Oh-eight (R): Part-time Rudy
Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 9:09 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Republicans
GIULIANI: The
Washington Post reports that Rudy Giuliani still works part time at Giuliani Partners. "Giuliani's continuing involvement with a firm catering to corporate clients makes him unique among Republican contenders. It also complicates the task of separating his firm's assets from his campaign spending. Several of the firm's employees do volunteer work for his campaign. And Giuliani did not decide until mid-June, six months after he entered the race, to bill his campaign for the cost of the security detail traveling with him on campaign trips; before then, the firm paid the expense."
More: "Federal election laws prohibit Giuliani's firm from absorbing costs or providing services that legally should be covered by political donations, campaign experts said… One concern among ethics experts is that Giuliani's continuing affiliation with the firm might create a public perception that clients with business that could be affected by a Giuliani presidency might hire the firm to curry favor.”
The Washington Times looks at Giuliani's latest New Hampshire radio ad on health care, and uses it as a peg to prove he's as focused on the general election as he is on the primary. "Giuliani continues to look past his Republican presidential foes to target front-running Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, talking candidly about his bout with prostate cancer and deriding the New York senator's plan for ‘socialized medicine.'"
In New Hampshire yesterday, Giuliani came out in support of the Patriot Act, something that may actually not play well in the "Live Free or Die" state. “‘I don't know of any areas in which it isn't operating well," he said... ‘I can't think of anything I would add to it, but sometimes you think of things as you go along."
HUCKABEE: In an interview with Politico's Roger Simon, Huckabee tries to make the increased criticism he's received from the right as a virtue. “‘The far left and the far right curse the ground on which I walk,” Huckabee told me Monday. ‘That is a great place to be. I am where far more of the country is.’”
“His critics say that when Huckabee was governor of Arkansas, he was a big spender and a big taxer. There may be another reason for some fiscal conservatives not to like him, however: Huckabee is anti-greed. In his speeches, Huckabee rails against the ‘unbridled greed’ of some Wall Street executives."
Another day, another columnist showing love for Huckabee. Here's the
Des Moines Register's Yepsen: "As we chart Huckabee's success in the 2008 contest, it is most useful now to concentrate on his message. It is a positive, inclusive, good-humored one. As Republicans seek to rebuild from their defeat of 2006 and try to stave off a similar loss in 2008, they might study the Book of Huckabee. “‘I'm a conservative, but I'm not mean about it,’ he tells audiences. He shows up at events with minority groups. His pro-life message also encompasses health care for poor women and a concern for children. His talk about education reform includes developing creative skills through art and music."
Jennifer Rubin writes that Huckabee is a walking advertisement of his opponents’ flaws. “Mr. Romney's elastic views and slick presentation seems that much worse to social conservatives next to Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist preacher whose fire-and-brimstone invocation of religious values makes the Romney message seem plastic and contrived. And Mr. Thompson, he of the forgettable public appearances, lethargic schedule and distain for retail politics, suffers badly when compared to Mr. Huckabee's considerable charm and energy. It often seems that Mr. Huckabee is the actor and Mr. Thompson the small-state governor.”
PAUL: The Politico writes about Paul’s supporters. "These are folks who don’t just show up for Paul. They show up against everyone else… His cadre of Web-savvy young supporters is intensely dedicated, even if small in numbers - despite the fact that Paul languishes near the bottom of national and early-primary-state polls. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads among young Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to those same polls, for example, but Paul matches him in online social networking, college chapters and student fundraising."
ROMNEY: In an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader, Romney spoke of Islamic Jihadists, winning the battle against terrorism, and that this is a "critical time" in American history in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader. He also laid out his case: "I think I'm relatively unique in the field as someone who has actually dealt with a wide array of very challenging circumstances in the private sector and public sector."
Bloomberg News says Romney is getting advice from evangelicals about how to deal with his religion. “‘I told him, you cannot equate Mormonism with Christianity; you cannot say, “I am a Christian just like you,”’ said Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina, which is scheduled to hold the first primary among the Southern states. ‘If he does that, every Baptist preacher in the South is going to have to go to the pulpit on Sunday and explain the differences.’”
As for giving a JFK-like speech, "Evangelical leaders say Romney, unlike Kennedy, won't be able to defuse the religion question by citing the First Amendment of the Constitution and advocating a rigid separation of church and state. Many Christian conservatives blame such a separation for a variety of social ills."
THOMPSON: The Wall Street Journal looks at Fred Thompson's primary strategy and sees it as being Southern-based. " While Mr. Thompson vows to spend enough time and money to try for a respectable showing in the early primary state, his bigger focus is on South Carolina and Florida." The paper adds: "Thompson's ‘red-state’ focus could have a particular payoff if the nomination comes down to a delegate count competition, since the party gives extra weight to states that voted for President Bush in 2004, or elected Republican governors and members of Congress. Most of those states lie in the South, the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains."
This article reminds us of something we hadn't realized before today: On January 1, possibly just seven days before the NH primary, civil unions become legal in the state. Thompson was asked about the new state law yesterday. “… Thompson said, ‘I would not be in support of that.’ But when he elaborated, he switched from civil unions, which give gays legal rights equivalent to those of married couples, to same-sex marriages, which are legal only in neighboring Massachusetts.”
"‘Basically so far, it is a judge-made controversy,’ Thompson said. "No state or governor has signed off on such legislation on the state level that has endorsed marriage between the same sexes. There may have been a couple of courts that said the Constitution of their states has required that, so it's a judicially made situation as far as I am concerned."
