Rudy, the conservative movement, their constituents, and power

October 1, 2007 – 9:24 am

Yesterday Salon reported about a meeting that occurred concurrently with the quarterly meeting of the Council on National Policy, a conservative organization that tries to coordinate the actions of various components of the conservative movement. The top-level story that people are taking from this is that the conservative movement organizations will walk away and try to sabotage a Rudy Giuliani campaign.

I had argued in July that the Christian Right and the conservative movement had dated Mitt Romney (really flirted) but married Fred Thompson. At least it seemed like an engagement. Between Schiavo, Thompson’s personal life, his apparent personal secularism, his positions on abortion and gay marriage, etc., the engagement is falling through. I also argued that this relationship felt strange but it had a purpose, to maintain a grip on the party apparatus:

The conclusion that I come to from this is that a Thompson candidacy is getting its support from conservative groups partly to maintain some level of control over the party apparatus. Thompson is not perfect. (who would think that the social conservative groups would rally behind a pro-campaign finance reform, anti-marriage amendment, anti-life amendment candidate?) But he does not flood the party with new activists. And, if you were to believe that the party will not keep the White House in 2008 — a safe bet –, then … he’s a safe bet to keep people in their positions of power.

That fight over the role of conservatives in the party is what we are seeing now. Jonathan Martin has an excellent story on the underlying issues. Consider this statement by Richard Vigurie:

"There is a great deal of anxiety that some in the Christian community have put security and the fight against Islamo-fascism ahead of the pro-life movement."

Note that this is a statement about priorities. Jonah Goldberg at NRO had earlier tried to rationalize exactly this position. The Giuliani campaign responded by wheeling out conservative Rep. Pete Sessions. Sessions talks about elections:

"Conservatives are rallying around the one candidate with the executive experience and proven leadership our country needs. Mayor Giuliani will be successful in the primary and the general elections because Republicans want a candidate who is strong on the Terrorists’ War on Us, gets fiscal discipline and can beat the Democratic nominee."

The politician wants his power short-term. The movement activist wants his power long term. One of the great questions will be who voters side with. The politicians purport to offer victory in the war on terror, a 5th judge to overturn Roe, and a couple more things. To a normal person, these could override a greater concern about the candidate’s total vision.

The movement activist offers a strategy for moving the country to the right over the long-term. And over the medium-term, the movement activist actually probably grows his organization and his power with a target like Hillary Clinton to attack. And this is the point. Many, many conservative consultants will say in private that they know that they will make a lot of money attacking Hillary Clinton if she is President. And many suspect that she can’t be beat. The one way for them to lose is to lose influence in the party over the short term. And that’s what Giuliani brings, especially if we manages to win.

Many conservative activists will point to the Goldwater experience of 1964 as an analogy. Then, the party had the luxury of no real chance in the election. The party and the burgeoning conservative movement could reshape itself along conservative principles without any real consequences. Many Republicans today, however, believe that we can beat Hillary Clinton. At least at the level of public perception, there is a fundamental difference between 1964 and 2008.

I would make one further point. As the Elephant in the Mirror poll pointed out, there are now about an equal number of "War on Terror" conservatives as there are social conservatives. This kind of situation is how parties change. There is an underlying reality to a Giuliani candidacy that a lot of pundits have not understood yet. The post-George W. Bush, post-9/11 party is different than it used to be. More socially conservative, but also more conservative on the war on terror. And Rudy is their ticket to a seat at the table.

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Republican women straw poll results

September 30, 2007 – 8:50 pm

UPDATE: The results have been updated.

This weekend, the convention of the National Federation of Republican Women was held in California. They held a straw poll. I don’t have complete results yet, but the top-line result is pretty solid. Rudy Giuliani won an outright majority. Giuliani did speak to the convention.

  1. Rudy Giuliani: 50%
  2. Fred Thompson: 21%
  3. Mitt Romney: 14%
  4. Huckabee: 7%
  5. Hunter: 4%
  6. McCain: 2%

Working on more complete results. My understanding is that the convention was actually contested, so there was high turnout.

My source at the NFRW says that John McCain has had historically poor relations with the organization, explaining his results. I don’t have any details though.

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Republican primary voters still unaware Giuliani is pro-choice?

September 11, 2007 – 10:15 am

In what can only be described as a hit-job, the NYT ran a story about Rudy Giuliani in the presidential race… on 9-11? Part of the story was a poll.

This poll puts Rudy at 27% with Fred Thompson at 22%, John "Not Dead Yet" McCain at 18%, and Mitt Romney at 14%. So a clear majority.

But it also reports that only about 19% of Republicans know of any major issue that they disagree with the Mayor on. And 8% of that is abortion. 80% do not know of anything that they disagree with him on.

And 49% do not know that he is pro-choice.

Now, that’s not good news. Rudy’s margins in the polls have fallen sharply, and people still don’t know his positions on things like abortion.  Assuming that someone educates those voters at some point, his numbers will fall. And someone will pick those up. The question is who? And if Thompson is in second, I suspect that he picks them up.

UPDATE: Deal Hudson sees another problem.

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Who’s more Hollywood?

September 6, 2007 – 10:48 am

There are two places that conservatives dislike more than New York City, at least prior to 9-11. One is San Francisco, which is one of the punch lines of Mitt Romney’s immigration Drudge ad from yesterday. The other is, of course, Hollywood.

And that’s why you have to wonder why Rudy Giuliani is dropping endorsements from famous Hollywood actors like Robert Duvall and Ron Silver this week. I mean, the Leno thing puts the whole Hollywood story on Fred Thompson. Does Rudy want a part of the spotlight?

Is he just another divo, like his late pal Pavarotti? (I didn’t know that they were friends. I admire that, and friendship deserves memorialization)

But should Rudy be reminding us that he is a Hollywood-loving, (effete?) opera-loving New Yorker?

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Different models for the future of the GOP?

September 2, 2007 – 10:50 am

Ross Douthat ends a discussion of Mike Huckabee with:

The most important thing, to my mind, is that a Huckabee-Giuliani-Romney race would be a lot healthier for the GOP than a Thompson-Giuliani-Romney race, which is reason enough to wish the Huckster well.

Now, assuming that these aren’t battles over personality, what are these candidates running as or, perhaps better, as?

Rudy Giuliani could be viewed as either a candidate of social moderates or as the national security candidate. I think that it is more fair to view him as the candidate who represents the resurgence of national security issues in the GOP. I have argued that his candidacy would have a transformative effect on the party. It also seems to me that the Fabrizio poll "Elephant in the Mirror" indicates that there is a "national security first" part of the party that could form the basis of a coalition, along with economic conservatives, that could be enough to win.

Mike Huckabee is certainly the most articulate and credible social conservative in the first or second tier. He is also the least conservative candidate on economic issues, as typically understood. Huckabee is the candidate who will make the most explicit attempt to maintain the party’s margins in the working class. The question is whether he will be able to get them to vote in a primary for him. Perhaps, more controversially, he is the candidate of a broader Christian agenda, including worrying about poverty, education, global warming, etc. Moderate and liberal evangelicals and Catholics have been swing votes in the recent national elections, and you can see him making a strong play for those. However, with his economic positions, one wonders how he will keep suburban voters. Hillary Clinton could become the candidate of share holders, when compared to Mike Huckabee. He would also be a transformative candidate for the party.

Fred Thompson, in his current form, seems to represent the status quo coalition, at least in the sense of the interest groups. This could shift with his "big ideas" talk and his seeming openness to raising taxes.  Earlier, it seemed that conservative groups were on the verge of tying the knot with Thompson. It is not as clear that they are at that point now. One can only imagine that the next couple of weeks is going to see a large amount of oppo begin to fall. Some of that is going to be muted by the Iraq debate in Congress.

Then there is Mitt Romney. What is he? The best that I can see is the candidate of the corporatist wing of the party. His staff seem primarily drawn from there., and his volunteers seem to be the country club set. His experience, family, and geography places him at that wing of the party. And his proposals on things like health care smack of the compromises that the Chamber of Commerce is willing to make to get the government to take costs off their hand. Clearly he is playing up his social conservative credentials to find other votes, getting a lucky break with the new Iowa gay marriage debate, but that is a stretch in light of his flip-flopping.

So back to Ross’s point about what the healthiest fight for the party is. You can restate the point as the "national security (Giuliani) versus economic moderate (Huckabee) versus corporatist (Romney)" or the "status quo (Thompson) versus national security (Giuliani) versus corporatist (Romney)". It is clear that the Huckabee candidacy represents a new addition to the debate in the GOP, and in that way, it is clear that it could be more healthy. I think that Ross would make the further point that the Huckabee direction is the most likely to keep Reagan Democrats in the game.

But are any of these winning, long-term coalitions?

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What does state general election polling tell us?

August 23, 2007 – 11:54 am
  Virginia Kentucky Alabama
  vs. Hillary Undecided vs. Hillary Undecided vs. Hillary Undecided
Giuliani  -3  5%  -5 7%  +6 6%
Thompson  -9 7%  -7  5%  +2  4%
Romney  -14 8%  -12  6%  -2  6%

Survey USA released a bunch more general election polling, commented on by the Hedgehog Report and DaveG at Race42008.  Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney were matched up against Hillary in Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama. I have rearranged the data to show both margins and the %-undecided. SEveral things are worth noting.

First, the GOP is in bad shape in both Virginia and Kentucky due to reasons that have nothing to do with candidates. Kentucky has an election this year where a seemingly-corrupt Republican incumbent governor, Ernie Fletcher, is polling down 2-1. This election is probably framing people’s party identification strongly, and that election is in the papers on a daily basis. This poll illustrates the difficulties that Republicans have in that state. I suspect that once the catharsis of firing Fletcher happens, these numbers will adjust somewhat. Similarly, in Virginia, the state GOP has lost two governor’s races in a row with lousy candidates, and the state party has been rolled legislatively on taxes and transportation issues, the bread and butter. Virginia is now, again, a swing-state with popular Dem leaders.

In other words, Kentucky’s numbers are probably more result of the local environment, while Virginia’s actually represents something bad going on.

Second, these numbers show some important differences. Even in the South, Giuliani is performing in a tier above the other first-tier candidates, while Romney is polling a tier below the other first tier candidates. Romneybots will argue that this is due to name ID, but Gallup polling consistently indicates that Thompson’s name ID is lower than Romney’s but his performance in polling is (often substantially) higher. This is yet more evidence that Romney’s electability problem is real.

The inescapable conclusion is that people know things about Mitt Romney and don’t like him for it.

Third, these numbers are likely to move. People are going to learn things about Rudy Giuliani. (divorces, married first cousin, things about his record, etc.) that are going to move his numbers down. They are also going to learn things about Fred Thompson (thin record, blah blah) and Mitt Romney (flip-flopped on every issue in sight), but they both have the opportunity to frame that first impression.  In other words, Giuliani’s numbers will fall — they are a ceiling — while Romney and Thompson’s can still go up. Some.  The evidence suggests, however, that Thompson’s ceiling is higher than Romney’s.

On the other hand, there is probably nothing to learn about Hillary Clinton. After all, 3 books were written about her recently that were supposed to be interesting. They weren’t, and no one noticed.

In other words, these polls confirm our sense that things in some of these states are weird and that these will be tough elections. They don’t mean that much yet because so few people are paying attention. But we do know where some of the dragons aren’t.

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Romney says Rudy Mitt-flopped on immigration

August 15, 2007 – 5:36 pm

I just don’t believe this. Here’s what Mitt Romney has to say about Rudy Giuliani on immigration:

“Mayor Giuliani hopefully will explain why there’s such a dramatic departure from his position as mayor, where he said he welcomed illegal aliens to New York, and that they would be in a zone of protection in New York City,” Romney told the Herald-Journal today. “His sanctuary city policy is one of the very problems that’s led to 12 million or more illegal aliens coming into this country.”

Now, it is true that Rudy is flip-flopping on Immigration. No disagreement with that.

But can Mitt Romney really be the guy to say that? The guy who has flip-flopped on abortion, gay-rights, taxes, guns, embryonic stem-cell research, Ronald Reagan, the Contract with America, his draft-dodging, education, immigration, and campaign finance-reform?

It is perfectly clear that in Mitt Romney’s mind, the rules don’t apply to him. Ted Kennedy’s flip-flop on abortion was important, but Romney’s isn’t important. Rudy Giuliani’s flip-flop on immigration: devastating. Romney’s? Won’t even admit to it.

UPDATE: I’ve gotten some pushback, just as my friend Marc Ambinder did, from the Giuliani campaign about this. He has the right response:

One cannot listen to this excerpt of Giuliani, taken from an apperance before the Kennedy School of Government in 1996, and conclude that, in the back of his mind, Giuliani was somehow arguing that if only our law enforcement techniques got better, we’d be able to solve the problem. He was making an affirmative argument that solving the problem itself could be more harmful than preserving the status quo So — clearly — Giuliani’s argument has changed.

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Granite Grok’s corrective to Ames

August 13, 2007 – 2:09 pm

Granite Grok has an important corrective to the discussion about Ames:

I recognize that Mitt Romney gobbled up a lot of the hardcore GOP stalwarts early in the game. I have seen this for myself here in the Granite State. In an independently-orientating state like ours where more and more people are less willing to get all that attached to the party apparatus, I’m not convinced that having a lengthy list of the usual cast of characters as supporters wins the day. The events I’ve attended by Rudy Giuliani and John McCain appear to attract more ordinary folks as compared to Mitt’s, which featured many familiar Republican faces. Perhaps this will be what it takes to win the party primary here in NH. Are their numbers great enough? Or, will the less politically intuned voters outweigh their influence?

I think that they are absolutely right about open primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. These are states that independents will have an impact in. They are also states that Republicans who aren’t county central committee meeting junkies (I actually enjoy these meetings) will vote in these primaries.

I do think that Giuliani has an appeal to independents in theory, but the message might be hard. Electability is his message to Republicans. Independents won’t care about that. And NH independents seem to be militantly anti-war, which is akin to the argument he is pushing against to vocally.

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Rudy versus Thompson: Two options for the party

July 25, 2007 – 10:54 am

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, but I hadn’t gotten my act together. Here’s my thesis: Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson represent two different models (perhaps even polarities) for where the party goes from here.

Rudy Giuliani appeals to certain kinds of swing voters, for example many kinds of Reagan Democrats with toughness, soccer/security moms with security and social moderation/tolerance/liberalism, etc. In some ways, in a Republican Party whose base is increasingly focused on security, Rudy Giuliani is a natural candidate of that new part of the coalition. And he is seen as "electable." And, as one Member of Congress who is leaning towards Giuliani put it the other day, "They guy was #3 in the Reagan Justice Department. How much of a squish could be really be?" In some sense, one could argue that Rudy is a transformational candidate for the party.

At the same time, Fred Thompson is increasingly appearing to be the candidate of social conservatives. (if that proposition had been offered in 2000, it would have been laughable) Perhaps more precisely, he is becoming a part of the candidate of the existing coalition, which is "with but not of" the social conservative movement. This is especially important. To see why, let’s talk a little bit more about what a Rudy Giuliani nominee would mean.

The first point to make is that the GOP, out of necessity would need to recruit a whole new set of volunteers. As I pointed out last week, pro-lifers form a significant portion of the GOP activist base. Those people will not volunteer for Rudy. Many of those activists won’t even vote for him. Let’s assume, for a second, that the GOP and the Giuliani campaign would be able to recruit a new activist base. This would shatter the grip that social conservative activists have on the grassroots of the party. As I said, transformative. This would be a repeat of the Goldwater revival of the grassroots or the Reagan/New Right revival of the GOP grassroots. Now, I am not sure that they can do that. The Giuliani campaign has very little ground game.

Second, and continuing to assume his success, the transition could be very, very bloody. We would find the volunteers for the swing states at the Presidential level. But could we produce them for Congressional races in places like KS-2, CA-4, CA-11, TX-22, NC-10, etc. In other words, places that won’t be in play at the Presidential level, but will be at the congressional level. The fact is, the nominee will determine the tone of the campaign. The groups can try to turnout volunteers, but I have trouble seeing literally thousands of home schoolers mobilizing for down-ballot races when Giuliani is at the top of the ticket. So I could easily imagine a scenario in which Giuliani succeeds at the top of the ticket , but we suffer down ballot because we can’t crank out of the phone calls in swing districts. But, over time, Giuliani should be able to attract, as President, a new set of volunteers to revert to a more normal situation. (note that Mitt Romney offers another problem. I predict that with him as the nominee we lose lots of close rust belt congressional seats)

The conclusion that I come to from this is that a Thompson candidacy is getting its support from conservative groups partly to maintain some level of control over the party apparatus. Thompson is not perfect. (who would think that the social conservative groups would rally behind a pro-campaign finance reform, anti-marriage amendment, anti-life amendment candidate?) But he does not flood the party with new activists. And, if you were to believe that the party will not keep the White House in 2008 — a safe bet –, then … he’s a safe bet to keep people in their positions of power.

Now, according to this analysis, I think that John McCain might be a happy medium (war hero, emphasizing security, and the most pro-life 1st tier candidate), but the distrust that the base has for him, especially on things like immigration, may be insurmountable.

Just a thought.

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Rudy on the air in IA and NH linked to falling polls?

July 24, 2007 – 3:00 pm

So, Rudy Giuiliani is up on the air. The AP links these to Ames, but I wonder… Could these be linked to his falling poll numbers?

Stay with me for a second. I have long thought that MItt Romney’s numbers in the early states are somewhat inflated because he is on the air. Whenever you come off the air, your numbers fall again. Now, this is a theoretical statement. Perhaps Romney will simply stay on the air in the first 3-5 states through their primaries. In any case, when Romney went on the air, it was widely analyzed as being necessary to move the numbers.

So, in contrast, Rudy’s numbers may be falling, and he needs to move or stabilize his. Just a thought. Maybe not a good one. But what other theories are there for why they decided to go on the air now?

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