"Townhall meeting by townhall meeting, bus ride by bus ride, and endless phone calls to local talk show hosts, are what have put McCain back on the map in New Hampshire," says David Carney, a GOP political strategist not affiliated with any campaign.
Much as I'd like to attribute it to factors within the campaign, I doubt that would have been sufficient if the party in general had not started coming back to McCain. He was right on the biggest issue of 2007, the surge in Iraq, and he was right early. If that had not worked, no amount of bus rides and phone calls to local talk show hosts would have turned the campaign around.
Drudge is reporting today that the national numbers for Rasmussen show that McCain has pulled into the lead overall. It's effectively a dead heat, according to Matt (I can't find backup on Rasmussen's site):
It's a little early, but he is certainly in more trouble than anybody anticipated a month ago.
From August 26 to November 27, Romney led in 26 straight polls in Iowa, sometimes by as much as 23 points. In New Hampshire, Romney saw his advantage grow to 15 points in mid-December.
Since those halcyon days, however, Romney has fallen into second place in Iowa, running roughly four points behind former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. In New Hampshire, Romney's double digit lead has steadily eroded, while John McCain, who was trailing by 11 to 18 points at the start of December, has surged to within 3.5 percentage points.
In the middle of an unexceptional tribute to the late liberal blogger Steven Gilliard, Matt Bai manages to slip in a few digs:
Black conservatives like Steele infuriated Gilliard, who couldn’t understand how any African-American could support a party that exploited racial prejudice.
And:
They must have been confused when Gilly’s online pals, sickened by the way some right-wing bloggers were gloating over his death, advised them not to disclose where he was buried, out of fear that someone might deface the site.
Anybody remember any right-wing bloggers "gloating" over Gilliard's death? I know a lot of people were ticked off at his "Sambo" picture of Michael Steele, but I can't imagine a significant righty blogger who would have done anything other than express sympathy for his friends and family at his passing.
Obviously it's a bit callous, but there's little doubt it focuses people's attention on international affairs, at least until the next good-looking blonde goes missing.
Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in Pakistan and the political conversation in America had changed.
Which means at least for a little while Republicans here were not thinking about which presidential candidate was tougher on immigration or which had the best Christian conservative credentials.
I have to say that it's going to be a shame when the Ron Paul circus finally folds up its tent and slinks out of town. Here's a hilarious OpEd claiming that Ron is going to win Iowa and sweep to the White House:
But the last factor trumps all. Most political commentators are in agreement that Ron Paul supporters are engaged, organized, computer literate, and on fire with zeal. Volunteers across the nation are donating a week of their vacations to walk the streets and roads of Iowa to canvas votes for Dr. Paul.
Yep, and Howard Dean had the same kind of support in Iowa in 2004:
I know that these Jews will continue to conduct their hate campaigns with impunity as well as self-righteousness, because the people in charge of this site regard them as friends, but they are false, treacherous friends, willing to destroy the site that has befriended them.
And these same persons, these Jews, have not only continued their malicious attacks on me, but others, also Jews, have joined their Hate Squad, solely on the grounds that they are Jews and have been offended by someone, and thus arrogate to themselves the right to hate and insult a person who has done them no harm and no offense.
And the consequence is this: I now find myself, for the first time in my life, hating Jews. I find myself hating the Jews on this site, both the Jews who have conducted their malicious campaign against me for so long and the Jews who have stood by in silent solidarity with them, never saying a word against their vile attacks, their cruelty and ugliness.
Count this Irish Catholic as one of those profoundly offended by this anti-semitic tirade.
And after a year of comparing Romney to McCain, of sizing up the two in person and in the media, Granite Staters are turning back to McCain. The former Navy pilot, once written off by the national media establishment, is now in a statistical dead heat with Romney here.
How could that be? Romney has all the advantages: money, organization, geographic proximity, statesman-like hair, etc.
But he lacks something John McCain has in spades: conviction.
Granite Staters want a candidate who will look them in the eye and tell them the truth. John McCain has done that day in and day out, never wavering, never faltering, never pandering.
I know that my fellow conservatives are leery of McCain on the basis of several issues where he's gone off the reservation. But he's done so on the basis of his own experience, from campaign finance reform to torture. Would any of us bloggers like to claim we know more than John McCain does about either of those issues?
The Gang of 14? Yes, it made me angry at the time, but it turned out that McCain was right when he said that someday the Democrats would be back in the majority and that we might regret using the nuclear option. Sure turned out right on this issue.
In the Globe's new poll, one finding caught my eye. When asked which candidate they thought "most trustworthy," 30 percent of likely Republican voters chose McCain - the highest tally of any candidate, Republican or Democrat. Among Republicans, only Romney, at 23 percent, comes anywhere near McCain's rating on trustworthiness. But the two men's numbers have been moving in opposite directions. The more voters get to know the candidates, the less they trust Romney and the more they trust McCain.
I'm not surprised. Not because I imagine that McCain walks on water. He is plainly a flawed human being with a skeleton or two in his closet. But he strives to heed the better angels of his nature - and he lets us see the striving. A politician who can publicly berate himself for being "dishonest" and "a coward" is a politician voters are more apt to trust. A once and future presidential hopeful who owns up to his own moral lapses and can write, with sincerity, "All my heroes . . . would have been ashamed of me," is no ordinary candidate.
With the first primary contests less than two weeks away, Senator John McCain has gained a six-point lead over Senator Hillary Clinton in the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey.
A month ago, McCain had a two-point edge over the former First Lady. However, before that, Clinton edged out McCain by at least a point or two in six consecutive surveys of the match-up (see trend history).
That line is, of course, moving in the right direction.
Just in case you wondered what the few remaining communists in America are getting for their children:
On the other hand, the historic San Francisco doll I'm planning to create was a lifelong radical. She grew up in North Beach, and came of age during the labor tumult of the mid-20th century. She was a union leader and a member of the Communist Party who was then called before the House Un-American Activities Commission in San Francisco in 1957. In case you hadn't guessed, she is based on someone I know: My great aunt Angela Ward.
My daughter can have a new doll, get to know a long-dead relative, and learn all about the Communist witch hunts. Plus, I think her Un-American Girl will come with those key accessories for any plaything under subpoena: A copy of the Fifth Amendment (free) and a good lawyer (prices vary).
What a brilliant idea, and the line can clearly be expanded over time. There's the Squeaky Fromme doll, that comes in a red riding hood, with a swastika carved in her forehead, and a tiny pistol that doesn't quite fire. Or the Karen Silkwood doll, which glows in the dark. Or the Erin Brockovich doll which promptly sues you the moment you buy it.
Were the Christian Conservatives in Iowa a good match for the technocrat?
Romney's advisers bristle at the notion that he could have run his campaign differently. They are particularly sensitive to charges that the former governor changed his positions on abortion, immigration and gay rights to be more in tune with Republican voters, particularly in Iowa. They say his conservative credentials are genuine.
"Welcome to Mitt Romney's bizzaro world, where everyone is guilty of his sins," Salter said in a statement. ". . . Give it a rest. It's Christmas."
At an "Ask Mitt Anything" forum Friday night in Rochester, the candidate was questioned about whether his position on the Bush tax cuts had shifted. In 2003, the Boston Globe reported that he had told Massachusetts lawmakers he would neither support or oppose the Bush tax cuts.
Meanwhile, Giuliani's waste of resources in the Granite State is becoming apparent:
A $3 million investment in radio and television advertising in New Hampshire, a belated effort to become competitive in this state, is now viewed by the campaign as a largely wasted expenditure.
Campaigns have a certain rhythm to them, almost like a symphony. This one is nearing the crescendo.
Our longtime buddy John Hawkins does a superb job with these interviews, and I recommend this one strongly:
I agree with you. Now, let me ask you a question you've probably heard 500 times: you have been called a trophy wife quite a bit during this campaign. Do you find that insulting given what you've accomplished in your life?
You know, your perspective changes as things in your life change. At first, it was kind of a strange experience to go through, but now, after being on the bus with the boys, and being 41 years old with two kids under 4, I am thinking that's not such a bad thing to be said about me.
She comes off as a very intelligent and caring woman. As you folks know, I'm supporting John McCain for President. But one thing I've learned in the last couple of weeks is that all of the top Republican contenders have terrific qualities. We're going to be well-represented next November no matter who gets the nomination.
Well, here's an interesting foray into politics by Nixon's former Secretary of State.
"I tremendously admire his service to the nation," Mr. Kissinger said. "I believe that he's the best candidate to serve our nation in an extremely difficult and complicated period." He added that he was "doing something that I am not comfortable with" in making an endorsement, but that Mr. McCain and the nation deserved it."I tremendously admire his service to the nation," Mr. Kissinger said. "I believe that he's the best candidate to serve our nation in an extremely difficult and complicated period." He added that he was "doing something that I am not comfortable with" in making an endorsement, but that Mr. McCain and the nation deserved it.
In other news, McCain has pulled into a tie with Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, making up a 25 percentage point deficit in only one month.
Update: John Ruberry notes that the "other" paper in Boston, the Boston Herald, has also endorsed McCain.
Rasmussen: McCain Within Striking Distance in New Hampshire
Rasmussen shows that John McCain has now pulled up to within four percentage points of Mitt Romney.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the state shows Romney with 31% support, McCain at 27% and no one else close. Rudy Giuliani attracts 13% and Huckabee barely reaches double digits at 11%. This is the first time any candidate has been within single digits of Romney in several months. It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary bounce or a lasting change.
Before the latest endorsements, it was Romney 33% and McCain 18%. In late-November, Romney led by nineteen points. Earlier in November he was up by fifteen.
No Ordinary Time. No Ordinary Election. No Ordinary Man.
Okay, I don't usually get swept up in irrational enthusiasm. But I'm really, really hopeful again that the Republicans are going to nominate John McCain in 2008 and avoid disaster.
Or so says this blogger, who then proceeds in a lunatic frenzy to tear Christmas apart.
I had an epiphany in my local Target store the other day that I f*cking HATE Christmas. It's not really Christmas itself that I hate but I loathe what it has become under the same 'suck out the marrow' form of looter capitalism that has like a starving leech devoured the very soul of this country and turned it's inhabitants into mindless consumerist zombies. Laissez faire, tooth fang and nail, f*ck you capitalism has done to Christmas exactly what it has done to every thing else that it has touched. It has destroyed, debauched, devalued and dehumanized every bit of normal life to the point where it is every bit as vile and rotten as the proverbial triple-decker toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce.
And those are the milder parts. As usual with the cuckoo left, despite all the claims about their love for the common people, the actual feeling is loathing:
The store's aisles were filled by poorly dressed, shuffling mainly corpulent creatures who were babbling incessantly into their cell phones and filling their bright red plastic shopping carts to overflowing with Chinese made junk.
They're poorly dressed? How about a little "liberal eye for the blue collar guy"?
The metaphorical War on Christmas appeals to the same type of low grade, knuckle dragging white trash that would drive around a beater with a bumper sticker affixed that says "At least I can still smoke in my car" the plaintive wail of a clueless peckerwood who cares not one iota that he can be dragged away by private paramilitary thugs, held for life in a dark little cell and tortured until he has the mental capacity of a piece of furniture.
They drive around in a beater? Horrors! Thank goodness we have liberals who can simultaneously decry rampant commercialism while tooling around in a late-model Mercedes!
Only in this sad nation populated by knuckle dragging miscreants, raptureheads, singing pigs, boiling frogs, philistines and fatsos where the collective intelligence and knowledge of the average American could be rolled up into a little ball to the point where it could fit neatly inside of Brittney Spears' navel could something as preposterous as this be happening.
It almost reads like a parody of an effete liberal, doesn't it?
Paramedics found Aqsa with a faint pulse and rushed her to hospital. She was later transferred to a Toronto hospital and placed on life support.
Peel police said this morning that she died overnight.
Friends at the victim’s school said she feared her father and had argued over her desire to shun the hijab, a traditional shoulder-length head scarf worn by females in devout Muslim families.
"The reality is, as it's been for many, many months is that the [Republican] candidates all have weaknesses and at the end of the day John McCain is hoping that Republican voters take a deep breath, reassess the candidate and say it's not about a specific position on immigration or campaign finance reform, it's about strength and leadership and toughness in standing up in the war against terror," said Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report.
He's pitching the endorsement of my favorite baseball player, Curt Schilling:
He spent most of the last week in New Hampshire and is now running a television commercial (on New England sports channels) featuring Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling pitching McCain as "a man of principle who sticks to his guns."
Probably the single-most iconic image in baseball in the last 50 years; only Fisk waving the ball fair compares.
Over at Power Line, John Hinderacker wonders whether Huckabee may be the Howard Dean of 2008. Ultimately he comes down against it, but I think Huckabee's got some Dean-ish qualities. No, he doesn't have the legion of online supporters, or the fund-raising prowess.
Remember the old bumper snicker from 2004: Dated Dean, Married Kerry? That's what's going on here, and you can see it in Fred Thompson as well. The Republicans are doing everything they can to avoid marrying the logical candidate, John McCain. They want to be swept off their feet, and so they swoon at the new face. Fred, of course, has turned out to not be the man of their dreams and so they're flirting with the next beau. But inevitably Huck turns out to have feet of clay as well.
I'm not saying that the rise of Huck is good for McCain. It certainly indicates that even at this late date, the Republicans are looking around for dessert rather than eating their peas. But it's even worse news for guys like Thompson and Romney. Huckabee's not going to be the nominee, but he could help trim the field a little.
Note: When the Democrats finally turned to Kerry, it was because he was the "electable" guy. Now, I thought that was a little odd, since when have liberal senators from Massachusetts been electable nationally? But McCain is genuinely electable; all the polls have shown that.
How the Swiftees, POWs and other Vietnam veterans circumvented the media and reached out to the public is a story that has profound implications for future political campaigns and news reporting….
…Honor, Loyalty and Patriotism…These values were able to rouse hundreds of Swifties and millions of other veterans from their deep political sleep of 35 years. The blindness of our opponents can be accounted for only because such values are rare and often considered laughable among Kerry’s operatives and media allies. These values are neither rare nor a subject of amusement among most Americans. In 2004, they changed the course of history.
I am looking forward to this one; as part of the blogging team that originally broke the Christmas in Cambodia story, we were thrilled when the Swiftees publicizing that issue resulted in a paralyzed John Kerry campaign for a full two weeks after the DNC. We know that the Swiftees will always be "discredited" to the media, but those who followed things closely know that it was Le Fraude who was discredited, not the SBVfTs!
A Missouri mother says she will do "whatever it takes" to stop former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from becoming president, because he freed the man who went on to rape and murder her daughter, Carol Sue Shields (pictured).
"I can't imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country," Lois Davidson of Adrian, Mo., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
Wayne Dumond was initially sentenced to life plus 25 years for raping a 17-year-old Arkansas high school cheerleader. In 1999, a parole board voted to free Dumond, after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee announced his desire to see him released.
John Hawkins does his second annual "Ten Worst Quotes from Daily Kos". One that I vividly remember:
8) "I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and (Ahmadinejad would) probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...
Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes. But that’s not all...
I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding." -- sallykohn
The Manchester Union-Leader, the most important paper in the state, puts its weight behind the Senator from Arizona:
We don't agree with him on every issue. We disagree with him strongly on campaign finance reform. What is most compelling about McCain, however, is that his record, his character, and his courage show him to be the most trustworthy, competent, and conservative of all those seeking the nomination. Simply put, McCain can be trusted to make informed decisions based on the best interests of his country, come hell or high water.
Amen. Meanwhile, in Iowa, a surge by Mike Huckabee has topped Mitt Romney in the polls. Huckabee's peculiar brand of compassionate conservatism seems unlikely to travel well, as others have noted.
Huckabee is the opposite of a libertarian. As governor, he hiked taxes repeatedly and oversaw an explosion in state spending. He's explicitly running as a "different kind of Republican," positioning himself as the heir to President Bush's compassionate conservatism (a.k.a. big-government conservatism). His populist economic message includes expanding farm and alternative-energy subsidies and curbing free trade (to insulate us from the global economy).
