What about Biden?

I'm so glad a New York Times blogger came out and said what I have been thinking, and in reference to a candidate I really like. Today's piece on Joe Biden points out the disparity between Biden's viability as a Democratic presidential candidate and his low poll numbers. Why don't more people support him? I have been saying recently that much of what I hear from my peers -- mostly college students -- is how jaded they are with politics, how all the front-runners are phonies playing the political game, and how it just makes them want to stay home on election day. Well, I ask, if they are so dissatisfied with the front-runners, then why not look at the other candidates, many of whom are often honest and experienced, like Biden? But they only respond with more jadedness: Oh, he's never going to win. Well yes, if everyone like you has that attitude, which Matt Bai does a better job of describing:

Ten years of endless blather about the game of politics on cable TV have trained the most engaged American voters to handicap candidates rather than hear them, to pontificate about who might win rather than deciding whom they actually want to win. Voters seem to approach politics increasingly as pundits, and they look to poll numbers to tell them who’s electable and who isn’t, never stopping to realize that they are the ones who get to decide.

As someone who likes Biden, I enjoyed reading most of the comments below the blog, many of which offer heartwarming and genuine support for him. But as someone who also doesn't like Bush and is wondering why Biden isn't doing better, I especially enjoyed this one:

Only a serious nation takes serious candidates seriously. Any nation that could elect someone so obviously mediocre in intellectual ability and then reelect him, after nearly four years of even more obvious failings and outright deceptions, can no longer be considered a serious nation.

The GOP hates puppies

Well, I already knew that, but stories have been surfacing lately that offer some proof. Perhaps most damning, because it is the direct actions of a candidate, is an anecdote in a Boston Globe article about Mitt Romney strapping the family dog to the top of his car for a road trip. A story in Newsweek about Mike Huckabee's son getting kicked out of camp for killing a stray dog is damning not because Huckabee hurts animals but because he perhaps abuses his powerful positions. Huckabee claims his son, David, killed the dog to put it out of its misery, but we'll never know because the incident was never fully investigated. And there are allegations that this is because the former Arkansas governor used his office to block anyone from looking into it. Of course, the Huckabee campaign denies this charge.

And then there is this scoop from the New York Post that claims Judith Giuliani, wife of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, worked for a company that used dogs for testing purposes and then killed them.

And as if John McCain hasn't had a good enough day with endorsements from Joe Lieberman, The Des Moines Register, The Boston Globe and The Portsmouth (NH) Herald, he gets another boost in this New Yorks Times blog about the GOP and puppies. Apparently McCain, who is to me the only tolerable Republican candidate, is a puppy saver. And perhaps this is why McCain is the only Republican to receive the endorsement of someone who is (formerly) in the Democratic party, which so far has a spotless reputation when it comes to man's best friend.

Comeback for McCain?

Joe Lieberman, the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000, is endorsing Republican John McCain for president this year. At first I thought it was a little too early for this endorsement as part of McCain's strategy to win over independents (with whom Lieberman has a good reputation and history) because it would alienate the conservative GOP base needed to win a primary nomination. But after reading further down in this piece on politico.com, I realized it might be a good plan, especially since now is a good time as any for the crumbling McCain campaign.

And now for my two favorite humor pieces of the week. Today's Maureen Dowd column is both a hilarious look at what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama might really be thinking and perhaps a fantasy on the part of the author that last week's Des Moines Register debates weren't sinfully boring. And then there is the Shouts & Murmurs section of this week's issue of The New Yorker, which is the traditional humor section of the magazine. Although I would recommend this "Rudy Giuliani quiz" to any of my friends, I didn't find it particularly funny. Just scary. I liked Giuliani until I read this profile of him, and the one-page quiz again turned me off from this cheating, lying, sneaky and corruption-laden political phony.

Is this news?

The New York Times had a story today about Republicans' disappointment with the field of candidates in their party running for president. The article is based on a new poll, but did it really deserve the most prominent spot on The Times' Web site? Everyone has been talking about this aspect of the race since it started. I want to see some real news when I go to the site.

But speaking of dissatisfaction with the Republican field, a piece in The New Republic is a small profile/comment on Rudy Giuliani that paints him, in my opinion, very unflatteringly. Its focus is how Giuliani is funny-ing up his rhetoric on the campaign trail, becoming somewhat of a comedian giving a routine at times, as he is trying to soften his reputation as harsh and temperamental. But I think the article manages to portray him as a little bit of a phony, and I found this just plain not funny:

Last month, he spoofed liberals who want to ban the use of torture: "They talk about sleep deprivation," Giuliani told an Iowa audience. "On that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States."

Maybe I am sensitive about the torture issue, but I really don't think in any case it's the place to make jokes. I'm really sick of the torture debate -- because it shouldn't even be a debate -- and now Giuliani, who is surely an extremely privileged and pampered person, is making a joke comparing himself to people in captivity. I don't get it.

Republicans can't buy California

The LA Times reported Friday that a proposed California ballot initiative to split the state's electoral votes based on district failed to raise enough money to appear before voters in June 2008. If passed then, the initiative would be in affect by the 2008 presidential election, thus possibly giving an Ohio-sized chunk of California's 55 electoral votes to the Republican candidate. Naturally, the initiative was opposed by Democrats and supported by Republicans, who, if they could have raised enough for the initiative's campaign and gotten it passed, would have essentially been able to directly purchase enough additional electoral votes to push their candidate over the edge.

I first learned about the initiative with the rest of the nation, when one of my favorite authors, Hendrik Hertzberg, wrote this Talk of the Town in The New Yorker with a call to action at the end encouraging California voters to reject the measure. Afterward, people all over the country were talking about it, and, according to this piece in The New Republic, the author of the initiative, Tom Hiltachk, received too much hate mail and too little money to keep it alive. A Sacramento consultant named Dave Gilliard then tried to take it up, but he didn't come near raising the $2 million needed to collect the 434,000 required signatures.

Although the LA Times piece points out there is still slight hope for the initiative, it seems highly unlikely it will impact the 2008 presidential election. The Republicans just couldn't seem to catch a break on this one, and I hope that theme continues through election day.

Who's supporting the Republican presidential candidates?

A surprise announcement today: Pat Robertson, a popular conservative Christian and televangelist, has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president. This comes about a month after other prominent conservative Christian leaders had a conference to discuss the idea of putting forth a third-party candidate if Giuliani won the Republican nomination. The New York Times article about the endorsement points out that the announcement today may overshadow former candidate Sam Brownback's announcement that he is endorsing John McCain (poor McCain, he can't seem to catch a break).

When making his endorsement, Robertson focused on Giuliani's stance against "the blood lust of Islamic terrorists" and admired Giuliani's record as a "true fiscal conservative" (it's so hard for me to write this objectively, so I have to add this in now: being a "Christian" and a fiscal conservative is hypocritical). Robertson conveniently left the subject of abortion, which Giuliani has previously supported, out of his speech. First neocons, now this. News flash, Giuliani, neocons and the New Christian Right are fading along with the popularity of the Iraq War.

And on to an interesting article from the Washington Post about the family of the "the decider." The Bushes are all over the place in terms of endorsements for president. Well, that is, all over the place on the Republican side, of course. The three most visible members -- the president, his father and his brother Jeb -- are keeping quiet, but their relatives aren't being shy about who they want to win the Republican primaries. From Fred Thompson, to Rudy Giuliani, to Mitt Romney, this family can't seem to stand united.

Did Obama really say he was going to start attacking Hillary?

Prior to last week's Democratic debate, all the talk was about how Barack Obama had promised (in a New York Times interview) to beef up his attacks on Hillary Clinton. A Talk of the Town this week by one of my favorite authors, Hendrik Hertzberg, suggests that perhaps it was the Times reporter, and not Obama himself, that claimed Obama would step up attacks. Hertzberg bases this conclusion on a transcript of the actual interview.

But those were the reporters’ words, not Obama’s. His words, which could be found in an excerpted transcript on the Times Web site, were calmer. “I think she is an admirable person, I think she’s a capable senator, I think there’s overlap between some of her ideas and mine,” he said. “The case I’m making is not that she’s a terrible person or would be a terrible President. The case I’m making is that I would be better at those things that the country needs right now.”

And it was really John Edwards who led the attacks on Clinton last Tuesday. And he didn't stop there. His campaign staff is taking advantage of YouTube for some cheap advertising, putting ads that attack Clinton on the Internet instead of paying to put them on television. And the best part is that the ads see TV time anyway when they are played on political talks shows.

Check out this ad posted by "ohio4edwards."

Is Hillary playing the gender card?

Both the LA Times and NY Times suggest that Hillary plays the gender card when pressed for answers to hot questions. This issue sparked from Tuesday's debate where other democratic candidates as well as questioners repeatedly challenged Clinton to the point where it was a "pile-on." Her words.

Here's are some excerpts from former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America Kate Michelman's blog from yesterday morning:

When unchallenged, in a comfortable, controlled situation, Senator Clinton embraces her political elevation into the "boys club." She is quick to assure listeners she is plenty tough enough, that she's battled tested, ready to play be the same rules as the boys.

But when she's challenged, when legitimate questions are asked, questions she should be prepared to answer and discuss, she is just as quick to raise the white flag and look for a change in the rules. She then calls questioning, 'attacking;' she calls debate among her peers, "piling on."

It's trying to have it both ways; walk the fence, something Senator Clinton's good at. At one minute the strong woman ready to lead, the next, she's the woman under attack, disingenuously playing the victim card as a means of trying to avoid giving honest, direct answers to legitimate questions.

According to the LA Times article, Hillary's camp was quick to shoot back and say:

Phil Singer, spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said Saturday that Edwards, who represented North Carolina, and the other candidates were fabricating an issue out of desperation.

"The other candidates aren't going after Sen. Clinton because she's a woman, they're going after her because she's leading in the polls," Singer said. "Voters will make a decision about whether John Edwards' pledges to be positive" were anything more than just a political tactic.

And how is this different from when John Kerry played the Vietnam veteran card? Or Bush, the bumbling idiot card? Oh c'mon, let people play whatever hands they've been dealt in life.

Meet Fred Thompson

Set your clocks right for daylight savings because Fred Thompson is going to appear on NBC's “Meet the Press” tomorrow for the seventh installment of the "Meet the Candidates" series. It'll be his first time since starting his campaign for presidency.

It should be an interesting interview. Let's hope he does just as well as Colbert.

Other candidates soon to make appearances: John Edwards on ABC’s “This Week,” Joe Biden for CBS’s “Face the Nation” and John McCain and Christopher Dodd on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Colbert denied, rest of us must suck it up

Let's take a look at the South Carolina polls again, courtesy of the AP. Clinton leads Obama for the Democrats, and there's a three-way tie among the GOP. But among this list of presidential candidates, guess who's not there?

Stephen Colbert.

Unfortunately, the very talented and eccentric comedian's request to be on South Carolina's Jan. 26 Democratic and Republican primary ballots were refused Thursday. (Reuters)

The Numbers - Democrats
Hillary Rodham Clinton Barack Obama John Edwards Joe Biden	33 percent 23 percent 10 percent 2 percent
The Numbers - Republicans
Fred Thompson Rudy Giuliani Mitt Ronmey John McCain Mike Huckabee Ron Paul	18 percent 16 percent 16 percent 9 percent 5 percent 2 percent

Scandalous

Which presidential candidate has a secret sex scandal? I wish I could tell you, but since I'm just a lowly student journalist, I'm not up on all the gossip of the mainstream media elite in Washington. The LA Times is sitting on the juicy story, and Ron Rosenbaum, who apparently knows the secret, analyzes the media dilemma of doing so in his blog.

Halloween feud!

I don't think anyone's surprised that Biden and Giuliani's feud (since the debates not too long ago) didn't take a break, even for Halloween. It was scary.

Last night, Joe Biden's campaign manager sent out statements against Giuliani, reiterating shots from Tuesday's MSNBC debate where Biden said "there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.”

“Rudy Giuliani seems to be increasingly worried that Joe Biden is questioning his lack of leadership and his use of 9/11 for his own political purposes. This criticism is grounded in reality: there are numerous examples of Mr. Giuliani using 9/11 as a substitute for real experience and real answers to important topics.’’

NY Times article showing three examples of Giuliani playing the 9/11 card.

Debates -- The Day After

As promised, most candidates took the chance to criticize Clinton last night, as most of today's headlines convey.

Democratic Presidential Debate Targets Clinton

A Pitched Debate: Clinton Hears It From Her Rivals

And of course no one can help but to linger on Dennis Kucinich's UFO comments.

As usual, The New York Times has done a great job of breaking down the debate so we can easily pick and choose which parts we want to read or watch.

Democratic debates tonight in Philly

Democratic presidential candidates will debate tonight in Philadelphia. The big talk right now is whether Barack Obama will come out swinging at Hillary Clinton. He has been threatening to do this lately, and some say by threatening it without actually doing it he is just giving Clinton's camp time to beef up. There is also talk of the candidates just ganging up in general on Clinton, whose poll numbers have risen recently.

New York Times story about candidates criticizing Clinton.

Poll summary going into debate tonight.

"Conservative Republican Christian believers can have as much fun as everyone else."

Just because I think this is funny and everyone should be aware of this fact, Mike Huckabee, presidential hopeful, and his band "Capitol Offense," played a rock concert in Iowa on Friday. Life's good for him -- his campaign raised more than $800,000 and, according to an LA Times report, he just barely surpassed Mitt Romney in the Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Huckabee and his band played soft rock songs from the '50s and onward, songs like "Born to the be Wild," "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." and "Money."

"He's a conservative but he can bring in wider support," said Adam Freed, 31, a Huckabee fan. "This could also help bring in young people." Still, not counting those in the audience who brought their children with them, Freed was one of the youngest in the crowd.

Okay, so Huckabee's got our parents; let's see if he can get us.

A youtube clip of Huckabee playing guitar while Elvis sings at the 2007 Iowa Republican Party Straw Poll.

Colbert Nation

This is a couple days late, but we'll have some weekend fun with the idea of President Stephen Colbert. An article published in the Los Angeles Times on Friday questions the legitimacy of a poll that found 13 percent of people prefer Colbert over Clinton and Giuliani, but nonetheless wonders how our nation can be so jaded that people prefer that a comedian become president over a senator or the former mayor of New York.

Has America lost its collective mind? Have we so given up on politics that 13% of us would rather a comedian become president than someone who has actually spent some time governing a state or passing laws in Congress?

And we thought we were the only ones computer savvy...

iChat with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Ron Paul.

Google and Apple have partnered with the League of Rural Voters to host a national iChat conversation today in an attempt to galvanize rural and inner-city youths (18- to 25-year-olds not attending college) to vote.

The article promoting the weekend event highlighted the fact that college students get a lot of attention from the media, candidates and even celebrities encouraging them to vote (e.g., "Rock the Vote," Ron Paul's MySpace, the amazing television commercial with Kanye West and Mike Meyers), and that it's time the frequently ignored -- those who didn't go to college -- get the attention.

Co-founder and executive director of GenerationEngage Adrian Talbott promoted the idea of having iChat conversations, saying:

“The model of political discourse where candidates raise money for 30-second commercials doesn’t work for young people. Young people aren’t very interested in canned ads and they can’t afford to donate the money that pays for them.”

Each of the candidates will take turns answering questions via video conferencing with people from San Jose, Calif.; Raleigh N.C.; and Ames, Iowa held at Iowa State University to discuss infrastructural disparities between rural and inner-city communities.

If those inner-city and rural kids are as socio-economically deprived as the article implies, I hope the possibility that they may not own Macs doesn't ruin the candidates' admirable intentions of reaching out.

"Fail to plan, plan to fail"

Just as the Mitt Romney profile below heightens the popular accusation that he is a "flip-flopper," a recent New York Times story on Hillary Clinton perpetuates accusations that she is phony on the campaign trail. Hillary is probably not a cold-hearted person, but she may come off that way in public and has to act to compensate. And what could be construed as being cold-hearted is apparently a symptom of her meticulous management style that, while different from her husband's, has apparently worked for her. Although the Times story points out that she is a good boss, giving credit where credit is due, there is never any indication that she is a fun or relaxed boss like her husband was. Among the many sources that gave the Times reporter this picture of the Democratic presidential front runner is Hillary herself, who, the author points out, is terribly methodical and punctual and ended her interview with him right on time. Perhaps the most surprising part of the story is when Hillary is compared to George W. Bush for her tendency to surround herself with longtime loyalists. The difference between her and Bush, though, portrayed in the Times story is that she actually learns from her mistakes and is prepared to get the job done.

Her background as a boss, powerful spouse and advocate could signal Mrs. Clinton’s approach to the job for which she is now applying. She is credited with hiring capable, loyal staff members, though her top aides have also been called insular and needlessly defensive at times. Friends and advisers say Mrs. Clinton has been a diligent student of her own mistakes, and her style has evolved over the years from a tendency to micromanage to a greater willingness to delegate; from a bent toward perfectionism to one closer to pragmatism; from a go-for-broke mentality to one more willing to compromise.

"If you were elected president, how many first ladies could we expect?"

The New Yorker has a profile of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the Oct. 29 issue. New Yorker profiles of Republican politicians tend to be rather relentless, and this is no exception. It makes Romney, who is a very smart man, appear to be a foolish victim of his training as both a businessman and a Mormon; the two things have undoubtedly contributed to his success, but the author undercuts him repeatedly by showing how he sometimes acts foolishly with constituents based on strategies that really work better in business management than in politics. The article, of course, addresses the flip-flop issue, highlighting Romney's over-zealous advocacy of positions to which he is a recent convert, a quality, the author suggests at the end, that might be his downfall.

(The following excerpt isn't from the end of the article, but it paints a good picture of Romney. Also, the title of this post is a quote from a someone who questioned Romney at a forum -- it's just too funny to leave out.)

Politicians tend to pander, especially during the primary season. Romney’s chief opponent, Rudy Giuliani, also has a history as a pro-gun-control, pro-gay-rights Republican. But while Giuliani simply downplays his record on those issues, Romney sells himself as a true convert. He not only shifts positions; he often claims to be the most passionate advocate of his new stances. It’s one of the reasons that his metamorphosis from liberal Republican to committed right-winger seems so jarring. In 1994, in his race for the Senate, he didn’t simply argue that he was a defender of gay rights; he claimed to be a stronger advocate than his opponent, Edward Kennedy. Today, he’s not just a faithful conservative but the only Republican candidate who represents “the Republican wing of the Republican Party.” He brings a salesman’s bravado and certainty to issues. At a debate in May, when asked how he would respond to a hypothetical situation involving the interrogation of a terrorist at Guantánamo Bay, he said, “Some people have said we ought to close Guantánamo. My view is that we ought to double Guantánamo.” Elected as a pro-choice governor in 2002—YouTube is flooded with his passionate advocacy of abortion rights—he now presents himself as the most resolute anti-abortion candidate in the Republican field. A Mormon, he sometimes adopts the religious language of Evangelicals when he is addressing conservative Christian groups. To economic conservatives, he pitches himself as the candidate most strongly committed to slashing spending and taxes. (He’s the only major G.O.P. candidate to have signed a formal anti-tax pledge, the sort of move that his spokesman dismissed as “government by gimmickry” in Romney’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign.) To national-security conservatives, he is the most hawkish. (He says often that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of Iran, should be indicted under the Genocide Convention, and his campaign has named the former C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, the vice-chairman of Blackwater, as an adviser.) But, while giving customers exactly what they want may be normal in the corporate world, it can be costly in politics.

Iowa and New Hampshire polls: the only ones that matter?

While people put so much clout in national polls leading up to primaries, that logic really makes little sense since there is no national primary. The states with the earliest primaries (Iowa and New Hampshire) are arguably the only ones that really matter, because that is what sets the tone for the rest of the states. After all this talk of national polls, here is an AP poll that we can actually use -- a poll of New Hampshire voters.

The Numbers - Democrats
Hillary Rodham Clinton Barack Obama John Edwards Bill Richardson	43 percent 22 percent 14 percent 6 percent
The Numbers - Republicans
Mitt Ronmey Rudy Giuliani John McCain Ron Paul Mike Huckabee Fred Thompson	32 percent 22 percent 15 percent 7 percent 6 percent 5 percent

Giuliani teaming up with neoconservatives

Giuliani, who has no national or international governing experience, has assembled a foreign policy team primarily composed of neoconservatives. (NY Times)

Mr. Giuliani’s team includes Norman Podhoretz, a prominent neoconservative who advocates bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible”; Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum, who has called for profiling Muslims at airports and scrutinizing American Muslims in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps; and Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written in favor of revoking the United States’ ban on assassination.

Mr. World War 4 gets interviewed by the New York Observer.

Podhoretz wrote a piece for Commentary in June.