Oh-eight (R): A house divided...
Posted: Thursday, November 08, 2007 9:09 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Republicans
So how divided are social conservatives, especially after the Robertson, Brownback, and Weyrich endorsements? The Washington Post takes a look and still finds evangelicals (Richard Land, Family Research Council) who won't support Giuliani.
GIULIANI: The Los Angeles Times' Wallsten examines how Giuliani has become the front-runner. "With his intense demeanor and aggressive policy stances -- such as pledging to ‘prevent’ Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon or to ‘set them back five or 10 years’ -- Giuliani has methodically built an image as the toughest guy on the block, unafraid of looking belligerent in the cause of keeping America safe. Though it isn't always pretty up close, Giuliani's demeanor seems to be working. He leads the national polls for a Republican nomination that many believed he could never win because of his relatively liberal views on abortion and other social issues.”
The New York Times describes how Giuliani courted Robertson. "The unlikely alliance emerged from a behind-the-scenes friendship that began with a shared flight back from Israel in 2003. It grew through commiserations about prostate cancer and even included a videotaped salute delivered by Mr. Giuliani at Mr. Robertson’s 75th birthday."
Salon's Schapiro talks to South Carolina Republicans to see if the Robertson endorsement will move things for Giuliani in this key state. "A quick canvass of South Carolina political experts produced the tentative conclusion that Robertson's blessing will register only at the margins, if at all. ‘The Christian right is always locally autonomous, and they don't take direction from their presumed leaders. I don't think this will signal a mass stampede by the evangelicals to Giuliani,’ said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University."
The New York Times’ Gail Collins offers up a taste of the type of press Giuliani should expect receiving if he's the nominee. "It does seem true that miraculous things happen when conservative leaders meet with Giuliani behind closed doors. Maybe they just find Mitt Romney extremely irritating. Maybe Rudy has a secret grip, like the Vulcan mind-meld or one of those sleeper holds they used to have in professional wrestling, that fills his victims with an irrational degree of trust. Or maybe his leadership is so powerful that people exposed to it find it impossible to doubt the sincerity of his every word."
One of the next big hurdles for Giuliani to clear is to survive the coverage of Bernie Kerik’s indictment, which begins Friday apparently.
The New York Post: “The charges are expected to include tax evasion, conspiracy and receiving an unlawful gift of $165,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment from a mob-linked construction firm while he was Correction Department commissioner under then-Mayor Giuliani.”
The Boston Globe profiles Giuliani in its occasional series on the presidential candidates. “A man who has spent most of his adulthood in public life, Giuliani, now 63, has retained a tight team of loyalists, some dating to his boyhood,” the paper writes. “Many were at his side on Sept. 11, 2001, when the terrorist attacks transformed him into the face of New York and its horror, humanity, grief, and resilience.”
More evidence to back up Rudy’s claim that he puts more states in play if he's the GOP nominee: A Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut voters has Giuliani as the only Republican who is competitive with all the leading Dem candidates. |
Meanwhile, a poll of Pennsylvania voters also shows Giuliani's strength versus his fellow GOP foes when matched up against Clinton.
HUCKABEE: In Iowa yesterday, Huckabee talked up his fix for the education system, which includes advocating more arts.
MCCAIN: Wow, did the Giuliani-Robertson story drown out the McCain-Brownback news. It appears the Robertson rollout was ready sooner, as the media was alerted of this "major" endorsement early Tuesday; by comparison, it was late Tuesday that the McCain folks began circulating news that they too would be unveiling a major endorsement -- perhaps hoping their news would trump Giuliani. Newsweek looks at how Brownback could help McCain. "What will Brownback's endorsement mean for McCain? It's hard to say. Brownback's biggest support was in Iowa, where he was widely respected by many social conservatives.”
The Arizona Republic reports that McCain has shifted his immigration stance a bit. "McCain has hardened his position on immigration reform, hoping the new stand will make his presidential campaign more appealing to conservative Republican voters. The comprehensive approach he championed for years, one that emphasized a guest-worker program and legalization for those here illegally, has taken a back seat to a plan that puts a priority on tightening border security and beefing up enforcement. The enforcement-first approach marks a dramatic shift for McCain, R-Ariz., who used his border-state credentials and maverick persona to become the leading Republican proponent in Congress of comprehensive immigration reform."
The AmSpec's Jennifer Rubin examines why McCain appears to be on the comeback: "First, if time does not heal all wounds, it certainly lessens them… Second, as Iran looms large both on the international stage and as a campaign issue, his foreign policy expertise once again becomes a strong selling point… Third, frugality is back in fashion and McCain is second to none in the cheapskate department... Fourth, social conservatives and those looking to avoid a GOP civil war may look upon McCain as the best alternative… Fifth, ‘authenticity’ is in."
PAUL: He continues to garner plenty of press coverage, thanks to his fundraising success.
ROMNEY: The New York Times writes about Romney's attempts to project himself as the lead optimist of the GOP field. "Each of the leading Republican contenders has sought to channel in some way the shiny optimism that helped make Ronald Reagan, who famously campaigned on the slogan that it was ‘morning again in America,’ so popular. But it is Mr. Romney who has most thoroughly incorporated such sunbeamy phrases and anecdotes into his repertory on the stump… Romney’s campaign believes that harnessing positive language is an effective way for him to distinguish himself from his rivals, like Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose relentless focus on the threat of Islamic terrorism can feel dark to some, and Senator John McCain, who has maintained a dour resolve about the Iraq war."
Meanwhile, the Columbia State reports that, slowly but surely, Romney's investment in South Carolina is starting to pay off. "As recently as late September, Romney was polling consistently in the single digits and was typically in fourth place. But recent surveys show the former Massachusetts governor surging, as voters have gotten to know Romney and he has earned the endorsement of key evangelicals such as Bob Jones III, former chancellor of the fundamentalist Greenville university of the same name." Indeed, Romney has benefited from the fact that he's been on the air alone in South Carolina.
THOMPSON: Bob Novak skewers Fred Thompson for saying on NBC’s Meet the Press, "I do not think it is a wise thing to criminalize young girls and perhaps their parents as aiders and abettors." And: "You can't have a [federal] law" that "would take young, young girls . . . and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail." Novak writes, “Those comments sent e-mails flying across the country reflecting astonishment and rage by pro-life Republicans who had turned to Thompson as their best presidential bet. No anti-abortion legislation ever has proposed criminal penalties against women having abortions, much less their parents. Jailing women is a spurious issue raised by abortion-rights activists.”
