Election 2008

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has quickly changed the tone of the Iowa Presidential caucus campaign and the strategies of the various contenders. With only a few days left before the January 3 vote, any major international development would have impacted the U.S. candidates’ plans and statements for a day or two, but the assassination of Bhutto seems likely dominate the news for several days, practically until the vote itself.

By now, nearly all the candidates have staked out positions or made statements designed to reinforce their key themes and messages. Clinton called for an international investigation, declaring that Pervez Musharraf had lost all credibility, and noting that she had met with Bhutto in the past. Obama was less specific and more cautious, Edwards also called for an international inquiry, but only after Hillary was first to broadcast this call on CNN. On the other hand, Edwards took the unusual step for a out-of-office candidate of calling Musharraf directly and reporting afterward that he had urged him to continue the democratization process. Richardson said the United States should call for Musharraf’s resignation and withdraw all support for his government.

Republicans such as Giuliani, McCain and Thompson were less prone to prescribe actions beyond calling for vigilance. Giuliani was quick to draw a parallel to 9-11, but McCain said it meant that someone with his own kind of experience was needed in the White House.

As Erin notes, having a foreign affairs crisis front and center in the campaign — even as candidates such as Edwards say this should not be used as a political issue — may influence some of the Iowa undecided. So far, it seems that Hillary, Edwards, McCain and (maybe) Giuliani have the chance to gain points from their latest comments. The one who may lose traction is Mike Huckabee, whose Pakistan-related comments focused bizarrely on stopping Pakistanis from illegally crossing into the United States

When it comes to foreign policy discussion among presidential candidates, much is driven by the news cycle and crises that arise. Former Pakistani Prime Minister and candidate Benazir Bhutto’s assassination offered a presidential opportunity for the candidates.

The pundits have warned them, “it’s not about you”, but the candidates tried their hand at a presidential response to the crisis. Insinuating that terrorist elements within Pakistan were the culprits and that Bhutto represented a democratic force in the country, the candidates’ responses signal their familiarity with the subject matter (foreign policy prowess), and the tone that they would employ in such situations as president. The Hotline checks how each performed.

The Washington Post exploits the differences in Clinton’s and Obama’s reactions.

The differing reactions of Clinton and Obama to the assassination crystallized the debate between the two just a week before Iowans will decide the first contest in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination….

Axelrod, a senior Obama strategist, was […]direct, linking the Pakistani crisis to the different positions that Clinton and Obama took on the Iraq war in 2002, when Clinton voted to authorize it in the U.S. Senate, and Obama, then an Illinois state senator, spoke out against it.

Among Republicans, the Politico wonders if it’s a net gain for John McCain.

At this point before the Iowa caucuses, every bit of air time matters to the campaigns. Depending on the length of time Pakistan stays in the news, foreign affairs could be on the mind of the caucus-goer.

I want to invite the readers of my sister blog here at “Election 2008” over to the Foreign Policy Association’s blog on climate change to read an update on Presidential Candidates – December Edition. 

The Christmas cards from the candidates are out, but this year only the residents of New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina have the honor of seeing the ads on their television screens. Here now, a survey of the candidates’ holiday wishes for those of us outside the early states.
Let the holiday greetings begin with the adorable Obama girls.

Then to Rudy Giuliani, who appears sans family, avec Santa.

Mike Huckabee’s Christmas ad had the speculators speculating that there was a hidden message, of sorts. Is that a bookshelf, or a well-placed cross?

It’s a family affair for the Ron Paul campaign.

John Edwards invokes religious tones in conveying his promise to “speak for those who are too often forgotten.”

Hillary Clinton: gift-wrapper extraordinaire.

Check back for updates with ads from the rest of the candidates, and let us know which you like best!

Last weekend was a brilliant one for John McCain. The endorsements rolled in, it seemed, from the unexpected in Iowa (the coveted Des Moines Register newspaper endorsement) to the controversial in New Hampshire (the former Democratic VP candidate Joe Lieberman voiced support for McCain on Monday). Quite suddenly the McCain campaign has gained sorely needed momentum as Iowa and New Hampshire near.

While Lieberman’s decision was a personal (and political) one, it is the power of the editorial boards that drove the elder statesman to the front of the news cycle.  Without Ron Paul-like , staunch, web-roots support and without particularly stellar national polling figures, John McCain’s campaign has managed to pique the interest of the conservative blogosphere as well, though their support is merely an afterthought.

McCain does not pretend to run the most tech-savvy or digital age-y campaign, although he has reached out to some bloggers (David Adesnik at Oxblog, for one, has been on McCain-sponsored conference calls for bloggers; in Adesnik’s case, the calls have been successful).  Now that a comeback for McCain looks more feasible than, say, at the height of his support for the surge in Iraq this summer, conservative bloggers are reevaluating their “anti-McCain”—or should I say “pro-someone else”—views.  Via today’s Blogometer, Mary Katharine Ham notices that conservative acquaintances are giving the candidate a second look.  Also, at least one person over at the Weekly Standard is putting their trust in “savvy on the ground observers” who say that McCain’s New Hampshire efforts are “catching fire.”  McCain is now en vogue again, but the movement did not originate online.

McCain’s success in the early states serves as a testament to the practical purpose of new media in the primary cycle: the Internet can raise the profile of a campaign—indeed propel it to new heights—but traditional media (newspapers, television) maintain prominence of place in the election process.

Just in case you haven’t run across them, here are two Web sites that help you judge which candidate is closest to your own outlook. If you’re planning to vote in a primary (or attend the Iowa caucuses), you might find these surveys helpful. Even if you aren’t, you might find them enlightening.

The sites are:

http://www.glassbooth.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/candidatequiz/?hpid=topnews:

Enjoy!

If you could get beyond its nasty elements, the campaigning last week offered an intriguing view of where American politics stands as it enters one of its most consequential months in memory. The races in both parties became tighter, jockeying for advantage more intense, and divisions within and between the parties more pronounced.

On the Democratic side, the polls say Clinton and Obama are neck and neck in Iowa and now New Hampshire, with Edwards just slightly behind. Hillary is turning to Bill for strategy and public support, as his comments on Friday attacking Obama indicate.

Among Republicans, Romney is suddenly losing steam in Iowa, a state he has campaigned in more than any other Republican. His Meet The Press appearance today was shaky. And Giuliani, ahead in national polls for months, looks vulnerable. Newt Gingrich calls it the most wide-open Republican race since 1940.

It’s as though, with the January 3 Iowa caucuses and January 8 New Hampshire primary fast approaching, the voters in both states are giving their options more serious thought. “Undecideds” now must decide, and those whose preferences were stated without reflection, now have a final opportunity to reconsider their judgment.

One imagines the folks in Iowa being grateful for the chance to select Christmas presents instead of chosing among Presidential aspirants. There are, at last, no more candidates’ debates before the Iowa vote.

Has anything changed in the candidates’ positions? Not really. Having seen so many candidates up close and personal over the last year, the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire appear set to reject some of the most experienced ones (at least in foreign affairs) – Biden, Dodd, Richardson – in favor of candidates who have other qualities (and more money to advertise them). On the Republican side, the story is not that different: John McCain has just picked up the Des Moines Register endorsement, but lags in the national polls.

Before we bid farewell to at least some of these candidates, however, I invite you, in this season of giving, to give them one last hearing. Senator Dodd spoke here in San Francisco at the World Affairs Council, Senator Biden was the object of a flattering portrait on the front page of the New York Times, and McCain and Richardson spoke well in their respective debates in Des Moines last week. It may well turn out that in the Democratic Party, when the argument became “Who can achieve change?” those with the most experience in Washington were seen as those who had had the chance to deliver, but who failed to do so.

As for the “nasty elements” I mention above, how else can you describe the attention given to whether Mormons thought “Jesus and the devil were brothers” – a remark by Baptist Mike Huckabee in questioning Mormon Mitt Romney’s beliefs – contained in today’s NYT Magazine, for which Huckabee apologized earlier this week? Or how about this week’s debate organizers including Alan Keyes as a Republican candidate while excluding Denis Kucinic on the Democratic side? Or, still, how about Clinton’s campaign co-chair trying to make an issue out of Obama’s teenage drug indiscretions?

Clinton apologized to Obama, as did Huckabee to Romney. It’ll get more naughty, before it gets nice.

Now that he’s polling among the frontrunners, Governor Mike Huckabee’s record is under closer scrutiny than ever. Today the LA Times is reporting that Huckabee has done an about face on one of the key issues for Cuban Americans, now saying he is in favor of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

Huckabee’s support has swelled in recent weeks, and his campaign is struggling to keep up. The candidate has little national experience, lending his gubernatorial and campaign record as the prime bases for examination. The Governor’s former position on the Cuban embargo is only the most recent discrepancy to emerge, but is a vital policy change to make as the candidate looks forward to his chances in primaries post Iowa and New Hampshire. The Florida primary will be an important one.

Mike Huckabee’s candidacy is experiencing growing pains, but can be assured of its strong position as the Iowa primary nears. Huckabee’s chief rival for the religious conservative vote, Governor Mitt Romney, released today an ad attacking Huckabee’s positions on immigration. Attention, in this case, may be the greatest form of flattery.

• No surprises in Sunday’s Univision Republican debate. If the blogosphere is talking about it at all, it’s talking about the man who didn’t show. Tom Tancredo, arguably the most outspoken on immigration of the Republican candidates, chose not to participate in the debate held in front of one of the audiences most sympathetic to immigrants that the candidates may face. [The Economist, Democracy in America]
• Also on the Debate: Mark Kirkorian at The Corner calls out the blatant classification that all Hispanics think and act alike.
• Among other issues, Giuliani defended his enlistment of the NYPD to act as chauffeur for his then-girlfriend Judith Nathan on Meet the Press this weekend. He also caused controversy with his statements on homosexuality. [YouTube via Andrew Sullivan] AND Brendan Nyhan says Russert spent too much time on ethics (note the fun pie graph). [via Matt Yglesias]
• Star power is all the rage on the campaign trail these days, as Mark points out (blogging from Croatia, that lucky guy). Hillary Clinton’s campaign isn’t standing idly by.
• Chris Dodd is playing the “electability” card, per Politico’s Smith.
• A thoughtful, new take on the meaning of Al Gore’s Nobel Prize from Roger Alford at OpinioJuris.

How much do endorsements matter — and which kind should be most valued? In the Democratic Party of the mid-Twentieth Century, those vying for the nomination of the Party Convention strived to get union endorsements. Support from influential regional or national politicians also mattered a great deal. Somewhere farther down the line came celebrities and entertainers, probably after newspaper editorial boards, which often came out for Republicans.

Today the priorities are considerably different, as demonstrated by Oprah Winfrey’s remarkable appearances in Iowa and South Carolina on behalf of Barack Obama. Yesterday in Columbia, SC, she helped Obama achieve the the largest crowd so far this year for a candidate’s rally — 30,000. Multiplied by the media attention the rally got, Oprah’s appearances seemed to give Obama significant momentum to build upon his recent polling upswings.

But is this the way it ought to be? As I write this post from Central Europe (Croatia), I am well aware that Oprah is as internationally famous as any American movie star. I’ve seen her show dubbed into obscure languages and her comments accorded more attention in local media than that given local politicians with far greater objective influence on local lives.

Does her endorsement carry more weight due to the absence of more traditionally important support? Al Gore, as he received his Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, was given the chance to endorse a candidate, but declined. So has his erstwhile nemesis, George W. Bush (though none of the Republican candidates is known to have sought the support of the current President). The leaders of the so-called religious right, courted by Republican candidates, are too divided to deliver huge blocks of voters. Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Giuliani doesn’t seem to have done anything to tamp down the stunning rise of Mike Huckabee, who has flaunted his endorsement by actor Chuck Norris more than that by any politician or journalist.

There are more than a few topsy-turvy twists on the current endorsement scene. The NYT’s often vituperative Frank Rich, found it possible to devote his Sunday column to Huckabee’s admirable qualities (wit, honesty) before slamming his lack of foreign affairs experience. Coming from Rich, that was almost an endorsement.

With the lack of meaningful political endorsements — for now — in the US elections, it’s easy to long for a different scene. Just be careful. Over in Moscow, not so far from here, another incumbent President — Vladimir Putin — finally announced a very political endorsement of who he would like to succeed him. He chose the man he appointed Deputy Prime Minister two years back, Dimitry Medvedev. Clearly, a political endorsement more powerful than Oprah’s!

President Bill Clinton sent a dramatic signal as he ushered into being the largest GDP-measured trade bloc in the world. Now, thirteen years after NAFTA came into effect, the Iowa caucuses are first on the campaign calendar, making the concerns of Iowans foremost on the candidates’ minds.

Polling in Iowa shows a close race for both Democrats and Republicans. The candidates are searching for the wedge issues to set them apart, and Senator Clinton must find a way to adapt her rhetoric in trying to reach globalization-weary Iowans. The Senator has said repeatedly that the U.S. should take a “time out” from free trade agreements, and reevaluate America’s place in the world economy, but most recently her approach has become more protectionist.

In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Senator Clinton said:

I agree with Paul Samuelson, the very famous economist, who has recently spoken and written about how comparative advantage, as it is classically understood, may not be descriptive of the 21st century economy in which we find ourselves. …

I want to have a more comprehensive and thoughtful trade policy for the 21st century. There is nothing protectionist about this. It is a responsible course. The alternative is simply to pick up where President Bush left off and that is not an option.

Not the words you want to hear from the leading (per the polls) Democratic candidate for president. Today, the European trade commissioner responded:

It would be a fundamental mistake to encourage the public perception that foreign investment in our economies is, in essence, a bad thing – even when the shareholders are government-linked.

The apparent scepticism about a Doha world trade deal that Mrs Clinton expressed in the Financial Times this week, and her suggestion that there is a need to shelter American companies and interests from foreign investment, are a disappointing sign of the times.

Her words are cautious and indefinite. Would she consider expanding on trade agreements as President? Possibly. Would she halt cooperation on international trade policy as President? Possibly. Is this the intention of the Senator’s remarks? Quite possibly.

Photo credits: WikiCommons, igdi.org

There was something refreshing about NPR’s Democratic Candidates’ Debate today. Without live images of the candidates, and without an audience, there was nothing to distract from what was actually said. I may have been imagining this, but it seemed that there was a less aggressive tone to the proceedings, with fewer verbal fisticuffs among the candidates. No bouquets were yet being passed from candidate to candidate, but overall there was a more civil atmosphere.

Credit either the moderate, tolerant sensibilities of NPR, or the possibility that the candidates were distracted by not having a camera to look Presidential in front of. Likewise they needed not worry that a “gotcha” moment would be captured on film and replayed ad nauseam on the cable networks.

Beyond this, NPR restricted discussion to only three topics during the two-hour debate: Iran/Iraq, China, and immigration. A sound bite, delivered in attack mode, was not well suited to this format.

The international emphasis throughout the debate was remarkable, and the Iran comments deserve separate discussion. The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which concluded that Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons in 2003, was an easy target. For Biden, it showed that the President was not “trustworthy,” since the NIE contradicted Bush’s earlier warnings that Iran was indeed working to develop nuclear weapons. For Hillary’s opponents, it was a chance to attack her Senate vote last September condemning Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, while Hillary defended her vote by asserting that Obama and Edwards had shared in a “very broadly based belief that [Iran] was pursuing a nuclear weapon.”

On the larger issue of what one should do about Iran, the group offered various versions of a “no” to “saber-rattling” and a “yes” to “aggressive diplomacy.”

Oddly, however, the more the candidates described the complexity of Iranian politics, and their “respectful” disagreements with each other over what mix of rhetoric, sanctions and diplomacy to pursue, the easier it was to have some sympathy for an Administration for which even this good news is now somehow a liability. After the intelligence mistakes concerning Iraq, and on-the-ground errors in the conduct of the war, it may hard for anyone to accept that good news intelligence might be fully reliable, or that the reduced violence on the ground might actually be the result of better tactics and policies on our part.

In case readers have yet to dig through their normal weekend reading like I, they may be stumbling upon the great article in this week’s Economist. The piece runs through the likeliest primary winners of each party and their foreign policy views. Though close followers of the campaigns will not see much new, it is well worth the read.

As the article articulates, not many of the front-runners have extensive foreign policy experience. But there is a stark difference, however, in the level of experience among the second tier candidates on the Democratic side versus the Republican. Biden and Dodd have had storied careers working on international issues in the Senate. Bill Richardson is a former U.N. ambassador and conflict mediator. With the exception of John McCain, most of the Republican candidates–from Thompson to Tancredo to Huckabee–have clocked little or no time with foreign affairs.

While this might not change the outcome of even one of the primaries, it says something about the party bases, which the Economist data supports: Democrats, in this election in particular, are willing to choose their candidate based upon his/her foreign policy views. Does this matter, though, if the candidates offer acutely similar platforms?