January 15, 2008

1/15: Can Dems Make Michigan Matter?

It's primary day in Michigan, and the consequences, of course, will be far more momentous for the GOP candidates than for the Dems. With the DNC having stripped the state of its delegates and made the Dem primary virtually meaningless, liberal bloggers like Markos Moulitsas are openly rooting for Mitt Romney to win so that John McCain doesn't consolidate his position as the GOP frontrunner. Moulitsas writes:

"If Romney loses Michigan, he's out. If he wins, he stays in. And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us."

Conservative bloggers, meanwhile, are closely watching the race to see if it brings McCain one step closer to the nomination or delivers him a major setback. McCain continues to take incoming fire from a lot of corners (no pun intended) of the conservative blogosphere. While McCain hasn't absorbed quite the level of criticism that Mike Huckabee has, we still wonder how conservative bloggers will react if McCain wins MI and strengthens his grip on the GOP nod.

GOP FIELD: After Last Week, No One Making Predictions

Conservative bloggers are busy discussing the political implications of a McCain victory in MI vs. a Romney victory in MI:

NRO's Mark Hemingway describes the state of the race in MI: "Nobody seems to know anything about what the outcome will be. Just a few days ago polls of the state had McCain up by as much as six, and now Romney is up by about as much. After the fiasco in New Hampshire, no one seems willing to bet the farm on any poll, but there is the sense that Romney has gained some real traction in the state...Then there's the issue of turnout -- there are no reliable turnout models for this election. McCain has been favored largely on the expectation that large numbers of independents and Democrats would turn out to vote for him, since the state has open primaries and because the only major candidate in the Democratic primary is Hillary Clinton...As in prior contests, Romney has more money and a better organization in the state. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, with close polls, Romney's well-funded get-out-the-vote efforts were feared, but they fizzled. While the McCain campaign is certainly hoping lightning will strike three times, but the Romney campaign might have learned something by now from their mistakes. If Romney's GOTV effort is successful and turnout is low, Romney might be looking good."

Campaign Standard's Matthew Continetti describes the potential impact of a Romney win in MI: "Say a combination of a strong showing among Republicans and -- bizarrely -- Democrats influenced by Daily Kos helps Romney win Michigan. The Republican campaign would alter dramatically once again, and chances are by the time that South Carolina and Nevada vote this Saturday Romney would be the national poll leader. Romney would have two gold medals and two silvers. He also would have to spring for a trophy shelf where he could put all the medals he's been collecting. And a split result -- different winners in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan -- would muddy the Republican waters even more, no doubt resulting in a zillion 'Whither the GOP?' newspaper stories and magazine covers."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff describes the potential impact of a McCain win in MI: "A victory [in MI] would make [McCain] the clear front-runner. All other candidates would then have a new incentive to attack him -- the fear that he might coast to the nomination. And South Carolina Republicans, among the most conservative in the country, would have to decide whether to stall McCain's momentum and keep the race wide open. To do so, they would need to unite behind one man. [Fred] Thompson's mini-surge gives him hope that he might be the right man in the right place at the right time."

AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin: "If Romney wins, expect McCain to argue Romney just played on home state sympathies and his father's name...If McCain wins, expect Romney to contend it wasn't the GOP voters who decided it but those dastardly Independents and Democrats. How dare they turn out to vote for a Republican! (Well, except in a general election.) If Huckabee wins, everyone will say 'What?!' and then panic that South Carolina could crown Huckabee the nominee."

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "A win among Republicans in Michigan today will give Romney a boost, and a loss for McCain overall would be a big blow to the Arizona maverick who is widely disliked among GOP rank-and-file. If McCain can't win in Michigan with Democrats and Independents voting, he should pack up the campaign tent."

NRO's Rich Lowry: "A few weeks ago I said that Romney's campaign was on a knife's edge between the nomination and oblivion. The wonderful -- and scary -- thing for McCain is that his campaign is now in exactly the same spot. Two wins this week and he'll be far-and-away the frontrunner; two losses and his campaign might head toward the abyss."

GOP FIELD II: The Netroots Love Mitt

Many leading liberal bloggers are on board with Markos Moulitsas' "Mitt for Michigan" campaign:

TPM's Josh Marshall: "I don't usually speak out on behalf of particular candidates. But tomorrow is Mitt Romney's rendezvous with destiny in Michigan. So I'd like to encourage all TPM Readers, tomorrow morning, to take a moment of silence to send positive thoughts to Mitt Romney and his Michigan field organization or positive karmic energy by whatever means you're most capable of using. Otherwise, it could be the end of the line for Mitt's march on the White House."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "If Romney can stay alive in Michigan and Rudy takes Florida, the GOP nomination process will be a mess. The GOP convention is in September, which gives the candidate who tacks far enough to the right to win the nod about two months to recover for the general. Very tough to do. Remember if you're in Michigan -- vote Romney!"

Moulitsas: "If we help Romney win Michigan, not only does it damage the most popular Republican's short-term chances, but it also gives the least popular Republican a tainted victory. The end result? More clusterfuckery!"

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias actually prefers Romney to the other GOP candidates: "The constant throughout Romney's career is a cautious, paint-by-numbers approach. He's running as a conservative right now, and that means that if he wins he'll govern as a conservative -- no use hoping for him to morph back into the moderate he was in 1994 or 2002. But that said, it seems very unlikely that he'd roll the dice on some hair-brained scheme if elected. He might do major harm, but I think it's relatively unlikely."

NRO's Jim Geraghty thinks Moulitsas' plan -- if it succeeds -- will only embarrass the MI Dem party: "Democrats have a lot of reasons to vote in their own primary; if significant numbers cross over to play mischief in the Republican one, state organizers of the early primary will have a considerable amount of egg on their faces."

MCCAIN: The Mac Is Under Attack

NRO's Mark Levin continues to unload on McCain: "[McCain's] attack on one industry after another...is harmful to all trade -- especially his McCain-Lieberman bill. His opposition to the Bush tax cuts was harmful as well...McCain's position on health care, which would rob 'Big Pharm' of the value of their patents and promote the importation of drugs from Canada and elsewhere, would have little effect on health care costs and create dislocations in the market...And I haven't even dealt with amnesty for illegal aliens -- the legal, economic, and moral bankruptcy of the McCain-Kennedy position."

NRO's Mark Krikorian doesn't trust McCain on immigration: "McCain claims to have heard the voice of the people, and now ostensibly supports enforcing the border before implementing an amnesty (though I haven't heard him support any other prerequisites, like a functioning, universal work-verification system, 100% deportation of criminals upon completion of their sentences, withholding federal funds from cities defying federal immigration law, etc). Well, not only do immigration hawks not believe his transparently insincere claims to support enforcement, but his allies don't believe him either."

Meanwhile, Rich Lowry is amazed by McCain's rise to the top of the GOP field: "Democrats hit 'pause' on [Barack] Obama in New Hampshire; will Republicans do the same to McCain? Or will he sweep to a commanding position for the nomination in the space of about a week and a half of voting (from NH to Michigan to SC)? It's amazing that he could be so close to the nomination without anyone ever bringing up in the debates or in an ad how he bitterly stomped off from his party after losing to Bush in 2000 and basically joined forces with Senate Democrats for a couple of years. Is this so uninteresting to Republican voters that it doesn't even deserve to be raised by another candidate?"

Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey thinks McCain should attend CPAC this year: "I attended CPAC last year (and I will again this year), and we widely criticized John McCain for skipping it. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sam Brownback all made time for the biggest collection of grass-roots conservative organizers in 2007. [McCain] could have buried a few hatchets with a one-day bungee visit, but instead pointedly shrugged off the conservative base. That may loom a little large as a bitter memory among the activists who gathered there. He could, of course, drop by this year's CPAC, but it comes after the Super Tuesday primary on February 5th. It could help him rally the base if he manages to win the nomination."

Right Wing News' John Hawkins -- who is no fan of McCain -- notes that McCain outperforms his GOP rivals in head-to-head matchups with the Dem frontrunners: "Although I'm certainly not a fan of John McCain, in the interests of fairness, I do think I should point out that his head-to-head polling numbers vs. Obama and in particular, against Hillary, are really good...at the moment, McCain looks to be several orders of magnitude stronger than the other Republican candidates."

ROMNEY: Going For Gold

Romney's former driver Dean Barnett -- who used to blog at Townhall and who now writes for The Weekly Standard -- defends Romney (while harshly criticizing his campaign strategy) in The New York Times:

"I often marvel at how the public perception of Mr. Romney differs so radically from the man I know. The blame for this lies in the campaign he has run.

Early in the presidential race, Mr. Romney perceived a tactical advantage in becoming the campaign's social conservative. Religious conservatives and other Republicans with socially conservative views found the two early front-runners, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, unacceptable. As someone who shares the beliefs of social conservatives, Mr. Romney saw an opportunity that he could exploit. He made social issues the heart of his candidacy. [...]

Voters perceived the cynicism of a campaign that tried to exploit wedge issues rather than focus on the issues that in truth most interested the candidate. They sensed phoniness. As a consequence, many have grown to feel that Mitt Romney can't be trusted. This lack of trust is now the dominant and perhaps insurmountable obstacle that the Romney campaign faces. [...]

I hope Mr. Romney does well enough in Michigan today that he gets the opportunity to introduce the public to the real Mitt Romney. He is a wonderful and gifted guy. It would be nice if he and his campaign allowed the voters in on that secret."

Townhall's Matt Lewis thinks GOP voter insecurity could benefit Romney in MI: "Granted, this is me playing psychologist, but I think there's a good chance Republican voters are so unhappy and insecure with their choices, they will vote to keep any one candidate from wrapping up the nomination. Mind you, I have no proof of any of this. But it seems to me to be much easier to give a candidate a chance at the nomination (as Iowa and New Hampshire have done for Huckabee and McCain, respectively) than it is to ratify that decision (as McCain is hoping Michigan will do)...As such, voters who are experiencing anxiety will have an easier time pulling the lever for Romney. Voting for Romney only means he stays in the game. But voting for McCain means he has a strong chance of winning the nomination."

RedState's Erick Erickson predicts a win for Romney in MI: "As polls open in Michigan, I'm going to go on and call it. I say Mitt Romney wins Michigan today, which is going to make him extremely competitive going into Super Tuesday. I predict that, not only will he relaunch his campaign, but it'll be themed as 'unleashing the real Mitt Romney.' There'll be a purge of consultants, etc. I take this as anticipating my prediction. Whether the voters really buy it is going to be interesting to watch. BTW, I think a Romney victory today is going to impact John McCain in South Carolina and given an opening for Huckabee and Thompson."

Jim Geraghty has some inside information: "I spoke to my Romney guy. They're not making any predictions, but they feel pretty good about tomorrow. Perhaps the most interesting nugget was the revelation that Team Romney has the potential for a significant margin among those who vote by absentee ballot...He paints the polls as putting his man up among Republicans, running about even among independents, but 'getting creamed' among Democrats who may cross over and vote in the GOP primary."

HUCKABEE: Too Edwardsian?

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez reproduces a Huckabee quote from one of the ex-governor's campaign stops in MI:

"'For those of us for whom summer is not a verb, for those of us who didn't go to fancy boarding schools on the east coast, for those of us who didn't grow up with a silver spoon, who were lucky to have a spoon -- ask those folks and they'll tell you the economy is not doing well for them,' says Huckabee."

Lopez is not pleased: "Governor, I didn't have silver spoons or boarding schools or a verb summer, but I know enough to thank God for the job creators, the natural economic stimulators, capitalism. Is this the Republican primary or a John Edwards rally?"

GIULIANI: Hoping For A Fractured Field

Rich Lowry analyzes Giuliani's strategy:

"We now know two things: 1) No, [Rudy's] national lead wouldn't hold up under the stress of poor showings in the early states. McCain's national surge shows how the best way to boost your national numbers is to win early states; 2) His lead in Florida wouldn't hold up under the stress of those losses either. He is now slightly behind McCain in the RCP average there. But there's one thing we don't know: 3) Will the field stay fractured in precisely the way Rudy needs to try to make a comeback? It won't if McCain wins tomorrow and wins South Carolina. It will if Romney wins tomorrow and if Fred or Huckabee wins South Carolina.

Finally, a lot of people have been awfully hard on Rudy's strategy, but remember: he tried in some of the early states, and especially in New Hampshire and it just didn't work for him. This was the only strategy that was left. As the only option, it's the best option."

THOMPSON: Taking Off In SC?

NRO's Peter Robinson thinks Thompson has momentum in SC: "All eyes are naturally enough on the Michigan primary [today] -- all eyes, that is, except mine, Jonathan Adler's, and those belonging to readers of this happy Corner who have been wondering, along with Jonathan and me, when the polls down in South Carolina would finally begin to move in Fred Thompson's direction. Now, Rasmussen reports, they have. Fred ain't dead. Lately, as the South Carolina debate demonstrated to all the world, he ain't even drowsy."

DEM FIELD: Nevada Polls Should Be Taken With a Large Grain of Salt

Many liberal bloggers don't trust the new Reno Gazette-Journal poll of likely NV caucus-goers:

Markos Moulitsas: "How the heck do you poll 'likely caucus goers' in a state that has never had a presidential caucus this early? It's the reason why other polling outfits have stayed clear. NH was tough enough to poll. An Edwards victory here could be rejuvenating, but his problem here is still money. He doesn't have the funds to capitalize on any momentum in the big, expensive, February 5th states. I'll eat crow if I blow this call, but I'm not too worried that my vegetarianism is in any danger."

MyDD's desmoulins: "I'm still very skeptical that anyone knows who will turnout Saturday so horse-race polling is not really worth the effort...Still, this confirms to me that a) Obama has gotten a big media hit out of the endorsements, which may or may not translate into votes on Saturday (more on turnout in a future posting) and b) Edwards still enjoys a high degree of support, though how well that will translate into delegates given the shoestring budget is hard to predict."

Open Left's Chris Bowers: "I think the results of the Research 2000 poll (O 32%, C 30%, E 27%) that came out today is even more significant than first thought. While Mason-Dixon showed a close campaign in Nevada well before Iowa (Clinton only led 34%--26% in their most recent poll), the previous Research 2000 poll from mid-November has shown Clinton ahead 45%-20%-12%. While there is good reason to doubt all primary polling after New Hampshire, and good reason to doubt a new frontier like the Nevada caucus in particular, it now seems likely to me that Obama is ahead in Nevada."

However, Bowers still thinks HRC is the frontrunner for the nomination: "An Edwards Nevada win would be a shocker that would really shake the campaign up. An Obama Nevada win would probably lead to a comfortable South Carolina win, making the national campaign a dead heat entering Super Tuesday. Basically, keeping the campaigns close requires the next four states to each take the frontrunners, Clinton and McCain, down a couple of pegs."

Meanwhile, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong notes that HRC has a 16-point lead in the new LA Times/CNN/Politico poll of CA LVs: "Clinton's lead is pretty strong; coupled with an expected Florida pick-up, where Clinton is polling ahead of Obama by 21% (52-31-9), it makes South Carolina pivotal for Obama to re-gain momentum. Edwards needs a miracle on the LV strip to happen."

CLINTON: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

Liberal bloggers are debating whether or not the Clinton campaign deliberately forced a conversation about race:

Ezra Klein thinks so:

"I think there's now enough evidence to glean the outline of the strategy. In just the last month or two, you've had Clinton's New Hampshire co-chair, Bill Shaheen, bring up Obama's drug use (a highly racially charged subject, of course), and you've had BET Founder Bob Johnson allude to the same...it's hard to imagine this many sophisticated, liberal political operators making this many mistakes, of this type. Not saying it's impossible, merely hard to imagine. And so it's worth wondering if there's not a coordinated strategy among the Clintons to force a conversation over race. Not a conversation that will be harmful to Obama -- the Clintons have, after all, had to spend a fair amount of time apologizing, and clarifying -- but a conversation that will be harmful to his message. If Obama has to spend a lot of time talking about race, it's hard for him to be the post-racial candidate. If he has to spend a lot of time on divisive topics, it's hard for him to make an appeal for unity. And if he gets thrown off message at this point in the campaign, it will be exceedingly hard for him to blunt Clinton's momentum. And, whether it's a coordinated strategy on the part of the Clintons or not, it's definitely what's happening."

Matthew Yglesias agrees: "[HRC's] campaign's strategy seems to be to taunt Obama and his supporters into calling her and her campaign a bunch of racists, and then because [white] people outnumber [black] people she wins an election that's all about race. It's cynical as hell, and I don't want to be a part of it. Now Bill Clinton's on the radio whining that Obama called Hillary a racist when Obama never did any such thing. Nor will I call her one, it's a red herring that Clinton's people have injected into the campaign instead of trying to make a stronger affirmative case for their candidate."

Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "There is no doubt now that the Clinton campaign has decided to make a major campaign issue of Obama's decades-old personal behavior...first you had Billy Shaheen basically calling Obama a drug dealer. Then Mark Penn sleazily dropping the c-word on 'Hardball.' Now Johnson. This is obviously not a series of accidents. This is the strategy. Here's the irony: by making Obama's personal life a campaign issue, the Clintons are giving aid and comfort to the Richard Mellon Scaifes of the world, who for years have played the same dirty game. And in doing so, Bill and Hillary are spitting right in the face of those of us who defended them against those tactics. Every Democrat who has for 16 years insisted that personal behavior has no place in political debate is now made a fool. Unforgivable."

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "For the most part, it strikes me that each of the individual offenses has been blown out of proportion...But as I told my correspondent on Saturday, 'it's unquestionably a helluva coincidence that they all popped up at once.' And that was before Sunday's odious (and non-disavowed) attack from BET Founder Robert Johnson...All I can say is: from where I sit this looks both deliberate and revolting. Another few days of comments like the ones we've seen over the past week and my mind will be firmly made up about who to vote for. And it won't be Hillary."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis is simultaneously disgusted and impressed by what he perceives as the cleverness of the Clintons' strategy: "While I'm divided on Hillary's harsh tactics against Obama in the primaries, that kind of take-no-prisoners politics is exactly what we need, and often lack, in the general election. I'm just not sure I like to see it done against fellow Democrats. Take the recent spate of subtle, many would say racially-tinged, knocks the Clinton camp has been throwing at Obama...The way the Clinton campaign has framed these issues, and the debate surrounding them, if Obama engages in a tit-for-tat with Hillary, all he will do is remind people that he's black (by saying 'no my campaign is NOT about race' Obama is still talking about race while saying he's not), and he'll be reminding people, or educating them for the first time, that he dallied with drugs as a kid (e.g., 'Hillary should stop the personal attacks about my youthful drug use') -- it's simply impossible to respond to Clinton's attacks, and denials, without further the discussion about the very topics Obama doesn't want us to talk about."

The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen doesn't know whether the racially-charged comments are part of a coordinated campaign strategy or not: "Are comments with racial subtexts harmless incidents that are being blown out of proportion, or are they part of a deliberate, divisive campaign strategy? Are the incidents that have drawn attention random, unrelated data points, or part of a calculated strategy?...In the big picture, there certainly are a lot of these incidents, but whether it's part of a pattern or not is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder. I'd just add this: the sooner we get past this, the sooner it will be for the candidates, the campaigns, and the party."

TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat agrees with Benen: "Whether there was any intentional campaign work on the issue of race by the Obama and Clinton camps in the past few days, it is clear that any further skirmishing on this issue is counterproductive to both [sic] and to the Democratic Party. If there was strategy behind the efforts of anyone, it behooves them -- and US -- as Democrats, to leave this ugly interlude behind us. The evidence for the claiming of race exploitation as a deliberate campaign strategy by either Clinton and/or Obama is sketchy at best. We can never know for sure if one or either did this. And sheer speculation by them and us is not helpful to either candidacy and to the Democratic Party."

Chris Bowers doesn't see a deliberate strategy on the part of the Clinton campaign: "Functionally, I agree that the result of this exchange is a win for the Clinton campaign...However, I just don't see some sort of group decision-making process behind the varied comments by Shaheen, Cuomo, Johnson, both Clintons, or the Nevada NEA. Not only do I seriously doubt these people all got together and discussed strategy on this matter, but no campaign is so powerful and well-organized as to not only have a wide array of surrogates on message, but to have them so perfectly on message that even a series of off-hand remarks actually fit into some greater message plan. Further, as far as trying to pin this on the Obama campaign and refusing to apologize for any remarks, that just seems like classic Clinton behavior more than anything else, since they generally refuse to apologize for anything at all. In other words, I'll go with Josh Marshall's second option, 'that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama.'"

Meanwhile, Jane Hamsher wants unity: "I frankly don't see how we win the next election without both Clinton and Obama on the ticket in some order. If the antagonism we see online is any evidence, coming together again as a party without it is going to be awfully difficult...It certainly would be an unbeatable and historic combination, ushering in an era where we can hopefully begin to talk about these things. And after the damage that their mutual mud slinging contest has done to any kind of future coalition, the onus may be on them to suck it up for the good of the country."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why McCain's Winning

Patrick Ruffini analyzes McCain's surge in national polls:

"Why this dramatic movement? Because McCain has won, and in politics, you win by winning not retreating. Winning or exceeding expectations in primaries is seen as a proxy for victory in the fall. This is why [John] Kerry was seen as the most 'electable' when Edwards was in point of fact the most electable. Ditto for Bush-McCain in '00.

McCain is now aggregating two-thirds to three-quarters of the McCain-Rudy bloc, inverting polling from most of the year. Either's path to the nomination was always going to mean disqualifying the other. McCain is doing it. [...]

McCain is sitting pretty right now because the 'conservative alternative' represents maybe half the movement. This is not a diss on social conservatives taking their place as leaders in the party. In fact, the Huck strategy is working out better than the Rudy strategy of trying to do it just with economic conservatives. Never before has there been a clearer need for a candidate authentically conservative on both social and economic issues. The trouble is that we don't have a candidate like that who satisfies the 'who can win' (in the primary) requirement right now.

What would it take for McCain to lose this lead? A lot more than it would have taken a week ago. Team Romney has taken solace in a series of Michigan polls showing them ahead. The problem is that Michigan will not inspire the wall-to-wall coverage of IA/NH, so there's not as big a bounce to be had. Knocking McCain back down to earth would probably take a series of disappointing second or thirds in Michigan, in South Carolina, and in Florida. And even then, it will be at the hands of different winners, so it's not clear who get momentum at his expense."

LEST WE FORGET: The Politics of Sex

In case you missed it, Playboy magazine conducted a nationwide survey on the "politics of sex." Political Wire's Taegan Goddard lists some of the key findings:

• More people under 40 have sex at least once a week than vote for president once every four years.
• 25% of all Republicans and 35% of all Democrats have had more than 10 sexual partners in their lifetime -- a higher percentage than vote in congressional and local elections.
• 55% of Republicans have sex at least once a week, compared with just 43% of Democrats.
• 14% of Thompson supporters and 12% of Obama supporters claim to have sex "almost every day." Just 5% of Clinton and Giuliani supporters have sex that frequently.
• 58% of respondents think Bill Clinton was the sexiest president of the past 40 years; Ronald Reagan is second, with 22%.
• 38% say Richard Nixon was the least sexy; Bill Clinton is second, with 18%.
• 23% of all Republicans and 24 percent of all Democrats would "definitely" or "probably" say yes to a one-night stand in the Oval Office with a president they found physically and sexually attractive.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 15, 2008 12:57 PM