12/21 REPORTS
John McCain’s Christmas TV ad. Yes, it contains the new
conservative fashion accessory, a cross. But in the case of the U.S.
Navy Vietnam War hero, the use of the cross is anything but covert.
** THE RESURRECTION OF JOHN MCCAIN. Hey, it’s the season. Not to mention the fashion, at least on the Republican side. John McCain, whose Christmas ad above — Why are they doing Christmas ads? Because this crazy campaign has the candidates campaigning over the holidays, that’s why. — goes Mike Huckabee’s notorious “floating cross” spot one better by overtly using an incident from his prisoner of war days to invoke the cross, is coming back for a third time in this campaign. And at just the right time.
Previously knocked down and seemingly out by the loss of moderates and independents over his war stance, and conservatives over his immigration stance, McCain is taking advantage of the chaos that is the Republican presidential field to come on again in New Hampshire and other early states. As noted below, he is now a closing second place to Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. He’s picked up the endorsement of both big papers in the former Massachusetts governor’s erstwhile home town — the conservative Boston Herald and liberal Boston Globe — as well as the Des Moines Register and a raft of smaller papers in New Hampshire. He already had the big Manchester Union Leader up in New Hampshire, all of which is an aggravation to Romney, who has counted on his neighbor status from his Massachusetts governor days to make him a favorite son.
If Mike Huckabee carries on in Iowa, New Hampshire is looking good for McCain. Then it’s anybody’s guess. Actually, it’s the Monday Morning Quarterback column.
But there’s a dark cloud on the horizon. A leaked story on the Drudge Report, the famous conduit for mostly right-wing dirt. Or, as is often the case there, a leaked notion of a story. That the New York Times is going to drop a bomb on McCain with an investigative piece about him doing favors for telecom companies, and their female lobbyist, in his Senate Commerce Committee.
Actually, the Drudge Report said the story would run today in the Times. It’s not there. Whatever is going on, McCain thinks it’s serious enough he’s hired heavyweight DC lawyer Bob Bennett to deal with the situation.
Incidentally, I think that if politicians want to wear their crosses on their sleeves, as it were, it’s their right to do so. (Personally, I enjoy Huckabee’s floating cross ad and McCain’s ad.) I also think that it is fair game to take a hard look at the specifics of their religious beliefs.
** HUCKABEE SURGES TO MICHIGAN TIE WITH ROMNEY AS GIULIANI SLUMPS. The Michigan Republican presidential primary on January 15th will be big. Mitt Romney’s dad was governor of Michigan, so that helps him a lot. But now he’s in a statistical tie with Mike Huckabee, 21% to 19%. Rudy Giuliani, who previously had big hopes there, has dropped about half his support, back to third at 12%.
** ROMNEY’S MARTIN LUTHER KING GAFFE. It was a big moment in Mitt Romney’s “Faith In America” speech earlier this month, when the Republican presidential candidate hoped to get past concerns about his controversial Mormon faith. He dramatically stated that “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.” Romney repeated this on Meet The Press.
Why a big deal? Mormon doctrine has held that people of color are disfavored by God. Mormons disqualified black people until 1978. But it turns out that Romney never saw his father march with King. And, in fact, that his father did not march with King. Romney now says he was speaking “figuratively.”
For a candidate with a serious flip-flopper problem, not to mention some other arguably amusing false statements — “I am a lifelong hunter” — it ain’t good.
** FIELD POLL: CALIFORNIANS FAVOR SCHWARZENEGGER/NUNEZ HEALTH CARE REFORM. The new Field Poll shows California voters starting out strongly favoring the much discussed universal health care plan produced by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.
The overall plan, which is somewhat Rube Goldberg-like in its complexity, hinting at future problems in an actual campaign, is favored by a whopping 64% to 23%. The funding mechanism, in addition to levies on businesses, of increasing the tobacco tax to $2 per pack of cigarettes, is favored by a whopping 63% to 33%.
A larger tobacco tax increase for health care was narrowly defeated last November. But that one was opposed by the popular Schwarzenegger.
** OBAMA AND HILLARY TIED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. The brand new Gallup Poll of the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary shows that longtime frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s “firewall” is in flames.
The numbers: Barack Obama 32%, Hillary Clinton 32%, John Edwards 18%. Clinton led Obama earlier this fall in New Hampshire by some 20 points. The poll was released early Friday morning in the East Coast.
On the Republican side, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has a narrowing 34% to 27% lead over John McCain. Rudy Giuliani is a fading third, at 11%.
** CALIFORNIA’S CLIMATE CHANGE PROGRAM. Widespread reports that the senior staff of the US Environmental Protection Agency urged EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to approve California’s landmark law cutting tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in new vehicles. And that he was warned that the EPA would likely lose if he denied the customary waiver and California sued the federal government.
After the holidays, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown have made plain, that suit will be filed. And many other states will join them. 16 other states had either adopted legislation or nearly adopted legislation modeled on the California plan.
Meanwhile, the only functioning California program to cut greenhouse gases is Jerry Brown’s methodical pursuit of settlements with local governments and polluting businesses. What more can the state do for now, beyond what an imaginative and powerful attorney general who, as the former governor, knows how to move the system?
State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, an ally of Brown’s when the ex-governor was mayor of Oakland, has this thought: “I share the outrage expressed by the Governor, the state Attorney General, and others over this misguided action, and strongly support the state’s efforts to reverse it through the federal courts, both on our state’s behalf and for the other states which have followed its lead.
“However, in addition to pursuing legal remedies, there exists a clear statutory and administrative remedy in the hands of your board and the Administration to achieve these emission reductions. Unlike federal litigation, which could take months or years to resolve (and several years beyond that to achieve emission reductions), this remedy can be implemented in time to begin to achieve the reductions originally contemplated by the state Legislature under AB 1493
“Fortunately, the California Legislature anticipated the potential for delay of the AB 1493 vehicle regulations last year when it enacted AB 32 (Chapter 488 statutes of 2006). Specifically, Health and Safety Code Section 38590 directs the ARB to “backfill” or make up for any loss of emission reductions under AB 1493 through the adoption of alternative regulations.”
12/20 REPORTS
Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, Vladimir Putin, answers
questions from Time editors.
** TIME’S SELECTION OF PUTIN AS PERSON OF THE YEAR SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE. To NWN readers, that is.
As has been discussed on NWN for months — even before the live link below to the Russia Today news channel was added in early October — Russia under Putin has become central to any informed semblance of US presidential politics. If you don’t understand the Russian factor, you don’t understand what is going on in geopolitics, or in America’s efforts in the Middle East and around the world. If you don’t understand what’s going on in the Middle East, it’s difficult to understand some fundamental drivers of American domestic politics.
From Time’s citation: In a year when Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize and green became the new red, white and blue; when the combat in Iraq showed signs of cooling but Baghdad’s politicians showed no signs of statesmanship; when China, the rising superpower, juggled its pride in hosting next summer’s Olympic Games with its embarrassment at shipping toxic toys around the world; and when J.K. Rowling set millions of minds and hearts on fire with the final volume of her 17-year saga—one nation that had fallen off our mental map, led by one steely and determined man, emerged as a critical linchpin of the 21st century.
Russia lives in history—and history lives in Russia. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Soviet Union cast an ominous shadow over the world. It was the U.S.’s dark twin. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia receded from the American consciousness as we became mired in our own polarized politics. And it lost its place in the great game of geopolitics, its significance dwarfed not just by the U.S. but also by the rising giants of China and India. That view was always naive. Russia is central to our world—and the new world that is being born. It is the largest country on earth; it shares a 2,600-mile (4,200 km) border with China; it has a significant and restive Islamic population; it has the world’s largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and a lethal nuclear arsenal; it is the world’s second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia; and it is an indispensable player in whatever happens in the Middle East. For all these reasons, if Russia fails, all bets are off for the 21st century. And if Russia succeeds as a nation-state in the family of nations, it will owe much of that success to one man, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
** DESPITE ATTACKS, HUCKABEE HOLDS SIGNIFICANT IOWA LEAD. With no one else in double digits, Mike Huckabee holds a 35% to 27% lead over Mitt Romney in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll of the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. Romney is stalled, with his Mormonism and negativity apparently cutting against him. Huckabee leads by 3 to 1 among evangelicals and has a hefty lead among conservatives.
Fred Thompson, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani are all far back in single digits. The poll is out on December 20th.
** CLINTON ATTACKS OBAMA. Hillary Clinton, still trailing Barack Obama in Iowa, will have congressional surrogates attack Illinois’s junior U.S. senator for his having voted “present” on a number of issues during his past decade in the Illinois state senate.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown and
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, seen in this NWN video last
month announcing California’s lawsuit against the Bush Administration
for stalling on the state’s greenhouse gas law, will again sue.
** CALIFORNIA TO SUE BUSH ADMINISTRATION FOR UNPRECEDENTED REFUSAL TO APPROVE ANTI-POLLUTION LAW. For some 40 years, the US government, mainly through its Environmental Protection Agency, has regularly issued waivers allowed California under the Clean Air Act to pursue more aggressive anti-pollution legislation than that of other less-polluted areas or of the federal government itself. 40 of these approvals have been issued, and despite industry wailing at the time of many of them, the economy has not crashed and in fact has flourished.
In fact, these customary EPA waivers under the Clean Air Act have led to significant techological innovation and major environmental gains. Until now.
After years of obvious foot dragging, and seeing its position of doing nothing about a climate change threat that President Bush nonetheless acknowledges is all too real rejected by court after court, including the conservative US Supreme Court, the Bush Administration yesterday denied California approval of its landmark 2002 law to curtail tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in new vehicles.
Last month, as seen in the NWN video above, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown announced a state lawsuit to force the EPA to at last act. Soon they will announce another lawsuit, this to challenge the EPA decision.
In the meantime, the one functioning California program to cut greenhouse gas emissions is that of Jerry Brown. The former governor-turned-attorney general has been methodically pursuing a series of agreements with local governments and major polluters around the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
** FIELD POLL: CHANGES IN CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY. Rudy Giuliani’s longstanding lead in the California Republican primary has drooped, while Mike Huckabee has shot into second and Fred Thompson has lost most of his support.
Here are the numbers: Giuliani 25%, Huckabee 17%, Mitt Romney 15%, John McCain 12%, and Fred Thompson 6%.
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both hold big leads over their Republican rivals in general election match-ups.
12/19 REPORTS
Mike Huckabee wishes you a very Merry CHRISTmas in this new ad.
** MIKE SAYS “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Republican presidential frontrunner (?!) Mike Huckabee has a new TV ad to cut through the political clutter as Iowa insanely prepares to vote on January 3rd. It’s a nice, soft Christmas spot. In which Reverend Huckabee has a glowing bookcase backdrop with the shelves forming a white cross. The shot, naturally, moves slowly from this backdrop to a Christmas tree. The former Arkansas governor naturally insists that the cross is simply a bookcase.
It’s quite clever.
** AN INTRIGUING JOHN EDWARDS VIDEO. I don’t know if the breaking National Enquirer tale of John Edwards having an affair with a now pregnant producer of a series of videos about him — which his campaign has never used — is true or not. He denies it. This video, in which she interviews him on his campaign jet, is nonetheless intriguing.
** HILLARY’S CALIFORNIA LEAD PLUNGES. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Barack Obama in the latest Field Poll of the California Democratic presidential primary has plunged.
In the last Field Poll, Hillary led Obama by a whopping 25 points. Now it’s down to 14 points. The numbers: Clinton 36%, Obama 22%, John Edwards 13%. That gap can disappear very quickly, as I’ve been saying for months, depending on trends and momentum developed elsewhere. Obama is significantly more popular than Clinton with independents, and more acceptable to Republicans.
Ironically, before I took off for the holidays, I was at the last monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club for the year, on Monday, which featured Field Poll director Mark Di Camillo and Public Policy Institute of California chief Marc Baldassare. Di Camillo revealed that the Field Poll was then conducting a statewide poll, and presented his findings from previous polls. He laid out a scenario in which Clinton had a very powerful lead in California, due to her extraordinarily strong positions with female and Latino voters.
Of course, that is already sliding away. Sitting right in front of the Field Poll director, I was tempted to challenge his assessment of the California primary from his past polling. But it’s Christmastime.
** OBAMA HOLDS LEAD IN IOWA. Barack Obama continues to lead Hillary Clinton in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll of the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses. It’s Obama 33%, Clinton 29%, John Edwards 20%.
Obama’s lead is bigger among those who say they are certain to participate on January 3rd. The race basically breaks down on vision vs. experience and younger voters vs. older voters, with Obama having the edge on the former points and Hillary having the edge on the latter points.
If Obama weathers the storm and deconstructs the experienced Hillary scenario, it’s his election.
** THE TECHNO-SAVVY AND THE NOT TECHNO-SAVVY. You will note that, on balance, the Democratic presidential candidates are more personally techno-savvy than their Republican counterparts.
The Democrats all favor their BlackBerrys and iPods. The Republicans are, let’s say, a bit vaguer than that. Rudy Giuliani likes his CD player, and John McCain his TV remote control.
** PRO-ABORTION ROMNEY. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been scored repeatedly for changing his positions on the valence issues of abortion, guns, and gays. In the course of it all, he’s denied making a contribution to Planned Parenthood, attributing it to his wife, who in his rendering of the story used their shared checking account. Here is a photo of Romney attending a Planned Parenthood fundraiser.
Romney was pro-choice on abortion when he ran in 1994 as the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. He was also pro-choice when he ran for governor and was elected in 2002.
Putin’s Christmas tree is 100 feet taller than Arnold’s.
** PUTIN’S IS BIGGER THAN ARNOLD’S. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was the biggest movie star in Russia before turning to politics. His movies were pirated there — Russia rivals China as the world center of counterfeit goods and stolen intellectual property — before they were released in the US.
But the Governator’s Christmas tree is much smaller than that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin, incidentally, is Time Magazine’s new Person of the Year.
This will come as no surprise to NWN readers. Putin has agreed to his presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev’s suggestion that he become prime minister after his constitutionally-limited president term ends early next year. Putin presented Medvedev — his former chief of staff — as his, er, the consensus of various parties, pick for president in the March election. Medvedev then said he wanted to make Putin prime minister. After due, um, consideration, Putin has agreed to continue in government as the premier. Working under his former chief of staff, of course. Can you say … “Musical chairs?” Or hide the pea?
Certainly nothing like that could ever happen in California. With, say, a famous governor. Whose former chief of staff goes on to become governor. Who later backs the first governor to become governor again. Yet I digress.
Schwarzenegger lit the California Christmas Tree earlier in the month in a splashy ceremony outside the state Capitol which was webcast through a link here. It’s a big tree, 55 feet high. Yet Putin’s tree, outside the Kremlin, is a whopping 50 meters high. That’s a hundred feet higher than Schwarzenegger’s. I won’t say longer since it is, of course, vertical. Which is where we leave this particular discussion.
** WESTLY BACKS TERM CALIFORNIA LIMITS REVISION INITIATIVE, WHILE WILSON OPPOSES IT. Former state Controller Steve Westly, former eBay honcho who is now a leading venture capitalist, has come out for the term limits revision initiative, Proposition 93 on the February presidential primary ballot. He will be a campaign chair for the initiative, playing something of a countering role to Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who made his Silicon Valley fortune as an inventor of technology to track cell phones and heads the campaign against the initiative.
Former Governor Pete Wilson, a Republican who backs the idea of relaxing term limits, has come out against the initiative, which would cut the total number of years allowed in the Legislature from 14 to 12, but allow all of them to be served in one house. Current law limits service to eight years in the state Senate and six years in the Assembly. Why does Wilson oppose the initiative? Because he says that it should have been accompanied by a redistricting reform initiative.
** NOTE: NWN is on a reduced holiday publishing schedule. That doesn’t mean there won’t be some columns and updates and videos; just not nearly so many. The Forum will of course be open. The relative break is coming sooner rather than later because of the frankly insane presidential campaign schedule, which sees Iowa and New Hampshire within a week of New Year’s Day. For some perspective, when I did first-in-the-nation Iowa for Gary Hart, it was on February 20th.
Two days after Christmas, NWN throttles back up full bore through the February 5th presidential primaries in California and elsewhere.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil is trading between $91 and $92 per barrel. Turkey has withdrawn its battalion from northern Iraq after a successful raid on Kurdish separatist guerillas, but the US inventory situation is worrisome.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum.
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| Comments (0) |
The Dems have to be chomping at the bit for Mitt to be the nominee.
>Wilbur :
Mitt may finally have jumped the shark. I just saw his just totally weak attempt at explaining away his gross MLK exaggeration. Has something to do with the meaning of “is,” apparently.
Oh
My
God
is absolutely spot on. It was painful and pitiful to watch.
Dec 20, 2007 11:49 PM
The Dems have to be chomping at the bit for Mitt to be the nominee.
>Wilbur :
Mitt may finally have jumped the shark. I just saw his just totally weak attempt at explaining away his gross MLK exaggeration. Has something to do with the meaning of “is,” apparently.
Oh
My
God
is absolutely spot on. It was painful and pitiful to watch.
Dec 20, 2007 11:49 PM
Oh, yes.
>Ann :
Oh, no. Hillary is tied in New Hampshire.
Dec 20, 2007 11:22 PM
Johnny Mac Attack is Back. I feel like the scene in “Star Trek” where Kirk says to Spock, “Aren’t you dead?”
Johnny Mac Attack is Back. I feel like the scene in “Star Trek” where Kirk says to Spock, “Aren’t you dead?”
John McCain is Mr. Spock?!
Perata is right that the state should press forward with “alternative” regulations that focus on reducing emissions, increasing fuel economy and energy conservation, without wasting efforts chasing after carbon dioxide, a harmless molecule that comprises less than 1 percent of the atmosphere and is essential for photosynthesis.
lol
Ah, a little pre-Christmas humor.
Ah, a little pre-Christmas humor.
Your new President will be Obama, McCain or Huckabee.
Or not.
I notice that Huckabee is moving into a battle for the lead in the Michigan Republican primary. There is an excellent EJ Dionne article about why Huckabee scares the hell out of the Wall Street Republicans. His preference for Main Street over Wall Street appears to be resonating with ordinary folks who call themselves Republicans.
I notice that Huckabee is moving into a battle for the lead in the Michigan Republican primary. There is an excellent EJ Dionne article about why Huckabee scares the hell out of the Wall Street Republicans. His preference for Main Street over Wall Street appears to be resonating with ordinary folks who call themselves Republicans.
America is recycling Presidential candidates now, how quaint.
The videos don’t work, what’s up?
Is McCain’s cross the Magnum team ring?
That’s a different sort of cross, the cross of Lorraine.
That’s a different sort of cross, the cross of Lorraine.
YouTube has been acting up the past few months. Refresh the page and try again.
>Jonas Blane :
The videos don’t work, what’s up?
Dec 22, 2007 05:26 AM
Isn’t it?
AND it’s so unlike other countries.
>marcus waldron :
America is recycling Presidential candidates now, how quaint.
Dec 22, 2007 04:06 AM
You noticed that on the NWN front page, I take it.
>Hattie Caraway :
I notice that Huckabee is moving into a battle for the lead in the Michigan Republican primary. There is an excellent EJ Dionne article about why Huckabee scares the hell out of the Wall Street Republicans. His preference for Main Street over Wall Street appears to be resonating with ordinary folks who call themselves Republicans.
Dec 21, 2007 10:08 PM
Sorry, Bill, I missed the article on NWN, but did pick it up at RealClearPolitics.com; my bad.
Sorry, Bill, I missed the article on NWN, but did pick it up at RealClearPolitics.com; my bad.
What article?