -- for all these reasons and more it will be long discussed as a masterpiece of political maneuver."

NRO's Mona Charen: "That was perhaps the best political speech of the year. It was well-crafted and delivered with conviction and -- this is unusual for Romney -- considerable emotion. I thought his contrast of the empty cathedrals of Europe with the violent jihadis was particularly adroit. He managed to make this a speech about patriotism as much as about religion. Brilliant."

Kathryn Jean Lopez: "No longer is [Romney] that guy you're not sure believes anything. He's a decent, successful, experienced exec who gave a stirring speech about American greatness and wouldn't apologize for being a man of faith. A whole host of people seem to be giving him another look, have a newfound respect. The speech strikes me as a grand success."

RedState's Hunter Baker: "Overall, this speech showed tremendous sophistication on religion and politics. I'm not a Mitt supporter. But he listened to someone who understands the issues well. A+++ for this one. Attaboy, Governor Romney."

Beliefnet's Rod Dreher: "It was a very good speech, probably the best that can be expected of a presidential candidate seeking to lead a pluralist democracy. It won't solve his problem with evangelicals and others who find his theological beliefs disqualifying. But he made a respectable -- and to me, quite persuasive -- case for why their concerns are misplaced."

Other conservative bloggers, while praising Romney's delivery, were dubious that the speech would help Romney's candidacy:

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Most of those whose votes Romney seeks will accept the line he seeks to draw between religious faith generally (relevant) and specific church doctrine (irrelevant). Our Founders certainly did, as Romney points out. However, Romney is giving the speech because there are more than a few such voters who are not inclined to accept that line. The speech, which is eloquent and even moving in places, should help Romney with some of these voters, but probably not many."

NRO's David Frum:

"To be blunt, Romney is saying:
It is legitimate to ask a candidate, 'Is Jesus the son of God?'
But it is illegitimate to ask a candidate, 'Is Jesus the brother of Lucifer?'
It is hard for me to see a principled difference between these two questions, and I think on reflection that the audiences to whom Romney is trying to appeal will also fail to see such a difference...
Had he focused instead on simply arguing that presidents need only prove themselves loyal to American values, he would have been on safe ground. Instead, he over-reached, super-adding to his civic appeal an additional appeal to voters who demand faith in Jesus as a requirement in a president. That is an argument that will not work -- and a game Mitt Romney cannot win."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "[Romney] simply cannot elide the profound theological differences between the LDS church and mainstream Christianity...if you are appealing to religious people, especially fundamentalists, on the basis of faith, you cannot logically then ask them to ignore the content of the faith. The religious right have tried to do this with the absurd neologism, the 'Judeo-Christian tradition,' as if the truth-claims of Christianity and Judaism are not, at bottom, contradictory. But the 'Mormon-Judeo-Christian tradition' is a step too far even for those who have almost no principles in using religion for political purposes. I think it's a tragedy that a man of Romney's obvious gifts should be reduced to this. But he asked for it; and the petard he has been hoist on is his own. If you want a religious politics, you'll end up with one. That's why Huckabee is the natural heir to the Rove project. And why Romney is falling behind."

RedState's California Yankee: "Romney would have better off not giving any speech related to his faith. All he accomplished was to reinforce the fact that that he is Mormon."

RedState's Ben Domenech: "If I had to guess? This speech gives Romney a small bump, but a month from now, few people think of it when casting a vote one way or the other."

Several bloggers were surprised that Romney chose to include the following two lines in his speech: "Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world."

NRO's Jim Geraghty called it "the worst line of Romney's speech": "I think those are the wrong words from a guy accused of flip-flopping and shifting his positions from left to right to run for the nomination of a conservative party."

AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "I think whoever thought these lines were a good idea may be queasy about now...This is where some self-awareness would have helped the Romney Team -- if you understand the biggest problem for your guy (credibility/conviction) you shouldn't advertise it in neon lights in the most picked over speech of the campaign."

A number of bloggers on both the left and right felt that Romney's speech alienated non-believers:

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum:

"I can't tell you how much this pisses me off. I'm well aware that this is par for the course among Republican politicians these days, and Romney is doing nothing more than engaging in what's become routine conservative disparagement of those of us who aren't religious. But the cowardice and pandering here is just phenomenal. Not only does Romney not have the guts to toss in even a single passing phrase about the nonreligious, as JFK did, he went out of his way to insist that 'freedom requires religion,' that no movement of conscience is possible without religion, and that judges had better respect our 'foundation of faith' lest our country's entire greatness disappear. And that was just the warmup.

I know, I know. He's just doing what he has to do. Evangelical base and all that. But I'm not religious, and yet, mirabile dictu, I still manage to support freedom, have a conscience, and understand the law. It's repellent to suggest otherwise."

Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham had a similar reaction: "I liked it, but wondered that there was no mention whatsoever of those with no faith at all. They're not a huge voting block, but many of them are patriotic Americans who respect their religious neighbors (not you, Michael Newdow). It would have been nice to hear that they make up part of the symphony as well."

NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru: "It would have been nice if Romney, while making room for people of all faiths in this country, could have also made some room for people with none."

Andrew Sullivan: "In order to appeal to evangelicals, he places himself on their side against the other: the secularists. But that is simply another form of the religious test. By insisting on faith -- any faith -- as the proper criterion for public office, Romney draws the line, oh-so-conveniently, so as to include Mormonism but exclude atheism and agnosticism."

Kathryn Jean Lopez doesn't see what all the fuss is about: "Isn't the freedom to choose not to believe implicit in the freedom to believe? There's no establishment of religion here -- you can not believe. It just seems a given. And I'm fairly confident that is where the Romney speech was coming from -- not from a desire to create or foster or enforce a theoconcracy."

Finally, in a passionate post, RedState's Leon H. Wolf expressed his disgust for GOP voters who won't vote for a Mormon:

"I can't think of anything that's stupider, from a political perspective, than sending a message to one of the most loyal segments of your voting base that they are some sort of second-class citizens: fit to vote, but not actually to govern. It dismays me that there seem to be a lot of people (even here) who either outright think that or are sympathetic to the position, and I'm probably powerless to change that...I encourage everyone to think long and hard about what that attitude means, and what it's likely to get us down the road. We're not electing a pastor, we're electing a President. And if you think some Mormon beliefs sound crazy, you ought to consider how more mainline Christian beliefs sound to someone who hasn't grown up with them, and ponder whether the Bible might actually have something to say about that in the second half of 1 Corinthians 1.

I understand that there are valid reasons that some people don't want to vote for Romney that have nothing to do with his Mormonism, and that's fine. I just wish we could avoid what the media said we couldn't: the rejection of a candidate by a significant number of Republicans because of his religion -- a religion, by the way, that votes overwhelmingly Republican."

HUCKABEE: Shooting The Messenger?

After the Huffington post published two articles by Murray Waas that documented Huckabee's role in pushing for a serial rapist's release, Huckabee called the Huffington Post "one of the most left-wing blogs in the blogosphere" and accused it of "exploit[ing] people's pain for political purposes."

Last night, the website's founder Arianna Huffington fired back at Huckabee on her blog: "The way that Mike Huckabee has handled the furor caused by the Huffington Post's coverage of his role in the release of Wayne Dumond, a serial rapist who went on to rape and kill at least one other woman, has been very revealing. And troubling. It has exposed the dissembling reality behind the charming, articulate, more-preacher-than-politician facade -- and has called into question both his judgment and his integrity. Huckabee's response has been to fudge the truth, point the finger at everyone in sight, and -- that old standby -- blame the messenger...[But] no amount of denials and mudslinging by Huckabee can make the devastating evidence -- and what that evidence reveals about him -- go away."

Meanwhile, several conservative bloggers took a break from writing about Romney's speech in order to rip Huckabee on this issue:

AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "Mike Huckabee keeps falsifying and falsifying, and shifting more and more blame, in the case of rapist Wayne DuMond. Do we really want such a weasel as president? I mean, this is a guy who refuses to accept responsibility for his own mistakes."

Paul Mirengoff: "Although Huckabee disclaims responsibility for the decision that granted Dumond parole, there's no dispute that this is a result he favored...[this] raises serious questions about Huckabee's judgment. In addition, there's the question of whether Huckabee is telling the truth when he claims that he did not influence the board that voted to grant Huckabee parole."

HUCKABEE II: God's Candidate?

Huckabee's comments suggesting that God is responsible for his recent rise in the polls are generating a lot of mockery on liberal blogs (and on a few conservative blogs too):

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Did God want you to let that convicted rapist go too?"

Open Left's Chris Bowers: "What arrogance. I don't know how to read this in any other way than Huckabee thinks he is God's chosen candidate in the Republican primary, and God is smiting the other candidates as a result."

Jim Geraghty: "Wow. Huckabee's been endorsed by both Chuck Norris AND Jesus Christ."

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "If Huckabee's god has chosen him as his favored candidate, will that mean that this god isn't 'all powerful' when Huckabee crashes and burns?"

TAPPED's Paul Waldman: "[I]s Huckabee just saying that God is giving him a temporary bump in the polls, only to send his campaign crashing down later, in order to demonstrate to His earthly subjects the danger of hubris and the importance of early fundraising?"

In spite of all the mockery, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong still thinks it's "Huckabee's race to lose": "Given that polls are now coming out showing that he can also win in the general election against either [Hillary] Clinton or [Barack] Obama, I'd guess that he's going to be a little tested in the coming weeks. If he weathers that storm with a win in Iowa and then follows that up with a win in South Carolina, he's got the nomination wrapped up."

Armstrong also thinks that the new Rasmussen poll of Arkansas voters, which shows Huckabee leading HRC 48-42% and Obama 54-35%, "ought to clam up Obamafans that say he can win in Red States, or those that claim Clinton has a plan other than winning Florida, for the Presidency...There's a lot of '06 hubris out there among Democrats that believe we already have the '08 election locked up for President. That in large part explains why so many Democrats want to make this upcoming election even bigger, by making it a historical statement. More polls like that one coming out of Arkansas ought to at least sober up that viewpoint. I'm not saying that [John] Edwards is the answer (you know who I thought could win), just that we will not walk away with the '08 race against Huckabee -- he will be very difficult to defeat."

HUCKABEE III: A Bright Spot

While the majority of Huckabee-related posts in the past few days have been harshly critical, Huckabee received a bit of good news yesterday in the form of praise from NRO's Mark Krikorian, who likes Huckabee's immigration plan (although it should be noted that Huckabee's plan is modeled after Krikorian's).

Krikorian: "Huckabee has a new immigration plan out, and it's way, way better than anyone would have expected from him...this is a big deal if Huckabee actually campaigns on this."

Hot Air's Allah Pundit questions the sincerity of Huckabee's views: "Note the footnote emphasizing that this is modeled on a plan by Mark Krikorian, something that will buy Huck instant immigration cred with conservatives while also making them wonder if that isn't the whole point -- that perhaps he has no firm convictions on the issue and is cribbing from Krikorian to make him viable on the right on the hottest policy issue there is."

Krikorian thinks conservatives shouldn't hold Huckabee's past views against him: "I understand the reaction, given his track record, but we should always be happy to accept converts; as the Boss has said, 'Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.'"

CLINTON: The Candidate For Union-Busters?

HRC is taking some heat from liberal bloggers due to the fact that her consultant Chris Lehane is now working for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers as it attempts to put down the writers' strike.

Open Left's Matt Stoller wants HRC to sever all ties with Lehane: "Lehane is a Clinton surrogate. He works to get her elected, the campaign feeds him talking points, and he uses them...As for Clinton, this is just another version of the Mark Penn problem, her campaign consultant who works for union busters, Columbia death squads, etc. Hillary Clinton herself is mostly supportive of the writers, though comparing the statements shows that Clinton actually says less than either Edwards or Obama. The pushback I'm going to get on this post from the Clinton campaign is going to be along the lines of 'Clinton supports the WGA', though I find the people she associates herself with incredibly distasteful. Strike breaking is not ok. Clinton knows this. And that's why she should sever all ties with Lehane and Fabiani and put out a statement announcing this."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias quips: "Clintonite spinmeisters Lehane & [Mark] Fabiani go to work for Big Media to help them try to weather the Writer's Guild strike. Presumably, Mark Penn's union-busting practice was unavailable."

Daily Kos' Miss Laura: "'Democratic' consultants Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani are going to work for the AMPTP, trying to help break the WGA strike. I know this is something I'll remember next time a candidate hires either of them."

OBAMA: He's Got The Mo

MyDD's Jonathan Singer links to the new Strategic Vision poll showing Obama leading in Iowa and writes: "These moves from two weeks ago are all within the margin of error for the poll, as is Obama's lead, so as is almost always the case with these things, one need remember not to place excessive attention on the results of a single poll. That said, looking at the trend of all polling out of Iowa, one cannot help but come away with the sentiment that Obama is on a steady rise in the state while Clinton is nearing or has already hit her peak in the state."

Meanwhile, Open Left's Chris Bowers is impressed by the news that Obama's campaign is moving its rally with Oprah Winfrey to a football stadium in Columbia, SC in order to accommodate more people: "Even if people are mainly turning out to see Oprah, this rally is turning into the best voter contact mechanism the Obama campaign could hope for in South Carolina. Directly speaking to, say, 60,000 people, as he is endorsed by one of their favorite media figures, is hard to top. More effective than any paid media campaign I could think of in the state. Imagine if Oprah cut out the middle-man and just ran herself!"

EDWARDS: Rising In The Granite State

Chris Bowers sees good news for Edwards in NH: "My suspicions of a faster Edwards increase were correct. Over the last three weeks, Obama has risen 0.8% in New Hampshire, while John Edwards has risen 3.1%. His rise is to such an extent that, in the even of an Edwards, Obama, Clinton 1-2-3 finish in Iowa, I would slightly favor John Edwards to win both New Hampshire and the overall nomination."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Stop The Iowa Madness

The New Republic's Michelle Cottle thinks we ought to do away with the Iowa caucus:

"I suppose you could argue that anyone who can't be bothered to put in the time necessary to participate in this grand and glorious display of democracy in action doesn't deserve to have their vote count. But that seems a little harsh, considering that the deck is heavily stacked in favor of certain groups who simply have more free time to spend two hours twisting their neighbors arm at these bizarre gatherings -- say, old folks without small kids at home or who don't have to get up for work the next day or who don't have piles of schoolwork to be done.

Iowa's caucus system, as [The Politico's Roger] Simon explains , was originally set up to favor party insiders who devoted large amounts of time and money to the cause. Today, it continues to give an unhealthy amount of clout to a vanishingly small fraction of folks in an already wildly unrepresentative state.

I say kill it before we reach the point where a dozen or so septuagenarian farmers wind up all-but-deciding who the Democratic nominee will be."

LEST WE FORGET: Eco-friendly Kangaroo Farts

Scott Adams reports:

"Scientists have discovered that kangaroos don't fart as much as cows. This is more important than you might think. Cow flatulence is actually a big contributor to global warming. Scientists think they can isolate and transfer the stomach bacteria from kangaroos to cows to make the cows digest more efficiently. Problem solved.
...When I hear a story like this, my first reaction is 'How can I invest in this trend?' I'm going to buy stock in companies that make fence posts, because when the cows get kangaroo bacteria, and it works the opposite way the scientists think, the current fences won't hold them in. Cows will be hopping around like The Incredible Hulk."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at December 7, 2007 12:50 PM