Giuliani's Twists

So, like most people I started off thinking a snowball had a better chance in hell than Rudy Giuliani did of winning the GOP presidential nomination. Then, as time passed, the snowball kept not melting and I started to, well, theorize. Watching the debate, though, it's clear that Giuliani has not, in fact, come up with a deft way to parry his vulnerability on abortion. It also comes across as even clearer that he hasn't come up with a deft way to parry his less known (at the moment) vulnerability on immigration. He just, I think, hasn't really been attacked on these grounds yet by anyone. Faced with the modest probing of the debate, however, he had nothing.

Mitt Romney, by contrast, managed to remind me a bit of why he was able to con me into voting for him 2002. Like a lot of fairly liberal Massachusetts types who must have also voted for him in that election (he won, after all) I feel once bitten twice shy about the whole thing and he now plays to me as a transparent fraud. Conservatives around the country, however, haven't had that experience and I bet he looks different to a lot of them.

Comments

I agree with your observations about Rudy and Mitt but tell us more.

Rate Chris Mattews management or lack of management over the debate.

Why did Chris throw the Clintons to the group?

To save himself from the poor reviews of his free-for-all
mess. Chris dislikes the Clintons but does he really see more redeeming qualities in the Bush Administration? Huh! A Bush
War of Choice kiilling thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

All of the candidates revealed themselves to be Bush Loyalists first and Americans second.

Posted by Maggie | May 4, 2007 8:36 AM

"Why did Chris throw the Clintons to the group?"

Because Matthews has a pathological hatred of the Clintons.

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It's gonna be McCain, of course.

I'm flabbergasted that everyone doesn't understand that it's gonna be McCain.

Posted by Petey | May 4, 2007 8:48 AM

My first exposure to Romney came with his appearance on Leno the other night.

He can certainly carry himself and has a charisma. He also doesn't have the "I have stick up my ass and I am anal retentive" like most Republicans do. Oddly enough the latter part is true of most Republican field this year.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 4, 2007 9:00 AM

I'm flabbergasted that everyone doesn't understand that it's gonna be McCain.

Gawd, I hope so.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 4, 2007 9:28 AM

If it is McCain, that'll prove that actual votes don't matter, that the Republicans are totally scripted. Because he doesn't have a constituency any more, other than the Gang of 500.

Posted by squeech | May 4, 2007 9:52 AM

At least you didn't say that it's "obviously" going to be McCain.

He just seems so old and ineffectual and beatable to me. I dunno. I think McCain is easily the most beatable candidate in the general, which certainly isn't what I would have said two years ago. But that doesn't mean he won't get the nod.

Posted by Steve | May 4, 2007 9:53 AM

"At least you didn't say that it's "obviously" going to be McCain."

Historically, I only barely beat break-even by a bit in my basketball wagers, but I clean up in my political wagers.

Or in other words, I'm smarter about political forecasting than I am about bball forecasting.

And I don't think McCain is a done deal, but I do think he's obviously the most likely choice.

Posted by Petey | May 4, 2007 10:23 AM

"Why did Chris throw the Clintons to the group?"

Chris's pathological hatred of the Clintons is certainly part of it. But there is also some logic behind asking if it would be a good thing for America if Bill Clinton was sleeping in the White House again. One of the most important elements of popularity for any Republican candidate is his ability to bash Democrats. Matthews' question was basicaly a softball - an opportunity for the candidates to show who had the best anti-Dem zingers to throw out there.

I thought Guiliani's diatribe on Hillary's supposed softness on fundamentalist Islamic terror was the strongest response. The rest of the candidates made lame jokes or avoided the question altogether, which won't be popular with the base.

Posted by owenz | May 4, 2007 10:32 AM

The last few months have done a lot of damage to McCain as the "obvious" choice. He just seems old and listless, and less of a maverick than a crank who takes unpopular stances on key issues. If there were a strong candidate with orthodox conservative views, he would be toast.

However, there isn't, so he's probably still the odds-on bet to win the nomination. A Rudy Implosion still strikes me as inevitable.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 4, 2007 10:34 AM

Romney would look a lot better if it wasn't for George W. Bush. Mitt's appeal is straight circa-99 Dubya: Harvard MBA, "CEO President," son of a big-shot Republican, brags about getting things done and working with Democrats in the Legislature, all the right social conservative views, but not a real firebrand about them, seems vaguely "moderate."

The difference is, Romney's not a drooling moron.

Posted by too many steves | May 4, 2007 10:40 AM

I think it's going to be Romney. Though we here in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts (God save it!) are familiar with Romney's startlingly transparent opportunism and phoniness, the country isn't, and hell, he looks good in a suit and has "executive" hair, which should win a lot of support in the plutocrat wing of the GOP.
However, the hatred for him here -- leavened with a certain contempt -- is palpable. I was at a speech recently by the Speaker of the Mass. House of Reps, Sal DiMasi (D-Boston), and he recounted a tale of hugging Romney when DiMasi found out he had climbed to the top of the greasy pole and made Speaker. Romney froze up, so DiMasi hugged him again. Same reaction.
A reporter asked, "what did you get out of hugging the Governor twice?"
"To be honest, I think I got frostbite," DiMasi replied.

(nota bene: DiMasi is kind of a dick, inasmuch as he is the conservative, anti-tax, craven-business-supporting wing of the Bay State Democratic party. However, it is interesting to note that Madisonian factions sprout up even in one party states; DiMasi is opposed, of course, by the Deval Patrick reformist upper-middle-class liberal wing.)

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 4, 2007 10:44 AM

Also, I LOVED the responses to the specific questions (kudos to the hated Politico for asking them). Like when Tommy Thompson said that over 3,000 troops had been killed and "several thousand" had been injured in Iraq, when the question sought an exact figure for deaths and injuries. Or when Huckabee responded to a question about how he would avoid the corruption problems the Bush Administration has faced by saying he'd stop outsourcing US jobs overseas. Or when Tancredo said that women's reproductive freedom amounted to killing human beings. Or when Matthews asked for a show of hands about which candidates didn't believe in evolution (maybe four shot up, and another three kinda sorta got raised). Or Rudy's totally incoherant analysis of the Sunni and Shia split. Good shit.

In terms of pure confidence and bravado, I thought Brownback won the thing. I thought McCain, on the other hand, looked like he belonged in another decade. I mean...the guy actually bragged about being able to work with Democrats. I don't care what side of the aisle you're on these days, bipartisanship is, umm, not a hot issue for voters in either party.

As for Mitt...well...I still can't believe Matt voted for him in 2002. I think Mitt has gotten much better since then, but he's still such a dandy. Like when he was asked how he felt about the new Massachusetts health insurance program and Mitt responded: "I love it! It's fabulous!"

It's a healthcare program, Mitt, not your favorite off-Broadway musical.

Posted by owenz | May 4, 2007 10:45 AM

Here's a fun (and totally meaningless) online poll showing libertarian Ron Paul kicking ass in last night's debate:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18436681/

I would never give the guy and money, but I'd love to see Paul's campaign get a little juice based on his performance, if only to make the others squirm. It's great that he not only opposes the war, but believes we should eliminate the income tax and the IRS.

Posted by owenz | May 4, 2007 11:02 AM

"The last few months have done a lot of damage to McCain as the "obvious" choice. He just seems old and listless, and less of a maverick than a crank who takes unpopular stances on key issues. If there were a strong candidate with orthodox conservative views, he would be toast."

McCain '07 = Kerry '03.

Posted by Petey | May 4, 2007 11:18 AM

Matt, you voted for Romeny... why?

A CEO who exported jobs, was vaguelly squishy on social issues, and was, you know, a republican who obviously was looking for a springboard to higher office was not exactly an ideal choice for anyone to the left of David Broder.

Posted by Dan | May 4, 2007 11:25 AM

It's gonna be McCain, of course.

I'm flabbergasted that everyone doesn't understand that it's gonna be McCain.

If by that you mean "there's virtually no chance of it being McCain." Someone who's both the most right-wing major candidate and despised by much of the base of GOP primary voters? No chance. (And this is also why your Kerry analogy is null. No major Democratic constituency had a major grudge against Kerry; he was a bland, acceptable choice who could come up the middle when Dean imploded.)

Posted by Scott Lemieux | May 4, 2007 11:35 AM

tags belatedly fixed.

Posted by Scott Lemieux | May 4, 2007 11:36 AM

"Someone who's both the most right-wing major candidate and despised by much of the base of GOP primary voters?"

McCain's relentless pimping for the Iraq war will rectify his standing with the base enough to make it all work.

At the end of the day, he's still gonna be the loyalist choice come January. And the loyalist choice is even more of a lock in their party than it is in ours.

Posted by Petey | May 4, 2007 11:46 AM

2008: one of these kewl mayor types is elected president.

2016: the former manager of the Hardee's off exit 11 on the interstate is elected president.

Posted by Linus | May 4, 2007 11:56 AM

Dan, I imagine Matt (and others) voted for Romney primarily because the Democratic candidate was so laughably bad, not out of any love for Mittlethwaite Romnizoid. Shannon O'Brien, the Dem candidate in 2002, was just atrocious. She was the epitome of the kind of lazy hackery and machine politicos that dominate the state's Democratic Party. Besides, she only made it to where she did because of her prominent (and need I say, asshole) father on the Governor's Council, the obscure colonial holdover body that does ... absolutely nothing.

I can't remember hating a candidate in my own party the way I hated Shannon O'Brien.

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 4, 2007 11:58 AM

You could have voted for Jill Stein, you idiot. She won the debates, hands down. But you voted for Romney?

Shame on you.

Posted by ponte | May 4, 2007 12:36 PM

I did not vote Romney, ponte.

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 4, 2007 4:17 PM

McCain had nothing. He plans on winning with Petraeus in Iraq, which we know is unlikely. His fall back is his attack on pork barrel spending, which just came across as old and played out. I loved how he used the Iraq war as the "contingency" that made him support Bush's tax cuts after ranting against them.

Rudy was comedic in his attempt to say he supports a woman's right to choose without actually using the word choice. I truly don't think he is going to hold up under close scrutiny.

Romney was channelling his inner televangelist, yikes. It's hard to imagine anyone being taken in by that guy. He must have been hunting again, because he was really tanned. His abortion and stem cell answer was a thing of beauty. He's against cloning(good) to know, and he also supports using the left over embryos from in vitro procedures. He kind of tacked that on at the end, after giving that long answer about the kind of stem cell he supports.

Mitt may end up standing though, because McCain has Giuliani in his sights at the moment. When those two are finished with their death match, he may be the only one left, unless Huckabee(no evolution for me) gains traction.

Posted by kingstongirl | May 4, 2007 8:29 PM