Election 2008

There’s a reason that Andrew Kohut made GQ’s list of the 50 most powerful people in Washington; when Pew data comes in, people pay attention. And today, the Pew Center released some of the most powerful polling data yet in this campaign.

Sen. Clinton holds a 51%-43% advantage over Giuliani in a general election ballot test among all registered voters.

Much ado has been made about Clinton’s strong negatives going into a potential general election match-up, but in this poll, +- 3 points, Clinton even leads in the South.

The extent to which these numbers will hold steady is a gamble; Pew’s researchers even admit the opportunity for fluidity, as Politico’s Kuhn reports. Nonetheless the numbers do not disprove the notion that a Clinton candidacy–if the election were held today–would win the contest, or the other figures the survey shows (33% of Americans believe it would be “a good thing” for a female to hold the presidency; since 2004, voters’ have become more concerned about the issue of energy).

We are 64 days before the Iowa caucuses, but more than a year away from the general. As the adage goes, a lot can happen before next November. Pew’s director may have only made it to number 50 on the “most powerful” list. Careful readers should note: HRC was eighth.

MSNBC invited seven Democrats to debate each other in Philadelphia last night, hoping that the tougher comments in recent days from the Obama camp might signal a tougher exchange of views between him and front-runner Hillary Clinton. The media want to stoke a closer race, and the NBC crew did all they could to promote it, flanking Hillary with her two top rivals, Obama and Edwards, hoping for a fight.

It was time for Obama or Edwards to strike a blow, to land a punch. Obama likened himself to Rocky Balboa going after Apollo Creed.

But the big fight was more of a schoolyard scuffle.

Hillary’s juggernaut continues to have a cold eyed, steely discipline that doesn’t make many headlines with policy initiatives these days but keeps her 20-30 percentage points in front of her nearest rival. Her current tactic is to talk firmly, but generally.

Good for her campaign, bad for ratings. Without drama or an impending vote, these debates are more like two-hour marathons that no one is watching.

The thrust and parry on foreign policy had a studied quality. How could Hillary vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that threatens Iran? Obama, Edwards and Kucinich jumped on her for that, likening it to Congress’ (and Hillary’s) pre-war vote supporting action in Iraq. They both implied that Kyl-Lieberman would gain her center-right support once she had the nomination sewn up, and was another indicator that Democrats needed to support a candidate of greater “integrity.”

Hillary is actually getting grudging respect from some commentators on the right, like NR’s Rich Lowry.

Away from center stage, Richardson had his line about “being the only one here ever to have actually negotiated with Iranian leaders,” and Biden his retort about having “negotiated SALT agreements” when Richardson was “still a Congressman.” Score one for diplomacy (if not historical accuracy).

Actually, score several points for diplomacy. Diplomacy is now in vogue. For Hillary it’s “vigorous diplomacy.” For Obama, it’s “reaching out aggressively to our allies.” Richardson wants “skilled diplomacy.”

Diplomacy was the winner in last night’s scuffle among the candidates. Hillary sees “a big diplomatic apparatus” ready to take the field once she’s elected. “Not just the Foreign Service (but) a lot of other distinguished Americans who have experience,” she added, “people, you know, like my colleagues Bill (Richardson) and Joe (Biden) and Chris (Dodd).”

Failed debaters with Hillary could take on Ahmadinejad and Putin. At least they’d have practice in media diplomacy.

Campaign headlines tonight center on the Democratic debate, which wrapped up just a few minutes ago from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Standing center stage, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was the heavyweight on the stage. On Iran, Iraq, social security, the Alternative Minimum Tax, NY Governor Spitzer’s plan to document illegal immigrants with driver’s licenses and more, Sen. Clinton’s opponents, particularly John Edwards and Barack Obama, attacked her for what they called “double speak”–voicing conflicting opinions on key stances. Clinton, meanwhile, carefully turned her attention to the failures of the Bush Administration.

The format (HRC asked question; Obama/Edwards respond; HRC rebuttal) for the first half of the evening limited the availability of any candidate to shine. The later 30-second spots forced the otherwise verbose Dems to condense answers on education, immigration, and UFOs (in case you missed it, Dennis Kucinich has seen them and Chris Matthews is afraid the party will become pro-UFO vs. the anti-evolution Republicans).

• Winner: to be determined. Obama and Edwards did what they came to do. HRC wasn’t able to stay above the fray, but she didn’t lose her cool.
• Best line: Joe Biden. Rudy Giuliani’s sentences consist of a “verb, a noun, and 9/11.”
• Post-debate spin: at this posting, the fight between the Giuliani and Biden camps has only just begun.
• Issue: Iran got three rounds of questions, at least.

We’ll have more analysis on this largely foreign policy-related debate to come, but we’d like to hear your thoughts on the debate. Leave us your comments on the candidates’ stances, whether on halting Iranian nuclear proliferation, or the comparatively shorter school year American children attend than their international counterparts. Let’s delve into the issues in more time than the “lightening round” would allow.

 Photo: AP/Matt Rourke

• Who would’ve thought The Clinton campaign fought back today with an ad on social security, directly challenging the Obama camp.  Watch for the careful mention of “other candidates” towards the end.
• Process over policy Based upon a new study by the Center for Excellence in Journalism, most of the coverage of the campaign thus far has been of just five candidates; nearly two-thirds of the articles published were “process” stories, covering the campaigns.  E&P has the analysis here.
  • Sidebar: There’s an interesting fact in here about Democrats receiving more negative coverage on talk radio (where conservative pundits dominate).  Note the new radio ad Giuliani released in New Hampshire today.
• Grasping at straws  John Edwards is looking for whatever wedge issue he can find to run away from the pack of second-tier candidates.  An Edwards candidacy could be all-but over if Iowa and South Carolina do not go well for him.  What issue plays particularly well in midwestern and southern caucuses these days: trade.  FP outlines the issue.

The New Republic has established a blog for the 2008 Election, The Stump, that deserves your attention. Naturally TNR is a center/left-of-center journal, but the contributors are pretty serious folks and they play it straight.

• Barack Obama has come out strong, announcing that he believes Senator Clinton has been dishonest with Democratic voters on many positions, namely her stances on social security and Iran.  The offensive marks Obama’s first major foray into attacking Clinton, answering calls of many of his supporters to engage with her.  Obama remains points behind Clinton in national and New Hampshire polls, though he is competitive in Iowa.  His campaign is trying to balance his message of “a politics of hope” with the requisite debate with his clear competitor.  Democrats may not be thrilled that he has raised the social security issue, but his supporters, financial supporters in particular, will view this new approach as long overdue.
• Meanwhile, Clinton has announced she will be hiring upwards of one hundred paid staff in Iowa.
• Candidates from right to left are stating their policies on Iran.  The NYTimes.com today has a bit of context.
• In case you missed it, Giuliani is a Sox fan.  Coincidence that most of New Hampshire is too?

• Ds The latest rendition of what TPM calls the “dueling memos” phenomenon between the Obama and Clinton camps has to do with the newsy case of Iran, upon which the Bush Administration designated serious sanctions today. They are some of the harshest imposed on the country since 1979. If the Administration continues to move in this direction, not only will there be a 2003 Iraq-like discussion in the international community, but the campaign front-runners will be forced to take stances they may not be prepared to take.
• Rs The New York Times, Alex Massie and The New Republic call out Rudy Giuliani’s response to a question raised at a town hall meeting in Iowa regarding torture. Christopher Orr calls it “what may be the mot honest defense of torture I’ve seen from an American politician.”
• Rs Iowa papers are abuzz with John McCain’s statements on the Middle East, which include hints at long-term American involvement in Iraq and the construction of military “lily pads” in the region, similar to those currently in Eastern Europe, in case of “crisis.”

• Immigration It’s likely that the Senate won’t be passing any immigration legislation after this move today before the ‘08 election.  This leaves the wedge issue out for discussion among the candidates, some of whom (most recently Fred Thompson), already have come out with statements.
• Rs John McCain’s campaign released this ad, highlighting his remark at the Fox News debate this weekend about Clinton’s former support for the Woodstock museum in up-state New York.  His “I was tied up at the time” comment serves multiple purposes: not only does it allow his team to use colorful tied-eyed backgrounds in the ad, but it also highlights, yet again, his service and capture during Vietnam.
• Rs Mitt Romney released a new ad today, featuring his plans to bring change and spending accountability to Washington.  Per The Caucus, the campaign says it will air in South Carolina.
• Ds The folks at DailyKos are pushing for a stronger response from the Clinton campaign and Senate office re her stance on the FISA legislation.  This as Politico’s Ben Smith reports on possible threats to Clinton’s campaign from the left.

LOS ANGELES – The sprawling coastal megapolis of Southern California continues to battle fires in its arid chaparral-filled hillsides, so for the moment the local focus is not on politics or elections but on disaster relief and providing shelter for a half million displaced residents. But Hurricane Katrina proved that a botched relief effort can have enormous repercussions on national politics and even international relations. As the President visits the disaster area tomorrow, accompanied by Governor Schwarzenegger, comparisons with Katrina will be hard to avoid. Both men are oddly in the background of the 2008 elections landscape – the unpopular Bush shunned by Republican candidates to replace him, Schwarzenegger a victim of his foreign birth. Amidst the natural tragedy, political ironies are inescapable: Schwarzenegger has a “Giuliani moment” but can’t run for higher office while President Bush, learning from Katrina, will be faulted for treating San Diego better than New Orleans.

A visitor to Los Angeles is struck by this region’s Hispanic character and complexion and, along with it, the salience of the Hispanic vote in next year’s election. Bush did well with the Hispanic voters in 2000 and 2004, but this is one part of the electorate whose sympathies next year are hard to predict. The first Hispanic candidate, Bill Richardson, has run an oddly listless race. Non-Hispanic politicians tread carefully while, behind the scenes, many are preoccupied with the immigration issue. The Internet was awash yesterday with warnings about Senator Reid’s maneuvers in the Senate on the so-called “DREAM” legislation to grant citizenship to the younger generation of foreign born (illegal) residents. Lou Dobbs, on CNN last night, was particularly strident, accusing both parties of “pandering” to the Hispanic community.

Immigration, of course, has a foreign policy dimension, as President Bush’s speech on Cuba today in Washington illustrates. A Cuban reaching Florida’s shores gets legal sanctuary, a Mexican fleeing poverty and chaos becomes an illegal immigrant in California. Austrian-born immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger, watching from the election sidelines, probably has more than a few thoughts on the subject, as he ponders the Constitutional provision that keeps him out of the race.

• Rs and Trade Romney proposes opening markets in his “Reagan Zone of Economic Freedom” plan. He suggests opening markets and helping American workers “succeed,” claiming it would be the largest free trade zone “ever.” By raising the trade issue, not only does Romney get policy points (which he may be in even more need of after this rough morning), but he would renew a dialogue about the issue in Republican circles. Democratic candidates have taken stances on NAFTA and Doha before, but broadened debate could propel this issue to the fore.
• Ds and FISA Obama and Clinton offered “conditional support” for filibustering the FISA bill, which has yet to make it through Committee. They join Dodd and Biden in their distaste for the measure, which liberal bloggers are touting as “defending the Constitution against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.”
• Rs and Immigration Mark Krikorian over at The Corner is a fan of Fred Thompson’s recently announced platform on immigration.
• Endorsing Rs Mitt Romney lost an endorsement today from Pastor Don Wilton of South Carolina today, the pretty heavy-handed state Baptist Convention President. If nothing else, the loss of Wilton’s support signals the continued hesitation on the part of social conservatives to back the candidate. Does it all come down to his Mormon faith, or is there something more political going on here?
• Ads Bill Richardson (D) released this ad yesterday, highlighting his role in negotiating the release of hostages out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1995. He has made his experience the focus of his spots in the past; this new ad drills down onto the finer points of his CV.

Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, is back this week guest blogging for The Economist’s Democracy in America blog. In announcing his return, the paper recalls quite the stir he caused in the blogosphere when he equated the netroots to neocons.

This spawned quite a debacle, especially among liberal bloggers who claimed that too few scholars in the foreign policy community had spoken out against the Iraq war. Atrios at Eschaton and Glenn Greenwald at Salon started things off; like-minded commentators like Matthew Yglesias jumped in the mix, and a few back-and-forths with the editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, Gideon Rose followed. The bloggers’ point: careerism motivates the foreign policy community, and therefore its members are “politicians rather than scholars or analysts.” Rose didn’t take too kindly to that.

Thus far, he’s been reading Arthur Schlesinger’s recently published journals. I’m eager to see what he has in store for us this week.

Yesterday’s Republican debate was another installment in their “Who’s the Best Conservative?” televised mini-series. This episode, brought to you by Fox News and the Florida Republican Party, played before an appreciative live audience in Orlando that warmly greeted the on-stage performers and loudly booed the absent villain – Hillary Clinton. She was, as Fred Thompson put it at one point, “always a good applause line (for us).”

This was the kind of audience Republicans yearn for. At one point, the boisterous group beat Mitt Romney to the punch. “Is Hillary Clinton fit to be commander in chief?” the moderator asked Romney. The transcript records:

“AUDIENCE: No!
ROMNEY: The audience — the audience is telling you the answer….”

The ex-governor of Massachusetts then digresses, his thespian’s timing a bit off, until the questioner lobs the softball once again across the plate:

“QUESTIONER: I asked you specifically is she fit to be commander in chief?”
ROMNEY:…I think you heard what they said. The answer is, absolute — anyone here want to vote for Hillary?
AUDIENCE: No!
ROMNEY: I agree with them.

This segue into foreign affairs topics came toward the end of the debate, and perhaps it was just as well. Iraq is a divisive issue among Republicans, immigration equally so. So in this red-belt section of Florida, the eight-man ensemble sparred with each other mainly on domestic policy – who cut taxes more, opposed abortion more, promoted family values better than others, who managed a business, state or city the best, who could best “fix” the health care system. When asked about his views on gay marriage, Rudy Giuliani had a chance to show off his own skillful timing. Marriage is not just a religious commitment, he said. After all, he had married 210 couples when he was Mayor of New York. Then, almost rolling his eyes, a theatrical pause:

“…They were all men and women.
(LAUGHTER)
I hope.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
GIULIANI: You got to give me a little slack here. It was New York City, you know…”

If Hillary was the number one villain for this Republican gathering, then Vladimir Putin was – among foreign leaders – a kind of understudy for the role. John McCain pronounced him “a dangerous person” and, taking a jab at President Bush, said that “…when I looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes, I saw three letters: a K, a G and a B….The first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don’t care what his objections are to it.”

(Disregard, for a moment, the fact that Czechoslovakia became two separate states – the Czech Republic and Slovakia – 15 years ago. The image of McCain — experienced, skeptical and patriotic – was probably what stuck with the audience.)

As you can see, the characters and their interaction are by now well established, and most are becoming well practiced at delivering a feisty quip, a barbed comment or a comic aside. It’s understandable that, after ten televised debates, each lasting 90 to 120 minutes, there’s no longer much news (or drama) made, but it’s excellent preparation for whomever finally becomes the Republican candidate. After all, less than a year from now, one of the players in this off-Broadway pilot will co-star in prime time TV debates with the nominee of the Democratic Party – and the results will be scrutinized like TV networks’ “sweeps week” ratings. The best sound bites will be broadcast again and again in the final days of the campaign, as millions of Americans may still be deciding who they’ll vote for. Timing – and sound bites – are everything.

On Thursday Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, while campaigning in South Carolina, announced his belief that the United Nations had been “an extraordinary failure of late,” and went on to call for a “coalition of free nations” to take its place (mult). His comments play to a distrust among some conservatives of the U.N. and international institutions in general, but also draws attention to his somewhat wanton—relatively speaking—foreign policy credentials.

These days, Romney is employing many tactics that cater to social and religious conservatives; disputing the need for a United Nations is only the most recent. Romney lags behind in polls among Republicans nationwide, although he stands in first place in South Carolina. Recently he’s won endorsements from key social and religious conservatives, including Bob Jones III, the grandson of the religious leader and former head of Bob Jones University. Romney barely edged out a victory in Saturday’s Family Research Council straw poll, in which he won a plurality among those present (at the Washington Hilton in D.C.), but received a sorry total of 99 votes online to Mike Huckabee’s 488. Romney has yet to become the darling of religious conservatives, but he certainly is trying.

On Thursday, Romney proposed that the U.S. lead a “coalition of the free nations of the world” in lieu of lending support to the United Nations, particularly to her human rights arm, the UN Human Rights Council. After his comments aired, a spokesman for the campaign clarified that the candidate was suggesting that the US pull financial support from the Council, from which the U.S., of course, already abstains (the Human Rights Council has made pointed comments about Israel in the past, and is also responsible for the review of members’ compliance with the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, among others). Whether this was an error on the campaign’s part or simply a misspeak, is to be determined.

As one might have guessed, liberal internationalist voices were furious. FP’s Passport blog had these harsh words. Bloggers at UN Dispatch are glad that other candidates, namely Democrat Bill Richardson, have the experience to counter Romney (Richardson is a former ambassador to the U.N.). What these authors do not address, however, are the possible benefits Romney’s pronouncement can have to his campaign.

His opponents, mainly Giuliani and McCain, have prominent backgrounds in foreign affairs. Voters, especially Republican primary voters, know that it was Giuliani who was New York’s mayor in September of 2001 and that McCain was once a guest at the Hanoi Hilton. Mitt Romney’s foreign policy experience does not match up. As a former governor of Massachusetts, much of his international experience comes from his time as CEO of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, and from managing the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. It’s likely that Romney’s comments were targeted to boost his appeal among conservatives, though foreign policy this election is a delicate arena. It would serve Romney to tread softly.

Amid today’s Family Research Council straw polls and conference speeches, the blogs are a bit preoccupied. Here’s a round-up what little foreign policy commentary is out there.

• From the Right Michelle Malkin discovers why Ahmadinejad visited Ground Zero last month.
• Somewhere near Center Andrew Sullivan points to Kupchan and Trubowitz’s piece in this fall’s issue of International Security. They assert that the Bush era has led to the “unraveling of the liberal internationalist compact,” of Twentieth Century U.S. foreign policy.
• From the Left Dan Drezner hits Clinton on her revised stance on economic policy and her hesitation on foreign trade agreements, which, he says, are key components of a foreign policy that would restore America’s place in the world.

Oh, and a major candidate declared that the U.N. is no longer relevant. More on that to come.

The news that Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback is withdrawing today from the race is a reminder that the phalanx of candidates on both sides is about to start thinning out. Like characters in an Agatha Christie murder mystery, both Republicans and Democrats will soon start disappearing from debate stages — slowly at first, then after the first primaries, quite rapidly. We will lose several colorful personalities who, for reasons of conviction or tactics, offered some of the more interesting policy choices and provocative comments. Regardless what you think about Ron Paul’s libertarianism or Dennis Kucinich’s social policy, both have made the campaign more interesting. (On foreign policy, their views even occasionally overlap — on Iraq, for instance, or warrantless wiretapping.) Whatever insights (or entertainment) these “second tier” candidates offer, they will be pressured to drop out early in the primary season if they can’t poll above single digits.

Sam Brownback’s problem was not that he was too colorful, but less so. His views on social policy were not far from Romney’s and his views on terrorism similar to Giuliani’s. If you enter the race without national name recognition or deep pockets, you have to cause a stir with your policies or the way you present them. The Senator from Kansas did neither.

Now the NYT’s David Brooks wants us to help a more engaging candidate, the other “Man from Hope (Ark.),” Mike Huckabee, to step into the limelight. However, he acknowledges that Huckabee’s foreign policy thinking is “thin.” Among other faults, Huckabee promises to make the United States energy independent within eight years. Statements like this will be challenged, and could nix the chances of a candidate until now best known for his weight loss. It’s a tough reality, but it doesn’t take much now for a candidate to get voted off the island and onto Brownback Mountain.