Category: Politics

Attorney General Giuliani?

Rudy Giuliani has now officially endorsed John McCain for the Republican nomination, calling McCain an American hero.

Rudy would be an excellent pick for an Attorney General in a Republican administration. As a former prosecutor and USA, he has the right connections and the right set of experience. He’d be tough and crime and government corruption. His managerial style has been less than desirable (see Bernie Kerik), but it’s hard to argue that he didn’t manage to produce real results in a hostile bureaucratic environment. The same could be said of Rudy as Secretary of Homeland Security. He would be a solid pick in a position that required transforming a bureaucracy and getting it back on the right track.

It’s unlikely that Rudy would be a solid VP pick (although not out of the question) as McCain might want to pick someone with more pull among conservatives, but if Rudy wants to go into public service there are any number of positions he could take.

So Long, Johnny Boy

It looks like John Edwards is leaving the 2008 race.

Edwards was an also-ran in the race, but it is somewhat surprising that he is giving up before Super Tuesday. Generally candidates don’t leave unless the money is tight, and Edwards seems to have been doing well enough in terms of fundraising to stay on for a while. Then again, given Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer, it’s also quite possible that family concerns are understandably influencing Edwards’ decision.

The question is where Edward’ support will go. Based on the previous contests, much of Edwards’ support may go to Hillary—she’s the one who seems to have the greatest appeal to union voters and lower-income voters, both of whom were demographic groups thats most strongly identified with Edwards. It would also be strategically wise for Clinton to pick up Edwards for the VP position—Edwards has some appeal with the “NASCAR voters” that Clinton alienates and would broaden her geographic appeal. It would also help Clinton with the far-left base of the Democratic Party who have embraced Edwards.

It was only a matter of time before Edwards quit, but to have Edwards quit before Super Tuesday creates an opportunity for one of the two Democratic candidates to vault ahead of the other in what is likely to be a very close race. The question that everyone will be asking now is how those Edwards voters break.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty offers some kind words towards Edwards:

As much as we may grind our teeth in response to Edwards’ economic snake oil, and mock other characteristics (the YouTube hair fussiness, the giant house, the work for a hedge fund to “learn about poverty”, the exorbitant speaking fees, the $400 haircut)… he’s a man with a family, who soldiered on into an exhausting effort, at the urging of his wife who’s taking on cancer that may end her life. Elizabeth’s cancer didn’t turn into a political prop, and there was something inspiring in the way that this couple treated the worst possible news one could imagine as a minor impediment to what they saw as the mission of their lives. Some of us are left wondering if we would be able to fight on the way they did if tragedy struck our lives in the same way.

Keep this man far away from elected office – and keep an eye on the rumor that Obama would make him Attorney General – but wish him and his family well as they continue on life’s path ahead.

It’s always good to get a reminder that are political adversaries are also human beings, and we shouldn’t let differences of ideology or policy distract us from that. In today’s cutthroat political world, too many times we tend to forget.

McCain Wins In Florida

CNN has official called John McCain the winner in the Florida primary, beating out Mitt Romney and giving himself a clear shot at the nomination. At this point, I think McCain will be the Republican nominee.

This marks the likely end of the Giuliani campaign, and already there are rumors that Giuliani will drop out and endorse McCain. That seems likely. Giuliani’s whole strategy was to wait out the early contests and pick up all his momentum in Florida. It was a risky strategy, and it appears to have backfired against him. Giuliani is a great leader, and I don’t think this is the end of his political career, but he didn’t show the kind of oratorical brilliance that I’ve seen from him on several occasions.

Mitt Romney’s strong executive experience doesn’t seem to have helped him in Florida. Romney has been a stalwart conservative in this race, but ultimately I don’t think he has enough momentum out of Super Tuesday to make it all the way. He’s certainly not out of the race, but he has a great deal of ground to gain in very little time.

Sen. John McCain is an American hero, a man of great personal integrity and someone who has always stood strongly on the side of his country. He often rubs conservatives the wrong way, and his “maverick” image causes much consternation—however, when it comes right down to it a man who agrees with us 80% of the time is better than a woman who represents the worst of American politics and a man whose great rhetoric is but a cover for a fundamental lack of real-world experience. We may have our issues with John McCain, but when it comes down to the basic principles of the party: fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense and strengthening the family, McCain has his heart in the right place.

Conservatives should make their voices heard, and they should continue to push Sen. McCain towards the mainstream of the party as they have on issues like immigration. However, if McCain gets the nomination—and it seems altogether likely that he will—conservatives cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. John McCain will cut wasteful spending in Washington, defend our troops in Iraq and our war against radical Islamist terrorism and will continue to be a strong voice for respecting human life, born and unborn. He may not be perfect, but he can lead, and we need true leadership in Washington more than anything else.

McCain-Huckabee? A Recipe For Disaster

Bill Quick reacts with revulsion to the idea of a McCain-Huckabee ticket in 2008. I’m with him on that. McCain’s biggest liability is with conservative voters, and to have to people on the GOP ticket who lack strong conservative bona fides would be to alienate the vast majority of GOP voters. The GOP has to realize that the times when the GOP has been successful are the times it has embraced small-government values. The GOP won in 1980 because Reagan elucidated a vision of smaller government. The GOP won in 1994 on the basis that the Democratic Party had lost touch with America and that the Contract with America presented another vision of smaller more efficient government.

The GOP needs to wake up, and fast. Congress’ approval ratings are barely in double digit territory. People have as dismal a view of government as they have ever had. If the GOP wants to be the part of slightly less big government rather than the party that will restore sanity and accountability to government, then the GOP will lose once again.

What is the vision of the Republican Party? Is it based upon our principles of economic liberty, personal morality and strong national defense? Or is it nothing more than the mere desire to scrape together enough interest groups to win? If it is the latter, then the GOP has learned nothing from their failures in 2006.

In a time of rampant public distrust of government, putting the architect of McCain-Feingold together with a clone of Jimmy Carter is exactly the wrong strategy. If people want more government, they can vote Democratic this November and get all the government they can handle.

Ronald Reagan said it best: the most dangerous line in the world is “I’m here from the government, and I’m here to help.” The Republican candidates keep invoking the name of Ronald Reagan—but only one of them seemed to understand what he stood for, and that guy isn’t running any longer.

To lose those principles is to not only lose the Republican base, but the independent voters that the GOP needs to win. You don’t win elections by being pale imitations of the other side, you win elections by bolding and proudly defending your principles. A McCain-Huckabee ticket would send exactly the wrong message.

Obama’s Pyrrhic Victory?

Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton last night by a massive margin. However, Dick Morris, a man who worked with the Clintons for years, has an interesting contrarian view of the Clinton’s strategy:

Ultimately, the Clintons are playing a game of jujitsu with Obama, using his own strength against him.

By challenging Obama for the black vote – by promising to go door to door in South Carolina in minority neighborhoods, for example – Bill is highlighting the question: Will Obama carry the black vote? Of course, he will. He leads, 4 to 1, among African-Americans now.

But by making that the central question, Obama’s South Carolina victory will be hailed as proof that he won the African-American vote. Such block voting will trigger the white backlash Sen. Clinton needs to win.

Once whites see blacks voting en masse for a black man, they will figure that it is a racial game and line up for Hillary. Already, she carries white voters by 2 to 1.

The Clintons can well afford to lose South Carolina as long as the election is not seen as a bellwether of how the South will vote but as an indication of how African-Americans will go. It’s a small price to pay for the racial polarization they need to win.

Sure enough, the story is how Obama carried the black vote.

As often as Dick Morris gets it wrong, he seems to be on to the Clinton strategy. Right now Barack Obama has two constituencies: well-off whites and blacks. Hillary Clinton is peeling away women, low-income voters, union members and other traditional Democratic groups. It’s a simple matter of numbers: Clinton can win with the groups on her side, and Obama can’t.

This loss certainly doesn’t look good for Hillary Clinton—she got creamed by Obama—but ultimately time (and the byzantine Democratic primary process) is on her side. The Clintons are masters of political hardball, as well as divide-and-conquer politics. They know full well that all they need to do is split the vote along racial lines and they can win—and it’s not like black voters will cross over and vote Republican in the general election.

Obama won a major victory tonight—but it could end up being a Pyrrhic one. Obama must broaden his appeal beyond racial and class lines, and so far he’s been unable to do it. The demographic tide going into Super Tuesday doesn’t favor him, and while he’s dinged Clinton’s armor twice now, he’s yet to slay the beast.

The GOP Debates In Florida

Stephen Green suffered through tonight’s GOP debate, drinks in hand. I caught the first half hour of it, but decided that was enough. This part made my evening:

7:14pm To Romney: “Are these other jokers really tax cutters?” Again, Paul got stiffed. Again, Romney appears stiff. You know what bugs me about Romney? If his hair were even only slightly curly, you’d swear he was a Viagra-laced penis. The man is erect.

7:14.5pm Mormon Erectus. . . .

7:27pm Once you start to think of Romney as a six-foot-tall erect penis, you just can’t see him any other way. I mean, watch the guy with that in mind and tell me I’m wrong. “We’re the party of fiscal responsibility. Bulging, thrusting fiscal responsibility.”

Nobody else can turn such a deadly boring event into the perfect forum for some inspired dick jokes…

I did catch the first part of the debate, and as much as it sometimes pains me to say it, I’m starting to warm to McCain. I’m a currently uncommitted voter—I want some reason why I can support one of the candidates. John McCain, for all his faults (and they are legion!), gets it on the war. He gets it on spending. He’s reliably pro-life. I’m not convinced yet, but he’s the only candidate that gave me a reason to support him.

Romney (AKA Mormon Erectus) is more strongly conservative. What I like about Romney so far is that he’s a competent technocrat. He probably could do much to turn the government around. What I dislike him is that he’s a competent technocrat—and technocrats don’t tend to get elected in this country. He’s got some good ideas, but I honestly have trouble seeing him compete against Hillary and a lot of trouble seeing him against Obama. At the end of the day, do I want someone who’s closer to my beliefs but is less likely to win or someone with whom I have major disagreements but is right on some big issues?

What keeps me out of the McCain camp is that I don’t trust him on judges yet. And as a larval lawyer, judges are a top issue for me. McCain-Feingold was an unconstitutional piece of legislation that directly conflict with the most important form of speech in this country: political speech. A judge likely to see McCain-Feingold as constitutional is not a judge I want to see on the Supreme Court.

As for Rudy, I’d like to support him, but he’s toast. I’ve seen Rudy Giuliani speak more than once, and he’s damned good when he’s on. The problem is that he’s just not on right now. He’s dry and even when he’s got solid positions on the issues he just doesn’t inspire.

When Rudy tells the story about the burly construction worker giving President Bush a bear hug at Ground Zero, he brings the house down. Rudy Giuliani can communicate. What’s frustrating is that we’re not seeing it in these debates. Florida is Rudy’s firewall state, and I just don’t see him winning it. It’s too bad in way—I supported Rudy early on, and I still think he’s a smart and effective leader. He just hasn’t performed in this campaign. In some ways, he’s a lot like Fred. By ceding the early states he ceded the momentum needed to stay viable later on. His strategy had some potential, but now it appears to have not panned out for him.

Mike Huckabee: what more can I say? The guy is not prepared and not conservative. Did he really say that we need to add more lanes to I-95 to stimulate the economy? That fixing Florida gridlock is a key federal problem? That Saddam shipped his WMDs to Jordan?! What were they smoking in Iowa?

I will say this: Huckabee is on to something. There’s a lot of middle-class angst out there, some of it justified, some of it not. Whether or not it’s rational, the Republicans have to address it. Huckabee is doing that in a way that the other candidates are not. The other candidates needn’t follow his brand of silly populism, but it would behoove them to follow his lead in at least showing some simpatico with the middle class.

As much as I criticize Huckabee, I’d take him as the spokesperson for evangelicals above a Jerry Fallwell or a Pat Robertson. Even though he isn’t cut out for the Oval Office doesn’t mean that he’s politically irrelevant. The rest of the field shouldn’t be following his lead on policy, but they’d do well to pay attention to his rhetoric.

And then there’s Ron Paul. 80% right, 20% completely flippin’ bugnuts. What we need to do is scientifically figure out how we can remove the crazy anti-war conspiratorial Ron Paul from the libertarian Ron Paul and then you’d have something. Sadly, that isn’t possible. Instead we get a screeching paranoid who probably does more harm to the libertarian cause than good—and a cult-like peanut gallery that follows him around. I’m not sure who’s cynically using who, whether Paul is cynically exploiting the radical anti-war left or they’re using him to give themselves a forum. Either way, he’s ended up as a political bedfellow with 9/11 “Truthers”, John Birchers and isolationist paleocons. I’ll be greatly relieved when his irritating nasal whine and paranoid rhetoric goes away.

NBC had to try to make every question some silly “gotcha.” Moderate the debate, don’t try to push it. Charlie Gibson so far has done the best job, and no one else has come close. This wasn’t quite as bad as the Iowa debate, but it was close.

This uncommitted voter remains uncommitted, although McCain did move me a bit in the part that I saw. I doubt anything changed as a result of this debate, and the race seems to be a match between Romney and McCain with Rudy hoping to keep up.

The winner? Stephen Green for comparing Mitt Romney to a six-foot phallus. The loser? Anyone else who suffered through the whole insufferable debate.

Fred Drops Out

Sen. Thompson has issued the following statement:

Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.

The Real Loser In South Carolina

Is Mike Huckabee:

For all the talk about South Carolina being the death knell for Thompson, who South Carolina really killed was Huckabee. Huckabee is an insurgent. He has neither the establishment support, nor the money, nor the conservative movement mouthpieces to drag him along.

Huckabee has only the force of his own personality and the media momentum perception. Insurgent candidates like Huckabee need to ride a wave to victory and any wave Huckabee had broke on the shores of South Carolina’s coastline.

Huckabee does have the support of a certain segment of the evangelical vote, but his game of identity politics means he’s already alienated everyone else. Right now the media is fawning over the guy they fawned over in 2000, which leaves Huckabee high and dry. He doesn’t have the support to win and he has little chance of broadening their support.

Had Romney been knocked out in Michigan I think Thompson would have probably won South Carolina on the basis of sealing enough of the conservative vote. There’s still an incredibly small chance that as the race continues Thompson could still pull that off—but that’s contingent on having enough money on hand to remain in the race. Right now the conservative vote is split between Thompson and Romney. If their votes were combined, one or the other would be ahead. If they drop out, it leaves conservatives with a choice of John McCain or Mike Huckabee—which is not the most appetizing choice for many, although McCain would almost certainly be the beneficiary in that case.

In the end, South Carolina spells the death of the Huckabee campaign. If he can’t win there, he can’t win elsewhere, and he needed a win to keep his momentum going. Huckabee’s a talented politician, but he can’t broaden his base beyond his evangelical constituency, and he’s made enough tactical mistakes in recent weeks to take the shine off of his campaign.

Thompson may have been put out by South Carolina, but Huckabee’s second place doesn’t give him much room either. The dynamics of the race are changing, and they’re not changing in a way that’s at all helpful to Mike Huckabee. His narrow appeal and lack of experience have ensured that he can’t broaden his base enough to win, which means that his outsider challenge is likely to fail.

Where To Now?

Stephen Bainbridge, another Fred supporter, argues the case for sitting the rest of this one out. He’s right: all the other candidates have flaws, which is why those of us who smartly supported Fred weren’t on their sides. Romney is too plastic to win. Rudy is dead in the water and hasn’t done enough to get social conservatives on his side. Mike Huckabee is dumber than a box of rocks and has gone out of his way to offend fiscal conservatives. That leaves John McCain, who is at best an inconsistent conservative and has offended both wings of the Republican coalition from time to time.

Fred should stay in the race as long as he can. We need a consistent conservative in their to keep the others in line and remind the party what we’re really fighting for. His speech in South Carolina, though clearly one presaging his exit, reminded me of why I supported Fred in the first place. He finally found his campaign style—several months too late to win, but that’s politics. Now, the race is about principle rather than winning.

At the end of the day, we have an obligation based on our deepest principles to ensure that someone like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama does not become President of the United States. We are in a long war against an implacable enemy. The next President will likely shape the Supreme Court by appointing new Justices. We need a Supreme Court that does not rule based on their own social inclinations justified only by the flimsiest constitutional rationales. We need an economy that can compete in the 21st Century, not one that is mired in protectionism, regulation and excessive taxation. We need a government that reflects the moral will of the people, not one that strives to undermine the family—the very mortar that holds this society together.

Sitting out just isn’t an option, and someone like John McCain who is right 82.3% of the time (according to the American Conservative Union) is a better choice than someone who is actively hostile to all our shared principles.