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Month: January 2008 (Page 5 of 14)

Romney vs. McCain

I’m not sure it matters much who wins in Florida. The polls are fairly close, and the final results will probably be close as well.

Unless either one wins by a big margin, the GOP race should come down to a battle between these two candidates going forward. Joe Scarborough just reported that many Huckabee supporters are going for Romney because they don’t want to help McCain, and many war hawks are breaking from Giuliani to back McCain.

McCain probably needs a win more, but I think it will settle down to a battle between the two of them. Romney has more money, so he can weather a close loss better than McCain.

As I’ve been saying for weeks, McCain gives the GOP the best chance to win, but it’s also understandable why many Republicans can’t bring themselves to support him. Romney is a flake, but he’s a talented flake. He keeps changing his message and his positions, but the adjustments keep making him more acceptable to conservatives and primary voters. It’s actually funny listening to him talk about the three pillors of the Reagan coalition – economic conservatives, social conservatives and foreign policy hawks. He panders to each group as much as possible, regardless of anything he said in the past.

McCain looked pretty bad on Meet the Press on Sunday. He was basically caught in a lie about why he supported the tax cuts, and that is a deal breaker for many conservatives.

The fight on the Democratic side has been brutal, but the GOP fight is getting ugly as well. Both sides will have some challenges uniting their respective parties at their conventions.

Mortgage crisis ravages an Ohio suburb

The effects of the mortage crisis are becoming more dire. A suburb of Cleveland is practically turning into a ghost town.

This is what happens when the government refuses to consider common-sense regulation of business. Everyone knew that mortgage bankers were getting out of control, but the federal government did nothing. It’s similar to the situation in the 1980’s when we had the savings and loan crisis.

Robo-Romney

Mitt Romney has been ridiculed for his willingness to say anything to get elected. He’s been mocked for his blow-dried appearance and demeanor, being called a game show host, used car salesman, etc. It’s been fun watching him continuously tweak his message as voters express their preferences. After Obama’s win in Iowa all we heard from Romney was the need for “change.”

Now we’re learning that much of what he says might not even be his own thoughts and words. Romney apparantly relies upon a Jack Bauer-type ear-piece to get prompts from his staff during appearances. Many are also speculating that he used such a device during the most recent GOP debate.

Democrats should be praying that he gets the nomination over John McCain. It will be so much fun to run against this guy.

Joe Klein on South Carolina

Joe Klein has followed the Clintons for years, so his take is interesting:

It may well be true that any Democrat is going to have to handle that sort of sewage in the general election, but I’ve now–belatedly!–figured out that the real audacity in Barack Obama’s campaign–far more than his positions on the issues, which almost seem an afterthought–is his outrageous belief that the entire country, not just Democrats, wants to see a straight up election; that the entire country is tired of the pestilence of tactical tricks that the Clintons learned from their co-dynasts, the Bushes. (The latest example being their sudden, sociopathic emphasis on the importance of the Florida primary, a contest all three candidates had agreed to eschew at the behest of the Democatic National Committee.)

It is a hell of a bet Obama has made. And nearly 40 years of political, uhm, experience tells me that it isn’t a very wise one…but I must also say that it is truly sad to see Bill and Hillary Clinton on the wrong side of it.

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