HILLARY’S BAD NIGHT
Hillary Clinton finally got too cute by half in her explanation of her convoluted position on giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.
the American people saw her tying herself into a knot over the issue, trying to have it both ways.
It was a moment in the 2008 campaign akin to Ted Kennedy’s inability to explain to Roger Mudd why he was running for president in 1980. It was one of those few moments when the real candidate is on display and visible to all. It came about because Senator Chris Dodd had the courage to defy the uni-speak of the Democratic debates, where everybody agrees with everybody else and spoke out against the proposal to give licenses to illegal immigrants. Hillary, suddenly realizing how exposed she was by her seeming endorsement of Spitzer’s plan to illegals, backtracked and pointed out that she had not explicitly endorsed the plan. It was her equivalent of Bill saying that it depended on what the definition of is is. It was a Hillary moment and her parsing and mincing of the vocabulary to have it both ways was on full public display. Caught, she retreated, with asperity, to the claim that everybody was playing “gotcha” but, indeed, she had been got!
www.dickmorris.com
www.mccainalert.com
Thursday, November 01, 2007
THE HUCKABEE BOOMLET
THE HUCKABEE BOOMLET
By DICK MORRIS EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on October 26, 2007.
Arkansas ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee is shaking up the Republican race.
Think of the primary process as a tennis tournament. On the center court, in the semi-final, Rudy Giuliani is defeating John McCain in straight sets. But on the right court, low-seeded Huckabee beat Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback in the quarter-finals for the designation of "Christian Coalition" challenger - and now will face off against ex-Sen. Fred Thompson and Massachusetts ex-Gov. Mitt Romney in the right-court semi-final. The winner will meet Rudy in the finals.
Huckabee's national poll numbers are rising. Scott Rasmussen has him at 10 percent nationally and in third place at 18 percent in Iowa, where he trails Thompson by 1 percent and Romney by 7 percent.
Thompson's campaign has been a disaster - from his comment that Osama bin Laden was entitled to due process to his refusal to sign a no-tax pledge. The average of the last five national polls (see realclearpolitics.com) shows him trailing Rudy, 28-18, and only barely ahead of Romney and McCain.
Thanks to heavy advertising, Romney leads in Iowa and New Hampshire - but his edge is dwindling, and he's never broken 16 percent in any national poll.
Why doesn't this charismatic, articulate candidate catch on? Part of it is blatant anti-Mormon bigotry. But part of it is his flip-flop-flip on abortion: As a candidate in liberal Massachusetts, he switched from pro-life to pro-choice; then, as he got ready for this race, he switched back to pro-life again.
Huckabee, who has risen rapidly without either money or organization, is the most interesting phenomenon in either party's race (and the only surprise). He finished second to Romney in the Ames, Iowa straw poll with 18 percent. That's significant because you had to pay $35 to vote. Romney wrote out checks for anyone and everyone, but Huckabee said, "I can't afford to buy you. I can't even afford to rent you" - and came in strong anyway.
More recently, he swept last weekend's Values Voters convention among those who appeared in person. (He lost by less than one point overall to Romney, whose tally included a mass of Internet votes.)
Why the Huckabee boomlet? A gripping, humorous, passionate orator, he brings a spiritual dimension to public-policy problems. His ideas are interesting. Want lower health-care costs? Tackle obesity and smoking. Education reform? Music and art education are just as important to our national creativity as science and math.
He has a good chance to be the front-ranking challenger to Giuliani in the national primary on Feb. 5. He might beat Rudy - or at least earn a VP designation, because Giuliani will be anxious to appeal to Christian-right voters.
By DICK MORRIS EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on October 26, 2007.
Arkansas ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee is shaking up the Republican race.
Think of the primary process as a tennis tournament. On the center court, in the semi-final, Rudy Giuliani is defeating John McCain in straight sets. But on the right court, low-seeded Huckabee beat Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback in the quarter-finals for the designation of "Christian Coalition" challenger - and now will face off against ex-Sen. Fred Thompson and Massachusetts ex-Gov. Mitt Romney in the right-court semi-final. The winner will meet Rudy in the finals.
Huckabee's national poll numbers are rising. Scott Rasmussen has him at 10 percent nationally and in third place at 18 percent in Iowa, where he trails Thompson by 1 percent and Romney by 7 percent.
Thompson's campaign has been a disaster - from his comment that Osama bin Laden was entitled to due process to his refusal to sign a no-tax pledge. The average of the last five national polls (see realclearpolitics.com) shows him trailing Rudy, 28-18, and only barely ahead of Romney and McCain.
Thanks to heavy advertising, Romney leads in Iowa and New Hampshire - but his edge is dwindling, and he's never broken 16 percent in any national poll.
Why doesn't this charismatic, articulate candidate catch on? Part of it is blatant anti-Mormon bigotry. But part of it is his flip-flop-flip on abortion: As a candidate in liberal Massachusetts, he switched from pro-life to pro-choice; then, as he got ready for this race, he switched back to pro-life again.
Huckabee, who has risen rapidly without either money or organization, is the most interesting phenomenon in either party's race (and the only surprise). He finished second to Romney in the Ames, Iowa straw poll with 18 percent. That's significant because you had to pay $35 to vote. Romney wrote out checks for anyone and everyone, but Huckabee said, "I can't afford to buy you. I can't even afford to rent you" - and came in strong anyway.
More recently, he swept last weekend's Values Voters convention among those who appeared in person. (He lost by less than one point overall to Romney, whose tally included a mass of Internet votes.)
Why the Huckabee boomlet? A gripping, humorous, passionate orator, he brings a spiritual dimension to public-policy problems. His ideas are interesting. Want lower health-care costs? Tackle obesity and smoking. Education reform? Music and art education are just as important to our national creativity as science and math.
He has a good chance to be the front-ranking challenger to Giuliani in the national primary on Feb. 5. He might beat Rudy - or at least earn a VP designation, because Giuliani will be anxious to appeal to Christian-right voters.
New Report from FAIR Finds More than 13 Million Illegal Aliens
New Report from FAIR Finds More than 13 Million Illegal Aliens Reside in the U.S.
2007 Figures Represent an 88 Percent Increase Since 2000
(Washington, D.C.) According to a new report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), How Many Illegal Aliens?, the illegal immigrant population of the United States now exceeds 13 million. In 2000, the now defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that there were a little more than 7 million people residing illegally in the U.S.
The burden and costs of illegal immigration are still distributed unevenly across the country, but states and regions that were virtually immune to the impact of large-scale illegal immigration just a decade ago are now feeling the effects, finds the study. About 60 percent of all illegal immigrants - nearly 8.4 million people - are settled in just six states, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey. Other recent reports by FAIR indicate that the combined costs of K-12 education, health care and incarceration of criminals to those six states exceeds $27 billion annually.
"These new estimates, showing explosive growth in illegal immigration in recent years, indicate why Americans all across the country are demanding that the government control our borders and block illegal immigrants from working or receiving benefits in this country," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "Almost from the day the Bush Administration took office, they made it clear that their aim was to reward illegal immigration with amnesty and assorted other benefits. As a result, we have seen record increases in illegal immigration, mounting burdens on taxpayers, and unprecedented public concern about this issue."
At 13,175,000 people, the illegal population of the United States is now larger than the entire population of Illinois, the nation's fifth most populous state. The phenomenon has also become a national one in the past decade, finds How Many Illegal Aliens? More than three-fifths of the states have seen their illegal alien population more than double since 2000. In all, 24 states now have illegal populations that exceed 100,000.
"There are no overnight fixes to a problem that has been growing for years," commented Stein. "But the American public strongly supports an enforcement-first approach that discourages new people from coming illegally and encourages millions who are here to return home. What is clear, is that lack of enforcement and proposed amnesties have only exacerbated the problem."
How Many Illegal Aliens? is available at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersb8ca
To receive more information from FAIR, click here.
To join or donate to FAIR, click here.
2007 Figures Represent an 88 Percent Increase Since 2000
(Washington, D.C.) According to a new report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), How Many Illegal Aliens?, the illegal immigrant population of the United States now exceeds 13 million. In 2000, the now defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that there were a little more than 7 million people residing illegally in the U.S.
The burden and costs of illegal immigration are still distributed unevenly across the country, but states and regions that were virtually immune to the impact of large-scale illegal immigration just a decade ago are now feeling the effects, finds the study. About 60 percent of all illegal immigrants - nearly 8.4 million people - are settled in just six states, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey. Other recent reports by FAIR indicate that the combined costs of K-12 education, health care and incarceration of criminals to those six states exceeds $27 billion annually.
"These new estimates, showing explosive growth in illegal immigration in recent years, indicate why Americans all across the country are demanding that the government control our borders and block illegal immigrants from working or receiving benefits in this country," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "Almost from the day the Bush Administration took office, they made it clear that their aim was to reward illegal immigration with amnesty and assorted other benefits. As a result, we have seen record increases in illegal immigration, mounting burdens on taxpayers, and unprecedented public concern about this issue."
At 13,175,000 people, the illegal population of the United States is now larger than the entire population of Illinois, the nation's fifth most populous state. The phenomenon has also become a national one in the past decade, finds How Many Illegal Aliens? More than three-fifths of the states have seen their illegal alien population more than double since 2000. In all, 24 states now have illegal populations that exceed 100,000.
"There are no overnight fixes to a problem that has been growing for years," commented Stein. "But the American public strongly supports an enforcement-first approach that discourages new people from coming illegally and encourages millions who are here to return home. What is clear, is that lack of enforcement and proposed amnesties have only exacerbated the problem."
How Many Illegal Aliens? is available at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersb8ca
To receive more information from FAIR, click here.
To join or donate to FAIR, click here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)