The first question is Reagan's question: Are you better off than you were 4 (or 8) years ago? Mitt reframes the question, because he's not running on Bush's record, as a boast about his stint as governor of Massachusetts. Anderson Cooper interrupts to inform him that he's not answering the question asked, and Mitt tells him to shut up — in so many words — and keeps talking about Massachusetts.
On the second question, John McCain taunts Romney about how the Boston newspapers endorsed McCain. He calls Mitt "my friend" and laughs and says he guarantees that the Arizona newspapers are going to endorse him. He's relaxed and happy and keeps inserting wisecracks.
ADDED: Asked about Reagan's choice of Sandra Day O'Connor for the Supreme Court, they all acted like they were respecting her (and Reagan), but proceeded to disrespect her. Only Paul admits he wouldn't have picked her. Huckabee says he's not stupid enough to sit in the Reagan Library and say he disagrees with Reagan and launches into a pro-life soliloquy. Ron Paul says he'd have picked a "much stronger constitutionalist." McCain says he's "proud" of O'Connor as a "fellow Arizonan," but he wants judges like Roberts and Alito who have a "proven record of strict interpretation." Romney says he wants judges like Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas that "follow the Constitution and do not make law from the bench."
MORE: McCain and Romney really went at it over the Iraq "timetables" issue, and McCain garbled his words many times — such as calling April a "year" — and I think this evidenced great tension. Romney's self-defence got cheers. McCain kept asserting that the quote meant what it clearly didn't mean. Saying that we don't want al Qaeda waiting "in the weeds" until we leave means that we should never announce a timetable. McCain claimed to read it as a plan to leave on a timetable.
It's possible that Romney is such a fence-straddler that he threw the word "timetables" out so people would pick up the signal that he wants to leave, but he embedded it in a sentence so slippery that he'd never have to own up to any meaning he didn't like. McCain acts sure that he knows the "buzzwords" and he sees how politicians use them, and someone truly devoted to sticking it out in Iraq would never have uttered the buzzword "timetables."
Anderson Cooper presses Romney: Why did you refuse to take a position on the surge on the ground that you're a governor, when 2 months later, you declared your candidacy? The impression one gets is that he was carefully crafting his position to run for President. So he preserved his ability to go either way on the war. He accuses McCain of throwing mud. And McCain just smiles and assures us he knows what politicians are doing with language.
FINALLY: I think Huckabee was very appealing and modest. I liked in the end when, unlike the others, he declined to say that Ronald Reagan would endorse him. It would be "arrogant" to say that, so he just wants to say that he endorses Ronald Reagan. (But wait a minute. Isn't it actually arrogant to say it would be arrogant to say what the others just said? He's a crafty one too, that Huckabee.) Ron Paul is whatever he already is to you. McCain and Romney each helped and hurt themselves. There is so much at stake for them. They had to fight, and some of it looked pretty ugly. Yet they made their points. I think Romney established that McCain had been too hard on him about the "timetables" remark and that he's creative and capable on economic issues. But McCain is clearly the one with the rock-solid record on the war. He staked his reputation on it when Romney was being cagey.
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59 comments:
Mrs. Reagan reads this blog.
Maxine, or should I say "Ms. Davis"?...
It's the one who wins the whole thing who laughs last.
Saw tonight that Ralph Nader is thinking of entering the race. That guy never ages.
I find it ironic that the despised candidate, McCain, won Florida by on the strength of votes from a despised minority, Hispanics. (Or immigrants.) In a sense, the anti-immigrant segment of the Republican party sealed its own fate by driving an important constituency (Cubans) in a critical state (Florida) into the hands of their least favorite candidate (McCain).
And now, on the strength of that victory, McCain could ride to the nomination and become the head of the party. Politics is a strange thing.
Looks as if Nancy inherited Swifty Lazar's eyewear.
I don't think that the illegal immigration debate affects Cubans much. Pretty much there are no Cuban illegal immigrants, I believe. If they make it to land, they can immediately get asylum. The whole "wet foot, dry foot" policy.
And now, on the strength of that victory, McCain could ride to the nomination and become the head of the party.
"The head of the party"? Is John Kerry the head of the Democratic Party? McCain will only be "the head of the Republican Party" if he wins the Presidency.
In which case he'll also be "the head of the country". I wonder if you'll find that amusing, too?
McCain will never be elected because he is a cranky old fart who will fold up when his base - the MSM - turns on him. Bob Dole without the charisma.
One reason McCain is winning is the liberal MSM moderates all the debates. They never ask him probing hostile questions on his true weak spot -illegal immigration and McCain-Kennedy.
enigmatic,
I take your point, but I think the hate-filled railing against Hispanics in general (even if Republicans thought they were only talking about illegal immigrants) has turned Hispanics off of the Republican Party. (It's hard to vote for people who seem to despise you.)
Those who did still vote Republican did so overwhelmingly for the Republicans who didn't join in the party's national festival of hate: 54% went to McCain, and 24% to Giuliani.
Revenant: Quibble all you want about irrelevancies like my use of "head of the party." Next I suggest you quibble about the word "overwhelmingly" in my observation that the target group of Republicans hatemongering voted "overwhelmingly" for the two candidates who didn't participate in the hatefest.
And before you invest a lot of time and energy writing one of your clever attacks in response, you should know I am logging off to watch the season premier of Lost with the kids.
Cheers and Regards.
McCain is coming off as a senile fool.
Can you imagine him badgering Hillary like he's badgered Romeney? He'd lose by a landslide.
BTW, when McCain calls you "my Friend" that means "I Hate your guts".
Verso, what is this hate-filled railing against hispanics of which you speak? The only one of them that I think ever approached that was Tancredo, and he barely outlasted Tommy Thompson.
Maybe if you can give me examples of any of the remaining GOP candidates, or their campaigns, spewing hate-filled bile against hispanics in general, it would be helpful. It would definitely sway me against them.
McCain is right though about Romney. Technically Romney supported the surge. However, the implication from Romney was a classic waffle. Still mcCain should drop it. I don't think it helps him... although I am not in those states to witness all of Romney's negative ads.
It's rather jarring after the last two terms to see that still anyone thinks that the phrase "judges like Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas" is coherent when they are all so clearly and demonstrably different. What would a judge who is like Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas have done in WRTL, Hein, School Cases, Carhart, Cunningham, Zedner, Phillip Morris, Kimbrough-Gall and so forth? You've really got to approach the issue at a very high level of generality before they start looking like a contiguous block.
What's the purpose of the Putin question? Who cares?
"You've got a lovely bunch of coconuts..!"
I think the hate-filled railing against Hispanics in general (even if Republicans thought they were only talking about illegal immigrants) has turned Hispanics off of the Republican Party.
Cubans generally think of themselves as Cubans -- not "Hispanics". Witness the fact that Cubans overwhelmingly vote for Republicans in Presidential elections, while "Hispanics" overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
McCain didn't pick up the Cuban vote because of his pro-amnesty stance; he picked it up because he's strong on the things Cuban voters most strongly care about (defense and social conservatism).
For the GOP adherents here, a sign of the times. LOL!
Technically Romney supported the surge.
What do you mean, "technically"? In what way did he not support the surge? What was the "waffle" in his support that you are so troubled by?
He who fling mud lose ground.
One reason McCain is winning is the liberal MSM moderates all the debates. They never ask him probing hostile questions on his true weak spot -illegal immigration and McCain-Kennedy.
And you expect this to be his weak spot [sic] in the general election? I would say the opposite.
I'm still trying to figure out how Pat Buchanan turned the Republican base. I view illegal immigration a bit like the war on drugs. It's a problem and no one has a clue how to fix it because there's no non-totalitarian way to change the demand side. I really can't get down on McCain for his bad idea on the topic (amnesty) since no one else's bad ideas have any chance of working either.
The problem with McCain, in my mind, is not that he's too liberal, but that he's prone to wackiness. He gets obsessed with an issue and takes a stance and neither reason nor pragmatism will sway him. It is for this reason that we have McCain-Feingold.
But it is also for this reason that McCain called for the surge and supported it despite the polls and despite the influence of the media that his detractors purport is his lodestone.
What do you mean, "technically"? In what way did he not support the surge? What was the "waffle" in his support that you are so troubled by?
To me it boils down to the overall fact that Romney is not a terror warrior. Nowhere on his calling card. Plus, if anyone thinks he is, then they'd also have address his chickenhawkness, having avoided military service himself during Vietnam and raised if not counseled all five of his sons to avoid military service during the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Six healthy red-blooded males in their late teens and early 20s during wartime, and none of them find the time and/or have the inclination to serve.
Dear Althouse Blog:
I'm thrilled that you've all taken an interest in my appearance. I can assure you, I'm still a size 2 dress, and a 26-inch waist.
And yes, there are still the same ample-sized, robust-figured gals who insist on making snide remarks about my svelte look.
I must say, the ones who seem the most jealous are the unmarried, single gals, who couldn't manage to be part of a happily married couple for over 50 years.
Come to think of it, I wonder if there's a connection between my 50-year happy marriage, and my remarkably slender figure for all those years?
Anyway, what I would say to those women is: slim down, and you too can enjoy over 50 years of wedded bliss to a man as wonderful as President Reagan!
Cordially,
Mrs. Nancy Reagan
Henry:
You're right, people love illegal immigration.
That's why Spitzer and Hillary first supported giving illegal aliens drivers licenses then opposed it. Its why McCain now *says* he against Amnesty and for securing the border, its why 70 percent of Americans say they want illegal immigration stopped.
Yep, supporting illegal immigration is a winner, I hope Hillary takes your advice and backs it to the hilt.
I did not hear what you seem to have heard, Prof. A, in McCain's answer about O'Connor. I did hear him say he was proud of her. I also heard him say (again, but to my mind unconvincingly, especially given that he'd just said, without qualification, that he was "proud" of O'Connor) that he'd appoint justices like Roberts and Alito. I did not hear him say he would not appoint justices like O'Connor — and I believe that, in fact, he would. If he had strong convictions about judicial appointments, he would never have been a founding, leading member of the Gang of 14.
"I also heard him (McCain) say (again, but to my mind unconvincingly, especially given that he'd just said, without qualification, that he was "proud" of O'Connor) that he'd appoint justices like Roberts and Alito."
Romney picked up on this. That's why he added "Thomas and Scalia". McCain left off Thomas and Scalia because they upset his base, the MSM.
He gloats over his endorsement by Boston newspapers but doesn't understand why conservatives don't embrace him. Get a clue John. If they want you it follows that we don't.
"I can assure you, I'm still a size 2 dress, and a 26-inch waist."
You are not a size 2 with a 26 inch waist unless you are built like a shoebox.
Since I am not going to vote for any of these clowns, I decided my time was better spent drinking scotch and playing World of Warcraft. Time well spent!
ta ta
Since I am not going to vote for any of these clowns, I decided my time was better spent drinking scotch and playing World of Warcraft. Time well spent!
I like the way you think, DBQ.
Zeb Quinn said...
"they'd also have address his chickenhawkness, having avoided military service himself during Vietnam and raised if not counseled all five of his sons to avoid military service during the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. "
But that concedes an invalid premise. It's not necessary to have served in the military to support military action.
Beldar said...
"If he had strong convictions about judicial appointments, he would never have been a founding, leading member of the Gang of 14."
That is a total non sequitur. Explain how McCain's position on the Constitutionality of the Senate rules bears on the kind of judges he would appoint.
It wasn't so much the Cubans that helped McCain win Florida (though they supported him strongly) it was other Hispanics, particularly around the Orlando area (an area that Romney had hoped to win handily but only split evenly with McCain.)
The whole immigration issue has become a Frankenstein to the GOP, an out of control monster that they helped create while searching for an issue to run on but which so far has only cost them:
In 2006, immigration played a big role in the defeat of Congressmen J.D. Hayworth (R-Arizona) and Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), as well as the defeat of Randy Graf (R-Arizona) running for a previously Republican border district. In each case the margin was provided by Hispanic voters who shifted away from the GOP since 2004, and augmented by small business owners who make money doing business in, with and through Mexico, and/or who fear employer sanctions. So in 2006 they lost 3-0 on immigration.
In 2007, Republicans tried to use immigration as an issue to hold onto the Virginia state Senate. They failed, losing four seats, and barely hanging onto a fifth in what had been one of the most Republican districts in the state. Once again, the issue failed to turn out many more of their base but caused some Hispanics and businesspeople to vote for Democrats.
This year, anti-immigration hardliners Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter ran dead last in the GOP field, and the party seems on the verge of nominating the most pro-amnesty candidate they have.
What the Republican party needs to figure out is that their basic flaw is categorizing Hispanics into 'citizens' vs. 'immigrants.' That isn't true, as many of not most Hispanics belong to families that include a range of people, from citizens to people living happily in other countries to everything in between. I myself (though my ancestors have been in America since ten years after the Mayflower) have a cousin who is married to a man from central America. He is a legal resident but I'm pretty sure some of his relatives here are not. Also, advocates of travel restrictions and a wall make their family angry because they go down to visit the kids grandparents every couple of years and they feel that they are being forced to jump through hoops anymore even to do that. The reason even Hispanics who are citizens have turned against the GOP (except for Bush and McCain) is because they see all the immigrant bashing as an attack on their (immediate or extended) family, and once you are perceived as attacking la familia then pretty much anything else you say to Hispanic voters is a waste of time.
Simon: I don't understand your question. The Gang of 14 wasn't some group of starry-eyed idealists trying to preserve or protect any principle. They were self-described "pragmatists" who cut a deal with one another whose only certain effect was to doom the pending nominations of a handful of conservative nominees. The language of their deal was so vague that the Democrats who signed up could violate it virtually at will, but by signing, they avoided the risk they'd have taken with their home-state electorates by trying to filibuster those same nominees.
It's possible to argue that the "constitutional option" (called by Dems the "nuclear option") was a bad idea. But don't pretend that McCain or any of the Gang of 14 was motivated by that. They were compromising on principle, not fighting for any.
It wasn't so much the Cubans that helped McCain win Florida (though they supported him strongly) it was other Hispanics, particularly around the Orlando area (an area that Romney had hoped to win handily but only split evenly with McCain.)
According to the MSNBC exit poll, Cubans supported McCain even more strongly than non-Cuban Hispanics did -- and Cubans are (so far as I know) still the majority of Hispanics in Florida.
So I think you'd have to say that it WAS the Cubans who put him ahead of Romney.
What the Republican party needs to figure out is that their basic flaw is categorizing Hispanics into 'citizens' vs. 'immigrants.'
Democrats already have a lock on the "I have illegal immigrants for relatives" vote. Republicans have a better chance grabbing the black vote than they do that section of the electorate.
What they do have a chance of doing is further alienating the large majority of Americans who are neither related to illegal immigrants nor especially sympathetic to those who are.
Humorous debate observations by Vodkapundit Stephen Green (as relayed by Stephen Bainbridge):
McCain also looks puny next to Romney, scrunched down over his mic while Romney, the Six Foot Human Male Penis, sits totally erect.
Huckabee believes in smaller government and lower taxes. Just not for Arkansas.
I do notice Paul on the side, with that look that says, “Why won’t they talk about the North American Union? It’s a conspiracy!”
Paul is a weird federalist. Isn’t foreign policy one of the few things the Constitution gives the federal government almost unlimited license to pursue?
Beldar wrote: They were self-described "pragmatists" who cut a deal with one another whose only certain effect was to doom the pending nominations of a handful of conservative nominees.
That may be true, Beldar, but almost all of those nominees were already considered doomed anyway, weren't they? In the end, The 14 forced a break-up of a logjam that the party leaders were content to allow to continue indefinitely. On the one side, because they didn;t like the nominees, on the other because they raised lots of money complaining about while proving completely ineffective at doing anything about it.
Beldar - I continue to disagree with your view on the Gang of 14, but that's rather beside my point, which was to question how the Gang of 14 bears on what substantive convictions may have about judicial nominees?
Just caught part of this. McCain came across as a nasty old man. Not Presidential at all.
When I read in the comments, or hear them, that run anywhere along the lines of, "...the hispanic vote ..." then I know in that instant what follows is not worth hearing, the speaker knows not of what they speak.
Belder, the gang of 14 was a brilliant move that insulated the democratic senators from their salivating left base over opposing judges. Superficially, the gang seems to be a give in by republicans, which is why it worked. In reality it was pure political cover for conservative democrats. The results of Alito and Roberts prove my point. Without the gang, Alito and many others would have surely been filibustered
raised if not counseled all five of his sons to avoid military service
Since the military runs on caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and sex, I can understand why he wouldn't want his cute, innocent Mormon boys corrupted. OTOH, maybe he did push them, and they rebelled more successfully than McCain.
McCain on the surge : the surge worked because of what went before it, where it would not have worked when McCain was recommending it.
The Iraqis are trained now, and the Iraqis have had it with shithead Muslims blowing them up, so US troops are not automatic targets when they're among the population any longer. So they can stay out and around effectively.
If anybody's been right on the war, it's Bush.
That wasn't and isn't certainty he has, but determination.
It had better work, is his insight. The alternative is not so kind to Muslims.
, I decided my time was better spent drinking scotch and playing World of Warcraft. Time well spent!
Amen to that! I was drinking Guiness and was ganking helpless noobs in Arathi Basin myself. Much more fun than watching a rehash of tired talking points.
I am always thrilled to see the boiled down GOP field. We on the liberal side may not have a terrific field to choose from and frankly if Bloomberg were to run I would waste my vote on him...but lordy lordy, Romney and McCain are wound so tight they are likely to explode and I keep thinking that Huck will beat Romney to death with a Bible, McCain will leap for Huck's throat to keep him off Romney and expire and Paul will drive a wooden stake through the heart of whoever is left......
....and no one will notice.
Simon: The Gang of 14 deal took the constitutional option (a/k/a nuclear option) off the table and guaranteed that the Gang's Dem members -- a tiny minority of the senate -- could effectively veto any of Dubya's judicial nominees. The GOP members of the Gang, led by McCain, promised not to put up a fight. The net effect was to ensure that several pending nominees who were particularly objectionable to the Dems -- because they were particularly good examples of the sort of judges whom Bush wanted to nominate, and whom McCain now says (disingenuously, I believe) he wants to nominate, i.e., Roberts/Alito clones -- would never get even a senate floor vote. It further guaranteed that Dubya would stop nominating judges for those lower courts whose records gave the most pronounced indications that they'd be conservative jurists on the federal bench.
The long and short of it is that through a cloakroom deal, McCain and his fellow GOP members of the Gang of 14 sold out their party's president, who'd been elected in considerable measure based on his promises that there would be no more Souters. And what did they get in return? Nothing, except avoiding a fight that needed to be fought, and that the GOP would have won.
If McCain genuinely wanted to see more judges like Roberts and Alito on the federal bench, he could not possibly have been a ringleader for the Gang of 14.
Sloanasaurus: The agreement signed by the Dems bound them not to filibuster except "under extraordinary circumstances, [with] each signatory [to] use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist." It was an entirely illusory commitment; no one could ever prove that a Dem senator was acting in "bad faith" and with a subjective personal intent under which he secretly recognized that there were no "extraordinary circumstances" but he's filibustering anyway.
What kept Dems from filibustering either Roberts or Alito was the fact that those were (a) nominations of the highest profile (i.e., SCOTUS, not the circuit or district benches) and (b) nominees of the highest objective qualication (i.e., the only conceivable objections to their qualifications were purely ideological). If either had been denied an up or down vote, the public would have been outraged. That is what kept either of them from being filibustered — fear of ballot-box retribution, not the possibility that they'd be deemed to have "breached" their (unenforceable, illusory) "memorandum of understanding."
Beldar, that doesn't advance the ball. I understand what your position on the nuclear option was, although with respect, I completely disagree with it. But that's not the issue: what I don't understand is how you get from your concerns about McCain's actions vis-a-vis the Go14 to an inference about his position on what substantive views about law a judge ought to have. Even granting the entirety of your premise about why the Go14 was bad politics, bad for conservatives, yadda yadda yadda, even stipulating all that, your conclusion that "[i]f McCain genuinely wanted to see more judges like Roberts and Alito on the federal bench, he could not possibly have been a ringleader for the Gang of 14" is a non sequitur. It just doesn't follow from the premise.
Sloanasaurus said...
"Without the gang, Alito and many others would have surely been filibustered."
I think Beldar's reply to that would have been that the filibuster would have been broken by use of the nuclear option. Which is likely true but as I've said many times before (most recently in an exchange with rcocean here), I think the real loser there would have been the Constitution itself.
Simon said...
It's rather jarring after the last two terms to see that still anyone thinks that the phrase "judges like Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas" is coherent when they are all so clearly and demonstrably different...You've really got to approach the issue at a very high level of generality before they start looking like a contiguous block.
Actually, if you refer to the four of them as "dishonest reactionary troglodytes" the whole contiguous thing isn't really a problem.
Brilliant analysis Fitz! /sarcasm
Regardless of your opinions of Sen. McCain's political views, take a read of his military career on Wikipedia.
He is one hard son of a...
Well, both his father and grandfather were four star admirals. Jeez.
Is it possible that political advantage (that is, being able to say "I havbe worked across the aisle in the spirit of bipartisanship" might have motivated Mr McCail? I know thats the cynical interpretation, but then, I am the president of my local chapter of cynics anonymous.
(The NYT expose on WJC and the uranium deal and Kazhakstan certainly reinforces my cynicism)
I decided my time was better spent drinking scotch and playing World of Warcraft. Time well spent!
Amen to that! I was drinking Guiness and was ganking helpless noobs in Arathi Basin myself. Much more fun than watching a rehash of tired talking points.
Hey, Hoosier.....Alliance or Horde?
/wave
Despite having voted for Clinton in '96, I voted for McCain in the 2000 Virginia primary, and was fully prepared to support him if he got the nomination. But I'm not crazy about what he's turned into now -- someone who's read a bit too much of his own "maverick" press and gotten a bit too full of himself. Whenever one of the other candidates is expressing a viewpoint he disagrees with, he sits there with this shit-eating smirk on his face that is at least as off-putting as Al Gore's sighing during that 2000 debate, if not more so.
It's funny that so many right-wingers see McCain as being too liberal; I see him as having turned into someone who will happily disagree with Bush in public but will never actually back that dissent up with a meaningful vote on Capitol Hill. But then maybe that's the point.
I liked the 2000 model McCain, but the 2008 model seems to be a bit of a turd. Next week I will have to pick the least of three weasels -- I can't see sitting out as an option.
George, thanks for the article on McCain's military career.
Who knew he was a war hero? I've heard whispers that he was a POW. Maybe McCain shouldn't be so shy about his past.
what I don't understand is how you get from your concerns about McCain's actions vis-a-vis the Go14 to an inference about his position on what substantive views about law a judge ought to have.
I don't see the need to even bring up the Gang of 14.
It is sufficient to say that a man who thinks McCain-Feingold was constitutional -- and, worse yet, that it needs to be expanded to further restrict political speech -- doesn't know what the hell "originalism" and "strict constructionism" are.
RC--
Hey, I never thought much about supporting McCain, but it's worth reading. The guy's got balls.
george said "the guys got balls"...
well george i guess that is what makes guys guys now doesn't it...or at least contributes to the difference...
but what is your point? i know 50 advertising execs in nyc who don't back down ever on anything and 50 more who will throw you form an upper floor window for just about anything. mccain is no toughie past his war years and for that, surviving that, h gets credit but that credit doesn't translate into much of anything current and real time.
he is about an inch away from loosing his temper at all times - the term "tight as a drum" seems to apply here and he looks as far away from rallying the base a gwb would be organizing a gay rights parade.
believe what you will but he has some issues that just might rear their ugly heads between now and then.
George,
I've read McCain Autobiography. Yes, the guy has balls, but does he has the brains and heart to be President?
Lots of leaders have balls. Custer and Kamikaze pilots had balls and so does Hillary.
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