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.

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

Mike Huckabee is going all in in the Hawkeye State.

Ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee will spend most of the next 65 days in Iowa and has moved the majority of his staff to the state in an effort to capitalize on a sense that he’s gaining ground here.

“Well, I certainly think even the Iowa poll numbers are reflecting that we’re in play in a very strong way and continue to move up and other candidates have stalled and are beginning to decline. I think we’re in great position there [...]

“We’re hoping to do what we essentially did with the straw poll, just doing it on steroids. We know we’ve got to get physical bodies that so committed to us no matter how cold the temperature is… no matter how good the Orange Bowl is…. Among those caucus goers who have already made up their mind, we’re in first place.. what we’re doing now is to go down to the precinct level, recruiting chairman in the precincts, getting precincts townships, counties.. We’re developing our efforts where the concentration of voters is likely o be highest…

The Republican race is shaping up very interestingly in the early states. Where Huckabee is focusing on Iowa, the newly flush with cash Ron Paul is focusing on New Hampshire. You can also argue that, since Freddie has fallen back nationally, he’s the “spoiler” in South Carolina. And they’re all doing quite well at this stage of the game in their regional bailiwicks. For the “national” candidates, their problem could be that they never get to fully capture the narrative or any media attention. Chris Bowers says that this favors Romney, because a weakening top tier and all these wild-cards make his early-state position even stronger.

But if you look historically, a Presidential race with all these regional candidates typically ends up in a brokered convention and a compromise candidate. Obviously, the state of things in 21st-century politics would appear to preclude that, but this is a crazy year for The Right’s Field.

Fred Thompson, Iowa, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Ron Paul | 1 Comment »

I reported this back in August: a slim majority of Republican caucus goers favor withdrawing US troops from Iraq within six months, according to data from Strategic Vision, a Republican polling firm.

Strategic Vision has done a poll of Iowans once a month since then, and both September’s and October’s numbers confirm that the August data was not a fluke. Even after Gen. David Petraeus testified before both houses of Congress, Republican support for withdrawal from Iraq has steadied and perhaps even grown here in Iowa, to a whopping 54% in October.

I posted a full table of Strategic Vision’s numbers going back to February, when they started asking the question, right here.

I argued a few weeks ago that I thought this gave Rep. Ron Paul an opening in Iowa, since he is the only candidate who publicly opposes the war.

Strategic Vision also asks Republicans another interesting question: “Do you see President George W. Bush as a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan? In October 5% said yes, 72% said no. That falls in line with the answers Republicans were giving since January. About 70% of Iowa Republicans think it is “very important” or “somewhat important” to have a conservative Republican “in the mode of Ronald Reagan” as their nominee.

Iowa, Ron Paul | No Comments »

Primary-calendar brinksmanship is starting to get pretty tedious, if you ask me, but you have to know when the damn things are going to be held. For the record, let it be noted that Iowa Republicans have now determined to hold their caucus on January 3, presumably before everyone fully sobers up from their New Year’s celebrations and notices again what a depressing field of candidates they’ll have to choose from.

That was a joke. The GOP candidates are, of course, wonderful people, and there’s no better way to get ready for the Orange Bowl than to exercise your democratic right to decide whether the party of moral values should be represented in the fall elections by an adulturer with anger-management problems or by an amoral flip-flopper.

Meanwhile, the Politico reports that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner is not ruling out a December 2007 primary date. Gardner is standing on the ledge, muttering “don’t make me do it,” waiting for Michigan’s next move:

Gardner pointed out a rarely-noticed part of the New Hampshire law that says he must set a primary date for “each year when a president of the United States is to be elected OR THE YEAR PREVIOUS.” (emphasis added.)

The law anticipates that other states might threaten New Hampshire’s status by moving their contests to very early in January.

And Michigan may do that.

There seems to be a sort of convergence here. I expect that, by mid-November, we’ll learn that Michigan has re-scheduled its primary for three weeks ago, Ron Paul won because his supporters turn up everywhere, even the past, and now New Hampshire is threatening to move its primary date to October 1975.

Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire | No Comments »

Mitt Romney is way out in front in Iowa, according to a recent Des Moines Register poll of 405 likely Republican caucus voters.

Mitt Romney 29%
Fred Thompson 18%
Mike Huckabee 12%
Rudy Giuliani 11%
John McCain 7%
Tom Tancredo 5%
Ron Paul 4%
Sam Brownback 2%
Alan Keyes 2%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Not sure/Uncommitted 9%Survey of 405 likely Republican caucus participants was conducted October 1-3. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percentage points.

For the first time that I have seen, Mike Huckabee surpassed one of the top-tier candidates in polling. Rudy Giuliani  is running fourth behind Romney, Fred Thompson and Huckabee.

Duncan Hunter is polling behind perennial electoral loser, Alan Keyes, who is tied with Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

(Hat tip: Aron Goldman, race42008.com)

Alan Keyes, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Iowa, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Polling, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback | 2 Comments »

Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson interviewed former Sen. Fred Thompson today, and she posted a partial transcript to her blog.

She asked him about Iran, and his answer included the statement, “I’m afraid that the Soviet Union & China are not ever going to do anything that’s going to hurt them that badly but we need to ratchet those up if at all possible.”

Here’s Kay’s transcript of the Iran question (emphasis added):

Henderson: “How, as president, would you deal with Iran?”

Thompson: “I think we need to understand first of all the threat that Iran poses to us. They have been killing our people for some time either directly or indirectly through terrorist organizations. They are convinced that their god tells them that they should be rulers of the Muslim world and they should kill us off and (dropped words) and millions of innocent people will have to die in the process so be it, including their own people. This is a different kind of threat and enemy with a different face as far as their ideology is concerned than we’ve ever faced before. It’s religious in its origin but it’s twisted and warped so it presents a threat to us especially in Iraq. They want to take over Iraq. They’re doing everything they can to try to drive us out of there. We’re seeing some success with some minor economic sanctions right now. I think the best way to describe it as probably aggravating the Iranians more than anything. It’s not really hurting them. I’m afraid that the Soviet Union & China are not ever going to do anything that’s going to hurt them that badly but we need to ratchet those up if at all possible. I think that the diplomatic route still has some possibilities. I think also what’s going on inside the country has to be taken (dropped words). We have a lot of people inside that country that do not want that kind of regime ruling them and the things that they’re doing. They’re killing and imprisoning innocent people. Their economy is on its way to a shambles. Inflation and unemployment and violence have become commonplace in that country and so these people (dropped words) in large part take care of this situation themselves. You don’t know what will be the aftermath of that, but it’s certainly an option that has to be considered and ultimately you know if they arrive and they have 3000 centrifuges right on their way to enriching uranium which would allow them to have a nuclear program, then we have to make sure our intelligence is good as to exactly what they’re doing and where they’re doing it and we cannot exclude a military option.”

No, I did not mistype. Thompson said Soviet Union rather than Russia.

Two possibilities: Thompson believes he is his character from the film The Hunt for Red October, or he’s trying really, really hard to sound like Ronald Reagan in as many ways as possible, even if to do so he has to resort to anachronisms.

Crossposted here.

Fred Thompson, Iowa | 492 Comments »

So Mitt Romney is the first candidate this cycle to have bought over 10,000 TV ads — almost all of them in Iowa and New Hampshire, with a handful in South Carolina and Florida.

Tell me, if you live in Iowa, does the face of Mitt Romney haunt you in your dreams? If not, the $8 million he has spent on the teevee isn’t doing its job.

No doubt this goes a long way toward explaining his lead in Iowa, though New Hampshire has suddenly begun to trend against him. Does this mean he has insinuated himself so deep into the voters’ subconscious that he’ll have a natural advantage when the primaries begin? Or does it just make him the hare to someone else’s tortoise?

Iowa, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire | 2 Comments »

American Research Group (ARG) released new figures from the three early states on September 30 — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Keyes, now only a few weeks into his campaign-destined-for-failure tired Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton, Colo.) in two of the early states — Iowa and New Hampshire.

Heading into the fourth quarter of fundraising, it begs the question: who will bow out next?

Iowa, New Hampshire, Polling, South Carolina | 1 Comment »

Last night, the Iowa Christian Alliance held a dinner and invited former Sen. Fred Thompson, who came to the dinner as part of his second swing through Iowa as a presidential candidate. Thompson was told he would not have an opportunity to speak at the dinner, only to attend.

Iowa Independent’s Jay Wagner described how Thompson’s staff dealt with the media gaggle that showed up to cover Thompson, who has been a bit of a stranger around these parts:

Although all the presidential candidates were invited to attend, the ICA had told them in advance that they wouldn’t have an opportunity to speak. The Thompson campaign told reporters during the event that their candidate would avail himself to reporters prior to his departure so as not to disrupt the meeting. But after he finished eating – and before the program got underway – Thompson and his family and staff slipped into an SUV and departed, leaving the media gaggle behind without a chance to answer a single question.

A Thompson staffer promised a media availability outside the event so questions wouldn’t interrupt the dinner itself, and then there wasn’t one. Jay wasn’t the only reporter to blog about the experience afterwards. While his story merely mentioned Thompson’s media dodge toward the end, Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson and WHO TV’s Dave Price both highlighted the treatment they had received in blog entries. Said Henderson:

No questions. No answers. If you want to know what he said tonight, you’ll have to ask Jeri.

Dave Price of WHO TV characterized the evening in his post title, “Fred, Fried Chicken and a Lie Pie for dessert.” He concluded:

Then, we followed him after he left the bathroom. Perhaps, this was our chance. Nope, he made his way back to his table. Then, he turned around and went outside. Now, it was our chance to get all those faith questions answered. Thompson walked outside…and then walked into the SUV waiting for him. Then, he left. Another staffer said there would be plenty of time for questions during the rest of the trip. Will there or is that another slice of lie pie?

If Thompson was hoping to be the media darling candidate this time around, a la Sen. John McCain in 2000, he’s missing his opportunity.

Crossposted here.

Updated 10/01/07 at 8:13pm by Matt Ortega: TAPPED posted the video of a local Iowa news report on FDT’s skipping out on the press.

Fred Thompson, Iowa | 5 Comments »

Iowa Independent’s Jay Wagner was one of seven people to attend Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo’s appearance at the country club in Sibley, IA, over the weekend. The seven people included “two county Republican committee members, three journalists and a smiling couple wearing Tancredo for President t-shirts.”

And he insisted that although his focus on immigration may make him look like a one-issue candidate, he isn’t one because illegal immigration is actually the cause of all of our problems:

Tancredo said the more he studies the issue, the more it seems that many of the nation’s problems can be blamed on Hispanics crossing into the United States from Mexico.

Health care costs? Blame the burden of paying for emergency-room care for 12 million illegal immigrants who receive free medical services, he said.

The nation’s rising addiction to methamphetamines? Mexico has become a major source of the illegal drug, he said.

Low wages? If America rids itself of illegal immigrants who take minimum-wage jobs, the country’s businesses would be forced to pay decent wages and benefits to attract a work force, he said.

“There aren’t many problems that we can’t attribute to these lawbreakers who cross our borders to live here,” he said.

He also said our weak border makes it easy for Islamic terrorists to enter the country unchecked, causing a major security problem in the United States.

Also of note, Tancredo noted that he has to finish in third place in the Iowa Caucuses to continue his campaign.

Read full post.

Iowa, Tom Tancredo | 2 Comments »