Giuliani's Campaign is Losing It

From NBC's First Read:

Giuliani refused to take questions here today about allegations that travel expenses were picked up obscure city offices when he was mayor of New York City.

"We've already explained it," he said, walking past reporters after a town hall meeting.

Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away. Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters.

Looks like they are feeling the heat, and they don't like it.

Obviously getting rough with the press will substantially improve the press coverage you receive.

The Natural Repellent of the New Republican

Joe Klein attended a focus froup in Florida during the Republican CNN/YouTube dabate, and gives ups a snapshot of the Republican soul:

In the next segment--the debate between Romney and Mike Huckabee over Huckabee's college scholarships for the deserving children of illegal immigrants--I noticed something really distressing: When Huckabee said, "After all, these are children of God," the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s). These Republicans were hard.

But there was worse to come: When John McCain started talking about torture--specifically, about waterboarding--the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. "I don't have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11," said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

This is why there is such a divide in this country. It is not because the Republicans are too conservative and Democrats are too liberal. The Democrats are actually very centrist, historically. The only leftward stand they take is on health care and even those proposals are fairly moderate, including both private and public insurances. You might even call the top-tier Democrats, Eisenhower Republicans.

The divide in this country is because the Republicans have gone so far to the right that they are off the reservation. A good portion of these guys are legitimately crazy. If I heard someone applaud torture I wouldn't allow them around my kids.

Here's Klein's parting shot:

They seemed nice, concerned, relatively well informed and entirely intolerant citizens. This level of anger--the topic of my column below--seems likely to be exploited disgracefully by the Republican candidate in the general election campaign, especially if it's Romney. I hope the nativists lose, as they almost always have in American history. But I'm worried that they may not.

Yea, they seem nice until you hear them talk, and then you just put your hands up and slowly back out of the room.

Republican Primary Rankings

Romney: 42% +
Romney is the strongest mostly because of Rudy's fall. He is still up in the early states, and ahead for the first time in South Carolina. This is his nomination if he doesn't screw it up.
Giuliani: 20% -
Speaking of screwing it up, Giuliani has done just that. First, he used taxpayer dollars to pay for trips to the Hamptons with his mistress. Second, his private business has him wrapped up with some of the worst names in the Islamic world. Rudy has had a horrible month, and if I knew how these new revelations were going to shake out, he might be even lower. If I had to guess, I would say that he is done, but I want to wait another week to make it official. However, there is blood in the water. Will the media feast on it, or starve it? The Hamptons story involves both sex and money. So, the media should be all over this story for the rest of the week.
McCain: 16% +
McCain has done nothing to gain but to benefit from Rudy's follies. Yet, he wins points by default. He will not even come close in Iowa, but NH could be his saving grace.
Huckabee: 12% +
Huckabee is on fire. He is up for the first time in Iowa. He is moving up in SC, and he killed in last night's CNN/YouTube debate. Problem for Huckabeee is that the Republican establishment hates him. He is a populist with very reasonable positions on taxes, immigration, and education. And they will crush him for it in about...well...check your watch. The establishment will be going after Huckabee very soon—and they will be hitting hard.
Thompson: 10% +
Thompson is in a similar boat as McCain: he wins because Giuliani loses. He is still an awful candidate, and I don’t think he has a chance outside the deep south.
Everyone else...No chance.

Giuliani Bombshell

Giuliani is busted:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

Hard to see how he squirms out of this one.

Democratic Primary Rankings

Hillary Clinton 52% -
I have dropped Hillary down to a 50/50 shot at the nomination. It is still too hard to tell whether she is actually losing momentum, or that the media is making a concerted effort to deflate her momentum. Either way, though, it is taking its toll.
Barack Obama 36% +
This is a substantial increase for Obama. The reason: Many political observers are saying that he is in the best position to win Iowa, and winning Iowa will change the dynamic of the race substantially. Also, he really seems to have unleashed some new energy in these last few weeks. Of course, time, and future debates, will tell if this Barack bubble is real momentum or a media-driven push, but if it is real he could pull this thing off. Still not the most likely outcome, but becoming more feasible by the day.
And he has Oprah campaigning for him.
John Edwards 12% -
Edwards is the loser of the Hillary vs. Obama storyline. If he can’t figure out a way to bully himself into the media’s horse race narrative, then he will sink fast. Time is running out for Edwards.
Then there is everyone else. As of now, no one else is seriously in the running.

Smell the Recession

This from the Washington Post:

Wall Street is betting on a recession.

Investors in stocks and bonds are paying prices that indicate they believe a snowballing housing crisis and worsening credit crunch will soon tip the U.S. economy into a recession, analysts said. Many economists, including leaders of the Federal Reserve, don't think things will get that bad, but some say the risk of a serious downturn has risen in recent weeks.

Investors were so eager to buy ultra-safe government bonds yesterday that they were willing to accept sharply lower interest rates. The rate on the 10-year Treasury bond fell to 3.84 percent from 4 percent Friday. The low rates indicate investors expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates aggressively in the coming year to ease the pain of recession.

Stocks are now down more than 10 percent from their peak in October. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 2.3 percent yesterday, dropping the market to a level that Wall Street analysts say reflects an expectation that corporate profits will fall.

Taken together, those and other data indicate that financial markets have a decidedly negative prognosis for the economy. "They're saying the odds of a recession are pretty damn high," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial.

Bad economy for 2008 means that the 2008 elections will be an economy election, and Democrats win economy elections.

Mostly because they're not crazy.

Update: Consumer confidence falls to lowest levels in two years. But those markets--they're still working. We should trust the markets. They never steer us astray. In fact, we should pray to the markets that they have mercy on our wallets. Everyone bow your heads.

Best Campaigner Does Not Equal Best President

Mark Halperin, former political director of ABC News and creator of Washington's daily political bible "The Note", is finally starting to make some sense about the horse race aspect of presidential campaigns.

For most of my time covering presidential elections, I shared the view that there was a direct correlation between the skills needed to be a great candidate and a great president. The chaotic and demanding requirements of running for president, I felt, were a perfect test for the toughest job in the world.

But now I think I was wrong. The “campaigner equals leader” formula that inspired me and so many others in the news media is flawed.

Although, you have to wonder what took so long. Doesn't this seem like a fairly obvious point, and one that you would hope the press would have already concluded long ago?

It is ironic, though, that Halperin, who with John Harris, wrote so extensively about the "freak show" nature of the coverage of campaigns would come to this conclusion. Also, ironic that I visit Halperin's page, modestly entitled "The Page", every day to get my official Washington horse race information. To me, Halperin seems to have been one of the great perpetrators of what he is now decrying.

I also find it strange that he desperately tries, and fails, to give a balanced assessment of presidential campaigns not successfully transferring into a President's tenure. He tries to do this with Bush and Clinton. I completely disagree with his assessment that the Clinton Presidency was a failed presidency, and I think most other reasonable people would disagree with that as well. Clinton is just not a good example of a good campaigner who failed in the White House. It is hard to imagine that Halperin even believes that, but he needed to balance his thrashing of Bush with an equally good thrashing of a democratic element.

This is a constant Washington insider mistake. In order to condemn Bush you must find something to condemn Clinton, or the Congressional Democrats for. Sometimes, the President deserves to be trashed in a vacuum, without the necessity of trashing the other guy for balance. Sometimes, balance just does not exist.

Giuliani Sinking. Romney Rising.

CNN/WMUR New Hampshire Poll
Romney: 33%, +8(Since last poll)
McCain: 18%, unchanged
Giuliani: 16%, -8
Paul: 8%, +4
Thompson: 4%, -9

This poll is much more interesting that the Democratic Iowa poll that came out today.

First of all there is no real reason to see a boost for Romney. Of course, as I have said all along, his organization in the early states is excellent. I don't live in New Hampshire. Perhaps Romney is omnipresent there. I wouldn't doubt it. I have to say that I like his strategy. He really doesn't seem to be at all concerned with lagging national numbers. His campaign is focussed on the proper states, and he is up where it counts. National numbers mean nothing.

As far as Giuliani is concerned, this poll is devastating. I think we are starting to see the shine go out on Rudy. I predicted this last week. I still feel that we will look back at the Robertson endorsement as Rudy's apex. Bad news has come fast and furious for Rudy recently, and i don't see any reason to believe that the bad news will end.

And Thompson is dead in the water. He needs to get out while he still has work in television.

McCain is still McCain, and I maintain that he has burned too many bridges to win the nomination.

Ron Paul, well, at least someone is still taking him seriously.

Overall, though, I think the Democrats have more to fear from Romney than they do from Giuliani. There is just too much dirt on Giuliani. He is an easy target at this point. I think--and I didn't think this a couple of months ago--he would get crushed in the general election. But Romney's campaign is focussed and organized. They really seem to have their eyes on the prize.

Still lots of time left though.

And always humbling to remember that I was already printing my Dean/Clark '04 stickers at this time in 2003.

Obama's Message Resonating in Iowa?

ABC/Washington Post poll
Obama: 30%
Clinton: 26%
Edwards: 22%

There is some interesting stuff in this poll. For example, it seems like Obama's message for a new direction is resonating with Iowa voters. Maybe he can be the change candidate--a title that he and Edwards have been wrestling over.

Another important aspect of this poll to note is that Obama is running even with Clinton among women.

However, this still seems like an outlier to me. Call me if Obama is leading in the next Iowa poll.

Hillary Pushing Obama Mystery Scandal

Even though it pains me to link to Robert Novak, I have decided that this warrants special attention:

Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that Hillary's people have leaked to the press that they have something "scandalous" on Obama.

This could mean that they actually have something "scandalous".

It could also mean that they have nothing, but know that Obama is gaining ground and have started a whispering campaign in order to try and stop his momentum.

Also, this could mean that they have something, but that it is dubious, or not much in the way of a scandal.

The strategy, though, is brilliant. You stink up the other guy with a mystery scandal, and you come out smelling like a rose for being above such things.

Update: Obama responds strongly. He challenges the Clinton campaign to either release their "scandalous" information, or refute that they ever made the charge. They respond by doing neither.
Update #2 Joe Klein over at Time speculates that Novak is simply spreading rumors, and that this rumor smears both Hillary and Barack.
I'm beginning to believe that Hillary had nothing to do with this.
Serves me write for linking to Novakula.

Giuliani and the Fox News Alliance

To me, this Judith Regan case against News Corp. is most troubling because it shows another level of Fox News' bias. Not only does Fox News have a blatantly conservative bias, but they also seem to have a bias for Giuliani's candidacy.
At first, you might here this and think it is just other Republican candidates griping about Giuliani's national lead. However, if you dig deeper, you see that Roger Ailes, Fox News President, was Giuiani's Media Consultant during his mayoral campaign in 1989. Also, Giuliani tried to pull many special favors for Ailes and FNC early on, including attempting to put them on a public NYC network if Time Warner continued to refuse them carriage.

For a rundown of the extent of the Rudy/FNC alliance, read this Salon piece:

In 1994, according to the New York Times, Giuliani prepared a speech for a reception honoring Ailes in which he wrote, "Roger has played an important role in my own career." In 1996, Giuliani had an opportunity to repay the favor. Fox News was launching, with Ailes at the helm, and Time Warner, which provided cable service to 12 million homes nationwide, had decided it would not carry Fox News. Time Warner was the dominant cable operator in New York City, meaning that not only would 1.1 million city homes not get Fox, but the fledgling network would go unseen by media powerbrokers in the nation's media capital.

Three days after Murdoch learned of Time Warner's decision, a call from Ailes to Giuliani set in motion a series of unprecedented moves in favor of a cable network by the Giuliani administration. As calls and meetings continued between Fox and city officials, including Giuliani, the Giuliani administration reportedly threatened Time Warner executives with the loss of their cable franchise if the cable provider didn't accept a deal in which the city would give up one of its own government channels so Fox News could take the slot. (Some 30 other cable networks had tried and failed to win channel space on Time Warner.) When Time Warner refused to take the deal, the city announced that it would go ahead with the plan anyway and force the cable provider to carry Fox News. A legal battle ensued.

Ultimately, Time Warner and the city settled, and FNC won carriage.

You scratch my back, I scratch your back--all the way to the White House.

Primary Poll

I have refrained from posting primary polls, and plan to continue this restrain. However, American Research Group has two new primary polls out today, and this seems to be newsworthy.

Republicans (Double-digit candidates only)
Giuliani 25%
Romney 21%
Thompson 17%
McCain 12%

Democrats(Double-digit only)
Clinton 46&
Obama 21%
Edwards 11%

Normally, I would ignore the republican results as an outlier. No other national poll that i have seen has shown Romney in the twenties. If the dem numbers weren't so close to other national polls, I wouldn't even post these results. The commonality of the dem results relative to other recent polls are what lead me to believe the repub results might not be an anomaly. Maybe, Rudy is falling, and if he is it looks like Romney will be the one that rises.

Primary Presidential Rankings

I am changing the rankings today. Last time, for balance, I kept four candidates from each party in my rankings. I have decided to change the ranking to better reflect the candidates that I think, as of today, still have a legitimate chance of getting the nomination.

Democrats
Hillary Clinton 55%, -
A bad debate performance from a few weeks ago, some perceived gender-baiting, and planted questions at town halls have all hurt her overall chances of the nomination. A victory seems less inevitable then it did last week, but she is still in the best position for the nomination.
Barack Obama 30%, +
After a good speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner--probably the best speech of the night--and an even-keeled hour on Meet the Press, Obama looks better than he did last week, and he and his campaign seem to be getting into a groove. I have heard people say that
the Clinton campaign always believed that as long as they kept Obama in the stable, then they would be fine. Well, they may have let him out of the stable.
John Edwards 15%, +
Edwards had a good showing at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. His rhetoric seems more sharp and focussed than it has in the recent past. He is also putting up effective ads in Iowa and in NH. And, really, his campaign feels like a campaign of urgency and passion. Still, I am troubled that he seems to be betting the farm on Iowa, and could probably see his candidacy as more noteworthy if he were playing in more areas. Ultimately, Clinton and Obama just have SO much more money than he does.
All the other candidates feel like they are fading away. Watching the Jefferson-Jackson speeches this past weekend it was clear that none of them were even playing on the same field as the big three.

Republicans
Mitt Romney 40%, +/-
Still not polling well nationally, Romney is strong in all the early states--strong poll numbers, strong organization, strong money. He is running a well-oiled, steady-as-she-goes machine. His campaign will not falter. Someone else will have to overtake him.
Rudy Giuliani 33%, -
My sense is that we saw Rudy peak last week with his Robertson nomination. The Kerik indictment came out shortly after that, and the steam of his campaign just kind of evaporated. Kerik isn't going away. Giuliani stil says crazy things(like this), and the negative ads haven't even really begun. Once the negative ads go up, Rudy is toast. That's my gut feeling.
John McCain 15%, +/-
McCain is a tough one to figure out. It seems that he has just burned too many bridges with conservatives to get the nomination. But he is still polling too well to be ignored, and the press loves him too much to let him be ignored. It is hard for me to see his route to the nominaion, but if Rudy falls he could pick off a lot of Rudy's supporters.
Fred Thompson 8%, +
I wish Fred Thompson would just go away. He is a joke of a candidate. But he did get the National Right to Life Committee endorsement today, and he polls very well in the south. You never know. Dumb men seem to be very popular with Republicans.
Mike Huckabee 4%, +
Huckabee needs some help right now. He needs some endorsements from social conservative organizations. Iowa polling does show that he has some momentum, and he could really compete there with some big name support. If he could steal Iowa from Romney, he would quickly be taken seriously.

Obama and Electability

MSNBS's First Read references a Boston Globe piece that addresses the issues of electability for Democrats. They see Obama appealing to the hearts of voters, while Hillary appeals to their minds. This is a way to say that passion doesn't win campaigns, but that the most electable candidate wins elections. Electability is a fun buzzword for media-types to use, and we are going to hear a lat about Hillary's "electability" the next two months. The Obama campaign has to know this, and the electability meme needs to be nipped in the bud before it fully develops as a larger media narrative.

This happened to Edwards in 2004. The problem for Edwards was that the narrative started after the Iowa Caucuses and he never had the time, or showed the inclination, to really fight back the idea that Kerry was more electable.

However, Obama has the benefit of two months to answer these critiques, and if he isn't successful then he loses and Hillary wins.

The one really shrewd thing that the Clinton campaign did from the very beginning was to cast her candidacy as a winner. Remember, "I'm in, and I'm in to win." That is a very powerful, none too subtle, message that has a bad habit of sticking.

Rudy Hates the U.S. Government

From Talking Points Memo:

To cut government spending, Giuliani promised to replace only half of the federal workers expected to retire over the next eight to 10 years. He promised to retain the tax cuts put in place by the Bush administration. Those two actions, he said, would require that average Americans take more responsibility for their lives.

Seriously, it is time to wake up and smell the fascism.

Josh Marshall speculates that these cuts could represent as much as 30% of the federal workforce. Maybe, he'll decide to cut the Legislative and Judicial branches as well.

Rudy Giuliani is a dangerous radical who doesn't belong anywhere near a public office.

Bush's Economy

Economist Joseph Stiglitz writes about the effects of the Bush presidency on our economy:

When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris--or even the Yukon--becomes a venture in high finance.

The markets are tanking again today. The Sub-Primes are not going away anytime soon. Gas Prices are moving ever-higher, and cruelly right on the cusp of winter. The dollar is embarassingly weak for such a "strong" nation, and there is no end in sight, and its going to get worse before it gets better.

This is horrible news for Republicans at the voting booth in 2008, but the effects on ordinary Americans will be far more profound.

The worse part is that if you were to ask most of these supply-side conservative economists what needs to be done to curb the oncoming economic disaster, I guarantee they would say that we need more tax cuts. Huh?

These conservative economists and supply-side politicians need straight jackets, not public voices.

Update: Another economist that sees worst recession since the 1930's.

Front-Runners on the Defensive

In the 2008 Presidential Primary, we get the great benefit of watching both parties fight it out for their candidate. This very rarely happens, at least to the extent it is happening now, especially when considering the sheer number of candidates.

And in every primary, the front-runner finds himself, or herself, on the proverbial ropes. What the front-runner does on the ropes shows you if they have it in them to win the nomination or not.

I always think back to Howard Dean in 2004. There was a CNN debate where he was attacked on all sides for a comment he made about appealing to voters with confederate flag decals on their pick-up trucks. He just fell apart under the pressure. That was the first moment where I really started to believe that his lead was in trouble.

You could go back further than that to Ed Muskie in '76, when he was challenged with questions about his wife's mental health issues, and he began to break down. It was 1976 for god's sake, men didn't yet have tears. So, clearly Muskie was crucified for his public weakness.

We are seeing right now how Hillary is handling being on the defensive. If I were to give her a grade, I would say she gets a B. She is doing a good job, but not a great job.

Ultimately, she will survive the bad debate episode. The question is, can her competitors, or the media, keep the underlining issues from last week's debate alive? Can they perpetuate a storyline that keeps hammering home the narrative about her so-called "double-talk" problem?

Then there is Giuliani.

Bernard Kerik was indicted today. Giuliani and Kerik are wrapped together tighter than Sigfried and Roy. How does Giuliani address this issue vigorously enough to shift the storyline to his advantage, and how does his opponents go after him for it, or do they use it at all? The answers to these questions will give us a better idea if Giuliani can get the Republican nomination.

My sense is that if his opponents don't hammer him on Kerik, then this issue will go away for the primary.

However, since Kerik will be on trial for awhile, it could come back to haunt him in the general.

The United States of Debtor's Prison

National debt reaches 9,000,000,000,000.00.

Remember, that number is your number. My number. It's easy for people to separate themselves from their government. If the Republicans have been successful at one thing, that would be it. They have made the government the bad guy, and have placed a wall between the way Americans think about their government. Most Americans feel no connection to what their government actually does, they feel disconnected from it, and so the debt number doesn't feel like our number.

However, a portion of this debt is yours whether you like it or not, and you will have to pay for it whether you like it or not.

So, yea, the tax cuts have done a heckuva job growing our economy. Now, if we could just keep cutting taxes and weakening the value of our currency we can eventually make all of our money problems go away--mostly by not having any government and no money, just debt.

Welcome to the United States of Debtor's Prison.

This is what happens when you have a pathetically uninformed, apathetic electorate that allows radicals to rig the system with crackpot economists.

Robertson and New Movement Evangelicals

Robertson endorses Giuliani.

What does this mean? Besides the fact that two of the craziest men in the country will be in the same room together today, and one of them might eat the other one.

Well, it is hard to say how this will shake out. Many in the evangelical community have been muttering for years that Robertson has become irrelevent.

It will be interesting to see if the new movement evangelicals(Dobson, Perkins, etc.) try to come out in the coming days to curtail Robertson's influence. They definitely want to kill Giuliani's march to the nomination, and they probably hoped they could endorse later rather than sooner, but Robertson's surprise endorsement will change that schedule.

The new movement evangelicals have have many different options.

1. Endorse Giuliani. They can look beyond their differences with him on social issues because of National Security. There are too many risks involved here, I think, for them to do this. First off, all their pet issues would wither and die. They would have no moral footing on these issues anymore. And their future influence would be decimated because of their bald hypocrisy. Not to mention, many evangelicals would stay away from the voting booth, hurting Republicans up and down the ballot.
2. Endorse Huckabee. He seems popular with church-goers, but the evangelical leaders don't like him. I don't think they feel that he would be a very good candidate. I agree. I don't think he is aggressive enough, and i am not sure he can be. That being said, if the evangelicals go through with a third-party candidate--if Giuliani gets the nomination--I think Huckabee is the most likely mainstream candidate for them to support in that capacity.
3. Endorse McCain. I don't think they like McCain, I don't think McCain likes them, but they both have a common foe in Giuliani. They mostly agree on social issues, and, unlike Huckabee, McCain appears viable in a general election. It could happen.
4. Endorse Romney. Romney has said all the right things during the primary. He is working hard for their support. He has the best organizations set up in Iowa, NH, and S. Carolina. He is viable, but he is a Mormon. Can they get beyond their religious differences? We'll see.

I think the Romney option is the most likely scenario, but if they are going to do it, they better do it fast. Robertson is asserting himself as the leader of the evangelicals, and the narrative the media will be running with all day, maybe all week., will be that evangelicals are now supporting Giuliani's candidacy.

Hillary's Fall?

Rasmussen Poll of New Hampshire before Democratic Debate(10/27).
Clinton: 38%
Obama: 22%
Edwards: 14%
No one else was in double figures.

Now a Rasmussen poll that was posted this morning (11/7).
Clinton: 34%
Obama: 24%
Edawrds: 15%
Still, no one else in double figures.

Two things.
First, Rasmussen is a polling firm that usually moves very slowly. His daily tracking polls of the President have proven to move much slower than all other polls I've seen, and overall I would have to say that I am always skeptical of his polls. However, the fact that these two polls are comparing two Rasmussen polls, instead of comparing Rasmussen against another polling firm, lead me to believe that Sen. Clinton has taken a small hit.

That being said, I think she can easily right the ship if her campaign can get beyond the news of her bad debate performance. However, her campaign needs to do everything they can to keep it out of the news, and they haven't been doing a very good job. Bill Clinton saying that she was swiftboated just threw more fuel on the fire.

The most important thing is that no single candidate was the benefactor of Hillary's mini-drop. Obama obviously stands to benefit the most, but it looks like if Hillary loses voters, her voters spread their loyalty to several candidates. They were probably soft supporters anyway.

And a double-digit lead is still a double-digit lead.

Romney and Evangelicals

Romney gets another big evangelical endorsement. This time from Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Moral Majority, and someone whose name holds some weight in evangelical circles.

I think the next month will be crucial if the evangelicals are going to rally around Romney or not.

Salon has a piece that illustrates the reason they haven't already coalesced around Romney. They are very suspect of his Mormonism.

The Ron Paul Experience

What is up with Ron Paul?

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $4.2 million in nearly 24 hours.

Paul, the Texas congressman with a libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day.

Fawkes was a British mercenary who failed in his attempt to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. He also was the model for the protagonist in the movie "V for Vendetta." Paul backers motivated donors on the Internet with mashed-up clips of the film on the online video site YouTube as well as the Guy Fawkes Day refrain: "Remember, remember the 5th of November."

Paul's total deposed Mitt Romney as the single-day fundraising record holder in the Republican presidential field. When it comes to sums amassed in one day, Paul now ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30, and Barack Obama.

Here is Tucker Carlson on "Real Time w/ Bill Maher" talking about Ron Paul's candidacy.

I've seen handmade signs for Paul on highway hillsides. I've seen supporters with booths at my local farmer's market, which is not, by any stretch, a Republican-friendly venue. His supporters may be the most passionate and persistent that I have seen. The problem for them is that, though they are extremely active and vocal, they are not large in number.

That being said, 4.2 million dollars in one day is an incredible accomplishment for a man who does not poll well in the Republican primary. To put the money in perspective, Ron Paul made just over 5 million during the entire third quarter of 2007. John McCain made around 5.5 million.

At this point, with this level of financial support, he would be crazy not to run as a third party candidate.

Primary Presidential Rankings

These rankings only include those candidates that I feel are legitimately top-tier candidates. I have limited this top-tier to four candidates in both parties. These are the candidates that I feel are the only ones that have a legitimate chance to get the nomination. These tier positions could change if a second-tier candidate does something to merit an upward tick to overtake the weakest candidate in the first tier.

Democrats
Hillary Clinton 60%, +/-
Still unsure of how the debate performance has effected her overall chances for the nomination. Polls have shown no change. However, the media seems to delight in taking her down a notch. So, we'll see if the coming weeks show a change in her support. I doubt it.
Barack Obama 25%, +
I think Obama has helped himself in two respects recently. First, he had a big bump in free positive media after his opening on SNL this weekend. Also, he criticized Hillary without being the attack dog, which often turns off Iowa caucus-goers, and most concede that Obama needs to win Iowa.
John Edwards 12%, +
I am bumping Edwards up a bit. I think his debate performance has given both he and his campaign a spring in their step. He seems to have hit his stride on the campaign trail, and with media buys and attention. However, he was clearly the most aggressive in last week's debate. He seemed ruthlessly intent on tearing down Clinton. This might turn off some voters, especially in Iowa.
Chris Dodd 4%, +
Let's be honest, Dodd is not going to get the nomination. However, he is clearly in the fourth position, and has shown himself to be a popular candidate on the blogs. He has kept himself in the conversation by being a clear leader on several important legislative positions(no immunity for telecoms, voting no on Mukasey because of his slippery answer on waterboarding). So, to me, he still merits a few percentage points.

Republicans
Rudy Giuliani 40%, +
Giuliani is proving himself to be a very effective media candidate. Somehow, though he is trailing in every early state, he is getting almost all the media attention on the Republican side. This is because his campaign seems to understand how to get media attention, and the media seems to be slobbering over the prospects of a Clinton v. Giuliani race.
Mitt Romney 40%, -
I know Romney is not polling well nationally, but he is up in all the early states, except S. Carolina, and even then he has shown wide support in some polls. However, he seems to have disappeared this past week. For this reason, I am downgrading him slightly. I will say, though, that if he can get back in the media's favor then this is his nomination to win or lose. His early state support is very strong.
John McCain 15%, +
McCain seems to be quietly returning to a strong position. He is getting more and more support in polls, often polling second behind Giuliani, and if there is a new wave of anti-Giuliani media from social conservatives then look for Romney or McCain, maybe both, to move up
Fred Thompson 5%, -
He is really a bad candidate. He has not proven himself to be ready for the national spotlight. However, many pundits felt that he was mildly competent on "Meet the Press" yesterday, but all of that news was overshadowed by his association with a drug dealer, which was reported in Sunday's Washington Post.

Learning on iTunes U

The Washington Post has an article today about iTunes U, where you can download free content from University classes and listen to them on the go.

MIT is one of 28 colleges that have posted courses, campus speeches and other events on a section of iTunes known as iTunes U. Since the site was launched last spring with 16 institutions, material from it has been downloaded more than 4 million times.

Unlike other offerings from Apple's music store, where songs cost 99 cents, everything on iTunes U is free. Penn State University offers instruction on information management. Users can download a general chemistry class from Seattle Pacific University, a lecture on the psychosocial aspects of health care from Northeastern University or a class on Ben Franklin from Stanford University.

I'm listening to some of the microeconomics classes from UC Berkeley right now. It is a wonderful resource that I highly recommend.

Rudy's Dictatorial Past

Washington Monthly has a very good piece about Giuliani's stint as mayor of New York City. It is the most thorough telling of the Rudy era that I have read thus far.

Here is a large excerpt from the article by Rachel Morris:

Today, Giuliani is a front-runner for the presidency of the United States. Since 9/11 the office he seeks has been radically remade. Led by Dick Cheney, the Bush administration has expanded White House powers to levels unseen since the Nixon years. Claiming an inherent authority to act outside the law, it has unilaterally set aside treaties, intercepted telephone calls between citizens without court warrants, detained individuals indefinitely without judicial review, ordered "enhanced interrogations," or torture, prohibited by law, and claimed the ability to disregard more than 1,000 parts of legislation that it has deemed to improperly restrict its authority. To thwart oversight and checks on its power, all spheres of executive branch operations have been fortified by heightened secrecy.

This expansion has warped policy decisions, undermined the country's authority abroad, and damaged the framework of laws, institutions, and processes that secure citizens against abuse by the state. It also prompts two of the most crucial, if as yet unasked, questions of the 2008 presidential race: Which contenders are most likely to relinquish some of these powers, or, at the very least, decline to fully use them? And, alternatively, which candidate is most likely to not only embrace the powers that Bush has claimed, but to seize more? The reply to the first question is complicated, but to the second it's simple: Rudy Giuliani.

Many Giuliani watchers already understand that Rudy is a hothead and a grandstander, even a bit of a dictator at times. These qualities have dominated the story of his mayoralty that most people know. As that drama was unfolding, however, so was a quieter story, driven by Giuliani's instinct and capacity for manipulating the levers of government. His methods, like those of the current White House, included appointments of yes-men, aggressive tests of legal limits, strategic lawbreaking, resistance to oversight, and obsessive secrecy. As was also the case with the White House, the events of 9/11 solidified the mindset underlying his worst tendencies. Embedded in his operating style is a belief that rules don't apply to him, and a ruthless gift for exploiting the intrinsic weaknesses in the system of checks and balances. That's why, of all the presidential candidates, Giuliani is most likely to take the expansions of the executive branch made by the Bush administration and push them further still. The blueprint can be found in the often-overlooked corners of his mayoralty.

The more I read about him, the more the prospect of a Rudy presidency truly frightens me.

The Effects of the Economy on Election 2008

Here's a key excerpt from NBC's First Read this morning:

So far, the economy has been a so-called sleeper issue in the presidential race. In fact, it's remarkable how little attention the 2008 candidates have put on the economy, even as a day doesn't go by without a major headline about it. We've noted this before, but if the economy becomes one of the major issues of 2008, the Republicans are going to long for the days when they had to hold town halls about Iraq.

...oil is close to 100 dollars a barrel today.

...most people think we haven't seen the worst of the sub-prime mortgage fallout.

...Bush wants nearly 200 billion more for Iraq, but says we can't afford the relatively modest SCHIP bill of 35 billion dollars.

...on and on and on.

It is hard to imagine why any Republican would even want the nomination.