Tuesday’s political round-up

November 13, 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:

* Fred Thompson’s campaign has been looking for a while for some good news, and yesterday, it got some: “Fred Thompson, the candidate billing himself as the most consistent conservative in the crowded Republican field, has won the presidential endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, GOP officials said Monday. The nod by the prominent anti-abortion group could boost the former Tennessee senator’s lackluster campaign.” Thompson told reporters the endorsement is just logical: “I’ve had a 100 percent pro-life voting record in the United States Senate. And I think they know that, and that’s the way I would govern if I was president.”

* WSJ: “Democrat John Edwards’s presidential campaign released Sunday an 80-page ‘Plan to Build One America’ booklet detailing a broad swath of policy proposals he has promised to put in place as president. The campaign said they will deliver 100,000 copies to Iowa households before the Jan. 3 caucuses – now only 52 days away.” In a subtle dig at Hillary Clinton, Edwards told the AP that he’s willing to put his priorities in print, and accept the scrutiny that comes with it. “I’m not afraid to stand here and answer your questions, and to tell you where I stand,” he said.

* WaPo: “Even as the Democratic primary fight enters the final stretch, plans are proceeding apace among party strategists to build an independent money machine that will rival or eclipse what they created in 2004, when donors poured millions into two key outside-the-party organizations — America Coming Together and the Media Fund. Tom Matzzie has been hired to run a new organization for 2008, which he has described in an e-mail as a $100 million-plus venture organized around ‘issues and character.’ Matzzie is leaving his post as the Washington director of Moveon.org to take the job.”

* The latest in the “gender card” discussion: “It’s a Southern thing, not a gender thing. That was the explanation from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign for a new remark by former President Bill Clinton, who had this to say yesterday about his wife’s (all-male) presidential rivals: ‘Those boys have been getting tough on her lately.'”

* It seems hard to believe, especially in mid-November, but Mitt Romney has already spent $10.2 million on television advertising this year, a record amount at this point in a presidential campaign. On average, he’s spending $85,000 a day on TV commercials, including $600,000 just in the last week. For context, the next closest Republican is John McCain, who’s aired more than $300,000 worth of campaign ads (about 2% of Romney’s total).

* Apparently, Rudy Giuliani is serious about competing for the nomination after blowing off the first three contests. He was supposed to appear in South Carolina yesterday for a fundraiser and the opening of his upstate headquarters. He blew off both events, preferring to campaign in Missouri (a Feb. 5 primary state). Noted one S.C. supporter, “If you can’t make it to your own fundraiser, I’ll be damned if I can depend on him as a president.”

* Speaking of Giuliani, Bernie Kerik’s felony trial isn’t just dogging him now; it’s likely to keep dogging him as the campaign unfolds: “[L]awyers have announced that the first pretrial hearing in Kerik’s case will be Jan. 16 – smack in the middle of the most critical primary stretch. That’s 13 days after voting begins in Iowa, three days before the South Carolina primary and less than three weeks before 21 states go to the polls on Feb. 5 – a day Team Giuliani considers vital to success. ‘If Kerik went away tomorrow, he wouldn’t be such a huge problem,’ said Republican consultant Dan Schnur.”

* Provocative idea of the day: CQ’s Craig Crawford suggests John Edwards is so opposed to Clinton’s campaign that if he loses in Iowa, he might drop out and endorse Obama.

* And John McCain has apparently decided to milk the Woodstock earmark for all it’s worth.

It’s a Southern thing — boy — and a detestable appellation. I’ve heard many Southern men use it, particularly for people they believe they’re superior to, and not just African-Americans. It’s meant to be patronizing and demeaning, said with familiarity and a smile.

  • Those boys have been getting tough on her lately.

    A southern thang? Not gender? Sigh.

    That is blatantly dishonest. They are sending out one signal through supporters (including Slick Willy Swiftboat, now) and letting Hillary deny it. The deniability becomes much less plausible when it’s your husband.

    It’s nothing more than an meritless attempt to persuade women voters.

    Shameful.

    What if Michelle Obama said the white boys (and girl) were being to tough on her spouse?

  • “Fred Thompson, the candidate billing himself as the most consistent conservative in the crowded Republican field, has won the presidential endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, GOP officials said Monday.

    Thompson staffers confirmed their candidate’s excitement at the NRLC endorsement: “Fred has a special little snore that shows he’s excited,” said one, “And he was snoring his ‘I’m excited snore’ the whole day.”

  • Fred Thompson’s campaign has been looking for a while for some good news, and yesterday, it got some: “Fred Thompson, the candidate billing himself as the most consistent conservative in the crowded Republican field, has won the presidential endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, GOP officials said Monday. The nod by the prominent anti-abortion group could boost the former Tennessee senator’s lackluster campaign.” Thompson told reporters the endorsement is just logical: “I’ve had a 100 percent pro-life voting record in the United States Senate. And I think they know that, and that’s the way I would govern if I was president.”

    Uh-oh, Republicans, I think this is your guy. Mitt Romney and Giuliani are too divisive. Think about it, Republicans.

  • I seriously doubt that Bill’s remark was a gender-card dog whistle. But in case Mr Clinton is too stupid to realize it, “those boys” have been getting tough on Hillary lately because she’s in total disagreement with the Democratic party on a number of very critical issues, and we progressives feel like we’d like a REAL Democrat, not people who feel comfortable sitting down with ratfuckers like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Scaife.

    http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/bill_clinton_talks_to_a_right.php

    Sorry, Bill. Your wife sucks compared to the alternatives. And if we had a truly progressive woman in the race she’d be tough on Hillary too.

  • Southerners don’t say ‘boy’ just to people they don’t like. They say it to their friends, too, like in the saying ‘good ol’ boys.’ I don’t think Bill used to word ‘boys’ to be disrespectful, it was just slangy and familiar. I know that in the past whites in the south referred to blacks as if they were juveniles, but it depends on context and everything whether it’s disrespectful or not. Similarly, black guys call friends their ‘boys,’ and a lot of black English is descended from Southern English.

  • ‘If Kerik went away tomorrow, he wouldn’t be such a huge problem.”

    Watch your back, Bernie.

  • The Irish also (at least used to) refers to equals and to younger males as ‘me boy’ etc. The Southernism and black Englishism probably both come from the Irishism, since there was a great amount of immigration of Ulster Irish and Ulster Scotch-Irish to Appalachia, and beyond, during the early 1800s, and this had a great influence on Southern folk culture (including, for one thing, the roots of rock ‘n’ roll). Incidentally, a great many great Americans are descended from this great wave of immigration, including Pat Tillman, John Wayne, George S. Patton, and Andrew Jackson.

  • ‘Those boys have been getting tough on her lately.’ – Bill Clinton

    Mrs. Clinton at one point referred to the presidency as an “all-boys club,” but also argued that she was a target because she was the front-runner, not because she is a woman.

    Seems like Hillary is playing the gender card and attacking at the same time. Expected from a career politician and lawyer. If she has trouble answering questions like these I certainly don’t want to see her in the white house.

    Also funny how the focus is on Bill’s comment, instead of hers.

  • Them boys are getting tough on his little lady? Whether he was using the gender card or not, it was an offensive thing to say, especially coming from a Southerner. As Anney, @1, pointed out, saying “boy” about a grown man is equivalent of “taking him down a peg”, “down South heah”. And when one of those “boys” — and the little lady’s most serious rival in the horse race — is *black*… Absolutely inexcusable. And, coming from someone as fly as Bill C and as able to use the language effectively, it had to be intentional, not accidental.

  • What about the Dukes of Hazard, where the narrator keeps referring to the Duke boys as, uh, ‘the Duke boys’?

    This idea that in the south ‘boy’ is only an insult is totally, completely innacvurate. Bill works in Harlem, and if “boy” (???) was a slur, he would stay away from it, and we would all know for certain that it’s a slur long before now, instead of the bizarre guesstimating that is going on in this thread. I cannot believe some of you people and how low and stupid you sink. Whether some man is insulted by being called ‘boy’ is an individual situation to be judges individually. It’s no more per se an insult that all the times a woman’s friends have called her ‘girl’ are meant to be an insult. Get off it, people.

  • Swan

    I am Southern born and bred, and know that when Southerners use the appellation, “boy”, it’s dominance-talk. You’re right that it may be said to friends without offense, but only if they are permitted or care to respond casually or insultingly in kind.

    But it’s also said to people who aren’t friends and can’t or don’t wish to respond similarly. In either case, it’s saying something about the speaker’s attitude toward the recipient of the name. The only leveller is to respond in kind without social approbation, and I doubt if Bill or Hillary Clinton would indulge in an undignified exchange “Hey, you boy” or “Hey, you girl” with others.

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