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Rudy Giuliani made Tommy Thompson his national co-chair. He
did the same for Steve Forbes. Hell, Jeb Bush Jr. is the chairman of Florida
Young Professionals for Rudy. But Pat Robertson? He's title-less.
There's no doubt that today's official endorsement from
televangelist Robertson is a major coup for the pro-choice Giuliani. But the
campaign isn't putting Robertson front and center in Giuliani's cabal of endorsers.
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Rudy, told me that Robertson doesn't have an
official title and didn't have any plans to give him one. Today, she said, was
just the first step-an opportunity to be in public talking about his support
for Giuliani.
One would assume more steps will follow, but she offered no
specifics. I asked her if Robertson planned to campaign on Rudy's behalf. She
didn't have an answer. I asked her if he could be expected to be a Giuliani
proxy on cable news. Unclear.
That conversation, combined with today's hasty press
conference-where Giuliani and Robertson seemed to have little in common besides
a history of prostate cancer-makes me wonder how much Giuliani wants to
associate with Robertson.
Remember, this is the same Robertson that said the U.S.
should whack
Hugo Chavez, that abortions
caused 9/11, and that in the next
month and a half there will be a "mass killing" in the U.S. Doesn't sound
like somebody a frontrunner wants mouthing off on his behalf.
Tomorrow is the first day in Giuliani's post-Robertson
candidacy. Will we ever hear from Robertson again? Or will Rudy hope that
today's deluge of news coverage is enough to convince the religious right that
he's their guy?
Giuliani flies to Iowa
tomorrow. Robertson won't be joining him.
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Remember that Iowa
City ordinance that would ban 19- and 20-year-olds from
hanging out in bars after 10 p.m.? The one that was going to mobilize all the young ‘uns to register to vote against it and thus increase the youth
turnout at the caucuses in January and thus swing Iowa toward Obama?
Well, it
didn’t pass. As predicted, college students voted in record numbers to
oppose the ordinance, which would have driven much of the University of Iowa’s
night life out of bars and into dorms and houses. Of the Iowa City residents who voted before election
day—about half of the total voters—63 percent were ages 18-24. The booze-loving,
Obama-supporting youth of America have spoken!
Now if only they were going to be around for the Jan. 3
caucuses. Too bad they don't take absentee ballots.
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More evidence that Hillary’s stumble over drivers’ licenses
for illegal immigrants isn’t going away: Rudy Giuliani said this morning
that he phoned two members of Congress, Rep. Peter King and Rep. Pete Sessions,
and “asked them to consider introducing legislation to prevent states from
giving licenses to illegal immigrants.”
“I never thought of [Hillary] as a federalist before,” Giuliani
said. “This is one area where federalism is not the answer.”
Presumably this will give Giuliani some ammunition to keep
tweaking Hillary. Even if the legislation never materializes, he can now say he has acted on his conviction, rather than
just spouting off from the sidelines. It also makes her evasion look even more stark: She kept saying that she can’t say what she would do because she’s not
governor of New York.
Well, neither is Rudy, but that’s not stopping him from weighing in.
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An email sent out today:
From: Obama For
America
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007
10:34 AM
To: [Redacted]
Subject: EXPERT'S PRAISE BARACK
OBAMA'S PLAN TO RECLAIM THE AMERICAN DREAM
It actually kind of works if you think of "Barack" as a verb.
Trailhead thanks eagle-eyed reader Elizabeth Summers.
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Pat Robertson’s decision to endorse Rudy Giuliani has some conservatives scratching their heads. Why back a candidate whose record on abortion—a supposed litmus test for evangelical support—so clearly repudiates everything you stand for?
The reason, according to Robertson: terrorism. America’s No. 1 goal right now, he said at a press conference today, should be the “defense of our people from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists.” Beyond that, he said, the No. 2 goal should be stemming government waste and corruption. Appointing conservative judges—and thus reducing the number of abortions—is all the way down at number three. That one of America’s foremost social conservatives would rank the country’s priorities in that order is very, very good news for Rudy.
Robertson is at least the second prominent social conservative to endorse Giuliani because of his record on security. Texas Gov. Richard Perry, who threw himself behind Giuliani last month, said that picking a president is like buying a truck: He wouldn’t reject a model just because there’s one option he doesn’t like. Again, security trumps abortion. (What’s the point of keeping the child if it’s just gonna get blown up?)
Robertson’s endorsement might also diffuse talk of a James Dobson-backed third-party candidate should Giuliani win the nomination. Without the support of Robertson or Brownback or Weyrich (or Perry or Bob Jones III), it’s hard to imagine another religious-right candidate gaining much momentum.
When he decided to run for president, Giuliani took a gamble that Republican voters care more about security than they do about his record on social issues. It looks like that gamble has paid off.
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Mitt Romney's day wasn't supposed to go like this. Romney was supposed to be campaigning happily in South Carolina—a state where he's gained in the polls thanks to beefy advertising time and a heavy event schedule. But as he was giving his speech on education this morning, word trickled down that two of his rivals nabbed high-profile endorsements from the religious right.
Today's endorsement-palooza—Pat Robertson backed Giuliani and Sam Brownback supported John McCain—hurts Romney in Iowa the most. Romney has led the polls in the state since June and ran away with the Ames Straw Poll in August. (Giuliani and McCain did not compete.) But both of today's endorsers have a broad base of support in Iowa, something McCain and Giuliani don't have.
Robertson ran for president in 1988 and finished a surprising second place in the Hawkeye State. Second wouldn't be too bad for Giuliani, who trails Mike Huckabee in the polls. Giuliani's campaign has recently shifted strategy, basically acknowledging that they need to do well in Iowa or New Hampshire to build up momentum going into Tsnuami Tuesday on Feb. 5. Now, with Robertson by his side, Giuliani is armed with a Republican foil who can help anchor him to the religious right. Romney is already fighting with Huckabee for the religious right's vote in Iowa, so he'd prefer if Giuliani stayed out of it.
McCain, meanwhile, has picked up more of a wildcard in Brownback. The two senators announced the endorsement in Iowa, where Brownback's support was strongest. (He finished third in the straw poll.) McCain is currently toiling in fifth place there and, in some polls, finds Ron Paul nipping at his heels. If McCain can use Brownback to reach out to Christian conservatives and finish in third (behind Romney and Huckabee) in Iowa, then he can use that momentum to roll through New Hampshire. But all is not rosy. The nightmare scenario for McCain—and a real possibility—is if Pat Robertson soaks up all the votes Brownback might have given him.
Most importantly, this whole thing yanks Romney's recent religious right endorsement, that of Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich, out of the spotlight. In the religious hierarchy of the week's endorsements, Robertson trumps Weyrich and Weyrich trumps Brownback.
All of a sudden, Romney's pre-emptive anti-Rudy direct mail campaign in Iowa this week is starting to seem prescient.
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From inside the bowels of the National Press Club, Christopher Beam sent this over the wires:
Pat Robertson just announced his endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for president of
the United States. Giuliani, however, seemed to have trouble fully endorsing Pat
Robertson. Here's how he introduced the evangelical leader:
Pat
Robertson is a very well-known leader, a person of well-deserved reputation. He
has run for president of the United States. He understands what America is all
about. And he has articulated the overriding issues of our time.
No
friendship? No admiration? And keep in mind that his "well-deserved reputation" could mean anything …
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