January 31, 2008

1/31: Can't Buy Me Love

Conservative bloggers are ripping John McCain for several of the statements he made during last night's CNN/Politico/Los Angeles Times debate. Many bloggers are criticizing the AZ senator for claiming (dishonestly, in their view) that Mitt Romney supported a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Other bloggers are criticizing McCain for his statement about the subprime mortgage crisis, when he said, "There's some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished." Finally, several bloggers are criticizing McCain for his proposed solutions to global warming. Jim Geraghty's reaction to McCain's debate performance typified that of many conservative bloggers:

"[McCain's] energy level was down, he chuckled at his own jokes when no one else was, he seemed a little nastier than warranted to Romney, he left (mild) criticism of his record unaddressed, and we saw little sign that he's ready to reach out to skeptical conservatives."

In a more positive development for McCain, his campaign has indicated that the AZ senator plans to attend this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (more commonly known as "CPAC") on Feb. 7-9. If McCain does very well on Feb. 5th, CPAC will provide him with an excellent forum to reach out to conservatives and (possibly) get some of them behind him. But he has a big mountain to climb. Mary Katharine Ham describes McCain's opportunity and challenge:

"When CPAC rolls around, Feb. 5 will have told us much more about the state of the presidential race. If [McCain]'s coming out of the tsunami a winner, he'll have to use the CPAC pulpit to preach some serious conservative conversion. Or, at least communicate that his disdain for border security and tax cuts have decreased dramatically, and his 'Maverick' sensibilities won't turn him into the best friend of a Democratic Congress...Maybe he can make some inroads this year. We shall see. He's gonna have to do something to help conservatives trust him on anything other than the war."

DEBATE MCCAIN: Weak Sauce

Most conservative bloggers were not impressed by McCain's performance last night:

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "John McCain won over few if any conservatives tonight, and his display of bad temper and his rambling filibuster of his wrongful 'timetables' attack on Romney from last weekend may even have lost him some moderates."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "This struck me as McCain's worst performance of the campaign. He seemed -- understandably -- exhausted. He kept pushing some untruths about Romney's position on Iraq. He seemed vague and unfocused on the economy. He was also more aggressive in swiping at Romney who was more civil and more engaging than I have seen so far."

Many conservative bloggers criticized McCain for what they considered his unfair attack on Romney's commitment to the surge:

Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey: "[McCain] made a very poor showing in trying to falsely stretch a Romney quote from April into an endorsement of a withdrawal. That's not only ridiculous, it's blatantly a smear."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "With any luck, few Americans tuned in to tonight's Republican debate. Those who did saw our likely nominee at his worst. McCain not only persisted in his dishonest claim that Mitt Romney supported a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq, he used one evasion after another to try to make it stick."

Power Line's Scott Johnson: "Although McCain's military service provides some insulation against reaction to his low blows against Romney, it is not even clear to me that they have enhanced his candidacy in any way. On the contary, given his own record on the point in issue regarding support for the surge, I am struck by the lack of necessity for McCain's tactics, as well as by their revelation of the least attractive qualities of his otherwise sterling character. McCain's low blows seem to me to betray his hatred of Romney more than his poltical skill. I doubt they are the mark of a great politician, and I doubt that he will hate his Democratic rival as much as he hates Romney."

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "It was odd that McCain didn't act like a frontrunner. I know why he was stubborn on 'timetable' but besides it being dishonest, it just wasn't necessary. He could make the point that he thinks Romney is inexperienced another way -- you know, with straight talk."

Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham: "[McCain is] fair in taking Romney to task for not taking a position on the surge sooner, but he's not fair in using the 'timetables' quote against him, and that little bit of overreach dominated the conversation. Instead of asserting his own expertise and the fact that he was right three years ago, McCain went for a defense of an obviously wrong attack on Romney, thus weakening the very strong argument for himself. Silly and unnecessarily antagonistic. 'Weak sauce,' as the kids say."

Conservative bloggers also criticized McCain for making the following statement on the subprime mortgage crisis:

"I think that we've got to return to the principle that you don't lend money that can't pay it back. I think that there's some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished."

Michelle Malkin: "Not a word about the greedy homeowners and their brokers who pitched in. Is this the Democrat or GOP debate? I thought John Edwards dropped on. Turns out he's on stage at the Reagan Library!"

NRO's Mark Steyn: "[McCain's] line about 'some greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished'...reveals, I think, one of the most unpleasant aspects of McCain. For a so-called 'maverick', he's very comfortable with the application of Big Government power, and the assumption of Big Government virtue. Undoubtedly there are 'greedy people on Wall Street'. Why should he and his chums be the ones who decide whether they need to be 'punished'?"

Glenn Reynolds: "I heard a typically sad-toned NPR story on subprimes tonight, and despite their best efforts to evoke the Joads it was a story of people who 'used their houses like ATMs,' taking out home equity loan after home equity loan when they started with a subprime mortgage, only to wind up owing far more than their houses were worth and unable to make the payments. Boo hoo. Shouldn't there be a price for being an idiot? And -- despite not being on Wall Street -- a greedy idiot? Why does McCain want to bail these people out? Why does he want to put Wall Street people in jail?"

DEBATE ROMNEY: Where's The Outrage?!?

Conservative bloggers thought that Romney gave a solid performance but didn't do enough to dethrone McCain:

Michelle Malkin: "Romney is doing fine, but there's no aggression, no fight in him. He seems resigned and subdued. I think he is too nice and too fundamentally decent to dethrone McCain."

Jim Geraghty: "Mitt Romney had all the reason in the world to explain to every Republican primary voter across the country that the good of the party required them to support him over McCain. I don't think he did it. I think he was too genteel, too refined, too lightly pleasant. If McCain is the disaster for the party that his detractors claim, we needed to hear why tonight. I can't see how somebody can watch this and say, 'Romney really took it to McCain tonight.'"

Mary Katharine Ham: "Romney, I thought, was very good but still not electric enough to electrify people. He should have laid into Johnny Mac pretty hard a few good times and he would have had the base-conservative masses at his feet. He looked very sharp tonight, sounded very good on economic issues -- entitlements and the follies of 'cap-and-trade' particularly. But still, missing a bit of something."

NRO's Mark Hemingway: "I think I can say that Romney was the clear winner in the debate. He showed an admirable fighting spirit, though it's probably too little too late."

AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "I don't think Romney accomplished enough to change the dynamics of the race."

AmSpec Blog's John Tabin: "While I don't think it will matter a great deal, I think Romney won this debate in a walk...[He] held his own, and he hit McCain on his record without seeming rude. Now, Romney needed more than a win, and I agree with Phil: I doubt that this debate changed the dynamics of the race."

Hugh Hewitt: "Romney's third conscutive strong performance in a debate will almost certainly lead to a rise day-to-day over the next six days in key states, but whether he rises fast or far enough depends primarily on the [Mike] Huckabee voters' recognition that continued allegiance to the Huck spells a McCain nomination and all that means for the next nine months."

MCCAIN: Time To Enter The Meat-Grinder

Several conservative bloggers are discussing the news that McCain plans to attend this year's CPAC:

NRO's Stanley Kurtz: "McCain has got to address his problem with conservatives. It's a must. That means enduring booing, if he must, and pushing through it with a genuinely reconciling speech. In the end, it would help McCain far more than it would hurt him to endure such a test. The image of McCain dealing with the boos, remaining gracious (which would also help with the temper accusations), and making genuine gestures to conservatives would be powerful. But I see no reason to wait till CPAC, and every reason for McCain to make major public efforts at reconciliation before then. Speed would help, and would also perhaps ease the way at CPAC."

Mark Hemingway adds: "Whatever happens at CPAC, it needs to be part of a broader outreach to the elements of the conservative base that distrust McCain. McCain doesn't need to kow-tow to anybody, but a little respect and humility towards his conservative critics would go a long way."

NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru thinks McCain has other things to worry about: "If he's the nominee, I actually don't think repairing relations with conservatives is going to be his biggest problem. His biggest problem is going to be the one that Romney has identified over the last few weeks -- he doesn't seem to care about economics enough to have developed and internalized a compelling message on it, and he isn't a particularly credible messenger either. He may have a weakness on domestic policy as a whole."

Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty thinks some of the conservative criticism of McCain is too strong: "McCain's conservative rating from the American Conservative Union in 2006 was 65 (bleh) but his lifetime record is 82.3 at the end of that year...I'll also note that when McCain takes a position to the left of his party or to the conservative base, it's not on quiet, little-noticed issues. Campaign finance reform. The Gang of 14. The immigration deal. The Bush tax cuts...But year after year, there's been a lot of pro-life votes, a lot of defense spending bills, welfare reform efforts, the Republican Revolution of the mid-1990s, voting to impeach Clinton on both counts, Supreme Court justices, etc. As discussion of Republican primary choices has gotten more heated, I think the terms 'liberal', 'not conservative' and 'not as conservative as I would like' have become synonyms, and that shouldn't be the case."

DEM FIELD: Vewy Intewesting...

Several liberal bloggers are commenting on the latest Gallup tracking poll, which shows Barack Obama closing the gap with Hillary Clinton to just 6 points nationally:

TPM's Josh Marshall: "You've probably seen the Gallup poll out today that shows a mere 6 points separating Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama nationwide. More striking to me than the number though is the trendline...Ten days ago, Hillary had a 20 point margin. Then starting about a week ago, Barack's been edging up and she's been edging down a little less than a point a day. What's striking to me about this is the continuing volatility even after Obama's break out in Iowa. Usually the underdog/insurgent candidate (which Obama mainly is, but not so much on the money side) has a big run up in support after an early win. But once you have that, what's the next boffo news story that drives up your numbers again? Particularly after you've fallen back? You need some major development to reshuffle the deck. And it seemed to happen around the 20th of the month."

MyDD's Todd Beeton: "Notice that Obama had closed the gap to just 4 points after winning in Iowa but Clinton returned to her national double digit dominance after the surprise result in New Hampshire. Marshall notes that Obama's new surge began on January 20th, which, oddly enough, was the day after Clinton won the popular vote in Nevada. Could it be that the dirty tricks message the Obama team injected into the narrative post-Nevada got through?...Moving forward it will be fascinating to see how John Edwards's absence from the race impacts these results."

MyDD's Jonathan Singer notes that a new Rasmussen poll shows Obama coming on strong in CA: "It's important to note that a whole lot of Californians have already voted, so late breaking trends in the state could end up being less pronounced in terms of actual results. Note, for instance, that in Florida, which also has early voting, Obama actually beat Hillary Clinton 53 percent to 47 percent among those deciding in the last month who to vote for but nevertheless lost overall 50 percent to 33 percent. Nevertheless, most signs are pointing to serious movement by Obama in California (and in Massachusetts, as well, where he's now polling within 6 points). Whether it will be enough to overcome Clinton's advantage, which is compounded by her success at shoring up early support, remains to be seen."

TAPPED's Tom Schaller: "I'm not sure how much these polls mean, but Barack Obama is now leading Hillary Clinton in Georgia and Colorado, states he never led her before this month and, in Colorado's case, this week. Ditto for Connecticut, where as of today he is now tied with Clinton. And in Arizona, he's cut her earlier lead of about 20 points in half. Other states -- including big, critical states like California, Massachusetts and New Jersey -- seem to be holding steady for Clinton, and Alabama is trending toward her...And then there is the wildcard of the Edwards' supporters. I mean, who really knows what the hell is going to happen on Tuesday? Boy, this is getting really, really interesting."

Open Left's Chris Bowers thinks Edwards' withdrawal from the race benefits HRC: "In trying to determine if Edwards supporters will break more for Clinton or Obama, there are two main factors to consider: momentum and demographics. First, which candidate currently has the momentum in the campaign? When a candidate drops out of a campaign, his or her supporters tend to break for the candidate with the most momentum at that time. In this case, that appears to be Obama, given that he has gained on Clinton for five consecutive days in the Gallup national tracking poll...Then again, looking the information from the five exit polls (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida) Obama might have needed Edwards to stay close on February 5th. Edwards performed well among whites and voters aged 40-65, both of which are demographics that favor Clinton...Combine these two factors, and it is difficult to say for certain where Edwards supporters will turn nationwide. My instincts tell me that Obama faces a much more difficult campaign now, since he could have pointed to the combined totals of his delegates and Edwards delegates as a means of staying in the campaign longer."

Open Left's Mike Lux agrees that Obama is facing big obstacles: "If I were running the Obama campaign, I would be a little worried. The fact that Hillary still won [FL] easily after four days in a row of strong, positive publicity for Obama because of the combination of the SC win and the Kennedy endorsements is not such a good sign for Obama in terms of this nationwide primary. It's a sign of how big a hill they still have to overcome to try to make up what is clearly a natural advantage for the Clintons...Obama is running a far more effective campaign than they were a few days back. They got knocked off their stride by Clinton tactics, and Obama was looking defensive. But he is now running a very strong campaign. The question is, can that strong campaign, going toe-to-toe with another strong campaign, overcome the natural Clinton lead, and win? And Edwards not being around to split the white vote in the South and Midwest isn't going to help."

OBAMA: Drawing Distinctions

Liberal bloggers are noting that Obama sharpened his critique of HRC's foreign policy views in a speech in Denver yesterday, during which the IL senator said:

"It's time for new leadership that understands that the way to win a debate with John McCain is not by nominating someone who agreed with him on voting for the war in Iraq; who agreed with him by voting to give George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran; who agrees with him in embracing the Bush-Cheney policy of not talking to leaders we don't like; and who actually differed with him by arguing for exceptions for torture before changing positions when the politics of the moment changed.

We need to offer the American people a clear contrast on national security, and when I am the nominee of the Democratic Party, that's exactly what I will do. Talking tough and tallying up your years in Washington is no substitute for judgment, and courage, and clear plans. It's not enough to say you'll be ready from Day One -- you have to be right from Day One."

MyDD's Todd Beeton: "We know that Hillary Clinton's strategy for running against John McCain is to play up what she has in common with him -- experience, especially on national security matters -- so, it makes sense that Barack Obama would take the opposite tack, playing up his differences from McCain, returning to the meme that judgment trumps experience."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias likes what he hears: "That's more like it...Obviously, Obama, too, would have some problems against John McCain who'll argue that he's too green. But the basic spirit here seems correct to me. You want to argue that discontentment with the fruits of Bush's policies should cause you to vote against John McCain, and the best argument you can make to that effect is that Bush and McCain have very similar records. But to make that argument, you need to be able to step a couple of paces back from your opponent and really wind up and throw a solid punch."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis is surprised by Obama's attack: "Wow. I'm a bit surprised by the tenor of the attack, and by the attack at all...It's possible that the Obama folks are reacting to exit polls from South Carolina and Florida that showed more Dem voters thought Hillary was being too nasty than thought he was being too nasty. Though, it's not clear that the appropriate lesson from the polls is to get nastier. But, Obama may have read this as an opening. Also, this could be a reaction to Hillary campaigning in Florida the past few days -- and that's exactly what she did -- in violation of the agreement that all the candidates accepted that no one would camapign in Florida...That's pretty ballsy, and duplicitous, and this may be Obama's retaliation."

AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay has a different take: "Obama is using Hillary's language -- the very language she used against him. He kept talking about 'Day One.' That was a trademark term of Hillary's stump speech. Obama has turned it on her, which is actually somewhat masterful...I don't see what Obama did as all that negative. To me, he went on the offense -- trying to throw the Clinton campaign off their game. We keep hearing that Obama needs to show Democrats that he can play to win, that he can take on the Republican machine in the general election. I think that's what he's showing us. I really don't see it as negative and mean or 'blistering.' I mean come on, if Barack wanted to get ugly about the 90s, there is plenty to throw out there. But that's not what the Obama did."

Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Kennedy praises Obama in a Daily Kos diary: "As someone who entered the Senate at the age of 30, I want to reiterate what I said on Monday. Barack Obama has more than enough experience to handle the job. What counts in our leadership is not the length of years in Washington, but the reach of our vision, the strength of our beliefs, and that rare quality of mind and spirit that can call forth the best in our country and our people...Even rarer -- and more powerful -- is the movement of inspired Americans powering the Obama campaign. This is proof to me that an Obama presidency will be a transformational moment for our country. I've endorsed a leader not only with tremendous intelligence and skill, but a leader who has the extraordinary ability to move our country past the politics of fear and personal destruction and make Americans want to be part of something bigger than themselves."

OBAMA II: Ruling The Interwebs

While Obama trails HRC in most national polls, it's a different story online:

The Nation's Ari Melber is impressed by Obama's online popularity: "Obama's videos keep breaking campaign records -- his rebuttal to the State of the Union drew over 700,000 views in two days -- and some people are uploading their own grassroots videos on his behalf. A new site, YouBama.com, invites people to join a 'citizen generated campaign' to advance Obama's candidacy...Since its launch this week, with a plug from the hot blog TechCrunch, YouBama has drawn 22,000 visitors. That's solid for a new, unfunded site, though it won't catch Obama's YouTube channel anytime soon. That portal has drawn over 11 million views -- about ten times that of Hillary Clinton -- and it is the most viewed channel across YouTube this week...Of course, Obama's online popularity says little about how most people will vote, as I've noted before. But it does reflect a sizable public appetite for hearing directly from the candidates about substance -- rather than the punditry, strategy and polls that dominate campaign media coverage."

In another example of Obama's online popularity, a 14-year-old DailyKos blogger from Minnesota, Populista, has organized a netroots-wide fundraising drive for Obama that has already raised $25,000 for his campaign (h/t, psericks)

Open Left's Matt Stoller notes that Obama leads HRC 76%-11% in the first post-Edwards Daily Kos straw poll: "It's entirely unclear who the Edwards voters are going to turn to, but we do know that Clinton picked up no activist support in the blogosphere. Obama has fully consolidated the netroots, from last month when there was a split with Edwards."

Meanwhile, Melber also notes that MoveOn may host a virtual primary today: "MoveOn.org, the powerhouse grassroots organization that showered Democrats with more donations in the midterms than almost any other liberal PAC, is asking its members whether to host a virtual vote on Thursday to endorse Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton for President. Spurred by John Edwards's withdrawal from the race on Wednesday, MoveOn surveyed a sample of its members to gauge endorsement interest, according to a source with knowledge of the group's operations. Then MoveOn set a deadline of 11 am Thursday for members to back a virtual endorsement vote. If a majority support the idea, virtual balloting will run overnight, open only the group's 3.2 million activists, and an endorsement could be announced by Friday...if MoveOn does manage to unite 'as a progressive community around one of these candidates,' as Executive Director Eli Pariser explains in a new e-mail, its activists could play a pivotal role in this race. There are over a million and half MoveOn voters in Super Tuesday states."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Not-So-Straight Talk

Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias joins conservative bloggers in criticizing McCain's attack on Romney at last night's debate, in which McCain argued that Romney supported a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq:

"One interesting thing about politics is that you might think that when a politician develops a reputation for honesty, the way Saint John of Arizona has, that from that day forward he needs to be super-scrupulous about telling the truth. Otherwise, voters who might dismiss a small fib from a 'regular' politician will suddenly be outraged. In truth, the reverse is the case. Thus, Mac was not only Back last night, but appears to have made his patently false accusation that Mitt Romney favored a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq the centerpiece of his argument at last night's debate. Shocking stuff. McCain's made this claim before, everyone who's looked at it concluded that it wasn't true, and so McCain...just did it again in a higher-profile forum.

Naturally, Jonathan Martin's Politico article on the subject was given the headline 'Romney falls into McCain trap on Iraq' rather than, say, 'McCain Lies His Ass Off.'"

LEST WE FORGET: SkyNet T-800 Model To Endorse McCain

Jim Geraghty predicts what CA Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will say when he endorses McCain:

"I am endorsing Jan McCain because in tooo-tousand, he vas defeated. He vas knocked down like a little girly man! But he said, 'I'll be back!' And now he is back! He cannot be terminated! He is the running man! He does not offer any True Lies!"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 31, 2008 12:52 PM