This has now become a full-fledged meme. Thompson, at home in Tennessee after a grueling handful of days campaigning, was asked about the death penalty in the state. You know the rest…

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Thursday he was unaware that a federal judge had ruled last week that lethal injection procedures in his home state were unconstitutional.

Thompson also told reporters that he was unaware the U.S. Supreme Court this week had agreed to consider a Kentucky case about whether lethal injection violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Thompson’s support for the death penalty was a major part of his campaign platform when he first ran for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee in 1994. Asked for his response to the recent Tennessee and Kentucky cases, Thompson responded, “I hadn’t heard that. I didn’t know.”

The article goes on to say, in the understatement of the year, that it’s “not the first time” Freddie has been caught off-guard by new information. Damn freedom-hating information!

This campaign is the train wreck that other train wrecks slow down to take a look at.

Fred Thompson | 2 Comments »

Just now got to a computer with the internet. What did I miss? If you’re like me and missed parts of the debate, check back tomorrow for video, audio and analysis by Tavis Smiley.

Watch the debate here.

Presidential Debates | 2 Comments »

Mitt Romney on divesting from Iran.

Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »

John McCain is so confident that his name recognition will move voters that he uses Barack Obama’s name to drive traffic to his website:

It’s not just Barack Obama who believes in the power of Barack Obama. John McCain believes in it too.

The McCain campaign has at least two different advertisements with Google AdWords that use Obama’s name to direct users to McCain’s Web site.

AdWords are text-based ads that appear on a viewer’s screen next to the list of Google search results. Advertisers bid on search terms using an automated process based on what users are searching for at that moment; placement of the ads is determined by who won the bid and the relevance of the ad. Advertisers pay per ad clicked.

Both of McCain’s AdWords have the headline, “Obama for President?” followed by a pitch for McCain. Under the heading, one ad asks, “Why Not Learn More About John McCain for President” with a link to the candidate’s Web site. The second ad reads, “Lean More About John McCain’s Journey on the 08 Campaign Trail” and also includes a link to McCain’s home page.

Searching for the term “Obama for president” brought up both McCain ads, which appeared in the top five search results on the first page.

Now that’s the mark of a campaign which really believes in their candidate, ay? (more…)

John McCain | 1 Comment »

Bill Kristol weighs in on last night’s Democratic debate:

Last night, for the first time this election cycle, I watched a Democratic presidential debate. It was appalling. But it was also, in a way, encouraging. Before last night, I thought it was 50-50 that the Republican nominee would win in November 2008.

Now I think it’s 2 to 1. And if the Democrat is anyone but Hillary, it’s 4 to 1.

Given Kristol’s record of prognostication on Iraq, I’d say that just about wraps next November up in favor of the Democrats.

Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

It’s September 27, the day of Tavis Smiley’s All-American Presidential Forum for Republicans, at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Do you know where your GOP frontrunners are?

Let’s see, what are some better things to do than talk to African-American voters?

Mitt Romney will be eating his way across California, with a fundraising lunch in Sacramento and a dinner in San Diego (and perhaps a nightcap in Tijuana?). Let’s hope he doesn’t ruin everything by filling up on pancakes during his very important visit to “the IHOP on Advantage Lane” this morning.

Rudy Giuliani will also be living it up in the Golden State, doing the cafe scene in Santa Barbara, and hitting the midway at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds in Lancaster. He’ll also be making a stop in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, but he might not have time to see the pier, as he’ll be busy getting endorsed by ex-California governor Pete Wilson. Yes, that’s the same Pete Wilson who ran the state GOP into the ground by gambling everything on the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 back in 1994. So Rudy will be skipping Smiley’s debate to spend the day with an icon of the Republican Party’s suicide-by-racism. And they say irony is dead.

John McCain will be here in New York, speaking to a friendly crowd at the conservative Hudson Institute (between Hudson, the Manhattan Institute, and the National Review, I think conservative house intellectuals make up about half the Republican population in NYC). He’ll also use the opportunity to grandstand some more about Columbia and Ahmadinejad. This evening it appears he’ll be fundraising somewhere in town. His campaign has an event scheduled for the New York Athletic Club at 6:00 pm, but it’s unclear whether he himself will be there. To be fair, he’s a little old for the gym these days.

Speaking of old, Fred Thompson will be back in his home state today, campaigning across middle Tennessee. Breakfast with Fred in Clarksville: $250 a plate. Lunch in Murfreesboro and dinner in Franklin: $500 each. Chance to reach out to African-American voters: priceless. Or, if you’re Thompson, apparently worthless.

All the frontrunners cited “scheduling conflicts” when they turned down Smiley’s invitation. So, judging by the schedules above, can we get a sense of what the Republican candidates value more than talking to minority voters? As the New York Times reports, even some on the right are unimpressed:

The decision to skip the forum tonight was criticized in an editorial in The Washington Times, a conservative-leaning newspaper, that said, “It is striking that the Republican front-runners believe that some run-of-the mill fund-raiser is more important than building up their relationships with black and Hispanic voters, groups who flock to the Democratic Party in droves.”

(more…)

Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Presidential Debates, Rudy Giuliani | 5 Comments »

Bad news for Mitt Romney: according a new CNN poll, Rudy Giuliani has caught up to him in the Granite State:

The survey, released Wednesday, shows the former Massachusetts Governor drawing support from 25 percent of Republican primary voters to 24 percent for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

That statistically-insignificant, 1 point margin is a major change from CNN/WMUR’s last New Hampshire poll, taken in July, when Romney held a comfortable 14 point lead over Giuliani.

Full poll results here (pdf).

Update: Just wanted to note this analysis from the article:

So what’s the reason behind Romney’s 9 point drop here in New Hampshire?

“Romney maintains an advantage over Giuliani among Granite State conservatives; but Giuliani has regained the lead among moderate and liberal Republicans while Romney falls to third place with that group,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. In July, Romney had the edge among both moderates and conservatives.

A plurality see Giuliani as the most likeable and the most electable Republican in the field, while McCain is seen as having the right experience to be president.

For the life of me, I’ll never understand how anyone can find Rudy Giuliani “likeable,” but maybe the “electable” part has more to do with his recent gains. Will Romney, just days after taking a Viguerie-esque hard conservative tack, make a new effort to appeal to moderate voters? Will people still think of Giuliani as a moderate if he keeps sounding just as belligerent as the Bush administration? Will Fred Thompson remember what he had for breakfast this morning? Tune in next time, to As the Republican World Turns…

Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Polling, Rudy Giuliani | 1 Comment »

Rudy Giuliani canned his finance chief today. Does this mean we should expect less-than-stellar, by GOP 2008 measures, fundraising figures for this quarter?

In a sign of potential money woes, Rudy Giuliani has fired his presidential campaign’s chief fundraiser and brought in a top rainmaker for President Bush, The Daily News has learned.

Anne Dunsmore, who took control of Giuliani’s day-to-day fundraising operation in May, has been replaced by Jim Lee, a Texas money man and Bush ally who is already one of Giuliani’s national finance co-chairs.

Earlier this week, “rogue” supporters held fundraisers suggesting $9.11 per donation, a reference to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; an event exploited without end that it is the entire basis of the Giuliani campaign. (When people say “9/11 changed everything,” Rudy Giuliani is dead-set on proving it.)

If Giuliani’s numbers are low, he will have wished they suggested $254 donations instead.

Fundraising, Rudy Giuliani | 7 Comments »

But when you expel all the immigrants from your town, it turns out the economy suffers.

A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

I don’t think they looked 10 minutes out. They listened to their basest, most nativist desires and decided to make their township hostile to furriners. But their typically 21st-century America service-based economy couldn’t find the workers, and their unnecessarily cruel mindset was subject to court challenges. If we stopped to understand how to work with the system that’s in place and come up with a broad-based solution, this problem couls be easily solved. But know-nothings like Tancredo would rather shriek about the cost to the economy of illegal immigration, when he has it exactly backwards.

Tom Tancredo | 5 Comments »

Republican candidates for president are all chiming in with their outrage over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United States, which included stops at Columbia University and the United Nations. Ahmadinejad is in the U.S. for a summit at the U.N.

They are all using the same messaging. Sounds like a GOP PR firm made a ton of money in consulting fees this week.

Duncan Hunter:

But Hunter went a step further by pledging that if the speech goes forth he will introduce legislation in Congress to cut off federal assistance from the University. All federal assistance. This would presumably include research and scientific grants for the sciences and medical school.

“If the left-wingers of academia will not support our troops, they, in the very least, should not support our adversaries,” Hunter said in a statement accompanying a warning letter he wrote to Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia.

Fred Thompson:

Republican candidate Fred Thompson maintains that, if he were running the country, he would deny Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entry into the United States.

According to UN Headquarters Agreement of 1947, the US “shall not impose any impediments to transit,” obligating the US to allow representatives of UN members, or those invited on “official business,” to visit the UN. However, the government may bar entry based on national security grounds, but would have to provide specific allegations for banning Ahmadinejad.

“There are exceptions to every rule. This is our home soil,” Thompson asserted on Bill Bennett’s “Morning in America” talk radio show Monday morning, adding, “I wouldn’t mind a little controversy at the United Nations.” [...]

“It’s supposed to be a place of diversity and controversy and things of that nature … but they’re giving rank hypocrisy a bad name,” Thompson said.

Tom Tancredo:

“Ahmadinejad is an international criminal and a leading sponsor of terrorism,” said Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado in a statement. “This is a man who has contributed directly to the deaths of American soldiers. For Columbia University’s President to host Ahmadinejad on campus under the guise of free-speech while simultaneously barring the ROTC smacks of hypocrisy.”

John McCain:

“There’s rank hypocrisy here,” McCain said, describing Columbia’s decision to allow Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, but not to allow the Reserve Officers Training Corps, or ROTC, to talk to students on campus. [...]

“To not allow the ROTC … to try to recruit or discuss issues with young men and women on their campus is just disgraceful,” McCain said.

Mitt Romney:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney unveiled a new radio ad Monday, continuing his call for the United Nations and Columbia University to withdraw their respective invitations to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The ad, which begins airing today in Iowa and later this week in New Hampshire and Florida, touts Romney’s refusal as Governor to provide a police escort to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami when he spoke at Harvard University, saying “Romney called the invitation a ‘disgrace.’”

Romney runs ads on everything. Time for Jonathan Singer to piece together another post about Romney’s spending habits.

Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo | 2 Comments »