Oh-eight (R): Stand by your man
Posted: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 9:15 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Republicans, 2008
So whom is the Bush family supporting in the GOP race? The Washington Post does a comprehensive look and finds Bush clan fairly split. Literally, Jeb Bush's kids are split between Thompson and Giuliani (while Jeb himself seems the most complimentary to Romney). And that's the Bushes in a nutshell: They’re basically as undecided as the GOP itself.
GIULIANI: Rudy appears to have made the decision that he's going to stand by Bernie Kerik in some form no matter what happens, defending his friend's stint as a crime fighter. "Giuliani said yesterday that the crime-fighting successes of the disgraced former police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik, outweighed his legal problems, and added that ‘if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape.’”
In the interview with
AP, Giuliani said that he had erred in not thoroughly vetting Mr. Kerik, who is now under a federal investigation for accepting free renovations while he was working for Mr. Giuliani from a construction firm suspected of having links to organized crime. But Mr. Giuliani said that Mr. Kerik’s wrongdoing did not diminish what he had accomplished for the city. ‘There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik,’ Mr. Giuliani said in the interview. ‘But what’s the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result for the people of New York City was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, a 60 percent reduction in crime, a correction program that went from being one of the worst in the country to one that was on “60 Minutes” as one of the best in the country, 90 percent reduction of violence in the jails.”
Besides Kerik, Giuliani addressed his business dealings in the AP interview. “Giuliani laughed when asked if he would ever release a list of clients involved with his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners. ‘Everything I did with Giuliani Partners has been totally legal, totally ethical. They are a very ethical and law-abiding business… There's nothing for me to explain about it. We've acted honorably, decently."
HUCKABEE: The candidate was raising money in Fred Thompson's backyard at Franklin's Williamson Christian College.
MCCAIN: In corn country, McCain told Iowans “he opposes government subsidies on ethanol the same way he opposes subsidies on other products, including oil.”
The last thing the McCain campaign needs is liberal columnists asking the "can he come back" question. When more conservative columnists do it, then the campaign will know he's getting somewhere. Still, this E.J. Dionne piece does have some good quotes to use in fundraising emails.
PAUL: The AP writes, “Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $4.2 million in nearly 24 hours… Paul's total deposed Mitt Romney as the single-day fundraising record holder in the Republican presidential field. When it comes to sums amassed in one day, Paul now ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30, and Barack Obama.”
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The idea for yesterday's record-setting fundraising push for Ron Paul was hatched about a month ago among supporters not affiliated with the campaign, Paul spokesman Jesse Benton tells First Read. The supporters wanted to raise money online and make a statement. So they put together a Web site, with the hook of November 5. The date’s significance was two fold -- 364 days before the 2008 presidential election and the British Fawkes Day, named after Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the British Parliament in the 17th Century and is referenced in the movie “V for Vendetta,” which Benton called, “Kind of a cool flick.”
On the haul, Benton said they “expected it to be a good day,” but he was admittedly surprised by just how much the total wound up being. How has Paul done it? He represents three disparate groups -- “old Republicans,” as Benton called them, of the “Taft/Goldwater vein,” who believe in “not policing the world;” marginalized libertarians; and disaffected liberals and moderate Democrats frustrated by a continued war in Iraq. “It’s a mixture of the three,” Benton said. “Democrats were elected in '06 to end this thing [the war in Iraq] and haven’t been able to.” But that is not your typical Republican primary voter, and Benton acknowledged that. “Obviously that is a concern,” Benton said.
Paul has said -- and Benton affirmed -- that the candidate will not, and cannot support, a candidate in favor of continuing the war in Iraq and certainly would not back a Democrat. But Paul has also said, and Benton insists, he will not seek a third-party run; he will not be this cycle’s Ross Perot. “Ron’s run third party before, and ballot access makes it almost impossible,” a pragmatic-sounding Benton said of Paul, who ran as the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in 1988. But what happens to that fervent, activist base if Paul doesn’t win his party’s nomination? Will they just sit idly -- with all their millions already poured in -- as Paul stands on the sidelines? What happens when they start passing those petitions to draft Paul to run? They’ll make a compelling case. Guy Fawkes certainly wouldn’t sit it out.
ROMNEY: Paul Weyrich endorsing Romney is getting some attention. The Boston Globe notes: "Weyrich's support could help Romney make further inroads with evangelical Christian leaders who consider his Mormon faith heretical, and could also aid Romney in blunting the surging candidacy of Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher who is an ally of the causes that are dear to Weyrich." More: “‘This is a significant boon for the Romney campaign,’ said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has not endorsed a candidate yet. ‘Weyrich's endorsement will speak loudly to conservatives in general - guys who care about guns and taxes and everything else, but especially religious conservatives.’”
Romney's latest direct mail piece to land in Iowa mailboxes subtlely targets Giuliani. "Mitt Romney is drawing contrasts with rival Rudy Giuliani on the issue of immigration in a new mailing being sent to Iowa Republican activists. In the mailing, Romney touts his plan to slash funding for cities that declare themselves immigration sanctuaries.”
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NBC/NJ's Erin McPike was with Romney in Florida yesterday. Both in his stump speech and in his answers later to reporters, Romney suggested that marriage is a status that doesn’t change in separate regions and therefore ought to be legislated on a national level. And asked to evaluate Republican rival Fred Thompson’s Meet the Press appearance, Romney critiqued his stance on same-sex marriage. “A person who moves around the country carries that status with them. And embracing the idea of same-sex marriage in one state without recognizing its impact on the entire nation I think is wrong. It’s one of the places we disagree, and so far as I can tell, among the four front-runners in the national standings at least, I’m the only one that says we have to have a national standard for marriage,” he said.
Salon's Scherer finds a Florida evangelical minister in Florida, Bill Keller, who doesn't have many nice things to say about Mormons. "Though Keller's rhetoric is extreme and his predictions are controversial, his biblical reasoning is mainstream for many of the nation's Christian evangelicals, who make up about 40 percent of the Republican Party. Large denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention have long considered Mormonism to be a cult, not a true path to salvation."
THOMPSON: In New Hampshire yesterday, Thompson
got to show off his gun stance. “Seeking to point out his differences with his fellow Republican presidential candidates, the former Tennessee senator and actor toured the Thompson Center Arms factory and spoke to more than 100 workers, some with tattoos on their necks.”
The campaign is still doing some cleanup from Sunday's Meet appearance, especially on the issue of abortion. If Thompson's the nominee, he will not try and remove the human life amendment from the GOP platform, so reports CBN's David Brody.
