He'll be the savior of the conservative movement, I tell ya.

Please Newt, don't do it. Sure, you may get the Conservative Christian vote, but that's not even the majority of the GOP vote and you'll get exactly zero of the Independent and Democrat vote unless some little old ladies have trouble with their butterfly ballots again. Keep you day job as commentator on various news shows as your time has passed and to be honest, you're not all that appealing. Here's the scoop:

Matt Towery, a former senior aide to Newt Gingrich, had dinner with the former House Speaker and notes "it is clear that the presidency is now very much" on his mind "and that he remains convinced that none of the candidates in the current field has captured the imagination of the party."

And Newt will? This is an excuse for Newt, he sees a traffic jam and he's going to ride in and steal votes from Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. All that will happen is he'll take some of the social conservative vote from Rudy, some of the Southern vote from Fred and plod along in the 8-11% range where Romney's currently residing and get crushed in the primaries.

You know what Newt? On second thought, run and take some of the heat off the candidates that really matter. It will be like a two-week vacation for Giuliani and Thompson so throw your hat in.

There's a good column by Gail Collins in The New York Times this morning titled The Democratic Dark Side. She's commenting on the recent pledge that the top Democratic Presidential candidates made to not campaign in Florida. That's because Florida defied the DNC and scheduled their primary before they were supposed to, which was a big DNC no-no. The decision by Florida Democrats to defy Howard Dean has resulted in Florida 'losing' all of it's delegates to the Democratic Convention next year, and the Dem candidates pledging not to campaign in Florida

Collins points out something that I haven't seen anywhere else. The Democrats promised not to campaign - but they didn't promise not to visit Florida to raise money!

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama have all vowed to honor the Democratic National Committee rule that only New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada can hold primaries before Feb. 5. At the urging of the Democratic chairs of the four firsties, they signed a pact promising not to campaign in any state that tries to break into the front of the line. There is, however, an exception for "activities specifically related to raising campaign resources."

Exactly what are they supposed to do when they visit Florida to raise money, not talk about politics or their campaigns for the Presidency? How will that be policed. The Florida primary will go forward as scheduled. The Democratic convention as a whole can, when meeting in Denver in August 2008 to define their platform and convention rules, over-rule the DNC and vote to accept the Florida delegates. So what does the ban actually do? Is Howard Dean really that impotent within the Democratic Party?

The race for the Republican nomination for president is a field that is still too tough to call. Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are in the lead and very close to one another in most polls. Mitt Romney and John McCain are well behind Giuliani and Thompson, but they are not so far beyond that they can not make a great leap forward. (No relation to Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward.) Of course, there is also the possibility that Giuliani and Thompson may drop in the polls at some point in the future. As such, the primary states are taking on critical importance in the eyes of the candidates.

According to The Politico, Michigan has taken on significant importance in the eyes of the nominee hopefuls and with the January 15 (early) primary rapidly approaching the Republican contenders is spending more and more time there. Michigan is a huge state and has the potential to be a swing state despite being very blue.

The Politico's take on the contenders' positions in the race is as follows:

Romney has the best organization, Giuliani is late putting his team together but appears strong in the polls, Thompson is as much x-factor as he is a threat and McCain is in a precarious position.

You can't get a more accurate assessment than that.

Even with the bump that Fred Thompson got last week after his official announcement, and with John McCain's bounce this week (see Gallup here), Scott Rasmussen still believes that this is a three person race on the GOP side, with no clear frontrunner. Each of the three that Rasmussen mentions (Rudy Giuliani, Thompson, and Mitt Romney) have their strengths:

Thompson is currently seen by Republican voters as the most politically conservative candidate, clearly an asset in a party where more than 60% of Primary Voters are politically conservative.

Rudy Giuliani is seen by the GOP voters as the most electable Republican candidate.

Mitt Romney has pursued a different strategy. While struggling in the national polls, he has built a solid organization and is leading in the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary, and other early states.

But I think that the lead that Thompson has developed over Giuliani (28% - 19%) should worry the former mayor of New York. Nationwide, Giuliani is very similar to Hillary Clinton in that he has almost universal name recognition. Thompson does not, at least not as a Republican candidate for President. The more that the base of the GOP get to know Thompson's views, the more they will recognize that his brand of conservatism mimics theirs. At that point, the electability factor with Giuliani begins to even out.

I read with interest NixGuy's post earlier this morning on Fred Thompson's post-announcement bump, and then took a more careful look at the polls he referenced. As I've explained before, I tend to like Rasmussen the most, since their accuracy over the past few election cycles has been better than any of the others. But the latest Gallup intrigued me, since it was solely a Republican poll -- so I didn't have to worry about weighting. This particular Gallup poll still has Rudy Giuliani up 7 points over Fred Thompson among those who are most likely to vote in the Republican primaries (33%-26%), but the underlying numbers suggest that Thompson has a much greater upside potential than does the former mayor of New York.

In short, the poll shows that Giuliani and John McCain's support levels have remained constant over the last few months. Mitt Romney came back down to his more or less constant level after a slight jump after the Iowa Straw Polls. The new "official" candidate in the mix is Senator Thompson. Since Gallup has included his name in their polling questions since it became apparent that he was serious about entering the race, his polling numbers have remained within a four point range. But the surprising figures from Gallup are those that show there are still an awful lot of voters out there who don't know enough about him for them to decide whether or not to support him.

Howard Dean and the DNC aren't the only ones upset about early primaries. The GOP is preparing to also sanction the states that elect to move their primaries to earlier dates contrary to the party's clearly defined directives, according to the Palm Beach Post:

"The rules that were adopted at the convention in 2004 are clear and will be applied equally to every state," said Amber Wilkerson, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman. Under committee rules, the state parties must file a report by Sept. 4 detailing when and how convention delegates will be selected. The committee will publish a "Call to the Convention" before the end of the year detailing how many delegates each state will receive. States that inform the party before the "Call to the Convention" that they plan to hold their primaries before Feb. 5 or after July 28 would lose half their GOP delegates; states that make the indication later would lose 90 percent of their delegates.

That means that the GOP will also move to punish other early states, including Wyoming, which just moved its primary to January 5, 2008. That makes it the winner in the "who's first" primary sweepstakes for the time being.

But Ryan Sager writes in The New York Sun that GOP officials still believe that regardless of any possible sanctions (i.e. removal of half of the GOP delegates), Florida's primary on January 28, 2008 will still be the "make or break" contest for Republicans. The winner of that (now looking like Rudy Giuliani) will carry the momentum and advantage of winning a large cosmopolitan state into the primaries on Super Tuesday (February 5).

By the way, the latest primary schedule can be found here to the left of Susan Page's article on the chaos of the 2008 primary season. It's current as of 8/30/07 at 5:02pm. But I'm already hearing rumors that earlier today Michigan's House just voted to move it's primary up to the middle of January! Sheesh....

The best article I've seen so far on the effects (intentional and unintentional) of the front-loaded 2008 presidential primary schedule is up this morning at USA Today - As states play 'Me First,' primaries fall into chaos, by Susan Page. With so many states moving their primary dates earlier in the 2008 calender, we are faced with the fact that we might know both major party presidential candidates by the middle of February. That does a couple of things probably not foreseen by the architects of the early primaries, including the elimination of public financing of presidential campaigns. That's because candidates who accept public financing must legally wait until their party's convention is held to nominate them before they can receive and spend campaign funds. Candidates in this day and age are not going to wait, essentially from February to the end of August, to campaign against the other party and its presumptive nominee. They can spend primary money during that time, but legally that's set aside to spend only against opponents from the same party running for the nomination. The result: no public financing next year.

While the parties have attempted to corral the 2008 primary process, that's creating a mess as well. Right now it looks as if one of the most populous and important electoral states, Florida, might not even have any delegates allowed at the Democratic convention in Denver. The DNC will also be forced to deny delegates to Michigan (home of Detroit) if that state approves a measure to move its primary to January 15. Strangely, the party could then reverse itself at the convention, where the party and the candidates vote on the rules of the convention and the party platform for the election. It's possible that a good part of convention week could be spent arguing on whether or not to seat several hundred delegates from important Democratic states. But that would only be after months of Democrats accusing other Democrats of "disenfranchisement".

More importantly, this mess of a primary season has the potential to produce a serious case of "buyer's remorse".

Well, the DNC is playing hardball. As threatened, the Democratic National Committee has voted to strip Florida of all of its delegates to the Democratic convention in 2008. This is in retaliation for Florida scheduling its Democratic presidential primary early, on January 29, 2008. Originally, Howard Dean had threatened to take away any delegates that were won by candidates campaigning in Florida after they announced the move-up of their primary, but everyone ignored him. This decision makes things simpler by invalidating all future delegates.

The DNC's rules and bylaws committee, which enforces party rules, voted yesterday morning to strip Florida of all its delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver -- the harshest penalty at its disposal.

There is an automatic 30 day stay on this decision, giving Florida time to switch its primary date to a later one. Right now it's a game of chicken. Who will blink first, Howard Dean and the DNC or the Florida Democrats? In a sign of how acrimonious this fight could get, Florida Democrats are invoking the visage of the 2000 Recount, and blaming the Republicans, of course:

They blamed the Republicans who control the Florida Legislature and invoked the biggest bogeyman of all: the 2000 presidential recount. ''We're going to fight to have Florida Democratic votes counted,'' said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the state's top Democrat. ``It's always been a top priority for the Democratic National Committee to protect the rights of every eligible American to vote, and we hope the DNC is going to continue to honor this right.'' Nelson didn't mention that it was a Democrat who sponsored the presidential primary bill in the state Senate and all but one Democrat voted for the bill in the House. Where was the e-mail campaign back then?

Those are fighting words for Democrats, similar to someone screaming at an opponent, "You're mother's a whore!". That it's one group of Democrats screaming those words at another promises to make the next 30 days very interesting.

When assessing polling results early in the primary season, sometimes results can be seen as suspect because the national electorate hasn't yet gotten to "know" all of the candidates. That's because some political figures in each party already are recognized nationally, and others might be recognizable in a particular state or region, but have yet to make a national name for him or herself.

That's why polling firms often ask people if 1) they recognize a name, and 2) they have enough information about that person to evaluate him or her as a candidate. This can give an idea of the potential upside of one candidate against another. If a Candidate A has a huge national name recognition and polls well against a Candidate B that doesn't have the same approximate level of national name ID, it follows that as Candidate B gets better known nationally, he or she might do better in future polls against Candidate A.

Gallup has an article up on what they call the "Name ID" statistics of both the Democratic and Republican primary candidates. It shows that the leaders on the Democrats' side all are known enough nationally for voters to form opinions about them. That's good for Hillary Clinton. She won't have to deal with someone coming out of the blue at her.

It's a bit different on the Republican side, however.

We have come a long, long way since the invention of the telegraph. In today's day and age, information travels faster than it has ever traveled before and the impact of this on politics has been tremendous. But is this entirely a good thing?

As a result of the expedition of the dissemination of news to the public, politicians have seen their campaigns accelerated and this has led to a number of states attempting to move their primaries up. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing remains a point of debate. As Yahoo News points out, in Michigan, the State Senate has approved a measure to move the state's presidential primary nominations to January 15. However, this is not a "done deal" as of yet.

"Republicans control the state Senate, Democrats the House, so changes in the measure are likely. State Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said the Senate bill contains language that doesn't comply with national party rules and therefore is unacceptable."

Earlier this summer I posted on this little comment from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, when the State of Florida defied his edict not to move up their Democrat Presidential primary date:

Sure, Florida is America's biggest political swing state. But don't expect the national Democratic Party to back off punishing Sunshine State Democrats for scheduling an early presidential primary. "Their primary essentially won't count, " Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said of Florida. "Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates."

Well, it looks as if Dean and the DNC are going to finally announce this weekend what they are going to do about the "rogue states" that have moved up their primary dates, disobeying the DNC. It seems clear from the above quote that anything less than awarding no delegates to Democrats who campaign in Florida and the other early states, essentially making those primaries meaningless, will do.

The ugly elbowing over which states will go first in the 2008 presidential primary process is due to explode into open warfare Saturday as the Democratic National Committee decides what to do about "rogue" states that are threatening to violate party rules. The DNC's powerful Rules and Bylaws Committee is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. in Washington to decide primarily what sanctions to take against Florida, where Democrats say they will conduct a primary on Jan. 29 in violation of party rules. The Politico has learned, however, that a secret 9 a.m. "off the record" breakfast will precede the open meeting and the 30 sometimes contentious members of the rules commitee will try to achieve some kind of consensus.

Read the whole Politico article, it's quite interesting. Will the Democrats be men and women of their words? We shall see...

Fred Thompson is expected to announce his foray into presidential politics next month. David Broder reports on some of what Fred's agenda will be; national security, sane fiscal management, lower taxes and the absurd costs of entitlement programs. All red meat for the conservative base. There's more to come when he finally declares.

Thompson knows how D.C. works and he knows that he can build some bridges across the aisle and make things happen if given the opportunity:

"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges."

Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could ensure a better future for their children.

Washington needs to be shaken up and the American people know quite well this is true as Congress now has one of the lowest approval ratings ever recorded. (Nancy Pelosi has surely led them...right into the tank).

Here's hoping she's OK:

Carol Paul, wife of Congressman and presidential hopeful Ron Paul, was hospitalized today in Iowa, where the couple was awaiting results of a statewide straw poll on the GOP presidential contenders.

Carol Paul, 71, was taken to a local hospital after suffering shortness of breath and low blood pressure, said Kent Snyder, a spokesman for Ron Paul's presidential campaign.

A presidential campaign is a serious grind on all concerned and the fact that it is now starting two-years out doesn't help. The candidates spouses are there for nearly every event and have to glad-hand and smile the entire time, a process that has got to be tedious at best. The fact that she is 71, where most of the other candidates wives are younger is something to be taken into account as the travails of the stump must be trying for someone twenty years younger.

I hope that Carol Paul takes a break from the rigors of campaigning and gets some rest as there are more important things than campaigning for primaries that are 4-5 months out.

I know this is an elections blog, and that I should, in theory, be excited by the prospect of a longer campaign season. But the news that South Carolina will move its Republican primary up to January 19 so as to become the state "first in the South" to start the voting ball rolling is unwelcome, to say the least. But I don't solely blame South Carolinians. After all, they're just following the lead of states like Florida and California, who are attempting to wield greater influence in the electoral process. The problem is that such repositioning causes a domino effect:

Under some scenarios, the decision could lead Iowa to hold its caucuses in mid-December, creating an unprecedented situation in which convention delegates are selected in the calendar year before a presidential election.

Where will this madness end? Ohio in October? South Carolina in September? Alabama in August? Hell, why not have the presidential primaries during the mid-term election? We clearly need to have a national consensus. As Chris Weber pointed out yesterday, our failure to agree on national standards is an invitation for politicians from both parties to play dirty. The way a state awards its delegates, the huge discrepancies as to what kinds of voting machines different counties use, the varying laws on how different states certify election results: all of these are examples of a system in need of a drastic overhaul. We should insist that in national races (president, House and Senate) that one national standard should apply. If states want to tinker with local elections whose outcomes won't effect their cross-the-border neighbors, fine. The argument that "we've always done it the old way" is no longer valid. We've witnessed too many screw-ups, and endured too much partisan rancor in recent cycles.

So as to the question of a primary calendar, how best to go about deciding the national order? Perhaps we should have a single primary day, and a shorter campaign in which the debates were actually followed by the population. I've never been entirely comfortable with the weight that small states like Iowa and New Hampshire wield so much power in the process. Then again, front-loading the calendar with powerhouse states like Florida and California doesn't seem fair to the more rural parts of the country, either. What is clear, however, is that our current poker game approach to national elections is a recipe for even further election fatigue.

Mitt Romney just won't go away. He doesn't have the charisma of Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson but he keeps moving forward. The January primaries could give him the momentum to be a formidable contender in February.

Take a look at the most recent poll numbers for the states that matter in Jan. 2008.

		Electoral
Date	STATE	Votes	Giuliani	Thompson	Romney	McCain
Jan. 14	Iowa	7	15%	17%	25%	6%
Jan. 19	Nevada	5	21%	1%	23%	16%
Jan. 22	N.H.	4	22%	12%	29%	20%
Jan. 29	S.C	8	21%	25%	11%	7%
Jan. 29	Florida	27	30%	24%	8%	11%

If the numbers hold up, Giuliani will be explaining how he could lose three primaries in a row. It doesn't always pay to be the front-runner.

McCain will be explaining why he lost five out of five and is just getting weaker and weaker. My guess is that he will soon see his support moving over to Fred Thompson. If that happens, McCain will receive less than 10% of the vote in South Carolina and Florida. Could be an early departure for McCain.

Thompson is standing tall and getting stronger. It will be interesting to see if he gains strength after he announces or weakens under the microscope.