Romney, Mitt

One would think that a candidate, running for President in the 21st Century, whose entire candidacy has had a narrative of transparent pandering and astonishing position changes, would know better than to attempt a naked pander and position change on an absolutely fundamental issue, in a very public forum, the weekend before the largest Primary Election in American history.

But not Mitt Romney, who used a podcast on one of the center-right's most widely read blogs to absolutely contradict his previous positions on gun control.  As Instapundit says, in response:  "I'm beginning to question [Romney's] sincerity."

Longtime readers will know that I'm no fan of John McCain.  But I really do think that Romney is convinced that he's so smart and that we're so stupid that he can get away will stuff like this.  He's our Bill Clinton. I really do have a hard time understanding how anyone can take anything he says seriously.

From Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds McCain earning 34% of the vote while Romney is eight points behind at 26%. The survey was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, finishing just before results from Florida’s Presidential Primary were known. Mike Huckabee finished a distant third at 16%.

Since the poll was completed, Rudy Giuliani has withdrawn from the race and endorsed McCain. America’s Mayor had picked up 9% of the Illinois vote in the poll.

Illinois elects delegates directly within each Congressional District, and the Presidential Preference vote is meaningless, so I'm not sure how much this means.

Consistent with my prediction of a Romney victory, John McCain has won the Florida Republican Primary.

Rudy is in third at the moment, and is giving an extraordinarily classy concession speech.  He's expected to drop out as soon as tomorrow, and endorse McCain.  His campaign has been such a disappointment.

Ron Paul is at three percent in the returns I'm watching.  I guess the Revolution hasn't started quite yet, and maybe his supporters' habit of being as insulting and antagonistic as possible is being reflected in the returns.

Prediction for tonight:  Romney edges McCain by five

As much as I'd love to jinx Romney by predicting that he wins, I really do think he's going to win Florida's Primary.

Of course, I've gotten every Primary wrong so far this year, so take it for what little it's worth.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch released this yesterday:

Democrats:

• Obama: 51%
• Clinton: 22%

Republicans:

• McCain: 31%
• Romney: 20%
• Giuliani: 13%
• Huckabee: 11%
• Paul: 7%

There's a also a poll of state issues which was released today, including new approval and job performance numbers for Gov. Blagojevich.

Peggy Noonan:

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

One, I don't think the party is distroyed, as it is splintered and changing.

Two, a number of Presidential candidates could have and should have repaired such splintering by campaigning on conservative ideas and issues.  Instead, we have a festival of pandering.  Neither McCain nor Romney nor Huckabee will destroy the Republican Party.  But they each have declined the opportunity to undo the damage done by the last seven years of profligate waste in favor of promising that the federal government can and should solve everyone's problems for them.  And so, even if one of them wins the White House, the Republican Party will continue to drift without an ideology, without any philosophical underpinning for a daily diet of "problem-solving" reactions by their administration, without a direction.

As disappointed as I am in the wasted opportunities of the present administration, I'm more disappointed in the campaigns and candidacies of McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani.  Each clearly knows the failures of the past seven years, and each of them is hoping to exacerbate rather than remedy those failures.

I'm not the only one.

Rush Limbaugh said today:

I can see possibly not supporting the Republican nominee this election, and I never thought that I would say that in my life.

I'm not a big Rush listener, but his concerns and my concerns seem to line up on this race - that McCain, Romney and Huckabee are all big-government nanny-state liberals claiming to be conservative.

I wonder if he shares my frustration that so many otherwise well-intentioned conservatives are falling for it?

At the risk of continuing my embarassing streak of awful predictions, tonight is Michigan Republican Primary.  Many are saying that if Romney loses here, his campaign is finished, but I think he'll be done when he's tired of spending his own money.  That said, if Romney doesn't win in Michigan, I don't know where he will win.

McCain is polling very well after winning New Hampshire, and won Michigan in 2000.  Romney is leading in Michigan polling, and Kos is urging Democrats to vote for him as a way to prolong the GOP race.

That said, I think McCain will win Michigan narrowly tonight.  He's got momentum, and I think his appeal is much greater to independents and Democrats than Romney's, despite Kos' urging.  Huckabee comes in third.

What do you think?

From Real Clear Politics:

Clearly, last night was the embodiment of what we've been sensing all along: this is an election about change. But last night was also the triumph of authenticity in both parties: the two winners were candidates who were not the most experienced, did not speak in terribly specific policy terms, but nevertheless were the most real and most sincere in their pitch to - and ultimately in their connection with - the voters of Iowa.

Last night we saw the result of the 'authenticity gap' in this race. Mitt Romney spent $7 million in Iowa touting himself as a candidate of conservative values and came away with only 25% of the vote. Hillary spent $6.7 million trying to portray herself as an agent of change and finished in third place with under thirty percent support. Voters simply did not buy the repackaging of these two candidates and instead opted for candidates who were, to use a cliche, exactly who they said they were.

Yeah - I've never really gotten over my nagging feeling that Romney doesn't really believe all the conservative things that he's now saying, and that he's only saying them now because he thinks that's what Republican Primary voters want to hear.

New Hampshire is going to be interesting - that's usually the Primary whose voters have the most finely tuned BS detectors.  Polling currently has John McCain - another "genuine" candidate - with a slim lead. If Romney loses New Hampshire, I don't know if his campaign can recover.

Clinton also has a small lead, but the trend is that she's quickly losing ground to Obama.  If Obama wins New Hampshire, then I think the nomination is his.

This is the most compressed Primary election schedule in history, but the news cycle also moves much more quickly than it ever has.  Is there enough time between now and Tuesday for a major changes in the dynamic?

Tonight is the Iowa Caucuses, the first delegate allocation contest for the 2008 Presidential Primaries.  The last time I was this uninterested and uninspired by a Presidential election was 1992, so factor that in when considering my prognostications.

Contrary to current polling, my predictions for tonight's winners are Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, both for the same reason.  Due to only my gut feeling and anecdotal evidence, I think those two campaigns are and have been the best organized on the ground in Iowa, and the caucuses are always about organization and "Get Out The Vote" efforts.  Such efforts were the key to John Kerry's "surprise" win there four years ago. I also think that, due to the nature of Iowa's caucuses, that polling is notoriously difficult.

As a good friend of mine likes to say:  In a few hours, we'll all know the answers.

In spite of recent attacks, should Republicans who are angry over the last several years of GOP spending... should they be looking closer at McCain's record on wanting to match the tax cuts with reduced spending?

Read on:

Romney has gone on the offensive against McCain who has been gaining on him in New Hampshire. One of the more recent forays has been over McCain's votes against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, though without mention of his voting for them last year. As reported in USA Today:

NORTH CONWAY, N.H. (AP) — Taking aim at a rallying John McCain, New Hampshire front-runner Mitt Romney said Saturday that his GOP presidential rival had failed "Reagan 101" by twice opposing President Bush's tax cuts.

...

McCain was one of two Republican senators to vote against a $1.35 trillion tax cut that Bush proposed in 2001. McCain also voted against similar plans in 2003, as well as a proposed repeal of the federal estate tax. McCain said they disproportionately benefited the wealthy.

"That sounds like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry," Romney later told a house party in Tuftonboro, referring to the two liberal Democratic senators from his home state.

As usual there is a bit more to the story than the initial political attacks claim. USA Today also noted yet another flip-flop on Romney's end, specifically on this issue:

Romney's criticism could open him up to a line attack about his own position on the tax cuts.

...

At the time of the latter votes, Romney was in his first stint in elective office, leading Massachusetts.

The Boston Globe reported that year that during a meeting in Washington with the Massachusetts congressional delegation, Romney was asked about the tax cuts and said he "won't be a cheerleader" for proposals he did not agree with. "But I have to keep a solid relationship with the White House."

Oh the webs he weaves.

Like Romney though, McCain is now overwhelmingly supporting the Bush tax cuts (voting to continue them last year) but McCain remains vigilant on the issue of spending and wanting larger tax cuts for middle class Americans. From the Washington Times:

Some have argued though that his prior positions on Bush's tax cuts had little to do with spending controls, but almost everything to do with being a Democrat in Republican clothing, as Romney suggests.

From a recent National Review Online article:

Looking back to the spring of 2001, when the Senate was considering the first big tax cut of $1.35 trillion, McCain was not talking about the need to cut spending. He was denouncing supply-side economics, sounding like a Democrat as he complained that Bush’s tax cuts would reduce marginal rates by too much.

...

McCain has always been strong on the issue of containing pork-barrel spending, but he should not get a free pass on his aversion to cutting marginal rates. Supply-side economics embraces the reality that business-owners’ and investors’ money makes the world go round — and when the government confiscates less of it, there is more available to create more economic growth and employ more Americans.

Seems odd that a Senator that "has always been strong on the issue of containing pork-barrel spending" would neglect to demand less spending along with tax cuts. I mean isn't that what conservatives have been railing about with the Bush Administration?

Well... as McCain and other Republican Senators had argued at that time, controlling spending indeed was a major concern to counter-balance the size of the tax cuts. You'd think conservatives would champion this philosophy, since, well, they do:

"With the adoption of the Reconciliation bill both the Administration and Congress are going to have to make some very hard choices to find the resources to fund our national defense priorities. There's no way around it. We cannot take money from the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, so that means we will have to cut other spending programs or adjust the tax cuts to support our military forces. Those are very hard choices, indeed, and we don't like to make hard choices in Congress very often.

"But, Mr. President, we are going to have to make them because our first duty, is and always will be the nation's security, and the defense of American interests and values in the world. And those members who believe we have been derelict in our duty lately, will have to take our case to the public, inform them of the hard choices before us and urge them to urge us to do the right and necessary thing, even if it requires us to take on a few sacred cows around here."

I suppose if you are upset over the GOP's spending and want a guy who'd match tax cuts with spending controls, McCain is probably your guy.

Even his detractors note that he has "always" been strong on controlling spending. And though he wants upper income tax cuts matched with bigger middle class tax cuts that would leave far more money in American hands for investing, spending, etc as well as helping businesses and big investors do more to create jobs. Spurring the economy from both ends.

If McCain has been wrong on taxes and spending, almost all the complaints against Bush and the GOP's spending have been unfounded.

Not that I read World Net Daily that often, but when I saw a link to Pat Buchanan's column on who is still a viable contender for the GOP nomination, I had to read. And I saw this really interesting nugget:

The front-runner since spring, Rudy Giuliani, is close to toast.

By dropping out of the Iowa Straw Poll in August, Rudy ceded Iowa and the cornucopia of publicity the winner receives. He is running far behind in Iowa, sinking in New Hampshire and certain to be skunked twice by Jan. 9. If so, he will lose Michigan, then South Carolina, where he is already far behind, and Florida, his firewall, where he is now slipping behind both Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

If Rudy is 0-4 going into Florida, he loses Florida. If he is 0-5 going into the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday states, his national lead will be ancient history. In some national polls, it has already vanished.

He says the same for Fred Thompson.

His best guess:

If Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire, drop the curtain for Rudy, Thompson and McCain – and they know it. For if Mitt wins in New Hampshire, none of the three beats him in Michigan, they will not beat him in South Carolina, and they will not beat him in Florida.

Can McCain, who kicked away what seemed a near-certain nomination by embracing the Bush-Kennedy amnesty and stiffing the Iowa Straw Poll, win? Not impossible. If he can win New Hampshire and make himself the national alternative to Huckabee, a desperate GOP establishment might rally to him for lack of an alternative.

But McCain's fate is not entirely in his own hands. He needs an assist. He needs Huckabee to defeat Romney in Iowa, where McCain will be waxed, then to come back and beat Romney himself in New Hampshire. Two losses by Romney in states where he has invested millions would put his campaign on life support.

But if Romney wins Iowa, he will win New Hampshire and Michigan, and go into South Carolina 3-0. If Romney wins the first two, he is almost surely the nominee. For that would eliminate Rudy, McCain and Thompson, leaving the only man able to stop him in South Carolina, a twice-defeated Mike Huckabee and his Christian prayer warriors.

I'm wondering what has caused Rudy's decline and why Thompson has never gotten off the ground. Because Rudy (Gordy) and Fred (Mark) have strong supporters here, I want to see what they think as well. And what do you see as Huckabee's role in all of this. If he wins Iowa, can he really be the nominee?

Discuss.

From Patrick Ruffini, who used to work for Rudy's campaign and is one of my favorite bloggers:

The fascinating thing is that the much-predicted social issue rebellion isn’t happening. Rudy had his huge social issues fight last spring. He was bruised from it, but by clearing the decks in Houston, he was able to recover. If the current shift from Rudy has any catalyzing event, it might have been the NYPD story. That makes sense on one level — voters can more readily dissect a personal narrative than a policy debate, even over partial-birth abortions. At the same time, Rudy’s slide has coincided with the broader Huckaboom, which has been especially punishing on the Mayor’s poll numbers. The likability-minded conservatives who kept Rudy at improbable highs for so long are finally jumping ship.

At this point, the Republican Presidential race is as fluid as any I've ever seen. I've been saying for months that only Romney and Giuliani has realisitic scenarios in which they could win the nomination.  Now, I think that Huckabee and McCain can find a path to the nomination, as well - and McCain has been absolutely without hope for more than six months.  I think Huckabee's boomlet has already subsided, and we'll start to see the effects of that in national polling shortly, but I can't be too sure - I never really saw the appeal of a such a big-government candidate anyway.

On February 5, there could still be four choices remaining (I think Thompson will drop out after not winning SC):  Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Huckabee. 

Hang on - if nothing else, it's going to be fun to watch.

The National Review has endorsed Mitt Romney for President.

Some conservatives question his sincerity. It is true that he has reversed some of his positions. But we should be careful not to overstate how much he has changed. In 1994, when he tried to unseat Ted Kennedy, he ran against higher taxes and government-run health care, and for school choice, a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, and “tougher measures to stop illegal immigration.” He was no Rockefeller Republican even then.

We believe that Romney is a natural ally of social conservatives. He speaks often about the toll of fatherlessness in this country. He may not have thought deeply about the political dimensions of social issues until, as governor, he was confronted with the cutting edge of social liberalism. No other Republican governor had to deal with both human cloning and court-imposed same-sex marriage. He was on the right side of both issues, and those battles seem to have made him see the stakes of a broad range of public-policy issues more clearly. He will work to put abortion on a path to extinction. Whatever the process by which he got to where he is on marriage, judges, and life, we’re glad he is now on our side — and we trust him to stay there.

Let's just say that they have more faith than I do in the sincerity and staying power of his latest "convictions."  That, and I think he's an easy mark for Dem opposition researchers and admakers, and he'll be on the defensive for the entire General election.

From Reuters.com:  President Bush to outline 5-year rate freeze.  Essentially, the sources quoted in the Reuters story claim "the plan envisions covering subprime loans taken out between January 1, 2005, through the end of this past July, with rates that are due to reset over the coming 2-1/2 years."  Later on, more specifics are offered:

Under the plan pitched by the ASF, distressed homeowners would be offered mortgage help according to their ability to pay.

Borrowers with strong credit would be encouraged to drop their existing loan and be shepherded to more affordable mortgages like those offered under the Federal Housing Administration. In August, Bush expanded that government program so that it could reach an additional 240,000 troubled borrowers next year.

A second class of borrowers who simply do not have the resources to make mortgage payments would return to the rental market.

A third group of borrowers who have shown that they are a reasonable credit risk but who could not afford their homes with higher rates would qualify for "fast-tracked" loan modification and a five-year interest rate freeze.

Other existing borrowers who have struggled to keep up their loan payments could still qualify for the freeze, but would face more scrutiny before receiving any loan modification.

I've said this before:  why should the government be involved, at all, with protecting (or otherwise aiding) lenders or borrowers that, through their own willful actions, are in danger of defaulting?  No one held a gun to a borrower's head, and forced them to sign an adjustable rate mortgage; no one held a gun to a lender's head, and forced them to lend money to a high-risk applicant.

The one line that absolutely kills me:  "A second class of borrowers who simply do not have the resources to make mortgage payments would return to the rental market."  Does that mean the plan will force both the lenders and the borrowers to convert the mortgaged property to a rental unit?  Or force people to move out of the mortgaged property to a rental property?  Or wave a magic wand and *poof* the mortgage is gone, no penalties, no worries, here's a listing of local rental units?

Seriously, if that group of borrowers can't afford the mortgages, why are they not renting already? 

To me, this is a gigantic slap in the face of every responsible homeowner; the ones who had the ability and the foresight to plan ahead, to only take out as much money as they needed, to work hard to make their monthly payments.  Now, Bush's plan is to reward irresponsible behavior:  take out too much?  didn't plan properly on ballooning payments?  decided to buy that $2000 hi-def TV instead of putting that money towards your mortgage?  Don't worry, we'll take care of you...

The other thing that galls me is this:  what happens after the 5 years is up?  Do the rates suddenly go up again?  Do we go through another round of this?  Or is it simply a matter of "That's the next guy's/gal's problem"?

One of the sidebars in the Reuter's article links to a "FactBox", a quick-hit of the major candidates stands on this "mortgage crisis".  The talking points speak for themselves...

HG

One of the reasons that Mitt Romney is leading in both IA and NH is that he's been advertising on television in both states for months, and for much of that time, he's been the only candidate on TV.  Being a self-funder allows him to do that, which is fine, but it's worth keeping that in mind when considering why he's leading in those two states but can't break into double-digits nationally.  I think Romney's leads in both states will be reduced or eliminated when the other candidates begin advertising, too.

Today, Rudy Giuliani went on the air with his first TV ad, airing in New Hampshire (but not Iowa, which should tell you something):

Discuss.

As a follow up to this post, I wanted to especially point out one of the more interesting fundraising disclosures I've ever seen:

Person	Party	Contributed To	Date	Amount
Mr. James J. Liautaud 2212 Fox Drive Champaign, Illinois 61820 Chairman & C.E.O. @ Jimmy John'S		Rudy Giuliani for President in 2008	Aug 29, 2007	$2,300

This is Jimmy John - a great guy, and the founder and CEO of Jimmy John's (the world's best sandwich shop, IMHO).  As you can see, about a month ago, he gave the maximum contribution to Rudy Giuliani for President, but he's a delegate candidate for Mitt Romney for President, here in the 15th Congressional District.

UPDATE:  Welcome, NRO's Campaign Spot readers (and a big "Thank you!" to Jim Geraghty for the link).  While you're here, please take a look around - we're a mostly locally-focused community blog, but we do sometimes venture into national stories.

The top story on Drudge at the moment:

Glossing over the less appealing line items on his gun control resume, ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani presented himself as sympathetic to the aims of the National Rifle Association and pledged, as president, to protect gun rights.

"Your right to bear arms is based on a reasonable degree of safety," he said.

He indicated that he would oppose new efforts to tighten national gun laws.

"I believe that law endforcement should focus on enforcing the laws that exist on the books as opposed to passing new extensions of laws," he said. "A person's home is their castle. They have the right to protect themselves in their own home."

Giulaini explained the lawsuit he initiated in 2000 against gun manufacturers by saying that he was "excessive in everyway that I could think of in order to reduce crime" but said that "intervening events" like September 11th had caused his views to evolve. "I think that lawsuit has gone in the direction that I don't agree with."

He cited a DC court ruling overturning the city's gun ban as instrumental to changing and "strengthening" his views on gun control. That ruling, Parker vs. the Distict of Columbia, was handed down just as Giuliani was beginning his presidential bid.

I've been critical of Mitt Romney for months for being a disengenuous pandering flip-flopper, all the while saying that I was actually hoping for my preferred candidate, Rudy Giuliani, to change his position on gun rights.  I'm happy he appears to have done so, but I don't think it's going to help him very much - I still think record is more important to most voters. 

That said, maybe I need to avoid picking on Romney's flip-flops for a while.

Rudy Giuliani's Illinois campaign garnered some attention over the weekend.

Rudolph Giuliani stepped up his presidential campaign in Illinois on Friday, launching a blitz of telephone banks targeting 20,000 Republican voters and releasing a list of 154 GOP leaders who are jumping on the former New York mayor's bandwagon.

Former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson and state House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego are among those stumping for Giuliani -- who, like them, comes from the more moderate wing of the party.

As political strategists contemplate whether a gun control and abortion rights supporter can attract enough conservative support to win the Republican nomination, Thompson said Friday that he thinks voters should be focusing on other things.

"The nation's security is the No. 1 issue in my view," Thompson said in an interview. "Unless the nation is secure, you can't offer the American people any other issue. ... None of those issues will matter if the nation's not secure."

What are the other Presidential campaigns doing in Illinois?  I have heard that Mitt Romney's got some staff on the ground, but I don't know who they are.  I know several local people who are supporting Fred Thompson, but I don't know if he has any staff or operations on the ground yet.

From McLean County Pundit:

A reliable source tells MCPundit that Mitt Romney is continuing to work Illinois hard and will be in Champaign in September.

Another Mitt first in our state; he will be the first 2008 GOP Presidential candidates to be in Central Illinois (watch Rudy to follow). He is also the first, and only, GOP Presidential to hold a live conference call with all of the GOP County Chairmen in Illinois.

I've also heard Mitt Romney was planning a visit for a fundraiser.  I don't know if any public events are planned, and I don't know exactly when the visit will occur.