It never ceases to amaze me how Republicans can keep recycling the same old warhorses, no matter what kind of criminal indictments or universal disapprobation they receive from the outside world. John McCain traveled today with Henry Kissinger. Now, Kissinger is a Beltway elder of the highest order, and so this would raise nary an eyebrow in DC. But over in the rational universe, Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. Whether it’s the overturning of the Allende government in Chile and the installation of Augusto Pinochet, the illegal bombing of Cambodia that led directly to the rise of Pol Pot, or countless other crimes undertaken by the national security apparatus of this government while Kissinger was holding sway over it, the documented cases of kidnapping, murder and violent overthrowing of sovereign governments ought to be enough to earn him the shame of a nation. But he keeps bopping along, giving wooden speeches in support of candidates - and nobody finds this odd in the least.

The media is dying to write the “Comeback McCain” story, and in New Hampshire he appears to be doing well. But this appearance will never be reported as a misstep. It’s because Kissinger is a Village elder, and the DC establishment would never cast one of their own to the wolves.

Endorsements, John McCain | No Comments »

The news has been bad for Rudy Giuliani lately, as he faces the prospect of third-place finishes in both Iowa and New Hampshire even while influential party leaders denounce him as bad for the GOP. And it keeps getting worse:

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s image as 9/11 mayor took a double hit Monday as he lost a key endorsement from the Sept. 11 commission chair to a rival, and New York firefighters and families of victims of the terrorist attacks took their campaign against him to New Hampshire.

Tom Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission — and a Republican for Rudy’s neighboring state of New Jersey — kicked another hole in the 9iu11iani story yesterday, endorsing John McCain for president. “To the extent that we’ve been less vulnerable to attacks that we suffered on 9/11, it’s in a large part due to the extraordinary leadership of John McCain,” said Kean.

The idea that McCain has singlehandedly kept America safe for the last six years is almost as laughable as the notion that Rudy Giuliani is in some way qualified to be commander in chief because he happened to be around during the World Trade Center attack, but if Rudy can’t lock up the 9/11 commissioner — who is, again, from New Jersey — it just doesn’t look good at all.

Adding to his woes, the firefighters who have been going after Rudy for some time now, over what they consider to be his failures before, on and after 9/11, are thinking about forming a 527. They held a town hall yesterday in New Hampshire, reporting that voters were “shocked” by what they had to say.

In the hypothetical Giuliani vs. Clinton matchup, we keep hearing about Hillary’s high negatives and Rudy’s high positives. What we hear much less often — and this is not meant as an endorsement of Hillary — is that her numbers really have nowhere to go but up. And Rudy’s, as we’re learning, have nowhere to go but down.

New Hampshire, Iowa, Endorsements, Rudy Giuliani | 2 Comments »

This would be bigger than either the Pat Robertson or the Paul Weyrich endorsements:

Sources close to Dobson say that within the next ten days he is coordinating an endorsement plan with the presidential campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. According to a Huckabee insider in Iowa, the event would be staged in that state at a rally, followed by a bus tour across the state, and an appearance by Huckabee on Dobson’s radio show, which is heard nationally.

We can go into all the reasons why conservative evangelicals in general, and James Dobson in particular, have been losing influence within the GOP. But a Dobson endorsement would still be huge for Huckabee. As Soren Dayton explains, Huckabee has been solidifying his support among the Christian right — including picking up a key endorsement from Southern Baptist leaders on Friday — and getting Dobson in his camp could make him a genuine force to be reckoned with:

That sounds like a consolidation of the religious right in a way that could be worth a good 5-10% in places like Iowa and South Carolina. And in Iowa, Huckabee is in 2nd, and this kind of thing could include votes coming out of Romney’s hide. In South Carolina, it is less clear, but it seems likely that it would come out of the hides of both Romney and Fred Thompson.

Dayton notes that Romney is fighting to prevent a Dobson-Huckabee alliance — but the real loser here is probably Fred Thompson, who appears, once again, to have alienated a group of important people who had wanted to support him.

Fred Thompson, Endorsements, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney | 2 Comments »

There’s a pretty good argument to be made that Pat Robertson’s embrace of Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy was only the second-most important Christian fundamentalist endorsement this week. As David explained, Robertson may be a celebrity but his actual influence on the right has faded considerably. Paul Weyrich, on the other hand, still matters a lot. Weyrich was a founding member of the modern Christian right, and he continues to be a key player in fundie politics, at the center of the Council for National Policy’s efforts to find a candidate acceptable to the fundamentalist movement.

Weyrich endorsed Mitt Romney this week. As Jonathan Martin observes, only a James Dobson endorsement (which may yet be forthcoming) could carry more weight on the Christian right. This matters in and of itself, and all the more considering the specifics of Romney’s strategic position. He must win in Iowa, by a large enough margin to avoid the impression of a letdown — only his standing there is increasingly threatened by, among other things, Mike Huckabee’s surging support among evangelicals. Romney is desperate to overcome the disadvantage his Mormon faith presents him with among conservative evangelicals, and while he’ll never be able to do so decisively, every inroad with fundamentalist leaders helps his cause. Weyrich’s endorsement will help Romney guard his flank against Huckabee while building the case that he is the socially conservative alternative to Rudy Giuliani. With Fred Thompson fading toward irrelevance, it helps Romney make the primary a two-person race — exactly the kind of race against Giuliani you have to think Romney would like to run.

Iowa, Fred Thompson, Endorsements, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney | No Comments »

In recent years, when Pat Robertson has made statements like “We should assassinate Hugo Chavez” or Gays and lesbians are to blame for 9/11″ or “Cities that reject intelligent design deserve to receive a hurricane”, evangelicals would always claim that his influence has been lessened over the years and he is no longer relevant.

On the August 23, 2005 episode of Fox News’ Special Report, Hume declared, “The televangelist Pat Robertson’s political influence may have been declining since he came in second in the Iowa Republican caucuses 17 years ago. And he may have no clout with the Bush administration.”

Morton Kondracke echoed Hume, exclaiming that “Pat Robertson’s day has long since passed.”

Therefore, I guess the least relevant evangelical leader in America just endorsed Rudy Giuliani. (Hey, how’s that “We deserved 9/11″ business square with that?)

I’m not sure what his import is anymore. His influence in creating the law school, Regent University, attended by the likes of Monica Goodling and dozens of other Bush Administration Justice Department officials, is considerable. My point is that this will suddenly be seen as “the most important endorsement EVAH” after years of hearing that Robertson is a crazy old coot and an afterthought. Just a window into how the media works.

Robertson is a partisan political operative, not a religious leader, and this endorsement kind of proves it, as it goes against all appearances of principle on what he’s considered to be core issues like abortion and gay rights. Other social conservatives are looking in other directions, like Sam Brownback, who chose his Senate colleague John McCain.

“John McCain is the only candidate who can rally the Reagan coalition of conservatives, independents and conservative Democrats needed to defeat Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat in the general election next year,” Brownback said in a statement.

He praised McCain for spending a lifetime “standing up for human rights around the world, including a consistent 24-year pro-life record of protecting the rights of the unborn.”

I guess none of that matters to Robertson, who would rather choose the candidate most likely to eat a terrorist and spit out the bones. Ultimately I think these endorsements mean little compared to boots on the ground and organization in the early states. What they are is a window into the real concerns of the so-called “religious right.”

Endorsements, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani | 6 Comments »

The November Blog’s Noah found an odd quote from Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) who, apparently, needs a refresher course on the U.S. Constitution:

“America is hungry for a President who will say what he means, and do what he says. The American people want and deserve a genuine leader, and that is Rudy Giuliani,” said U.S. Senator Kit Bond. “Rudy has the leadership qualities and the experience to handle whatever challenges America faces in the next 10 years.”

Uh, Kit, presidents can only serve eight years, not ten.

Or, Rudy is planning on pushing a constitutional amendment to expand presidential terms from four to five years each?

Endorsements, Rudy Giuliani | 6 Comments »

Pastor Don Wilton, the former President of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, withdrew his endorsement of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

The Romney campaign has agreed to withdraw all references to Pastor Don Wilton’s endorsement of Romney, the Baptist Press reported on Tuesday.

Wilton said the endorsement — first announced by the Romney campaign last Friday — was a “mistake.”

“While I did give my consent to the local campaign to use my affirmation of the governor’s stance on family values in my capacity as an individual citizen, I made the mistake of not realizing the extent to which it would be used on a national basis,” Wilton told the news agency. “It was my personal error to agree to support Romney’s campaign. Until this incident I had never endorsed any person running for any elected office, Democrat or Republican.”

Endorsements, Mitt Romney | No Comments »

The November Blog’s Noah notes that former Senator Fred Thompson bagged the endorsement of fellow Tennessee Senator Bill Frist, locking up the “creepy doctor vote.”

Also under FDT’s endorsement belt, the Klan vote (former Senator George Allen, Virginia) and the global warming denier vote (Senator James Inhofe, Oklahoma).

Fred Thompson, Endorsements | 3 Comments »

Fred Thompson gathers the picketing soldiers’ funerals vote.

Members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church are urging Fred Thompson to support their stance on homosexuality — a position on which they say the Republican presidential candidate once “saw eye to eye” with them.

Thompson was hired for a mid-1980s legal case in Kansas on the recommendation of Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps.

The Topeka, Kan.-based church is now best known for protesting at soldiers’ funerals, claiming their deaths are retribution for the nation’s acceptance of homosexuality […]

Church members released an open letter to Thompson this week, saying he had discussed his views on homosexuality with them while handling the case of a woman who had sued the state’s Republican attorney general for sexual harassment.

“We know what your position used to be on the homosexual question — and it was wonderful, and we saw eye to eye,” church members said in the letter to Thompson.

The Westboro Baptist Church is so out there on the fringe that Fox News hosts tell them they’re going to hell. They’re the group that right-wingers use as a punching bag to prove their “independence.” The Thompson camp is trying to distance themselves as fast as they possibly can. But having Fred Phelps on your side is a stench that doesn’t easily wash off.

UPDATE: I shouldn’t let a “Fred!” post go by without this statement from today’s Values Voters Summit:

On what he would do in his first 100 days in office: “I don’t really know.” But, he says, “I know what I would do the first hour. I would go in the Oval Office, close the door, and pray for the wisdom to know what was right, and the strength to do what is right.”

Wait, couldn’t he get started on that now? Does God wait to come up with his plan for you until after you secure the Electoral College?

Man, this guy is saving loads of money on the campaign trail on stress pills and policy papers. He has neither.

Fred Thompson, Endorsements | 3 Comments »

Cross-posted at Alien & Sedition.

First things first: can we please stop referring to the Council for National Policy as “secretive”? The CNP is the most publicity-seeking “secret” organization on the planet. It’s made up of prima-donna religious right leaders who enjoy their public positions of political influence; if it were truly clandestine it wouldn’t be alerting the national media every time it has a significant meeting.

So the CNP is considering backing a third party candidate if Rudy Giuliani wins the nomination. Again, it’s no secret that the group has been casting around for candidates for some time now: back in February, for instance, it was deliberating over whether to throw its support behind a Christian conservative in the GOP primary — Huckabee, or Brownback, or South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. Christian Right heavyweight Paul Weyrich described the Council as “split 50-50″ over whether to unite behind a second-tier candidate, or to just split up according to individual dictates of conscience and calculation. The discussions ended without consensus, and the CNP’s main movers have mostly sat out the primary race since then, which should tell us something about how much all this talk really means.

The problem was with the notion of backing a horse that couldn’t win. And if the Council wasn’t willing to support a second tier candidate in the primary, why would it be willing to take the much longer odds of organizing behind a third party candidate in the general?

There’s no denying the seriousness of the dilemma facing Christian conservatives. Their influence within the GOP is fading fast; they’ve never been much more than cheap foot soldiers to a party run by a business lobby with little interest in social issues either way. If they allow the Republicans to nominate a pro-choice candidate, and fail to challenge the decision, they stand to lose much of what remains of their political credibility. But at the same time, they hardly seem to be spoiling for a fight. It’s true that they could throw the election to the Democrats by winning only a couple of percentage points next November. But what will that win them? Do they really want proof that all they can draw is a couple points? It could make them look every bit as marginal as Ralph Nader.

This is indeed a dangerous moment for the Republican party. It seems that the party is calculating that its mass support, once built on the backs of the anti-abortion movement, can now be drawn from the legend of perpetual war. Over the long run, I suspect that’s not likely to be a winning strategy. But in the very short term, understand that, for the “secretive” CNP, the decision to support a third-party candidacy will not come easily, and it very well might not come at all.

Endorsements, Rudy Giuliani | 2 Comments »