<p>What do the Repub’s on this board think of Romney? He seems to be getting a lot of good press lately, but I wonder how the Christians would take to the idea of a Mormon?</p>
<p>I’m thinking Motherdear may be right: Allen v Warner. Then Allen might go for Romney to try to pick up some NE support, and who knows who Warner might get. But I’m putting my vote down that it won’t be Clinton on the top or bottom of the ticket. (And as my spouse will quickly tell you, I’ve been wrong plenty of times before.)</p>
<p>That’s why Lindsey Graham has him on a leash, walking him around and making him do tricks and beg for Milkbones to show what a nice obedient little doggie he’s become. Unfortunately, McCain is a yapper and he’ll bark and growl and bare his fangs at the most inopportune moment and that will be that for him.</p>
<p>I never discount Dick Morris’ political instincts, even when he’s pimping for a failed National Security Advisor/Sec. of State:</p>
<p>I happen to really like Geena Davis in this role. The only thing I can’t understand is why the entire Congress seems to consist entirely of Donald Sutherland!</p>
<p>How accurate were the predictions of the 1992 elections in 1990-1991? Did Cuomo not quit because defeating Bush the Elder was viewed as impossible. What did the other political genius (Mr. Ozone) think about his own chances. </p>
<p>Who were the leading candidates for the Dems six months before the first caucus? Was Clinton even talked in the same sentence as Jerry Brown, Tom Harkin, or Paul Tsongas? </p>
<p>All this early handicapping of Republican nominees is pure heresy.</p>
<p>Clinton won the pre-primary fundraising race. I called the nomination for him in December of 1991 and it wasn’t a particularly astonishing bit of tea-leaf reading on my part. Gennifer Flowers nearly derailed the scenario, however. </p>
<p>Jerry Brown was the last man standing for the anyone-but-Clinton forces to circle around, a role I suspect either Russ Feingold or Wesley Clark may play this next time around; Brown was otherwise a cipher.
Tsongas was viewed as a strong competitor but as one noteworthy commentator observed, he had answering machines in states where Clinton had a full staff. Bob Kerrey was actually supposed to be the golden boy heading into the campaign but he never ignited, looked better on paper than he did on the stump. Doug Wilder was tearing up focus groups…until they got the visual and saw that he was black.</p>
<p>For one of the best books on presidential campaigning, I commend to your attention QUEST FOR THE PRESIDENCY: 1992. Published by Texas A&M University Press, written by Newsweek’s political reporters that managed to get agreements to sit in on <em>every</em> campaign, Dem & Rep, in the earliest days. Doubt it will happen again.</p>
<p>I look for two things for starters: dollars and staff. Only then do I look at early poll results and the electoral calendar.</p>
<p>I very much doubt that was the reason for Cuomo’s decision not to run. A more likely scenario is that he probably had some skeletons in the closet that he felt wouldn’t have withstood the scrutiny of a national race. It is very difficult to be successful in New York politics for as long as he had and not have some stuff that could be painted with a negative brush. </p>
<p>Guliani has the same kinds of problems. Just look at what happened when he recommended an associate to the Homeland Security deparment and charges of corruption immediately surfaced. Politics in places like New York (and Boston) are so heavily imbued with a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” mentality that it makes it difficult for anyone to survive the degree of “gotcha politics” in today’s national races.</p>
<p>Is that really any more damaging than Clinton showing Monica cigar tricks in the oval office while Hillary played iron-fisted First Lady a few doors down the hall? Clinton immerged out of his dalliance relatively unscathed, in as much as he would STILL be the Democrats best nominee for the next election, if it was possible for him to run. </p>
<p>I don’t think Guliani’s Gracie Mansion indiscretion would be that big a problem for him. A lot of people forgave him that sin in the aftermath of 9-11, when he seemed to prove his mettle during the worst possible crisis. And that’s what Americans are looking for, a real leader who can pull the Nation through a crisis. I wonder how Guliani would have handled the period leading up to Katrina, and its aftermath? Most likely better than Bush. As for skeletons…Is there a single politician above Alderman who doesn’t have a few of those? </p>
<p>As far as Warner or Allen are concerned, I don’t think either of them has nearly enough name recognition to cut it on the national stage. But I’d vote for Warner in a heartbeat if it were available. He’s a good Governor.</p>
<p>You may well have a point there, Mini. In light of that, it doesn’t appear that the Republicans have a candidate that will pass their “smell-test”, AND win a lion’s share of the national vote. I predict this next election goes to the Democrats (as long as they field a candidate that isn’t as far left-afield as the Republican candidate is hard-right). I think the majority of voters are looking for a reason NOT to maintain the current Republican domination of The Presidency and both houses of congress, as well as the Supreme Court.
You’re probably tired of me saying it, but I’ll say it anyway: Politics is cyclical. Bush as capped off 8 years of Republican “leadership” (if you care to call it that) with abysmal poll numbers. People are most likely cocked and primed to give the other side another shot at things. To bad most people don’t recognize that the two parties are only slightly different sides of the same coin.</p>
<p>I think that sells Bill Clinton short. As we have come to see, he’s probably one of the most naturally charismatic politicians in decades and he had been laying the foundation for a presidential run for many years. On top of that, his timing was good.</p>
<p>He benefitted more from George Bush being such an ineffective, out-of-touch campaigner than from a lack of Democratic challengers.</p>
the Republican position on abortion has always struck me as odd. It seems like fiscal conservatives should be strongly in favor of both family planning and abortion. If all of those poor, young and/or unmarried women having abortions had babies instead it would be an enormous expense to taxpayers.</p>
<p>“he would STILL be the Democrats best nominee for the next election, if it was possible for him to run.”</p>
<p>That pretty much sums up the depths of our problems. </p>
<p>Every four years the country faces a choice between Scyllas and Charybdis. The only good news is that ones that did not even make it on the final ballot were even worse. It would take a miracle for a decent and electable candidate to win the nomination of either party. Despicable versus god-damn awful … what a choice.</p>
<p>I theorize that contemporary American politics has critical “character deficit”, and by that, I don’t mean “a lack of characters”. I mean a lack of honorable traits, both tangible and less easily defined: Courage, selfLESSness, conviction, honor, integrity—to name just a few of the critical ones. Sleaze, avarice, egotism, feet-of-clay, extreme partisanship, etc., have always been part-and-parcel with politics, but at the some of the most critical junctures of our history, our best Presidents put aside politics and acted with conviction in the interest of America’s greater good. I think Guliani showed unusual (in the context of our contemporary times) courage and leadership in his handling of New York City during the aftermath of 9/11. But I worry that there are no leaders on the national stage capable of this type of leadership. GWB demonstrates a distressing lack of it. But I suspect that Al Gore possesses even less than that, which is a profoundly sad thought.</p>