The always excellent Marc Abinder brings us a preview of the October fundraising numbers. This of course will have tremendous implications for the direction of the GOP primary.

Romney has loaned himself nearly $9M, which, when subtracted from his $12M cash-on-hand, would suggest that receipts in have not kept pace with disbursements, generally, which have totaled more than $32M. Romney donors said that they had been told that Romney was prepared to spend another $5M to keep his campaign's budget intact. They give a range of $10M to $12M for individual contributions in the third quarter.

John McCain will raise between $4 and $5M; Fred Thompson will probably raise around $6M.

If this is true that Fred Thompson is barely ahead of John McCain in the fundraising department, it certainly does not bode well for Team Thompson. Even considering that Thompson has not revved up the engine throughout the third quarter, he should have been able to reach out and tap the primary network of contributors for a big initial flush of cash. Either his network isn't very big, or the enthusiasm with which his campaign has been received will receive a cold shower.

If you live in Iowa or New Hampshire you already know. Floridians, too, have an inkling. South Carolina senses something big on the way. It's called the fourth quarter advertising blitz, and come Sunday it will kick into high gear. Yes, with the official end to the third quarter, it will be time to start spending all the money in the presidential war chests. That means a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of television ads from several well-funded campaigns.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have already begun. In Iowa, Both men have so far laid out $2.7 million for air time, and Romney has also spent another $1.7 in New Hampshire. Giuliani and Thompson are poised to pour their cash into Florida, South Carolina, and California, risking that early Romney victories in the first two states won't amount to much in the end. While Romney trails badly in national polls, if he notches a win or two, he'll have that much more free advertising. For a man with an estimated net worth upwards of $250 million, that's a whole lot of Romney on the tee vee.

Meanwhile, though Obama has outspent his rivals in Iowa, he has yet to see it translate into a first place standing in the polls. Clinton still has the lead, with Edwards and Obama in a virtual tie for second. But because it appears that Clinton has a stranglehold on the nomination, an upset in Iowa would have enormous repercussions.

So get ready, America, you're going to be hearing the following phrase more than a few times in the coming months: My name is (insert candidate's name here) and I approve this message.

Mitt Romney has launched a new campaign strategy in which he is positioning himself as the true conservative outsider of the pack of Republican presidential nominee hopefuls. This is not all that much different than the way Reagan campaigned in 1976 and 1980 and, to a lesser extent, Ross Perot in 1992. According to the Washington Times, Romney has stated: "Washington is failing us...The blame doesn't all belong to the Democrats. We Republicans have to put our own house in order."

If there was one person who could stymie this particular strategy of Romney's it would be Fred Thompson. What Ronald Reagan had working in his favor was that there really was no other Republican running against Reagan in the primaries who has a staunch conservative than him. Thompson, however, is perceived by the public as being more conservative than Romney.

What hurts Romney (and Rudy Giuliani as well) is the fact that Romney has "flip-flopped" on a number of conservative issues such as abortion. There is a certain unfairness of this criticism towards Romney mainly because he was a Republican governor in a very liberal state (Massachusetts) and this would require significantly more compromise with voters and the legislature than Thompson would be required as a senator from Tennessee.

Currently, Romney is trailing behind Giuliani and Thompson and his move sharply to the right is a decent strategy although it may endear him more as a potential vice presidential candidate than the party nominee.

O.K., I'm skeptical about Hillary Clinton's ability to craft health care legislation. I've written on this page how her first attempt, during her husband's time in office, was a failure in leadership that did not account for the complexity of the task. This time around, she assures us, she has learned from past mistakes. From the NY Times:

Mrs. Clinton promised to cover everyone without big new bureaucracies, without a complicated reorganization of one-seventh of the American economy and without affecting Americans who are insured and happy with their coverage--all features that helped doom the Clinton [Bill] administration's plan 14 years ago.

Maybe. Hey, it's worth a look, anyway. You can read about the plan here. David Brooks, for one, is impressed with what he sees, stating:

"Hillary Clinton's health care plan is a huge step forward from 1993. It's better than the G.O.P. candidates' plans (which don't exist).

But one person who is against the plan, even though he hasn't read it, is Mitt Romney. Watch as he stumbles through the following set piece yesterday. He cannot engage any of the specifics of the plan because he hasn't bothered to look at it. It's really a shameful display of how some politicians rely on buzzwords and tried and true talking points over substance.

Do most Americans really care whether their health care is administered by their state government as opposed to the federal one? And why should residents of Mississippi suffer while those in California enjoy universal care?

As the WaPo describes him, a "top adviser" to the Mitt Romney campaign was caught with a Web site that attacked Fred Thompson:

Before it vanished, the front page of the website featured a picture of a regal Thompson dressed in a frilly outfit more befitting a Gilbert and Sullivan production than a presidential campaign. Under the heading, "Playboy Fred," the site asks the question: "Once a Pro-Choice Skirt Chaser, Now Standard Bearer of the Religious Right?"

Nice. Real classy. Was this done at the request of the Romney campaign? If so, it should be a deal breaker for Mitt Romney. Especially considering Romney's flirtation with abortion is far, far more extensive than whatever Fred Thompson has done on the subject.

We're a long way from Reagan's 11th commandment.

The question is, why on Earth would you? If history is a guide, Mr. Romney seems to show a propensity for changing his mind and going back on the promises he makes while campaigning. Whenever I've written about Romney's chameleon-like tendency--be it on his flip-flop on abortion, or his relationship with Ted Kennedy--Mitt's supporters cry foul. What's so wrong with changing your mind? they ask, as if they'd never vilified John Kerry for his own evolving mind-set.

Sure, a person, over time can have a change-of-heart on a host of issues and still claim to be intellectually honest. Such an argument is harder to make, however, if that person happens to be courting the conservative wing of the Republican party, and seems to be embracing a new-found strictness on matters such as immigration, abortion, and homosexual marriage. Why? Because the same man, Romney, sounded a whole lot different when he was campaigning for the votes of a constituency that was a lot more liberal back in 2002.

Mitt Romney seemed comfortable as a group of gay Republicans quizzed him over breakfast one morning in 2002. Running for governor of Massachusetts, he was at a gay bar in Boston to court members of Log Cabin Republicans.

Mr. Romney explained to the group that his perspective on gay rights had been largely shaped by his experience in the private sector, where, he said, discrimination was frowned upon.

Mitt Romney promised the group of gay Republicans that he'd "keep his head low" on the issue of gay marriage. He'd adhere to whatever the state court decided on the matter. Then, after Romney was elected and the Massachusetts supreme court later handed down its verdict legalizing same-sex marriage, Mitt promptly broke his word and began calling for a constitutional amendment that would ban the unions.

I guess if you are really conservative, you can console yourself with the notion that Romney finally saw the light. But what evidence do you have the Mitt won't turn around and do to you what he did to those log cabin Republicans at the bar.

Romney's finance team co-chair has been indicted:

A federal grand jury has indicted Fabian for allegedly making $32 million in false purchases of computer equipment to pay for his lavish spending habits. Prosecutors are seeking $32 million worth of Fabian's assets, including beach real estate in North Carolina, property in Maryland and a yacht.

and his Utah finance chair is a crook:

Lichfield was named in a June 2007 complaint filed in federal court in Utah by the families of 133 children who have attended schools associated with WWASP, alleging that they were subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Plaintiff Chase Wood, who attended the Cross Creek Center for Boys (founded by Lichfield in the late 1970s) and another WWASP-affiliated school, claims he was fondled, forced to eat his own vomit, and locked in a dog cage.

Outrageous, and yet not much from the traditional media. These guys are on the team not just some bundler/donor that gave money to Clinton who got caught (and he should and she gave all the money to charity as she should). You think Romney will do the same? Not much of a chance. He kicked them off his team (as he did Larry Craig and his Carolina cocaine pusher/chair) and returned the $2,300 Fabian gave personally but that's it. The big bucks he raised and bundled. Nope. Was it covered by any of the TV news? Nope. A national finance campaign co-chair indicted and not so much as 30 secs. One donor to Clinton. Tons of coverage. The media proves once again, it is not liberal. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black and Sumner Redstone, etc. Romney's judgment in his associates and top campaign people. Not a peep.

Three cautionary tales have arisen on the campaign trail on the perils of raising mega-bucks in order to attain the highest office in the land.

Last night, The Politico ran an item on Fred Thompson's ties to a King Pharmaceuticals, a company that for years systematically overcharged Medicaid, among other programs, for drugs.

Fred Thompson accepted at least $13,800 from a Tennessee family that oversaw a pharmaceutical company accused of ripping off federal and state governments.

This morning, The Salt Lake Tribune shines a bit more light on a Mitt Romney donor caught up in an unseemly scandal involving child abuse at orphanage schools.

Robert Lichfield of La Verkin, who founded the umbrella group called Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, brought in some $300,000 earlier this year for Romney during a single Utah event and has donated tens of thousands to the former Massachusetts governor and other Republicans in recent years.

Lichflield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that the students of the "behavior modification" schools with ties to WWASPS were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse."

And of course there's Hillary Clinton's to do involving her no-longer-on-the-lam supporter Norman Hsu. From The Seattle Times:

The strange case dates to 1991, when Hsu pleaded no contest to grand theft in San Mateo County, south of SanFrancisco, in connection with a scheme in which he bilked investors out of $1 million...

...He has been among Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's most aggressive fundraisers, generating more than $100,000 for her presidential run.

All three of these incidents, it seems to me, is a case of guilt by association. Thompson, Romney, and Clinton all look worse for accepting cash from tainted sources. So far, Clinton is the only one who has given the cash back.

"It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business." ~ Al Pacino, "The Godfather"

Mitt Romney has shown similar ruthlessness in disposing of his connection with scandal-embroiled Sen. Larry Craig.

"Once again," Pat Buchanan quoted Romney as saying, "we've found people in Washington have not lived up to the level of respect and dignity that we would expect for somebody that gets elected to a position of high influence. Very disappointing. (Craig is) no longer associated with my campaign."

Romney broke a pretty significant bond. As PJB detailed: "Up to this week, Craig was one of only two senators to have come out for Mitt Romney. He headed up the Romney campaign in Idaho. He vouched for Mitt in Congress and the country."

The former Bay State governor thus seems like an anti-George Bush in terms of standing by his lieutenants. Dubya stuck up for ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Throughout Gonzales' sometimes rocky tenure, Bush had defended him, accusing his detractors of playing politics," ABC News reported.

Which is the better policy, staying loyal to a supporter or dismissing them when they misstep? Romney will find out as the primaries progress.

In a campaign season where the emphasis will hopefully be, at least in part, on integrity and honesty, strength of character, etc, etc., what does it say about a candidate who rewrites his own press releases to delete someone that turned out to be an embarrassment to him? Senator Larry Craig was Mitt Romney's Senate liaison up until a few days ago, at which time his relationship with Mr. Romney was severed for reasons that make all kinds of sense. However, all references to Senator Craig have now been removed from previously published press releases -- check out his Web site.

It's one thing to sever a relationship when someone you hired turns out not to be the one with whom you want to be associated -- seems to be happening a lot these days. However, to pretend the relationship never existed is something else again. Nations have been known to rewrite history to serve their own ends -- even our own history textbooks gloss over much of what might be considered unpleasant aspects of our history. Of course, it doesn't change history, just attempts to mislead people.

Mr. Romney has shown a convenient propensity to change his views on controversial issues in order to better appeal to certain constituencies now that he is running for president. I guess he also has a propensity to change (or hire people who will change) the facts to suit his purposes as well. You would think that in this day of the Internet and instant video replays that these people would get it. You can't hide this stuff.

Addendum: I thought the above opinion was clear, but after reading many of the comments below, apparently it was not. I have absolutely NO problem with Mr. Romney immediately severing his association with Senator Craig. It is what any politician with a brain in his or her head would have done and should have done. I think the Senator's behavior was sleazy and pathetic. What made it doubly so, in my opinion, was the hypocrisy that it represented given his dogmatic stance against gays, gay rights, etc., etc. (me thinks thou doth protest too much).

What bothered me about what Romney's campaign did was that by changing an already published press release to delete all references to Senator Craig's former position with the campaign, they were, in fact, rewriting history. I think we have had enough of an administration in the last six years that has played loose with the truth and assumed that Americans were gullible or naive enough that they could "change" the truth and that would make it so. All Mr. Romney had to do was to announce that he was severing the relationship with Senator Craig because in light of current events, it was obvious that he did not represent the values in which Mr. Romney believes. End of story. This sort of behavior strikes me as a knee-jerk reaction to a situation without thinking through the ramifications -- not something that gives me warm fuzzies about his potential administration.

In what was an inevitable situation, Mitt Romney and Sen. Larry Craig have "split up" their alliance in the aftermath of the public revelation that Craig had pleaded guilty to charges of "disorderly conduct" after allegedly committing sexual "solicitation." Craig had previously formed a growing partnership with Romney and was his primary backer in the Senate. Not any more.

Craig has lobbied uncommitted senators on behalf of his candidate, helped organize meetings between Romney and colleagues of his and joined other members in recording pro-Romney video clips for the former governor's website. Craig resigned his post today, said Romney communications director Matt Rhoades. "Senator Craig has stepped down from his role with the campaign," Rhoades said. "He did not want to be a distraction and we accept his decision." (Source: Politico)

While it is unfair that Romney may suffer embarrassment due to his association with a man whose actions he had no control over, the fact remains that's the way it goes in the world of politics. More than likely, this will be a non-factor in Romney's primary campaign, but there will be great potential ramifications for Craig's 2008 re-election campaign. Having already angered the base with his pro-cloture vote during the amnesty debate this may cause even greater damage to his chances.

Having long since championed "traditional family values" such an arrest will surely lead to pundits and political opponents to scream "hypocrisy" as well as providing an opportunity to hammer home the notion that the Republican Party is ripe with corruption. This, of course, could lead to even more Republican losses in the Senate overall.

From the way that some of the leading Republican contenders act, you'd think there was a holy trinity of issues that anyone hoping to capture the party's presidential nomination must never defy.

I speak of abortion, the war in Iraq, and immigration. Of course, a true GOP candidate must be against Roe vs. Wade, for continued support of the surge, and, above all, show a strong antipathy for any position that might be painted as allowing "amnesty." While there may indeed prove to be room for some nuance here or there, as illustrated most vividly by the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, to go solidly against any one of these sacred cows spells trouble. Just ask John McCain.

Yet, as a Democrat, I can't help but notice that all three of these issues are losers for the GOP. Consider the rather overwhelming polling data. On abortion, a solid majority of Americans wants abortion to remain legal, if not limited in some circumstances. On the war in Iraq, overwhelming majorities disapprove of the way the war has been handled, and think we shouldn't have gone in there in the first place. Lastly, on the question of how to solve the immigration issue, the numbers are somewhat less decisive. But even here, a majority of Americans seem to want the bill the president put forth to be passed. And when you break down the specific provisions of the bill, such as whether we should allow people to go home, pay a fine, and come back, the public is strongly pro-immigrant, and doesn't much care about the cries of amnesty.

Granted, immigration is the least equivocal of the three, but it certainly isn't the slam dunk issue that will propel the party to victory. Perhaps the party should go back and read Tuesday's Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Fred Barnes, in which the Fox commentator suggested that the way to avoid being trounced again in 2008 is for Republicans stop acting like Republicans. Good luck on that.

Mitt Romney stood atop his soapbox yesterday and shouted "States' rights!" over and over again. And as you can see from a recent interview with a Nevada television station, the ceding of power from Federal to local control would seem to extend, in Romney's mind, to the topic of abortion.

So then how do we square this idea with his other recent statements that there should be an amendment to the constitution banning the practice of abortion? If he views abortion as murder, then clearly states like Nevada or New York or California should not be allowed to practice the procedure. Pregnancies caused by rape? Incest? Why make exceptions for them? After all, or so the thinking goes, doesn't a second crime simply compound the first? Moreover, how does Romney reconcile the seeming discrepancy between the States' Rights view and his proposed Federal ban on abortion? From today's Washington Post:

Top Romney advisers insisted yesterday that their candidate's statements on abortion this month were consistent with each other. They say Romney supports a two-step process in which states get authority over abortion after Roe v. Wade is overturned, followed eventually by a constitutional amendment that bans most abortions.

So there you have it. Romney's for Big Government, after all. That States' Rights talk is all a smokescreen. He's dead set on a national dictate that makes it illegal for teenage girls who get pregnant to do anything other than carry the child to term. What else would Romney like to make illegal for the citizens of the United States? How about birth control? Never mind that abstinence only education has been shown to be a farce. The Baltimore Sun recently ran an article detailing Mitt's distinction between egg fertilization and implantation:

Mr. Romney's code, deciphered, meant, "I, like you, hope to reclassify the most commonly used forms of contraceptives as abortions." In fact, he told the crowd, he already had some practice redefining contraception: "I vetoed a so-called emergency contraception bill that cave young girls abortive drugs without prescription or parental consent."

You see, Dr. Romney believes he knows more about physiology than The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who define life starting at the implantation of a fertilized egg into the mother's womb. After all, if the egg does not implant, the fetus has no possible viability. Whatever your beliefs on abortion, there's simply no denying that Romney has no business spouting off about States' Rights when it comes to this issue.

The media jumped on two incidents last week that they thought showed the hypocrisy of the candidates involved. The first was the discovery that Republican Presidential primary candidate Mitt Romney... well, I'll let the headline speak for itself: Mitt owns stock in stem cell research.

Despite his "pro-life" campaign pitch, former Gov. Mitt Romney owns stock in two companies involved in embryonic stem cell research, a controversial field of study he previously cited as the reason for his rightward shift on abortion.

The second incident was the discovery that Democratic presidential primary candidate John Edwards has a significant investment in a company that... well, I'll let this headline speak for itself as well: Edwards, Foreclosure Critic, Has Investing Tie to Subprime Lenders.

As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims. The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.

The first supposed "scandal" is just a liberal journalistic hack job on a Republican. The $250 million or so that Romney has in personal wealth is held in a blind trust, and has been in that trust since he was elected governor of Massachusetts. The very definition of a blind trust is that by statute the owner of the funds involved has no idea, nor can they influence, where the money is invested after the trust is established. Hopefully, the trustee involved in the trust will put the money in investments that don't run contrary to the public office holder's or candidate's views or policies. But the point is that Romney has nothing to do with it.

Mitt Romney won the Illinois Straw Poll at the State Fair with 40.4% of the 922 ballots cast:

(Fred) Thompson finished second with 20 percent or 184 votes. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was third with 18.9 percent or 174 votes; Giuliani was fourth with 11.6 percent or 107 votes; and McCain finished fifth with 4.1 percent or 38 votes.

Huckabee, who finished second in the Iowa balloting, finished sixth in the Illinois straw poll with 3 percent or 28 votes, while Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas had 1.1 percent or 10 votes. Hunter had 0.7 percent or 6 votes and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado finished ninth with 0.3 percent or 2 votes.

Nice numbers for Romney and Fred Thompson and a decent showing for Ron Paul, beating out Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo and (unfortunately) Duncan Hunter are toast.

But that's not the only poll conducted there and not nearly as meaningful as the poll of state GOP county chairmen. In that poll, Fred Thompson won with 22 out of 40-ballots cast. Giuliani was second with 13 and Romney finished in third with 9. Note that Ron Paul received no votes in this poll.

Why is the county chairmen vote more important? Because those are the people who will be boots on the ground in Illinois getting out the vote. These are political people who know who will succeed in Illinois and who will not. The fact that Thompson--who's not even in the race yet--got nearly half the votes is telling as to what the political establishment in that state thinks and they think Fred is the man.

This is quickly coming down to a three-man race and will be a two-man race once the real voting begins. Romney is winning these insignificant polls because he's all over the state and glad-handing every one. As a nominee, he would get crushed; he's a former governor of a deeply blue state, he's too polished for the red states and he is constantly caught in flip-flops. He may make a good V.P. candidate, but we've got quite awhile to contemplate that.