Ghost(s) Of Romney’s Past

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has been working hard to comfortAmerican voters with his Mormonism by calling polygamy “bizarre” and cozying up to major evangelicals like Rev. Jerry Falwell, Rev. Franklin Graham and Paula White.  Although, it looks like he’ll need the Ghostbusters to deal with the now known fact that two of his great-great grandfather’s each had 12 wives.

Prior to this revelation, he may have been able to cloak his faith with strong repudiations of its “bizarre” elements and jokes like “I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman … and a woman … and a woman;” however, now it looks like he’ll have to give a major speech reminding everyone exactly what role his faith plays in his life.  I’m actually pretty sure he’ll be able to get past this Mormon issue.  To be honest, I think Romney’s campaign has much bigger issues…like the fact that he’s not gaining any real traction yet.

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Edwards Initiates Operation Apology Drop

John Edwards is in the middle of a 3 day campaign swing through New York (Sen. Clinton’s territory).  Yesterday, while speaking to reporters at a union-sponsored event, Edwards apologized again for his Iraq war vote and took a subtle snipe at Sen. Clinton:

If you asked me what I think the most important personal characteristics of the next president are, I would say honesty, openness and decency.  There’s not a single voter in America who doesn’t understand that their president is human, and their president will sometimes makes mistakes…[Voters] want you to be willing to change course when something’s not working. We’ve had six-plus years now of a president who is completely unwilling to do that.

Granted, this time he stopped short of directly referencing Sen. Clinton, but he didn’t demonstrate the same restraint last week at the Nevada Forum when he said that “Clinton’s decision not to disavow her vote was ‘between her and her conscience.’”

Contrary to his campaign’s belief, I don’t see a substantial benefit from having Edwards out there consistently apologizing.  It’s important for a candidate to demonstrate that he/she is willing to take responsibility, the whole “Buck Stops Here” mentality; however, it’s extremely damaging for a candidate to consistently remind people that he/she was wrong on a major issue and further it’s just silly to suggest to voters that an incorrect decision is somehow a legitimate criterion for being elected.  It’s clear why Edwards is doing this, in my opinion, he’s trying to get himself into a little spat with Hillary over the vote, thus garnering some desperately needed publicitly, while weakening Sen. Clinton.  Unfortunately for him, he’s wrong on two levels:

• First and foremost, this is apologetic quest is not an effective strategy for a general election.  So even if he wins the Democratic primary, he will have built a wall between himself and the White House (if he keeps on this path).
• Secondly, this strategy isn’t helping him in the primary.  It’s actually working against him and slowly making him less relevant.  Each time he needles Sen. Clinton and she fails to respond, he loses legitimacy.  Heavens to betsy, it only takes a supporter of Sen. Obama for Sen. Clinton to respond, yet Edwards compares her to George Bush and she just brushes it off.  The media, the voters, they’ll see this trend and wonder why other candidates aren’t taking his criticisms seriously and in turn, his support will continue to wane.

My advice?  Get off this love train, stop telling people they should vote for you because you’re sorry and because you’re decent and start telling people they should vote for you because you know how, not you will, but you know HOW to deal with Iraq, Iran, terrorism and N. Korea.  Start telling voters that you’re the best person to not only protect them from terrorists destroying their lives, but from government wasting their money and eroding their civil liberties.  This is a campaign for President, not Miss Congeniality.

My best to you Sen. Edwards, I hope you heed this advice (like other 2008 Central advice to you).

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We’ve Reached the Event Horizon: McCain Officially Announces

According to the Hotline, John McCain today officially announced his candidacy for President today at a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman. Feel the drama:

McCain: “I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States.”
Letterman: “Oh!”

There’s little noteworthy about this, but it might be telling that at one point McCain wanted to hold off until late spring, and given the circumstances of Giuliani jumping out to a big and growing lead, McCain simply could not afford to play coy with voters any more. What will be interesting will be seeing if he has anything to connect with voters that Giuliani does not have.

Whatever that reason is, though, we will probably have to wait until April. That is when McCain will give his formal announcement speech, according to an AP report. He might be hoping that the chink in Giuliani’s armor (his weakness of social issues) develops by then, or simply his official candidacy gives him some momentum.

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Poll Vaulting: Obama Behind Hillary, but Ahead in General Election Polls

The new Zogby Poll is out (which polls nationwide), and it is noteworthy not for the numbers of the poll, which by itself are very par for the course, but for the matchup strength in the general election.

Republican Results:
Giuliani 29%
McCain 20%
Romney 9%
Rice 7%
Gingrich 7%
Brownback 4%
Tancredo 1%
Hunter 1%
Someone else 4%
Not sure 19%

Giuliani leads in nearly every demographic; McCain only approaches him among voters older than 50. Also notice the lack of Mike Huckabee’s name. Among conservatives, it’s a little different:

Among those Republican voters who consider themselves “very conservative,” Romney wins 23%, compared to 22% for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The much–ballyhooed very conservative vote is split even more among second–tier candidates, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice winning 13% support and Sen. Sam Brownback winning 9%. Giuliani (4%) and McCain (3%) failed to win more than token support among this demographic.

Democratic Results:
Clinton 33%
Obama 25%
Edwards 12%
Richardson 5%
Biden 2%
Clark 1%
Someone else 3%
Not sure 20%

It is interesting that Obama continues to climb towards Hillary (a month ago he was down at 14%). Also interesting is the demographic results:

In the Democratic race, Clinton wins solid support among older voters, while Obama has the edge among younger counterparts. Clinton holds a 31% to 24% edge among white Democratic voters, while Obama leads among African–Americans, 36% to 27%. Progressives gave the nod to Obama, while moderates favored Clinton. The two were deadlocked at 30% support among male Democratic voters, but Clinton led among women, 34% to 22%.

In a measurement of how firm the support is for the candidates overall, Clinton’s support is just a bit weaker than that of Obama. A slight majority of Clinton supporters – 54% – said they are likely to change their minds before they actually cast a primary or caucus vote, while 48% of Obama supporters agreed. While his overall support lags, Edwards appears to have strong–minded backers: just 28% said they are likely to jump from the Edwards ship over the course of the next year.

As mentioned above, the noteworthy part in particular is the general election matchups.

Giuliani 47%, Clinton 40%
Giuliani 40%, Obama 46%
Giuliani 46%, Edwards 40%

McCain 47%, Clinton 39%
McCain 40%, Obama 44%
McCain 47%, Edwards 38%

Romney 35%, Clinton 45%
Romney 29%, Obama 51%
Romney 32%, Edwards 47%

As you can see, McCain and Giuliani poll almost exactly the same in the general election, as do Clinton and Edwards. Romney is behind, but that can at least partially be attributed to his low level of notoriety, particularly among people who will not be voting in the GOP Primary. The surprise is Obama polling so well compared to Edwards and Clinton. He makes in roads that neither of them with all their notoriety can make. And if Clinton and Edwards can’t amke up that ground by now, it’s unlikely they will suddenly be able to a year from now. The question, though, is how much this will hold up for Obama as his policies become more well known.

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Poll Vaulting: Blacks to Obama, Evangelicals to Giuliani

The fallout from the South Carolina endorsement shenanigans seems to have helped Obama and hurt Clinton. An ABC-Washington Post poll found:

Clinton’s and Obama’s support among white voters changed little since December, but the shifts among black Democrats were dramatic. In December and January Post-ABC News polls, Clinton led Obama among African Americans by 60 percent to 20 percent. In the new poll, Obama held a narrow advantage among blacks, 44 percent to 33 percent. The shift came despite four in five blacks having a favorable impression of the New York senator.

African Americans view Clinton even more positively than they see Obama, but in the time since he began his campaign, his favorability rating rose significantly among blacks. In the latest poll, 70 percent of African Americans said they had a favorable impression of Obama, compared with 54 percent in December and January.

Overall, Clinton is still beating Obama 36 to 24, with Gore at 14 and Edwards at 12; take out Gore, and Clinton leads 43-27 over Obama with Edwards at 14. None of the other Democrats were above 3 percent. These numbers are not important - at this point it’s mostly a popularity contest. The trends that are emerging are important, though. Obama taking advantage of a black politician endorsing a candidate as a means to gaining popularity amon gblack voters is important. It’s also notable that virtual unknowns like Obama can quickly turn around their polling numbers. There’s no way Clinton, for instance, could hope for anything so dramatic among any demographic.

The good news for Clinton is that at the height of dissatisfaction with the war, she is still doing well among those who may not share her position:

The Post-ABC News poll found that 52 percent of Democrats said her vote was the right thing to do at the time, while 47 percent said it was a mistake. Of those who called it a mistake, however, 31 percent said she should apologize. Among Democrats who called the war the most important issue in deciding their 2008 candidate preference, Clinton led Obama 40 to 26 percent.

The Republican side of this poll is equally as interesting.

In the Republican race, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who recently made clear his intentions to seek the presidency, has expanded his lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Giuliani holds a 2 to 1 advantage over McCain among Republicans, according to the poll, more than tripling his margin of a month ago.

The principal reason was a shift among white evangelical Protestants, who now clearly favor Giuliani over McCain. Giuliani is doing well among this group of Americans despite his support of abortion rights and gay rights, two issues of great importance to religious conservatives. McCain opposes abortion rights.

This is borderline unbelievable, to an extent, and I have to wonder what staying power this will have as Giuliani’s positions on abortion and gay rights become more well known. The poll continues later on:

When Republicans were asked to rate Giuliani, McCain and Romney on a series of attributes, Giuliani was seen as the strongest leader, the most inspiring, the candidate with the best chance of winning the general election, the most honest and trustworthy and the one closest to them on the issues. McCain was seen as having the best experience to be president, but only by a narrow margin.

Giuliani faces potential problems because of his views on abortion and gay rights. More than four in 10 Republicans said they were less likely to support him because of those views. More than two in 10 Republicans said there was “no chance” they would vote for him.

Giuliani on the whole is up 44-21 over McCain with Gingrich still polling steady at 15% and Romney only at 4%. Take out Ginrich, and Giuliani leads a whopping 53 to 23.

Get ready for a race to the right, because the only way for any of the candidates to beat Giuliani is to pitch themselves to the right of him on these social issues, and then make them the focus of the election. The only possible exception is that McCain could make it about war experience, but even then, if Giuliani continues to co-opt McCain’s message, I don’t see McCain making up this kind of deficit.

In summary, the chances for upsetting the frontrunners in both polls seems to be going with the base: to the right on social issues for republicans, and to grassroots campaigning for democrats. Giuliani and Clinton for the most part seem to be guarding the middle successfully. The rare exceptions to that - Joe Biden and Tommy Thompson for the most part - are so far removed from the base that they have virtually no chance of doing anything except marginally affecting what is discussed.

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Al Gore’s Weight Now A Political Indicator

Newsday ran an article that contained more god awful puns about Gore’s weight that even Murdoch’s Newscorp would consider it too ridiculous to publish.

Front Page Teaser: Gore for President? Weight & See 
Headline: Sizing up the odds for a run
Sub-headline: Gore a heavy hitter in ’08? Chances may be slim

Despite the ridiculous puns, there was actually some substantive information (non of which I wasn’t already aware of).

• “Some members of Clinton’s team…have been monitoring the former vice president’s girth”  They assume that if he’s running, he’ll “start losing weight fast”
• A Gore insider confirmed that Gore’s camp is monitoring Hillary’s campaign and if she starts to fall out of the lead, then Gore may step up, “…if she stumbles, I guess he’ll have to lose weight on the campaign trail.”

There’s no doubt that Hillary’s campaign is concerned about a potential Gore candidacy
especially in light of his recent Oscar triumph.  On Monday Hillary announced new legislation that she’s introducing, which would invest $50 billion in research and development of clean energy.  There’s no doubt that the timing of this legislation was predicated on Gore’s presence at the Oscars.  Hillary dealt with the timing issue by telling reporters “that she watched Gore’s speech and was inspired by his plea to ‘exercise the will to begin to change.’”

My rant on the Gore weight issue after the jump Read more

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Hagel Starts Cooking, But What’s For Dinner?

Hagel’s been bouncing around the country the past week or so giving speeches at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in Washington, the University of Nebraska (Kearney) and at an event in New Jersey hosted by Center for Middle Eastern Studies.  He also spoke about his potential run for presidential and left open the door for a third party candidacy or running on the democratic ticket:

If I decide to get into this, I would run not just to make a statement…I think it’s [Unity08] a very intriguing enterprise

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The Manchin Candidate?

Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is someone to remember when it comes time for the Democratic nominee to select a vice president.  If Hillary, Obama or Richardson turn out to be the nominee, then Manchin’s immense popularity as a white souther governor might tempt them to consider him.  He’s been boosting his national reputation the past few years:

•  Has flown to Washington D.C. 30 times in the past 28 months
• Chairman-Elect of the Democratic Governors Association
• Chairman-Elect of the Southern Governors Association

Manchin’s at least aware of the fact that he’s a “maybe,” which explains why he’s been avoiding controversy lately and even drawing back support for his own contentious plans to revise the state tax code.

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The Duncan Hunter PAC Ad Double-Bind

Controversy is brewing over some ads Duncan Hunter has run in New Hampshire through his PAC.  The Boston Globe reports:

In the ads, Hunter walks beside a huge wire fence and calls for it to be extended along hundreds of miles of the US border with Mexico. He then asks for viewers to “join with me, Duncan Hunter, at Peace Through Strength. Let’s make sure Homeland Security builds the border fence.”

At the end of the ad, viewers are encouraged to visit the PAC’s website, peacethroughstrengthpac.com. If viewers to go to the site a page appears that reads “please visit Duncan Hunter for President 2008″ and providing the link to his homepage…

The article continues with several quotes of people who think Hunter is in a gray area at best, and downright in violation at best. The Hunter campaign said:

Hunter’s campaign spokesman, Roy Tyler , said the PAC- financed ad is simply an “issue ad” and does not promote his presidential campaign. He said the campaign’s lawyers approved the decision to run the spot.

“We believe they are just issue ads and as such we can run them where we want as often as we want,” said Tyler, noting that Hunter does not identify himself as a presidential candidate.

If candidates can just run ‘issue’ advertisements funded by their PAC in these states to introduce themselves, a large loophole will have been opened rendering basic campaign finance regulations largely moot. The double bind comes in with the consequences of Hunter’s ad: either the FEC will discipline him and nip this practice in the bud, or all other candidates will immediately follow his lead.

My take? It seems disingenuous for a presidential candidate to suddenly be running ‘issue ads’ in New Hampshire of all places right in the beginning of the primary season. The link to his presidential homepage just seals the deal. If the ads were made in a way that encouraged the issue without featuring Hunter, I might say it’d be in the spirit of the law, but this clearly is not. Let issue ads feature the issues, not presidential candidates using the PAC to advertise.

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Read The Hill: It’s Only Weeks Behind Us!

The Hill today ‘broke’ the story reported here on this site February 4 about the Google ad wars among GOP candidates. They did not even get the entire story - they apparently missed that Mitt Romney’s campaign was involved as well.

So read this site if you don’t like waiting three weeks for your information.

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You Ask, We Answer

 Q: Why is Sen. Obama wearing a stetson?

 A: Obama held what his campaign called a “kick ass rally” in Texas this past weekend, where he railed on the Bush administration for its handling of the Iraq War and the recent escalation.  Of note, the rally drew 20,000 supporters.

Q: Who does Richardson think will win the Democratic Primary?

A: I believe that Richardson thinks Hillary will win.  I base this off of the fact that Richardson said that he “believes it’s best if Sen. Obama apologizes for the comments made by David Geffen.”  Aside from the obvious press boost given by entering the fray, Richardson is also sending a subtle signal to Hillary that he’s with her.

[Author's Note: This is a new feature that we'll be testing at 2008 Central.  Feel free to send questions to why  and we'll answer them on the blog.]

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More Bloomberg Talk

Rumors are going around about Mike Bloomberg making a run at the Presidency as an independent - and paying for the run himself. The Nation here goes over the rumors.

A sample:

3. Somebody from Goldman Sachs has been dining out on a story that Bloomberg has been re-arranging his vast fortune to make a presidential run.

4. Loose talk has it that Mayor Bloomberg has decided he will pay for most, if not all, of his campaign expenses, which could run as high as one billion bucks. Yes, he has the money. Bloomberg’s fortune is estimated to be at the $5 billion level. Forbes magazine has him pegged as the 34th richest human being in America.

The last big businessman to be president was Herbert Hoover. Like Bloomberg, he also made the money himself. Harry Truman tried his hand at being a businessman (haberdashery) and went belly-up.

The author, Nicholas von Hoffman, comes to the conclusion that, regardless of the competency of Bloomberg, he will still have a problem getting elected, pointing to his mediocre (at best) speaking style. Bloomberg would have to introduce himself to the entire country and gain their trust in a relatively short period of time. And it’s not clear he can do that.

Incidentally, it seems he could enter the race as late as March 2008 and still get his name on the ballot in all 50 states.

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A Tale of Two Parties

It was quite a week n politics on both sides of the aisle. On the Democratic side, David Geffen ignited a firestorm with his comments on Hillary Clinton. Geffen told Maureen Down, “It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t. … She’s so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.” He said about both Clintons, “”Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The Clinton campaign immediately responded with two press releases (both extremely similar and using the same quotes). Here’s the first of the two:

Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson issued the following statement today:

“By refusing to disavow the personal attacks from his biggest fundraiser against Senator Clinton and President Clinton, Senator Obama has called into serious question whether he really believes his own rhetoric. How can Senator Obama denounce the politics of slash & burn yesterday while his own campaign is espousing the politics of trash today?

“When one of Senator Clinton’s supporters made an inappropriate statement, her campaign disavowed it immediately and the supporter apologized for his words. Why won’t Senator Obama do the same?”

Obama for his part said that he would not apologize for anything that he did not say, and Geffen furthermore commented that he had no official position in the Obama compaign at all. Obama further commented that he wanted to end the tit-for-tat.

This has led to a lot of responses. First, there are the Republicans salivating over the infighting. Others are saying that this is a shot over the bow of any donor who wants to play the field. Bill Richardson chimed in as well, calling for all of it to end, and in the process putting himself above the fray. He stated: “I think these name-callings are not good. … I don’t know Mr. Geffen. I don’t know what was said. … But we don’t need that. We Democrats should sign a pledge that we all be positive. That’s what the American people want.”

What’s to make of all of this? Well, if Clinton is going to be attacked, she obviously is trying to drag Obama down with her, even if it validates the complaints Geffen stated. For instance, it’s not true that Geffen holds any official position on the campaign, but the Hillary campaign demanded Obama fire him from a position. The Clinton campaign does not want to make the same msitake as the Kerry campaign and leave itself open to being swift-boated. However, the disproportional response to even Democratic criticism might only amplify the complaints and hurt here already fragile electability. As for Obama, it’s hard to believe that this specific incident will hurt him much - just because someone gave money to him and then criticized another candidate is not enough for the public to turn on a candidate. However, if this were to become a trend, then I imagine Obama’s numbers would eventually fall. The immediate effect? Possibly that the Clinton glow continues to fade, that the sense of inevitability that the Clinton campaign is built around fades just a bit. Probably nothing for now as well, but againif this continues to be a trend, between this and Iraq, Sen. Clinton will be running into more and more trouble.

Now, I’ve pointed out the Repubicans who are gloating over this infighting. Even Mitt Romney is joining in on that. However, the Republicans have their own mini-scandal brewing between John McCain and VP Dick Cheney. It’s not clear when the tiff itself began, but the latest chapter of it began when McCain said Donald Rumsfeld would go down as one of the worst Defense Secretaries of all time. On Feb. 19, McCain stated, “We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement — that’s the kindest word I can give you — of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. … The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously.”

Dick Cheney said McCain was wrong and called for him to apologize to Rumsfeld, although McCain has shown no signs of doing so. Some conservatives are turning on McCain over this, such as this article which credits Rumsfeld with the 3 week military war, but blames the problems with the insurgency/occupancy on Paul Bremer and Colin Powell (although some other sources would certainly dispute Barnett’s descripton of the chain of command).

This battle is less headline worthy. You’ll never see the faces of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and McCain on the cover of the Post. I’d argue though, that this feud is far more important. It has the potential to define McCain for better or worse. While he can still talk the talk about supporting the war, the people who support the war the most - hardcore Bush supporters - are at least in part being turned off by him slamming Rumsfeld so severely.

Say what you will about Bush’s destruction of McCain in 1999. Some say it was a hit job, some say fair politics, others say McCain’s liberal tendencies were revealed. That’s not the point. The point is that the job Karl Rove did was so thorough in 1999 that it’s still reverberating today, and incidents like this are incredibly likely to undermine McCain’s support on a broad scale in the primary as they are to help him win individual supporters.

However, should McCain make it out of the primary somehow, this incident will be something he can point to as a triumph of not compromising his position on issues, and he can definitely use the anti-Rumsfeld position to win over independants.

So there you have it. Not Dickens, but two party feuds with entirely different signs for the respective parties.

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Sunday Talk Shows: Edwards, Brownback, Hunter

• ABC’s “This Week” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former President Carter; actor Patrick Dempsey.• CBS’ “Face the Nation” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.

• NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Also a 2008 roundtable with Dan Balz, Maureen Dowd, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Byron York.

• CNN’s “Late Edition” Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie; former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright; Reps. Jane Harman, D-Venice, and Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine; investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

• “Fox News Sunday” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.

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Vilsack Drops Out

Tom Vilsack yesterday announced he could no longer continue to run for President, as he simply could not raise enough money. At his announcement, he stated, “We have to have a real debate about public financing and the ability to enable the primary and caucus process to be about ideas . . . not just simply about a money primary. … That’s the game that’s being played today, and it’s a game that obviously I was not able to play as successfully as I wanted to.”

The interesting part is what is going to happen to his organization and whom will receive his support. For obvious reasons (being a former governor of the state and also having started so early in Iowa), Vilsack had a large amount of support and good organization in the state. In particular, there are two details which may explain which way his supporters will swing. First, Vilsack apparently was polling the best in eastern Iowa. Furthermore, his anti-war stance was his hallmark. Given the media overlap and general proximity of eastern Iowa to Illinois and the anti-war stance, Obama probably stands to benefit the most, but Edwards cannot be counted out.

In the above linked Tribune story, an unnamed Obama ’operative’ said they hoped to benefit from it, as it makes sense for the above reasons. In fact, Obama waited only two minutes to begin courting a New Hampshire Vilsack supporter. Vilsack himself will not endorse anyone anytime soon, he said, as he instead tries to influence all of the candidates.

 Also in terms of endorsements, this clears up Sen. Tom Harkin for another endorsement. His office has already stated they will take thir time making it, but Chris Dodd already called Harkin asking for support.

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Poll Vaulting: Edwards and Giuliani ahead in Iowa

Strategic Visions’ monthly poll in Iowa came out today, and Edwards and Giuliani were leading in their respective parties. The poll asked 600 self-identified caucus attenders of both parties.

Republican Results:
Rudy Giuliani 29%
John McCain 22%
Newt Gingrich 11%
Mitt Romney 9%
Chuck Hagel 5%
Tommy Thompson 3%
Tom Tancredo 2%
Sam Brownback 2%
Mike Huckabee 2%
Jim Gilmore 1%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Undecided 13%

There’s no real surprises here. Giuliani’s lead is pretty standard for a state like Iowa where no one is going to pull away with so long to go before the caucus.

Democrat Results:
John Edwards 24%
Hillary Clinton 18%
Barack Obama 18%
Tom Vilsack 14%
Joe Biden 5%
Bill Richardson 3%
Wesley Clark 2%
Chris Dodd 1%
Dennis Kucinich 1%
Undecided 14%

Shocking to see Edwards at the top, really, after he had been falling most other polls recently. His campaigning and strong words against the war have to be helping him. But until I see these results duplicated, I have to take it as an outlier of sorts. For instance, not that the same poll a month ago also favored Edwards by an 8 point margin. So, if you look at it that way, Edwards has fallen.

The other Democratic candidates are all, once you factor Edwards in, about where they should be in Iowa. It’s still early, and it’s more important to notice trends than to zero in on specific percentages.

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Oprah Backs Barack Obama

Today, Oprah Winfrey appeared on “The Ellen DeGenerous Show.”  Ellen asked Oprah who she preferred - Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton; Oprah replied:

I am feeling Barack.  It doesn’t make the other candidate any less, I am just feeling Barack.  I think that he is a fresh new voice in politics and what he could do for this country is amazing. *

On the surface, our coverage of this may seem a little soft; however, it’s important to keep in mind that Oprah has enormous influence over a large group of women.  Given that women are the backbone of Sen. Clinton’s campaign, Oprah’s support of Obama could actually have an impact on the campaign.  It’s going to be interesting to see what Oprah does in the coming months and what the effects of those actions will be.  Some stats to contextualize this…

• Time & CNN’s Top 25 Global Influentials List called her “arguably the world’s most powerful woman.”
• She is ranked 5th on Life’s 50 Most Influential Boomers (behind Spielberg, Jobs, Clinton and Milken).
• Was ranked 1st on VH1’s 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons (ahead of Superman, Elvis, Einstein)
• Forbes named her “Most Powerful Celebrity”

*Kudos to “The Flash” for the quote.

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Giuliani Wants It Both Ways On Abortion

I can’t stress this enough…anyone that dismisses or underestimates Giuliani’s campaign is doing so at their own peril. This man is an artful politician and a truly talented public speaker (I’d say the only other candidate that can rival Obama in this field). One of Giuliani’s biggest drawbacks with Republicans is his position on abortion and yet it doesn’t seem to be affecting him all that much.

Yesterday, at a campaign stop in South Carolina, Giuliani reiterated his position on abortion:

I’d advise my daughter or anyone else not to have an abortion, I’d like to see it ended, but ultimately I believe that a woman has the right to choose. I believe that you’ve got to run based on who you are, what you really are and then people actually get a right to disagree with you. And I find if you do it that way, even people who disagree with you sometimes respect you.

This short statement, almost identical to what he said February 9 on Hannity & Colmes, contains several subtle messages:

1) Giuliani is trying to connect with the majority of the Republican base by saying that he feels the same way about this issue as they do…he opposes it.

2) Maybe he’ll fight to end it when he’s president, since afterall he’d “like to see it ended.”

3) That just because some people may disagree with him, they should respect him for his self described clear and honest position and that his position should not automatically disqualify him from consideration.

Challenging people, the way Giuliani (and Obama) is doing works if done properly. It’s a very fine line though, with almost no margin of error and in a campaign as long as this one…anything can happen.

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