“Please Come Home For Christmas,” from the Eagles.
The presidential races have taken quite the turn, haven’t they?
On the Democratic side, in a direction that should be no surprise for NWN readers. On the Republican side, into more chaos.
I knew Hillary Clinton really was not the “inevitable” candidate she and her team and almost all of the media made her out to be. I didn’t see Mike Huckabee’s rise coming — though Mitt Romney’s problems were evident — but did figure out he was for real.
None of which is to say that presidential nomination contests in either party are anywhere near over.
It all makes for an interesting Monday Morning Quarterback coming up.
But that’s for Monday. In the meantime, here are the Eagles with their version of a Christmas song, “Please Come Home For Christmas.” First released as a single in 1978, then re-released as a single in 1996 and in 2005, it’s actually a cover of a Charles Brown song from 1960.
The Eagles’ new album, incidentally, Long Road Out Of Eden, is doing very well in the US and around the world. It’s still high on the US charts, at #3, even though it was released at the end of October. (#1 on the US country charts.) It’s #1 in Europe and #1 in the Asia-Pacific region. They won’t be singing the blues for real this Christmas.
Not too bad for Linda Ronstadt’s old back-up band.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets, is the treasure
hunting history buff sequel to the surprise 2004 hit.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets looks like a fun movie, with a little bit of thought, for the holidays. The movie, which is the sequel to the madcap surprise hit from 2004, opens December 21st. The conceit is that the treasure hunting, conspiracy theorizing history expert — a nerdy sort of cross between Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon — played by the amusing Nicolas Cage has to clear his family’s name when one of the missing pages from the diary of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth surfaces and purports to show that his ancestor helped plan the assassination.
In order to clear the family name, Benjamin Franklin Gates — that would be Cage — and his crew have to get ahold of “the book of secrets.” Which is only in the possession of the President of the United States. In that book are America’s most important secrets: The truth about the JFK assassination, the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes, Area 51, and so on for the ultimate wet dream of conspiracy politics. And that’s the beginning.
Getting the book should be no problem. I’m sure Dick Cheney would love to turn it over.
Charlie Wilson’s War, talked about last weekend, also opens on the 21st.
** 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.
The global conference in Bali on climate change got bogged down
in some predictable ways.
** NOTE: At the end of the week, NWN goes 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.
** “CREATIONISM” IN CALIFORNIA. A top Republican operative, who is no friend to Mike Huckabee, says that several recent focus groups of California Republican primary voters — the Republicans have, um, thoughtfully, prohibited independents from participating in their early February 5th presidential primary — show a majority in favor of teaching “creationism” in the schools. This, in the world’s leading high tech state. I’m so glad I ran the California Legislature’s Sci/Tech committee back in the ’80s. Yet another of my triumphs.
** BILLY SHAHEEN. Now an ex-national co-chair of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign, after his drive-by on Barack Obama’s youthful drug use — chronicled as a cautionary tale for America’s youth in Obama’s autobiography — and husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen. Who is an old colleague of mine from the Gary Hart for President days. Too depressing to deal with, at the moment, as we head into the Christmas season.
But I certainly haven’t forgotten about it. And will be getting to it shortly.
On the Democratic side, it’s Obama 33%, John Edwards 24%, Hillary Clinton 24%, and Bill Richardson 9%.
On the Republican side, it’s Huckabee 31%, Mitt Romney 22%, Fred Thompson 9%, and Rudy Giuliani 9%.
** CHECK OUT THE CLUELESS HYPE.Here is how the rather clueless conventional media — okay, it’s the LA Times — hypes the Ed Rollins appointment for Huckabee. “He’s a legend, architect of Reagan’s victory,” blah blah. The architect of Ronald Reagan is Ronald Reagan, with a major assist from Nancy Reagan. Period.
Part of what is going on is that the conventional media has no idea of who is behind Huckabee’s surge. That’s not a problem here at NWN.
NOTE: Incidentally, I published this item around 3 PM or 3:30 PM on Friday afternoon. I see that the LA Times site has a 6:40 PM time stamp on its kissy-poo item on Rollins. Alternate universe, perhaps, like the Times polling in the 2003 California recall …
Tomorrow in Tampa, Florida, Giuliani will try to turn the tide with a major address laying out his governing vision for America. What will he say? I don’t know. The terrorism/national security/Iranian threat has been his hole card. But last week’s US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program has neutralized a lot of that message.
** VEGAS DEBATE ON JANUARY 15TH. The Democratic presidential field will debate in Las Vegas on January 15th, four days before the Nevada presidential caucus. MSNBC will cablecast the event. It will air from 6 to 8 PM Pacific time.
** HUCKABEE NAMES ED ROLLINS NATIONAL CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN. Surging evangelical conservative presidential candidate Mike Huckabee this morning named Ed Rollins his national campaign chairman. Huckabee has been succeeding in spite of his having a no-name politlcal crew. For example, in addition to his leads in Iowa and South Carolina, he’s now taken the lead in Florida, an absolute must-win state for erstwhile Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani.
In Rollins, who was Ronald Reagan’s White House political director, he now has an experienced mouthpiece whose name is recognized by even the least experienced reporters. Probably.
Rollins, however, has been somewhat lacking in work of late. He took on a senior advisor role in 2002 for California Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon — now Giuliani’s policy director — which I revealed was far less than it seemed. Essentially, he lent his name and was never all that involved in the campaign itself.
Simon also brought on Reagan legend Lyn Nofziger, with whom I spoke at length, and who revealed that neither he nor Rollins was doing much for Simon aside from lending their names.
More recently, Rollins ostensibly headed the Republican scheme to change California’s Electoral College vote for president from the customary winner-take-all, as in all other major states, to to an allocation by congressional district. A transparent attempt to game the the 2008 presidential election by grabbing another 20 electoral votes or so. The effort has flopped, and as I pointed out earlier, Rollins was not all that much in evidence in it.
Rollins is there to talk to the conventional media. The alternative? Chuck Norris. Who is actually pretty good.
** BALI AND GREENHOUSE POLITICS. The UN climate change summit in Bali hasn’t gone all that well. Most are agreed that hard targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions are needed, but the US and China are notable holdouts. Australia was a die hard, but its greenhouse-denying prime minister recently lost his post, not to mention his very seat in the nation’s parliament.
Governor Arnold Schwarzegger is not on hand in Bali, but several top California officials are, joining the 200 other environment ministers from countries from around the world. California Environmental Protection Secretary Linda Adams addressed the summit, and Air Resources Board chief Mary Nichols and Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman have been on hand, all participating in forums and meeting with international environmental officials.
One result is that the premier of the key Canadian province of Quebec has decided to adopt a law modeled on California’s landmark law cutting tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in new vehicles. The auto industry’s bid to defeat the law failed earlier this week in federal court. Now the US Environmental Protection Administration, which has dragged its heels for years on granting California its always granted waiver on air pollution issues, with the US Supreme Court having earlier rejected the Bush Administration’s contention that greenhouse gases are not pollutants, must act soon.
** U.S.-RUSSIAN NEGOTIATIONS ON MISSILE SHIELD FAIL IN BUDAPEST.Negotiations yesterday in Budapest, capital of Hungary, between the US and Russia on America’s proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe, have failed. The US has insisted that Iran is the target of the shield, not Russia. But with Iran fading in intelligence estimates as a present threat, Russia has been even more aggressive in its opposition to the shield, which it thinks is aimed at Russia.
** LATEST SCHWARZENEGGER SCHEDULE CHANGE. The webcast, discussed below, is now at 12 noon, Pacific time.
** UPDATE: Schwarzenegger, in a very late development, has changed the event, which will be webcast, to 11:30 AM. As a result of the change, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez will not be able to participate.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS AFTERNOON ON HEALTH CARE REFORM. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez will participate in a live webcast today at 1:45 PM from the Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. They will discuss their apparent agreement on universal health care. Nunez has scheduled a state Assembly session to take up legislation at 1 PM next Monday. But Senate leader Don Perata is balking. Lots of, you know, really fascinating (to 47 people) internal political machinations going on here.
Barack Obama’s snappy rejoinder to Hillary Clinton in
yesterday’s Democratic presidential debate.
** MEDIA CATCHES ON TO HILLARY’S LACK OF INEVITABILITY. You may be noticing a raft of articles right about now about the problems with Hillary Clinton’s “inevitable” candidacy and the rise of Barack Obama. In fact, well, I did tell you so.
Which does not make Obama inevitable. Ideally, you want to ambush the “inevitable” frontrunner a bit later than this.
Wild card element: The Christmas and New Year’s season. Who really wants to hear a negative campaign counterattack over Christmastime? I’m referring to normal people, of course.
Which brings us to the sad case of Hillary’s now former national co-chairman, Billy Shaheen, husband of my Hart for President colleague, former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, who attacked Obama for his teenage drug use. I’ll have more on that later today.
** 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.
Hillary Clinton hits Barack Obama for not mandating the purchase
of health insurance by all Americans.
** NOTE: At the end of the week, NWN goes 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.
CALIFORNIA HEALTH CARE REFORM UPDATE: Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Nunez and Don Perata emerged late this afternoon from a meeting with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California Assembly has a vote scheduled on a universal health care bill for 1 PM on Monday. Schwarzenegger and Nunez will tour a hospital and do an event tomorrow in Southern California, discussing the plan.
** PERATA’S MONKEY WRENCH ON HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL, AND WASPISH TAKE ON WATER BOND MEASURE. California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata put out this statement late this afternoon on the universal health care reform talks, principally between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, which have reportedly gotten closer to fruition: I am encouraged by the progress the Governor, the Assembly Speaker and I have made this year developing a plan for extending health care insurance to the many Californians who do not have it.”
While I still strongly favor the concept, I have been shocked by the recent revelation that next year’s budget is facing a $14 billion deficit and what that could mean. It would be imprudent and impolitic to support an expansion of health care coverage without knowing how we’re going to pay for vital health programs the state now provides for poor children, their families and the aged, blind and disabled. The real issue now is the deficit and how this squares with everything else that we are going to do.
Earlier in the day, Perata, who has his own possible water bonds initiative, appeared with some environmentalists to slam another proposed initiative similar to Schwarzenegger’s water plan as the “Pave the River” initiative.
** AN UNEVENTFUL DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE. The Democratic field, minus Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, held their last debate today in Des Moines prior to the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses on January 3rd. Like yesterday’s Republican debate — a mostly dull and poorly conducted debate also moderated by Des Moines Register editor Carolyn Washburn — it was essentially uneventful.
Barack Obama, who leads in most of the recent Iowa polls, turned in an assured, polished performance. He also had the line of the debate. Asked by editor Washburn how he can bring change in foreign policy when some of his top advisors in the field are former Clinton Administration officials — which prompted a loud and sustained laugh from Hillary Clinton, who said: “I want to hear the answer to that!” — Obama allowed as how he has advisors with a number of backgrounds. And then the zinger: “I’ll be happy to have you advising me, too, Hillary.” Which got the big laugh from the audience, though not from the New York senator.
Clinton also did well, though she appeared tired and a little nervous underneath the surface. She had a good, clearly rehearsed line, when she sought to seize the change mantle and differentiate herself from Obama and John Edwards without playing into her negative image. While everyone wants change, Hillary said, some “demand change,” that would be Edwards, some “hope for change,” that would be Obama, while she is “working hard for change.”
It’s a variant for a much more complex situation of a classic Bill Clinton trope. That no matter what happens, with all the criticism, he’s really working hard for what you need.
Unfortunately, it’s a persona that Edwards is better at projecting. He was interesting to watch.
Edwards’ ensemble, in contrast to most occasions I recall, was subtly off in every respect. His jacket, tie, and shirt were all subtly out of synch with one another. I think he was going for a down home, Midwesterner effect. He seemed tired; in one of his early extended riffs he was blinking so rapidly as to be distracting, and unaccustomedly blew his punch line such that he shrugged his shoulders and Chris Dodd sympathetically quipped: “And whatever.”
But Edwards got stronger as the debate went on and had a very good line when he rejected the premise of the moderator’s question about bringing change to Washington. The moderator had said that by alienating big oil companies, pharmaceuticals, and so forth that he was hurting his ability to work with people who get things done. Edwards’ reply was that such companies actually have no intention of giving up their power.
Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd all had their moments, as well. But Iowa is really a two-person, possibly three-person race. With Obama turning in a solid performance and having the best off-the-cuff line, the debate ended with a slight but real advantage to the Illinois senator.
** CLINTON NATIONAL CO-CHAIR RESIGNS IN WAKE OF COCAINE ATTACK ON OBAMA. Billy Shaheen, a New Hampshire political fixture who served as both state co-chair and a national co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, resigned today in the wake of his drive-by on Barack Obama yesterday with regard to his teenage drug use. Shaheen is the husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and a constant companion of Clinton’s when she campaigns in the Granite State.
The former first lady apologized to Obama at the airport today on the way to the Iowa debate from Washington.
** DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE SHOWDOWN TODAY. Each of the three top Democratic candidates has a big challenge in today’s debate, the last in Iowa before the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses on the insane date of January 3rd. Hillary Clinton, the “inevitable” frontrunner now in trouble in each of the early contests, has the biggest challenge.
The Democratic field meets today at 11 AM Pacific time, in a 90-minute event in a very chilly Des Moines viewable on the major cable nets.
The former first lady-turned-New York senator has to demonstrate that she is the most experienced candidate, the one best able to deliver real change, and take down the likable Barack Obama without appearing to be what polls show many Americans believe she is, i.e., an unpleasant person. That’s all.
Her campaign is in trouble. Her subtext of inevitability, never real, is belatedly being jettisoned by even the most credulous reporters. Her theme of having the experience to make change work is under serious question. Her attacks on rival Obama aren’t very effective.
She tried for a long time to discredit Obama as a naif for wanting to talk with Iran. But the US National Intelligence Estimate, discounting years of saber rattling rhetoric in its assessment of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, makes Obama look prescient and Hillary behind the curve. A series of scatter shot attacks on other fronts haven’t worked.
Then she decided to roll out a new advertising theme. Chart a new beginning with a theme of “New Beginnings.” In this ad, full of sunny vistas filled with appropriate Americans, all of it scored with cinematically uplifting music, Clinton calls for new beginnings on health care, education, and Iraq, running past themes and slogans through a media blender. It’s hard to see this doing much for her, although it may make her supporters feel better about the campaign.
Bill Clinton, according to several sources upset and frustrated about the situation — since he can’t step on stage and right it by himself, being term limited — went to Iowa this week yet again to boost her numbers, but was largely sidelined by the great ice storm.
With Hillary in big trouble now in all the early primary and caucus states, her chief strategist, Mark Penn, has issued another of his famous memos about how well she is doing. Penn is the principal author of the inevitable Hillary theme, which I’ve always pointed out ain’t necessarily so. Meanwhile, poll after poll shows the peril for Clinton’s candidacy.
The latest poll for CNN/WMUR-TV has Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama now essentially tied for first in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary. The numbers are Clinton 31%, Obama 30%, John Edwards 16%, and Bill Richardson 7%. A couple of months ago, Clinton led Obama by about 20 points. New Hampshire has always been Hillary’s firewall against a possible loss in Iowa, the place where she would convincingly re-establish in inevitability. Some firewall. I know from experience what an insurgent’s strong showing in Iowa can do to an inevitable frontrunner in New Hampshire.
So here’s the latest move. A veteran political operative who is Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire co-chairman, Billy Shaheen, hit Obama yesterday on his youthful drug use. His excuse is that Republicans would use it against the Illinois senator, who is close to upsetting Hillary’s apple cart in the early states, and thus he would be less electable than he otherwise seems to be. Shaheen is the husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, one of Clinton’s national co-chairs. Obama’s drug use as a teenager is known because he wrote about it in his best-selling autobiography, presenting his own experience as an example of what young people should avoid.
It all makes for an inauspicious frame for an important debate performance.
Barack Obama has improved as a debater since his subpar Las
Vegas performance last spring, seen in this NWN video. But is
he good enough now to hold his new lead in Iowa?
The cancellation of Monday’s Los Angeles debate was very good news for Barack Obama. It allowed his splashy tour of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina with Oprah Winfrey, and his surge in early state polls that was already underway, to dominate. Had he had to debate in LA on Monday, the Oprah tour might have been scheduled another time. Had he had to debate in LA, he might not have done so well.
Obama is an extremely talented politician. And a very smart guy who was, after all, head of the Harvard Law Review. But for all his rhetorical gifts, he hasn’t shone yet in a debate. He started off well last month in Las Vegas, but moderator Wolf Blitzer pulled the plug on that debate’s rollicking start just 15 minutes in. The rest of the way, Obama was fairly listless.
My suspicion is that Obama, who likes to find commonalities, isn’t comfortable debating what in the big picture are the fine points of policy differences with people he mostly agrees with. At least, that had better be the case for Democrats if he goes on to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
He doesn’t need to win this debate, as he has the momentum. He does, however, need a consistently good performance for the entire debate.
Obama needs to sound like a plausible president, be change-oriented enough so as not to allow John Edwards an opening, have a high energy level throughout, which has frequently not been the case, and smoothly counter whatever Clinton throws at him.
John Edwards continues to offer an alternative to the
two Democratic frontrunners.
John Edwards has the fundamental problem of the third wheel. He’s still a major factor in the campaign, but aside from Iowa, he isn’t really very competitive anywhere else. He has actually been the best debater in most of these events. And for all that, he continues to run a mostly distant third. His misfortune is that he is running in the same cycle as two superstars. If this were 2004 all over again, he’d be the clear frontrunner.
Edwards needs to make a big impression today. He needs to discredit Clinton’s claim of experience and commitment to change and he needs to show that he, not Obama, is the best candidate to take on whichever Republican emerges from that party’s big scrum. Failing that, he has to hope that Clinton and Obama slip up and savage one another, either today or in the next few weeks. And that his strong Iowa organization delivers for him on what could be an unpredictable day, given the oddity of having these caucuses right after the New Year.
** CALIFORNIA POLL: SCHWARZENEGGER JOB APPROVAL RATING HIGH, WORRIES ABOUT ECONOMY AND WIDESPREAD DISAPPROVAL OF BUSH AND IRAQ WAR, MOSTLY MEANINGLESS PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY NUMBERS.Public Policy Institute of California chief Mark Baldassare has put out the latest PPIC poll. It was taken in late November and early December, making the numbers meaningless for the presidential primary, which show the customary frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani leading.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a 63% job approval rating among California voters, who nonetheless by a narrow majority think the state is going in the wrong direction. This is because of anxiety about the slowing economy, notably the housing slump, subprime mortgage crisis, and high oil prices.
Support for the term limits revision initiative is below 50%, as is the case with the Republican scheme to change the Electoral College vote for president to get 20 more for their candidate. Which has once again collapsed anyway.
President Bush has a horrible 29% job approval rating, a strong majority thinks the Iraq War wasn’t worth it, and I’ve typed this stuff quite a few times before, haven’t I?
** SCHWARZENEGGER PRIVATE CAPITOL MEETINGS TODAY, ASSEMBLY DEMOCRATS TO CAUCUS ON HEALTH CARE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will again engage in a series of private meetings and conversations today in California’s Capitol on the state’s chronic budget crisis and unresolved water policy and health care reform matters. He and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have been negotiating right along on health care, and again are said to be close to a deal. Not that we haven’t heard that, oh, once or twice before. But this time the state Assembly Democrats are gathering to discuss the issue. And hope, as they say, springs eternal.
Uranium must be enriched to fuel a nuclear reactor in order to generate electricity, which is what Iran says is the purpose of its nuclear program. Iran is a major oil producer, but its oil costs more to produce than other oil powers and too much of it goes to domestic consumption. In order to produce weapons grade materials, a higher level of uranium enrichment is required.
Meanwhile, Russian and American officials have been meeting today in Budapest in an effort to settle the controversy over the proposed US missile shield in Eastern Europe. Russians see it as aimed at them, even as the US through NATO continues to encroach on its “near abroad,” the peripheral states which made up part of the old Soviet Union. The US has said that the shield is aimed at Iran. But with Iran now officially downgraded as a threat, Russia is less thrilled than ever by the plan.
** 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.
Rudy Giuliani, campaigning here at Mel’s diner in San Francisco
on Monday, needs a strong third in Iowa to help his campaign
get to promising big states later in the Republican presidential race.
** DEMOCRACY: PAKISTAN STYLE. President Pervez Musharraf is ending his state of emergency rule of martial law on December 15th, just in time for a three-and-a-half weeks of democratic campaigning in advance of the national parliamentary elections on January 8th.
** DAVIS HAPPY ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE COURT VICTORY. Former Governor Gray Davis is happy about today’s federal court decision rejecting the lawsuit against California’s landmark law to cut tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases by new vehicles.
Davis told me that he’s very “pleased to see the automakers that have been blocking the implementation of the law I signed in 2002 allowing California to regulate carbon emissions from vehicles lost today in Federal Court.”
Davis signed the bill, by then LA Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, in August 2002 at a spectacular ceremony in San Francisco’s Presidio overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge with Robert Redford and other notables in attendance. The fog literally parted shortly before the event began. The auto industry had threatened a referendum to invalidate the measure during Davis’s re-election campaign, but he went ahead and signed the bill anyway.
** RISING OIL, AGAIN. Oil prices shot up to $94 a barrel today, with OPEC having backed away from production hikes last week.
** AN UNEVENTFUL REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE. To be blunt about it, not much happened in today’s Republican presidential debate in Iowa. The moderator, who is the editor of the Des Moines Register, effectively took the hot button illegal immigration issue off the table. Iran, once a big issue for the Republican candidates, barely came up in the wake of last week’s US National Intelligence Estimate downplaying a nuclear weapons program.
I thought Mitt Romney was the best performer on the stage. Mike Huckabee seemed sincere. Fred Thompson was livelier than usual. Rudy Giuliani was competent. John McCain, who is playing for New Hampshire, took a few shots at ethanol subsidies, an Iowa shibboleth that plays badly with New Englanders. Alan Keyes, who is not a serious candidate, was inexplicably on the stage wasting valuable time.
The upshot is that no one laid a glove on Mike Huckabee, who has the clear lead in Iowa, he was effective and likable, so he won.
Shaheen is the husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, one of Clinton’s national co-chairs. Obama’s drug use as a teenager is known because he wrote about it in his best-selling autobiography, presenting his own experience as an example of what young people should avoid.
** NATIONAL TRACKING POLL.The nightly national tracking poll by Rasmussen Reports — a robopoll, which I don’t especially like, but which does indicate directions in opinion — has Mike Huckabee atop the Republican presidential pack and Hillary Clinton’s national lead over Barack Obama in single digits.
Huckabee leads Rudy Giuliani, 23% to 19%, while on the Democratic side, Clinton leads Obama, 36% to 28%.
** BROWN ON CLIMATE CHANGE COURT VICTORY. The auto industry challenge to California’s landmark motor vehicle emissions standards failed today in a federal court in Fresno. Judge Anthony Ishi dismissed the carmakers’s case, handing a victory to former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown and his legal team. The emissions standard, established by AB 1493 in 2002, requires a 30 percent reduction in tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions by 2016, starting with model year 2009.
“This is the fourth major legal victory for California and a stinging rejection of the automobile industry’s legal challenge to greenhouse gas emissions standards,” said Brown. “This court ruling leaves the Bush administration as the last remaining roadblock to California’s regulation of tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions.”
The court decided that both the US Environmental Protection Agency and California are equally empowered under the Clean Air Act to set regulations limiting tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions. It also ruled that the state’s regulations don’t conflict with federal authority.
** BIG REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TODAY. With Mike Huckabee soaring in the polls, former Iowa leader Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican field get a big chance to take the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher down a few notches in today’s Des Moines Register debate, the last before the Iowa presidential caucuses on January 3rd.
The Democratic presidential candidates hold their last Iowa debate before the caucuses tomorrow.
At 11 AM Pacific time, the Republican field goes at it for 90 minutes in this event sponsored by the Register, the Hawkeye State’s leading newspaper, and Iowa Public Television. For those who don’t get Iowa Public TV, you can watch the showdown on Fox News.
Much of Iowa has been in deep freeze with an ice storm cutting off power to nearly 100,000 people and causing some campaigners — like former President Bill Clinton — to suspend their schedules yesterday. But the heat should definitely be on in today’s debate.
Fueled by the evangelical Christian vote, Huckabee, who accepted the endorsement yesterday of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the anti-illegal immigrant Minutemen group — the crew that organized vigilantes along the Mexican border — has jumped to a double-digit lead in Iowa over the free-spending campaign of Mitt Romney and is surging around the country. Now Romney, and much of the conservative punditocracy, is taking dead aim at Huckabee for his various apostasies from their doctrine. While a clearcut social conservative, Huckabee has been a little bit more moderate on some economic and environmental policies.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whose big lead in neighboring New Hampshire has slipped, has always seen a victory in Iowa as the key to his strategic sequence. Romney, who started negative TV ads on Monday, has to bring Huckabee back to earth, and fast. His speech last week on religion — prompted by Huckabee’s rise and by concerns about Romney’s controversial Mormon faith — didn’t help him that much, despite many huzzahs from right-wing pundits in the press and blogosphere.
Meanwhile, the rest of the field hopes that the Huckabee-Romney dust-up will begin to “redistribute,” as one top Republican strategist puts it, support from the two in the center of the ring to other candidates.
Fred Thompson hopes to capitalize on other candidates’ difficulties
on the illegal immigration issue to break through in Iowa.
Fred Thompson, who tantalized the country for months with his almost candidacy, only to fizzle after entering the race via The Tonight Show, starts a huge Iowa push today that will see him spending virtually every day there from next week on through the caucus. Illegal immigration has emerged as a core issue in the race, and Huckabee (who supported scholarships for illegal immigrant children as Arkansas governor), Romney (who had illegal immigrants working in his home), Giuliani (who supported programs for illegals as New York’s mayor), and John McCain (who co-authored an “amnesty” bill with, gulp, Teddy Kennedy) all have problems in the area.
He’s fighting it out for third in Iowa with Rudy Giuliani, the 9/11 hero and longtime national frontrunner whose lead has been matched by the surging Huckabee.
Thompson needs a strong showing in Iowa to get back into the race. Giuliani needs a strong showing in Iowa to give him a boost going into New Hampshire, so that he has a strong enough showing there to survive till he gets to bigger states where he has a much better chance to win.
As for McCain, the wily Vietnam War hero — who was the frontrunner in this race when it started — is slowly moving up again in New Hampshire. There are few expectations for him in Iowa. If he manages to beat Giuliani there, so much the better for him five days later in New Hampshire.
The numbers are Clinton 31%, Obama 30%, John Edwards 16%, and Bill Richardson 7%. A couple of months ago, Clinton led Obama by about 20 points.
** SCHWARZENEGGER IN PRIVATE CAPITOL MEETINGS TODAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will again be closeted in private meetings today on the state’s chronic budget problems and deadlocked negotiations on water policy and comprehensive health care reform.
The administration is saying that California’s budget deficit for the current and next fiscal year — estimated recently by the Legislative Analyst’s Office at $10 billion — is now $14 billion.
Since legislative hyperpartisans of the left and, especially, right have declined to provide solutions, what Schwarzenegger should do, as NWN has suggested a few times before, is prepare a “disaster budget” showing what programs have to be cut absent compromise on spending and revenues.
** 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.
So sayeth the editors: Our guiding principle has always been to select the most conservative viable candidate. In our judgment, that candidate is Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Unlike some other candidates in the race, Romney is a full-spectrum conservative: a supporter of free-market economics and limited government, moral causes such as the right to life and the preservation of marriage, and a foreign policy based on the national interest. While he has not talked much about the importance of resisting ethnic balkanization — none of the major candidates has — he supports enforcing the immigration laws and opposes amnesty. Those are important steps in the right direction.
Uniting the conservative coalition is not enough to win a presidential election, but it is a prerequisite for building on that coalition. Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country.
** ANOTHER CLINTON CAMPAIGN STRATEGY MEMO ON HOW VERY WELL HILLARY IS REALLY DOING. With Hillary Clinton in big trouble now in all the early primary and caucus states, her chief strategist, Mark Penn, has issued another of his famous memos about how well she is doing. Penn is the principal author of the inevitable Hillary theme, which I’ve always pointed out ain’t necessarily so.
In today’s message, he says: The ABC/Washington Post poll shows that there has been a big rise in concern about the economy (44% now say it is one of the two most important issues, up from 29% last month) and healthcare (27% say it is one of the two most important issues, up from 22% last month). Concern about the war is down from 45% to 37%, but the Iraq war remains the number two issue, and Hillary Clinton has a plan to end the war quickly and responsibly, and is the candidate voters trust most on Iraq (51%, compared with 26% or less for Obama and Edwards).
But the voters are also showing their concern about healthcare and the economy and these are issues where Hillary particularly shines with the voters. In the ABC/Washington Post poll, 60% said they trust Hillary Clinton most on healthcare, compared with 16% or less for Edwards and Obama, and 58% said they trust Hillary most on the economy, compared with 18% or less for Edwards and Obama. As voters focus on the growing importance of these issues, it in fact works to Hillary’s advantage because those are issues where they see her as a very strong and experienced leader.
** TOM HAYDEN IS 68 TODAY. The famed anti-Vietnam War leader who served nearly 20 years in the California Legislature and was a longtime left-liberal power broker turned 68 today. NWN recalls his 40th birthday. It was a dark and stormy night on the West Side of Los Angeles. The party was at famed Oz warbler Helen Reddy and producer Jeff Wald’s house. (Wald once offered Hayden his Rolls Royce, which Hayden, as one might suspect, turned down.) Wald had hired dwarves to portray Irish leprechauns, befitting Hayden’s determinedly Irish background. The guest list included Jerry Brown, Cesar Chavez, Gray Davis, Steven Spielberg, and the Eagles. The rest of the story is held for … future development.
So if anyone of you wonders why I’m talking about Huckabee and Romney most of the time …
** WESTLY, BACK FROM KEYNOTING BARCELONA TECH CONFERENCE, TALKS TO “GENERATION OBAMA” CONCERTGOERS. Former state Controller Steve Westly, the ex-eBay honcho now a greentech venture capitalist, talked to some 5000 attendees at yesterday’s “Generation Obama” concert with much of young Hollywood in LA. Westly, the California co-chairman of the Obama campaign who ran a near-miss campaign for last year’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination, is part of Barack Obama’s national finance and strategy groups.
He was not long back from a big Barcelona conference on climate change and greentech investing, where he delivered a keynote speech on new energy alternatives and brought a few of his Silicon Valley venture capital colleagues for a forum on developing a risk capital culture in Spain. Westly sounds equally excited about the prospects for his candidate for president and for new energy alternatives, where he is personally especially involved in new vehicles, solar power, and cellulosic ethanol.
** BROWN CONFISCATES GUNS FROM FELONS. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown joined with LA Police Chief William Bratton yesterday to announce the seizure of 541 handguns, rifles and assault weapons during a statewide crackdown on 1,000 dangerous individuals barred from firearms possession because of violent felony convictions.
“During this statewide crackdown, Department of Justice agents investigated 1,000 of the most dangerous cases in the state’s firearms database,” Brown said. “The Department of Justice joined with local law enforcement to disarm hundreds of individuals—felons, domestic violence perpetrators, and people committed to mental health facilities—that should have relinquished their weapons.”
Department of Justice agents used a state database, known as the Armed and Prohibited Persons System, to identify persons who lawfully acquired firearms in the past but became barred from possession due to a subsequent felony conviction. The database, which currently has 9,000 cases, could eventually expand to include 60,000 individuals as new offender records are added to the system.
Brown had previously explained that he wants to take guns out of the hands of people with criminal backgrounds. This is part of what Brown talked about in his campaign last year, a strike force approach utilizing the resources of the attorney general’s office to go after a variety of activities.
** HILLARY REGROUPS WITH “NEW BEGINNING” TV AD. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in trouble. Her subtext of inevitability, never real, is belatedly being jettisoned by even the most credulous reporters. Her theme of having the experience to make change work is under serious question. Her attacks on her rising rival Barack Obama aren’t very effective.
What to do? Roll out a new advertising theme. Chart a new beginning with a theme of “New Beginnings.”
In this ad, full of sunny vistas filled with appropriate Americans, all of it scored with cinematically uplifting music, Clinton calls for new beginnings on health care, education, and Iraq, running past themes and slogans through a media blender. It’s hard to see this ad doing much for her, although it may make her supporters feel better about the campaign.
One response to the situation that may be more effective is this. Former President Bill Clinton is back in Iowa again, on a two-day tour to try to boost her numbers there again.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton herself is in California again today. Yesterday she raised money in private Southern California events. Today she is in Northern California, where she will hold a “Conversation with Warren Buffett” at the San Francisco Hilton. This event, featuring the world renowned investor, sounds more like a general election event to me.
Last night, her California campaign, which has done an impressive job of organizing, held 300 house parties. But all that spade work will be for naught if Hillary can’t figure out how to effectively contest the messaging, thematics, and atmospherics of Barack Obama.
It’s Obama 28%, Clinton 22%, John Edwards 16%, and Joe Biden 10%. The poll was conducted over the weekend, during the run-up to and day of the huge Obama rally in Columbia, South Carolina with Oprah Winfrey.
** RUSSIA’S NEXT PRIME MINISTER? VLADIMIR PUTIN. Yesterday, as reported on NWN, President Vladimir Putin anointed his former chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev, as United Russia’s candidate in next March’s presidential election. Putin is term limited by Russia’s constitution, though the party he heads won a super-majority in the parliament this month such that they could change it.
Mitt Romney’s brand new attack ad against Mike Huckabee.
** ROMNEY GOES NEGATIVE. As forecast on NWN, ah, a day ago, Mitt Romney has gone negative on Mike Huckabee. Here’s the brand new attack ad.
It tries to position the two men as equivalent in their family values and social conservatism, without mentioning Romney’s fairly recent social liberalism, then goes after Huckabee for being soft on “illegal aliens.” Specifically, it scores Huckabee for, as governor of Arkansas, supporting in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrant children and for backing state college scholarships for illegal immigrants.
It may chip away some at Huckabee. But it suggests obvious rejoinders, especially to the premise that they are otherwise equivalent candidates for social conservatives.
Mike Huckabee’s new border security ad.
** HUCKABEE ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Perhaps anticipating Mitt Romney going up with attacks ads against him, as he has just done, Mike Huckabee is running this ad in Iowa and elsewhere on illegal immigration. In it, he pledges a strong effort to secure America’s borders, including the building of the controversial border fence between the US and Mexico.
** 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.
Meet the next president of Russia, 42-year old Dmitry Medvedev. By a strange coincidence, former chief of staff to Vladimir Putin, who anointed him today.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has 40% to Barack Obama’s 30%. John Edwards is a distant third at 14%.
These are big gains in CNN’s soundings for Huckabee and Obama. Huckabee picked up 12 points in the past month, while Thompson dropped 9 points. Huck’s got some teflon.
Incidentally, I’m hearing that former President Bill Clinton, frustrated with his wife’s campaign, which is now threatened by Obama in all four of the earliest states, is pushing for some changes.
** GIULIANI IN SAN FRANCISCO. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who may or may not be the Republican presidential frontrunner, is in California for fundraising today and tomorrow and did a public event at an eatery that is a San Francisco institution, Mel’s Diner on Van Ness Avenue’s old auto row. He ducked into the diner, once a drive-in — long before I had a birthday dinner there — quipping that he’s from a city just like the City by the Bay. Well, not exactly.
Giuliani committed a bit of news, calling for a corporate tax cut. Calling for corporate tax cuts in San Francisco? Counter-intuitive, to be sure, until you consider that in the huge California presidential primary, which Giuliani must dominate if he is to win the nomination, each congressional district has an equivalent number of delegates. And even though there aren’t many Republicans in the Bay Area, their votes are actually more important on a per capita basis than those in the Republican stronghold of Orange County. So Giuliani appeals with his social liberalism, environmental moderation, tough on terror stance, and enough fiscal conservatism.
“Right now, I think the most important thing we could do to reinforce the dollar, to build our economy, to take care of some of the problems that people see creeping into the economy, I think it would be a really bold move if the President would reduce the corporate tax from the present 35%, which is the second highest in the world, reduce it down to 25%.”
Giuliani noted that some Congressional Democrats are calling for a corporate tax cut, too, to 30%. Meanwhile, the Time Magazine Man of the Year for his role in the aftermath of 9/11 has a big debate coming up this week in Des Moines. And polls showing slippage in a number areas around the country, including a new national poll by CBS News showing him essentially tied now with the surging Mike Huckabee.
** X MARKS THE SPOT. A new X-Files movie started shooting today in Vancouver. I don’t know the plot. Yet.
** ARNOLD’S VAGUE EXPENSES. This is one of the few un-recycled stories in California politics of late, this morning’s LA Times report that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t been reporting the specifics of what the vast sums raised by his California Protocol Foundation go toward. This is the tax-exempt group formed to finance his residence in Sacramento — a suite at the fabulous Hyatt Regency at Capitol Park — and his travel. The hotel suite for a year has been widely reported at $60,000-plus. The travel, however, is much more. And it seems Schwarzenegger hasn’t been revealing those related expenditures. Which, since they amount to private jet travel, topline hotels, and various ancillaries amount to very big money.
What’s surprising is we haven’t heard about this before, as it’s been going on since the former action superstar’s election in 2003. With scores of reporters whose sole beat is the state Capitol, not to mention angry opposition campaigns in 2005 and 2006, it seems a natural.
I thought he had been reporting the specifics. I remember when Schwarzenegger was thinking of running, and he asked how Gray Davis got back and forth from LA to Sacramento. I explained that the governor flew on Southwest Airlines out of Burbank Airport. It was a funny moment … Schwarzenegger, late arriving at the airport, relegated to boarding group C, stuck in a middle seat.
Joking aside, this is a big slip-up.
** RUSSIA: MEET THE NEW BOSS. A week earlier than scheduled, United Russia named its candidate for president in next March’s election. It’s current Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who prior to his deputyship served for six years as deputy chief of staff and chief of staff to President Vladimir Putin. He is, naturally, Putin’s pick, after a round of Kremlin negotiation, though the announcement was stage managed today with several parties joining in the annnouncement. Including, as touted, the opposition Agrarian Party. Which is so powerful a force it won no seats in parliament eight days ago.
Medvedev, a nice-looking, pleasant fellow won out in a competition for Putin’s favor over several other candidates. For a long time, fellow Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov was seen as a likely pick. But Ivanov is an old KGB hand, a contemporary of the 55-year old Putin, a general in the foreign intelligence service and defense minister from 2001 to 2007 while Russia made hardline military moves.
Medveved, in contrast, is a lawyer, with no intel or military background. He speaks fluent English and comes out of the crew of market reformers around Putin in his St. Petersburg days in the ’90s. Medvedev gave a well-received speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos early this year.
He’s a good new public face for Russia at a time in which it may have to present a softer-seeming line in geopolitics. While the US and Iran were seemingly heading to war — which NWN didn’t buy — Russia could play both countries against one another. But if the US and Iran are heading toward an uneasy rapprochement, for the purpose of settling the security and political situation in Iraq, Russia needs more flexibility from a PR standpoint. Having an intel/military/power type, a siloviki, in the presidential slot would make that more difficult.
The Russian stock market today hit all-time highs after the naming of Medvedev. Led by natural gas giant Gazprom. Of which Medvedev is, yes, the chairman!
And yes, the headline is a reference to a famous Who song.
Okay then. It’s merely one of the seminal events in modern political history, as well as a classic case study in high-stakes crisis management.
As we’ve discussed a few times here on NWN, with period video, it was only one of the most important events of the Cold War. The Soviet Union secretly moved nuclear weapons into Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of the US. President John F. Kennedy learned of it, instituted a naval blockade of Cuba, and both nations moved to the brink of nuclear war before the Soviets agreed to withdraw the weapons.
** SCHWARZENEGGER CLOSETED IN PRIVATE CAPITOL MEETINGS TODAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is holding private discussions today in California’s Capitol. He’s looking at the budget situation, in fresh trouble from the housing market slump and economic slowdown, as well as the ongoing impasses on water policy and health care reform.
** 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.
Oprah Winfrey campaigned with Barack Obama before very big
crowds in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina over the weekend.
The week ahead in presidential politics will see Mike Huckabee try to sustain his surge against Republican rivals and the media, Hillary Clinton try to arrest her precipitous slide in the early states, Barack Obama try to capitalize on his spectacular tour with Oprah Winfrey, Fred Thompson try to get back in the race in Iowa, and another Republican debate, this time in Des Moines.
In California, Hillary Clinton does private fundraising in LA today and has a “Conversation with Warren Buffett” tomorrow in San Francisco, while Barack Obama has several fundraising events, including a big public bash today in LA called the “Generation Obama” concert mobilizing much of young Hollywood including the Goo-Goo Dolls, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, and Taye Diggs.
Thompson, after tantalizing the political world for much of the year, has mostly fallen out of the top tier in the early state contests. That includes his losing the lead in South Carolina, where he had led, to Huckabee. He’s fighting it out with Rudy Giuliani for a distant third in Iowa, where the fight to win is between Huckabee and longtime leader Romney, who’s now fallen well off the pace. Thompson will spend most of his time between now and January 3rd in Iowa, hoping to to finish a strong third there to retain relevance going into the other states, and perhaps get some juice for a decent showing in New Hampshire, where he could finish sixth, behind Ron Paul.
Mike Huckabee strikes a compassionate conservative stance in
this brand new TV spot.
The man of the hour for Republicans, of course, is Huckabee. He has big leads in Iowa in two new polls, including an astonishing 22-point edge over Romney in a Newsweek poll. He’s surged into the lead in South Carolina and other Southern states, is now essentially tied with Romney for second in Nevada, behind Giuliani, and is moving up in New Hampshire.
Romney still leads in New Hampshire, but his margin over John McCain and Giuliani — who hopes to hang on through what look to be unpromising results in the early contests to get to bigger states at the end of January and early February — is diminished. We may find out this week, incidentally, who was behind those controversial Mormon-baiting, anti-Romney phone calls that the former Massachusetts governor’s team decried as evidence of foul play.
More on the Republicans in a moment. Now to the Democrats.
As I’ve been saying from the beginning, Hillary Clinton is not inevitable. Clinton’s leads in the four earliest states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina — are all now evaporating or gone.I’ve previously reported on Barack Obama’s growing Iowa lead in most of the new polls, his pulling to within single digits of Hillary in New Hampshire, and erasing her lead in South Carolina to a statistical dead heat.
Now there’s a set of Mason-Dixon polls for MSNBC confirming the trend in all those states, and extending it now to Nevada. Clinton has long held a big lead in Nevada, but in this new poll, it’s down to 34% to 26%. As I’ve pointed out all along from experience, the Silver State is a place where things can turn on a dime.
The polls do have Hillary on top by a hair in Iowa, by only three points in New Hampshire, the closest ever, and a couple of points in South Carolina. In South Carolina yesterday, Obama’s rally with Oprah Winfrey drew over 30,000 people. In Des Moines on Saturday, they drew 19,000.
New Hampshire was always Hillary’s firewall against a possible loss in Iowa. But that margin for error is now approaching the vanishing point.
Clinton’s attacks on Obama aren’t gaining traction, at least now, and she looks out of synch. She put up a snazzy new ad by the former commander of NATO, victor in the Kosovo War. It says great things about her, including that she will avert a war with Iran.
Which begins to get at the problem. The new US National Intelligence Estimate makes it clear there will be no war with Iran in the foreseeable future. In fact, Iran’s cooperation will be important in devising a settlement of the security and political situation in Iraq, without which the time-limited military surge Hillary supported and then opposed — alternately outraging, then assuaging, the peacenik left — will have been for naught. But because of the threat of Iran, she voted to declare its military a terrorist organization.
Her message and positioning are out of synch. And even before this became evident, she had big problems. She’d already lost her lead in Iowa to the most heavily-funded insurgent candidate in modern American history. Her attacks on him worked at first with the press, but now aren’t working at all. Indeed, they are making her something of a figure of fun, with her overly diligent staff digging up his childhood musings about the presidency, musings shared by millions of American tykes.
Now her lead in national polls, never all that relevant, is sliding. More worrisome, her lead in New Hampshire, her firewall state, is now approaching the vanishing point. That’s before anything finally bad happens in Iowa. And her big lead in South Carolina had evaporated, even before Obama’s campaigning in that state with the most admired celebrity on the planet, someone with special appeal to women and blacks, two key cores of her electoral support.
Back on the Republican side, while Giuliani will continue to contend with questions about his undisclosed consulting clients, his close associates, and charges that he misused city resources as New York’s mayor, all of which have taken a serious toll, Mitt Romney will deal with his declining appeal to Christian social conservatives and then, probably prepare attacks on Huckabee.
Did Mitt Romney deal with his “Mormon problem” in his ballyhooed speech on “Faith In America” late last week? Not really. He barely mentioned his own controversial religion, the proximate cause of his speech. Well, actually, the cause of his speech is Huckabee’s surge past Romney into the lead in Iowa. Romney has always counted on Iowa dominance to launch his campaign into the stratosphere, and has spent megabucks there to insure it, only to see Huckabee and his relative ragtag band storm past on account of his consistent social conservatism and personable preacher manner. With a lot of help from Chuck Norris.
“There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith.”
No one is asking Romney to be the spokesman for his faith. That’s not his problem. His problem is that many, especially in the party whose leadership he seeks, consider Mormonism to be a bogus religion. In fact, the prominence of the speech actually informed a great many people who were not otherwise aware of the candidate’s Mormonism, and led the Iowa press to point out the more colorful aspects of a colorful religion. …
Charlie Wilson’s War is the strangely true story of the reprobate Texas
Democrat congressman who helped bring down the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
** MELTING, SURGING. Hillary Clinton’s leads in the four earliest states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina — are all now evaporating. I’ve previously reported on Barack Obama’s Iowa lead in most of the new polls, his pulling to within six points of Hillary in New Hampshire, and erasing her lead in South Carolina to a statistical dead heat.
The polls do have Hillary on top by a hair in Iowa, by only three points in New Hampshire, the closest ever, and a couple of points in South Carolina.
In South Carolina today, Obama’s rally with Oprah Winfrey drew over 30,000 people. In Des Moines yesterday, they drew 19,000.
On the Republican side, the Mike Huckabee surge continues. And Mitt Romney is seeing his lead in New Hampshire, once seemingly impregnable, as I mentioned it would be the other day, slipping in this new poll.
Much more about all this tomorrow …
** A STRANGE BUT TRUE WAR.Charlie Wilson’s War looks like an interesting movie. It’s certainly based on an interesting, well-reported book, by the late 60 Minutes producer George Crile.
The movie, written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin and directed by Mike Nichols, stars Tom Hanks as the hawkish Texas Democrat congressman who used his key appropriations role in the House to push big funding for the Afghan rebels fighting the invading Soviets in the 1980s. Think of Lloyd Bentsen, as a party animal. Julia Roberts plays Joanne Herring, the glamorous and very rich right-wing Texas socialite who turned Wilson on to the Afghan cause and the merits of her pal General Zia, Pakistan’s dictator. The always good Philip Seymour Hoffman plays CIA officer Gust Avrokotos.
The book, which is a terrific read, doesn’t focus on Ronald Reagan, who of course supported at least the thrust of what Wilson was doing. Without Wilson’s efforts, the anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan would not have gotten the big funding it did from the Democratic Congress.
What’s the result? The fall of the Soviet Union. And the rise of Islamic jihadists. Well, one out of two ain’t bad.
The movie was to open on Christmas Day. Now it’s moved up to December 21st. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll see it soon.
** HUCKABEE AND NEW REPUBLICAN DYNAMICS. Well, well, well. Mike Huckabee has a huge lead in the new Newsweek poll of the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, 39% to 22% over Mitt Romney. The other candidates are way back, at 10% and less.
My sources say that not only is former Arkansas Governor Huckabee surging throughout the South, as previously reported here, and Romney fading, but Romney also has significant problems in New Hampshire, where he’s long led. We may even find out who was behind those notorious Mormon-baiting anti-Romney phone calls.
Despite the rapturous coverage of Romney’s speech on religion among some conservative Washington pundits and right-wing voices in the blogosphere, it doesn’t seem to be working.
Huckabee is surviving, and thriving, despite his Kevin Dumond problem and his ignorance of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Now he has a new revelation to deal with. When he ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 1992, he answered an Associated Press questionnaire in which he replied to queries on AIDS by calling for a quarantine of its victims and suggesting that celebrities like Madonna fund AIDS research rather than the federal government. Whoops! It’ll be interesting to see how he spins that one.
** HILLARY, OBAMA, AND DUELING SUPERSTARS. (OPRAH, OPRAH, OPRAH.) That same Newsweek poll shows Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton among likely participants in the Iowa Democratic caucuses by a margin of 35% to 26%. John Edwards is back at 18%.
This weekend, of course, is the big Oprah-Obama tour of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The dynamic duo are hitting Des Moines and Cedar Rapids today.
Hillary is trying to counter-program by touring Iowa today with daughter Chelsea and mother Dorothy Rodham. And former President Bill is dispatched to South Carolina.
It’s called turning into the wave. The good ship Hillary won’t capsize, but it will be swept backward.
Meanwhile, trying to retain relevance in what is increasingly a two-person race, Edwards’ campaign put out an internal poll showing Obama running third in Iowa. (Right.) And sponsored a media conference call in which the campaign’s African American supporters criticized Oprah for campaigning for Obama but not touring to talk about black poverty.
It’s the great misfortune of Edwards, who is a quality candidate, that he’s running in a year in which two superstars are making a race of it.
** 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.
On December 7, 1941, Japan executed a successful sneak
attack on the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, drawing America into World War II.
** IRAQ, IRAN, AND PAKISTAN CRISES. Tensions have eased, some, on a few fronts lately. War with Iran is off the table in the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate declaring that Iran doesn’t have an active nuclear weapons program. As a result, the US is preparing another round of formal talks, starting next month, with Iran to to help settle the still very unsettled political situation in Iraq — virtually no progress there, actually, with the Iraqi parliament taking the month off rather than pass needed reconciliation legislation — and stabilize the security situation. Things have improved, due to the effective work of the US military, but the surge has always been time-limited. In fact, the first surge brigade is being withdrawn this month, so the clock is ticking.
** BROWN ANNOUNCES GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION AGREEMENT WITH PORT OF LOS ANGELES. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, joined by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, today announced an agreement between the the state and the Port of LA in which the port agrees to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
The port will do a thoroughgoing inventory of port-related greenhouse gases that tracks emissions from their foreign sources to domestic distribution points throughout the United States. This data will be reported annually to the California Climate Action Registry, a program now underway to gather baseline greenhouse gas emission data.
As part of the agreement, the port will also construct a 10 megawatt photovoltaic solar electric power system to offset approximately 17,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. It will also use electricity, rather than conventional fossil fuels, to power ocean-going vessels when in port. Though much of that electricity, when derived from offsite sources, will come from natural gas-fired plants.
On the Republican side, it’s Huckabee 22%, Rudy Giuliani 18%, Romney 13%, John McCain 12%, and Fred Thompson 9%.
On the Democratic side, it’s Hillary Clinton 34%, Barack Obama 25%, and John Edwards 16%. The other candidates are not being polled.
I have trouble with the robopoll concept, but this poll is intriguing because it is done nightly with the same methodology, and thus has relevance for looking at the direction of public opinion.
** CLINTON CAMPAIGN CITES ENDORSEMENTS OF FORMER AMBASSADORS AS EVIDENCE OF GEOPOLITICAL EXPERTISE. Attempting, at this rather late date, to establish her bona fides as an experienced hand at the highest levels of geopolitics, Hillary Clinton today is touting the endorsements of 32 ambassadors who served in her husband’s administration. Many, if not most, had already endorsed her. Here is the statement from the campaign: The Clinton campaign is releasing a letter today signed by 32 former U.S. ambassadors and diplomats who served while Senator Clinton was First Lady that attests to her unique foreign policy experience.
During her tenure as First Lady, Senator Clinton traveled the world as a representative of the United States, meeting with Presidents and Prime Ministers, refugees and victims of war and genocide. In her diplomatic role, she fought for human rights from China to Uganda to Kosovo, and helped pave the way for improved U.S. relations with countries such as India. Having seen her activities first hand, these former diplomats and ambassadors write that Senator Clinton “is the candidate with the strength and experience to restore America’s standing in the world and to return the United States to a position of global leadership.”
** CALIFORNIA ELECTORAL COLLEGE INITIATIVE BACKERS MAKE THE OBVIOUS OFFICIAL.As NWN reported the other day, the backers of the Republican scheme to change California’s Electoral College vote for president from winner-take-all to an allocation by congressional district — a ploy which might hand the presidency to the Republican nominee, have failed to make the June ballot. As you may have noted reported in today’s newspapers.
As I said the other day, not enough money, not enough signatures, not enough time. Now they say they’ll try for the November ballot. Which, of course, is when the presidential election takes place. The legal challenge would be obvious. In addition, their best chance, to the extent they had one, was in the low turnout June primary.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST ON SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference this morning in Oakland to highlight a program that a Bay Area foundation and community-based organizations are launching to help homeowners avoid foreclosures. The event will be webcast live at 10:30 AM.
Mike Huckabee and action movie star Chuck Norris discuss their religious faith. Huckabee sums up: “You do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Huckabee’s surging campaign is beset by questions about his policy preparation and the disastrous parole of a rapist.
** HUCKABEE STRUGGLES. While Mitt Romney struggles in discussing his faith — which is to say, he doesn’t discuss it, while painting a picture of an America in which “religion is freedom” — the surging Mike Huckabee is much more comfortable discussing his own faith. As you see in the video above with fellow Christian Chuck Norris.
What Huckabee is having trouble with is his role in the release of a convicted rapist who went on to rape and murder another woman. Wayne Dumond has been convicted of raping a cheerleader who was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. In the bitter culture wars of the ’90s, many conservatives claimed the rapist, Wayne Dumond, had been railroaded. The criminal subsequently died in prison. And in assuring voters that he is adequately prepared for the big questions of the presidency. Huckabee didn’t know about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, or lack of same, which is merely the biggest national security story in quite awhile.
He can probably spin out of trouble on the disastrous parole controversy. (Although letters to Huckabee obtained by the liberal Huffington Post from other women who said that Wayne Dumond had raped them present a major complication, at the very least.) But his campaign, which has been the political equivalent of a pick-up basketball game, has to ramp up its game now that he is suddenly a frontrunner.
Mitt Romney delivers his “Faith In America” address at the
George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.
** ROMNEY STRUGGLES. Mitt Romney gave an impressive speech yesterday on religious faith in America. Yet, while he’s getting kudos from a built-in cheering section of conservative commentators who fear the populist Mike Huckabee and eschew the socially liberal Rudy Giuliani, he didn’t address the fundamental question. Is his religion, Mormonism, too far outside the mainstream for not only evangelical Christians, but independents and other mainstream voters he would have to appeal to in order to win a general election?
In the Mormon faith, Jesus is the brother of Lucifer. (Who is also known as Satan.) The American Indians (or Native Americans, if you will, though the tribes themselves increasingly call themselves “Indians”) are descended from the Israelites. The great star Kolob is next to the home of God somewhere in the far distant reaches of the universe yet governs the astronomical turnings of all stars and planets. Many momentous things occurred in ancient cities that no one outside the religion believes existed. Much of this was revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith in the 1840s, in upstate New York, while he examined hieroglyphs associated with a traveling mummy exhibition. Much of it was revealed in even more spectacular fashion.
** 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.
Former NATO Commander, retired General Wes Clark, says
Hillary Clinton is the right choice for dangerous times, “to end
the war in Iraq and avert war with Iran,” in a brand new ad.
** HILLARY’S QUANDARY. You are Hillary Clinton. You are the very smart, experienced, tough, and sometimes even charming senator from New York, former first lady of the United States, and longtime frontrunner for the presidency. You are married to the most popular politician in America, a former two-term president, who makes your life miserable at times but your career at the heights of national politics possible, and is a strong asset and advisor to you.
You even have a snazzy new ad by the former commander of NATO, victor in the Kosovo War, that you and your husband oversaw. It’s brand new and it says great things about you, including that you will avert a war with Iran.
Which begins to get at the problem. The new US National Intelligence Estimate makes it clear there will be no war with Iran in the foreseeable future. Despite dark rumblings on the war hawk right about an anti-American conspiracy hatched by US intelligence agencies and the president’s own national intelligence director, a former Navy admiral and National Security Agency director, Iran now officially poses no clear and present danger to justify war. In fact, Iran’s cooperation will be important in devising a settlement of the security and political situation in Iraq, without which the time-limited military surge you supported and then opposed — alternately outraging, then assuaging, the peacenik left — will have been for naught. But because of the threat of Iran, you voted to declare its military a terrorist organization.
Your message and positioning are out of synch. And even before this became evident, you had big problems. You’ve already lost your lead in Iowa to the most heavily-funded insurgent candidate in modern American history. Your attacks on him worked at first with the press, but now aren’t working at all. Indeed, they are making you something of a figure of fun, with your overly diligent staff digging up his childhood musings about the presidency, musings shared by millions of American tikes.
Now your lead in national polls, never all that relevant, is sliding. More worrisome, your lead in New Hampshire, your firewall state, is now down into single digits. That’s before anything finally bad happens in Iowa. And your big lead in South Carolina has evaporated, on the eve of your rival campaigning in that state with the most admired celebrity on the planet, someone with special appeal to women and blacks, two key cores of your electoral support. In fact, your rival has had to move his rally there from a city arena seating 18,000 to a football stadium.
What do you do?
** THE ROMNEY SPEECH. Did Mitt Romney deal with his “Mormon problem” this morning? No, he didn’t. He barely mentioned his own controversial religion, the proximate cause of his speech. Well, actually, the cause of his speech is Mike Huckabee’s surge past Romney into the lead in Iowa. Romney has always counted on Iowa dominance to launch his campaign into the stratosphere, and has spent megabucks there to insure it, only to see Huckabee and his relative ragtag band storm past on account of his authentic social conservatism and personable preacher manner.
“There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith.”
No one is asking Romney to be the spokesman for his faith. That’s not his problem. His problem is that many, especially in the party whose leadership he seeks, consider Mormonism to be a bogus religion. (In my view, it’s as valid as most others.) In fact, the prominence of the speech actually informed a great many people who were not otherwise aware of the candidate’s Mormonism.
Instead of addressing the issue which gave rise to his speech, Romney instead gave a rather allusive address, designed to identify himself with other religious faiths in America.
Some on the right, now unsure of their issue mix next year with an Iranian war suddenly (but as most readers know, predictably) off the table and Huckabee sounding suspiciously liberal on some issues, may think this is enough. It’s not. Incidentally, lefties are complaining that Romney left agnostics and atheists out of his mix of Americans. Well, he can’t very well sound like a secular humanist now, especially since he is still living down his having run to the left of Teddy Kennedy on gay rights when he sought a Senate seat in the ’90s.
** CALIFORNIA WATER WAR? Does yesterday’s filing by business allies of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of a $10 billion water bond aiming for next November’s statewide ballot portend the beginning of a water war? That’s what some think, given that Senate leader Don Perata filed a rival measure a few weeks ago. The former emphasizes water storage, the latter is more focused on conservation.
But informed sources say this is still part of a tango of negotiation. No final decisions have been made on either side. Schwarzenegger and Perata would both prefer to come up with a compromise.
I have trouble with the robopoll concept, but this poll is intriguing because it is done nightly with the same methodology, and thus has relevance for looking at the direction of public opinion.
** BIG LEAD FOR JACKIE SPEIER IN BAY AREA DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL PRIMARY POLL. House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Tom Lantos may be in big trouble. Former state Senator Jackie Speier-s campaign — she narrowly lost the Democratic primary for California lieutenant governor last year — tells former California reporter David Drucker, now writing for Capitol Hill’s Roll Call, that their internal poll has Speier leading Lantos in a Democratic primary race by a whopping 57% to 27% margin.
“It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.”
My observation is that Republican pros tend to have more than a little disdain for the hyperpartisans they need to keep stirred up to drive the perpetual motion machine of partisan warfare. And it’s also my observation that the same situation exists on the Democratic side.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee is out front with 27% of the vote, while Mitt Romney has 24%. Rudy Giuliani trails with 13%, followed by Fred Thompson at 11%, John McCain at 6%, and Ron Paul at 5%.
83% of the Democrats polled and 50% of the Republicans polled say they want US troops out of Iraq in six months.
Mitt Romney discusses the US National Intelligence Estimate on
the Iranian threat.
** ROMNEY ADDRESS ON “FAITH IN AMERICA.” Speaking this morning at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, Mitt Romney — seen in the video above accepting the judgment of the US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran stating that the country halted its nuclear weapons program — addressed concerns about his religious faith. Romney, a Mormon, said this: “There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation’s founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adam’s words: ‘We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.’
“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” …
“When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.” …
“There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.” …
“It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it’s usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
“We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.
“The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation ‘Under God’ and in God, we do indeed trust.
“We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’” …
“These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways to people nearby, and in just as consequential ways in leading national volunteer movements.” …
“My faith is grounded on these truths. You can witness them in Ann and my marriage and in our family. We are a long way from perfect and we have surely stumbled along the way, but our aspirations, our values, are the self -same as those from the other faiths that stand upon this common foundation. And these convictions will indeed inform my presidency.” …
“The diversity of our cultural expression, and the vibrancy of our religious dialogue, has kept America in the forefront of civilized nations even as others regard religious freedom as something to be destroyed.
“In such a world, we can be deeply thankful that we live in a land where reason and religion are friends and allies in the cause of liberty, joined against the evils and dangers of the day. And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion – rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith.”
Mike Huckabee and action movie star Chuck Norris discuss
immigration policy.
** SURGING HUCKABEE. Social conservative Mike Huckabee has taken the lead in Iowa, a big lead in the Carolinas with signs of a surge throughout the South, and a slender lead nationally among Republicans. This worries a lot of establishment conservatives that their necessary step-child, the Christian evangelical voter, is out of control. From the New Republic: Mike Huckabee has been scaring the bejesus out of the Republican establishment with his scorching populist invective. In one recent interview, the former Arkansas governor declared, “I am like a lot of folks who are tired of thinking the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street.” He has denounced “immoral” CEO salaries, and warned, “People will only endure this for so many years before there is a revolt.” The terrified anti-tax Club for Growth is waging jihad against Huckabee, and Robert Novak has called him an advocate of “class struggle.” …
At the broadest ideological level, Huckabee is a conservative, happily paying tribute to the genius of the marketplace, the need for self-reliance, and other conservative standbys.
And, yet, his attachment to laissez-faire dogma is so tissue-thin that it can be blown to bits by the slightest brush with actual experience. Often this leads him in humane and intelligent directions, such as when he expanded children’s health insurance. But it can also lead him to embrace simplistic statism, such as his crude protectionism and wholesale embrace of agriculture subsidies. (“Imagine the further weakening of America if we were also dependent on foreign sources for our food needs,” he warns darkly, as if Al Qaeda will starve us into submission with a naval blockade.) …
** 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.
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— hypes the Ed Rollins appointment for Huckabee. “He’s a legend, architect of Reagan’s victory,” blah blah. The architect of Ronald Reagan is Ronald Reagan, with a major assist from Nancy Reagan. Period.