Tuesday’s political round-up

March 27, 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:

* A new USA Today poll shows that Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, support John Edwards’ decision to stay in the presidential race despite his wife’s illness. The same poll, however, find that more than a third of those surveyed believe that Edwards eventually will be forced to withdraw from the campaign because of her cancer recurrence.

* On the other side of the aisle, the USA Today poll showed surprising support for actor-turned-senator-turned actor Fred Thompson, who is reportedly considering the race. Nationally, Thompson drew 12% support, which placed him third behind Rudy Giuliani (31%) and John McCain (22%).

* Speaking of Giuliani, the AP discovered yesterday that the former NYC mayor’s campaign website included a serious design flaw: personal information submitted by volunteers on the website was left vulnerable. Giuliani aides insisted that no personal information was compromised.

* It’s routine for professional fundraisers to take a generous commission from candidates, but Mitt Romney is launching a unique model: participants in “Students for Mitt” will get to keep 10% of the money they raise for Romney, after the first $1,000. As the AP noted, “While candidates often offer professional fundraisers commissions up to 8 percent, campaign experts believe [Romney] is the first to do so with the legion of college students who have historically served as campaign volunteers.”

* The Politico noted today that the progressive netroots are anxious to take on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) next year. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, specifically asked online activists to help identify potential candidates.

* And CNN commentator Bay Buchanan announced yesterday that she has resigned from the network in order to help oversee rep. Tom Tancredo’s (R-Colo.) presidential campaign. “I believe Tom Tancredo can beat the top three and that’s what our campaign plan is,” Buchanan said, referring to McCain, Giuliani, and Romney.

That’s Tancredo’s plan? To beat his competitors? Wow, this guy would be a great follow-up for Bush, who also believes that the best plan for winning is to win. Perhaps some day these people will learn to differentiate between plans and goals.

  • I’m sure Bay Buchanan will return from her Tancredo job to offer us some more of her unbiased opinions on CNN.

    So Snow’s cancer is back. Does this mean that he will turn to god and forego politics like Edwards was supposed to do?

    Yes, Giuliani’s web problem (caused no doubt by dirty hippy hackers) revealed that most of his contributors were Republican a-holes. Oops sorry for the redundancy–Republicans.

    The more I hear about The Politico the less I like the thing.

    I’m glad to see Romney is turning politics into a money-making proposition for a whole new groups of dedicated citizens. I recommend the method I use with Girl Scouts and cookies. I just give them the amount they would make and pass up the cookie company part of the cut. College Republican welfare!

    I noticed that Republican prez candidates are much uglier than the Dem ones. Even Hillary is cute when she smiles.

  • Funny thing about Fred Thompson – he’s probably the “best known” of the possible candidates for his acting work. Everything I know about him from people who work on Law and Order, which is a “viper’s nest” of serious liberals, is that he is a genuine for-real conservative, not a right wing hack like the others, that he’s the kind of Republican you can disagree with and know that you both want to do good for the country – sort of like Hagel without the wishy-washiness. As one writer I know said, “if we have to have another Republican president, which thought I detest, I wouldn’t be that upset if it was Fred.”

  • I know Fred can act, but could he sell advanced weapons to our enemies and then convince everyone that he was so freaking senile that he didn’t actually intend to sell advanced weapons to our enemies?

    Yeah, probably could. Damn.

    Sen. Fred Thompson was the Senate Watergate Committee’s chief minority counsel in 1973 and 1974. Might be some good juice in his 1975 Watergate memoir entitled “At That Point in Time.”

  • The McConnell item reminds me of how the GOP put on a full-court press to defeat Tom Daschle in ’04 because, well, because he was the minority leader. Wouldn’t it be sweet to take down McConnell. Mmmm.

  • I wish Bay Buchanan great success in her new job. I think Tom Tancredo would be a great candidate to be the Republican choice for 2008. A perfect, moderate, representative of the party of family values.

    I can’t tell you how much success i wish Bay. Tancredo as the national candidate would guarantee a Democratic landslide in 2008. This guy is a one policy(immigration) wonk who is not respected, forget even known, outside his district or his sick party’s hierarchy.

    This is a twofer. Bay, along with Terry Jeffries, William Donohue, and J.C. Watts, is the most obnoxious commentators on cable with her constant denials of the obvious and their spewing Repug talking points like they are their own, thought out, opinions of the day.

    Good Riddance, and GO TOM, GO! to a November 2008 date.

  • Is that action of Romney’s even legal? I mean, if they are paid staffers, okay, but if these are ‘volunteers’, then I think that the IRS is going to have some questions… (Of course, that would be par for the course for Republicans. As we have seen, they are more than willing to pay massive fines after the fact, as long as they get through the election okay)…

    …And how might this not be seen as paying for votes? I assume that, being College students, they would be mostly over 18, and therefore eligible to vote…

  • Fred has been sitting in for Paul Harvey on his radio show for the last couple of weeks, so his Q factor might be inflated a bit with the over 40 crowd.

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