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.

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.

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.

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.

The AP snagged this very interesting e-mail:

"Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson wrote.

"He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

This should cause no great consternation in the Fred Thompson camp. The religious right folks are rallying around Mike Huckabee, but so far the Arkansas governor has not broken out of the second tier. If he does so, then the Dobson thing may matter. But for Thompson, the fact that he does in fact look like Ronald Reagan when you stand him next to John McCain, Mitt Romney, and especially Rudy Giuliani. Dobson may not like it, but he's pointedly not endorsing Giuliani either, and right now it's a two-man race.

Thompson can wait it out. Dobson will come around if it's Fred vs. Hillary Clinton. And besides this will make the libertarian wing of the Republican party gravitate toward Fred Thompson even more.

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.

When he was held captive in Vietnam, it probably looked like his time on earth was limited. After he got beat by Bush, it looked like he would be too old to run again. When he showed compassion for the problems of illegal immigrants, it looked like he had killed his political hopes. Yes, most of us believed that the hopes of John McCain being president of the United States had turned to dust.

Dust you say. Was it the phoenix that rose from the ashes. The bird is the symbol of immortality. Isn't Phoenix the capital of Arizona. Isn't McCain the senator from Arizona? Yes he is and like the phoenix, he has risen from the ashes.

In the latest Rasmussen report, McCain has begun to rise. He has pulled ahead of Mitt Romney (no big deal) and his "favorability rating" among Republicans has risen to 63%. This is just behind Fred Thompson (64%) and Rudy Giuliani (68%).

Even if McCain loses, it would be nice to see him in the race until the end. The man has fought for his country and not been afraid to say what he believes.

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and current presidential aspirant, may have unwittingly given Larry Craig a vote of confidence for staying in the Senate.

Responding to a question about his private life during last week's GOP debate, Giuliani said, "I certainly haven't lived a perfect life. I am not running as the perfect candidate for president of the United States. I'm running as a human being who has been very successful as a leader and had definable results in a situation in which people thought it was impossible to accomplish these things."

If we delete the presidential reference and substitute one for the Senate, could not the substance of that statement apply to Craig? If so, Giuliani has given grist for hungry rivals. For his words contrast with what was said earlier in the debate.

"We should be bolder about standing up for family," Kansas' Sen. Sam Brownback said. "Family's important for us, and it's important for America ."

"When our guys have problems like this, they leave," Rep. Duncan Hunter of Texas said. "They leave the Senate or they leave the House. When the Democrats have problems like this, they often make them chairmen of their respective committees."

The "family values" opening is available for any Republican ruthless enough to use it. Paging Mitt Romney...

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.

It looks to be like about 5 points so far, according to a great post at NRO. Team Thompson put together an email saying this:

This week's round of new national polls is extremely encouraging. All are trending up for Fred Thompson. The CBS/NYTimes poll shows a gain of 15 points from a month ago. CNN shows us in a statistical tie for the lead, and the Rasmussen poll of likely Republican primary voters shows Fred Thompson in the lead.

I'll put the tables after the bump. Basically what we are looking at is a quick 5 points after the announcement. I don't think it's finished though.

• Thompson took his support directly from Rudy and is ahead or tied in 2 of the 4 polls.
• McCain seems to have stopped his downward momentum and may have restored it a bit. He's still finished.
• Romney is going nowhere. Fast.

Looks to me like a Rudy Giuliani vs. Fred Thompson race. Team Thompson taking easy shots can't hurt.

Mitt Romney's response? Polls don't matter. Politicians say that when they are losing.

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 latest USA Today poll has Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mike Huckabee all gaining while Mitt Romney falls 4%. Fred Thompson only gained 3% in this poll taken over the weekend, the first since he announced he's a candidate. Pretty modest numbers for a new candidate. The numbers also suggest as I noted earlier that McCain is indeed back in the race and must now be repositioned back into the top tier.

However, the latest Rasmussen poll shows Thompson leading Giuliani 26% to 22% meaning Fred took some votes from America's Mayor. The Rasmussen poll has historically had Giuliani closer to the field than others so no great change. That's a four point jump for Thompson, not a significant leap but something he may be able to build on.

With regard to Fred Thompson, I expected to see at least an 8-10 point surge after his announcement, but his long, drawn out pre-campaign nullified any great bump. The numbers I find intriguiging for Thompson is the high percentage who don't know him:

Thompson is significantly less well known than Giuliani or McCain - 28% of Republicans say they've never heard of Thompson, compared with 8% for Giuliani and 9% for McCain.

Among those Republicans who know all four leading contenders, Giuliani and Thompson are essentially tied. In a head-to-head race among all GOP voters, Giuliani bests Thompson by 13 points, 53%-40%.

How can 28% not know who Fred is? That says to me that he was not very effective in getting his name out over the summer, a major campaign flaw and unforgiveable for a candidate who has been on a top-rated show for a couple of years. Apparently, those who do know of Thompson like him as he is tied with Rudy in that category.

Ron Paul, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo all posted the usual horrid numbers. It's surprising that Ron Paul hasn't broken 4% in any USA Today poll given his supposed clout in the race and his landslide victories in text and internet polls. I guess it doesn't translate to the real world.

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.

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.