Friday’s political round-up

December 14, 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 CNN/Opinion Research poll in South Carolina shows Mike Huckabee surging ahead, after trailing for months. According to the numbers, released this morning, Huckabee leads the GOP field with 24%, up from just 3% in July. Fred Thompson was second with 17%, followed by Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, who are each at 16%. John McCain, who was leading in South Carolina over the summer, has dropped to fifth with 13%.

* The same CNN/Opinion Research poll shows Hillary Clinton out in front with 42%, followed by Barack Obama with 34%, and John Edwards with 16%. (No other Dem topped 3%.) Obama has cut Clinton’s lead thanks to increased support from African-American voters, who had been leaning in Clinton’s direction.

* In New Hampshire, a Research 2000 poll conducted for the Concord Monitor shows Obama edging past Clinton, 32% to 31%. Edwards is third with 18%. The poll added an interesting detail: Clinton still leads by a fair margin among traditional Dems, but Obama has a slight lead thanks to support from independents.

* The same poll on the GOP side shows Mitt Romney holding onto his comfortable lead with 31% support, followed by Rudy Giuliani at 18%, and John McCain at 17%.

* Huckabee hasn’t gotten much love from the Republican establishment, which is why it was slightly unexpected yesterday when insider Ed Rollins announced he will serve as the national chairman of Huckabee’s campaign. Huckabee seems pleased, but he may want to reconsider.

* Clinton got a very nice boost in Iowa this morning, when Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) announced his support for the New York senator. Boswell is the longest-serving Democrat in Iowa’ House delegation.

* Apparently, rank-and-file members of the Minutemen are quite unhappy about Jim Gilchrist’s support for Mike Huckabee. Yesterday, the organization Gilchrist founded issued a “special message” to members with this headline: “Real Minutemen Do Not Endorse Huckabee.”

* I won’t pretend to fully understand the legal intricacies of Iowa’s caucus rules, but the flap over whether college students who go to school in Iowa can participate on Jan. 3 remains a big deal. According to a report from Ben Adler, “Many youth activists are furious with the campaigns of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) for suggesting that college students who did not grow up in Iowa should not caucus there in January — and they are delivering that message both publicly and privately.” (Update: The Dodd campaign has a statement on this, which reads in part, “We welcome the participation of Iowa students in the process.”)

* On a related note, Obama is reaching out to Iowa youths with what McClatchy describes as “an unmatched network throughout Iowa’s high schools. His campaign Web site lists 144 Iowa high schools with Obama student groups. That’s 40 percent of the state’s public high schools, and it translates to thousands of teens who say they’re committed to caucusing for Obama.”

* How bad was the Republicans’ presidential debate in Iowa on Wednesday? So bad that Iowa Republicans are now considering hosting one more forum before the caucuses, possibly between Christmas and New Years. “We’d prefer if the Register debate did not leave a bad taste,” said one insider. “Iowa deserves a little better than that.”

* Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) got a little confused yesterday. After describing Giuliani’s types of judicial appointees, Perry said, “The issue becomes very, very clear to me from the standpoint of who I want to support. And it is Mike Huckabee.” Quickly realizing that he’s already endorsed Giuliani, Perry added, “And then it goes to the next level, which is who do we have who is the most electable of our candidates, and I think without a doubt it’s Rudy Giuliani.”

* If you haven’t seen it already, this video about Huckabee’s Wayne Dumond controversy is pretty devastating.

* Much to my dismay, former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore (D) has decided not to run for Trent Lott’s vacant Senate seat.

* And finally, just for you Ron Paul fans out there — you know who you are — Carpetbagger regular Zeitgeist alerted me yesterday to “Hotties 4 Paul,” a pin-up calendar created to raise money for the quirky Texas Republican/libertarian.

The SC polling is really strange. I think it must be CNN that pushes “leaners” to choose–the numbers for all candidates are much higher in some than others.

I think if Obama wins either of the first two, he wins SC. If he loses them both, he’s probably sunk anyway, though there could be a scenario in which Edwards wins Iowa, Clinton narrowly wins NH, Obama finishes second in both and then rallies in the Palmetto State. It’s probably just that I can’t imagine the first state to secede and the people who gave us Bush over McCain in 2000 doing anything politically constructive…

  • That video about Huckabee IS devastating, and I already know that it’s accurate, but it makes me uncomfortable when something that negative (even when true) is published anonymously.

    Call me cynical, but knowing the identity of the speaker and his motives is extremely important as I evaluate a TV commercial or a video like this.

  • Carpetbagger regular Zeitgeist alerted me yesterday to “Hotties 4 Paul,” a pin-up calendar created to raise money for the quirky Texas Republican/libertarian.

    Oh, well then I’m for Ron Paul. If there is a groupie scene, then maybe I have to reconsider what this guy is all about.

    Just kidding, at R.P.’s expense.

  • Desperation in action: Governor “Good hair” Perry throws his bestest buddy Bush under the bus, saying that Bush has “never ever been a fiscal conservative”:

    http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/12/14/1214perry.html

    Texas Gov. Rick Perry aired unusually pointed criticism of President Bush while stumping in Iowa for Rudy Giuliani for president last week. Perry predicted too that if Democrats prevail next year, the war on terrorism will return to U.S. soil.

    Video posted online shows Perry saying that Bush failed to rein in spending increases as governor of Texas and “has never ever been a fiscal conservative.” He also said Washington isn’t working.

    And although Giuliani would keep up the war on terrorism, Perry said, “if we elect the Democrats across the board, the war on terror is not going away. It’s just going to have to happen here. And I want the war, and I want the conflict, to be over there in their country. I want to stop it over there before they get back over here.”

    Of course this is a little surprising to everyone, since Perry has been Bush’s cheerleader forever. And this moron, who apparently was either lying before about Bush’s fiscal conservatism (or is now) he’s now shrieking that if we elect a Democrat the terrorists are going to come here and kill all our chilluns!!!

  • Given that Bush has cut funding for Homeland Security in our most vulnerable cities, I won’t be surprised if we do have another attack. The Dems will be blamed, of course. The terrorists really would prefer having a nutjob as US president. Makes recruitment easier.

  • In Washington today, President Bush predictably decried the conclusion of the Mitchell report, proclaiming “steroids have sullied the game.” Even less surprising is Bush’s call to put the steroid scandal “behind us.” George W. Bush, after all, was the managing partner of the major league baseball’s Texas Rangers, a team that featured many prominent abusers of performance-enhancing drugs, including his good friend Rafael Palmeiro.

    For the details, see:
    “Bush Plays Dumb on Mitchell Report, Own MLB Steroid Role.”

  • I hate to admit it, but that ad is exhibit 1 in why I want Huckabee to win the GOP nomination. It will devastate him in a general election. And it will devastate him with essentially no out-of-pocket $ from the Dem nominee. I don’t feel great about that given the demagogic nature of the ad and its vicious negative tone, but if that’s what it takes to guarantee a Dem in the white house and thus restoration of our cherished civil liberties, then that’s a bitter pill I’m willing to swallow.

  • I went to school in Iowa and I caucused there. Of course, I had already registered to vote in Iowa but there was never any question that college students could go to the caucus.

    I don’t see how what college students do can even be open to debate????

  • George Mitchell’s report — and the reactions to it — caused me to wonder how professional baseball might be different if Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul withdrew from the race for the White House and replaced Bud Selig as commissioner of baseball. Yes, What if Ron Paul was Commissioner of Baseball? > After all, he is against the War on Drugs. ???

  • Aside here. An interesting John Dean take on what could happen in consequence of the CIA’s destruction of those torture tapes:

    How An ACLU Lawsuit Might Force the Bush Administration To Reveal What Actually Happened

    ….There are three court orders that may have been violated, but one in particular strikes me as a very serious problem for the CIA. Accordingly, we may well be in the unique situation in which a pending civil lawsuit might flush out some answers, and the federal judiciary might thus embarrass the other branches into actually taking meaningful action. I say “might” because the Bush Administration thinks nothing of stiffing federal court judges who seek information, and they probably figure they can tap-dance for the federal judiciary – along with all the other inquiries — until they are out of Washington on January 20, 2009.

    Nevertheless, the situation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the American Civil Liberties Union, could well force the Bush Administration’s hand. An order holding the CIA in contempt of court might get the Administration’s attention.

    The ACLU’s Lawsuit, and the Order that the CIA Produce Documents

    When word of mistreatment of detainees surfaced, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request targeting the CIA and others on October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004, seeking records concerning the treatment of all detainees apprehended after September 11, 2001 and held in U.S. custody abroad. This, of course, would mean not only in Guantanamo but in the secret prisons in Eastern Europe operated by the CIA.

    Not surprisingly, the government stiffed the request, so the ACLU filed a lawsuit in June 2004 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case ended up in the courtroom of Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein. On September 15, 2004, Judge Hellerstein ordered the CIA and other government departments to “produce or identify” all responsive documents by October 15, 2004.

    The CIA claimed that some of the relevant documents were the subject of an inquiry by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General, so its attorneys requested a stay of the judge’s order and an extension of time to comply with the request for other documents. In February 2005, Judge Hellerstein denied the CIA’s request for a stay, but he did not enforce the stay immediately when the CIA moved for the judge to reconsider his ruling based on additional evidence from the CIA’s Director – as the CIA entered a full-court press to prevent the ACLU from getting anything.
    Column continues below ↓

    This stalling action had been playing out, when news of the destruction of the tapes became public. Now, in the action before Judge Hellerstein, he ACLU has moved to hold the CIA in contempt of court, based on the Judge’s September 15, 2004 ruling. It is difficult to see why the CIA is, in fact, not in contempt, given the nature of the FOIA request and the judge’s order.

    Motion to Hold the CIA In Contempt

    On December 6, The New York Times reported that the CIA had destroyed two videotapes of CIA detainees who were being subjected to “aggressive interrogation techniques” – more commonly called torture. The Washington Post soon reported that the destruction of the tapes had occurred in November 2005. CIA Director Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged that destruction, and soon confirmed this statement under oath in testimony to the House and Senate, saying that the destruction had occurred before he became Director.

    Passing over who did what and why to focus on the situation in Judge Hellerstein’s courtroom, on December 12, of this year the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt of court. The ACLU makes a powerful case that the CIA violated Judge Hellerstein’s order of September 15, 2005 – issued before the CIA’s apparent destruction of the tapes.

    The Court’s Order required the CIA to “produce or identify all responsive documents.” Those not produced had to be identified. Classified documents were to be “identified in camera [that is, only to the court] on a log produced to the court.” Recall, too, that the FOIA request sought information on the handling of all but a few detainees, who were within the United States.

    It is well- and long-established law that a court order of this nature requires that the party preserve all information possessed that is responsive to the request. Thus, the CIA was obligated to preserve the tapes even if they were hell-bent on fighting in court to deny them to the ACLU. And as this litigation proceeded, Judge Hellerstein’s later orders only served to reinforce that obligation, as a string of precedents makes clear.

    What Is Next?

    In addition to holding the CIA in contempt for destroying tapes that were subject to an FOIA request that surely reached these videos, the ACLU has also requested that the CIA provide some public disclosure of the facts surrounding the destruction of this material. In addition, the ACLU has requested permission to take depositions of those involved, under oath, and has requested that the court issue a further order barring the CIA from destroying, removing, or tampering with other records that are the subject of the ACLU’s FOIA request. Finally, the ACLU is seeking costs for its expenses and such other relief as the Court may deem appropriate.

    How this is resolved depends on one factor: Judge Hellerstein. Doubtless, the CIA will respond with papers proclaiming its innocence, and no doubt denying that it was aware of the destruction. However, this is where the Judge himself – if he does not give the ACLU discovery powers – may demand that the CIA tell him what they have been up to, given his clear prior orders.

    As I have written before, judges appointed by Republican presidents tend to throw cases that might embarrass Republican presidents out of their court, as quickly as they can figure out how to do so. Federal judges appointed by Democratic presidents, fortunately, do not tend to cower when either Republican or Democratic presidents are involved. A judge ends up with a case like this through a random selection procedure; in this case, the CIA happened to draw a Judge it cannot intimidate, which makes it interesting.

    (The rest at the link)

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