Obama-McCain Squabble Injected Into Army Readiness Hearing
A controversial anecdote relayed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in last week's Texas debate wended its way into a Senate Armed Forces hearing on Army readiness today.
Obama claimed that he'd "heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon" that was sent to Afghanistan grossly undermanned and underequipped. "They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," Obama said during Thursday night's debate.
Lindsey Graham, who lately has been stumping hard for Republican John McCain, relayed the story to Army Secretary Peter Geren and Army Chief of Staff William Casey during the hearing. "Has Sen. Obama talked to you or anyone in the department about this?" the South Carolina Republican asked.
"I have not discussed this with Sen. Obama," Geren replied, before handing the baton to Casey.
"As we looked into this, the best we could tell was this incident occurred back in 2003 and 2004," Casey said. "We talked to the brigade commander, looked at readiness reports. The brigade was manned over 100 percent and stayed 100 percent manned when they were there."
A fight over whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can reject federal funds for his presidential campaign has thrown new attention on a stalemate hamstringing the Federal Election Commission and given unexpected attention to the role of McCain's possible election opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in that impasse.
The situation presents problems for both McCain, whom Democrats are accusing of defying the same campaign finance regulations he has championed, and Obama, who is seeing a hold he placed on an FEC nominee used in a bid to undermine his claims of working in a bipartisan manner.
McCain's problem, meanwhile, is generating calls for the White House or Senate Democrats to blink in their battle over FEC nominees.
"When you talk about the FEC, people's eyes glaze over.... But there will be increasing public pressure to do something as more and more people understand" the situation, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Her group called Friday for Republicans to compromise to end the standoff.
Did Hillary Rodham Clinton step under a ladder and over a black cat before announcing her presidential campaign last year? The hits -- in the bad sense -- just keep on coming at her.
She was booed last night after sniping that Barack Obama was pushing a message of "change you can Xerox" -- a reference to Camp Clinton's charges that Obama plagiarized Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- an Obama supporter. It was an Ouch moment for Clinton, and the audience did not like it.
Yesterday's CNN/Univision debate at the University of Texas (transcript) was tense at times and warmly collegial at times. Neither candidate tripped up too badly, but it was clear that Obama has greatly improved his debating skills. Clinton's been strong there from the beginning, so she's not being awarded any extra points.
The New York senator ended the evening on a high rhetorical note that won a standing ovation. Points for that, right? Nope. Many viewers read her lips and saw a concession speech.
McCain Denies Improper Relationship With Female Lobbyist
John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, denied a New York Times report that hinted at a prior inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist. The article, published online yesterday evening, quoted anonymous former aides who said they had grown concerned that McCain's relationship with Vicki Iseman had become romantic.
"If they were [concerned], they didn't communicate that to me," McCain said, speaking to reporters in Toledo, Ohio, with his wife, Cindy, at his side. "I've seen her on occasion, particularly in receptions and fundraisers and appearances before the [Commerce] Committee. I have many friends in Washington who represent various interests and those who don't, and I consider her a friend."
According to the Times report, Iseman's frequent appearances alongside McCain at events, in his office and on trips -- beginning in 1999 -- moved top advisers to intervene. Aides began "instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him," according to the report.
And either the Clinton campaign is too arrogant or too tone-deaf for its own good.
Beware the punditocracy.
Whereas two weeks ago it was premature to call Ohio and Texas do-or-die states for Hillary Rodham Clinton, that is not the case today. In most other election years, Wisconsin and Hawaii would be two "so what?" states. Not this year, and not on the heels of three straight primary/caucus sweeps for Barack Obama.
Out of the 10 contests Obama's won since the Super Tuesday draw, Wisconsin's tilt toward Obama is the most significant. (NJ's James Barnes has a feature on this today.) Obama is eating into all of Clinton's constituents, including older white men, single white women and lower-income Democrats. Now the question everyone is asking is whether Camp Clinton can slow this train down.
Those words, spoken by Mitt Romney about John McCain, might have seemed hard to believe just a few short weeks ago, when the two candidates were regularly exchanging harsh words both on the stump and on the airwaves. McCain's distaste for the man who endorsed him this afternoon was evident and amplified during the final month or so of the campaign. The acrimony was often attributed to Romney's wealth, the perception that he was a flip-flopper and the negative ads he aired against McCain and Mike Huckabee. But close watchers of the race know that McCain gave as well as he got in recent weeks, airing attack ads against Romney in Florida, Super Tuesday states and even in the Washington, D.C., metro area after Romney dropped out of the race.
"As all of you saw over the past year, things can get pretty rough in the thick of a campaign," Romney said as he announced his endorsement.
Despite the history of bad blood, however, those who heard Romney's exit speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference and saw McCain's smiley photo op with House Republicans earlier this week might not be too surprised at today's endorsement. Many prominent members of the GOP establishment -- talk-radio hosts and conservative commentators notwithstanding -- are making it known that they are throwing their full support behind McCain, if only because they prefer him to the alternative.
Looks like the GOP has its very own Joe Lieberman: former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee.
Chafee, the only Republican to vote against giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, is bypassing former colleague John McCain in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who wasn't yet in the Senate for the 2002 vote but opposed the war as an Illinois lawmaker.
"I believe Senator Obama is the best candidate to restore American credibility, to restore our confidence to be moral and just, and to bring people together to solve the complex issues such as the economy, the environment and global stability," Chafee said in a conference call with reporters.
Chafee, always a popular lawmaker in his state, was swept out of office on an anti-GOP tide in 2006. His successor, Sheldon Whitehouse, campaigned on an argument for Democratic control of the Senate to challenge President Bush's authority. The Republican Party didn't exactly rush to Chafee's defense, and last year Chafee left the GOP to become an independent.
The Providence Journal reports that Chafee excoriates the leaders of both parties, particularly on the Iraq war vote, in a soon-to-be-released memoir.
In homage to the great sportswriter (and Brookings Institution egghead) Gregg Easterbrook, we're dubbing today's spate of regional votes the Potomac Drainage Basin Primary. (It's no worse than any of the other nicknames we've seen.)
So in case you missed it, there's a primary vote happening today in Virginia, Maryland and right here in the District. Barack Obama's going to sweep those votes, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to keep losing contests until March 4's Ohio and Texas primaries, which she might also lose. Wow, those are a long way away. She's a goner.
And... scene.
So goes our cheeky ribbing of the media speculation-a-thon regarding today's primaries, which according to MSM bylaws a) must have a cutesy nickname (Chesapeake or Crab Cake?) and b) must be predictive of the nomination winner and, while we're at it, the winner of the November general election vote.
McCain & Conservatives: It's Not Love, But It'll Do
Conservative activists still haven't forgiven John McCain for thumbing his nose at them in 2000, when he challenged their candidate, George W. Bush, for the Republican nomination. That's evident this week, as thousands of the conservative grassroots convene at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington for the 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Eleven months ago, as the 2008 presidential race was kicking into gear, there was zero support for McCain at CPAC. Though Mitt Romney emerged the CPAC straw poll winner, support for him at the time seemed to be borne of resignation. The conservative base was agonizing over its choices for the nominee, and at its dim hopes of hanging on to the White House in the wake of a tremendously unpopular Republican presidency. The ennui prompted Mike Huckabee to quip that the conference ought to be renamed, "Dude, where's my candidate?"
With no offense intended to Huckabee, who still remains in this contest, it's now pretty clear that, dude, your candidate is John McCain.
"I hope you will pardon my absence last year, and understand that I intended no personal insult to any of you. I was merely preoccupied with the business of trying to escape the distinction of preseason front-runner for the Republican nomination which, I'm sure some of you observed, I managed to do in fairly short order," McCain said at the conference yesterday, using humor as he often does to defuse an awkward situation.
It worked, and not just because the room was packed with the McCainiacs who were totally absent at last year's CPAC. Just hours before, Mitt Romney informed attendees he was dropping out of the race. Romney supporters were also on hand to hear from McCain, in an irony-laden, fresh-start introduction to the GOP's presumptive nominee.
Just a few hours after Mitt Romneyannounced he was pulling out of contention, a swarm of conservative activists were pushing and shoving their way into a hotel ballroom to catch a glimpse of the soon-to-be-officially-anointed Republican presidential nominee, John McCain. Much like the Arizona senator's revived White House hopes, the sight of hundreds of attendees brandishing "McCain for President" shirts, buttons and placards was a stunning turnaround.
The ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington was filled beyond capacity. After making the mistake of wandering around to interview attendees, this Gater was nearly shut out, along with fellow reporters from AP, the Financial Times and Time magazine. Hotel staff weren't even cracking the doors for NPR's Mara Liasson and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd.
After mistaking this Gater for one of CPAC's College Republican organizers (humph!), Liasson was squeezed in, along with some of the rest of us -- including yours truly.
Speaking before a roomful of conservative activists in Washington, Mitt Romney drew his presidential campaign to a close.
"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose," Romney said before an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country."
Romney was announcing the suspension of his campaign -- a technical term that allows him to keep raising funds -- two days after a deeply disappointing performance on Super Tuesday. John McCain has won 13 of the states that have held primaries or caucuses so far, and Romney is close behind with 11. But McCain's wins in big-prize states like California on Tuesday gave him a nearly insurmountable delegate-count lead. With Mike Huckabee strongly defending his turf in the South, it became impossible on Wednesday morning to see how Romney could overtake the Arizona senator.
"I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden and on eliminating al-Qaida and terror," Romney said. "If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator [Hillary Rodham] Clinton or [Barack] Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
The crowd let its disappointment be known, booing Romney's decision to bow out and pleading with him to hang on. But the politically tuned-in CPAC attendees know better than anyone that their guy has virtually no shot at the Republican nomination.
McCain skipped the conference last year because he had no support there. He's scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. today, and now that Romney's out, will ride in as the Republican nominee. We got a preview of how he'll be received, courtesy of talk-radio host Laura Ingraham.
We called it quits last night with two states outstanding. The results are in for one of the states, while the other is turning out to be a nail-biter.
In the New Mexico Democratic caucus, the Clinton-Obama contest is still too close to call. Fewer than 120 votes separated Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama after counting earlier today, so that contest will be decided by provisional ballots, the Albuquerque Journal reports. State Democratic Party workers will begin counting the more than 16,000 provisional ballots today.
Per the Journal, Clinton took most of the counties while Obama bested her in Santa Fe and Bernalillo counties. The strong Latino vote helped Clinton here, but it's too soon to tell if that will be enough.
New Mexico is a proportional delegate state, with 38 up for grabs. That means both will walk away with some of the booty. But a win here for Obama adds another swing state to his column, further undergirding his claim that he would perform better than Clinton in the general election. That's why both candidates lobbied so hard for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement. He declined to tap either until the nomination is decided, but he did watch the Super Bowl with Bill Clinton. (Of course, President Clinton used to be Richardson's boss.)
The excitement surrounding yesterday's unprecedented Super Tuesday nominating contests obscured the latest and perhaps most damning news to come out on the troubled economy: Activity in the crucial service sector slowed for the first time in nearly five years last month.
The report from the Institute of Supply Management shows a significant decline in non-manufacturing activity (previously the "firmest pillar of economic expansion") in January. Those numbers, coupled with last week's news that jobs were declining, are heightening concerns that the economy is not only headed for a recession, but is already in one.
"Recession is here," the headline on CNNMoney.com read yesterday. The report quotes several economists who said the ISM report was the tipping point for them.
National Journal's Ronald Brownstein and James A. Barnes are up this morning with first reactions to the Super Tuesday results.
On the Republican side, Barnes parses John McCain's victory across a broad geographic and ideological spectrum of voters and notes that GOP nominating rules in the biggest states are working in the Arizona senator's favor.
Meanwhile, Brownstein pores over the exit polls and concludes that the persistent demographic divides separating Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama could keep the Democratic race hanging in the balance well into spring.
1:58. Obama's declared the "winner winner" in Missouri. He and Clinton are running about even in New Mexico.
In the Republican field, it's near impossible to see how anyone stops McCain. A comeback for the history books, surely. It will be interesting to see how he's received Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which he skipped last year because there was so much hostility toward him. The Gate will be there.
Meanwhile, Romney is meeting with his top advisers tomorrow to discuss his future, the Boston Globe reports. He's been accusing Huckabee of splitting the evangelical vote, but Huckabee's supporters are more likely to go to McCain should their guy bail out. The South was in a pretty anti-Romney mood today, and there's reason to believe this has something to do with religion.
Knowingly or not, Huckabee has used the religion wedge to his advantage. Somewould say knowingly, although he hasn't really been called out on it.
We're going to call it a night. Check back tomorrow later today for those lingering New Mexico and Alaska results.
1:26. MSNBC's Chuck Todd did the math, and he projects Obama and Clinton will be about tied in delegate counts. They will have to soldier on in the upcoming contests: Louisiana (2/9), Washington (2/9), Maine (2/10), D.C. (2/12), Maryland (2/12), Virginia (2/12) and probably beyond.
Mike Huckabee became Super Tuesday's first winner after cleaning up West Virginia's 18 delegates in that state's close GOP nominating convention. The sniping has already started over the legitimacy of Huckabee's win.
Mitt Romney's campaign reacted to his loss by lashing out at main rival John McCain, accusing him of colluding with Huckabee at the convention.
"Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain's inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney's campaign of conservative change," said campaign manager Beth Myers.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are dueling for the coveted Latino vote in California, Arizona, Illinois and New Jersey. Though Clinton was viewed as having cornered this demographic, Obama's late-breaking sweep of support following his South Carolina primary victory could net him a significant portion of the Latino vote.
Carin Zissis of the New York-based Americas Society/Council of the Americas breaks down where these voters might go today.
We've been quietly wondering whether John McCain's sudden ascendancy would worry Democrats supporting Barack Obama enough to make them rethink their vote. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been cast as the "experience" candidate, and the veracity of that claim aside, she has been viewed as a safer bet to win against a strong war-on-terror candidate like McCain in the general election.
Remember Obama's victory speech after he won the South Carolina Democratic primary, when he and a stadium full of supporters asked America not to tell them change was impossible? Well, the "believe" mantra you've been seeing on all those campaign signs and hearing in so many of Obama's speeches appears to be taking hold, less than 24 hours before Democratic voters in 22 states go to the polls.
Several new surveys show Obama outperforming Clinton in national matchups against McCain. In one poll showing the two Democrats both beating McCain, Obama does it by an 8-point margin, compared to a 3-point margin for Clinton. Others show Clinton losing to McCain and McCain losing to Obama.
(Mitt Romney, by the way, gets bludgeoned by both.)
It looks as if Democratic voters tomorrow won't have to make a painful choice between following their heads and following their hearts after all.
McCain Wins Giuliani Nod, Puts Entire Field On Notice
UPDATED.
"I made it clear at different times in this campaign that if I had not decided to run -- I believe I even said it at a debate -- the only person in the country that I clearly would've supported for the president of the United States would be John McCain. And that came from the heart.
"Today, I'm officially announcing my withdrawal as a candidate for president of the United States."
And with that, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani closed the chapter on his own presidential aspirations and opened a new one in this rollercoaster ride of an election cycle. McCain's victory in the Florida Republican primary yesterday was already validation that he's now the GOP front-runner. Giuliani's decision to ally himself with McCain today sent a strong message to the challengers in both fields: This election will once again center on security and defense.
"It will be a clear choice this November, and I believe that my life has prepared me. A life of service, and a life of dedication to lead this nation and the transcendent challenge of the 21st century: the great threat and evil of radical Islam," McCain said, accepting Giuliani's endorsement.
The person who should fear McCain's ascendancy most immediately is Mitt Romney, who's been pushed out of the headlines as the nation digests McCain's comeback, unthinkable just months ago. McCain not only has a delegates-count advantage going into next week's Super Tuesday contests, he also has a wide margin over Romney in national polling, which at this late date can be considered a fairly reliable indicator of how the big-prize states will vote.
McCain Edges Romney In Florida; Giuliani Bowing Out
UPDATED.
John McCain edged out rival Mitt Romney to win the Republican primary in Florida, sealing his comeback status as the front-runner in this race.
"Our victory might not have reached landslide proportions, but it is sweet nonetheless," McCain said, as supporters cheered an increasingly familiar refrain, "Mac is back! Mac is back!"
"To everyone who in good times and bad devoted much time and energy and hope to keeping our candidacy competitive: Thank you from the bottom of my heart," McCain said, in reference to his astonishing revival after being left for dead last summer when his campaign operation imploded.
These numbers will be confirmed tomorrow, but McCain bested Romney by about 36 percent to 31 percent. Rudy Giuliani won 15 percent of the registered-Republicans-only vote, followed by Mike Huckabee 2 points behind. The exit polling data show some surprising alliances. Latinos overwhelmingly went to McCain, even though Romney was up with Spanish-language ads in Florida nearly a year ago. McCain also bested Romney among voters middle-aged and older. The two fared about equally among middle-income voters, with Romney gaining an edge in the $100,000-$199,990 bracket. But McCain won over Republicans earning $200,000 or more, 44 percent to 30 percent.
With Super Tuesday just a week away, McCain heads into that 24-state competition the delegate-count winner, with Romney his chief rival and Huckabee the wild card.
Meanwhile, without actually saying he was dropping out, Giuliani all but drew his campaign to a close in his concession speech tonight. He said he was "proud" of his campaign for keeping things positive -- he never really went after anyone except Romney and Ron Paul -- and nodded to his improbable candidacy and improbable strategy.
When he's not freestyle rapping, Mitt Romney also enjoys running for president of the United States. Tonight, we will find out if the Republican voters of Florida will crown him the candidate to beat going into next Tuesday, or if his chief rival in this state, John McCain, definitively becomes 2008's Comeback Kid.
We kid the former Massachusetts governor, of course, who is poised to win the Florida primary today and put to rest doubts that he can sweep enough Super Tuesday delegates to carry him to the nomination. He shot for and missed winning the nod in the supposedly crucial (but probably not so much anymore) states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which prompted a bunch of fortune tellers to write his WH '08 obit. But Romney doesn't have the best ground game and organization in this field for nothing. Pollsput [PDF] him in a dead heat for first with McCain, which could effectively make Feb. 5 a two-man contest.
That is, if potential spoiler Rudy Giuliani doesn't beat expectations. The former NYC mayor is promising he will deliver in spite of the polling numbers. He's crossing his fingers that a lot of the absentee balloting went his way, though it's not clear that would make a difference, our colleagues at Pollster.com say.
Obama Pulls Off Decisive S.C. Win, Plus One Heck Of A Speech
UPDATED.
When Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the White House in February last year, he knew he was a mere mortal going up against a dragon. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, comprised the head of the Democratic Party establishment. The race for the nomination was Hillary's for the taking, the chattering classes believed, because the Clinton machine was simply too entrenched, too monied, too formidable.
Tonight, Barack Obama drove a dagger into the heart of that dragon.
In a rousing, to-the-rafters speech reminiscent of a religious revival, the one-term, 46-year-old senator from Illinois delivered a damning indictment of the very thesis of Clinton's candidacy.
"We're looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington. We are looking for more than a change in the party in the White House," Obama told a packed auditorium of supporters. "This is a status quo that extends beyond any particular party. We are not going to let them stand in our way any more."
Hey, you guys! It's so super to see you! No matter what happens in Florida on Tuesday, let's promise to always be friends. I am so serious!!!
Ahem.
The Republican candidates debate last night was mind-bogglingly polite -- proof that in politics, anything really is possible. Gone were the condescending swipes at Mitt Romney that dominated the previous GOP debate earlier this month. Romney, in kind, held his fire, and so for once we had a forum that was dominated by issues.
We heard some interesting ideas from the candidates on how to jump-start the economy. Mike Huckabee, for instance, made a pretty good point when he said that the rebate checks millions of Americans will receive as part of a congressional stimulus package will likely go to goods made elsewhere, which does nothing to address the dying manufacturing sector here at home.
"And frankly, in talking about the stimulus package, one of the concerns that I have is that we'll probably end up borrowing this $150 billion from the Chinese. And when we get those rebate checks, most people are going to go out and buy stuff that's been imported from China. I have to wonder whose economy is going to be stimulated the most by the package," the former Arkansas governor said.
You won't hear talk like that on the Democratic side, where it's anathema to question the soundness of cutting those checks even though economists doubt they are actually stimulative.
Yesterday's debate also saw the return of the Iraq war as a campaign issue. Romney in particular foreshadowed the general-election argument to come on this topic: "We cannot turn Iraq over to al-Qaida and have al-Qaida have a safe haven from which they could recruit people to carry out bombings, to attack this country and our friends around the world. It's unthinkable. And that's why I will not walk away from Iraq until we have been successful and finish that job."
Where there were policy differences, the candidates managed to lay out their arguments without elbowing the others along the way. We saw what looked to be genuine camaraderie between Romney and Rudy Giuliani on the heels of a New York Times article on why Romney is the most disliked candidate in this field. And speaking of Giuliani, his chuckling and snorting punctuated nearly all the lighter moments of the 90-minute debate. (Where was that Giuliani when he was mayor of New York??)
Haha, we kid. About the "coveted" part, anyway. But seriously, Sylvester Stallone really has endorsed Arizona Sen. John McCain for president.
"I like McCain a lot. A lot," Sly told Fox News. "And you know, things may change along the way, but there's something about matching the character with the script. And right now, the script that's being written and reality is pretty brutal and pretty hard-edged like a rough action film, and you need somebody who's been in that to deal with it."
After running what often seemed a half-hearted campaign for the presidency, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination.
"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States," Thompson said in a brief, 45-word press statement. "I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."
His campaign delivered the same message to his supporters on the popular social networking site Facebook, though with this added note: "Thanks for your support, everyone."
Thompson opted for an exit not typical for major presidential candidates, most of whom choose to deliver the news that they are ending their bids in a personal address to the volunteers and supporters who've spent months toiling on their behalf. Saturday night, after the results of the South Carolina Republican primary showed he'd finished a negligible third, would have been a prime opportunity to have done so.
Many expected Thompson to drop out that night if he did not place at least second. Instead, he joked that he still might win and gave no indication one way or another about the future of his campaign.
Super Saturday I: McCain Wins S.C. Primary In Nail-Biter
UPDATED.
Now you may call it a comeback: John McCain has taken the South Carolina Republican primary.
McCain pulled out a narrow victory over Mike Huckabee, 33 percent to 30 percent. Fred Thompson (16 percent) and Mitt Romney (15 percent) basically tied for third.
"You know, it took us a while, but what's eight years among friends?" McCain quipped in his trademark self-deprecating manner, referencing his South Carolina loss to President Bush in 2000. "As I have said before, I know that before I can win your vote, I must earn your respect. And the only way I know how to do that is by being honest with you. I have tried to do that throughout this campaign, and to put my trust in your willingness to give me your fair consideration. So far, it seems to be working out just fine," he continued, in a room filled with ecstatic volunteers and supporters who minutes before had been chanting "Mac is back! Mac is back!"
McCain also made sure to note -- or gloat, perhaps -- that the chattering classes had declared his campaign DOA just months ago. "I am aware that for the last 28 years, the winner of the South Carolina primary has been the nominee of our party. We have a ways to go, of course," he said. "There are some tough contests ahead, starting tomorrow in the state of Florida. But, my friends, we are well on our way tonight. And I feel very good about our chances."
The outcome in South Carolina tonight is meaningful for at least two big reasons. One is that neither Huckabee nor McCain directly engaged in a negative way in a state infamous for its down-and-dirty politics.
It's been one year since the unofficial kickoff of the 2008 presidential campaigns, and the state of play for the Republican nomination contest is remarkable both for what has changed and what hasn't.
Most obviously different are the front-runners. Mike Huckabee, nationally unknown this time in 2007, now rides comfortably in the top tier. He's always had the goods to do well in this campaign but faced long odds against better-funded celebrity candidates.
Both he and John McCain have smashed pundits' expectations and are now enjoying the attention and funding that front-runner status guarantees. But in many ways, the game for the Republicans hasn't changed one bit. This field still lacks a candidate who is all things to all GOP voters. The party isn't coalescing around one or two choices, as is happening in the Democratic race. Rather, the party is being divvied up like a pie, with each candidate representing just a slice of the big-picture GOP platform.
The primary vote is so fractured, in fact, that a brokered convention actually seems a distinct possibility. Yeah, yeah, we hear that every other cycle. Only, the longer you examine the differences among Huckabee, McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, the more completely, utterly irreconcilable those differences seem. MSNBC's Chris Matthews is taking even more heat this week for a comparison he made between the GOP and Iraq's warring factions. Matthews may have stumbled through that analogy rather inelegantly, but he is on to something.
Rising food prices may be one of the most underreported economic stories. New data show that this trend is impacting the larger economy.
Consumer prices rose 4.1 percent last year, according to the Labor Department. In a new report, the Federal Reserve found no growth in factories, mines and utilities last month. Inflation is the highest it's been in 17 years, and the Fed is expected to announce a half-point rate cut to ease the pain when it meets later this month.
AP reports: "Energy costs rose by 17.4 percent this past year while food costs rose by 4.9 percent. Both were the biggest increases since 1990. Gasoline prices were up 29.6 percent, the biggest increase since they soared by 30.1 percent in 1999."
Obviously, this is hitting Americans who live paycheck to paycheck the hardest, which is why we've seen the economy skyrocket among voters' lists of concerns going into the 2008 elections. But the rise in food prices is perceived as a mixed blessing by analysts.
End note. We've suspected for a while that the media have blown up trivialities in the Democratic nomination contest because the candidates are mostly on board with each other on the major issues. This forum was a case in point.
Have Clinton and Obama really been squabbling over who is the rightful heir to MLK? Of course not. But you might have been led to believe otherwise by the previous days' news cycles, which is why it came up tonight.
Is Obama really struggling to convince voters that he's not a jihadist in disguise? Certainly. Not. The only plausible defense Williams et al. could give for bringing that story up is that it's already out there, and they were simply giving Obama a chance to put the rumors to rest. Again, we say: Anyone willing to believe those rumors hasn't been following Obama hardly at all and probably wouldn't vote for him no matter what. Imagine George Stephanopoulos asking John McCain about his rumored illegitimate black baby. Some things, my friends, should simply be out of bounds.
You're going to hear more about the rocky beginning of this debate tomorrow, I suspect. We'll update with reaction in the afternoon. [I lied; we'll go up with it Thursday.]
By the way, with 89 percent of precincts reporting, it's not even close: Romney trounced McCain 39 percent to 30 percent. Because Romney is a native son, a win in Michigan means much less than a loss would have. Still, he needed a gold, and he'll use his victory tonight to convince GOP voters that he's still in it to win it. See reports on the GOP contest here and here.
If there were any doubts about the continued importance of the Iowa and New Hampshire nominating contests in light of this year's accelerated primary schedule, a slew of new national polls should put them to rest.
Last week, a Gallup/USA Today poll, the first national survey taken after the Iowa caucuses, showed significant jumps in support for that state's two winners -- Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee -- propelling each to the top of their respective party's slate. But those gains were apparently short-lived, as a flurry of new national polls conducted after the New Hampshire primary last week has the Granite State's victors -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain -- leading their respective fields.
For more details on recent national polling on the White House race, see today's Poll Track. And see National Journal's current cover story for analysis of how the dominant demographics and ideologies of future primary states are likely to impact the campaigns ahead of Feb. 5's "Super Tuesday" contests.
Newsday columnist and FOX News regular James Pinkerton has signed on as an adviser to Mike Huckabee's campaign. Pinkerton, an alum of the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, said in a statement that he "jumped at the opportunity" to help the former Arkansas governor "restore the magnificent Reagan coalition."
That Pinkerton is suspending his relationship with FOX and his column of 14 years is not only surprising, but also says something about the momentum building around Huckabee.
It's been oft-noted that the 2008 GOP presidential front-runners all clash with the Republican Party establishment in some way. (Mitt Romney is the GOP Establishment Candidate to a tee, but is having trouble convincing Republicans of his authenticity.) It was believed that despite his Iowa win, Huckabee would face vehement opposition from the anti-tax/pro-wealth, anti-illegal immigration and libertarian wings of his party. That may yet be the case. But the fact that the campaign was able to convince Pinkerton to sign on may indicate that Reagan idolizers in the party see more that they like in Huckabee than not.
Today's campaign news cycle is all about how the media and pundits boo-boo'd so badly, having declared Clinton's campaign DOA heading into the New Hampshire primary and John McCain out for the count for the last six months running. There's a sea of red faces out there but, we contend, for the wrong reason.
Last we checked, journalism was about reporting facts, not predicting them. Some amount of prognostication can be quite useful for contextualizing the news. But when so many talking heads call a close contest well before the first vote tallies come in, what's the point of that, exactly? It seems as if egos, and not the public, are the ones getting served.
Leave it to quirky, independent-minded Granite Staters to tell the rest of the country: Not so fast.
Clinton Takes New Hampshire In Stunner; McCain (& Huckabee) Also Triumph
UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has pulled out an upset in New Hampshire, where a surprisingly tight battle with Barack Obama upended early predictions that a misguided strategy might doom her bid for the Democratic nomination. The upside for those embarrassed by their premature crystal ball-gazing is that voters across the country have a real menu of options in both parties.
"I come tonight with a very, very full heart," Clinton said to tremendous cheering and applause from supporters. "I want to especially thank New Hampshire. Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice."
The crowd roared in response. More than anyone else on the 2008 slate of presidential candidates, the question of "how human" she seems dogs the former first lady. When Clinton appeared to be the inevitable nominee just months ago, it was because she had defied expectations in her strong debate performances and favorable responses from voters on the trail. In what was probably a moment of simple, human fatigue (although longtime Clinton-haters will say otherwise), she appeared to choke up during an exchange in a diner yesterday. A media frenzy ensued, and pundits were wondering out loud whether Clinton was too soft to endure the knocks of a presidential campaign.
By a hair (39 percent to 36 percent), Granite State voters voiced their preference for Clinton today, putting on pause the post-Iowa surge Obama appeared to be riding. If you aren't already convinced, Clinton's squeaker may be yet more proof that cable news is often best watched on mute.
N.H. Countdown: Of Knuckleheads, Huckaburgers & Crybabies
As much as you might resent the presidential candidates for forcing you to confront the 2008 election so early, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for them. Most are sleep-deprived and anxious just four days after the Iowa caucuses, the results of which forced some candidates to retune their campaign strategies on the run.
This is especially true for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is locked in a super-tight battle for first in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary, pollsreleased today show. Her decisive loss to Barack Obama in Iowa seemed to send her camp into a tailspin. There are strong hints that if she is humiliated in the Granite State, a personnelshuffle will follow.
A mixture of anxiety, adrenaline and sheer physical exhaustion may explain why we've seen such a range of emotions from Clinton this week. First, she feistily returned fire at rivals Obama and John Edwards at the ABC/Facebook debate on Saturday -- a performance that indicated she wasn't going to take the onslaught of attacks lying down.
An uncharacteristically emotional moment for her today is sucking up most of the oxygen in coverage of New Hampshire. That she seemed to choke up when asked about the hardships of campaigning by a voter raises questions about her gender again. Those questions have distracted the media before, but the Clinton Crying story comes less than 24 hours before Granite Staters go to the polls.
Liveblogging the FOX Republican Roundtable -- Minus Ron Paul
9:37. It's over. If anyone's feelings were hurt tonight, like Hillary Rodham Clinton's were yesterday, it's Mitt Romney. He seemed to be running an impeccable campaign, and that's part of the problem. Schadenfreude is a female dog, as he is learning all too well.
As we said before, the GOP primary is shaping to be a real knife-fight between Romney and McCain. Will Huckabee deliver another surprise? The ground seems to be shifting yet again in the Republican nomination battle, but with the primaries so front-loaded voters have little time to carefully weigh their options. If there is buyer's remorse come spring, we'll hear a lot of calls for shaking up the primary calendar for 2012.
Check back tomorrow for a roundup of reaction to tonight's forum and the ones ABC held last night. Good night.
9:30. Why are you best qualified to go to the general?
Giuliani: I'm not perfect, but I can solve problems.
Thompson: I've never lost an election. OK, so I haven't run in many elections...
Huckabee: I can relate to ordinary, hardworking Americans.
Romney: "Chris, I got in this race because my family told me I ought to." [ed: Really??]
McCain: I can re-energize the Republican base. And I love New Hampshire!
WH '08: A Brusque, But Not Brisk, Farewell To Iowa
We haven't matched the rest of the media's outsized coverage of the Iowa caucuses because of the very nature of the caucuses themselves. But we have to admit that what we saw last night was pretty astonishing, in part because a poll predicting the results actually turned out to be right.
Of course, that could just be a coincidence, but the Des Moines Register appears to have corrected for some of the factors that plagued surveys past. (Though it's still not without its problems, Mark Blumenthal points out.) The David-vs.-Goliath victory of Mike Huckabee (results) flew in the face of conventional wisdom, proving that a virtual unknown with hardly any money to campaign with and virtually no organization could sell himself to voters.
Huck's defeat of Mitt Romney does not, however, mean that the conventional wisdom won't prevail.
If you know anything about how the caucuses work, you know that they are unrepresentative of party voters nationwide and are undemocratic, particularly on the Democratic side (irony, irony), to boot. So of course all the attention now goes to New Hampshire (but not Wyoming, which holds its GOP caucus tomorrow), for the first primary vote of the season. New Hampshire's results will almost certainly be different from Iowa's, so a lot of comparing and contrasting will ensue.
We purposely did not devote a lot of blog space to the caucuses for good reason. But yesterday's surprising results dispelled some long-standing prognostication about the 2008 presidential election. Since dispensing with conventional wisdom can be fun (OK, we're nerds), let's take out the trash after the jump.
Last night's Iowa caucuses created two decisive winners in the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest and two new casualties in the overall race.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Barack Obama pulled ahead of the Democratic pack with 38 percent of the vote, followed by John Edwards in second with 30 percent and Hillary Rodham Clinton close behind at 29 percent.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee completed his ascent from relative obscurity just a few months ago to capture first place with 34 percent of the vote, with 96 percent of precincts reporting. Mitt Romney came in second with 25 percent, and Fred Thompson eked out a third-place finish with 13 percent, dispelling (for now) recent rumors that he could soon drop out of the race. John McCain tied Thompson for third, with Ron Paul close behind at 10 percent.
Meanwhile, two other candidates did bid their presidential ambitions adieu last night. Democratic Sens. Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd announced they were abandoning their bids after the former drew only 1 percent of the vote in Iowa and the latter garnered even less.
If you're all Iowa-ed out, NationalJournal.com's Ronald Brownstein looks ahead to the New Hampshire contest coming up on Tuesday. NationalJournal.com also has the overall results for the Democratic and Republican caucuses, and the Des Moines Register breaks down the results by county. See On Call for more reactions and details from Iowa, and check back with The Gate later today for more analysis.
CNN, NBC and FOX News are calling it for Barack Obama. His margin over John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton is much smaller than Mike Huckabee's over Mitt Romney's, however, so the Edwards and Clinton camps may well declare tonight a sort-of victory, too.
Campaigning in New Hampshire, John McCain declared Huckabee's win "a victory" for positive campaigning -- a dig at Romney. The enemy of his enemy is Huckabee... for now. Romney spent loads of cash in negative ads against McCain and Huck. Does his defeat tonight force his campaign to rethink that strategy? Or, does his loss in Iowa mean the "anything goes" strategy holds?
Again, check with On Call for updates as the night progresses; we'll have full analysis tomorrow.
[UPDATED 9:52] Obama's lead is turning out to be pretty significant, according to the Register's returns.
In case you missed it, and there's pretty much no chance you have, the Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, Jan. 3, more than eight months (!) before the first party nominating convention will be held. The ground in both fields has shifted dramatically this month alone, which indicates that what the tiny percentage of Iowans who caucus tomorrow have to say will probably not hold.
Nonetheless, there are more media outlets on the ground in Iowa today than ever before, and coverage is wall-to-wall. We've explained before why Iowa polls are unreliable. The new Register surveys, which show Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in the lead, were conducted Dec. 27-30, when enough Iowans to skew the results were probably traveling and therefore were unable to pick up the phone. There are also questions about whether Iowans, who by some accounts are receiving more than one campaign-related phone call a night, are still picking up their phones at all. (Think about it: Would you?)
Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal -- a new National Journal Group colleague (welcome!) -- has some must-readexplanations of Iowa polling.
Moreover, there are long-lingering questions about the actual significance of the Iowa caucuses. Democratic caucus-goers tend to be more liberal than primary voters elsewhere, and GOP caucus-goers more conservative. Fewer than 10 percent of Iowans, who are overwhelmingly white, participate, but the outsized media coverage arguably has a king-making effect. Those candidates who don't place in the top five might be considered road kill by Friday morning, which could doom them in other states where they are faring better.
Georgetown's Christopher Hull crunches the numbers in his new book, "Grassroots Rules" (seriously, there are charts and graphs). If you want to understand Iowa's effect on party nominations, read this book. His ultimate conclusion is that Iowa is important. But: "Controlling for New Hampshire results and measures of exhibition season performance, Iowa is not a statistically significant predictor of overall primary performance."
Before the Christmas break, we wrote that Americans' dwindling interest in the Iraq war might be perilous to the national interest, as Alasdair Roberts recently contended in Foreign Policy. Now the war on terrorism -- which even critics of President Bush must admit now includes Iraq -- is back in the headlines, thanks to yesterday's tragic events.
The view from Washington is that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a serious kneecap blow to U.S. foreign policy. To quickly review: President Pervez Musharraf, an ally by necessity, is increasingly unpopular at home and for good reason. (People who live under military dictatorships generally do not enjoy the experience.) Meanwhile, there's a virulent strain of anti-Western, Islamic fanaticism seeping through Pakistan at the moment, which means this White House's usually cherished principles of liberty and democracy do not apply.
The Bhutto-Musharraf power-sharing compromise was seen as the most feasible shot at calming Pakistan's restive populace. In Bhutto, Washington saw a more reliable and transparent ally in the war against extremism, in part because of her shady ethical past. She had something to prove.
Now that she's gone, we're back to where we were, and less than two weeks before Pakistan's elections no less. No doubt there is panic in the Beltway today, if only for the dearth of available options now.
Outraged supporters of Benazir Bhutto have taken to the streets following confirmation that the Pakistani opposition leader was assassinated today, with at least one province placed on emergency alert.
Bhutto had just spoken at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, and had gotten into a car when a gunman opened fire. The apparent assassin then blew himself up. There are conflictingreports on how she was killed. Some witnesses said she had been shot in the neck and chest, while a doctor at the hospital that treated her told the New York Times she had shrapnel wounds but would not confirm she had been directly shot.
At least 15 other people were also killed in the attack, according to various news reports. "Police in Sindh have been put on red alert," a police official told Reuters, referring to Bhutto's home province. "We have increased deployment and are patrolling in all the towns and cities, as there is trouble almost everywhere."
Television footage is showing mobs of people setting fires and destroying property in the streets.
...But That Won't Mitigate A Really Bad Decade In Iraq
In his year-end press conference, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the Pentagon would not be issuing furlough notices "at this time." The branches of the military have had to lay off employees and cut corners while Congress and the White House tussle over continued war funding. The result has been piecemeal funding for the military, as anti-war lawmakers continue to pressure President Bush to accept a withdrawal deadline.
A June Center for Strategic and International Studies report [PDF] advised the Pentagon to stop requesting funding through war supplementals, which aren't included in the defense budget in order to make actual spending appear smaller than it really is. Total U.S. defense spending is only about 4 percent of GDP -- a very low war-time figure. The constantly cash-strapped military need not be so, the authors conclude, and the Pentagon should be asking for much more money with which to fight the Iraq war, the most pressing security problem facing the country.
Gates seemed to dispute the criticism that his department was lowballing Congress in order to provide political cover for the president. "I actually think we had a very thoughtful conversation with the House Armed Services Committee earlier in the year over what percent of GDP devoted to defense and securing the nation should be. I got the impression from both sides of the aisle that it ought to be about 4 percent," Gates said.
"I will be putting out a letter later this afternoon that basically acknowledges that we have to do some planning because we didn't get all the money" requested from Congress, he added.
It was a banner weekend for John McCain, as the GOP presidential hopeful whose candidacy was written off not so long ago by most reporters and pundits scooped up several major endorsements and a fawning profile in the Wall Street Journal.
Three key newspapers in the two top early primary states published glowing editorials backing McCain's bid for the GOP nomination this weekend. In Iowa, a state few are predicting McCain to win, the Des Moines Registerformally endorsed the Arizona senator (as well as Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Democratic side), deeming him "most ready to lead America in a complex and dangerous world and to rebuild trust at home and abroad by inspiring confidence in his leadership."
New Hampshire's Portsmouth Heraldalso backed McCain, citing a quality the three-term senator has long trumpeted: "McCain will tell you the truth," the board writes, "even if it costs him the election."
Fingers point to strategist Mark Penn for allegedly running Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination as if she'd already won it: here, here and here.
Curiously, these blame-the-strategist whisperings always seem to start when candidates are in mortal danger. Where were all these off-the-record critics earlier in the fall, when we first started to see that Clinton would actually have to, *gasp*, fight for the nomination? Might this not just be Camp Clinton's way of deflecting blame for the campaign's missteps away from the candidate?
Ohthankgod: Liveblogging The Last GOP Debate Of 2007
4:37. In a post-debate interview on CNN, Huckabee said he apologized to Romney for the Jesus/devil remark while sticking to his earlier insistence that the remark had been taken out of context.
"He was gracious," Huckabee said of Romney's response.
There's nothing in the Times mag feature, by the way, to suggest Huckabee meant anything by that comment beyond an expression of genuine curiosity. Andrew Sullivanfound background for the question on the LDS Web site. Anyone who used to go to Sunday school knows that according to the Bible Satan/Lucifer/the devil was a fallen angel. Before he went evil he was just a regular angel, and in that sense, according to LDS, the devil and Jesus are brothers of a kind. OK, that's enough theology from me.
3:50. It's over, and insane as it sounds it feels too soon. That's a product of there having been a few too many non-contenders on the stage, no doubt.
Did uncommitted Iowans get what they needed here? Depends on whom they're leaning toward. Nothing bad happened to Huckabee, which is exactly what he needed as his viability star rises. Tancredo tried to portray Huck as an immigration flip-flopper, but... he's Tancredo. Lucky for Huckabee, Giuliani only goes there at grave risk to himself.
Romney didn't get a chance to zing Huckabee, but with that ad on the air he may not have needed to. And Huckabee was not asked about that Jesus/devil comment or his own attack-ish ad. The absence of theology in this debate may not be what some campaign prognosticators wanted, but it was classy, for immediate lack of a better word.
Univision Debate Postmortem: The Six Amigos (Plus Ron Paul)
So, our liveblog effort was a bust thanks to my lack of high-tech closed-captioning, but it doesn't look as if we missed a whole lot in the way of fireworks. Because the immigration debate has been alienating Latino voters, it was in everyone's interest last night to promote Brand GOP (as opposed to Brand Me). Most of the seven candidates present did that, but at the expense of specifics.
In other words, this was a very broad-strokes debate. The Republican candidates have been vying for months to prove just how tough they can be on closing the borders, etc., which is sort of mandatory, as they're trying to win over mostly white, conservative base voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Then they found themselves in Miami last night before a sea of Latino Americans -- the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the nation. In order to hew to what they'd been saying about immigration reform up until last night, some of which may not have gone over well in this crowd, they had to fiddle with their rhetoric.
That translated to lots of talk of freedom and no trading barbs on sanctuary cities or sanctuary mansions. The central mission was to not tick anyone off, and on that score they probably succeeded.
7:46. Just had to update with this: LOTS of applause in this crowd for a question about Hugo Chavez, Washington's least favorite South American leader. Have no idea what question was posed to Paul w/r/t to Chavez, but his response inspires waves and waves of boos. What just happened here? Tune in tomorrow to find out!
7:28. Well, I got my closed captioning to work -- and the captions are en Espanol. Sorry, readers, but looks like I'm going to have to abort this mission. Truly a first in Gate history.
That said, I am just dumbfounded that the producers would change the format of the Republican debate in such a way that many non-Spanish-speaking Americans would not be able to tune in. There are so many questions about where some of these candidates -- Romney, Giuliani -- really are on immigration reform. That isn't the case in the much more unified Democratic field -- questions about driver's licenses notwithstanding.
We'll have a roundup of reaction to the debate tomorrow. Daily Kos has a Spanish-speaker watching; you can check out their (hotly partisan) liveblog coverage here. The Corner was also stymied in its coverage attempt. Somewhere, Tom Tancredo is doing la cucaracha in front of a TV set.
Romney Stands Firm On Mormon Faith, Stresses 'Tolerance'
UPDATED.
In a speech meant to mark a turning point in his bid for support among evangelicals, Mitt Romney declared that as president he would serve the U.S. Constitution, not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but that religious faith ought to be a permanent fixture in the public square.
"I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law," Romney said, speaking at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. Adding that some voters might want him to sever Romney the politician from Romney the Mormon, he said, "That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith, and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers -- I will be true to them and to my beliefs."
Romney's address veered deeper into the topic of his faith, and its contrast to other faiths, than was previously indicated by his campaign. He was addressing the topic in more detail than he has since announcing his bid for the presidency because of a threat to his standing among Republican primary voters by Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a Baptist minister. Huckabee has raised a meager fraction of what Romney has so far this cycle, and his sudden rise in the polls is attributed to support from evangelical voters who distrust Romney because of his faith.
Romney was speaking before a preselected audience of supporters, but the tenor and content of his speech was quite obviously directed at skeptics. "Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it," Romney said. "But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience."
When asked what issues matter most to them, Americans usually name the Iraq war, the economy and health care by a mile [PDF]. Yet immigration has been dominating the debates in both parties. What gives?
See GOP candidate Tom Tancredo's new campaign ad above. It is the most gruesomely graphic scare spot we've seen yet this cycle, and as much as you might want to turn away -- don't. This ad may well indicate that illegal immigration will be 2008's flag-burning/gay marriage, which in previous cycles had a very real effect on election outcomes despite Americans' protest that those concerns weren't part of their Election Day calculus.
End note. I rode CNN pretty hard earlier, but overall this was a very good forum for these candidates. The producers did a better job than last time at picking interesting and varied questions (with the requisite gotchas, of course), and the holdouts for facing the YouTube Generation -- Romney, Giuliani -- probably did themselves a favor by deciding to show up.
What will get the most attention tomorrow is the knife-fight between Giuilani and Romney that kicked things off. Their cases against each other -- that Giuliani ran a liberal government in a crazy city and that Romney is a political changeling who accomplished little as governor -- went public only recently, and tonight is the first time we saw the candidates make their arguments mano a mano. Their squabbling produced a good moment for Thompson, who got to play the grown-up in the room as he methodically parsed what was wrong with both their records on immigration.
But as those anti-Huckabee press releases indicate, Thompson's camp realizes their man is in trouble. The "Law & Order" star was the one who was supposed to swoop in and rescue stranded GOP voters; now it looks like Huckabee's doing the rescuing, among evangelical Iowans, anyway.
This is what Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said of today's Fred Thompson endorsement:
Our endorsement is a testament to Senator Thompson's long-standing pro-life record, his commitment to protecting unborn children, and our belief in his ability to win.
Emphasis ours. Ed Morrissey rightly points out that NRLC could have easily waited until a nominee emerges to make its decision, rather than casting its lot so soon with a candidate who's not completely on board with them. Rudy Giuliani winning the nod puts all the pro-life grassroots in an awkward position, so they'd all be in the same boat.
The reason this endorsement is significant is because of what it says about Mitt Romney's candidacy. It's nothing new, by the way. But it's worth chewing over.
On the issues, Romney is more in line with the pro-life grassroots than Thompson (a federalist) or Giuliani (pro-choice). It doesn't take much to figure out what's going on here. The institutions that are the face of evangelical America won't come out and say it, but the men and women who make up that base will.
Is this a good or bad cycle for the religious right, already?
Despite a season of complaints, it turns out all sorts of Christian conservatives are finding something they like in each of the leading Republican candidates. The latest recipient of endorsement manna: Fred Thompson, who has picked up the National Right To Life Committee.
The timing couldn't be better for the "Law & Order" star, whose two-month-long campaign is getting ho-humreviews(subscription). Joe Klein all but wrote Thompson off today, before news of the NRLC nod broke.
Clearly some will have to rethink the ETA of Thompson's political demise. The NRLC is expected to formally announce its endorsement tomorrow, and it will be worth keeping an ear open for the language they use. Thompson is a federalist on the abortion issue. That's pretty in line with a lot of conservatives, but not with advocacy groups like NRLC that won't settle for less than a federal ban on the procedure.
WH '08: Don't Quit Your Day Jobs! No, Seriously. Don't.
Many of the candidates for president say that the campaign finance system is in urgent need of repair, yet they are shelving the issue precisely because of said system. As a result, we've got the longest, most expensive and most annoying presidential election maybe ever.
Meanwhile, here inside the Beltway, Congress is still mostly deadlocked on such pressing concerns as the war and health care for disadvantaged children. Hence, disapproval ratings that have managed to exceed those of the pariah in chief, President Bush.
Might all this playing hooky in order to chase a dream that for some is very (very, very) distant explain why Congress doesn't seem to be accomplishing very much?
In an anticipated but nonetheless stunning development, televangelist Pat Robertson has endorsed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for president.
"For months I have contemplated our future and the outstanding group of men who are offering themselves to the Republican Party to be its standard-bearer in the 2008 presidential election. Today, it is my pleasure to announce my support for a mayor, America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and a proven leader, who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans," Robertson announced at a campaign press conference.
The controversial Christian right leader had been courted heavily by the Republican candidates. Mitt Romney delivered the May commencement address at Robertson's Regent University, and John McCain apologized to Robertson for grouping him with the "agents of intolerance" in the evangelical community after his failed 2000 presidential bid.
"Sometimes you say things in anger that you don't mean," the Arizona senator explained in a March interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Robertson had made it clear that all was not forgiven, declaring on several occasions that McCain would never win his vote. Romney, however, was thought to have an actual shot. Robertson hadn't gone on the record criticizing the former Massachusetts governor's Mormon faith, even though it's considered by some evangelicals to be a cult.
Observers may describe this coup for Giuliani as a game-changing moment in Republican electoral politics. They might be overstating things a bit.
Looking back on the past year, the most surprising development of Campaign '08 so far has to be the crash and burn of Sen. John McCain. Less than a full presidential election cycle ago, the Arizona Republican's popularity so transcended party lines that John Kerry sought him out as a running mate.
Today, the one-time front-runner is nearly broke, has a skeletal campaign staff and is trailing badly in the polls. When the campaigns started to get under way earlier this year, every other headline about McCain had to do with his dogged support for President Bush's Iraq war policy despite overwhelmingly pessimistic coverage of the "surge" strategy. The formerly adoring political press, which McCain used to refer to as "my base," seemed to be punishing the lawmaker they once hailed as a maverick.
Well, bad for the Republican presidential front-runners, anyway.
The New Yorker's James Surowiecki writes a damning indictment of supply-side economics theory in this week's issue. "The supply-side argument that, in the United States, tax-rate cuts pay for themselves -- that, after cutting taxes, the government actually ends up with more revenue -- has little or no support within the mainstream economic profession, and no hard empirical data to back it up," he contends.
President Bush, of course, is the supply-sider in chief. Bush has been able to point to the growth of the economy during his term, and the post-9/11 rebound in particular, as proof that his controversial tax cuts are sound -- ignoring the "simple fact," as Surowiecki puts it, that "the American economy grows over time."
The third-quarter money race is coming into focus this week, as yesterday marked the deadline for candidates to file their official fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission. The national front-runners on both sides of the aisle -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani -- pulled ahead of their closest rivals in the money race, adding fuel to their growing leads and fresh hurdles for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who have been stagnating in the polls.
But for at least one candidate, the correspondence between campaign momentum and cash flow isn't quite as clear-cut.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has experienced something of a renaissance on the trail after a dismal second-quarter showing and a major campaign shakeup, is reporting $3.4 million cash on hand, $1.8 million of which is set aside for the general election. Factoring in his $1.7 million in reported debt, Marc Ambinderhelpfully does the math: "That means that McCain's campaign has no cash on hand -- in fact, even with the general election money factored in, it owes about $94,000. It is, in other words, bankrupt."
This is how low the bar is set for the 2008 Republican front-runners' debate performances: Don't screw up, and make us laugh at least once.
That's according to most of the news coverage, anyway. Of Fred Thompson's long-awaited debut in yesterday's GOP primary debate in Michigan, the general assessment is no, he didn't screw up, and yes, that one thing he said at the end was kind of funny.
"I've enjoyed watching these fellas," the former Tennessee senator said as things were winding down. "I've got to admit, it was getting a little boring without me."
Good line, were it not for the fact that the debate wasn't terribly exciting with him either. He didn't scuffle with any of his eight rivals there, so there were no fireworks. Nor, as Rich Lowryalso observed, were any of the "Law & Order" star's lines very funny. Does it matter? Thompson's catching a lot of flak for a rocky campaign launch -- before CNBC aired the debate, Radar magazine went up with a YouTube-laden "blooper reel" feature -- but his ready-made support in the polls guarantees him top-contender status. That support, remember, was there even before he officially entered the race. Unless he goofs up horribly on the national stage, it isn't going away because of one disappointing debate performance.
Thompson's viability is rooted less in who he is than who he is not. So voters might be better served by also paying attention to how Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney fared, even though this was their umpteenth televised debate.
Almost exactly one hour after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney boasted $10 million in primary contributions for the third quarter -- the largest announced sum of any GOP contender as of about noon today -- front-runner Rudy Giuliani finally came out with his own 3Q tally of $10.5 million, giving him the most cash on hand of all his primary opponents.
Sound familiar? The other side's front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, similarly tried to take the wind out of her closest rivals' sails earlier this week when she waited to announce her $22 million 3Q take after the media had already rushed to crown Barack Obama the leader in Democratic dollars (he raised $19 million for the primary).
Giuliani's $500,000 leg-up on Romney isn't as impressive as Clinton's quarterly cash advantage over Obama, nor were his methods as smooth (was his press secretary waiting vigilantly by the computer for Romney to show his hand first?). But the Giuliani campaign is sure to use his second consecutive quarter of fundraising domination to foster the impression that the former New York City mayor is the GOP contender best equipped to face the Clinton juggernaut.
Clinton & The Democrats Lead In Third-Quarter Fundraising
As if further proof was needed, the third-quarter fundraising totals trickling out of the top presidential campaigns this week are demonstrating that in the 2008 White House race, the Democrats have the almighty dollar on their side.
And despite breathless media reports crowning Barack Obama the king of the third quarter yesterday, Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign reports this morning that she raised $27 million ($22 million for the primary) in the past three months -- $7 million more than her closest rival. Looks like Democrats are going to have an even harder time combating Clinton's image as the inevitable nominee.
The highly anticipated season premiere of "Grey's Anatomy" opened with --
Oops, wrong post.
In case you missed it, and you probablydid, there was a Republican presidential debate last night at Morgan State University in Baltimore. As with the Democrats' turn in June, radio and talk-show host Tavis Smiley was on hand to host the All-American Presidential Forum on PBS before a mostly black audience on the historically black campus.
What was different this time around? The four empty podiums on stage.
Out of the belief that the gains made by the GOP under President Bush's leadership have been hopelessly eroded (by President Bush's leadership), or the belief that with independents out of reach, their socially conservative, mostly white base is more crucial than ever, front-runners Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson skipped the event.
The six candidates chasing them were smart enough to take advantage.
Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are, apparently.
The leading Republican presidential candidates cited "scheduling conflicts" as their reason for skipping tonight's All-American Presidential Forum on PBS.
"I'm puzzled by their decision. I can't speak for them. I think it's a mistake," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich earlier this week.
President Bushalso weighed in on the matter last week: "My advice to whoever will be our nominee is to reach out to the African-American community as well as other communities, because I believe we've got a very strong record when it comes to" issues affecting them.
End note. March is the new September. Petraeus has made it crystal clear he's not discussing an ultimate drawdown until that month next year. Reid and Pelosi have promised a super-charged challenge to Bush, which he is expected to ignore or squash. For now, it doesn't look like we'll get the GOP insurrection Democrats have been praying for, and we'll know for sure soon enough. Check back tomorrow for reaction from the White House and Hill. Good night.
7:33. Crocker on the spending: "It's something we have to do, because we don't have enough people in the State Department, and they [private contractors] do it very well."
7:28. The former auditor says the amount of U.S. money spent in one month in Iraq could buy health insurance for 800,000 American children. Expect to see more of that stat this election cycle.
7:22. McCaskill also wants to send Tony Soprano to Baghdad. Crocker responds, "We can facilitate. We can pressure to some degree. Ultimately, national reconciliation has to be an Iraqi process." He continues with words that both hurt and help him: "This is a long, slow, hard grind, that could become easier" in the improved security environment.
7:19. Oh thank God. McCaskill's back.
7:17. Oh golly. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, who hasn't gotten to ask questions yet, and Chairman Levin are both away for a vote. The committee is going to wait for them, and in the meantime Warner is asking follow-up questions. This really is starting to get torturous.
7:07. A parachute for fence-sitters, courtesy of Crocker. Frustrated Republicans, including Tennessee's Bob Corker it seems, want to know why U.S. officials don't simply strong-arm Iraqi politicians, Tony Soprano-style. Crocker's testimony indicates he doesn't buy into this approach, which possibly hands certain Republicans looking for a credible way to break with the administration a means to do so.
Pity that Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel never jumped into the 2008 presidential race. John McCain is the only big-name GOP candidate who talks about the Iraq war in specifics, while Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have been hanging back cautiously in anticipation of today's report from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Surely the Republican nomination contest could have used an injection of skepticism about the war from someone other than Ron Paul, if only for the practice it would provide candidates ahead of the general election matchup.
But Hagel's almost-candidacy never arrived, despite some sly flirting with the political press. Remember that dinner with Mike Bloomberg? Both men were careful not to kiss and tell, so to speak, but then the Nebraska Republican went ahead and strongly hinted to CBS' Bob Schieffer that a Hagel-Bloomberg ticket might be a pretty good idea.
The FOX Republican Debate; Thompson's Tease On Leno
Last night, the GOP candidates for president once again gathered before the podiums -- this time in New Hampshire -- to talk Iraq, immigration, the economy and more. As always, The Gate was watching.
Score a few for McCain. It's hard to envision the Arizona senator getting much further in this race after the losses he's suffered this summer, and yet it's equally hard to accept that John McCain's candidacy might be over so soon. He has the most storied military and foreign policy experience out of everyone on that stage, and all the change vs. experience talk this cycle has obscured the fact that this election is really about both.
Experience is the change. The Iraq war was planned and managed by civilians with no substantive military experience who ignored the advice of the Colin Powells and Brent Scowcrofts of the nation. Yes, McCain supported the invasion, but he was among the first to spot flaws in the postwar planning, and he says he's committed to leaving Iraq better than it was, which means he's both critical and supportive of ongoing operations there.
Whereas his earlier platform on Iraq too closely echoed the perceived blindness from the White House, costing him independent voters, McCain seems to have found a more credible argument for the war. "The people in New Hampshire are sad and angry over our failures in Iraq," McCain said last night. "I want our troops home. But I want them home with honor, otherwise we will face genocide and catastrophe in the region." The first point is clearly true, and voters may be coming around to the second point. Just ask the Democrats, who've been forced to temper their get-out-now calls.
All eight remaining Republican presidential candidates will go head to head once again in New Hampshire, starting at 9 p.m. EDT in a debate to be aired on FOX News. But there's little buzz surrounding the first major post-Labor Day White House '08 debate, thanks to Fred Thompson, who after months of waiting will make his candidacy zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Oops. Sorry about that.
The former Tennessee senator and "Law & Order" star is skipping the Q&A tonight in favor of an appearance on "The Tonight Show." Tomorrow, he will formally announce his candidacy for the GOP nod in a Webcast. Is it us, or is this not how anyone thought Thompson would ride in to rescue his anemic party?
Whereas Thompson's entry a few months ago might have been met by Hallelujahs and confetti from the base, he will now find a number of unpleasant questions awaiting him. Namely, why did he wait so long, and what's with the staff overhaul just as his campaign is going official?
We've never understood why Mike Huckabee hasn't fared better in the GOP primary contest. From his resume (Arkansas governor, rocker) to his bio (Baptist preacher, lost 110 pounds) to his age (52), the witty and likeable Huckabee seems to have all the goods for a presidential run.
Which is why the Other Man From Hope's surprise second-place finish at the Iowa Republican Straw Poll could potentially shake up the race. In political circles, the nonbinding vote is said to be the best money can buy. Unlike much of his competition, Huckabee didn't have the cash to bus in supporters. His tent wasn't air-conditioned. The Club for Growth was running a TV ad in the Ames/Des Moines market accusing Huckabee of raising taxes on nursing home beds. And still, Huckabee persuaded 737 people to vote for him gratis (the campaign was able to pay for 1,850 supporters' tickets).
That Huckabee, who still doesn't have national name recognition, was able to pull it off is a testament to his attractiveness as a candidate. Now he will have to leverage that success to turn his bid for the GOP nod into an insurgent campaign that catches fire -- and campaign donations.
After spending months (and millions) touring the state of Iowa in his bid to woo caucus voters the old-fashioned way, GOP presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson is packing up and heading home.
True to his word, the former Wisconsin governor took a good, hard look at his prospects for winning the GOP nomination after finishing a disappointing sixth in this weekend's Iowa straw poll and decided it was time to move on.
"I have no regrets about running," Thompson said Sunday in a statement. "I felt my record as governor of Wisconsin and secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters."
This weekend, political junkies and the GOP faithful will have their eyes glued on a small, quaint city smack in the middle of Iowa. Ames, population 52,000, is home to Iowa State University, soybean fields and Skunk River. In politics, however, it's known primarily for its influential* GOP presidential straw poll.
The relevance of Ames gets an asterisk this year, in part because two of the Republican Party's top contenders -- former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain -- have opted not to participate in the contest. Another cloud overshadowing Iowa's prominence in the 2008 election is the rush of other states to move their primary dates up to January and early February.
Despite Giuliani's and McCain's decisions to skip the Ames contest, the rest of the field is soldiering on with Iowa-focused campaigns, and most of the momentum is resting with Mitt Romney.
Shortly after yesterday's Republican presidential candidates debate in Iowa kicked off, this Gater found herself applauding. Was it for Mitt Romney? Tom Tancredo? Ron Paul?
None of the above. The Gate was clapping for ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, who dug out a few of those negative campaign tactics voters so despise and forced offending candidates to explain themselves.
First on the dock: Sam Brownback, a hero of pro-life conservatives who can't seem to get a leg up in the crowded race for the GOP nod. In an effort to claw upward in the polls, he's zeroed in on Romney, who's positioned himself as the only true social conservative in the upper tier of candidates. Stephanopoulos played Brownback's campaign robo-call to Iowans attacking Romney for his prior pro-choice stance.
WH '08: How To Pick A Candidate You Know Will Lose
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama each has more cash on hand than the entire Republican field combined, according to the latest campaign finance reports. It's only the second quarter, way too early for handicapping. But with check-writing closely mirroring the national polls, it might be time for Republican party leaders to embark on an awkward conversation.
Which candidate do you put forward for the White House when you know he's going to lose?
Republicans in particular do not enjoy political martyrdom. But at some point, party leaders may have to start mapping out a worst-case scenario that has them losing in the most advantageous way possible.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will meet with congressional supporters today to assure them he is staying in the presidential race and to seek their help in re-evaluating his campaign strategy.
McCain will stress that his continued presence in the race is "not a question," campaign spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said today, despite the departures of his campaign manager and other top aides and the disclosure in campaign finance reports that he is low on funds.
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott said he and other supporters in the Senate will meet with McCain "off campus" to discuss the best way for the candidate to move forward. "We just need to hear directly from John and from his campaign manager, Rick Davis, on what the plans are and how we can be helpful," Lott said.
Sen. John McCain said only death would keep him out of the 2008 presidential race, even as his campaign machine continues to fall apart around him.
When asked if he could foresee circumstances in which he would drop his bid for the White House, McCain quipped, "Contracting a fatal disease." McCain was speaking to reporters following an address to the Concord Chamber of Commerce in New Hampshire.
McCain added, "I was [just] in Iraq. You never know."
The Arizona senator acknowledged that he has lost support from conservatives and independents because of his positions on immigration and Iraq, respectively. But he said he was sticking to his guns.
"I take responsibility for those positions as well as for any, quote, problems we have within the campaign function," he said.
Sen. John McCain, who has been struggling to right his faltering presidential bid, was hit with multiple resignations from the very top of his campaign structure today.
"This morning I informed Senator McCain that I would be resigning from his presidential campaign, effective immediately," said campaign manager Terry Nelson in a statement to the press. "It has been a tremendous honor to serve Senator McCain and work on his campaign."
Nelson was joined by chief strategist John Weaver, a longtime McCain adviser who angrily left the GOP following McCain's bruising primary loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 election.
"I believe that most Americans will come to the conclusion that I have long known there is only one person equipped to serve as our nation's chief executive and deal with the challenges we face, and that person is John McCain," Weaver said in his statement.
The Atlantic's Marc Ambinderreports that chief of staff Mark Salter has also stepped down, although he will remain on board in an advisory role.
McCain Camp 'Restructuring' As Fundraising Stagnates
It seems political reporters have been hungrily awaiting the chance to write an obituary for the John McCain presidential campaign, which a 2:00 EDT conference call with reporters made clear. Participants on the call asked questions that all seemed to have a just-how-bad-is-it feel to them.
Campaign manager Terry Nelson launched into his debriefing on the defensive, telling reporters that the campaign is facing "a number of challenges" and is stuck in an environment that is particularly hostile to Republicans right now.
He explained that, as many a political observer has decreed in the past year, the campaign assumed it would require $100 million to secure the party's nomination, but that's no longer what the team believes. (If fundraising rates continue to produce numbers similar to what they have the last two quarters, only Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton will meet those benchmarks.) Nelson said the campaign was now "seriously considering accepting public matching funds."
He also explained that the campaign was being restructured as of today in a way that affects every department. AP reported just prior to the call that 50 staffers have been dismissed. Nelson declined to give personnel numbers but confirmed that senior staff would take pay cuts, and that he himself would not be on the payroll for the time being.
Most everyone tuning in to last night's CNN-sponsored Republican forum in New Hampshire already had him on their minds, so former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson did us all a favor by calling out the ghost at the very beginning: "My name is Thompson, Tommy. I’m the candidate, not the actor."
The actor Thompson being, of course, Fred Thompson -- star of "In The Line Of Fire," "Law and Order," and lately, the fevered dreams of many a GOP primary voter. Unfortunately for Tommy Thompson, that joke may have backfired, as National Review's Katherine Jean Lopezpoints out. By the time the next Republican debate arrives in August, it's a safe bet more than one of the third tier -- Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul -- will have dropped out.
Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, by contrast, have a better chance of hanging in as the two candidates who represent the hard right on immigration reform. Both have passionate followings, and the latest skirmish in the Senate over a compromise overhaul is only angering their supporters.
Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney may be the only sure bets to last through the summer. But purity is still an issue for this party, more so, arguably, than for the Democrats, and none of these men should count on an easy ride to the primaries.
Another day, another debate. CNN's Wolf Blitzer et al. are staying put in Manchester, N.H., tonight to host another meeting of the Republican candidates, just two days after the Democrats squared off on the same stage. If tonight's meeting seems a tad anticlimactic, or rather, pre-climactic, that might be because someone's still missing from the current slate.
Enter Fred Thompson. The former senator and "Law and Order" star once played the president on TV, and unlike Dr. Cliff Warner from "All My Children" ("I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV"), Thompson isn't selling cough syrup. Instead, he is positioning himself to be the candidate who cures what's ailing Republican voters.
NationalJournal.com's Poll Track(subscription) yesterday noted that voters already seem bored with what's on offer for 2008. Thompson sent ripples through the campaigns last week when he formed an exploratory committee. Sources close to the campaign told reporters the former Tennessee senator will formally declare his candidacy on the Fourth of July.
Romney Was For Immigration Reform Before He... Etc. Etc.
The contest among the top three GOP candidates has so far been about who's the most like Ronald Reagan. But the latest hot-potato issue to hit Congress has given still-deciding Republican voters a little something to sink their teeth into -- that is, the makings of a real fist-fight between two of the candidates.
In a conference call with bloggers yesterday, John McCain whacked Mitt Romney three times over, starting with the former Massachusetts governor's opposition to the compromise immigration proposal introduced to the Senate last weekend. "Maybe I should wait a couple weeks and see if it changes," McCain said, in remarks reported by the New York Sun. "And maybe his solution will be to get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard."
Now that The Gate has almost fully recovered from last night's Republican debate (9 p.m. start time? Thanks, FOX), it's time to assess the post-mortems of the action. All the usual suspects have weighed in by now, and there are more thumbs-up than not to the feistiness of the 10-candidate face-off.
There's lots of buzz around the Republican slate's own Mike Gravel, the libertarian Texas Rep. Ron Paul. They're both long-shot candidates who were thrust into headlinestatus following their debate performances. But unlike Gravel, Paul is taking negative hits for his newsmaking moment, in which he argued that America's footprint in the Middle East was inciting terrorism and got shot down in a big way by The 9/11 Mayor himself, Rudy Giuliani.
There are two things to take away from that moment. One, Giuliani's campaign ought to hire Paul. New Yorkers know better than anyone that the anger on their former mayor's face during that exchange was the real deal. And when it comes to fighting terrorism, a little scariness from politicians is actually a good thing. Giuliani's campaign is betting that his platform on terrorism will trump unhappiness with his social views, and his performance last night was reason to throw a little money Paul's way.
End note. Tonight's debate felt more substantive than the last meeting of the Republican 10. Candidates got the same 30 seconds or so to answer questions, but there were fewer questions this time, which made the pacing seem more orderly. The questions themselves were also all serious, more or less -- no one got lobbed with an out-of-left-field query (unlike last time around).
Quite a few of the candidates seem to have learned something from McCain. There were more follow-them-to-the-gates-of-hell type responses on terrorism tonight. But no one capped it with a weird, triumphant smile. In fact, we didn't detect any gaffes at all. (If you think Ron Paul's performance qualifies as a gaffe -- you just don't know Ron Paul.)
Overall, the field feels more set in stone than it did before. Of the lower-tier contenders, Gilmore, Huckabee and Tancredo asserted themselves the most, but probably not in a way that will set their campaigns on fire. Thompson was oddly quiet tonight, as was Brownback.
Mercifully, the next debate, this time among the Democrats, is nearly three weeks away. And, most everyone in Washington hopes, a wartime appropriations bill will make it out of Congress and past the president's desk by then. In the time since the debate began tonight, the Pentagon announced the deaths of two more soldiers, one in Iraq and one in Pakistan. Clocks are ticking all around. And no one on that stage knows this more than the guys not named Giuliani or McCain.
10:34. And it's over. Hunter had just gotten a chance to sound the alarm on China, his other pet issue after immigration. The center of gravity in the 2008 election will likely remain the Iraq war, and there's little he and other candidates can do about that. But how much longer can the front-runners campaign on Iraq and fiscal policy alone? Shouldn't they have to give serious thought to, say, China's growing economic influence and military growth as well?
Tonight's FOX News-sponsored debate of the Republican presidential candidates in South Carolina comes less than two weeks after their first nationally televised debate in California. And not one of the hopefuls has reason to complain that their second meeting has come so quickly. (The Gate will be liveblogging the action at 8:45 p.m. EDT.)
The rapid-fire pace of questions at the previous forum, sponsored by MSNBC and the Politico, did not allow time for thoughtful responses, much less clarification of the occasional fumbled answer. Just ask former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who seemed to support businesses that fire employees for being gay, and has been explaining the gaffe (a busted hearing aid, a bulging bladder) ever since.
Also see: Rudy Giuliani. The pro-choice former mayor of New York told moderator Chris Matthews that he would be just fine with Roe v. Wade being overturned, just so long as it was done based on "strict constructionist" principles. Constitutional lawyers everywhere scratched their heads, and Giuliani's rivals smelled the blood of a flip-flopper in the water. The Gate spoke with Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella the Monday following the May 3 meet-up. After some prodding, she said that Giuliani shares a fairly widespread belief (in legal academia, anyway) that Roe was poorly decided, and that a Federalist approach may have been preferable.
And... scene. Ronald Reagan wasn't the only ghost in the room tonight. Somewhere, perhaps on a sound stage in New York City, senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson senses a clamoring for his entree into this race. That nearly all participants went out of their way to liken themselves to Reagan mostly served to highlight the fact that, for GOP base voters, there wasn't a Gipper on the stage.
This yearning may have less to do with what Reagan actually accomplished than with Republicans needing a shot of Prozac in the form of a presidential candidate who makes them feel good about being Republicans again. As McCain's precarious position in the top tier shows, proximity to Bush may be toxic in that regard. Everyone else might be too big a question mark to fill that void.
More reason to cue the actor? That the media aren'ttiring of speculating on this point may mean that none of the current candidates has convinced Republicans that he could be their champion in '08.
9:46. Tancredo's back. He's a prime example of why debates like this can be unfair to some candidates. The immigration issue is one quite a few Republicans would rather paper over until after the 2008 election. Tancredo may be a long-shot candidate, but he has a loyal, energized group of supporters in Americans who want to stanch the tide of illegal immigrants making their way across the border. It's a security issue, an economic issue, and, to some Americans, a cultural issue.
In one of a handful of mentions of George W. Bush by the candidates, McCain praised the president's position on immigration. McCain and Democrat Edward Kennedy have co-sponsored a bill that enacts tighter controls at the border while providing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship -- a provision Tancredo decries as amnesty.
Polls show few Americans actually want all illegal immigrants rounded up and deported. But the problem for McCain and Bush is that, to a degree, the dictionary definition of amnesty applies. Pressing the candidates on that point could have given Tancredo and his comrade in arms on that issue, Duncan Hunter, a powerful moment in the debate. But it never happened.
9:45. Tancredo's turn on MSNBC, and -- oops. They lose him. The congressman just can't get a break tonight.
9:41. Spin room time; Brownback is first up on MSNBC. No, the candidates didn't all get a fair shot at getting their message across, and yes, the debate went a little too fast, the Kansas senator says. That's a good point, actually -- if fewer Politico.com reader questions had been asked, candidates could have been allotted more time for responses. Perhaps we'll see some Friday morning quarterbacking on the debate format tomorrow.
9:33. It's over, and the frustration on stage is palpable. Blame the number of candidates, blame the format -- there were no runaway performances here, which wasn't expected anyway, but the sheer lack of high points is a little surprising.
Romney, by the way, wins the race to rush over and greet Mrs. Reagan.
Speaking from the first-in-the-nation primary state that gave him the greatest support in his failed 2000 bid, John McCain announced his formal entry into the 2008 race for the GOP presidential nomination. "We face formidable challenges, but I’m not afraid of them. I’m prepared for them, " the Arizona senator said from Prescott Park in Portsmouth, N.H. "I’m not the youngest candidate. But I am the most experienced."
McCain did not directly address his military experience, but the site and tenor of his speech invoked his well-known service in Vietnam, where he spent five years as a prisoner of war. Clad in a casual white shirt and navy blue sweater, McCain took to the stage to the tune of Navy theme "Anchors Aweigh," with Maine's Portsmouth Naval Shipyard behind him across the Piscataqua River.
Romney Swipes McCain Ahead Of Official Announcement
Arizona Sen. John McCain is set to formally announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination from New Hampshire at noon. Check back with The Gate for more details to come.
A half hour before McCain's scheduled announcement, the campaign of GOP rival Mitt Romney issued a press release pointing out "fundamental flaws in the McCain-Feingold law," a provision of which is being contested in a case before the Supreme Court today. Coincidence?
Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, Seth Hackbarth of The American Mind and Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits are among the influential conservative bloggers incensed by pundit/author/TV personality Ann Coulter's use of a derogatory word for gays in a one-liner about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. And they've teamed up, in an open letter to the Conservative Political Action Conference and its sponsors, to urge the event organizers to sever ties to Coulter for good.
There is a conventional wisdom developing that Rudy Giuliani will take a mighty tumble closer to primary time. By then, the reasoning goes, GOP voters will eventually discover en masse that he is pro-choice and gay-friendly. (Most New Yorkers know that he roomed with some close friends who were gay after announcing to the media, but not his second wife, Donna Hanover, that he was divorcing her.)
So quipped former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee when opening his speech before an audience of grassroots conservatives still searching for a champion going into the 2008 presidential election. Whereas Hillary Rodham Clinton is seen as the juggernaut to beat for the Democratic nomination, every one of the Republican hopefuls have been tagged with seemingly insurmountable weaknesses. For most of the field -- like Huckabee -- it's lack of money, momentum and name recognition, but the top three contenders -- John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney -- are perceived by their party's base as leaving much to be desired.
So more than in most years, Day 2 of this year's Conservative Political Action Conference was like a day-long pitch meeting, with six of the 11 probable-to-definite candidates stating their case. Conspicuously absent, as reported yesterday, was McCain. To say that the Arizona senator's MIA status went unnoticed is to be generous. Very, very generous.
GOP Slate -- Sans McCain -- Appeals To D.C. Conservatives
The right is less than thrilled about the top three GOP White House hopefuls, and aren't shy about lamenting their plight to the press. The New York Times reported over the weekend that Christian conservatives tried to persuade South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to run during a meeting of influential Christian conservatives last month, but to no avail. It's probably too early to characterize what the religious right may be feeling as despair; after all, it is still very early in the election cycle.
And that is why second- and third-tier hopefuls have reason to stay in contention. They will get a shot alongside the big guns to state their case before the conservative grassroots starting today at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. Speakers include Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and Sam Brownback.
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A controversial anecdote relayed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in last week's Texas debate wended its way into a Senate Armed Forces hearing on Army readiness today.
A fight over whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can reject federal funds for his presidential campaign has thrown new attention on a stalemate hamstringing the Federal Election Commission and given unexpected attention to the role of McCain's possible election opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in that impasse.
"When you talk about the FEC, people's eyes glaze over.... But there will be increasing public pressure to do something as more and more people understand" the situation, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Her group called Friday for Republicans to compromise to end the standoff.
Did Hillary Rodham Clinton step under a ladder and over a black cat before announcing her presidential campaign last year? The hits -- in the bad sense -- just keep on coming at her. 
John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, denied a 
"We always had good laughs together."
Looks like the GOP has its very own Joe Lieberman: former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee.
Speaking before a roomful of conservative activists in Washington, Mitt Romney drew his presidential campaign to a close.
The excitement surrounding yesterday's unprecedented Super Tuesday nominating contests obscured the latest and perhaps most damning news to come out on the troubled economy: Activity in the crucial service sector slowed for the first time in nearly five years last month.
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Remember Obama's victory speech after he won the South Carolina Democratic primary, when 
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When he's not 
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Hey, you guys! It's so super to see you! No matter what happens in Florida on Tuesday, let's promise to always be friends. I am so serious!!!
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Rising food prices may be one of the most underreported economic stories. New data show that this trend is impacting the larger economy.
End note. We've suspected for a while that the media have blown up trivialities in the Democratic nomination contest because the candidates are mostly on board with each other on the major issues. This forum was a case in point.
Newsday columnist and FOX News regular James Pinkerton has signed on as an adviser to Mike Huckabee's campaign. Pinkerton, an alum of the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, said in a statement that he "jumped at the opportunity" to help the former Arkansas governor "restore the magnificent Reagan coalition."
"Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice," a relieved and triumphant Hillary Rodham Clinton 
UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS.
This is especially true for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is locked in a super-tight battle for first in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary, 
9:37. It's over. If anyone's feelings were hurt tonight, 
We haven't matched the rest of 
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Barack Obama pulled ahead of the Democratic pack with 38 percent of the vote, followed by John Edwards in second with 30 percent and Hillary Rodham Clinton close behind at 29 percent.
In case you missed it, and there's pretty much no chance you have, the Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, Jan. 3, more than eight months (!) before the first party nominating convention will be held. The ground in both fields has shifted dramatically this month alone, which indicates that what the tiny percentage of Iowans who caucus tomorrow have to say will probably not hold.
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In his 
4:37. In a post-debate interview on CNN, Huckabee said he apologized to Romney for the Jesus/devil remark while sticking to his earlier insistence that the remark had been taken out of context.
So, our liveblog effort 
7:46. Just had to update with this: LOTS of applause in this crowd for a question about Hugo Chavez, Washington's least favorite South American leader. Have no idea what question was posed to Paul w/r/t to Chavez, but his response inspires waves and waves of boos. What just happened here? Tune in tomorrow to find out!
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End note. I rode CNN pretty hard earlier, but overall this was a very good forum for these candidates. The producers did a better job than last time at picking interesting and varied questions (with the requisite gotchas, of course), and the holdouts for facing the YouTube Generation -- Romney, Giuliani -- probably did themselves a favor by deciding to show up.
The reason this endorsement is significant is because of what it says about Mitt Romney's candidacy. It's nothing new, by the way. But it's worth chewing over.
Despite a season of complaints, it turns out all sorts of Christian conservatives are finding something they like in each of the leading Republican candidates. The latest recipient of endorsement manna: Fred Thompson, who 
Many of the candidates for president say that the campaign finance system is in urgent need of repair, yet they are shelving the issue precisely because of said system. As a result, we've got the longest, most expensive and 
In an anticipated but nonetheless stunning development, televangelist Pat Robertson has endorsed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for president.
That's according to most of the news coverage, anyway. Of Fred Thompson's long-awaited debut in yesterday's GOP primary debate in Michigan, the general assessment is no, he didn't screw up, and yes, that one thing he said at the end was kind of funny.
Sound familiar? The other side's front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, similarly tried to take the wind out of her closest rivals' sails 
As if further proof was needed, the third-quarter fundraising totals trickling out of the top presidential campaigns this week are demonstrating that in the 2008 White House race, the Democrats have the almighty dollar 
Out of the belief that the gains made by the GOP under President Bush's leadership have been hopelessly eroded (by President Bush's leadership), or the belief that with independents out of reach, their socially conservative, mostly white base is more crucial than ever, front-runners Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson skipped the event.
7:33. Crocker on the spending: "It's something we have to do, because we don't have enough people in the State Department, and they [private contractors] do it very well."
But Hagel's almost-candidacy never arrived, despite some sly flirting with the political press. Remember that 
Experience is the change. The Iraq war was planned and managed by civilians with no substantive military experience who ignored the advice of the Colin Powells and Brent Scowcrofts of the nation. Yes, McCain supported the invasion, but he was among the first to spot flaws in the postwar planning, and he says he's committed to leaving Iraq better than it was, which means he's both critical and supportive of ongoing operations there.
The former Tennessee senator and "Law & Order" star is skipping the Q&A tonight in favor of an appearance on "The Tonight Show." Tomorrow, he will formally announce his candidacy for the GOP nod in a Webcast. Is it us, or is this not how anyone thought Thompson would ride in to rescue his anemic party?
Which is why the Other Man From Hope's surprise second-place finish at the Iowa Republican Straw Poll could potentially shake up the race. In political circles, the nonbinding vote is said to be the best money can buy. Unlike much of his competition, Huckabee didn't have the cash to bus in supporters. His tent wasn't air-conditioned. The Club for Growth was running 
After spending months (and millions) touring the state of Iowa in his bid to woo caucus voters the old-fashioned way, GOP presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson is packing up and heading home. 
Which candidate do you put forward for the White House when you know he's going to lose?
"This morning I informed Senator McCain that I would be resigning from his presidential campaign, effective immediately," said campaign manager Terry Nelson in a statement to the press. "It has been a tremendous honor to serve Senator McCain and work on his campaign."
Campaign manager Terry Nelson launched into his debriefing on the defensive, telling reporters that the campaign is facing "a number of challenges" and is stuck in an environment that is particularly hostile to Republicans right now. 
Speaking from the first-in-the-nation primary state that gave him the greatest support in his failed 2000 bid, John McCain announced his formal entry into the 2008 race for the GOP presidential nomination. "We face formidable challenges, but I’m not afraid of them. I’m prepared for them, " the Arizona senator said from Prescott Park in Portsmouth, N.H. "I’m not the youngest candidate. But I am the most experienced."
Ed Morrissey of 
