McCain More Vulnerable than Rudy

Political prognostication is a sport destined to achieve a non-perfect record.

Ask Kevin Drum, and he's damn good.

Drum agreed with predictions made last November that after Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, other rightwingers would jump on board the Rudy train. Drum wrote, quoting Rich Lowry:

Just talked to a top social conservative. He says, hinting that more prominent social cons will end up going with Rudy, 'There's plenty more where this comes from.' On the impact of the Robertson endorsement on the race: "What it does for Rudy is it says, 'It's OK to vote for Rudy.' I think there will be more of that, pre-nomination and post-nomination." On conservative evangelical voters and Giuliani: "If Rudy is the nominee, they're going to vote for him — period."

"This strikes me as right. The real core issue of the Christian right has always been 'moral decay,'" wrote Drum.

Did not work out that way with Rudy. No mass of Christians leaped behind him because Pat Robertson said so. And let-them-eat-cake McCain presents even more problems than Rudy, never mind that the GOP establishment hates the guy.

Drum's contention that the religious right voters focus on their conception of moral decay is accurate to a point, but religious right voters are sufficiently independently thinking (I know) that they will not, in overwhelming numbers, automatically and on command fall in line for a GOP candidate who does not speak their language and who is insincere.

As much as I personally disagree with the religious right on just about every aspect of their descriptive views, these voters hold much more nuanced world and ethical views than Drum and Lowry would have you believe; and, more than some Republican operatives may realize: Genuine views.

George W. Bush connected with these voters, and as much as W. is a truly repulsive political and ethical leader, he is genuine in his religious convictions.

In enough churches of the religious right, it's not all authoritarianism and 'our leaders say we must vote for this man to save the world from Satan'.

The churches are a community: People coming together to help an elderly lady paint her house; people coming together and talking about a personal problem; sharing a success; comforting a church member in a crisis; and solving non-political issues about quality of living.

I spoke to several people in Wisconsin at the fundamentalist Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) church in 1998, and wrote a piece scathing and somewhat mocking in tone for a Milwaukee LGBT civil rights periodical.

But as noted then, the church was very community-oriented and a lot of people did a lot of work to help one another out.

Sure, there will be some, possibly many (especially in the south), among the religious right voters who will pull a lever for the Republican nominee, when enough political propaganda and brand pressures are applied.

But there will also be many more, and more than enough to sway an election, who will dedicate their energies in places other than a polling place and political campaigns when they feel insulted and used by John McCain or Mitt Romney; and they may be found in the political offices where you might not expect them to be residing, like in the Democratic nominee's.

[This article appeated in a slightly different version entitled Rudy Can Fail on Nov. 9, 2007.]

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Rudy Shot Down

Rudy Giuliani's declining electoral fortunes have his campaign desperate.

ThinkProgress has some fun at the great man's expense.

Giuliani: New York City Survived 9/11 Attacks Because Of Me

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed today on homeland security, Rudy Giuliani references September 11 nine separate times. In one of those instances, he claims he prepared New York City well to “withstand the 9/11 attack“:

One reason New York City was able to withstand the 9/11 attack was that we were prepared to meet 21st-century security threats. … And while we didn’t anticipate the specific scenario of 9/11, the constant practice, and the relentless follow-up from actual emergencies, certainly helped in its aftermath.

Jim Riches, a deputy New York City fire chief who lost a son at the Trade Center, has a very different perspective:

“Lives were lost because of the lack of preparation and (Giuliani’s) lack of leadership,” said Riches, who spent 16 days in a coma after the attacks due to respiratory failure. “All he did was run that day, and get on TV and provide a calming influence for the United States of America. And they made him a hero.”

Because of Giuliani’s failures, first responders were forced to use old radio equipment on 9/11 that prevented them from hearing evacuation orders when the World Trade Center buildings were about to collapse. The radios had malfunctioned eight years earlier, during the 1993 attacks on the WTC.
Giuliani claimed last month, “It would have been impossible for me to have those radios ready.” It would not have been impossible. After the 1993 incident, Giuliani gave Motorola a $14-million no-bid contract to produce faulty radios that had to be taken out of service in March 2001. Brave New Films released this web video detailing the negative impact Giuliani’s no-bid decision had on firefighters on 9/11.

9/11 first responders have not only criticized Giuliani for failing to provide them with proper radios, but also for ditching body-recovery efforts only 24 hours after recovering tens of millions of dollars in gold and for misleading them about the air quality at Ground Zero.

Iowa Caucuses Take-aways: Change and Sincerity

- A white Iowa electorate and increased youth participation has Obama looking like a winner. (Results at right from The Politico)

- A highly energised Democratic party allies with independents looking for change. Democratic turnout doubles Republican turnout, 240,000 to some 115,000 people participating in the caucuses.

- A still-critical religious right segment of the electorate for the Republican nominee catapulted Mike Huckabee to a solid victory.

- Rudy G. underperforms even the dismal expectations for Iowa.

- Mitt Romney's insincere pandering combined with lots of money still will not play in the heartland with large segments of the Republican electorate.

- Hillary is alive and fighting, Edwards less so.

- John McCain and Fred Thompson holding on, so far.

- Republicans operatives are scared as no one is able to unite the fragmented GOP coalition.

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GOP Pres Candidates Looking Bad

Update II: The GOP is not so hot on the Huckster:

- Rush at War with the Huckster.

- Condi Rice: Huckster 'simply ludicrous'.

- National Review's Rich Lowry: "Huckacide"

- Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer: "overdose of public piety," "scriptural literalism,"

- Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes: Huckster "seems to believe the best foreign policy is one guided by the Golden Rule;" [maybe the Huckster is dangerous; if the guy starts campaigning on human rights and compassion, look out, though I doubt that will happen].

Update: Arianna Huffington has a piece comparing the Huckster to Frankenstein running amok and leading the pack in the GOP primary. Writes Huffington:

With Mike Huckabee's continuing surge, the Republican Party now has an Iowa front-runner whose religious beliefs are virtually identical to those of George Bush. He's anti-choice, born-again, against gay-marriage, and gets political advice directly from God.

So why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem?

Actually, that is the problem. The evangelical crowd was fine when it was just a resource to be cynically exploited every few years in demagogic anti-gay get-out-the-vote campaigns. But now the holy-rolling monster the GOP's Dr. Frankensteins have created has thrown off the shackles, fled the lab, and is currently leading in Iowa. And the party doesn't know what to do.

In the 2008 election that is indisputably a challenging historical period for the GOP to begin with, the top five candidates for the GOP presidential nomination all present major problems in assembling a winning GOP coalition in the general election, and even two weeks away from the Iowa caucuses no candidate looks like a winner.

But as Chris Cillizza says: Someone Has to Win the GOP Nomination.

Below is Cillizza's take on the top five GOP presidential candidates with additional weaknesses (most previously published) added in brackets.

Rudy Giuliani isn't positioned to win a single state before Florida's Jan. 29 primary. [James Dobson, the leading religious right leader of the Focus on the Family group that self-consciously rallies religious right voters has made clear that Rudy is political anathema; hence Rudy will perform badly with the religious right; and Rudy’s past positions on affirmative action, abortion, civil right for gays, and immigration will kill his candidacy, no matter how often he portrays his inner-jerk persona in an attempt to appear tough.]

Mitt Romney has fallen behind in Iowa and his flip flops on issues like abortion and gay rights make him unacceptable to the Republican base. [As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney was even more pro-choice and pro-civil rights for gays than Rudy. The massive effort underway to convert him into a rightwinger won’t fly (detailed in a Harper’s (November) piece by Ken Silverstein). As quoted by Silverstein: “(Romney) says all the right things, his speeches run through the litmus test on conservative issues, but there’s no conviction behind it. …,” said Cyndi Mosteller, a social rightwinger and GOP politico in South Carolina. Add to that Christian religious bigotry against Mormons and you have a political loser.] Update: Romney drawing heat for falsely claiming he and his father marched with Martin Luther King, adding to the growing perception that Romney will do and say much anything to further his political ambitions. See also NYT's Romney Learns That ‘Facts Are Stubborn Things’.

Mike Huckabee is surging in Iowa but doesn't have the money or organization to take advantage of a win in the Hawkeye State.
[The rapist-pardoning Huckster is a divisive fake just dying to be found out. Even the Republican establishment has blasted the guy. Provincial, ignorant of foreign affairs, his success in the GOP race thus far has depended directly upon his below-the-radar-and-ascending appeals to the religious right, and his ability to mount a positive, above-the-fray campaign as the other Republicans competed for who is the most mean-spirited in advocating for draconian measures such as more torture, more Gitmo prisons, more war, more fences, and more trashing of Mexicans as Karl Rove's dream of a GOP appeal to Hispanics evaporates. Add to this that he would be deficient in traditional GOP political strengths in foreign affairs and tough-on-crime appeals, and the Huckster would be a goner in the general election.]

John McCain is running a single-state strategy in New Hampshire, but in that state he trails Romney by double digits. ["Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson. Few religious right leaders have forgiven McCain for his wildly unpopular (in Republican circles) McCain/Feingold bill, and his April 9, 2000 speech trashing the religious right (that’s the Robertson/Falwell “agents of intolerance” speech). McCain would perform worse than Rudy; let's hope for Joe-mentum for McCain.]

Fred Thompson doesn't seem to care much whether he wins or loses. [As a late September piece in The Politico notes, quoting Dobson: "Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson asked in the message, obtained by The Associated Press. "He has no passion, no zeal and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!" Grandpa Fred is dead, and he comes across as tired and wooden: An older version of an unenergetic John Kerry.] And as Cillizza notes: Apathetic.

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Religious Right Still Potent in GOP Circles, Buffoonish Elsewhere

With the rise of Mike Huckabee to the top of polls in the race for the Republican nomination for president, the pile of candidates rejected by the religious right is a roster of formerly regarded GOP front-runners or political saviors: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.

[John McCain's recently acquired Joe-mentum is a joke, and McCain, of the top four Republican candidates, remains the least acceptable to the religious right, as he deviates slightly from being mean-spirited and dogmatic.]

So, will Huckabee sustain his frontrunner status, propped up by the religious right?

Let's hope so, because the religious right has worn out its welcome among the center of American politics.

As Harold Meyerson writes today in the Post:

As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it's a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party. ...

The most depressing thing about the Republican presidential race is that the party's rank and file require their candidates to grow meaner with each passing week. And now, inconveniently, inconsiderately, comes Christmas, a holiday that couldn't be better calibrated to expose the Republicans' rank, fetid hypocrisy.

As fans of the popular television series House and Bones attest, heroically free-thinking, compassionate and secular American archetypes remain admired figures in the American consciousness.

I mean who wants to see a Gastroenterology specialist who isn't brilliant and rational-minded? And a brilliant and rational president has its advantages too, even imperatives, as the ruin of Bush/Cheney becomes clear and irrefutable.

Craig Unger puts the conflict between reason and religion this way:

(As discussed in the new book, The Fall of the House of Bush), most secularists, who refer to the culture wars or the red state-blue state conflict, still don't understand that what is really going on is an age old battle between faith and reason. After all, America is not only the country that put a man on the moon, that unraveled the human genome, that invented the iPod. It's also a country with tens of millions of people who don't believe in evolution, who think the earth was created 6,000 years ago and who think that the Final Conflict may bring the world to an end any day now.

The religious right remains powerful on Planet GOP, but is faltering badly in the greater reality-based American consciousness.

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Is David Broder Capable of Being Substantial? No, That Is Why He Ignores Ron Paul

David Broder has never tried to hide his positive bias toward the Bush, Cheney, and Rove administration.

But Broder's bias extends to the GOP generally, and because it's difficult to manage regular, substantial plaudits for the Party, Broder does what he does best: Banal pandering.

Watching last week's CNN YouTube Debate while attempting to adopt the mindset of a Republican primary voter, the immigrant-bashing, war-mongering, hate-fest nature of the forum was impossible to miss.

John McCain and Mike Huckabee did come out with positions approaching rational and human concern for immigrants and their families, positions similar to the standard Democratic position.

Yet, for David Broder, only GOP candidates draw praise in taking rational positions contra the GOP. [In fairness to Broder, rational GOP positions do not often come.] Writes Broder:

What sets McCain and Huckabee apart is most evident in the way they treat the contentious issue of illegal immigration. ...

But, unlike the others, who seem to take their rhetorical cues from the rabidly anti-immigrant Tancredo, Huckabee and McCain always remember that those who struggle to reach the United States across the deserts or rivers of the Southwest are human beings drawn here by the promise of better lives for their families. ...

If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009, it's pretty clear what it would do. It would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts, and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president -- and president-in-waiting. ...

McCain and Huckabee have been notable for their clarity, character and, yes, simple humanity.

So, does this clarity, character, and humanity apply to the Democratic candidates who have taken essentially the same positions (but less putative) as McCain and Huckabee on immigration? No.

Broder continues:

McCain is ... a principled battler for what he considers essential on Iraq and other national security issues.

McCain's position is that we should sacrifice more American soldiers in Iraq (though even the most dim of observers realize that the war was sold through lies), bankrupt our military's readiness, and begin a massive influx of new troops into the slaughter, a pro-war position that is supposed to appeal to the GOP primary voters.

McCain's pandering to the religious right is well known and merits no further comment, other than to ask Broder whether this is another demonstration of McCain's character.

McCain's principle is that he wants to be president. [Though he chastised Romney on torture at the debate, McCain also has caved in to Bush on torture last year, and besides shouldn't the not-torturing position be axiomatic, and GOP pro-torture positions be the subject of non-stop media and political condemnation?]

Broder says this of Huckabee: "His combination of religious principle, good humor, tolerance and clear passion on education and health care ...," blah blah blah.

Clear passion? Huckabee is against universal health care, and, whatever Broder thinks, Huckabee will not go down in history as the Education Governor.

Huckabee is a religious right zealot who does not believe in evolution, and these beliefs have propelled Huckabee to be the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses.

Broder then writes the following of Ron Paul (and other candidates):

" ... are exercising their lungs but running for exercise, happy to be part of the proceedings but with no hope of being nominated."

Broder, like the national GOP, is afraid of Rep. Ron Paul because of his libertarian, clear anti-war positions, his lack of cant, and criticism of Bush's lies on Iraq that has helped Paul raise millions of dollars in weeks in grassroots' contributions.

And Ron Paul's clarity has earned him the favored candidate status from veterans across the nation.

But for Broder, that will not win Ron Paul (or any Democratic presidential candidate) the praise of having "clarity, character and, yes, simple humanity."
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Rudy Running Scared

The Politco's piece demonstrating an effort by Rudy Giuliani to evade scrutiny of an extra-marital affair will once again prove the that the cover-up is worse than the crime.

And Rudy has a lot covering up to do in his effort to appeal to the bigots and the peculiar brand of American Christianity known as the religious right.

Rudy and his team gallantly tried to spin away the scandal, but refused to dispute any of facts reported.

The trouble is you cannot be both gallant and spinning. And Rudy looks desperate and equivocating, the opposite of his polical brand.

Ben Smith reports in an update:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his senior aides Thursday blamed anonymous bookkeepers for his administration's practice of billing the travel expenses for his personal security detail to obscure city agencies.

But a top aide was unable to say why Giuliani’s administration and his successor's rebuffed questions from the city's top fiscal watchdog in 2001 and 2002. City Comptroller William Thompson said Thursday his auditors were “stonewalled” by the Giuliani administration when they inquired about the unusual billing procedures, which he called "disturbing." ....

Politico reported that the bills included expenses incurred on 11 trips to Southampton, where the woman who would become Giuliani’s third wife had an apartment, as well as for campaign travel during his abortive 2000 Senate run. ...

In (an) interview with CBS, Giuliani referred to the Politico account as a "totally false story."

However, neither he nor his aides have questioned any of the facts reported by Politico.

Politico editor-in-chief John F. Harris said in a statement: “This was a fair and carefully reported story. We gave the Giuliani campaign ample opportunity to dispute the story or comment on our reporting before publishing and they did not do so. Since the story ran, we have not heard from the campaign disputing any substantive aspect of the story.”

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Huckabee and Paul Impress, Romney and Thompson Flop in CNN/YouTube Debate

Update: For those of you not pretending to think like a Republican primary voter, Salon has two analyses, and here's Nichols' take:

- What you missed while watching "Chad Vader" by Michael Scherer

- The godawful GOP debate by Walter Shapiro

- Out-Tancredoing Tancredo at GOP's Anti-Immigrant Debate by John Nichols

As a libertarian liberal watching the GOP's CNN/YouTube debate trying to think as a Republican primary voter, here are some impressions:

Rudy Giuliani - Did nothing to hurt himself. Seems unafraid to take unpopular positions, but reeks of the City. Still standing after immigration grilling. Not great on today's Politico's Billing-the-city piece. Third place.

Mike Huckabee - Impressive, witty, and religious; appears in sharper command of issues than in previous weeks. Co-winner.

Rep. Duncan Hunter - Unremarkable

Sen. John McCain - Slow start, but took off after torture question and demonstrated the command and clarity that made McCain an early front-runner. Second place.

Rep. Ron Paul - Decisive, earnest, anti-war and pro-vet. This guy is popular with veterans and is raising one hell of a lot of money. And the Iraq War is not nearly as popular with GOP voters as many pretend. GOP better find a way to stop this guy. Co-winner.

Mitt Romney - Indecisive, insincere and slick; unsteady, especially on the gays-in-the-military and torture questions. Big loser.

Rep. Tom Tancredo - Unremarkable

Fred Thompson - Listless, uninspired, and fading fast. Big loser.

The first primary is weeks away. And debates, mini-scandals and talking heads now matter. Campaign operatives are losing hair, I assure you.

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Rudy Says He Loves Corrupt, Liberty-destroying Judges Too

Update: Rudy Giuliani's messianic paranoia (Glnn Greenwald at Salon)

One of the things a man must do to secure today's Republican presidential nomination is nail down the support of right-wing attorneys for whom the Bill of Rights and the rule of law are simple obstacles to be overcome in their power grab.

Rudy Giuliani tried his hand in that enterprise yesterday, addressing the 2007 National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society, legal rightwingers working to bring about a revolution in American jurisprudence through the appointment of federal judges who would weaken the liberties in the Bill of Rights and serve the GOP and its interests.

Of course, the Federalist Society dresses up their judicial ideology as strict constructionalism, fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and the law.

Like what Rudy said: “We’re seeking to find judges who understand the very, very important concept that judges exist to interpret the law, not to invent the law.”

Reports indicate that at the event Rudy vowed to nominate justices like "Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts," the four most conservative (strict constructionalist-like) judges on the current Supreme Court. (Walter Shapiro in Salon)

In reality, Rudy is a (born-again) strict constructionist: Someone who wishes to make abortion illegal (now, through the appointment of judges who would do so), sees no great defined liberty rights in the Constitution, is a lousy scholar of Constitutional thought, and will overturn any judicial precedent if it fits with the right wing political network that puts him in power should he win a general election.

Strict constructionalism is to the judiciary what freedom and autonomy are to U.S.-occupied Iraq, an expensive lie that will do one hell of a lot of damage.

These strict constructionists would even halt an election and appoint a man like George W. Bush to the presidency if they ever had the chance.

Rudy's kind of people.

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Rudy Can Fail

Update: Conoson in Salon on Rudy/Robbie.

Kevin Drum, a perspicuous writer at the The Washington Monthly, sees Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani as a precursor of the religious right voters eventually lining up for Rudy in a general election.

But Drum, and Rich Lowry with whom Drum agrees and whom he quotes, are off on this one. Writes Drum:

RUDY AND THE EVANGELICALS....Rich Lowry on Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani:
Just talked to a top social conservative. He says, hinting that more prominent social cons will end up going with Rudy, "There's plenty more where this comes from." On the
impact of the Robertson endorsement on the race: "What it does for Rudy is it says, 'It's OK to vote for Rudy.' I think there will be more of that, pre-nomination and post-nomination." On conservative evangelical voters and Giuliani: "If Rudy is the nominee, they're going to vote for him — period."

This strikes me as right. The real core issue of the Christian right has always been "moral decay." Increased acceptance of abortion and gay rights are symptoms of this, and they get most of the attention, but moral decay itself has always been the bedrock fear that drives everything else.

Drum's contention that the religious right voters focus on their conception of moral decay is accurate to a point, but religious right voters are sufficiently independently thinking that they will not, in overwhelming numbers, automatically and on command fall in line for a candidate who does not speak their language and who is not sincere. [Lowry's writing on this issue isn't serious; he's just spouting a line.]

Ask the first president Bush, whom Karl Rove and other Republican politicos accurately gauged as under-performing with the religious right voters.

As much as I personally disagree with the religious right on just about every aspect of their descriptive views, these voters hold much more nuanced world and ethical views than Drum and Lowry would have you believe; and, more than some Republican operatives may realize: Genuine views.

George W. Bush connected with these voters, and as much as W. is a truly repulsive political and ethical leader, he is genuine in his religious convictions.

In enough churches of the religious right, it's not all authoritarianism and 'our leaders say we must vote for this man to save the world from Satan'.

The churches are a community: People coming together to help an elderly lady paint her house; people coming together and talking about a personal problem; sharing a success; comforting a church member in a crisis; and solving non-political issues about quality of living.

Sure, there will be some, possibly many (especially in the south), among the religious right voters who will pull a lever for a Republican nominee, when enough political propaganda and brand pressures are applied.

But there will also be many, and more than enough to sway an election, who will dedicate their energies in places other than a polling place and expected political campaigns when they feel insulted and used; [and they may be found in the political offices where you might not expect them to be residing].

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Religious Right to Kill 2008 Republican Nominee

Update II: Novak - McCain's Christian Problem

Update: Evangelicals deserting ahead of 2008 election

The Republicans Are Going to Lose.

[A recurring feature pointing to evidence and analyses of the Republicans’ coming defeat in 2008.]



Perhaps the key question about the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nominee is: How badly will the Republican nominee under-perform with the religious right in the general election?

Looking at the top four Republican contenders, the answer appears to be very badly; and though the religious right voters arguably comprise merely some 15-to-20 percent of the electorate in the general election, absent their enthusiastic support, the Republican nominee looks dead.

The religious right has found no acceptable candidates in the GOP's first-tier candidates, so Democrats can have some fun observing their nomination process.

Some quick notes on the four leading candidates:

Rudy Giuliani — James Dobson, the leading religious right leader of the Focus on the Family group that self-consciously rallies religious right voters has made clear that Rudy is political anathema; hence Rudy will perform badly with the religious right; and Rudy’s past positions on Affirmative Action, Abortion, civil right for gays and Immigration will kill his candidacy. [Rudy won’t play in the general election, and his cross-over appeal because of his strength has never been demonstrated and will be off-set by any agile Democratic campaign.]

John McCain — "Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson. Few religious right leaders have forgiven McCain for his wildly unpopular (in Republican circles) McCain/Feingold bill, and his April 9, 2000 speech trashing the religious right (that’s the Robertson/Falwell “agents of intolerance” speech). McCain would perform as badly as Rudy.

Mitt Romney — As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney was even more pro-choice and pro-civil rights for gays than Rudy. The massive effort underway to convert him into a rightwinger won’t fly (detailed in the current Harper’s (November) piece by Ken Silverstein). As quoted by Silverstein: “(Romney) says all the right things, his speeches run through the litmus test on conservative issues, but there’s no conviction behind it. …,” said Cyndi Mosteller, a social rightwinger and GOP politico in South Carolina. Add to that Christian religious bigotry against Mormons and you have a political Loser.

Fred Thompson — As a late September piece in The Politico notes: "Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson asked in the message, obtained by The Associated Press. "He has no passion, no zeal and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

Grandpa Fred is dead, and he comes across as tired and wooden: An older version of an unenergetic John Kerry.
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News Headlines

Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Price

Virginia Going Blue - Significance is that if the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 wins all the states that the nominee won in 2004 (plus New Mexico and Iowa, which she should win) and Virginia; then Republicans can take the south, Florida and Ohio and the Dems win anyway with 277 electoral votes of a needed 270. See the Electoral Map for the fun scenarios. [And that's almost a worst-case scenario that assumes Democratic losses in tightly contested Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, Missouri and West Virginia.]

How the Military Can Stop an Iran Attack

Top Giuliani Adviser, National ID Cards "Totalitarian"

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Interactive Electoral College Map for 2008 President

Check out this Interactive Electoral College Map. Fun to play with.
http://www.270towin.com/

I have Dems winning with 284 electoral votes to 254 for the bad guys.
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Rudy Giuliani Swinging for Fences Early in Coded Language, But Fails to Say God

Rudy Giuliani, mercurial, authoritarian and incompetent (and pro-choice and pro-affirmative action as mayor of Sin City, we're with you there, Rudy), has quite a large mailing list.

Giuliani is sending out his Tweleve Commitments to America that establish his rightwing bone fides and his myth as the mayor who braved 9/11, leading us to recovery. The Commitments are similar to Newt's 1994 Contract with America.

They have been out for a while, but one of the very recent recipients was my girlfriend in Madison, Wisconsin who, it may be disclosed, is no big fan of Rudy's (she hates fascists), and tries diligently to stay off marketing lists.

That shows that Rudy is reaching one hell of a lot of people, and raising a lot of money.

Rudy's Commitments

Among the highlights from Rudy's Commitments are:

- Reforming the legal system and appointing strict constructionist judges.

That's code for appointing Federalist Society judges who see their role as protecting Republican networks and chopping at the Bill of Rights liberty interests of ordinary Americans; that is the annoying freedom thing that radical Muslims hate us for and causes them to crash jets into our buildings and kill our people, in Bush's, I mean Rudy's mind. Strict constructionists also wish to make abortion illegal, and they see no right in the Constitution providing for a woman to decide what to do with her own body.

- Give Americans more control over, and access to health care with affordable and portable free-market solutions

That's code for rightwing thinktanks' free-market solutions that if you do not position yourself through your job(s) and provide your family with health care: Tough luck. Kids' having no health care: Too bad!

And, if you do have health care through work, it's likely gold-plated, and you should be paying for it by your self, and no health care should be guaranteed in the free market, because health care is a commodity to be brought and sold, and not a right of Americans.

That also code for obtaining campaign money, lots of it, from the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, HMO providers and the other moneyed health care interests who sell out the great majority of Americans.

Other commitments are code for capturing important electoral demographics on immigration, taxes, "school choice," and of-course security-conscious families worried about the terrorists (they gets two mentions in The Commitments).

No God

One word Rudy left out, significantly for his sake of garnering the Republican nomination, is the word "God." (Although maybe it's a conscious risk to appeal to the secular.)

That staff oversight will be corrected soon.

My own feeling is that Rudy takes God for granted because he sees him in the mirror every morning; well, at least a demigod.

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Today’s News

Hurricane Dean heads straight toward Jamaica as dangerous Category Four storm. See National Hurricane Center for more information.

Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks to Record Low; Scientists Say Arctic Sea Ice Levels Are at a Record Low and Still Dropping

The Gate: Public wary of Petraeus' upcoming progress report, poll shows

Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns

Rudy’s Foreign Policy

Did Another "Brownie" KILL Three Utah Mine Rescue Workers?

Olbermann: Mine safety chief another Bush crony

How Mueller's notes implicate Gonzo in obstruction

ASIA TIMES: US steps closer to war with Iran

Arianna Huffington: It Shouldn't Have Taken the Deaths of Three Miners to Get the Media to Focus on Mine Safety

An Act of Economic Madness
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