Republican Sens. Phil Gramm of Texas and Don Nickles of Oklahoma each gave tentative endorsements to Souter. But Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona expressed frustration that the President had nominated a low-profile judge, apparently to avoid the kind of blood bath triggered by the nomination of Bork.
"Any first-year law student would tell you his chance of an eventual appointment to the Supreme Court is directly related to the paucity of writing or speaking on controversial issues," McCain said acidly. "It gives us a largely unknown quantity in appointments to the bench."
I remember in 1976, as a 19-year-old in Pennsylvania working the polls for Reagan against the sitting Republican president, Gerald Ford, I was demeaned for supporting a candidate who was said to be an extremist B-actor who couldn’t win a general election, and opposing a sitting president.
Doesn't Levin seem like some character out of a Dickens novel? A Wackford Squeers, an angry old man who kicks dogs? I haven't listened to his show a lot, but he seems like a throwback to the conservatives who used to rail about how the country was going to hell in a handbasket. These days it's mostly liberals who are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!"
And note, that I never talk about Rush or Hugh like this, so it's not just the anti-McCain nonsense. Rush and Hugh seem to enjoy life; Levin seems like someone who wakes up cranky at the sun.
Hilariously, he uses his column to talk about what a temper McCain has. I prefer to think of it as passion; the Senator is certainly Type A and not timid about expressing himself.
At a news conference, Schwarzenegger said McCain has the national security credentials to do the job, and is a "crusader against wasteful spending."
Drudge reports that Nancy Reagan has let it be known privately that she supports McCain:
EXCLUSIVE: NANCY REAGAN FOR MCCAIN, TOP SOURCE TELLS DRUDGE: 'SHE ADORES HIM, AND IS FULLY SUPPORTING HIM IN HER PRIVATE LIFE. SHE WILL NOT PUBLICLY ENDORSE'..
Michael Medved reports that Steve Forbes has endorse McCain as well. I was a Forbes supporter way back in 1996.
Sometimes we get caught up in the drama surrounding our candidates that we don't pay attention to what's happening in Left Blogistan. I didn't pay much attention to the drop-out of John Edwards, having long since discounted his chances. But the liberal bloggers were apparently on board with giving that poor girl a coat. Check out this poll at Kos:
As you can see, as late as a week ago, John Edwards still held the hearts and minds of the Kossacks, despite the rather obvious fact that he was hanging on by a thread. Yet another loss for the Progressosphere!
It looks like the Kos crowd has now decided to give their kiss of death to Barack. Over at the HuffnPuff, Bob Cesca declares it is time for the big libs to get off the fence. Let's see if you can figure out whom he wants them to support:
Last night's non-victory victory rally in Florida underscored everything that's awful and ridiculous about the Clinton-Clinton '08 style. They pledged not to campaign in Florida, yet they campaigned there anyway. The primary was unofficial and no delegates were counted, yet they celebrated with a televised victory rally anyway -- ostensibly to trick some casual viewers and supporters into thinking it was a meaningful win.
Meanwhile the cows at Moo-On are debating endorsing a candidate as well. But they're looking at an unrealistic hurdle:
MoveOn has never endorsed a candidate for President. Last cycle, it required a 50 percent threshold for its presidential endorsement, and Howard Dean fell 6 points short. But now MoveOn has raised the bar to 66 percent-- a supermajority that will be hard for either candidate to meet. MoveOn members were largely split between Obama, Edwards, Kucinich and Clinton during its three virtual town halls about public policy last year.
I suspect that the 66% requirement is a way of getting out of endorsing anybody. If you think the infighting among Republicans this cycle is bitter, you should see what's going on with the Donks. The Clintonistas are absolutely furious at Obama, while the Obama Mamas are irate at Hillary (and Bill).
Thanks Bubba! Bill Clinton 'fesses up that Hillary wants to slow down the economy to fight global warming.
In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."
At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? "Slow down our economy"?
I've moderated my views on the topic of global warming. It certainly does not hurt to do what we can to reduce emissions. But I want to do the cheap stuff (replacing incandescent light bulbs, for example, before we start slowing down the economy, which would be very expensive.
Mitt Romney's decision not to purchase advertising in Super Tuesday states is a very good sign for the campaign. It shows that Mitt is confident he can win those states without spending any more of his personal fortune. I hope that you are all contributing your hard-earned dollars to Mitt's campaign because he really needs to pay back the money he owes himself.
Talk radio will continue to propel Romney to victory after victory. If Mitt wins every Super Tuesday state by 10 points, I have done calculations that show he will only be one hundred delegates shy of the total needed.
Update: Even better news! Mitt is now talking about running ads in California. I now expect Romney to win every congressional district in California and sweep to victory. Of course, I expected that even without the ads, but this shows that he's committed to winning.
A horrible thought. Rudy gave up on the state in mid-December; as of December 12 or so, he and McCain were both pulling around 18%. A week later Giuliani was off 4-5 points and Maverick was in the mid-20s. Which came first, the retreat or the decline? He couldn’t have won the state but a harder — and smarter — retail campaign up to primary day could theoretically have kept him in the high teens instead of the 8.5 percent margin he finished with. Maverick’s margin of victory? Only 5.5 percent. If Romney wins New Hampshire, McCain is done, in much the same way that Huckabee was effectively done after South Carolina. Fred finished him off by sucking away enough social cons there to let McCain squeak through. Giuliani could, quite possibly, have performed the same feat for Romney up north.
Yes, but everybody and his brother except for Mitt Romney's campaign wanted McCain to win in New Hampshire. Mitt wins NH, wins Michigan and rolls into South Carolina with lots of momentum. Why didn't Giuliani do what it took to help Mitt? For starters because he likes McCain and doesn't like Romney. How many times do I have to mention that? This is not freaking Survivor here, where you cheat and backstab people you have never met before and will probably never meet again.
Some Folks Won't Be Donning the Pantsuit--Updated!
While quite a portion of the righty blogosphere is doing the equivalent of holding their breath until they turn blue, there are some admirable folks behaving like adults.
First up is Ms Falconer's Cabana Boy over at the L-Dotters blog. I have been a member of Lucianne.com since at least 2000 and can often remember coming across his interesting nickname and his intelligent thoughts in the comments. He's been battling the "I'll choke before I vote for McCain" element over there, with about the same success I've had.
I would ask my fellow McCain supporters to resist the urge to stick it to all the folks who have been on the wrong side of the ballot tonight and keep working hard at getting our guy elected. There's a difference between sticking up for your guy and taunting the opposition. I hope we can keep that in mind.
I confess, I have not always been good at that, but I'm going to make a sincere effort.
Update: Mrs G has always seemed more sensible than many of the commenters over there. This evening she has a picture on the front page of John McCain with the words, "Argue it round or argue it flat....looks like John is where it's at. Thanks, Lucianne!
For me, it came down to three choices, made on three critical fronts: McCain’s decision to side with President Bush on the surge, with President Bush on Alito and Roberts, and against President Bush on the largest entitlement in the history of America. In each of these areas, we were and are agreed—and in each, McCain displayed the courage and patriotism he has always possessed—the strength of character to do what he believed was right, regardless of whether it was popular.
It's good to see Ben back blogging again. I was critical of him a couple years ago when he got caught plagiarizing, but he's a solid, young, intelligent conservative with some genuine writing skill, as this piece shows.
I heard two examples of it this evening - one from my friend Hugh Hewitt, whose rage against McCain today on Wolf Blitzer's CNN show made the hair curl on my bald head and later, on the Larry Elder Show, I listened in as a woman caller excoriated McCain as no war hero even though she knew the Senator had spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, was tortured, had his bones broken yet stayed with the other troops when offered a chance to leave, etc. Even Elder was appalled at the woman, though Larry is no McCain supporter.
Hewitt's a great entertainer, but he's clearly not learned the lesson: That you cannot lead people where they don't already want to go.
Nader said he filed papers with the Federal Election Commission and launched a Web site after Dennis Kucinich, a liberal Ohio congressman, announced his decision to withdraw from the presidential race last week.
He was set to announce that he had formed an exploratory committee Wednesday, even before former Sen. John Edwards made it known that he'd be ending his candidacy. But with Edwards — who has made economic populism and ending poverty cornerstones of his campaign — leaving the Democratic field, Nader said, he feels his candidacy is more urgent than ever.
Okay, it's almost time to turn our attention away from the primary elections and focus on the general. And just in time, Rasmussen Reports has a very encouraging poll result:
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey of Election 2008 shows Republican frontrunner Senator John McCain with single-digit leads over Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. McCain now leads Clinton 48% to 40%. He leads Barack Obama 47% to 41%.
Update: For all those conspiracy theorists in the Republican Party who think the NY Times endorsement of McCain was part of some plot (while Bill Clinton was just being honest when he said that Hillary and McCain are good buds), check out uber-lib blogger Chris Bower's take:
I had been cheering for Romney, largely because McCain is tied with Clinton and Obama, while right now Romney loses to Obama by 17.0% , and Clinton by 12.4%.
Well, you know, he was tied with Hillary and Obama; now he's ahead.
It probably wasn't needed, but if Rudy Giuliani needed any extra motivation to enlist in John McCain's presidential campaign -- and thus probably hinder Mitt Romney's bid for the Republican nomination -- he got it Tuesday night.
Faced with his distant third-place finish in the Florida primary that he spent the last two months -- to the exclusion of virtually any other campaigning -- trying to win, Giuliani appeared before his supporters in the state to deliver what obviously was going to be his swan song. All the cable news networks were broadcasting it. And then Romney stepped on his message.
Giuliani was about two-thirds or so through his remarks, reaching the part where he would sum up what he had tried to accomplish in his White House quest, when Romney, the night's second-place finisher to McCain, began giving his concession speech to his backers. The cable stations cut to him -- Giuliani, after all, had collapsed as a viable candidate, while Romney clearly was still in the fight.
Smells like victory. Now, I know that there are lots of people out there telling you that it's not over, that there's still a way to derail the Straight Talk Express. I'm here to tell you they're whistling past the graveyard, digging for the pony, looking for the silver lining.
But it's true. When the campaign comes here to Massachusetts on February 5th, I'll proudly cast my vote for any option on the GOP ballot other than You-Know-Who. But it will be a futile gesture. Mr. "1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote" is going to be the nominee.
Sour grapes only give you acid reflux.
As I noted in an email to some friends, Mitt is going to take a long, hard look at his chances and decide to bail. His pockets aren't deep enough to get him over the hump in the big winner take all states next Tuesday. He's way, way down in New York and New Jersey, even before we factor in the likely endorsement of McCain by Giuliani, or the bounce the Senator gets from Florida. In California Romney's more competitive, but it's not WTA; it's congressional district by congressional district. I do predict smashing wins by Romney in Utah and Massachusetts next week.
Some are sifting through the tea leaves in Florida, trying to claim that some nefarious schemers allowed independents to vote in the Sunshine State. Captain Ed does a good job of debunking that theory.
Okay, I gotta gloat a bit. I backed the winner, the winner came through. It wasn't exactly like the New England Patriots' season, but we'll take getting to the Super Bowl. And don't kid yourself, it's over.
Let's see, when did I endorse Senator John McCain, the Next President of the United States of America? Oh, I remember it was about 420 days ago:
I do not make this decision lightly. Many of my friends in the center-right blogosphere despise John McCain, and I myself have been quite acerbic about some of the things he's done in the last six years.
There are two ways to interpret the election results from Tuesday. One is that many conservatives, feeling betrayed by the Bush administration on their pet issues, stayed home to teach the Republicans a lesson. The other is that moderates abandoned the party. My feeling is it was a little bit of both.
But we really don't have the time to figure it out. The presidential election of 2008 is already imminent. I have very little doubt about whom the Democrats will nominate, and it ain't Tom Vilsack. The results on Tuesday virtually guarantee that if Hillary wins, she will have a Democratic congress as well.
This election is too important to blow. We cannot nominate someone that the right wing of the party will support whole-heartedly in the twin hopes that:
1. They will come out and vote. 2. They will more than offset any votes lost in the center.
Wow! Sometimes I do hit the bullseye.
I won't deny that there were times when I despaired of my guy's chances. But I sensed something was happening in early November:
I know I'm virtually alone in feeling this way, but I have an inkling that events are working out well for John McCain. Fred Thompson seems to be struggling; the other day he had to beg for applause for one of his speeches. If the race boils down to Giuliani and McCain, I like John's chances.
By early December the pieces started coming into focus on the board, and all of a sudden I started to see how things would unfold:
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.
So okay, I did kinda get that right. I only wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that John McCain had no chance of winning the Republican nomination.
Even before Iowa what did I say?
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.
I'd call that dead on the money. I made my next prediction over at the JREF forum:
Huckabee and Fred Thompson realistically have very little chance at the nomination, although Huckabee's got a decent shot to take Iowa. Thompson has shown none of the "fire in the belly" that a person needs to win the presidency; his campaign peaked before he actually entered the race. Huckabee's constituency, the Christian conservatives, are an important segment of the Republican party but they are not large enough to get Huck the win once a few of the other candidates drop out.
Romney's biggest advantage is his personal wealth; unlike the other candidates he has a credible operation in every state and could sweep the board if he gets an early win or two in Iowa and New Hampshire. But if he fails to win those states, he'll be in trouble because his campaign depends on that aura of inevitability.
McCain is still in the running; he needs Huckabee to win in Iowa and to pull off the upset himself in New Hampshire; either is eminently possible. McCain's big edge is the same as Edwards: Electability. Polls consistently show him doing better than any of the other GOP candidates in a head-to-head matchup against Hillary, Obama or Edwards.
DingDingDing!
And of course, after that I got quite prescient indeed, with the possible exception of Michigan.
So you have a choice in life; you can listen to El Rushbo, or any of the other drive-along media who told you John McCain didn't have a chance. Hey, I listen to them, too because they're entertaining.
But if you really want to know what's going on? I've got my finger on the pulse of America's politics.
She channels Chuck Norris for us, but where Chuck believed that each year as a president ages a person three years, Anna ups the stakes:
Here's my unscientific theory about the presidency: it ages a person in dog years. Each year in office is roughly equivalent to seven years in the life of an ordinary citizen.
Well, of course she's using this measuring stick to beat John McCain with, but does she really want it applied, say, to Hillary Clinton? Using Anna's aging formula, the Hillster would be 89 after her first term. Even the relatively youthful Barack Obama would be 103 after two terms. 103!
And the notion that presidents age extraordinarily while in office buts up against reality. Ronald Reagan was 93 when he died. George HW Bush is still alive at 83, as is Jimmy Carter. Gerry Ford had only a short presidency, but he was 93 when he passed into the great beyond. Richard Nixon died at 81. LBJ died fairly young at 65, but Dwight Eisenhower made it to his 78th birthday. Harry Truman lived to 88. FDR died at 63, but Hoover survived to 90. (Note: Kennedy is obviously not relevant to the issue.)
Presidents as a rule live longer than other people. Yes, they probably have better medical care than you or I, but you can see the problem; if you buy Quindlen or Norris' calculation you're arguing that they would have lived even longer had they not been president--Ronald Reagan to 149 (!). I think the myth that they age greatly while in office is caused by juxtaposing carefully posed and made-up campaign photos with unflattering photos chosen for this purpose.
Sounds like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop:
Time's Mark Halperin notices that, while Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and, within a few hours, even John Edwards -- are running ads in February 5 states, Romney and other Republican hopefuls are not. While John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are probably out of money, Romney, as he has done throughout the year, can write himself a check.
But instead of getting a head start on his rivals, Romney remains dark in Super Tuesday states. Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden says the campaign is going according to plan, though. "It's our goal to be competitive in all these early states," he says. "You can make the case that you have a growing level of momentum" heading into February 5.
Romney is an astute businessman, and one of the first rules of business is that you don't throw good money after bad.
My prediction is that McCain wins by about five points. I feel much more confident today than I did last Saturday, before South Carolina.
In an effort to add a little seasoning to an otherwise pedestrian account of an endorsement pickup, the Associated Press steps into fantasyland:
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday endorsed Barack Obama for president, a Super Tuesday boost in a GOP-leaning state that Democrats hope to reclaim in the White House campaign.
My god, we might lose Kansas? Errr, no. Kansas is solid red, has been for years. Bush pummeled Kerry there in 2004, 62%-37%. Kansas is GOP-leaning like Massachusetts is Democrat-leaning
Can McCain deliver the knockout tonight? RCP only shows him with a slight advantage over Wallet Mitty in seven of the last ten polls, with one tie. Don't kid yourselves, folks, if Romney loses tonight by one dangling chad, it's all over. Looking ahead to the big February 5 bonanza of delegates, McCain is up by 8.9% in California, by 9.2% in New York (over Giuliani; Mitt's down 19 points in the Empire State), and by 3.0 in my home state of New Jersey, with Mitt again trailing Giuliani.
Zogby currently shows McCain with a four point lead, just outside the margin of error. Of course, Zogby doesn't exactly have the greatest credibility, given the problems he's had in the past, but this poll seems to fit the pattern.
“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.
Why do I suspect that the word "Kopechne" appeared in the first draft of this press release (from Marcia Pappas the head of the NY chapter of NOW). Apparently Pappas is no stranger to hyperbole; check out this report on Hillary's "gang rape" by her fellow Democrats:
Then there was that movie where Jodie Foster portrayed the true story of woman who was ganged raped in a bar while others looked on and encouraged the realization. Still others pretended the rape didn't happen. In short, gang raping of women is commonplace in our culture both physically and metaphorically.
This past week, we witnessed just such a phenomenon involving men who are afraid of a powerful woman. Hillary Clinton, in her quest for her Presidential nomination, has in fact endured infantile taunting and wildly inappropriate commentary. Indeed we have witnessed almost comical attacks by John Edwards who in turn sided with Barak Obama as both snickered at Clinton's "breakdown," which consisted of a very short dewy-eyed moment. Now John Kerry, who should certainly know better after his own "swiftboating," has joined the playground gang.
Senator McCain started out by expressing his astonishment at the John Fund column today which claimed that he would not appoint a Supreme Court Justice like Samuel Alito. He pointed out that he was an early and enthusiastic backer of Alito and that his support may have been crucial with only 57 votes to confirm in the Senate. He joked that he probably shouldn't talk about cloning Alito and Roberts given the other issues that raises, but he would be looking for judges cut from the same cloth.
I got one of the early questions today and I asked him about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This issue has come up several times recently and as a long-time supporter of the Swiftees I wanted to confirm that he revised and extended his remarks after the first ad, which he quite clearly did not appreciate. He stated that his objection was solely to the focus on Kerry's combat record, and that when they moved on to the antiwar activities that Kerry engaged in after Vietnam, he felt that was fair game. This is a reasonable point, and one that we mostly tried to stick to ourselves at the Kerry Haters blog (although once the can of worms was opened it was impossible not to take a peek inside).
Update: Here's the first Swift Boat Vets ad:
As you can see, it is very much focused on his service in Vietnam. Now let me stress here that many of us, myself included, deliberately tried to ignore his Vietnam service in analyzing John Kerry. We didn't really want to get into whether he earned this medal or that medal, because he had been there and we hadn't. The same did not apply to the Swiftees, and I felt they very much had strong cases on several of the incidents for which Kerry received awards. But if you remember, the story that really took hold was Christmas in Cambodia, which was not mentioned in that ad, but was mentioned in the first released chapter of Unfit for Command
So let's take a look at a later ad, after the POWs had joined up with the Swiftees:
As you can see, the focus is on the testimony and the antiwar activities.
Although, as I have said in the past, Senator McCain seems the same when he's down in the polls as when (now) he's up, he did brighten noticeably when the topic came up of President Bush instructing federal agencies to ignore earmarks that have been added in conference reports. This was very clearly something that pleased him as much if not more than his personal victories in South Carolina and New Hampshire.
I also loved his response when somebody asked him about Rudy Giuliani's campaign, which apparently made an issue out of the New York Times endorsement of McCain rather than hizzoner. He replied that he was happy they agree with him, but he doesn't agree with them.
I got a moment with John McCain, after an airport rally here in Orlando, to ask him about a report today by John Fund quoting some unnamed conservatives quoting McCain to the effect that, in Fund's words, "[McCain] would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because 'he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.'"
"Let me just look you in the eye," McCain told me. "I've said a thousand times on this campaign trail, I've said as often as I can, that I want to find clones of Alito and Roberts. I worked as hard as anybody to get them confirmed. I look you in the eye and tell you I've said a thousand times that I wanted Alito and Roberts. I have told anybody who will listen. I flat-out tell you I will have people as close to Roberts and Alito [as possible], and I am proud of my record of working to get them confirmed, and people who worked to get them confirmed will tell you how hard I worked."
Update: See also Professor Bainbridge and Just One Minute for quotes from McCain at the time. As Tom puts it, if McCain's changed his mind on Alito, it's in the last couple of days.
John McCain has just had a heck of a week. He's peaking at the right time in Florida, perhaps just in time to come away Tuesday evening with the Sunshine State's 57 convention delegates as well as momentum into Super Tuesday, just a week after Florida's primary.
In boxing, when a fighter flurries at the end of a round he may win it even if he hadn't been the best up to the flurry. It's called stealing a round. Bad name, but a legit strategy. If you're susceptible to sports metaphors, as I am, this may be the way you see the last few days for McCain.
Except that the trend has been fairly steady for McCain over the last month or so, with only an occasional bump in the road. Look at his chart at InTrade:
Aside from the dip after Michigan, it's been pretty much a steady climb.
Looks like Florida is about to get on the bus! Rasmussen, which only yesterday had Romney up by six, today reports the race dead even, and that's the worst news for McCain. Almost all the other pollsters show McCain up a couple points.
Bill Clinton attempted to sandbag McCain by talking about how much Hillary and he like each other; Drudge kept it on his front page all weekend (in his continuing effort to prop up Romney).
I seem to recall, however, from one of the debates earlier this year, Mr. McCain making reference to Senator Clinton's attempt to spend $1 million of taxpayer money on a Woodstock Concert Museum to honor what McCain called a "cultural and pharmaceutical event." His good-natured mockery of the Woodstock Concert ended with, perhaps, the most memorable line uttered by any candidate so far this year:
"I wasn't there. I was tied up at the time."
In fact, Bill does not want McCain to be the Republican nominee, because he knows McCain would school Hillary in any foreign policy/defense debate. I'm not guaranteeing a win in the general election; prospects are mediocre at best for any Republican candidate in this atmosphere. But McCain has the best chance of winning as John Hinderaker notes today:
Barring a surprise in Florida, Republican primary voters and caucus-goers on mega-Tuesday will face a stark but classic political choice: do they go with Romney, whose views across a broad range of issues are more palatable to conservatives and whose economic expertise may be badly needed, or with McCain, who seems pretty clearly more likely to prevent the Clintons from re-inhabiting the White House? It's not an easy choice. We'll have more to say about it in due course.
Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a key fundraiser for Gov. Blagojevich and other Illinois politicians, was arrested early today by federal agents after prosecutors alleged he had violated terms of the bond in his fraud case.
“Tony Rezko was arrested without incident at his home in Wilmette,” FBI spokesman Tom Simon said. “It was pursuant to a warrant issued following a government motion to revoke his bond.”
This is perfect timing for Hillary, to suck the wind out of Obama's sails.
New Term of the Day: Clinton Disillusionment Syndrome
In the comedy western, Rustler's Rhapsody, Tom Berenger is betrayed at a crucial moment by Patrick Wayne. Tom yells, "Hey! You're not a good guy after all!", to which Wayne replies, "I'm a lawyer, you idiot!" The message is clear that Tom (and the audience) should have known all along he was a villain.
That's how I feel about the sudden yelps from those liberals who are supporting Barack Obama. Jonathan Chait dares to ponder the unthinkable: Is the Right Right On the Clintons?
The sentiment seems to be concentrated among Barack Obama supporters. Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We're not frothing Clinton haters like ... well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they'd go away.
Well, I am shocked that this is appearing most among Barack supporters; I can't imagine why they don't understand what fine and good people Bill and Hillary are, and how lucky we are to have them around. Fortunately for liberal fans, Chait concludes that the Right was mostly wrong, but right about their character:
But the conservatives might have had a point about the Clintons' character. Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky jeopardized the whole progressive project for momentary pleasure. The Clintons gleefully triangulated the Democrats in Congress to boost his approval rating. They do seem to have a feeling of entitlement to power.
Kevin Drum gets upset at the Clintons playing the race card (by noting that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina, too).
But that said, enough's enough. I don't like dog whistle racial appeals when Republicans do it, and I don't like it when Bill Clinton does it. (And unlike Hillary's MLK/LBJ remark, which was idiotically mischaracterized, don't even try to pretend that this was an innocent remark. We're not children here.) Yes, Obama has to be able to handle this kind of sewage, and yes, this will almost certainly be forgiven and forgotten among Democrats by November. But it's not November yet, is it? My primary is a week from Tuesday, and I'm not feeling very disposed to reward this kind of behavior. At this point, it's looking a lot more likely that I'm going to vote for Obama.
My goodness, Hillary hasn't a chance in California, now that Kevin Drum has come out against her!
Of course, it remains possible — perhaps even probable — that Left-liberals would rally to the Clintons again, should she win the nomination and even the general election. But I would still suggest that at the margins, this campaign, in this political environment, has forced Left-liberals to see the Clintons in a way that erodes the intensity of support they enjoyed in the 1990s. The scales have fallen.
I'm not quite that optimistic. During this primary season, both Democrats and Republicans see supposed chasms between the candidates within their party, but the moment the nomination fight is over they see the very real Grand Canyon between them and the other party's nominee. And the convention will have a lot of rousing speeches and suddenly they'll be fired up to win.
I confess I have not kept up with that site for awhile, but they have certainly abandoned moderation. Check out this post:
What angered me about Joe Lieberman’s Independent bid in 2006 more than anything else was his decision to entertain such an option only after losing the Democratic Primary.
He decided that he would play by the rules of the Democratic Party and ask to be their nominee for the Senate. He insisted that he was a Democrat and that he wanted their blessing in his run for the Senate.
When he failed to achieve that, he turned around and insisted that he didn’t need the Democratic blessing in the first place. In essence, he changed the rules midstream. Why didn’t he just run as an Independent from the beginning and cut through the pretense of representing the Democratic Party? The answer: because he only cared about winning. Had he declared himself an Independent in the very beginning he might have alienated enough older, loyal Democrats and lost the seat to the Democratic Primary winner.
Even more hilarious, when I called him out on his bashing of Lieberman, he replied in the comments:
He's a neocon through and through, not a moderate.
Say what? A neocon? As I replied, he clearly does not have a clue as to what a neocon is. Instead, he uses in in that ridiculous way that left-liberals do, as a shorthand for anybody who supports the war in Iraq (especially if they're Jewish). Joe Lieberman should be the kind of candidate that the Moderate Voice supports. His career rating from the American Conservative Union is 16.8, which marks him as pretty liberal on most issues. It's very comparable to Joe Biden (13.4), and more liberal than Blanche Lincoln (20.1) or Mark Pryor (23.5) or Evan Bayh (20.8).
MR. ROMNEY: Well, there's no question but that — the president and Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, and the leadership of the Iraqi government.
In addition, I think it's indisputable that, at the time, McCain's Republican rivals supported the surge but were also happy that it was McCain who was all the way out on the limb. Last February, someone in the Romney camp told me that yes, Romney supported the surge, but that "McCain owns the surge." The implication was that if things didn't go well, McCain would be the one to suffer; the other guys would be OK precisely because they didn't put it all on the line for the surge.
In a major campaign coup, presidential candidate John McCain just gained the endorsement of one of the most popular political figures in Florida: Gov. Charlie Crist.
Crist praised McCain as a ''true American hero'' at the Lincoln Day Dinner here and said he decided to endorse him after ``thinking about it a lot.''
The endorsement from a governor with an approval rating that hovers near 70 percent could prove to be a crucial factor in persuading the 13 percent of undecided Republicans to vote for McCain on Tuesday.
At Real Clear Politics' poll page, the race is shown as a dead heat. But is it really? Remember, probably half the voters have already voted. Giuliani probably has a slight lead among those, with McCain in second and Mitt probably a distant third. So the tie now is just among those who have not voted.
Once again, a LOT more people came out for the Democratic primary; somewhere around 20% more. In a state where Republicans got 40% more of the vote in the general election in 2004. I don't see a good way to spin that positively for the GOP.
Although turnout was only 51%-49% male to female on the Republican side, it was 61%-39% female to male today. Running the numbers reveals that overall 537,000 women came out to vote in SC, while 430,000 men cast ballots. Although women did support Hillary more than men in the Palmetto State, they still voted overwhelmingly for Barack.
If the Clinton's goal was to define Obama as the black candidate, then it appears that in South Carolina they succeeded. Barack won huge margins among blacks of all ages, not only lost white voters of all ages over 30, but finished third, behind Edwards and Clinton.
Obama loses votes steadily as the population ages, something that does not bode well for him in Florida. Interestingly Edwards' percentage went up steadily as religious attendance declined. There was a sense of reality among voters; even those who voted for Obama appear to recognize that Hillary is more electable and more qualified to be Commander in Chief (my God!).
Despite Edward's populism, he did slightly better among college graduates than those without a degree, and his percentage of the vote pretty steadily rose with income. Is it ironic that socialism seems more popular with the wealthy than the poor.
NYPD Red John McCain picks up two endorsements from Policemen's Unions in New York City:
“Some of the qualities that we’re known for is our leadership, integrity, courage, problem solving, conviction,” said Roy Richter, president of the New York City Captains Endowment Association. “Those were the qualities that we were looking for to endorse a candidate for president of the United States and we’re happy to offer our endorsement to a true American hero, a person of conviction and leadership, John McCain.”
The endorsements could be seen as a slap against former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who usually receives the majority of the country's first responders support. McCain thanked the men. “These are the heroes of the United States," McCain said. "These are the heroes of 9-11. I have never been more honored to have your endorsement.”
Our first pantsuit pachyderm is the big one, El Rushbo, who announced on his program this week that he may not endorse the Republican candidate for president this year. Maybe all those folks who say his show profited from a Clinton in the White House were right. Rush has been a terrific asset to the Republican party over the years, but he's behaving like a spoiled brat, and his show has become unlistenable as he's racheted up his attacks on fine men like John McCain and Mike Huckabee.
He's been getting rolled out by the "Stop McCain" bandwagon, but Stephen Hayes notes the hypocrisy:
Although many others have been as critical of McCain, perhaps no one has been as hypocritical. In 2006, when Santorum was running for reelection, he asked McCain to come to Pennsylvania to campaign on his behalf. When McCain obliged, Santorum put the video on his campaign website, listing it first among "key events" of the year. That's gratitude, Santorum-style.
It's even worse that it sounds; Santorum was doomed as I noted in early 2006. So McCain helped the guy out, and he stabs him in the back? No wonder his daughter was so upset:
Martinez is the fourth prominent Cuban-American lawmaker to back McCain. Three members of Miami's congressional delegation — Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — previously gave McCain their support.
A second similarity is their view of the United States and its role in the world. Reagan, as we recall, described America as a shining city on a hill. What he meant by this was that the United States is an exceptional nation -- "the last best hope of earth," in Lincoln's words. This is the foundation of an aggressive foreign policy, respectful of other nations but ultimately doing what is necessary to defeat the enemies of peace and freedom. Thus, Reagan's foreign policy -- much to the chagrin of our European allies -- was the opposite of the accommodationist approach followed by his predecessors in dealing with the Soviet Union; as he summarized it: "We win; they lose." McCain sees the United States in the same way, having served in its armed forces, borne years of torture in its behalf, fought for a stronger military, and promised to follow Osama bin Laden to "the gates of hell." He wants to defeat our next great enemy, Islamofascism, not live with it, just as Reagan refused to accept the Soviet Union as a permanent fixture on the international scene.
Cripes, I've been dreading the day Andrew Sullivan finally decides to endorse John McCain; today the New York Times hands him an anchor:
Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe. With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.
Sigh. A lot of particularly stupid people think the media are trying to help John McCain win because he'd be easy for the Democrats to beat. If only; then they'd be pumping the Mittster.
Ah, one of the few remaining nutbars will no longer be providing entertainment on the national stage:
Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the Democratic race for president.
Kucinich will make the announcement Friday at a news conference in Cleveland. In an exclusive interview with Plain Dealer editors and reporters, Kucinich said he will explain his "transition" tomorrow.
I'm surprised at all the commentary; then again Dennis the Menace never actually dropped out in 2004, so maybe the folks are getting in their pre-written political obits from four years ago. I was startled to see one writer at the Plank actually wrote glowingly about him:
...here was the man for me: A committed, principled progressive, a 6-term representative who needed to apologize for none of his votes on the trail, and--at least until Mike Gravel cherry-picked his role as the righteous, wacky outsider--a leftward force in the dialogue.
Says more about the writer (Dayo Olopade) than it does about Kucinich, but it's startling to see such a leftist writing at the bastion of the DLC crowd. Of course, she does have to state how appalled she is at the Kuke's prior anti-abortion stance:
Thumbs down to Kucinich's pro-Serb, pro-life stance in early incarnations of his ideology.
There are times when I do wonder about Hugh. His latest column at Townhall ponders the question of judicial nominations:
Which of the Republican candidates for the presidency is most likely to get "Soutered?" To nominate for the Supreme Court, not an originalist, but in fact the opposite. Those vulnerable to being Soutered lack an ear for or an interest in the inner ideology that all lower court judges keep carefully tucked away until they arrive on the Supreme Court of the United States where it is allowed to take full flight. It is hard work to get SCOTUS nominees right. Even when a president cares about the Court and the Constitution's interpretation by the nine deeply, he can still be flummoxed by the process. If he isn't passionate about it going in, it won't spring up in the course of his busy life in the Oval Office.
Of course, that's all just a lead-in to his conclusion that John McCain would be the most likely to get Souterized.
Ahem. Aside from pondering the question academically, we could also try to look at the past records of the candidates.
Meet Daniel Tavares, Jr.
Charming looking fellow, isn't he? And the looks are only half of it. In 1991, Tavares stabbed his mother to death. Since it happened in Massachusetts, he was sentenced to 17 to 20 years in prison, no doubt pleading to the judge that he was an orphan.
So after 16 years, Tavares was released from prison due to time off for "good" behavior:
But Tavares was no model prisoner. From behind bars, he threatened to kill then-Gov. Romney and other state officials -- and scuffled with prison guards. Immediately upon his release in June, Tavares was rearrested on two counts of assaulting correctional officers.
Bail was initially set at $50,000, but a second judge, Kathe Tuttman, decided to release him without bail. The prosecutor requested that he be required to wear a GPS tracking device, but the judge concluded that he did not represent a flight risk. And yes, Tuttman was appointed by Mitt Romney.
Well, you can probably guess where this story's going. Tavares next popped up in Washington state, where he murdered a newlywed couple, Brian and Beverly Mauck, over a disputed $50 debt.
Now, there's an argument to be made that the judge followed the law, that she just made a mistake in judgment. But even that doesn't let Mitt off the hook:
A killer accused in the slaying of a newlywed couple in Washington state shortly after he was released from prison in Massachusetts should have been held behind bars for almost a year longer, but the administration of then-Gov. Mitt Romney failed to file paperwork in time to take away his "good time" credits.
A Department of Correction superintendent under Romney did not act on a disciplinary recommendation to strip 300 days of credit from Daniel Tavares after he was accused of threats to prison staff in 2003, state officials announced Friday in releasing results of a probe into the Tavares case.
Because of the paperwork error, Tavares was allowed to keep nearly a year's worth of "good days" to complete his sentence June 14. Five months later, newlyweds Brian and Beverly Mauck were killed in Graham, Wash., allegedly by Tavares.
Would Ronald Reagan be described as a "liberal" if he were running for the Republican nomination today? Would he be getting sneers from the conservative wing for his position on illegal immigration?
Sadly, the answer appears to be yes. The Wall Street Journal remembers Reagan as he really was, and not how the nativist chorus would like to remember him:
This view was apparent in Reagan's public statements well before he became President. In one of his radio addresses, in November 1977, he wondered about what he called "the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world: No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters." As a Californian, Reagan understood the role of immigrant labor in agriculture.
In 1980, according to the book "Reagan: His Life in Letters" (page 511), the then-Presidential candidate wrote to one supporter that "I believe we must resolve the problem at our southern border with full regard to the problems and needs of Mexico. I have suggested legalizing the entry of Mexican labor into this country on much the same basis you proposed, although I have not put it into the sense of restoring the bracero program." The bracero program was a guest-worker program similar to the one now being proposed by President Bush. It was killed in the mid-1960s, largely due to opposition from unions.
And:
It's true that in November 1986 Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which included more money for border police and employer sanctions. The Gipper was a practical politician who bowed that year to one of the periodic anti-immigration uprisings from the GOP's nativist wing. But even as he signed that bill, he also insisted on a provision for legalizing immigrants already in the U.S. -- that is, he supported "amnesty."
A senior aide to Mr. Romney says the millionaire investor plans to spend as much as $40 million in the campaign. Mr. Romney spent $17.4 million of his own money on his campaign through the third quarter of last year, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Let me point out again, Mitt did not "spend" that money on his campaign; he "loaned" it to his campaign. At some point, if he sticks around and gets more money I strongly suspect that loan will be "repaid" with the money of future donors.
"As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we [presumably the editorial "we"] loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been rendered, in Karl Rove's twisted politics, an ugly verb meaning to lie about someone's character just to win an election," Kerry said in the email, supposedly emailed to 3 million "supporters." (I'm not a supporter, but it also showed up in my email.)
"But as someone who cares about winning this election and changing the country I love, I know it's not enough to complain about a past we can't change when our challenge is to win the future--which is why we must stop the Swiftboating, stop the push-polling, stop the front groups, and stop the email chain smears."
Why should we stop Swiftboating? It's just pointing out the lies that a candidate tells about his past.
The moment was emblematic of a broader reality that has helped shape the Republican contest and could take center stage again on Thursday at a debate in Florida. Within the small circle of contenders, Mr. Romney has become the most disliked.
Even his supporters admit it. As I pointed to earlier today, Amy Goldstein in a gushing piece on the wonderfulness of Mitt, noted that nobody likes him. But at least the NY Times gets why:
Campaign insiders and outside strategists point to several factors driving the ill will, most notably, Mr. Romney’s attacks on opponents in television commercials, the perception of him as an ideological panderer and resentment about his seemingly unlimited resources as others have struggled to raise cash.
He has never backed Democratic candidates for president or lesser posts – other than supporting his friend Joe Lieberman in his Independent campaign for US Senate in 2006. Over the years, he has campaigned tirelessly for Republican office-holders in every corner of the country – including vigorous campaigning that helped win elections for his former rival George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004.
Let me add a couple of things there. The Republican in the 2006 Connecticut race wasn't going to win no matter what happened; Lieberman and Lamont took almost 90% of the vote between them.
And second I don't know how many of you remember the 2004 McCain speech at the convention. I only remember parts of it--particularly the part where he blasted Michael Moore and Moore could only respond by doing the L symbol on his forehead. But Kitty pointed out my nervousness before the speech (there was a fear that he was going to go off the reservation), and my reaction:
Yes, McCain has been in Congress since first elected in 1982, but he never succumbed to the Beltway Culture of Spending, whereas Romney fell into Washington's big spending trap somewhere between Michigan and Florida.
As Romney courted the Michigan vote, he proposed a $20 billion energy research/auto industry bailout plan likely to appeal to the Motor City state. Later, touting himself as the turnaround guy for a flailing economy, Romney released his own $233 billion stimulus package -- a price tag that dwarfs President Bush's $145 billion proposal.
Perhaps hoping to avoid the condemnation of the Ronulans, Ben Adler reverses the headline:
Ron Paul continues to best Giuliani
Of course the real news is that Giuliani continues to trail Ron Paul. Paul's a silly candidate, yes, the Dennis Kucinich of the right. He has some good ideas, like all "small-l" libertarians, but essentially he's a crank and the real news is that Giuliani's running behind him, not that Paul's besting the former frontrunner. And I do expect Giuliani to swamp Paul in Florida (but finish second or third).
Jay Cost tries to keep hope alive for the "Stop McCain" folks but he resorts to mumbo-jumbo here:
With McCain as the frontrunner - the way to look at this nomination battle should shift. Most of us had written McCain off last summer - so we were not expecting him to precipitate an ideological battle. If anything, we were expecting some kind of bottom-up opposition to Giuliani - with party elites accepting his candidacy, and rank-and-file pro-lifers rejecting it. The rise of McCain scrambles all of this. There is an ideological conflict brewing in the GOP - but not the one we thought we would see. This means that the way we have looked at nominations over the last few cycles does not hold. I think this contest could be longer than many have intuited - and the results in Florida could determine exactly who emerges as the "anti-McCain" candidate.
Considering that the primaries before Florida were supposed to determine who became the anti-Guiliani candidate, I feel pretty good about things.
Do not expect the press to catch this dynamic. It understands the here-and-now of contemporary politics much better than the forces and institutions that have guided it for decades. One effect of its misunderstanding will come on Super Tuesday, which it will treat just like the general election. That evening, it is going to focus relentlessly and exclusively on who wins which states - as if delegates are allocated like Electoral College electors. Do not get caught up with this, regardless of how splashily it is staged. With the prospect of a McCain candidacy, and the ideological divergence it implies - this is not the best way to analyze Super Tuesday, even though it is an important aspect. We also need to wait until the next day to see how the delegates are meted out - that will indicate just where this race is going to go.
What he's trying to say is that it doesn't matter who won South Carolina, or who wins Florida or Super-Tuesday, which of course is a lot of nonsense. Still, somebody has to write this stuff so that Hugh Hewitt can link it.
The Louisiana Caucuses were held last night, and according to Geraghty, McCain finished first, with Paul a close second (see why I don't pay much attention to caucuses?) and Romney third. According to this account, Paul might have won, but, you guessed it, they screwed up:
Ron Paul finished second. His supporters reportedly mobbed the 11 polling places, but many of them could not participate because they were not registered Republicans. They were required to cast provisional ballots, many of which will not count. (The provisional ballots are part of the reason for the delay in tallying the results.)
It can only be because he's good and noble and heroic and handsome. Amy Goldstein checks in at the American Thinker with a sloppy buss to the Mittster that deserves a good fisking:
Have you noticed how all of the Republican candidates can barely conceal their contempt for Governor Mitt Romney? It goes way beyond the typical good-natured competition that usually is the hallmark of Republican contests.
I think it has something to do with Mitt running negative ads at all the other candidates with the possible exception of Ron Paul. But not Amy!
1. He can win. Governor Romney appeals to economic conservatives and could appeal to foreign policy conservatives based upon his understanding of the issues. Most non-partisan foreign policy wonks who have briefed the major candidates tell me that Romney "gets it" better than any other candidate -- even better than those who have held high profile office for decades. Moreover, he is the candidate that the Democrats most fear.
Come on! Mitt's understanding of foreign policy consists of asking the folks at the State Department what to do. Can he win? CNN's recent poll showed a real stinkbomb for Mitt:
REGISTERED VOTERS Would Definitely Vote Against That Candidate in November
That's just a staggering number of people that Mitt has already pissed off.
2. Jealousy -- from his hair to his appearance to his family to his money - these are all reasons for deep seeded, if unseemly, jealousy. This green-eyed monster makes its appearance in almost every speech or presentation, in the form of a joke, a jab or a veiled reference.
It must be the hair! Now to be fair, here, Mitt does have nice hair. So does John Edwards.
3. He isn't beholden to interest groups. Governor Romney's wealth frees him from any influence that interest groups could apply to others - especially those who lack funds or who are Washington insiders. He doesn't need them, and that scares the interest groups and their allies. He is not of the game and wants to change it - and his personal wealth allows him to do so. He really can change Washington.
That was Ross Perot's argument, too. I expect it to go over just as well.
4. His brains - not only is he one of the smartest people ever to seek the presidency (having earned a Harvard MBA and JD simultaneously), but he understands the complexities of the issues that America faces and is able to devise workable solutions. Just look at his proposal for an economic stimulus and compare it to what the other candidates are proposing. Romney clearly can lead this country through economic challenges.
He's a smart guy, no doubt about that. Jimmy Carter was a physics major.
5. His wealth -- again. While he has raised more than any other candidate, Governor Romney doesn't need to raise the money in order to continue. Nevertheless, he understands that successful candidates must have people invested in their candidacy in order to succeed. He has learned the lessons of past wealthy businessmen who make vanity runs for the White House. The other candidates have to constantly raise money in order to continue their campaigns.
Yes, he has money, again. But note how she ties herself up into knots trying to have it both ways. He raises money to get people "invested" in his campaign, but he doesn't need to. He can just "lend" his campaign money. I'd hate to be a late "investor" in a campaign that failed; you know that late money is going to pay back the loan.
No mention of the negative campaigning. No attempt to balance Mitts undeniable strengths with his equally undeniable weaknesses.
"Sen. John McCain has served our country with honor in war and in peace," Schwarzkopf said in a statement. "He has demonstrated the type of leadership our country sorely needs at this time. For that reason, he has my complete support."
In the highly competitive Florida primary, McCain is seeking every advantage to appeal to conservative members of the military and veterans that make up as much as 40 percent of the Republican primary electorate. During the last two days, McCain has zipped across the top of the state from Jacksonville on the Atlantic to Pensacola in the Panhandle.
McCain, whose central message is his mastery of national security affairs, has been reminding voters that he used to live in the state – both in Pensacola and Jacksonville. He did his flight training in Pensacola and commanded his squadron out of Jacksonville after he returned from five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
A group of prominent veterans, including Sen. John Warner, the former Secretary of the Navy, and a number of former prisoners of war during Vietnam, are campaigning separately for McCain, hitting communities that are home to large numbers of active military, National Guard and Reserve members, and military retirees.
It's not over yet, but I think McCain is going to be the nominee, for two important reasons: his positions on national security and the War on Terror more than make up for his "un-Republican" stands on immigration and campaign-finance reform; and, more importantly, because he can win.
Since the economy is emerging as a key issue in this campaign, I thought I would take a look at Mitt Romney's record of job creation as the governor of Massachusetts. The data to perform this analysis is readily available at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I went to the most requested tables for individual states, and started looking at the total nonfarm employment, seasonally adjusted.
Mitt Romney became governor of Massachusetts in January of 2003. He served the Bay State until January of 2007. The total nonfarm employment when he entered office was 3,225,900, and when he left office it was 3,260,300. Thus the total number of jobs created during Mitt's tenure was 34,400, or a 1.1% increase in the number of jobs over the four year period.
How does that stack up nationally? Well, the US economy as a whole added 5.4% new jobs over the four year period, so over the four years the nation did much better than Massachusetts. In fact, on average the US gained a higher percentage of new jobs every year than Mitt's Massachusetts gained over his entire four year term.
Okay, but maybe it was a regional problem, something out of Mitt's control that the Northeast experienced. So I checked the other states in New England for the four years in question. and it does appear that the area had something of a job creation slowdown compared to the national economy. Here they are in order of highest % of job growth:
New Hampshire: 4.2% Vermont: 3.2% Rhode Island: 2.5% Connecticut: 2.0% Maine 1.7% Massachusetts: 1.1%
Hey, somebody's gotta bring up the rear. Adding New Jersey and New York doesn't help, either, as each are around 2.7% in job growth over those same four years. I didn't do all the numbers, but the only states I could find that actually did worse than Massachusetts in job creation were Michigan (-3.8%) and Louisiana (-0.6%), and those are rather well-remarked basket cases for different reasons. Louisiana would clearly have outpaced Massachusetts in job creation over the years in question, had it not been for Katrina. Mississippi, also hit hard by Katrina, ended up with 3.4% job growth.
Mike Huckabee, whom everybody thinks is something of an economic dunce? Jobs in Arkansas grew at close to the national average (5.2%) from January 2003-January 2007.
So whence comes the notion that Mitt Romney knows what to do on the economy?
The GOP candidate has begun calling friends, family members and supporters to tell them he’s ended his campaign, four months after he formally announced his White House bid. The momentum behind his delayed entrance into the race steadily diminished as his GOP rivals racked up victories in early test states.
I am sure there will be many posts up today on what went wrong. I like the guy, but he never seemed interested in campaigning, in marked contrast to the rest of the field. I hope that he gets another moment in the GOP spotlight, so that this is not our last memory of him as a politician.
Hugh Hewitt: If McCain's Against Partial-Birth Abortion, I'm For It, And Here's Why It Helps Romney....
Okay, just kidding about partial-birth abortion, but Hewitt's search for the pony continues:
Taking a page from his Michigan strategy, John McCain lets Florida homeowners know he won't be there for them the next time an Andrew comes ashore....
The issue is federal bailouts for people who build homes in areas prone to natural disasters; hurricanes in Florida and earthquakes in California. Hewitt is so in love with Mitt Romney, that he embraces the concept of a National Catastrophe Insurance scheme. Or does he? God only knows what he really thinks, he's just letting his antipathy for McCain go over the edge. If McCain had come out yesterday in favor of such a plan, you know that Hewitt would have decried it as a pander to the voters. How exactly is a National Catastrophic Insurance plan different conceptually from National Health Insurance?
Let me say here that I have found almost all my favorite talk show hosts virtually unlistenable for the last couple months. Rush Limbaugh said the other day that he didn't know if he'd be supporting the Republican candidate this year, to which I say, that's more likely to hurt Rush than it is the GOP nominee. We all know that most of us, whether we're Fredheads or Smitten With Mittens, or Rudy fans or McCainiacs or Hucksters, are going to vote for the Republican in the fall. Some may stay home and feel noble about it, but they'll either suffer the same fate as Naderites in 2000, seeing themselves blamed for a tough loss, or they'll be exposed as irrelevant.
Note that there is some rays of hope among the radio gods: Michael Medved has declined to join his SRN network buddies in McCain bashing, and he's won me as a daily listener. And while my friend Andrea Shea-King's sympathies lie elsewhere, she's not using McCain as a pinata.
Make no mistake, this stance hurts McCain in Florida, a state that if he wins makes it much easier for him to get the nomination. But as he did in Michigan - where he rightly said “the jobs (the blue-collar auto industry jobs) aren’t coming back” - he didn’t say something just because the voters wanted to hear it.
