Oh-eight (R)
Posted: Friday, June 08, 2007 9:02 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Republicans
BROWNBACK: Still optimistic. In a
conference call with Kansas media, Brownback was asked about his missed Senate votes. “What I am trying to do is balance the work back and forth. Being in the U.S. Senate, being on the campaign trail, I’m trying to do the best I can,” Brownback said. He also "insisted his presidential bid was going well and again called himself the “tortoise in the race.” “It’s not a national race. It’s a race through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, so the effort is targeted and focused most in those areas,” Brownback said of the early caucus and primaries.
GIULIANI: Campaign communications director Katie Levinson issued this statement on Edwards’ shot at Giuliani yesterday: "We are glad to see Rudy's criticism of the Democrats not understanding the terrorists' war on us is starting to register with them. John Edwards' track record of predicting election outcomes speaks for itself.”
Last night, Giuliani received the first Fred V. Morrone Memorial Award, an award closely linked to 9/11 from the International Association of Airport and Seaport Police. Per NBC's Lauren Appelbaum, he received a standing ovation, and the police remained standing while Chief Russell Whitmarsh presented the award to Giuliani. To the port police, Giuliani said, "you are the front line of our defense." He received a thunderous applause after stating, "If Washington has money to build a bridge to nowhere, then truly Washington can find money to help you do your jobs."
He addressed the foiled JFK airport plot. "The plotters were Islamic radical terrorists. We have to say those words. Political correctness cannot stop us from seeing clearly our enemy." Giuliani said there is no blame for someone not anticipating 9/11 but "I do blame people who do not get it after 9/11. If you don't realize this is a war ... I don't believe you have the clarity of vision to lead the American people. ... America does not need a second wake up call. We had our wakeup call."
ROMNEY: In an AP interview yesterday, Romney "rejected" the Bush Administration’s vision of a "decades-long U.S. troop presence in Iraq akin to South Korea and suggested a need for public benchmarks gauge progress." Romney: "Our objective would not be a Korea-type setting with 25-50,000 troops on a near permanent basis remaining in bases in Iraq," "I think we would hope to turn Iraq security over to their own military and their own security forces, and if presence in the region is important for us then we have other options that are nearby." Romney also came out for benchmarks, but didn't mind if the benchmarks were kept private. But he thinks the Bush admin ought to release a list of "goals."
We always knew the GOP frontrunners would eventually be looking for ways to create distance with Bush on Iraq. Romney, being a non-DC top tier candidate, was always the one that was going to have the most flexibility in distance himself from Bush. Rudy could be in a similar position but he's been very close to Bush on this particular issue.
Asked about the McCain and Giuliani camps' dropout from the August Ames straw poll yesterday, Romney was all smiles, NBC's Carrie Dann says. "This is the best news I could have possibly been presented," he said. Romney contended that Giuliani and McCain withdrew from the poll in the face of his daunting double-digit lead. "I feel ten feet tall."
The Romney camp probably loves stories like this. "A watchdog group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, hand-delivered a letter to the Internal Revenue Service last week asking for an investigation of St. Petersburg-based evangelist Bill Keller, who has used his online columns and late-night TV show to assert that Romney is not a Christian because he belongs to the Mormon Church." (Why do they love it? It makes the critiques of Romney's religion look out of the mainstream.)
And this is why he's hot. Check out this YouTube video with a rappin' Romney.
F. THOMPSON: It's not the fact that McCain lost a longtime supporter to Thompson (attorney John Dowd), it's how the Washington Post framed the loss that's going to have the McCain bonkers on floor M of their headquarters. Notes the Post on Dowd's move to Thompson: “Dowd's move signals yet another threat to his struggling campaign." What doesn't help, Dowd himself. “‘I am very sorry to see what's happened to John,’ Dowd said in an interview. ‘I don't think his campaign is being well run. It's been over-managed. He blew through $8 1/2 million. It's a difficult thing to leave a friend and go to another friend. But we lost the John McCain I knew.’” What really must have the McCain folks upset. Much later in the piece there's news of Rudy losing a fundraiser to Thompson as well -- lobbyist Curt Kiser.
T. THOMPSON: The New York Times profiles the former Wisconsin governor. “How does a presidential candidate, consigned to the ‘lower tier,’ distinguish himself in a field of 10 Republican hopefuls whose debates are a diorama of white male politicians in dark suits? That is the problem facing … Thompson.”
