A Plug: Mosaic
If you haven't, you might want to check out Mosaic, an online video site with translated newscasts from the Middle East.
They sure do hate Israel over there at Al Jazeera.
« July 2006 | The RCP Blog Home Page | September 2006 »
August 31, 2006
Note to White House - Jed Babbin
For the past day or so the Dems have been challenging the Bush administration to name any of their brethren who are talking about cutting off funds for the Iraq war. The White House should take another look at this explanation of Sen. Carl Levin's proposal, offered as an amendment to the 2007 Defense Appropriations bill.
Levin's proposal was for a phased withdrawal from Iraq and then,
"...during and after the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, the United States will need to sustain a nonmilitary effort to actively support reconstruction, governance and a durable political solution in Iraq." (emphasis added)
Sounds like a cutoff of funds for any military support to me. When I think about 1974, Levin's proposal sends a shiver up my spine.
Sager Book Talk Sept. 6 at Cato with Michael Barone
Before too many people flee for the holiday weekend, I wanted to alert D.C.-area RCP Blog readers that I'll be speaking Sept. 6 (next Wednesday) at the Cato Institute at noon about my new book, just out from Wiley, The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.
You can register to attend here. There will also be a feed online.
I'll be talking about big-government conservatism and the GOP's building identity crisis -- especially what it means for the Republican Party's hold on the eight states of the interior West. And I'll be joined by the famed Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report and of course coauthor of the Almanac of American Politics, who will offer commentary.
Should be fun. You might even get a free sandwich from the think tank that understands better than any other that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
What the ...
What in the world is wrong with Republican candidates this year?
From the AP:
Republican Sen. Conrad Burns [R-MT], whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."
Macaca? Taxi cabs? Only Christians should legislate?
At least he didn't mention convenience stores.
TOM ADDS: This is Burns' third outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease in the last six weeks. For an experienced politician, he's sure acting an awful lot like a novice.
The $1.5 Million Dollar Man
President Bush raised a million five for the Corker campaign last night. Get more news on the RCP Politics & Elections page.
Mfume vs. Cardin
A new SurveyUSA poll conducted for 9 News shows Kweisi Mfume leading Ben Cardin, 42-38, with 13 percent undecided. The two Democrats square off in a televised debate tonight at 7pm on Maryland Public Television.
Russ Smith has been watching this race and chastising Cardin for taking it too easy on Mfume. We'll see if Cardin finally decides it's time to take off the gloves.
Tasini Gets His MoveOn
Anti-war Hillary Clinton primary challenger Jon Tasini is finally getting the MoveOn.org poll he's been itching for, which could throw the online group's endorsement behind him in New York.
According to an email sent out by his campaign just minutes ago:
URGENT! Vote in MoveOn Poll TODAY! Dear Friends,Your efforts over the last few weeks to encourage MoveOn to poll its members about the New York Senate Democratic primary have succeeded! MoveOn sent out a poll TODAY in the Tasini vs. Clinton race.
If you're a MoveOn member, please check your inbox right NOW for a ballot from MoveOn and vote right away. The poll closes at 11:00 a.m. Friday.
Jonathan needs to get 66% of the vote to win the MoveOn endorsement. Please tell everyone you know who's a New York MoveOn member to check their email right NOW for a ballot from MoveOn, and ask them to vote for the progressive, anti-war Democrat Jonathan Tasini. Remind them that in addition to her vote for the Iraq war and continued support of the occupation, Hillary Clinton supports NAFTA and so-called free-trade agreements that are costing us jobs at home, that she sat on the board of Wal-Mart for six years, opposes single-payer health care, opposes same-sex marriage, and is the second largest recipient of lobbyist money right after Rick Santorum. Tell them that a vote for Jonathan Tasini is a vote to end the war, stop abusive corporate power, and provide Medicare for All.
We're delighted that MoveOn has been so responsive to its membership in sending out this poll. Please reply to them right away, and vote for what you believe in!
Thanks for all you do! We couldn't do it without you.
The primary is Sept. 12, so this will be too late to make much of a difference, even if Tasini does get the required 66 percent. Still, it will be an interesting measure of Hillary's problem or non-problem with the netroots. It's been my contention, so far, that Hillary's ability to avoid a serious primary challenge (as in a protest candidate such as Ned Lamont) shows that she can roll the netroots pretty easily.
Maybe I'm wrong. But I doubt they'll be much of an obstacle on her march to the nomination.
Galloway's Vision
Sure, we have to put up with former President Jimmy Carter saying silly and ridiculous things all the time, but at least we don't have to live with George Galloway.
In case you missed it, here's a YouTube clip of the British MP in Beirut earlier this week congratulating Hassan Nasrallah for a "historic victory" over Israel and declaring that Tony Blair did everything he could to "intensify" the suffering of the Lebanese people.
If that were not bad enough, today Galloway pens an op-ed for The Guardian in which he writes that Israel must accept a "comprehensive settlement" that includes the right of return for Palestinians, a contiguous Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and "internationally guaranteed Palestinian control over its land, air, sea and water" - which is more or less a negotiated, less violent version of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vision of "wiping Israel off the map."
Galloway concludes by saying:
The Arab world is waking up to its potential power. It has seen the Iraqis confound Anglo-American efforts to recolonise their country, the unbreakability, whatever the cost, of the Palestinian resistance, and now the success of Hizbullah. If there is no settlement there can only be war, war and more war, until one day it is Tel Aviv which is on fire and the Israeli leaders' intransigence brings the whole state down on their heads. Nor is it only Israel that will pay the price for continued conflict: the enduring injustice of Palestinian dispossession has already poisoned western-Muslim relations and helped spill violence and hatred on to our own streets. There is still time to choose peace. But make no mistake, with the victory of Hizbullah, a terrible beauty is born.
This is reprehensible stuff, even by Galloway's standards. He needs a good drubbing - and I know just the person to give it to him.
Political Video of the Day
Is it just me, or has the Lieberman campaign created some of the worst political ads in recent history?
This ad has also had the benefit of getting the Lieberman campaign into a ridiculous argument over whether the footage on screen is of a sunrise or a sunset.
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Taking Rumsfeld's Bait
Rich Lowry says the Dems are "being monumentally stupid in taking the bait of Rumsfeld's speech." He's right. Besides, the Dems don't need to respond to Rumsfeld, because their kindred spirits in the media - particularly on the editorial boards of major metro newspapers - are doing it for them.
For an admittedly less than comprehensive list, see today's editorials in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Newsday, for starters. There's also William Arkin in the Washington Post, Fred Kaplan in Slate, and Dan Wasserman's cartoon in the Boston Globe.
UPDATE: Sorry, I forgot to include this whopper of a rant by Keith Olbermann:
Lesson Number One
Here's a lesson for people running for office: don't start spouting off statistics during radio or television interviews unless you're sure about them - especially if you're discussing white hot subjects like race and abortion.
Giving Thanks
Wow. Paul Hackett makes an ass of himself on national cable television with an angry, unhinged, ad hominem attack. Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid must be patting themselves on the back for forcing this guy out of the Ohio Senate race.
War Talk
Stephen Bainbridge argues that "Democrats need to talk about the war, while Republicans need to talk about something else." Kevin Drum generally agrees, though from a slightly different angle.
August 30, 2006
Mark Warner: Futurist
Give Mark Warner points for this much: He really wants to court the Internet crowd. I just got this in from his PAC, Forward Together:
GOVERNOR MARK WARNER GOES VIRTUAL IN "SECOND LIFE" ~First American political figure to hold an event in the virtual world~ Alexandria, Virginia-- Imagine a world where politicians tell the truth, focus on the future, and work together with their fellow citizens to solve problems. Forward Together PAC is working everyday to make that a reality. And it isn't stopping at the boundaries of physical space. Tomorrow Governor Warner will become the first American political leader to engage in the online virtual world, Second Life.Governor Warner, in the shape of an animated avatar, will enter into Second Life this Thursday afternoon (August 31st) at 3:30 p.m. Eastern to announce the first-ever virtual-world town hall on American politics later this fall. The Governor will conduct a brief interview with Second Life's embedded reporter, Hamlet Au, and officially launch Forward Together PAC's new Second Life group.
"Since I left the Virginia governor's office this year, I've traveled across the country to 24 states helping solutions-oriented candidates campaign for congressional and statehouse races," said Governor Warner. "In Second Life, distances and time differences vanish. It will allow us to reach people through a whole new medium."
"Social technologies can be great tools for political change, and virtual worlds like Second Life might be the next tool for engaging people in the real world democratic process," said Governor Warner. "We want to use Second Life to continue the conversation about the direction of our country. My avatar is also pretty funny looking. That alone makes it worth checking out."
For those interested, here's the Web page for Second Life. What you might notice right off the bat is that the virtual world is full of a lot of avatars of busty women in bikinis. This is clearly the political medium of the future.
Should be interesting.
Lessons For '06
Today Stan Greenberg and Matt Hogan of Democracy Corps released a strategy memo for 2006 built around the results of a post-election survey (pdf) from the 2005 Virginia Governor's race. Dem Corps interviewed 2,300 Virginians last fall, including 600 registered voters who did not turn out to vote. Here are the key findings:
* Failure to mobilize the Republican base doomed Kilgore. The demoralization of Bush voters and lack of enthusiasm for Kilgore seriously hindered the Republican candidate's chances, underscoring the dangers of taking the base for granted.* Non-voters were disillusioned with Bush, unimpressed by Kilgore. Those who voted in 2004 but not in 2005 overwhelmingly supported Bush over Kerry, but mounting frustration with Bush and a lack of fondness for Kilgore prevented them from turning out. While many incumbents will be better received by voters than Kilgore, the impact of the disillusionment with Bush highlights why it is so important for progressives to tie incumbents to Bush.
* Positive agenda was crucial to winning over swing voters. While Kilgore alienated voters with his attacks on Kaine's position on the death penalty, Kaine reaped the benefits by focusing on education, an issue that was of particular importance to both his base and swing voters.
* Republicans voter outreach program is not to be underestimated. Although Kilgore's turnout effort came up short, his campaign was much more effective at contacting both base and swing voters, as well as those who were still undecided in the final days of the campaign.
* Essential to have sufficient resources for the final few weeks of the campaign. Nearly one in five voters did not to decide who to vote for until the last few days of the campaign and 40 percent held off until October.
Regarding this last point, see Perry Bacon, Jr. in Time.com. Democrats clearly have the edge in enthusiasm and the political wind at their backs, but Republicans have a slight edge in money and a generally superior ground game. Whether that will be enough to save the GOP majority or simply mitigate the size of the Dem wave in November remains to be seen. As I said the other day, the second half of the game doesn't even start until next Tuesday.
UPDATE: More fodder on battle for the House from Robert Novak (via Drudge):
If The Election Were Held Today: To date, we have discussed this election in terms of what the final outcome will look like in November. We have also mentioned Republican fears that, as one House committee chairman has said privately, Republicans will lose 25 seats -- or as we were told that national internal polls suggested, they could lose as many as 26 seats.From here in, now that primary season has approached its end, we will resist such broad prognostication, particularly since we have not yet seen evidence that such huge losses are imminent when looking at the races as we always have in past cycles -- on a district-by-district basis. As we noted last week, "it is still at least challenging to construct a scenario of a 15-seat Democratic gain without positing some improbable upsets."
The emphasis, by the way, is in the original.
Senator Porky
But of course. Senator Stevens may want to reconsider his comment that the Internet is "not a truck" because when bloggers get done with him I suspect he's going to feel like he was hit by one.
Carterwatch Update - Jed Babbin
It should come as no surprise that former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami would be coming here for the annual UN anniversary celebration. And granting him a visa to do so is also no surprise. And, unfortunately, there is also no surprise in Harvard is offering Khatami a forum to spread his "message," or for our worst former president, Jimmy Carter, to be offering to meet with Khatami.
Khatami was Iran's president from 1997 to 2005, part of the time the mullahcracy was diddling the EU in the now-years-long nuclear kabuki dance. The White House - according to a Washington Post report - says that Khatami is free to meet and speak freely while visiting America. Mr. Carter has no standing to deal with Iran, so what harm can he do? Maybe the same he did in the Der Spiegel and Daily Telegraph interviews earlier this month.
Of Iran, Carter has specific memories. His presidency foundered on the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis. Perhaps he and Khatami can have a meaningful discussion. One that is, as the Post report cites a source saying, "poignant." It is a comfort to know that Carter's talk with Khatami won't be part of the "serious" talks Iran suggests it will have with us.
McCain: Cooked?
For a long time, the rosiest polls for John McCain regarding the 2008 GOP primary were coming from the Cook Political Report. Not anymore.
Previously, a Cook Political Report/RT Strategies Poll (June 1-4, 2006) had found McCain up as follows (among Republicans and leaners):
McCain - 29%Giuliani - 24%
Romney - 8%
Field WITHOUT Giuliani:
McCain - 37%
Romney - 10%
Gingrich - 9%
Now, the same poll, taken August 25-27, finds Rudy solidly in the lead:
Giuliani - 32%McCain - 20%
Gingrich - 10%
Field WITHOUT Giuliani:
McCain - 30%
Gingrich - 14%
Frist - 11%"Thinking about Rudy Giuliani, some people say he really cleaned up NYC as Mayor and made it a safer place, and then he showed real courage as a leader after the attack on the WTC. Other people say that his views on some issues -- because he is pro-choice on abortion, and supports gun control and gay rights -- make it hard for them to support him for Pres."
Which Is Closer To Your View? (GOPers only): Now vs. 2/26
GOPers should nominate Giuliani for pres.: 56% vs. 50%
GOPers should not nominate Giuliani for pres.: 38% vs. 43%
Note that the last question there is very important -- how do Republicans line up when pushed on Giuliani's supposedly candidacy-sinking social views? Answer: They still support him. And despite the constant refrain that the more Republicans learn about Rudy the more they'll recoil, his numbers actually seem to be getting better with time.
GiulianiBlog has more analysis of the results and the full cross tabs. Giuliani's supporters, it seems from the cross tabs, are more conservative and more pro-Bush than McCain's, who are, unsurprisingly, fairly liberal.
Rudy might not run. Or there might be other reasons he won't win. But the idea that he's unacceptable to the conservative base is refuted again and again and again by the polls and the facts on the ground in states like South Carolina.
PS: Here's a preview of Rudy on judges.
Political Video of the Day
A clip from Bush's interview last night with NBC's Brian Williams in New Orleans:
The highlight is when Bush seems to describe his reading list as "epileptic." (Of course he meant "eclectic" -- he kind of starts with one word and ends with the other.)
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Who's the Pig in the Closet? - Larry Kudlow
God help the poor, piggy senator behind the "secret hold" on S.2590.
Whoever this Porky Pig lawmaker is, you can take it to the bank that he/she isn't getting much sleep these days. And, if this senator is sleeping (with the help of handfuls of Ambien no doubt), they're likely dreaming of a way out of the wretched mess they created for themselves.
Here's a question: Why in the world would any above-board lawmaker attempt to shelve this pork transparency legislation?
What's so scary about a little old website that would allow voters to see where their own hard-earned tax dollars are going? What the heck are they so afraid of?
It's great to see the power of the blogosphere on this one. Both sides have come together calling for an end to the earmark madness. As Martha is apt to saying, "This is a good thing."
From Glenn Reynolds of both Porkbusters and Instapundit (who deserves credit for spearheading this whole thing) to the fiscally responsible Club for Growth's Andy Roth, all the way across the political spectrum to the lefties over at Daily Kos, bloggers have spoken in one unified voice and have issued their edict: NO MORE PORK.
It isn't everyday that you see virtually unanimous agreement from the left and right. But, when you do, whenever both sides of our polarized, political divide rally together against an "as-yet" unidentified lawmaker; whenever red and blue voters join hands and turn purple in a common cause, well, you've just got to know that they're on to something.
After all, this is our money lawmakers are playing around with, not theirs. Much of Washington seems to have forgotten this fact, which is why cancerous pork-barrel earmarking skyrocketed to around 13,000 earmarks this year, costing taxpayers $64 billion dollars. It is also the reason why some shady senator sees fit to put a secret hold on valuable legislation that would help clean up this earmark nightmare.
When you consider the resounding success of President Bush's tax cuts, and all the money that's been pouring into the Treasury as a result, you've got to shake your head in disbelief and think: Had their been some fiscal accountability in Congress this year, some tightening of the budget belt, we'd be in a far better budgetary position.
God help this poor lawmaker. Porky may get roasted.
More Race Problems for Allen
The Nation has dug up an old photo (well, just from 1996) of Allen with leaders of the segregationist Council of Conservative Citizens.
The CCC's statement of principles gives a pretty good flavor of things:
We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.
Allen's not the only Republican to have winked at the CCC. But he's the only one who was -- until recently -- considered a serious candidate for the presidency in 2008.
Duking It Out With the Times
Stuart Taylor, Jr. unloads - and I mean unloads - on the New York Times for its recent front pager on the Duke Lacrosse case authored by Duff Wilson and Jonathan Glater. (You can read what I wrote about the NYT piece last week here).
In a related nugget of embarrassing news for Durham DA Mike Nifong, yesterday a judge threw out the three year old misdemeanor shoplifting charges Nifong's office brought against Moezeldin Ahmed Elmostafa, the taxi driver who is central to indicted Duke Lacrosse player Reade Seligmann's alibi. The Durham Herald-Sun reports:
Several defense lawyers had accused District Attorney Mike Nifong of bringing the misdemeanor shoplifting charge against Elmostafa as a pressure tactic in the controversial rape case.In April, Elmostafa signed a sworn affidavit saying he drove Duke lacrosse player Reade Seligmann to a bank machine, a fast-food restaurant and a campus dorm at about the time an exotic dancer claimed she was raped by Seligmann and two others at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in mid-March.
A month later, Elmostafa was arrested on a 2003 warrant charging him with shoplifting at the Hecht's department store at Northgate Mall. The charge was reduced to aiding and abetting earlier this month.
The prosecutor in the case said he was the one who had the warrant served against Elmostafa and denied there was any motive to intimidate. He says the reason the DA's office waited three years to bring charges is because there had been a misspelling of Elmostafa's name. With Nifong's credibility already in the tank, that seems farfetched. Read the rest of the story and decide for yourself.
Plamegate: Another Hitch-Slap
First Juan Cole, now Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Christopher Hitchens nimbly points out the hypocrisy and sheer chutzpah of Isikoff and Corn being instrumental players in ginning up allegations that Plamegate was a blatant Bush administration hit job, and then turning around (and making money on a book, no less) and fingering Richard Armitage as Novak's original source. In other words, there was never any "there there."
This is how Corn responded on his blog last night after Hitchens' story went up:
A bunch of emails arrived today from people asking for (or, demanding) a response to Christopher Hitchens' attack in Slate on me and my coauthor Michael isikoff. I'm going to refrain from taking the bait, as we prepare for next week's release of our book. HUBRIS has plenty in it to discomfort anyone taking his or her cues from my former colleague.
Interesting. Corn's credibility is disappearing faster than a martini in Hyannisport and he says he is not going to "take the bait" - which is a euphemism meaning he won't "answer legitimate questions." Corn concludes by saying that his book is "far more about the fraudulent selling of the war than the leak case." The question at hand, however, is the media's fraudulent selling of the leak case and David Corn's central role in it.
Plamegate is turning out to be, as some have long suspected, exactly the opposite of what we've been led to believe. It was not a revenge-inspired hit job by the Bush administration, but an example of D.C.'s insider culture at its worst: a public, partisan, and dubious attack launched in the op-ed pages of the country's biggest newspaper, followed by innocent gossip between a reporter and a high-level official (and the subsequent shameful silence of that official, influenced by interdepartment fears and rivalries), followed by a firestorm of media speculation and innuendo, followed by an investigation, followed by an indictment for obstruction of justice over a crime that was never committed, followed by revelations that the whole thing wasn't what it was portrayed to be by critics of the administration and the media.
August 29, 2006
Travels With Andre
Like many people, I despised Andre Agassi when he first showed up on the national tennis scene with his long hair and his "image is everything" persona. Now, like millions of fans, Agassi is one of my favorite figures in all of sports.
Agassi is playing in his final U.S. Open, which will also be the final tournament of his career. Yesterday he needed 3 1/2 hours to come back and beat Andrei Pavel in his opening match, as 20,000 fans stood in Flushing Meadows and cheered him on at match point.
Las Vegas Weekly put together a tribute to Agassi which includes a brief piece by David Granger, the editor of Esquire, and another by Ron Kantowski, a sportswriter for the Las Vegas Sun.
The gem of the bunch, in my opinion, is this piece by Andrew Corsello, a writer for GQ Magazine, in which Corsello recounts his first encounter with the 8 year-old tennis phenom from Las Vegas. It is an absolute scream. But it also pinpoints the origin of Agassi's brashness: his extraordinary talent and gift for the game which precious few players have known.
It's been a marvelous journey to watch Agassi's transformation from a cocky young kid into a humble, hardworking man who has fans cheering his every point and now hoping the magic will last just two more weeks. Whatever the outcome at the U.S. Open, I, for one, am going to miss seeing Agassi's now trademarked bald head, his pigeon-toed shuffle, but most of all, his heart.
(Photo: Ann Heisenfelt, Associated Press)
UPDATE: Here's a nice tribute to Agassi's final appearance at Wimbledon on YouTube:
Bush: Very, Very Unpopular
How unpopular, you ask?
So unpopular that CNN.com's running an online poll of who would win a debate between Bush and Ahmadinejad, and Ahmadinejad is winning by 63%-37% (with more than 70,000 votes cast).
Yes, yes -- it's an online poll. But would Hitler have out-polled FDR, even on a CNN "QuickVote"?
Dr. Frist is on the Case
Majority Leader Bill Frist presses the issue of the secret hold placed on S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Frist writes on his blog:
It is deeply ironic that bipartisan legislation dedicated to transparency in government has been obstructed by the least transparent possible means. But I've not given up ... and neither has a united blogosphere.Led by sites like PorkBusters, TPM Muckraker, and GOP Progress, online activists across the political spectrum have worked to clear away the obstruction against this bill through hard work and the process of elimination. While the count is still climbing, they have publicly received a response from 89 Senators regarding the secret hold - and I'm proud to say that members of my online grassroots organization, the iFrist Volunteers, have made a major contribution to this effort in calling Senators and securing their promise they have not held up the bill, nor will they hold up the bill. The growing success of this effort perfectly demonstrates the value of the database that S. 2590 would create ... because it proves that Americans with a passion for citizen journalism and empowered by technology can cooperate across party lines to make a real difference.
So, to get this bill passed, I am calling on all members, when asked by the blog community, to instruct their staff to answer whether or not they have a hold, honestly and transparently, so I can pass this bill. And I encourage Minority Leader Reid to do the same.
All I can say is that whoever is blocking this bill had better hope they're not up for reelection in November - assuming we find out who it is before then.
Short Takes
You like nice, concise analysis? Here's Orin Judd summing up Rudy Giuliani's presidential prospects in 21 words:
He can't run in IA, can't beat McCain in NH and then is a non-starter in SC. He won't run.
How about a nice, 54-word movie review? Try Louis Wittig in the Daily Standard:
There's almost nothing you need to know about the movie Snakes on a Plane that you didn't get from the title. Samuel L. Jackson gets on a trans-Pacific flight. A few hundred poisonous snakes get loose in the cabin. Samuel L. Jackson handles it in a way that Richard Gere probably wouldn't have. The end.
Hurting the Party?
Some folks are making the argument that the Club for Growth is hurting the Republican Party. Over in The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru offers a refreshing defense of ideology over partisanship.
Essentially, holding a majority doesn't mean anything if that majority has no principles.
Political Video of the Day
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has put out a harsh ad attacking Steve Laffey, conservative primary challenger to Sen. Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island.
The ad hits Laffey hard on immigration:
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Does Jerry Weller Have a Conflict or Not?
Anytime you see an obviously far left-leaning publication do a story on a Republican (or a far right one writing about a Democrat, for that matter) you have to approach it under the assumption that it's probably been constructed as a hit job - though some are done much more deftly than others.
That being said, this piece on Illinois Republican Congressman Jerry Weller in the Chicago Reader is fascinating. In late 2004, Weller married a top member of Guatemala's parliament, Zury Rios Sosa, who also happens to be the daughter of former dictator and head of her political party, General Efrain Rios Montt. Complicating matters is that Weller serves as Vice-Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere whose jurisdiction includes issues involving Latin America.
The Reader piece alleges that Weller's marriage to Sosa has caused him to be silent on matters involving Guatemala, including drug trafficking and human rights. I don't know enough to say whether there's any truth to the charge, but Weller's unique relationship seems, at least on the surface, to represent somewhat of a conflict of interest. Read the story and decide for yourself.
The Anti-Semitism Lobby
As if anyone needed further proof of the outright anti-Semitism behind the Walt-Mearsheimer Israel Lobby paper, check out this dispatch from Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. In the words of Stephen Colbert, all you need to know: "At the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), they held a forum at the National Press Club to expand on their allegations about the Israel lobby."
It's really a tour de force of anti-Semitic tropes, from the dynamic duo's usual focus on Bush administration officials with Jewish last names to Walt telling a gaggle of Arab admirers that if one criticizes Israel in America, "it might have some economic consequences for your business."
And then there's this at the end:
Before leaving for an interview with al-Jazeera, Mearsheimer accepted a button proclaiming "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby.""I like it," he said, beaming.
Beam away, Nazi.
Posner Speaks
Don't miss the latest episode of the Glenn and Helen Show. This week's guest is Judge Richard Posner, and he discusses terrorism, surveillance, and civil liberties in the context of the Constitution and the U.S. court system. It's all the subject matter of his new book, "Not a Suicide Pact."
Zogby and Virginia
A lot of criticism this morning for citing a Zogby Interactive poll on the Virginia Senate race. In short: The criticism's right.
The race is definitely tightening in the wake of Allen's Macaca comments, but that particular poll doesn't deserve any weight -- the methodology's just junk. Some better polls are here.
No Travel Necessary
Somebody should have told this reporter he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by going to Connecticut to cover the Democratic Senate primary.
A Thousand Words
This shot of Rita Cosby and John Mark Karr perfectly captures the distasteful nature of today's tabloid media culture:
(Photo: Jack Dempsey, Associated Press)
Cantwell Finds Her Antiwar Groove
Josh Feit writes in the Stranger this week that Maria Cantwell has finally found her footing with an antiwar message that sells:
On Saturday, August 19, at a Maria Cantwell rally just outside Vancouver, Washington, the U.S. Democratic senator scored the biggest cheers of the afternoon with her new and improved position on the war. "Changing the agenda means changing the course in Iraq," Senator Cantwell said, to a burst of applause. "The president says we can stay there for as long as it takes. I disagree. I say, 'Let's make sure... we start to bring our troops home at the end of this year.'"
Upon closer inspection, Feit finds that while Cantwell's "new and improved" position seems to be placating the antiwar base of the Democratic party in Washington, it's more of a rhetorical smoke-and-mirror job than a real substantive shift. Nevertheless, if Cantwell can succeed in bringing even a portion of these voters home before November it will be a solid boost to her campaign.
Right now, Cantwell's lead over Republican Mike McGavick stands at 9 points. That number is inflated a bit by a new SurveyUSA poll showing her with a 17-point lead. Three other polls released in the last two weeks show the race between 5 and 8 points. The first batch of polls after Labor Day will show exactly where this race stands. If Cantwell busts out to a double digit lead in the RCP average, the race is probably over. If McGavick can keep it close - meaning 5-7 points or better - with the debates and a bit of luck, he'll make it to election day with at least a chance of scoring an upset.
Goodbye Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman
The accursed NY Times firewall hides a very interesting column by John Tierney this morning, reporting on the mood at a recent libertarian conference in Amsterdam (where else?) sponsored by Reason Magazine (who else?). Tierney writes:
I have bad news for the G.O.P. regarding that promising new bloc of voters, the South Park Republicans. It turns out they're not Republicans, at least not anymore. [snip]The G.O.P. used to have a sizable libertarian bloc, but I couldn't see any sign of it at the conference. [Matt] Stone and [Trey] Parker [the creators of South Park] said they were rooting for Hillary Clinton in 2008 simply because it would be weird to have her as president. The prevailing sentiment among the rest of the libertarians was that the best outcome this November would be a Democratic majority in the House, because then at least there'd be gridlock.
"We're the long-suffering, battered spouse in a dysfunctional political marriage of convenience," said Nick Gillespie, the editor in chief of Reason. "Most of the libertarians I know have given up on the G.O.P. The odds that we'll stick around for the midterm election are about as good as the odds that Rick Santorum will join the Village People."
This is definitely a warning sign for the GOP, and yet another reason why Republicans are struggling this year. I'll try to come back with more on this later, and I'm sure Ryan Sager will have something to say about Tierney's column as well, given that he's one of the aforementioned disgruntled libertarians and has already taken a look at the size, scope, and potential damage caused to the GOP by massive libertarian defections.
August 28, 2006
The Pander Defense
Explaining her recent, odd, and disturbing comments about the separation of church and state (and how it is a "myth"), Katherine Harris has offered a wonderful explanation:
"My comments were specifically directed toward a Christian group," said Harris, a Republican senate candidate from Longboat Key.
C'mon! I was just pandering!
Allen-Webb: A Dead Heat
In Virginia, in the wake of Macaca-gate, Sen. George Allen and his Democratic challenger, James Webb, are now in a dead heat. This is a departure from Allen's consistent lead previously.
In related news, Giuliani will be at a fundraiser for Allen on Wednesday. Standing behind Sen. Macaca right now is, despite it all, probably a fairly safe choice and a decent way to stay on the "right" side of the conservative base.
The Great Dem Purge - Part II
And so it begins. Matt Stoller of MyDD leads the nutroot charge against Rahm Emanuel:
I've noted on multiple occasions the whiny tendencies of Rahm Emanuel. Rather than running on a progressive winning set of messeages [sic], Rahm has decided that primping before the press as 'Rahmbo' while whining about progressives will give him a win-win. If we win the house, he's a hero. If we lose the House, it's because of bloggers/Al Sharpton/Lamont/ Moveon/Soros/Pelosi. [snip]And I hear a lot that even though progressives don't agree with him, he's at least a strategist. Let me just say that no he is not. Party strategists do not scream at major donors in public to journalists, because if they do then they create a disincentive for participation. Party strategists do not attack progressives in a progressive year and create policy platforms that immediately discount Democratic ability to accomplish anything. Party strategists do not race-bait against African-American leaders. Party strategists force candidates to do a good job, not to hire the right consultants. Party strategists do not call a right-wing Independent that needs Republican votes to win in Connecticut a 'Democrat'.
Rahm Emanuel is not a party strategist. He is an extremist ideologue, a Bourbon Democrat, and he will be a huge problem for progressives moving forward. Progressives would do well to develop our own set of strategic coordinators, rather than thinking that someone like Rahm Emanuel is at this point anything but destructive and selfish.
Excuse me while I wipe down my computer keyboard. I spit Diet Coke all over it after reading Stoller, of all people, fingering Rahm Emanuel an "extremist ideologue." This is the sort of stuff that should scare sensible Democrats out of their minds. Rahm is a centrist. He's a Clintonite. Six years ago years ago that wasn't a sin. Now to a growing portion of the party, it's grounds for excommunication. Apparently, unless you've taken a heavy pull from the nutroot Kool-Aid, you're not welcome or wanted.
Rahm may be arrogant, abrasive and heavy-handed in his tactics, but he also happens to be pretty darn good at his job, which is recruiting candidates, raising money, and putting together a solid message and ground game. He's doing his best to keep Democrats enough in the middle of the road to win in November, and folks like Stoller would do a lot better to listen to him than fragging him and trying to run him out of town.
Harwood Follows the Money
The WSJ's John Harwood on election spending trends so far this season. For more, bookmark the RCP Resource Center, updated frequently with election-related transcripts and video.
Santorum's Bushism on Islamic Fascism
Two weeks ago President Bush was "widely criticized by Muslim leaders Thursday for saying that the breakup of an alleged plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean was a triumph in the 'war against Islamic fascists.'
It is, therefore, hardly a coincidence that Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum used the same formulation in a speech today. The Associated Press reports:
HARRISBURG, Pa. - U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum on Monday drew parallels between World War II and the current war against "Islamic fascism," saying they both require fighting a common foe in multiple countries."Were the Japanese imperialists with their mind-set and their ideology the same as the Nazis? Obviously not. Were they same at [sic] the fascists in Italy? Obviously not. But they were still a common enemy," the Republican told about 250 people at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon.
Interesting. Maybe this guy really knows what he's talking about. And, to a lesser degree, this guy as well.
For more, visit the RCP Election '06 Page for the PA Senate Race.
McCain Transformation Watch
Sen. John McCain now says he would consider speaking at Bob Jones University.
Plame It on the Rain
James Taranto sums up the end of the Plame affair here.
This is really looking like the most stunning humiliation for the anti-Bush Left in ... well, ever.
Political Video of the Day
Behold the religion of peace, as the now-released Fox News journalists convert to Islam at gunpoint ...
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Derb on Sullivan
Over at The Corner, noted homophobe (before you send angry emails, realize he wouldn't object to this characterization!) John Derbyshire gives a brief review of Andrew Sullivan's new book.
Despite references to "Sullivan's fundamental hedonism" and "the perennial present-centeredness of those who don't intend to reproduce themselves," it's worth a read just for the fact that -- despite it all -- these two Brits have fundamentally similar ideas about what's wrong with the GOP and how conservatism should be understood.
War on Wal-Mart
The Democrats' campaign against Wal-Mart seems to be in the news a lot in the last few days. So, if you're new to the issue, and want to understand the politics behind it, definitely check out this segment from the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Report:
Gigot: Democrats are picking another fight with business. At least a half dozen of the party's presidential contenders have appeared at protests across the country this summer, denouncing the retail giant Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health-care benefits. It's a rallying cry many Democrats believe will prove powerful in the midterm elections. But could it backfire?Kim, explain this to me. This is a company that employs something like 1.3 million Americans; 127 million Americans shop there at Wal-Mart during the week. Yet Democrats think this is terrific politics. Why?
Strassel: I don't think it's terrific politics with the general public or the people who work at Wal-Mart. What it is, is it's meant to suck up to the unions who are powerful in elections. And this is a union issue. This hasn't been talked about enough in the Wal-Mart campaign. What you have here are unions that are very unhappy. They have never been able to organize the largest employer in the country. But more importantly, Wal-Mart's success, its phenomenal low-cost structure, is putting a lot of pressure on their own employers. And that is causing lost jobs, fewer stores, shutdowns. And so, what you have here are unions, who are now trying through laws, like these Wal-Mart laws you've seen around the country, and through political pressure, to force Wal-Mart to actually have to take on the high cost structure that their own employers have.
Gigot: Just so people understand this union issue. You're talking about Wal-Mart entering, now, the grocery store business, which is very heavily unionized at Kroger, Safeway, Jewel, companies like that. And they have a relatively high cost structure, so when Wal-Mart goes in, they undercut the prices. That's one reason they can charge lower prices. And these unions are upset because they hurt the employment at Kroger and Safeway.
Strassel: That's absolutely right. And it's retailers, too. There are retailers who are unionized, and Wal-Mart is not.
Henninger: Another point to keep in mind here. They have singled out Wal-Mart. But Wal-Mart is not an absolutely unique company in the United States. Their earnings come in--their profit margin was about 3.7% last year. Their share price in mid-2003 was $57; it's down to $43 now. They need to increase those margins. They operate on a thin supermarket-like margin. And if they were to do all of the things the Democrats are urging them to do, they'd be wiped out. They'd go out of business. And it's no different whether you're a Wal-Mart or Target or Costco or any other big corporation.
Riley: And I think the grocery-store point is very important here, because it reveals the other agenda here. One agenda is unionizing Wal-Mart. But if you look at the unions driving this anti-Wal-Mart campaign--the United Food Workers and the Service Employees Unions--these are not manufacturing unions. These are grocery-store workers. And their separate agenda, aside from just organizing Wal-Mart, is to stop Wal-Mart from opening more grocery stores. Period. So there are a couple agendas going on here.
My general sense is that this is ridiculously bad politics for the Democrats. The people who hate Wal-Mart already vote Democratic -- that is, urban elitists who've never been inside the store and staunch union members who can't compete with the store. The people who shop at Wal-Mart and like the bargains, on the other hand, are up for grabs. And this will only push them toward the Republicans.
Once again, special-interest politics is leading the Democrats down the wrong road.
'the whole premise of the party'
"If we can't win in this environment, we have to question the whole premise of the party."
-- James Carville, quoted by Al Hunt
There's a lot to be said for this. If they can't make it here, they can't make it ... anywhere.
Obama: Anything There?
I agree with Tom that Obama's gesture was quite something. Obviously it's part political theater, but that's a big part of what leadership is: political theater by another name.
I have to admit that I've been as impressed as anyone with Obama as an orator and retail politician. He has an appealing plain-spokenness and real charisma.
At the same time, what troubles me about him isn't just his lack of experience (though there is that), but that when you scratch the surface, there's not much there other than very traditional Democratic pabulum. He's in a position where he could be taking a real lead on an issue like, say, school choice. It's a tremendous boon to the African-American community, but the Democrats are locked in a chokehold by the teachers unions. Obama could step up to the plate and change the politics of this issue in a meaningful way that would benefit millions of minority and low-income children. Yet, he takes a pretty standard Democratic line on education.
Now, the simplest explanation here is that he basically believes the standard Democratic line on most issues. And, well, that would make sense. He's a Democrat. But if he doesn't have anything unique to say, then he's just the same-old-same-old in a more appealing wrapper. And I don't think that will take him very far.
So, I think conservatives have to respect Obama's skills, even if they find nothing on which to agree with him. But unless Obama finds some substantive way to appeal to voters right-of-center, his skills will probably end up in service to a once-bright, but ultimately failed political career.
Free Speech and Its Discontents
Make sure to check out Bob Bauer on the "alarmingly ambiguous" relationship between modern "progressives" and free speech.
Gauging the '06 Wind
Al Hunt writes the most bullish Election '06 analysis for the Dems to date:
Barring an unexpected and big event, Democrats will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November and conceivably the Senate, too. Whether it's a tsunami or just a powerful wave, the political dynamics are moving in that direction, or more accurately, against the Republicans and President George W. Bush.Democratic insiders, who months ago thought their chances of winning a majority in the House were no better than even, and that the Senate was a lost cause, have become far more optimistic. Now, they say, winning the House is a lock, and the Senate is within reach.
Michael Barone obviously doesn't see it that way. His column today suggests that recent terror-related events have created a possible "change in the wind" for Republicans this November.
My own opinion is that the political dynamics remain poor for Republicans this November, but it's way too early to suggest, as Hunt does regurgitating on behalf of Democratic strategists, that "winning the House is a lock." It's not even Labor Day. To say Dems have a lock on winning House at this point would be like declaring the game over at halftime. Sixty days is an eternity in politics, especially when people are just on the verge of starting to pay attention to what's going on.
The Republicans could very well end up losing the House. But anyone who says they know that for certain at this point in the cycle is either lying or just spinning for effect. Indeed, Hunt's piece seems almost perfectly constructed to convey an "air of inevitability" to the election, and to preemptively start managing perceptions about the outcome in November.
Tribune Reporter Jailed
Another story in the local paper that deserves national attention: Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Paul Salopek has been jailed in the Sudan and accused of being a spy.
Obama's Travels
Senator Barack Obama's trip to Africa is getting a lot of coverage, especially in the local press (no surprise there). Lynn Sweet is traveling with Obama and keeping a blog for the Chicago Sun-Times. Jeff Zeleny is doing the same for the Chicago Tribune.
If you've followed the trip at all you know that Obama's reception in Africa (Kenya in particular) has bordered on reverential. I was particularly impressed by Obama's decision to publicly take an AIDS test on Saturday to raise awareness of the issue and to help break down some of the social taboos that still exist regarding AIDS in Africa. Give Obama credit for making a smart, meaningful gesture - and one he certainly didn't have to make.
Ruby on Rails
The Chicago Tribune has an interesting profile of David Heinemeier Hansson, dubbed the hottest computer programmer on earth after developing the revolutionary new software tool, Ruby on Rails.
The New Ward Churchill
Meet William Woodward, the new Ward Churchill:
A tenured professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire believes an "elite" group within the federal government orchestrated the September 11th attacks on America.William Woodward has already raised that possibility in his classroom and later this year hopes to teach a class that would explore Sept. 11th "in psychological terms -- terms like belief, conspiracy, fear, truth, courage, group dynamics."
Not surprisingly, Woodward's remarks are not going over well with folks in New Hampshire.
The Forgotten War
Michael Totten reports on Israel's other rocket war - the one with Gaza. I thought this piece of dialogue between Totten and his guide was interesting:
"How many rockets are hitting the city right now?" I said."Not as many today," he said. "Because of the war in Lebanon."
"What does Lebanon have to do with it?" I said.
"All the journalists forgot about us during the Lebanon war. So the terrorists are waiting for the media to come back before firing rockets again. They don't want to waste those they have."
"That can't be the only reason," I said. "The IDF has been active in Gaza this entire time. Surely that has something to do with it."
"Yes," he said. "Also because of the IDF."
Later two more Israelis repeated what Shika said about Hamas and Islamic Jihad cooling their rocket launchers while the media's attention was elsewhere. I haven't heard any official confirmation from either side that it's true.
On one hand, this makes no sense. Why would Hamas and Islamic Jihad want the world media to focus on them launching rockets into Israel and killing innocent civilians? You'd think that would hurt their cause and that it would be more beneficial to them to be able to get away with attacking Israel without the media paying any attention.
But then it occurred to me why it might make sense after all: Hamas and Islamic Jihad may be waiting for the media, not to report on their attacks but to catalogue the inevitable carnage generated by Israel's response. They need the cameras to focus on the burned out car hit by an IDF missile strike, the chanting of the angry Palestinian mob, and the howls of grief of family members - images we've all grown so accustomed to now they're as predictable as clockwork. In other words, Hamas's missiles don't serve a military purpose so much as they serve as part of the public relations war against Israel.
The Spitzer Juggernaut Hits a Bump
Jacob Gershman of the New York Sun runs down the details on Elliot Spitzer's questionable use of a private jet.
This Just In...
Krugman blames Bush for pace of Katrina reconstruction. Next week, Krugman will blame Bush for failing to have the World Trade Centers rebuilt, and also for Pluto being stripped of its status as a planet.
The Police State Canard
Richardson Lynn, the Dean of the John Marshall Law School, takes Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to task for saying that ""We've got to have a legal system that lets us . . . prevent things from happening rather than . . . reacting after the fact." Lynn responds:
No, actually, we don't.There are countries with such a legal system, and we would not want to live in any of them: Syria, Iran, North Korea -- name your favorite axis of evil.
The only kind of legal system that could "prevent things from happening" requires a highly intrusive program of government surveillance of all communications (e-mail, letters and phone calls) and financial transactions of private citizens, incentives for people to spy on neighbors or family members, and lifting all restraints on interrogation and investigation of suspects.
If you don't have all three, it won't work. If Chertoff is willing to preserve some features of an open society in Patriot Acts II-IV, the new legal system will not prevent all things from happening. [snip]
The horror of losing friends and loved ones in the inexplicable violence of terrorism is surely one of our deepest fears. But someone has to say: There are worse things.
The politician who says that restrictions on liberty are justified "if even one life is saved" cannot be taken seriously. We constantly make public policy decisions by carefully balancing risk in favor of the greater good. On balance, the slight risk of massive loss through a successful attack is outweighed by the freedoms that are our natural right. It is entirely rational to accept some level of terrorism, crime or disorder rather than live in a police state that claims to guarantee perfect safety.
Lynn's basic argument about respecting civil liberties is fine, so far as it goes, but his beef against Chertoff is vastly overblown and it's is tinged with the type of purist civil libertarian claptrap that infuriates me. America is not now, nor will it ever be a "police state." Nor have our personal freedoms been diminished in any significant way since 9/11.
What we have tried to do, in the wake of watching 3,000 of our innocent fellow citizens incinerated before our very eyes five years ago, is to try and find ways of protecting ourselves against foreign and domestic terrorist threats. It seems to me we've done so with a great deal of respect and attention to civil liberties - even though the process has been awkward and clumsy at times. Our first reaction was a swift dose of common-sense: tear down the wall between intelligence agencies and let them communicate, and give them the same tools to track terrorists that they currently have to track mobsters and drug dealers.
But, yes, we also eventually ended up with a dorky, color-coded alert system that means virtually nothing to the average American and thousands more government employees who stand around at airports offering little additional protection. And, out of a respect for civil libertires - or more accurately the perception of civil liberties in America - we've been unable to bring ourselves to profile the rather well-defined group of people who constitute the greatest potential threat (statistically speaking) to our free society.
I think John mentioned this a while back, but it's worth repeating again: Civil libertarians who've been berating the President and bemoaning the relatively mild measures that have been taken to protect the country over the last five years are going to find themselves in a very tough spot if the country suffers another devastating attack.
Let's hope Dean Lynn remembers to teach his students that while it's absolutely right to cherish and defend civil liberties, the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Our Worst Former President, Again - Jed Babbin
Jimmy Carter is at it again. It was only about two weeks ago when the former president said, in an interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, that Israel was unjustified in attacking Lebanon. Now, speaking to the British Daily Telegraph, he's condemning British PM Tony Blair for being too compliant and subservient to President Bush.
The Der Spiegel interview was, itself, a comprehensive view of Mr. Carter's view of the Middle East and the war on terror. Flacking his new book, Carter was asked whether he believed that the hatred of the US throughout the Arab world he stated in his book indicated that Washington's calls for democracy in the Middle East had been discredited. The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate answered, "No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon."
That was too much for the interviewer who followed up by asking, "But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?" Carter was undeterred. "I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for the massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon." Carter added later that he believed he spoke for the vast majority of Democrats. Now the UK Sunday Telegraph brings Carter's wisdom to Britain.
The Telegraph article begins, "Tony Blair's lack of leadership and timid subservience to George W Bush lie behind the ongoing crisis in Iraq and the worldwide threat of terrorism, according to the former American president Jimmy Carter." Carter begins by expressing surprise and "extreme disappointment" at Blair's behavior. And it gets worse. Carter blames Blair for what he believes to be a disaster in the Middle East resulting from a wrongheaded policy of pre-emptive war: "We now have a situation where America is so unpopular overseas that even in countries like Egypt and Jordan our approval ratings are less than five per cent. It's a shameful and pitiful state of affairs and I hold your British Prime Minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient."
Carter's comments - as offensive as they are ill-timed - will hurt Blair badly. Blair is trying to hold on to office beyond the end of this year at a time when even the hapless Cameron Tories are catching up to him, and his own ministers are working determinedly to maneuver him out of office quickly. Blair - like him or not - has as clear an understanding of the global terror threat as anyone else in his nation or on the Continent. Any new Labor prime minister could easily withdraw British troops from Iraq suddenly, resulting in a substantially weaker coalition presence there at a critical time. That appears to be just what Carter has in mind.
August 26, 2006
October Surprise Comes Early For Laffey
Laffey Says He Regrets Writing Anti-gay Columns in College" - Boston Globe
Check out the RCP 2006 Election page for more on the Rhode Island Senate race.
Moving on the War
Earlier this week John McCain made news for criticizing the war effort. Now he's making news by stressing support for it.
Embattled Republican Congressman Chris Shays is now calling to set a "timetable for the withdrawal" of U.S. troops and Joe Lieberman says he's willing to "take a look" at Shays' proposal.
Ironically enough, all of this is happening just as we're seeing improvement in the security situation in Baghdad. Columnist David Ignatius, no huge fan of the Bush administration's management of the war, recognized the progress in a column filed from Baghdad Thursday. In tomorrow's Washington Post, Ignatius files another column from Iraq in which he writes "We don't need radical new plans for federalism, or sharp deadlines for withdrawing U.S. troops, as anxious members of Congress have recently recommended."
Ignatius argues we should set deadlines for the transition to Iraqi control buttressed with local incentives for success and penalities for failure. To accomplish a successful transition, Ignatius says that "Americans need a little more patience and Iraqis a little less."
The Harris Horror Show Continues
Katherine Harris' Senate campaign in Florida continues to operate somewhere between a soap opera and a really bad television reality show. This week Ms. Harris suffered yet another gaffe after a rally in a hangar at the Orlando airport turned up only 40 people. Ms. Harris explained the poor attendance by saying there had been a last-minute change of venue after a tree had fallen on the original building, but airport officials said no such accident occurred and that Ms. Harris was in the hangar originally booked by her campaign.
Shortly after the event, Ms. Harris parted company with her political director, yet another name added to an already embarrassingly long list of high-level staff defections. Ms. Harris is now working with her fourth campaign manager and third communications director since the campaign began last year.
Despite the constant chaos and ridicule surrounding Ms. Harris, a new poll shows that she continues to hold more than a two-to-one advantage over her nearest primary opponent. But that opponent, retired two-star Admiral LeRoy Collins, has picked up 12 percentage points in the last six weeks, along with endorsements from five of the major papers in the state. With only eleven days left before the primary, however, Admiral Collins' surge will probably come up short, in which case the Harris Horror show will extend its run through November 7 before being cancelled permanently by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
All in all a very disappointing result for the GOP in a Republican-leaning state with a Democratic incumbent who was once high on their list of potential targets.
August 25, 2006
In Other Mike Huckabee News ...
Mike Huckabee: Big-Government Conservative.
Political Video of the Day
From The Hotline, here's Arkansas governor, and possible '08 GOP presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee playing bass in a cover band -- with amusing pop-up commentary:
(via Wonkette)
Hillary and Ned
Another '08 Straw Poll
GOP Bloggers is doing another '08 straw poll. You can vote below.
George Allen: Jewish?
According to New York's Jewish Forward, Sen. George Allen is: Jewish.
According to Forward columnist Eve Kessler:
This might complicate life for Allen, a practicing Episcopalian who besides running for re-election this year in Virginia is often mentioned as a possible Republican 2008 contender. Political analyst John Mercurio of National Journal's noted tip sheet, The Hotline, said that any complication "would depend largely on how this information was revealed.""If it was discovered that Allen knew this family history, but attempted to keep it under wraps for whatever reason, it could do great harm to any political campaign," Mercurio wrote in an e-mail. "He'd face serious questions, in the wake of the Macaca incident and his history with the Confederate flag, of whether he's both racially prejudiced and anti-semitic. Given the intensely pro-Israel sentiment that exists in this country today, that could be a huge political liability -- but on the other hand, if this is something he discovers and promptly reveals about himself, and does so with a sense of pride in his family history, I don't think he'd face much backlash at all."
I think Allen's '08 campaign is pretty much over no matter what. But, as Kessler goes into, he wouldn't be the first politician to suddenly "discover" his Jewish heritage.
The 'Hole' in Nagin's Head
As offensive as Mayor Nagin's "hole in the ground" comment is in its phrasing, let me chime in with a note of not-really defense as a New Yorker: It is appalling that New York City is still left with an open wound approaching the five-year anniversary of 9/11.
The failure of the New York City and state governments to get their act together on rebuilding Ground Zero has been a governmental failure approaching the level of incompetence shown by Nagin in New Orleans (if not quite matching it). And the blame falls squarely on one man's shoulders: Gov. George Pataki. Now, Mayor Bloomberg hasn't covered himself in glory in all of this -- his obsession with other development projects around the city (such as trying to land the Olympics) has diverted attention from Ground Zero. But it is the governor who holds real power in New York state, and Pataki's incompetence and sheer laziness have led to a deadlock that still has no end in sight.
His performance at Ground Zero alone disqualifies Pataki from the presidency (if he really harbors any such delusions). Eliot Spitzer will have his shot at fixing this mess starting next year. Let's all hope he does better.
The Duke Lacrosse Files
So, District Attorney Mike Nifong leaked all 1,850 pages of evidence in the Duke Lacrosse rape case to the New York Times in hopes of countering the public perception that the whole thing is a sham and a textbook example of prosecutorial abuse. Duff Wilson and Jonathan Glater only partly oblige, producing a lengthy and detailed account that, while certainly promoting aspects of the case that are favorable to the prosecution, still contains a whole lot of question marks and red flags about the accuser's story and, most importantly, about the way this case has been prosecuted.
Perhaps the biggest question raised by the story is the source for much of what appears in the article itself: 33 pages of typed notes and 3 pages of handwritten notes by Sergeant Mark D. Gottlieb. Defense lawyers say Gottlieb initially told them he "took few handwritten notes" on the case, so they were surprised to receive 33 pages of typed notes from him with details addressing specific problem areas of the prosecution's case in a final disclosure of documents made to the defense four months after the rape allegedly took place. Wilson and Glater write:
The sergeant's notes are drawing intense scrutiny from defense lawyers both because they appear to strengthen Mr. Nifong's case and because they were not turned over by the prosecution until after the defense had made much of the gaps in the earlier evidence.Joseph B. Cheshire, a lawyer for David Evans, one of the defendants, called Sergeant Gottlieb's report a "make-up document." [snip]
Mr. Cheshire said the sergeant's report was "transparently written to try to make up for holes in the prosecution's case." He added, "It smacks of almost desperation."
Even beyond the issue of Gottlieb's notes, there are so many interesting tidbits and angles in the article you should really sift through it all yourself. But here are two things that really jumped out at me. First, here is how Wilson and Glater report the initial police search of the house on North Buchanan street:
Mr. Evans and the two other team captains who shared the house were there. Police reports say they cooperated fully. Not only had there been no rape, they said, there had been no sex at all. They talked for hours without lawyers, gave DNA samples and offered to take polygraph tests. The officers declined the polygraph offer because, they said, DNA evidence would solve the case.
Initial reactions often say quite a bit, and if the police report is accurate - and we have no reason to believe it's not - it would appear to describe the actions of three innocent people. David Evans is among one of the three charged in the case, so it seems implausible, to say the least, that he would sit down and talk with police for hours without a lawyer present and offer up a DNA sample (later requested by the prosecution and eventually coming back negative) were he guilty of raping someone just a day prior.
The other bit that struck me was Nifong's refusal to meet with Reade Seligmann's attorney to hear evidence of his alibi:
In mid-April, the defense lawyers tried repeatedly to meet with the district attorney to share what they describe as evidence favorable to their clients. He rebuffed them, they say.Mr. Nifong met with three of the lawyers on April 13 but cut them off when they talked about exculpatory evidence, saying he knew more about the case than they did, according to James D. Williams Jr., who represents a player who was not charged.
Mr. Osborn says he offered to show Mr. Nifong proof of a solid alibi for Mr. Seligmann. That includes cellphone records, an A.T.M. record, a time-coded dormitory entry card and a taxi driver's account. Time-stamped photos show that the women were dancing at the party until 12:04 a.m. According to his cellphone bill, between 12:05 and 12:13, Mr. Seligmann made eight brief calls, of 36 seconds or less, six of them to his girlfriend's number, and then phoned a taxi at 12:14 a.m. and left the party shortly after.
Mr. Nifong has never explained his refusal to meet with the lawyers or review their evidence.
"I've known the guy for 25 years," Mr. Osborn said in mid-April. "I went over and thought surely he'd listen to me on it. And he sent some messenger out and said, 'I saw you on the TV saying your client was absolutely innocent, so what do we have to talk about?' He wouldn't even see me himself."
The timeline seems to indicate Nifong was hell bent on delivering indictments. After three weeks and three different sessions, the accuser finally made identifications on April 4. On April 10, Nifong turned over the results of DNA tests to the defense showing that not a single match had been found. On April 13, he rebuffed defense attorneys' attempts to provide exculpatory evidence, including what appears to be an air tight alibi for Seligmann. Five days later, on April 18, Nifong indicted Finnerty and Seligmann (it took another month to indict Evans, on May 15). All of this was occurring while Nifong was running for reelection in a primary that took place on Tuesday, May 2.
Mayor Nagin's "Hole in the Ground"
The next few weeks will see a furious struggle to frame two important anniversaries, with the media spinning in overdrive to play up the importance of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and at the same time to downplay the significance of the five-year anniversary of September 11. The reasons are simple: Katrina helps Democrats, 9/11 helps President Bush and the GOP.
60 Minutes is already getting geared up, but Mayor Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin didn't help his cause - or the MSM's - with his quip to CBS's Byron Pitts that, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed....."
That's nice. Let me give a little piece of unsolicited PR advice to Mayor Nagin: comments like that will quickly have the country siding 95% with New York and against New Orleans.
I get pissed just thinking about Nagin contemptuously describing the ground where Islamist's attacked and murdered over 2,500 Americans as simply "A hole in the ground."
I'd love to see a full scale, accurate and honest documentary covering the entire Katrina crisis period of Mayor Nagin and the New Orleans city government and compare that to Mayor Giuliani and New York City's response to 9/11.
The press can continue its crusade against George W. Bush (and there is no question the Federal government made mistakes in their handling of Katrina), but as more and more of the truth comes out, the historical facts are going to prove that to the degree someone, or government, is to "blame" for this natural disaster, a large part of the responsibility falls on Nagin and the City of New Orleans.
UPDATE: To prepare for the media onslaught that is coming, it's worth reading (or rereading) Lou Dolinar's piece for RealClearPolitics in May that tries to take a look at what really happened with the some of the state and federal governments response to Katrina, as opposed to the media's overarching theme that George W. Bush was either incompetent, didn't care, or both.
How Big Will Immigration Be in November?
Some hints to the answer can be found in the Christian Science Monitor , the Arizona Republic, and the Boston Globe.
McGavick's Confession
Mike McGavick has taken the unusual step of posting an open letter on his blog in which he preemptively confronts a number of mistakes in his personal and professional life, including a 1993 DUI charge. McGavick writes:
I know that the character attacks against me will not stop. So, how about I just tell you directly the very worst and most embarrassing things in my life for you to know, and then I will get back to talking about how much the U.S. Senate needs a new direction.Here it is: I have lots of faults, and I have made some mistakes that I deeply regret.
In my personal life I reflect on two great failures:
Most important, my first marriage ended in divorce, and as a result my eldest son, Jack, grew up with me as a "part-time" dad.
Those who have gone through a divorce know the pain and special challenges of raising a child under such circumstances. I am happy to report that my former wife, Kim Rainey, and I did a good job of staying focused on Jack's well-being and parented successfully (thus far!). Admittedly, Kim carried the lion's share of the burden (as so many moms do), but she was a great help in assuring that I would have a constant role in Jack's life. Jack is now 18, off to college, and is a kind and well-rounded young adult. I am especially pleased by how my younger sons look up to their big brother Jack, an environment fostered by my wife Gaelynn.
The second terrible mistake, which was difficult to discuss with my teenage son, was that I was cited for DUI when I cut a yellow light too close in 1993. I was driving Gaelynn home from several celebrations honoring our new relationship and should not have gotten behind the wheel. Thankfully, there was no accident, but it still haunts me that I put other people at risk by driving while impaired. All in all, it was and remains a humbling and powerful event in my life.
McGavick also discussed the DUI in an interview with the Associated Press yesterday. The Seattle Times reports that, "McGavick told The Associated Press that he blew .17 percent on the blood-alcohol meter -- well above Maryland's legal intoxication threshold."
McGavick ruined the confessional mood by declaring that the disclosure wasn't a "campaign tactic." It clearly was a tactic - and probably a very smart one at that. In 2000, we saw what hiding a DUI can do when it's revealed days before election day. By getting it out in the open (on a Friday at the end of August, no less) with more than two months left before the vote, it essentially becomes a non-issue for McGavick and strips his opponent of a potential October Surprise.
The only way this can hurt McGavick is if there is something else in his background that turns up between now and November 7. Then, having gone out of his way to confess to voters "the worst and most embarrassing moments" of his life, McGavick would look doubly bad - and he would pay for it dearly at the polls. But as things stand, this is a very shrewd political move and another example of why McGavick is such a formidable challenger to Cantwell in Washington state.
(For more on the Washington Senate race, visit the RCP Election 2006 Page).
August 24, 2006
Bloomberg '08
New York's Mayor Bloomberg says no to a presidential run.
Good choice.
The Religion Problem
Pew has just put out its yearly survey on religion and public life. No surprise, the Democrats have a religion problem. According to the report: "Fully 69% of Americans say that liberals have gone too far in keeping religion out of schools and government."
It adds, however: "The proportion who express reservations about attempts by Christian conservatives to impose their religious values has edged up in the past year, with about half the public (49%) now expressing wariness about this." That includes 31 percent of Republicans who think conservative Christians go too far in imposing their religious values.
Forty-nine percent may still be a minority. But in a 50-50 political climate, and with the number seemingly on an upward trajectory, it's nothing at which to sneeze.
Political Video of the Day II
Lefties are up in arms over a series of ads being run by the Center for Union Facts (a conservative outfit opposed to unions -- particularly public-sector ones -- here's some info on them) in Michigan, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon, and on the Internet.
I'm not sure if the center is going to be effective, but its message is certainly the right one. While private sector unions have shrunk down practically to nothing, public-sector unions grow like a cancer in states like New York and California. If "cancer" seems an overly harsh metaphor, you don't live in the Empire State or have any stake in education reform.
The unions have immense political influence, and then they use that influence to make the laws more favorable to themselves, give themselves pay raises, get more political power, and then start the cycle all over again. There's no end in sight for the taxpayers, or for kids trapped in failing, decrepit public schools.
Anyway, here are some of the ads in question:
On teachers unions...
On so-called "card-check" organizing (designed to bully workers who don't want to organize a union -- the New York teachers unions are trying to foist this on non-unionized charter-school teachers)...
And here's one satirizing the benefits of unions generally...
OK, so it's really political videos II, III and IV.
Election 2006
For those who might have missed it, we've launched a bunch of new pages for the 2006 Election. As always, you can get a list of all the day's political news on our Politics & Elections page. We're now updating this page throughout the day as new politics stories become available, so be sure to check in throughout the day to get the latest.
We've also added two new definite bookmarks for poll junkies: The first is a new page aggregating Election 2006 polls by day, and the second is a page of RCP Averages for competitive '06 Senate races.
Last but not least, we've added individual Election 2006 pages for Senate contests in Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, Virginia, and Connecticut.
Maryland and Tennessee will be up shortly, with competitive Governor and House races to follow shortly thereafter.
Big News
Also: This is big news for Mark Warner's campaign.
Mark Warner's Expensive Butter
Remember when Mark Warner spent $50,000 buttering up Kossacks out at their convention in Las Vegas?
Well, Byron York now reports the figure was closer to $70,000.
That, combined with the hiring of Kos buddy Jerome Armstrong certainly seems to have bought a lot of deference from the netroots to a classic, centrist, DLC Democrat.
Political Video of the Day
Speaking of the tightening Pennsylvania Senate race, here's Bob Casey touting "balanced budgets" -- a rhetorical gift the profligate GOP Congress has given every Democrat in America:
Of course, when he talks about "investing," that sounds an awful lot like spending (and taxing).
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Iowa Dems Pull Ahead
David Yepsen reports on an interesting development in Iowa:
Democrats have pulled ahead of Republicans in voter registrations in Iowa -- the first time that's happened since 1994, according to state registration records.A year ago, the GOP still led the Democrats. This change is another signal that 2006 could be a bad year for the Republicans.
Yepsen goes on to speculate about reasons for the shift before concluding:
Yes, it's early. Yes, registration numbers are not predictors of election returns. Yes, candidates can stumble. So Democrats shouldn't start singing "Happy Days Are Here Again."A quiet humming will do.
Incidentally, this reminds me of the plethora of stories we saw in 2004 on the surging number of Democratic registrations in swing states around the country. This September 26, 2004 article by Ford Fessenden of the New York Times is a perfect example of what I'm referring to:
A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas.
We all know how that turned out. It should be noted, however, that Yepsen is working with real numbers in Iowa and not guestimates, so he may indeed have identified a trouble spot for GOP candidates in the Hawkeye state.
Danny Davis in Hot Water
From the Chicago Tribune:
Chicago congressman Danny Davis and an aide took a trip to Sri Lanka last year that was paid for by the Tamil Tigers, a group that the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization for its use of suicide bombers and child soldiers, law enforcement sources said.
Rove's Test
Julie Hirschfeld Davis pens a sharp profile of Karl Rove in today's Baltimore Sun:
Publicly optimistic, despite the threat of Republican losses this fall, the man Bush calls "the architect" is quietly dispensing advice, helping with strategic planning and raising money. His task includes some spine-stiffening for skittish candidates who worry that their support of the president, including backing for the war, could count against them at the polls.Not so, says Rove, who has argued that Republicans will win based on a full-throated defense of the war and Bush.
Rove is a master at maximizing opportunities and playing offense, and the events of the past two weeks in Connecticut and London have emerged as a fat curveball hanging right over the '06 plate.
Interestingly, though Rove is known for the acuteness of his political antennae, he finds himself at odds with a number of Republicans over the issue of immigration:
Many Republicans have listened politely [to Rove on immigration], then gone their own way. Rove made two trips to Capitol Hill this year to rally support for the plan, only to draw responses ranging from tepid to derisive, attendees said."What you have is the chief political strategist in the White House being told by elected officials who are on the front lines [that] 'This is not working -- your strategy does not comport with what I'm seeing,' " said Michael Franc, a congressional specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Clearly Rove is promoting the President's policy, and it's impossible to know just how he would advise candidates to deal with immigration were he not working for the White House.
The important takeaway from the article, however, is that the renewed focus on national security and the war on terror is doubly beneficial for Republicans. Not only do these issues draw a sharp, mostly favorable contrast for the GOP this November, but they are the dominant, overriding concern of the vast majority of Republican voters. In other words, to the extent this election is focused on national security it will dampen and/or paper over fractures in the GOP on other issues like immigration and spending.
The Post's Priorities
George Allen's apology to S.R. Sidarth gets A1 treatment in today's Washington Post. Is it really one of the six most important stories in the world today, or does the Post have its priorities a bit out of whack?
Fearing Success
The New York Times editorial page is "deeply disturbed" by the pronouncement that welfare reform has been an "unqualified success."
Bush's Back
We haven't even posted on it, but conservatives are emailing me about this "stab in the back" from McCain to President Bush:
Republican Sen. John McCain, a staunch defender of the Iraq war, on Tuesday faulted the Bush administration for misleading Americans into believing the conflict would be "some kind of day at the beach."The potential 2008 presidential candidate, who a day earlier had rejected calls for withdrawing U.S. forces, said the administration had failed to make clear the challenges facing the military.
"I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said. "Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders. I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."
Those phrases are closely associated with top members of the Bush administration, including the president.
I think McCain is probably right on the substance here. The administration did under-sell the difficulties at times. But this also highlights one of the great political difficulties when it comes to McCain's '08 run (at least in the primaries): He can't distance himself from an unpopular president and an unpopular war without playing into the "McCain is disloyal" storyline. A lot of conservatives don't want "a repeat of Bush," so to speak, but any criticism -- however veiled -- from Sen. Maverick is going to be ill-taken.
Others (not just Rudy, but Mitt, and ... whoever else) can gently and indirectly criticize Bush without igniting a firestorm. McCain has to tread much more lightly.
August 23, 2006
Santorum: Too conservative? Or not conservative enough?
On OpinionJournal this morning, Jason Riley has a piece on the tightening Senate race in Pennsylvania. While Santorum likes to paint himself as a victim of the hostile media, Riley reminds conservatives that the senator largely made his own bed:
Santorum shares some of the blame for his current predicament. In 2004, he backed liberal Republican Sen. Arlen Specter for re-election over the conservative challenger Pat Toomey. Mr. Santorum was eyeing the majority leader post and thought his support for the incumbent would help him lure moderates votes in the GOP caucus. Two years later, however, his embrace of Mr. Specter has probably dampened enthusiasm among Mr. Santorum's conservative base, where turnout is a concern. Indeed, one of the questions Mr. Santorum faced at the town hall meeting was a sarcastic "What's it like working with Sen. Specter?"Another arguable misstep was publishing a controversial book last year when he was sizing up a White House run. Mr. Santorum is a conservative Catholic, and his biggest political liability may be the perception that he's some kind of theocrat. Releasing a manifesto on how government can be used to propagate Christian moral values has only reinforced that negative image. And it's unlikely to help him with moderate Republican voters in those all-important collar counties of Philadelphia come November.
So, at once, Santorum has managed to be too conservative (on morals issues) and not conservative enough (in shunning a Club for Growth primary candidate). This sounds about right to me. Santorum -- love him or hate him -- is undoubtedly the poster-boy for a new strain of big-government conservatism that's making inroads in the GOP.
Let's just say I don't quite agree with Mr. Riley's concluding sentence. In fact, I think he's just about 180 degrees wrong on that particular point.
McCain Bags a Deaniac
McCain Bags Another Biggie
Time's Mike Allen has the scoop.
Political Video of the Day - II
Democrat Darcy Burner is challenging Republican Dave Reichert in Washington's 8th Congressional District. Here is Burner's latest ad:
The left is none too happy with Burner's effort. Matt Stoller of MyDD says the ad misses all the big targets. And Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake writes, "I'm quite sure most donors would be horrified to see their cash being pissed down a hole like this."
Allen Apologizes
The damage control continues for Senator Allen. He's now called S.R. Sidarth directly and apologized.
UPDATE: The DSCC has reprinted the text of an email by Allen's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams.
UPDATE II: I'm a big fan of Ryan Lizza, but his piece at TNR today cataloging passages from Senator Allen's sister's book veers dangerously close to parody. Lizza informs us that he's "re-read the book and plucked out the most significant details about the senator," and then goes on to list this as his first example:
* George called me Ugly and I called George a Moron and George called me a Dog and I told George to Shut Up. (page 5)
How or why Lizza considers this a "significant detail" that is relevant to anything about the Senator's reelection or potential presidential aspirations is beyond me. As I said, if this isn't parody, it's awfully darn close, and you can understand why the Allen campaign feels like they're being mistreated by the press.
Iran Falls Short
Here's the State Department's terse response to Iran:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1696 made clear the conditions Iran must meet regarding its nuclear program.Yesterday the Iranian government conveyed its response to the package of incentives provided on June 6 by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China. We acknowledge that Iran considers its response as a serious offer, and we will review it. The response, however, falls short of the conditions set by the Security Council, which require the full and verifiable suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.
We are consulting closely, including with other members of the Security Council, on next steps.
Meanwhile, a report from the House Intelligence Committee released today says our intel on Iran is so spotty that it's questionable whether the U.S. "could effectively engage in talks with Tehran on ways to diffuse tensions."
Political Video of the Day
There's a reason people hate peace activists. And this is it:
It's better than some of the staged shots from Reuters in Lebanon, though!
(via Gawker)
As always, send in nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Polls Indicate Potential Shift in '06 Playing Field
The weekend after the Lamont win and the foiled airline terror plot I suggested that "last week was the first solid week for Republicans in some time. " Those two events were followed by last Thursday's ruling, by a Jimmy Carter-appointed judge in favor of the ACLU, against the Bush administration's NSA wiretapping program aimed at intercepting al-Qaeda communications from overseas.
In the first batch of polls (CNN, USA Today/Gallup, NYT/CBS, Rasmussen) taken after all three of these events, the RealClearPolitics Poll Average for President Bush's Job Approval has risen to 40.8%, while the RCP Generic Average has closed to single digits, Democrats +8.5%. This shouldn't be misconstrued as evidence that everything is great for the GOP heading into the fall elections, but it is the first time in almost six months both RCP Averages have crossed these respective levels (Bush over 40% and the Generic deficit less than 10%). This is significant, and it's not a coincidence that it comes on the back of these three high profile news events.
The Left-wing netroots crowd along with the NY Times is all atwitter about the latest polling suggesting the public's negativity toward the war in Iraq is at an all time high. The number one story on BuzzTracker for much of yesterday - with blog posts overwhelmingly from the Left - was a report on the CNN poll indicating opposition to the Iraq war was at an all time high. The NY Times' write-up this morning on the NYT/CBS poll focuses heavily on Iraq and is titled "Poll Shows a Shift in Opinion on Iraq War." However, as I mentioned following Lamont's win in Connecticut, political pundits and reporters make a mistake by conflating rising unrest toward the situation in Iraq with support for the Dean/Pelosi/Lamont position on Iraq. This is because a portion of the negativity on Iraq is frustration from conservatives that the U.S. has not been aggressive enough with its enemies in Iraq and elsewhere. These people upset with Iraq, are not MoveOn.org type voters.
So from a political standpoint, when looking at national polls, the numbers for the Generic Ballot and Bush's Job Approval are far more relevant in their implications for November's mid-terms than specific polling on Iraq. And to the degree the press focuses on Iraq-related polling and not the change in the President's Job Approval or the Republican vs. Democrat ballot test, they are potentially missing a shift in the political landscape. We will need to watch to see whether this bounce for President Bush and Republicans is just a temporary boost from terror-related news or a permanent and more sustained turn.
August 22, 2006
Rudy Leads in Iowa
Yes, I know, Rudy could never win the GOP primaries in '08.
That's why in a new poll Rudy "has drawn the support of 30 percent of likely GOP caucus-goers."
That's the lead, by the way, 13 points over McCain.
(via Giuliani Blog. If you're not reading it, you should be.)
Political Video of the Day
Harold Ford Jr. campaigning for Senate in Tennessee, ranting against globalization:
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Lamont vs. Lieberman: Tightening?
A new ARG poll seems to show a significant tightening of the Connecticut Senate race. It puts Lieberman ahead of Lamont by a statistically insignificant 44%-42% (with the pathetic Republican at 3%).
That would be a dramatic tightening only a week after a Q-Poll showed Lieberman ahead 53%-41%.
I don't buy it (nor do I hold ARG in high regard generally). But there it is.
UPDATE: Maybe the ARG isn't such great news for Lamont after all.
No Doomsday Yet - Larry Kudlow
Although there are still a few more hours left in the day, the Islamic doomsday scenario scheduled for today, August 22, appears not to be in place. Maybe the airplane bombing terrorist threat foiled by our British cousins at MI5 and Scotland Yard was aimed at the doomsday scenario. We will always be thankful for the Brits.
But the big Internet story in recent days was the potential significance of August 22nd as a possible target date for a massive terrorist attack commemorating the return of the 12th Imam; a supposed day of reckoning for Shiites who believe that August 22nd corresponds to the end of the world.
Stock market investors were wearily eyeing the top of yesterday's Drudge Report which featured this story. But veteran portfolio manager Mike Holland told us on Kudlow and Company last night that he didn't believe a word of it. Blessedly, Mr. Holland looks to have gotten it right.
Stocks have been rising in recent weeks on the strength of a stronger than expected American economy, where resilient consumers and highly profitable businesses are outperforming the doom & gloom, cacophonous, cult of the bear on Wall Street.
Within shouting distance of 5-year highs, the bull market economy and stocks, backed by President Bush's successful low tax rate program, continue to outperform the bearish consensus. It is the greatest story never told. It continues to dodge doomsday.
And then we have President Bush, under fire from both the left and the right, who very clearly communicated a strong positive vision for the upcoming congressional elections during yesterday's news conference. Bush is attempting to take command of the election year Republican strategy to avoid a doomsday scenario this November.
He said, "Look, issues are won based on whether or not you can keep this economy strong--elections are won based on economic issues and national security issues...I'd be telling people that the Democrats will raise your taxes...I'd be running on the economy and I'd be running on national security. But since I'm not running, I can only serve as an advisor to those who are."
The latest Gallup Poll shows Bush's approval now at 42 percent, up from 31 percent in May. But here's the real anti-doomsday shocker: among registered voters, the Republicans have closed a 12-point deficit on the generic congressional ballot in early last June to only 2 percentage points now, with the Dems at 47 percent and the Republicans at 45.
It may well be that the "Armageddon Imams" are actually helping the down on their luck GOP.
With terrorism on the front page, Democrats are losing ground rapidly, almost as much ground lost as the Boston Red Sox, who just got slammed for five straight games by the New York Yankees. Now that's doomsday.
As for the rest of this story, I say keep the faith. Faith is the spirit.
Public Financing: A Bust
Former FEC commissioner Brad Smith argues, rather convincingly, that the presidential public-financing system has not been a success by any measure -- despite the utterly unsupported claims by a number of columnists and reform advocates.
WSJ on Allen: 'a dismaying indifference'
Over at OpinionJournal, Brendan Miniter weighs in on George Allen:
Mr. Allen's problem is neither that he is a vicious campaigner nor that he is a modern-day George Wallace. Rather, it is that for more than two decades in state and federal office, he has displayed a dismaying indifference to his adoptive state's racial history. And it is this political tone-deafness that is now weighing down his political future with Southern baggage.
Read the whole thing.
Bush's Beliefs
Over at Andrew Sullivan's blog, guest blogger David Weigel of Reason magazine takes bemused notice of this post from National Review Online:
Bush has virtually never in his political career made a decision that he didn't think was the right thing to do and the right way to do it. Conservatives who are piling on the anti-Bush bandwagon should consider that this trait--which makes the Bush family historically great--is a historical rarity to be treasured. This administration would do well to be more concerned with its popularity -- the President and even Vice President should appear every week in press conferences and on the Sunday talk shows -- if only to strengthen the political viability of their agenda, and be able to shape the terms of debate. But it was not so long ago that Americans could only wish for a president who was obviously trustworthy, upstanding, and principled. And the day is not far off when we will think ourselves lucky to have seen this President defend the honor and integrity of his office--and the American people--for eight years.
As a fellow libertarian, let me give a slightly different take: I think the NRO poster, Mario Loyola, is right.
Small-government conservatives have many reasons to be unhappy with the Bush presidency, but that Bush hasn't done what he believes is right is distinctly not one of them. In fact, Bush has been remarkable for the number of times he's marched against the political wind: Social Security privatization, immigration liberalization and the continuation of the Iraq war are just a few examples.
Where he's gone against conservative principles is in areas where he simply doesn't have any conservative principles. For a man who came into office without a foreign policy, Bush is uniquely unengaged in domestic policy.
He sold-out small-government values on education in his first major bill as president because he really doesn't believe the government is the problem in public schools -- he thinks the federal government just needs to enforce stricter standards.
He gave free-market health-care reform short shrift and signed the Medicare prescription-drug bill because he didn't see anything particularly wrong with massively expanding the size of the welfare state.
He signed off on pork-filled highway and farm bills because reducing pork has never been a priority in his administration.
These aren't moral failings, or a failure to stand up for what he believes in. He simply doesn't believe in a number of principles that used to define conservatism.
(One act that was a moral failing, however -- where Bush knew he was doing wrong -- was signing McCain-Feingold. He admitted as much in his signing statement.)
Now, I would argue that Bush was fairly disingenuous in his 2000 presidential campaign, painting himself as a small-government conservative at crucial junctures (I go into this in my book). But, overall, I do believe Bush has shown a unique disregard for public opinion. And, yes, I think that's a positive trait.
Grassroots Partisanship
Bob Bauer takes a look at how the FEC might vote on proposed new rules to ease the campaign-finance laws' restrictions on issue advertising. He argues that campaign-finance regulation has become so complex and unwieldy that it's no longer sound to assume they'll break down along party lines.
In this case, that might actually be good news for freedom of speech.
Response on Rudy
Re: Tom's speculation --
Yes, I'm reading the Wayne Barrett book on Rudy and 9/11 right now. It's for a review, though, so no response until early next month.
Barrett's got an extreme chip on his shoulder regarding Rudy. Though, that doesn't mean he might not make some entirely credible points.
Pat's PR
Either Pat Buchanan has an unbelievable PR operation or these stories are just a really fortuitous coincidence for the launch of his new book on immigration.
By the way, if you're looking for a thoughtful, less apocalyptic take on the subject, I recommend Michael Barone's recently re-released book "The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again."
UPDATE: Speaking of coincidences, you can catch Barone discussing immigration, his new book, Pat Buchanan, and more on Pundit Review Radio.
UPDATE II: Britain faces some uncomfortable immigration realities as well.
Tracking Rudy
Rudy is traveling the country breaking out the checkbook for Republicans and downplaying his support for gay rights.
And in the NY Daily News, columnist Errol Louis reviews the new anti-Rudy book by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins and concludes that it's time to downgrade Rudy's status as a mythical hero of 9/11. I'm sure Sager's response is already in the works...
Sour on Santorum
The Washington Times offers a surprisingly downbeat look at Rick Santorum's battle for reelection. Charles Hurt runs down a list of problems plaguing Santorum's campaign, most notably the lingering bitterness among conservatives over Santorum's decision to support moderate Arlen Specter over conservative Pat Toomey in 2004:
"I still feel the knife in my back from that," Mr. Clift said. "We worked very hard for Pat Toomey. All [Mr. Santorum] had to do was keep his mouth shut, and we'd all be fat, dumb and happy supporting him right now. I won't lift a finger to help him."In addition, he said, "I'm not pulling the Santorum lever this time. I'll write my own name in before I'll vote for him."
Although many conservatives told The Washington Times that they will not campaign for Mr. Santorum as actively as they would have otherwise, they'll still vote for him.
"There is no enthusiasm," said Tim Krieger, a lawyer in Westmoreland. "If you press Republicans, they say, 'Yeah, Santorum is better than Casey,' but they're not going to spend their Saturdays knocking on doors."
This race has narrowed considerably in the recent weeks. The Santorum campaign feels they'll be able to make up even more ground in the debates, and they've been pressing hard to get the two men on stage as many times as possible between now and November. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports today that Casey has agreed to four debates with Santorum, including a nationally televised match up on Meet the Press on September 3.
Primary Moves
Joe McQuaid of the New Hampshire Union-Leader rages against Democrats for changing their primary schedule:
NEW HAMPSHIRE means so little to the Democratic Party that it added crude insult to great injury to the Granite State over the weekend.It not only confirmed its plan to ignore more than 50 years of tradition and grassroots people politics here. It ordered its 2008 Presidential candidates not to campaign here if we continue to protect our first-in-the-nation primary.
Secretary of State William Gardner had the right response to all this:
"It's insulting and disrespectful to the people of New Hampshire for Chairman Dean to threaten potential Presidential candidates if they dare to set foot on the soil in this state.''
It is also typical of the Number One Liar in the Democratic Party. For it was Howard Dean who claimed to want to protect our primary when he was campaigning here for his party's nomination in 2004.
Meanwhile, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register says the primary shift may produce exactly the opposite effect the DNC intended with respect to Iowa:
If the purpose of the change was to diminish the significance of the Iowa caucuses, it failed. Packing so many events so closely after the Iowa events just makes Iowa more important. There is not enough time between these caucuses and primaries for a candidate to recover from a setback here -- or to slow the winner's momentum.
Yepsen goes on to speculate on the shifts that are bound to happen as New Hampshire looks at ways to preserve its status as the country's first primary.
August 21, 2006
Fallout From Macaca-Gate in Virginia
SurveyUSA has a new poll out tonight in Virginia that shows Allen's 19pt lead in their last poll dwindling to only 3pts in what can only be described as post Macaca fallout. This is on the back of a Rasmussen poll last week that showed a 5 pt race and tightening towards Webb. My position had been that Allen's remarks had done more damage to his '08 presidential run than his Senate reelection, but these polls certainly call that analysis in question.
Let's just say that I remain skeptical that this race has suddenly become a 3-5 point race because of the Macaca incident 10 days ago. The SurveyUSA poll indicates a 40 point swing among younger voters toward Webb which the size of in some ways defies common sense. Ten, fifteen, even twenty points sure, but a 40-point swing I don't buy. There is more analysis on the RCP Virginia Senate Page, but I would caution against drawing sweeping conclusions from these two polls.
Allen: 'no longer a real contender for the nomination'
That's not me speaking, it's Charlie Cook.
Funniest Line of the Day
I have to hand it to Kate O'Beirne:
"Should Mitt Romney join a 2008 race that included John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and George Allen, the only guy in the GOP field with only one wife would be the Mormon."
The London Plot: Real After All!
So, now that British authorities have charged 11 people and "uncovered large caches of bomb-making components as well as 'martyrdom' tapes of the type often prepared by Islamic suicide bombers before they attack," does Andrew Sullivan want to walk back his speculation last week that there was no London bomb plot or that it wasn't "imminent"?
I'm a Sullivan fan, which I know isn't fashionable in conservative circles these days. But Bush hatred can become pathological. (I should know: I take three separate medications every day to ward it off myself.)
While we don't know exactly what role torture-induced Pakistani intelligence played, I think even torture opponents have to have the intellectual honesty to admit that sometimes it works. There may be moral reasons not to torture, the intelligence may be less reliable than through other methods, but to pretend that everything's simple -- because, hey, who needs to argue about torture if it doesn't even work! -- is just intellectually dishonest.
It looks to me as if this plot was imminent by any reasonable definition -- i.e., it could have gone off within days or a week of the arrests -- and torture may have played a role in stopping it. I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise. But I don't think either scenario disproves or proves the usefulness of torture.
Political Video of the Day II
Here's a second one I can't resist: Sen. George Allen (of Macaca fame) doing a cameo years ago in the 2003 pro-Confederate film Gods and Generals (you can even see him listed on the IMDB page as a Confederate officer).
Remember: This guy's not even from the South.
Just what are the Southern rights Allen felt such a need to celebrate? (You can ask former Klansman Sen. Robert Byrd, also an extra in the movie, the same question.)
(via Sullivan guest bloggers)
UPDATE: Well, the hate-mail has flown on this one.
Two general categories:
1) Do I know the movie is based on a trilogy of books by Michael and Jeff Shaara (and that the 1993 film "Gettysburg" is based on another volume from the trilogy), which taken together are not generally considered pro-Confederate?
Well, I've not made a study of the film, but I'd read that and I've seen it on cable. Let's just say I think the film gives the Confederacy more sympathy than it is due while whitewashing the issue of slavery (the only two black characters with speaking parts are pro-Confederacy).
2) Is anyone who takes pride in their Southern heritage a racist, by my logic?
Well, here was my main point: GEORGE ALLEN DOES NOT HAVE A SOUTHERN HERITAGE! He grew up moving around the country following his father's coaching career; and his father was from the Midwest. His obsession with cultivating a Southern, good ol' boy image and embracing all things Confederate is, therefore, rather inexplicable and a little bit disturbing. And it certainly doesn't do his chances of winning the presidency any good.
Back to the question at hand, though: No. Having pride in one's Southern heritage is nothing shameful, in my view. Honorable men fought and died on both sides in the Civil War. But that heritage and that war can't be extricated from the moral crime of slavery.
I don't know if George Allen is a racist -- in fact, I think that's unknowable. Politically, however, he's got a race problem. It's of his own making. And this is one more piece of it.
Lamont and Tasini
After Lamont's (Pyrrhic) victory in Connecticut, why aren't the netroots trying to take a bite out of Hillary in her Democratic primary? They do, after all, despise her for her support of the war and general moderate makeover.
Well, I sat down last week with Hillary's Democratic challenger, union leader and organizer John Tasini, and he had a pretty simple answer: The netroots are afraid of Hillary:
"Many progressives fear confronting my opponent's machine - which does take names and does keep lists," Tasini told me over lunch in the West Village last week. "People are hedging their bets - Washington is a place that hinges on access." Otherwise, Tasini said, "Why take on Joe Lieberman and not Hillary Clinton?"
None of this bodes well for the netroots' chances to "stop Hillary" in 2008.
Political Video of the Day
There's been something of a war of words going on between Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. John Kerry. Here's Kerry on a call-in show a few days ago accusing Lieberman of using Republican "scare tactics" and calling the Connecticut senator "a disgrace."
As always, send in nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Raise Taxes? - Larry Kudlow
Does the Congressional Budget Office truly believe that higher tax rates over the next ten years will expand economic growth and lower the budget deficit? This forecast of theirs simply defies economic common sense.
If that were the case, then why not raise tax rates across the board back to 70 percent, where Reagan found them, or even 91 percent, where JFK inherited them?
If it pays less to work and invest, after tax, as implied by the CBO, does anyone really believe people would work harder?
Over then next ten years, the budget agency expects 2.8 percent annual growth, when in fact over the past 50 years, growth has averaged 3.5 percent. What's more, rapid growth over the past 25 years with lower tax rates has greatly boosted this 50-year average.
So the idea that higher tax rates might balance the budget, or that an extension of lower tax rates will generate a $1.7 trillion higher deficit, just makes no sense at all.
Mainstream economists today believe that tax incentives matter. All but the farthest left economists like Paul Krugman and his ilk believe that economic behavior is highly responsive to changing tax rates. The CBO is telling us otherwise and it just doesn't figure.
Of course, these long term economic and budget projections remind us of Friedrich Hayek's fatal conceit. That is, government planners can accurately predict the future. I don't think so. Consequently, with all due respect to the professionals at CBO, I just don't buy into their new numbers.
Perhaps they should focus more clearly on the here and now. What's happened in recent years following the Bush tax cuts is a stronger economy, much higher tax revenue collection, and continuous downward estimates of the budget gap.
This is the real story.
Lockdown
If you missed it Friday, here's the New York Times on Sen. John McCain's effort to lock down every bit of political and fundraising talent in the country.
There's no denying it's an impressive effort. All the other '08 candidates have a tough road ahead of them. The only thing that could stop McCain is ... well, how much conservatives hate him.
Why Giuliani and McCain Are the Clear Frontrunners - Mark Davis
I was watching John McCain on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning, and something came over me for the first time: a willingness to entertain him as the Republican nominee for President in 2008.
I might prefer other candidates along the way. George Allen and Sam Brownback could wind up duking it out for the Reagan base. Mitt Romney will get deserved attention, and a Newt Gingrich candidacy does not draw as much skepticism as it used to.
But if Rudy Giuliani can top a Pew Research Center poll as he did last week, and if his numbers and McCain's can reach 45 percent when no single candidate can crack 25, that says GOP voters are laser-locked on the war views of the candidates (Condoleezza Rice at 21 was the only other name topping 9 percent), and less compelled by the "God, guns and gays" issues which have lifted some recent candidacies and destroyed others.
This is a good thing. Not that conservative voters should stop caring about past core issues, but some of the topics that have taken up an enormous amount of breath and time at GOP conventions of late are things that just don't have a lot to do with the presidency.
Gun control fills the plates of mayors and sometimes governors. I don't for a minute think a President Giuliani is coming to get my gun.
Gay marriage is steeped in the judiciary. We don't have to have a chief executive who lives and breathes this issue -- we surely don't have one now. We need judges who will give states the freedom to set their own gay marriage laws, the only status quo that honors the Constitution. Even a "moderate" GOP candidate can grasp that as he makes judicial appointments.
And as for religious issues, we seem to be finally arriving at an understanding that government may acknowledge the vital role of faith in our nation's history and traditions, but may not act in ways that compel citizens toward-- or away from-- any religious thought or behavior. I'm ready for such matters to be left to the individual and left out of campaign ads.
The bottom line: it used to be a given that candidates deemed too liberal on some social issues could not compete for the Republican nomination.
9/11 truly did change everything. Now they can, if their war credentials are strong enough. And in McCain and Giuliani, the GOP may have its most able aspirants by far in the race to see who gets the reins in the war on terror in January 2009.
- Mark Davis
Host of The Mark Davis Radio Show
August 19, 2006
Kudlow Radio at 12:00 ET
August 18, 2006
Bush Responds to Wiretap Ruling
President Bush answering questions on U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor decision finding the NSA eavesdropping unconstitutional.
Q Mr. President, the federal ruling yesterday that declared your terrorist surveillance program unconstitutional -- the judge wrote that it was never the intent of the framers to give the President such unfettered control. How do you respond, sir, to opponents who say that this ruling is really the first nail in the coffin of your administration's legal strategy in the war on terror?THE PRESIDENT: I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live. You might remember last week working with the -- with people in Great Britain, we disrupted a plot. People were trying to come and kill people.
This country of ours is at war, and we must give those whose responsibility it is to protect the United States the tools necessary to protect this country in a time of war. The judge's decision was a -- I strongly disagree with that decision, strongly disagree. That's why I instructed the Justice Department to appeal immediately, and I believe our appeals will be upheld.
I made my position clear about this war on terror. And by the way, the enemy made their position clear yet again when we were able to stop them. And I -- the American people expect us to protect them, and therefore I put this program in place. We believe -- strongly believe it's constitutional.
And if al Qaeda is calling in to the United States, we want to know why they're calling. And so I made my position clear. It would be interesting to see what other policymakers -- how other policymakers react.
Republicrats
Over at The American Prospect, Ezra Klein has an interesting article (subscription required) on what he calls, "The Rise of the Republicrats." No, he's not trotting out the old warhorse about there being no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. He's looking at how the Republican Party has abandoned all pretense of being the party of small government and has instead embraced the Leviathan state -- leaving the Democrats, the usual champions of the Leviathan state, in something of a bind.
It's a subject near and dear to my heart (and I make a brief appearance in the article).
Klein argues:
The dilemma for conservatism is obvious: How can a pro-business, pro-tax cut, and anti-entitlement creed such as today's conservatism cater to this constituency [Southern, working-class, white, socially conservative] without abandoning everything it has believed for 40 years? For much of the old guard, such a radical re-imagining of conservatism may prove impossible. But some younger, less tradition-bound conservative thinkers are sketching out a pro-government philosophy that supports conventionally progressive proposals like wage subsidies and child-tax credits but places them in a new context -- as rear-guard protective actions in defense of the nuclear family. That is, whereas progressives argue for economic justice for a class or classes, these conservatives are arguing for economic favoritism for families, buttressed by government policies that encourage and advantage them as the central structure of American life. It isn't hard to see the potential appeal of that approach, and it could corner Democrats and liberals into being the party of the poor, while the GOP becomes the party of parents.Klein's certainly right about what's happened to the Republican coalition -- i.e. that it's shifted away from the West and toward the South, and away from economic conservatism and toward economic populism married to cultural populism.
At the same time, I think it's faintly ridiculous to attribute the slide toward big-government conservatism to a younger generation "re-imagining" what conservatism means (Ross Douthat's and Reihan Salam's proposal for the GOP to become the Party of Natalism was interesting, but it isn't quite policy yet). Instead, big-government conservatism has grown out of purely cynical machinations by Republican politicians and public intellectuals who were neutered during the Gingrich years, and are now desperately trying to cling to power and relevance.
Big-government conservatism hasn't meant stealing from the rich to give to the middle class. It's meant meaningless gestures on education (No Child Left Behind), massive government giveaways to corporations and the elderly (the Medicare prescription-drug bill), and pork-laden highway and farm bills. The fact is that while there are Republican politicians who have signed on to this Protecting the Nuclear Family Through Big Government way of thinking -- chief among them Sen. Rick Santorum, who might not be with us much longer -- they don't set policy in the GOP. And if they started to, the party would split in half. Or in thirds.
It's also a strange assumption that the Democrats aren't the ones better poised to become the middle-class Mommy Party. It's only the War on Terror, and only by a few points, that has kept the GOP in power since 2002. Entitlement reform, child tax credits, middle-class "values" talk -- these are all hallmarks of the Clinton Era Democratic Party. The only thing standing in the way of the Democrats returning to power in the guise of such a party is -- well, the Democrats. It's the progressive netroots who want to purge the Democratic Party of all Clintonian (read: election-winning) tendencies domestically, and of all hawkish (read: election-winning) tendencies on foreign policy. A revival of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party (the Big-Government-Republican wing of the Democratic Party, if you will) is the only thing that will keep the Democrats from becoming, as Klein puts it, "the party of the poor." (The real danger, I might add, is becoming "the party of the poor and the pacifists.")
How the Democrats choose to react to the changes taking place in the Republican coalition and the Republican policy program is their business. (Though, I'd agree with Klein that moderately small-government voters -- particularly in the West -- are a group they should be looking to court.)
But the idea that small-government conservatism is dead, or that the libertarian wing of the GOP is just going to roll over and play dead, is mistaken. Small-government conservatism is far from obsolete. In fact, given the entitlement crisis we're all headed toward, especially we in the younger generation, it's more vital than ever. Market-based health-care reform, private Social Security accounts, school choice -- all of these ideas form the core of a policy platform that, if pursued skillfully, should appeal tremendously to the rising generation of voters, as well as to most of the GOP's traditional base. (Bush's Ownership Society actually gets at the core of this concept, but has been pursued ineptly.)
Anyway, pick up TAP and read Klein's whole, insightful article. Just don't mistake Republican incompetence, opportunism, and corruption for a new conservative ideology.
Ouch
Political Video of the Day
More of the YouTube campaign ... I've seen few campaigns as aggressive as the Bob Casey effort in the Pennsylvania Senate race when it comes to posting videos online.
Santorum's tightening things up. But here's the Casey campaign going after him hard on Social Security:
Of course, for this to be effective, a lot of senior citizens would have to be on YouTube. So, there are still some benefits to conventional media.
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Republicans and Security Moms
Has the GOP lost the crucial "security moms"? The Washington Post says yes:
Married women with children, the "security moms" whose concerns about terrorism made them an essential part of Republican victories in 2002 and 2004, are taking flight from GOP politicians this year in ways that appear likely to provide a major boost for Democrats in the midterm elections, according to polls and interviews.This critical group of swing voters -- who are an especially significant factor in many of the most competitive suburban districts on which control of Congress will hinge -- is more inclined to vote Democratic than at any point since Sept. 11, 2001, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the Pew Research Center.
Married mothers said in interviews here that they remain concerned about national security and the ability of Democrats to keep them safe from terrorist strikes. But surveys indicate Republicans are not benefiting from this phenomenon as they have before.
Disaffection with President Bush, the Iraq war, and other concerns such as rising gasoline prices and economic anxiety are proving more powerful in shaping voter attitudes.
The study, which examined the views of married women with children from April through this week, found that they support Democrats for Congress by a 12-point margin, 50 percent to 38 percent. That is nearly a mirror-image reversal from a similar period in 2002, when this group backed Republicans 53 percent to 36 percent. In 2004, exit polls showed, Bush won a second term in part because 56 percent of married women with children supported him.
...
Significantly, Pew and other polls in recent days have found little or no advantage for Republicans in the aftermath of last week's foiled terrorist plot in London, even as Vice President Cheney and GOP leaders have warned that the event showed the risk of voting for a Democratic Party that they say is dominated by security doves.
The terrorism issue isn't a bottomless well for the GOP. There's going to be real fatigue with the Iraq war and constant state of alert. If true, the fact that the London plot barely even registered with voters seems pretty significant.
This isn't to say the GOP shouldn't keep up its tough approach to the War on Terror. But they can't act like clowns on every other issue and expect their current good luck to last forever.
Snakes on a Senate
Sometimes I think the Democrats might win big in November.
But sometimes I see their latest attempts at "hipness" and revise my opinion.
Behold, courtesy of Sen. Chuck Schumer: Snakes on a Senate.
York on S.C.
Byron York went to the Charleston leg of Rudy's South Carolina trip Wednesday. He reports on the warm reception Rudy received, but also has some typical observations on the fact that the former mayor is behind the curve in the organizing department:
Are social issues less important, or will they come on strong in due time? No one will know the answer to that question for a while, but there are also more practical aspects that can determine the success of a presidential campaign. And in South Carolina, even at this very early point in the race, Giuliani appears to be substantially behind other Republican candidates.There's no doubt Giuliani's visit to Charleston looked presidential. There was a lot of security, a lot of men in suits with earpieces. His entourage included staffers from Solutions America, Giuliani's political action committee, and from Giuliani's company, Giuliani Partners. (The group included Chris Henick, the former top aide to Karl Rove, who joined the firm in 2003.) But that's a traveling group. In terms of an organization on the ground in South Carolina, Giuliani doesn't really have one.
Compare that to his fellow front-running rival, Sen. John McCain. The news in South Carolina political circles in the last few weeks has been the number of prominent state politicos who have signed up with McCain. There's the attorney general, Henry McMaster, who was once thought to be closer to Giuliani than McCain. The two were U.S. attorneys together years ago, and Giuliani describes McMaster as a good friend, but on Wednesday McMaster told the South Carolina newspaper The State that, "I think Rudy would be a superb candidate, but my choice right now is for Sen. John McCain."
McCain has also locked up the former attorney general, Charlie Condon, as well as Bob McAlister, the former top aide to legendary governor Carroll Campbell. And of course, there's the current governor, Mark Sanford, who backed McCain in 2000 but can't jump on the bandwagon again until he wins re-election in November. (Sanford's wife Jenny came to the Giuliani fundraiser, explaining her husband couldn't make it.) And, finally, there's Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is so close to McCain that during a recent visit to Columbia, McCain absentmindedly referred to Graham as "Cindy" -- the name of McCain's wife.
No doubt this is all true (though Rudy nabbed a big fish himself Wednesday). But we'll see what happens after November '06. Rudy's public statements have all been to the effect that he won't announce or officially organize until after the midterms. Whether this is good strategy or not, I can't say.
Political reporters would give him more credit if he were doing the organizing now, but he's not playing to them. My sense is he's trying to stay above the fray for as long as possible. Might work; might end up having to play a lot of catch-up with Sen. Maverick.
Public Financing Fraud
E.J. Dionne Jr. today bases his entire column on a claim without a shred of support: That the presidential public-funding system has "worked."
How do we know it worked? Well ... uh ... a lot of presidential candidates took the free money. Big surprise.
Bob Bauer takes on this logic this morning on his blog:
We can't really say that the system "worked" or "served the nation well" when we can't assert, because we can't know, what would have happened without this system.
But it's actually worse than that. It's not just that we "don't know" if it's worked. We do know something much more important: That the public is at best indifferent to the program, and at worst actively hostile to it. A lot of people may say they like public-financing if you word the question in a biased way in a poll, but where the rubber meets the road, in the voluntary tax check-off box, Americans let their real feelings be known: In 2005, only 9 percent of filers elected to support the Presidential Election Campaign Fund; the number's been declining for years.
If people want to defend public financing, great. But the press tends to let them get away with simply asserting things that are -- on the face of it -- patently ridiculous.
It's The National Security, Stupid
Will Democrats be able to thread the national security needle this year, opposing Iraq without coming off as soft on the War on Terror? That's the subject of my Chicago Sun-Times column this month.
John Podhoretz covers similar ground in the New York Post today, writing that "This country needs to have an open debate about the War on Terror right now - right this second - and this country will benefit from the Democratic Party taking a serious look at his its own confused stand on the matter."
And over in Roll Call, our good friend and centrist Mort Kondacke (reg req'd) laments the fact that both Republicans and Democrats are playing politics with the country's most important issue:
In 2006, and for as long as the war against terror lasts, our leaders should be judged on how they contribute to defeating the radical enemy.They should be judged on what ideas they produce for prevailing in Iraq; on how to thwart Iran's drive for nuclear weapons; and on how to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims, and keep the allegiance of Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans, while still "profiling" terrorists.
Republicans should be able to say they are better at fighting terrorism without implying that Democrats are disloyal. And Democrats should be able to challenge Bush on Iraq and terror policy without claiming (as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman did this week) that "from the very beginning," the administration "saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited."
Anyone who does not believe that we Americans are all in this together should heed the words and deeds of al-Qaida leaders, who hold that using weapons of mass destruction against infidels is God's work.
UPDATE: More from Ken Bode in the Indianapolis Star:
For the sake of its 2006 candidates, the Democratic leadership must develop a convincing message that Bush policies have diminished America's safety, fueled Islamic radicalism and failed to shore up security at home. That should be possible because it certainly is true, and the campaign slogan now suggested for the 2006 campaign sounds like a good one: "Feel safer? Vote for a Change."A clear message is especially important in this election because otherwise, like McGovern in '72 and Kerry in '04, the Democratic Party's candidates are going to be Swift boated by Rove, the conservative commentariat and by its own right wing.
Romney on the Rise
Good article by Neil Swidey from last Sunday's Boston Globe Magazine which examines the effect the George Romney "brainwashing" event in 1967 has had on his son Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts and potential 2008 GOP presidential candidate.
"The brainwash thing - has that affected us? You bet," says Jane Romney, Mitt's sister and an actress in Beverly Hills. "You go, 'OK, can't go there. Don't want to get into that.' . . . Mitt is naturally a diplomat, but I think that made him more so. He's not going to put himself out on a limb. He's more cautious, more scripted."For Mitt, the episode was even harder to make sense of because it happened in the middle of his two-year stint as a Mormon missionary in France. When he left Michigan in 1966, his father was en route to resounding reelection as governor of Michigan and the drumbeat grew louder for his presidential run. When Mitt came home in 1968, his father was already a footnote. Since then, he's heard plenty about his father's fateful interview, but, amazingly, Mitt Romney had never seen the actual footage until I showed it to him last month........
The article is an interesting look at the Massachusetts Governor, whose stock continues to rise in the pre-season nomination phase we are currently in for 2008. With Virginia Senator George Allen's recent Macaca gaffe downgrading his status a few clicks, Romney is fast emerging as the alternative to the two moderate heavyweights McCain and Giuliani. Allen's bigger problem (who in many ways was poised to become the conservative choice in the race) is the reality that the country is not exactly pining for another southern, folksy-talking politician wearing Cowboy boots. So, Macaca or no Macaca, 2008 was probably not going to be George Allen's year, simply because he reminds people too much of George W. Bush and he appears to be not seasoned enough, especially when compared to Giuliani, Romney and McCain.
But back to Romney: If the Mormon issue wasn't floating around in the background, he would almost certainly be the clear frontrunner for the nomination. Expect to see Romney's stock continue to rise as many conservatives unhappy with the prospect of McCain or Giuliani start to line up behind the Massachusetts Governor.
More Fauxtography?
The Miami Herald reports on bloggers who are challenging the recently released photographcas of a recuperating Castro.
Is CO-4 in Play for the Dems?
Colorado's fourth congressional district is not the kind of seat Republicans can afford to see seriously in play after Labor Day if they hope to retain control of the House of Representatives in next year's Congress. The district is reliably Republican: President Bush carried it in 2004 with 58% of the vote. Yet a newly released poll by SurveyUSA for KUSA-TV in Denver gives the incumbent Republican, Marilyn Musgrave, a small four-point lead, 46% to 42%. A Democratic poll done by Strategic Services in June pegged Rep. Musgrave's lead at a mere point.
More troubling for Ms. Musgrave is the 8% going to Reform Party candidate Eric Eidsness. Colorado was one of Ross Perot's best states in his third-party bids for President in the 1990s, and Mr. Eidsness is a legitimate threat to garner 5%, or more, of the vote in November. The SurveyUSA results indicate Mr. Eidsness siphoning 7% of Republican voters versus only 2% from Democrats.
Most analysts still rate this contest as "Republican favored" but there are early warning signs that Ms. Musgrave may be in a dogfight to hold on to her seat, especially given that her winning percentage of the vote in 2004 declined to 51% from the 55% she captured in 2002.
While the Reform Party candidate aspect mitigates some of the national implications of this race, it is another piece of evidence suggesting that Democrats are indeed well positioned to potentially pick up the 15 seats they need to capture the House.
August 17, 2006
Iowa, Unofficially, and More on S.C.
An Iowa State Fair unofficial straw poll has Hillary Clinton and John Edwards tied on the Democratic side, and John McCain leading Rudy Giuliani 24 percent to 22 percent.
Here are the results:
The dems:Hillary Clinton 33% (Love her or hate her, Iowans know who she is)
John Edwards 33% (Still popular. And how many ladies told me he's hot?)
Tom Vilsack 13% (At least he did better than the Des Moines Register's Poll)
John Kerry 9% (2004 is a long time ago)
Evan Bayh 3% (One guy called him Birch)
Russ Feingold 2% (Who is he, many asked us)
Joe Biden 2% (1988 is really a long time ago)
Tom Daschle 2% (Will he really run?)
Wesley Clark 1% (The General could be in for a quite a battle)
Mark Warner 1% (The new democrat is a new name to many Iowans)The repubs:
John McCain 24% (Met many friends at the fair)
Rudy Giuliani 22% (9/11 made him strong among "r's")
Condoleeza Rice 22% (Never been a politician. Many here say she should)
Newt Gingrich 10% (Contract with America still pretty strong)
Mitt Romney 9% ("R" in a "D" state at home; middle of the pack here)
Bill Frist 6% (The doc may need some more patients)
Mike Huckabee 2% (Lost a ton, hasn't found a ton of support)
George Pataki 2% (Stands tall among peers, falls short in poll)
George Allen 1% (Is the Hall of Fame coach more known here?)
Sam Brownback 1% (So much for sharing the midwestern love)
The Hotline also reports that McCain has locked up the support of Maj. General Stan Spears, "the chief of the state's National Guard forces and the man who almost single-handedly convinced thousands of veterans to vote for Bush."
All in all, not a bad day for Mr. Maverick.
Video Request
Does anyone have a copy of or link to the DSCC ad that Hispanic groups found so offensive (conflating illegal immigrants and terrorists, supposedly)?
The DSCC pulled the ad off its Web site and off of YouTube.
I suspect a lot of people would like to get a look.
Political Video of the Day
More Macaca Madness ...
Here's ABC News doing a segment on the George Allen's '08 campaign ender:
It features an interview with S.R. Sidarth, who seems to be having fun milking his 15 minutes.
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
Loopholes and Loopiness
The Wall Street Journal's news pages (the ones biased the same way as the rest of the media) seem to think Ned Lamont exploited a "loophole" in spending his own money to run his campaign. Actually, the Supreme Court has determined that the ability to do so is a fundamental right.
Bob Bauer lays it all out here.
There's a pretty immense irony, though, that the champion of the anti-corporate netroots left is a self-financing multi-millionaire. Rich people are the only ones we can trust these days, apparently -- no one can buy them.
Hollywood Gets It, Netroots Don't
Our good friend Duane over at RadioBlogger has a picture of the large ad Nicole Kidman and many other Hollywood celebs took out in the LA Times today. It is worth taking a look, as the ad is impressive and very encouraging. The language is clear and unambiguous and signed by over 80 Hollywood luminaries.
We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs.
BuzzTracker has this as the number one blogged story today and the response from the far left netroots crowd is sadly typical. This from Booman Tribune:
Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Hollywood drank the kool-aid.Apparently actors Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt, and Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi cannot read the New Yorker.
I also condemn the taking of civilian life by organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. I'm just not dense enough to blame them for the deaths of over 700 Lebanese people. Those deaths fall firmly on the plate of Dick Cheney, Ehud Olmert, and George W. Bush. They took those lives months ago when they agreed to use the next provocation to destroy Lebanon and its infrastructure. Thankfully, Olmert resisted Cheney's request that they destroy Syria's infrastructure and kill their civilians too.
I'm no sympathizer with Islamic terrorism. I just don't like being lied to. Apparently, Nicole Kidman doesn't mind.
Looking past this year's mid-terms, at what point will Democratic Party regulars realize the netroots crowd is marching their party into an utterly unelectable position (at least nationally) when it comes to national security and the War on Islamic Radicalism?
The Dems' problem is there is no leadership to pull the party back from the brink, and the only one who has the stature in the Party to pull it off -- Bill Clinton -- can't because of his wife's bid for the '08 nomination.
Thwarted Attack Has Little Impact on Public Confidence - S. Rasmussen
The War on Terror entered the news again last week with reports from London of a thwarted terrorist attack. A few days later, news of a cease-fire agreement in the Middle East took over the front page. All of this had surprisingly little impact on American public opinion. The latest Rasmussen Reports update on public confidence in the War on Terror shows that just 38% of Americans believe the U.S. and its allies are winning. That's down just a single point from 39% earlier in the month but it matches the lowest level of confidence ever recorded in our nearly three years of tracking this question.
A month ago, before hostilities erupted again in the Middle East, 44% thought the good guys were winning.
Gonzales on the UK Terror Bust and the Patriot Act
Salena Zito of the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh interviews Attorney General Gonzales on the Patriot Act and the airline terror plot broken up in London last week.
Palmetto P.S.
A P.S. on Rudy in S.C. ...
I didn't make it over to the Charleston event at night (though I tore up the South Carolina highways trying). But here are some accounts from people who did:
Bruce Smith from the AP. He quotes Rudy, asked whether a mayor of New York can win in the South: "Since there were certain groups in New York who thought I was the most conservative mayor in the history of New York, I wish they would come down here now and go around saying that."
This piece, from the Greenville News, has a good account of a private meeting Rudy held in the morning with state GOP movers and shakers. They seem to have received him well.
It's also worth noting that Barry Wynn, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and the finance chair of President Bush's re-election campaign -- who's sounded very favorable on Rudy in the press -- now is committed to Rudy outright, should he run.
Rudy in the Palmetto State
Yesterday, I went down to South Carolina to check out Rudy's swing through the Palmetto State. You can read my full account in The New York Sun.
But here's an extended clip:
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- If Rudy Giuliani does run for president in 2008, the Palmetto State is everything that's supposedly going to trip him up in the primaries: It's Southern (Mr. Giuliani's a Yankee), it's religious (61% evangelical, the sixth highest concentration in the nation), and it's predisposed to go with the guy whose "turn" it is (think Bob Dole in 1996).But none of those hurdles seemed terribly high as Mr. Giuliani sprinted from event to event yesterday, starting with a fund-raiser for a local GOP congressional candidate in Greenville, moving on to a motivational speech around the corner, and finishing up with another fundraiser at night for the state GOP, on the other side of the state in Charleston.
...
The crowd responded warmly. As Mr. Giuliani finished taking questions from the audience, Fred Butler, 87 years old, of Greenville, piped up and said he hoped greatly that the former mayor would get into the 2008 GOP contest. "How much do I owe you?" Mr. Giuliani cracked as he wrapped things up.
Mr. Butler, speaking to me after the fundraiser, said that Mr. Giuliani is currently his top choice for the 2008 primary. "I know he did a good job in New York City, and I think he's just a good man," Mr. Butler said. He added, "I think he would garner a lot more votes than anyone I could think of right now."
A retired plant manager, Mr. Butler told me he was prepared to support Senator McCain after his win in New Hampshire in 2000, "but after he made his pitch down here, I voted for Bush." As for Mr. McCain's chances this time around, Mr. Butler doesn't seem particularly ready to give the senator another chance: "He's not as popular as a lot of people think, not as popular now as he was then ... I don't think he'll get the nomination."
I made a special effort to find some Rudy detractors. The only guy I could find who wouldn't vote for Rudy, however, was at the mayor's speech to the Get Motivated crowd later in the day. He was a Democrat, so he didn't fit into my story about the primary. And the two other Democrats I talked to after the Get Motivated speech -- well, they said they would vote for Rudy.
The Right Way to Deal With Being Taped
The GOP's candidate in Washington, Mike McGavick, demonstrates the right way to deal with kids from your opponent's campaign taping your every move. (Hat tip: Rich Lowry)
Is Iraq a Lost Cause?
The New York Times carries a very grim story about Iraq on the front page today, complete with statistics on roadside bombings and blind quotes from senior Defense Department officials and military affairs experts. From start to finish the story conjures up the idea that Iraq is an absolute lost cause.
Allow me to juxtapose the doom and gloom assessment of the New York Times with a different perspective. Yesterday, I spoke on the phone with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson in Baghdad who is currently leading a Congressional delegation visit to Iraq. I asked him directly whether the recent shift of coalition troops to Baghdad had produced any noticeable effect on security in the capital. Secretary Nicholson responded that it was his understanding that incidents in Baghdad have decreased over the last two weeks. The delegation met with General Casey and President Talabani yesterday morning, and Nicholson characterized the current mood as "guardedly optimistic."
I asked Nicholson about the ongoing level of sectarian violence. Nicholson said that it continues to be a serious problem, but that he was impressed by the level of maturity and experience displayed by senior leaders from all three communities (Shia, Sunni, and Kurd) with whom they'd met. I also asked specifically why Muqtada al-Sadr is allowed to continue operating and whether there is any plan to deal with him directly. Nicholson answered that Sadr "must be dealt with" and that while he "doesn't cooperate well with Americans" and has a large following (including a minister in the cabinet) that is problematic, Sadr is, at least to some degree, participating in the government. In other words, Sadr has to continue to be managed and brought under control through the political process.
I asked the Secretary to address the growing perception that our Iraq policy is failing and/or evolving into an "unwinnable" situation. Nicholson said he wished Americans could visit Baghdad and see things for themselves, because he felt they would "get a much different feeling" about the situation than what they're getting from the mass media at home. Nicholson added that his impression was that the feelings were more positive today than they were when he visited a year ago. I interrupted to ask if his delegation had traveled outside the Green Zone, and he responded that they had been outside the Green Zone several times during their trip and were headed to other parts of Iraq today to assess things and visit with troops.
Two final notes on the interview. I asked about the morale of our troops. Secretary Nicholson called it "outstanding" and "extraordinary." He told a quick story about a West Point lieutenant he had just visited in the main hospital in Baghdad who had been injured by an IED, resulting in his 3rd Purple Heart. He said the soldier told him how passionately he still feels about the work his unit continues to do in Iraq.
I asked whether there was any discussion about changing troop levels in the future, either up or down. Nicholson said the subject had been brought up by members of the delegation and said the answer is "it depends" but added that "it sounds like it's possible we could have troop draw downs" in the near future because coalition forces are wrapping up their training of the Iraqi Army, which is performing very well and continuing to assume more direct responsibility for territory and operations. Nicholson added, however, that the Iraqi police force, which is a critical component to establishing consistent, long-term local security, hasn't come together as quickly and much more work needs to be done bringing them up to the same level of competency as the Iraqi Army.
For more detail on current operations on the ground in Baghdad, go read Major General William Caldwell's briefing yesterday. Caldwell says they are "cautiously optimistic" about progress so far and reports that they "have a positive trend happening" in neighborhoods like Dura, Shula and Amariyah:
Progress thus far in the three areas that we're operating in: Nine hundred tons of trash have been removed from those three neighborhoods already, with more being removed each day. Kilometer after kilometer of barriers emplaced, building what some may call the semblance of a gated community, affording them greater security with ingress and egress routes established and manned by Iraqi security forces with coalition forces in support to ensure that the people have a safe neighborhood to live in.More than 7,000 homes and businesses have been cleared.
Nineteen mosques have been cleared. They have detained 47 persons. Nearly 300 weapons have been seized. Eight weapon caches have been found. More than 340 weapons that Iraqi citizens are authorized to have in their homes have been properly registered and remain there with them for their personal security.
Over 700 local citizens are currently employed, with more being employed each day. The economic piece, so vital to what we are all attempting to achieve here in the Baghdad area, is starting to take place. We see new stores in Dura opening each day. Residents tell us that within Dura itself just recently, two banks have opened that have not been opened for over two years, and Iraqi security forces are down there helping provide the security necessary so that they can function in a safe environment.
The district advisory council chairman is pushing members to take responsibility and to help clean up their neighborhoods. The district advisory council is working to motivate the local population to work with both the Iraqi security forces and the coalition forces operating there.
Humanitarian assistance packages have been passed to the neighborhood advisory councils for them to decide where the greatest need is within their neighborhood, and to provide that to their citizens. Medical assistance teams have been formed and will start operating in these areas later this week.
National police and coalition force commanders are engaging with the population, both in person and by radio, to explain what's going on for the operation so that people understand what is attempting to be accomplished and how they will make the difference about what they do.
Taken together, the impressions from General Caldwell and Secretary Nicholson give a much different picture than the one provided in the New York Times today - and on most days, for that matter. If even you discount Nicholson's comments for administration spin, or assume that Caldwell is putting the best possible face on the security operations in Baghdad, you're still left to confront the fact that some progress is being made. Instead of hearing about it, however, we get the relentless negativity of the media, epitomized by the Times story today. The situation in Iraq is serious, no doubt about it. But it is far from hopeless. U.S. troops, and Iraqi forces and leaders haven't given up hope that Iraq can be saved. We shouldn't either.
D.C.'s Market Moves
Though David Broder's column will probably get the lion's share of attention, Republicans should be far more worried by what Jeff Birnbaum writes in the Washington Post this morning:
Democrats' Stock Is Rising on K StreetFirms Anticipate A Shift in Power
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006; Page A01Washington lobbying firms, trade associations and corporate offices are moving to hire more well-connected Democrats in response to rising prospects that the opposition party will wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress from Republicans in the November elections.
K Street is like D.C.'s version of the stock market, where potential moves are analyzed, anticipated and "priced" into the system based on probability. A few Republicans in the Midwest giving doom and gloom quotes to David Broder is one thing, K Street gearing up for a Dem take over is quite another.
Lieberman Leading Lamont by 12 Points
New Quinnipiac poll of likely voters (no link available right now) has Lieberman up 53-41 over Lamont. Republican Alan Schlesinger is pulling a mere 4%. Here's a bit from the write up that is sure to drive Lamont's netroot supporters even further out of their minds:
In this latest survey, Lieberman leads 75 - 13 - 10 percent among likely Republican voters, and 58 - 36 - 3 percent among likely independent voters, while likely Democratic voters back Lamont 63 - 35 percent. Two percent are undecided, but 28 percent of those who name a candidate might change their mind before Election Day."Sen. Lieberman's support among Republicans is nothing short of amazing. It more than offsets what he has lost among Democrats. As long as Lieberman maintains this kind of support among Republicans, while holding onto a significant number of Democratic votes, the veteran Senator will be hard to beat," said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D.
Looks like Lieberman finally found some real Joementum!
August 16, 2006
Some in Hollywood Get It -- Kidman Condemns Hamas, Hezbollah
Australia's Herald Sun reports:
Nicole Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper.
It specifically targets "terrorist organizations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.
"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.
"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.
"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."
A who's who of Hollywood heavyweights joined Kidman on the ad.
The actors listed included: Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt.
Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names.
Other Hollywood powerplayers supporting the ad included Sumner Redstone, the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul, Haim Saban.
Macaca Mania - Mark Davis
It seems that someone should weigh in on Sen. George Allen's "macaca" gaffe who is not out to draw and quarter him. But nor will I make excuses. Here are the facts:
1. At an August 11 campaign stop in rural Breaks, Virginia, Sen. Allen playfully pointed out a young man shooting video for his Democrat challenger James Webb. This kind of political mischief is common as opponents hope to catch each other in gaffes they can use in campaign commercials.
2. The videographer was of Indian descent, S.R. Sidarth, a student at the University of Virginia.
3. Smiling throughout, Sen. Allen welcomes the scrutiny, pointing Sidarth out to supporters and suggesting that "Macaca, or whatever his name is" should show Webb the footage as evidence of a candidate who actually gets out to speak with real Virginians. (Continuing that theme, Allen says "Welcome to America," which makes sense in that context but served to fuel the furor since Sidarth was the only face of color in the crowd. The full quote is "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."
4. Allen suggests that the crowd should "give a welcome to Macaca, here." There is modest applause, and he heads into his planned remarks on the war on terror.
5. The debate now rages over whether "macaca" is an ethnic slur worthy of tarnishing Allen's reputation. The Allen campaign says it was a play on "Mohawk," a nickname given to Sidarth by the Allen campaign because of his hairstyle.
So let's go to work.
"Macaca" is a genus of monkey, including the familiar macaques one might see at a zoo. Some say it is a French slur toward North African blacks, but that usage is usually "macaque," just like the monkey. The folks at Wikipedia contend that it is interchangeable with "macaca," and that oh, by the way, "macaca" is among the slurs occasionally used by white supremacists.
While David Duke, Tom Metzger and a few Francophone bigots might be in touch with this term, virtually no one in America was before this week. The stigma projected onto this event by Allen's enemies, as if he had dropped an n-bomb on somebody, is simply ridiculous.
That said, what we do have here is a remarkably stupid moment from someone who might want to be President.
I don't believe for one second that George Allen is a bigot. I believe that he intended no personal slight to the young man. What kind of idiot says an intentionally hurtful thing into a camera during an important campaign?
But one could also ask whether a smart man hurls a vague, foreign-sounding nickname toward the only non-white face in a crowd? And then does it again seconds later?
The "Mohawk" excuse is lame. The kid's hair is not in that style and isn't even that remarkable. And how does one get from ""Mohawk" to "Macaca?" Twice!
If the Senator drew attention to Sidarth once in passing, to show that he welcomes video scrutiny from Webb, that would be one thing. But to invite the crowd to welcome him with what seemed like mocking applause was downright creepy.
Sen. Allen also fell prey to the messenger blame game, contending that his remarks "have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media."
While his opponents will indeed trump this up to portray him as a closet Klansman, the blame for this mess falls directly at the Senator's feet. He of all people should know that white conservatives get zero benefit of the doubt for foot-in-mouth moments like this. I fully expect to maintain my interest in him as a 2008 candidate, and I assume there will be no more gaffes of this type.
- Mark Davis
Host of The Mark Davis Radio Show
Rudy in South Carolina
Scott Shepard at Cox News curtainraises Rudy Giuliani's swing through South Carolina today.
All the usual questions: He's got a great profile from 9/11, but can he overcome the social issues, etc., etc.
We'll see ...
Are Pinch's Days Numbered at the NY Times?
Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker has done a great job chronicling the disastrous leadership "Pinch" Sulzberger has brought to the New York Times these past few years. In his piece today he suggests that Michael Wolff's "Panic on 43rd Street" in the latest Vanity Fair is the beginning of the Left's realization that Pinch is driving the paper into irrelevancy.
Anyone who understands the importance of the Times in setting the agenda for the entire media establishment realizes that without the Times to lead the way, lesser media properties in broadcasting and publishing might stray away from the left wing party line. Fox News has done better than any other media startup in recent memory by openly grazing in the conservative meadows. Despite intense derision by the Times and others in the Left establishment, it has prospered far more than they.....The Times is steadily becoming damaged goods. Its prestige is not what it once was. Jayson Blair, Howell Raines, Judith Miller, and other mere employees have done plenty of damage. Just last weekend (no doubt too late for Wolff's deadline), current executive editor Bill Keller made the jaw-dropping admission that he had lied to his readers about his decision not to publish a story on the NSA telephone intercept program before the 2004 presidential election, a matter of great concern to the Left. Even worse, Keller had a guilty conscience about the lie, but did not fess up until caught in an inconsistency and questioned by the paper's public editor, Byron Calame.....
Sparing his readers the gory details of the business decline of the New York Times Company, Wolff cuts to the chase: the paper version of the Times is dying, and there is so far no evident way for the expensive-to-produce content to be viable as an internet publication. His readers are warned that there will be a future without their daily dose of conventional Left wisdom. He goes so far as to predict it will be:
Just another newspaper company coming to its natural end.Vanity Fair readers are now informed that their favorite newspaper is doomed under the helmsmanship of Pinch.And, anyway, how do you exactly define "end"?
You mean NO New York Times? Nada? Darkness?
Well, yes, in effect.
I don't know that I would describe the New York Times as doomed, but there is no question the paper has been colossally mismanaged the last 5 years. Very ironic for a paper that editorializes ad nauseum about the Bush administration's incompetence as the country clips along at over 3% GDP growth, under 5% unemployment, and almost five years out from 9/11 without a substantive terrorist attack at home, while NY Times Company stock languishes near 5 year lows.
Middle East Despots Emboldened by Israel's Failure
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, praising Hezbollah's "glorious battle" against Israel is arguing that US plans for the Middle East, i.e. for peace and democracy, have now vanished and that Israel is now known to be vulnerable.
In another subtle but very important point, Assad says that it is time for Arab nations to stop feeling pre-emptively defeated, to gain confidence, and to work toward ultimate defeat and destruction of Israel.
Of the world's many dictators, Assad is one of the most pathetic. He is an optometrist, trained in England, who was handed his job by his father. It is no accident that he keeps his moustache looking much like Hitler's.
But despite the degree to which Assad has been a bad actor and made a nuisance of himself and his country, he is small potatoes compared to the damage which Iran could cause.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who to the western eye certainly seems unbalanced, is probably much smarter and more clever than we give him credit for. He also controls a much bigger and better military than Assad.
Therefore, we must pay close attention to his rhetoric despite any desire to brush him off as all bark and no bite. And it is particularly disturbing to hear Ahmadinejad spouting the same very dangerous line as Assad:
From the Iranian president's web site:
"Aside from the humiliation it (Zionist regime) received as a result of its failure to achieve its military objectives, the myth of the regime's military invincibility has been destroyed thanks to the the enduring faith and resistance of Lebanon's Hezbollah," he said. "Henceforth, all power equations in the region will witness a change," he added.
It is no coincidence that the same day Amhadinejad released a statement saying that "Enemies fail in attempts against Iran's nuclear issue." Middle Eastern dictators are feeling empowered, at our great peril.
We are now seeing the long-term damage done to Israel, and more importantly our own American interests, in the Middle East by the muddling uncertain prosecution of the war by Israel. In my estimation, there is almost no chance that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will keep his job through the end of the year.
In the first time in Israel's history, they have a Prime Minister and Defense Minister who have no real military experience. Unfortunately, they demonstrated their ineptness and uncertainty in the most damaging way, leaving Israel the non-victor in a war with an enemy they absolutely had to defeat.
Make no mistake, this outcome is effectively a loss by Israel. We should all recognize that it is just as great a loss for America and anybody who treasures freedom, life, and everything the world has brought us since the "nasty, brutish, and short" life of the Middle Ages, the life that Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and Ahmadinejad want to return us to.
August 15, 2006
Political Video of the Day
Here's C-SPAN's unedited "60 Minutes" Ahmadinejad interview (it's broken down into seven parts on YouTube):
I've got to say: This New Hitler guy is testy.
As always, send nominations to:
ryan-at-realclearpolitics.com
How Bad is Jimmy Carter? Don't Answer That
Honestly, we've reached a point beyond parody when the far left wing German magazine Der Spiegel has to be the one injecting a sense of moral clarity into a discussion with Jimmy Carter:
Spiegel: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington's call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?Carter: No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.
Spiegel: But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?
Carter: I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.
And then there was this:
Spiegel: What makes you personally so optimistic about the effectiveness of diplomacy? You are, so to speak, the father of Camp David negotiations.Carter: When I became president we had had four terrible wars between the Arabs and Israelis (behind us). And I under great difficulty, particularly because Menachim Begin was elected, decided to try negotiation and it worked and we have a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt for 27 years that has never been violated. You never can be certain in advance that negotiations on difficult circumstances will be successful, but you can be certain in advance if you don't negotiate that your problem is going to continue and maybe even get worse.
Spiegel: But negotiations failed to prevent the burning of Beirut and bombardment of Haifa.
By all means, read the rest of the interview. A bit later on, after suggesting Fidel Castro's return to health is "not beyond hope," Carter tells the magazine, "I think I represent the vast majority of Democrats in this country." Republicans will eagerly confirm that Carter has it exactly right.
More on Allen and Race
Race is always a difficult issue to discuss unemotionally in America for obvious reasons. My central problem with the Sen. Allen "Macaca" kerfuffle is the tendency of many (primarily in the media and on the politically-correct left) to see racial victimization in many instances where none exists, as well as the double standard that is applied when it comes to race and Republicans. Especially when the full and complete history of the Republican and Democratic parties does not give one party a monopoly on racial morality.
Let's stipulate up front that there is a difference between being racist and being insensitive. My point earlier was that the kid's contention that Allen singled him out because "he was a person of color" just doesn't really pass the sniff test when you watch the video. The kid was singled out because he was with the Webb campaign video taping Allen.
Now, was Allen's choice of words insensitive? Sure, I concede that his words could be construed as insensitive. But that does not necessarily make them racist. Which is why, unless there is something more here that we do not now know about this event, this is a "phony" racial incident.
How come it is Republicans who get hit with racist tag with the utterance of potentially insensitive remarks? How much uproar was there when Senator Clinton cracked that "Gandhi used to run a gas station in St. Louis?" And then there was Senator Biden just recently caught on tape saying, "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." I don't remember either of these "insensitive" comments by U.S. Senators, who are also running for President like George Allen, making the front page of the Washinton Post.
And then there is the case of former majority leader Trent Lott who was demoted (correctly) by his fellow Senate Republicans for praising ex-segregationist Strom Thurmond. Meanwhile Democratic Senator Chris Dodd gets a pass when he heaps similar-type praise on former KKK kleagle Robert Byrd, the man who dropped the "n-bomb" (twice) during a television interview just a few years ago.
Finally, there is something just a little off putting about passing judgment on an individual who you don't know, as a racist. Real racism is a scourge and a disease and it shouldn't be trivialized or swept under the rug, but the left in America is far too quick to use the racist, bigot, sexist, and homophobic labels as tools to silence debate from those they disagree with ideologically.
I'll stick by my first reaction to this video that this is a manufactured racial incident, but I will concede that perhaps someone with George Allen's history and politics and ambition should perhaps be more sensitive when broaching issues of race.
More on Allen
Over at TAPPED there's a further discussion of this Allen "macaca" comment. I've got to say, the more I hear, the more I think this looks really bad for Allen. For one, Allen speaks French, which makes it quite doubtful he didn't know what the word meant.
You can also read the rest of what Garance Franke-Ruta has to say at TAPPED about the uses of the word.
That he said this on camera -- on a camera being held by his opponent's staffer -- well, this guy is simply beyond stupid.
Casey Leads Santorum 48% - 42% in Quinnipiac Poll
The latest Quinnipiac poll confirms the Morning Call poll from a couple of weeks ago that this race has indeed tightened considerably. I never took seriously Quinnipiac's supposed 18 point lead for Casey back in June, so I don't think Santorum has suddenly picked up 12 pts, but there is no question that he has closed the gap.
Santorum, of course, still has a host of problems working against his bid for a third term, but Casey's campaign should be very concerned to what is happening to their vaunted lead. One of the major considerations in RCP's ranking this race as Lean Democrat and why Casey is still likely to win, is simply the size of the deficit Santorum has to make up.
We have said from the outset to expect Santorum to close hard, but thought he would just come up short in the end, primarily because he simply had too deep a hole to climb out of. But if more polls continue to confirm this a 5-8 point race, rather than a 11-14 point race before Labor Day, this contest becomes a complete toss up. And with a Green Party candidate very much a real possibility to siphon critical votes away from Casey, suddenly Santorum may be very much back in the game. (RCP PA Senate Page | All Pennsylvania Senate Polls)
Dell's Woes
An anecdote that only adds to Dell's PR nightmare:
Last month, Thomas Foqueran, 62, of Arizona was loading his truck and smelled smoke. Flames were shooting out of his Dell Inspiron laptop, which he had placed on the passenger side of the vehicle, and the fire spread as it ignited ammunition that was also in the truck. The truck, a 1966 Ford F-250 passed down from his father, was destroyed by the fire."I see Dell commercials half a dozen times a night, saying 'What can we build for you today?' " Foqueran said. "And I say, 'grandpa's truck.' "
This Just In...
Apparently, NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller is now a conservative.