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 | Insults, apologies fuel Obama's rise | |
| Politics freezes regulatory boards | |
| RNC scolds Tenn. GOP on 'Hussein' | |
| Bloomberg says he won't run | |
| Capital mourns conservative icon | |
| The PM Line | |
| Ode to 41 | |
| Endorsement Wars | |
| Nat'l Tracking Poll: Obama +5 | |
| General Election Preview? |
| White Men Seen All Wrong | |
| McCain in A Glass House | |
| 'Experience' Issue Won't Beat Obama -- McCain Needs 'Vision' | |
| Political Tectonics in Texas Should Worry GOP | |
| Is the Terror Threat Overrated? |
| How to Keep Reagan Out of Office | |
| There's a Democrat Behind Doors 1, 2, and 3 | |
| The GOP Votes for Safety | |
| Why McCain Can Tap into the Jewish Vote | |
| Identity & Ideology Divide the Parties |
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January 29, 2008
Only Hillary Can Reunite Republican Party
By Jack KellyIn a small indication of poor judgment, Sen. John McCain's operatives provided a link on his campaign Web site to the New York Times editorial endorsing Sen. McCain in the New York primary Feb. 5.
The endorsement got more attention than it otherwise would because MSNBC's Brian Williams, one of the moderators of the GOP debate in Florida last Thursday, threw it in the face of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The editorial had consisted mostly of the editorial board explaining why they think Mr. Giuliani is an evil mean nasty rotten guy. Mr. Williams wanted to know: how does the mayor respond to such withering criticism from his home town paper?
Mr. Giuliani's eyes lit up like Babe Ruth's used to when he saw a hanging curve spinning in his wheelhouse. Rudy knew, as Brian Williams evidently did not, that for the vast majority of Republicans, to be endorsed by the New York Times is like being endorsed by Satan.
What is curious is that Sen. McCain would consider the endorsement of value to him in a GOP primary fight. The Arizonan has yet to win a plurality of Republican voters in any primary or caucus. (Independents put him over the top in New Hampshire and South Carolina.) In Florida, and in most of the primaries to come, only Republicans will be permitted to vote. Reminding suspicious conservatives that he's the favorite Republican of limousine liberals doesn't seem to me to be the best way for Sen. McCain to win them over.
Most observers thought that debate was won by former Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but Mr. Romney handed back whatever advantage he might have won with some clumsiness of his own.
Mr. Romney received a modest bump in the polls immediately after the debate, but it dissipated when Florida's popular governor, Charlie Crist, and Sen. Mel Martinez, popular with Cuban-Americans, endorsed Sen. McCain. Both likely would have remained neutral were it not for the heavy handed tactics of Mr. Romney's operatives, said the American Spectator's "Prowler."
The Prowler reported Monday he'd been told by a consultant who's worked for both Gov. Crist and Sen. Martinez that: "It finally got to the point for the both of them that they just got fed up with the constant harassment. They weren't going to endorse Romney, and under the right circumstances, one or both of them might have chosen to sit the primary out, but the Romney people just made it intolerable."
Aggressive, obnoxious stupidity. None of the other candidates like Mitt Romney. This is an indication why.
Rudy Giuliani may not be a favorite of the New York Times, but former Sen. Fred Thompson, the first major dropout in the GOP race, has got to be very fond of him. Thanks to Rudy, Sen. Thompson can no longer be said to have run the worst campaign in modern history.
There was enormous excitement among conservatives last Spring when Fred hinted he might get into the race. But he frittered it away by dilly dallying about formally becoming a candidate, shaking up his campaign team several times, and then campaigning with all the energy of a snake on a hot rock.
But the woes of the Thompson campaign pale into insignificance compared to the shortcomings of the Giuliani campaign. Whether he throws in the towel formally or not, Rudy is finished after Florida. How he went from leading the national polls to also ran in six months will be studied for years by students of political science. It's the biggest misjudgment since Saddam Hussein figured Iran was a greater threat to him than George W. Bush.
Not all the moves in Florida have been tactically poor. Over the weekend, Sen. McCain accused Gov. Romney of favoring a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, like the Democratic candidates do. This wasn't quite a lie. Gov. Romney hedged about the surge in ways Sen. McCain did not. But the Straight Talk Express took a huge detour around the truth.
"It's so shamelessly unfair, it's the kind of thing you'd expect of Bill Clinton attacking Barack Obama," said Rich Lowry of National Review.
But Sen. McCain's low blow is, alas, good politics. It changed the conversation in Florida from economics, Gov. Romney's long suit, back to national defense.
Both Sen. McCain and Gov. Romney are too flawed to reunite and reinvigorate a dispirited Republican party. There is only one candidate who can do that. And she might lose to Barack Obama.
