What's the meaning of Mitt's victory

Perhaps ABC's "The Note" and others have it right:
"This much is clear: Romney, R-Mass., has found a product he's comfortable selling -- optimism. There have been many iterations of his candidacy, but this was probably the best fit from the start: the turnaround artist, the businessman, the overall optimistic leader who (even if he can't quite fill himself with empathy on command) conveys a sense of competence. "Just as important as Mr. Romney's personal ties was that he found himself, after setbacks in Iowa and New Hampshire, in an economically downtrodden state that has shed millions of jobs," Michael Luo writes in The New York Times. "The economic woes here played neatly into his strengths as a candidate, and his newly retooled message centered around his private sector experience and a promise to bring change to Washington."

Mitt's Mormonism

Mitt Romney plans to make a major speech dealing with his Mormon faith--polls show his situation is dicey: "Not surprisingly, the survey documented that there is greater bias among voters toward a candidate who is a Mormon than there is to a candidate who is African American or female. "We clearly see that people are more reluctant to vote for Mormons than they are blacks or women," Geer said Tuesday morning in a telephone call."

Former Bush administration official Peter Wehner has an idea of what Romney will seek to do:
"I don't think he wants to focus his argument on either separation of church and state or demystifying the Mormon faith," Wehner wrote in a message Tuesday morning. "I'd be shocked if he gets into Mormon doctrine at all. Rather, he wants to argue that his fundamental values are the same as most Republicans and most Americans, and that should be the acid test."

Which, from a properly-understood conservative point of view, sounds like the kind of thing that might help Romney.

Interesting Iowa poll--Democrats

Yes, I know, it's so early and there's always too much horse-race stuff in politics.
But let's face it, the race for president is on and it's worthwhile to keep up on the state of it.
I found this poll interesting--a reputable poll, done by Peter Hart and McLaughlin and Associates, respected (and Democrat-leaning) pollsters. And after everything (Senator Clinton for example has campaigned pretty heavily in Iowa over the past few weeks), John Edwards still leads in Iowa. What if Edwards wins Iowa? It would certainly affect the Democratic race; Hillary could no longer be seen as inevitable. Stay tuned. UPDATE: One wonders, too, how the continuing trickle of negative stories about Edwards will impact the race--the haircut, his work during the past four years for big investment groups, and now today a story originally in the Wall Street Journal and now going around the blogosphere that Edwards has further ties to big money. Edwards could eventually die from these thousand cuts.

Will anybody be left standing, or watching?

So for the Democrats' most recent debate, the audience fell to less than 1 million. Meanwhile, Republicans in South Carolina are advancing the date for their debate, which is leading to a chain reaction in New Hampshire and in Iowa--the first votes for the 2008 presidential primary nominations may be cast in December 2007. We may already be seeing the first signs of campaign fatigure. Imagine what it'll be like by November 2008.

Republicans 2008: why so down?

Kathryn Jean Lopez makes a good point on The Corner--why are Republicans so down on their presidential choices? Polls keep showing this dispiritedness. But I don't see a good reason for it, especially when we focus on the top 3 or 4 or 5 candidates (throw Huckabee in the mix, too). Not only are they "serious", as K-Lo says. But they all have a record of accomplishment in the private sector, as governors, as mayors (look at Giuliani). They're articulate (look at Romney). They're not going to completely separate themselves from President Bush, but they're not going to run as Bush clones, either (nor does the public see them that way--despite all the gloomy forecasts for the GOP over the past several weeks and Bush's low poll numbers, the latest Rasmussen general election poll has Giuliani even with Hillary Clinton). Given the current environment, that's pretty good. One of these guys can win. Believe it. If no Republican believes it, the GOP is sure to lose in 2008.

Speaking of Mitt Romney...

If you go here, you can watch his off-air, unscripted "debate" with a radio host who kept insisting that Romney should discuss his Mormon faith in great detail. Romney disagreed. And this time, he's right. Presidential campaigns aren't an occasion for the candidate to hold seminars on his religious faith. John F. Kennedy didn't make the 1960 race all about his Catholicism. Nor should he, given that he made it clear his church and his Pope, though important to him, would not dictate what he did. Romney has made it clear that it will be the same way with him and his church, should he become president. That falls well within the American tradition.

I don't blame Romney for not going back on that radio show.

A waitress, a hot diner, Mitt Romney, a campaign moment, and isolationism...

Republican candidate Mitt Romney and a waitress at a New Hampshire diner get into it over health care. Not that surprising, really, though the media loves it (one of those "unscripted moments") and it provided good fodder for a YouTube clip. What I find significant about it is something else, though. What prompted the waitress's question was Romney going into a spiel about how he'd fight the global spread of AIDS. "What about our nation? How 'bout the USA? C'mon!", responded the waitress in question, 12 year vet Michele Griffin. Later, after the exchange was done, Griffin said: "I just want him to start taking care of us Americans," she said. "You know? Stop worrying about everyone else right now."

And that's what's significant. I fear Ms. Griffin isn't alone. When overseas wars don't go well, and there's a perception of economic trouble here at home, Americans pretty quickly move towards isolationism. Bring the troops home, we've gotta take care of our own and worry about ourselves, etc. We saw it after Vietnam. We saw it during the Great Depression. It's understandable. But it can be dangerous (see for example the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan, largely ignored at the time by many Americans). It helps explain why polls show that majorities of Americans want us out of Iraq. But did I mention this kind of thinking can be dangerous?

Further news roundup

Catching up on some other news and notes....1] Read this, by two analysts from the relatively-liberal Brookings Institution. They suggest that the military situation in Iraq is turning around for the better. It's especially significant because they were predisposed to find otherwise. But they didn't. The U.S. can get the job done in Iraq. 2] Some say Fred [Thompson] flopped, because his fundraising didn't meet "expectations". Good grief. The obvious comment is that he hasn't even officially ANNOUNCED his candidacy yet! But beyond that, remember: other campaigns--rival campaigns--love to leak negative stuff about their opponents. I suspect that's what's happening here. 3] And see this hilarious (and spot-on) quote from Jonah Goldberg.

To Republicans: why let a YouTube debate go down the tubes?

They shouldn't. It's a chance to get the message out. Why pass it up? A blog on TechRepublican explains. And no, the questions in the Democratic debate weren't perfect, not by a long shot. So, negotiate to adjust the format to make sure intelligent people have more input on the questions used. But don't just say "hell, no, we won't go" to this debate.

Mitt Romney goes brimstoning about on the campaign trail

In Iowa, in one of his "Ask Mitt Anything" campaign stops, as reported by the NY Times, Mitt attacks Senator Clinton: "But Mr. Romney hardly spared Mrs. Clinton from criticism this morning. He made sure to get in a dig at her as well, attacking her call for shared responsibility as a society. “That’s like, out with Adam Smith and in with Karl Marx,” he said.

Please, now, former Governor Romney, no need to go around shrieking out wild rhetoric and sounding like a member of the John Birch Society. You had some legitimate criticisms of Barack Obama in that same meeting, and I don't want the relatively liberal Senator Clinton in charge of this country's domestic policy either. But she's not like "Karl Marx", and it's ridiculous to suggest that she is. That kind of rhetoric can help the opposition make all Republicans out to be wild-eyed, shrieking extremists. Tone it down.

Hillary vs Obama

Ann Althouse (and others) think that Hillary Clinton's answer in the most recent Democrats' debate, to the question of whether a president should be meeting in her first year as president with Syria or Cuba, was so superior to that of Barack Obama, and her campaign's pouncing on it in the post-debate spin so effective, that it has clearly established her as the "superior candidate." Well, maybe. I agree Senator Clinton's answer was superior, in terms of principle, common sense, statecraft, etc.

One caveat, though: this doesn't necessarily mean that Senator Clinton now has a big leg up among Democrats for the nomination. Remember, we're talking about Democratic primary voters here. They're far more liberal. And I think that means that such voters love the idea of being willing to talk with anyone, any time. There are a lot of Democrats who clearly believe that negotiations, talking, in and of itself is almost always a good thing. Now had a Republican candidate, in the Republican primary season, made a statement like Obama's at a GOP debate, oh, no question, he'd be finished among Republicans. But the Democrats' nomination won't be decided by Republicans, or members of the mainstream media, or us (hopefully sensible) bloggers. It'll be decided by Democratic primary voters. And they may see this, along with the Clinton Machine's heavy cannon fire in the wake of it, very differently. We'll see.

Remember 2006?

TechRepublican today makes a good point, referring to some data on the 2006 midterm elections that leaked recently from Karl Rove's office: the 2006 election really wasn't a blowout. Many of the races were very close, decided by a few thousand votes or less. That doesn't mean that Republicans need not worry about 2008. It doesn't mean that Democrats are in trouble in 2008, necessarily. It does mean that for the GOP 2008 remains doable.

YouTube wins the debate

It's certainly gotten the most positive press out of last night's Democratic debate, sponsored by CNN and YouTube. Good roundups here and here. I'll link to more good commentary as I find it during the day. My thoughts on it, having watched most of it: 1] Anderson Cooper did a pretty good job of following up on behalf of the YouTube questioners, trying to get the candidates to actually answer the questions. 2] Senator Clinton keeps implying that she has the most experience and that she's "ready to lead." Why does everyone unquestioningly accept this? What, serving as First Lady for 8 years prepares you to be president? Please; they're not the same jobs. Otherwise, she's served a little more than one term as a senator. 3] Ronald Reagan and his legacy lives! Senator Clinton still won't call herself a "liberal", a word Reagan the Republicans appear to have damaged fatally way back in the 1980s. Instead, she says she's a "modern progressive." 4] Barack Obama is quick, speaking strongly and confidently; he improved over his early debate performances, and gets across his main point, that he wants to promote broader change than does Clinton. 5] But Obama still makes mistakes, rather naively leaping to pledge that he'd meet in his first year as president with the leaders of Syria, Cuba, Iran, etc. Senator Clinton was much wiser on this, suggesting that one couldn't pledge to do that, that a president had to make sure he/she wasn't being taken advantage of for propaganda purposes, etc. Though, to be fair, Senator Clinton hasn't always spoken so clearly and unambiguously on this point. 6] Overall, clearly Senator Clinton was the target, as she remains the front-runner. You could see this by the shots the other top-tier candidates took at her, from John Edwards warning of the dangers of "triangulation" to Obama using Clinton's letter to the Pentagon as a way to criticize her as a latecomer to the antiwar movement. Will any of it derail the Clinton locomotive? It could; one still senses uneasiness with her among many Democrats. More as the day goes on. UPDATE: Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters points out that some of the questions from the YouTubers left, er, something to be desired. True; and let that always be a lesson: it's not just about the questions, it's about who PICKS the questions that'll get asked. And in any case, there's been too much hullaballoo about how new and cool the YouTube format is. What's so new about it? Yes, ordinary citizens could submit questions directly to the candidates and do so through glitzy videos with lots of techno sturm und drang. That's nice; but as for the meat of this debate, questioning the candidates, networks have been organizing "debates" at "town hall forums" attended by "ordinary citizens" who get to ask questions for decades now. Remember the 1992 presidential election? This CNN-YouTube debate did the same thing, just in a different format. Let's go easy on the oohing and aahing.

Tonight: Democrats debate

Don't forget about the big CNN/YouTube Dem debate this evening. I'll be blogging about it tomorrow. One thing to watch tonight is Senator Clinton and her continuing attempt to handle the central condundrum of her campaign: what really is her relationship with Bill? And will she govern like Bill? A few weeks ago william Greider of The Nation put it well:

This is the central tension in Senator Clinton's campaign. It's what makes her sound conflicted. Does she intend to emulate the risk-averse, center-right juggling act by which her husband governed? Or, as she sometimes suggests, will Clinton II be more aggressively progressive, less beholden to business and financial interests, more loyal to the struggles of working people? Senator Clinton tries to have it both ways: running on her husband's record and popularity, yet hinting she will not be like Bill.

GOP comeback? Come back when you can be specific

Did you catch this article by long-time Republican pollster Frank Luntz last Sunday? He's asking how the Republicans can win in 2008. He says it will be a tough road, but says there's a "glimmer of hope" yet, that the GOP must focus on a message that appeals to independents, one of hope and economic opportunity, etc etc etc. Well...duh! But what specific fundamentals and specific policy options does he recommend? He doesn't mention any. To be fair, he's not a policy analyst. But if Republicans are going to get anywhere, they've gotta make it clear just what principles and ideas for which they're going to stand. Luntz is right, Republican candidates today can't be Reagan; but everyone knew where Reagan stood, and that's a good touchstone for Republicans to grab onto--and fast.