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Just because we didn’t live-blog doesn’t mean we didn’t
watch the debate. For what it’s worth, we’re adding our belated thoughts to the
cacophony
of instant
reaction. The executive summary: Nobody screwed up, only Romney helped himself.
John McCain: When
did John McCain become slightly senile? His prolonged spat with Mitt Romney
about Mitt’s non-support
of an Iraq
timetable made McCain look like a desperate slanderer. Considering he’s the
undisputed frontrunner, McCain’s whole strategy was nuts. As my Trailhead
colleague Mr. Beam pointed out, he's the senile grandfather you let prattle on
because its too sad to tell him to shut up. Another McCain highlight of the
night was watching him go out of his way to send some love to California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Word leaked that Ahnold is endorsing
Johnny Mac tomorrow, so there was no chance McCain was going to disagree
with him on fuel-efficiency
federalism. If Anderson Cooper had some stones, he would have asked McCain
whether the Governator was going to endorse him.
Mitt Romney: Mitt
was sharper than a Mormon steeple tonight. He offered something for all three
Reagan-coalition constituencies. The social conservatives got a gay-marriage
ban shout-out (an issue that has disappeared from this cycle). The national
security conservatives saw Romney mount an effective rebuttal to McCain’s
baseless withdrawal claims. In case fiscal conservatives didn’t already know
it, Romney knows what’s up
when it comes to the economy. When McCain attacked Romney’s record in Massachusetts, Romney
yanked stats out of his brain that only an economic cyborg can remember. With
Reagan’s Air Force One as your backdrop, pandering to the Reagan coalition is a
good idea—no matter how tacky that plane looked.
Mike Huckabee:
This was an ugly debate for the Huckster. What makes Huck such an effective
debater is his ability to use his quips as a gateway into important policy
points. Tonight Huck didn’t do that. His best Huckism was a long-winded stat
about sitting in traffic that didn’t fully connect to his policy point: that
fixing the nation’s infrastructure would stimulate the economy. Plus, he pulled
it off better at a fundraiser
earlier in the day. When Romney and McCain started bickering about Iraq timetables,
Huckabee might as well have been wearing a cloak of invisibility. When he
actually spoke, Huckabee complained about not getting a chance to speak—always
a faux pas.
Ron Paul: Poor
Paul. Cooper gave Dr.
No the silent treatment all night. At one point Cooper cut Paul off while he
was trying to answer two questions in one. Cooper promised Paul would get
another chance to speak “coming up in like two
minutes or two questions.” To be fair, Cooper honored his word, but then
cut him off again later in the evening. At one point Paul recoiled from being
cut off, arched an eyebrow, and cocked his head a bit as he stopped himself
from staring Cooper down. On a related note, I don’t remember the last time
Paul was off-message at a debate. Sure, he’s been reduced to a sideshow (fairly
or not), but at least it’s a consistent one.
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Should be interesting to see how much pickup this little story gets.
Apparently Mike Huckabee backers raised a reported $111,000 during a ministers’ conference hosted by Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, Texas. This could be problematic for two reasons. One is that televangelist Kenneth Copeland is currently under investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley and the Senate Finance Committee for, among other things, allegedly taking a $2 million gift from a ministers’ conference last year. The other is that Huckabee could be violating FEC regulations by raising money from or through a tax-exempt organization.
Both Huckabee’s people and Copeland’s say this is all above board, fair game, etc. The campaign released a statement saying it rented a room for “a separate event that was hosted by a private individual” unrelated to Copeland’s ministry. A Copeland spokesman told the AP that “[n]o offering was or has been taken for any political candidate by Kenneth Copeland Ministries or at a KCM event.”
But then there’s the whole guilt by association thing. Copeland says he’d rather die than open up the group’s accounting books to the Senate committee. The money, he says in one of his many unhinged rants, “belongs to God.” (The video is well worth your while.) According to Copeland, Huckabee's behind him all the way. Here’s his much-quoted account of what Huckabee told him when they spoke on the phone:
“Are you kidding me? Why should I stand with them [U.S. senators ] and not stand with you ? They only got 11 percent approval rating.” And then he said, then he said, “Kenneth Copeland, I will stand with you.” He said “You’re trying to get prosperity to the people, and they [the senators ] are trying to take it away from ‘ em.” He said “I will stand with you anytime anywhere on any issue.” That settled that right there. I said, “Yeah. That’s my man. That’s my man right there,” Copeland said.
A spokeswoman for Huckabee confirmed that the two men spoke on the phone, but has yet to confirm Copeland's account of their conversation, to us or to anyone else. The story is getting plenty of attention on the blogs. But I doubt it will gain real traction until a candidate *cough* Romney *cough* seizes on it.
Hey look, there's a debate tonight.
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NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Mike Huckabee rolled into Orange County
today for an event inside the gates of Bayview Estates—a development that bills
itself as a “Residential and Equestrian neighborhood.” Something tells me this
isn’t the target audience for Huckabee’s brand of populism. (Although he did get
his biggest round of applause when he started talking about the Fair Tax.) No signs of Mischa Barton
yet, but there were some other scenes that only a Huckabee fundraiser can
provide:
- A Huck
volunteer named Sharon
was put in charge of having the media sign-in. After one cameraman said
his correspondent had already written their names, Sharon responded with a wide smile: “Bless You.”
- Huckabee was asked about the youth vote
by an MTV News correspondent. Mind you that Newport
Beach is where that god-awful MTV show Newport Harbor is filmed. Unfortunately, I don’t think Huck watches much MTV, so he
didn’t quite note the irony.
- As
Huck shook hands and signed autographs, a greasy
guy in his mid-20s tried to impress a bronzed mid-20s gal by saying she
should go up to Huckabee and ask him to sign her breast, rock-star style.
He was kidding. I think.
- One of
the older women in the crowd had a red LED
ticker pinned to her shirt. Huckabee
2008 slowly crawled across her shirt on an endless loop. I should have
introduced her to the breast-autograph guy.
- Before
Huckabee gave his stump speech, one of his supporters went on stage to
offer an opening invocation. He asked Jesus to give Huckabee strength at
tonight’s debate, and he prayed that the American people would come to
their senses and support him.
- The
entire crowd pledged allegiance to the flag before Huckabee spoke. The
person-to-flag ratio in this estate is probably 5-to-1. I counted a few dozen lining the driveway alone.
In spite of—or maybe because of—all of this, Huckabee managed
to raise 100,000 dollars today. Upon hearing the news Huckabee
quipped, “Our campaign is so frugal, we could go a month on that. We probably
won’t but we could.” He's exactly right, if only because Huck will probably be out of the race in a
month.
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Just as Edwards ducks out, Ralph Nader appears ready to duck in. (Hard to see it as a coincidence when Nader had endorsed Edwards last month.) He launched an exploratory committee today with this call to arms:
Maybe the Democrats and Republicans will nominate Presidential candidates this year who will stand up against the war profiteers, the nuclear industry, the credit card industry, the corporate criminals, big oil, and the drug and health insurance industries.
We doubt it.
The site then proposes an offer. You give Nader $300, he'll give you "two DVD’s—Sicko and Unreasonable Man—and three books destined to become classics—Free Lunch, Gotcha Capitalism, and All The Shah’s Men." It's that simple!
The prospect of another Nader candidacy should surprise no one. (He ran again in 2004, after all.) But it's hard to see him taking a significant bite out of the Democratic vote this time around. In 2000, many Dems, disaffected with the Clinton White House, wanted to try a third way. In 2004, Kerry was so uninspiring that a Ficus tree could have launched a viable third party candidacy. But this year, Democrats are generally pleased with their options.
If Nader wants to put a dent in this election, he'll have to throw in more than a few DVDs. Maybe a Prius.
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The first time I saw John Edwards in person was a book signing at a Borders in Washington, D.C. He was promoting his new book, Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives. As he spoke about the themes of home and family and home and family, I was awed by the man’s arsenal of platitudes. He could say nothing as earnestly and convincingly as I’d ever seen anyone say anything. It was the perfect introduction to his presidential bid.
There are a lot of explanations for Edwards’ decision to drop out. His opponents’ celebrity, his obsessive focus on Iowa, the limited appeal of his one-note populism. But you can’t discount his unbearable phoniness. Even when I agreed with the message, I bristled at the brazen insincerity —or appearance thereof—of the messenger.
How did Edwards get pegged as the fake guy? A few ways. For one, he said the same thing over and over. Someone compared him to one of those dolls with a pull string that spits out one of 12 different phrases. You could ask him if two plus two equals four, and he would tell you that Washington is overrun by lobbyists and this race is personal for him. His campaign in Iowa was like a political Groundhog Day—every event was interchangeable with the last. Even when given an opportunity to open up and show the “real” Edwards, he declined. In the Las Vegas debate, his response to Tim Russert’s question about his greatest weakness—that “I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me”—smacked of self-pity.
Secondly, even when sincere, he sounded like someone trying really hard to sound sincere. Back in 2004, in his vice-presidential debate with Dick Cheney, Edwards praised the veep for “the fact that [Cheney and his wife are] willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing.” What theater. The moment was so clearly planned, so smarmily delivered, so thinly veiled, that even Cheney haters had to feel some sympathy. It was like if Hillary praised Obama in a debate for overcoming his coke habit. Cheney thanked Edwards for his thoughts and left it at that.
And third, Edwards got a phony rap because of the contrast with his 2004 persona. For people who got used to him as John Kerry’s cute puppy, the angry attack dog of 2008 felt like an act. In reality, things were more complicated, with Edwards reportedly pushing Kerry to be more aggressive. Kerry’s endorsement of Obama this month only reinforced perceptions that Edwards isn’t the man he was in 2004.
That’s not to say Edwards is somehow less genuine a human being. I’m told that when he goes off the record, it’s like talking to a different person. But the way he came across in public, or when filtered through news outlets, showed a man who repeated himself for fear of saying the wrong thing. He blamed the media for giving his rivals more attention, but never offered up anything but the same old shtick, which after a year of campaigning—let alone four—became tired.
Edwards added a lot to the Democratic field, and he will be missed. He challenged Hillary’s lobbyist ties more forcefully than Obama did. He took Obama to task for his “present” votes. He also exhibited refreshing maturity when Obama and Hillary put each other in choke holds, claiming to represent the “grown-up wing of the Democratic party.” Obama should take a page from his book (as long as it's not Home) and ramp up the intensity going into Super Tuesday. Edwards now has the power to influence the race in a major way. But he won't be remembered as the guy who transformed the 2008 election. He'll be the guy who was too slick by half.
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SAN DIEGO—A Univision satellite truck was waiting for me as I pulled up to a real-estate and loan office a dozen miles from the Mexican border. A sparse crowd—about 20 people—was schmoozing inside while the correspondent filmed a stand-up in Spanish next to a carefully-taped Hillary sign. The Univision crew was the only broadcast media outlet to show up (and one of only three journalists overall), but I got the sense that the Hillary camp didn’t care. The second Univision showed up, their goal had been accomplished.
The event was essentially a glorified phone bank, focusing specifically on Latino voters. In reality, the event wasn’t much of an event, nor was it all that Latino-focused. Volunteers showed up, they got to meet other Hillary-philes, and they called a bunch of laymen (who may or may not have been Latino) to convince them to vote for Hillary on Tsunami Tuesday. Dozens of these phone banks take place in the state every day (there are three in San Diego, alone). That Univision decided to package a story about such a non-event was a coup for the CCC (Clinton California Campaign) because the story will show that the Clinton campaign cares about the Latino community—and that they don’t take that support for granted.
All of this matters because Obama has a Latino problem and Clinton knows it. Clinton more than doubled Obama’s Latino support in Nevada and doubled his number in the maybe-meaningless Florida results. But Obama isn’t giving up. He’s airing aggressive Spanish-language ads here (as is Clinton), and some journalists bored with the Latinos-like-Clinton storyline are now suggesting Ted Kennedy’s endorsement will magically attract Latinos to Obama. We’re doubtful that’s true, but that’s another post for another time.
This minor phone bank may seem like an inconsequential effort to court Latino voters compared to thousand-person rallies—but it’s not. Because all of the candidates’ schedules are so accelerated, Clinton can’t personally spend time with Latino families like she might have done if California was an early primary state. Instead she—and the rest of the campaigns—have to entrust staffers and volunteers to carry the mantle and the message.
In the Feb. 5 states, more votes will be earned while the candidate isn’t in town than when he or she is. The candidates set the agenda nationally and then the grassroots follow-through locally. It’s a pointillistic approach: When viewed individually, the small events seem like inconsequential dots; but when you zoom out it’s clear that they’re all part of a larger painting. And when a Spanish-language TV station gives a Latino dot its close-up, it makes the overall message even more defined.