Thursday, August 12 2004
THE BANDWAGON & 2008: Here's some good news for President Bush: the LA Times reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger has changed his mind and "may" campaign for Bush outside of California. If he does, the local and national publicity Arnold will generate for Bush will literally blot out the sun - and that includes anything Kerry and Edwards do in the days leading up to the RNC.

On the other coast, Jennifer Steinhauer has a piece in today's NY Times looking at Rudy Giuliani's contribution to the Bush campaign and his upcoming speech at the convention. The most interesting part of the article focuses on Giuliani's future political ambitions which - in addition to his being rumored as a possible replacement to Dick Cheney this year - includes a possible run at President in 2008.

Giuliani has been all over the country doing favors for the GOP in the last three years. As Republican consultant Kieran Mahoney says in the Times article:

"It is not always evident when you are going to make a withdrawal from the favor bank of politics, but it is always obvious when you are making a deposit."

Rudy's account is bulging. It sounds crazy, but we could get a chance to see the Giuliani-Clinton match-up that was so eagerly anticipated in 2000 - except this time it could be for all the marbles.

Lastly, I've been a bit surprised by the effort John McCain has put in on President Bush's behalf on the campaign trail recently. After all, supposedly the two men aren't that close, and McCain has repeatedly been a thorn in Bush's side during his first term.

One thing McCain has never been accused of is being camera shy, and maybe that is what's behind this blitz. Or maybe he truly feels Bush is the right man for the job and America can't afford to have John Kerry in the White House.

Or......maybe McCain is himself thinking ahead to 2008. He doesn't have a realistic chance of winning the White House as an Independent. But by campaigning so hard for Bush he might, like Giuliani, be able to win his way back into the good graces of - or at least become tolerable to- the conservative wing of the party and put himself in a position to win the GOP nomination in 2008.

THE ALAN KEYES PROJECT - PART TWO: Congratulations to Alan Keyes. He made big headlines for the second day in a row- but he had to sing "Over the Rainbow" to do it.

Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg frets over Keyes candidacy and Mike Murphy doesn't mince words responding to critics of his recent piece deriding the choice of Keyes:

"I thought the Keyes weakness is painfully obvious, but here goes: The job of a political candidate is to attract people to a party's political philosophy and bring victory to the party on Election Day. In two U.S. Senate races and two presidential campaigns, Alan Keyes has done the exact opposite: shown a great ability to stampede voters away from his candidacy like a herd of panicking animals fleeing a huge volcanic eruption. Even Keyes' cable TV chat show, with its unforgettably Orwellian title, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense was abruptly cancelled for low ratings. When voters listen to a successful candidate they get a strong feeling that this person can do the job and make life better. When voters listen to Alan Keyes, they get the perception, "wow, this guy is stone cold nuts" and they run home to hide their children. We Republicans are the free market party, so look to Keyes's prior history in elections and trust the market."

It probably doesn't help the cause when fellow Republicans - but especially popular former Republican Governors from Illinois - decide to go on record saying Keyes makes them "uncomfortable."

So what exactly is the strategy here? Everyone - including Keyes - knows he's not going to win. One reader emailed with the suggestion that Keyes was brought in because the election cycle in this race is now terribly short and the Illinois GOP needed a "big gun" with serious name recognition to try and make the race competitive quickly. But it ain't competitive, nor is it going to be.

I'd submit the more likely strategy is that the Illinois Republican party (possibly with the backing of national party) didn't want a "big gun" to make the race competitive so much as they wanted a "hit man" who would take Obama out to the rhetorical woodshed and rough him up a bit. Alan Keyes fits that bill to a tee. His job isn't to win more votes than Obama, it's to take as much shine off of Obama's rising star as possible in the next 11 weeks. - T. Bevan 11:25 am Link | Email | Send to a Friend