Wednesday’s political round-up

March 7, 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:

* [tag]Rudy Giuliani[/tag]’s family “issues” have made his presidential campaign unacceptable to at least one high-profile religious right leader. [tag]Richard Land[/tag], head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, said evangelicals believe the former mayor showed a lack of character in his divorce from second wife Donna Hanover. “To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children … that’s rough,” he said. McCain’s divorce is a “molehill compared to Giuliani’s mountain,” Land added.

* Sen. [tag]Chuck Hagel[/tag] (R-Neb.) seems to be inching closer to throwing his hat into the ring. This week, he told two labor groups — the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Building and Construction Trades Department — that he’d like to be included in their upcoming presidential “cattle calls.” Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters, said, “It was made absolutely clear to him that he was coming to speak at a forum where all the major presidential candidates were invited to speak.”

* [tag]Mitt Romney[/tag] will run his first radio ad targeting Spanish-speaking voters with the help of Al Cardenas, former chairman of the Florida Republican Party and a close ally of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “It is a difficult time in the world, in the Americas, and in our Cuba in transition,” Cardenas says in his native Spanish during the spot, which promotes Romney’s speech Friday at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Miami-Dade County. “Mitt Romney understands the dynamic of Cuba.”

* As Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) continues to recover, Republicans are finding it difficult to recruit a top-tier challenger to take him on next year. Before his health problems, Johnson was expected to be a key GOP target in 2008. Now, as Roll Call noted, “Republicans have been leery of launching even the mildest rhetorical attack against Johnson since he was hospitalized Dec. 13, and they acknowledge that his illness temporarily has frozen any effort to oust him.”

* And the Republican Leadership Council, created in 1993 to help drag the GOP back towards the middle, hasn’t been doing much lately, but that’s apparently going to change. Former Gov. Christie Whitman of New Jersey, former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele reportedly want to revitalize the RLC, which was recently combined with Whitman’s political action committee IMP-PAC — It’s My Party, Too. Tom Ridge, former homeland security secretary and former governor of Pennsylvania, is also involved with the effort.

Re Romney targeting Spanish-speaking voters–it looks to me as if he’s in fact targeting South Florida Cuban voters. Many, probably most, of these are doubtless Spanish-speaking, but most Spanish-speaking voters are not Cuban, and in fact don’t share much of the Cuban-American agenda. On the other hand, Romney will want these Cuban Americans voting for him in the Florida primary–which doesn’t happen until next year!

  • Concerning Giuliani and the Republicans

    I heard someone mention this morning that the Republicans deserve a lot of credit for having a pro-choice, pro-gun control person being taken seriously.

    Do you think that a pro-life, pro NRA candidate would be taken seriously in the Democratic primary?

  • Mitt Romney will run his first radio ad targeting Spanish-speaking voters…

    Don’t do it, Mitt! You’re just accomodating those who refuse to assimilate. In fact, Spanish-language ads are part & parcel of the Reconquista!!

    Not mentioned here is George Bush deciderating that Bob Dole and Donna Shalala should investigate Walter Reed and the VA hospitals. When I heard that their mandate would include the VA, I wondered if the reports had simply conflated that with the Army medical service.

    If it’s accurate, then it’s creepy. Just imagine how much Karl Rove would love to leverage the Walter Reed flap as a way to discredit the VA, which has lately served as a demonstration of the superiority of government-run health care.

  • Do you think that a pro-life, pro NRA candidate would be taken seriously in the Democratic primary? -neil wilson

    It depends….would they also be a flip flopping opportunist or do they really believe in their positions on those issues?

  • Since you asked, neil wilson, I can imagine NRA membership not hurting a Democrat. Gun issues just aren’t that much of a factor. Along the same lines, a candidate might personally believe that abortion is wrong, but if the candidate isn’t inclined to push legislation or judges to impose that opinion, it’s a non-issue.

    That’s the thing about litmus tests: it’s not about what you support or oppose, but how fervently you do so. Like, John McCain votes against abortion every chance he gets, but it does him no good, because Brownback’s out there making it his life’s work.

  • “our Cuba in transition”? Imagine the GOP reaction to a Democratic spokesperson in Arizona or New Mexico (or Texas!) who referred to “our Mexico”? Can we please end the double standard for Cuban-Americans?

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