Oh-eight (R): The Everglades battle
Posted: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 9:03 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Republicans
Newt Gingrich also told the Washington Post that Republican presidential candidates are making a mistake bypassing forums/debates sponsored by minority groups. “‘For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error,’ said … Gingrich... ‘I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse -- this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It's just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That's baloney.’”
Gingrich made a similar comment to the
Boston Globe. Also, Smiley says he'll air his event with four empty podiums.
The Politico’s Wilner gets her hands on polling data from the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, which shows that GOP party identification has dropped. “In 2004, according to the firm’s merged polling data … Republicans were at rough parity with Democrats in party ID, trailing them by three percentage points,” Wilner writes. “At this point in 2007, they trail Democrats by seven. Other, nonpartisan national surveys show a similar disinclination to identify with the GOP.” The conclusion: “The party will not be starting the 2008 general election campaign from the same position George W. Bush occupied in either 2000 or 2004 -- races that were both decided at the margins.”
GIULIANI: The Sunday London Times previewed Giuliani’s trip: “[Fred] Thompson beat Giuliani to a meeting with [Margaret] Thatcher last summer. The baroness’s blessing is eagerly sought by Republican candidates, who regard her as an earthly representative of the late President Ronald Reagan. Unlike the other candidates, however, Giuliani was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen in 2002 for his steadfastness during the 9/11 attacks.
New York Times becomes the latest news organization to look at Giuliani's close relationship with Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey.
Is the MoveOn TV ad attack on Giuliani -- and the GOP campaign's response via a radio ad in Iowa -- one of those
rare "win-win" situations? MoveOn is getting the attention it wants (and hitting the Republican candidate in the process), while Giuliani is getting the chance to prove he's the GOP front-runner the liberals are afraid of.
MCCAIN: Like David Gregory did this morning on TODAY, Roger Simon takes a look at the McCain comeback story. Simon's not sure if he found a comeback story, though, since he notices that McCain rarely asks for the vote on the campaign trail. Instead, he's pushing the war.
ROMNEY: The campaign is up with a new TV ad in Iowa and New Hampshire. In it, Romney says: "If we're going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order. We can't be like Democrats a party of big spending. We can't pretend our borders are secure from illegal immigration. We can't have ethical standards that are a punch line for Jay Leno.”
More from Romney: “When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses. It’s time for Republicans to start acting like Republicans. It’s time for a change. And change begins with us.”
The
Boston Globe reviews the 67-page booklet the campaign released yesterday. "Candidates for major offices often put out a core policy agenda in booklet form. But Romney's 67-page document, the first of its kind among the major Republican presidential candidates this cycle, underscores his desire to be seen as a substantive, experienced candidate who has acquired a thorough understanding of both domestic and foreign policy."
NBC/NJ's Erin McPike was on the trail with Romney in Jacksonville, FL. On the same day that Fred Thompson swung into Tallahassee for a meeting with Gov. Charlie Crist (R), Romney distinguished himself from his rival on two issues dear to Floridians: the primary and the Everglades. Thompson reportedly told the AP earlier in the day that he wouldn’t rule out drilling for oil in the Everglades, but he didn’t give the proposition a ringing endorsement, either. When briefed by a reporter after a campaign stop in Orange Park about Thompson’s comments and asked his own views on the matter, Romney balked at the idea. “In the Everglades?” he asked, surprised. “You’re kidding.”
“Let’s take that off the table,” Romney said, adding, “We’re not going to drill in the Everglades. There are certain places in America that are national treasures, and the Everglades is one of those. It’s environmentally extraordinarily sensitive. The people of Florida would never support such a thing.”
Meanwhile, NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy reports that Thompson didn't back down from his drilling-in-the-Everglades idea. Thompson was asked if his previous statements advocating an increase in domestic oil drilling might potentially include drilling in the Everglades, if oil was found in that area of southern Florida. At first, Thompson joked that he wasn't aware of a hidden cache of oil in the Everglades, but Gov. Crist quickly jumped in to say that drilling in the Everglades is something Floridians would like to avoid. "We would prefer we not do that," Crist said. "We talked about the Everglades as a matter of fact and how important the Everglades is to Florida and how important it is to our country."
Thompson reiterated the need for the federal government to "fulfill its commitments to the Everglades," but he went on to leave the door open for drilling in the southern Florida nature preserve, saying that when it came to solving the country's energy problem, "we have to do what's reasonable and makes sense, but I'm not going to start out by taking this, that, or the other off the table in terms of our overall energy situation. We're going to have to do a lot of things better. And our own resources are just a part of it."
THOMPSON: NBC/NJ's Aigner-Treworgy reports that Thompson makes his first official campaign visit to Texas, where he will participate in fundraising activities in preparation for the close of the 3rd fundraising quarter. Additionally, Thompson's campaign reports that he "will become the first 2008 Presidential candidate to tour a Dell US facility." The factory that Thompson will visit is Dell's Topfer Manufacturing Facility in Austin, which according to the campaign "assembles commercial and consumer desktops."
Also in preparation for the end of the 3rd quarter, Thompson's campaign yesterday announced the kickoff of its Hometown Heroes fundraising campaign, in which the campaign will track the per-capita campaign contributions of every "community in America." The community with the highest per capita contribution total between Sept. 6 and Sept. 30 will win a campaign stop featuring Thompson himself. The campaign plans to notify donors over the next 10 days to let them know where their community stacks up and encourage supporters to recruit donors in their community.
One of the three debates Thompson committed to for October is not happening. The Oct. 14 WMUR-ABC debate has been
canceled.
Jeri Thompson is scheduled to appear in Long Beach, CA on Oct. 23 at the “Governor and First Lady’s Women’s Conference.” She will be part of a
panel of all presidential candidate spouses, including Elizabeth Edwards, Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain and Ann Romney, who are all set to appear together for the first time for a discussion moderated by California first lady Maria Shriver. The focus of the discussion will be the role of political wives, and will touch on juggling families, careers, personal lives and the public demands of a presidential campaign.
