Thursday’s campaign round-up

January 31, 2008

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:

* California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he expected to stay neutral in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but apparently made a decision after Rudy Giuliani withdrew: “Schwarzenegger will endorse John McCain on Thursday, giving a boost to the Republican presidential front-runner six days before California’s high-prize primary. The two will appear at a news conference after touring a Los Angeles-based solar energy company and the governor will make his endorsement official, his senior aides confirmed.”

* If I didn’t know better, I might think Mitt Romney was effectively giving up. As of today, his campaign concedes that it has purchased exactly zero TV time in Feb. 5 states. Romney spokesperson Kevin Madden wouldn’t even say if the campaign would put any ads on the air, though a campaign official told Greg Sargent this morning that Romney would be on the air, though he/she wouldn’t offer details.

* Hillary Clinton picked up another Senate endorsement yesterday, when Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) threw her support to the New York senator. Clinton now enjoys the support of most of the Democratic establishment in Washington state, which will caucus on Feb. 9, including the state’s other senator, Maria Cantwell.

* The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s New York tabloid, endorsed Obama, despite Murdoch’s financial contributions to the Clinton campaign.

* How serious were the financial difficulties facing the McCain campaign? “McCain ended the year with only $2.95 million cash on hand, and $4.52 million in debts. In short, it appears that McCain is on the verge of clinching the nomination despite the fact that he was broke just before voting began.”

* Speaking of fundraising, the Obama campaign has apparently raised $32 million in January, with an average of more than $1 million a day. That’s pretty extraordinary, given that the candidates were raising that kind of money in a quarter.

* Bob Novak still doesn’t like McCain or believe he’s a real conservative.

* On a related note, Rush Limbaugh blamed McCain’s rise on the party’s “uninspiring” candidates, and a “fractured” party base. “There was no figure in our roster of candidates who rose up to challenge him or galvanize conservative support,” Limbaugh said on his show. “All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse — and so, just as I predicted, the base has fractured.”

* And “Meet the Press” had invited McCain and Romney to appear together for a two-person debate this Sunday. Romney immediately accepted, but McCain declined.

Yes polls are overrated, but Obama broke the 40% barrier in California in a new Rasmussen poll, pulling within 3 %-age points.

http://www.pollster.com/08-CA-Dem-Pres-Primary.php

  • * And “Meet the Press” had invited McCain and Romney to appear together for a two-person debate this Sunday. Romney immediately accepted, but McCain declined.

    That old strategy. Poor Mitt, he can’t guy any more publicity and McCain won’t give him any free.

    I was thinking that McCain does represent the Party of Ideas. His major endorsement in Florida came from Charles Crist aka Chain Gang Charlie. This Rep’s bright idea was reinstituting chain gangs.

  • Hey, Rush… Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be the opposite of “uninspiring.” Fred Thompson “rose up” to “galvanize conservative support.” Neither of them panned out, which is what we were saying all along.

    “All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse.”

    That’s what we’ve been saying for a full year.

    FYI, the governor of one of the Feb 5th states, Sarah Palin of Alaska, says she won’t endorse any Republican until she meets with McCain or Huckabee personally. She didn’t mention Romney; too bad for him.

  • The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s New York tabloid, endorsed Obama, despite Murdoch’s financial contributions to the Clinton campaign.

    Bwahahahahahahaha! A content-free endorsement no less. I didn’t know that Rupert was such a gambler. He must be planning on either a McCain or Obama victory in the fall.

    Rush Limbaugh blamed McCain’s rise on the party’s “uninspiring” candidates, and a “fractured” party base.

    Good ol’ Rush – still spouting innanity. He probably even knows why the candidates are uninspiring and the base is fractured, but he can’t admit that his totally heterosexual man-crush W is responsible for so much damage.

  • Limbaugh said on his show. “All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse — and so, just as I predicted, the base has fractured.”

    By uninspiring he means, none could pierce that hillbilly heroin daze he’s in and cause some slight twitching in his netherparts. It’s not always about policies ya know.

    Who knew that amorphously ignorant base of theirs had the ability to fracture. That’s like the blob being sliced and diced.

  • Can Arnold be a vice presidential nominee? If so, McCain would be smart to select him. Apparently there are many men and some women out there who will vote for Arnold because he is a hero in movies. And besides, the more Arnold is out of California, the better off the state is.

  • “Who knew that amorphously ignorant base of theirs had the ability to fracture. That’s like the blob being sliced and diced.”

    the only problem with both being that by doing so they tend to multiply even faster…

  • “Uninspiring, or worse.”

    I think “worse.”

    Republican campaigns are bizarre at best. In every Republican campaign, candidates have to run away from any liberal tendencies they may have shown in a brief moment of sanity sometime in the past. Is that really what Republican voters are looking for? The candidate who most resembles a Neanderthal? (They say they are looking for the reincarnation of Saint Ronald, but their memory of him as a mythic figure has little basis in reality.)

    The Neanderthal is what Robert Novak is looking for – part of the eternal search for a “true conservative.”

  • “All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse”

    Now there’s a rallying cry.

  • Arnold S. can NOT be a nominee for VP. The VP needs the same qualifications as the President, and Arnold is not a native-born citizen of the US. He is Austrian by birth.

  • Can Arnold be a vice presidential nominee?

    I know you’re joking, but no.

    “But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

    From the 12th amendment to the Constitution. (The one where they changed it to “President and Vice-President chosen separately” instead of “The guy who comes in second gets to be Vice-President”. Which is a really, really good change when you think about it for a little while.)

  • The McCain fiscal crisis sounds a lot like what the Bush fiscal plan has done to the US.

    Unfortunately due to the lending bubble, McCain doesn’t have the luxury of taking out an interest only loan to pay for his campaign.

    Obama raised 32 mil this month, that is not a good sign for McCain.

  • Oh, Hillary. How does the DC establishment keep me running back to you? Let me count the ways:

    1) The Politico

    2) David Broder

    3)THE (“Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:”)

    NEW (“Mrs. Clinton has proven herself an excellent senator, and presumably would make a superior president. Yet … 28 years … two families! That needn’t be decisive, but it’s too important to be ignored.”)

    YORK (“But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.
    As first lady, Alpha Hillary’s abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it.”)

    TIMES (“Billary”)

    EDITORIAL

    BOARD

    5) Maureen Dowd.

  • Maybe Rush and Novak aren’t looking carefully in their “eternal search for a “true” conservative” (thanks Okie@10). Any self respecting godfather from the Mafia would be a good choice. For example, they don’t like taxes, they hate government regulation of their businesses, they’re very creative and competitive in business and like free markets, they believe in social Darwinism, they hate the MSM, they feel a woman’s place is in the home and many are very religious! They’re great conservatives. 😉

  • Wow! McCain got both Sly Stallone and Schwartzeneger. That should pretty much wrap up the cartoon hero vote.

  • Let’s try that again, shall we:(links fixed)

    1) The Politico

    2) David Broder

    3)THE (“Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:”)

    NEW (“Mrs. Clinton has proven herself an excellent senator, and presumably would make a superior president. Yet … 28 years … two families! That needn’t be decisive, but it’s too important to be ignored.”)
    YORK (“But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.
    As first lady, Alpha Hillary’s abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it.”)
    TIMES(“Billary”)

    EDITORIAL

    BOARD

    5) Maureen Dowd.

    Oh… and Joe Klien

  • Arnold cannot be a Vuice-President because he isn’t a native-born citizen, which he would have to be were he to succeed to the Presidency.

    Perhaps, Ms. Flowers, you should re-enroll in Poli Sci 101 – Introduction to American Government – since you obviously slept thought it the first time.

  • Even if you did fail to put on a “snark” Ms. Flowers, my suggestion for further re-education remains.

  • Nonynony, I keep forgetting to write in “snark”.

    Yeah – I could tell you were joking, but I figured I’d answer anyway. ‘Cause I’m a pedantic twit like that (see I even had to look up the relevant text to cite it – pedantic).

    How much longer, methinks, before we see the derailment of “the Ron Paul Revolution”

    Depends – can Paul use the money he’s collected from his fans for anything else besides a Presidential run? I think McCain-Feingold lets money collected for Federal office be used for any Federal office run. So he could call it a wash and use that money in his next Congressional run (or maybe to make a Senate run if he thought he could pull it off).

    It also depends on whether it’s still a contest between McCain and Romney post Super-Tuesday. If so then as long as Paul gets invites to the debates I suspect he’ll stay in the race.

    Plus – there’s always a chance that Paul will pick up some delegates next week. A slim chance, but a chance. I’m doubtful that the GOP base voting on Super Tuesday is any more interested in “Dr. Paul” that the GOP base that has already voted, but the longer he stays in the race the more the libertarian portion of the GOP will come to understand just how unloved and marginal they are to their Party. So I’m actually hoping that he goes all the way.

  • FYI, the governor of one of the Feb 5th states, Sarah Palin of Alaska, says she won’t endorse any Republican until she meets with McCain or Huckabee personally. -Grumpy

    Ah, good ol’ Alaska. A state where it literally pays to be a Republican (oh, and endorse the utter destruction of all the natural beauty of your state).

    Arnold S. can NOT be a nominee for VP. -OFM

    But, I was looking forward to the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library! 🙂

    (Cheney is picked up by the spell check as erroneous, but Schwarzenegger gets through? WTH?)

  • “The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s New York tabloid, endorsed Obama, despite Murdoch’s financial contributions to the Clinton campaign.”

    Another sign of how much the right can’t stand Hillary.

  • It’s not like Romney to walk away after putting so much of his own money into his campaign. What will the Rethug establishment do if McCain nails the delegates on super-duper-Tuesday? Assassinate him? I can’t see the right-wing ideologues accepting McCain. The so-called “movement conservatives” want a fire-breathing neocon, and that isn’t Romney either. Who in their right mind would believe anything Romney says?

  • “Uninspiring or worse” makes me remember the GOP field from 1996, the last contested Republican primary (not counting Dubya’s early destruction of McCain in 2000). Ah, they were a cast of characters. Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Lamar (yawn) Alexander, and Alan Keyes at the height of his powers.

    This year, McCain is obviously the Dole.
    Huckabee is Buchanan, sort of.
    Romney is Forbes.
    Giuliani was Alan Keyes, I guess.

    The point is, Republicans do “uninspiring or worse” every time. In 1996 and now, it was “uninspiring,” whereas in 2000 and 2004, it was “worse.”

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