Duncan Hunter Finally Starts Campaign in Iowa by Hiring John Cox’s Former Staff

Duncan Hunter decided, months after other campaigns started making pushes in Iowa, that he should do the same. From a press release we received today:

Get Ready Iowans…Here Comes Duncan

(Des Moines, Iowa)…Duncan Hunter’s Presidential campaign has officially begun in Iowa with the announcement of a statewide director during his campaign swing through in Iowa this weekend (July 21-23) with a myriad of personal appearances at the state’s various county fairs. He will also be hosting a personal “Donuts with Duncan” early morning gathering in Sioux City, and then will be attending the services at two of the city’s churches.

Patrick R. Anderson of Hubbard, Iowa, has taken the reins of Hunter’s Iowa bid for the White House. Anderson, known throughout the state for his expertise with successful candidates, said he is thrilled by the appointment. “My objective is to promote Hunter’s conservative values throughout the state so that the voters will get to know him. He is an outstanding candidate with strong credentials and a firm stance on vital
issues. Iowans will soon learn about the real Duncan Hunter and will jump on board with this campaign.”

Anderson has had a world of political experience. Most recently, he was the Collation Director of Field Operations for John McCain for President Campaign. He was the Iowa coordinator for the John Cox for President Campaign; campaign manager for Tom Sooter for Iowa Senate; campaign manager for Kenneth Young for Iowa Senate; and Tom Latham’s 2006 bid for Congress.

There’s nothing impressive about starting a campaign in Iowa less than a month before a straw poll and hiring people that were only previously hired by the John Cox campaign - and someone who was not even fit to be the campaign manager in Iowa for John Cox: Duncan Hunter actually gave him a higher position! Duncan Hunter’s FEC release showed a substandard campaign, and this news just underlines the point. I think Hunter could have had appeal with his unqiue resume and political views, but the campaign has been run haphazardly at best; I have to question how serious Hunter is about this run. Even compared to someone like Tommy Thompson, who just about everyone is writing off, Hunter has really run a substandard campaign.

[Photo Credits: flickr user eichelberger_greg and flickr user marcn]

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Policy Breakdown: Hunter Argues for Keeping Guantanamo Open

While closing Guantanamo has been a popular topic ever since Colin Powell said it should be closed on Meet the Press, Duncan Hunter (among other Republicans) is arguing to keep it open.

Hunter said regarding Guantanamo:

“Once these detainees are brought onto U.S. soil, the detainees may acquire minimal rights under the Constitution, in particular, the right to habeas corpus. This change in status will inevitably spawn a completely new round of litigation,” Hunter said in a statement.

“While I believe the Combatant Status Review Tribunals that all detainees at Guantanamo receive satisfy those rights, it would take years of further litigation to finally reach that result,” the congressman said. “Thus, the military commission process would be stalled for the foreseeable future, and none of the detainees at Guantanamo would be brought to justice.”

“Some would like this result; they would prefer to see terrorists tried under our federal criminal justice system. This is a false choice,” Hunter said.

“We cannot try terrorists for war crimes if it requires our soldiers to read terrorists Miranda rights or take a battalion of lawyers onto the battlefield,” he said. “Military commissions are crucial because they are crafted for the conduct of war by providing procedures flexible enough to account for the constraints and conditions of the battlefield.”

Thus far, all Democratic candidates and Republican candidates Ron Paul and John McCain have called for Guantanamo to be closed, including Fred Thompson who has yet to officially declare.

[Photo Credit: Flickr user Rob Bluey]

Related at 2008 Central:

Colin Powell Advising Barack Obama

Live Blog Of CNN Democratic Debate In New Hampshire (6/3/07)

Live Blog of Second Republican Debate

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2008Central.net’s Presidential Election Podcast (06/24/07)

This week’s podcast covers…

• Mike Bloomberg departing the GOP
• Fred Thompson to announce soon?
• John McCain and Mitt Romney’s political scuffle
• Hillary Clinton booed at the Take Back America Conference: What’s it mean?
• 2008Central.net’s John Whitehouse attended the “Generation Barack Obama” event in New York City on June 22, 2007. What were his impressions?
• Despite a rough couple of weeks, Rudy Giuliani remains the leader of the pack
• Notes on the second tier
• A look ahead to the close of the second fundraising quarter of 2007 and the significance of primary date movement in Floria and New Jersey
• And more…

Feel free to email us questions/suggestions for next week’s podcast (you can also email an audio file of your question and we’ll include it in the podcast).

Subscribe to 2008Central.net’s Presidential Election Podcast

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Republican Wednesday Afternoon Roundup

Duncan Hunter

• Hunter is, unsurprsingly, a hawk on potential conflict with Iran.
• Hunter praised Gen. Pace, on his way out as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, for his service.
• Hunter is still getting negative reviews for his defending of earmarks to build a plane the Navy didn’t want, as I wrote about yesterday.

Fred Thompson

• Fred Thompson was on Leno last night. He mainly played coy, but did indicate that there were things he wanted to do that could only be done by the President.
• I’m not paying close attention whatsoever to national polls, but it’s interesting that Thompson has tied Giuliani for first in one such poll. Former NY Sen. Al D’Amato is backing Fred Thompson instead of New Yorker Rudy Giuliani.
• Fred Thompson has so far only said that his record is pro-life, despite a questionnaire filled out in the past that seems to indicate otherwise. George Will also took some hard swings at the prospect of a Thompson candidacy.

Jim Gilmore

• Gilmore will not be participating in the Iowa Straw Poll.
• Some are mentioning Gilmore as a possibile candidate to run in place of Sen. John Warner, but people in Virginia don’t seem to like him as an option there either.
• Gilmore, Paul, and Gravel are scheduled to address the National Taxpayers Conference 2007 tomorrow in Washington, DC.

John Cox

• John Cox says he will participate in the Iowa Straw Poll. He also wants to get rid of the 16th Amendment for a Fair Tax instead.

John McCain

• While he attacks Mitt Romney (see below), Tom Tancredo called the collapse of the immigration bill the death knell for the McCain campaign. McCain is still confident that a working bill can pass the Senate, though.
• The Washington Post has a good look at members of the McCain team who worked for Bush - and directly against McCain - in 2000. But they’re not the confidants as much as they are the hired help. Too early to take too much away from this article, but in short, do not count the McCain team out, no matter how bleak it may look right now.
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty campaigned for McCain this week in Iowa. McCain for his part thinks his position on global warming can win him support in northern California.

Mike Huckabee

• Huckabee wants to participate in the Iowa Straw Poll and still is including himself for now, but will re-evaluate how meaningful it will be before he makes the final decision to spend precious resources on it.
• Huckabee, who has visited Guantanamo, says that it is not as bad as its reputation, and is actually better than some prisons in Arkansas. He’s also joked around about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
• Huckabee had a bad week this week; first confusing Reagan’s birth day and death day, and then getting an appearance cancelled because of lack of interest - perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a politician. And I’m not really sure what to write about this. Perhaps I should just link it and move on.

Mitt Romney

• Not only Brownback (see below) but now also John McCain is attacking Mitt Romney on abortion, circulating a video:

Republican John McCain’s campaign criticized rival Mitt Romney’s abortion record anew Wednesday, circulating a video showing the then-Massachusetts governor reiterating his vow to uphold the state’s abortion-rights laws.

“I have indicated that as governor, I am absolutely committed to my promise to maintain the status quo with regards to laws relating to abortion and choice, and so far I’ve been able to successfully do that,” Romney says, answering a question at a May 27, 2005, news conference the day he vetoed the state’s stem cell legislation.

He adds: “My personal, philosophical views about this issue are not something that I think would do anything other than distract from what I think is a more critical agenda” that includes jobs, education and health care.

• In related news, Romney announced his team of advisors that will counsel him on faith and values issues.
• Romney did not grant a pardon while Governor of Massachusetts.
• Some are crediting the $4 million that Mitt Romney has spent on advertising since February as a reason that his poll numbers have gone up so dramatically.

Newt Gingrich

• There’s an article from the AP that Gingrich’s financial backers are the ones who stand to monetarily gain if his ideas are made into policy. Personal politics aside, any accusations are probably looking at this from the wrong angle: Given his history in politics, he had ideas and probably solicited for donations. I’m not of the opinion this is anything that serious.
• Gingrich keeps telling Republicans to look at Sarkozy in France for a template on how to run.

Ron Paul

• Paul is starting to see greater exposure and support in New Hampshire visibly. Will a rise in the polls be next? We’ve long thought that his message would play better there than almost anywhere else. He’s also kept getting donations based on his performances in the debates. He finished second (albeit very distant) to Mitt Romney in the Utah straw poll.
• Paul’s strong support keeps growing. His campaign manager says that the GOP call center was shut down after it was flooded with calls urging Paul to be left in the debates.
• Paul may have over one million supporters online by 2008. I also caught this interview of Paul by Tucker Carlson, and Paul came off very well.

Rudy Giuliani

• Giuliani unveiled his ‘12 Committments to the American People’ yesterday in New Hampshire. GreenMountainPolitics1 was not impressed, nor were Liberty Papers (who I think it is fair to assume are representative of Ron Paul supporters.) In general, the 12 commitments just seem to be an outline of his talking points, really.
• Giuliani received a much more friendly reception when he was interviewed by Sean Hannity yesterday. The interview went back and forth from Giuliani explaining his positions to attacking Democrats; there was little to no pressure put on Giuliani in the interview (the toughest question may have been: “Do you think you could actually cut the size of government then?”). Giuliani also announced he would participate in an August GOP debate.
• Following in James Dobson’s lead, a number of conservative Republicans have said that they cannot support Giuliani because of his position on abortion.

Sam Brownback

• Brownback is still going to participate in the Straw Poll, and has a new web site partially dedicated to it (if anyone can get the entire site to work smoothly, drop a comment and let me know). It’s almost the best web site a Republican has, it’s just functioning exceptionally slowly and doesn’t provide quite enough information. Brownback will be spending four days next week on a bus tour of Iowa.
• The Brownback-Romney feud continues, with Brownback chellenging Romney to debate, even saying “I’m prolife. He’s not.” Brownback is also getting praise and heat for his belief that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest.
• Brownback is interviewed here about stem cell research.

Tom Tancredo

• Tancredo is still going to participate in the Straw Poll.
• John McCaslin writes about a Weekly Standard piece about Tancredo’s story that Karl Rove banned him from the White House:

Mr. Tancredo had told The Washington Times during an interview in April 2002 that because of the “open-door” policy President Bush favored on immigration, terrorists could be “waltzing across the border” thirsty for American “blood,” which the congressman warned would be on the administration’s “hands.”

Mr. Rove was not happy to read the remarks, and he personally called Mr. Tancredo to complain. (The White House denies that the phrase “darken the doorstep” was ever used by Mr. Rove.)

Ever since, continues the magazine, Mr. Tancredo has had people believing that in light of his public disagreement with Mr. Bush, he has been banned from the White House for the life of the presidency. But that’s not the case.

Mr. Tancredo has been invited to the White House twice each year in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and once so far in 2007 with another invitation on its way.

“And, lo and behold, he accepted and showed up on most, if not all, of those occasions,” the magazine concludes.

• Tancredo explained further his call to temporarily halt legal immigration. He also answered ten questions in Time magazine about his campaign.

Tommy Thompson

• A week old, but a still interesting interview of Tommy Thompson with Deadspin.
• Thompson is rethinking entry into the Straw Poll after McCain and Giuliani backed out.
• Thompson is going to start running a radio ad in Iowa about his plan for Iraq. In the 60 second ad, he states: “The Iraq War is the most important issue facing our country and our party. This is Tommy Thompson. My plan to win the peace in Iraq is straightforward. First, force a vote of the Al Maliki government as to whether they want our troops in the country. If they vote “yes” our stay is legitimate. If they vote “no”, then we begin redeploying our troops out of Iraq. Second, they should establish 18 state governments where each major ethnic group can elect their own people. This would bring an end to much of the strife that currently divides Iraq. Finally, they must share their oil profits with every person in Iraq, just like the state of Alaska does with its oil revenues. This would spark an upsurge in their economy and give every man, woman and child a stake in the future of their oil industry and their country. I’m Tommy Thompson and my campaign for president is talking real solutions to real problems. Visit my Web site at Tommy2008.com to learn more.”
• 
  [Audio available from Tommy2008.com]

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Poll Vaulting: McCain, Clinton Lead in Iowa; Romney Gains, Obama and Fred Thompson Fall

The American Research Group has released two new polls from Iowa for both Republicans and Democrats. I’m going to compare those results with the results form the May 2007 poll conducted by the Des Moines Register.

Starting with the Democrats:

Candidate	ARG May 07	DMR May 07	ARG April 07	ARG March 07
Hillary Clinton	31 %	21 %	23 %	34 %
John Edwards	25 %	29 %	27 %	33 %
Barack Obama	11 %	23 %	19 %	16 %
Bill Richardson	8 %	10 %	5 %	1 %
Dennis Kucinich	4 %	2 %	2 %	1 %
Joe Biden	3 %	3 %	6 %	2 %
Chris Dodd	2 %	–	2 %	1 %
Wesley Clark	1 %	N/I	–	2 %
Mike Gravel	1 %	1 %	–	–
Undecided	14 %	11 %	16 %	10 %

A few interesting things that stand out. First is Barack Obama’s precipitous fall in the ARG poll. The margin of error is 4%, which could put him even behind Richardson. His campaign might have to ask if he is spending enough time there, getting to know enough insiders to get a caucus victory. John Edwards is trending the wrong way in Iowa (even after the withdrawal of Tom Vilsack, which Edwards had obviously hoped to use as a boost), but Edwards still remains a clear number two overall in recent polls. The Des Moines Register poll gives Clinton something to worry about, but she’s still ahead. Richardson clearly is breaking from the second tier twoards the first tier. Whether he has enough gas in the tank to get to the top tier is still a question that needs to be answered. The lower tier really is not doing anything that notable.

I’m interested in the ARG poll though - every month they seem to have one candidate really fall in the polls, only to rebound the next month. In April it was Clinton. In May it is Obama - there hasn’t been any type of indication that Obama’s support is this low. So until there is some confirmation of that, take it with a grain of salt.

Now, the Republicans:

Candidate	ARG May 07	DMR May 07	ARG April 07	ARG March 07
John McCain	25 %	18 %	26 %	29 %
Rudy Giuliani	23 %	17 %	19 %	29 %
Mitt Romney	16 %	30 %	14 %	10 %
Newt Gingrich	8 %	N/I	8 %	7 %
Fred Thompson	6 %	N/I	13 %	12 %
Sam Brownback	3 %	5 %	1 %	–
Tom Tancredo	2 %	4 %	2 %	1 %
Chuck Hagel	2 %	N/I	1 %	1 %
Tommy Thompson	2 %	7 %	1 %	1 %
Jim Gilmore	1 %	1 %	1 %	–
Duncan Hunter	–	1 %	–	–
John Cox	N/I	1 %	N/I	N/I
Ron Paul	–	–	–	–
Undecided	10 %	12 %	12 %	11 %

Looking at the Republican results, one thing that jumps out is Fred Thompson starting to drop before he even gets into the race. But like Obama above, it’s hard to judge the validity of these results without independent confirmation; and the Des Moines Register poll did not include potential candidates like Thompson or Gingrich.

Among the top group, it’s clear that Mitt Romney is the one with all the momentum. Giuliani seems to have weathered the storm, as he is no longer bottoming out, but he’s not even where he was a mere few months before. Romney, on the other hand, keeps trending up. The30% of the Des Moines poll is not repeated once Thompson and Gingrich are included, but he’s still growing. John McCain seems to be losing a little ground, but retaining most of his supporters in the state that he skipped in 1999.

On the lower tier, the hope for the lower tier that the Des Moines poll gave - bumps for Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo - seems to be erased in the ARG poll. I have to wonder if the now imminent entry of Fred Thompson into the race spells the end for this lower tier. Not only do they have to distinguish themselves from the top tier, they also have to distinguish themselves from each other. I imagine that the Republican debate on Tuesday will be a key last time for that to happen; if not, it will certainly be the Iowa Straw Poll in August.

There’s reasons to take these polls with grains of salt - for instance there’s reasons to both include and exclude declared candidates like Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich - but it’s worth keeping in mind exactly who these polls include while considering what they mean. For instance, Al Gore was not included in any of the Iowa polls.

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Fox News’ “First-In-The-South” Republican Primary Debate

Fox News will be hosting a Republican Primary Debate in South Carolina this evening (May 15, 2007).  It will air live on the Fox News Channel at 9pm and will be moderated by Brit Hume and Chris Wallace.

Be sure to check out 2008 Central throughout the day for pre-debate notes, liveblogging the debate and post debate resources.

Participating Candidates will be…

• Sam Brownback 
• Jim Gilmore
• Rudy Giuliani
• Mike Huckabee
• Duncan Hunter 
• John McCain
• Ron Paul
• Mitt Romney
• Tom Tancredo
• Tommy Thompson

Chris Wallace and Brit Hume discussing their roles…

Tuesday night’s First-in-the-South Republican Presidential Candidates Primary Debate at the University of South Carolina’s Koger Center will be broadcast by FOX News Channel. FOX News’ Washington, D.C., managing editor Brit Hume will moderate the debate and questions will be posed by “FOX News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace and White House correspondent Wendell Goler.

Conducting a 90-minute debate with 10 candidates is no easy task and requires close attention and a quick response time to keep the flow of the debate running smoothly. Hume and Wallace sat down with FOXNews.com late last week to describe what they expect and hope to achieve during the main event.

Don’t forget to watch the Republican presidential candidates debate on FOX News Channel or FOXNews.com Tuesday night at 9 p.m. ET.

Q: So what is your objective as the moderator/panelist?

Brit Hume: The objective of the moderator really is to move things along without being obtrusive, remembering always that we — journalists — are not the story, the candidates are the story, and recognizing also that with 10 of them on the stage there’s only so much you can do. And also, to try to devise a format which will get the candidates interested in the audience too.

Chris Wallace: This is a serious process. This is part of the process of the American people getting to know and decide which candidate they are going to vote for, first in the Republican primary and then eventually for president so I think the purpose is seriously to give viewers some insights on information that allows them to make a more informed choice.

Q: So how do you decide which questions go to which candidate?

BH: Some questions will be asked to all of them, on central issues. And other questions, we have to sort of figure out on a news basis or an area of expertise basis or an area where candidates have given emphasis in their platforms or campaigns that are questionable, or where candidates have said things that raise controversy or whatever. So sort of a combination of everybody gets to say something on certain key issues and then you pick it kind of on a news basis beyond that.

CW: We’re going to divide it up by subjects. I am going to take some subjects, Wendell is going to take some. Brit is going to take others and I am going to try to become really well versed between now and next Tuesday on where each candidate stands on the issues that I am covering. And as I do every Sunday on “FOX News Sunday” try and ask, you know, the most probing, penetrating questions, but one thing that I am keenly aware of is that this is about the candidates and the voters and while I want to try to probe them so that I can get them off their talking points, it’s about the candidates, not me.

Q: How do you prepare?

BH: Well, I am blessed in the sense that the work I do everyday, which sort of steeps me in this stuff, prepares me. You’ve got to read a lot. You read previous debates. You read what the candidates have said. You read their position papers, you try to familiarize yourself as best you can, what their critical positions are on the main questions.

Q: You’ve interviewed most if not all of these candidates before. So what is the challenge or the benefit of this forum versus say, “FOX News Sunday” or “Special Report”?

BH: The thing is really governed by the numbers and when you’re trying to manage 10 people in 90 minutes, it’s a complicated mathematical challenge and it challenges your alertness because you’ve got to keep track of what a lot of different people said about a lot of different things so that if there is something that screams out for a follow-up, you don’t miss it, which is quite possible.

In the meantime, you’re keeping an eye on the time, you’re keeping an eye on sort of juggling the question of whether everybody is getting a fair shot and then you’ve also got to be conscious of the substance of what people are saying so that if something leaps out you don’t miss it. So it’s not easy and it’s not like an ordinary interview with one person or two or three. This is … huge.

CW: Well, obviously the benefit is you’ve got all 10 of them there. It helps in terms of comparative, comparison shopping. The disadvantage is that you have all 10 of them there and that obviously with 10 candidates giving minute answers in 90 minutes, if you do the math, nobody is going to get asked anything in real detail.

Q: Have you ever done this before?

CW: I’ve moderated debates but never presidential debates.

BH: Yes. I did it in New Hampshire in 2000 with an early Republican debate, and I did it in Baltimore in ‘04 with Democrats, the Democratic debate, and in both cases there was a large, a fairly large number of candidates, and in both cases we had the same difficulties we have here. The fact is you can only do so much. This is about them. It’s not about us. We can do the best we can, we can hope to be useful and helpful, but this all depends on them, as it should, and people shouldn’t get too many big ideas about how much difference a moderator can make. If the candidates are going to be reticent and stick to their talking points, you really can’t change that, you can’t force it.

Q: How do you plan to or do you have any say in how to control an unruly candidate?

CW: That’s what they pay Brit to do. He’s got the whip and the chair.

BH: One of the things that I think is one of the least attractive roles that a journalist or a broadcaster plays in a debate is the role of time cop so I am going to try to get out of that. One of the things we have tried in the past is have a distinct clear bell that goes off when the time is up, which says to the audience, the candidate and everybody else, this candidate’s time is up and he or she — in the case here, it’s all hes — is still talking. Then if the journalist later comes in and says you’re time is up, it doesn’t seem like the rude and obtrusive interruption by a smart-alecky journalist. The bell has proved very effective in the past. It works. It might not this time but it always has.

Q: Do you have any concerns or fears of something unexpected happening?

CW: Oh I would love something unexpected to happen. You know these things can sometimes be all too predictable and you hope that they will get off their scripts and make news. I thought that Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani made some news in the last debate with a not-very-focused answer on abortion. You hope that days later people will be talking about several of the answers from this debate.

Q: And lastly, this occasion has an audience present. Do you try to involve the audience or what is its function?

CW: As far as I am concerned it’s just me and the candidate, well me and my team, my colleagues, and the candidates. The audience is there and I am glad they get the opportunity to watch but I’m not playing to the audience, and to the degree possible, I think I will have my back to them both literally and figuratively.

BH: There’s usually an audience present and you always tell them not to applaud, and sometimes they obey and sometimes they don’t, and you can’t control that very well, and if you keep getting all stuffy about it you look like a jerk. So, you just have to hope for the best on that.

And a little audience participation sometimes enlivens the debate so you know you may warn against it, you may encourage them not to do it, but you’re not always sorry that they applaud or boo or hiss or react or laugh or whatever. You always love it when they laugh, that always enlivens the old occasion and sometimes moments in the debates that cause laughter are sometimes the most memorable moments of all.

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John Cox Sues Fox News For Debate Exclusion

Republican candidate John Cox is suing Fox News for excluding him from next week’s “First In The South” Republican Primary Debate. Cox is claiming that his name was left off the only poll used to determine eligibility. In the lawsuit, Cox is requesting an injunction, which if granted would delay next week’s debate. A judge was hearing the case this morning; we’ll provide updates as they become available.

Complete coverage of this matter here.

*UPDATE* A judge denied Cox’s request for an injunction to postpone the debate was dismissed…

U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson ruled the state party has a right to choose who is going to be in the debate. He said that while state law gives the party the authority to conduct its own primary, that does not require the GOP to function as though it is a government entity in its sponsorship of the debate.

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Republican Roundup

Duncan Hunter

Duncan Hunter was interviewed, and had this to say about a fair tax:

DH: First, lets take the last one first. I’m a sponsor of the Fair Tax. Now we spend about $250 billion a year plus preparing, defending and shaping our lives around the tax code of the United States. That’s money that doesn’t go to feed anybody. It doesn’t go to send any kids to college. It doesn’t go to create new jobs. It’s just paperwork money that is a cost to the American citizen. And if we have the Fair Tax, we eliminate that massive overhead, that massive bureaucracy. I like that. Another thing I like about the Fair Tax is it gives a more level playing field on trade. Because our dumb bunnies, the people that negotiated our trade deals with the rest of the world, said this: “Every other trading partner in the world gets to refund its taxes to its manufacturers, they have value added taxes. So, they all work tax free. Every country can do that under the deal we signed except one country. Guess who? The United States of America.

Video here of an interview with Hunter on Iraq, health care, No Child Left Behind, and National Security, about which he said this:

With the emergence of Iran as a country pursuing a nuclear weapon and with North Korea already having some and racing now to develop systems for the delivery of those nuclear devices, and China now emerging as a new superpower and stepping into the shoes of the old Soviet Union, I think national security is going to be an important issue.

Hunter spoke with anti-illegal immigration activists recently in Washington as they lobbied against the passage of a bill that would allow a guest worker program.

Fred Thompson

Thompson wrote an essay at Townhall about the virtues of federalism.

There are rumors popping up all the time of potential supports jumping to Thompson if he runs. This is a hard look at why one of those rumors may or may not be true, and citations of people calling the rumor untrue.

Thompson ran into Romney at a White House Correspondants Dinner event, and laughs were had by all.

Law and Order co-star Sam Waterston says he expects Thompson to run for President.

Thompson is speaking at a Virginia GOP convention on June 2.

Jim Gilmore

Gilmore tried to campaign in Iowa … but only three people showed up. He’s still talking up his conservative credentials, though.

Gilmore is officially announcing his run at the Presidency … online in a webcast from the Iowa GOP headquarters.

John Cox

The article in the New York Times about Cox’s run for the Presidency.

John McCain

The Fix at the Washington Post takes a look at the tone of McCain’s policy speech at CSIS yesterday, finding it droll overall, as McCain tries to portray himself as the serious candidate in the election. McCain will eventually have to complement the serious tone with something people can relate to on a personal level; Bush and Clinton in the past 4 elections were exceptional at that, and it’s something that McCain had in 1999 that he’ll have to get back to on the right occasion this cycle as well; the seriousness does well with Iraq and certain issues, but it has to be juxtaposition to something more light to underline hwo serious he thinks the issues are, lest people just think of him as droll and over serious.

The speech of McCain on energy and climate change yesterday was a significant policy announcement. Speaking about global warming, McCain stated:

The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is contributing to the dangerous accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, altering our climate with the potential for major social, economic and political upheaval. The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God’s creation. A group of senior retired military officers recently warned about the potential upheaval caused by conflicts over water, arable land and other natural resources under strain from a warming planet. The problem isn’t a Hollywood invention nor is doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra like hysterics. It is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge.

In the rest of the speech, instead of frame global warming as a environmental problem or a problem threatening America directly (such as in an Inconvenient Truth, when Al Gore shows where Manhattan would flood), McCain instead frames as a national security problem. Starting from oil money going to terrorists that we’re fighting, to money that is going to Venezuela and Iran. The speech itself won’t win McCain many awards, but it seems to be the standard against which other Republicans’ energy plans will be set. The wording that McCain uses to to describe incentivizing alternative energy (but not subsidizing) seems taken directly from Newt Gingrich’s debate against John Kerry. Ideologically, I’m sure there are some differences on the subject between the two, but I was more reminded of the commonalities while reading McCain’s speech, not the differences. His attack on the politics of oil especially seems like something that might resonate with independents especially, and possibly the right.

After the speech, McCain told people talking about his bomb Iran joke to “lighten up and get a life.”

Less than a week after the story about McCain singing “Bomb Iran” broke, McCain was endorsed by the other person to sing “Bomb Iran” - James Woolsey. McCain was also endorsed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and former National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane.

William Kristol says that McCain’s speech at VMI last week is “the best single analysis by any political figure of where we stand in the war in Iraq” and said that the speech was “morally and intellectually impressive.” Reviews like this will only help McCain in the Republican primary season.

McCain’s announcement tour will take place the rest of the week, beginning tomorrow in New Hampshire. Check out his schedule here for all the dates officially announced so far.

Mary Kate Johnson is taking over as McCain’s finance director, after the bad fundraising in the first quarter. Johnson was deputy fundraiser for Bush in 2000.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee said that Alberto Gonzalez had become a distraction and should voluntarily step down, saying:

“Sometimes the best position would be for the appointee to make the decision and not force the President to do so. You best serve the person you work for when you can decide that if you are a distraction that you no longer will create that level of problem for your boss. … The Attorney General is clearly creating a major distraction for the President and for the Administration and for the Republican Party.”

A fundraiser and longtime aide to Huckabee is leaving his Presidential campaign, for what he says are personal reasons, but what seems to me that may involve other factors.

Here’s video of Huckabee on the Colbert Report.

Mitt Romney

Townhall interviewed Mitt Romney. There’s not a lot of new information there, but it’s still an interesting read. He talks about gun control, Harry Reid’s comments on Iraq, partial birth abortion, fundraising, and the blogosphere. The most interesting comments to me were on Iraq; his comments about having beaten Saddam Hussein look primitive compared to McCain’s comprehensive calls for a strategy that will lead to victor in Iraq. Part of me wonders if Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee are being held to a different standard when talking about Iraq since they presumably have not been privy to the same information as has McCain or others who have served in the federal government.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist sat down yesterday with Romney, but did not endorse him. Some people think he’ll endorse McCain, others are not so sure. Romney did say that the Florida primary would be key to the nomination, and he might be onto something: it’s the most moderate and representative state to hold its primary before Feb. 5; whoever wins that will have a major victory as a jumping off point for states like California and New York.

Romney was on with Greta Van Sustern and his wife said that immigration is the issue everyone is talking about first and foremost (most than Iraq?). He reiterated his support for a fence and an employment verification system that included some sort of ID card to indicate people were in the country legally. On health care, Romney went back to talking up the system he signed into law in Massachusetts, which he had previously mentioned less and less, saying:

Well, I like the idea of letting states have some flexibility to develop their own programs to get more and more people insured. We found a way to get everybody in our state, Massachusetts, insured. I like the plan. I think it’s one of the best things we did in my administration.

It’s not perfect. We will learn from it. But the idea is for people who can afford insurance make sure they get their premiums down by taking mandates off insurance companies. Let the insurance companies offer true market-based products. And then for people who can’t afford insurance, help them buy their own private policy. Don’t put them on Medicaid. Get them private insurance. Get everybody in the system.

It’s a bit like bringing work to welfare. Bring personal responsibility to health care. Get the government out of the health care business for those 45 million uninsured, and let individuals own their own policies.

When asked about whether he would have gone into Iraq, Romney talked about his feelings about the war then and now, even sort of giving a timetable for starting to pull troops out:

Well, it’s kind of an impossible setting to imagine, because there is so many imponderables and so much we would like to know before you’d ever consider committing our troops.

But one thing I can tell you is that when the president made his decision, based upon the intelligence that existed then — from our own intelligence sources and around the world — I supported the president’s action.

And the question is, what do you do now? And how do you make sure that we get our troops out as soon as possible, without precipitating a regional conflict that would cause us to have to go back and potentially a far more dangerous setting?

And so I support the president’s troop surge. I believe that al-Maliki has a plan that we can support, to try to stabilize the civilization — or the population in Iraq. I don’t give it 100 percent chance of success, but I think we will know in a matter of months if it’s working or not.

If it’s working, we can start bringing troops home.

And his feelings on the war’s execution really seem to echo that of John McCain:

I think the place where we really fell down in our planning was in preparation for what would happen after we knocked down Saddam Hussein. I think we underestimated the kind of mayhem that might ensue once insurgency started from surrounding nations, once people within Iraq itself began the sectarian violence between the Shia, the Sunni. The Kurds also were affected — not to the same degree, of course.

But those kind of developments would have suggested that we needed more troops. That if we were going to go in, we would go in heavy, we’d lock down the country, we would secure its major assets. We would not be in a situation where we had the kind of unraveling of civil order that occurred.

And so, I think we were underprepared, underplanned, understaffed, certainly undermanaged with regards to the prison situation.

We find ourselves in a very difficult situation, in part because of the failures of our own preparation.

The interview concludes with the Romneys talking about their personal lives, their family, and his father; for a time, they also talk about her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

This article wonders aloud why Romney will not come out and directly state that he thinks homosexuality is immoral. It also points out that no top-tier candidate has yet directly answered that question on the Republican side. (I presume most if not all Democrats running would answer the question ‘no’)

Romney’s sons are on the campaign trail too, doing smaller events that normally would get overlooked.

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was on This Week on ABC, and said that “liberalism” was to blame for the shootings like that at Virginai Tech:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the broader context? After Columbine, you gave a speech where you blamed 35 — blamed the shootings on 35 years of liberalism. … You went — you said, “I want to say to the elite of this country, the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite — I accuse you in Littleton of being afraid to talk about the mess you’ve made and being afraid to take responsibility for the things you have done, and instead foisting on the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.” Do you stand by that prescription today?

GINGRICH: Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does that have to do with liberalism?

GINGRICH: Well, who has created a situation ethics, essentially, zone of not being willing to talk about any of these things. Let me carry another example. I strongly supported Imus being dismissed, but I also think the very thing he was dismissed for, which is the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women — the fact, for example, that one of the Halloween costumes this last year was being able to be either a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume, and we don’t have any discussion about what’s happened to our culture because while we’re restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold, we say it’s impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech. And I would argue that that’s a major component of what’s happened to our culture in the last 40 years.

Now, this is going to get his base and the right riled up, but I’m not sure it’s the type of thing that would help him in the long run. At the end of the day it seems like something to encourage the partisan bickering back and forth that Gingrich has also stated that he wants to move past.

Gingrich hired a pollster and a fundraiser for his PAC, another sign that he’s gearing up for a Presidential run.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul was interviewed by The Politico, and talked about a lot of issues, from war to spending to illegal immigration. On the big picture, why he’s running, he said the following:

I am arguing that (Republicans) have lost their way. Right now, on the surface, a lot of Republicans in Washington will be critical of my positions, saying “I don’t support the president or the party,” but if you look at our platform, our state platforms, our policy positions, I would say we have lost our way. And quite frankly, I have not seen anybody running for the presidency on the Republican ticket that’s actually offering to stand up and stand for the principals the Republican Party has been built on.

In the past six years, when the foreign policy really changed, when we accepted the notion of pre-emptive war, a strong violation of our personal civil liberties, (we) at the same time (became) the party of entitlements, doubling the size of the Department of Education, McCain-Feingold. These are all things that Republicans used to criticize and not support, and all of a sudden we accept them. In essence, we have accepted what has traditionally been the Democratic platform — increase entitlements and foreign intervention, getting involved in quagmires abroad.

Video of Paul talking with Lou Dobbs from the other day:

Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani, who has not visited Iraq, spoke about it, saying he did not know if the troop surge was working. He would not talk about withdraing troops, though, saying, “The minute you start listing the circumstances under which you’re going to pull out you start talking about defeat. …What we have to achieve in Iraq is a government and a situation that acts as a bulwark against terrorism rather than as an encouragement for them - and then you’ve got to figure out the strategies to get you there and make them work.” Giuliani also in the article deferred to Bush regarding Atty. Gen. Gonzalez.

Giuliani has been staying at some swank hotels while out on the trail. (A taste of the press coverage Giuliani dealt with on a daily basis as mayor.)

Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays endorsed Giuliani.

This article is an interesting comparison between the candidacies of Giuliani now and Howard Dean four years ago. That’s the potential problem that the Giuliani campaign has to fight against.

Sam Brownback

Brownback and Chris Dodd , both Catholics, appeared at a Boston College forum on Faith and Politics, disagreeing on a lot of specific issues (civil unions, abortion, homosexuality, etc.) but agreeing that moderate tones could help bridge the gap; they also both called on Congress to work with Pres. Bush to end the stalemate over funding for the troops. Brownback also mentioned that he told Cheney that Iraq should be split with a “three-state, one-country” resolution that sounds a lot like the Biden plan.

Brownback spoke Friday in New Jersey, at an event at which Ann Coulter also spoke. The article recounting the event seemed more impressed by a candidate not there, Rudy Giuliani; Brownback seemed to be more an after thought, even being mentioned as a potential Giuliani running mate.

Tom Tancredo

On the stump, Tancredo said that the Beslan tragedy should be something America works tirelessly to prevent:

It’s important to understand, my friends, that people coming across our country into this country, some of them are coming for the same purpose as they people who went to Beslan,” . … It’s not all people who are just looking for the job that no other American wants … but there are other people, very dangerous people, who come across that border unimpeded, and there is absolutely nothing to say that the same thing that happened in Beslan could not happen here.

Using that as a starting point, Tancredo also wants to build a fence on the northern border with Canada. However, only 25 people came to see him at that campaign stop; he’s not finding much of a groundswell of support. He spent four days campaigning in New Hampshire though, this past weekend. We’ll see if subsequent polls have him doing any better, or if he gets better crowds on his next visit.

Tommy Thompson

Tommy Thompson lays it on the line: he says he’ll probably drop out if he doesn’t finish in the top two at the Iowa Straw Poll in August. The article also reviews his policy positions.

On gun control and Virginia Tech, Thompson stated, “Instead of pointing the finger at guns, what you have to do is point at the finger at how do you spot individuals with mental problems, emotional problems that may go off and do a terrible thing like they did at Virginia Tech.”

Tommy Thompson is a member of the Sturgis Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Also, more seriously, he’s wagering his entire campaign on Iowa, as you probably already know. But electorally, he says that the GOP nominee in this election (with the Ohio GOP Party in tatters) will have to carry Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa to win, and that he is the only candidate who can do that. It’s an intriguing theory, but I still don’t see him winning.

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Romney, Huckabee Do Well in SC Straw Polls

Straw polls were held at county GOP conventions in South Carolina this weekend, and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were the biggest winners.

 In Greenville County, the most populous county in the state, Mitt Romney won with 132 out of 441 votes cast. Mike Huckabee came in second with 111 votes, and Duncan Hunter third with 87. It should be noted that those three addressed the convention along with John Cox, Rudy Giuliani, and Sam Brownback, so it’s hard to say how much their presence mobilized their supporters to come out in the first place. However, even when taking into account that John McCain chose not to attend the convention, the mere 17 votes of support he received is strikingly low.

Mitt Romney also won the Richland County GOP Convention straw poll, although it seems his campaign was just more successful in getting supporters to stay at the convention waiting for the straw poll. He had 50 votes, with 17 for Brownback, 15 for Giuliani, 13 each for McCain and Huckabee, and 10 for Hunter. With voting numbers that small, it’s hard to put any significance to the vote.

The final results to look at today are those from an issues evaluation poll at the Spartanburg County Convention. You may remember they held their straw poll over a month ago. This poll was built around issues. This article details the voting process:

Although many of the candidates also hit conventions in Greenville, Laurens and Richland counties Saturday, only in Spartanburg were they asked to tailor their speeches to specific issues: the war in Iraq, border control, “fair trade,” the Bush tax cuts and social issues - particularly abortion rights and the definition of marriage. Delegates gave each candidate up to five points, five being the best, for their skill in addressing each of those topics.

In that format, Mike Huckabee was the big winner, finishing with 3522 points. Rudy Giuliani was just behind, with 3161 points. Duncan Hunter had 3090, Mitt Romney 2972, and Sam Brownback 2931. John McCain was represented at the convention by former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, and finised last with only 2027 points, even well behind the 2456 John Cox earned.

As for what we can take from these results, clearly at some level, this was a bad weekend for McCain. Some of this has to result from McCain’s disfavor in the state going back to 1999. A little more was McCain choosing to skip these conventions in favor of campaign events where he can talk longer. However, if he keeps getting negative press from speaking longer, and doesn’t go to shorter events, then it’s hard to see where the long term uside is in the state.

For the other candidates, it’s clearly a sign that Mike Huckabee can still make an impact in this election. These results allow him to portray him as being in the top tier in the state, as he ran neck and neck with Romney in the two most populated conventions. That’s a huge step for his campaign, but the key is not the results, but building from it from this point on. We’ll have to see how well he does that. As for Romney, he clearly has a large following in the state who id dedicated. At the least, that reflects good organization, and he’ll be able to get out the vote on primary day as well. Hunter has support as well, but if he’s finishing behind Huckabee and Hunter now, it’s hard to see how he can pass them. As for Giuliani, these types of conventions are not his base at all. His challenge will be maintaining the level of support he does from more moderate Republicans, and then getting them to the polls, both of which will eventually require him to build a solid organization.

In the long run, South Carolina seems primed as a place where a more conservative Republican can get a foothold, unless Giuliani somehow undertakes the Herculean effort to mobilize his support. Huckabee, especially, could get a boost from the state, or it could prove an area for Romney to break through if he can’t manage to pull off Iowa or New Hampshire.

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Republican Roundup

Chuck Hagel

Hagel went to Iraq this past weekend, and held a press conference to say the committment was not open ended, and criticized the ‘long war.’ He also criticized McCain’s shopping trip of a week prior.

Hagel raised $142,000 in the first quarter, which leaves open to him either retiring, running for Senate, or President. We’ll have to wait a while longer.

Duncan Hunter

Hunter spoke to the Alabama state legislature, focusing on his stump speech and pet issues, like China and trading; he received some positive feedback.

Hunter was a guest on the CQ talk radio show.

Hunter has posted a set of media appearances on his site.

Fred Thompson

Thompson is still polling extremely well in polls, coming in right at second or third consistently.

Thompson is meeting with about 50 Congressmen and women tomorrow in Washington.

Jim Gilmore

Gilmore went to the Iowa Lincoln Day Dinner and went after ‘Rudy McRomney’ for not being a conservative, drawing boos from the audience. Hard to see him gaining traction rarely campaigning and then attacking the front runners.

A hypothetical look on how Gilmore wins the nomination. I’m not seeing it, though.

John Cox

A brief look at John Cox’s speech to the Iowa Lincoln Day Dinner.

This look at John Cox says the media ignorance will have doomed his campaign. I’m not sure I can begin to buy that. Is it the media’s job to make candidates a year before the election when they raise less than $3,000 in a quarter?

An editorial taking a positive look at John Cox and his book.

John McCain

McCain has been talking fiscal discipline lately, calling for a tighter federal budget using strong words. But he’s not convincing everyone yet. President of the Club for Growth Pat Toomey said to the NYT that: “While Senator McCain deserves credit for his support for free trade, limited spending and extending the Bush tax cuts, his record of opposing tax cuts speaks louder than his words today.”

McCain took a strong stance for gun rights in the face of the shooting in Virginia. It’s risky timing for a political statement (given that some people will surely roll their eyes at it), but goes to show how much he needs to court favor on the right for this election.

Fred Kaplan took offense of McCain saying the stakes were so high in Iraq that surrender was not an option, but that he would withdraw is an overwhelming amount of Americans favored it. It’s hard to see how it isn’t McCain blatantly trying to have it both ways.

McCain is deliberately avoiding state GOP conventions in South Carolina in favor of speaking longer to smaller crowds. I’m guessing he doesn’t have much confidence in his stump speech right now to persuade those who have coalesced against him. It’s not a bad idea - wait until he gains popularity to speak in such a controlled environment. The risk is waiting too long and he ends up demoting himself to the second tier.

David Brooks points out that the election will not be about the surge, it will be about the bigger problems in Iraq, and McCain’s support of the war may hurt him in that regard. Hard to say how true that is in a Presidential election, though, and it depends on the circumstances. Even modest steps in the next couple of months could help McCain.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee is augmenting his trip to New Hampshire with a ‘fun run’ and he will also be playing with a local band at a high school. I think these events are good - he needs the popularity - but he’ll have to make a point to show gravitas during his stump speeches, lest people see him as a bass player and not a candidate.

Huckabee talked with the editorial board of the Des Moines register, mentioning that he advocates a flat tax, and would hold a regional summit to discuss problems in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. He also talked about the need of building a beter future in general.

Huckabee did not even fundraise well in Arkansas, although he was relatively better there than anywhere else.

Huckabee answered ten more questions from Time, including one about Iran, to which he answered: “The statements of Iran’s leader are troubling. But we do need to engage in ongoing discussions. Because it is never wrong to have conversations. It’s only wrong to have negotiations with those who are unreasonable. We should see Iran as a nation who has a leader with which we don’t agree, but respect that their are millions of people within Iran who do not share that same view towards the United States, as does its leader.”

Mitt Romney

Hotline uses simple math to debunk Romney’s claims of internet donations. Hard to claim bias on this one - the math is all right there. Romney just seems to be including things under internet fundraising that really aren’t that. It’s not a serious offense or anything close, but sometihng to keep an eye on.

Mitt Romney praised Hillary Clinton’s book about raising children in 1998, and harshly criticized it in 2004. Another flip-flop on the periphery of his campaign. You have to wonder if all of these will come back to hurt him; if not, we will see more politicians going this route in the future, I imagine.

The Florida primary being tentatively scheduled for a week after the New Hampshire primary could be a big help for a candidate with good organization like Romney, particularly if Giuliani keeps lagging behind in that regard.

Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado endorsed Romney.

Romney outlined his energy policy, focusing on energy independence as a security issue.

Romney’s silence among top Republicans about South Carolina’s new law requiring women to view an ultrasound of the fetus/unborn baby before they have an abortion is puzzling. It’s hard to see many negative repercussions from backing it given his stance on abortion.

A look at Romney’s history with gun control in Massachusetts. He signed a statewide ban on assault weapons, saying, “Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts. … These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.” The record is generally favorable for hunters and those who use guns for self-defense.

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich writes about the importance of English language education, as he juxtaposes it with his own story of trying to learn Spanish.

Gingrich spoke about the future of government and science yesterday.

Gingrich has a base of potential support in his home state of Georgia among some Congressmen.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the election, but it’s still a fascinating read of a comparison of Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi in terms of political style.

A hard look from the right on whether Ginrich is presidential. This strikes me as a view that could gain a lot of traction given the circumstances of Gingich’s fall from power. I wonder myself whether Gingrich would rather have someone run on his ideas or just run himself.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul spoke with Politico, and took the bold position of saying that more guns on campus could have prevented the massacre at Virginia Tech. I understand his position, but asking for a responsible student to carry a gun on a college campus - where responsibility is safe to say not the norm - is asking a lot.

Paul discussed his libertarian feelings on domestic and foriegn issues with the Des Moines editorial board.

Paul will be on Lou Dobbs tomorrow night.

Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani was on with Hugh Hewitt, and talked largely about his biography (he also goes into 9/11 conspiracy theories a bit and Rosie O’Donnell). He was also pushed on abortion, saying:

Hewitt: Would you like to see Roe V. Wade reversed, Mayor?
Giuliani: I would [hesitates, not indicating agreement]…what I’d like to see are abortions reduced, and adoptions increased. And I reduced…abortions declined about 15, 16% while I was Mayor, I think more than the national average. But most importantly, adoptions went up over 60%.
Hewitt: But would it be a good day or a bad day for America if Roe V. Wade was reversed by the Roberts’ Court?
Giuliani: Oh, I think that’s something the Court has to decide.

I have to wonder how many Republicans take this view of Giuliani regarding abortion. Is it cynical to not trust what Giuliani personally believes, or is it a mainstream view? It’s hard for anyone to say at this point. Later in the summer it should be more clear. However, comments like Giuliani recently made calling for the GOP to “get beyond” abortion are not going to make this issue go away. Giuliani is an interesting litmus test on how important abortion is to the modern Republican Party. This blog entry goes over what Giuliani said in full and commends him for standing up for it and defending the GOP as the big tent party. I’ve said it before, but I’ll reiterate it here: the abbreviated schedule in January and February could really help Giuliani, whereas in previous years potentially disappointing finishes in Iowa and South Carolina could have hurt him.

Giuliani’s cross-dressing is making the rounds in the papers. It was a good joke, nothing to take seriously. It’d be like voting for or against Clinton because he played the sax or for or against George W. Bush because he stumbles over words from time to time.

Giuliani’s draft-dodging history has come up, but if the country could elect two presidents recently with the non-existant or unimpressive military histories of Clinton and Bush …. Giuliani going to law school rather than serving will probably not be an issue. His vague opposition to the war in Vietnam is far more interesting, though I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere.

Sam Brownback

Brownback has changed his position on No Child Left Behind since it has been enacted.

Brownback continues to run a campaign based on his social conservatism, speaking last week in South Carolina.

He is currently proposing to split Iraq into three separate states - Sunni, Shia, Kurd - something nearly everyone else is opposed to.

Looks like the Romney-Brownback feud is restarting again.

Brownback is advocating a flat tax plan, as this notebook details. His two pages on taxes, here and here, do not get into any significant details.

Tom Tancredo

Tancredo addressed the issue of extremists sending him money: “There are kooky groups on both sides of the immigration issue. … I can only be responsible for the things I say or do. I can’t help who decides to send me money or support me.” He can say that if he wants, but he also then can’t criticize anyone else from either party for taking money from anyone. It’s a bit strange, though, given that he in the past has refused to take money from gun advocacy groups after the tragedy at Columbine.

Tancredo elaborates on his other positions: he wants to disengage in Iraq but not leave and he wants government involvement in energy development to free the country from OPEC. He mostly talked about immigration, though, not surprisingly.

Tancredo’s message was well-received at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Iowa. Here’s another look.

Tancredo transferred money from his House election fund to his Presidential fund. It’s unclear if he will be running for both, as Kucinich has in the past.

Tommy Thompson

Thompson campaigned in Fort Dodge, IA this past weekend.

In Wisconsin, he reiterated his plan for Iraq: “I would demand that the federal government in Iraq vote as to whether they want the U.S. in Iraq. And, if they vote yes, it gives us legitimacy for being there. And, if they vote no, they don’t want us there, we should leave.”

A review of Thompson’s long speech at the Iowa Lincoln Day Dinner.

Lincoln Day Dinner

This weekend, most Republican candidates gathered for the Iowa Lincoln Day Dinner. No need to recap it here extensively, since the first hand reports elsewhere are so thorough. Cyclone Conservative and Krusty Konservative both weighed in after attending, and the former took pictures as well. Iowa voice watched the event online (which I may end up doing yet).
The report in the Des Moines Register focused on the tension between the candidates; that was underscored by Gilmore’s comments, as mentioned above. The next few Iowa polls should be crucial in finding out what changes the dinner had, if any. The views, even of the few bloggers I linked to, are so drastically different in some instances that it’s hard to make judgments.

Lastly, this NYT graph is a great look at where funds were raised from.

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How Much for the Primary?

First, the Republicans, in order from the candidate who raised the most money to the least.

The second and third columns divide funds raised from donations from the public into general and primary election numbers. These numbers will not include transfers from other campaign accounts, laons, etc. Just what percentage is usable in the primary and what is not.

Candidate	Primary Funds Raised	General Funds Raised
Mitt Romney	19,832,482.28	none
Rudy Giuliani	12,526,130.85	1,125,500.00
John McCain	10,662,755.04	102,643.00
Sam Brownback	1,272,348.88	none
Ron Paul	395,158.99	none
Mike Huckabee	474,179.72	none
Duncan Hunter	469,801.08	2,350.00
Tommy Thompson	309,329.08	1,000.00
Jim Gilmore	154,325.00	none
John Cox	2,528.00	none

Democrats:

Candidate	Primary Funds Raised	General Funds Raised
Hillary Clinton	16,791,816.30	6,908,240.00
Barack Obama	19,960,239.04	178,752.60
John Edwards	12,546,691.06	1,078,230.00
Bill Richardson	6,091,549.50	6,200.00
Chris Dodd	2,837,345.44	901,937.00
Joe Biden	1,635,180.00	326,600.00
Dennis Kucinich	120,679.01	none
Mike Gravel	has not filed yet	unknown

Gravel and Tancredo’s numbers will be added when they file later tonight.

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Romney, Paul, Cox File First Quarter Returns

More numbers are rolling in. Mitt Romney raised exactly $20,982,788.23 in the first quarter, with an additional $2.35 million loan from himself. Romney’s campaign had about 32,000 donors. His filing lists 14,832 itemized receipts. He spent $11,570,981.46 in the quarter - more than double what Giuliani spent.

Ron Paul raised $638,489.16 in the first quarter; that is more than what Mike Huckabee is reported to have brought in. His filing lists 466 itemized receipts. Paul spent $114,969.78 during the first quarter. He has enough money that if he bunkers down in New Hampshire, he could have some surprising results. I’m not sure his libertarian message would go over well enough to distinguish himself in any of the other early primary states.

John Cox, on the other hand … not so good. He raised only $2668 during the quarter, having to loan him campaign $290,000 from himself. He had 98 itemized receipts … among which aare breakdowns of the loan from the candidate himself and that political organizations were actually not cashing his checks, and the donations are all extremely small - a couple even below $5. Not only that, he spent more than he took in this quarter, $332,474.57, leaving him with $248.56 in the bank account.

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Saturday Morning GOP Roundup

The Republican Debate scheduled for May 3 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library as of Wednesday includes Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Tommy Thompson. I would be surprised if Tancredo did not go as well, as we was even reported to be attending; he doesn’t have anything to lose by debating.

Chuck Hagel

Democratic Sen. from Nebraska Ben Nelson said he would like to see Hagel run, and that he would be a competant President, but that he can’t win the Republican nomination as an anti-war candidate. That’s definitely safe to say.

Duncan Hunter

NewsMax conducted an interview with Hunter about immigration, stem cells, the trade deficit, Iraq, and the status of his campaign. Pretty standard interview, nothing controversial or especially interesting if you’ve been following his campaign. More interesting is this video outreach to conservative bloggers pleading for support.

Hunter did not raise much money in the first quarter, less than $500,000.

Hunter campaigned in Iowa this past week.

Fred Thompson

It’s less than a month until Thompson makes an appearance in Orange County, and the ‘Draft Fred Thompson’ site has already re-launched in anticipation.

Some evangelical leaders think Thompson might be the answer to the lack of socially conservative candidates.

This Politico report indicates that Thompson has begun to assemble a campaign around him.

Another national poll shows Thompson doing exceptionally well, at 14%, taking most of his support from Giuliani.

Jim Gilmore

A rare look inside the Gilmore campaign. What a disaster. His staff buying beer at a liquor store minutes before hi CPAC speech? His campaign manager not playing the fundraising ‘game’? Considering campaigning in New Hampshire a “waste of time”? His numbers cannot change unless he shakes up his staff (and even then, don’t count on much).

John Cox

State chairs are leaving the Cox campaign, including this teenager who was his state chair in Wisconsin.

Cox vowed in an interview published with the Des Moines Register to stay in the race through January. He also talked about abortion (against it in all cases, including rape and incest), the FAIR tax, and supply-side economics - and his distaste with the Republican Party as it is.

John McCain

McCain will make a policy speech on Iraq this Wednesday at the Virginia Military Institute. The goal is to convince potential supporters that the war in Iraq is still winnable, and is essential to American’s security. This comes after clips of McCain saying he misspoke about Iraq (it’s not yet clear exactly what he said he misspoke about) on 60 Minutes, which will air in full this Sunday.

This article in the NY Times details how McCain is overhauling his fundraising to more mirror the structure Bush used. Also, McCain’s schedule is being loaded with fundraisers in the next few months and his campaign fundraising chair admits it’s a sprint, not a marathon (hear that, Mike Huckabee?)

McCain announced his ‘Sportsmen Coalition’ in New Hampshire, which will contrast starkly with the Romney hunting stories going around.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, going in detail over his thoughts on immigration, guns, and his marathon times. Huckabee was asked about machine guns, to which he stated, “I’ve got friends who own them. They have the legal process to own them. But once again, I’m not afraid of a law abiding citizen owning anything. I’m afraid of a criminal getting his hands on a gun. That’s where the crackdown needs to be. This country’s gone crazy. It’s cracking down on law abiding citizens, and turning their heads at people who break the law. That’s the polar opposite.” Mike Huckabee has friends who own machine guns? More seriously, the long dialogue about his marathon times is one reason people might not take him seriously as a presidential candidate. It seems so trite for a presidential candidate in an interview to spend so much time talking about the marathon he ran in New York.

Huckabee answered ten questions posed by voters for Time. The answer to the first question is purely a cliche. I can’t imagine anyone would vote for him just because he says he’s the underdog. His answer regarding ‘accepting responsibility’ seems to end right in the middle.

Huckabee will be the guest at a luncheon in Iowa this Wednesday, the end of this article notes. It’s also mentioned that the Huckabee set a goal of only $500,000 for fundraisingin the first quarter. That’s either a complete lie, or the campaign from the beginning knew it would be running this far behind.

Mitt Romney

A lengthy write-up in the Boston Globe of the Romney hunting debacle. He does not own a firearm, despite claiming to earlier in the year. Read more here.

A Zogby poll taken in New Hampshire just after the April fundraising numbers came out shows Romney jumping up into a tie with McCain for the lead in the state, with Giuliani just behind.

Romney received some endorsements from Iowa politicians.

Romney is speaking to a Livingston County (Michigan) Republican dinner on April 27.

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich apologized for saying, “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English, … so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”









On Tuesday morning, Gingrich will debate Sen. John Kerry on the environment and climate change. He is speaking at George Washington University on Monday.

Gingrich called for comprehensive health care reform, and focus on preventing health care through physical education in grade schools.

Gingrich is trying to create a massive movement behind his ideals. He’s holding ‘internet-based workshops’ in late September to try to create the massive network. The ultimate goal is for a candidate to embrace his ideals.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul will be campaigning in Iowa this coming Wednesday.

Paul wrote about his campaigning out west earlier this week.

Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani has drawn mild and scattered criticism for impersonating Don Corleone on the campaign trail. There’s a zero percent chance Giuliani will change based on this sort of criticism.

Giuliani supports more oil drilling now as a bridge to renewable energy, saying, “Energy independence means everything has to be open for discussion. … The idea of having more oil under our command, so to speak, or within our orbit probably for some period of time is going to be important. The ultimate goal, however, should be renewable sources of energy.”

I do not agree with most of the criticism in this article, but I do agree that the Giuliani abortion speeches seemed to be handled sloppily. What I do not agree with is that his position will kill him. Perhaps in prior years, but not with the primary schedule being the way it is now.

Sam Brownback

A video interview with Sam Brownback on New Hampshire TV, discussing Iraq, health care, social security, and veterans hospitals.

Brownback is stumping in Iowa, attending multiple prayer breakfasts. He wants to economically incentivize poor people to marry.

Brownback raised $1.3 million in the first quarter.

Tom Tancredo

Tancredo is still optimistic about his campaign. His message is still the same, in case you wondered.

Tommy Thompson

Tommy Thompson kicked off his campaign in Wisconsin and Iowa on Wednesday. His speech in Wisconsin reviewed his policy stances on all the important issues.

Thompson raised $400,000 in the first quarter, and has $186,000 on hand.

Newt Gingrich thinks that Thompson could surprise in Iowa, saying, “Given his small-town Wisconsin background, I think he’s going to be very effective in Iowa and very effective in New Hampshire.” He also said, “The truth is, he’s a character, but characters sometimes do very well in American politics. And I think if he relaxes and just is Tommy Thompson, he may do surprisingly well in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

George Pataki

Making a cameo appearance, Pataki appears by joing a NYC law firm to have decided not to run. He said he could support either McCain or Giuliani.

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2008 Central Exclusive Interview With John Cox, Part 1

We sat down with Republican presidential candidate, John Cox, to discuss his campaign, foreign policy, domestic policy and the other candidates.  Below, is the transcript from Part 1 of the interview covering Cox’s campaign and some foreign policy issues…(and don’t forget to check back for Part 2)…

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AsC: Can you win the Republican Primary and can you win the general election?

John Cox: Well, you know obviously, I’d need a lightning strike of good order here, but I think that can happen with the internet, with the 24 hour news cycle that we have today.   One hundred years ago this would be pretty tough, but the country obviously today is a lot more politically attuned.  People are plugged into the internet today a lot more than they were even four years ago when Howard Dean was running.  He went from nothing - he was a governor, but a governor of a pretty small state.  Just to give you an idea, when I ran countywide in Chicago, Cook County has 5 ½ million people, about 3 million registered voters.  I got about 800,000 votes - that’s about 100,000 more people than there are in Vermont.  So, you could say that I start off with a little bit more name recognition than Howard Dean did.  Now, he was a governor; I have not been elected to anything, so obviously there’s not as much similarity as you would think there.  The point of the matter is that he went from being pretty well unknown to being a national figure in the span of about a year.  If I can get some groundswell going and get some grassroots support, the media fire will spread pretty quickly.  I dare say that 6 months ago Barack Obama’s name recognition was probably in the 10 percent range nationwide - it’s still a lot better than what I have today - but today his name recognition is probably in the 80 or 90 percent range.  And, that’s the power of media, that’s the power of internet.  So, could this happen?  Yea, I think it’s possible.
AsC: An MSNBC poll from February 2007 of likely primary voters states that 73% of likely primary voters are paying very close attention to the primary process and the candidates.  What would you tell those 73% of people to do right now to start learning more about you and to start getting involved in your organization?

John Cox: Well obviously the website is the best place to start.  There’s tons of information on the website in terms of my background and the issues.  Obviously, too, there’s a book that I have written called Politics Incorporated that kind of defines who I am and why I have decided to make this race.  So, I think people who want to know about who I am and what I am about will be able to find out a lot through the website and the book.
AsC: Before we get into the substantive questions, one more calculus issue.  When did you start thinking about running for president and what was the process involved there?

John Cox: Well, you know, I ran for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2003.  That was a whole disgrace the way that happened with Obama getting in there over a couple of weak opponents.  I thought about what more of an impact I would have on the political process; I’m a businessman and I’ve been involved in the political process.  I’m not interested in being a career politician.  I’m not desperate to get an elected job.  I’ve got five businesses I run, I don’t need to be in politics.  But, I want this country to be better obviously, I want this country to have the benefits going forward that I’ve enjoyed.

So, I looked at what was going to happen in 2008.  I started looking at the potential candidates that were already being talked about right after the President’s victory in 2004.  You know, most of the people being talked about as a successor to President Bush were just more of the same – career politicians, a couple of celebrities.  I didn’t really see a Ronald Reagan out there.  I didn’t see a movement conservative.

At the same time, I had been looking at what the Republican Congress had been doing and we had lost our bearings.  I tell people that the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was Medicare expansion and Republicans falling all over themselves, twisting arms in the middle of the night, to pass the largest expansion of government and the largest expansion of an entitlement program in 40 years.  And I said, is this the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan?  And the answer is: it’s not.  I believe that the movement conservatives are still out there.  I believe Reagan democrats are still out there.  Ronald Reagan won two landslides by the largest electoral majorities in the history of this country because he stood up for something and he stood up for principle.  And, he wasn’t a career politician.  And, he appealed to people to understand that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.  All of sudden we had a president and a republican leadership that didn’t think that way.  They were going to find problems for government to cure and they were going to expand government big enough to try to cure those problems.  I thought they were wrong in doing so.  So, I said I just can’t let 2008 pass without getting a voice of a true Reagan voice into this campaign.  So, I sat down and started to write a book about what I thought.  As I wrote the book and wrote the book, it became more and more clear that the best way for me to get these ideas out there would be to run for president.  Get these ideas out in front of the people and try to reform the Republican Party around Reagan’s ideals.

AsC: You suggest that the path to victory in Iraq is to strengthen their economy by increasing oil production and then turn it over them them….

John Cox: Absolutely…

AsC: Is this the primary motivation for violence?  Is that what you believe that this sort of financial concerns are the primary contributors to the violence?

John Cox: No, look violence is the outgrowth of a whole bunch of people trying to get control of that country.  They’re finding a willing voice or they’re finding a willing ear with a whole bunch of people that are economically distressed.  Take a look, take a step back and look at Iraq.

In the north and the south, do you see much violence?  No.  In the North, Kerkuk, the Kurdish area, where by the way there are Sunnis, there are Shiite, there’s not many of them, there’s mostly Kurds.  But, they live side to side and they work and there’s no violence to speak of; same thing in the south where Basra is.  Now, what do these two areas have in common?  They both are areas where there’s a lot of oil production.  People are working.  People are feeling like there’s a future to their country.  They don’t want to disrupt their lives, because they’ve got reasonably successful lives, not by American standards, but certainly by their standards.  And they’re not listening to Al-Qaeda.

Contrast that with the middle of the country - Baghdad, Anbar, Fallujah - unemployment is at 50%, gasoline is being rationed, electricity is on 3 hours a day. Al-Qaeda goes in there with money and says ‘here plant this IED, kill these American occupiers.’  Well someone who is unemployed, who doesn’t feel there’s much hope in the future may well take that offer and do something - strike back.  I dare say if the unemployment rate in Washington D.C. were 50% you might find some willing people here to rise up against the local government.

AsC: So then you’re not ignoring the religious undertones you’re saying that these   economic reasons are the primary…

John Cox: Well, I’m saying that the way you cut through those is by keeping people happy and prosperous.  How do I know this?  Look at what goes on right now all throughout the Middle East.  All throughout the Middle East, you have Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  Now Sunni are the vast majority, Shiite are a minority in most other Arabian countries, Muslim countries.  But you know what, there’s Shiite in Saudi Arabia; there’s Shiite in Kuwait.  And do they kill everybody?  No.  And Why?  Because those countries have prosperity.  They are producing oil.  The people have education.  The people have food.  The people have housing.  The people have a future.  And, they put aside their religious rivalries.  In their own homes, they may sit there and say ‘oh those Sunnis, I don’t like them’ or something like that or ‘that guy down the block.’  But they don’t act on it.  Because they know, first of all that there’s a justice system that will come down on them.  But, the other part of it is, they have a job to protect.  If they go off and commit some violent act, they’re going to lose their job and their family’s future is at stake.

Right now, in the middle part of this country, their financial future isn’t at stake.  As a matter of fact, it’s almost the other way around with the way the militias are; their financial futures are more secure by committing violence.  I think that’s what a lot of the motivation is.  I think if we had gone in there right from the get go and gotten the investment going in the oil production…you know, before Saddam invaded Kuwait, Iraq was producing 5 million barrels of oil a day.  At the start of the war, 4 years ago, they were producing almost 2 million a day.  Do you know what they are doing now?  A million and a half.  So they are producing about 30% of their capacity and about 60% of what they were producing 4 years ago.  It’s gone down!  And it’s not because of violence.  I think that’s the biggest misnomer going out there.  The violence isn’t where the oil production is, the violence is in the middle of the country.
AsC: Do you believe Iran is working towards nuclear weapons?

John Cox: Absolutely…and why not, I mean as long as the rest of the world is willing to pay them extortion.  They see nuclear weapons as their way to enter the world debate and their way to basically make themselves a power player in the world.  And, we’ve got to send the message that the nuclear club is closed.  It’s just not in business anymore.  And, if you try to get nuclear weapons, we’re going to shut down your economy.

AsC: Is that what you would do as president?

John Cox: I think that’s the only thing you can do.  I mean, I don’t ever want to take the military option off the table because that’s stupid.  It frankly doesn’t make sense to take one of your options off the table.  But, it’s the last option that we would obviously do.  You know what?  I don’t think it would be necessary.  Just like Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union without firing a shot, no marches, no armies, no tanks.  We can bring down the dictatorial governments of Iran and North Korea.  And how?  Show the people of those countries that we mean business, not necessarily militarily, but business in terms of prosperity.

So, Iran has got a young population - they want growth, they want prosperity.  Give them a laboratory example with the country next door.  Show that the Iraq economy can be rebuilt.  Show that the U.S. can get the Iraqis to be prosperous.  And if the Iraqis are driving around in hummers, not military hummers, but they’re driving around and they’re employed and business is booming.  And there’s cranes all over building hospitals and schools and the people of Iraq are prosperous and happy, what kind of message is that going to send to the people of Iran right next door?  I’ll tell you what; they’ll get rid of those Mullahs that are taking their oil.  You know, Iran’s economy is going downhill.  The only thing keeping them afloat, no pun intended, right now, is oil.  And why?  Oil prices are high.  But they are actually producing less oil today than they were five years ago.  That means that their economy is destined to have some major problems here, going forward.

Now, we would do a number of great things if we got Iraqi oil production up.  Think about 5 million barrels on the market a day.  First of all, oil prices around the world would drop.  We’ve got $60 a barrel oil today, overnight we would have $40 barrels of oil, if Iraq was producing 5 million barrels a day.  Now, that would benefit the Iraqis because they’d be producing a lot more money even at the lower price.  It would help Americans, who would finally get some benefit from the Iraq war – lower oil prices.  Our economy would do better, that would be a shot in the arm.  And, Iran and Venezuela would become a lot less dangerous.  At $40 a barrel oil, those dictators in both of those countries would feel a lot of pain and would be a lot less powerful.  They’d be a lot less able to ferment trouble around the world and buy weaponry and influence governments around the world.  So, there’s a lot of good to be done by getting Iraqi oil production up.  And, again, when the Iraqi oil production gets going and the Iraqis are prosperous, I think the Iranians are going to look at that and say ‘hey, I want a piece of that prosperity too.’
AsC:  Speaking of oil, which is a great segue, do you believe that there’s human caused climate change occurring globally?

John Cox: Well, I think the climate always changes.  I think that there’s probably some measure of human cause – the issue is how much.  The world has been warmer and colder throughout history and obviously that was way before cars.  Cars weren’t around during the Middle Ages and there’s a lot of scientific evidence that shows the earth was actually warmer during some parts of the middle ages.  The answer is: I don’t know and I don’t think scientific knowledge is totally sure on this point, because I don’t think scientific knowledge is actually sure about anything.  I remember when I was your age and I was growing up, there were scientists out there saying: We’re going to run out of oil by the year 2000.  Well, the world is awash in oil today; we haven’t run out of oil.  There were other people running around in the seventies who were saying the world was going to run out of food.  Well today, we produce more food than we can eat.  Our problem is obesity, not starvation.  So, the so-called scientists and I don’t put down scientists, they provide a lot of opportunity to people.  But, you know, they are not always that sure and they are not always right.

The issue is: should we clean the air?  Yes.  Should we diversify for fossil fuels? Yes.  How can we do that without crippling the economy?  How can we do that while still letting developing countries develop?  How can we do that without arming tinhorn dictators throughout the world?  These are the kinds of questions we need to answer.  We need common sense solutions.  What we don’t need are government dictates and government mandates that never work.  And how do I know this?  The Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore.  It’s in the dustbin of history.  Centralized government management is an oxymoron; there is no management to it.  What we’ve got to do is get a private sector at work.  We’ve got to get policies that empower people to solve these problems, encourage diversification, encourage a free market, encourage clean air – that’s in everybody’s best interest.

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Follow Up: Exclusive Interview With John Cox

2008 Central recently sat down with Republican presidential contender John Cox for an exclusive interview.

The interview was a success!  John Cox’s gracious sacrifice of time, his candor along with all of your submitted questions helped make the interview interesting and informative.  The interview ran a bit longer than 30 minutes.  Accordingly, because the interview was so longer, we’re going to publish it in two parts to ensure that it receives the proper attention - Part 1 will be published this evening, Part 2 will be published tomorrow evening.

Part 1 - Basic Info and Foreign Policy

• Cox’s discussion of his chances of securing the nomination and winning the general election
• Discusses when he started thinking about and why he’s running for president
• Gives his plans for success in Iraq and controlling Iran’s nuclear ambitions [You'll definitely want to check back for these as his point-of-view is certainly not being discussed much by the media - whether you agree or disagree, it's still worth learning about new/different ideas]
• Discusses human caused climate change [Teaser: He doesn't really buy into all the discussion about climate change, but he still wants clean up the environment]

Part 2 - Domestic Policy and Assorted Questions

• Discusses his plan for dealing with illegal immigrants
• Discusses military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and reacts to Gen. Pace’s comments [You're not getting a teaser as I don't want to give away too much]
• Tells us what he’d do differently in the war on drugs and discloses whether or not he’s used marijuana [Teaser: His discussion on the War on Drugs is thoughtful and a position absent from the mainstream and deserving of more attention]
• Responds to criticisms of his Republican frontrunners Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney

Once again, we’d like to thank John Cox for his time.  We strongly encourage all to read the interview.

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There’s Only Three Parts to This Trilogy: Other Local Campaign HQs

In South Carolina and Nevada (for Democrats only), it’s very early. This listing of HQs is little more than trivia at this point, but I’ll list them regardless.

John Cox
1710A Senate Street
Columbia, SC 29201

John McCain
1600 Gervais Street
Columbia, SC 29201

Bill Richardson
515 S. 7th St.
Las Vegas, NV 89101

Richardson’s strategy is focused clearly on Nevada. Cox and McCain are using their deep pockets to establish a presence early. Expect Romney to follow suit shortly.

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Going Granite: Listing of New Hampshire Campaign Offices

Republicans first this time:

John Cox
788 Elm Street
Manchester NH 03101

John McCain
250 Commercial Street, Suite 3007
Manchester, NH 03101

Mitt Romney
359 Elm Street
Manchester, NH 03101

Rudy Giuliani
1850 Elm Street
Manchester, NH 03104

Tom Tancredo
250 Commercial Street, Suite 3020
Manchester, NH 03101

If you look at a map, it’s quite amusing how close all these offices are. Giuliani is about a mile north of the rest of them, but the rest are bunched in pretty tightly; McCain and Tancredo even in the same building. Brownback, Huckabee and Hunter have not yet opened offices, but probably will, assuming they get enough money to do so. Ron Paul will likely visit New Hampshire a lot; I don’t know if he would open an office though. (Anyone who would like to clarify, please do so in the comment section). Tommy Thompson is focusing so much on Iowa, but he may open a small office eventually though. Gilmore probably is waiting to get a bit more money. And Fred Thompson, Hagel, and Gingrich are not even in the race.

Democrats:

Dennis Kucinich
29 Center St.
Keene, NH 03431

Barack Obama
60 Rogers St.
Manchester, NH 03103

And that’s it so far. Clinton again is holding off on opening an office (despite having a vast network in the state; that’s the main reason I mention her), and no other candidate finds an office necessary right now. Of course, just having an office does not mean it is actually operational.

Aside from Clinton and Obama, no Democrat has more than a handful of staff in the state right now. Clearly the campaign there on the Democratic side has yet to pick up at all.

Once again, thanks to Democracy in Action.

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Dodd Opens Iowa Office; Listing of Offices in Iowa

Chris Dodd opened a campaign office in downtown Des Moines.

Listing of offices on Iowa for Democratic Candidates:

Chris Dodd
1115 Grand Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50309

John Edwards
712 E. 2nd Street, Suite A
Des Moines, IA 50309

Barack Obama
323 E. Locust
Des Moines, IA 50309

Hillary Clinton, to the best of my knowledge, does not yet have an Iowa office or at least has not released where it is ; Joe Biden plans to open one soon. None of the other Democratic candidates seem to have mentioned it; not surprising given the limited budgets of Richardson, Gravel, and Kucinich. Richardson will probably open an office eventually, and Clinton almost certainly will. The other two I’m not sure of. The HQs of Obama and Edwards are a block and a half apart, fwiw.

Listing of offices on Iowa for Republican Candidates:

Tommy Thompson
10544 Justin Drive
Urbandale, IA 50322

John Cox
815 Office Park Road
West Des Moines, IA 50265

John McCain
2335 70th Street
Urbandale, IA 50322

Mitt Romney
3590 109th Street
Urbandale IA 50322

Tom Tancredo
217 Welch Ave., Suite 102
Ames, IA 50014

Giuliani, despite his front running status, has been accused of not having a good organization built; his apparent lack of an office in Iowa is emblematic of that, especially comparatively. The Iowa straw poll for Republicans is in August, and a strong showing there could be essential for Giuliani. The other Republicans are either not officially in the race (Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, Chuck Hagel), focusing on New Hampshire (Ron Paul, Jim Gilmore), or have their main headquarters close enough that they don’t feel another one in Iowa is necessary at this point (Huckabee, Brownback). Also of interest, Romney and Thompson’s HQs are around the corner from each other.

*I’m not sure that I haven’t missed someone’s headquarters. If I become aware of that, I will edit this post.

Thanks to Democracy in Action.

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