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

It arises out of his deep freedom-loving pedigree.

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Giuliani shifts tactics, goes on offensive
Updated 1h 47m ago

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, speaks to supporters at a home in Stratham, N.H., Dec. 2. He's swinging harder in the state, now that he trails fellow Republican Mitt Romney.

Republican Rudy Giuliani's plan to absorb punishment in the party's early primaries and then strike back in primaries in delegate-rich states on Jan. 29 and Feb. 5 has hit a wall, political analysts and strategists say.
Instead of emulating former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope strategy and letting his opponents tire themselves out in contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former New York mayor has had to start swinging hard in those states.

That's because Giuliani is behind in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, polls show. So while Ali's strategy enabled him to unseat heavyweight champ George Foreman in 1974, it won't help Giuliani win next year's Republican presidential nomination, political scientist Dante Scala said.

"He needs to break through before the end of January," said Scala, who teaches at the University of New Hampshire.

Giuliani's campaign sees an opportunity in New Hampshire's Jan. 8 primary, campaign manager Michael DuHaime said. First, however, Giuliani must overcome the lead by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who lives less than 50 miles from the New Hampshire border.

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Noam Scheiber asks, Why do all the GOP candidates despise Romney?

Quote:

[..] one of the themes I'm going to be exploring while I'm out here is the extent to which the rest of the GOP field detests the guy. Not long after he dropped out of the race, Sam Brownback seemed to sing the praises of the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani as a way of sticking his finger in Romney's eye. Rudy seems to have an even harder time than usual concealing his contempt when he and Romney share a stage. That's more than you can say for John McCain, who often doesn't even bother to conceal his contempt for Romney. And [Mike Huckabee] practically lectured Romney about what it means to work your way through college at the YouTube debate a few weeks back. Now there's this from Ryan Lizza's piece in this week's New Yorker:

My own sense, from talking to Huckabee [..] and McCain [..] is that they are genuinely appalled by Romney's tactics, not only because of the damage to their campaigns but also because of the damage they believe he's doing to the Party's image. ... "He's clearly distorted my record as well as my position," Huckabee told me. "But I'm not interested in getting in a war with him to see which of us can be the meanest son of a gun running for President." He went on, "My experience has been [..] when people keep saying something over and over, and louder and louder, it's to compensate that they don't want you to know that's really never what they believed."
Why do all the GOP candidates despise Romney? I think it's partly related to something Jonathan Martin alluded to several months ago--Romney's hypocrticial self-righteousness. The other candidates feel like this guy spent much of his adult life to the left of many Democrats, which makes it hard to swallow a lecture from him about being a real Republican. Part of it may be bitterness at the fact that, in what's turning out to be a brutal fundraising environment for the party, Romney can effortlessly dip into his several hundred million-dollar fortune. And part of it, as in Huckabee's (and to some extent Thompson's and Giuliani's) case maybe simple class resentment. These guys feel like they had to scratch and claw for everything they have in life; they feel like Romney got it handed to him. [..]

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Interesting and sort of witty take on the Giuliani / Hillary co-dependent relationship:

Quote:

HRC troubles may pose problem for Giuliani

Flaw in the article: there's little co-dependent about a relationship where it's only the one who constantly talks about the other, and Hillary "rarely mentions Giuliani in her own speeches," as the article itself mentions.

But thats a quibble - I think it's totally true that Clinton also benefits from having a particular unpalatable and tough-mannered opponent. If Giuliani's the Republican nominee, I think myself for example, it's better to have someone like Hillary on our side, cause he'd eat Obama alive. But if the opponent is the more mild-mannered and decent Huckabee, then Hillary would look a shrill nominee for our side, and Obama would be a better pitch.

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It's pretty sad when your sense of humor has devolved to finding it the most funny thing in the world when a blog post panning Huckabee yields the comment,

Leave Huckabee alone!!!Yes, I spend way too much time on the internet and on politics.. 'getting' that one must deserve some geek prize.

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And when this makes you laugh too:

After the glorious rapture, they'll ask the rest of us why we didn't have the mendacity to flim flam for Christ, or join the Rotary Club. Then we'll all be sorry. I mean those of us who do not wear patent leather shoes, attend mega churches, or use the word secular as negative imagery will be sorry. We will all be excluded from the giant mall that is heaven. Every damned one of us. President for Eternity Huckabee will see to that. Then will commence the gnashing of teeth, except silent "Gs" will be forbidden learning, so it will be called nashing sounds. And Nawing.

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I haven't been following this thread, but I think I predicted a long time ago on this thread what the prospects for each candidate were. Things are still in a large state of flux, as evidenced by Huckabee's rise to prominence. It seems to me that Giuliani is set up for fading, as McCain did. Thompson shot out of the box, to mediocre support, but he too will fade from even that, in my opinion.

I predicted weeks or probably months ago that Romney has the best upside potential, and I still think he does. The main problem he has is the apparent resentment that other Republican candidates have for him, although I don't know whether to believe it or not. All of the campaigning will continue to sift and filter the character and assessments of them, and when some of them drop out, who they throw their support to will be of prime interest.

The latest criticism of Bush by Huckabee was, I think, a very stupid mistake by Huckabee, and I don't know if he believed what he said or said it to gain support. I don't think it will work, whichever it was. I am personally skeptical of Huckabee and whether his rise to prominence will withstand a closer look at his record and character attributes.

I still like Romney as demonstrating and articulating the most reasonable and balanced policies and beliefs, and I'm not talking about the Mormon issue. I don't think his Mormon religion should be an issue at all, although many apparently think it should be.

nimh, I think you agreed with me when I predicted Romney had the best upside potential, but as months have now passed, I wonder what your opinion is in regard to what I have just expressed about the candidates?

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Quote:

The latest criticism of Bush by Huckabee was, I think, a very stupid mistake by Huckabee, and I don't know if he believed what he said or said it to gain support.

Why? He didn't lie.

Cycloptichorn

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It sounds like he bought some of the liberal spin, which in my opinion is garbage. So my estimation of Huckabee went down as a result of what he said. If he believes it, so be it, I am willing to listen to him from here on, but if he said it to gain support, sorry, it doesn't fly, and it stabs his own party in the back. And if he believes it, I am also skeptical of his intelligence and foreign policy abilities. What he said makes it sound to me like he is pretty naive in regard to running the country.

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McCain's change of heart?

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McCain calls for 'crash program' in interrogation

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Again, I would advise McCain to first check with the military and find out what the experts are doing already before he heads off on some tangent, such as creating a new bureaucracy of some sort.

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What makes you think McCain hasn't consulted the relevant military experts already, okie?

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I don't know that he hasn't, but the statement implies that we need to create a new group of experts, as if there are none now, at least that was the implication I drew from it. The statement would be akin to saying we need to create a new agency to conduct foreign intelligence so that we will never have to guess at what other countries are doing from now on, ignoring the fact that we already have the CIA.

Such things are not new for McCain. He helped create the McCain Feingold bill to eliminate campaign fund corruption, and the problem was not fixed, because he had the wrong focus for where the problem resided. Same with this issue. If the experts are doing it wrong, that needs to be fixed instead of creating a whole new bureaucracy. He first needs to find out what the experts are doing now, and amend that. It may be that no new bureaucracy needs to be created.

My remark about McCain was a bit flippant, but it is born out of watching what he has done in Congress, and I think at times he is a bit naive about the problem and tends to prescribe wrong solutions because he does not correctly identify the problem. Campaign finance and illegal immigration are just two previous examples, and I am suggesting this may be another one.

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Yeah, I get it now; McCain is naive and okie is the expert. My god, why isn't he part of our government?

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Well, do you agree with McCain?

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It's not about me; it's about you and McCain. You seem to think you're more knowledgeable than McCain; McCain is naive..

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Georgeob1, on the Obama thread you wrote this:

georgeob1 wrote:

I will agree the Republicans can't brag about what they have put forward so far to counter it. McCain, in my view is the best of the lot, but frankly he is a bit old and perhaps weary of the game. I also think that either Guiliani or Romney are or would be better than any of the Democrat alternatives - but, to a sad degree, that isn't saying much.

I asked you about Fred Thompson before and you kindly obliged; what do you think of Mike Huckabee?

And how do you estimate his chances of winning the primaries? His rise in the polls - in Iowa in particular - has been nothing less than phenomenal (insert obligatory link to nimh-graph)..

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Yeah imposter, I think he is about some issues, the main one was campaign finance. We already had laws not being enforced, so why new ones? And now the problems are worse than ever in my opinion.

I like McCain okay, I think he is basically a decent guy, if I forget the scandals he was involved in, ha, but I just think we can do better, thats all. But if it came down to Hillary or McCain, and I don't think it will, I couldn't pull the lever fast enough for McCain.

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nimh, I like your graphs. Has it suddenly become a race between Huckabee and Romney, with all the other guys sinking?

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okie wrote:

nimh, I like your graphs. Has it suddenly become a race between Huckabee and Romney, with all the other guys sinking?

Thank you!

Well, I've always been lousy at picking winners, so I'm probably not the best guy to ask.. but there's something in what you say, definitely.

Take Giuliani, for example. He's been the frontrunner throughout the campaign, but he is in an ever more hopeless position. The way the polls are showing now, he's on track to end fourth in Iowa... and third in New Hampshire. That's devastating.

He could easily have overcome coming second in Iowa, even a distant second. But third is already bad. And considering that he is sharply trending downward; that Iowa is where Fred Thompson is making his last stand; that he is doing particularly badly in second preferences, which are very important in the Iowa caucus process; and that he appears to be on his way to have the most negative campaign and Iowans are famously allergic to negative ads; it looks like he'll actually end fourth, and that's just humiliating.

It would still be overcomable if he made up for it with a strong New Hampshire showing; skipping Iowa altogether has worked for others before, and he's already successfully made the impression that, you know, he isnt counting on anything there. But things are looking just as bad in NH, as he's been trending down for three months now, and McCain is enjoying a mini-surge of sorts and already passed him by in the polls.

OK, so imagine him coming fourth in Iowa, third in New Hampshire and then moving into the cut-throat race in conservative South Carolina, where the religious right is strong and he's already down to third place according to pollster.com. It's a bust.

That leaves him going into the 5 Feb. states that he's always seen as his firewall in a humiliated position. He was counting on blow-out wins in states like Florida to make everyone forget those pesky early states, but that's not how the media works. There'll have been a full month of news coverage on how Giuliani's been repudiated, how he failed once voters actually had to make a choice, right when the electorates in the Feb 5 states are really starting to pay attention. And if there was any doubt about how soft his long-standing lead in Florida is, for example, Cyclo already pointed out that new Rasmussen poll in the other thread. Within a month, Rasmussen has gone from Giuliani 27, Huckabee 9, to Huckabee 27, Giuliani 19!

Yes. Anything can happen, for sure, still. But right now it really, unbelievably, looks like Rudy will actually be toast, already by early February even - which I think is absolutely great news. He was the one candidate I feared most - I think he'd be the toughest candidate to beat in the general elections, and that he'd be clearly the worst president even of the entire Republican field. Well, apart from Alan Keyes perhaps.

It couldnt happen to a better person.. Twisted Evil

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"It couldn't happen to a better person." amen!

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

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