Friday’s political round-up

April 6, 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:

* Contributing to the growing buzz that senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson (R) is going to run for president, The Politico’s Mike Allen reported that the “Law & Order” star has “moved beyond pondering a bid for the White House and begun assembling the nucleus of a campaign should he decide to run.” Thompson will appear at the annual Lincoln Club of Orange County dinner in Southern California in May, which is considered an important stop for aspiring Republicans.

* Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) continues to drop strong hints that he’s going to go after his GOP presidential rivals’ personal lives. Huckabee told the AP that Republicans not paying attention to the personal lives of their own candidates “would be troubling because that inconsistency would show it really wasn’t about principles. It was about personality, character assassination and politics.”

* Even before his talked about supporting public funding of abortions, Rudy Giuliani’s swing through Iowa this week didn’t generate the excitement his campaign had hoped for. Before a speech at a high school gymnasium, Giuliani aides partitioned the gym, which they’d hoped to fill, in order to make the crowd look bigger. The AP added, “Just before the candidate took the stage, a few in the audience tried to start a ‘Rudy, Rudy, Rudy’ chant. It was a halfhearted effort that died quickly.”

* I’ve been trying very hard to ignore early polling data for the presidential race — it’s just not reliable yet — but a new Hotline/Diageo poll (.pdf) included an interesting result: nationwide, a generic Democratic candidate leads a generic Republican by almost 20 points, 47% to 29%. Obviously, once real names are added, the results change, but it certainly sounds as if Americans are ready for a Democratic president.

* And Mitt Romney continues to struggle after having been caught fibbing about his experience as a hunter. “I’m not a big-game hunter. I’ve made that very clear,” he said. “I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times.”

“I’m not a big-game hunter. I’ve made that very clear,” he said. “I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times.”

My oh my. I saw the Mitt as Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire, ad flashing before my eyes as I read this.

  • I think it shows that Republicans are desparate. They will nominate whoever they think will give them a chance to win and it won’t matter at all what that candidate believes in, so long as their leaders give them the signal that “he’s one of us.”

    Thompson has to raise a lot of money fast if he wants to be a serious candidate, but he still has time to do it.

    If the “haves and the have-mores” decide that he’s the horse to back he’ll explode into the lead. If not, he’ll disappear without a trace. The modern Republican party is about as democratic (small d) as the Parliamentary “rotten-bouroughs” of England in the 18th century.

    Whoever they pick wins the nomination. Period.

  • Has Thompson ever even run for major office? Wasn’t he appointed when Gore bacame Veep?

    I can’t believe the Republican bench is so weak that they are desperately looking to a d-list character actor as savior… “He’s played the President…”

  • I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will.

    So now we know Mitt sets the mousetraps around the Romney household.
    But you just know he makes his wife empty ’em.

    Sorry, Oven Mitt, but being the one to call Critter Control doesn’t count as “hunting.”

  • Republicans eating their own. I’m glad they’ve tossed the 11th Commandment, authored by St. Ronald the Reagan, under the bus. Go to it, GOP scum. This is much more entertaining than the old Wednesday night fights or roller derby or wrasslin’.

  • The Manly Trapper Mitt sets out on his daily rodent hunt at the crack of dawn, while his adorable family still sleeps – safe in the knowledge that the Manly Trapper Mitt will protect them from varmints. He makes sure the dangerous mouse traps are securely set in his pockets and strides purposefully towards the sunrise. You wascally wodents, you don’t know what’s coming to you!

  • The Republican “Big Three” are undermining themselves so quickly and decisively that I think the Dems better start doing their research on Thompson–and every other rumored second-tier guy. I honestly have no idea whom they’re going to nominate at this point.

  • Gee, I wonder where Huckabee could have gotten the impression that the Republican agenda “really wasn’t about principles. It was about personality, character assassination and politics?”

    Too bad for Huckabee that it appears the base likes it that way.

  • “Obviously, once real names are added, the results change, but it certainly sounds as if Americans are ready for a Democratic president.”

    Um, you fudged that quite a bit, didn’t you?

    In fact, the poll shows, when you add in the names that are actually at the top of the race, the GOP candidates beat the Dems. Clinton and Obama are disasters for the election hopes of Dems.

  • Here’s the blurb from Salon:

    “The good news for Democrats: In a recent Diageo/Hotline poll, a generic Democratic presidential candidate beats a generic Republican presidential candidate in 2008 by 18 percentage points.

    “The bad news for Democrats: Generic candidates don’t run for office.

    “In the most recent Time poll, respondents say they’d vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, but that they’d pick John McCain or Rudy Giuliani over either Clinton or Obama. (The poll didn’t include John Edwards in any head-to-head general election matchups.)

    “As an unidentified Democratic consultant tells the Hotline. ‘Our ‘top tier’ candidates may be the only Democrats in existence who can’t win in ’08.'”

    My stomach hurts.

  • Um, you fudged that quite a bit, didn’t you?

    I know what you’re saying, but therein lies the rub with early polling — the electorate just doesn’t know these candidates yet. One-third of Republicans think Giuliani is pro-life. One -fifth of Democrats barely know who Obama is. A significant percentage of the country doesn’t know McCain is a Republican. Candidate-specific polling, nationally, just doesn’t tell us much.

    And that’s why I thought the broader, generic numbers were worthwhile. They show Americans wanting a Democratic president; they just don’t know which one.

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