GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
Why then attack Romney this early? The easy answer is desperation. But I also think that their passions have gotten the better of them. They’re on autopilot, and like Sunni and Shi’a, can’t imagine not fighting the other guys.
Contradiction? I wrote about Romney’s conversion for National Journal and came away with the impression that the Harvard incident began the process, rather than ended it — that it took time before Romney fully came to realize that the pro-life position was correct.
Also, Romney has always claimed that, even after his personal revelation, he never went back on his promise to Massachusetts voters.
While it may score political points among the Romney critics, the attack revealed what kind of a campaign McCain intends to run: one that’s full of negativity. It’s what turned me off last cycle when the Republican National Committee chose to engage in personal attacks instead of principled debates.
Writing critically of McCain’s campaign brings me no joy, particularly because I have at least a couple friends working there, including Patrick Hynes, whom I consider to be one of the best blog outreach coordinators in the mix.
Finally, on that note, I find Kurtz’s chart (above) interesting because it includes no new-media operative among the people in McCain’s “core election team.” It seems that National eCampaign Director Christian Ferry should have his picture there. Or maybe McCain really was serious when he called his eCampaign “one of the worst parts of our entire campaign with the worst, by the way, staff.”
MEDVED: I was impressed, Governor, in the last debate by the way that you handled an opportunity you were given an opportunity to slam Senator McCain and you said, ‘I don’t want to do that. He’s my friend, he campaigned for me, and wouldn’t it be a great thing if all the campaigns on our side, on the Republican side, could return to that focus, that the real enemies here, or the real opponents, are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards
Why isn’t McCain aiming his guns at Fred Thompson who has soared ahead in several national polls and a recently released Florida Insider/InsiderAdvantage poll in Florida? Attacking a friend and his 2000 national campaign co-chair may be dicey for McCain but eventually McCain will need to pull out all the stops to claw his way back into contention. Our McCain camp source says: “Fred Thompson is not yet in the race. He will face scrutiny at the appropriate time.” The Romney campaign sees that eventually McCain will turn his guns on his old friend when all else fails, observing: “it would be the equivalent of playing the violin on the Titanic. When that point comes and it very well might the ship is as good as sunk.”
This move is almost unfathomable. In the first place, McCain should be spending his efforts explaining his stance on immigration. He has said that it takes longer to articulate his position than the opposition, but he doesn’t appear to be putting his emphasis there.
An attack strategy might work to distract people from the immigration issue, but if so, then McCain’s attacking in the wrong direction. He has two candidates in front of him, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. Except in Iowa and perhaps New Hampshire, Romney trails McCain in the polling. Why go after the person on your tail, rather than fight forward?
All McCain can accomplish is to lift Romney’s profile. Romney, if he’s smart, will simply parry the thrusts and talk about his admiration for McCain while keeping his eyes focused on the frontrunners. Third-place candidates do not win by attacking fourth-place candidates, and fourth-place candidates don’t win in the reverse, either.
This will produce some great fodder. McCain misses many points, the viagra must be mind numbing:
1. Publicly attacking any candidate in this manner will earn him no good will. (Can you say Thompson/McCain?)
2. Team Romney went through a round of this last December-January and have been planning on this again. They have already had things prepared and their swords sharpened. My guess (only mine) is that they already have several strategies to play with and they will choose the the Higher Road Strategy.
3. McCain is just going to look like a “flip-flopping hypocrite” (To Quote Soren Dayton) after all his complaining about the personal attacks of 2000.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I love it…. Rudy is just sitting back and letting them have at it….
It will come down to Rudy and Fred.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Jake,
…for AG.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
[...] post by Jason and software by Elliott [...]
June 14th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
At what point do we start considering McCain a 2nd tier candidate?
June 14th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
After he looses to Romney in Ames. Oh wait…
June 14th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
cwpete, I would say he’s created a 2nd tier for himself. The 2nd tier is now the 3rd tier.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
It is looking that way David B. I think Jason is right, after Ames it will catch hold.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
McCain sees Romney as a threat because he attacks him from the right (where McCain is weak).
McCain’s not going to be attacked from the right by FDT or by Rudy.
McCain needs to cripple Romney so he can go after Rudy without looking over his shoulder.
The problem I see is that in a Romney-McCain smackdown, McCain will be devastated while Romney will be barely scathed.
If McCain were playing this smart he’d be focusing his fire on the Democrats running for President.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Off topic, but the Massachusetts legislature voted today to keep a gay marriage referendum off the ballot in 08′. So it looks like judicially imposed Gay Marriage is here to stay in Mass. I wonder what ramifications for Romney’s campaign this will have. I tend to think that now is a fairly good time for Romney to be high-profile. He makes the anti-gay marriage case better then anyone I’ve ever heard, and all three of his opponents oppose a federal marriage amendment, even the messiah Frd. If he plays this well, he should be able to get quite a bit of mileage out of this event.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
When Romney was Governor, his appeals to the state constitution and rule of democracy twisted enough arms to keep the referendum ON the ballot by 8 votes out of 200.
Now with pro-gay-marriage Patrick in the Governor’s mansion, and no pressure from Mitt, the legislature caves. Keep this in mind all of you who say executive vision casting on social issues bears no influence.
Furthermore, Patrick and the legislature will likely throw out the 1913 law which kept gay marriage confined to MA. This is setting the stage for a national debate in 2008. Of the big 4 candidates, Romney is the one who has clearly done the most to champion traditional marriage. This will weigh on the minds of the religious right voters in the primary.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Precisely the type of issue that drives swing voters away from Republicans. Great strategy.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Well, DavidB, I can’t see how these events in MA help McCain or Rudy win the GOP primary. It will simply provide yet another example of why they share little in common with social conservative voters.
As for driving away swing voters in the general election, that’s an entirely separate issue. I don’t think championing social issues drives away swing voters…yet it certainly rallies the base. It is the championing of social issues to the exclusion of other conservative principles which alienates swing voters, and Romney is not in danger of that.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
By the way, Jason, great wrap up of some of the reaction to McCain.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
murphy: Drives away suburban swing voters in the general election in droves.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
The same swing voters who are already wanting to give the next Presidency to a Democrat.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Sorry, DavidB, I don’t see it. What are you basing that on?
June 14th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Davidb’s basing it on the overwhelming pro-traditional marriage referendums in countless states.
Most voters don’t want marriage being changed.
I know Dave disagrees but he ought to realize gay marriage isn’t popular at the ballot box (where it counts).
June 14th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I’ll let Kavon and DaveG handle that one. They’re good on this question and I’m trying to stay away from touchy issues.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
EGS: On the other hand, voters support civil unions, do not support a Constitutional Amendment, and *especially* dislike Republicans campaigning on socially divisive issues like these. (Even many Republican families have gay members whom they’d like to see in long-term committed partnerships.)
June 14th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
David B,
Some 60%+ of the population opposes gay marriage. Gay marriage bans have passed in all but one state. And Romney’s defense of his position is hardly among the more extreme arguments aginst gay marriage. He emphasizes children, and the notion that having a mother and father, greatly enhances the development of a child, for all sorts of reasons. But, mmore importantly, Romney’s not likely to argue heavily against gay marriage at all when this vote is raised. After all, the vote didn’t legalize gay marriage. It’s been legal for 4 years. Instead, the vote prevented a Democratic vote on the issue. And you can be assurred, if 60% of the population opposes gay marriage, a substantially higher number opposes judicially imposed gay marriage, and a denial of the Democratic process on the issue. How Romney stands to drive away swing voters or suburbanites by essentially saying the legislature thwarted the Democratic process, I can’t imagine. I live in the suburbs in a blue state, and I can’t think of a single person I know, Republican or Democrat (and the vast majority of my acquaintances are Democrats), who would be driven away by that message.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
DavidB, Civil unions are an entirely different issue. It’s giving the benefits of marriage to homosexual couplings without giving them the honor or respect that belongs with real marriages.
To a lot of people tolerating this type of thing is fine but attempting to make homosexual unions equal in honor/respect is simply laughable.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
EGS: Right, a majority does not want to call it “marriage.” None of that contradicts #19.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Nor does it have anything to do with opposing judicially tyrants imposing a radical agenda on voters who just want their communities left alone.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
You’d've been at home with the so cons a few decades ago opposing segregation and interracial marriage.
Such an embarrassing lack of vision.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Good wrap-up, except you quote Soren Dayton without linking to his analysis, which in my opinion was the least abstract, best grounded in fact rather than overreaching speculation: http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/06/14/logic-of-the-mccainromney-attack/
For those unfamiliar with Dayton’s lack of sympathy for Mitt, your quote may have suggested he was referring to McCain as a flip-flopper. I personally don’t know that I agree with McCain’s tactic - though he’s also getting help from Brownback, whether wanted or not - but I wonder if you might be letting your own hostility to Dayton get in the way of an unbiased and informative review of opinion.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Good point CK:
If anyone wants an anti-Romney site, the link you posted is probably better than the URL McCain just purchased for that purpose. Seriously, eyeon08 is so bad that I thought I was on a site run by Democrats. (not Rudy supporters).
“but I wonder if you might be letting your own hostility to Dayton get in the way of an unbiased and informative review of opinion.”
It is very very very (can I emphasize that enough?) difficult to be unbiased towards someone & their site that is so incredibly biased. The guy has never given Romney a fair shake - ever..
They attack him for not profiling the hispanics subcontracted to work his yard.
They acuse him or his wife Ann of lying over statements of spousal communication and official policy.
They misrepresent his Iraq policy, and just about everything else.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Actually, cwpete, we’re in agreement on a lot of points. I’m not completely convinced that Dayton’s attitude toward Romney is best described as “bias,” but at this point it’s probably the equivalent, since the overwhelming tendency is for anyone so invested in a particular viewpoint, whether it was arrived at more or less objectively or not, sooner or later to end up defending it reflexively. We see that tendency throughout the political sphere.
All the same, Dayton frequently makes interesting observations based on detailed knowledge and experience, and for that very reason he IS a lot better against Mitt than any pre-cooked “mittvsfact” type effort - at least for political junkies if not for the general public. I hadn’t yet seen a single other observer mention the RTL conference and Mitt’s upcoming appearance. Since everyone is acting so perplexed by McCain’s tactics and timing, I think it’s useful info. For McCain, it may seem like “if not now, when?” For Mitt observers, it will be interesting to see how Mitt reacts, whether directly or indirectly, in that context.
June 14th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
McCain’s sure contrasting badly with Romney in class and likeability-take this article for example, about Romney’s likeability:
http://www.rd.com/content/behind-the-scenes-with-washington-bureau-chief-william-beaman
Chris Matthews: “”I can’t help it, I just like the guy,”
June 14th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Nothing’s wrong with negative attacks, so long as the candidate attacking tells why he’s different. Kathleen Hall Jamison’s book “Everything You Think You Know About Politics…And Why You’re Wrong” shows this very well. Voters *like* to know what’s different between candidate X and Y, but they are repulsed by people who just attack and attack without telling them why they should vote for THEM instead.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Good wrap up Jason.
McCain is going down, his strategy is poor, his campaign is like a very large ship (which it was) slowly running out of power and drifting along aimlessly. Its early momentum is kepping it afloat at the moment, but eventually it will come to a halt.
Romney on the other hand is looking quicker. His reaction to McCain is well prepared, and will help him build a profile (”McCain doesn’t like you” is a useful place to be with the conservative base).
June 14th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
CK,
Sorry, I meant I was using Soren’s terminology not his arguments. I did agree with his analysis and almost wrote something along the same lines until I saw his.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
McCain should attack Romney on his lack of leadership, inability to turn things around, incompetence, inability to grasp complex problems, inability to govern Democrats (own both houses) etc.
Oh yeah, he can’t. The fact that a candidate can have all the above qualities and somehow be taken down because of his change on the abortion issue is asinine.
The Republicans best choices for leaders, that are also competent, are Romney and Rudy.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Murphy, not only have so-called Governor Patrick twisted the arms of some legislatives, but the big guys, like Senator Kennedry and House Speaker Peloie, were brought in.
So, David, is it a state issue when you have national players involved? And especially now that there are 27 states having the ammendments in their state constitutions recognizing marriage between a man and a woman, what do you think will happen when this 1913 law is repelled? I can see all of those cases going all the way to federal level and some (especially the 9th Circuit) will overturn those ammendments, making our state constitutions, and in turn, the people, worthless! It could be Roe v Wade all over again!
I know you have been emphasizing that you are ok with civil unions, not same-sex marriages. But it is only a baby step from one to other. There actually are gay organizations that are not satisfied with this civil union recognization and they are working on plans to move on to same-sex marriages.