Friday’s political round-up

January 19, 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:

* Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) probably expects to suffer politically a bit for his support of Bush’s policies in Iraq, but probably not this much. A new LA Times poll shows that more than a third of Americans (36%) said they would be “much less likely” to back McCain’s presidential campaign because of support for escalation. Among independents, the number is 43%.

* Rumor has it that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is gearing up to announce his second presidential campaign sometime in the next few weeks. Yesterday, Kerry sounded a little defensive about the 2004 race: “Look, we won the nomination, and we came damn close to winning, and people better go back and check the history books as to how hard it is to beat a sitting president in a time of war. The mood has changed like night and day from when I was running in ’04 to where we are now. If it had been two months later, three months later, you’d have had a very different mood.”

* For what it’s worth (at this point, only a little), Zogby has new polls out of Iowa and New Hampshire for both sides’ presidential aspirants. In Iowa, Edwards leads the Dem field with 27%, followed by Obama (17%), Clinton (16%), and Vilsack (16%). On the other side of the aisle, Giuliani is on top with 19%, followed by McCain with 17%. In New Hampshire, Obama leads with 23%, followed by Clinton (19%) and Edwards (19%). McCain leads the Republican field with 26%, followed by Giuliani (20%), and Romney (13%).

* Speaking of Giuliani, Stu Rothenberg, a prominent non-partisan election analyst, argued yesterday that the former New York City mayor is wasting his time and can’t win the GOP nomination: “Giuliani’s strong showing in GOP polling reflects his celebrity status and the reputation he earned after the terrorist attacks. But if and when he becomes a candidate, that will change. He will be evaluated on the basis of different things, including his past and current positions and behavior, and he’ll be attacked by critics and opponents. A Giuliani nomination would also generate a conservative third-party candidate in the general election and tear the GOP apart, thereby undercutting Giuliani’s electability argument.”

* And when Republican National Committee members meet today to pick their new RNC chairman, they’ll vote by secret ballot, which, as the far-right Washington Times noted, “would protect members opposed to the White House’s push to fill the new slot with an advocate of an amnesty for illegal aliens.” I’ll be keeping an eye out for the results.

A Giuliani nomination would also generate a conservative third-party candidate in the general election and tear the GOP apart, thereby undercutting Giuliani’s electability argument.

Oh please please please please let it be Giuliani…..

  • “Kerry sounded a little defensive about the 2004 race…”

    Kerry is right in saying that the mood has changed dramatically since 04. What was treasonous to say back then is now the majority public opinion, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that he ran a lousy campaign. He’s also correct that it’s tough to beat a wartime president — except that in this case, the president was extremely vulnerable.

    I can’t help thinking that the public remembers his weaknesses more than his strengths from that campaign. And there’s not much he can say now that other Dems can’t say.

  • I agree with Beep52 that “I can’t help thinking that the public remembers his weaknesses more than his strengths from that campaign. And there’s not much he can say now that other Dems can’t say.”

    That said, I would sure as hell be happier with someone whose positions you could rely on, like Kerry, than a “weather-vane” like Hillary Clinton whose only core belief is a desire for power. That makes it really good to see she loses to either Edwards or Obama. My ideal candidacy in 2008: Edwards/Obama – we get 8 years of Edwards followed by 8 years of Obama and by that point I’ll have reached what appears to be the “natural lifespan” of Cleaver males and can die happy that the Right was destroyed.

  • A Giuliani nomination would also generate a conservative third-party candidate in the general election and tear the GOP apart…

    A boy can hope, right? This would be glorious.

    Edwards/Obama
    Clark/Obama
    Obama/Clark
    Edwads/Clark

    any of those options look good to me, especially for the next 16 years!

  • I saw Vilsack on The Daily Show and he came across surprisingly well, I thought. I’m not sure if he can get all the way to president in one jump but he seemed like a good, intelligent, level-headed guy with a little twinkle of humor about him. Hopefully he can find a niche at the federal level even if he doesn’t make it to the big dance in ’08.

    And isn’t it funny that Jon Stewart’s desk has become the prime forum for candidates on both sides to get some major public exposure? 😉

  • “If it had been two months later, three months later, you’d have had a very different mood.”

    That’s true, but not very relevant. George Bush’s popularity was in the dumps for most of 2004, too, and only a massive publicity offensive (i.e. his re-election campaign) managed to get him 51% support, timed to coincide with election day. My point is, the “mood” is not independent of what Bush & Co. do to influence it — though sometimes, as now, they are powerless to change it.

    In a way, this works against Kerry. Why was he unable to convince a majority of Americans that George Bush was a Harriet-appointing, Katrina-ignoring, warrantless-wiretapping doofus before Bush won a second term?

  • Tom’s point indirectly gets to my biggest fear about what strike me as the essential vanity candidacies of Kerry, Dodd, Biden, and others.

    Much as many of us detest Hillary as Our Lady of Perpetual Triangulation, her celebrity power and massive bank all but assures her of hanging in at least through the first few primaries. I guess it’s possible that Edwards will beat her in Iowa and Nevada (where his union backing will help), that Obama’s post-partisan message will play in NH and that “Mrs. Clinton” (her new persona as I see it, with echoes of Ladyballs Thatcher) will shrivel as a contender by mid-February 2008.

    But I see it as at least equally possible that she wins all the early primaries, albeit with 28-35 percent, the money dries up for the other contenders, and her margins start to get bigger, until there’s only one alternative still standing–maybe a darkhorse like Clark, who’s my first choice right now–that she can get past. Then on to the nomination, which demoralizes real progressives while inspiring the right-wingers and right-leaning moderates alike to forget how awful the current Republican presidency has been. Then she either wins and we’re set up for another four years of zero-sum partisan bullshit while the real problems fester and deepen, or she loses and we get another Republican beholden to the Zombie Army.

    Stopping Hillary, in other words, should be the top priority for progressives. And the more distraction campaigns there are in the field, the harder it gets to focus on that vital task.

  • Someone needs to remind Kerry that he had an easy road to the nomination in 2004 – netroots love for Dr Dean notwithstanding, it’s not like there were any rockstars running, which will be different in 2008.

    In my opinion, the nomination should be Al Gore’s for the asking, should he want it.

    Other than that my money is Richardson/Edwards or Richardson/Clark

    As for the “next 16 years” thing – I’m trying to think of a time in US history when we had a 2 term President succeeded by his Vice President for 2 years – hasn’t happened. The times when a President has been succeeded by his Vice President being elected in his own right have been few and far between as it is.

  • “Stopping Hillary, in other words, should be the top priority for progressives. And the more distraction campaigns there are in the field, the harder it gets to focus on that vital task.” – dajafi

    I respectfully disagree, my comrade. The top priority for progressives, and indeed for all sentient life forms, is to remove and dismantle the Republican terror machine from power as completely as possible, starting with electing a Democrat as president in 2008.

    Hillary is not my favorite candidate, not even among the top five in my preference list. But if she becomes the nominee I will vote for her because the alternative would be too horrible to contemplate.

    Our focus should be to nominate the best candidate we can, a positive goal, not a negative one in targeting a specific individual for destruction. If we start tearing ourselves apart in internecine warfare the only ones who will benefit will be the Republicans, while all other life forms will suffer.

  • Curmudgeon, I’d say that you’re wise beyond your years, but if your name is descriptive, those years might be considerable. Either way, you’re correct.

    The problem I see is that the only way the Republicans win the presidency in 2008 is if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton. And even if she does win, her reputation is such that it’s hard to imagine our down-ballot candidates–including a lot of now-freshmen in the House whom recently political history suggests that if they can win next time, should have relatively little trouble thereafter–faring particularly well. They’d likely have to run away from the top of the ticket, which isn’t generally a good sign.

    I might add that while I don’t view myself as particularly ideological–if Bloomberg ran as an independent, I’d be sorely tempted to support him–I don’t think it’s helpful to the Democratic brand when you run a candidate like Hillary who is forever trying to convince the world that she isn’t the lefty caricature of Rush Limbaugh’s fervid rantings.

    The dynamic I see of a Hillary candidacy, then, is the candidate desperately trying to assure the electorate (or really, the Old Media whom retrograde Dems see as a proxy for same) that she’s a moderate–while those of us who want something a little more honorable are discouraged, those who hate all things Clinton are energized, and every other Democrat on the ballot outside of deep Blue territory runs at least somewhat scared. This is not the way to crush the lethal strain of mutant Republicanism that we agree is the real problem.

  • Actually I like to think of myself as more of a “Curmudgeon-in-training, or “Curmudgeonette”, if you will. But it sounds better than “Old Cranky Pants” so I just kind of go with it. 🙂

  • Kerry still has my vote — though I would prefer Gore.

    EITHER are the TOP TIER, not as Kos pretends Obama, H. Clinton, Edwards. The difference in experience is dramatic and obvious.

    Kerry, btw, WON in 2004 — and if people in the public remember ‘his weakness’ what they really ‘remember’ is the spin and lies of the Muffled Media (with help from the leftist press).

    Kerry was the most active Senator in the run up to 2006’s wins, campaigning tirelessly. How much of that campaigning was on TV? NONE.

    That’s because they would LOVE for us to run a woman or a black with more camera cred than government experience.

    No thanks. My picks are Gore, if not him, Kerry, if not him, Dean. None of the egotists in the lower tier need apply.

    We need our MOST experienced candidates, not the ones that the Muffled Media would love to mock.

    • Kerry outed the PNAC and the permanent airbases scheme before 60 million Americans in 2004’s first debate.

    How come Democracy Now! didn’t report that stunning piece of work? Could it be that they don’t want to report information that counters their D=R myth?

    • Comments are closed.