Feb 14, 2008 13:18:58 This just in, from CNN's web site: Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will announce today that he is backing Sen. John McCain in his bid for the Oval Office. I wonder whether McCain will accept his support, or whether he will reject it, calling Romney a flip-flopper, as he did so many times during their campaign. And I wonder if Romney will gloss over all of the negative campaigning he did against McCain, or if his official announcement will be honest, using phrases like "lesser of two evils," or something similar. This is actually one of my biggest problems with negative campaigning. It's disingenuous. It's dishonest. It polarizes where polarization is convenient for the winners, but where actual education and thinking would be more helpful for the nation as a whole. And it burns bridges. How can anyone take Romney seriously now? He basically made it clear that he thought McCain would be bad for our nation, and now he's endorsing him? Should we have believed him then, or should we believe him now? Or should we figure that he's just thinking he might get a VP nod or a sweet cabinet position? Personally, this sort of quick-change act makes Romney irrelevant. There are real issues to consider, and none of the candidates are perfect on either side of the table. But the difference, say, between McCain's ideas on immigration reform and Romneys are not and never were enough to make one's administration a potential disaster and the other's a utopia. There are so many different ways to interpret the word "conservative" that it is impossible to say that one is more or less conservative than the other. The current administration may be focused on war, religious and business interests, but they can hardly be called conservatives from a traditional American political perspective. The point is Romney's sudden support for his erstwhile enemy is laughable. And it's a situation of his own making; if he had treated McCain with respect throughout the campaign, he probably would have gotten the same from his foe, and his support would be worth more than just a trading currency for votes. On a related note, it's been shown that it's not possible for Huckabee to get enough delegates to get the nomination, and he's made the point that he's not in the business of math, but rather the business of miracles. I don't know if he's waiting for McCain to be struck by lightning, but unless the former governor of Arkansas is able to call in some major favors with the big guy upstairs, he may as well drop out now. Of course, if something were to happen to McCain and Huck got that nomination, we would all have to be afraid. Very, very afraid.

Feb 7, 2008 13:30:29 Good riddance, Governor Romney. As you all know by now, Mitt Romney has taken himself out of the running for President of the United States. He leaves behind him a legacy of attack ads, name calling, mud slinging, and strange, divisive messages. Pretending that McCain is not a true conservative because he does not blindly approve all tax cuts was inappropriate. Misrepresenting the statistics regarding Governor Huckabee's record on crime was inappropriate. And being a pot and calling the kettle black in a way that was sure to turn American against American was also inappropriate. Romney represented a trend among politicians towards presenting their beliefs based on what they think will get them hired (elected), rather than what they will truly follow once they are president. Our current president did that--compassionate conservative indeed--and we can see how that turned out. I hope that as the electorate matures, people learn to recognize this sort of person and turn away from him or her. I'd like to think for a minute on what Mitt might mean by "conservative", that he thinks John McCain isn't. I guess that Romney thinks that conservative means "unthinking", as considering the effects of a tax cut on an economy where spending is going up significantly is not acceptable. I guess that Romney thinks that conservative means "America is not subject to the same rules as everyone else", as he was unwilling to take a strong stance against torture in general, and the known procedure of waterboarding in particular. I guess that Romney thinks that conservative means "simple answers to complex solutions", but I guess I can't fault him for that. All the repubs seem to think that building a wall to border Mexico will solve all of our problems. Of course, they're ignoring the fact that a significant portion of the wall already built was put up by day laborers who themselves were undocumented. More soon, but thankfully, not from Romney.

Jan 31, 2008 21:42:46 So the democratic debate just ended, and it was totally, completely, 1000% different from the republican debate last night. They took some swipes at each other, but for the most part, what we were looking at were two people who respect each other, respect each other's service, and who would happily work with the other to make this country a better place. It was so different from the debate last night, where if you were for McCain or Huckabe, you'd think that Romney is a total sleaze. If you're for Romney, you think that McCain is incompetent, and if you were for Paul, you'd think that all the other candidates are pawns for the military-industrial complex. Personally, if I were a republican, I'd be annoyed that my choice had to be between the least sleazy, the least nutty, the least religiously fanatic, or the least nutty. To be honest, while I don't support him, I don't think McCain would be the most terrible president ever, and I think he stands head and shoulders above the other republican candidates. However, when it comes to presentation, he was no better than anyone in terms of looking like a child spoiling for a fight. But the dems basically had the message that they really believe in working together to make change, to repair the damage of the last seven years. The most aggressive attacks they both made were against the current administration; they were even relatively respectful of the OWGs who are competing for the GOP ticket. To me, this was the kind of debate I'd like to see on both sides of the aisle. No person is perfect, but focusing on the ad hominem attacks and picking apart occasional mistakes and misstatements. This wasn't old-boy-network false collegiality; it really seemed like they were working together, while trying to show reasons why they themselves would be the best choice for the number one position. And the most interesting part of the night was at the end, where neither of them would rule out the possibility of offering the other one the number two position. We'll see what happens. It's Thursday, but Tuesday's coming!

Jan 30, 2008 20:56:52 So the republicans just finished their final-pre-super-duper-Tuesday debate, and it was crazy. Snark attacks left and right, picking apart the details of things people have said, without regard to context, over the last several months, years and decades. And the winner of the debate was... Ronald Reagan! Apparently, Reagan is the gold standard against which all of these guys measure themselves, although only one of them--Ron Paul--actually believes in the gold standard. 90% of the discussion was fighting between McCain and Romney, with the occasional question going to Ron Paul, and poor Huckabee, way off at the end, whimpering and whining that he was being left out. My opinion is that Romney seemed the most polished, McCain seemed the most snarky, Huckabee was the whiniest, and--this is the strange one--Ron Paul was the one with the most interesting, intelligent messages. Please note, I'm not a Paul supporter; I think he's a nut job. But tonight, he said a lot of interesting things about the Republican party going the wrong way on the war. So McCain's most memorable moment was when Romney was complaining about below-the-belt campaign tactics, and he came back by saying that it was ironic that Romney was complaining about that, and that his friend Governor Huckabee would agree that Romney was not one to judge on that topic. Romney had a bunch of memorable moments, though. Not good ones, in my eyes. When talking about taxes, he went strongly after entitlements, including social security, which we all pay directly into. While doing so, he indicated strongly that we need to steal from the poor to give to the rich. Taxing the top 20% of wage-earners would not cover all of our costs, he said. Effectively, it's the poor people who have to bear the burden of their poverty. Robin Hood indeed. My favorite, though, was when Romney talked about how people don't look to senators for the presidential role, but rather governors, since they have executive experience. He then went on to talk about great leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, as we all know, was the junior senator from Illinois when he ran. Y'know, like Barack Obama. Last, but not least, he made the case that, while he respect's McCain's experience, he doesn't feel that that experience is necessary to be the president, but rather experience in business. To this, Ron Paul reminded him that the president is the commander-in-chief of our armed forces, not the commander-in-chief of our economy. But again, the real winner was Ronald Reagan. I don't know about you folks out there in blog-reader-land, but I remember the Reagan era. It was a time when there was explosive growth in military spending, war on the middle class, skyrocketing deficits and rubber-band tight tensions with the USSR. It was not a good eight years; the great majority of people in the US ended those years worse off than they started. But his name was mentioned at least ten times per answer, and often twice or more per question. I'll leave it at that, as tempting as it is to go further down that road. Suffice to say, Reagan is no longer with us; I wish these guys would look forward rather than back and let Reagan rest in peace.

Jan 8, 2008 17:20:34 Last Saturday's double-header debate was a fun one, with the Republicans ganging up on Mitt Romney for being a flip-flopper, and Obama and Edwards tag-teaming Clinton for having attributed a quote from her own campaign staff to the Associated Press to give it an air of legitimacy. Children, all of them. But to be fair to the folks on the left, after that early sniping, which came out in the first 15 minutes of the debate, the remaining time was very respectful, and I left with the feeling that they would all be willing to work together if they needed to, regardless of who won the presidency. I think that Barack and Hillary both came across as intelligent, focused, passionate and presidential. Edwards was very passionate, and I care about his cause, but his focus on fighting the corporations is, I feel, too narrow for a president. I wish he had stayed in the Senate, where he could probably do a lot of good under a sympathetic president. Richardson was also there, and he's definitely a smart cookie, but he might as well have been wearing a t-shirt asking the others to "Pick MEEEE for VEEE PEEEE!" If Hillary gets the nod, I'll bet she goes with Richardson. If Obama gets the nod, I hope he doesn't go with Edwards, but Richardson or Biden, people with foreign policy experience than himself. One interesting thing to note is the level of gender politics going on in the outside world. I think Hillary Clinton is not only electable, but smart, experienced, and capable of pulling us out of the current quagmire. She's not my number one choice, but she's definitely up near the top, and I'd be perfectly happy with her there. However, there's a lot of talk about her likability, and questioning of her emotions. In some forums, people talk about her being too weak, others too strong. In some, she's referred to as being too closed and in others she's insincere. Lastly, there are people on-line referring to her with slurs reserved for women, mostly those beginning with b- and c-. And I wonder where this stuff is coming from. Many men and women both have shown this sort of reaction to Clinton, judging her harshly and personally on criteria that male candidates don't appear to be subject to. Is she a bad person because her husband cheated on her? Or because she stayed with him? Does that make her a bad family-values candidate? Maybe it was the "cookies" comment a decade and a half ago, but I've never heard anyone ask Barack Obama whether he feels bad that he didn't stay home to take care of his children. It's a little bizarre to me. If you're reading this, if you don't like Hillary Clinton, I'd encourage you to write to me with your reasons. Convince me if you can, that she's not good for the country, and if it's a reasoned, convincing argument, I'll be happy to post and attribute it. Ad hominem attacks need not apply. Back to the conservatives, it was clearly a day to attack Mitt Romney. But even more so, all of them were scrambling to compare themselves to Obama. They all indicated how pro-change they were, not long after most of them indicated that they were going to stick for the most part to the Bush doctrine of increased security and vigilance in the war on terror. The strangest moment was when Ron Paul indicated that he thought that he was like Obama because they're both young men. At that moment, I wished I had Tivo, because I just wasn't sure I had understood him. All the other repubs looked at him, well, quizzically. So as I type, the good people of New Hampshire are busy casting their primary ballots. At midnight EST last night, the first district cast their ballots and voted overwhelmingly for Obama, less so for McCain, and not at all for Clinton. This morning, Bill Clinton came out swinging at Obama, claiming that his campaign isn't all positive, and that the press just isn't covering some of the underhanded activities. I'll look into that further, but for the moment, it sounded a little like desperation. I hope that Clinton picks up enough votes that the campaign can stay on the high ground. If Bill's tirade is any indication of where things are going, then this race might be over sooner than we all thought.

Jan 5, 2008 17:30:26 Counting down the hours until the double-header debates come on, I'm hearing that the Clinton camp is giving some indication that they will be "providing additional contrast" between herself and Dem front-runner Barack Obama. We'll see if she can keep her boots out of the mud for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, there's starting to be a bit of buzz around Biden. Apparently, lots of Democratic movers and shakers feel that he'd be the best VP choice for Obama, and his team apparently agrees, so his dropping out was a calculated move that wouldn't have happened had Obama not won so handily in Iowa. He's throwing his hat into the ring for the #2 spot. On the red side, I've seen some of the dirty ads that Romney put out regarding Huckabee. They're about changes in Arkansas laws during Huck's tenure, as well as actions taken by Huckabuck himself, which make him appear to be "soft on crime", a common Republican refrain. While the ads are technically accurate, what he doesn't include is the fact that Arkansas law had been way out of line with much of the rest of the US, and even the "weakened" laws remained more conservative than similar laws enforced by Romney in his own state of Massachusetts. And while Huck commuted a large number of sentences of convicted criminals, my understanding is that he also carried out the death penalty more often than any non-Texan governor in history. I'm still checking the facts on that last one, so don't quote me, but that's what I understand at this time. I'm not using this forum to support the death penalty, nor am I trying to indicate that freeing career criminals is something that I support. The main message here is that the situation is always more complex than can be portrayed in a 30-second ad. However, purposefully creating ads that leave out important contextual information in order to misrepresent the truth is nothing but mud. It reminds me of a time when a friend of mine was running for City Council in Redwood City, CA. One of the issues that was brought up during the campaign was an electricity tax. When asked about it, all of the Republicans took a firm stance against it. The Dems took a wide range of stances, and my friend in particular said that he did not think it was necessary at this time, but that he would not take it off the table if the city needed another source of revenue. Two days before the election, his opponents sent out an RNC-funded mailer showing televisions, washing machines and vacuum cleaners, stating in big, bold print, and big, bold colors, that my friend wanted "to tax you when you watch TV. He wants to tax you when you do your laundry. He wants to tax you when you clean your house." Exit polls indicated that the tax issue was a major deciding factor, and he came up just shy of a victory, less than 300 votes, if I recall correctly. And all this based on the purposefully incorrect implication that my friend had decided that the tax needed to be implemented, which he clearly indicated was not his intention. Lying by omission is lying, and we shouldn't elect anyone--from city council on up through President--who is willing to resort to that sort of practice. The folks in Iowa took a stand and voted for Huckabee over the negative Romney. Let's hope that voters continue the trend of shunning the bad guys (and gals) going forward.

Jan 3, 2008 21:26:37 Well, the Iowa caucuses are almost over, and Huckabee is way out in the lead on the Republican side, and Obama has a pretty safe lead over towards the left. There are a couple of things to take away from this one. First and foremost, negative campaigning doesn't work. From all accounts, Romney spent a lot of money on huge number of negative ads, and he couldn't make it happen. Another thing to remember is that this is just one caucus. It's important, and if Obama, Huckabee, Edwards, Romney and a few others couldn't make a showing there, it'd be essentially over for them. Clinton's a campaigning machine, and even if she had come in dead last in Iowa, she'd have still had a good chance going forward. The Dems have had a three-candidate race for some time; this pretty much makes it official. The Republican field is still filled with wild cards, though, with even Thomson coming in ahead of Giuliani and McCain, surprisingly enough. So Iowa's an interesting start, but while I don't want to minimize its impact, I think New Hampshire will look very different. Things will get even more interesting on Tuesday, January 8. And don't forget that ABC and Facebook are hosting a double-whammy debate at 7pm (6pm Central) on Saturday. Check it out, stay informed, talk to your friends, and most of all, when it's your turn, VOTE!

Jan 2, 2008 14:21:55 Ringing in the new year, Huckabee is being called clever by some, cynical by others. His team wrote an anti-Romney ad, which was approved--presumably by the Hucks himself--for production. The ad was produced and polished, and made ready for distribution, at which time Huckabee decided instead to make a confession. He had sinned, he wanted people to know, but he was repenting, and he would not be showing this ad on television. But he made this confession in front of dozens of reporters, including television people with cameras. This ad, which his team would refuse to air, was shown to the reporters, and has gotten more attention than it probably would have had it just aired. So Huckabee is not against negative campaigning; he is just against paying for air time for his negative ads. He'd prefer the viral approach, even if he has to spoon-feed his content to the media, all the while decrying Romney for "buying" the local vote by outspending him 20-to-1. I don't like negative campaigning, and I'd like to see it go away altogether, but if you're going to do it, my feeling is that you should at least pay for the air time. Over on the Dem side, Obama is doing a lot of complaining about negative campaigning in his requests for contributions, and as mentioned elsewhere in this blog, it's turned into his own sort of negative campaign. I appreciate the sentiment, but it's starting to look just as bad. Additionally, after the assassination of Bhutto in Pakistan, one of his advisors made a poorly-thought-out comment about how the event may affect the campaign, and many people took his comment to mean that he felt that Clinton was responsible for Bhutto's death. While that probably wasn't the intent, the comment was cynical, thoughtless, and unwise. When someone on Clinton's team brought up Obama's drug use, he was summarily let go. Obama should do the same for people on his team who take swings below the belt. Bhutto was a great leader, a brilliant woman, and underneath it all, a human being. Her untimely end is a tragedy for her friends and family, for her nation and the world. The reporter asking for comments may have posed a stupid question, but Obama's team members should know to not respond in-kind. The proper answer is that Bhutto's tragedy should not be used as a tool in this campaign, and that it should remind us all of what can happen when people let their greed put their own need for power over what is right for the people of their country and the world.

Dec 13, 2007 18:14:56 Coming from the "What were they thinking?" department, Mike Huckabee made a statement, posed as a question, indicating that in Mitt Romney's faith, God and the devil are brothers. I don't know much about Romney's church (Mormon/Church of Latter Day Saints), although I've spent some time in Salt Lake City and done the tour of the temple. If you get a chance, you should do it yourself; the retelling of the story of the miracle of the seagulls is something to behold. But the point is this: regardless of LDS' stance on the relationship between God and the devil, it's clear what Huckabee was trying to do: he was trying to put the question in the minds of his core base of support--evangelical Christians--as to whether or not Romney is an unholy man. Again, I don't know much about the Mormon church, but there are a lot of ways that "brotherhood" could be a misinterpretation. In many religions, the duality of good and evil is not quite as pronounced as in some sects of Christianity, with the relationship being shown as essentially two sides of the same coin. And even if you look at the old testament--the foundation for the Christian bible--you'll find the story of Job, in which Lucifer is sitting at God's side. No matter what the interpretation, this was a cheap shot, and Mr. Huckabee should be ashamed of himself. He should also remind himself that this is not an evangelical Christian nation; there are many people of faith similar and dissimilar to his own, and this sort of attempt at divisiveness is reprehensible for someone who claims to want to lead the country forward.

Dec 4, 2007 21:22:52 Well, Karl Rove is pulling a ballsy maneuver from his "perception is reality" playbook. He's been going to news outlets like Fox and their ilk, and planting the idea that the Democrats were the ones pushing for the Iraq war, ignoring the fact that any Dem support for the war was due to lies told by Bush and Co. about WMDs and connections between Hussein and Al Qaeda. I guess he's found that if you say anything often enough, people are likely to believe it. Maybe not the first or second time, but if it's consistent enough, after a few times, some might think when hearing a story that they've heard it before, so it must be true. I guess this is a tacit admission that the Repubs have screwed the pooch on this one, and that if he wants to work again in DC, he's going to need to change the perception of the party. Of course, it probably doesn't occur to him that an approach of honesty and ethical behavior might work wonders.

Dec 4, 2007 15:08:14 It looks like someone else shares my read on the Obama camp's attacks on Clinton's attacks. Just because someone else thinks that negative campaigning is "the fun part", it doesn't mean you have to. Rise above, man. Rise above. Over on the Repub side of the ring, Mitt's getting hit with the label of flip-flopper, panderer and more, mostly because he was once pro-choice and is now officially anti-choice. The Repubs are all standing as tall as possible, quoting their credentials on conservatism, claiming to be heirs to the Reagan-era ideals. Of course, they're all forgetting that Reagan, like him or not, made it clear that Republicans should never go after their own. I'm just waiting for the day that one of them quotes a kindergarten essay from another saying that they want to some day be president and appoint judges that will overturn Roe v. Wade.

Dec 3, 2007 22:37:51 This first entry makes me a little sad, since it's about a candidate I like and support, but it looks like nobody is above negative campaigning. I got an email from the Obama campaign titled "When Hillary attacks," about some negative campaigning coming from the Clinton camp. But it's kind of funny, and ironic, because, it's just a wee bit negative itself; the Obama folks sent out this notice to thousands of people differentiating their guy from his opponent not based on great things he's done or said, but based on bad things that she's supposedly done. So they're trying to turn it to their advantage, doing a two day fund drive called "the cost of negative campaigning", trying to turn a few statements from the Clinton camp into a quarter million dollars of funding. I understand, and certainly agree that we need to find ways to remove the incentive to use negative campaign strategies. However, this particular pledge request seems just a wee bit cynical to me; I only hope that, if Barack Obama's team believes so strongly that negative campaigning is a bad thing, they choose to practice what they preach going forward.

Dec 3, 2007 22:26:25 We're less than a year away from the 2008 presidential election, and we've got sixteen candidates lined up and ready to fight for your vote. Some are fighting fair, some are fighting dirty, and some are just, um, a little out there. It's not just the president's race that's rife with intrigue; other races, from city to state to federal level positions, and I'm going to try to write about any of them that I hear about where people are focusing on the negative. Of course, I can only track so much myself. If you hear of a case of negative campaigning that's not logged here, drop me a line at submissions@mudwatch.com and I'll write it up.