MICHIGAN'S MEANING: GOP CHAOS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 16, 2008.
The GOP race has now descended into total chaos. Mike Huckabee, John McCain and now Mitt Romney have each won an important primary or caucus and lost two others. Onetime front-runner Rudy Giuliani finished dead last in Michigan last night, falling below the somnambulant Fred Thompson and the flakey Ron Paul.
The scatter-shot outcome reflects deeper divisions among the GOP's three wings: Economic conservatives are moving to Romney; social righties rallying 'round Huckabee - and the national-security types who started for Rudy have migrated to McCain in the voting so far.
The various factions are growing ever more alienated from each other, demanding a level of purity from their candidates that makes consensus and unity less and less possible. Those concerned over immigration don't forgive McCain his support for the McCain-Kennedy bill; pro-lifers criticize Romney's inconsistency over their issue. Moralists worry about Rudy's marriages; tax-cut purists won't forgive Huckabee's mixed record on taxes in Arkansas.
This is no way to select a nominee who can win.
The Republican Party is simply not used to selecting a nominee without having it imposed from above. In near-monarchic fashion, the party has always had an anointed front-runner in every election since 1944 - Tom Dewey begat Ike who begat Dick Nixon who begat Gerald Ford; Ronald Reagan challenged Ford, and then it was his turn. He begat the first George Bush - who literally begat the current president.
The designated candidate won the nomination in each one of those years but 1964 - and that year, the party met disaster.
But President Bush has been unique in refusing to help his party choose a successor. The result is the fissure now is tearing the party apart.
The winnowing-down process that's worked so well in the Democratic Party has failed totally in the GOP contest. With each candidate finding adequate momentum in the results so far, the party faces the prospect of a deadlock with each of the four main candidates (McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani) winning a share of the vote but nobody winning a majority on Super Tuesday.
Can South Carolina or Nevada winnow down the field? Unlikely. Neither is significant enough, and each is so totally atypical of the rest of the nation that its results won't have great national credibility.
Florida is probably the last time that the GOP can avoid a destructive fracturing. Its pivotal vote, the week before Super Tuesday, may offer the best chance to focus the field and allow somebody to win a majority. But the state is now a four-way tie, with vote shares ranging from 17 percent to 21 percent.
Unless Republicans are willing to show some flexibility in their insistence on purity from each of their candidates, the splitting that is increasingly evident will tear the party apart even as it faces the most serious challenge from the Democrats in years.
The Democratic debate last night was a demonstration of Barack Obama's limited ability to project issues. He managed to sit through a debate over bankruptcy without citing Hillary Clinton's massive campaign contributions from banks and lenders.
In a series of exchanges on subprime mortgages, he didn't mention her contributions from precisely the companies that pushed these flawed lending instruments. He even failed to mention the $10 million the Clinton library got from the Saudi monarchy even when asked about American banks going to that family for capital infusions.
We need less rancor among Republicans and sharper issue distinctions among the Democrats.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
TIME FOR EDWARDS' EXIT: HILLARY, BARACK FATE IN HIS HANDS
TIME FOR EDWARDS' EXIT: HILLARY, BARACK FATE IN HIS HANDS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 15, 2008.
The Democratic nomination for president will likely be decided by the subtle pulls of ego against duty that tug at the conscience of John Edwards. He manifestly can no longer win - but he helps Hillary Clinton if he stays in the race and boosts Barack Obama if he pulls out.
After a vigorous campaign, Edwards has fallen irreparably behind - the real race is now a grueling test of strength with Clinton. The contrast between the party's insensitive establishment and the determined voices of change couldn't be clearer.
Edwards divides the anti-Clinton vote - and so undermines the prospects for the changes that he so passionately demands in our government. By staying in, he's helping deliver the nomination to the person whom he has described as the defender of the status quo.
The votes already cast and the polls of coming primaries all tell the same story: Edwards can't win. After a dis- tant second-place finish in Iowa, he still had some basis for hope. But when he finished far back in New Hampshire, his chances for victory vanished.
Just how hopeless is his candidacy? Realclearpolitics.com's average of national polls has him in third place - with Clinton at 41 percent, Obama at 35 percent and Edwards at just 15 percent. Even in South Carolina (right next door to his home state), he's polling at only 15 percent to Obama's 42 percent and Clinton's 30 percent.
To date, Edwards has been a passionate and effective advocate of the need for change. His opposition to special-interest funding of our politics and his good example in refusing to take funds from political action committees both merit our praise and admiration.
But at this point, the practical impact of any support for Edwards is to help Clinton defeat Obama. Polling shows that the second choice of Edwards' followers is overwhelmingly Obama.
By staying in the race after he has lost any realistic chance of winning, Edwards is making it possible for Hillary to win and to bring with her precisely the policies he most opposes: dependence on special interests, a determination to maintain a presence in Iraq and a reversion to dynastic politics.
Edwards deserves a special place in our politics for his efforts to bring poverty to national attention and to revise national priorities to take account of the needs of the poor. But now it's time to read the writing on the wall and obey the verdict of history. It's time for Edwards to pull out.
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published in the New York Post on January 15, 2008.
The Democratic nomination for president will likely be decided by the subtle pulls of ego against duty that tug at the conscience of John Edwards. He manifestly can no longer win - but he helps Hillary Clinton if he stays in the race and boosts Barack Obama if he pulls out.
After a vigorous campaign, Edwards has fallen irreparably behind - the real race is now a grueling test of strength with Clinton. The contrast between the party's insensitive establishment and the determined voices of change couldn't be clearer.
Edwards divides the anti-Clinton vote - and so undermines the prospects for the changes that he so passionately demands in our government. By staying in, he's helping deliver the nomination to the person whom he has described as the defender of the status quo.
The votes already cast and the polls of coming primaries all tell the same story: Edwards can't win. After a dis- tant second-place finish in Iowa, he still had some basis for hope. But when he finished far back in New Hampshire, his chances for victory vanished.
Just how hopeless is his candidacy? Realclearpolitics.com's average of national polls has him in third place - with Clinton at 41 percent, Obama at 35 percent and Edwards at just 15 percent. Even in South Carolina (right next door to his home state), he's polling at only 15 percent to Obama's 42 percent and Clinton's 30 percent.
To date, Edwards has been a passionate and effective advocate of the need for change. His opposition to special-interest funding of our politics and his good example in refusing to take funds from political action committees both merit our praise and admiration.
But at this point, the practical impact of any support for Edwards is to help Clinton defeat Obama. Polling shows that the second choice of Edwards' followers is overwhelmingly Obama.
By staying in the race after he has lost any realistic chance of winning, Edwards is making it possible for Hillary to win and to bring with her precisely the policies he most opposes: dependence on special interests, a determination to maintain a presence in Iraq and a reversion to dynastic politics.
Edwards deserves a special place in our politics for his efforts to bring poverty to national attention and to revise national priorities to take account of the needs of the poor. But now it's time to read the writing on the wall and obey the verdict of history. It's time for Edwards to pull out.
IN CONTRAST TO OBAMA, HILLARY PLAYS THE RACE CARD
IN CONTRAST TO OBAMA, HILLARY PLAYS THE RACE CARD
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on January 16, 2008.
On the evening of Jan. 3, it became clear that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was going to be a serious candidate for president with a viable chance of winning. The Clintons decided that he was going, inevitably, to win a virtually unanimous vote from the black community. Their own reputation for support for civil rights would make no difference.
With a black candidate within striking distance of the White House, a coalescing of black voters behind his candidacy became inevitable.
Frustratingly for the Clintons, Obama had achieved this likely solidarity among black voters without, himself, summoning racial emotions. He had gone out of his way to avoid mentioning race — quite a contrast with Hillary, whose every speech talks about her becoming the first female president. But precisely to distinguish himself from the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of American politics, Obama resisted any racial appeal or even reference. His rhetoric, argumentation, and presentation was indistinguishable from a skilled white candidate’s.
So the Clintons faced a problem: With Obama winning the black vote, how were they to win a sufficient proportion of the white electorate to offset his advantage?
Not racists themselves, they decided, nonetheless, to play the race card in order to achieve the polarization of the white vote that they needed to offset that among blacks.
They embarked on a strategy of talking about race — mentioning Martin Luther King Jr., for example — and asking their surrogates to do so as well. They have succeeded in making an election that was about gender and age into one that is increasingly about race.
According to the Rasmussen poll of Monday, Jan. 14, Obama leads among blacks by 66-16 while Hillary is ahead among whites by 41-27. The overall head to head is 37-30 in favor of Hillary.
It does not matter which specific reference to race can be traced to whom. Obama’s campaign has resisted any temptation to campaign on race and, for an entire year, kept the issue off the front pages. Now, at the very moment that the crucial voting looms, the election is suddenly about race. Obviously, it is the Clintons’ doing. Remember the adage: Who benefits?
As Super Tuesday nears, the Clintons will likely take their campaign to a new level, charging that Obama can’t win.
They will never cite his skin color in this formulation, but it will be obvious to all voters what they mean: that a black cannot get elected.
The Clintons are far from above using race to win an election. Running for president in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots, Clinton seized on a comment made by rapper Sister Souljah in an interview with her published on May 13, 1992 in The Washington Post. She said, “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”
Clinton pounced, eager to show moderates that he was not a radical and was willing to defy the political correctness imposed on the Democratic Party by the civil rights leadership. In a speech to the Rainbow Coalition he said, “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech,” an allusion to the former Klansman then running for public office in Louisiana.
The Clintons will be very careful about how they go about injecting race into the campaign. Part of their strategy will be to provoke discussion of whether race is becoming a factor in the election. Anything that portrays Obama as black and asks about the role of race in the contest will serve their political interest. And you can bet that there is nothing they won’t do ... if they can get away with it.
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on January 16, 2008.
On the evening of Jan. 3, it became clear that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was going to be a serious candidate for president with a viable chance of winning. The Clintons decided that he was going, inevitably, to win a virtually unanimous vote from the black community. Their own reputation for support for civil rights would make no difference.
With a black candidate within striking distance of the White House, a coalescing of black voters behind his candidacy became inevitable.
Frustratingly for the Clintons, Obama had achieved this likely solidarity among black voters without, himself, summoning racial emotions. He had gone out of his way to avoid mentioning race — quite a contrast with Hillary, whose every speech talks about her becoming the first female president. But precisely to distinguish himself from the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of American politics, Obama resisted any racial appeal or even reference. His rhetoric, argumentation, and presentation was indistinguishable from a skilled white candidate’s.
So the Clintons faced a problem: With Obama winning the black vote, how were they to win a sufficient proportion of the white electorate to offset his advantage?
Not racists themselves, they decided, nonetheless, to play the race card in order to achieve the polarization of the white vote that they needed to offset that among blacks.
They embarked on a strategy of talking about race — mentioning Martin Luther King Jr., for example — and asking their surrogates to do so as well. They have succeeded in making an election that was about gender and age into one that is increasingly about race.
According to the Rasmussen poll of Monday, Jan. 14, Obama leads among blacks by 66-16 while Hillary is ahead among whites by 41-27. The overall head to head is 37-30 in favor of Hillary.
It does not matter which specific reference to race can be traced to whom. Obama’s campaign has resisted any temptation to campaign on race and, for an entire year, kept the issue off the front pages. Now, at the very moment that the crucial voting looms, the election is suddenly about race. Obviously, it is the Clintons’ doing. Remember the adage: Who benefits?
As Super Tuesday nears, the Clintons will likely take their campaign to a new level, charging that Obama can’t win.
They will never cite his skin color in this formulation, but it will be obvious to all voters what they mean: that a black cannot get elected.
The Clintons are far from above using race to win an election. Running for president in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots, Clinton seized on a comment made by rapper Sister Souljah in an interview with her published on May 13, 1992 in The Washington Post. She said, “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”
Clinton pounced, eager to show moderates that he was not a radical and was willing to defy the political correctness imposed on the Democratic Party by the civil rights leadership. In a speech to the Rainbow Coalition he said, “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech,” an allusion to the former Klansman then running for public office in Louisiana.
The Clintons will be very careful about how they go about injecting race into the campaign. Part of their strategy will be to provoke discussion of whether race is becoming a factor in the election. Anything that portrays Obama as black and asks about the role of race in the contest will serve their political interest. And you can bet that there is nothing they won’t do ... if they can get away with it.
The McCain Update
The McCain Update - January 18, 2008
Tomorrow is the South Carolina primary and our events across the state have been filled with great crowds, energy and excitement. John McCain remains the best candidate in this race, a candidate who is ready to give voters straight talk and real solutions. He is ready to stand up for truth and honesty. Since 1980, the candidate who has won South Carolina has gone on to win the Republican nomination and we intend for John McCain to continue that trend.
Even if you are not in South Carolina, you can still have an impact on this critical primary:
Make Phone Calls. This election is going to be won vote-by-vote! By signing up for our online phone bank, you can play an important role in our victory by calling voters in South Carolina.
Contribute to the South Carolina Victory Fund. Your online donation can be put to work immediately to get us ready to win.
Reach out to your friends. Forward them this email and tell them why you're supporting John McCain. Invite them to join you as a proud member of the McCain team.
Tomorrow is the South Carolina primary and our events across the state have been filled with great crowds, energy and excitement. John McCain remains the best candidate in this race, a candidate who is ready to give voters straight talk and real solutions. He is ready to stand up for truth and honesty. Since 1980, the candidate who has won South Carolina has gone on to win the Republican nomination and we intend for John McCain to continue that trend.
Even if you are not in South Carolina, you can still have an impact on this critical primary:
Make Phone Calls. This election is going to be won vote-by-vote! By signing up for our online phone bank, you can play an important role in our victory by calling voters in South Carolina.
Contribute to the South Carolina Victory Fund. Your online donation can be put to work immediately to get us ready to win.
Reach out to your friends. Forward them this email and tell them why you're supporting John McCain. Invite them to join you as a proud member of the McCain team.
HILLARY CLINTON'S MASSIVE CONFLICT OF INTEREST
HILLARY CLINTON'S MASSIVE CONFLICT OF INTEREST
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on January 18, 2008.
As American banks go hat in hand to foreign financial institutions and governments, begging for capital to help them get out of the mess into which their subprime loans have landed them, the question arises as to whether the United States should permit nations like China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the banks they control to acquire part ownership of our leading banks.
The presidential candidates discussed this issue in their Nevada debate and Hillary was asked about it in an interview with Neil Cavuto on the FOX Business Network yesterday. She replied that she would not “stand in the way” of such investments, but said that they needed to be vetted and called for more disclosure and “transparency.”
The fact is that Hillary Clinton is totally unable to be objective on this key question of our national financial sovereignty because she and her husband have been so compromised by their financial dealings with the very countries at issue in the decision.
Should the Saudi monarchy be permitted to purchase an important equity position in some of America’s leading banks? How can Hillary be objective when the very same monarchy donated $10 million to the Clinton Library and Foundation?
Should the UAE be allowed in? How can Hillary decide fairly when Bill — and therefore herself — have been getting a reported $10 million per year from a fund that administers the investments of the Emir of Dubai, the largest component state in the UAE?
The Dubai Ports deal compromised our national security by putting key points of entry in that nation’s control. But the infusion of capital and the acquisition of equity in our key banks has the potential to make that encroachment on our sovereignty seem piddling by comparison.
Neither Dubai nor Saudi Arabia would be permitted to contribute to Hillary’s campaign. Foreigners are not allowed to do so, precisely to avoid having potential office holders compromised by gratitude for their financial support. But these nations have used the porous ethics of the Clinton family to acquire positions of massive influence by making contributions, not to her campaign, but to her personal bank account — either through Bill or through the Library and Foundation, which the Clintons directly control. The extent of the influence their millions must buy with a family only recently, according to Hillary, in the “middle class” must be huge.
And it is for exactly this kind of situation that the Clintons should be required to divulge the extent of their involvement with foreign interests and exactly how much money their personal bank accounts and their Library/Foundation have received. (The Saudi donation to the Library and Foundation was only discovered by the New York Times when the information was inadvertently posted on the Library’s Web site. Soon after the story appeared, it was taken down. The Clintons refuse to reveal the donors to the Library or the related Foundation.) Hillary and Bill have also refused to release their income tax returns, despite the fact that Bill willingly released his when he was running for president.
Why hasn’t Barack Obama or John Edwards even mentioned this issue? Their attacks on Hillary’s links to lobbyists and other special interests are usually painted with a broad brush. But the journey of America’s banks abroad in search of a bailout makes this specific conflict a key question of policy and highly relevant to their campaigns. What better illustration could one have of Hillary’s conflicts of interest than this one?
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on January 18, 2008.
As American banks go hat in hand to foreign financial institutions and governments, begging for capital to help them get out of the mess into which their subprime loans have landed them, the question arises as to whether the United States should permit nations like China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the banks they control to acquire part ownership of our leading banks.
The presidential candidates discussed this issue in their Nevada debate and Hillary was asked about it in an interview with Neil Cavuto on the FOX Business Network yesterday. She replied that she would not “stand in the way” of such investments, but said that they needed to be vetted and called for more disclosure and “transparency.”
The fact is that Hillary Clinton is totally unable to be objective on this key question of our national financial sovereignty because she and her husband have been so compromised by their financial dealings with the very countries at issue in the decision.
Should the Saudi monarchy be permitted to purchase an important equity position in some of America’s leading banks? How can Hillary be objective when the very same monarchy donated $10 million to the Clinton Library and Foundation?
Should the UAE be allowed in? How can Hillary decide fairly when Bill — and therefore herself — have been getting a reported $10 million per year from a fund that administers the investments of the Emir of Dubai, the largest component state in the UAE?
The Dubai Ports deal compromised our national security by putting key points of entry in that nation’s control. But the infusion of capital and the acquisition of equity in our key banks has the potential to make that encroachment on our sovereignty seem piddling by comparison.
Neither Dubai nor Saudi Arabia would be permitted to contribute to Hillary’s campaign. Foreigners are not allowed to do so, precisely to avoid having potential office holders compromised by gratitude for their financial support. But these nations have used the porous ethics of the Clinton family to acquire positions of massive influence by making contributions, not to her campaign, but to her personal bank account — either through Bill or through the Library and Foundation, which the Clintons directly control. The extent of the influence their millions must buy with a family only recently, according to Hillary, in the “middle class” must be huge.
And it is for exactly this kind of situation that the Clintons should be required to divulge the extent of their involvement with foreign interests and exactly how much money their personal bank accounts and their Library/Foundation have received. (The Saudi donation to the Library and Foundation was only discovered by the New York Times when the information was inadvertently posted on the Library’s Web site. Soon after the story appeared, it was taken down. The Clintons refuse to reveal the donors to the Library or the related Foundation.) Hillary and Bill have also refused to release their income tax returns, despite the fact that Bill willingly released his when he was running for president.
Why hasn’t Barack Obama or John Edwards even mentioned this issue? Their attacks on Hillary’s links to lobbyists and other special interests are usually painted with a broad brush. But the journey of America’s banks abroad in search of a bailout makes this specific conflict a key question of policy and highly relevant to their campaigns. What better illustration could one have of Hillary’s conflicts of interest than this one?
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