ABSENT: Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mitt Romney

PRESENT: Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Alan Keyes

What were they thinking? They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the four empty chairs on the podium of the Republicans' recent debate on Thursday, September 27th at Morgan State University spoke volumes. Regardless of the spin or the rationale (reported "scheduling conflicts" for each of them), those candidates obviously did not think it was worth their while to show up and there is no way to interpret that except that they didn't think it was important to reach out to these blocs of voters -- which is interesting, since the over 60, white male, southern voter is probably going to vote for one of them anyway and is a shrinking population. I'm not sure a candidate can win the national election anymore with over 60, while male, southern voters.

Mike Huckabee said he was "embarrassed for our party and I'm embarrassed for those who didn't come."

Sam Brownback said, "I think this is a disgrace that they are not here...a disgrace to our country...bad for our party...I don't think it's good for our future."

The general consensus is that after the primary, whoever the Republicans select will start moving towards the center and reaching out to these other voters. Good luck with that strategy. There are a lot of us around who will remind people of who was important, or not, to the candidate in September 2007.

This election is going to be decided primarily on the war in Iraq. It seems most Americans are either fed up, angry, or just want the whole mess to go away. It won't go away, it is a mess and all the Republican pundits in the world aren't going to sell this endless civil war. The President, Vice-President, Republican candidates, Congress people, Senators can't sell the endless dead and wounded. They can't even sell it to the military and then they call the soldiers phony. The response to Rush has come from the field

Apparently anyone in the military is above criticism as long as they agree with Rush's brave belief that we should be in Iraq "as long as it takes." And I use the term 'we' loosely, as I believe the closest Rush has ever gotten to combat was watching We Were Soldiers with surround sound.

Please link to this blog because the pictures and captions are very good. What is not being taken into account in this war is the military viewpoint. There are a number of retired generals who have spoken out, many who lead our troops in Iraq. There are large numbers of soldiers serving in Iraq who are speaking out. These are brave, honorable soldiers serving their country, doing the best they can, being labeled as phony. Don't take my word for it, but take theirs.

Enough is enough. Those who want our youth to fight their war should not be labeling those they send as phony (especially when they got a deferment for ingrown hair-really that's what Rush did). We can and must get out of Iraq even if it takes a year. Start somewhere.

The chances of soon-to-be former Senator Larry Craig overturning his conviction are slim to none, unless the ruling judge is a closet Democrat who is really enjoying this. Craig's decision to plead guilty was not coerced in the 15 minutes he had between the time he was arrested and his court hearing -- he had more than eight weeks to review his options, including hiring an attorney to represent him and choosing to fight the charges. He chose not to -- and chose to plead guilty. In fact, Craig seemed quite happy with his guilty plea, until the story became public. The judge hearing the Senator's attempt to throw out his plea said he will rule on this sometime next week, so Craig has decided not to resign on Sunday, as he had 'promised':

After arguments were heard in court today in Minneapolis, in which lawyers for Senator Larry Craig sought to undo his guilty plea in the airport restroom case, Mr. Craig issued a brief statement that was posted on his Senate Web site: "Today was a major step in the legal effort to clear my name. The court has not issued a ruling on my motion to withdraw my guilty plea. For now, I will continue my work in the United States Senate for Idaho." Mr. Craig, a longtime Republican senator from Idaho, had earlier announced that he would resign his Senate seat on Sept. 30 - just four days from now. But he also later emphasized, through aides and a bizarrely misrouted voicemail that became public, that he was only announcing his "intention" to resign. And that he wanted to fight to reverse the misdemeanor conviction.

I don't know if Craig has any other recourse, such as taking this to a higher court, if the judge rules against him. If the Senator does, I'm sure he'll take advantage of that and try to stay in office until those are heard as well.

There is only one certainty in this whole affair. Every day this is prolonged, Larry Craig is becoming a bigger and bigger national laughingstock.

Gallup has a new poll out this morning that shows that the Democratic Party has a 15 point lead nationally over the GOP in overall approval. The Democrats also hold leads over the Republicans on the formally GOP-safe questions of which party would best maintain the nation's economic prosperity and which party would keep us safer from terrorism. The methodology revealed in the analysis accompanying the poll has no party identification figures for the respondents, so we don't know if one party was oversampled over another. But that's meaningless for my purposes -- the GOP should have such commanding leads in the national security and economic prosperity categories that sampling games would be inconsequential to the ultimate polling results.

The Republican party has handed the Democrats the advantage on what has previously been seen as central GOP strengths for decades. And this is not a one-time aberration. These dropping poll numbers started in the second half of 2005. If that isn't a clarion call directed at the Republicans to clean out their house and get back to basics, I don't know what is.

Is there hope for the GOP? Sure, but only if they start acting now. Why? Because Gallup also tells us that the advantage that the Democrats now have has nothing to do with themselves:

The recent gain in the Democratic Party's image advantage is due primarily to a sharp decline in Americans' favorable perceptions of the Republican Party more than an improvement in the public's perception of the Democrats.

The Republicans should feel happy about stopping the Democrats from surrendering our national security interests in Iraq and intentionally losing the war. But that's just one victory, and it will be meaningless if they lose more Congressional seats in 2008, let alone the presidency. If the GOP is serious about not only reforming its image but its message as well, they should start now. Next year will be too late.

Yesterday, Patrick Casey tried to put a good face on the woeful state the Republican Party finds itself in concerning its prospects in the House of Representatives. The best that can be said is that while '08 looks like another blood-bath in the making, perhaps a second drubbing will convince the GOP to change its ways.

No doubt about it, Republican prognosticators are not happy at what the tea leaves are telling them. From today's Politico:

Top Republicans are privately bracing for the possibility that they could lose additional House seats in next year's elections as a result of untimely retirements, ongoing scandals and unexpectedly gloomy fundraising forecasts, according to several members and aides.

House members up for re-election in competitive districts are throwing in the towel. Why? Because the NRCC is broke. Nobody's donating. Even members of the military have increased their donations to Democrats. And it's the same story in the Senate. An unfortunate combination of retirements, scandal, and the Iraq war are poised to make 2008 another losing year for the GOP.

James Dobson does not speak for the religious right, says another card-carrying member:

Former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer contends that conservative Christians should seriously consider supporting Thompson if they want to avoid a "nightmare scenario" where they are forced to choose between two pro-abortion, pro-gay rights candidates – Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

"He (Thompson)'s obviously against same-sex marriage. He doesn't support quite the same constitutional amendment that some of the others of us do, but he's been talking with us about it, and has been moving closer and closer on the amendment," said Bauer, who is president of American Values, according to OneNewsNow.

"So I hope that we can, as a movement, be very wise about this, and not savage candidates that we may very well have to support in 2008 if they're running against Hillary Clinton."

As I suspected, Fred Thompson has not suffered at all from Dobson's attack, and indeed the collective blogosphere opinion was to think even more highly of Thompson. And with this latest defense it appears that Thompson can get the support of both the religious right and the libertarian elements of the GOP. It's the best of both worlds!

It's safe to say that the National Republican Congressional Committee is in a bit of chaos this morning. The NRCC is losing the money battle with its Democratic counterpart - by about $9 million in the latest campaign fund-raising cycle. And they're getting killed in the all important cash-on-hand battle - $22 million for the Democrats to $1.6 million for the Republicans. I believe that much of this has to do with the fact that the Republican base is fed up with the party, and won't start to give money to the cause as they have done in the past until the GOP cleans itself up. But if the party as a whole hasn't learned its lesson from 2006, it looks like it's starting to. The best way to get someone's attention is through money - or the lack of it.

Roll Call has an article up, Cole Pressured on NRCC Staff (sub. req.), that shows that House Minority Leader John Boehner has noticed the problems with fund-raising, and is starting to call people at the NRCC to account for it. The Politico also has a good article on the subject this morning, telling us that if Boehner forces the issue and cans the two people on the NRCC staff that he feels is most culpable for the NRCC's lack of success, its chairman Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma would resign in protest.

That might be the best outcome for all concerned. It appears as if Boehner is starting to realize that the Republican Party's problems are mostly internal, rather than external. GOP Congressional leadership should be looking at its membership and start pressuring problem incumbents to announce their intention now not to seek re-election, or face opposition in the primaries from the national party. That's probably not going to happen with Cole in charge of the NRCC.

The GOP needs to get new conservative candidates involved in about 40 to 50 Congressional races next year. That's the only way for the party to take advantage of the current extraordinarily high disapproval ratings for the Democratic led House. Only new candidates, without the old-boy network ties of many current GOP representatives, can make the argument that a vote for them is a vote for change - not more of the same. Perhaps this move by Boehner shows that he, indeed, is starting to "get" it.

NRO reports on the Straw Poll result from the Mackinac conference conducted this weekend:

Romney - 39.12%
McCain - 26.56%
Paul - 10.83%
Giuliani - 10.62%
F. Thompson - 7.15%
Huckabee - 2.55%
Hunter - 1.23%
Tancredo - 0
Brownback - 0.31%

While local Michigan blog both-right reports on a poll of Michigan likely voters

Giuliani 27%
Romney 13%
Thompson 13%
McCain 6%
Huckabee 5%
Brownback 4%
Tancredo 0%
Hunter 7%
Paul 2%

Huge differences. Keep in mind that the straw poll is of party activists that paid to attend a conference, while the voters are just voters. So, we can tell that in Michigan, (and other places) there is a huge difference between what the party establishment wants, and what the rank-and-file want. Mitt Romney spent a lot of time in Michigan, his dad was governor, he has a lot of organizing money so it's not surprising he would do well.

- John McCain's support is nonexistent outside of the establishment
- In fact it's so bad that Duncan Hunter is doing better.
- Mike Huckabee is not breaking through anything, in fact did not attend.
- Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani both do much better with the voters than the establishment.

Michigan has moved up it's primary and will be a significant factor in choosing the next president. McCain and Huckabee need to worry about that. The others, not so much.

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.

The latest numbers on Iraq will give even a hardened economic analyst like Alan Greenspan a panic attack.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes. The estimates made by the group, which opposes the conflict, include not only the immediate costs of war but also ongoing factors such as long-term health care for veterans, interest on debt and replacement of military hardware.

This is known as full-cost accounting which is what the IRS does when it says it costs 40 cents a mile to operate a typical car. This is what it is costing to run this war all piled on an already bloated national deficit that is becoming untenable. Like a sub-prime mortgage gone bust, we can't even afford the interest on the national debt. This war, which the leading Republican candidates fully support as a permanent war, coupled with Bush's fiscal insanity, has rendered our country the debtor nation of all time. We're in hock up to and including the White House.

This war, which is decimating the military, leaving tens of thousands of our youth crippled for life has already cost almost a trillion dollars. $720 million a day. What could we be doing?

The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity

That's just a start. It's a question of priorities and what safety really means. Ask yourself: would we be safer if we had not invaded and occupied Iraq for the past 4.5 years? If we had supported the UN instead of going it alone and invaded would we be spending our treasure and youth today? Perhaps O.J., Britney, and the other celeb trash would be alone in the headlines and we could be building a better country.

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.

Is this the real deal or a publicity stunt? Right in the middle of a speech to the NRA (of all people), Rudy Giuliani takes a cell from the Mrs.

"Wait just a second," he told the perplexed crowd. "This is my wife calling, I think."

"Hello, dear," he said in a syrupy voice.

"I'm talking to the members of the NRA right now. Would you like to say hello?" he said to confused chuckles.

"I love you, and I'll give you a call as soon as I'm finished. OK, have a safe trip. Bye-bye. Talk to you later, dear. I love you."

According to the rest of the article, there was disbelief, outrage and skepticism. This has to be a stunt. Politicians don't do this, no one does this, not in the middle of a speech. I'd bet you bottom dollar that this is the hare-brained idea of some campaign aide, or even Rudy himself to try to appear more "real" in front of a normally hostile crowd. It didn't work. And how does the NRA feel about Rudy now? Well, let's ask Fred Thompson.

Hey, that's good enough for me.

I've been fervent in my posts about the uneasiness I feel when GOP candidates act as if they have to cozy up to religious folk. President Bush did it with Jerry Falwell and John McCain more recently is doing it with Southern Baptists. Republican candidates place an undeserved prestige on gaining the backing of people such as James Dobson and it doesn't gain them the support they would hope for. In fact, it may turn off conservative Democrats and cost them more votes then it gains.

Think about it, who will Dobson support as if it really matters? He won't support Giuliani so that leaves who, Sam Brownback or Mike Huckabee? He definitely won't support Mitt Romney. Essentially, Dobson has been neutralized and that means his power has dissipated. That can only be good for the party as we've seen those who preach have not always been the most godly of people anyway. I put Dobson on a par with other partisan groups who should have their power usurped such as MoveOn and NOW.

As a Neocon, I am a moderate on most social issues, the church is not supposed to play as large a part as the GOP has placed on it in recent years. For those who have made Neocon a curse, do a little research and see that most Neocons were liberals who changed affiliation because they think that democracy is the cornerstone to changing the world and despots and dictators are evil and should be exiled or forced out by whatever means necessary. That's a much-abridged description but take some time to look up what we think.

Dobson and his ideological brethren are fading and will continue to do so. The nation needs a leader who is not praised by those of Dobson's ilk and who will lead based on good moral tenets--whether religion-inspired or not. Let Dobson support Sam Brownback and I'll support Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson.

The latest Harris poll shows Fred Thompson leading Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama:

... One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who say they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

... Just under half (46%) of those who would vote in a Democratic primary or caucus would vote for the former First Lady while one-quarter (25%) would vote for Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Former vice president candidate and North Carolina Senator John Edwards is further back with 14 percent saying they would vote for him. No other candidate is in double digits.

The only really surprising thing in this poll is that young Democrats will vote for Obama while the older (61 and over) favor Hillary overwhelmingly. A return to the Al Gore, Sr. Dixiecrat roots perhaps?

The Thompson lead is to be expected as he is the "new" candidate. His performance in the debates will be extremely important, should he falter, Rudy will grab this race and run with it setting up the election we were robbed of back in 2000 when Rudy had to bow out because of cancer and Hillary ran against lightweight Rick Lazio.

These are good, strong numbers for Thompson and he should take heart, however they could change dramatically should he not make a good showing. I suspect he'll do fine but also that Giuliani will get a small bump be his brouhaha with MoveOn.org so things should even out. Mitt Romney and John McCain are toast at this point and only can be saved by a complete upset in the early primary states.

On the donk side, John Edwards just hasn't found his stride and is hovering at 12-16% based on polling. He stands no chance of advancing if he hasn't grabbed the electorate by now.

Call it a case of strange bedfellows. On Friday, Rudy Giuliani will take the stage at the NRA's annual convention and try to convince the organization he's their man. Meanwhile:

...even as the former New York mayor strives to burnish his Second Amendment credentials at the gathering in Washington, a panel of federal judges in his home town will be hearing arguments on the lawsuit that Giuliani filed seven years ago aimed at punishing the nation's manufacturers for violent crimes involving firearms.

Don't get me wrong, I'm on Giuliani's side on the issue of guns. In 1995, Rudy went on Charlie Rose and declared that the NRA goes,

"overboard. The extremists on the left and the extremists on the right have essentially the same tactic," he said, adding later that "the NRA's, in essence, defense of assault weapons, and their unwillingness to deal with some of the realities here that we face in our cities is a terrible, terrible mistake."

Amen. And I applaud America's Mayor for teaming up with then president, Bill Clinton, to push through the assault weapons ban. Clearly, tougher legislation is needed to close up all the loopholes. Let's see what proposals Giuliani puts forth in front of the NRA crowd.