A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

Lott to resign, officials say

Lott becomes the sixth Senate Republican this year to announce retirement.

Mississippi's Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, will appoint Lott's replacement, who will serve until the 2008 elections, when voters will elect someone to serve out the balance of Lott's term, which runs through 2012. Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi, a former Lott aide who recently announced his retirement from the House, is widely seen as a potential successor. Pickering could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sometimes george you really disappoint me.

Lola wrote:

Sometimes george you really disappoint me.

Haven't had a dose of that in a long time !

Lola, I long ago acquired a lifetime immunity from that kind of thin-lipped scolding.

I wrote the truth and it is based on lots of direct experience in successful turnarounds in squadrons, ships, and corporations, large and small.

In a Cycle of Attacks, Giuliani Gives and Receives

[..] Rudolph W. Giuliani found himself under increasingly fierce attacks on Sunday from two of his rivals. Mitt Romney said the recent indictment of Bernard B. Kerik, who was Mr. Giuliani's friend and former police commissioner, "certainly calls into question his judgment" [..]. Fred D. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator, said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that Mr. Giuliani has "not five minutes of experience" with federal and national security issues. [..]

Mr. Romney intensified his criticisms of Mr. Giuliani. "He is pro-choice like Hillary Clinton," he said at a campaign stop in Concord. "He is in favor of civil unions, like Hillary Clinton. He is in favor of sanctuary cities, like Hillary Clinton. And the record of ethical conduct from, in this case, Bernie Kerik, reminds us very much of the administration Hillary Clinton was part of." [..]

[The back-and-forth] consumed much of the long holiday weekend. First Mr. Thompson questioned Mr. Giuliani's history of support for gun control, which is unpopular with many Republican voters, and Mr. Giuliani shot back that Mr. Thompson was attacking him because he had no record of his own to talk about.

Then Mr. Romney questioned Mr. Giuliani's fiscal stewardship of New York, leading Mr. Giuliani to attack Mr. Romney for appointing a judge who this summer freed an inmate who was arrested last week, accused of killing a couple in Washington State.

That opened the door for Mr. Romney to bring up Mr. Kerik on Sunday. "I must admit that of all of the people who might attack someone on the basis of an appointment, I thought he would be the last to do so," Mr. Romney said of Mr. Giuliani. [..]

"In a very different case, he put somebody in place as commissioner who had a very questionable past," Mr. Romney said, "and then recommended to the president of the United States this person be made the secretary of homeland security, despite the fact that he at this point was under investigation."

That led [..] Mr. Giuliani to accuse Mr. Romney of having a bad record on crime. "I think that Governor Romney is trying to distract attention from what is clearly a mistake that he made, but the other big mistake that he made was crime went up," Mr. Giuliani said. "Violent crime and murder went up while he was governor, and I think that that is something that talks about not just an isolated mistake, it talks about a series of mistakes."

GOP rivals swap barbs on values, crime

Mitt Romney bought a stuffed monkey and other playthings for his grandson, but their visit to a toy store Sunday was anything but routine Christmas shopping. [..] "I believe it's important for the Republican Party to have a person who can distinguish himself on family values with Hillary Clinton," Romney said.

The nominee, he said, should be "pro-life," "pro-family," "pro-traditional marriage," oppose illegal immigration and uphold high ethical standards. And by all those measures, he said, Giuliani falls short. [..]

Joining him at the Concord toy store were his wife, Ann; their grown sons Tagg, Craig and Ben; each of their wives; and 19-month-old Parker, one of Romney's 11 grandchildren. With Parker perched on his shoulder, Romney, surrounded by news crews, bought the boy a stuffed Curious George, a toy car and a plastic horse.

Asked whether he was trying to contrast his stable family life with Giuliani's tumultuous personal history, Romney said he was not making any comment on the subject. [..] Yet even without mentioning Giuliani's name, Romney left no doubt that he was criticizing him [..] later at a senior center in Newport.

"It just drives me nuts, I have to be honest with you, when politicians get up and talk about their personal life, and then say, 'Oh, everybody makes mistakes,' " Romney said.

"Well, everybody makes mistakes, but not everybody asks to be president of the United States, and not everybody asks to be a United States senator, or a United States congressman. And when you ask for those responsibilities, then we expect you to live by a higher standard of conduct."

[But the] former New York mayor slammed Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts, most pointedly on crime and healthcare. "The governor had what can only be described as a poor record on violent crime," Giuliani told the Associated Press on Saturday in Laconia. [..]

Giuliani cited FBI statistics showing a rise in murders and robberies in Massachusetts on Romney's watch, but Romney insisted Sunday that violent crime overall dropped. "He's now done this time and again, making up facts that just happen to be wrong," Romney said.

Romney also said it was odd for Giuliani to criticize the judicial appointment in light of his history of naming Bernard Kerik, who was indicted last month on corruption charges, as New York police commissioner, and recommending him for U.S. Homeland Security secretary. "He was coming from an entirely glass house," Romney said. [..]

[E]arlier, responding on the other matters raised by Romney, Giuliani campaign manager Michael DuHaime told reporters that he was "a mediocre one-term governor."

"Ultimately, when we start talking about records, and records of the different candidates, and who can accomplish what this country faces, what you have is Gov. Romney essentially without much of a record," he said.

Mike Huckabee [..] said he would not necessarily support the two-state approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict favored by the Bush administration.

While saying that he supported the Middle East conference the administration is hosting Monday in Annapolis, Md., because "I don't think it's ever a bad idea" to talk, he said that depending on its details, a two-state proposal "may not be a healthy solution," providing only temporary peace.

The former Arkansas governor, who said he has traveled frequently to the Middle East ?- ­ including nine trips to Israel -­ added that while the meeting might be of some use, "Let's be honest, there's not going to be some instant, Kumbaya moment" where the sides come together in hand-holding harmony. [..]

Mr. Huckabee also suggested that he would take a far more skeptical approach toward Saudi Arabia, not allowing his administration to become "so completely attached to Saudi oil."

Meantime, while some candidates of both parties have revised their stances on immigration, most often embracing tougher policies, Huckabee offered an unapologetic defense of his support for tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Huckabee insisted on CNN's "Late Edition" that he would not be soft on immigration enforcement. "I never had illegals working on my lawn" (a dig at Mitt Romney). "I don't believe in sanctuary cities" (a dig at Rudolph Giuliani). "I don't believe in amnesty" (a dig at, well, anyone seen as too soft on immigration). "And I do believe in having a secure, fenced border."

"But I don't believe that this country has surely reduced itself to the point that when a parent commits a crime and breaks the law, that you grind your heel in the face of 6-year-old."

"This is a better country than that," he said.

I am confident of the ability of all of the leading Democrat candidates to remotivate and remobilize them.

lots of interesting stuff on electability - fact/fiction/function

http://nymag.com/news/features/41285/

nimh

Did you see this piece by Josh Marshall (left column, "Ephiphanies".
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004795.php

Giuliani, as mayor, billed the city for trips to the Hamptons to f*ck his mistress at the time, who he is now married to, to the tune of almost half a million; and he did it by hiding the costs in obscure agencies.

He's toast.

You Republicans; can't you realize that the campaign against this guy writes itself?!?!!?!?!

Cycloptichorn