Monday’s political round-up

February 26, 2007

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* At a recent meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club of right-wing heavyweights (Dobson, Norquist, Falwell, et al), there was widespread discontent over the leading GOP frontrunners for the presidential nomination. McCain, Giuliani, and Romney are not, CNP members agreed, sufficiently loyal to the movement. The NYT reported that a delegation of CNP members tried to enlist Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina as a candidate, but he declined.

* Karen Unger, Jeb Bush’s former campaign manager, has agreed to serve as the senior Florida adviser for Rudy Giuliani’s exploratory committee. Apparently, not all of Jeb’s team is signing up with Romney.

* On April 4, CNN will broadcast the “First in the nation” GOP presidential debate, but the top two candidates won’t show up. Sen. John McCain and Ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani informed WMUR-TV that they have previous commitments — McCain is expected to be in the Middle East on April 4 and Giuliani has an “unspecified scheduling conflict.” Both McCain and Giuliani accepted Nancy Reagan’s invitation to participate in the 5/3 debate scheduled for the Reagan Library.

* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some surprisingly kind words for Barack Obama yesterday. “I think he’s very appealing and a great person. He’s on my committee. And we’ve always had good exchanges. I think he’s an extraordinary person,” she said. Rice declined to say whether she thought he had enough experience, especially in foreign policy, to be president. “Oh, I’m not going to make that choice. The American people are going to make that choice,” she said.

* Both Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) both said over the weekend that they have no interest in serving as a running mate to their party’s eventual nominee.

* And California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) told The Politico late last week that he has not ruled out running for future public office, including U.S. senator or mayor of Los Angeles when his term as governor expires in January 2011.

Obama/Rice in ’08?

  • I’d say anyone that Rice likes gets a black eye (no pun intended).

    I hope Obama uses her “endorsement” as an opportunity to remind everyone how Rice’s “experience” has been horribly inept.

  • I’ve had this bad feeling for the past few months that Jeb Bush is going to be the Republican nominee in 2008. I don’t have any solid support, it’s just the way I’m reading the tea leaves.

  • The dirty little secret is nobody credible but McCain really wants to try following the chimp (and with McCain it’s because he’s too old to wait for 2012). Romney is a mormon and has the recent abortion flip-flops, while Guiliani has a checkered past, no non-municipal political experience and is pro-choice. Everybody with any sense on that side of the aisle knows that even if they somehow managed to win, they’d be left cleaning up junior’s mess. Yuck.

    C’mon goopers, nominate Brownback! You know you want to.

  • In case you didn’t know it’s Wingnut Festival Week: http://www.cpac.org/

    2007 CPAC SPEAKERS

    Vice President Dick Cheney – Sean Hannity – Senator Mitch McConnell – Ann Coulter – Michelle Malkin – David Horowitz – Congressman Mike Pence – Newt Gingrich – Phyllis Schlafly – Wayne LaPierre – and many more!

    I hope some carpetbagger gets to sneak inside…

  • Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some surprisingly kind words for Barack Obama yesterday. “I think he’s very appealing and a great person. He’s on my committee. And we’ve always had good exchanges. I think he’s an extraordinary person,” she said. Rice declined to say whether she thought he had enough experience, especially in foreign policy, to be president. “Oh, I’m not going to make that choice. The American people are going to make that choice,” she said.

    That’s suprisingly classy of Rice. I wonder if this is evidence that Obama has some real across-the-aisle appeal. After all, he did get 70% of the Illinois vote when he ran for senator, and that has to include a lot of die-hard conservatives who, if it had been anyone else, would have rather voted for whoever the GOP put up, even if it was Alan Keyes (which it was.)

  • Rick Perry as a V.P. candidate in ’08 would likely decrease the GOP’s chances of carrying Texas (though not enough to give Dems a legitimate shot). He barely won reelection for governor last year (I would hope that a certain K. Friedman has been added to the governor’s Haunakah card list).

    The family values republicans are especially upset with him for mandating anti-HPV vaccinations for pre-teen girls. They seem to think that the only thing keeping the flower of Texas womanhood from turning floozie is the possibility of cervical cancer years up the road.

  • As for Jeb as a presidential candidate, we have to remember that campaigns didn’t used to start until August. So he’s got plenty of time.

  • As a commenter above notes, Jeb has time to enter for 2008. More importantly, he has time to wait until a later date. 2008 will be hard enough for any Republican to win. It will be far harder for one named Bush. From his perspective it is a good thing that voters have a short memory. While a Bush is unelectable in 2008, many voters will forget (just as they forgot about why they voted his father out of office.

  • Outfits like CNP warrant very close scrutiny, as they’re likely to play a double shell game. They can badmouth the frontrunners while openly looking for a viable candidate, and the “this-vs-that” actually serves as a double smokescreen—a theopolitical “sanctum sanctorum” within which to develop a very appealing Frankenstein monster. It is, after all, the same tactic used by the historically-previous “Reich” to turn a rumpled little corporal into a Fuhrer….

  • just as they forgot about why they voted his father out of office

    I wouldn’t count on that. H.W. Bush wasn’t popular enough to win reelection, but he never plumbed the depths of unpopularity that his son has. Dubya isn’t just unpopular – he is widely hated, and he won’t smell any better in two years. The Bush family has probably produced its last president. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the first task on every GOP presidential candidate for many years to come will be to offer a compelling rationale for why he ISN’T another Dubya.

  • “He’s on my committee. ”
    – Rice

    I heard this. What does it mean? What committee? It sounds like a dissertation committee.

  • Re:#12: I think he’s on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or something which Rice has to report to, which is probably what Rice is referring to.

  • Obama, give me a break. No surprise that he get endorsed by the war criminal who called death and destruction in Lebanon “birth”. The guy has no clue. He’d be a gift to the rabid right, who could then run an evolution-denier. God, we’re doomed!

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