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Saturday, February 9, 2008
Obama Wins Washington, Nebraska
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 8:59PM
Barack Obama beat Hillary handily in Nebraska and Washington state's caucuses.
Huckabee's Not in Kansas Anymore
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 7:22PM
As Shawn noted earlier, Mike Huckabee trounced John McCain 60 percent to 24 percent in the Kansas caucuses, with Ron Paul taking another 11 percent. It will be interesting to watch whether the anti-McCain vote is as strong in primary states -- say, the upcoming contest in Louisiana -- where Paul hasn't been reaching the double digits and it is harder for an organized minority to win. With a few notable exceptions, McCain hasn't lit the world on fire in most caucus states but he hasn't done too badly in the primaries. Let's see how that holds up now that his nomination is all but guaranteed.
Note to McCain Supporters
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 7:14PM
Somehow I don't think attacking "the far right of the Republican Party" or their "extremist rhetoric" is the best way to rally conservatives behind your candidate.
Stumbling On Incisiveness
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 5:31PM
This morning Huckabee hanger-on Star Parker was introduced as having "a B.S. in marketing." Hmm...she picked the right horse this time out, I'd say.
Impotent Defiance
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 5:20PM
Romney just beat McCain by one point in the CPAC straw poll, 35 percent to 34 percent. The crowd went wild, for what reason, I don't know. It isn't as if Romney suddenly appeared out of the wings to declare he was back in the race at the behest of the people.
Huckabee and Ron Paul tied with 12 percent each. There's a Ying and Yang for you.
There was more of a breakdown, but I was asked to leave because I wouldn't sit between a couple yahoos when a CPAC volunteer asked me to. After approximately one million solemn invocations of the words "liberty" and "freedom" I supposed I might have some freedom to move at my liberty. Alas, definitional purity is as sorely lacking here as one might suspect.
Hillyer Kryptonite
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 5:16PM
I'm not sure whether Quin hates McCain or Huckabee more. I think maybe Huckabee. If so, then the greater of the two pains for the illustrious pundit occurred in Kansas. Huckster wins.
Apologies to Thomas Frank
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 5:15PM
What is the matter with Kansas?
Huckabee takes the state's caucus by a wide margin.
A Relatively Slow Day at CPAC
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 4:13PM
Was livened up by Phyllis Schlafly adivising the crowd to press John McCain on his stance on the Law of the Sea Treaty and by Newt Gingrich's statement that conservatives should declare independence from the GOP and just say 'no' to political consultants!
Holy Rollin'
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 12:40PM
The "Vote the Bible" van that I spotted in South Carolina was parked outside the Omni Shoreham Hotel when I got here this morning for CPAC Day 3. I wonder if it follows Huckabee everywhere.
Paul Pulls Back
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 12:35PM
Ron Paul has released a statement noting that now that Romney's out, "the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero," and saying that while he's not dropping out of the race, he is scaling back his presidential campaign to focus on defending his congressional seat. He also says definitively that he will not be making a third-party run. (Via Doherty.)
Huckabee Carries On
Posted by on 2.9.08 @ 12:29PM
"I know that there's some speculation that I might come here today to announce that I will be getting out of the race, and I want to make sure you understand: Am I quitting? Let's get that settled right now. No, I am not," said Mike Huckabee in his speech at CPAC this morning. It got an enthusiastic reception. Invoking pundits who point out that it's almost mathematically impossible for him to win, Huckabee said "I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles." I guess that explains his support for the FairTax.
At a press availability after the speech, I asked Huckabee whether he was fighting on to the convention no matter what, or if he would drop out after McCain reaches the 1191 delegate mark. "I know I won't drop out until at least that happens, and then we'll see," he said.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Little Richard
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 9:04PM
When he's not blowing the cover of Valerie Plame and letting Bob Novak hang, Richard Armitage is reading David Halberstam, going on record with a four-letter word, and otherwise entertaining the easily impressed Stanford community.
Bolton Goes To Bat For McCain
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 3:36PM
John Bolton used his speech at CPAC to pursaude restive conservatives that the stakes in the world (the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats, the prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic terrorists) were too great to sit this election out because of their disagreements with John McCain, and allow the Democrats to gain control of foreign policy.
Bolton said it was now clear that he would be the nominee, and specifically addressed those who argue that conservatives would be better off in the long run if Democrats win and mess things up than if mistakes are associated with a Republican. He compared this logic to Vladimir Lenin's declaration that "worse is better" and said that "tactical domestic considerations" shouldn't be allowed to harm our national security.
The rest of his speech focused mainly on Iran, North Korea and nuclear proliferation.
Romney and 2012
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 12:23PM
There's already talk of Mitt Romney's prospects for 2012. Clearly, this played into his decision to bail out of the race early rather than continue to divide the party up until the convention. On the surface, there is something to be said for his chances in 2012, because he would enter that race with advantages he didn't have this time around. He'd have higher name recognition; assuming he doesn't change again, he'll have held his conservative positions for four years longer; and in a party that likes to reward candidates when it's "their turn," he can make the case that he's next in line.
With that said, let's be clear that the enthusiasm he generated among conservatives over the past few weeks was more a function of him being seen as the last chance to stop John McCain. Romney's supporters may blame Mike Huckabee for splitting the conservative vote, but Huckabee succeeded precisely because Romney wasn't able to seal the deal with social conservatives.
I would say that Romney's potential (beyond the obvious need for either McCain to lose this year or win and only serve one term) is largely a based on whether a new consensus conservative arises over the next four years to galvanize the movement. Romney ended up establishing himself as the choice of a plurality of conservatives who saw him as the best option in a flawed field. But he never really lit a fire under a large enough number of people for me to think that he'll have much staying power unless we have a similarly flawed field in another four years.
Romney's Fade, McCain's Rise
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 11:31AM
Over on the Spectator main page, Theodora Blanchfield captures much of the drama of CPAC yesterday: the shock of the Romneyites, the disquiet of the conservatives, and McCain's broad smile as he took it all in.
Need to Know
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 11:21AM
Over at the Wall Street Journal today, our publisher has words of advice and warning for the new presumptive Republican nominee. Writes Regnery, "John McCain needs conservatives more than conservatives need John McCain."
Re: More on McCain
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 10:57AM
Exactly. Though, unlike Jim, I actually don't think his speech was that patronizing. For one thing, he didn't talk about Reagan much aside from the mention of being his guest. Compare that to the regular harping on Reagan that other candidates offered during the campaign.
Would McCain Pick Huckabee For Veep?
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 10:22AM
Abe Greenwald makes the case for why he would not.
Here Comes Huck
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 10:07AM
First, here (from the
Washington Examiner) is
my fullest report about yesterday's conservative reaction to
Romney's speech at CPAC.
Second, here is an absolutely firm prediction (using the sort of
colloquial language Huck himself used when he's pandering): Mike
Huckabee ain't dead yet. I predict a far stronger than "expected"
showing in Virginia next Tuesday, and then a string of contests
where he approaches (and occasionally exceeds) the same vote totals
as McCain. He almost certainly has no shot at denying McCain the
nomination, and probably can't even force an open convention, but
he will continue to pile up delegates.
Here's why: 1) The part of the Evangelical base that is for him remains absolutely fired up about him -- as do the well organized fair taxers and home schoolers. And the culturally conservative protectionists also tend to be passionate, and he's the only protectionist left standing.
2) The anti-McCain sentiment among many Republican voters is so incredibly strong that ANY candidate who appears to be the last man standing against McCain would garner a boatload of votes. Indeed, in most states, if the Republican ballot listed two candidates, one being McCain and the other being listed merely as "Mystery Man," McCain would still have a hard time getting more than a very small majority.
Let me elaborate a little more on that point. In most states where McCain seriously competed both in 2000 and in 2008, his raw vote count was (I believe) actually far smaller than it was in 2000. He has been "winning" only because the field has been fractured in at least three, and sometimes as many as six, ways -- and with his name ID combined with his undeniable appeal to a sizable minority of the electorate, his BASE of the vote most places is high enough to keep him in the top tier even if more than two-thirds of the voters in a state can't stand him. But McCain is far LESS popular among Republicans most places now than he was eight years ago -- and where he is not less popular in raw numbers, he is far more detested by the remaining ones who don't like him than he was detested by those same people eight years earlier. Result: Just about any mainstream Republican candidate who is in a one-on-one race vs. McCain would get nearly 50 percent of the vote by default alone, and in most cases, if no "momentum" were in play, would stomp McCain into the ground.
3) Huckabee has been playing rope-a-dope. Huck has been letting
all the other candidates take on McCain directly while making nice
to the Arizonan himself. In return, McCain's moral authority (at
least in many minds) has not been used to attack Huck; instead,
McCain has gone after others (most particularly Romney, but also at
times Giuliani and Paul) with a vengeance. Huck has benefitted from
that state of affairs both directly and indirectly, most directly
in West Virginia, where the McCain forces (led by former LA Gov.
Buddy Roemer) saw Huck as so much of an ally that they three all
their support to Huck in order to keep Romney from claiming an
early Super Tuesday victory.
BUT, and this is a key point, Huckabee's people have been licking
their chops at the chance to go against McCain one-on-one. (I have
this on good authority.) They understand the dynamics of points 1
and 2 above, and they also know that McCain has been pounded even
more by conservative talk radio than Huck has -- and that the
vitriol from "full spectrum" conservatives against McCain runs far
deeper than that against Huck, mainly because it has had so much
more time to grow and fester. All Huck need to do is drop a few
clever one-liners, without even a full frontal assault, and he can
effectively undermine a great deal of McCain's raison d'etre.
All of which is to say that Huck is poised and ready for a real (to employ a much-overused word these days) surge in support. He'll actually rack up some outright victories, and position himself even more strongly as a Veep choice.
And McCain, who just doesn't understand or appreciate real conservatives, may well be dumb enough to choose him. And in so doing, seal his own doom in the general election (for reasons that I will have plenty of time on which to elaborate later on).
Bright and Early Bush
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 8:22AM
He may be considered a lame duck by many and have anemic poll numbers, but when President Bush took the stage here at CPAC around 7:15 this morning, he received a rock star's welcome. People began lining up to see him in the middle of the night. The audience interrupted his 40 minute address repeatedly with applause, on several occasions even breaking into chants of "four mor years."
The speech itself was mostly boiler plate, and was pretty much an attempt to defend his conservative accomplishments. He talked about cutting taxes, fighting earmarks, reforming entitlements, stem cell research, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror in general. Most of it we've heard before.
One thing that was slightly new was his early attempts at trying to rally the base around John McCain. Though he didn't mention McCain by name, he said he looked forward to working with conservatives this year, said that Republicans would soon have a nominee who would "carry the conservative banner."
Tom Coburn
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 3:05AM
Endorsed Alan Keyes over McCain (and George W. Bush) in 2000.
Judging McCain
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 2:59AM
McCain is suspect on judges, but it's pretty clear that we know we'll get bad results from Clinton or Obama on the judicial front. Bob Novak was right to point out the retiring Reagan judges in his CPAC dinner speech this evening.
Red Meat Ron
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 2:52AM
You didn't think I was going to pass on mentioning the other presidential candidate who spoke at CPAC's opening day, partisan that I am? Ron Paul hit McCain hard from the right on taxes, campaign finance reform, and immigration while stressing his pro-life credentials. It almost numbed the room to his deviationism on the war, though all three candidates seemed to have the hall packed with their supporters when they spoke, a shift from last year. Paul also emphasized his view of what a strong national defense entails. With Romney out, does Paul see his numbers improve as an anti-McCain protest candidate or do all those votes go to Mike Huckabee?
Re: More On McCain At CPAC
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 2:42AM
I can respect conservatives who go down the checklist of issues and find John McCain preferable to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That's a perfectly fine reason to vote for him rather than a liberal Democrat in the general election. But the fact that "Mac Changed Minds" is less a reflection of his underwhelming, patronizing speech -- Reagan, blah blah, Burke, blah blah, did I mention Reagan? -- than their desire to be convinced now that he is the certain nominee.
Conservatives are like Charlie Brown and Republicans are like Lucy with the football. Too often we accept soothing rhetoric and get bigger government, cultural drift, and a politics continually moving to the left. That's certainly what we got from a president who spoke conservative lingo more comfortably than McCain in the past decade.
Sure, politics is the art of the possible. It's important to oppose Hillary or Obama. I respect McCain supporters like Tom Coburn. I even like John McCain himself on a personal level. But why do we have to delude ourselves that the lesser evil is anything other than that? Conservatism is indeed the realm of ideas, not just electoral politics. Let's allow 2008 to sort itself out and get on with the task of reinvigorating conservative policy ideas for the next few decades. The next president, whoever he or she is, will not be of much help in that area. Neither will we if we ignore ideas and instead focus entirely on elections.
Re: More on McCain at CPAC
Posted by on 2.8.08 @ 2:10AM
Well, then. John McCain's a jerk! Well. I guess that settles it. He doesn't get my vote! Forget it. Let's go with Obama. Or Hillary. Or Mike Gravel.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
More on McCain at CPAC
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 7:53PM
The man made a good speech. And on substance, it offered strong
arguments for conservatives to support him. It doesn't change the
fact that he is, charitably speaking, a jerk.
There was one other tiny thing that bothered me about his speech.
Several times therein, he said that when he disagrees with
conservatives, he at least does so while respecting that most of
them (us) act, as he does, from principle. That's nice for him to
say. The problem is that he has not ACTED that way, for years,
which is one reason for the animus against him. Instead, he
consistently has criticized conservatives' motives or their
integriry, usually in nasty terms. What he needed to do today was
not just to say, belatedly, that he respects us even when we
disagree, but that he is SORRY for sometimes letting the heat of
the moment get the better of him by leading him to question our
motives and disrespect us. There is STILL no sense from him that he
regrets his own actions, or that he has ever transgressed. Look,
disagreement on some issues is fine, if done respectfully.
Disagreement while shoving a shiv in our ribs is another thing.
McCain is famous for the shiv. And he seems not to regret it in the
least.
I LOVE all the conservative stances McCain has taken over the
years. I think it is crazy to suggest that we would be better off
with Hillary than with him. But today's speech is just the first,
tiny step that he needs to take if he wants conservatives to back
him enthusiastically enough to do the work that will be required
for him to win in the fall.
McCain no Judges at CPAC
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 7:30PM
(cross-posted from Confirm Them)
Look, it is clear I am no fan of John McCain's, especially on
judges, where
I remain angry at his actions with the Gang of 14 and absolutely
furious (as
we all should be) with his shameful support for Lindsey Graham's
smear job
against 4th Circuit nominee Jim Haynes. But I must admit that his
speech at
CPAC, which I attended, hit almost all the right notes in exactly
the right
tones. What bothered me, though -- indeed, almost the only thing
that
bothered me -- was what he said on our favorite issue here at
Confirm Them.
I acknowledge right up front that this is slightly nitpicking, but
with
McCain's record, they are nits that I think are quite legitimate to
pick. So
here goes....
McCain pledged to appoint judges like Roberts and Alito. Great. I
am a fan
of both. But I am even more of a fan of Scalia, and even more than
that a
fan of Clarence Thomas. I would have been happier if McCain,
speaking to
this conservative audience, had forthrightly said he would appoint
judges
like Clarence Thomas.
Here's another reason why: The new big movement on the
judicial-commentariat
left is to equate "activism" with overturning legislation. We, of
course,
know that that is a misnomer. A good conservative, non-activist
judge will
enforce the CONSTITUTION and laws as written, to the letter of the
law. It
is not activist, however, to overturn a law that contradicts the
clear
language of the Constitution. It IS activist for a judge to
substitute his
own predilections for the language of the Constitution and laws.
And the
Constitution takes precedence over a statute -- WHEN the
Constitution's
language is clear. It is therefore just as activist, and just as
wrong, for
a judge to achieve his own policy preferences by ignoring clear
language in
the COnstitution in order to uphold a statute contrary to that
clear
language, as it it for him to stretch and twist the words of
the
Constitution, and make up new meanings for them, in order to
overturn a
statute with which he disagrees.
With regard to McCain, this is of utmost importance, because McCain
has
evinced little regard, on multiple occasions, for the restrictions
the
Constitution itself clearly places in the way of certain
legislative
actions. For McCain, it has always seemed to me, WHATEVER the
Congress
decides should be final, regardless of the letter of the
COnstitution.
That is why it bothered me today, after McCain pledged fealty to
Roberts and
Alito, for him to say this: that he would appoint judges who
understand that
"it is their sole responsibility to enforce the laws passed by the
people's
elected representatives."
Uh, no.... NO it is NOT. Instead, it is their sole responsibility
to be
bound by the letter of whatever law is the highest applicable law
at issue.
And the laws passed by the people's reps (campaign finance,
anyone???) are
NOT, repeat NOT, always the highest applicable law at issue.
This is a fundamental failing of John McCain's. And it is another
reason I
don't trust him, not one bit, when it comes to judges.
Flori-Duh again
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 5:01PM
The Associated Press reports that on Super Tuesday – a week after the
Kathy Adams, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office said, “We’ve had more than 100 calls at least over the last two days.”
Palm Beach County, please recall, was one of those South Florida counties where after the 2000 general election, an endless number of complaining voters, many of whom were keeping track of 10 bingo cards on Monday night, on Tuesday were too dim-witted to follow voting instructions at the level of complexity of: Punch a hole here.
Mac Changed Minds
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 4:32PM
The feeling of dejection Jim Antle noted earlier is no longer necessary. His speech was phenomenal. Not because I like McCain, but because the majority of people with whom I spoke following the speech, who had initial concerns about McCain, were convinced to support him.
"If he keeps his word, then I would definitely support him. But regardless, he would definitely be better than Obama or Clinton," said one conference attendee.
The room was stuffed full of McCain campaign supporters armed with signs and healthy vocal cords. Any boos (and there were a few) were crowded out by their cheering. It was difficult to gauge the ardent supporters vs. the newly converted, but the booing did seem to die down as the speech went on.
Most surprising were the introductions: George Allen, followed by Tom Coburn. Allen, whose chances at a vice presidential bid are mired in concern for more accusations of racism, was a charismatic beginner, and most of the conservatives in the room recognized him as one of their own (rather than the has-been he seems to be in the mainstream).
Coburn, on the other hand, offered the most compelling arguments: Conservatives must look at the larger picture and see what would happen should a Democrat come into office. The Republican Party hasn't had a consistent conservative political agenda since 1995. And that Coburn wouldn't support McCain if he weren't an advocate of conservative, pro-life justices (in a sly answer to the Novak/Fund stories about McCain's alleged hesitation on Alito).
McCain's speech was self-effacing, too. He didn't attempt to play down differences. He spoke with refreshing candor.
The question is whether McCain's nuance of having a conservative record but having differences with the party will result in greater support. Will red meat Republicans buy it for fear of a Clinton presidency? Will he be supported on his own merits, and overcome the resistant attitude of many still floating in the conference?
CPAC Cont'd
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 2:34PM
Just came from listening to sublime writer Mark Steyn speak and the mood in the room reflected that of CPAC in general after the Romney pullout.
It's like a pin has pierced the balloon of hope that many held out here and gloom seems to be settling in. Many traveled far to get here in an effort to maybe hold McCain's feet to the fire in running to the right. Now that he's the de facto candidate, his promises will surely be looked upon as more hollow than they would have been otherwise.
That Was Weird
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 1:25PM
Didn't anyone tell Laura Ingraham,who introduced Mitt Romney at CPAC, that he was about to drop out of the race? She gave a speech more or less saying Romney is the last conservative candidate and should fight to the convention, as Reagan did in '76. He then had to explain, as he was announcing that he'd dropped out, that it was important to unite in time of war.
Romney Exits With Class
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 1:16PM
Me, I would have continued to fight. But Mitt Romney just suspended his campaign with extraordinary class, with a superb speech and a call to unite to oppose violent jihad. Good for him. God bless him.
Romney's speech
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 1:15PM
Romney was introduced by Laura Ingraham, and has received a star's welcome here at CPAC. It's striking to see just how far he's come. When I saw him at CPAC last year, he seemed to merely be rehearsing his conservative tag lines. Now it seems like he's convinced by them. But I'm reluctant to say that he's a conservative, and would have been reliable in office as such. I know that Quin thinks an almost-conservative is better than McCain, so I'd expect him to disagree.
When you step into CPAC, however, you can't help but notice the platitudes offered to the audience regarding conservatism. I'm not saying it's bad to espouse conservative beliefs. But it's certainly bad to try to apply the label to everything (such as Frum and Gerson have attempted, as Jim Antle has been noting). This conference is the epicenter of that tension -- conspicuous conservatism vs. true believers.
Returning to Romney, many conservatives have lined up behind the man. But just as many haven't -- not in favor of McCain, but because they don't buy it. His conversion to the right could have been genuine. But it seemed conspicuous. And authenticity can't be bought -- adding to its value to voters.
So it's ironic that Romney's speech would seem more genuine, more emotional, more personal. Nothing seemed more conservative about Romney's campaign than his giving it up.
The audience, by the way, was riveted. Listening closely, fully-attentive. Many seemed heartfully disappointed -- to an extent, I'm surprised there was such an attachment.
Romney suspends campaign
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 12:24PM
This just in... Romney suspended his campaign.
CPAC & Romney Update
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 12:13PM
Great reception for Dick Cheney as he reviewed President Bush's record and promised to stay the course. Romney due up any minute. Lots of McCainiacs in and around the Omni lobby prepping for the Maverick's appearance at around 3:00 PM. Media is thick as thieves everywhere in and around the hotel. Check back later.
FoxNews just reporting that Romney will announce today that he is dropping out of the race!
Scene From CPAC
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 12:11PM
There was a guy asking people in the security line before Dick Cheney's speech this morning if they wanted John McCain stickers. "No, we're conservatives," said a guy wearing a Romney sticker. "Then why are you wearing that sticker?" came the retort from McCain-guy. And so it begins...
Club for Social Conservatives
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 9:32AM
I think this post by Ramesh Ponnuru has it right: The Club for Growth may focus on economic policy, but they often don't win on taxes alone. Many of the Republicans they've defeated have been moderates across the board, and therefore the Club could count on help from pro-life and pro-gun activists. In this election cycle, they are also hoping for help from hawks, which is why they are targeting antiwar Republicans Wayne Gilchrest and potentially Walter Jones. The Club has had less success against the likes of Mike Huckabee.
View From the Free Throw Line
Posted by on 2.7.08 @ 8:30AM
Over on the Spectator main page, Michael Brendan Dougherty has kind words for retired Red Raiders coach Bobby Knight. As for Knight's critics, "Oh shutup" about covers it.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Open Letter to John McCain
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 10:20PM
Dear Sen. McCain:
Eight years ago I supported you for president. I thought you would have an easier time winning the general election than George W. Bush did. I thought you would be better against wasteful spending. I thought you would be more able to rally Americans to the cause of their country. And, while I think President Bush has done an admirable job protecting us against terrorism since 9/11 and in staying tough in Iraq, I still think that I was correct about all three of my grounds for supporting you.
I also thought, of course, that you were a solid conservative, a big enough man not to unduly hold grudges and not to tack and shift with your sense of where your greatest path to power might lie. I was wrong in those assumptions.
Shortly after Bush took office, you showed your bitterness by actively negotiating with the Democratic leadership in the Senate to see if you might abandon your party. If you had done so (not knowing that James Jeffords would beat you to it), the result would have been what it was with Jeffords -- namely, that, among other disasters, the leftist Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee would hijack the judicial nomination process. It would have been, as it was when Jeffords did it, a disaster for conservatives.
In 2001 and, even worse, in 2003, you opposed the Bush tax cuts, NOT because they were not accompanied by spending cuts, but by using class warfare rhetoric straight out of the Ted Kennedy playbook.
You consistently have voted against drilling in ANWR, thus helping to bring on the astronomical energy prices that have contributed to this nation's apparent slide into recession. You have consistently voted for heavier government regulation in too many areas of American life to keep track of. You have moved stunningly leftward across a whole gamut of issues, running up American Conservative Union scores some 20 points lower than the ones of which you could boast before George Bush embittered you by defeating you. How could such a sudden tack, without any explanation from you, be attrbuted to principle or to straight talk, rather than from a will to personal power, a bid to maintain prominence in the establishment media?
Then again, you showed even during the campaign in 2000 that you were a sore loser and an ungracious winner. Coming out of your win in New Hampshire that year, you had the gall to say the Bush "twists the truth like Clinton." In a GOP race, that is a low blow -- and you never backed it up. Then, you extravagantly attacked the entire Christian rRght as "agents of intolerance." Sure, the original campaign plan seemed to be to try to fight back against Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson by criticizing their excesses and to SEPARATE them from the mass of the Evangelical voters -- to reach out to those voters, in other words, by saying that your disagreements were NOT with them but only with those two particular leaders. But you didn't have the tact or the modulation to do that. Instead, your language was so extravagant that the attack effectively came off as an attack against the entire Christian Right. That not only was politically suicidal, but it wasn't fair to those tens of millions of voters who you effectively insulted.
Many of your other differences with the conservative movement, in terms of issues, have been well publicized. But honest differences are acceptable. What is not acceptable is your habit of lashing out at the right, questioning the motives of conservatives who disagree with you, accusing them of corruption or of other nefarious intent. With the left, you disagree without being disagreeable -- indeed, every time you actually do disagree with them, you seem to hustle to sing Kumbaya. But with the folks on this side of the philosophical divide, you yell and scream and curse and try to bully people. You make it sound like a light joke that you will win no awards as "Miss Congeniality," but there's a difference between being a little prickly and even endearingly irascible, like Barry Goldwater, and being so nasty and out of control that gentlemanly colleagues like Thad Cochran are moved to say " "The thought of him [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me."
Then again, you seem not to mind even the vilest slanders against those on the right who disagree with you. Your virtual shadow in the Senate, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, said of those who oppose illegal immigration that "we're gonna make the bigots shut up." Do you know how much it hurts to have a member of your own party slander you this way? BIGOTS! Not that the opponents make any arguments from logic or principle, but that they are "bigots." That is an outrage. And yet you call Graham "my beloved" fellow senator. Sen. McCain, did you ever ask your friend not to use such insults? Did you ever advise him to apologize? Or, more likely, do you secretly agree, still, with the idea that nobody of good intentions about immigration could ever oppose your amnesty schemes?
Senator, you also played wingman in strong support of Sen. Graham when he smeared, and blocked the nomination of, Pentagon chief counsel Jim Haynes for a key spot on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. You of all people had the moral authority to come to Haynes' defense and see him through to confirmation, but instead you supported the smear that he had promoted torture. Of course, as I showed in two lengthy columns to which I have linked numerous times at this blog, Haynes not only did not promote torture, but he took great pains to implement a process that ended up LIMITING the number and scope of interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay. You owe him an apology, and you also owe an apology to all of those who live in the state covered by the Fourth Circuit, because blocking Haynes only added to the derelection of duty by your friends Graham and John Warner that has allowed the once solidly conservative Fourth Circuit to become a circuit split equally between conservative and leftist judges, with at least four (or is it five?) unfilled seats on the bench.
Yet, as a supporter of yours in 2000, I had finally convinced myself that you merited the benefit of the doubt in this campaign season. You were not my first choice, by any means, but I consistently blogged mostly good things about you for much of last year. But your conduct of the campaign in the past few months has been execrable. I have at this blog described several examples of your bullying and dishonest tactics in debates -- especially your twisting the truth like Clinton (sorry, I couldn't resist) about Rudy Giuliani's record on the line-item veto and your deliberate false description of Mitt Romney's position on waterboarding. And that was before, of course, your now infamous attack on Romney's perfectly reasonable statement on "timetables" in Iraq, an attack so untruthful that even admirers of yours like the estimable, utterly fair-minded Fred Barnes were moved to say you were off base. (Others, from right to center to left, put it more bluntly: You lied.) And you continued to repeat and expand the falsehood, going so far as to say that Romney owed an apology to the troops. Your behavior on this matter has been reprehensible.
For all those reasons, it appears to me as if you have grown smaller, less dignified, less statesmanlike, in the past eight years, rather than more so. And you have gone out of your way to make yourself obnoxious to the conservative movement -- the movement through which some of us have dedicated our lives as our best way to serve the country we love. Yet tomorrow, you make a big speech at CPAC -- a gathering you shunned last year, snubbed your nose at, and then insulted by trying to hold a reception at the same hotel at the same time -- and you hope to convince conservatives that you are one of us and that we ought to support you.
Well, I'm hear to tell you, that will need to be a mighty good piece of prestidigatation. A mighty neat trick. Stomp all over conservatives for eight years, and in ways that sometimes cross over into viciousness (and, in the case of Jim Haynes,smears of a superbly well qualified, judicious, and good and decent man), and then turn around and expect one speech to bring us together: Not exactly. As GHW Bush would say, "not gonna happen." For conservatives, it just wouldn't be prudent. You have given us no reason to trust, much less to verify.
I supported you eight years ago. It will require far, far more than one good speech, though, for me to applaud you again.
Sincerely,
Quin Hillyer
Re: Tabin and Romney
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 6:29PM
I don't dispute that the "Mormon problem" has played some role in the evangelical preference for Huckabee over Romney, or that it is a partial explanation of why those voters might support McCain if Huckabee dropped out of the race. But let's not forget the Massachusetts problem: Romney was to the left of his current positions most social issues except for same-sex marriage until the beginning of 2005 and was even to the left of his current marriage position in 1994. His abortion conversion story isn't very compelling and the timing of these position changes is suspect. Some evangelicals probably just don't trust Romney's claim to be a social conservative.
Re: Tabin/Baker
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 6:22PM
John,
I agree that Huckabee is not THE conservative choice. What I took issue with was the idea that if Huckabee were to leave, his supporters would go to McCain primarily because of the Mormon issue.
Somehow, Romney has gained a strange reputation as the upholder of Reagan conservatism versus the coalition benders McCain and Huckabee. That idea makes little sense to me. He just strikes me as the guy who says what he thinks will win. One thing in Mass. and something else when running in a GOP primary.
It's a fine political attribute, I suppose, but it's not enough to make those of us yearning for a real conservative fall out into fainting spells. So he's the one guy left who will try to tell us what he thinks we want to hear. That and five dollars buys you a double latte', right?
It has never been the Mormon thing that bothered me. I've always viewed him as a one term governor who used to try to distance himself from Ronald Reagan and told stories about family friends in trouble to justify his pro-choice position. He just doesn't fit that heir to Reagan role in which our radio talk show hosts are trying to cast him
What I think is really going on is that McCain haters got desperate and Mitt has benefitted from their hostility. Not enough to win, but enough to sell him hard to conservatives with the hope that they'll buy now.
Re: Tabin and Romney
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 5:25PM
Those are all fair reasons to support McCain over Romney, Hunter, but if one is considering theoretical ACU ratings and electablity it makes no sense to prefer Huckabee to either of them. Huckabee raised taxes as governor, and he's doing no better than Romney in the head-to-head polls against Clinton or Obama.
If Romney were, say, a Methodist, it's hard to believe that Huckabee would have gotten the oxygen that he has in the first place (there was anecdotal evidence, at least, that the "Mormon issue" loomed large in Iowa).
Tabin and Romney
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 3:28PM
I think John Tabin's piece on Huckabee makes for interesting reading, but I quibble with one of his points:
My argument with this bit is that it assumes a Huckabee voter would support McCain over Romney only because Romney is a Mormon. There are lots of good reasons why one might prefer McCain to Romney.
For example:
1. If Romney had an ACU rating, his lifetime
number would probably be lower than McCain's.
2. Romney is a one term former governor, inexperienced by McCain or
Huckabee standards.
3. Electability. Romney would probably get his clock cleaned by
Obama or Hillary.
4. Trustworthiness. Many voters still don't believe Romney is truly
converted, but is simply a technocrat.
McCain Should Help the Telecoms
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 3:15PM
At The Corner, the always perceptive Andy McCarthy makes a great point: John McCain ought to be out fron fighting for immunity for the telephone companies who may have helped the federal electronic surveillance program. I wrote about the telecom immunity issue today at the Washington Examiner. (Andy graciously helped walk me through the issue as part of my research.) The bottom line: Lives hang in the balance. If the immunity is not granted, our ability to track and block the actions of vicious terrorists will be hobbled. The results could be disastrous. McCain, meanwhile, enjoys (an only partially deserved) moral authority on such issues. He needs to step up to the plate. This is important.
Say good night, Charlie
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 12:39PM
The biggest winner Tuesday night was probably Huckleberry, who would like to be VP, the biggest loser Florida governor Charlie Crist, who also pines for the post.
By winning four Southern states plus West By-God and nearly winning Missouri, Huck demonstrated real strength with just the kind of folks and in just the places were McCain is most problematic - the South, conservatives, evangelicals. He could add to the ticket in multiple places where Charlie would help in Florida alone. Charlie is the kind of populist flake fulltime that McCain is from time to time on various issues. So Crist doesn't add value (please pardon the business-speak) to the ticket outside of Florida where the Huckster could. (Governor Mike might object to "Huckster," but he shouldn't. Some have called him Everyman -- others have called him a con man. To succeed in Southern politics you have to be a bit of both.
Whining and Dining
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 11:03AM
Once again, Huckabee shows himself to be mean and spiteful winner; this from very deep in today's Washington Post, apropos Huckabee's backroom deal victory over Romney in West Virginia:
McCain and Huckabee dismissed the complaint as sour grapes. "Well, yesterday, he was chiding me. He said not to whine," Huckabee said. "Today, he's changed his position on whining, and today he's for whining. So once again, Mitt has been able to take both sides of all issues, including whining."
Reaganauts for McCain
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 10:32AM
Don't know if it's receiving wide attention yet, but "long-time Reaganauts" Richard Allen, Frank Donatelli, Peter Hannaford, Jack Kemp, and Craig Shirley have declared themselves "Reaganauts for McCain" and they are circulating this "Memorandum for Our Conservative Colleagues":
Wednesday, February 6, 2008A Memorandum for Our Conservative Colleagues
Some thirty years ago, we and thousands of other grassroots conservatives helped a man then deemed a "maverick conservative" take on the established order in Washington and the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan's run for the nomination in 1976 nearly succeeded in denying a sitting president another term.
In the mid-1970s, the GOP was crippled by corruption, and betrayal of conservative principles had brought the party to its knees. Expectations of a firm and principled stand against the Soviet Union had been converted to the misty-eyed policy of "detente." The reigning Republican Establishment considered Reagan an interloper, an ill-informed and a somewhat primitive and uninformed one at that.
While the Establishment embraced "detente" with the Soviets, Reagan rejected it as unrealistic, a flawed and dangerous approach to a powerful and determined adversary. The Reagan concept, founded on the principle of peace through strength, was that the United States possessed the resources, human and financial, and the determination, ultimately to persuade the Soviet Union and its allies to give up the quest for world domination. Reagan believed that American power must be wielded cautiously but decisively in the pursuit of our national interests. That power, he believed, emanates from the American people, and not from a few powerful elites.
In short, Reagan challenged the reigning Establishment and in so doing, remade the Republican Party, at least its base, into a movement that for thirty years challenged the status quo rather than merely embrace it.
In the intervening years since the Reagan presidency, a new status quo, inconsistent with mainstream conservative principles and actions, has taken hold in the Republican Party, promoting practices, programs and principles inconsistent with the Party's character and traditions. Just as Ronald Reagan did in his time, John McCain now challenges this Establishment "orthodoxy."
The Old GOP Establishment said terrible things, untrue things, about Ronald Reagan. Some in this new Establishment are also saying terrible and untrue things about another maverick conservative, John McCain. Reagan was a threat to the Establishment; so, too, is John McCain. Reagan did not waver, holding fast to his basic principles. John McCain now soldiers on, espousing conservative principles. Some conservatives disagree.
Because the US corporate income tax rate is uncompetitive and counterproductive, and causing job loss, John McCain backs a corporate tax rate of 25 per cent, spurring investment in equipment and new technology. Lowering corporate income tax rates will strengthen the demand for dollars and fight inflation and recession simultaneously. He wants to make the Bush income and investment tax cuts permanent and repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax. John McCain's pro-growth stimulus plan is precisely what our economy needs today.
Senator McCain knows that true conservatism is rooted in the people, which is why in the recent candidate debate at the Ronald Reagan Library, he declared himself a "Federalist." McCain knows what the Founders and Reagan knew; the ultimate goodness and dignity of American citizens is the repository of what makes America great and special.
In 1974 Ronald Reagan addressed the very first Conservative Political Action Conference held in Washington. Reagan brought as his guest someone of whom both he and Mrs. Reagan had grown very fond; a young American Vietnam War hero, Lt. Commander John McCain, who had been so terribly tortured while in captivity for six years in Vietnam.
As long-time Reaganauts, we are proud of our work over these many years, helping to advance conservative principles, and as "certified" Reaganauts, we are proud to stand with another old friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, John McCain, who is our best and safest choice in 2008. Some fellow conservatives find it hard forgive past positions on campaign finance or other matters. When you stop to reflect, however, with whom--among those out there--are we going to be more secure in terms of domestic security than with John McCain? Who has greater understanding of and experience with the foreign policy and national security challenges we will face than John McCain?
We urge you, fellow Reaganauts, to join in supporting a man of character, conservative temperament, a "maverick" in the Reagan tradition who has and will continue to stand up to the corrupt elites in Washington, and will not join them.
That man is John McCain.
The Obamaian West
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 9:55AM
Barack Obama sure piled up impressive wins in Kansas, Colorado, North Dakota, and the not-really-Western-but-West-of-here Minnesota.
The Libertarian West
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 9:47AM
I've been critical of the idea, but it's worth noting that this was the only region where Ron Paul fairly consistently registered non-embarrassing to decent showings. His best finish was second place in the Montana caucuses with 25 percent of the vote. He ended up running third, behind Mike Huckabee but ahead of John McCain, in Alaska, the only state where Paul ever led in a statewide poll.
UPATE: John Thacker's comment below is worth a read. Both Romney and Paul have increasingly turned to caucuses to win the delegates that often elude them in wider primaries.
The Democratic Race
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 9:07AM
Barack Obama did some of the things he needed to yesterday. In addition to mainting a high level of black support in places like Georgia, he reproduced his Iowa-like support among white voters in states like Minnesota and North Dakota. In his home state of Illinois, early exit polls even had him ahead among Hispanics. Obama kept the race much closer than either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee managed to do on the Republican side.
That said, he probably fell short of really blowing the race open. His loss in Massachusetts stung, though Hillary's ground game was superior. His defeat in California is probably a serious problem. Obama is helped by the lack of winner-take-all contests. But Hillary probably had enough of a cushion to endure a late Obama surge. That cushion is coming in handy right about now.
Re: Dobson's Choice
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 3:44AM
Amen. It took Dobson two years to admit that he had voted for Howard Phillips rather than Bob Dole in 1996. He was calling for Christian conservatives to bolt the Republican Party in the late 1990s, when they had far more practical influence than they do today, yet he insisted they must vote Republican no matter what in 2006, when GOP leaders had basically punted on all social issues for two years (except for the symbolic Terri Schiavo debacle) despite the 2004 values vote.
He's one of the most influential evangelicals, but he really doesn't know how to use that influence in the political sphere.
Dobson's Choice
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 2:30AM
Over at the Atlantic, Ross Douthat wonders why it took Dr. James Dobson until "the actual day of Super Tuesday" to really "attempt to rally the faithful against McCain." Douthat hints that anti-Mormonism may have something to do with it, but I think the answer is much simpler: Dobson is a political dummy. Alone among religious rightwingers, he has the clout to really influence elections but his attempts to do so have been halting, ham-fisted, and above all ineffective. The man may have many gifts, but an aptitude for politics isn't among them.
War Stories
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 1:54AM
Over on the Spectator main page, there's a lot of good stuff today, even before our Johnny-on-the-spot/ keeping-the-editors-up campaign coverage is posted. For starters, try this piece by Mark Tooley on the Immortal Four chaplains who went down with the U.S.S. Dorchester 65 years ago this week. Or here's new contributor Franklin Freeman on the unprecedented American casualties in the Civil War. Freeman reminds us that "just executing America's obligations 'to the dead and their mourners required a vast expansion of the federal budget and bureaucracy and a reconceptualization of the government's role.'"
McCcCcCain
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 1:36AM
Over at the Guardian earlier today, W. James Antle III told conservatives, Fine, we get it, you don't like John McCain. What are you going to do about it? Beyond grousing, that is. And I took over the late shift, pointing out that McCain managed to win on Super Tuesday in places that he'll have a hard time carrying in the general election.
The AP's Missouri Misstep
Posted by on 2.6.08 @ 1:14AM
The wire service called Missouri for Hillary Clinton earlier tonight. Barack Obama actually won, and Dave Weigel says anyone with a map and some easy-to-find data should have been able to tell that the AP had it wrong.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
"A Chorus That Can't Be Deterred"
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:55PM
Obama makes his pitch to band geeks. I wonder if they hate lobbyists, too?
Re: They Call Him MR. Huckabee:
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:36PM
Hunter, you ask, "Has there ever been anybody in the modern era do so much with so little?" Well, actually, lots of people, starting with Obama. Of course I'm assuming your rhetorical question isn't exclusively about money and formal organization.
How's This For Covering Partisan Bases?
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:08PM
Hillary's speech is positively Obama-esque in its bland pieties and pseudo-meaningful rhetoric.
Oh, and, John, you've not been alone in underestimating Huckabee. Personally, my only excuse for believing the Huck would be a flash in the pan is a combination of wishful thinking and embarrassment on behalf of the American electorate.
UPDATE: And on cue, Huckabee is on MSNBC bragging about his NEA and other union endorsements. Like I said, embarrassing.
Huckaboom
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:47PM
Tennessee, Missouri*, and Georgia have been
called for Huckabee. This is brutal for Romney.
I have to admit, I've consistently underestimated Huckabee's appeal.
*Missouri is now in McCain's column.
For What It's Worth
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:44PM
McCain has won one red state, Oklahoma. He is on track to win one more: his home state of Arizona.
They Call Him MR. Huckabee . . .
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:28PM
You may love Mike Huckabee. You may hate him. What he is, though, is an electoral powerhouse. Has there ever been anybody in the modern era do so much with so little?
I mean, this man's figure on dollars spent per vote obtained has got to be obscenely efficient!!!!
The Democrats
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:17PM
At the moment six states have been called for Hillary and six have been called for Obama. Just a reminder: These are all proportional representation, so the real meaning of the results won't be totally clear until all the votes are counted and we can see the margins of victory, but it doesn't look like either candidate is building up a substantial lead.
UPDATE: The above total doesn't include several caucus states that Drudge shows Obama winning. The point stands, though.
Re: The Former Cougar
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:09PM
You'd feel different, Shawn, if you lived in a small town. You'd disagree if you grew up in a small town. If you hung out in a small small town. Yeah, you'd be small in a small town.
PS Who needs the former cougar if your wife's the real thing?
The Former Cougar: Right For The Wrong Reason
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:05PM
Karol on John Mellencamp's request that John McCain stop using his songs on the campaign trail:
That's a great reason right there to vote for anybody but McCain. John Mellencamp is the worst and those two songs are beyond horrible. I need a president with better taste in music.
Too Close To Call
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 9:57PM
We're still waiting on Arizona -- that has to be a little embarrassing for McCain, even though it's winner-take-all. We're also waiting on Missouri, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. (Alabama also hasn't been called by anyone except for Fox, which called it for Huckabee.) Romney has won Massachusetts, and he'll win Utah, but he really, really needs to win one of these other races if he's going to be able to justify staying in the race.
RealClearPolitics has a pretty good at-a-glance rundown.
Down South
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 9:54PM
Robert Stacy McCain, who knows something about Georgia politics, is speculating that John McCain may finish "third" there.
Going The Al Gore Route
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 8:57PM
In the time since his presidental aspirations crashed and burned, Bill Richardson has apparently decided to grow a spectacularly ungodly beard. It really is hideous. He'll be on MSNBC momentarily. Check it out.
Huckabee in the Mix
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 8:40PM
He's now won Alabama and Arkansas (along with West Virginia), and the exit polls are showing Tennessee and Georgia leaning his way. It's probably safe to say now that Huckabee will be staying in the race for a while.
Re: Colorado
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 7:56PM
Per Tabin's query I emailed Colorado-based David Jones of the endlessly wonderful blog Resurrection Song to ask what, exactly, was going on over there. Here's what he had to say:
According to the Colorado GOP, it's a
non-binding caucus. Everyone gets together and does the preference
vote--that's either a show of hands, a roll call, or a secret
ballot and the method can change from
precinct to precinct. After the votes are figured out, they
then vote for delegates and alternates who
will go to the district conventions.
These precinct delegates will then go to district
conventions--I'm not sure what the dates
are for the district conventions, but I believe they
all happen before May--where they whittle down the
delegates to come up with the delegates that will be sent to the
national convention. So, no real delegates are set in Colorado
today--at least, that's my understanding--but you'll be able to get
a good idea of the direction that Colorado will be leaning for its
delegates if there is a clear winner in the preference polls
throughout most of the districts.
In sum: tonight's caucus doesn't pledge delegates
to any candidate. That happens later in the process (and later in
the year). Did this all make sense? Hope it helped.
Georgia
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 7:46PM
Obama seems to have won big in Georgia. The Republican side is a too-close-to-call three-way race (here are the exit polls).
Watch Me Fidget Uncomfortably
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 7:39PM
I'm blogging from the Reason office tonight -- they've invited numerous bloggers here. Nick Gillespie has been hosting panel discussions for Reason.tv; I did one earlier with Megan McArdle and Julian Sanchez. The video is here.
P.S. I misspoke when I said that Georgia was winner-take-all. It's a hybrid system with a large chunk of delegates that go to the winner and then winner-take-all races in each congressional district, as I explained in my column today.
Huck Won Fair and Square
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 5:55PM
As much as I have criticized Huckabee, and as much as I have criticized McCain, and as little qualified to be president as I think Ron Paul is (while acknowledging him to be a consistently principled man), I must say that the deal the McCain folks and the Paul folks cut with Huckabee's team in West Virginia is just basic convention politics. Yes, Romney had far more support the convention than any of them, and yes, without the deals he almost surely would have received enough votes from the Paulites and the McCainiacs to get a majority and thus sweep all 18 available delegates... BUT, there is nothing dishonest about wht the dealmakers did. Anybody who has ever been to a convention will tell you that that is just how conventions work. And as long as the deals themselves don't involve corrupt actions (there is nothing inherently corrupt about voting for one man over another), then those deals are nothing less than a fascinating and often quite healthy exercise of participatory republican (small 'r') governance.
The reality is that, one way or another, the Romney campaign has made itself the major point of agreement among ALL the other campaigns: The other campaigns all dislike the Romneyites (or Romney himself). Hey, if I were in West Virginia, I would have voted for Romney. But Romney's failure to figure out how to attract the supporters of the other candidates is a failure of effective politics. And it may well be a microcosm of his whole effort, explaining why he hasn't (yet) caught on with enough voters to become the front runner.
Huck won West Virginia, fair and square. Romney lost. No whining allowed.
The Huckabee/Paul Deal in WV
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 5:10PM
Dave Weigel reports that the Huckabee campaign promised the Ron Paul faction that three of the 18 delegates that Huckabee won in West Virginia will resign and be replaced with Paul delegates.
About Colorado
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 4:12PM
I forgot to mention the Colorado caucuses in today's column, but I'm not really sure what to say about them anyway. I can only find one poll; it shows a big lead for Romney, but it's from before the Florida primary. And then there's this:
There is no formal system applied in the Precinct Caucus to relate the presidential preference of the Precinct Caucus delegates to the choice of the election district's delegates to the Colorado County Assemblies and District Conventions. The delegates in attendance at each Precinct Caucus alone determine if presidential preference is to be a factor and, if so, how it is to be applied.Does anyone know how, in practice, the delegates will be apportioned?
Know Your Anti-Semite
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 4:00PM
Alan Dershowitz offers a primer, even if throwing Pat Buchanan's name into the multiple choice was a wee bit gratuitous.
From Inside Romney Country (Maybe)
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 3:44PM
Long lines at the polls here in the Bay State, where there is a spirited Democratic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Obama camp hopes Massachusetts will be one of their winning states today, giving them a victory among another overwhelmingly white electorate. Hillary is still ahead in the RealClearPolitics average, however.
The Republican race should be less of a dogfight -- Mitt Romney holds leads of 20 points or greater in most recent polls -- though a surge of independents (made less likely if Obama does well) could always tighten the race a bit. John McCain has made some effort here and won decisively in 2000. Former Gov. Bill Weld is behind Romney; ex-Govs. Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift are for McCain.
I voted in my hometown this afternoon. There was one Hillary sign-waver standing outside; no other campaign was at all visible. After I took my Republican ballot, I heard one poll worker say to the other, "Oh, you're in a hurry to get rid of all those." I'm a registered Republican, so I only vote in GOP primaries. Independents ("unenrolled" voters) can vote in either primary and I overheard most of them asking for Democratic ballots. (I did watch one Democrat try to vote in the Republican primary, but she was denied.)
How Many Olympic Managers Fit On The Head of a Pin
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 3:31PM
Kathryn Lopez posts a transcript from the controversial Romney interview where he said a mean thing about--gasp!--Bob Dole. This was the bit I found interesting, however:
I think that the right course for a winning campaign against someone like Barack Obama is going to have to be somebody who can speak with energy and passion about the future of America, not another Senator who can say, 'Well here is what I did on bill H-1234. Â Here is what I did on my committee assignment.' The American people are so tired of listening to Senators talk about their bills and their committees. They want to know how somebody has accomplished something for the people of their state or their city, somebody who has built a business, who ran the Olympics.
Now, building a business and accomplishing something for the
people of a state are probably narrow enough qualifiers, but if we
add in "ran the Olympics" to our list of collective national
demands for presidential candidates...Well, Mitt Romney is going to
have to be President for Life, I suspect--and not just in the
saving unborn babies sense, either.
Re: Huckabee Wins West Virginia
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 3:23PM
John McCain's supporters also went for Huckabee.
Huckabee Wins West Virginia
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 3:07PM
Mike Huckabee won the West Virginia State Presidential Convention today -- with an assist by the Ron Paul faction on the second ballot. The point, I guess, was to register antipathy to Romney by denying him delegates... and giving them to the big-government nanny-statist social conservative. Granted, Huckabee is probably the second-least hawkish candidate. But remind me again: Was Paul's candidacy supposed to have something to do with libertarianism?
This gives Huckabee all 18 of West Virginia's delegates.
McCain's Support for Republican Presidents
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 2:28PM
In my post below, I said it was a good strategy to point to John McCain's support for the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations because that is when McCain was at his most conservative. But I should note that the chart Bob Dole included in his letter to Rush shows him voting with the current President Bush a very high percentage of the time as well.
A Note To Readers
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 1:00PM
Just wanted to write a quick note informing everybody that my blogging will be light over the next few days because my grandfather passed away early this morning at 95 years old. I'm doing fine, but blogging about the horse race just doesn't quite feel right at the moment. I'd rather spend time with my family and reflect on his long, storied, and colorful life. I just wanted to post something in case anybody's wondering why I'm AWOL on Super Tuesday.
What's in a Surname?
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:42AM
A friend alerts us to an endorsement of Hillary Clinton by none other than Wilma Mankiller. No, she's not the president of NOW or the inspiration behind Thelma and Louise, but merely the former chief of the Cherokee Nation, the first woman to hold that position. Ms. Mankiller is a national co-chair of the Clinton campaign.
California Dreamin'
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:41AM
Overall, the pre-Super Tuesday polls don't look terribly encouraging for Mitt Romney, with one major exception: California. A late surge in several surveys has put Romney within striking distance of McCain. Zogby, for whatever it's worth, has Romney ahead. More important than the statewide winner is who comes away with the most delegates -- they are apportioned by congressional district -- and the Romney camp is hoping to come out ahead there either way.
Can a New Englander pull off a New York Giants-style upset, at least in California? Did the combination of Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement and talk radio's criticism turn California conservatives -- who are still thick on the ground in primaries -- against McCain? We'll soon find out.
Romney vs. Dole
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:31AM
The Romney and McCain camps have spent much of the run-up to Super Tuesday issuing dueling statements -- about Bob Dole.
The former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee has written a letter to Rush Limbaugh defending John McCain's conservative and Republican credentials. Dole even included a chart showing that McCain supported President Reagan and the first President Bush about as often as Jesse Helms did. (Not a bad strategy, because it was during the 1980s through the mid-1990s when McCain's voting record was at its most conservative.)
Mitt Romney told Fox & Friends that Dole was "the last person I'd want writing a letter for me," drawing comparisons between Dole winning the GOP nomination like it was a gold watch at the end of a long career to McCain's march toward the nomination. McCain fired back with a statement calling Romney's comments "disgraceful," calling into question Romney's own Republican credentials, and praising Dole as a war hero who did much to build the Republican Party.
McCain definitely made a strong argument, but it's hard to say whether this will have any impact. Republicans who remember Dole's listless 1996 campaign -- and Newt Gingrich's jibe against Dole's record as the "tax collector for the welfare state" -- may be moved by Romney's attack. Others may be turned off by criticism of a party elder statesman of Dole's stature.
UPDATE: The Romney campaign is emphasizing that Mitt called Dole "an American hero, another terrific guy" in an interview with Laura Ingraham. But Romney didn't back off from his contention that this makes McCain look a little like the Bob Dole of 2008.
Religion of Terrorism?
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 11:22AM
Interesting bit of underreported news from the ongoing trial in Britain of several terrorist suspects. First time I've read where Islamic extremists actually insist that "Islam is the religion of terrorism." More here.
I'm Only Happy When It Rains
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:57AM
Everytime I cover a primary, it rains. That should be factored into campaigns' get-out-the-vote strategies.
Quote of the Day
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 10:15AM
"There are certain things you
can't prepare for. I guarantee you, this is one thing I never
expected to occur. It is one person who committed, I believe, a
horrific act-a horrific act-and therefore not only victimized his
victims, but victimized this department, the media and the 13,500
people who work here."--Bob Butterworth, head of the Florida
Department of Children and Families,
on the arrest of Al Zimmerman, his agency spokeman, for
soliciting young boys for sexual purposes.
Indeed. Actually my concern for the media and the Florida
Department of Children and Families, so terribly (allegedly)
brutalized by Zimmerman, was so great, I plain forgot about the
young boys at all. I'm sure they've had a rough time of it, too,
though. After we tend to the wounds of the media and the
bureaucrats we should definitely check in to see how the kids are
feeling.
Can New Candidate Succeed Where New Coke Failed?
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 8:34AM
Feeling a little blue on this Super Tuesday? Not happy with the choices left on your ballot? Cursing the heavens over Fred Thompson's inability to gain traction? There may be another option yet: Vote Wal-Mart!:
OBAMA, Clinton, McCain, Romney ... Wal-Mart? The nation's largest private employer sure sounds like it's running for president these days. It's making sweeping commitments to reduce America's energy use and improve its health care system. It's obsessively polling voters, boasting of a higher favorability rating than Congress. It's even touting an "economic stimulus plan for American shoppers" in the form of steep price cuts made last week. (Four 12-packs of Pepsi? $10.)
That last one may be slightly tongue in cheek - even discount retailers have a sense of humor - but the bigger message is not: after years of running afoul of the United States government on labor and environmental issues, Wal-Mart now aspires to be like the government, bursting through political logjams and offering big-picture solutions to intractable problems.
Be an informed voter as well, though. Make sure someone asks Wal-Mart whether they are actually controlled by Sam Walton's nefarious re-animated head or plan on invading Vermont. Just to be on the safe side.
Broken Melting Pot
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 1:44AM
Over on the Spectator main page, long-time City Journal editor Myron Magnet explains why several folks associated with the Manhattan Institute were drawn toward skepticism of our current immigration regime. Given the evidence, he writes, "I'm embarrassed it took me so long to grasp the phoniness of the charge that it's 'anti-immigration' to oppose current U.S. immigration policy..."
Motley Ornate Jar
Posted by on 2.5.08 @ 1:34AM
In today's Reader Mail, one David Govett thinks it significant that "an anagram of 'Barack Obama' is 'Arab Back Mao.'" According to the Internet Anagram Server, other possibilities include "Karma Cab Boa" and "Baa Crab Amok." Anagrams for Govett's name include "Vat Dived Tog" and "God I'd Vat Vet." And I've used an anagram for somebody else's name as the headline.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Romney And Reagan
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 6:56PM
The new John McCain web ad reminds viewers that Romney wasn't always a big fan of the Gipper:
Goldwater ReDux, in the Wrong Way
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 6:25PM
Just a thought: It has been oft noted that beginning in 1952, there has been only one Republican national ticket that did not include either a Nixon, a Dole or a Bush. That year happened to be the year when Republicans did the worst they have ever done post WWII. And the nominee was an irascible U.S. senator from Arizona. Conservatives might think it makes sense not to let history repeat itself - especially since in that case, at least, the Arizonan was paving the way for a move of the whole party rightward, whereas in this case the Arizonan is somebody who on many issues aims to pull the party leftward. Not a happy thought....
WWJD? Search Inside!
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 5:28PM
Per the discussion of what mean ole me has
done to Jimmy Carter, Micah Tillman, a philosophy lecturer at
Catholic University and blogger over at the Free Liberal, sends along some
intriguing thoughts:
Regarding the Carter quotation from the Macomber
article: Thanks to the "search inside" function on Amazon, I found
the passage on pages 228-29 of Carter's Living Faith. Three things are
interesting/curious:
1. That Carter assumes Jesus would have to be
looked back to as an example of good governance. If he had become
King of the World, how would God Incarnate have died? (I assume
Carter believes in the deity of Jesus, anyway.) I never considered
whether Jesus would have died of old age before.
2. That Carter assumes there would be "exemplary"
justice with Jesus at the top of a government of fallible human
beings. This assumes that the morality of the leader trickles down,
and makes everyone below him or her better/worse. Jesus, after all,
would not have been judging every case in the world, nor
administering every punishment, nor building every Habit house,
etc. Most of the running of a world-wide government would be done
by non-deities many levels below Jesus in the
bureaucracy.
3. That Carter seems to think the only reason
Jesus turned down the job was that he would have had to bow to
Satan in the process (see p. 229). If only Satan had left that part
out!
I don't know that I can say whether Carter is
right or wrong on these three points (I haven't had long enough to
think about them), but they're fascinating to ponder.
Obama and Liberal Fascism
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 2:47PM
My post yesterday, expressing revulsion at that "Yes We Can" video, seems to be raising some hackles. Maybe I wasn't clear. No, I don't mean that I smell liberal fascism in "everything inspiring" or "any show of enthusiasm by fifty or more liberals for anything or anyone whatsoever." I mean that a bunch of people beatifying a politician by reciting, in unison, a speech of his that climaxes with the words
We are one people, we are one nation, and together we will begin the next great chapther in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we canis a message devoid of any content beyond a call to unity of the collective as an end unto itself, complete with a very deliberate aesthetic embodiment of that message. If that doesn't strike you as even a little bit fascistic, I guess I can't help you.
By the way, reading Liberal Fascism in the context of this election season is really, really dispiriting. Jonah spends a lot of time discussing Hillary Clinton's old-school progressivism, and John McCain is held up as a prime example in the afterword, "The Tempting of Conservatism." And Mitt Romney probably can't win.
Renewing Pascal's Gambit
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 2:27PM
Over at Captain's Quarters, Ed Morrissey accuses me of suggesting in this piece that Jimmy Carter has been "lamenting the weird Millenium of a Jesus-led kingdom of atheists " and "wishes that Jesus and the Devil had reached across the aisle, found room for compromise, and created a bridge between Heaven and Hell!" In the spirit of bipartisan outrage at the sheer unfairness of it all and in order to maintain the reputation of the "normally reliable" American Spectator, Morrissey thinks I owe "readers a correction and Carter an apology."
Well, bless his heart. Actually, what I was getting at was not that Carter was cheering for Jesus accept Satan's offer as he read the Bible, hoping the phone would ring and it would be the Messiah calling in from the distant past to ask Carter's advice on his answer to the Devil, like he was a contestant on Who Want to be a Martyr? using his lifeline. Nor do I believe if Carter received such a call he would say, "You know what, Jesus? Forsake your Heavenly Father. This is an awesome deal Satan's put on the table. You gotta go for it!" To say such a thing would have been, to stay with today’s motif, divinely stupid.
I assumed when I wrote, "to Carter's mind, the biggest trade-off of the Crucifixion may have been gaining eternal salvation while losing a potentially great bureaucratic overlord," readers would recognize "eternal salvation" in any trade-off is the more attractive option. Yes, yes, hellfire is bad and so is just being plain dead. Even the most partisan Republican wouldn't call Jimmy Carter "pro-damnation."
I was mocking WHY Carter thought the offer was so deviously attractive. And mostly it was because, as the quoted section clearly shows, Carter wagers Jesus would have enjoyed a chance to be like the 39th president, i.e. building Habitat for Humanity houses in
I further encourage anyone with the stomach for it to read Living Faith or any of Carter's Christianity-themed books. Case studies in megalomania, justified by a faith he interprets into a truncheon to be used against his political adversaries.
As for my heartfelt apology to Jimmy Carter…well, I’ll issue it on Judgment Day or at the tail end of the UN-sanctioned world election during which Jesus chooses Carter as his VP running-mate. Deal?
Don't Ask Her for Coffee
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 1:28PM
On the Spectator main page, our Mormon Gal Friday, Carrie Sheffield, has an obit of Gordon B. Hinckley, the "prophet, seer, and revelator" of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Previously, Sheffield tasted evangelical worries over Mitt Romney and pronounced them a bit overdone.
The Crying Game
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 1:27PM
There she goes again.
Via Mary Katherine Ham.
UPDATE: Here's the photo.
UPDATE II: And the video. Like the last time she sobbed the day before an important primary day, it was overblown by the media.
Let He Who Is Without Sin... Oh, Never Mind
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 1:17PM
Friday, Shawn Macomber gave readers a guided theological tour of Jimmy Carter's New Baptist Covenant confab. Today Kate Boswell files a report on what that other living Baptist former president had to say Friday night.
Re: How to Win Friends
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 12:27PM
The fact that people like Hillary keep winning elections is why I started watching more football and less CSPAN in the first place!
How to Win Friends...
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 12:12PM
A friend from the Tin Ear Foundation has sent us this:
"They can redeem themselves on Tuesday -- they can vote for a winner." -- Hillary Clinton, asked how New England fans can cope with their loss to the New York Giants.
My recommendation: let Bill do all her talking.
The McCain Rule
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 11:51AM
For those conservatives coming to grips with the prospects of a John McCain nomination, I would suggest the following approach. In a recent column, Jim Antle advised conservatives to keep McCain at arm's length. I agree, but would put things slightly differently. I propose abiding by the McCain Rule.
The McCain Rule, simply stated, is:
What I mean by that is for years, McCain has often been on the same side as conservatives on issues such as spending and the surge, but often against them on other issues such as illegal immigration, taxes, and campaign finance reform. McCain always argues that people may not always agree with him, but he'll always put principle ahead of politics and fight like hell for whatever he believes is best for our country.
Conservatives should take their cue from him. That is, when he is taking a position they agree with him on--such as opposing pork barrel spending or pursuing victory in Iraq--they should rally around him, but when he is pushing policies they abhor, they should oppose him fiercely and put principle ahead of loyalty to the leader of a political party.
Concord Coalition and Kemp
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 11:17AM
Though I have to say that if McCain heeded the Concord Coalition's advice on spending and Jack Kemp's on tax rates, the resulting policy mix wouldn't be bad.
Defining Reagan Down
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 11:14AM
Jeff Jacoby does good work as the only conservative holding down the fort at the Boring Broadsheet, aka the Boston Globe. I don't mean to single him out for something I've seen quite a few pro-McCain conservatives do, albeit less succinctly. But Jacoby's conservative case for John McCain does a disservice to Ronald Reagan:
Conservatives bristle at the thought of a Republican president who might raise income and payroll taxes. Or enlarge the federal government instead of shrinking it. Or appoint Supreme Court justices who are anything but strict constructionists. Or grant a blanket amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Now, I don't believe that a President McCain would do any of those things. But President Reagan did all of them. Reagan also provided arms to the Khomeini theocracy in Iran, presided over skyrocketing budget deficits, and ordered US troops to cut and run in the face of Islamist terror in the Middle East. McCain would be unlikely to commit any of those sins, either.
Reagan wasn't perfect but let's at least provide some needed historical context here. Yes, Reagan went along with some tax increases. But he was also a significant net tax cutter. The top marginal income tax rate was slashed from 70 percent to 28 percent under his watch. The number of tax brackets was cut from 14 to two, the closest we've ever come to a flat tax in this country. Reagan also cut many domestic spending programs, though not by a large or enduring enough amount to keep the federal government from growing during his administration. But the feds' bite on the economy was lower when he left office and the deficit had been cut to 2.9 percent of GDP.
On the Supreme Court, only Sandra Day O'Connor was an unforced error. And even O'Connor moved the court marginally to the right compared with her predecessor. In 1987, Reagan first tried to appoint Robert Bork, then Douglas Ginsburg, and had received numerous assurances that his eventual nominee, Anthony Kennedy, was actually a conservative.
It's also worth noting that Reagan's failures, instead of pointing the way to a more pragmatic conservatism illustrate mistakes for future Republican officeholders to avoid. Reagan's deficit spending eroded supported for his tax cuts, as did the payroll tax hikes. The Reagan tax increases did not result in a balanced budget. The Reagan amnesty did not reduce illegal immigration and accompanying employer sanctions were never enforced. The Iran-Contra scandal hobbled Reagan's second term.
Has McCain really learned from all these mistakes? McCain has favored legalizing an even larger number of illegal immigrants, under only slightly stricter conditions than the 1986 amnesty, with the same assumption that better enforcement will follow. His position the Bush tax cuts is well known, and he figures to be influenced as much by the Concord Coalition as Jack Kemp on fiscal policy.
McCain was one of the supporters of withdrawing from Lebanon (he and Reagan were right about this, in my view -- the correct answer would have been not to intervene there in the first place without regard to our national interests and under such ridiculous rules of engagement). He backed the O'Connor and Kennedy nominations.
McCain's supporters should find another way to talk up their candidate besides talking down Reagan. And they should offer a more inspiring conservative agenda than repeating the Gipper's mistakes.
Kerry and McCain
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 10:56AM
The Romney campaign is reviving the controversy over how close John McCain came to being John Kerry's running mate in 2004. They just emailed around a research document to reporters, with the most damning quote being this one in which McCain said he would "entertain" the idea:
And Your Little Dog, Too...
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 10:34AM
From the New York Times,
a look at how the horrors of the Bush economy have trickled up
to the denizens of the Other America--if only psychologically. Oh,
they'll pay for turning their backs on the one true savior, John
Edwards. They'll pay:
EVEN Dobbins, the teacup Yorkie, has to downsize. Its owner, Betsy Illium, recently replaced the groomer who specializes in little dogs (and charges about $130) with one from Petco, which charges $65.
Ms. Illium, a marketing consultant to medical practices and the owner of four Manhattan apartments (three are investment properties), is fortunate enough to have discretionary income. But the dreary economic outlook has prompted her and Dobbins to scale back. "It's frightening," said Ms. Illium, 45, noting that most of her money is tied up in real estate.
She was appalled when she calculated that Dobbins's grooming along with her own weekly hair, nail and massage appointments; gourmet groceries; restaurant meals and Starbucks coffee cost nearly $2,000 a month. Now she gets manicures at a less expensive salon, meets her friends at California Pizza Kitchen and sends her sheets and towels to a laundry service instead of the dry cleaner.
These services might be considered luxuries in some cities, but they are frequently deemed necessities in New York City. Rather than do without, many residents like Ms. Illium - who are not in dire financial straits - are looking critically at their spending.
Hillary's Incredible Shrinking Lead
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 10:28AM
Clinton's once commanding lead in the Democratic nomination battle has eroded, and the race is clearly a dead heat nationally. He's also close (or slighly ahead) in California, Alabama, and Missouri.
Clearly, Obama has all the momentum now. The question is whether Clinton built up enough of a cushion in most states to just eke out a victory. But given all the proportional delegate states on the Democratic site, and given that everything is trending in his direction, Obama has a great chance to hold his own on Tuesday, and pull this thing off. I would be more confident in his chances if it weren't for what I witnessed up close in New Hampshire, where I saw how the power of the Clinton machine could somehow manufacture a victory. Then again, the Patriots always found a way to win until last night.
Not THE Greatest SB, But Close
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 10:25AM
The greatest Super Bowl game ever, in terms of how well it was
played and especially in the sheer excitement of it, was the Rams
beating the Titans by making a tackle at their own one yard line on
the last play of the game. It's impossible to get any better than
that, except perhaps for a touchdown on the last play of the game.
But last night's game was an absolutely superb performance, well
played by both teams, with very few errors, an incredibly exciting
finish, and one of the three best plays in Super Bowl history. The
Super Bowl games it ranks up with are: Giants over Bills on the
Bills missed field goal; Steelers over Cowboys (the FIRST ONE, with
the two great Lynn Swann catches); the epic Broncos over the Pack
in Elway's long-awaited first championship; Niners over Cincy the
second time (the great Montana-led drive that he began by pointing
out John Candy in the stands; and the two first Patriots wins, both
on last-second field goals by Vinatieri. Other truly exciting Super
Bowls were the Colts over Cowboys on Jim O'Brien's last-second
field goal; Pats over Eagles; Steelers over Cowboys for the second
time; Niners over Cincy the first time; Steelers over Rams; and,
truth be told, the Colts last year over Chicago. And a few others
were entertaining even if not edge-of-seat exciting.
And I did that all from memory, without consulting a single
source.
Now, as for the greatest plays: A three-way tie, between the
Eli-to-Tyree wonderment last night and the two unbelievable catches
by Swann in that win over the Cowboys, at least one of which was
made while Terry Bradshaw was flat on his back, pounded into the
turf just as he let the ball go. Go back and look at the first
Swann catch, the one in the middle of the field where he
volleyballed it into the air twice, and compare it to Tyree's. Both
of them STILL can't be believed even after watching them on replay
time and time and time again.
Now, for my money, the greatest single GAME ever played in the NFL
(not a Super Bowl) was the Raiders over the Dolphins with something
like 28 points scored in the last quarter, with Snake Stabler
literally falling down at the end but somehow throwing it forward
and threading the needle between about four defenders to Clarence
Davis in the endzone. And for non-Super Bowl games, another great
one was the epic Chargers win over the Dolphins where Kellen
Winslow came back onto the field several times from cramps to catch
a zillion balls, block a kick, and will the Bolts past the
Phins.
Central Park Sheep
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 10:08AM
Obama canvassers were out in force in New York City this weekend, passing out reams of literature about "hope," "the fierce urgency of now," "transformational change," and all other manner of ultimately meaningless catch phrase carriers big on what would charitably be called "inspiration" and scant on anything approaching a solid policy stance. But at least Upper West Siders could feel a part of somthing bigger than themselves as they tugged their Obama-sticker festooned dogs, children and selves through Central Park.
I stopped for a few moments at a Women for Obama rally. "Women in New York City are ready to hope again!" the devotee on the mic bellowed. The crowd erupted. The next woman mixed it up beginning with "change" and then moving to "hope." The reaction was similar. A few blocks away I encountered yet more of these hope-mongers. "Hope depends on us," a volunteer at a table lectured when after perusing the literature I failed to sign the contact info sheet.
Sometimes nice words make you want to say real bad ones, no?
The rhetoric never gets any deeper than this. These people are swimming in the most-hyped spoon of all time and have somehow convinced themselves they're floating in the middle of the Pacific. It's all amusing enough until you realize these people actually think they're saying something. Then, I'm with Tabin, it gets pretty damn creepy.
Romney Wishes They Could All Be California Voters
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 10:02AM
Some interesting things happening in the polls on the Republican side. Though John McCain has opened up a commanding lead of roughly 20 points nationally, as well in most states voting tomorrow, Mitt Romney is showing some signs of life in California, where the latest Zogby poll has him up by 8 points. A win in California would provide a psychological boost for Romney, but the problem is that its delegates are awarded proportionally by congressional district, so even if Romney wins the most votes in the state, McCain will likely come away with a large chunk of delegates--potentially even more than Romney. Further complicating things is the fact that McCain has dominant leads in the large winner take all contests, such as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Tragedy and Heroism In Israel
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 9:49AM
The Jerusalem Post reports:
Police said the attack was carried out by two attackers, but only one succeeded in detonating his explosives.
The other terrorist was killed - seconds before he could detonate his explosives belt - by Kobi Mor, a police officer from an elite unit who happened to be on the scene.
And here are details on the heroic police officer Mor, whose actions saved an untold number of lives:
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is renewing a plan to build a security fence along the porous Egyptian border.
Romney's Latest Gun Flip Flop and Fib
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 9:04AM
This one is staggering. Mitt Romney's defenders have argued that we should overlook his reversals on numerous issues because he took his earlier positions as far back as 1994, and anybody could change in that time period. But over the weekend, Romney flip-flopped again on guns, only this time, he reversed a position he held less than two months ago. Conservatives who have been rallying around Romney out of hatred of John McCain really need to take a close look at this and reexamine whether Romney can be trusted.
The short version is that during the Dec. 16 edition of "Meet the Press," Romney told Tim Russert he would sign a renewed assault weapons ban if he were president and also claimed to have received the support of the NRA in his 2002 race for governor. Following the interview, it was noted that Romney received no such endorsement, and the Romney campaign had to do damage control by confessing that Romney misspoke. Over the weekend, Romney granted an interview to Instapundit's Glenn and Helen Reynolds, only this time he said he would veto any new gun legislation that came before him-a complete reversal from what he told Russert. Perhaps even more shocking, he repeated the myth that he had received the NRA endorsement when he ran for governor. It's one thing to misspeak once. But when a candidate errs on national television, gets called out on it, his campaign acknowledges error, and then he repeats the same erroneous information, it is very difficult to give that candidate the benefit of the doubt. Some would call him a liar, but I'll be kinder and say that he has displayed a remarkably loose grasp of the truth. I'd love to see those who have been so critical of McCain defend Romney on this one. Reynolds himself writes, "I'm beginning to question [Romney's] sincerity."
Just so you can judge for yourselves, I have included the primary source material below.
First, here is the relevant portion of the "Meet The Press" transcript from December:
GOV. ROMNEY: Just as the president said, he would have, he would have signed that bill if it came to his desk, and so would have I. And, and, and yet I also was pleased to have the support of the NRA when I ran for governor. I sought it, I seek it now. I'd love to have their support.
Video here.
Here is the excerpt from the Glenn and Helen Reynolds Show, which I transcribed myself:
GOV. ROMNEY: Yeah, yeah, I don't support any new gun
legislation. The effort for a new assault weapon ban with a ban on
semi-automatic weapons is something I would oppose. There's no new
legislation I'm aware of or have heard of that I would support with
regards to guns. I think we have enough legislation. We have to
enforce the laws as they exist. I was pleased that as I ran for
governor, I received the support of the NRA and I hope to receive
their support now.
Audio here.
UPDATE: Stephen Smith, Romney's director of online communications, writes, "In the 2002 race in Massachusetts, the NRA phone banked in support of Governor Romney's candidacy. While the NRA did not endorse a candidate in that race, Governor Romney was referring to this support in his interview over the weekend on 'The Glenn & Helen Show.'"
ME: I see this as utterly Clintonian. When a candidate says, in a political context, that he had the "support" of a group, most normal people take that to mean that organization endorsed him. Especially given that Romney got in trouble over making similar comments on national television, he should have been clear that he just meant phone banking. At best, his answer was misleading. But I'm sure the McCain haters out there will have a different take.
A Trillion Here, A Trillion There
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 7:39AM
In news that should depress Giants and Patriots fans alike, President Bush is sending Congress the first $3 trillion federal budget. This is not many years after proposing the first $2 trillion budget. We passed the $1 trillion mark for the first time back in 1987.
Boy, it's a good thing we have Republican presidents keeping federal spending under control.
Greatest Ever?
Posted by on 2.4.08 @ 12:02AM
Well, I'm not objective enough to call it the greatest. I'm quite disappointed by the Patriots' loss, I'd been hoping for them to have a perfect season. But, despite a strong performance by the Patriots' defense and the fourth-quarter touchdown by Randy Moss, the Giants outplayed my team. Congratulations to them.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Look No Farther Than Willie Joe
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 11:52PM
Greatest Super Bowl ever, Phil? As I tried to jog my memory (and I've seen most everyone of them, having watched the first ever, in a one-third empty L.A. Coliseum as the Lombardi Packers easily dispatched the rising Kansas City Chiefs), the first thing that came to mind was Duane Thomas's post-Super Bowl remark in the early '70s, I think it was, which went like this: "If it's the ultimate game, why are they playing it again next year?" As Americans we do have a tendency to crown the latest big thing the greatest ever -- but wait until next year.
Thus was perfection avoided
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 11:45PM
There will be no joy in Mudville, let alone
The Giants peaked at the right time. They’ve been extremely good in their last few games whereas the Pats have been tentative in their last couple of games. The trend continued Sunday evening, and thus was perfection avoided. But it was a heck of a good game unless you’re a
The major blot on the evening, as usual, was the bizarre and overlong halftime show featuring a bunch of manic hair-pies who apparently steal their performance clothes from guys sleeping under bridges and who sound just like every other rock band in the known universe. I’ve no idea who likes this kind of “music.” Perhaps it would sound better with the aid of large amounts of controlled substances. But I don’t plan to find out.
Then there was yet another Whitney Houston wannabe abusing the National Anthem before the game. Good grief, the anthem is not a song you sing breathy and torchy. Sunday’s Whitney wannabe spent most of the song behind the beat and, as is the custom with singers of this sort, sang four notes where only one exists. Perhaps the American Idol crowd could perform a public service by conducting a thorough search of the lower 48 to locate an attractive young woman who has actually hear the “Star Spangled Banner” and is willing to sing it rather than wrestle it to the ground.
Infamy
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 11:29PM
Here are the words that will haunt Tom Brady forever: "We're only going to score 17 points?" According to Fox News, reporting on Brady's response to cocky wide-receiver Plaxico Burress's prediction of a 23-17 final score a few days ago, Brady was "chuckling" when he said gave that reaction.
Greatest Super Bowl Ever?
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 11:29PM
As a Jets fan, I obviously had no love for either team, but the Giants were clearly the lesser of two evils for me, so I was rooting for them enthusiastically, and it was an amazing night.
What defined it more than anything was that it was an incredible team performance by the Giants. For the first three quarters of the game, their defense was stellar and the pass rush unstoppable. Tom Brady was kept off balance for most of the game and really never gained his rythm. But the Patriots were kept in the game because the Giants offense was never able to capitalize off of its opportunities. But then, just as the defense began to show signs of wearing down, relenting a touchdown in what looked like it was going to be yet another Brady comeback story, the dormant Giants offense awoke, and just put together a miraculous drive. That circus play, in which Manning somehow managed to evade a sack, back out of traffic and toss what seemed like a hail mary to David Tyree, who held onto the ball in midair by pressing the ball to his helmet with one hand, will rank right up there with Franco Harris's Immaculate Reception among legendary NFL plays. The Giants, like they have throughout the postseason, played like a team with nothing to lose that worked their hearts out and had faith in themselves. For Manning, this has to be a huge personal triumph, as he finally overcame the skeptics and got out of his brother's shadow. Even though he may not have the talent or statistics of his brother, he now has this victory, which nobody can take away from him.
So that brings me back to the title of this post, was it the best Super Bowl ever? Well, let me just say that the first one I remember was Super Bowl XX between the Patriots and the Bears, and of the 23 games I watched, this was the best. Not only did it have back and forth touchdowns in the final moments of the game, a stunning drive for the win, but it was a great underdog story with the Giants beating a team that had a shot to go perfect. Absolutely unbelievable.
Glory
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 11:23PM
For my ailing father, who watched in person as Alan Ameche barreled forward to kill the Giants in 1958, who sat through - again, in person - the 1962 NFL title loss in Yankee Stadium, in Arctic conditions, to the Lombardi Packers in1962; who watched through all of the lean years of the 1960s and 1970s; and who squeezed my elbow in January 1991 and said, "That's a long kick, maybe he misses," before Scott Norwood hit wide and the Giants beat the Bills in Super Bowl XX:
Enjoy this one, Dad - one of the great sports upsets of all time.
Romney and Bloggers
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 4:57PM
Am eager to get on with the Super Bowl, but just wanted to quickly weigh in on something. Rob Bluey has a report on Redstate about how a lot of prominent conservative bloggers were excluded from the Romney blogger call held last week. I found it surprising to learn not just that there were only 14 participants, but that given the exclusivity of the invite list, that I was on it. As any regular reader knows, I have been quite critical of Romney over the course of the campaign, perhaps as critical as any conservative blogger. In the crucial divide among conservatives over whether we should accept Romney's conversions as genuine or view them as a matter of political convenience, I have been firmly in the skeptic camp. When Stephen Smith, Romney's director of online communications, invited me to the call, he acknowledged that I haven't always been the biggest Romney fan. In inviting me, Smith knew it was likely that I wouldn't ask a softball question, and I didn't--I confronted Romney on a report that his campaign had launched robo-calls against John McCain in Florida hammering McCain for voting against the Medicare prescription drug plan.
The point of all of this is not to engage in the sort of navel gazing I generally abhor, but to note that the Romney campaign was willing to include a critical voice such as myself on the call. While McCain has no doubt been the league leader in terms of accessibility to bloggers, I wouldn't want a false perception to spread that the Romney campaign somehow cherry-picked sympathetic bloggers who they knew would fawn all over the candidate.
Can Romney Manage a Turnaround?
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 3:57PM
On this question, I tend to agree with Patrick Ruffini rather than Hugh Hewitt. which is perhaps not surprising. If given a longer period of time -- say, three weeks -- Mitt Romney could probably use his financial advantages, increasingly unified support from the conservative establishment, and John McCain himself to turn the race around. But Romney doesn't have that much time. The conservative establishment came around to Romney too late; McCain has high enough name recognition and a big enough bounce in the larger states to compensate for his relatively lackluster financial situation.
That's at least what I suspect. But I've been wrong before. We'll find out soon enough.
Obama's Promise: A Real Triumph of the Will
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 2:03PM
This is all over the place. Liberal bloggers, to a man, find it inspiring and catchy. Am I the only one that finds it, um, terrifyingly creepy?
Jonah Goldberg's book becomes more relevant by the minute. Here's a video palate-cleanser.
Where There's Smoke
Posted by on 2.3.08 @ 1:24PM
The FDA advises that the stop-smoking drug Chantix may evoke suicidal tendencies in users.
True. A dedicated smoker would rather die than quit.
