Plugging

CNN just aired a piece on the GOP primary race slugged "Paul Keeps on Plugging."

You know, that wacky little Ron Paul with his little fanatical fan base and his little phenomenal fundraising operation - that Ron Paul - he's so plucky!

Interesting, though, that Rudy Giuliani, who has yet to win a single primary, and whose butt Paul has kicked twice so far, is never described in such a condescending fashion.

Giuliani, who placed sixth in Michigan (coming in behind everbody but Uncommitted) is enjoying a narrative today that everything is going according to plan.

The good news for Mr. Giuliani is that Mitt Romney’s victory leaves the Republican field unsettled – which is what he needs if his unconventional strategy of waiting until Florida on Jan. 29 to try to eke out his first victory is to work.

“It’s clear after tonight that while the race remains fluid and competitive, our strategy remains on track,” Tony Carbonetti, a senior adviser to Mr. Giuiani, said in a statement.

Why, over at FOX "News," Mayor 9/11 is even deemed a winner for his poor showing in Michigan.

Giuliani seemed upbeat after another day of large crowds in the Sunshine State, but he may have also been pleased by the results coming out of Michigan.

Yes, he did finish in sixth place, and again trailed Ron Paul as he did in Iowa. But, the campaign’s strategy is based on continuing chaos in the GOP field and with three different winners in the first three states, senior aides have found some hope to cling onto. They had been nervous about a McCain victory in MI and the associated momentum from two straight victories.

So, you see, even though Giuliani finished in sixth place behind that wacky, plucky, rolling-in-money little rock star Ron Paul, he has his competitors right where he wants them - with their boots on his neck.

Now, all Rudy has to do is lose again in South Carolina and Nevada before turning it all around with a big win in Florida, and a run of table on Super Duper Tuesday.

Or, not.

His standing in Florida has actually slipped. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday found the New Yorker in a virtual four-way tie for first place in the state's GOP primary, a far cry from his once-dominant status. A new Strategic Vision Poll, meanwhile, had Giuliani registering at 18 percent, two points behind Mike Huckabee and nine points behind McCain.

"The question is, has he lost so much ground by not being such a major player and can he make it up in Florida," said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University. "Given his strategy and his inability to gain more support in the other states, they are now trying to make the best of a bad situation."

White House, here he comes!

I'm really starting to wonder if there is anything worse than this year's political coverage.

Ron Paul on Huckabee: 'When fascism comes to this country...'

"... it'll be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."



I don't know what's more enjoyable about this clip, Paul's elegant takedown of Huckabee's exploitation of Christ for political purposes; or that FOX "News" moron's sputtering attempt to regain his equilibrium after hearing more truth than he was apparently prepared for.

Anyway, just curious how you felt about that.

Well, now you know. How do you feel now, better or worse?

Ron Paul; Straw Poll; The Caucus

The Caucus blog at NYTimes.com has yet to issue a clarification to the post I referenced earlier, which unclearly identified the sponsor of a straw poll that Ron Paul won on Tuesday, November 6.

Reporter Katherine Seelye wrote:

Ron Paul Wins! That’s the headline today after the first New York State Republican Straw Poll. Clearly, after raking in a record amount of money the other day, Mr. Paul is on a roll. He seems to have out-organized his fellow Republicans — on Rudy Giuliani’s home turf.

The New York State straw poll was conducted Tuesday at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City.

The results: Mr. Paul, 26 votes; Mr. Giuliani, 21; Mitt Romney, 6; John McCain, 4; Mike Huckabee, 2; Duncan Hunter, 1; Tom Tancredo, 0.

It is not clear why no votes were measured for Fred Thompson.

As I noted in a clarification to my earlier post, it was not the New York Republican State Committee that sponsored the straw poll, but the New York Young Republican Club. The clarification came via a commenter identifying herself as Jen Saunders, who is a contributor to the NYYRC's blog.

To be clear, the NYYRC, in a post on November 6, referenced the event as "The first New York State Straw Poll." However, Seelye referred to it as the New York State Republican straw poll. She made no reference to the sponsoring organization, which would have made it clear that the event was not affiliated with New York State's official Republican Party apparatus.

Rereading the post from The Caucus, it becomes apparent just how sloppy Ms. Seelye's writing was in this instance. She wonders out loud why no votes were measured for Fred Thompson in the straw poll. However, at the NYYRC's blog, which is the only place I have found that they published the results online, the tally is recorded as follows:

Ron Paul 26; Rudy 21; Romney 6; McCain 4; Huckabee 2; Hunter 1; Thompson 1; Cox 0; Keyes 0; Tancredo 0

Not only does Seelye miss the one vote received by Fred Thompson, but she leaves out the participation of Alan Keyes and someone identified only as "Cox."

One wonders what Seelye's source was for her post.

Ron Paul wins NY GOP straw poll, NY GOP fails to mention it

UDATED & CLARIFIED

The Caucus blog at the New York Times reports that Ron Paul won a straw poll conducted by the New York State Republican Party.

Clearly, after raking in a record amount of money the other day, Mr. Paul is on a roll. He seems to have out-organized his fellow Republicans — on Rudy Giuliani’s home turf.

The New York State straw poll was conducted Tuesday at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City.

The results: Mr. Paul, 26 votes; Mr. Giuliani, 21; Mitt Romney, 6; John McCain, 4; Mike Huckabee, 2; Duncan Hunter, 1; Tom Tancredo, 0.

It is not clear why no votes were measured for Fred Thompson.

This happened on Tuesday, November 6. However, you wouldn't know it to read the website of the New York State Republican Party. The "News" page at NYGOP.org includes the following items from November 6:

• Giuliani may boost GOP in Northeast races



• ‘Rudy’ scores points on New Hampshire tour



• Rudy at ease on campaign trail, eager to please

And on November 7, the "News" page contains a smattering of links to stories about state and local issues and races, with nothing about the 2008 presidential contest.

On the "Press Release" page, for the entire month of November so far, we find the following:

• NEW YORK REPUBLICANS ARE BACK



• Collins wins in a landslide

Neither of which makes any reference to the 2008 presidential race in general, or the November 6 straw poll in particular.

How strange is it that the candidate generating the most excitement among the party's primary voters doesn't even merit a press release when he wins?

Would it be too cynical to suggest that since Rudy! didn't win, the NY GOP is simply pretending that the straw poll never took place?

UPDATE

Commenter Jen Saunders points out that the straw poll in question was not conducted by the New York State Republicans, as The Caucus blog reported, but by the New York Young Republican Club.

The NYYRC published the results of the straw poll on its blog.

I am leaving this post in place, but its conclusions are clearly false, as they were based on a false premise due to inaccurate reporting by the New York Times.

Romney; Iraq; 9/11

TPMtv has a clip from Sunday's GOP debate, in which Ron Paul makes the point that the same people who are warning of genocide if we end the occupation of Iraq are the same people who warned of massive loss of life if we failed to invade in the first place.



Josh Marshall calls it the best line of the debate. It might have been. I didn't see the debate, so I am willing to take Josh's word for it.

What really caught my ear in the clip, though, was Mitt Romney's interjection.

Has he forgot about 9/11?

With this remark, Slick Dancin' Mitt does the best job I have heard recently of illustrating the emptiness of this country's debate on war and terrorism. Obviously feeling threatened by Paul's logic, Romney retreats to the safety of "9/11," as reflexively as flesh retreats from flame. It is the ultimate safe haven for Republicans anytime they find themselves on the defensive.

Why did we invade Iraq? 9/11.

Why are we torturing people? 9/11.

Why does the Bush administration need to eavesdrop without getting a warrant first? 9/11.

Why must the occupation of Iraq continue indefinitely? Why, the answer is as obvious as the nose on your face. 9/11.

The fact that six years after the attacks, 9/11 is still being invoked to justify the excesses and blunders of George W. Bush proves just how intellectually and morally bankrupt the administration and its allies really are. The fact that, with the exception of Ron Paul, each of the contenders for the GOP nomination would give the exact same response to the question Why are we in Iraq? proves how indefensible it is that we are into the fifth year of an occupation that should never have happened in the first place.

And the fact that an empty suit like Mitt Romney is a top contender for the GOP presidential nomination proves how absolutely irrelevant the Republican Party has become with regard to America's national security strategy.

The real tragedy, however, is that as bereft of ideas as the Republicans are, congressional Democrats are still afraid stand up to them and to 28-percent Bush on matters of national security. As incompetently as he has managed America's international affairs, the Democrats remain unwilling to offer anything but the most token resistance to Bush's overreaching, such as the abominable surveillance bill they sent to him last week. How weak and inept do the Republicans have to be before the Democrats are willing to take them on? Apparently, weaker than they are right now, because the Dems continue to cave in to them at every opportunity.

As a matter of fact, maybe Slick Dancin' isn't as empty-headed as I think he is. After all, if it ain't broke don't fix it. The Democrats still flinch every time George W. Bush says "9/11." Why should the Men Who Would Be Bush tinker with such a winning formula?

Third-party Candidate

Religious conservative opposition to Rudy Giuliani continues to grow (h/t AMERICAblog):

"Speaking as a private citizen, no, no, I could not support (Giuliani)," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which has about a half-million members. "The 20 years I've been involved in politics, the life issue has been at the very top. How could I turn my back on that?"

Perkins said that should Giuliani win the nomination, he would vote for a third-party candidate who reflected his values. "It wouldn't be the first time," Perkins added in an interview last week.

Other prominent cultural conservatives to signal public opposition to Giuliani in recent weeks included James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, veteran activist and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.

It is worth remembering that Dobson has declared as well that he will vote for a third-party candidate if Giuliani gets the Republican nomination. I have predicted the entry of a third-party, anti-Giuliani (or anti-Romney) conservative into this race, and this kind of rhetoric from leaders of the religious right lifts it almost to the level of a metaphysical certainty.

The GOP certainly does need to worry about hostility to Giuliani among the religious base. I know that Glenn Greenwald and some others think Rudy can win them over with his tough talk on terrorism, but this analysis ignores two important points: with the clear exception of Ron Paul and the arguable exception of John McCain, every candidate in the GOP primary field is running as a less thoughtful, more thuggish version of George W. Bush; and, more importantly, abortion (along with gay rights to a somewhat lesser extent) is and will remain the dominant political issue for religious conservatives.

The thing to keep in mind about Evangelicals is that large numbers of them are, literally, one-issue voters. They consider it a matter of spiritual salvation. By that, I mean they are afraid of standing before God on Judgment Day and hearing Him say "depart from Me, thou worker of iniquity" because they voted for a "pro-abortion" politician when they were alive. Again, I mean this literally. It is why enough of them voted for George W. Bush in 2004 to throw the election to him even though his governing style demonstrates no evidence of a commitment to, or even a familiarity with, the teachings of Jesus Christ. He uses the expression "culture of life," and implies that he will appoint judges who are hostile to abortion, and that is enough for these voters. It trumps every other policy issue and political concern.

A Rudy Giuliani or a Mitt Romney at the top of the GOP presidential ticket will be an opportunity that a Sam Brownback or a Mike Huckabee cannot ignore. And ironically, while it will be an absolute nightmare for the anointed establishment candidate, a third-party conservative will bring other benefits that few observers have likely considered at this early stage of the game.

While voter hostility to a Giuliani or Romney candidacy is a real problem for the GOP, a greater threat to the broader Republican agenda is voter apathy. While most religious conservatives gag at the thought of voting for Rudy or Mitt, the chances are virtually nil that many of them would vote for a Democrat such as Hillary or Obama. In the case of Obama, the sad truth is that many southern Evangelicals are unreconstructed racists who would vote for a turkey sandwich before they voted for a black man. That's just the way it is, and anybody who says otherwise is ignorant or a liar. With regard to Hillary, the GOP has been extremely successful in creating a caricature of her as an ultra-leftist harpy whose entire policy platform consists of socialized medicine, mandatory abortions, and castration. Faced with a choice between Giuliani or Hillary, most religious conservatives would simply stay home on election day.

In the context of the presidential race, that's basically a wash. But conservative voter apathy has consequences beyond that context. If religious voters, disgusted with the GOP's nominee, are not in the booth on election day, they cannot pull the lever for a school board candidate, or for a state house candidate, or for an anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative. This is another reason why a third-party conservative candidate will find strong support from the power brokers of the religious right. If the party nominates Giuliani, it will be as good as serving Christian conservatives with divorce papers. They won't waste any time before sidling up to a new suitor, especially one who is just as reactionary about terrorism, but without Rudy's baggage.

GOP Debate

The most exciting moment of the evening was when Texas Congressman Ron Paul declared that The Terrorists don't hate us because we're rich and because we're free. They hate us because we're over there. Watching the heads of all the other candidates explode was worth the price of admission. It was not surprising, this being Fox "News," that when Carl Cameron recounted the moment later in his spin room live shot, he played back Giuliani's "outraged" demand that Paul apologize, but couldn't manage to play back Paul's statement. Maybe he was still feeling a bit raw over the... well, over the truth of it all. In this case, the truth doesn't just hurt; it shoots you in the kneecap and beats you unconscious with a pry bar.

The most stomach-churning moment of the debate was watching Sam Brownback place his hands over his own womb while explaining why women should be forced to bear the children of their rapists. There is no irony so sweet as unintended irony.

Ron-Paul! Ron-Paul! Ron-Paul!

UPDATED

Okay, now it all makes sense.

Downthread, I wondered what on earth Chuck Hagel was thinking, calling a press conference to announce that he had not decided to run for president.

Clearly, this is what was on his mind. He's stepping aside to avoid getting crushed by the Ron Paul juggernaut.

Ron Paul, a nine-term Texas congressman who describes himself as a lifelong libertarian, announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday.

Appearing on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," Paul said he was at first reluctant to run, but that "a lot of people want to hear my message and I'm willing to deliver it."

Paul, who formed an exploratory committee in January, said he has raised more than $500,000 in the past month "with very little effort."

"So far, the amount of money raised isn't competitive with those establishment candidates who will raise $100 million, but with the Internet and the amount of money and enthusiasm, I think we can become very competitive," he said.

With a brand-name rock star like Ron Paul in the race, what chance does anybody else have?

UPDATE

Congressman Paul has a Myspace page.