Last year, social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook were integrated into political campaigns on such a large scale for the first time. Displaying their power to reach, communicate and activate supporters at the district and state-levels, presidential campaigns took notice.

Presidential campaigns are now being graded on just effectively they are integrating what have become standard online tools and what, if any, innovations they come up with.

However, as campaigns are learning, these tools also carry an immense amount of political risk. Take for instance, Senator Barack Obama’s (D-Illinois) MySpace dust up.

But that was a battle over who control the list of thousands of MySpace users that eagerly signed up to learn more about Obama’s candidacy. What is the accountability for user-generated content that crosses the line?

Take, for instance, this comment on former Senator Fred Thompson’s official MySpace page. The comment by “thediscman” features only an image that has a cartoon of a woman in a burka asking, “Does this bomb make my butt look big?”

That comment, posted June 21, still sits among the 316 comments, on page three as of the publishing of this post. And “thediscman” is a frequent commenter, posting nearly every day.

“thediscman” posted another comment on June 22 that featured one image:

His comment?

If only we had these values still….we would have far less divorce. Run Fred and bring back traditional values to this great land!!!

~j

On the Web, Fred Thompson | No Comments »

Cross-posted at Iowa Independent

In a conference call today with Iowa Independent and other media, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he would do well in the Ames Straw Poll with the help of Iowa social conservatives, though a failure to do so would have grave consequences for his campaign.

Huckabee was joined by Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Iowa social conservative and chairman of Huckabee’s Iowa campaign, and Dr. Michael P. Farris, another influential social conservative and co-founder and chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

After a brief introduction by Huckabee, Farris outlined the reasons that the association’s political action committee recently endorsed Huckabee, never straying far from the letter sent to HSLDA members. “It’s my judgment that Mike is in the very best position of any Republican to defeat a Democratic candidate, be it Hillary Clinton or somebody else,” he said.

[snip]

Vander Plaats next gave an assessment of the campaign’s Iowa strategy, which centers on the Ames Straw Poll. “August 11 is going to be a very important day for us. And we feel like we’re extremely well positioned to do well in the straw poll,” he said. “When we get Governor Huckabee in front of Iowans they want to sign up.” Therefore, Huckabee will be spending a lot of time in Iowa between now and August, cultivating the support of social conservatives.

[snip]

 

When questioned by reporters, Huckabee emphasized his ability to appeal to social conservatives in ways the GOP front-runners couldn’t. “Those are constituencies that have joined with me because of the consistency as my record as a governor. There’s no YouTube of me out there taking different positions on crucial issues,” he said. “All of these groups are very energetic; they have the capacity to mobilize. They don’t have a detached interest in politics. They go to events.” Huckabee said his candidacy attracts the “true believers, true activist types, which is what we need in the straw poll.”

[snip]

If Huckabee does poorly in the Ames Straw Poll, he said he would consider dropping out. “It’s a milestone for us without a doubt. I don’t think I have to win the straw poll; I think I have to do well,” he said. “If I came in at the bottom of the pack, I’d have to take a long, hard look at what we were doing. It would certainty mount for us a big challenge.”

Huckabee declined to say what kind of showing would prompt such introspection. “We’ve put a lot of resources in this and we believe if we’re going to play, we’re going to play to do well,” he said.

Go read the whole post here.

Endorsements, Mike Huckabee | No Comments »

From today’s “McCain Update” e-mail:

Did You Know…

Fun Facts About John McCain

The McCains are big pet lovers, their pets include:

• Four dogs: an English Springer Spaniel, two toy Yorkies, and a mutt
• Two turtles
• A cat
• A ferret
• Three parakeets
• 13 saltwater fish

I think he mentioned the ferret just to freak Giuliani out.

John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney | No Comments »

Marc Ambinder explains what to look for when you get your hands on the Q2 numbers — as he points out, “total amount raised is perhaps the least interesting, least informative number of them all.”

He’s also got a memo from the Clark Griswold Romney camp pre-spinning their guy’s totals.

Update: As TPM’s Election Central observes, that dog story is turning into a real headache for Romney.

Mitt Romney | No Comments »

Despite Fred Thompson’s dramatic gains on Rudy Giuliani in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Todd points out at MyDD that Rudy still retains considerable leads in all three states. Most signficant, though, are his extraordinarily strong favorability ratings in those states (54/28, for instance, in Florida), which are similar to his favorability numbers nationally. Says Todd:

A lot is made of Clinton’s high negatives but not enough is said about Rudy’ still high positives, which could end up being the Republicans’ secret weapon in the general if he gets the nomination.

The same kind of analysis prompts a couple of conservative observers to declare that Giuliani is “still the frontrunner.” At Real Clear Politics, Ross Kaminsky says this is for one simple reason: he’s the most electable Republican:

[W]hile it is still VERY early in this process, internals of a recent Quinnipiac University poll show why I believe Rudy is still somewhat more likely to get the nomination than Fred: He is more likely to be able to win the general election.

For example, the Quinnipiac Poll shows Giuliani tied with or leading Hillary Clinton in three critical swing states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The analysis in the link above focuses on Giuliani’s lead shrinking from prior polls, but that is not the key. The key is that Giuliani far outperforms the other Republican frontrunners.

Gary Matthew Miller agrees:

If enough GOP primary participants are persuaded that only the Mayor could prevail in November of next year, that just might be the fulcrum upon which the Republican nomination may pivot.

Of course, the John Kerry experience demonstrated that “electability” is a tricky concept, but there’s plenty of reason to believe that Kaminsky and Miller are correct. Yet there’s a puzzle at the heart of the equation. It’s one thing for primary voters to make a calculation about electablity; it’s another thing for the conservative ideological apparatus itself to use the same calculation to endorse a candidate who rejects key tenents of the longstanding conservative consensus. As broad swathes of the right’s intellectual, financial, and media elites use Rudy’s “leadership qualities,” his fiscal conservatism, and his “electability” as excuses to abandon the socially conservative half of their fusionist coalition, the issue for those social conservatives becomes much starker.

Despite their threats, it’s unclear just how prepared they are to break decisively with the GOP — to endorse a third-party candidate should Rudy win the nomination. But keep in mind that the stakes for social conservatives are bigger than just this election. It isn’t just about making sure there’s an anti-abortion candidate in 2008. It’s about the prospect of losing access to the mighty conservative political machine altogether. If they allow the rest of the conservative establishment to leave them behind, they may never recover their place at the table; they may be permanently marginalized within the movement. For social conservatives — for the Christian right in particular — Rudy’s “electability” is a very dangerous thing, and there’s reason to believe they won’t let it go unchallenged.

Cross-posted at Alien & Sedition.

Rudy Giuliani | 1 Comment »

After coming under fire for seeming to refer to Cuban refugees as terrorists during his speech in South Carolina on Wednesday, Fred Thompson struck a defensive tone at his blog yesterday, saying he wanted to “clarify” his position.

In his Columbia, SC talk Thompson criticized the immigration bill and, for some reason, singled out illegal immigrants from Cuba, adding: “I don’t imagine they’re coming here to bring greetings from Castro. We’re living in the era of the suitcase bomb.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis-Doyle, criticized the remarks yesterday via-email:

“For many decades, Cubans have been forced to leave the island, risking their lives to escape Fidel Castro’s brutal dictatorship in search of freedom and opportunity. It is simply wrong to equate people fleeing from communism with terrorists.“

Thompson’s gaffe seems particularly strange given the importance of Florida Cubans to Republican electoral fortunes. In his “clarification,” Thompson continues to insist on the dangers of infiltration by Cuban agents, even as he attempts to mend fences with the Cuban exile community, saying that “we must oppose the illegal immigration of Castro’s agents into the United States while welcoming the vast majority who immigrate legally and with legal intentions.” In what seems like an effort to distract from the gaffe by appealing to right-wing paranoia, Thompson adds:

All of us should be rightfully concerned about Castro and his ideological pal Chavez sending agents and provocateurs into the United States through Mexico. I’m sure that Cuban-Americans share this concern as well.

The controversy might reinforce suspicions on the right that Thompson, acting skills notwithstanding, isn’t quite ready for prime time. Power Line reported yesterday that Congressional conservatives, at least, are not particularly pleased with Thompson on a general level:

The Fred Thompson campaign recently set up an event for 60 of Congress’s most solid conservatives. Many of them were hoping to be able to endorse Thompson. Unfortunately, Thompson did not impress the Congressmen. He did not appear to be ready for a tough Presidential campaign. One of his aides explained that Thompson was “rusty,” which, as one Congressman told me, did not inspire much confidence in this YouTube era. Some of those who attended are now looking at Mitt Romney as the most viable conservative in the race.

Thompson will need to avoid mistakes like the Cuba controversy if he’s to convince the conservative establishment that he’s ready to make a serious challenge.

Fred Thompson | No Comments »

Cross-posted at Iowa Independent

Eleven minutes after voting in favor of cloture on the Senate immigration bill, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback changed his mind—and his vote—to oppose cloture, MSNBC reported earlier today. Now it seems that the Brownback campaign has changed its mind again, this time on a press release it produced just days ago. On Tuesday, June 26, the campaign released a statement after Brownback voted in favor of cloture. The statement originally appeared here. It’s now gone, but was cached and can be seen here.

Go read the rest of the story here.

On the Web, Sam Brownback | No Comments »

Fred Thompson, who has been stuffing his campaign staff with Washington insiders, stopped in South Carolina yesterday to talk like an outsider:

“We pick up the newspaper and see what’s going on in Washington and the foolishness there — all things partisan, all the energy directed inwardly instead of trying to work together to do something good for this country, even with regard to something this important,” he said.

Perhaps it was just a case of over-acting, but Thompson seemed to take the outsider thing a little too far when he spoke like someone who didn’t know a damn thing about the Iraq war:

He said that as long as U.S. troops in Iraq have hope and optimism so would he and, “I’m not going to cut it off short.”

The following reaction from a Thompson supporter is presented without comment:

“Everything comes from his heart. He’s sincere,” gushed Pollyanna Chafin of Columbia. “I think he wants to do it for the people.”

Fred Thompson | No Comments »

The latest Q-poll shows “stunning gains” for Fred Thompson in three key primary states, as the former lobbyist cut deeply into Rudy Giuliani’s lead in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The Florida numbers will be particularly worrying to the Giuliani camp:

Thompson’s surge in Florida represents a real threat to Giuliani, said University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato. “The Giuliani campaign has considered Florida its firewall,” Sabato said.

Giuliani’s strategy is to post a big win in delegate-rich Florida - where a lot of retired New Yorkers live - if he fares poorly in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where Mitt Romney leads in polls.

Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown speculates about what’s happening:

“Perhaps his much- discussed difference with the GOP mainstream over issues such as abortion, gay rights and gun control are beginning to take its toll,” Brown said of Giuliani.

One possibility: “leadership qualities” might trump issues, but Thompson is exciting people enough to deflate some of the value of Rudy’s intangible leader-ishness.

Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani | 4 Comments »

So lately we’ve been seeing more data indicating that Americans — especially younger Americans — have been moving left. Now MSNBC’s First Read reports that even Republicans may be considerably less conservative than many have assumed them to be. A new poll by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates “challenges the conventional notions of conservatism,” and indicates that the remarkable ideological flexibility among Republicans might benefit Rudy Giuliani.

I’m going to return the subject in more depth after I’ve had a chance to parse the numbers. But there are two key findings worth noting here. The first is that, on a broad level, half of Republicans seem to endorse the “liberal” view on any given issue. For instance:

On abortion
-Fifty-two percent believe abortions should be legal under certain circumstances.

On health care
-Fifty-one percent of Republicans agree that universal health care should be a right of all people. The moralists are also split on the issue.

On social welfare
-Half believe the government needs to provide a “helping hand” and safety net.

On gay rights
-Almost half of all Republicans favor gays serving openly in the military. Even four in 10 moralists think gays should be allowed to serve openly.

-Seventy-seven percent believe companies should not have the right to fire employees based on sexual orientation.

The other major finding is that even among dedicated social conservatives — the “moralists” referred to above, who tend to focus on issues like abortion, gay marriage, and school prayer — almost a third “say that [candidates’] leadership qualities are more important than their issue positions.” And Giuliani leads the other GOP contenders even among these moralists.

This suggests that a substantial portion of the Republican base would disagree with Patrick Ruffini’s argument that a panderer who says the right thing on the issues is better than an “authentic” politician who deviates from the party line. Then there’s the question of what it is that gives Rudy that aura of authenticity, that convinces Republicans of his so-called “leadership qualities.” I of course don’t think there’s much at all about Rudy Giuliani that’s “authentic,” but, in addition to and bolstering his reputation as the hero of 9/11 (an insult to the real heroes of 9/11), he may indeed have a certain Reaganesque flair for divining a popular mood and exemplifying it. My best guess is that Thomas Edsall had it right when he wrote that Giuliani’s true political skill is his willingness and ability to polarize people. This might be what makes him the man of the current GOP zeitgeist, that in a time of ideological crisis on the right, he’s the Republican who best recognizes and is able to take advantage of the fact that “the single thing that truly unites and energizes conservatives is a raw animosity toward liberals.”

And that, not ideology, might be what defines the difference between the parties these days. If so, it means that while half of Republicans might agree with us on the issues, we’re still very far apart.

Cross-posted at Alien & Sedition.

Rudy Giuliani | 1 Comment »