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"Giuliani cannot win the heartland."
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Posted on 06/07/2005 5:22:03 AM PDT by Gipper08
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Mark McKinnon, the Austin political consultant who oversaw the advertising for President Bush in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, has committed to help Sen. John McCain in a second presidential bid.
McKinnon - one of the president's closest friends and confidants and a frequent mountain biking companion - met with the Arizona Republican over lunch this spring in the Senate dining room to discuss his support, said a GOP activist familiar with the meeting.
At this point, McCain, who lost to Bush in a bitter 2000 Republican primary, is in the early but unmistakable stages of laying the groundwork for another campaign. And McKinnon has indicated he would review his options, should Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, run in 2008.
The White House has sent word that Jeb Bush should be taken at his word, that he will not run. Rice, just four months into her new job, is not expected to seek the presidency, though some top Republicans have suggested she might be considered for vice president.
McKinnon, vice chairman of the Austin-based consulting firm Public Strategies Inc., said on Monday he's had "friendly conversations with Senator McCain" but would not discuss his commitment.
"I like the senator a lot, but it is too early to speculate on his intentions, as he has said himself, not to mention mine," McKinnon said in an e-mailed statement. "My political focus right now is on a successful second-term agenda for President Bush."
McCain's political strategist, John Weaver, said the senator is heartened by those "encouraging him to run," but that he has not yet decided whether he will.
"He's not out organizing," Weaver said, "and he's instructed us not to do that, either....."
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(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
2. The "neocon" term is a pet peeve of mine to the point, perhaps, of idiosyncracy. I am not waiting for cues from Bill Kristol or many of his contemporaries. I DO believe, as they do, in a verrrrrry aggressive and unilateral and interventionist foreign policy and military policy. am ready to concede that the administration has badly mismanaged the manpower needs of the military by depending on reservists whose sacrifices are very great since they often have families and businesses of their own and mortgage commitments and what not that are devastated by a foolish desire to downsize the active duty military at all much less during wartime. Also, most men are at their physical peak in their late teens and in their twenties not during their thirties ad forties.
3. Some of the "neo-literati" are the paleos who run outfits like the Rockford Institute and go all weepy over anti-war poetry while drinking and posing as conservatives. Movement conservatives are people who focus on conservative policy and, at best, treat literature as a hobby. The paleowhatevers are people who were never credentialed under Ronaldus Maximus and have made up a myth of "neo-conservatives" hijacking Reagan to explain their career failures. I live not far from the Rockford Institute and am thus more allergic to their tripe than most people who can more easily ignore them.
McCain has made himself a permanent excommunicatee from conservatism.
BTW, the paleo Rockford Institute suffers from obsession with the colorful cultures of Serbia and Montenegro. They for their isolationist reasons and I for my very different reasons (why waste blood and resources on the Balkans/If Slick Willie supports a war, it just MUST be wrong), agree ultimately that there should have been no American involvement there.
One last observation on the marriage front. A real man sees his wife as something far more than a mere physical package even at marriage or he is a fool. When he marries, he ought to be asking what woman best qualifies as mother of his children and to be there at his own death? If divorce should occur, will she have the moral spine to act as a real mother regardless of custody arrangements?
Then he can turn the same spotlight on himself and ask why such a woman should be interested in marrying him with all the faults he knows he has. Is he willing and, indeed, eager to accept that the upbringing and well-being of his children and his own role in that upbringing is far more important than his own transitory entertainments? Likewise that his wife's well-being is more important to him and objectively than his own? History teaches that men are expendable and that principled women are not expendable.
Thanks for your kind response. May God bless you and yours.
Find more useful and respectable hobbies.
absolutely NONE of the mentioned people would I consider for voting. However, realistically we must choose a candidate with the best potential for winning in 08. The GOP cannot afford to lose the White House now with us being soo close to gaining 60 senate seats. Think rationally, not short term.
Also, you were responding to my #179. My #179 was a response to another's idea that we should settle for cross-dressing pro-abort gun-controlling Rudy Giuliani as our presidential nominee. I take it you would prefer even Tancredo to Giuliani although a sensible GOP does not have to violate its principles by nominating such low-grade material as either of them. I do favor Rudy for baseball commissiner since he is a devoted Yankee fan.
Gerald Ford was a "moderate" Republican: internationalist, UN-loving, pro-abortion, likely social libertine generally, a Stakhanovite bureaucrat who bought and bullied and bribed his way to a very narrow and undeserved nomination in 1976 over Ronaldus Maximus. Who did better against Jimmuh Peanut: "Moderate" Ford or "Right-wing extremist" Reagan? Reagan would have trounced Carter in the post-Watergate 1976 election, as well. Would Rockefeller or George Romney have won in 1968 better than Nixon? If either was nominated, George Wallace might have been elected, the public having had quite enough of urban riots, excuses for crime, gummint preferences for anyone other than ordinary working class Ameericans, high taxes to pay for the programs by which their interests would be destroyed. Bush the Elder was elected ion a promise of extending Reaganism for another four years and "No New Taxes", failed miserably as to those promises and proved clueless in office and coughed up the presidency to the Arkansas Antichrist. "Moderate" GHWB got a mere 39% running for re-election. Dubya learned the lessons of his father's failure and has not looked back while articulating social conservatism and winning. The lessons of history are that GOP "moderates" are national roadkill anhd that, against all odds, the Right rules in the party, and, when it does, in the nation as well.
The Senate? It will not be won by mushy liberals. On election night 1980, Reagan won widely and it was the worst night in Senate elections ever for left Demonrats as TEN of their anti-American Senatorial heroes bit the dust, generally in favor of hard conservatives. What we need is the COURAGE of our CONVICTIONS, the willingness to state them (bold colors, not pale pastels as the old master used to say in 1976) unashamedly, and the determination to translate our ideals into governmental reality.
Conan: "What is the best of life?" ANSWER: "To meet your enemy in battle, to spill his entrails upon the earth and to listen to the lamentations of his women."
If we abandon our conservative principles, WE do NOT continue OUR dominance of American politics. This war is NOT R vs D but CONSERVATIVE VS. THE DREADED L WORD.
If Hilary will lose in any event, then by all means let us nominate a charming and electable bomb-thrower and make even quicker gains in the restoration of civilization in the USA and in the restoration of the USA.
Listen buddy, the fact is that the US congress and Senate control abortion issues. I am not advocating stringent gun control, or tax hikes. You are looking at the presidency as a do or die affair. Congress passes bills. Stop looking at a moderate GOP candidate fatalistically. I want 60 Senate seats in 06. That should be the number one concern for us, not projected White House campaigns.
Lol there are days when it's going to rain whether we like it or not. Illegal immigration however can be stopped tomorrow if the government wanted to do it. This country was not founded on and did not become successful through defeatism.
Tancredo in 2008.
(Who will be his running mate?)
Dear Alex Marko,
I understand your fear of the Democrats taking over in '08. When I asked you earlier where you lived, I was not trying to be flip. I live in the Heartland (Rockford, Illinois), and Rudy resonates with neither Democrats nor Republicans. He certainly does not resonate with rural voters, and in the electoral college, rural voters are VERY important.
So far, we have had your bare assertion that
1. Giuliani would whup any Dem, and
2. That conservatives would certainly vote for him in a 1 on 1 with the Hildebeast.
As to 1, you have offered no arguments, just your opinion, and perhaps mention of a poll, which at this point means very little (e.g. Jimmy Carter was at 1% in 1975, Bill Clinton at maybe 15% in 1991)
As to 2, I know that is not the case for myself. I voted 3rd party rather than for Dole in '96, and do not regret it to this day. That is despite the fact that I myself was running that year for state rep on the same line with Dole.
As for thinking long term, I can vouch that BlackElk ALWAYS thinks long-term. For my part, I will offer a simple matrix of four possibilities in '08. We will assume the Dem nominee to be Ms. Rodham.
The scenarios:
1. Conservative X beats Hildebeast
2. Hildebeast beats Conservative X
3. Rudy beats Hildebeast
4. Hildebeast beats Rudy
SCENARIO 1:
I think we all agree that outcome 1 is the best result. You believe it is not a likely result.
SCENARIO 2:
Now, if Hildebeast beats Conservative X in a split Red-Blue situation. The Republican faithful and social conservatives and right-leaning Libertarians will likely vote more or less Republican in the state races. If the race is at all close, the Republicans will certainly hold the Senate and likely hold the House (barring a dismal 2006). The same Republicans will do their duty and block what they can, to the degree that they have a spine (this problem is the same regardless of the pres). The party platform will stay the same, and the base will be energized to take her down in '12. This is not a pleasant scenario, especially because of SCOTUS, but it does not split the party, or require compromise of issues.
3. Now, if Rudy wins, without making any fundamental shift in his positions, he will try to steer the Republican Party in his direction, and in so doing will alienate the party base. Such a win might even create a new revitalized social conservative wing in the Democratic Party, as large groups of unsatisfied voters will not go uncourted for long. A sizeable conservative 3rd party might develop. Most cabinet posts will be filled with the new breed, leaving good young conservatives uncredentialed. The Party Platform would be gutted. All would be chaos, and that chaos would not just lead into 2012, it would be more or less permanent. Imagine what the Republican Party would be today if Nelson Rockefeller, not Goldwater won the nomination. I maintain there would be no Reagan wing. Gerald Ford would be considered ultra-right, and the USA would be just to the left of Canada, unless a George Wallace type took over the Dems. In any event, a Giuliani win might be quite pyrhhic. It certainly would be divisive. His court nominations might be somewhat better, but would not fix the present SCOTUS problem, as he would seek pro-aborts, and look for justices who are dangerously indifferent to the Bill of Rights protections of law-abiding citizens.
4. Hildebeast beats Rudy. Oddly, that might actually be a better long-term outcome, as the party would not be split. However, if Giuliani fared poorly in the heartland, or simply failed to motivate the base, we lose senators and reps, so it could be a disaster, more of a disaster than a loss by an unspectacular conservative losing, because the base would still come out and vote for the underticket.
(not directed to anyone in particular, but the way the cards are unfolding - very likely)
I'm not sold on McCain, it's my belief he doesn't have a chance. But my guess is any running mate of his should he manage to pull it off would be even more liberal than him.
McKinnon's only problem will be that McPain cannot win a Republican primary, nationally.
So he'll be working for a loser.
I'm from Tampa, Florida to answer your first question. Secondly, assertions that Rudy would steer the GOP into a direction of his choosing are not realistic. Rudy does not have the outright power in the GOP to do that. What rudy does bring to the table is crossover votes that no other GOP member could pull off.
You are wrong about your scenerio 1. I do believe a conservative(anyone really) would beat Hillary. I just do not believe a "heartland-type" conservative like Pence or Tancredo would beat a moderate democratic candidate. I have made that clear.
Hillary cannot win the presidency. She has never polled over 42% in her/bill's political life. The only reason she would win a primary is from the anti-bush, ultra-liberal voters that polorized the the DNC. We(GOP voters) are dangerously close to reliving a 92 election flop where a 3rd party hurt Bush 41 and let Clinton in office. To me, this is possibly the worse scenerio possible. (1)
Buchanan killed Bush 41's re-election and now motivated buchananite types in the GOP will choose a candidate that is just not electable in a national election. The GOP now is doing EXACTLY what the DNC did in 04.
(1) here are polls that show hillary's poor performance and justify my statments about her.
CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. May 20-22, 2005. N=453 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 5.
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"If Hillary Rodham Clinton were to run for president in 2008, how likely would you be to vote for her: very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely, or not at all likely?" Very likely 28% Not at all Likely 40%
http://www.pollingreport.com/2008.htm
If the 2008 Republican presidential primary were held today, whom would you support if the candidates are [see below]?" N=352 Republicans and Republican leaners who are registered to vote,?
Rudy Giuliani 25%
John McCain 21%
Jeb Bush 7%
"Would you like Hillary Rodham Clinton to run for president in 2008, or not?"
Would: 43% Would Not 50%
Would you like Rudolph Giuliani to run for president in 2008, or not?"
Would 45% Would Not 41%
*Quinnipiac University Poll.
Ummmnnnhhh..Alex: did you ever hear of George Allen?
Tancredo's going nowhere, period. He's a one-issue candidate and MAY take Western primaries. Noplace else.
HRC's unpopularity is significant--but besides that, the last US Senator to win the Presidency was JFK--bought and paid for, fair and square. You'd have to go back another several elections to find another US Senator who became Pres.
Rudy has exactly one feather: he did a good job with NYC in the clean-up mode after 9/11. (And before 9/11.) Aside from LEO and anti-terrorism credits, Rudy has nothing in his bag.
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"Giuliani cannot win the heartland."
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I think we can agree to shelf this argument and win 5 more senate seats in 06. Then we can debate who will do what in 08.
You've got that RIGHT about the HEARTLAND.
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