McCain’s clever ad

October 25, 2007 – 8:22 am

John McCain’s new ad that is running in New Hampshire is getting lots of praise. My friends over at Granite Grok said:

Using a clip from Sunday’s Fox News Channel Republican debate, the Arizona Senator makes the case against Hillary Clinton bigtime. This thirty second clip sums up her big-spending habits in a fashion that anybody can understand and grasp– in a such a way that can’t be denied. The added inclusion of McCain’s personal history of being in captivity as a POW makes it that much more powerful.

McCain sure did hit a trifecta. Hillary Clinton, big-spending, and … the 60s. Earlier in the campaign season, Michael Barone talked about the end of boomer conflict and had this to say specifically about McCain:

John McCain (born in 1936) is a heroic member of a different generation, one whose leading politicians typically served in the military (Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis).

Barone (who grew up in the same town and in the same social circles as Mitt Romney. All the evidence is that this familiarity has not endeared Barone to Romney) thought this about Romney:

Only Mitt Romney (born in 1947) is clearly a boomer — one who has lived his life and has taken positions (albeit some of them recently) that clearly identify him as part of the conservative half of his generation.

Is there something more subtle going on here? Is John McCain signaling sympathy and awareness of the cultural DNA of the culture wars? Is this a way to get past the seeming divide between McCain and social conservatives? Consider this from Barone:

All of which suggests that the Republicans are better positioned than the Democrats to move beyond the boomer civil war. But some things may keep us there. Attitudes on Iraq are reminiscent of those on Vietnam, the war that split the baby boom generation in two. Abortion, though overemphasized by a press full of aging boomers, is still a proxy for the cultural issues that divide their generation.

He’s got the position. The card is going to be played against him. Why not play it now and see where it takes you?

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McCain wins the debate

October 21, 2007 – 9:44 pm

Well, McCain’s lines dominated the debate:

  • Putin
  • Tied up
  • To Romney about "fooling people about your record."
  • "Lead"

I posted my notes, and I am having trouble finding other things that struck me deeply. Giuliani did well on Hillary’s spending and teachers.

Thompson was certainly more lively, and he had a nice closing.

My hunch is that McCain wins. We’ll see what people say.

On a deeper level, McCain clearly moved the ball. Thompson clearly moved the ball. Giuliani is fine treading water. He looks like he could be President.

I think it was a bad night for Romney. And Huckabee had some cute lines, but he needed to really rock tonight to drive through his straw poll victory from the Value Voters conference. And he didn’t.

And get the rest of these guys off the stage.

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So far

October 21, 2007 – 9:16 pm

It seems that John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are on. MItt Romney is struggling (although Hugh Hewitt has probably already writing his post for Romney’s victory) and I am not inspired by Fred Thompson.

Mike Huckabee’s new Buchananite turn, which I predicted, is alarming me a lot.

It seems quite likely that the quotes of the night are going to be:

  • McCain’s "tied up" line
  • McCain’s slap to Romney about "fooling people about your record"
  • McCain’s line about leading.

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Earth to Romney: We aren’t on the Human Rights Council

October 18, 2007 – 2:44 pm

Today, Governor Mitt Romney called for the US to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council. According to the AP:

"The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late," Romney said in response to a question at a pancake house along the coast of early voting South Carolina. "We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council."

Turns out that we don’t actually have a seat on the Human Rights Council though:

Actually, the United States doesn’t have a seat on the human rights council, which it has been boycotting.

With that kind of knowledge, Romney may need to call in the lawyers after all…

It also turns out that he was just trying to keep up with the Joneses:

Romney was sharing the political attention in this state with GOP rival John McCain, who is on his second consecutive day of campaigning here.

McCain, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, accused both Russia and China of causing gridlock in the U.N. Security Council and hindering the world body’s ability to sanction Iran or address pressing matters in Darfur, Burma and other trouble spots.

Difference was… John McCain knew what he was talking about.

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Two more questions about a December NH primary

October 17, 2007 – 9:43 am

I have two questions about the possibility of a December NH primary:

  1. Can candidates collect matching funds for that? What are the mechanics of that? When do they actually get the money? It is clear that John McCain has more than enough money to compete if he takes matching funds. But when would they actually arrive?
  2. Mitt Romney’s fear was succeeding in Iowa and foundering in New Hampshire, stalling or reversing his momentum. But, that fear is gone under this schedule. But it arises for a bunch of other people. Who? How bad? Isn’t Romney the big winner here?

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Romney’s “Real Republican” Overreaching?

October 15, 2007 – 3:35 pm

I saw this press release from Mitt Romney’s campaign. I asked Patrick Hynes, who is the blog-outreach guy for John McCain, what he thought of it. His first response was to tell a joke:

First, I think that John Lynch has higher favorability among New Hampshire Republicans than Mitt Romney.

But then, more seriously:

Second, it is a tribute to the New Hampshire primary process that a sitting Democratic Governor would attend a townhall for a Republican candidate for President. Governor Lynch’s visit demonstrates the decency and respect that New Hampshire voters expect in their politicians. To draw a parallel between Senator McCain’s and Governor Lynch’s mutual respect and Governor Romney’s prolonged and repeated support for liberal Democrats, like Dick Swett and Rocky Anderson, over conservative Republicans, is the kind of intellectual corner-cutting that we have come to expect from the Romney campaign.

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New Des Moines Register poll: Strategy

October 8, 2007 – 12:24 am
Candidate %
Romney 29
Thompson 18
Huckabee 12
Giuliani 11
McCain 7

I normally don’t like to write on polls, but I think that this one tells us a lot about the future of the GOP race in Iowa. David Yepsen comments here. I am going to write this as a two-parter. The first part is about the numbers. The second part is about the strategy that I think needs to follow from the numbers, for some of the candidates.

I think that the lesson here is that Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, and, to a lesser extent, Mitt Romney have a lot of room for upwards progress. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani do not. If these trajectories continue, they should both consider dropping out of Iowa. New Hampshire and Michigan are both more permissive — open primaries — and less conservative. It seems clear that both candidates are, more or less, on this path. They should even consider telling their grassroots organizations to, on caucus day, support either Huckabee or Thompson. This would increase the likelihood of the story coming out of Iowa being about Romney.  As Yepsen says:

With everyone expecting [Romney] to win, when he does, he won’t get that much bounce out of it and he needs that to build his national poll numbers, which aren’t so hot.

On the GOP side, the focus is now starting to center on who finishes second and third in Iowa since the “coach” and “standby” tickets into New Hampshire are still good ones to have. Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee have grabbed those positions. That’s especially good news for Huckabee who had been languishing back in single digits.

Rudy and McCain probably don’t have the power to influence the story about themselves coming out of Iowa. But they can probably do a lot to make sure that the right story about the other candidates gets told.

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Senator Thune introduces McCain at AFP

October 5, 2007 – 9:32 am

Senator Thune introduced John McCain at the Americans for Prosperity reception last night.

I thought it was a very good introduction. It highlighted McCain’s record as a anti-spending guy. Thune calls him the "lobbyist for the taxpayer" in contrast to the "lobbyist for the spending groups."

He also makes the point that McCain is taken seriously by our military and our allies and other international leaders. A similar point was made today by a bunch of former GOP Secretaries of State, Secretaries of Defense, and National Security Advisors. In my travels and exchanges as the International Secretary of the Young Republicans, I have to say that John McCain is deeply respected abroad. A pro-war, hawkish Republican is one of our most respected leaders abroad. That’s an important thing.

I videoed McCain’s speech, but it was really jittery. I think that AFP will have the video later.

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McCain blogger conference call

September 28, 2007 – 2:00 pm

John McCain gave a conference call from Michigan where he had spoken to a Hispanic business group.

He says that the campaign is moving along well. "We have a long, hard slog." He talked about Iraq, and described Petraeus as "convincing enough to give our troops more time." McCain calls on ASEAN to kick Burma out of ASEAN. … Slaughter of Buddhist monks is unacceptable. Had the great honor of my life to meet this person [ Aung San Suu Kyi]. … Thugs running that country."

Jennifer Rubin of Human Events. Says she is asking petty political questions. Asks if he is shifting resources out of Iowa. She also asks about money. McCain responds that he has a "comfortable amount to do what we have to do. … We still have a tough fight in Iowa. … Our plans certainly are to compete in Iowa. We have a lot of work to do in Iowa. … "

Dan Nowicki of McCain Central. Asks if there are any events to commemorate 40th anniversary of McCain being shot down. McCain says that he won’t do anything. The Forrestal fire is more important to him.

James Joyner. Asks about Burma. "Tell the Chinese that they have to stop supporting the Burmese. … Call on ASEAN to through them out. … Asian leaders said that [Burma being in ASEAN] would help democracy, human rights, etc. It hasn’t turned out that way. … They have a lousy economy because they have a lousy government."

Ed Morrissey. Asks about skipping the debate last night. McCain says that he would try to reschedule. Morrissey follows up and asks if we need to reach out more to African Americans. McCain basically says yes.

Jim Geraghty. Asked about the Democrats in Iraq. Why did the top Dem candidates not announce that they would pull out. McCain points out that "we have troops in the Balkans, we have troops in South Korea, We have troops in Okinawa. Americans don’t care about whether there are troops, they care about results. We have troops in Kuwait. … This insurgency is going to be fought for a long time."

Philip Klein. Asks for comments on Hillary Clinton’s baby-bond idea. McCain asks how it can be paid for. "I’d like to give every child $100k, but I’d like to know how to pay for it. … How are we going to pay for it?"

Fausta Wertz. As a Hispanic entrepreneur, how do you propose to reduce the costs. "We have the spending. We have to stop the spenidng. We have to stop the corruption. …  Americans no longer trust their government, and we have given them good reason… Katrina, failures in Iraq, corruption. … If we stop the spending, we can go to the American people with clean hands. … I know that the overall impact [isn’t that big] but we need to get the faith back. … Look at the restructing of Congress. Different from Congress, in these townhalls, there has been a tremendous erosion in the trust in government."

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Thoughts on McCain conference call

September 12, 2007 – 4:52 pm

I got into the call a minute or so late. Several things occurred to me.

First, John McCain is not as tired as he used to be. He is clearly energized by this fight. He talked about being on the bus with his POW buddies. That seems important for him psychologically.

Second, that image strikes me as very powerful. This is all re-invoking the battles of the 70s. McCain and a bunch of POWs saying, "Don’t let them do to us what they did in Viet Nam," is a remarkable idea. Especially in the older Iowa Caucus crowd, that contrast and invocation should be a powerful memory.

Third, McCain is the most comfortable of all the candidates on either side in simply talking about the war. If I were the campaign, I would make sure that these sessions are videoed and available online. These will probably be some of the best material that press and activists can see on what is actually going on.

Fourth, I think that McCain understands how tortured Republicans are on this. I asked him how people in Iowa were responding, given the polling that indicates that Republicans in Iowa seem very open to a withdrawal. The combination of POWs, a call to honor, the demand that we not lose, and an open discussion of wanting to get out, but not in vain… That, again, strikes me as a good way to yank on the heart strings of Iowans.

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