Primary Pundit by Michael McCord

Primary, finally (all day updates)

NEGATIVE NO WORK -- For the second week in a row, Mitt Romney, who spent the most money and ran the most negative ads, lost. A coincidence? Romney was pleased to win another silver. M cCain was pleased to win because between the two it was personal. Romney was too glib about torture and Guantanamo Bay and the consequences of such cheap talk.

APPREHENSION? -- With around 17 percent in, Clinton is leading 40 to 35 percent. It's a little quiet at the Obama rally where security is incredibly tight.

MCCAIN MANIA -- MSNBC called it for McCain at around 8:10 p.m. This is a remarkable comeback from a guy who was given up as politically dead six to seven months ago. This could be the double digit vicotry of the night. Clinton and Obama are too close too call. McCain -- I covered him making trips to office board rooms and VFW halls with fewer that 50 folks.

CHIT-CHAT -- It's 8:05 and the talking heads on MSNBC have been furiously chatting up Barack Obama and questioning the existence of Hillary Clinton -- which could be good news for Obama given they have reems of exit poll info they are waiting to show off as soon as possible. Early early returns (11 percent) show Clinton over Obama by a 38 to 36 percent margin with Edwards lagging behind considerably. The Edwards folks sent out an odd primary day release focused on a smoky "firewall" in hopes it would prove prophetic that Hillary would go down in flames. It was a funny focus to say the least -- and I guess about the only strategy they may have left despite a herculean effort by Edwards.
John McCain has a bigger lead over Mitt Romney. He's also superstitious -- he's holding his primary night rally at the same hotel in Nashua he had in 2000 when he won...even the same ballroom.

(earlier)
HAMPTON FALLS FAMILY AFFAIR -- It was an exciting primary day for Kate Spoto of Hampton Falls. Her 18-year-old twin daughters Angela and Sarah were voting for the first time and they were doing with mom. Democratic contender Barack Obama swept away the Spoto family (the father was away on a business and voted by absentee ballot). Angela told me she voted Obama because of his inclusive approach -- "I like how he trusts the people." Kate said she had some concerns about Obama's epxerience but believed the "force of his vision" was more important. Of equal importance, she told me, was voting for somebody (as opposed to against somebody) and being able to share that enthusiasm with her daughters. She supported John Kerry in 2004 "just because I didn't like Bush."
Hampton Falls town moderator John Shaw said he called in for more ballots in the predominantly Republican town. "It's been a pretty steady flow," Shaw told me but he wasn't sure yet whether the town would have a record turnout -- he was still waiting for later afternoon surges to come.
Another young voter, 20-year-old Casey Roe was holding a John Edwards sign.The American University student had met Edwards a couple of times and she supported him because "he's the only talking about coproate greed" and his environmental policies which are most important to her. She said that Clinton and Obama were still supportive of nuclear power and liquified coal and that Edwards strongly opposed both. She said Obama was "inspirational" but have enough "substance" to get her support.
(earlier)
DEDICATED IN GREENLAND -- I stopped by the very busy voting place in Greenland and ran across signholders Michael Fitzgerald (big McCain sign) and Shay Lavery (smaller Romney sign with an accompanying red hand "Mitt" adornment) who had been standing around almost five hours since 7:30 a.m. Fitzgerald was with Veterans for McCain and supported McCain in 2000. "He'll be the real comeback kid this year," Fitzgerald said of McCain's campaign. "It's all about character. He got killed on immigration but stood his ground. He's at his best when he's fighting." For Lavery, immigration was was her top issue and she believed Romney's successful management experience left him best equipped to make the changes necessary to accomplish immigration reform.
ODD SIGHT -- Never seen this one before: campaign signs sagging in melting snow.
(earlier)
Shameless promotion department: For those early risers I will do my pundit best to explain the results tomorrow at 7 a.m. on Comcast Channel 8.
(earlier)
The primary campaign is over and voting has begun -- with the best primary day weather I've ever seen. People have asked me for months who do I think will win on the Democratic and Republican primaries. I have always declined to answer though I did hit this repeat button often -- despite press obituaries to the contrary, John McCain was not a dead man walking candidate (lessons learned from 2000) and nothing was inevtiable (see Clinton, Hillary).
I subscribe to the old Hollywood mantra of "nobody knows anything" until the votes have been tallied. While I have no shortage of opinions, I don't make predictions of victory or defeat. I will share some trends I will be watching for today and tonight:
1) Obama mania -- It's real but how big is it? The energy of the Obama crowds is far different than those of those Clinton audiences (which have also been augmented with outsiders trucked in from out of state). Not better or worse, just very different with different messages to different audiences. If Iowa was prelude, that excitement could translate into buckets of votes not only from young voters but across the board. If the expected record primary turnout does happen, it will likely benefit Obama most of all. The most energizing candidate almost always brings out the vote.
2) If independents break heavy for Obama, McCain will be for a vote-for-vote slugfest with Mitt Romney. As with Clinton, I don't underestimate his organizational heft which is up against McCain's passionates brigades.
3) The Republicans will be in turmoil no matter what happens. Maybe Rudy Giuliani is smart to play coy with Iowa and NH -- and Newt Gingrich may be having visions of glory.
4) It's sad to see Hillary and Bill Clinton go dark with threats of Al Queda bombings and buyer's remorse if Obama wins. It's undignified for some Democrats to rip a page out of the Karl Rove toxic playbook (remember the 'Wolve in the woods' ad slamming John Kerry as national security sissy in 2004) and play the fear card. It looks desperate -- perhaps it is desperate. Is that what she means by being a 'doer, not a talker'?
5) Nothing will be settled by today's results.
6) Can Ron Paul translate national Internet enthusiasm and fund-raising prowess into votes?
7) Will there be a continuation of the grass roots energy generated by the stunning 2006 Congressional victories of Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter? If so, it can only hope Obama whom they both support.
8) This has been the most fascinating primary I have have the opportunity and honot to cover. I have been impressed by the desire of voters to articulate their concerns and hopes. I've been lucky to see almost all of candidates, talk to them, and see them with voters.

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:36 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Edwards, Clinton and one day to go...

While in the midst of another John Edwards 36-hour marathon, the Edwards brain trust laid out its plans in a conference call to reporters this afternoon and their message was simple -- Hey Hillary, don't let the (campaign) door hit you on the way out. As if Clinton needs more trouble (almost all poll trends are looking, well, not helpful), the Edwards campaign is spreading the word that a defeat here could seal her doom (funny, the Drudge report also had a similar non-attributed report about 'turmoil' in the Clinton campaign and the sharpening of the knives by the Edwards folks) and render her irrelevant. It was a good example of pre-pre-spin. The Edwards folks are trumpeting the amount of folks supporting him in Iowa that they didn't even know about (as many as 40,000 they claim) -- and are banking on a repeat of that here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land tomorrow while celebrating rising poll numbers nationally. They believe that "change" will rule the land again and they hammered her for being essentially a paid subsidiary of the oil/defense/pharmaceutical and goodness knows how many other industries (funny, they had barely a thing to say about Barack Obama -- but then their goal is to get into a change showdown with Obama.)
On the Democratic side, few can escape the Clinton orbit. Edwards is expected to end his latest statewide sprint tonight in Dover -- at the same Elks Lodge that Bill Clinton made his famous 'till the last dog" speech in 1992. When I asked if there was a coincidence, I was advised not to read too much into it. O.K. I won't but I still find it interesting.

I'm traveling north to Rochester to see the Iowa victors Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama in the same town around the same time.

(earlier with P.S.)
At the risk of piling on but here goes anyway -- It's rare to see a seasoned politician and campaigner dance mostly to the tune of another one but watching Hillary Clinton take up the banner of change -- as a reflexive gesture, like the sign of the cross against a vampire, against her rival Democratic rival Barack Obama -- can be instructive. When the Clinton campaign shifts into theme mode it is a sight to behold -- surrogates, staffers and the candidate begin speaking in a numbing unison to fight back perceived or real threats against her candidacy -- as I witnessed last night in Hampton at a campaign rally in which she pulled out all the stops. I've said for months the Clintonites had misinterpreted and underestimated Obama's rhetorical gifts of persuation and visionary narrative -- and in doing so they misread the mood of the voters. They are rightly outraged that Obama gets away with being vague of about policy details -- but that's her strength not his. Perhaps given the unprecendented mess the next president faces, he doesn't want to get bogged in policy specifics. Perhaps there's less than than meets the eye. They and perhaps many voters find his sermons on hope and change too much to stomach. But I've seen during this crazy primary season that voters are responding to the "we" far more than candidates speaking "I, I, I."

Watching her drink the change kool aid and spit it back out looks forced and anemic, another example of poll-driven insertions that dull an otherwise lively mind and unparallelled gift to dechipher what's wrong and offer solutions. She can wear an audience down with her detailed answers. When she says "I'm a doer and not a talker" she can make a good case of accomplishment. But she has slipped on so many suits in the campaign (experience, leadership, accomplishment, change) that you never know what's going to come up. In comparison, Obama has had the advantage of being annoyingly consistent with his few themes.
Going after Obama for his legislative votes is fair game but the hypocrisy is almost comical given the depth of lobbyist money and influence in her campaign -- and as I learned in Iowa, talk about Iraq war can be toxic because voters there told me they haven't fogotten the war or her war authorization vote in 2002. To accuse Obama of voting to fund the troops already in a war she supported at the beginning was rich enough to give me intellectual heartburn. Their latest dagger is a 'Obama as a potential George W. Bush in the making' (you know, no experience and without experience you can't have change is the latest formula) and it's an embarrassing howler. It's also a sign of desperation -- Bush was the most ill-experienced, least traveled, most coddled and uncurious president possibly ever. If Clinton can't tell the difference, what does that say about her judgment?

P.S. -- Perhaps it's a slight case of paranoia on my part but last night at the Clinton event in Hampton, a very tall man carrying a Clinton sign kept walking along the ropes of the media area, staring at reporters and then walking away before returning a short time later. When I made eye contact with him he smiled a not-reassuring smile and turned around. I know the popular wisdom among the Clinton supporters is that we are all secret Hillary bashers -- perhaps this guy was carrying a media voodoo doll?

Posted by Michael McCord at 06:46 AM| Permalink | Comments (1)

Big crowd game

Less than 48 hours to before the voters head to the polls and the good weather is sending thousands of voters to campaign events across the state -- leading to traffic jam and overflow rooms filled with supporters and the curious wanting to see what all the fuss is about. I heard the Hillary Clinton event in Nashua today drew as well if not better than Barack Obama's there yesterday. I was at the Barack Obama stop at Exeter High School which thankfully started an hour or so late (I had a leisurely adventure around the exeter area finding the old high school before finally getting on track -- looking at the fine print on Google maps would have helped.)

It was packed, an estimated 2,500 or that included an overflow with folks cheering at a, ah, loudpseaker. They were there to hear and see the post-Iowa caucus winning Obama who seems to really hitting a new gear with a stump speech that evolves and morphs (by comparison, he was rather the policy-listing plodder with his early efforts when the campaign launched less than a year ago). He got this crowd juiced numerous times and possibly best of all when mentioning that George W. Bush or his 'cousin' Dick Cheney wouldn't be on the ballot in November -- and, I wrote in my notes, when he talked about respecting the Constitution("very loud cheer"). Obama said he was going after the undecided voter and he may have persuaded a few or many or many more (Tuesday will tell whether he made the sale.)
One of those undecideds was Lydia Blume, an enthusiastic Democrat from York, Maine who didn't hesitate when I asked why she was interested in Obama (Blume will take part in the Maine caucuses next month -- which alas won't get as much love, respect and adoration as Iowa; it's all in the batting order). "This is the key: he's pushing change from the ground up," said Blume who is part of an emerging organization called Seacoast Democrats (based in York) that is attempting to do exactly what Obama advocates. Blume, who brought her young daughter Sophia Eytel to Exeter High (new motto: It's a long walk up the driveway). She told me the young and growing group is self-created and inspired by the frustration and promise of the 2004 and 2006 elections. Obama probably didn't disappoint her especially when he talked "Americans are the agents of change."

I'm off to see Hillary Clinton in Hampton in a short while.

Poll Fever
They are coming fast and furious and you can find what you want in each of them. The Concord Monitor/Research 2000 poll released yesterday has a tight Dem race with Obama 34 percent, Clinton 33 percent, and Edwards 23 on the Dem side; for the GOP, John McCain led Mitt Romney by a 35 to percent margin with Mike Huckabee at 13 percent. The latest CNN/WMUR poll had Clinton and Obama tied at 33 percent with Edwards at 20 percent. John McCain also topped the Republican race with a 35 to 29 percent lead over Mitt Romney and Rudy giuliani at 14 percent. The Franklin Pierce/WBZ poll will be released tonight. It's likely to be very tight come Tuesday.

Posted by Michael McCord at 03:15 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Three days to go...

Coincidence?
Two days after the Iowa caucus in which younger voters turned out in record numbers in support of Barack Obama, I got this press release from the Clinton campaign this morning:

Clinton Reaches Out To Young New Hampshire Voters
Holds Roundtables With Young Undecided Voters In New Hampshire
Launches “Ask Hillary” Feature on Facebook In Conjunction With Tonight’s Debate

The Clinton Campaign continued its outreach to young voters Saturday, holding roundtables with undecided Granite Staters and launching an “Ask Hillary” feature on the campaign web site to allow voters to pose questions directly to Hillary.
“I want to hear from young voters about their concerns and encourage them to participate in this incredible process,” Clinton said. “I have been making change for 35 years, and with their help, I will go to work on Day One to make change in the White House.”
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton will hold a roundtable with four undecided voters ages 18 to 25 on the campaign bus traveling between Penacook and Durham today, fielding a range of questions on the most pressing issues facing young people in New Hampshire . Among the undecideds will be Ben Coleman of Bristol , who celebrates his 18th birthday today and plans to major in science and mathematics at the University of New Hampshire .
n Durham , Hillary will continue her outreach to young voters, holding an hour-long conversation with 30 young undecideds at the Bagelry.
Also Saturday, the campaign launched an “Ask Hillary” feature on its web site, reaching out directly to Hillary's Facebook supporters in conjunction with tonight’s ABC/Facebook debate in Manchester . Voters can submit questions to Hillary over the next two days, and she’ll post video answers to the top five questions on the site early next week. Questions can be submitted at hillaryclinton.com/ask.
Gore supporters drop bid
The Draft Gore New Hampshire folks have dropped their bid for an Al Gore write-in effort to raise the profile on alternative energy development in the presidential campaign. Farrill Seiler, the group's leader sent out the e-mail earlier today and said he contacted some 2,000 members to vote for the candidate who might best embrace the former vice president's policies. Though it was unlikely to be a repeat the Ralph Nadar in New Hampshire and Florida in the general election of 2000, with every vote up for grabs on Tuesday that will be one annoyance for the Democratic candidates.

(earlier)
Just got a report that the Obama event in Nashua will likely draw more than 2,000 this morning -- but then all the candidates are drawing huge crowds as the clock now works for some candidates and mostly against the rest of them.
I was surprised that Iowa proved to be such a chopping block for Dem candidates Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd who made such herculean efforts in Iowa. It's truly a cruel business. I saw Biden shaking hands (with family in tow) with voters just before a caucus began in Des Moines. His son Hunter talked to me enthusiastically about the crowds his father was drawing and was looking forward to tonight's debate in Manchester. Who knew that would be his last campaign stop before dropping out a few hours later. Dodd ran probably the least artifical television ads in Iowa at the end -- just him looking into the camera talking about his desire to lead the country and the experience he would bring. Dodd had made the total committmnet by moving his family to Iowa. And then by 9 p.m. central time it was over for him as well.
Can't help but admire the spinning and positive thinking taking place by those candidates not named Huckabee and Obama. Romney talks about the first inning of fifty inning game (a mangled sports analogy at best) and strangest of all, claiming a change platform himself (for Washington but not the presidency. Uh?) Silver medals at the primary level drive candidates to do odd things -- just ask Dem John Edwards who has claimed victory of sorts (over Hillary) and said it's a two-person race between him and Obama. That's audacity of hopeful thinking in action. And Hillary has come back to New Hampshire washing her hands of Iowa as not really historically significant (she's right of course) and a good effort by her campaign (right aas well). But we think she would have been singing a much different tune had she finished on top. I know my confidence would have been tested had I not been supported by seventy percent of Democratic caucus goers in Iowa (to show the weird nature of perception in these things, Obama, the convincing winner in Iowa, was not supported by around 62 percent of the same caucus goers)
The good news is that here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land, the media mob that has descended upon us won't have to spend time explaining an exotic caucus formula. It's one person, one vote and turnout here (which could smash all records) will be key -- the more the merrier is the Obama campaign song. We will see the full impact of a theorized Iowa slingshot effect -- or will it be a boomerang full of surprises for for the frontrunners.
More later on the debates I won't be attending but will be watching.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:45 AM| Permalink | Comments (2)

Back for the final sprint

I got out of Des Moines early (really early) and beat the main media skeedaddle from the Iowa's caucus kingdom to our fair first-in-the-solar system primary land for a final blitz of campaign saturation. Here are a few Iowa follow ups:
I heard from Joyce Chamberlain, the Democratic precinct chair in Pleasantville where caucus night was like elsewhere throughout the state -- a record-smashing event. Earlier in the week (read here) I had traveled to Pleasantville, a small rural town southeast of Des Moines, for a morning coffee talk with Chamberlain and some of her friends (known in the area as the "Coffee Ladies"). She believed that Pleasantville would have a record turn out (to perhaps 150) and she was right about that -- only off by more than 150. Here's her report:

"We had a big turnout. Too big for the space we had. Here are my numbers:
Total Attendees: 304
We elected 29 delegates which broke down to:
Clinton 8
Obama 9
Edwards 12
Richardson was nearly viable on first count but could not attract any more. Dodd only had 3 at first count. 5 uncommitted.
The big surprise I wasn't planning for was registering 114 new democrats. Its allowed to switch parties to participate. We had many Repubs at our caucus. They must have thought we Democrats are more fun."

And then there was Tim McLean, an undecided first-time caucus goer from nearby Pleasant Hill who reported back that he made a decision to back John Edwards (he also like Republican Ron Paul). His wife Lonita, also a first-timer, opted for Hillary Clinton. The big news there also was turnout which broke records, a fact McLean attributed to the number of good choices Democrats felt they had with their candidates (two of which, Biden and Dodd, have since dropped out -- the high of Obama's triumph was matched by the low of seeing presidential campaign hopes dashed even before making it to New Hampshire.)

Leave it to a sourpuss editorialist at the New York Times today, of all days, to moan and cry yet again about how unfair it is that Iowa and New Hampshire have such a major impact on the nominating process. Boo hoo. This editorial was an act of establishment self-indulgence. There were the usual complaints about how superficial the process is, how issues aren't being addressed and other such claptrap. The best idea offered is regional primaries which plays into the big money players and wouldn't have allowed, for example, Huckabee to emerge or McCain to survive. What penetrating imagination -- and it ignores the Times' own reporting and what I witnessed myself of a serious committment to caucus, a knowledge of the issues (often as astute as any so-called expert) and how this looney tune arrangement managed to draw in tens of thousands of new and younger voters, both for Obama and Huckabee. There are good arguments to be made for how truly irrational our nominating process is and goodness knows I see the absurdity of it -- but to offer nothing as a substitute for a something that does engage voters who might otherwise be ignored is the weakest form of advocacy. There was far too much to celebrate on numerous levels today than to consider seriously this anemic editorial.

In my first post-caucus daily link, we find a reason why John McCain hearts Mike Huckabee as the Huck-man victory in Iowa was a political kick in the groin for Mitt Romney -- which surely made McCain smile.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:12 PM| Permalink | Comments (3)

The wait is over (with updates all day and night)

DES MOINES, Iowa -- (11 p.m.) I've just returned from the Barack Obama victory speech in downtown Des Moines. The crowd was fired up. Obama had recovered most of his voice to deliver a powerful speech that had little to do with policy and everything to do with shooting to create the political majority he has talked about on the campaign trail.

The sense among the few media folks I talked to was one of being stunned by the depth and breadth of Obama's victory on the Democratic side. Three stunning exit poll results from Iowa for me was that Obama beat Hillary Clinton among women, drew major support from indepedendents and swamped everybody among voters under 30. It will be interesting to see if that trend repeats itself in New Hampshire.

A telling moment of my Iowa visit came earlier tonight at one of the precinct sites when I walked outside and started talking to Jane Elgin. She was older woman who said the Obama folks had dropped her off at the wrong precinct. (probably a rare gaffe for the organization that night). I did my civic duty and drove her to the right precinct and she shared her excitement of going to her first caucus and supporting Obama -- despite a strong respect for John Edwards. It was a rare, unvarnished snapshot into what happened at her precinct and across Iowa -- not because of who she supported but the simple fact she came out on a cold winter's night to make her voice be heard.

It's back to New Hampshire and five days of saturation campaigning beginning with Romney in the middle of the night for an airport raqlly in Manchester -- and Obama for an airport rally of his own in Portsmouth at 8:45 a.m.. I wish I had their airline connections. My flight to Minneapolis takes off at 5 a.m. Call me the zombie pundit.

(7 p.m.) The waiting is over.
I visited two Des Moines precincts as Democratic caucus goers began to file in -- in potentially big numbers if you use major traffic overflow as a measure. At one of them, Jackson Elementary School in a Des Moines neighborhood, Joe Biden and his clan were shaking hands and asking for votes. His son Hunter told me Biden had drawn large crowds at the four events across the state (on a plane) before setting down in Des Moines -- and they were already looking forward to New Hampshire and Saturday's night debate. (Hunter Biden also emphatically denied the rumor of Biden cutting a deal with Obama for his support if his supporters did not reach viability in their precinct. See below for more)

In a truly unscientific poll of my own, I talked to eight random voters not wearing campaign buttons or sweatshirts and each of them were first-time caucus goers -- and each of them were Obama supporters. Brian Bacus and Traci Kaufman came together and Bacus told me he "was energized by the whole thing (Obama's candidacy)" and "He's the first politician I can honestly trust." The couple had gone to three rallies during the campaign season (Bacus had also run into Obama at the downtown food court today) and Kaufman said that Obama "made me proud to be American." Jane Elgin, who was conflicted because she also liked John Edwards a lot, said she was coming out to caucus for the first time because Obama represented change and a chance to turn around the country.

(earlier)
This is what happens when the campaigning comes to a grinding halt and rumors start making the rounds. I was minding my business and leaving Java Joes, a downtown coffee shop, when a woman looked at my press credentials and asked me if Id heard that Bill Richardson was urging his supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice if he wasn't viable in their precinct (viable: that 15 percent threshold necessary to make the final cut). No, I said, I hadn't heard anything about such nefarious activity and found it hard to believe such a deal would be made because it's a lose-lose for everyone. -- and how could it 'enforced' anyway? (I bumped into David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, at an event in Des Moines last night, and such backroom deals didn't come up in the conversation. He looked happy to have survived Iowa with his wits intact.)

I didn't think any more of ithe rumor until I checked my computer again and saw it must have really made the rounds -- and expanded to include Joe Biden -- because Walter Shapiro of Salon wrote a story about it. What do they say about idle minds?

(earlier)
Father George Kelly and son Mathew Kelly are undecided voters who have to make a decision soon -- Mathew in Iowa tonight and George in Concord Tuesday. Mathew, a college professor in Pella, is a first-time caucus goer and will attend the local Democrat caucus with wife Anne. Both are supporters of Bill Richardson though Mathew said he also was impressed with Dennis Kucinich. "I like the honest kind of talk out of them." He told me what matters most to him is the ability to speak the unflinching truth and likes Richardson's no-nonsense approach on the environment, the war in Iraq and education. He said that Richardson would make a major push on energy and global climate change in part because he believes it's a "panic" situation requiring a man to the moon effort. As for Iraq, he told me "the biggest slap in the face to anyone who lost someone on 9/11 is that Bin Laden is still alive" because of the diversion to Iraq. Mathew told me "I'd be very surprised if they (Richardson or Kucinich) won and if he must make a second choice he's leaning (like so many I've talked to) to John Edwards while Anne is leaning towards Hillary Clinton.
As for father George -- when I talked to him last week, he was undecided between Richardson and Edwards. Alas, George won't get a second choice in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

First-time caucus goer Tim McLean is an undecided independent who could go for Republican Ron Paul or Democrat
ohn Edwards. Needless to say that's an interesting voter mind set. McLean, a financial accountant from nearby Pleasant Hill, told me earlier today he probably wouldn't make up his mind until later this afternoon. Most of all, he told me, he's looking for somebody, anybody who will "break the ideological boundaries" and deal with his top two, very connected issues -- a rational and national health care system and stopping out of control government spending and the soaring national debt that goes with it. McLean believes if we don't get control of spending, pressing issues like health care reform and climate change will be victims of a financial drought.

(earlier)
It's all about win, place and show for the candidates and sorting through the media buzz of the past two days, one development is near the top -- Will John McCain make the Republican top three in Iowa after having essentially written it off? If he does, this will rival the winner's headlines going into New Hampshire.

Second speculation story line that sounds a lot like New Hampshire: Will the independents show up and break Democratic in heavy numbers. If they do, it will be an exciting night.

Weather forecast: cold, sunny, windy, in the 20s with wind chills in the single digits tonight. Downright balmy.

(earlier)
What the brigades of talking head pundits may be talking about while waiting today, courtesy of Talking Points Memo and the final Zogby/Rueters/C-CPAN tracking poll here in caucus kingdom.

Needless to say, these would be interesting outcomes if they prove accurate. Here are the raw numbers including up and down movement from Jan. 1:
:

Democrats:
Obama 31% (+3)
Edwards 27% (+1)
Clinton 24% (-4)
Richardson 7% (+0)
Biden 5% (+1)

Republicans:
Huckabee 31% (+3)
Romney 25% (+1)
Thompson 11% (-1)
McCain 10% (-2)
Paul 10% (+1)
Giuliani 6% (-1)

In my daily link, John Dickerson of Slate speculates that Hillary Clinton might have found her herself, her stride on the campaign trail.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:02 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

John Edwards sleeps

At least I assume he's considering a nap after his well-publicized 36-hour marathon that ended a while ago in West Des Moines...I am still up, having just returned from an Obama event at the local Hoover High School (named, I found out, after Herbert Hoover who was dispatched in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression by Democrat Franklin Roosevelt.) More than 1.000 (estimated) turned out on a cold night and I saw more than a few walking for three-four block walk in the cold: I was one of them) for an event that didn't start until around 10 p.m. I know they have a reputation for civic engagement (and super high literacy rates I read) but, with all due respect and affection, don't these Iowans have a life?

The wrong person to ask this question was Chris Coleman, a Des Moines city councilor who takes this business seriously and with enthusiasm. He kept his teenage children Maggie and Nick up late on a school night in a bi-partisan campaign tour blitz -- I think I got this right but he told me they visited Fred Thompson's office (Fred wasn't there), to the same rally I was at with Mitt Romney, to Joe Biden's office (Joe wasn't there), to the John Edwards rally and then to see Obama. The one stop he couldn't make ws the Bill and Hillary Clinton show, also in Des Moines. You know your are feeling inadequate as a professional scribe when Joe Citizen out hustles you on the campaign trail.

Coleman plans to caucus for Joe Biden but when I asked what does he hears from his friends and neighbors, he pointed towards Obama. "He's the buzz."

The man with the buzz was working with only one engine of a four-engine voice. It was mostly gone after five stops across the state today and months of campaign abuse. Even if he couldn't raise his hoarse voice very high, the crowd was juiced and the media swarm tagging along was a who's who of the Washington elite (a Tim Russert of the Meet the Press there, a Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and Andrea Mitchell of NBC over there, and a Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and Judy Woodruff of PBS as well) which only adds to the buzz.

It was a different kind of buzz at the Mitt Romney rally which was of a smaller size but pretty juiced up in its own right. Romney strives for the Ronald Reagan style of scripted political storytelling, heavy on the optimism (There's no distress in America that can't be solved without a little effort -- and a good scapegoat to take the blame) and even heavier on inspiring tales of flag, family, faith and values (some 57 varities of values -- Yankee, heartland, midwestern, southern values to name a few Romney mentioned). It's a lullaby routine that can be disarming and Romney looks like a winner -- which for the $20 plus million he's invested here, he'd better get a high return especially when compared to the bargain basement operation and self-inflicted wounds of late of his closest rival Mike Huckabee.

For my money, your best bet for a complete immersion into cognitive dissonance partake in a back to back Republican and Democratic candidate rallies. They might as well be talking about conditions on different planets in far apart solar systems.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:36 AM| Permalink | Comments (1)

Iowa: Can't miss this sign

Talk about getting your point across. One of the most emphatic signs I've seen is a big billboard on NE 14th Street in Des Moines for Ron Paul. In big letters it reads "Will Shut Down the IRS." Don't know about the truth in advertising or constitutional issues, but it sure gets your attention. I haven't spent enough time here to see too many campaign signs for the Republican hopefuls but Paul has the most of those I've run across.

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:27 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Fish out of water...

PLEASANTVILLE, Iowa -- I shared a long coffee hour talking politics and caucus with the "Coffee Ladies" of Pleasantville, a small rural town some 30 miles southeast of Des Moines off of Route 5. It was a very cold morning but the drive there was stunning: rolling white farmland glistened in the sun. The highest building in town is a silo at the Smith Fertilizer and Grain company but the coffee at the Smokey Row, a coffee and fountain shop, was good (the recommended bisquits and gravy breakfast was delicious) and the conversation was lively. A picture of Barack Obama sipping coffee in Smokey Row was hung by the cash register (he'd stopped by two weeks earlier) with a caption: "You never know who's going to stop by the Row."

I was there courtesy of Joyce Chamberlain, who has been the Democratic precinct chair in Pleasantville (population: maybe 2,000) since 1976 and the coffee group has been a regular part of the routine of some 25 ladies -- the men folk get their coffee elsewhere -- who talk of what people nomrally talk about on a daily basis. Needless to say, the talk of late has been the caucus and little else. Of the 11 I talked to today, 10 were planning to attend the local Democratic precinct caucus which could draw as many as 150 -- which Chamberlain told me would make it quite crowded at the local Memorial Building It's the largest of 17 caucuses in Marion County.(Republicans have their caucus across the county in Pella.) The coffee ladies were well known in the area and campaign staffers have stopped by regularly to make the cases for their candidates. While I was pleasantly grilled about what I thought and who I'd seen on the campaign trail in first-in-the-galaxy primary land, I managed to get an early caucus beakdown. In an very informal and impromptu straw poll, the support broke down like this: Edwards 3, Richardson 3, Obama 3, Clinton 1 and one undecided (between Hillary and Obama).

My favorite quote from the coffee ladies about the fluid nature of the caucus process came from Rose Warren: "I stand my ground 'til the last minute."

Read more about my visit to Pleasantville in tomorrow's Out on a Limb column at seacoastonline.com.

Beginning at 6 p.m. local time, it will be media traffic jam time as the Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have purchased up to two minutes of local news time to make the final plea. It's an expensive plea for support but one that will gnerate more buzz for the buck than the typical homogenized ad. At the same time I've been invited to a Caucus Media Reception at the Des Moines Art Center -- it's this sort of appreciation for hard-working scribes (food and drink included) that makes Iowa unique.

In the shameless promotion department, New York Times blogger Michael Falcone picked up my "fish out of water" musings of a New Hampshire primary devotee covering the fuss in Iowa. Read his take here.

Latest caucus night weather forecast: Balmy in the 20s.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:35 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Marathon candidates

DES MOINES, Iowa -- No one is embracing this final full day of frenzied (and freezing) campaigning before tomorrow night's caucus more than John Edwards who is in the midst of an iron man trek across the state. Titled "36 ideas to strengthen the middle class," the plans are for 36 straight hours of campaigning until late tonight in West Des Moines with an appearance with singer John Mellencamp (that's when I plan to catch up with him: Edwards may not need sleep but I do). The Bill and Hillary Clinton tag team will also end up here in Des Moines tonight as will Barack Obama -- and then there's the rest of the Democratic gang. I need to be cloned, pronto.

I'm venturing out into the artic freeze and travel to Pleasantville (southeast of Des Moines) for coffee and voter chatter. I missed yesterday the second round of GOPer Mike Huckabee's eccentric non-negative political theatre, this time with actor (sort of) Chuck Norris delivering a negative slap to the face of Mitt Romney. Oddly, no questions were allowed though it was staged for reporters. The buzz this morning is that Huckabee is daring to depart the caucus kingdom for an appearance tonight with Jay Leno.

Speaking of theatre, there's actually a play running right now called "Caucus: The Musical." Why don't we do such things in New Hampshire?

By my reckoning, Hillary "every stage of her life has prepared her for the presidency" Clinton has cornered the market on back to back ads -- one voter centric and another Hillary centric. The combination is not unlike that of the Terminator -- she will be back again and again.

In between the ads (Chris Dodd earnestly told me again and again that he's an experienced leader; Ron Paul tells me he's delivered 4,000 babies; Joe Biden is ready to take on a nasty world), a Des Moines television station gave helpful hints to those of us departing on Friday morning (get to the airport really early and pack smart). They are thoughtful and nice here.

In my daily link, Jeff Greenfield in Slate gives a reasoned diss of the Iowa caucus system. It's all true and it doesn't matter a wit.

Posted by Michael McCord at 07:50 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Iowa bound

For the fourth time today I've checked the weather for Des Moines, Iowa tomorrow through Friday (a balmy 10 to 15 degrees high awaits me), and I'm in an Iowa frame of mind as I prepare to leave behind first-in-the-galaxy primary land and head to first-in the-universe caucus territory. In my daily link, Christopher Hitches takes apart the Iowa caucuses and skewers the bizarre process that gives us not only Iowa but our own circus. In particular, Hitchens takes the mainstream media machine to task for enabling the insanity.

One of my favorite nuggets was from an Australian commentator who wrote this explanation for the folks down under and warned it was important to take notice of what will happen in Iowa (has to do with choosing the leader of the free world with looks positively strange to 99.5 percent of the rest of the world.)

“The Iowa caucuses are a process so bizarre and byzantine it is either, depending on your outlook, the essence of grass-roots democracy, a quaint anachronism, or perhaps just plain crazy. For a start, only a small fraction of Iowans will vote. In the Democrats’ case, it is not a secret ballot - people gather in groups in corners of a room to indicate their support for a candidate, and then try to convince those in the other corners to join them. They pick delegates to county conventions, which then lead to district and eventually state conventions. And long after the media has lost interest, these delegates can change their allegiances. If the United Nations sent observers to monitor the poll they would shake their heads," said Mark Coultan of the Sydney Morning Herald.

I get to add to the circus. One Iowan told me "the state is overrun with candidates, their handlers, campaigns and roadside gawkers." I'll start posting from Iowa tomorrow.

Posted by Michael McCord at 03:25 PM| Permalink | Comments (2)

Guess who reads the polls?

The Mitt Romney brigade obviously does. It's bad enough for Mr. Conservative come lately to get passed by Mike Huckabee in Iowa but to have John McCain too close for comfort here in first-in-the-solar system primary land? That's a hard punch to take.
You could see this coming from miles away. Romney, the Concord Monitor's favorite Ken Doll candidate, has a less-than-sweet Happy New Year greeting for John McCain: please go away. To no surprise of anyone who has read the Karl Rove playbook of warfare campaigning, the Mittster has gone after McCain for being less than honorable and pure-bred conservative when it comes to taxes and immigration. His latest ad released today on the NH battleground of confusing ideas, gives faux praise by announcing that “John McCain, an honorable man. But is he the right Republican for the future?"
Not according to the Mittster.The ad continues: "McCain opposes repeal of the death tax. And voted against the Bush tax cuts — twice. McCain pushed to let every illegal immigrant stay here permanently. Even voted to allow illegals to collect Social Security.”
I'm surprised Mitt didn't add "lions and tigers and bears and mmigrants and taxes, oh my" when saying he was approving the hardly subtle message. In my daily link, The Politico offers a reminder that the Mittster's career path to born-again conservatism and the various stances he has taken in the past is a gift that keeps on gving for his opponents.

Before I head out for the holiday weekend and a trip to Iowa to see what all the fuss is about, here's my Friday shameless promotion plug for Sunday's Out in a LImb column. It's the First Annual Primies, a nod to some of my favorite moments and observations on the campaign trail during 2007.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:29 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Themed mouthful

If it's Thursday (or Wednesday or Friday or Saturday) it must be time for the latest Hillary Clinton campaign theme of the day (or hour). The most recent mouthful in Iowa is “Big Challenges, Real Solutions: Time To Pick A President" which was theme distinct from last week's "Working for Change, Working for You Tour" in New Hampshire (which included "Moms and Daughters Making History" events) and really distinct from a recent themed excursion in Iowa called "Every County Counts Tour" and even more distinct from the recent "Ready for Change, Ready to Lead" tour in Iowa and NH. I could name scores of others (and I do mean scores) that reflect the past year's efforts but I think you get the point -- when it comes to peppy themes, the Clinton campaign can't be beat.

It took long enough but the Clinton campaign finally did figure out an effective ad theme with the latest effort titled "Stakes." It's smart, succinct and thankfully not weighed down with thematic baggage. It's also the most effective ad of the campaign (and will hopefully allow people to forget last week's holiday ad theme debacle.See it here.

I doubt Dem hopeful Joe Biden has gone through too many themes during his valiant primary season quest to break through the celebrity and media horse race chatter dominated by the Clinton/Edwards/Obama grudge match. He's spent too much of the campaign like an eccentric uncle people enjoy but wouldn't necessarily trust with their vote. Well, Joe told Walter Shapriro of Salon there might be a Iowa caucus surprise out there for his campaign -- which would help his prospects immensely in New Hampshire. Read about Joe Biden's self-assessment here in my daily link.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:17 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Boxing Day advocates

On this special Boxing Day, just 13 days away from the first-in-the-galaxy primary day of reckoning, I visited the Blue Hampshire bloggers site to check out the latest endorsement chatter and in particular, talk about the eye-opening sucker punch delivered by the Concord Monior on Mitt Romeny earlier this week. The anti-endorsement body slam on candidates was one used to see regularly (and with enjoyable hysteria value) by the Union Leader when William J. Loeb was running the show. But I guess we have entered a new era of anti-advocacy. You can read more here.

Earlier this year I met retired Army Gen. John Johns who talked to the Portsmouth Herald editorial board during a tour of retired generals critical of the Iraq war and how it was dangerously undermining our long-term military capabilities. I've talked and corresponded with Gen. Johns a few times since then and he has come out in support of Democratic hopeful and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and campaigned with him recently. Johns sent me this letter recently to make the foreign policy case for Richardson especially in regards to the aftermath of the Bush debacle in Iraq.

Dear Mike,
It was good talking to you on the teleconference a few weeks ago. I have fond memories of our meeting earlier this year with your editorial Board and have thought of how events have unfolded since then, especially the debate over the results of the “surge.” The purpose of this note is to update you on my thoughts on the Iraq situation and secondly, to comment on my recent appearance with Governor Bill Richardson in New Hampshire, in case you were aware of that
Personally, I believe it is premature to take comfort in the fact that violence has been reduced in Iraq. As I have said all along about General Petraeus and his team of advisors, they are first class and their COIN doctrine is on target. Nevertheless, I still believe it is far too little and too late to change the course of events that we have unleashed in Iraq.
There is little doubt that the increase in troops in Baghdad has provided increased security; however, a great deal of the reduction, it seems to me, is the result of factors other than the increase of troops. First and perhaps foremost, is the brutal sectarian cleansing that had divided Baghdad into enclaves that separates the warring religious parties. The half million or so Christians, of course, are largely gone out of country and the Sunnis and Shiites walled off from each other. While this has reduced the friction between the groups, I’m not sure it is advantageous for the goal of developing national unity.
The change in strategy in Anbar Province, where we are now working with tribal chiefs to arm and train their militias, preceded the surge and is rather independent of that action. While this provides a temporary benefit to us, and I am in favor of this change, it will make national unity more difficult. It may be that some are correct in saying that the partition of Iraq into semi-autonomous sections is a reality and we should junk the idea of a unified Iraq. Again, that may provide short-term benefits in reducing violence and U.S. casualties, but what does it do in promoting national unity. As I read it, we have decided to arm and train the Sunni militia to rid the insurgency of Al Qaeda elements and at least buy the cooperation of the Sunni tribal chiefs. As you can read in the daily news commentary, the Iraqi central government is not happy about that and sees the Sunni militia as future enemies.
I am not convinced that the partition idea is wise in the long run. Look at the situation in the north involving the Turks and Kurds. We trumpet the Kurdish region as a beacon of stability, etc. it seems to me that we have created a monster by whetting the appetite of Kurds in Turkey, Syria, and Iran to join with their Iraqi brethren in creating a greater Kurdistan. If we think we saw brutal repression of Iraqi Kurdish insurgents by Saddam, wait until the Turks, Iranians and Syrians deal with Kurdish insurgents who want to join that greater Kurdistan. Add to that dynamic our presence in the Kurdish area, trying to balance our relations with Turkey and the Kurds, and you have a recipe for chaos in the region.
I have just read in the 19 December 2007 Washington Post the latest Battle Update Assessment provided General Petraeus. The report clearly says all segments of the Iraqi people blame us for their problems and want us out. If you have not read that report, I recommend you do so. The post article is by Karen DeYoung.

Frankly, I don’t know how we can extricate ourselves from this quandary with anything resembling success. I haven’t changed my overall view that we need to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, and yet do it in a responsible way. I believe the Bush strategy is merely kicking the can down the road so as to hand the problem over to the next administration. That is the reason that I have been working with Governor Bill Richardson in refining his position and appeared with him in Iowa and briefly in New Hampshire at one event. As I told you and your staff, I am an Independent and offer my views to any candidate who wants to listen. I have offered to appear with Jo Ann Emerson, (R) Missouri and will do so with any candidate that lets me give my candid views without following “talking points’ provided by staff. I will not tailor my talk to fit a specific candidate. Bill Richardson has honored that position.
I appeared with Bill Richardson because his plan is the closest to offering a way out of any of the candidates. As I understand him, he pledges to have all U.S. forces out of Iraq within a year of his presidency. The notion that he is being irresponsible is nonsense.
The first point is that Richardson has stated his desire to remove all troops from Iraq, but not necessarily from the region. That would leave troops along the Kurdish/Turkey border if Turkey agreed and would have them available if needed in Iraq, but also would have their presence act as a deterrent in any Kurdish/Turkey problem. Other troops in say Kuwait would act as a strike force if necessary into Iraq. This of course would be done having a multi-national force in Iraq.
The second point about Richardson’s plan is that he would engage in vigorous diplomacy to get regional powers and the major powers involved in bringing stability to the region. This is described by some, especially the neocon hawks who got us in this quagmire and who insist on unilateralism, as being naïve. I would point out that Richardson’s plan closely follows the two major steps recommended by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group; withdraw all combat forces and use diplomacy to internationalize the solution to the problem.
For those who say it is idealistic to think we can form an international coalition and create a multi-national peace-keeping force to fill the void as we remove our troops, I say we have no other choice. Every country in the world has a vital national interest in stabilizing the region and the notion that we can keep an occupation force there for the indefinite future is a path to greater disaster than we now face.
I agree with the Richardson approach in principle and that is why I have volunteered to be part of his military team. The only slight difference I have with him is that I would not rule out leaving some U.S. forces in Iraq to provide logistical support to a multi-national force if such a force cannot provide its own support. I believe he is flexible enough to make that adjustment if needed. It would be best if we could pull out all U.S. forces and the sooner the better.
I liked what Bill Clinton said about having him and G.H.W. Bush go on a trip throughout the world to convince the world that there is a new era of America working with the international community. I would include Brent Scowcroft, Chuck Hagel, Tony Zinni, and Colin Powell, as well as others who are respected for their belief in working through international institutions. I believe Bill Richardson should be involved in such an effort; I would certainly give him that portfolio if he is chosen as a running mate.
Again, I appreciate the courtesy that you accorded me earlier this year by affording me the opportunity to meet with your editorial Board. I wanted you to know that I still consider my efforts on foreign policy to be non-partisan and that my appearances with Governor Richardson offered me the opportunity to express my views candidly. I do find him refreshingly candid and adaptable to changing circumstances. He listens to diverse views from senior military advisors and has changed his mind when it makes sense.

Warm regards.
Brigadier John H. Johns, USA Ret.
22 December 2007

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:08 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Mitt's excellent historical memories & regular shameless promotion

In the regular shameless promotion spot for my Sunday Out on a Limb column, I'm writing about the last push for John Edwards who has campaigned hard on a consistent theme of economic populism and is calling on the country to rise up and take back the power. Is Edwards capturing a big undercurrent of economic anxiety? In the end do voters have enough empathy to care about the economic misfortune of others. I have a long distance talk with a big supporter and volunteer of Edwards who's spending some of his time helping out the campaign -- from Sudan.

Mitt's travails
On the good news side, Rep. Tom Tancredo gave up his presidential bid and endorsed Mitt Romney which gives the Mittster the zenophobic voting block. On the bad news side, both the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, papers who know Mitt the best (or at least think they do), endorsed John McCain. And then there is the issue of Mitt's memory and his video game use of history -- as in he remembers seeing his father George (former Michigan governor and 1968 presidential candidate) marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s. In my daily link, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo deciphers the Mittster's tortured "see/saw" explanation about what really didn't happen was a metaphor for good intentions about his Civil Rights bonafides.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/061649.php

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:12 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember that war in Iraq?

While Dem Bill Richardson was bowling in Portsmouth last night -- and making it out in time to dodge the latest winter mini-storm -- voters discovered he wasn't very good with the candlepins but he is determined to raise an issue that's been a genie put back in a bottle -- Iraq. His campaign has released what might be called the first 'attack ad' of the Dem primary as Richardson has gone after the big three of Clinton, Edwards, and Obama for their Iraq policies. I say attack ad lightly because it's more of a gentle prod than a hammer but he does make the point because you can't simply eliminate Iraq from the political equation because of the relative calm perhaps before the next storm. The serious questions aren't growing smaller as I heard GOP anti-war critic Ron Paul say yesterday. You can see the ad here.

In my daily link, Richardson reminds folks that Iraq is more than an inconvenient truth lurking the closet -- it's the key to almost everything domestically and internationally. Whether voters are ready to believe that is another matter.

Posted by Michael McCord at 07:12 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

McCain gets really noticed

It wasn't so long ago -- perhaps two or three dog years -- that GOPer John McCain was feeling annoyed because he wasn't being annoying enough (in the polls or in fund raising) for other candidates to notice him and attack him (most candidates lack in the self esteem department when they aren't being attacked). Nothing like a few endorsements (including one by my Portsmouth Herald), a political smooch from part-time Democrat Joe Lieberman and a serious bump in the polls to get noticed -- and attacked.
The Democratic National Committee hounds didn't waste much time and have been sending out non too flattering press releases. The DNC roasted McCain for missing a Senate vote on the alternative minimum tax why he was campaigning to eliminate it. Then today, the DNC sent this friendly historical reminder out:"In his new campaign ad today and out on the campaign trail, Arizona Senator John McCain likes to pretend he opposed Don Rumsfeld's strategy on Iraq from the beginning. Back in Washington, however, John McCain has consistently been one of President Bush's most loyal defenders--a fact made clear by his event today in Boston with Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director James Woolsey. In sharing a stage with Woolsey, McCain is joining one of the leading members of the Defense Policy Board that helped shape Rumsfeld's Iraq strategy."
And then a pro-Huckabee independent group ran a telephone push poll in our first-in-the-solar-system primary state dissing McCain while kissing Huckabee (the Huck man has disavowed the group but surely can't be all that worked up about their dirty work that benefits him). McCain is riding the good press express again and his opponents are taking notice. I can't wait until the Mittster takes notice because if he goes after McCain, it could get really nasty (John and 'Mr. Torture Know it All' Mitt aren't exactly on speaking terms.)
Anyway, must be nice for McCain to start feeling the love of being attacked again. In my daily link, Slate's John Dickinson nicely captures the latest reincarnation of John McCain.

Constitutional reprisals
During a stop in Portsmouth with the Herald editorial board, GOPer Ron Paul, who has become the financial rainmaker in this primary among the Republicans, brought up a unique solution to tracking down and eliminating terrorists like Osama bin Laden: he brought the constitutional reply of "Letters of Marque and Reprisal" to essentially deputize certain Americans to become mercenaries in service of the Congress and country. Well, that was a rare moment when you really do hear something so far out new that you almost fall out of the chair. I confess in almost three decades of political reporting I'd never heard that one before. Curious I looked it up and for those keeping Constitutional score at home that's Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 in your playbook. It's arcane like the Third Amendment (peacetime wuartering of soldiers in private homes) but strangely not that far out of the loop. Leave it to Ron Paul to give you a Constitutional lesson a day.

Scheduling, Edwards style
I ran into a disgruntled Edwards supporter who left an event in Portsmouth Wednesday, the one headlined by Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, after waiting almost two hours for it to start. "I love the guy but I've seen him five ttimes this year and they are always an hour late. It's starting to piss me off."

Posted by Michael McCord at 06:37 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Burns & Biden speak out and Dodd filibusters

Ken Burns, the award-winning New Hampshire documentary filmmaker ("The Civil War" and recently "The War" to name just a few) has endorsed Dem Barack Obama -- and spoke out despite a desire to remain mum about his choice because he's become "disappointed" with the tone of the overall campaign thrust of the past two weeks by a candidate and former First Lady by the name of Hillary Clinton. "I think she's getting bad advice," said Burns in a conference call with reporters. He spent most of his talking about he was attracted to Obama and his "positive, unironic" vision for the country. Burns said that Obama was the most "authentic" of candidates and one necessary to face the many challenges the country faces -- and one who can inspire the country to tap into "the better angels of our nature." In the synchronicity department, the Clinton folks held a conference call a few mintues earlier talking about an alleged "negative" mailer put out by the Obama campaign. The irony of the two events was unmistakable.

Dem Joe Biden has an opinion on everything -- even when you don't ask him for one. Well, never bashful Joe sent out a gem of a release today blasting an endorsement -- that of right wing legal grinch Robert Bork giving his seal of approval to GOPer Mitt Romney. It connected the historical dots, especially the personal ones between Biden and Bork who likely don't share Christmas cards -- after all Biden played no small part in derailing Bork's Supreme Court nomination in 1987. Here's the release in all its rhetorical glory:
“The hallmark of Robert Bork’s judicial philosophy has been his consistent refusal to acknowledge a constitutional right to privacy. That’s why I led the fight in 1987 to keep Judge Bork off the Supreme Court. In my view, his endorsement of Gov. Romney is not something to tout; it’s a damning portent of the judicial philosophy Romney would promote as President. The last thing we need after 8 years of the Bush Administration’s policies of eavesdropping on Americans, extra-legal renditions, and refusal to define waterboarding as torture, is another 8 years of recklessness with our constitutional rights. If Gov. Romney is serious about leading the United States, I urge him to repudiate Judge Bork’s narrow view of the Constitution and acknowledge our privacy rights as individuals.
“The truth is, our next president will have the responsibility of picking at least one, but probably two, Supreme Court justices. We cannot afford to cede an inch to the radical right when it comes to appointing justices who could put the Supreme Court on a more conservative trajectory for the next decade or more. Back in ‘87 when I led the fight to keep Robert Bork off the Supreme Court, I did so because he made it clear that he did not support the constitutional right to privacy recognized in Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut, which have long served as the legal underpinnings of a woman’s right to reproductive choice.
“And let’s not forget that Robert Bork paved the way for Richard Nixon to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after he requested tapes of Oval Office conversations. We find ourselves in a similar situation today, having learned that an administration official in the CIA had destroyed videotapes of the CIA's use of severe interrogation techniques on detainees held in secret, extra-legal prisons. Now, the Department of Justice is actually standing in the way of a congressional investigation into this corruption. The continuing saga of cover-up and delay by this administration must be stopped.
“We don’t need another President who will further erode the balance of power so vital to our nation’s well-being. Judge Bork’s endorsement of Gov. Romney makes me wonder if he shares Bork’s view of excessive Presidential authority.”

Congrats to Dem Chris Dodd for stopping the FISA reauthorization bill with an eight-hour filibuster that stopped the legislation in its tracks. Nice to see a Dem with some procedural guts for once. Wouldn't it have been interesting if fellow Dem presidential candidates Clinton, Obama and Biden had stopped campaigning and joined Dodd on the floor instead of merely supporting him with words? In my daily link, blogger Scott Thill offers an ode of appreciation to Dodd for showing a spark of leadership.

Posted by Michael McCord at 03:40 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Editorial writers of the world unite!

First off, we in the newspaper business -- and especially those of us on editorial boards such as yours truly -- should thank Hillary Clinton for acknowledging the awesome power of an endorsement as she did repeatedly today when mentioning the Des Moines Register nod to her. Her enthusiasm for the endorsement -- the political equal to Sally Field getting an Oscar and claiming "You like me!" -- was shown in how she used it as a blanket answer to everything during her morning talk show blitz.
Such as:
Q: Sen. Clinton, what about that NIE?
A: Read the editorial about how much I'm ready to lead on day one.
Q: Sen. Clinton, are you afraid to "roll the dice" because your husband certainly is?
A: I'm tested, vetted and the editorial board has confidence in me.
Q: Is former President Clinton becoming a sly attack dog on your behalf?
A: It's all in the editorial. I inspire confidence because what I lack in inspiration I more than make up for with confidence that I'm ready to go.
Q: What about that general election strategy?
A: The editorial captures the essence of me.
Who know editorial boards or editorial writers could spread so much joy?
Thank goodness Hillary Clinton got that endorsement...otherwise she really would be in the dumps only left with a rebooted "change" (as in "change agent" and expert in change who bathes in change) message that would have all the sincerity, as I've mentioned before, of a chastened George W. Bush -- who woke up one morning and became a "Reformer with Results" after getting his butt smacked by John McCain in the New Hampshire primary in 2000 (McCain ran as a establishment-slaying reformer). It's quite amusing to watch Clintonites rally around the change banner and attempt to trademark the political definition of change: you know, there are the annoying demanders of change (Edwards) and the wussy hopers for change (Obama) and then there are the hard workers for change (you know who) who can tell the difference between the change phonies and the real experienced change deal.

Funny how when I asked Richard Holbrooke the former Ambassador to the United Nations who was in New Hampshire stumping for Hillary -- iearlier today f he thought Obama was a risky, "roll the dice" kind of candidate who might put U.S. foreign policy in peril if he was, gulp, elected. Holbrooke, ever the gracious diplomat, wouldn't go near that question with a ten-foot pole and instead told me the Dems had put togeher a very solid slate of candidates. Then he really stumbled from the party line when he talked about what it would take to restore some sense of credibility to the country international's image. When he started talking about experience, he said he didn't want to go there (the defining part of experience) because there were many types of experience. Not exactly what the two campaign minders accompanying Clinton wanted to hear but it was honest. Holbrooke talked about Clinton's considerable talents to be president -- especially her service on the Armed Services Committee which Holbrooke believes give a candidate commander in chief gravitas if they are smart enough to embrace it -- and that Clinton has an esteemed international reputation. He told me the foreign policy differences between the Dem candidates have been "overdramatizied" and are rather minute. He wondered sort of out load why they (the campaign) didn't talk more about the relevant stuff like her Armed sErvices Committee work or that she knows how to "fight the bureaucracy" to get things done.

Why indeed? Perhaps just perhaps, when you're no longer the inevitable queen at the top of the polls, it's better to talk change and "roll the dice" than about what you might actually be good at.

Speaking of Obama , in my daily link, there's an interesting perspective about his candidacy and what it means by Gary Younge of The Nation. It helps explain why clinton and Obama are talking two very different versions of change -- and experience has everything to do with it.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:32 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

And the winner is...

Who knows if this means anything but the latest results are in from a Seacoast NH region hotbed of political activism-- the annual member's holiday party at Wentworth-By-the-Sea Country Club. According to an informal straw poll last week among 300 members (63 percent Republican and 37 percent Democrat), Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama won close victories over Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton respectively.
Here are the top 3 results:
Republicans: Giuliani 34 percent, Romney 32 percent, and John McCain, 27 percent.
Democrats: Obama 44 percent, Clinton 40 percent and John Edwards, 14 percent.

This straw poll came before the onslaught of recent state polls that showed Romney with double-digit margin over McCain and Giuliani and Obama-Clinton in a virtual dead heat with Edwards behind by a double-digit margin with a little more than three weeks to go.

Billymouth
It was no surprise that Bill Shaheen fell on his sword for Clinton after his baffling open-mouth exercise slamming Obama for his self-confessed drug use as a young man and suggesting that the Republicans would slice and dice him in a general election (as if they needed an excuse or anything resembling facts to do it anyway). Shaheen is an old political pro who knows New Hampshire upside down and rightside up but his poor judgment (I hope it was poor and not a planned exercise in self-immolation) stemmed from a frustration that has dogged the Clinton campaign for months -- they didn't expect the Obama tornado and mostly they didn't know how to deal with it when it showed staying power beyond the celebrity circus at the beginning of the campaign. Bill Shaheen knows New hampshire and has a great sense of what's happening on the ground -- what he and the Clintonites have yet to figure out is that Obama and his campaign may have a better grasp of what's happening today than they do.

Oh yea, they had a debate in the Iowa yesterday. In case you missed it this afternoon battle, in my daily link here's a boring recap.

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:04 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

It's getting stormy out there

I'm heading to Iowa folks for 72 hours of fun in caucus and corn field land beginning New Year's day...more on that below as I ask for your assistance but for now it's back to the serious business of a certain primary we've been keeping an eye on...
After a few days in the political insane asylum of Washington, D.C. and I return smack in the middle of it here. With 27 days to go the circus mania is starting to break out. Just in the past nine hours, two dependable polls (Rasmussen and CNN/WMUR) shows the Dem race in New Hampshire a statistical dead heat between Hillary Clinton (leading by 31 to 30 in the CNN/WMUR poll) and Barack Obama (who leads by a 31 to 28 margin in the Rasmussen)...the polls aren't so encouraging for John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich. For the GOPers, the CNN/WMUR poll shows Mitt Romney leading John McCain and Rudy Giuliani by a 32 to 19 margin -- Iowa surger Mike Huckabee's isn't surging so much here with a fourth place showing at 9 percent.

Holiday tour news
The Clinton folks will have her back in first-in-the-galaxy land for campaign stops this Saturday -- call it one-part holiday tour and other part to stop the poll bleeding. Not sure if she'll have time for Christmas shopping. Speaking of coincidences (or not) when it comes to volatile poll numbers as primary day approaches, here's how you know the race is getting tight: According to the Washington Post, Clinton's New Hampshire man about town and advisor Bill Shaheen talks about Obama's admitted drug use as a young man in the context of electability and how the GOPers will tar and feather him in a general election with this issue. Hmmm, I seem to remember a certain candidate named Clinton (Bill) who handled the so-called drug issue in a, well, highly creative manner (smoked but didn't inhale pot) and that didn't seem to hurt him in 1992 -- though it did hurt his credibility and helped lead to allegations of "Slick Willie" with the truth. Obama at least has been out front and honest and this hurts him how? Because the GOP will accuse him of covering up more? The GOP attack hounds are gonna make stuff up no matter what (see Boat, Swift 2004). Possibly the oddest part of the Post piece with Shaheen was a seeming back-handed appreciative nod to George Bush for being evasive about his good times as a "young and irresponsbile" cad. Not sure if the Clintonites want to go there on this issue but hey, it makes my job more interesting. Read more here. I will have an update response later from the Obama NH folks who aren't happy at all about this turn of the attack screw. (UPDATE) A statement from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe "in response to the Clinton campaign’s latest attack":
“Hillary Clinton said attacking other Democrats is the ‘fun part’ of this campaign, and now she’s moved from Barack Obama’s kindergarten years to his teenage years in an increasingly desperate effort to slow her slide in the polls. Senator Clinton’s campaign is recycling old news that Barack Obama has been candid about in a book he wrote years ago, and he’s talked about the lessons he’s learned from these mistakes with young people all across the country. He plans on winning this campaign by focusing on the issues that actually matter to the American people,” said Plouffe.

On the more benign front...
Bill Richardson has released a new ad titled "Guts" that includes an endorsement from former auto industry maven Lee Iococca. McCain may have Curt Schilling supporting him but Richardson is tapping old Red Sox glory and will have former Red Sox great Luis Tiant stumping for him on Saturday in Manchester. Obama has Oprah but John Edwards will have musicians Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne on the trail with him next Tuesday & Wednesday -- including a stop at town hall in Portsmouth.

On the Republican side, John McCain released a new ad here called "Courage" which parlays his recent Union Leader endorsement into evidence that he's (1) conservative, (2) really conservative and (3) really really a fiscally conservative who will keep the Bush tax cuts permanent (the same ones he railed against 6 years ago as fiscally irresponsible). But hey, we digress and spend too much paying attention to past statements. You can see the ad here.
McCain had former acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift campaigning in the Seacoast region (talk about payback: Romney swept her aside like so much political road kill in the lead up to the 2002 GOP primary) in conjunction with the announcement of a NH Women for McCain group. In the interesting string of history department, Swift replaced Paul Celucci who left his post early to become an Ambassador to Canada (he now supports Giuliani and attacks Romney) while Celucci replaced Bill Weld who now supports Romney (who himself was a part-time Governor for the most part) and doesn't care much for his fellow New Yorker Giuliani. Really, you can't make this stuff up. And speaking of Rudy, he had surrogates Susan Molinari and Nancy Johnson (former Congressmwomen) also Seacoast out and about stumping for him.

More on Iowa
I'm heading to Iowa on Jan. 1 and will be there through caucus night of Jan. 3. I'm asking for help from readers: such as good places to eat and where the political conversation might be lively in the Des Moines area; what questions should I ask when I'm out there; and what would you like to know about the mystifying Iowa causcus process -- or for those three readers in Iowa, what do I need to know before landing near the finish line of your caucus contest. You can contact me at mmccord@seacoastonline.com with suggestions, questions or comments.

Posted by Michael McCord at 02:29 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Leadership or something else

Sorry I won't be around to see the Obama/Oprah revue in Manchester Sunday but your humble blogger will be down in Washington, D.C. until Wednesday at a journalism conference focusing on -- there's no getting away from it -- the 2008 election.

In my usual Friday shameless promotion plug for myself, I enocurage fans and non-fans alike to read my Sunday Out on a Limb column in the print Seacoast Sunday or on seacoastonline.com. I consider a Tale of Two Candidates, in this case GOPers Sen. John McCain and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney who spent Thursday in very different places.

Regarding Romney and his famous speech in Texas, here are two contrasting views:
Peter S. Canellos of the Boston Globe called it a "political tour de force" in an analysis focusing on the leadership exerted by Romney and its 'presidential moment' greatness.
In my daily link, provocative blogger Chris Kelly offered a distinctly non-mainstream media perspective.

Where do I stand? Somewhere between farce and distinguished as Romney was impressive in an absurd context. I would have been more impressed had he told the holier than thou crowd that faith is a private matter and let them figure his out for themselves. He didn't and what resulted mostly was a lame recitation of the obvious and full of historical bull and religious cliches worthy of a Christmas card. I still don't understand why he felt the need to make the speech in the first place.

Posted by Michael McCord at 02:51 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Romney's moment of truth

While Democrat Hillary Clinton was in New Hampshire talking about the economy and Republican John McCain was in Portsmouth at our Seacoast Media Group home for a forum on energy security and global climate change, Mitt Romney was in Texas trying to accomplish the impossible — convince religious conservatives he was a man of faith and their values and not part of a wacko religious cult while avoiding the real elephant in the room of whether Mormons are Christians or not.
According to the Associated Press: “Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions,” Romney said at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum. “Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.”
To what extent he managed to stop the bleeding his campaign perceives from Republican rival Mike Huckabee (who just happens to be an ordained Baptist minister) remains to be seen. In my daily link, Andrew O’Heir writes fluently about why Romney’s speech has little to do with that of John F. Kennedy’s separation of church and state speech in Houston in 1960. Namely, Romney was dealing the modern religious and political dynamics of the Republican party.
But the speeches do have one thing in common on a cultural level -- dealing with intolerance, ignorance and bigotry. Frankly, the ignorance of the American people about Mormonism and who the Mormons are is an unfair burden for Romney to have to bear. I speak somewhat personally because I grew up in Southern Nevada amidst a large Mormon population and heard plenty of tales about the exotic nature of Mormonism. There were, as they say, good and bad Mormons, friends and neighbors. They were in their own way no different from Pentecostals, Latin mass adoring Catholics or dour Lutherans. They were with all their flaws and eccentricities, quintessentially American — and for the many I met, their religion wasn’t their defining feature.
There are good reasons for Republicans to disown Romney — his policy evolutions, his amazing lack of sophistication in foreign affairs and the fact that he was essentially a part-time governor most of his tenure in Massachusetts. But for so-called ‘values voters’ establishment to treat Romney as a religious (and political) heretic is a level of hypocrisy that would no doubt make Jesus blush.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:45 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

'I started a joke'

Not unlike the old Bee Gees song, the Hillary Clinton folks say the kindergarten reference to Barack Obama (he of outsized ambitions at a very young age or so we are told) was just a big joke that well, obviously fell flat. We know there's an ongoing entertainment industry writer's strike but geesh, you would think the campaign could find someone, anyone who could offer a suggestion or two about comedic timing, presentation and most importantly, material. Read the New York Times take on this here. My favorite part was the eye-opening reaction of Clinton pollster Mark Penn who blamed the media for being "spinned" by the Obama folks and for having the bad taste of missing the joke. With all due respect Mark, this story spun itself without any help and your routine came across as, well, spin. Nice try. But hey, I digress. The best comeback so far belongs to John Edwards who had his campaign audience really laughing Tuesday when he said he wanted to be a "cowboy and superman" as a kid.

Speaking of Edwards, he is launching his fifth TV ad of the primary prize fight. It has the nice, catchy title of "Rigged" and he doesn't pull any punches. "...And we can say as long as we get Democrats in, everything's gonna be ok. It's a lie. It is not the truth," the script reads. "Do you really believe if we replace a crowd of corporate Republicans with a crowd of corporate Democrats that anything meaningful's gonna change?" For those keeping score at home and for maximum punch-line impact you can substitute "corporate Democrats" with Hillary Clinton. See the ad here.

Saint Rudy of 9/11 has another ad out and in this one he claims to love Ronald Reagan and really really hate terrorists. As if we really really didn't know. Courtesy of Talking Points Memo, see Rudy Giuliani's latest adventure in high-stakes political advertising here For extra bonus points, read the comment section.

Want to find out more about why GOPer Mike Huckabee now finds himself in rarified polling and stature air? In my daily link, I found this piece at Townhall.com by Michael Medved for a distinctly conservative perspective of the turmoil in the GOP ranks -- as they are waiting for Godot in the form of stand-out -- or perhaps, stand-up -- candidate.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:10 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Political honesty, kindergarten plots & updates

GOPer John McCain deserves my political honesty response of the month so far award. While interviewing him yesterday about his energy and climate change policies (McCain will take part in a forum Thursday sponsored by employer), I asked the only Republican candidate who takes the issue seriously how 'green' his campaign was. He didn't hesitate: "Not very," he said with a laugh while riding on a diesel bus. He's looking for a biodiesel fill up somewhere in New Hampshire, I presume.

Mr. Rogers' neighborhood ain't so kind
Either in kindergarten or the second grade I wrote an essay about why I wanted to be president which wasn't such an odd thing to do in my day -- or during most eras I imagine. Anyway, my ambitions didn't go very far (too much playground time and not enough political plotting) and look where I ended up. The Clinton folks seem to have gone a tad overboard on the Obama character front accusing Obama of having sinister ambitions at an early age because he once penned the same essay I did. In my daily link, you have read this to believe just how strange this is. It's only a matter of time before this gainswidespread blogger ridicule and becomes late-night comic fodder.

Oh Hillary, about that vote on Iran...
Hillary is getting no love today. Fellow Dem rival Chris Dodd launched this broadside on Clinton's September vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment -- you know the one designating a military organization a terrorist band -- in light of the latest National Intelligence Estimate report regarding Iran. And Iran is an issue on the mind of many voters I've encountered in person or by letter
"As was the case with Iraq, the latest NIE makes it clear that this President is offering another false bill of goods to Congress and the American people in an attempt to build the case for war with Iran. The only difference this time is that we didn't start a disastrous war before we found out that the intelligence didn't hold up," Dodd said. "Our experience should have shown us the danger in trusting this Administration as it marched to war. That is why I and many of my colleagues - at least many of those who bothered to vote - opposed the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment. Unfortunately, Senator Clinton instead chose to lend credence to
the Administration's position. It's easy to say 'fool me once, shame on George Bush,' but when she's been fooled twice, shame on her."

She said recently she enjoyed the heat of the kitchen and she was ready for the fun part of the primary's final push. It's a good thing because it's likely to become a big and hot laughfest from here on out.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:24 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Health care standoff & Schilling pitches for McCain

In my daily link, Timothy Noah of Slate has a good take on the recent slew of almost hysterical broadsides the Dem candidate firm of Clinton, Edwards and Obama are firing at each other over how to define "universal" health care coverage. It's a thoughtful distinction that is more than talking point material especially in a state like this one where health care is a top issue. Noah points out that while Clinton and Edwards propose mandates forcing all to buy health insurance supplied by the government or private insurance. Obama says such a mandate isn't worth the politcal hot air expended because enforcing it -- by forcing, for example, someone to buy private health insurance they may not want so the larger goal of universality is reached -- is downright impossible and politically toxic in a country (and a state) where choice does matter. It's a good argument worth having because it is a policy and philosophical difference about accomplishing the same goal. the Clintonites scream Obama is being rather slippery by saying his plan will cover everyone as his latest ad suggests -- I say they are both right. Obama happens to win the finer point because he's being more realistic in saying it will cover everyone who wants to be covered. Clinton is right because he fails her definition of universality. The voters will decide who has the better defintion and the route to make it happen.

SCHILLING TO STUMP FOR MCCAIN
Will Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling throw high heat or more finesses stuff when he stumps for Sen. John McCain in Manchester Wednesday?

ATTACKING HILLARY'S ATTACKS?
The Obamaites have launched a web site to keep tracks of all things Hillary when's she in attack Obama mode -- which we suspect will become more frequent over the next month or so. See the site here and read the campaign release below.

Post on the Obama campaign blog from campaign manager David Plouffe.
Hillary Attacks By David Plouffe - Dec 3rd, 2007 at 7:39 am EST
Saturday night, the Des Moines Register came out with a poll that shows Barack Obama has pulled ahead of the Democratic frontrunner and is now leading in Iowa.
The poll also showed that by a wide margin, Iowans believe that Senator Clinton is running the most negative campaign in this race.
Yesterday we found out why.
Less than twelve hours after that poll came out, the Clinton campaign launched a series of baseless attacks against Senator Obama. Panicked by the poll numbers, they even attacked Barack for telling his kindergarten teacher what he wanted to be when he grew up.
I wish I were joking.
The American people find these kinds of attacks tiring and unproductive, but today Senator Clinton promised that this was just the beginning, saying that attacking other Democrats is "the fun part" of campaigning for the presidency.
We disagree. Barack Obama believes that this presidential campaign isn't about attacking people for fun, it's about solving people's problems, like ending this war and creating a universal health care system. Washington insiders might think throwing mud is fun, but the America people are looking for a President who can unite this country around a common purpose, and that's the kind of leadership Barack will continue to offer in this campaign.
But we need your help.
Today we're launching a website that will keep track of all the attacks Senator Clinton has launched since she said she wasn't interested in attacking other Democrats at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on November 10th. We're asking all of you to be vigilant and notify us immediately of any attacks from Senator Clinton or her supporters as soon as you see them so that we can respond with the truth swiftly and forcefully.
This attacks could be phone calls, literature drops, blog posts mail pieces as well as radio and TV ads. Some could even be anonymous or designed to be. Please email us at hillaryattacks@barackobama.com the moment you see something that concerns you.
Senator Clinton has said her idea of fun is to attack Barack each day from here on out, and that's why we need you to help us stop those attacks and make sure that Barack can continue to talk with voters and caucus-goers about the struggles they face and their hope for America.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:02 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Biden on the loose

During a campaign stop yesterday in Portsmouth, Dem Joe Biden got passionate and personal when he told folks at an Iraq war focused forum (hosted by my employer) that simply cutting off funding for Bush's deadly folly wasn't an easy option. "It's Bush's war but our future and my son," Biden thundered while explaining his votes on funding the war. His son Beau, the Delaware Attorney General, is a National Guard Captain whose unit has orders for Iraq. More than any candidate I've seen on the trail this year, Biden has shared real anger about the war and when he talked about the 14,000 soliders who will need "a lifetime" of medical care because of their permanent injuries, the audience was riveted.

Here comes the slime.
The right-wing Swift Boat Liars brigade from 2004 have spawned more imitators and sure enough the always obliging mainstream media dimwits (i.e., Washington Post) have jumped for the bait. See here for a quick expose about the slime campaign against Dem Barack Obama for being a subversive element. It matches a 50-point anonymous letter I received recently recycling the wingnut fantasies from the 90s against Hillary Clinton. It's easy to dismiss this trash until you encounter people who actually believe the political equivilant of alien abductions.

Posted by Michael McCord at 07:23 AM| Permalink | Comments (7)

McCain leads in...Kentucky

In the 'Information I Can Really Use Department': Republican hopeful John McCain may not have much hope in Iowa and here in New Hampshire (where he's making an Alamo-like last stand) he's still trailing Mitt "No Muslims in my cabinet, thank you" Romney in all opinion polls but the campaign sent me this nice reminder that in other polls he's doing just fine. For example in national Zogby and Fox polls he's better than rival Rudy Giuliani in a face off with Dem Hillary Clinton. And if I wasn't convinced of the magnitude of this news, well by golly, McCain is doing ganbusters in Kanas, New Mexico and Kentucky in general election matchups with you know who (the latter two are considered vital swing states that could decide the 2008 election.) For those like me who are hard of hearing, the message to GOP voters is: "It's the electability, Stupid!"

On the heels of McCain's recent ad about why he's a sometimes angry pol (for the good of the country) and tonight's CNN/You Tube GOP faux debate, McCain is facing a more serious problem, according to Politico's Roger Simon -- he's not feeling the competitive anger towards him from Republican rivals. "In politics, you don’t draw attacks for only two reasons: You are a saint or you are irrelevant," Simon writes today (read here) and McCain is struggling every day to remain relevant in a wide-open GOP brawl. This may explain why he's been picking public fights with Dems Clinton and Joe Biden.

Me thinks McCain will do much better than the national pundit wise guys expect in New Hampshire but the larger question will be: can he do well enough to make it to Kansas, New Mexico and Kentucky?

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:05 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Get primary informed: quick! (And more about Rudy)

With only 42 days to go, like a majority of voters, are you feeling left out and uninformed about the primary season so far? Don't worry. In my daily link, catch up fast courtesy of this pop quiz by Michael Sherer at Salon -- and then display your newfound primary knowledge to friends, family and coworkers!
Not campaign endorsed
As a follow up to my Sunday Out on a Limb about Rudy Giuliani, I was contacted by the folks at Brave New Films who have recently put out a devastating, short documentary on Giuliani and a long-dormant side of 9/11 that is starting to emerge -- and not one the Giuliani campaign will embrace. You can see the video here which is getting heavy play on You Tube as one of the top political viewings around.

42 days and counting...

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:53 PM| Permalink | Comments (2)

Thanks to Ron Paul supporters and Happy Thanksgiving to all

Before heading off for a long weekend, I want to shamelessly encourage readers to check my Out on a Limb column this Sunday on seacoastonline.com -- from a purely selfish perspective, I'm considering the journalistic benefits and many story themes that come with a Rudy Giuliani candidacy.

Regarding last week's column on Ron Paul, I received an avalanche (82 and counting) of thoughtful replies and constructive criticism from across the country. I've included some of those messages below as a sampling. Thanks to all who responded.

A note to responders: I wish I could have written more because his candidacy raises a wide range of issues and ideas, there's only one thing I'd really clarify: I didn't mean to imply that Paul hadn't campaigned in New Hampshire or that he hadn't drawn large crowds. What I should have said was "more campaigning" because to be fair, compared to a majority of the candidates in both parties he hasn't campaigned here as often or as widely. I have no doubt about his growing grass roots popularity -- but it doesn't always translate into votes on election day if there hasn't been a substantial 'ground game' in effect for months. Perhaps Rep. Paul will rewrite conventional wisdom about what it takes to win here. But until he does, I'm a skeptic.

In my daily link, I've found the most worthy poll yet: who would you invite for Thanksgiving dinner. It seems most folks prefer family over potential presidents.

READER RESPONSES
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Thanks.
We are of course hoping Ron Paul is from THIS century too! :-) Nice article. And I think you are asking the correct questions about Ron Paul's policies by going after what you see as his weaknesses. Have you checked out the http://www.10questions.com/ web site sponsored by the NY Times? It is an on-line video question/answer format for all the candidates.
It will be a shame if Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul do not win. The issues debates between them would be something awesome to see. The trouble with most of the other candidates is the inconsistent hypocrisy. Did you know Ron Paul has been married to the same woman for 50 years!! I kind of like a guy who is consistent AND who can speak in declarative sentences, remember what he says, act on it, vote on it (sometimes 434 to 1) and not change his mind to please an audience or get votes. And keep doing it and winning elections for 30 years! And still be quite willing to discuss in a non-inflammatory manner the reasons he holds his beliefs. He does not run from controversy and realizes that at first blush, people may disagree with him. He has had lots of practice making his reasons clear. It is all so extraordinarily refreshing and seductive. Plus it makes sense to me after thinking about his explanations for a while. At least most of them!
In my opinion the top 3 candidates in each party are quite capable of changing their opinions and philosophies....weekly. Clinton, Romney and Giuliani are ridiculous about it yet NO one in the MSM calls them on it. It is perceived as a strength to not hold strong beliefs and be consistent. I wonder why that is.
I was surprised by one other thing you said. "It's too bad Paul didn't campaign here more, didn't take part in the house parties and town hall meetings and create a grassroots movement on the ground to equal its Internet power." This is not my impression at all from a distance. He seems to have had LOTS of rallies. Many visits. Large crowds. He even brought his entire LARGE extended family to NH to canvas door to door in Concord for one weekend. I wonder if some of this is the lack of MSM coverage he has received. One rally had several hundred people about 6 weeks ago. That should be changing in the next 5 weeks as he begins to spend money and moves up in the polls. We shall see. But perhaps there is something that I do not know about NH campaigning that you were referring to above.
Anyway thanks again for a nice article. I thing it would be neat if Ron Paul could meet with you and your editorial staff at the Seacoast Sunday and the Portsmouth Herald for an hour or so. He has done this with a few newspapers already in NH and around the country. Some are online. I think you might even like his answer to the Pell grant question!
Regards,
Dennis Lubahn, PhD
U. Missouri - Biochemistry

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Thanks for the balanced story on Ron Paul. MSM reporters like yourself really should think seriously about two things: 1). Why we need a Federal Reserve
and 2). A metal standard to back up our money
Regarding #1: Look into the history of how the FED was created - it was all done in the shadows and not out in the open. If the establishment of a private central bank to regulate the nation's money supply was such a good idea, why was the entire process conceived in secrecy? Why was the act passed at Christmas in 1913 when the majority of the senate was home for the holidays?
Why not debate and vote on the act in January or February 1914 when "everyone" was back in session and paying attention?
Why were the meetings to set up the FED held off shore at Jekyll Island, SC, where access was remote and members of the press were not invited?
There's way too much baggage associated with the establishment of the FED to believe that this was a good move for the country.
The ineptness of the FED helped cause the Great Depression and today our dollar is worth 4 cents of it's 1913 value. If that's a good thing, please explain why?
I think a lot of people who look askance at Ron Paul's ideas have never really thought deeply about the root causes of many of country's problems. Dr. Paul's contention that our constant disregard for the Constitution is at the root of many of our ill's is one that should be paid attention to and discussed.
Thanks,
Mark Carbonaro
Marina, Calif.

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I enjoyed reading it thoroughly.
His ideas are radical relative to the status-quo. I'm college educated... I took student loans. I didn't know any better. And neither do most Americans today.
Government and social studies in public school are weaker than mathematics and English. If you hail from the public school system -- funded with money confiscated from you and poured through a clogged bureaucracy in DC, you get less dollars back into the classrooms for your kids -- you know nothing about the Constitution.
And that is why Ron Paul seems so dang radical. But like your interviewee said... it is all connected. Foreign policy to spending to big government... it is a system of interrelated parts that if you believe one thing, you cannot logically go and support another.
This is why your Hillary's and your Mitts and your Rudys don't make any sense. They criss-cross the board on their stances. They are inconsistent, and I think that the people can smell that.
Thanks for your article,
Oliver

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Dear Michael McCord,
My name is Shawn A.B. Clutter here at Fort Hood Texas and I have to say it seems that those who speak the truth are few and far between, but you yourself can see that there is hope for this country in Ron Paul. In your writing you see that our nation needs someone to step up to the mic and lead this country back to its roots before its too late. it is obvious our so called leaders early in the 1900's sold out our nations currency and complete destruction is imminent. War will accompnay this I believe. Our manufacturing base is shot. Our moral base is shot. Our foreign Policy is shot because of Empire Building, and to boot the American People are privy to the Al-Qaeda boogey men Bush has conjured up. Don't get me wrong there are terrorists, and they hate us, but also lets get real we employed Bin Laden in the 1970's when National Security Advisor to Carter Mr. Zibibniew Brezinski met with Bin Laden. The whole Taliban radical wahabists were created and or enhanced by the CIA. We are being setup for another false flag operation against our nation and they will blame the patriots of this country this time. The American People know that there were no wmd in Iraq and they know that the CIA trained Saddam and put him into power and he just stepped over his bounds so the usa had to get him straight. oh by the way the CIA in 1953 in Iran caused the havoc that was when they deposed mozedek because he wanted to nationalize his OIL and so they staged false operations where schools were hit kids killed and other ops to foment his overthrow and they put the shah in and the savak which is the iranian secret police and a reign of terror ensued, but no no no we can't have iran nationalizing oil said Bristish Patroleum, Dutch Royal Shell, etc. So we know the deal. This New World Order BS must be stopped. Our nation will be hit so we can be absorbed into this North American Union. go to spp.gov and read the treason. Also watch Alex Jones movies Terrorstorm:the history of government sponsored terror and his latest movie Endgame:Blueprint for global enslavement for free at google video. visit prisonplanet.com and infowars.com. thanks for your time. GO RON PAUL

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Hi Michael,
Thank you for the delightful article on Ron Paul.
We always enjoy reading a well-written and well-researched article.
We are hoping Dr. Paul does well in the New Hampshire Primary, whenever it’s held. ;)
Yours in Truth and Freedom,
Karen Allport
Southern Oregon
For primary and voter registration information: http://www.VotusPotus.com

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Hello, I just wanted to send you a quick, "thank you," regarding your piece on Ron Paul. A dear friend of mine recently passed away in Fallujah, and since then I have vowed to work to prevent more Marines
and innocent Iraqis from being murdered in the name of imperialism.
It continues to amaze me to hear people who believe there is something profoundly wrong with our country ignore, ridicule, and resist an equally profound change in American political discourse. Thank you for your intellectually honest work.
Sincerely,
A Concerned, Patriotic American

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In your recent article, "Ron Paul's constitutional utopia," you say that "Paul doesn't have a party that will embrace much less tolerate him." If I understand this right, you are saying the Republican party would like to have him gone.
I disagree. If there is one thing that is a hallmark of the Republican party (and probably the Democratic party) leadership is that they are whores for winners. They were whores for the neocons and doing the wrong thing, and after Ron Paul shows there is much grassroots support and money, they can just as easily be whores for doing the right thing. I wish they'd have done the right thing all along, but we'll use them for what they are...yeah.
Case in point. Earlier on, after the SC debate, the Spartanburg, SC RP Chairman Rick Beltram said Paul wasn't welcome there. After getting deluged, he sniffed out the votes and money potentially behind Paul and stopped just short of rolling out the red carpet for him.
And this was a small-time hack, not a real pro.
About half of the public doesn't vote. Why? Noone knows...yet.
That's a lot of potential Paul supporters.
Thanks for your fair-minded article.
Andrew Sweeney
Graduate Student
Clemson University

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In your article you state:
"It's too bad Paul didn't campaign here more, didn't take part in the house parties and town hall meetings and create a grassroots movement on the ground to equal its Internet power."
I think you are wrong and he has done this. He's won every major straw poll by at least 60% in each case (CNHT, Strafford, Manchester) and has crowds of up to 800 where ever he goes. He has an army of volunteers that other candidates would give their right arm for...according to NH Insider blogger Ed Naile.
I think you have just been out of the loop.
Paul had his first house party in Pembroke, one of many to follow, in February of 2007 which I personally arranged. There were 200 attendees and we raised over $17,000 from that alone, later another $10,000 residually. This was even before he declared!
I think you perhaps have missed all the campaigning and support because up until now, the media refused to cover it. I know they refused to come to the party in February, but there are lengthy videos of it on YouTube.
He also had the MOST rally-goers (400) even at the first June 5th debate. Once again, CNN cut us out of the photo and no media would come to the reception after where we again had more people in attendance than Obama and broke the fire code rules of the restaurant we used. Video of that is also available.
So before you make statements like the above, you should do a little research.
Jane Aitken

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Thank you for posting the marvelous column about Ron Paul. I especially appreciate that you delivered a perspective that obviously uniquely your own, and didn't rely solely on what you've read.
I will comment that although you may have observed a wide variety of supporters at the University of New Hampshire was a very colorful, eclectic group, there are MANY of us out here who are rather ordinary citizens who admire and believe in his extraordinary vision of an America that needs to be reborn.
Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to comment.
Darryl Schmitz
St. Johns, MI

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Good article about Dr. Paul.
It seems weird to me that questions are often framed in such a way that they accentuate the negative rather than the positive aspects of Dr Paul’s positions. In Economics there are always the “unseen” implications of actions and that’s why certain aspects of stories published about Ron Paul often baffle his supporters. Perhaps you could have asked the poor girl if she thought it was fair to take money from students that decide to work for a living and don’t go to college in order to pay for her education. What is the right way to ask the question? It depends on what you want to hear as the outcome. Please look for the “unseen” as it sometimes matters more than the seen.

BTW, I live in Alabama and just bought a house & 115 acres in Lisbon, NH because I would rather have a shot at living free than “die” at the hands of politicians bent on destroying this great country. New Hampshire has an “unseen” competitive advantage in that regard.
Sincere good wishes,
Bob Moore

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I agree with you that Ron Paul is running for office about 100 years too late. The constitutional republic that this nation once was (and, since the Constitution has never been amended, we are still - legally speaking) has long since morphed into a democratic socialist state. He is crying out in the wilderness.
I do support him, to the point where I've actually donated money. While I think his chances of winning anything are slim to none, I only hope that maybe his ideas of limiting the power of the politicians will one day take hold, so my son doesn't have to spend half of every working day to pay off the demands of the politicians.
Warm regards:
Cyd Malone

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Thank you for your article on Ron Paul, but could you please drop the "gadfly" label? Ron Paul is now a serious contender, and conservatives would argue there is nothing goofy about wanting to take our country back from big government.
Sincerely,
Carrie Duffield
Sewickley, Pa.

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First of all I'd like to thank you for writing a pretty decent article about Dr. Paul and his campaign. However, I should probably respond to this specific statement:
When I mentioned to one student that Paul's policies would cut off her Pell grants and student loan guarantees, she replied, "Really?"'
Ron Paul, although an idealist, wouldn't do such a thing. I get the feeling that you think Ron Paul would get into office and automatically get rid of all aid and all departments, this is just simply not the case. He has realistic ways to get to a idealistic view. He'd cut foreign expenditures and put half into the deficit and half into programs like Social Security and Medicare since we have taught a generation or two to be dependent on the government. As far as Pell grants goes, that's probably one of the last places he'd cut if he ended up doing so, which would have to be with the consent of congress. In congress he introduce legislation that would eliminate the income tax for college students and their parents, as well as giving parents tax breaks ($3000 or so) to allow their kids to attend any school they want.
And as far as "virtually no government" goes, that isn't very true either. He believes in federalism, the Thomas Jefferson approach. If it isn't in the constitution, let state and local governments decide. That's why he supports states' rights to legalize medical marijuana. He finds it funny that our federal government, through the DEA, raid the sick and dying and through them into jail for smoking marijuana in a state where it is legal to smoke it under a doctors prescription. Just because he wants to end the federal war on drugs doesn't mean he wants to "legalize" it.
And just because you oppose the federal reserve doesn't mean you are an anarchist. I'm not very fond of a private bank printing money out of thin air when the government comes up short myself.
Brent Burk

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Thanks for your article on Ron Paul - I liked it, for the most part. But in the future please be careful to fully understand his policies - they affect things at the federal level only. So, states are absolutely free to provide public schools, grants and scholarships for college students, etc. It's just that I won't pay taxes (from Michigan) for somebody to go to school in California. I like that. What that means for us in Michigan, is that we're free to decide how much money we want to take from our residents' paychecks to fund public education - what works for us, what we need, to help people and help our local economy. This principle goes for everything that journalists often cite concerning Ron Paul - there may be state parks, but no federal parks. There may be state-funded crackdowns on child pornographers using the internet, but no federal funds for that purpose. Thanks again.
Deanne Hunt

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:32 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Holiday launched

You too can play for fun and wonk-status profit by keeping track of which candidate is launching what. For as of yet unexplained cosmic reasons (in our neck of the woods, we've had a report of an earthquake and snowfall) today is a heavy launch day for campaigns of all stripes as they make a mad holiday scramble to differentiate their brands, ah, candidacies, from the rest of their rivals.
Here are a few samples from today’s launch menu::
Green bayou: Republican John McCain -- who has jumped into second place among Republicans in the just released CNN/WMUR poll -- has launched a green-colored direct mail effort across the state to enhance, you guessed it, his green credentials which really does separate him from the rest of mostly indifferent GOP pack (something about letting that magical and always great and wonderful Oz of the marketplace handle climate change and potential environmental disaster).
Tough enough: Dem Hillary Clinton has launched a new television ad now running in New Hampshire -- the 625th new primary ad this month -- that portrays her as, you guessed it, the best Democrat that Republicans like Mitt Romney, McCain, and Rudy Giuliani love to hate but can’t beat. The 30-second ad is titled “Machine,” as in the Republican attack machine and one which Hillary has repulsed on numerous occasions. The bonus for us in the viewing audience is a sneak preview that blockbuster, General Election 2008. See the ad here.
Educate this: At Central High School in Manchester earlier today, Barack Obama launched his new education intitiative with a speech titled “Our Kids, Our Future” that would, you guessed it, provide a world class education for all kids. He also threw a few jabs at Dem rivals Clinton and John Edwards: “It’s pretty popular to bash No Child Left Behind out on the campaign trail, but when it was being debated in Congress four years ago, my colleague Dick Durbin offered everyone a chance to vote so that the law couldn’t be enforced unless it was fully funded. Senator Edwards and Senator Clinton passed on that chance, and I believe that was a serious mistake.” I’m sure they will have something to say about that observation. Read the complete plan here.
Primary home for the holidays: Dem Dennis Kucinich has launched himself in what appears to be the longest sustained campaign trip this season here in the first-in-the-galaxy primary land. Beginning today in Concord until Nov. 29 he will be here there and everywhere, criss-crossing the state. Kucinich would like to add some constitutional emphasis to your holiday and will tell folks “It’s important the people remember the job of their President is to protect and defend our Constitution. No one is above the law of the land and the rule of law must be applied equally. That’s the message I’m prepared to deliver and that’s the position I’ve always taken.” No word on whether he will manage to get some holiday shopping done.

In my daily link, an ambitious piece on Huffington Post shows the importance of having an ex-President husband named Bill Clinton as a major fund raising machine for your presidential candidacy. Especially when you need the money to buy the ads to fight against the machine that wants to destroy you. Defense doesn’t come cheap.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:29 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Challenging Giuliani's 9/11 trademark

Ask retired New York City Fired Department deputy chief Al Santora about Rudy Giuliani, you will get a heart and soul story about how the Mayor he knows has little or no resemblance to the campaign image being trumpeted by the Republican presidential candidate. Santora and his wife Maureen lost their firefighter son Christopher in the 9/11 attacks and have joined other folks from New York to speak out against Giuliani whom they feel betrayed their son and other fire fighters before 9/11 -- and then had gall to exploit it for personal and political gain, making tens of millions as a speaker and security consultant and now is a serious presidential candidate. (See UPDATE below.)

As far as Al Santora is concerned, Giuliani has made his reputation and fortune not for being heroic or even necessarily a good leader. “He’s the greatest spin doctor of all time,” Santora told me. Giuliani and the NYC administration failed the firefighters because they knew the radios were faulty and did nothing about it -- he says that the radio contract bidding process in 2001 was “unique” and wasn’t part of a regular process. Santora knows this because he was the head of R&D at the NYFD. He said as many as 123 firefighters perished in part because of bad communications and bristles at alternative theories offered by Giulian that the firefighters died because they were being heroic. Firefighters know when an evacuation order is given, it’s time to evacuate.

“On Sept. 10 (2001), he couldn’t be elected dog catcher,” said Santora who is part of a group traveling to Dartmouth College to share their views about the Mayor of 9/11. “He was no hero. He didn’t do anything but walk away from the pile. He spent more time at Yankee Stadium.” Santora, who retired a year before 9/11, said he worked at the WTC pile until mid-October and didn’t spend much time at Yankees Stadium rooting for the Yankees and increasing his national exposure.

Giuliani‘s campaign, which is taking on enough water to sink a lesser vessel and has essentially abandoned hope of victory in New Hampshire, can’t be happy about the Dartmouth appearance tonight of New York City firefighters and family members like Santora. Giuliani is running on the 9/11 platform, trumpeting his own leadership in the hours and days after the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center towers and promising to be a warrior in the fight against the wave of so-called “Islamofascism” that Giuliani now elevates to an apocalyptic threat (something about the end of civilization as we know it.)

The campaign, udnerstandable disputes this criticism of Giuliani and lampoons the International Association of Fire Fighters union (which clearly has it our for Rudy) as International Association of Partisan Politics Santora is a staunch Republican (he told me he will support any Republican nominee not named Giuliani) who voted for Giuliani twice and feels quite duped by the man he calls “the greatest spin doctor in the world.” He doesn’t blame Giuliani for his son’s death because Christopher died when the first tower collapsed onto other WTC facility. But he says the country needs to know there isn’t one official version of 9/11 and certainly not one Giuliani can trademark.

When I asked the campaign for a comment they released a one size fits all statement from Lee Ielpi, another retired New York City firefighter. "I understand the emotion surrounding Sept. 11, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that it was the terrorists who attacked New York City," Ielpi wrote. "On that day and the days following, New Yorkers and the rest of the country were fortunate to have the steady and strong leadership of Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

Al Santora rejects the “strong and steady leadership” angelic chorus propagated by the Giuliani gang. He told me he and the other firefighters speaking out against him have no doubt Giuliani’s campaign will fight back with ‘Swift Boat’ like attacks against their character and motivations. He doesn’t care. “We know the truth about him.”

UPDATE 1:
Coincidentally or not, the Giuliani folks have launched a direct mail push and a new television ad titled "Leadership."
The script reads: “I believe I’ve had the most leadership experience of anyone that’s running. It’s not just holding executive positions, like Mayor of New York, or United States Attorney, or 3rd ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department. It’s having held those positions in time of crisis. I’ve been tested in a way in which the American people can look to me. They’re not going to find perfection, but they’re going to find somebody who has dealt with crisis almost on a regular basis and has had results. And in many cases, exceptional results. Results people thought weren’t possible. I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approve this message.”

In my daily link, Matt Tabai of Rolling Stone profiles the good, the bad and the religious nutty of Republican rising star Mike Huckabee (who pardoned Keith Richards and, Tabai found out, practiced a former of Arkansas political sleaze we are unaccustomed to here)

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:26 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Shameless self-promotion activities

I had no shortage of material for my Sunday Out on a Limb column.
After all, there’s still plenty more to wring out of the “beat the bitch” question John McCain encountered in South Carolina that his campaign turned into a victimization campaign (against the liberal media) which then became a fund-rasing drive.
Or how about fake actor and TV star Chuck Norris endorsing Mike Huckabee.
Or push-polling in New Hampshire with someone saying nasty things about Mitt Romney and favorable remarks about John McCain — McCain has denied such nastiness and called for an NH state investigation while Romney found neither the high nor low road and strangely blamed the McCain-Feingold finance law for such underhanded activity (really?).
I mean this is Cold War espionage stuff -- someone is targeting candidate A while leading the trail to candidate B while candidate C or D, the real perpetrator, stays above the fray.
Or I could talk more about Rudy Giuliani and his decision not to try really hard in New Hampshire as his campaign is besieged by soap opera sleaze and closer media inspection.
Or I could ponder the deeper meaning of last night’s Dem debate in Las Vegas which proved that Wolf Blitzer is the most annoying TV journalist and debate moderator ever — and that Dem candidate Joe Biden has a great real-time wit.
After more than 15 minutes of a Blitzer-manufactured Obama/Clinton/Edwards smackdown, Biden declined to speak when asked a question. “No, no, no,” Biden said with the proper dash of sarcasm. “Don’t do it, no! Don’t make me speak!” (See my daily link for a highlight wrap up of this latest exercise in televised campaign torture — and further proof that candidates must be slightly unbalanced to subject themselves to such inane activity.)
Now for some shameless self-promotion. I chose instead to write about Internet favorite and Republican iconoclast Rep. Ron Paul. His brand of utopian constitutionalism makes him one of the more intriguing and unlikely presidential candidates around.
Most of all, he looks like a third-party candidate who could possibly make a dent in the Dem-Repub monopoly in the general election (me thinks the mood in the country is desperate enough) though he denies it’s in his plans — despite the reality that’s he’s a candidate without a party and likely can’t win the republican nomination. His fans around the country donating buckets of money to his campaign at a record pace over the Internet no doubt would like him to reconsider.

Posted by Michael McCord at 03:51 PM| Permalink | Comments (1)

Brilliant!

Gotta give a hand to John McCain's campaign for making lemonade out of served-up lemons. As I noted yesterday, you could see it coming that the McCain folks would get as much mileage as they could out of the "bitch" swipe at Dem Hillary Clinton in South Carolina Monday. They didn't disappoint. They got a two-fer -- first they played victim to alleged liberal big media (in this case CNN or Clinton News Network in McCainspeak), always a tried and true Republican-approved ploy. And then they used it as a fund raising gambit asking for $25 to $2,300 to help slay the Hillary dragon in the general election (avoiding the fact that they may not make make it out of the primaries). You can't pay enough for campaign kismet like this. As the Guiness beer commerical says best: "Brilliant!"

My daily link has a good replay package including original video and campaign e-mails stoking the fire.

Wonder if Wolf Blitzer of the Clinton News Network will ask Hillary her perspective on McCain at tonight's Dem debate in Las Vegas.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:42 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

The plant game

Goodness knows how many questions I've seen voters ask presidential candidates over the year and an overwhelming number of them are as predictable as sunrise and sunset schedules -- but they are legitimate questions for those asking the questions of politicians who make it their business to answer them with varying degrees of authenticity. It's a game of sorts and it's one that doesn't need tricking up especially when reporters are lurking around most of the time like vultures waiting for a glimpse of rare prey.

Yes, I stunned when I heard about the Clinton campaign plant in Iowa -- one because the campaign has been equally parts aggressive and oh so disciplined and two, there was no reason to do it because only rarely do the candidates get peppered with hostile questions. In my daily link and also in Salon today, a pair of road-weary veteran scribes say there’s no shortage of skullduggery on the campaign trail (plants and push polls to name a few), especially when it comes to those highly orchestrated inventions called “town hall meetings” -- I mean, if one was suspicious enough, one could imagine the McCain campaign egging on a pissed off South Carolina voter to ask McCain, as happened Monday, how to deal with the “bitch” (Clinton). After all, the ‘it rhymes with witch’ headline of the day makes for good media servings, especially among rabid Republicans.

I’ve always found a lot campaign events to be full of what I call organic plants -- namely, enthusiastic supporters who go out of their way to throw softballs at their candidates to make them look good. But to have a tone-deaf campaign staffer organize one so blatantly and get caught is more than a shot in the foot -- such artifice piled on the normal campaign BS is plain stupid.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:36 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Rudy's grand plan

Last week, we got a last-minute call from the Rudy Giuliani campaign asking if we could talk to some favored surrogates who worked with Rudy in NYC and were in the Portsmouth neighborhood. We couldn’t due to previous scheduling but it leads one to wonder: for such a high profile candidate whose campaign never stops crowing about his lead in national polls, why hasn’t he bothered with much effort here in first-in-the-universe primary land?
It seems that Republican Rudy has a plan that entails if not quite stiffing Iowa and New Hampshire than to weather the storm and come out guns a blazing in less retail politic orientated states (see Michigan, Florida, New York, California). Slates’s Trailhead blog explains some of the reasoning and high risk in this strategy (namely for a couple of weeks he will be rendered irrelevant).
An excerpt from the blog: “This strategy borders on hubris, but it also wisely lowers the bar. If the press starts railing on Giuliani for poor showings in the first two contests he can just say, “I told you so.” But can a national front-runner really set expectations that low and expect to stay out front? If Giuliani finishes fourth in Iowa to Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and maybe even Ron Paul (gasp!), could his candidacy still be taken seriously? What if Romney, Paul, and McCain trump him again in New Hampshire?”
What I’ve seen on the trail here is that Rudy has brand name cache and Pat Robertson’s endorsement (we doubt he will be getting one from former indicted chum/limo driver/NYC police commissioner Bernard Kerik) but little passion or serious organization.
It’s a strategy that defies political gravity (you can’t calculate the amount of momentum generated by victories and strong efforts in Iowa and New Hampshire) and could send Rudy crashing to earth with a thud.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:04 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

I stand corrected and corrected and corrected and corrected.....

To the 48 (and counting) supporters of Rep. Ron Paul who wrote in from across the country about my Saturday (11/10) story: If I had any doubt about the power of the Internet to humble this truly humbled scribe, no doubts remains. In my story about Paul’s energetic appearance at the University of New Hampshire Friday, there was one typo and one missed word that turned this veteran reporter into a rookie in seconds. I wrote that Paul was 74 when I knew he was 72 (born the same year as my mother). And I had written time and again that Paul was the only Republican presidential candidate to oppose the Iraq war and had voted against authorizing the war in 2002. Alas, for this story the AGAINST was omitted by me.

To the good Paul supporters from sea to shining sea, most of whom were gracious enough to call these typos and omissions, and to those who were concerned that this was a “hit piece” or written with malicious intent, please take my assurance that it wasn’t. They were simple and frankly silly errors and I alone am the culprit.

And for any reporters, pundits or voters who doubt the potency of the decentralized Paul Internet network, let me stand as an example that it exists.

The corrected version is in my daily link.

Oh yea, it’s 53 and counting...

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:03 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Media group think

It's been ten days since the Dem debate that -- if you read a majority of breathless accounts by the pundit hordes -- changed everything in the universe and revealed Hillary Clinton to be a wounded front runner. I never bought that line completely because (1) while it was clear she wasn't at the top of her game, the debate showed she was a tough cookie and (2) I never believed the runaway front runner hogwash anyway, especially as it relates to New Hamsphire, because the race is far too volatile with too many unknown variables (can you say Pakistan? Or sinking economy? Or anything?).

When I talked to Clinton a few days after the debate when she visited the Portsmouth Herald editorial board I was impressed by her willingness not to linger at the scene of an accident. She was as thoughtful and measured as always. And while her campaign was in a defensive posture it didn't rise to the level of panic or jumping off a sinking ship (though there's no doubt some concern: Oddly, President Bill now takes the rap for the health care debacle in 1994, as the NY Times reported Thursday. Barack Obama smartly retorted that “My understanding is President Clinton’s not on the ballot.”)

The larger issue I thought from the debate was this: I tried to imagine being a first-time viewer, someone not familiar with the scores of proposals and speeches out there. I only partially succeeded in brainwashing myself but I did come away not having a good sense of what Clinton stood for at her core. That may be the greater sticking point as voters really begin thinking about their choices.

I ran across this level-headed, post-debate corrective by Eric Boehlert of Media Matters who wonders what all the hyperventilating was about. It was much ado about stirring up the pot.

Posted by Michael McCord at 06:46 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you trust George and Dick?

How little do most Democratic voters trust the the Geoge (Bush) and Dick (Cheney) show in D.C.? I saw a Stangelovian moment on our first-in-our-solar-system primary trail reflective of our nervous (check: very nervous) times. It comes courtesy of gentleman in Portsmouth today who calmly asked New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson this eye-opening question: "What are you gonna do when George and Dick drop a bomb on Iran?" Richardson was momentarily taken aback and silent (no small feat given his style) before saying he would pray -- no doubt like the rest of us -- and saying he didn't believe it would come to that.

On the weird endorsement front there's nothing like Rudy Giuliani getting the wet kiss from Pat Robertson to set blogosphere tongues a wagging. I mean really: a pro-choice Mayor of America's most secular city who bunked with some gay friends while he was getting a divorce receiving a seal of approval from a religious fruitcake who believed that 9/11 was a lightening bolt from God to punish America for being tolerant of abortion, gays and our secular ways. Makes perfect sense to me.

In my daily link, Michael Weiss of Slate rounds up some spicy blog commentary about this marriage of convenience.

And speaking of Ron Paul, didn't Giuliani show his fury in a debate earlier this year when Paul had the gall to suggest that U.S. foreign policy choices could have contributed to 9/11? Maybe Paul would have gotten a pass if he'd blamed gays, pro-choice deviants or aliens from outer space.

(Early Thursday) Just in: Heard from a reliable source that Republican hopeful and Internet favorite Ron Paul of Texas will bring his campaign to the Unviersity of Hew hampshire Friday afternoon. His more freedom and liberty song list will play well to this freedom-loving crowd.

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:13 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Paying attention to the Davids...

Who knew Ron Paul, the favorite of Libertarians and Internet seekers of political clarity (and who is mostly ignored by his own Republican party) could be a record setting fundraiser? Well, Paul, a relentless opponent of the Iraq war, has raised eyebrows when his campaign made a determined online push to raise as much moolah as possible and ended up with more than $4 million in ONE DAY -- which sets a record for GOP cash cropping in a single day during the primary season (and bested by a lot the well-publicized circus of Mitt Romney in January whcih garnered $3.1 million). Who knows how this will translate into actual votes -- the latest Franklin Pierce/WBZ poll here showed that 2 percent of Dems believed Paul could win the NH primary while 0 percent of Republicans believe he can win. Paul's web site is smartly playing up his goal of $12 million by Dec. 31 to fight it out in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- and includes a screen inclusion showing the names of contributors. Alas for Paul, many of the names I saw while watching over a few minutes weren't in the early primary states. So it's nice for his campaign coffer but not so good for votes: Can you say third-party candidate? Ross Douthat with Atlantic Online wonders the same thing -- and says Paul should take the third-party plunge to explore the depths of his phenomenon and give voice to the millions feeling unrepresented -- while applying a swift kick in the butt to the moribund establishment parties in the process.

In my daily link, there's an ode to Dem Dennis Kucinich for being the smart guy on the right side of all the right issues but who doesn't get much love or attention despite a dedicated cadre of supporters. In most Dem hearts, he may be their dream date. Or maybe not.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:41 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

This ain't no tea party

The web site of Dem Joe Biden is playing up the recent verbal match with Rudy Giuliani with prominent position and a headline of "Focusing on the Main Event." On Friday, the Biden folks said of Giuliani: “Today’s comments come from a guy—Rudy Giuliani—who said Dick Cheney, the architect of Bush’s failed policy in Iraq, was a great choice for vice president and who recommended the now discredited Bernie Kerik to be Secretary of Homeland Security. Once again, Rudy has demonstrated his complete lack of knowledge of U.S. foreign policy.” (In real news, Biden was in Iowa today releasing his "Online Nation" Internet and 21st Century education plan. He became the first presidential candidate I know of who would mandate connectivity speeds. Read more below.)

For his part, Rudy Giuliani was in Manchester talking it up with an AP reporter and continuing his Hamlet role of framing waterboarding as an philosophical issue of 'to be (torture) or not to be (torture)." Read more about the Mayor of 9/11's latest thinking -- including his defense of Kerik. Read more here.

Hillary Clinton was also in Iowa announcing what the campaign called a "Bold Plan To Tackle
Energy And Climate Crisis." Thank goodness it was bold, otherwise what would be the point. Be emboldened by reading this ambitious and fairly well detailed plan yourself.

We're not sure what Clinton rival John Edwards thinks of Hillary's "bold plan" on energy and climate change but we have a good idea what he thinks of her foreign policy stances. In a speech in Iowa today on Iran, Edwards leveled both rhetotircal barrels at the politcal firm of Bush & Clinton again -- and blasted her for being less than articulate or honest (take your pick) about her Iran policy. Edwards, who will be in NH Tuesday and Wednesday, said among other things "it’s clear that Senator Clinton and I learned very different lessons from the run up to the Iraq War. I learned that if you give this president an inch, he will take a mile—and launch a war. But Senator Clinton apparently learned a different lesson, and she’s giving the Administration exactly what it wants once again. Senator Clinton is voting like a hawk in Washington, while talking like a dove in Iowa and New Hampshire." Read his latest public Hallmark card to Hillary here.

The Obama folks in NH released a list of 68 Republicans who have crossed partisan lines and now support the O-Man. Except similar reports of other defections from more campaigns in the coming days. As to why potentially significant numbers of Republicans may be taking the Obama plunge, writer and political wise guy Andrew Sullivan has an answer: because Obama matters in ways that may transcend traditional political thinking as we know it. Sullivan, an English transplant and Tory by nature, is not given to easy seductions by Democrats but he makes a lengthy and intriguing argument (along with plenty of historical context) that Obama's prisms are radically and generationally different from Clinton. Read Sullivan's essay here.

In my daily link, Time blogger Scott MacLeod in Cairo compares Obama's foreign policy ideas with those of Bush -- and sizes up how these are viewed overseas.

BIDEN'S ONLINE NATION plan

Joe Biden believes that to compete in a global economy we must become an Online Nation where every community, business and school has access to high-speed Internet connections. Expanding the nation’s high-speed Internet infrastructure will create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next decade and increase the gross domestic product by as much as $180 billion. Simply put, becoming an on-line, high-speed nation will create jobs and grow the economy.

Although we led the world into the Internet age, the United States has now slipped to 16th in the world in high-speed Internet connections. In Japan, for example, connections are 8 times faster than in the United States. Millions of Americans – particularly in rural and low-income urban areas – do not have access to high-speed Internet connections. Less than 5 percent of towns of 10,000 or less have access to high-speed Internet connections. Just 12 percent of Internet users in rural areas have them. There is a digital divide between communities with access to high-speed Internet connections and those without.

The US should lead the world in access to the Internet. Access to high-speed Internet connections can open a world of opportunities and even save lives through tele-medicine and instant access to electronic medical records. It spurs economic growth, opens doors to high quality jobs and new markets, and expands educational opportunities.

A farmer in Iowa should be able to hold a video-conference with buyers in China over the Internet. A student in a rural community should have a real-time connection to a college class hundreds a miles away. A grandmother in a small town should be able to watch live video of new grandchild. Without high-speed connections, none of this is possible.

Joe Biden would develop a comprehensive national high-speed broadband policy that expands access to high-speed Internet connections by:

(1) Identifying Communities In Need And Creating A National Broadband Assessment: Joe Biden would direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a national assessment of the availability of high-speed Internet connections and he would provide grants to states to track availability and speed of services and connections. We must identify gaps in the communications infrastructure in order to target assistance.

(2) Increasing Speed of Connections: Joe Biden would require the Federal Communications Commission to revise its definition of “high speed” above 200 kilobits per second – to adequately assess whether connections are really high speed the FCC must use a realistic, 21st century definition.

(3) Expanding Investment In High-Speed Infrastructure: Joe Biden would provide grants to emergency responders and health care providers for high speed broadband; strengthen tax incentives to companies extending broadband to rural and underserved areas; and provide loan guarantees for investment in broadband infrastructure.

(4) Ensuring Affordable Access: Joe Biden would insure continued assistance for libraries and schools through the E-Rate program and expand the Universal Service Fund to assist low-income families in purchasing high-speed Internet connections.

(5) Supporting Public-Private Partnerships: Joe Biden would support public-private partnerships in states that expand access and utilization of broadband. Joe Biden’s home state, Delaware, is a leader in establishing such public-private partnerships. The Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN) is a state-wide health information and electronic data interchange network for public and private use. With funding from both the federal and state government, DHIN is building a Clinical Information Exchange Utility to provide secure, fast, and reliable exchange of health information among the many health care providers treating patients throughout Delaware. Joe Biden would expand investment in and support for these types of innovative partnerships -- especially partnerships that address health care, education and economic development.

Posted by Michael McCord at 04:42 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Did someone say piling on?

Ah, it must be the season to really pile it on — especially if your name is Hillary Clinton. It hasn’t taken long for the multi-media long knives to come out. In a remarkably quick response to an equally quicky Hillary sympathy ad (boy those boys are piling it on), the John Edwards campaign created a parsing how-to video complete with the Blue Danube Waltz in the background and portraying Clinton in a not very flattering light. Call it a YouTube session of tough love. You can experience it here.
Since Tuesday’s Thrilla in Phila debate, the Obama folks have worked hard as well to seize an avenue of hope: they even sent out a fund raising request wondering whether Hillary could work on a character flaw or two by being more open and honest. “Senator Clinton’s refusal to answer direct questions and disclose her records is a perfect example of what needs to change in Washington,” said the letter sent out to supporters in the name of campaign manager David Plouffe. Perhaps helpful therapy for Hillary could come in the form of $100 donations for Barack.
Today, I talked to Sen. Chrisopher Dodd who raised one of his eyebrows and smiled when I asked him (in jest) if he was going to send Hillary an apology card for piling on. His reply was essentially suck it up and get used to it.
Republicans haven’t shown much sympathy for Hillary either. Or as she might put it herself, their obsession with me continues unabated. On the day Hillary filed candidate papers in Concord, Mitt Romney graciously called her an intern in a new TV ad (that was rich coming from the overly experienced Mittster). And don’t think for a second the “internship” line was an accident. It was a golden oldie from impeachment days gone by and just as calculated as Romeny’s ‘Osama/Obama’ faux slip up.
(Kathleen Strand had the press spoeksperson comeback of the day. According to the AP: “Governor Romney is a very experienced flip-flopper who has taken different positions on nearly every important issue facing the nation,” Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said. “Trying to diminish her service isn’t going to help Mr. Romney’s weak and rudderless campaign.”)
No Hillary pile on day would be complete without the Mayor of 9/11 stepping up with a few sucker punches of his own. Rudy Giuliani’s campaign had a greeting for Clinton by releasing a David Letterman-inspired Top Ten list dripping with fifth-grade level cliches:
“When Hillary Clinton goes to the State House today to put her name on the Democrat Primary ballot, here are the TOP TEN things she’ll FORGET to tell New Hampshire voters:
10) She’ll pack the courts with liberal, activist judges.
9) Her “Baby Bond” proposal will cost taxpayers $22 billion – before we pay to have Hillary’s picture printed on them.
8) Her government-mandated health care will be so convoluted, expensive and slow to provide care that even Canadians won’t come to the U.S. for treatment anymore.
7) She will take the unprecedented step of sending emissaries across the world before she is even sworn into office – undermining our current President.
6) She is against driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, or maybe she’s for them, but one way or the other she thinks it is a good idea, or maybe not. She’ll get back to you before 2012.
5) It will take a “willing suspension of disbelief” for her to deny that she joined MoveOn.org in attacking General David Petraeus – our top commanding officer in Iraq.
4) She has a Social Security plan. One’s public, one’s private. But she has a plan.
3) In 2011, Hillary will bring the Death Tax back to life.
2) She will raise taxes for most New Hampshire residents by at least $3,000.
And she definitely won’t repeat herself here:
1) “I have a million ideas. The country can’t afford them all.” (At last count, she has proposed $763 billion in new spending)”

Alas for Rudy, what goes around comes around and, lo and behold, it was pile on Giuliani today as well -- which may or may not bode well for his credibility. In my daily link, Joe Conason of Salon dissects the comedic factor of Rudy’s health care fright schemes (ah, he’s rather loose with the facts: in fact, he may be unacquainted with them). And then, Paul Krugman of the NY Times does the same.

Hold on folks: it’s starting to get a little turbulent out there.

Posted by Michael McCord at 07:03 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Dodd's political multitasking

In my daily link, a post by Dem Presidential hopeful Chris Dodd on Huffington Post shows some deft thinking by his campaign: namely, if you can’t get establishment moderators Brian Williams and Tim Russert to ask the questions you’d like asked (ones that play to your strengths), then ask them yourself. And Dodd did. He also brought up a valid campaign issue that few candidates bother to touch in any detail -- namely the not-so-silent constitutional crisis taking place before our very eyes.
It’s worth saying crisis and not Armageddon because as bad as the Bush administration has made a mess of things with their remarkable power grab for almost the past seven years (call it a de facto revising of the Constitution, or Big Brother knows best), it’s not a foregone conclusion that we will succumb entirely to the dark side of unchecked imperial power. But Dodd stands out not because he’s a lawyer (the Dems are stocked with them) but because he keeps talking about this vital but decidedly unsexy campaign topic.
Anyway, Dodd’s questions remind us how utterly vapid much of these debates can be. Imagine real talk about executive power or torture or secret spying. What a civic lesson that might be.
The Dodd campaign has also sent around an internal (and not so secret) e-mail talking up recent successes with on-line fund raising, web site traffic numbers (better than Biden or Richardson they say) and matters of stature -- namely that Dodd more than any candidate is using his Senate post as an actual asset while running for Prez. Gotta like the honest enthusiasm about this political multitasking.

In my daily link, a post by Dem Chris Dodd on Huffington Post shows some deft thinking by his campaign: namely, if you can't get establishment moderators Brian Williams and Tim Russert to ask the questions you'd like (ones that play to your strengths), then ask them yourself. And Dodd did. He also brought up a valid campaign issue that few candidates bother to touch in any detail -- namely the not-so-silent constitutional crisis taking place before our very eyes. It's worth saying crisis and not armegeddon because as bad as the Bush administration has made a mess of things with their remarkable power grab for almost the past seven years (call it a defacto revising of the Constitution, or Big Brother knows best), it's not a foregone conclusion that we will succumb entirely to the dark side of unchecked imperial power. But Dodd stands out not because he's a lawyer (the Dems are stocked with them) but because he talks about this vital but decidedly unsexy campaign topic.

Anyway, Dodd's questions remind us how utterly vapid much of these debates can be. Imagine real talk about executive power or torture or secret spying. What a civic lesson that might be.

The Dodd campaign has also sent around an internal (and not so secret) e-mail talking up recent successes with on-line fundraising, web site traffic numbers (better than Biden or Richardson they say) and matters of stature -- namely that Dodd more than any candidate is using his Senate post as an actual asset while running for Prez. Gotta like the honest enthusiasm about this political multitasking.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:51 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Waterboard indexing

Sign of the strange times: In previous primary election cycles we might hear candidates debate the finer points of social security indexing or the importance of having a humble and thoughtful foreign policy outlook (see Bush, George W., 2000). Ah, but in the 2008 fun house we see some GOP candidates working to define torture and giving a cost-benefit analysis on its impact. Needless to say, this trends slightly to the bizarre for the world’s most powerful country to (1) need to resort to torture as if we were living in a real episode of ‘24’ and (2) to have politicians make political hay out of it. It leads one to wonder just what kind of crowd Rudy Giuliani is teasing when he ponders the details of water boarding and gives an ambivalent answer about whether it’s torture -- mind you this is a form of deadly coercion developed nicely in the Spanish Inquisition. That we are discussing it is a double-edged sword -- it’s healthy in the same way that honestly discussing a disease is more beneficial than not but it’s sobering to think we have sunk to this point in an unhealthy quest for pristine security.
In my daily link, Walter Shapiro of Salon chronicles the heightened “macho” line taken by GOP candidates -- what I call the Village People campaign theme. And you have to give it the Republican candidate comedy writers who continue to turn out unforgettable quips -- first there was John McCain being all “tied up” during Woodstock in 1969 and then yesterday in Londonderry Giuliani accused the Dems of being acid-laden daydream believers. Dean Barker at Blue Hampshire had this post capturing the Giuliani routine at its psychedelic best:
“This is the world we live in. It’s not this happy, romantic-like world where we’ll negotiate with this one, or we’ll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we’ll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we’ll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House,” Giuliani said.
“Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball,” he added.
The best comeback came from Kate Bedingfield of the Edwards campaign. Barker quoted her as saying “Rudy Giuiliani’s convoluted foreign policy theories sound like George Bush, without all the thinking.”

UPDATE 1
As if on cue, Dem presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden sent out this press release (in his Senate capacity) urging senators to support his legislation that call for, among other things, banning torture. In a letter to fellow Senators he noted "it is sad that a nation with a longstanding, proud tradition of condemning torture finds itself embroiled in a debate regarding whether torture is legal. Both domestic law and international treaties clearly ban torture. Unfortunately, the current Administration's cramped, disingenuous arguments necessitate such a debate."

Biden might have added the same thing goes for too many presidential candidates whose tough talk defies both practicality and even highly flexible definations of sanity.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:34 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Is free trade a boondoggle? Edwards says yes...

So Sen. Judd Gregg has given his seal of approval to Mitt Romney which may prove to be little more than a passing headline for a majority of GOP primary voters here. “Mitt Romney embodies New Hampshire’s values — values that stress government living within its means, lower taxes, a stronger military and stronger families,” Gregg said via a Romney campaign statement about the endorsement made in Concord earlier today. “Governor Romney is the strong leader we need to lead America forward.” This raises a question: just where would Romney move America forward to?

Gotta give some notice to Dem hopeful John Edwards: we don't know if he's gonna win here in New Hampshire or Iowa (the two states wehre he is betting everything) but it appears like he won't leave anything in reserve. His latest rhetorical shotgun blast at free trade agreements -- a boondoggle he contends was designed by corporate interests to serve mostly corporate interests -- may not persuade the pundit elite but he raises intriguing points that chllenges the entire premise of free trade agreements in the past two decades (jncluding NAFTA, put into play by a President Bill Clinton who has more than a passing interest in the fortunes of his wife Hillary Clinton who Edwards criticizes for being a bought and paid lobbyist for corporate interests: really, you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried).

Edwards has been doing a good job of driving a lot of the ideas debate: and blogger/labor organizer Jonathan Tasini believes the other Dem candidates would be wise to follow. You can read his post here. I will follow up with Edwards in person later today as he visits the Portsmouth editorial board for a friendly grilling before campaign appearances in Exeter and Portsmouth.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:35 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Obama's morning cup of assertiveness

There's nothing quite like using the front page of the Sunday New York Times to make a point -- in the case of Barack Obama, it's a forum to lob a few rhetorical salvos against the fortress of Dem rival Hillary Clinton. In the lengthy Times inside baseball peek into the campaign, Obama and his campaign said they were stepping into the ring with a new set of gloves, with Obama attempting to sharpen his differences with Clinton. Of course he wasn't trying, Obama quipped, to “kneecap the front-runner, because I don’t think that’s what the country is looking for," but if not a knee cap, then it's certainly a punch.

In what might be called the campaign's Soprano's awakening, the Obama folks have decided it's time to stop letting Clinton get away with being the experience/change candidate without taking a look at what Obama called Clinton's "agenda" and her being less than forthcoming, if not exactly truthful about her political calculations and policies.

Here's an excerpt (read complete article here):
“I don’t think people know what her agenda exactly is,” Mr. Obama continued, citing Social Security, Iraq and Iran as issues on which he said she had not been fully forthcoming. “Now it’s been very deft politically, but one of the things that I firmly believe is that we’ve got to be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we’re going to need to make in order to get a mandate for change, not to try to obfuscate and avoid being a target in the general election and then find yourself governing without any support for any bold propositions.”

In one sense, there's nothing new here because Obama has always offered himself as the 'big bang' leader and said all along I'm not your guy if you want a potential more of the same D.C. presidency. What's different and perhaps inevitable from the early days of the campaign is that it he's showing some campaign fire in the belly and not let the Clinton steal some of his 'hope and bold' thunder and get bullied around. You can bet the Clinton's are firing back with all their ammo and reminding everyone that Mr. 'Hope' is as calcualting as any other politician (in fact, one of the Clinton campaign tricks of the trade is to relentlessly remind reporters that Obama isn't all that special or different than say, Hillary Clinton).

It's worth noting that John Edwards has been pounding the pulpit about Clinton for months and now he has a partner of sorts to redefine the bulleye on Hillary's back -- who has also become a convenient target for Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain (McCain in a particular has released a raw ad against Clinton, sort of round 522 of the 60s Culture Wars by portraying her as Sen. Woodstcok while he was "tied up" in Vietnam.)

It's a good sign for the Dems because the last thing they need is a potential coronation. They need a political street brawl to decide what they want to be and who they want to represent.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:58 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Rudy's World War IV trick or treat

PollMulling: The Saint Anselm College Institute of Politics just released its Primary Poll among likely voters here in primary land and uncovered no major polling surprises. On the Dem side, The Hillary Clinton polling juggernaught remained strong as she leads Barack Obama by a 43-22 margin (with John Edwards at 14 percent). On the GOP side, Mitt Romney leads Rudy Giuliani 32-22 (with John McCain at 15 percent). The most interesting polling nuggets are on the GOP side. Internet/Libertarian favorite Ron Paul is at 7 percent, ahead of Mike Huckabee (6 percent) and Fred Thompson (5 percent). While deciphering poll numbers is always a risky proposition at best (more blind luck than science), what is revealing is that Paul is gaining serious name recognition while having not spent much time in the state (a sign of his loyal and growing following) while Thompson is dropping fast while having not spent hardly any time in the state (a sign of indifference).

One interesting finding is that among the undeclared (independent) voters, most are leaning Democrat by a 41 to 19 percent margin while 40 percent are still making up their minds. That's not a good trend for John McCain who used independent support in 2000 to catapult to victory in New Hampshire. But then again, he's on the wrong side of the Iraq war issue in this state among independents. But if this poll does anything it shows "there is still indecisiveness among likely voters in New Hampshire,” said NHIOP senior fellow Michael Dupre. In other words, we don't know much.

Next time you see GOPer Rudy Giuliani on the campaign trail here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land you might want to ask him 'Hey Rudy, how's World War IV going?' I kid you not. In my daily link, there's a Halloween-type reminder that Giuliani may really mean what he says about staying on the offensive against, well, the Islamofascist hordes which could include just about eveybody in the Middle East and the Islamic world. And if you listen to neocon nutcase Norman Podhertz, who just happens to have Rudy's ear as a top foreign policy advisor (a truly scary thought), he recently gave Mr. 9/11 a briefing on his thoughts about World War IV (the title of a new Podhertz book). In an interview with the New York Observer the excitable Podhertz laid out a Mafia-type agenda that will keep Rudy and the country busy on the military front for decades. America should be working to overthrow governments in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt and “every one of the despotic regimes in that region, by force if necessary and by nonmilitary means if possible,” he said. “They are fronts of the war. You can’t do everything at once. And to have toppled two of those regimes in five years or six years is I think a major achievement. And maybe George Bush won’t be able to carry it further, but I think he will. It may have just been given to him to start act one of the five-act play.”
Maybe in this play, Rudy sees himself as a Shakespearean military maven. It's no wonder that more and voters in New Hampshire have become increasingly distressed about war with Iran. The inmates are running the asylum.

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:20 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

P.A.D.D. (Political Attention Deficit Disorder)

There's no shortage of work here at gaffe tracking central.

If there’s any doubt about the effectiveness of Barack Obama’s response team — and especially their assertiveness against sloppy mainstream media reporting — it should be laid to rest by their reaction to a rookie reporter foul up by veteran Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson. In an otherwise lukewarmly interesting take on the sometimes uneasy alliance between main street and Wall Street Dems, Meyerson said that Obama had voted for the punitive bankruptcy bill in 2005.
Ah, not true at all, said the fast-to-the-draw Obama folks who, at least in New England, were enjoying a moment of glory with a huge rally in Boston yesterday as Obama secured the endorsement of Massachusetts Gov. Duval Patrick.
The campaign wasted no time in responding and hit back with a statement and Senate links (here and here) showing that not only had Obama voted against the bill but spoke at rather forcefully against it.
The Obama response folks must have fallen off their chairs when word came out about Patrick's predecessor, Republican presidential wannabe Mitt “You say Osama, I say Obama” Romney. The former attendence-challenged Governor laid a painful rhetorical egg yesterday in South Carolina. The Mittster is setting new standards of unintentional campaign stand up comedy. It’s almost freakish when you would think that Romney — who saw his father George Romney deleted from the 1968 campaign after he claimed to have been ‘brainwashed’ by the Pentagon establishment about military progress in Vietnam — would be slightly aware of the consequences when one is no longer speaking in the privacy of a corporate boardroom.
In serious damage control mode, the Romney campaign said their guy “misspoke” but according to the Associated Press report, it was a serious case of misspeaking while he was attacking the Dems for being soft on terrorism. “Actually, just look at what Osam — Barack Obama — said just yesterday,” Romney said in Greenville, S.C. Tuesday. “Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. ... It’s almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded.”
Talk about mixing your metaphors and enemies. No wonder the campaign made Romney very unavailable for further comment.
In years to come, perhaps pundits and medical doctors will cite a new campaign malady in honor of Mitt Romney. Perhaps they will call Political Attention Deficit Disorder.
Speaking of the mainstream media, Republican Ron Paul got some love from Howard Fineman of Newsweek. Fineman sort of fancied Paul’s chances to muck up the primary scrum here among the GOPers. Me thinks that Fineman may not be far off the mark because I’ve never seen such a combination of discord and confusion among Republican voters (read here) as I have in the 2008 edition of the primary circus here.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:40 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Embrace your inner Constitution

When a sitting U.S. Senator runs for President the potential for constructive and not so constructive mischief in the hallowed halls of power is never far away. In the constructive mischief department, we offer Dem hopeful Chris Dodd who is showing some backbone (and flirting with potential political suicide) by threatening to muck up the Dem leadership determination to suck up to George Bush again (all to keep that dreaded ‘soft on security’ necktie from being tightened) on FISA reauthorization (the one where the Bush brigades spy illegally on potentially all of us in the name of something resembling national security). One of Dodd’s campaign themes is about restoring the constitution to being, well, a relevant document and he’s determined to make a show of this in a showdown over FISA. He has threatened a parliamentary move called a hold or a one-man filibuster if Senate leadership gives him the back of their collective hand. In my daily link, Dodd goes on the liberal Huffington Post to make his point. While it’s hard not to forget the political opportunism angle, Dodd makes a rational case for taking our time and actually paying attention to the constitutional details. Of course, being reasonable rarely helps anyone in the viper’s den of D.C. But Dodd deserves credit for bringing our Bush-ravaged Constitution up as a debate topic. Our elected leaders in D.C. -- and almost all the presidential candidates -- have too often taken a pass at it.
Poke in the eye
John McCain’s campaign here in first-in-the-solar-system primary land got a zero sum shot of adrenaline when Dan Hughes of New Castle, a longtime Republican leader with deep roots in the state, joined McCain as vice-chair of his leadership team. We’re not sure exactly what the leadership team does but getting Hughes was a finger in the eye to Fred Thompson’s not so much of a NH campaign — Hughes was an advisor of sorts to Thompson. We suspect but cannot confirm that Hughes perhaps got tired of waiting around to advise Thompson on, well, anything — including, just maybe, on just why Thompson is running.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:37 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

'Don't worry, Be Manny'

My favorite sign of the primary season had nothing to do with politics but baseball while I was watching the Red Sox complete their remarkable comeback against the Cleveland Indians last night (and while I wasn’t watching the latest faux debate among the GOP elephants). I saw fan in Fenway Park hoist up ‘Don’t Worry, Be Manny,” a catchy twist combining the song (‘Don’t worry, be happy’) with of the infamous ‘Manny being Manny’ which ranks as being one of the better and most analyzed nonsensical catch phrases of all sports time (it’s an existential state of being that could mean, well, most anything regarding Manny Ramirez, the Red Sox hitting savant who has a touch of Zen to his personality).

What we need is a good campaign slogan combining popular recognition and a catchy, deeply existential catch phrase. I’m not holding my breath.

Republican John McCain is back in the neighborhood tomorrow; in Hampton for a town hall meeting and at the Portsmouth Herald for an editorial board grilling. Timothy Noah of Slate gives McCain decent grades for his health care reform proposals which, Noah notes here, have been largely forgotten because the campaign hasn’t bothered to either explain them or emphasize them. Read more here.

In my daily link, Salon has a witty and abridged take on the faux GOP debate I bypassed while suffering continued sleep deprivation while rooting for the Red Sox. Note from Mother Superior: The whole ‘who’s got the bigger and better Republican street cred’ bragging really has to stop. If a Republican candidate has to waste time on earth convincing fellow Republicans he’s a real Republican, then it becomes a public identity crisis issue. Not a pretty sight at all.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:46 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up

While we contemplate Bill Gardner’s existential contemplation about when our first-in-the-universe primary circus will take place and begin to say goodbye to Republican not-so-much a presidential hopeful Sam Brownback (Sam, we hardly knew you here), here’s something to brighten up your day (in a perverse way).
In my daily link, Ken Silverstein of Harper’s chronicles the massive consulting artifice behind a majority of our major political campaigns. In this case, Silverstein follows the step-by-step process in the selling of Mitt Romney as a conservative and runs into so many layers of political consulting and manipulation that you almost feel sorry for the candidates.
Reminds me how some things never change: it seems like only yesterday when I was in high school (sometime near the end of the 2nd quarter of the 20th Century) reading The Selling of the President by Joe McGinnis about the packaging of Richard Nixon in 1968. Hard to believe it’s gotten worse but yes, Virginia, it has.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:10 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Kandel's shot across the bow; Biden's expectations

One of my Top 5 quotes of the season here in first-in-the-solar-system primary land comes not from a candidate but from retired CNN financial news guru Myron Kandel who is spending time up here trying to lasso candidates into televised discussions about their policies on good corporate governance and investor protection (Kandel is the president of the N. H. Initiative for Corporate Responsibility and Investor Protection: find out more about Kandel's quest here).

Kandel has invited all the candidates to sit down with him for a taped television program to be shown on N.H. Public Television; only one, Republican Mike Huckabee has found the time in his schedule to do it (the program will take place tonight at Daniel Webster College in Nashua and is open to the public.)

When I caught up with Kandel yesterday, he was excited about the potential of getting candidates to talk about these economically important issues and underwhelmed by their lack of response. He told me: “I’d hate to believe that some of the candidates are reluctant to discuss these issues publicly because so many campaign contributors are from the business sector. If that were true -- and I hope it isn’t -- it would be a sad commentary on the integrity of the candidates themselves.”

My mother would call that an example of making a point politely but rather forcefully.

4th place anyone?
Gotta love Democrat Joe Biden and his method dealing with the expectations parlor game that journalists and campaigns are beginning to play (after all, talking too much about issues can be a fruitless enterprise). I mean, just keep lowering them until you’re a winner of something, especially when rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to set fundraising records (not exactly Biden’s forte to this point) and suck up all the front running media oxygen.

Biden’s solution was brilliant. In a move only a U.S. Senator like Biden could pull off, he revised and extended his remarks from early September when he said a third place finish was required to keep his boat afloat. Not anymore. When Biden was in Boston Tuesday to raise cash and secure a few Massachusetts endorsements, he told the AP that finishing fourth place in Iowa would be a job well done. “If I finish in the top three or close fourth, I’m in the game coming into New Hampshire. If I don’t, I’m gone,” Biden said.

In my daily link, Dem Bill Richardson went the blog route on Huffington Post to see that he, as Governor of New Mexico, was going to take George W. Bush to the courthouse woodshed over the SCHIP funding controversy. Nothing like merging local, state, national and primary politics into a one sweet bundle with the extra added emotional boost of children's health care at stake. That's a multi-fer that no candidate can resist.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:32 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Kandel's shot across the bow; Biden's expectations

My mother would call that an example of making a point politely but rather forcefully.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:32 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Fantasy play: Al Gore to the rescue

Farrell Seiler continues to have visions of Al Gore running for President. Seiler, a Littleton resident, is the state coordinator for the Draft Gore New Hampshire organization and living proof that not all Dems are satisfied with the current pool of Dem canddiates. I met Seiler earlier this summer when Hillary Clinton stopped by our offices for a forum on her environmental and energy policies. He knew the chances were slim but there was a chance that Al, who should have been our 43rd president but likely got a far greater honor by winning the Nobel Peace Prize , might want to take a run at being 44.

Roger Simon of Politico writes today there is no way Al will take the plunge because he’s reached a rare stage for a politician -- transcendence in a manner that Emerson or Thoreau or even Melville could envision. Or to make it even stranger, Gore is transcendent enough to endorse Hillary, Simon muses. (And speaking of Hillary, who’s in the state today making her 945th major policy speech of the campaign , in my daily link catch a review here of her appearance on The View -- and how, I kid you not, it didn’t tickle the fancy of the Republican National Committee. I mean really, The View? Does the RNC have no shame to go along with their lack of imagination.)

Don’t tell that to Forrest Seiler. It didn’t take long for him to send out the press release that I received this morning. The release was clearly designed to stir speculation that Al might be thinking ever so slightly about running with its ‘Gore speaking out visibly on the issues’ hopeful tone (despite the fact that Al Gore has been speaking out about the issues since he became our popularly elected but not real president -- was he not speaking visibly before?) But hey, hope still lives -- unless Barack Obama has trademarked the phrase.

Here's the release:
Farrell S. Seiler,
State Coordinator 603-568-4916
Draft Gore New Hampshire
Littleton, New Hampshire
http://www.DraftGoreNH.com

Gore Begins Speaking Out on Major Domestic, Foreign Policy Issues

(Littleton, New Hampshire) - Within 48 hours of receiving the
Nobel Prize, former Vice President Al Gore is speaking out
visibly on critical issues affecting all Americans.

In videos appearing on his company's web site,
http://current.com/people/algore, Gore discusses Iraq,
health care and constitutional protections of our rights.

"Al Gore has many concerns that touch the lives of all
Americans," says Farrell Seiler, State Coordinator of
the draft Gore effort in New Hampshire. "In the next few
weeks, Gore will be talking forcefully on domestic
and foreign policy issues and elaborating on the vision
he has for the future of our country."

Gore wants to get our troops out of Iraq "as quickly as possible,"
expand universal health insurance to cover all Americans
as "a matter of right" and require the executive branch
"to follow the requirements of the Constitution."

The complete text of Gore's comments are available on the
New Hampshire Draft Gore web site:
http://www.DraftGoreNH.com/on_the_issues.

On Iraq:
"We are becoming a magnet for the kind of violence that is
feeding the civil war. We ought to withdraw as quickly
as possible while keeping an eye on the obligation we have
not to make an already terrible situation even worse in
the manner of our leaving."
http://current.com/items/84986481_get_the_troops_home

On Health Care:
"Health care is a right. I strongly support universal,
single payer, government provided or government funded,
health care."
http://current.com/items/84987281_health_care_is_a_right

On Protecting Privacy:
"Americans deserve more protection against the government
being able to eavesdrop on our tlelphone conversations,
on our email conversations and private conversations."
http://current.com/items/84986911_americans_deserve_more_protection

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:14 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Don't do it, Bill!

Imagine this wild political thriller of a movie: Being Bill Gardner. Well, it seems there is no shortage of explorers waiting to travel into NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner's brain as he contemplates what date to set the New Hampshire primary.

Of course, Gardner is not lacking for advice including for folks like me who can't shut up about the topic. But, Bill, here's a thoughtful conisderation for you. In my daily link, veteran political reporter Walter Shapiro of Salon makes a valiant plea to Gardner to avoid being foolish enough to either (1) schedule the primary in December (we would become Grinch-style laughingstocks) or (2) schedule it too close to Iowa is they go Jan. 3 or Jan. 5. In other words, screw Michigan (by ignoring its boorish attempt to elbow in this time around) and don’t get stuck on a date or a legislative terminology. I agree with Shapiro 100 percent: if we believe in the importance of the primary, don’t demean by giving into outside pressures. We will stop being the first-in-the-solar system primary when we downgrade its vitality by choosing a more controversial than necessary date.

Posted by Michael McCord at 02:06 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Huckabee's NH adventures

Before we begin the countdown in earnest about whether Nobel Al Gore will or will not run for President, it's time for some shameless promotion on my part: In my Sunday Out on a Limb colum will focus on Repulbican Presidential hopeful and former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee who continues to get positive press coverage, including from liberal media bias slaves to fashion like me.

So why hasn't this social conservative, former preacher, and guitar player with a great sense of humor (and an endless arsenal of one-liners, among other things) caught fire with voters or gotten a bigger bump in the polls or raised bucketloads more of money? Frankly, I don't know but it may say more about the current chaotic and dispirited environment for Repubs than anything else. But Huckabee has made bigger inroads in Iowa than anyone could have forseen and perhaps the same is happening sotte voce here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land. For his part, Huckabee is predicting victory in Iowa which would probably result in an even louder scream from Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani than that of Howard Dean in 2004. He says frequently the supporters he has are really with him. Perhaps they like the fact that he can talk global warming, question evolution, talk about the importance of music and art in education, talk about being pro-life and anti-gay marriage in a political sermon style easy to the ear.

When I talked to NH primary savant Dean Spiliotes about Huckabee's campaign (one office in Cocnord and three staff members and a lot of living off the land), he told me that Huckabee risks an interesting expectations trap: after a while people wonder why he hasn't struck a great chord among voters and their next step is to not give him a second look. He ends up becoming, ugh, another media favorite (Jack Kemp, Bill Bradley) who can't cut the primary muster.

By the way, Spiliotes has started a primary political web site for junkies and wonkies called NH Political Capital. You can find it here.

In my daily link, I pondered bigger thoughts than the primary when I read this latest installment in dumping our antiquated electoral college system for choosing presidents. "Let's abolish the Electoral College"
by constitutional law professor Garrett Epps in Oregon is well-reasoned and incorporates history and nasty modern politics. He makes yet another persuasive case to dump the system that had to more with protecting slavery than insuring the political safety of "small" states. Of course like all the other articles written over the past 100 years advocating such rational change, it will be ignored.

Posted by Michael McCord at 04:58 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Economic banter, GOP style

I watched a fair amount of the replay of the GOP “economic” debate yesterday in Michigan. It confirmed a long-held belief of mine that the only worse than listening to economisst talk economics is when politicians jump into the moss pit. But at least with the politicians it can be entertaining.

Back to the faux debate: Beyond the almost manic obsession with Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton (tactic: fixate on Hillary and you don’t have to say anything of substance) and the elementary school yard taunting between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, I thought the winners (a loose term, mind you) were Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

With each passing day, Paul looks like a politician from another planet when he speaks about fiscal responsibility (something about living within our means so we don’t end living beneath them) in a gathering dedicated to an orgy of tax cuts at all costs. In a rare moment of high intelligence, Sen. John McCain made reference to Adam Smith and the “Wealth of Nations” and suggested that Paul take a read. I’m willing to be bet it’s more than likely that Paul has read it and wondered where the intellectual justification is for massive deficit spending combined with tax cuts that help run up those deficits (where’s that supply side mojo when you need it?) It's no wonder that Paul remains popular not just among libertarians but among conservatives who value liberty and rational behavior.

The ever smooth and humourous Huckabee is another political brand altogether. In one of the few times he was allowed to share a complete (if homogenized) thought, he struck a populist tone (sort of a Yin to Dem John Edwards’ Yang) “We’re losing jobs here. That’s why people in Michigan are going — looking for something to do. And that’s what has to change and it’s not being changed. And this party is going to have to start addressing it or we’re going to get our britches beat next year.” While touting a more forward-thinking energy policy, Huckabee even manage to throw in a folksy reference to “Goober and Gomer” from the 60s television program, the Andy Griffith Show.

What was less populist and somewhat revealing came later when Huckabee showed himself willing to play muscle man with Congress and slap it aside to launch attacks against Iran (or Pluto, we can infer) if time was running tight and Congress was playing wimpy wimpy. Sounds like an episode of ‘24.’ Just what we need: another President with more muscle instincts than brain matter.

In my daily link, a Texas blogger (and financial analyst) named Hale “Bonddad” Stewart expertly dissects the Republican economic mantras (markets and tax cuts religiously righteous; government and regulation and lawyers and yes, even gays — courtesy of an odd Sam Brownback analogy that produced a form of mental whiplash — bad) that flowed at the debate: even though he didn’t watch it. I guess he’d seen and heard it all before.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:29 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Silent night, primary night? (not so fast)

On Second thought. Nothing ages faster than a blog post that has been rendered moot and ancient by breaking headlines: in this case, the mass defection from the still-born Michigan primary by Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden. This smack in Michigan’s face will render the event, which had been vying for prime time status, to a second rate beauty contest. No wonder NH Dem chief Ray Buckley was gloating when he immediately sent out a release stating “Today’s turn of events only further amplifies the fact that the Michigan primary is irrelevant. Our Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, now has more flexibility in his scheduling decision because the Michigan event is no longer a ‘similar event’ to the New Hampshire primary.”

Christopher Dodd has chosen to play both sides of the fence. He will stay put in Michigan while preaching fidelity to the Iowa and New Hampshire power brokers. “We are committed to the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire going first, and we signed the four-state pledge to hopefully prevail upon the DNC and the state parties to add clarity to that situation,” Dodd said in a statement. “However, it does not benefit any of us if we are the nominee to pull our name off the ballot and slight Michigan voters.”
The only significant drama left is whether Hillary Clinton will follow suit: she just might stay put, get a cheap victory and endear herself to Michigan voters who may have been ill-suited at best by their legislators.

As for the ‘Primary Hi Jinx’ sentiments written earlier by your humble blogger (see below), consider it a case of “never mind.”

DAILY LINK
Meanwhile in my Daily Link, Roger Simon of Politico.com muses on how GOP hopeful Fred Thompson is running the lowest expectation campaign in modern political history. See if Fred can meet those low expectations (no specifics, no proposals but plenty of unrelated platitudes) in the GOP debate scrum later today (two hours of pure torment courtesy of CNBC at 4 p.m. with a replay at 9 p.m. on MSNBC.). My belief is that is he will beat low expectations and get another bump in the polls.
What does it — Thompson’s lighter-than-air campaign — all mean? Just ask Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone who followed Mr. Law & Order around in Iowa and New Hampshire and sees something scary in Thompson’s campaign that goes far beyond the candidate and into something deeper in the entire American psyche. Can you say sheep? Read more here and be afraid, be slightly afraid.

PRIMARY HI JINX
Leave it to NH State Rep. Jim Splaine of Portsmouth to talk about the unthinkable: a December primary. Splaine has been one the biggest boosters of our first-in-the-galaxy extravaganza FOR ALMOST THREE DECADES in the legislature. But in a recent blog post, he’s acting like a Grinch (a pleasant one at that) who would steal Christmas but it would be for our own good. If it happens, it could be the final nail in the coffin of the old system because it will be an unmatched act of absurdity. You can read Jim’s reasonable proposal below.

By Jim Splaine
How About A December New Hampshire Presidential Primary?

As way of introduction to this idea, if you've been hearing my commentary in Blogs and speeches about the New Hampshire Presidential Primary for a while, you'll note that I've been rather close in some of my predictions. Since I've been working on the cause of keeping New Hampshire "first" and "relevant" longer than most, dating back to the early 1970s, I have seen a lot of strategies employed -- both by our state, and others, and participated in some of those strategies.

When the Democratic National Committee began playing games with the schedule some two years ago and a lot of people said New Hampshire wouldn't survive their sanctions, I said we would, we'd remain "first," and we'd be ahead of Nevada. At this point, Nevada is quite irrelevant to the discussion, and they certainly won't come before us. And about a year ago I suggested we might even see the NH Primary scheduled in the first two weeks of January, while most others then thought it would be January 22nd. Now, January 8th is about the latest most people are anticipating that it will be.

Well, now I'd like to introduce another thought-- for others' comments and talk --and that's of a December date.

Just during the past couple of days, there have been strong indications that both Democrats and Republicans in Iowa have determined that they are going to have their Caucuses on Thursday, January 3rd. There is also a possibility the Republicans will hold their Caucus on that date, with the Democrats going Saturday, January 5th.

In light of that, let's do some serious thinking about the options for the date of the New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Primary, and also take a look at our opportunities.

If Iowa does go January 3rd or 5th, the problem with setting our date for Tuesday, January 8th would be that for the entire Holiday Season, the Presidential candidates of both parties may well camp out in Iowa. It's not that we should be jealous about that. That's not the point. But the Iowa Caucus is not a real election -- it is an organizational event where it takes intense staff and special interest groups to get their most dedicated supporters to the meeting rooms throughout Iowa on a cold Winter night to stand up, publicly, and "be counted" for their choice. In other words, it's not much of a secret vote, like a "real" election is. The New Hampshire Primary IS a real election, where people go to the polls and vote in privacy to choose their nominee. A Caucus isn't much more than a straw poll, which Iowa's Republicans already had -- a straw poll without the right to vote in secret.

I have no problem with the Iowa Caucus going first before New Hampshire, as has been traditional back to 1972, but I've been concerned that the Iowa Caucus this election cycle is potentially having way too much influence on whether candidates of either party will even remain as candidates after that event is held. It is very likely we'll see some candidates drop out after Iowa, even though a real election won't even have occurred yet.

So, with the very serious possibility that the Iowa Caucuses will be on January 3rd, New Hampshire now has to make a choice. Should we have ours right after Iowa, with a reduced "window" between it and us, or use this opportunity to have our Presidential Primary during the first two weeks of December? The second Tuesday in December is the 11th, and that date would do some interesting things for us:

1. A NH Primary on or around December 11th would give the Presidential candidates of both parties an opportunity to focus on real voters for the next two months. Our Secretary of State has already announced the Presidential Primary filing period for October 15th to November 2nd. By filing their candidacies, that's the best "pledge" to run here that we can get from the candidates themselves. So by November 2nd, we'll know for sure who is on the ballot, and those ballots can go to the printers. If about the time the filing period ends he sets our official date for sometime during the first two weeks of December, that prevents any other state from jumping ahead of us -- thus guaranteeing our state law requirement of "...7 days or more..." before a similar election. Plus, it pre-dates Iowa by a good three weeks.

2. A NH Primary on or around December 11th would encourage the Presidential candidates and their campaigns to spend intensive, quality time here for all of November into the first week or two of December. We could ask for nothing better for democracy than having some concentrated time with the candidates -- face to face, eye to eye, one-on-one, New Hampshire-style; before the campaigning in the bigger states which vote on January 29th and February 5th really gets underway.

3. A NH Primary on or around December 11th would mean that after our event, the "winners" and those "exceeding expectations" would be exposed to a great deal of nationwide analysis during the Holiday Season as to just why they did so well, or not, and how their showing in New Hampshire will affect the next race in Iowa and other states beginning the first week of January. That contributes to the respected "impact" of the NH lead-off primary, and sets us in good position to remain first and relevant for 2012 and beyond.

4. A NH Primary on or around December 11th would considerably "backload" the "frontloading" of the current schedule, where so many states are going to be holding their election events on January 29th and February 5th. Face it, if the contests begin on January 3rd in Iowa, then New Hampshire (8th?), then maybe Nevada (12th?), then Michigan (15th), then South Carolina (19th), with lots of states scheduled for January 29th and February 5th (Florida, New Jersey, New York, California, Connecticut, Tennessee, Georgia, Alaska, Minnesota, Missouri, and several others), it will all be over in a month. If the NH Primary is moved up a full three weeks or so into December, that can fulfill the role of spreading out the process very, very well, and reduce the impact of the current frontloading.

5. A NH Primary on or around December 11th would greatly enhance the importance of doing well in New Hampshire, yet allow candidates who don't finish so well some time to recover their campaigns. No state, whether Iowa or New Hampshire or any other, should be able to by itself render the knock-out punch to a candidate. We're not about that, nor should we let Iowa be.

The New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary has never been "about us." And the law dating back to the 1970s giving our Secretary of State the authority to set the date of the NH Primary "...7 days or more..." before a similar election is meant to do more than just preserve a tradition. The New Hampshire Presidential Primary is about continuing an election process where people can dream about running for President without having to sell their souls on the issues just to be popular, or sell their future administrations to special interests just to have the money to run. By making sure that we continue to be relevant to the process, we're serving democracy.

The campaigns are well underway, so by setting our primary in December it's not like we're starting the election process itself any earlier. And while we'd be losing the attention of the candidates in those weeks of the Holidays leading to January 8th, we'd be gaining their more intense campaigning here throughout November into December.

Consider that if we do go January 8th shortly after Iowa, the candidates will only have divided time between here and there in December, perhaps focusing on Iowa. If we went to January 15th, the same day as Michigan's "beauty contest," we'd be sharing the January 16th headlines and impact with whatever happened in Michigan, and besides a lot of candidates would be spread out after Iowa from here, to Michigan, and to the South and West where other states are about to hold their contests within the following couple of weeks.

And most importantly, we'd be contributing to spreading out the election calendar so that all the voters' decision-making isn't just from January 3rd through February 5th.

Give an early-December date some thought. Talk about it. Consider the alternatives. I'm not necessarily proposing it yet, but I'm offering it to get us to think even more about our options, which is all part of the process of our Secretary of State setting our date. I think he's listening to all ideas, and it's his decision to make rather soon.

I hope he's not drinking too much coffee.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:09 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

The primary wizard of fraud

There’s a thoughtful piece in today’s Salon by Michael Scherer about how truly corrupt and awful and downright undemocratic and frankly absurd our primary system is. I say thoughtful because it’s the sort of fact-based opinion piece that should send a shiver down the spine of us good burghers in first-in-the-universe primary land because we are one of the main culprits (but then there’s nothing about us getting ‘Why New Hampshire?’ sucker punch.)
Scherer has conducted a time-honored, quadrennial journalistic autopsy. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, this is latest version of peeking behind and finding, well, a large scale con game (or in this case, multiple cons) at the heart of our electoral dog and pony show. Thanks Michael for the heartburn. Thanks goodness the candidates keep playing along -- otherwise New Hampshir emight have to surrender a significant part of its idenity.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:58 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Phony outrage (and other matters)

Not so sneaky attack:
In a move guaranteed to raise the temp at Romney central, a press release has been sent out in the guise of the Cato Institute and it's designed to touch a nerve into all tax-phobic voters here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land. It's all about taxes of course with the cute title of ROMNEY’S TAXACHUSETTS HYPOCRISY with an even better sub head of "Romney Raised Taxes On Out Of State Commuters – Including Those From New Hampshire – Repeatedly."
I've pasted this poison letter (call it "Rudy says I love you with a twist of the knife") below.

Inevitable: maybe, maybe not
I got multiple messages from a few campaigns sending out a link to Scott Lehigh's column in the Boston Globe today saying why Hillary Clinton isn't so inevitable. Really, I didn't know the campaigns needed this boost of artificial media-induced hope (especially one heavy in coventional wisdom of 'don't count your chickens...') but perhaps they are feeling low in the hope department.

Dodd's bark
Chris Dodd took his fellow and mostly passive Dem rivals to task in an OpEd piece in the Union Leader. He's the only Dem besides Dennis Kucinich who is ready to stop funding for the Iraq war. "We all know the result we want—getting out of Iraq—but too many of my opponents seem content to follow rather than lead when it comes to the only way we can get it: by terminating the funding," he wrote. It will be interesting to see if shaking Congressional timidity in D.C. could actually lead to a more explosive Iraq debate in New Hampshire. Dodd certainly hopes so. You can see his complete OpEd below.

Phony Outrage
Much to my surprise, I became tangled up with some Rush Limbaugh defenders after I quoted his "phony soldiers" sneer correctly last week in my Out on a Limb column about a recently returned soldier from Iraq. The blowback was hilarious and illuminating and I will write more about this phony outrage -- and the perils of 21st Century political journalism -- in Sunday's column.

For now, in my daily link Joe Conason columnist for the New York Observer puts this latest bout of lunacy in context. Read here.

Extras 1
Democrats' so-called leaders are not leading on Iraq
Sen. Chris Dodd

In looking over the Democratic candidates for President, some say there are no differences in our policy toward the Iraq war. I disagree.

In the Hanover debate on September 26th, moderator Tim Russert asked, "Will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq?" For a Party that is supposedly united in wanting to end this war, the answers were hardly reassuring.

Barack Obama: "I think it's hard to project four years from now."

Hillary Clinton: "It is very difficult to know what we are going to be inheriting."

John Edwards: "I cannot make that commitment."

My response: "I will get that done…Yes, I will, sir."

I respect and believe that my opponents want to end the war. I know we all do - it's making us less safe and more vulnerable. But as we have seen these last nine months, getting that result won't just happen on its own.

Senator Clinton says if the President hasn't withdrawn our troops by 2009, she would begin doing that when she takes office.

That's all fine and good, but who knows how many more troops will have died by then. Who knows how much worse America's name will be in the world.

As Democrats in the Congress and candidates for the Presidency, we have an opportunity to lead now - not in 2013. Not when (or if) Democrats take the White House in 2009. Now.

By now, no one is holding their breaths for President Bush to change course on Iraq. With not a single result to point to in Iraq in the last four years, he wants somewhere between 100,000 and 130,000 troops in Iraq through next year.

What's clear is that by saying we might still be there in 2013, we only strengthen George Bush's hand. Saying you want to end the war while taking actions that prolong it do a tremendous disservice to the efforts of those who are doing everything they can to bring the war to a close.

Being in Iraq for another six years is simply unacceptable - and it should be to anyone who believes this war is making us less safe. We all know the result we want—getting out of Iraq—but too many of my opponents seem content to follow rather than lead when it comes to the only way we can get it: by terminating the funding.

I know it isn't easy. But timetables and harshly worded statements won't end this war - standing up to the President and using our Constitutional power of the purse will.

It's not as if this situation is unprecedented, with Congress facing an intransigent President who presses an unpopular, failed foreign policy. In the 1980's, Ronald Reagan was insistent on funding the Contra forces in Nicaragua. Some said we couldn't stop him, even as it had become clear the Contras were making the country more violent and less stable. I saw things differently. Leading the opposition, I knew that if we stood up and stood our ground that we could change that policy - not wait until the next President came along, but force a change in the policy. And we did, paving the way to free and fair elections that have since stabilized that country.

No one is guaranteeing Iraq will become some kind of paradise after we leave. There may well be genocide we have to deal with on an international basis sooner or later. But just as before, we can get the results we want if we bring people together and challenge the President. To date, this Democratic Congress hasn't; neither have the so-called "leading" candidates running for President. Because saying we could well be in Iraq by 2013 isn't leading at all. It's following this President and down a rabbit hole we may never dig ourselves out of.

Extra #2

ROMNEY’S TAXACHUSETTS HYPOCRISY
“Mitt Romney has no choice but to hide behind false attacks - one look at his record as Governor shows he increased government spending, proposed millions of dollars in tax increases, and even raised taxes on New Hampshire commuters repeatedly.”

– Katie Levinson, Communications Director

Romney Raised Taxes On Out Of State Commuters – Including Those From New Hampshire – Repeatedly

As Governor, Romney Increased Income Taxes On Individuals Who Did Not Reside In Massachusetts, Including On Their Pensions, Deferred Compensation, And Sick And Vacation Pay. “A nonresident’s income relating to employment in Massachusetts or the nonresident’s trade or business in Massachusetts, including gain from the sale of an interest in the business, separation pay and deferred compensation and nonqualified pension income not prevented from taxation under federal law and income from a covenant not to compete, is subject to Massachusetts personal income tax regardless of the taxpayer’s residence or domicile in the year it is received and regardless of whether the taxpayer has actively engaged in a trade or business or employment in Massachusetts in the year of receipt, effective for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2003.” (Goodwin Proctor Website, “Financial Services Alert -- Developments Of Note,” www.goodwinprocter.com/getfile.aspx?filepath=/Files/FSAS/FSA_3_11_03.pdf, 3/11/03, Accessed 8/29/07; Massachusetts Department Of Revenue, “Annual Report FY2003,” www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dor/Publ/Annual_Rpt03/AR2003.pdf, 2003, Accessed 8/29/07; “The Governor’s Budget Recommendation House 1A Fiscal Year 2004,” http://www.mass.gov/bb/fy2004h1/downloads/house1.pdf, 2003, Accessed 9/12/07)

Romney Expanded State Income Tax To Include Income From Business “Whether Or Not The Nonresident Is Actively Engaged In A Trade Or Business Or Employment In The Commonwealth In The Year In Which The Income Is Received.” “Taxation of Nonresidents: Massachusetts gross income of a nonresident is determined solely with respect to items of gross income from sources within the Commonwealth. M.G.L. c. 62, § 5A(a). In relevant part, the prior law at 5A(a)(1) defined gross income from sources within the Commonwealth as the income ‘derived from or effectively connected with … any trade or business, including any employment carried on by the taxpayer in the Commonwealth.’ Effective for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2003, this act effectively reverses a judicial interpretation of § 5A(a). Newly enacted § 5A(a) defines gross income from sources within the Commonwealth as any income ‘derived from or effectively connected with … any trade or business, including any employment carried on by the taxpayer in the commonwealth, whether or not the nonresident is actively engaged in a trade or business or employment in the commonwealth in the year in which the income is received.’ Thus, unless otherwise exempt, Massachusetts source income of a nonresident, regardless of the year in which it is actually received, will be taxable in the state.” (Massachusetts Department Of Revenue, “Annual Report FY2003,” www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dor/Publ/Annual_Rpt03/AR2003.pdf, 2003, Accessed 8/29/07)

Under Romney’s Change, Non-Residents Now Have Their Separation, Sick Or Vacation Pay, Deferred Compensation, Nonqualified Pension Income, And Other Income Taxed. “For purposes of M.G.L. c. 62, § 5A, the act further provides that “gross income derived from or effectively connected with any trade or business, including any employment, carried on by the taxpayer in the commonwealth” shall include, but not be limited to, “gain from the sale of a business or of an interest in a business, distributive share income, separation, sick or vacation pay, deferred compensation and nonqualified pension income not prevented from state taxation by the laws of the United States and income from a covenant not to compete.” (Massachusetts Department Of Revenue, “Annual Report FY2003,” www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dor/Publ/Annual_Rpt03/AR2003.pdf, 2003, Accessed 8/29/07)

Romney Imposed State Income And Sales Taxes On Out-Of-State Residents For Their Share of In-State Partnership’s Real Estate. “A nonresident of the commonwealth who is a member of a partnership that is engaged in the conduct of a trade or business in the commonwealth or that owns or leases real property in the commonwealth, except a nonresident limited partner of a limited partnership engaged exclusively in buying, selling, dealing in or holding securities on its own behalf and not as a broker, shall be subject to the taxes imposed by this chapter on his distributive share of the income received or earned by the partnership from sources taxable under this chapter.” (Massachusetts Department Of Revenue, “Annual Report FY2005, http://www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dor/Publ/Annual_Rpt04/AR2004.pdf, 2006; “The Governor’s Budget Recommendation House 1A Fiscal Year 2006,” http://www.mass.gov/bb/fy2006h1/06print/06budrec/pbudrec.htm, 2005, Accessed 9/12/07)

Why Is Romney Misleading On Spending And Taxes?

Perhaps Because…

Between 2002 And 2006, Massachusetts State Tax Burden Rose 10.75% (U.S. Department Of Commerce Bureau Of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Information Systems, Downloadable Files Available At: http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/CA1-3fn.cfm, Accessed 8/14/07; U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/02staxrank.html, Accessed 8/15/07; U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/03staxrank.html, Accessed 8/15/07; U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/04staxrank.html, Accessed 8/15/07; U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/05staxrank.html, Accessed 8/15/07; U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/06staxrank.html, Accessed 8/15/07)

During Giuliani’s Tenure, New Yorker’s Tax Burden Decreased 17% To Lowest Level In Three Decades. (The City Of New York Office Of Management And Budget, City Of New York Executive Budget Fiscal Year 2002 Budget Summary, pp. 8, 11 )

Romney’s Recommended Budgets Increased Real Per Capita Government Spending By 7.77%. (“Governor’s Annual Budget Recommendations, FY2003-FY2007,” http://www.mass.gov/bb/, Accessed 8/20/07; U.S. Census Bureau, "Annual Estimates Of The Population For The United States, Regions, And States And For Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 To July 1, 2006," http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html, Accessed 8/20/07; Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Consumer Price Index - All Urban Consumers: 1997-2007," http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet, Accessed 8/20/07)

Total Spending In Recommended Budgets Grew 22.2% Under Romney’s Watch, From $29.477 Billion In Fiscal 2003 To $36.021 Billion In Fiscal 2007. (“Governor’s Annual Budget Recommendations, FY2003-FY2007,” http://www.mass.gov/bb/, Accessed 8/14/07)

Cato Institute Rated Romney “C” In 2006 For His Tax Policy. “As Mitt Romney launches his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, his fiscal record as governor should be scrutinized. Romney likes to advance the image of himself as a governor who has fought a liberal Democratic legislature on various fronts … But Romney will likely also be eager to push the message that he was a governor who stood by a no-new-taxes pledge. That’s mostly a myth. His first budget included no general tax increases but did include a $500 million increase in various fees. He later proposed $140 in business tax hikes through the closing of “loopholes” in the tax code. He announced in May 2004 that he wanted to cut the top income tax rate from 5.3 to 5 percent, but that was hardly an audacious stand. Voters had already passed a plan to do just that before Romney even took office. In his budget for 2006, he proposed $170 million more in business tax hikes, almost completely neutralizing the proposed income tax cut. If you consider the massive costs to taxpayers that his universal health care plan will inflict once he’s left office, Romney’s tenure is clearly not a triumph of small-government activism.” (Stephen Slivinski, “Fiscal Policy Report Card On Amercia’s Governors: 2006, Cato Institute Policy Analysis, pg. 42, 10/24/06)

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:24 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

McCain's $hort $tack and Rudy's manly ad

The Republicans are finally 'fessing up their fundraising numbers and there's a reason why no one's shouting like Hillary or Barack: they can't. Mitt Romney hints at having raised $10 million, including loaning himself (again) more than he'd like. Despite himself, Fred Thompson may have raised as much as $8 million.

John McCain just released his 3rd quarter figures a short time ago -- around $6 million, or only about $1 million more than long shot but Internet popular Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. It's a good thing that McCain has chosen to live off the land because he has no choice with only $3.6 million on hand. Can you say matching funds? Campaign manager Rick Davis put the best spin on matters with a non-denial denial: "We are thrilled that with so many Americans supporting John McCain, we're now on sound financial footing and running a robust campaign gaining clear momentum in the early states. Heading into the fall, we have the resources to communicate that John McCain is the only candidate with the experience, character and judgment to lead as commander in chief from day one."

Of course, McCain can boast he raised more than Ron Paul's $5 million: which is more than former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who raised $1 million despite becoming a media dandy in August.

Rudy's audio touch
I like the new radio ad by Republican prez hopeful Rudy Giuliani that’s been released here in first-in-the-solar-system primary land. (Listen for yourself here)
The title is “Tested” and Rudy tells me he’s been tested more than most. In the 60-second ad, Saint Rudy of 9/11 tells me he’s dealt with crisis “on a regular basis” and, befitting a leader who has proclaimed himself America’s mayor, he’s “had results.” And best of all, he fought the “impossible” odds to get those results. The strong female voice over chimes in to tell me that Rudy is “principled, experienced” and has delivered the goods. Rudy tells me he’s going on the offense against terrorists and for a growing economy led by less government and lower taxes. SFVO tells me that Rudy is “The Republican that Democrats just don’t want to run against.” I like how he strips matters down to the basics. No talk of Iraq, Blackwater, SCHIP, President Bush, or other crisis matters that don’t require his attention. By doing so, he allows me to focus on matters that really count such as keeping on the lookout for deviants like Democrats, moveon.org, school teachers, anti-war advocates, and artists yearning to cave in to the terrorists. It makes me, feel, well, more manly, more in touch with that Republican steroid reserve buried deep within me, yearning to be freed.
Most of all Rudy tells me that compromise is for sissies. “We laid out a very, very specific set of goals that we want to achieve because I want people to look at those and say if I agree with most of them, then this is a person who can bring them about,” Rudy states. “And if they disagree with it, they should vote against me, because I am going to bring it about.”
In other words, resistance is futile.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:23 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Dissing Hillary

To paraphrase William Faulkner, the past is never far away because it's really not past -- and the political past is much closer than it appears in the mirror. Consider media-anointed Dem frontrunner Hillary Clinton who should have had the headlines all to herself today after raising all those bucket loads of cash. She took it on the chin courtesy of a roundhouse historical punch from Barack Obama. In a speech noting the fifth anniversary of a speech he gave against the coming war in Iraq, Obama told students at DePaul University in Chicago earlier today in essence: some have experience but I have judgment.

In theory, Obama gave a major foreign policy speech. In reality, it was anything but and it had quite the taser effect to it. Further translation: Hillary blew it when she voted to support the war in 2002 and is too tied up into Washington groupthink to be much of a serious force for change if she wins.

“There is a choice that has emerged in this campaign, one that the American people need to understand. They should ask themselves: who got the single most important foreign policy decision since the end of the Cold War right, and who got it wrong,” Obama said. “This is not just a matter of debating the past. It’s about who has the best judgment to make the critical decisions of the future.”

Well, he's not debating the past, per se but he's certainly using it to make a potent jab at a certain candidate's moment of political truth and how she explained (or not) this fateful vote. And Obama isn't talking about John Edwards or Joe Biden.

"Some seek to rewrite history. They argue that they weren’t really voting for war, they were voting for inspectors, or for diplomacy. But the Congress, the Administration, the media, and the American people all understood what we were debating in the fall of 2002. This was a vote about whether or not to go to war. That’s the truth as we all understood it then, and as we need to understand it now. And we need to ask those who voted for the war: how can you give the President a blank check and then act surprised when he cashes it? "

Obama has beaten this drum before but never so forcefully or quite so obviously -- and of course he didn't mention any names (no need: this is a political soap opera that keeps on giving). With all the Dems anti-war to lesser or greater degrees, Iraq isn't much of an cutting wedge issue despite the fact that it is the biggest elephant in the room.

Now the HIllary folks have been beating their own drum for months, saying in effect that Obama isn't quite the anti-war Messiah he's cracked up to be -- that's he wasn't really being politically courageous in 2002 (Illinois was solidly anti-war; not that it mattered as Congress or the White House or the Washington pundiburo treated the anit-war contingent as surrender monkeys), that he's had the same voting record as her since he came to the Senate in 2005 and that's he wasn't all that anti-war when he arrived. There are fair points and some are more valid than others but they are distracting and raise more questions -- namely where was Hillary (don't ask, don't tell) during the first two years of the war with all of her experience in Washington? Being politically courageous or not cuts both ways.

When I asked Dante Scala at UNH about the Iraq war issue and how it's playing in the primary he told me he was surprised that so many anti-war Dems were trending to Hillary because of the war vote in 2002 that she would rather bury. "They aren't punishing her," he said about the well-analyzed (imagine the Da Vinci Code) vote.

Obama may not be seeking punishment. I suspect he'd settle for accountability at the polls here.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:23 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Florida: You can't make this stuff up

Now that NH Sec of State Bill Gardner has set the primary starting line (filing begins two weeks from today, Oct. 15), it’s time to count our blessings and be glad we aren’t in Florida.
Gotta love the rampant surrealism of Florida as a thorn in everyone’s side this primary season. Just ask Barack Obama, who went panning for campaign gold in the Sunshine state Sunday night -- and ended up looking if not foolish, then certainly like a politician masquerading as a thief in the night and exchanging shouts with a reporter (It seems that because Florida is primary blacklisted, candidates can fund raise but not campaign, not talk to supporters or, it seems, talk to pesky reporters doing their job. See story by Adam Smith of the St. Pete Times. It’s a restrained hoot.)
Florida, oh Florida, land of the Butterfly ballot and other unique quirks that make it a land all its own. The latest Florida step into the comic spotlight is a reminder that we have it so smooth and easy here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land. As of today, Florida Dems are essentially unwilling captains of a pirate primary ship and one where Democratic voters could potentially not have their votes count. Call it Deja Vu 2000 all over again -- this time the blue meanies are not the fluently and proudly corrupt Republican-dominated Florida legislative and executive junta that screwed them in 2000 (who can forget the dynamic duo team of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris?). This time it’s D.C. Dems -- the national party trying to do its part to keep intact a outdated primary system from flying apart at the seems -- screwing loyal Florida Dems in a state the Dems need come general election time.
This is a saga with infinite b-grade comedy material that turns irony green with envy. The national Dems are punishing the Florida Dems because those Republican wise guys and gals in the legislature moved the primary date early so Florida could screw South Carolina and become the first primary in the South. Got it? Now hold your breath for more self-inflicted stench. More or less, the Florida Dems have no choice but to hold their primary when the legislature says -- for their trouble, they are being punished by the national party which is cutting off its nose and chopping apart its face in a bold attempt to spite itself. To add insult to injury, the Republicans are playing good samaritan and telling Dems to register as Republicans so they can make their primary votes count. It’s enough to make a Florida Dem laugh and cry and wonder if anyone really cares about them.
And here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land, we have it made. That so many states end up looking primary foolish trying to replace us with their own illusions of self-importance, only makes the comedy all the more entertaining — and instill a little doubt that maybe our time is running out. The pirates could be coming for us.
Daily Link
In my daily link, Walter Shapiro of Salon smartly dissects the collective punditboro contempt for John Edwards -- and completely ignores his considerable powers on the campaign trail which I have seen as well. It’s easy to obsess about $400 haircuts and ignore his progressive and increasingly populist message which raises serious questions about the status quo stench in D.C.

Posted by Michael McCord at 05:00 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Edwards campaign memo: Loving those matching funds

Position of money strength or weakness? It's all a matter of perspective when it comes to Dem John Edwards and his campaign's decision to jump off the fundraising escalator and seek the sanctuary of matching funds. Of course, a cynical person might question the timing, so close to end of 3rd quarter fundraising deadline and all that. But Edwards campaign guru David Bonier insists that's not the case in a memo (posted below) to staff and supporters. In fact, Bonier makes a convincing case -- and spares the campaign from wasting time answering too many annoying questions about, well, fund raising. The mantra now can be -- "Hey, we've gone matching funds: how about you?" Even better they keep the option open for the general election against those filthy rich GOPers -- this may seem somewhat wishy-washy (situational political ethics) but they get credit for providing a solid rationale consistent with their campaign themes.

Bonier memo:

Yesterday, Sen. Edwards announced his decision to seek public financing for the primary
election. John himself thought long and hard about this decision and made it with the
firmest of convictions. He believes this is the right thing to do – not only for this campaign,
but for the American political process. The leadership of this campaign shares his
convictions and endorses his decision.
I want to assure you that we are doing this from a position of strength. I thought it would
be useful to cut through all the media speculation and outline as clearly and concisely as
possible exactly why we made this decision and why we believe it is a smart move
strategically for this campaign.
Why did we do this?
Quite simply, we did it because it is the right thing to do.
As you have heard John say many times over the years, elections should be about ideas – not
money. And the focus on money in this election is frankly obscene. Now, more than ever,
candidates for president should be judged on their vision, character and personal integrity –
not how much money they can throw at voters in the form of advertising and fancy
Washington consultants. And, in one of the most important elections in our lifetime,
candidates for president should be spending these last few months leading up to the primary
election focused on meeting with voters and discussing their ideas and their vision to change
America – not caught up in a fundraising contest.
The American people agree – and they want things to change. They want a president who is
accountable to them, not to big corporate interests and Washington lobbyists.
Why are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama not doing this?
It’s a good question, and one that the American people deserve to have answered. John
believes Senators Clinton and Obama, who often talk about their support for public
financing, should join him and prove that they mean what they say.
When John challenged Senator Clinton to join him in ending the practice of candidates
accepting money from Washington lobbyists, she said that wasn’t the answer – she said the
answer was public financing. And just last week, Senator Clinton said that she believes public
financing is the way to fix the broken system of corruption and buying influence in
Washington and should be the law of the land. Well, we already have a public financing
system for presidential campaigns. With this action, John is putting his money where his
mouth is. The question is: When are the other candidates going to do the same?
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Why now?
It became clear if we didn’t lead the way by example, no one else would. There is too much
at stake in this election for the status quo to prevail.
Candidates can speak to the virtues of public financing – in theory – until they are blue in
the face. But until someone is willing to step up and lead the way toward changing the way
the system works, you can rest assured that things will remain the same.
John has never taken a dime of campaign money from PACs or Washington lobbyists – in
this campaign or in any other campaign. This gives him unmatched credibility in calling on
all Democratic presidential candidates and the Party itself to do the same. He supports
public financing of campaigns as a necessary step to reduce the influence of money in policy
making, so participating in the public financing system is simply the right thing to do.
What does it all mean?
Understand this: This in no way handicaps us in the early primary states, and it does not put
us at a disadvantage going into the general election. If anything, this decision will help us
win the nomination in two ways: our strength with the grassroots means we will get a boost
not available to candidates who depend on large contributions; and we will be running the
campaign in a way that reinforces John’s central campaign message.
Under the public financing system for presidential primaries, once a candidate demonstrates
broad-based public support by raising $5,000 of matchable contributions in each of at least
20 states, the government will match up to $250 of an individual’s contributions to that
candidate. In return, the candidate agrees to limit campaign spending for all primary
elections, limit campaign spending in each state and limit spending from personal funds to
$50,000.
The system of public financing was put in place after Watergate as a way to take power away
from the big money players and give it back to candidates who have strength in grassroots.
That’s what John’s campaign is all about. We have raised millions of dollars – more than any
other Democratic campaign at this point in any previous election. As I said, we have raised
this record amount without taking any money from PACs or Washington lobbyists. Just as
important, 90 percent of our contributions have come from donors giving $100 or less. This
is the type of real grassroots strength the public financing system was meant to encourage
and reward. By focusing on small contributions and the grassroots campaigning, the boost
we will get from being able to receive federal matching funds puts us in a better financial
position for the nomination campaign.
Does this change our strategy?
No. We are on track and moving forward with our four-state strategy, focused on winning
in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. We’ve said all along that we needed
3
to raise $40 million before Iowa. With public matching funds we are very likely to exceed
that goal.
But the key thing to remember is no candidate can buy votes in these states. You have to
earn them with bold vision and real ideas. Substance counts a lot more than money in the
places where voters can look you in the eye, judge you face to face, and question you in
detail about your plans for the country. And when it comes to substance, there’s no contest.
John has led this race on ideas – from universal health care, to the war in Iraq, to education,
global warming and helping American workers. With this decision, he extends his leadership
into the critical area of restoring the essence of our democratic government.
John’s leadership on issues is precisely why our momentum continues to grow in the states
where he has been campaigning. And this growing momentum will carry us through to the
general election.
What about the state spending limits?
As a campaign that has always had a plan to win with less money than its rival campaigns, we
were already working within a budget that makes it possible to achieve our goals and easily
stay within the spending limits. We have studied the numbers extensively, and we are
nowhere near exceeding these limits. The FEC rules are much more generous than many
seem to understand. For example, staff salaries and staff travel do not count against the
state limits – which is perfect for a grassroots campaign. Half of all expenditures in a state
don’t count against the state limit because they are treated as exempt fundraising costs. And
even the total cost of television and radio advertising does not count against the limits for
individual states. In short, the spending limits are actually quite manageable if you’re smart
about how you spend the money you are allowed to spend.
What happens between February 5th and the convention?
Rest assured, we are prepared for this campaign to go the distance. We have a
comprehensive campaign spending plan that is smart and targeted and based on a strategy to
ensure that we not only have enough money on hand to clinch the nomination but also have
a reserve to take the fight to the Republican nominee in the spring. To give you just one
example, part of this campaign is about restoring the power of the Democratic Party. Since
the party can spend money independently of its Presidential nominee, a stronger Democratic
Party will be in a position to meet the challenge of waging an effective campaign on behalf
of John Edwards and every other Democratic candidate.
What happens in the general election?
Make no mistake – we are taking a principled stand on this issue. John Edwards believes the
best thing and the right thing would be to operate the campaign under the public financing
rules for the entire presidential campaign. But he also understands that almost none of the
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Republican candidates share this commitment. Accordingly, we will continue to raise money
for the general election so we will be ready to compete against the Republican nominee.
Once we win the nomination, John will challenge the Republican nominee to join him in
accepting public financing. Quite frankly, it’s a fight we’d welcome. If they refuse, we’ll
cross that bridge when we come to it and make the decision at that time about whether to
accept public financing. But you can be sure that we will run a campaign that is aggressive,
adequately funded, and successful.
I look forward to that day. And I know that this decision is the right way to get us there.

Posted by Michael McCord at 07:19 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

From Baghdad to Portsmouth

In the shameless promotion department: Read my Sunday Out on a Limb column in Seacoast Sunday and meet Capt. Joshua Denton, a University of New Hampshire grad and newly-planted Portsmouth resident who recently returned from a year-long tour in Iraq. Denton, who has joined untold numbers of fellow junior officers in leaving the Army in record numbers, has no shortage of ideas about the politics of the war, about what to do next, and why he considers the “support the troops” mantra by many politicians to be “insulting.” He also likes being here to witness first-hand our first-in-the-galaxy primary circus.
It seems appropriate that in a week when right-wing blowhard Rush Limbaugh lashed out against “phony soldiers,” those who have actually served in uniform (unlike the blowhard) and have turned against Bush’s war, I talked to Denton who gives lie to the nonsense spewed by Limbaugh and the rest of the know-nothing crowd.
Buffet thoughts:
While covering the MTV/MySpace event yesterday at UNH — and enjoying watching dem hopeful John Edwards answer an IM question from ‘LunarGoddess6B’ — I talked to Chris Cillizza, the writer and blogger for Washingtonpost.com, who was a co-moderator for the event. He seemed genuinely excited about the potential of events like this to draw younger voters into the political fray, to let them know that elections really matter.
He writes The Fix and today gives his assessment of the respective horse races — also check out his take on the MTV/MySpace forum.
Having as much trouble as me in figuring out the ebb and flow and general weirdness of the GOP presidential scramble? In my daily link, Roger Simon of Politico.com attempts to impose clarity onto fluid chaos.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:23 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Not so required listening and poll pros and cons

Pundit on the pod: I was interviewed earlier today by Matt Parker, a true political junkie, for a podcast at his politicalbuzz.com web site. You can hear me pontificate about what’s happening in the N.H. primary. Listen at your own risk and you too can disavow it quicker than Rudy did when a few of his thinking-challenged supporters came up with a $9.11 fund raising scheme. You can listen here.
Now on to other matters:
The latest UNH survey center poll on where the Dem hopefuls are standing (or sinking) should be required reading for all political junkies trying to figure out what voters are thinking out there in first-in-the-galaxy primary land. And just what are they thinking? Is Hillary an irresistible force of inevitability and immovable object who can’t be penetrated? Maybe, maybe not; it all depends on how you read the numbers. Thankfully, dear readers, your humble blogoscribe will offer a guide through the maze and boil it down to a simple pro and con formula:

Hillary Clinton -- PRO: Having a 43 to 20 lead over Obama among likely voters and spanking him around in the experience and change categories must warm your heart. CON: Only 17 percent have voters in the poll have definitely made up their minds (more than 80 percent are leaning or undecided) and Obama leaves you in the dust in the likability category by a 39 to 16 percent margin. This could prove to be your Achilles heel come election day when undecided voters often break for reasons that have nothing to do with political savvy..

Barack Obama -- PRO: You’re likable, have the highest favorability rating, you’ve managed to defy expectations and separate yourself from the rest of the pack and hang in there with Hillary. CON: Clinton really slaps you around among Dem voters as most likely to win (54 percent to 13 percent.) And you must wonder what kind of voodoo Clinton is performing to steal your message thunder and position herself as the change candidate. Ouch!

John Edwards -- PRO: Your hard work is paying off as you are rising back into double digits from July. You have high favorability ratings. CON: Your are in single digits among Democrats in the most likely to win category. I wouldn’t advertise this.

Bill Richardson -- PRO: You’ve worked hard to distinguish yourself with your ads, your campaign style and your stances on issues such as Iraq. CON: You’ve dropped from 10 percent in July to 6 percent in September and only 1 percent of NH voters believe you can win the general election. Can you sing ‘brother, can you spare some hope?’

Joe Biden -- PRO: You’ve maintained your position in the polls since July and your partition proposal for Iraq is gaining traction. CON: You peaked in April at 4 percent and despite 35 years in the Senate, only five percent of NH voters believe you have the right experience to be president. Maybe that’s not the right kind of experience.

Dennis Kucinich -- PRO: You’re tied with Joe Biden at 3 percent and you’ve been hailed by Pat Buchanan as a passionate and serious straight shooting liberal whose stances on the issues such as Iraq and universal health care has given you a small but dedicated cadre of followers. CON: Pat Buchanan is a Republican who worshipped Richard Nixon.

Chris Dodd -- PRO: You’re at 1 percent and the large firefighters union endorsed you. You have nowhere to go but up. CON: At this rate, your excellent new book ‘Letters from Nuremberg’ may prove more memorable than your campaign.

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:22 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Playing king of the primary mountain

In the Darwinian struggle for position in the game called King of the Primary Mountain, one of the fastest ways to rise in stature is the ability to bring an opponent down. So far in this extended primary season, The Democrats haven’t been quite as insistent on this tried and true practice as the Republicans (I miss the regular snits between Sam Brownback and Mitt Romney) but we are starting to see some regular salvos (beyond Mike Gravel who is clearly just a loose cannon).
Dennis Kucinich is criticizing all his Democratic rivals (especially on Iraq and health care) and John Edwards has been particularly tough on Hillary Clinton (who, with the exception of few jabs at Obama, has been rather quiet in her quest to run an inevitability campaign), and there’s feisty Chris Dodd who keeps his communications people with a regular supply of statements and cirtical punches at almost of his rivals. His latest target is Bill Richardson who insists on pulling all the troops out of Iraq but leaving some behind to well, protect the civilians left behind.
Seems sensible but the Dodd folks jumped on this tactic as just the sort of thing that should disqualify Richardson from being the Dems nominee. Richardson’s sin, according to the press release I’ve pasted below is that he’s not smart enough to endorse Dodd’s "efforts in the Senate."
Surely this is a joke given that the "efforts" in the Senate are an exercise in political futility. Your humble Primary Pundit detects politics at play: namely the real reason for such outrage is that Richardson is rising to top three level in the polls. In an interesting story in the Oct. 8 Nation, John Nichols senses that Richardson may be surging at the right time — in part because of the combination of his strong anti-war stance and extensive diplomatic may be attracting more Democratic voters than the polls are reflecting. Read the story yourself here.

HERE’S THE DODD CAMPAIGN RELEASE FROM EARLIER TODAY
Today, the Richardson campaign launched a new website claiming that Bill Richardson was the only candidate that had a plan for Iraq that would leave “zero” troops behind. However, just last week it was reported that Richardson would leave troops behind to protect the embassy, and earlier in the summer he suggested that he would leave up to 5,000 troops to do so.
Richardson Claims He Would Leave “Zero” Troops in Iraq, But Just Last Week The Associated Press Reported that He Would Actually Leave Troops Behind to Protect the American Embassy in Iraq:
Richardson Claims He Would Leave “Zero” Troops in Iraq. According to Richardson’s new attack website, www.GetOurTroopsOut.com, Richardson would leave “zero” troops in Iraq. [Richardson Attack Website, www.GetOurTroopsOut.com, accessed 9/24/07]
Richardson Will Leave Troops in Iraq to Protect the Embassy. On September 20th, the Associated Press reported that Richardson would keep troops in Iraq to protect the American embassy: “Richardson criticized Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - his leading rivals for the presidential nomination - for plans to pull out combat troops from Iraq but leave residual forces behind. He said he would keep the Marines that guard the U.S. embassy in Baghdad but would withdraw all other military personnel.” [Associated Press, 9/20/07]
Richardson Suggested that He Would Support Keeping Up to 5,000 Troops in Iraq to Guard the Embassy. In a July interview with Salon.com, Richardson suggested that he would support keeping up to 5,000 troops in Iraq to protect the American Embassy: “But if it said 1,000 [troops] to protect the American embassy, that’s fine with me. It’s a Marine detachment. It’s part of our diplomatic corps. I wouldn’t even consider that a residual force. Of course I would permit that. But residual forces -- 5,000 to guard an embassy -- that means that the embassy is not safe. I would pull the embassy if it is not safe.” [Salon.com, 7/20/07]
“Throwing up attack websites that try to draw false distinctions for political gain won’t end this war. Bill Richardson would be better served if he threw his support behind Senator Dodd’s efforts in the Senate that would actually end this war,” said Dodd spokesperson Colleen Flanagan.
END OF RELEASE

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:33 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Romney's trials and tribulations

Why Mitt Romney is such an inviting and rather substantial target may be a mystery to him but not to us media vampires: he has a public track record, a coif that Ronald Reagan would envy, and an evolutionary arc to his current strongly-held principles (which shouldn’t be confused with his former strongly-held principles). Oh yea, he’s also a front-runner here in the first-in-the-solar-system primary land and that’s always good for watching the slings and arrows fly.

In the ‘watch out, you might get what you ask for’ department, the Romney campaign asked folks to take part in a Internet video ad contest (his attempt to control YouTube passions) and the good folks at Slate complied. Their submission is one I’m sure the Romney cadres hope doesn’t see too much play (fat chance: see Tube, You). Titled “Five Brothers,” the video is, to put it mildly, a tough-love take on Romney’s foot-in-the-mouth observation about what constitutes patriotic service when it comes to sons.

Closer to home, Chris Stewart, the maestro of that always entertaining Monday Morning Clacker blog, has his own Romney juxtaposition expose today: the cover from a New England gay and lesbian newspaper in 1994 in which the Mittster proclaims “I’ll be better than Ted for gay rights.” The Ted in this case is Ted Kennedy. This must be a different Mitt because these days, as Stewart notes, the Mittster is all about “Republicans being Republicans” which translate into rather brutal gay-bashing. The Mittster even made a commercial about this latest strongly-held principle.

Try as we might, we can’t make this stuff up. We don’t need to.

Also: In my daily link Ron Paul’s supporters say they want more of him in New Hampshire. Is Paul, the GOP Internet dandy, listening? Or is the “unofficial” blogging site not so unofficial?

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:36 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Joe Biden's truth-telling binge

The best thing about talking to Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden is that he offers a wealth of opinion, fact, and color. The worst thing about talking to Joe Biden is that the wealth of opinion, fact and color comes at you like a landslide. I covered him a little in 1987 during his first run when he was the golden boy of that campaign; he can be full of it and worth listening to. Now he's older, wiser and frankly angrier. Iraq and almost seven years of George W. Bush does that to people.

During an interview Wednesday in between Senate votes on matters such as the Iraq war and habeas corpus (which Republicans defeated), Biden talked about his partition proposal for Iraq, why few can tell the truth about Iraq (including his Democratic rivals; which puts Biden in the politically convenient role of truth-teller), and why Bush may be even more of a mad hatter than we suspected. Here a few gems I gleaned:

While not big on conspiracy theories, the Delaware Senator (who recently returned from his eighth trip to Iraq) told me he thinks he's got a few rationales for the insane Iraq adventure nailed down: yes, if not completely about oil, keeping a close watch (monitoring and influencing if you like) on one of the world's largest oil reserves certainly did figure into Neocon fantasies; they were deluded into believing that you could have a war and plant liberal democracy in the desert like a perennial; and that they want permanent bases in Iraq to project power in the region.

After last week's Iraq war dog and pony show with Gen. David Petraeus, Biden is convinced that Bush has essentially given up on Iraq and is running out the clock with no plan or strategy or clue until the next guy or gal can clean up the mess. When I asked Biden if this wasn't morally reprehensible, he paused. "It is reprehensible," he said. (For an enlightening yet depressing perspective on Bush and the historical glory he covets -- while blissfully trashing the present; you can do that when God is on your side -- see this dissection by Sidney Blumenthal in Salon.)

You can read more about my interview with Biden and his take on the Iraq quagmire -- and what he would have done as Secretary of State in a John Kerry administration -- in my Sunday Out on a Limb column.

In my daily link, Daily Show host Jon Stewart is taken to task by a blogger for sucking up to Republican presidential hopeful John McCain. Fake news may never get old but in this Alice in Wonderland political environment, it ain’t what it used to be.

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:03 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Surviving the expectations swamp

The latest poll numbers were out and when I ran across John Dickerson’s story in Slate today (“Time to Panic”), I was sure that the punditocracy was gearing up to imagine how the Barack Obama folks (and the other Democratic hopefuls) were being blown away by the awesome polling tornado of Hillary Clinton —and wanted to get the scoop on the sinking ship.
I was expecting the worst — mass mutiny, tears or perhaps even a few sobs at Obama offices across the state.
When I talked to a confidential source in the Obama campaign earlier today, this N.H. campaign advisor wasn’t drinking the horse race poison.
When said source considered the latest poll numbers that showed their guy stuck in the expectations swamp, he joked it was time to call “President Howard Dean, President Ed Muskie or President Phil Gramm,” former huge front runners who didn’t make it to the finish line, for advice (in the case of Republican Gramm in 1996, he dropped out even before Iowa.)
“I’m frankly stunned that it’s over,” he said half-mockingly.
My Obama contact enjoyed toying with the conventional wisdom being shoveled about by those writing the same nonsense for a select audience (D.C. based) while often having little clue what’s happening on the ground here in first-in-the-galaxy primary land, or in Iowa, or in Nevada, or in South Carolina or just about anywhere.
“We’re plowing the fields and they’re saying the harvest is over,” Obama man told me. This campaign veteran, not known for being excessively full of bullsh--, shared a story from the Gary Hart campaign in 1984 when Hart was polling in the single digits and was given a full media funeral with rites — a few weeks before the actual primary.
“Hart told me ‘the politicians and pundits in Washington drink from the same bath water and call it a sacrament,’” he said. Hart of course beat the establishment favorite Walter Mondale before eventually succumbing due to a lack of money and lack of a national campaign organization.
Obama man told me that Obama has the candidate gravity, a strong message, the money and the on-the-ground organization that remains mostly invisible (and under the media radar) until it counts — in the final few weeks before voters make up their minds.
“We have 11 field offices and have personally touched or contacted more than 100,000 voters in the state.” What matters today is that as many as 80 percent or more of voters haven’t made up their minds — and from the Obama’s camp perspective, the fact that so many independents haven’t decided bodes better for them than Clinton.
“The Clintons have been a household word here for almost two decades: if I was at nine percent (committed voters) with that much name recognition, I’d be concerned.” As a thoughtful parting gift he added that Clinton is "seeling nostalgia as change" which may not entice independents.
What matters Obama man told me is that a little more than nine months ago Obama was a relatively unknown politician. Since that time, a national campaign organization has been created, he’s raised more money than any primary Democrat ever, and he (and the campaign) is making the connection with voters. He’s even got the flavor of an insurgent.
Of course, all campaign surrogates say that. The best of them are wise about one matter, he said. “We can’t guarantee anything. We have the horses on the ground to influence the outcome but not guarantee it. They (the voters) will hear more when they are ready to hear it.”

Posted by Michael McCord at 05:31 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Clinton's 'big tent' health care bid

Give credit to Hillary Clinton for paying attention to her scars from her first tough tango with health care reform back in the 1990s — she has decided to enact a ‘big tent’ philosophy to either equally satisfy or equally annoy all the big players in the looming reform dance.
When I asked Clinton earlier today in a conference call with New Hampshire reporters — a day after she announced the final piece of her health care plan — if she was prepared for the political blowback she experienced during her first go around in 1993-1994 (remember the Harry and Louise commercials in which Clinton’s reform plan was compared to communists taking over and killing all the children), she sounded confident, like a politician who had all her bases covered in preparation for the “contortion” acts of the critics.
"They’re gonna have a much harder time,” she said about the long rhetorical knives her opponents are sharpening right now. The reason being is that those Americans happy with the status quo can stay that way and the rest will have choices to make.
Clinton released the plan in Iowa on Monday and it didn’t take long for the knives to come out. To borrow a movie title from the 1970s: ‘They shoot candidates with health care plans, don’t they?’
From the GOP side, Rudy Giuliani’s folks wanted me to know that their guy has no shortage of good, stand up material though his communications guru Katie Levinson pushed all the right political buttons in her rebuttal: “If you liked Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko,’ you’re going to love HillaryCare 2.0. Senator Clinton’s latest health scheme includes more government mandates, expensive federal subsidies and more big bureaucracy – in short, a prescription for an increase in wait times, a decrease in patient care and tax hikes to pay for it all.”
Not so, wrote Bill Hammond of the New York Daily News today, who chides Giuliani and Mitt Romney for drowning in their marketplace uber alles dogma — and compliments Clinton for making a broad attempt at political consensus.
Romney has derided the reform plans efforts of Clinton and other Dems as the “socialist” alternative: I mean really, Mitt, what century are you living in? And why do you run from the Massachusetts plan that you signed into law and looks remarkably similar in spirit to most Democratic reform plans? In this case, Romney isn’t so much a flip-flopper as an amnesiac.
Ah, but striving for that political consensus isn’t necessarily a virtue on the primary trail. Chris Dodd not-so-politely implies that Clinton lacks the leadership gravitas to get it done and John Edwards — well he essentially accuses her of being a bought and paid for lobbyist in disguise for the health care industry.
“If you’re going to negotiate universal health care with the same powerful interests that killed it before, your proposal isn’t a plan, it’s a starting point,” Edwards said Monday in Chicago in a health care reform speech of his own. “I’d like to know what a principled compromise looks like on universal health care. When you cut the deal on universal, who gets left out? And if you don’t compromise on the universal part, does that mean you compromise on the health care part? Lower quality? Higher costs? I don’t believe in it.”
Perhaps these Democratic sibligns should split the difference. Ezra Klein of The American Prospect writes today that what is changing is how the candidates are driving each other to offer more than yesterday’s cold reform soup.
Meanwhile, in true Clinton campaign fashion, the launch of this new product line (aka American Health Choices Plan) has been accompanied by a new TV ad in New Hampshire promoting her proposal and the unveiling of a new group, Granite State Health Corps to spread the gospel. But have no doubt about it: even if her plan leaves you yearning for more, she is serious and driven and determined to prevail.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:28 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

'Betray Us' ad wars...

Who knew the moveon.org ad last week could prompt so many to say so much about so little? The ad in question that launched this so-to-speak controversy was in the NY Times edition of Sunday, Sept. 9...it was a factually correct, emotionally explosive shot across the bow before Gen. David Petraeus was to give his Congressional testimony and report on progress (real or imagined) in Iraq...the ad played on the general’s name (as in please don’t ‘Betray Us’ and it set off a firestorm of criticism among politicians and the mainstream media. When he was in first-in-the-solar-system primary land last week, Republican John McCain made it one of the rallying cries of his “No Surrender” tour and went out of his way to lambast moveon.org and Democratic presidential candidates for not repudiating the ad (the McCain campaign even went as far as to have a copy of the ad around in poster form to use as a righteous prop)...the sagging campaign of Saint Rudy Giuliani of 9/11 went even further and released his own ad condemning Clinton and moveon.org. At the NASCAR race in Loudon yesterday, Giuliani beat the drums hard according to an AP report:
“I know that MoveOn.org contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to Democratic campaigns. But it’s the way in which they contribute it, that’s really the offensive part. They contribute it, by and large, doing character assassination on Republican politicians and they get away with it,” Giuliani said.” But they should not be allowed to get away with it when they try to do character assassination on an American general who is putting his life at risk to protect America.”

Ironically, as a Talking Points Memo post from Saturday notes, Giuliani defended the honor of Gen. Patraeus by using his image without his permission a Pentagon no-no. And it was rich given the honored tradition of GOP character assassination in the past three decades to go after a citizen advocacy group but hey, all is fair in love and politics and unrestrained hypocrisy.

My own take on this as a former soldier is lighten up: this is a Democracy boys and girls and no one is above scrutiny, even a highly admired military officer. Petraeus, no doubt a talented and innovative commander who by every report I’ve read has shaken up the military status quo in Iraq, came to Washington to deliver what was at its core a political appearance to support the Bush administration’s policy. After all five years of war and bloodshed and with much more in sight, one has to ask: what’s the real controversy, an ad or another year of three or five years of war for reasons even President Bush can’t articulate with a straight face?

For more on the debate, check out Jane Hamsher’s take on Huffington Post and especially check out the comments by the so-called monolithic moveon.org mob.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:10 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Richardson hits witty home run

Here's a unique award and it goes to Democratic Presidential hopeful and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Call it the first honor for ' localizing of a national issue by a presidential candidate during a football season while taking a big whack at the current occupants of the White House.' You might call it a witty grand slam on Richardson's part regarding the "spying" incident that snared New England Patriots' coach Bill Bilechick. Campaigning in Iowa today, Richardson sent out this statement:

"The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue. You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."

Ouch.

Out on a Limb preview: Read more about my "No Surrender" tour adventures and observations in the opinion section of Herald Sunday.

Posted by Michael McCord at 02:26 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

The war they died in...

On Sen. John McCain’s current “No Surrender” swing through the state today and tomorrow -- including a stop in Rochester I will be covering later today -- his campaign is collecting care packages to ship to troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan (see the press release below).

Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, of the 82nd Airborne are two combat soldiers who will not be receiving those care packages. You may not know the two but I posted the New York Times OpEd piece they and five of their comrades wrote, “The war as we saw it” -- a powerful perspective from the ground level in Iraq. While Gen. David Petraeus gave his predictable tentatively optimistic testimony about progress to Congress earlier this week, the two died in a vehicle accident. Both left infant daughters. All of the soldiers questioned the inane assumptions and lack of policy reality in Iraq -- and about how the debate in Washington had become increasingly “surreal.”

I said on Aug. 20 and repeat it now: this brave sumbission (courtesy of a link through Salon) should be required reading for everyone who wants to understand what’s happening on the ground -- as opposed to the fantasies of George W. Bush -- and especially for those who talk about supporting the troops or the war they are fighting and dying in without knowing the cauldron of hell these brave soldiers face every day. Most of all, they offer a simple plea: what exactly are we dying and fighting for?

I've also added a thoughtful reflection by Fred Kaplan of Slate who hopes that their words will carry as much weight a sthose of Gen. Petraeus earlier this week -- or those of Bush tonight.

Here's the McCain campaign release about the care packages for the troops:
MCCAIN CAMPAIGN TO ASSIST NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IN COLLECTING CARE PACKAGES FOR TROOPS

For Immediate Release
Contact: Press Office

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

MANCHESTER -- U.S. Senator John McCain's campaign announced today it will help non-profit organizations to collect care packages for troops overseas at all New Hampshire stops on the upcoming "No Surrender" Tour. Members of the public wishing to participate should pack a shoebox or similarly sized box of items that will be useful to the men and women of the Armed Forces and bring it with them to their local "No Surrender" event. A list of recommended items is provided below.

At the conclusion of the "No Surrender" Tour, all collected packages will be sent by non-profit organizations to troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SNACKS, FOODS AND TREATS

Small packages of nuts, seeds, pretzels, cookies, chips, Cracker Jacks, crackers, Corn Nuts, fruit snacks and fruit leather, Gardettos

Trail Mix, energy bars, protein bars, breakfast and granola bars, nut bars, instant oatmeal, Kraft Easy Mac, ramen, Cup a Noodles

Individually wrapped hard candy (Twizzlers, Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Pops, Skittles, lollipops, Life Savers, Sweet Tarts, etc), chewing and bubble gum, mints, breath strips (no chocolate or homemade items)

Powdered, sweetened drink mixes (Gatorade, Crystal Light, Kool-Aid), ground or instant coffee, tea bags, hot chocolate, cider mix, sugar, sweetener, Coffee Mate, and condiment packets

Canned meats (no pork), stews, chili, ravioli, soups, fruit, beef jerky, non-refrigerated microwavable meals

PERSONAL, HYGIENE AND TOILETRIES

Hotel/travel sized gel deodorant, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste and mouthwash, toothbrushes, dental floss and Brush Ups

Disposable razors, eye drops, nose drops, unscented baby wipes, wet wipes, small hand sanitizer, Mach III Turbo Razor Blades

Small Kleenex packets, Q-Tips, anti-fungal creams, band aids, foot powder, sunscreen

DVDs, AAA and AA batteries, pens, pencils, blank greeting cards and stationary, stickers, disposable cameras, AT&T phone cards

Handwritten cards and letters of encouragement for our troops

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:14 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Fred Thompson: The Natural?

Gotta give Fred Thompson credit for running so far the most unorthodox NH primary campaign ever seen by a so-called serious candidate. Perhaps the wicked thunder storm that preceded Thompson’s stop in Stratham on Saturday was a foreshadowing of stormy days ahead -- or an omen of other-wordly campaign bliss.

Is Thompson, like the Newsweek cover story of last week said, “lazy like a fox” or just plain unsure of why he’s running for president? Announcing his candidacy to Jay Leno last week on national television while fellow GOP rivals for the crown were suffering at the GOP debate in Durham was a master stroke of something: indifference or genius. Perhaps Thompson, the Southern lawyer and former Senator from Tennessee, has tapped into a zeitgeist current that Republicans and Americans want a president who really doesn’t want to be president but has been pushed into the role. He doesn’t want to be bothered with debates (can’t blame him on that point) or being specific about most everything or even why he’s running. He’s a black slate of ambition and ideas.

But he does know box office numbers and his standing in the polls (too high to be believed except as a sign of dissatisfaction with the McCain/ Romney/Giuliani frontrunner trio) makes him an intriguing presence. He can muck things up for a lot of campaigns (it was no accident that a Romney minion -- and former George W. Bush hit man -- created an anti-Fred web site to dish the dirt) because maybe, just maybe, a lot of folks can close their eyes and imagine his laconic Hollywood character as a savior -- which is odd because unlike Ronald Reagan (often the lead actor in B movies), Thompson was strictly a character role guy.

But that could be his strength: he fits in with any crowd, including the inmates in the D.C. asylum. He’s scary natural, according to Salon’s Michael Scherer who spent a few days in Iowa to check out the Thompson charm and phenomenon. He files an interesting report about why Thompson is a potential serious candidate -- and why anti-Fred web sites may not be a passing fad.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:30 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Iraq and the primary: 'Events are in the saddle'

In the midst of carnage and doubt during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln is believed to have said that "events are in the saddle” to those who wondered about the future of the union. I thought of Lincoln’s stark remark as John McCain has embarked on a seven-day “No Surrender” bus tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (he will be in Rochester on Thursday).

It’s no coincidence that McCain is piggybacking on the latest affirmation of the status quo in Iraq by General (and Chief Emissary from Delphi) David Petraeus. All year McCain has embraced the surge as a winning strategy. Yesterday, McCain attacked the moveon.org advertisement that questioned Petraeus’ credibility -- by using more than three years of his optimistic pronouncements that proved hallow at best -- as an example of left-wing McCarthyism though I think he’s forcing a fight that he can’t win; after all, McCain of all people should know what happens when military leaders make one optimistic statement after another that prove to have little to do with the reality on the ground (See Vietnam: Westmoreland, William, a general who was the heralded, impressive, and smart David Petraeus of that tragedy.)

But for now, as the Politico's Roger Simon reports today, McCain is rallying his campaign under the "No Surrender" banner in hopes of sparking a major revival. In last week's shameful charade of a debate in Durham, McCain made his stand by taking ownership of the surge as a winner while telling voters he wants to bring the troops home and "I want them home for the right reasons.” But sadly for McCain, he wants a short-term tactic to be a winning strategy when we can't even define what victory is -- except we know it's one that keeps changing, along with reasons for staying there.

While McCain can add definition to a needed debate about the course of this misguided foreign policy disaster, claiming the “No surrender” high ground seems dubious at best. Perhaps we should simply change the definition since we’ve done the same with victory at every sign post over the past five years. A war conceived in hubris, born of lies and raised in incompetence is riding in a saddle of tragedy and no amount of hopeful rhetoric can disguise the deadly quagmire the troops and the country are stuck in.

Having interviewed McCain numerous times about the war, I have no doubt he speaks from the heart of a warrior. But time will tell whether that will even matter in the slightest in the both the short and long run. When events are in the saddle, one never knows when the ride will end -- or even where it’s going.

What is certain is that has it becomes clear little will change regarding the war in Iraq until January 2009 when President Bush rides off into the sunset -- and that the New Hampshire primary will become a serious battleground of Iraq war ideas, proposals and emotions. Not unlike 1968 when the Vietnam tragedy continued to grind on and on.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:13 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the blogging grid & God's political plans

Your humble scribe will be off the blogging grid for the next week while I take a break from the action before the really big four-month primary push to come (which should not be confused for the eight previous months of a really big primary push ). I'm also pondering why I didn’t get an invitation to Oprah’s big Hollywood bash this weekend for Barack Obama. Some folks have all the connections.

Meanwhile, Mother Jones has an intriguing article about Hillary Clinton and her religious faith. The article has a whiff of the Da Vinci Code (including a regular prayer group called The Fellowship) but it’s worth reading not because it illuminates so much on Clinton but due to its excavation of the deep inroads, probably the deepest in American history, of strong religious faith among those who believe they have been called by God to lead the sheep (the rest of us.)

Posted by Michael McCord at 08:03 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

The hunt for Fred Thompson (and candidate alien abductions)

Gee, it was nice of Fred Thompson to announce that he was going to announce his long-awaited official Republican
candidacy -- of course, surrendering his campaign virginity will come a day after the major, nationally-televised debate between his Republican rivals at the University of New Hampshire. That's New Hampshire, Fred, as in first-in-the-universe primary land. It's easy to see why this was a smart call --- he gets the benefit of buzz without having to do a darn thing. It's no wonder that NH GOP chief Fergus Cullen has gone bonkers in telling anyone who will listen that he's "disappointed" that Thompson was playing this game. Cullen told James Pindell at the Globe's Primary Source "They are clearly trying to avoid this specific event. Cullen was also blunt with my Herald colleague Adam Leech: Instead of dealing with the media and voter scrutinyof the debate, "He will be going on the Jay Leno show to trade jokes while other candidates are having a seriuous discussion about issues.” Can't wait to see Cullen and Thompson shake hands and exchange pleasantries for the camera some fine day in the primary future.

On the TV front, the good news for Thompson is that the TNT network will not remove "Law & Order" rerun episodes with his folksy Arthur Branch character spouting hayseed one-liners (did anyone really believe, even in TV fiction, that New Yorkers would elect an Arthur Branch as DA?).

INTERVIEW
I found my daily link at Blue Hampshire with blogger Mike Caufield's tough and informed dissection of a recent "presidential job interview" by Nex Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in Keene. The interview issue was NAFTA and Richardson's role in passing it in 1993 -- but it was yet another example of why the voters in this state takes his vetting duties seriously.

PREVIEW
In Sunday's Out on a Limb column, I have an exclusive, fictional interview with a behind-the-scenes GOP strategist named Deep Source. We met in the bowels of a Portsmouth parking garage and she warned that "no one's safe in this election" -- and has evidence a major Democratic candidate is conspiring with aliens. No, not illegal workers from, say Mexico, but strangers from another galaxy.

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:33 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Making a Mafia don blush (and Michigan thoughtfully strikes back again)

Here’s something to consider as we watch the candidates criss-cross first-in-the-universe primary land in the next few months: how American fraud and corruption in Iraq has led to the greatest theft of U.S. treasury loot in history.
Not just recent history but all American history. It would even make a Mafia don blush in admiration.
Last night, I read a story by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone about the contracting Iraq gold rush (for members of loyal Bushie club only), massive fraud and out right theft of untold billions — while the Geroge Bush gang barely raised a legal eyebrow (and in fact punished whistle blowers).
Now it usually takes a lot that made my politically jaundiced blood boil but this one did, despite the fact that I’ve read dozens of stories about this corruption tale for a while. It also made me laugh like a village idiot and eventually made me wonder: wow, could it be even worse than our most cynical imaginations could ever imagine?
If Taibbi’s well-researched report about endemic and mostly sanctioned contracting corruption is but a tip of the iceberg (and he connects it to the larger Bush-inspired push to privatize every inch of government, including eventually in logical extension, the Congress and White House itself) then the foxes have not only cleaned out the henhouse but the entire farm as well.
My next question is: why aren’t campaigns talking about this specifically? I don’t mean just Democratic candidates but Republicans -- those self-appointed guardians of honesty, moral standards and taxpayers money -- as well. This is a con job worthy of Roman emperor that transcends partisan bickering. More importantly, this is another example of why the Iraq war and reconstruction has gone so badly — it was essentially outsourced and the incompetence was a side issue on the way to guaranteed riches. As Tabbai notes, it was the worst possible combination of unrestrained capitalism and administration-sponsored socialism for their cronies — with the bonus of no accountability.
In particular, why won’t Republicans (with the exception of Rod Paul) call Bush to task on this? What are they afraid of except a drop in campaign contributions from corrupt contractors?
Perhaps for all the candidates, the swindle is so massive, so fantastic that it’s become a dirty joke that none of them are willing to repeat. But the next time any candidate opens his mouth and talks about the guaranteed wonders of government privatization to save billions and billions, think again.

MORE MICHIGAN PRIMARY point-counter-point:
Richard Burr of the Detroit News has responded to my post yesterday which was a response to his post yesterday which was a continuation of our appearance together last week on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer to debate the primary schedule -- and why he thinks Michigan is more adorable than New Hampshire as a lead off primary state or even as a co-lead off partner. Burr makes a well-reasoned point about candidates needing to be tested in other states early in the process but his analogy (John Kerry as a flip-flopper) was not peculiar to him or Michigan or any small or large state. It was here after all that Kerry got himself in trouble for talking again and again about voting both for and against Iraq war funding. Or just recently in Iowa where Mitt Romney's interesting definition of public service for his sons was worthy of notice. You don't need to be in Michigan of Florida for candidates to unintentionally speak the truth.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:57 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Michigan strikes back (thoughtfully)

When I appeared last week on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Richard Burr of The Detroit News was on to give the Michigan perspective about the increasingly wild early primary schedule scramble -- and why Michigan should take over our first-in-the-solar-system primary spot.

On his blog today, Burr called my defense of the NH primary reasonable but suggested again that the candidates aren't really dealing with specific issues that impact Michigan -- or in this case, the auto industry which is THE economic Godzilla there and, yes, in many other parts of the country. He also noted that NH has an axe to grind -- namely that we are pushing to increase federal clean air standards. We are but that doesn't mean we don't care about Michigan jobs. We also care about the quality of air we breathe which again makes my point -- this is a national issue being debated and discussed here.

Perhaps Michigan's specific concerns are not entirely on the national radar screen but as the Herald Sunday editorial of 8/26 noted (here), it's not because the candidates or we are dissing Michigan or any other state.

I hope Burr's thoughtful reply about NH's primary role will lead to a regional exchange of ideas and broaden the conversation here, there, and elsewhere.

Posted by Michael McCord at 03:37 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Talking terror: Is it possible?

What exactly did Hillary say, when did she say it and did she know exactly what she was saying? When the Democratic presidential hopeful said in a backyard gathering in Concord on Thursday, according to the AP reporter, that she believes that she would be the best candidate to handle a crisis, even a terrorist attack.
Well, no surprise there but she added some spice to the mix by talking about a rather harsh truth: namely the ability of the GOP establishment (especially our swaggering, historically-challenged and self-proclaimed “war president”) to take political advantage of a planned, expected, feared or actual terrorist attack.
“It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself ’What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world,” she said.
Well, there’s nothing like a backyard comment during primary season on a subject this taboo (political manipulation and terrorism) to get the hounds a howling wildly at the moon from all corners -- her Democratic rivals, those in the liberal blogosphere and those kindly souls at right-wing conspiracy central. (It’s guaranteed we will see those words in an attack ad sooner rather than later and repeated to no end -- first as a Dem primary version and then as a GOP-inspired Swift Boat operation.) “Frankly, I find it tasteless to discuss political implications when talking about a potential terrorist attack on the United States,” said fellow contender Sen. Chris Dodd.
Tasteless is a matter of perspective -- especially considering how the Bush gang has done precisely that time and again since 9/11. What Clinton did do, according to Naomi Wolf in a provocative piece on Huffington Post, was broach a subject most would like to avoid like the plague -- namely that this could very well be an ugly reality (especially if the terrorists succeed in another attack on our soil or elsewhere) that could have historical implications. Wolf provides solid historical evidence to support her argument that will also get people talking.

Kudos to Clinton for having the bravado to tackle the unspeakable -- which isn't to say that there wasn't any political calculation involved. Read Wolf's piece yourself at The terror talk taboo

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:00 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Taxmongering 101

Leave it to Rudy Giuliani, the self-anointed saint of 9/11, to take campaign pandering to an informative level. Yesterday in Manchester, Giuliani unveiled his tax proposal which is in reality the political equivalent of "free breakfast, lunch and dinner for all." According to press reports, Saint Rudy promised to slash taxes and accused the Dems of having plans to raise $3 trillion in taxes. In other words, the tax and spend worshipping Democratic wolves are ready to knock down your door and empty your bank account. Rudy attacked Hillary Clinton for seeking a "common good" (through more and more government paid by more and bigger taxes) while the altruistic Republicans "believe in people."

Kathleen Strand, Clinton’s NH spokesperson didn’t wait long to respond to Rudy’s “believe in people” babble. "If he's attacking Senator Clinton for wanting to change President Bush's economic policies and his Iraq policy, he's right. She will," she said.

What Rudy might believe is that people are suckers by offering then a free pass to financial insanity. With most policies, the devil is in the details but Rudy makes it easy for the "people" by not bothering with any hint of details nor any logic beyond playing to the GOP base by promising them more of the same.

Rudy accuses Dems being silent co-conspirators with "Islamic fascists" (because they don't subscribe to his campaign rhetoric) and promises to stay on the terrorist offensive but offers no plan or vision except more of the same: and does he subscribe to $400 billion or more of deficit spending every year just to pay for staying on the offensive. Perhaps we should tax the Iraqi people or the rest of the world to pay the bill.

Rudy promises health care reform through the tax code and embracing a free-market approach to save the day. Of course how will Rudy pay for this trillion-dollar tax break that most health care experts believe is a massive boondoggle? He doesn’t say.

Ah, tax cuts. He promises to slash taxes, make permanent Bush’s tax cuts for those who don’t need it, and eliminate the inheritance tax. And how to balance the books? One solution, according to Michael Boskin, one of Ronald Reagan’s economic advisors who no advises is enhance “efficiency” (my favorite non-answer answer) to cut the Federal workforce by 25 percent to save…$21 billion annually. Or about two months worth of spending in the Iraq war. Of course, Boskin is an authority on…running up the largest federal budget deficits in history until the Bush gang took over.

To paraphrase Reagan (who said of the Soviet Union), when it comes to Rudy, don’t trust until you really verify the details that aren’t there.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:31 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Iowa poll surprise & more primary date musings

According to a story today by Michael Scherer of Salon, an interesting campaign fact emerged from a recent poll in Iowa : Barack Obama. Yes that Obama, the Democratic presidential wannabe and first-term Senator from Illinois who’s advocating a “progressive agenda for change” (that’s what he said last Sunday in Portsmouth) who garnered seven percent of support in the poll (more than Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Sam Brownback combined).
Elephants for Obama?
This finding is odd to say the least (last I heard he’s not running as a Republican) but it sort of fits in with Obama’s general election campaign style of more often speaking more ill of the “system” in general than the GOP or George Bush in particular.
Now political criss-crossing is nothing new but so far this season I’ve heard people and tales of (1) one Democract going for Giuliani, (2) three Dems going for Ron Paul, (3) one Republican for Kucinich (now that’s odd), (4) and three Republicans for Obama (so far no cross overs I’ve heard of yet for Clinton and Edwards). And of course in New Hampshire, we saw in 2004, how Republicans turned en masse against then Gov. Craig Benson for Democratic consensus builder and businessman John Lynch.
Of course what this means for the primary is another matter altogether. Making relative nice with the Red state crowd may not be a top attribute in a heated Dem primary. In that category, there’s no doubt Hillary Clinton is leading the pack. Unlike Obama, Clinton has no problem occasionally speaking quite ill of Bush, Cheney and the rest of the gang. I’ve yet to see a crowd in NH that doesn’t mind those servings.
For more on Obama and the evolution of his campaign, see my Sunday “Out on a Limb” column in Herald Sunday or on seacoastonline.com.

PRIMARY DATE MUSINGS
NH State Rep. Jim Spaline sent me his thoughts about the latest priamry scheduling traffic jam (origginally posted on nhinsider.com)
New Hampshire’s Primary: January 8th, 2008?

Well, I think we’re getting close to having the date of the New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary firmed up. Right now, I’m expecting it to be Tuesday, January 8th. At least I hope I’m in the correct year.
Throughout the years that I’ve worked on this cause -- dating back to even before the 1980 election cycle when Secretary of State Bill Gardner set his first primary date according to the state law -- I’ve learned that it’s an evolutionary process. Our “lead-off” position doesn’t happen automatically, and it needs a lot of maneuvering. We’ve given Bill Gardner the tools he has needed in the laws we have passed dating to 1975 and updated several times since -- but he’s the carpenter and he uses those tools very well.

The 2008 Presidential Election cycle has probably been his greatest challenge yet. During the past two years he and I have had the fun, if it can be said to be so, of meeting and talking dozens of times and many dozens of hours about the strategies to keep New Hampshire “...seven days or more...” ahead of any other primary. When the Democratic National Committee began its games a couple of years ago to set Nevada ahead of New Hampshire and in other ways dilute New Hampshire’s influence and relevance to the presidential selection process, both he and I said we’d be okay, that New Hampshire would indeed be first, and that the predictions of some pundits that we were about to lose our status were a lot off-base.
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The past two weeks Bill has come under some criticism for a couple of his public positions on the actions of South Carolina and Michigan. I have too, since I’ve stood with him. He asked me to join him at a news conference when the South Carolina Republican Chair visited the State House to announce the date of January 19th for the Republican Party primary in his state. Bill thanked him for his visit here, and I said I was pleased South Carolina Republicans were at least setting their date, because it would encourage other states to firm up theirs - - especially Michigan, where Democrats in particular have threatened to withhold their date until New Hampshire sets ours, which would create quite a lot of confusion come November or December.
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Our law does indeed guarantee New Hampshire’s lead-off position. Our position is not a gift from the political parties, and since 1975 never has been. However, some other states can play games with us. What needs to happen about this time in the cycle as we come close to the Fall months is knowing what the schedules of election events are in the other states. Then, and only then, can Bill Gardner set our date. That’s the way the process works.
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Recently, Michigan Democrats and Republicans have been talking, with much disagreement, about a date of January 15th for their primaries or caucuses -- each party can decide whatever it wishes. Bill Gardner has cheered that discussion by saying that their selection of January 15th would be a last “piece of the puzzle.” I was quoted recently as saying that getting Michigan to firm up their date “sooner than later” would stop this game of checkers that some states have been playing, so that Michigan agreeing would be “a good thing for us.” I mean, at least we’d know when they’re doing it.
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I’m not in favor of either South Carolina or Michigan moving earlier into January, whether the 19th or the 15th. But that’s not my decision. New Hampshire Democratic Chair Ray Buckley has rightly and powerfully used his voice in objecting to both, and he might be able to influence at least the Democrats in Michigan. But since the setting of our primary date is an evolutionary process, I know it’s important that we get our date set in September, or October if possible rather than wait until November or even December for our Secretary of State to do it. One year Bill Gardner had to wait until December 20th to set our date to offset other state events. He really needs to do it earlier than that this year.
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So, my preference as a long-time defender of our first-in-the-nation status -- a “role” that many in our state have shared -- is that the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and that sooner than later all of the other states stop their checkers games. We’re going to win that game anyway, but it would be useful for all the candidates, their campaigns, the media, and certainly the voters to know when New Hampshire will hold our primary.
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Right now, I would kind of like to see a schedule where Iowa holds the first caucuses on Saturday, January 5th, New Hampshire has the first “real” election with our primary on Tuesday, January 8th, followed by Michigan on Tuesday, January 15th, then Nevada and South Carolina on Saturday, January 19th, and lots of states holding their mega-primaries on Tuesday, January 29th and Tuesday, February 5th. That’s not the best of all worlds, but stretching out the primary and caucus season into earlier January does spread out the impact of the “front-loading” of January 29th and February 5th by giving some breathing room between major events for all the candidates, and it does what many of us here want to do: keeps New Hampshire first without having to go into December of 2007.
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I would also like to see the voters of the District of Columbia given some equal rights in the American election process by having an early primary or caucus on our about the same date as our primary. It’s long overdue that they get an equal voice as their follow citizens.
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My “bigger picture” concern is that we all then work toward making the 2012 presidential election cycle better, with Iowa having the first caucus, followed by New Hampshire with the first primary, then a series of rotating regional primaries beginning two weeks afterward stretching through April and May. If that sounds familiar, it’s a plan proposed a decade ago by the National Association of Secretaries of State and endorsed by the Jimmy Carter Election Commission two years ago.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:57 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Adventures in talking head chatter land

After hearing for myself (through an earpiece) the gripes from editorial writers in Michigan and Arizona questioning the legitimacy of Iowa and New Hampshire as traditional primary lead off batters, I have to wonder...are you kidding me?
I refer to my appearance last night on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer in which your humble blogger was thrust into the position of being the defender (for a day) of our first-in-the-solar-system primary status in the wake of Michigan’s likely move of its primary to Jan. 15. My appearance through the magic of television was actually done in a cramped studio at Channel 9 in Manchester and it was quite a case of chaos in hiding. I had little background briefing, nor did I know the names of my fellow talking head experts. (If you happened to see it and wondered why I slipped into babbling U.S. Senate speak when I said “the gentleman from Arizona” and “the gentleman from Michigan” now you know why.) I couldn’t see what was happening on the screen and had to keep a semi-intelligent plastered face look on at all times because I never knew when the shot would turn to me — all while listening to everything through an earpiece.
Anyway, I muddled through and came away wondering if either of the “gentlemen” who were complaining about New Hampshire in particular (we are an inviting target) had even the slightest clue about what happens here on a quadrennial basis.
Yes, it’s often a circus but the people and the campaigns (and even the media hordes) take this electoral challenge of vetting the contenders from the pretenders seriously. The reality that I hoped I got across isn’t that the NH primary should be first because it has always been first but that it’s first for a reason — the candidates can come here and not pander (at least most of the time) about local issues and test out and discuss national themes. Everyone knows industrial meltdown in Michigan and immigration in Arizona are vital issues there and elsewhere. But the NH primary, for all its occasional silliness and faults (and even our hubris about its role), isn’t Romper Room. It’s a good place to deal with national issues because of the state’s ideological diversity and the ability for candidates to meet and greet and deal with the financial and organizational difficulties of campaigning without breaking the bank.
No wonder it annoys some states. They can’t offer what the state has already done for decades. And it’s nonsense that candidates are afraid to speak out the Iowa-NH tyranny — the reality is that if the candidates were so adverse to our charms and if the state hadn’t stepped up to the plate to do the job, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:41 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Talk head time for yours truly

Holy Cow! I am scheduled to appear tonight on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer (PBS, 6 p.m) to punditize about the squeeze on the New Hampshire primary from envious states such as Michigan (see earlier post today). Will blog later about the experience.

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:52 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Levin's primary "personal vendetta"

Just how far will Michigan go to disrupt the presidential primary schedule?
All the way to mutually assured destruction if Michigan Sen. Carl Levin has his way to move the Michigan primaries into early January.
Call it a primary date game of chicken.
There’s no doubt in NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner’s mind that Levin is more than a little obsessed about derailing our first-in-the-solar-system primary status — after all he’s seen in person the depth of Levin’s longtime rancor (I’m being polite) at the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire. While talking to Gardner yesterday while working on a story, I asked him if Levin’s words and actions over the years we’re reflective of a “personal vendetta.” Gardner said “at least that” while recounting to me Levin’s fury while promising at various times to stop New Hampshire and Iowa from being leading the primary calendar.
“He threatened to do something outrageous,” Gardner told me about one encounter after the 2004 primary.
Gardner is watching what’s happening with Michigan carefully but seems rather calm about the storm of potential primary dates. After all, by state law, he has the last call so in a sense Levin can huff and puff all he wants but he won’t blow the house down.
Passionate NH primary defender and NH State Rep. Jum Splaine has this to say about Michigan’s primary date.
“This ‘checkers game’ should end sooner than later, so everyone including the campaigns and media know what the dates are,” he said. “Checkers games are won after the checkers of the other side are all gone. We’re going to win this one — we just need to have the dates set, whenever they are, of the other states — sooner than later would be nice.”
Who knows when sooner or later will be.
(Update)
Dem presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden was the first candidate to affirm his support for the current system in the wake of the latest spat.
“Powerful interests are trying to change the Democratic nomination for President into a game of Monopoly, replacing the retail politics of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire with a process in which the only credential necessary to be President is to be the wealthiest candidate," Biden said in campaign press statement. "Under the current calendar, voters can regularly meet candidates in their homes, town halls and diners. This provides an almost one on one opportunity to hold candidates accountable for their ideas and records for solving the most pressing issues facing this country. The communities of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire provide a diverse array of voters and a level playing field for candidates to compete in, as a lead up to the larger states which will decide who the next Democratic nominee will be for President.
"I call upon all of my fellow Democratic candidates to reaffirm their support for the retail role Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire and publicly ask their supporters, such as Democratic Senate Leader Mark Schauer, and Governor Granholm to oppose any attempts to break the Democratic National Committee’s “calendar window” as Republicans did in Florida on behalf of Mitt Romney.”
Funny, how Biden didn't refer to Levin as one of those "powerful interests."

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:12 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Huckabee ready for NH prime time?

Can former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee transform Iowa straw poll success (second place in a watered down GOP field) into serious viability on the first-in-the-solar-system primary stage? Maybe, maybe not but give the personable and quotable Huckabee preacherly credit for striking the right tone by talking about how the other man from Hope, Ark. (a former Arkansas Governor and President named Bill Clinton), despite their political differences, genuinely had a political gift for making connections. It’s a political trick of the trade that Huckabee would like to revive. He has caught on with one tactic -- trash the NH front runner. Hello, Mitt Romney, how does the latest bulls eye feel? And, if you’ve ever wondered how primary media darlings emerge from the pack, just watch how the pundit herd feeds off each other to create a “discovery.” The latest pundit fawning on Huckabee is a real-time case study on such media phenomenons.

Read more about the Huck factor by:
Blogger Chris Stewart, aka the Monday Morning Clacker: The Huck Media bandwagon
The Politico's Jonathan Martin: Huckabee's sharp political elbows

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:01 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Obama: Too cool for the sale?

I hope Monday's daily link, a provocative OpEd piece that ran Sunday in the New York Times is being passed around the country -- specially between those against the war and those for it. It should be required reading coming as it does from five veterans of the 82nd Airborne who can hardly be considered cut and runners. They have served a vital public role: of telling the truth when the truth is in such short supply. One wonders if they will pay a price for such treachery against the Bush gang.

Daily link: The Iraq War as they saw it

Meanwhile, back on the primary trail, here are a few voices I heard yesterday while covering the Barack Obama event in Portsmouth (and kudos to whomever decided to hold the rally at One Harbourplace. The sun, clouds, pleasant summer temps, and harbor combination was a delight. It was by far the best place I’ve been to yet on the trail for a campaign stop.)

Chris Culver, a veteran elementary school teacher who lives in Portsmouth, is an undecided Democrat who told me she will definitely not vote for one candidate: Hillary Clinton. “Too much special interest money,” Culver told me a week after Clinton publicly said that special interests represent real people (and hopefully, real interests) as well. Culver said that she would like to see a woman president but “it’s more important to have someone with integrity than one’s gender or race.”

On the other hand, though she was impressed with Obama (“he’s impressive, thoughtful”) she remains undecided and determined to find a candidate who can talk intelligently and broadly about education -- and how poverty is real issue driving educational issues. In particular, Culver said the fall out from the ongoing No Child Left Behind debacle has created a “huge chasm of distrust between the public and public schools.”

While Obama pleased a lot of “leaners” (as in undecided leaning folks), one told me sotte voce that Obama had failed badly to make “the sale” to him for reasons never quite clearly explained (something about energy and robotic gestures). Which raises a style question that the campaign fights daily: Obama can be an acquired taste. He rarely hits the high notes his audience (mostly angry, Bush-loathing Dems) would like nor does he pander with artificially constructed guaranteed applause line pauses. He does meander and explain and treats his audience with an assumption of intelligence and good will. He’s cool in a red-hot environment. The voters will determine whether this is a winning virtue or not.

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:18 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Alice in Wonderland realpolitik

Rudy Giuliani was understandably miffed in New Hampshire yesterday about having family issues dragged into the campaign (though the Vanity Fair hatchet job story about his third wife Judith does make for oddly sinful reading). If you really want to set him off, ask him what qualifies him to be a foreign policy visionary.
In today’s daily link, I’ve included Fred Kaplan’s insightful and unintentionally funny dissection of Rudy Giuliani’s not-so-bold nor very smart attempt to be a foreign policy wizard. I read the Foreign Affairs piece in question in a quest to understand just what the hell qualifies Rudy as a self-appointed foreign policy maven. I was also looking for a reason to take Rudy seriously as an actual President as opposed to a candidate. He may remain a formidable candidate but if Rudy was aiming for street cred, he failed: in this case the emperor’s foreign policy clothes are as frightening as they are invisible.
The Orwellian title (“Toward a Realistic Peace”) was followed by a recitation of painfully obvious right-wing fearful talking points and revisionist history (one great howl is that Vietnam was actually won before we lost it). It’s hard to believe that this prattle represents either a quick or inquiring mind. This is George W. Bush without the mangled aphorisms, analogies and syntax.
See this amazing triumph of intellectual bankruptcy for yourself:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/...toward-a-realistic-peace.html

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:15 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Policy truth and distortions

On my daily link, there's a fascinating post by Glenn Greenwald of Salon challenging the optimistic perspective on Iraq by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. It seems that O'Hanlon's recent trip to Iraq could best be described as a military dog and pony show -- and the OpEd piece he wrote for the NY Times that caused such a stir earlier this month which said the war could be won was based less on facts on the ground than ideals in the mind.

And now closer to primary home: It seems those ever imaginative folks sending out GOP talking points across the Republican universe have hit upon an oldie but goodie theme -- when it comes to health care, scream “Socialized Medicine” (like those annoying French, who spend less than we do and offer more services to more people, and the obviously hapless Canadians who haven’t gotten the message about the overall utopia of our current system) and never clarify or apologize.
It’s like deja vu, a replay of the onslaught launched against President Clinton’s health care reform attempt in 1993-94.

Continue reading "Policy truth and distortions" »

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:31 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Primarily random observations...

JUNKYARD DOG -- John and Elizabeth Edwards are making plans for a major bus excursion through the state next week to whip up enthusiasm for his campaign. The big news on the Dem front today is that Edwards’ has a junkyard dog defending his turf: his wife Elizabeth. Check out this interview in The Progressive magazine in which Edwards lets it all hang out with broadsides against Obama (among other things, he’s a thief of their progressive language) and Clinton (for being, well, Clinton we guess).
See www.progressive.org/mag_intv0807

Continue reading "Primarily random observations..." »

Posted by Michael McCord at 01:39 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Republicans hating Republicans (in name only)

You have to admire a grass-roots political organization for its creativity when it comes up with the following awards: "Most Likely to Have a Barak Obama Poster in their Bedroom" or, perhaps even more original, " Most Likely to Limo an Illegal across the Border."

The timing for renewed GOP fratricide is perfect. Fresh off the phony Iowa Straw Poll -- which found Mitt Romney trying to prove his meaningless victory was more than a venture capitalist buy-out and Tommy Thompson saying thanks for the memories -- a self-identified conservative group called We the People for President is offering disillusioned conservatives the chance to scream away with an on-line web site chronicling the wandering herd of that “Republican in Name Only” species.
Here’s the entertaining and slightly overwrought press release I received today (when it comes to political drama queens, ‘persecuted’ conservatives take the prize). Please note the targeted RINOS below: they include GOP presidenital hopefuls John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Romney -- and U.S. Senators Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Olympia Snowe of Maine. These folks have some tough credentials to live up (or down) to.

PRESS RELEASE
Top “Republicans In Name Only” are on notice, as conservatives across the country will cast their vote for Republican politicians most deserving of a RINO award at: www.RepublicansInNameOnly.com.

After losing Congress in the 2006 election, and the Party possibly facing the loss of the White House in 2008, conservatives are less than enthusiastic about their representatives and potential Presidential Candidates in the upcoming elections. Fed up with excessive spending, amnesty for illegal aliens, and weak positions on family values and abortion, Conservatives across the country are frustrated that their voices have fallen on deaf ears. Until now.

We the People for Presidenthas created a website, www.RepublicansInNameOnly.com, for conservatives to vote for their favorite RINOs (Republican in Name Only) who have abandoned certain core beliefs of conservatism, and will bestow upon them a “RINO Award”. The Top RINO Awards are the first of their kind, where We The People across America, ourselves, will determine who receives an actual RINO award.

Unable to check a “You Blew It” box at the voting booth, frustrated conservatives can now simply click on their favorite RINO to cast their vote, sending a message to top Republicans that the RINO is now an endangered species.

This is an opportunity for We the People’s voices to be heard. No public figure has the courage to call attention to the Republican Party, which has been conspicuously negligent in rooting out entrenched politicians, for their liberal positions on issues. The RINO awards are designed to highlight specific and crucial conservative issues that a Republican politician has abandoned. Issues such as abortion, political corruption, illegal immigration, over-spending and lack of defending the core conservative values that tug at the hearts of the conservative base, many of whom are considering staying home in future elections.

These core conservative issues are what separate the elephant from the rhino; that is, true Conservatives from liberal Republicans.

Votes from across America will be tallied and a top RINOs will be periodically announced for their stance on specifics issues. RINO winners will be presented with a beautiful gold rhinoceros, adding a special touch to their plush homes or offices. While America votes, Republican officials who have ignored their base will be on alert, as votes are tabulated instantly. Voters are able to immediately see their votes count and watch the competition unfold on their computer screen.

In the spirit of free speech, voters also have the cathartic opportunity to post their comments addressing why they have selected their favorite RINO, as well as the opportunity to nominate other RINOs. For example, some voters have suggested awarding RINOs to Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani for his stance on abortion and Senator John McCain for his vote on amnesty.

Americans also have the chance to vote for special titles to award the contenders, such as "Most Likely to Have a Barak Obama Poster in their Bedroom" or "Most Likely to Limo an Illegal across the Border."

The current nominees are Senator Jon Kyl (AZ), Senator and Presidential Candidate John McCain (AZ), Senator Mel Martinez (FL), Senator Larry Craig (ID), Senator Richard Lugar (IN), Senator Olympia Snowe (ME), Senator Trent Lott (MS), Senator Chuck Hagel (NE), Senator Judd Gregg (NH), Senator Arlen Spector (PA), Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), Senator Bob Bennett (UT), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA), Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani and Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.

Voters can log onto www.RepublicansInNameOnly.com to cast their votes.

Posted by Michael McCord at 02:54 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)