Category: Politics 2008

Enough serious 2008 talk for the moment – how well do you know your presidential candidates – announced and unannounced, major and minor, likely and ridiculous? See if you can match the candidates with their places of birth (Candidates and birthplaces organized alphabetically; note that there are two cities that gave birth to two candidates):

#	Candidate	Ltr	Birthplace
1	Joe Biden	A	Brooklyn NY
2	Sam Brownback	B	Chicago IL (2)
3	Wesley Clark	C	Cleveland OH
4	Hillary Clinton	D	Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone
5	Chris Dodd	E	Denver CO
6	John Edwards	F	Detroit MI
7	Jim Gilmore	G	Elroy WI
8	Newt Gingrich	H	Harrisburg PA
9	Rudy Giuliani	I	Honolulu HI
10	Mike Gravel	J	Hope AR
11	Chuck Hagel	K	North Platte NE
12	Mike Huckabee	L	Parker KS
13	Duncan Hunter	M	Pasadena CA
14	Dennis Kucinich	N	Peekskill NY
15	John McCain	O	Pittsburgh PA (2)
16	Barack Obama	P	Richmond VA
17	George Pataki	Q	Riverside CA
18	Ron Paul	R	Seneca SC
19	Bill Richardson	S	Springfield MA
20	Mitt Romney	T	Willimantic CT
21	Tom Tancredo	U	Wilmington DE
22	Tommy Thompson
23	Tom Vilsack

Continue reading The President Was Born In…

Looks like the Giuliani campaign is finally getting in gear. The NY Post reports that he is selling his business:

Rudy Giuliani, a 2008 GOP White House front-runner, is moving to sell the Wall Street wing of his multi-pronged business – the strongest sign yet that he’s making a serious play for the presidency, The Post has learned.
Officials at Giuliani Partners have been meeting quietly with several firms about buying the firm’s stake in Giuliani Capital Advisors, an investment banking company, sources familiar with the discussions said.
The Chicago-based investment firm is the largest arm of the former mayor’s self-named business, and may be the biggest cash cow of Giuliani’s four-unit business.

Rudy is also hiring key staffers:

Meanwhile, Giuliani yesterday added former Bush-Cheney campaign adviser Brent Seaborn to his staff. Seaborn was involved with so-called “micro-targeting,” which helped boost GOP votes for Bush in his 2004 campaign.
He also hired Patrick Ruffini, President Bush’s Webmaster, to help with his Internet strategy.

The NY Daily News adds:

A series of new hires will soon join Giuliani’s presidential exploratory committee in key primary states, and the organization will settle on a pollster and a media consultant, those close to the former mayor said.
“This is serious. This is indicative that we are very serious and very excited,” a source said.
The exploratory committee will add a handful of regional finance directors geared toward raising money from Republicans nationwide, giving Giuliani financial clout to compete with the fund-raising machines of candidates such as Arizona Sen. John McCain, the National Journal’s Hotline reported.
The move comes on the heels of Team Giuliani’s announcement that former Republican Rep. Jim Nussle would help in his key home state of Iowa.

The game is afoot!

Scroll down on the left sidebar and you’ll see my newest Blogad, for the Giuliani 2008 campaign exploratory committee. Personally I’ll be glad when we move beyond exploratory committees and the candidates can just come right out and be candidates.

Last I checked my calendar, it is not 2008. It is not 2007. It’s still 2006. Yet National Review, the magazine that for decades has sought (and often deserved) status as the standard-bearer for the conservative movement, has chosen to put on the cover of its latest issue the dubious assertion that the 2008 Republican presidential primary field is already narrowed to two men: John McCain and Mitt Romney.

This announcement – which is, of course, the framing of the race that Romney, in particular, wants – is curious for two reasons. First, the article (available for now only in the print version and by subscription) gives only short shrift to Rudy Giuliani, despite polling that consistently shows the former NY mayor leading the field or running about even with Senator McCain. There is a potentially large helping of crow to be eaten by Jonathan Martin and the NR editors for this back-of-the-hand treatment to Mayor Giuliani, solely on the basis of his not having a large organization in place yet in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Second, NR seems to be abandoning the possibility – which you would think a conservative magazine would at least entertain – that a conservative champion could yet emerge from the field. Now, I too am skeptical that there is time and the right person for this to happen, as it increasingly looks like the GOP Right will be represented by Sam Brownback, a good man and a good Senator but not someone I regard as having much chance of winning a general or even a primary election. But it’s one thing to speculate that it may be too late; it’s another to run a cover story proclaiming the fight stopped.

More disturbing is the idea that NR has accepted Romney’s effort to portray himself as the authentic conservative in the race. I don’t dislike Romney, and I do think he has probably always been more conservative than he portrayed himself to win elections in liberal Massachusetts. But any realistic assessment of Romney has to begin in the same place as McCain and Giuliani – that is, with the fact that his past public statements make him out to be something other than a consistent conservative.

Time is indeed running short to set the field and identify the leading candidates. But NR should know better than to tell its readers they only have two options.

John Fund summarizes some of the reasons why Barack Obama might not run in 2008. This is really the biggest political strategy question of the year: should he run?
There are a number of reasons why Obama should run:
1. Seize the moment. Obama could run and win; his popularity is sky-high right now. For presidential candidates, like college athletes who could go at the top of the NFL or NBA draft, the usual rule of thumb is, if you can do it now, do it now. The moment may not come this way again.
2. The short trail. Obama’s record in 2 years in the Senate and in the Illinois Legislature is one of unvarnished liberalism. The longer he stays in the Senate the longer that rap sheet will be. Better to run now while he can still create some uncertainty as to what he stands for. Relatedly, Obama will lose some of his “fresh face” appeal the longer he remains in DC.
3. The map. The red states that went for Bush in 2000 gained electoral votes in the 2000 census, placing Bush in a slightly more favorable position in 2004. That will happen again by 2012. That’s not to say it’s impossible for Democrats to break the GOP’s hold in those states (in some of them it looks rather tenuous after 2006), but the most reliable blue states are shrinking and the most reliable red states are growing.
4. The GOP field. To avoid running too closely associated with Bush, two of the stronger GOP candidates (Jeb Bush and Condi Rice, who may match up especially well with Obama) will sit out 2008 (although it’s not impossible that Secretary Rice could get a VP nod). That leaves a GOP field that isn’t exciting the conservative base, and the likelihood that Republicans could nominate either a candidate some Republicans might stay home for against a non-Hillary opponent (McCain or Giuliani) or a guy with as little experience as Obama (Romney), or that the party could splinter with a third party run, the best hope for Democrats who have won a national majority just twice since FDR died.
5. Bush fatigue. 2008 is the end of Eight tumultuous years of GOP control of the White House. The political stars may not favor the Democrats as much by 2012 or 2016, especially if Hillary wins this one and especially if Obama runs with the baggage of an 8-year Clinton Administration and the associated scandals that comes with that (ask Al Gore).
That said, there are also persuasive reasons to sit out 2008:
1. Obama’s color. No, not black – green. This is Fund’s main point. We’ve had an astonishing proliferation recently of candidates who either never ran for public office (Wesley Clark), have yet to finish a term in statewide office (Obama) or served just one term and didn’t run for re-election (Romney, Edwards, Mark Warner). (This would be an issue for Rice as well, but Rice has been in the national spotlight as perhaps the President’s closest foreign policy adviser for six years of war, so she’s more like Eisenhower in 1952). Such candidates are often better served by adding a VP run or a term in the Cabinet or something before trying for the big job. Indeed, the general consensus is that Obama’s best bet may be to run as Hillary’s running mate.
2. Hillary! John Edwards may have forgotten quite how rough the Clintons play against members of their own party, but as Fund points out, Obama lost his first race for federal office against a candidate endorsed by Bill Clinton. Does Obama really want to be painted as the man who is against strong women in public life, who wants to deny little girls everywhere the role model of the first female president? (Yes, you know Maureen Dowd, Anna Quindlen, Margaret Carlson and Eleanor Clift already have those columns written). Is he ready for how nasty that race will be? Would he rather line up behind the Hillary bandwagon and assure himself a similar coronation by a unified party in later years?
3. The Pelosi Factor. This is more of a wild card, since we don’t really know how long the Democrats will be in power, but there are plenty of reasons to think that the Democrats will take all sorts of counterproductive steps the next two years. Obama may be better served waiting for Pelosi to leave the Speaker’s chair and the old Class of 1974 Democrats to leave office, and perhaps run against a Republican Congress down the road.
4. Iraq. Yes, Iraq and the War on Terror will still be a significant issue in 2008. Perhaps, in years to come, less so. Obama’s conspicuous lack of experience or interest in foreign affairs could be less of a liability in less tranquil times.
If I had to guess, I’d say Obama will ride the groundswell for a while, and bow out of the race on terms that make it hard for the nominee to resist putting him on the ticket. But we shall see.

Hopes Voters Will Want The Man, Too
Fortune magazine looks at Newt Gingrich’s strategy to win in 2008:

“I’m going to tell you something, and whether or not it’s plausible given the world you come out of is your problem,” he tells Fortune. “I am not ‘running’ for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.” So he’s running, only without yet formally saying so.
While other potential competitors like Arizona Senator John McCain, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney build staff and hire consultants, Gingrich revealed to Fortune that he plans to create a draft-Newt “wave” by building grassroots support for his health care, national security and energy independence ideas–all of which he has been peddling to corporate audiences over the past six years. “Nice people,” Gingrich says of his GOP competitors. “But we’re not in the same business. They’re running for president. I’m running to change the country.”

+++

“My hope is to create a wave that sweeps through that entire system, and in a context that obviously includes the presidency. Even if he’s not the nominee, Gingrich says he plans to throw the weight of what he’s built behind a “winning-the-future presidential candidate.”

In other words, Newt has adequately assessed his main strength as a candidate (his ideas, which are often spot-on and always provocative) and his main weakness (Newt’s own unpopularity and personal failings), and is running a “movement” campaign. Will it work?
Most “movement” candidates end up losing (even ones like Reagan in 1976 who later get the brass ring), and I’m sure that Newt knows that. The key question for an idea-driven “movement” candidate is whether he can gain sufficient traction to compel the ultimate nominee (or future nominees of the party) to adopt some of his ideas. Thus, Barry Goldwater in 1964 ran a movement, won the nomination, got crushed in November – but future GOP nominees adopted his philosophy. Thus, Steve Forbes ran a movement campaign in 1996 and 2000 that prompted both Bob Dole and George W. Bush to embrace major tax cuts and Bush to press (with varying degrees of vigor) other elements of the Forbes platform, like private Social Security accounts, school choice and health care savings accounts. Thus, key elements of Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign platform – notably his emphasis on balanced budgets – were adopted by both the Contract for America and the Clinton Administration. Thus, social and religious conservative campaigns have often held GOP nominees’ feet to the fire on social issues. Candidates like George McGovern, Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown and Howard Dean have played similar roles on the Left, although perhaps with less influence on their party’s successful candidates, who have mainly been those who avoided embracing those ideas.
The odds against Newt ’08 remain prohibitively long – one would search long and hard for evidence that a majority of the general electorate remains open to persuasion by Newt – but the terrain of the current candidate field is enormously favorable to an influential Gingrich candidacy. With George Allen having essentially self-destructed, the field as it sits features three main frontrunners (Giuliani, McCain and Romney) whose past records or rhetoric paint them as varying degrees of moderate. All three will be focusing much of their attention on convincing skeptical conservative primary voters that they will, in fact, govern close enough to mainstream conservatism to be worth following into battle. Several of the lower-tier potential candidates (Huckabee, Frist, Pataki, Hagel) also have major vulnerabilities on their right flank. And with Jeb Bush and others like Haley Barbour sitting this one out, the roster of possible conservative champions are mainly little-known, haven’t gotten started yet, are unlikely to run, or have limited appeal (Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Mark Sanford, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Tancredo, Mike Pence, etc.).
But politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and Newt’s name recognition guarantees that if no standard-bearer emerges to unite the GOP’s Right, he can stay in the race as long as it takes to force the eventual frontrunner to deal with his ideas. Which is good to know. Because like it or not, sometimes the best candidate for a particular campaign may not be a lifelong movement conservative. But successful general election campaigns are run on clear and principled platforms that represent the prospective administration’s promises, and not just the natural inclinations of the presidential or vice-presidential nominee. Thus, the reality that the best person for the job may not be the most conservative should not prevent the primary season from putting conservative ideas and priorities on the national agenda for 2009-2012.

George Pataki basks in the glow of the potential presidential candidate. I can’t see how he thinks he could get anywhere; can you seriously imagine who would vote for Pataki in a GOP primary when Rudy Giuliani is running? Then there is this:

The governor said Democrats took control of the Senate and House Nov. 7 because “they tried to appear as the uniters.”
“Republicans didn’t have an optimistic vision,” he said in his speech. Democrats “came across as the party that was broadminded and more inclusive. The Republicans came across as the party that was looking again to polarize.”

Besides the obvious untruths here, Pataki is missing lesson #1 of presidential primaries (or any primaries): you don’t win primary elections by running against your own party.

If you had any doubt that, even if he survives Tuesday, George Allen will not be a candidate in 2008, look no further than the fact that he called in Rudy Giuliani, one of the 2008 GOP frontrunners, to stump for him in the campaign’s final weekend.

Warner won’t run in 2008, after raising a truckload of money. Time will tell whether Hillary did something behind the scenes to make this happen, or whether Warner has something to hide; it’s odd, since he worked long and hard to raise his profile, he has tons of money and it’s too early to drop out based on polling. The only reasons for a high-profile candidate who was obviously motivated to run to drop out are money, scandals, and health. And Warner has plenty of money.
Also reported here.
UPDATE: I had believed in the past that Hillary had about a 75% chance of taking the Democratic nomination, and that Warner was the most likely anti-Hillary candidate, as a purportedly moderate Southern governor with a short paper trail, no damaging record on national issues, and tons of money. At this point I’d say Hillary’s odds may be better than 75%, in fact, but it seems likely that her main challenge will come from the anti-war Left, and to no avail unless it’s Al Gore, who has a couple of advantages on her, including his full-throated leftism on foreign affairs and environmental policy, his martyr status from Florida 2000, and perhaps a better connection with African-American voters (something that’s not in great evidence on the part of any of the current Democrats).
Wesley Clark won’t run – recall that he was largely bankrolled by people tied to the Clintons, and their money will be otherwise committed. But that still leaves two likely candidates, one on each side of the aisle and both with fabulous hair, who have never been re-elected to public office: John Edwards and Mitt Romney. Kos thinks Edwards is the Democratic frontrunner, which I don’t see at all (I’d like to see people with Kos’ foreign policy views justify this and this), but an Edwards-Romney race would be . . . well, kinda frightening, even though I like Romney as a #2 man.

From the Department of Bad Metaphors:

“We have stopped the locomotive train of childhood obesity in its tracks,” Huckabee said. “Now it’s time to turn the train around and move full speed ahead to healthier living.”

Huckabee’s crusade to prioritize using the government to battle obesity is, of course, one of the reasons why I regard him as essentially a nanny-state New Democrat more than a Republican (other than his pro-life convictions, that is).

Does this mean that the much trumpeted rapproachment between Hillary and Rupert Murdoch is now inoperative?

John Dickerson pens a ridiculous piece for Slate accusing Rudy Giuliani of being too nice and insufficiently partisan to get the GOP nomination in 2008 based on a recent campaign appearance for Michael Steele. I think Dickerson is trying to create some sort of wedge here between Giuliani and the Bush Administration’s current media offensive on the War on Terror, but among other things he misses the crucial point here: this was a campaign stop for Steele, who is running in a heavily Democratic state, needs to reach out to black voters who are traditional Democrats, and – importantly – doesn’t have an opponent yet and is thus working the high road for the moment.
Anyway, whatever else you might say, Rudy has never before been accused of being insufficiently combative.

For your Friday entertainment:

Hillary Clinton’s message to aspiring lawyers. As usual, it’s an unreadable soup of shopworn cliches, moral self-gratification, and hectoring. I pity the poor RNC opposition researchers who are no doubt, as we speak, poring yet again through her collected writings in anticipation of 2008.

Interesting Mitt Romney profile from the Boston Globe, focusing on the ways in which Romney’s approach bears the scars of the gaffe that destroyed his father’s presidential aspirations. Of course, there’s a real contrast in the 2008 GOP race between Romney (who is rarely unscripted) and George Allen (who shouldn’t go unscripted) on the one hand, and Rudy, McCain and Newt, all of whom can be at their best when riffing off the top of their heads. It’s gonna be an interesting race, regardless of which mix of potential candidates actually end up running viable campaigns.
Reading this part, one is amazed that Romney isn’t more strongly pro-life:

Mitt was a miracle baby. George and Lenore Romney had two girls and a boy, and the doctors had told Lenore she could not carry another. The couple put in papers to adopt a baby from Switzerland. But while the family was vacationing in the Dakotas, Lenore learned she was pregnant, recalls Jane Romney, who was about 9 years old at the time. “Mother was hospitalized immediately. I remember my father’s face – the worry and concern,” Jane says. “I hadn’t seen that before.” Imagine, then, the rejoicing that took place when Mitt was born and Mother was healthy.

I also didn’t know Romney had a law degree.

Sorry for the lack of content generally and baseball content in particular of late – been busy. In the meantime, go vote – this one’s a little different angle. I could live with Rudy, McCain, Allen, Romney and Brownback:

You know, I wasn’t in favor of an amendment to the Constitution to ban flag-burning, not least for the reason I mentioned here back in 2003: “Every time some nitwit college student burns a flag on camera, that’s one less idiot who can ever run for public office.” But let’s not leave this topic without noting the following:
1. Hillary Clinton drew widespread publicity – referencing her position as evidence of a move towards the political center – for supporting legislation banning flag-burning.
2. Like everyone else who follows politics even remotely, Hillary knew full well that the Supreme Court in 1989 had held that the First Amendment protects flag-burning, and therefore that such legislation, to accomplish anything, required an amendment to the constitution.
3. When that amendment came up for a vote, it failed by one vote, and Hillary voted against it. In other words, Hillary’s vote by itself defeated the position she had depicted herself as supporting.

I concluded last month, after reading his interview with John Hawkins, that Arkansas Governor and potential 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sounded more like a Clinton/Lieberman/New Republic-style “New Democrat” than like a Republican. This interview doesn’t exactly dispel that impression.

Go to Hugh Hewitt’s site and vote for your choice for 2008 GOP presidential nominee.
UPDATE: You can go straight to the results here.

Speaking as a conservative Republican who is uncommitted in 2008 and keeping an open mind about John McCain – who I voted for in the 2000 NY Republican primary – I haven’t the time here to parse out my reactions to this, but John Hawkins’ summary of “The Conservative Case Against John McCain In 2008” is certainly worth a read. Then again, Hawkins doesn’t really address the War on Terror or answer the two burning domestic policy questions: whether McCain would really cut spending and reform entitlements and whether McCain would appoint judicial conservatives to the bench.

If you’re keeping score of potential 2008 candidates at home – you’ll need a large wall to mount the tote board on – you can cross off Mississippi Governor and former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour, a favorite of some conservatives who gained new national respect for his handling of Hurricane Katrina:

Barbour, 58, said he intends to seek a second term as governor in 2007.

“There’s no way I could run for president and do what I’ve got to do as governor. And, obviously, being governor comes first,” said the former GOP national chairman, responding to questions from The Associated Press.

Barbour also dismissed the possibility of a run for vice president in 2008.

“Why would a Republican pick a running mate from Mississippi?” Barbour said, in his most definitive statement to date about his political future. “If a Republican doesn’t carry Mississippi, he won’t carry five states.”

Personally, while Barbour’s done a fine job as governor, I was never convinced that a Mississippi Republican could win a national election, especially a guy like Barbour who worked as a lobbyist, including for tobacco companies, a position that – like it or not – would have opened him to some fairly broad avenues of attack. Good luck to Barbour in what is now his main focus, getting his state back on its feet after Katrina.

John Hawkins has posted the results of his poll of conservative bloggers’ preferred 2008 candidates. The top three most wanted and most unwanted, by percentage of the vote:
The Top 3 Most Desired Candidates
3) George Allen (42.0)
2) Rudy Giuliani (58.0)
1) Condoleeza Rice (65.5)
The 3 Least Desired Candidates
3) Bill Frist (43.5)
2) Chuck Hagel (55.5)
1) John McCain (74.5)
Read the whole thing. The top 3 most-wanted are pretty much in the order I voted them, although I remain substantially subject to persuasion on their merits, especially Rudy and Allen. I also voted for Frist and Hagel among the least-wanted (along with Newt and Tancredo; I didn’t even bother voting against Pataki), but I’m much more accepting of McCain as the nominee.

Warming up for 2008: Jon Henke and Adam Gurri debate George Allen and the Confederate flag, and RedState diarist HeavyM looks at Tim Pawlenty’s plan to fight illegal immigration . . . in Minnesota.

Yes, Patrick Ruffini is running the latest installment of the 2008 GOP presidential tracking poll. Ruffini’s pitch:

This month’s poll has all the features you know and love: tracking results by your favorite blogs, and a complete state-by-state breakdown. I also cooked up a little something special this month: you can now “tag” (or label) your vote so it’s uniquely you. Are you a pro-life libertarian interested in immigration and taxes? Then type: pro-life, libertarian, immigration, taxes — and see how others like you voted! Tired of poll questions that don’t ask you about the stuff YOU care about? Then tag your vote and tell everyone what you think.

Go vote.

With Rudy Giuliani leading Patrick Ruffini’s web-based straw poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates for the second month in a row, Karol Sheinin thinks the right blogosphere is being out of touch and unrealistic about the fact that a socially liberal candidate can really win in the Republican primaries. (Via RedState). And Rudy’s not the only one: several of the potential 2008 Republican candidates, as well as unlikely-to-run “dream” candidates like Condoleeza Rice, face lingering questions about their pro-life credentials and other commitments on issues of importance for social conservatives.
Speaking as a fairly socially conservative voter myself – albeit a deep-blue-state social conservative – I believe that it is, in fact, possible for a candidate who has established a record or reputation as a social moderate or liberal to win the GOP nomination, if he or she follows six simple steps:
1. Don’t Run Against The Social Right
People vote on issues; they vote on personalities; but they also vote, on a deeper level, for that hazy space between the two, a set of ideas about the world and a sense that the candidate is more on their side than the other guy. Which is another way of saying that people can vote for a candidate they don’t personally like (more than 50 million people pulled the lever for John Kerry), and they can vote for a candidate they don’t always agree with, but they will not vote for a candidate if they identify him as being against them. And this is particularly true of social/religious conservatives (I use the two terms here as largely synonymous, although there are culture warriors on the Right like Stanley Kurtz who aren’t especially religious), who are accustomed to feeling beseiged and sneered at by the leading lights of popular culture in journalism, entertainment and academia.
The classic example of running against social conservatives was the brief and unsuccessful 1996 presidential campaign of Arlen Specter, who openly cast himself as the man to save the GOP from the Religious Right. John McCain is perhaps a more graphic example: while McCain himself has a solidly socially conservative, pro-life voting record in the Senate (he voted for both Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, among other things), he repeatedly picked fights with social conservatives in the 2000 primaries. Many of those fights were with the crazier people on the Right – Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones – but what mattered was that McCain went beyond simply distancing himself from those figures to openly inviting the media to play the traditional morality play of Good McCain vs. Bad Religious Right. Unsurprisingly, the voters McCain thus implicitly portrayed as villains abandoned him in droves (see here for a contemporaneous example of the push-back).
The lesson: far more fatal than saying you disagree with voters is to abet the media’s efforts to demonize them. Before people listen to your actual position, they want to know you respect them and are on their side.
2. Federalism, Federalism, Federalism
On many – indeed, most – social issues, what social conservatives fear most of all is to have issues taken away from the democratic process in the states and decided by federal judges. While social conservatives have certainly not been above seeking to use the power of Congress and the federal courts to push a social conservative agenda, a compromise position of preserving/restoring the authority of local communities over many social issues is a compromise that socially conservative voters are mostly willing to live with.
One significant advantage of taking the federalist position on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control and medical marijuana, among others, is that it can enable a candidate to come around to a functionally different position without the need to execute an unconvincing and transparent flip-flop: it’s easier to persuade people that you’ve accepted a compromise than that you have actually changed your mind on a matter of high principle. (For a good example of this, see Mitt Romney’s pledge that as governor of Massachusetts he would not seek to change the state’s positions on abortion).
Moreover, as I have stressed before, America is both a progressive country and a conservative one: progressive in the sense that people are broadly accepting of social change, conservative in their resistance to having such changes forced upon them by the government, particularly by the courts. Consider a candidate who can say to social conservatives, in the primaries, something like this:

I, like many of my fellow New Yorkers, support a woman’s right to choose an abortion, and support the right of gay men to express their commitment in marriage. But I also respect the fact that not everyone in this country lives in Manhattan, and not everyone shares the same beliefs. And so I will oppose any effort to force people in Texas and Alabama to live the way New Yorkers live, for the same reasons why I wouldn’t want New Yorkers to be forced to accept the community mores and values of any other city or state. In short: this is a great country, and it’s big enough for a lot of different communities and lifestyles.

That’s a message that can easily be retooled into a winner nationally, even to socially liberal voters whose experiences in recent years have re-awakened them to the virtues of federalism. And, of course, it dovetails naturally with #1 on the list: supporting federalism is a way of giving some real backbone to the message that you respect the people you disagree with, respect them enough to let them govern themselves.
(Rudy, as a guy who pressed for huge expansions of federal criminal law as US Attorney, may be an awkward champion of federalism. But if he can’t do it, another candidate can).
3. Promise to Appoint Conservative, Pro-Democracy Judges
Of course, pledging fealty to federalism and respect for differences of opinion is toothless symbolism if you put the likes of David Souter on the Supreme Court. So, a socially moderate candidate needs to make extra-clear that he or she is going to put conservatives on the courts.
But unlike a socially conservative candidate, a social moderate/liberal, to have a coherent message, can’t just issue generalized paens to “strict construction” and denunciations of “judicial activism”. Instead, the candidate needs to explain, clearly and repeatedly, that he/she believes in judges who will not use vague or unwritten constitutional theories to take power away from the people. (In fact, a message of constitutional “minimalism” appeals, rhetorically, even to liberals). And yes, that means making it explicit that you have no problem with overturning Roe v. Wade, even as you still support keeping abortion legal in your own home state.
An early way to signal this approach – particularly for a candidate, like Giuliani, who isn’t already in the Senate – is to support John Roberts. What we’ve seen of Roberts so far has tagged him as precisely the kind of cautious but principled conservative that a pro-democracy, pro-federalism but socially moderate/liberal candidate can get behind. And the base knows that losing the Roberts fight would be a critical blow.
(The pro-democracy aspect of conservative judging is another topic I’ve covered before at greater length, here and here).
4. Show Some Backbone In Other Areas
One of the sneaking suspicions held by many conservatives is that a candidate who is pro-choice on abortion is probably so due to an inability to stand up and take some guff in his or her social circles, to be demonized as a right-winger by the media, etc. And indeed, long experience has shown that many pro-choice Republicans are the same sorts of people who run from a fight on the budget, or tax cuts, or other issues of importance to the base.
To rebut that suspicion, a social moderate/liberal needs to build a reputation as a real battler on a few other issues – foreign policy, crime, taxes, spending, immigration, etc. – and show a willingness to take the heat for those positions. For example, a governor who slashes taxes and spending can say, “yes I’m pro-choice, but I’ve shown that it’s because I’m a principled fighter accross the board for smaller government.” (This is one area where Rudy doesn’t have to worry – as one of the most famously combative figures in American politics, there may be doubts on how much of an economic conservative he is, but there’s no question he will stand his ground where he plants himself).
5. Do No Harm
Of course, on some issues the federal government has taken a stand on social issues. Understandably, on some questions – like stem cell research or gays in the military – a social moderate may want to change the existing policy. But such a candidate has to make clear that large-scale, radical changes in policy are not going to be the order of the day, and that for the most part, things will stay status quo on some of the battles social conservatives have won in the past, like some of the executive orders pertaining to abortion.
6. Nominate A Conservative Running Mate
Rudy or Condi could be on the ticket, but not both. Even after sewing up the nomination, a social moderate/liberal would need to convince social conservative voters not to stay home. While conservatives can’t, after the Souter/read-my-lips fiascoes, be convinced solely by having a running mate from the Right, picking one will send an important message that social conservatives remain a valued part of the team.
Anyway, maybe Rudy Giuliani is the guy who can do it, and maybe he’s not. (More: Michael Goodwin on Rudy). But I do believe that, by following the road map laid out above, a candidate who, for example, personally supports legal abortion could nonetheless win the GOP presidential nomination, and do so with his or her principles more or less intact.

Go vote. Bigger ballot, more choices! (Via Instapundit).
UPDATE: At last check, FreeRepublic.com was Tom Tancredo country. I tell you, there’s a big and growing anti-immigrant bloc out there that the two major parties have been unwilling to tap, and somebody, somehow is going to make hay with it in 2008.

Yes, the same old voices in the media are lining up already to say Hillary’s not that liberal. Slate’s Jacob Weisberg takes a crack:

One facile argument, often voiced by Hillary-loathers on the right, is that she’s too far to the left. The “real” Hillary is closer to Howard Dean than Bill Clinton, a recent piece in the National Review asserted. Wrong! An unhedged supporter of the war in Iraq, Sen. Clinton stands at the hawkish, interventionist extreme of her party on foreign policy.

OK, she’s not a Deaniac on foreign policy. But then, this comes from the same people who ignored foreign policy when they were trying to convince us that Dean himself was a centrist, 19 months ago.

Despite her pandering vote against CAFTA, she’s a confirmed free-trader and deficit hawk.

Well, voting against CAFTA is one of her first major public stances on free trade – and as Weisberg’s old boss Michael Kinsley has pointed out, you can’t cast a vote like that and be a free trader.
And, “deficit hawk”? She’s for tax hikes, yes. She’s probably against pork, if it goes to Congressional Republicans. But when has Hillary stood up for spending cuts? Liberals constantly argue that their people are “fiscal conservatives” if they can balance a budget by jacking up taxes. That’s not conservatism; real fiscal conservatism is keeping taxes and spending low. A candidate who keeps only one of the two low – like Bush – may be faulted for insufficient conservatism, but there’s a word for a candidate who wants both to be higher: liberal.

On the cultural issues that often undermine Democrats, she seeks common ground, sometimes with flat-earth conservatives like Rick Santorum, and has been nattering about the “tragedy” of abortion.

This is, in the main, symbolism and empty rhetoric; look at Hillary’s pronouncements going back decades and what you will actually see is the worst combination of preachy judgmentalism and leftist cant.

Even Hillary’s notorious government takeover of health care was misconstrued as an ultra-lib stance. In opting for a mixed, private-public managed-competition plan, the then-first lady was repudiating the single-payer model long favored by paleo-liberals. Her plan was flawed in many ways, but it wasn’t what Ted Kennedy wanted.

OK, it wasn’t single-payer, but it sure as heck was a big government takeover of one seventh of the economy. And probably would have ended up as a single-payer plan.
Then, Weisberg goes on to dismiss the multifarious Clinton scandals without a hint that they involved anything but Bill’s sex life:

What, then, of the complaint that Hillary is doomed by association with her husband, or perhaps by their marital issues? This problem encompasses various assumptions – that voters don’t want to be embarrassed by the name Monica Lewinsky again, that they don’t accept Hillary’s marriage as authentic, or that another 50,000 late-night comedy jokes about her horndog husband would somehow crush her chances. The conservative attack machine would surely make the most of all these vulnerabilities. But let’s not forget that Bill is an asset as well. Swing voters feel positively about his presidency, and increasingly about his post-presidential role. Many would welcome his policy acumen, experience, and political wisdom back to the White House. And, let’s admit it – our culture plainly can’t get enough of naughty celebrities. Would Florida and Ohio really choose a dull opportunist like Bill Frist over four more years of excellent Clinton drama?

I agree that the public won’t want to be reminded of all the old scandals, but it wasn’t all just Monica, and some of the scandals – like the Marc Rich pardon – can’t be dismissed as old news when the Clintons haven’t faced the voters since then.
On the other hand, at least Weisberg does acknowledges that her personality is poison:

Yet Hillary does face a genuine electability issue, one that has little to do with ideology, woman-hating, or her choice of life partner. Plainly put, it’s her personality. In her four years in the Senate, Hillary has proven herself to be capable, diligent, formidable, effective, and shrewd. She can make Republican colleagues sound like star-struck teenagers. But she still lacks a key quality that a politician can’t achieve through hard work: likability. As hard as she tries, Hillary has little facility for connecting with ordinary folk, for making them feel that she understands, identifies, and is at some level one of them. You may admire and respect her. But it’s hard not to find Hillary a bit inhuman. Whatever she may be like in private, her public persona is calculating, clenched, relentless – and a little robotic.
With the American electorate so closely divided, it would be foolish to say that Hillary, or any other potential nominee, couldn’t win. And a case can be made that the first woman who gets elected president will need to, as Hillary does, radiate more toughness than warmth. But in American elections, affection matters. Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004 with candidates Main Street regarded as elitist and aloof, to a candidate voters related to personally. Hillary isn’t as obnoxious as Gore or as off-putting as Kerry. But she’s got the same damn problem, and it can’t be fixed.

If you’re interested in who the GOP should nominate in 2008, head over to Patrick Ruffini’s place to vote in his straw poll. Over 8,000 votes cast already! The candidates on his rather limited ballot are Rudy Giuliani, George Allen, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Bill Frist (the tally so far should not encourage the Frist camp).

I got the following email from the Republican National Committee on Thursday:

As we’ve all come to see through this year’s debate, the current Social Security system is financially unsustainable for future generations of Americans. We need to make sure when our children and grandchildren retire, they will receive the benefit that today’s retirees currently enjoy. The problem is, every year we wait will cost $600 billion more to fix the problem.
We need to pass Social Security reform this year and we need your help today.
Will you call Sen. Charles Schumer at 202-224-6542 today and ask them to reform Social Security now?
Since his State of the Union speech in February, President Bush has shown remarkable leadership by traveling the country, talking to Americans about the challenges facing Social Security and the need for personal accounts to be a part of that solution. Simply put, personal accounts will help secure Social Security for future generations and allow younger Americans to grow a nest egg they own and can pass on to whomever they want. Democrats have done nothing but obstruct the President’s plan and offer no solutions of their own. This type of attitude will do nothing to solve a problem Americans realize is getting worse every day.
Soon, Congress will start drafting legislation to make sure Social Security remains solvent for our children and grandchildren in the future. Call Sen. Charles Schumer at 202-224-6542. Tell them now is the time to come to the table with real ideas on how to fix Social Security. Also let Sen. Charles Schumer know that you’re tired of the Democrats’ obstructionism when it comes to Social Security. Our children and grandchildren deserve better and Democrats must stop their partisan obstructionism.
Then sign our petition to show your support for the President and Republican’s efforts to fix Social Security.
Sincerely,
Ken Mehlman
Chairman, RNC

(Emphasis added). Now, this is obviously a national form letter in which the RNC inserts the names of your local Senator and/or Congressperson. But I have two Democratic Senators, not one. Did the RNC decide that registered Republicans would be so averse to having the RNC ask them to call Hillary Clinton that they just left her off the list?

Joe Biden becomes the first to don the red shirt for 2008.
I like Biden in some ways; he’s certainly more likeable than Kerry (faint praise, indeed), is prone to occasional bouts of candor, and at least seems to have given some thought to serious foreign policy issues, although his instincts are erratic at best. But he clearly suffers from the same classic Senate combination of inflated self-importance, windbaggery and inconstancy that has damaged the presidential runs of Kerry and so many others; he’s the textbook Senate “show horse.” Plus, he may have the worst hair in American politics, which is not going to help.

Every presidential campaign since 1988 has featured an intense focus on the issue of non-service in Vietnam: the issue arose in 1988 with Dan Quayle’s Indiana National Guard service, then moved on in 1992 and 1996 to Bill Clinton’s on-and-off ROTC commitments, and then in 2000 and 2004 to George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service as contrasted with the Vietnam service of Al Gore and John Kerry. Kerry’s service, of course, also spawned the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and related controversies best not rehashed here.
It’s debatable whether attacks on a candidate’s failure to serve in Vietnam are effective – note that the targeted candidate was on the winning side in each of those five elections, in the last four cases against candidates with more distinguished service records, three of them combat veterans. As I’ve argued in the past, the Democrats’ particular fixation with the “chickenhawk” theme was the source of many of their worst mistakes in 2004.
Still, the issue remains with us, and whether we like it or not, we will assuredly be arguing, come 2008, about what the candidates did during the Vietnam War. With that in mind, to assist us all in going into the next cycle with our eyes open, I set out to examine what I could dig up on the various people who have been prominently mentioned at one time or another as (1) 2008 candidates (2) 2012 or later candidates or (3) possible VP candidates. Consider this a first draft. I’ve tried to keep the list comprehensive rather than fret over which ones are actually bona fide candidates at this stage, although I’ve put more effort into locating information about the more major candidates. Candidates are arranged by year of birth, to give some perspective on when they would have been eligible to serve. A NOTE ON SOURCES: I’ve cited anything I could get my hands on via a Google search. Take the sources for what they’re worth. I’m happy to be corrected; email me or drop links in the comments if I’ve missed something or if a source has misstated facts. Birthdates and other basic information are mostly taken from the Almanac of American Politics.
Before we get into the candidates, though, let’s try to offer a little of the historical perspective that often got lost in the shuffle in discussions of the draft status of Bush, Kerry and Dick Cheney. Even based on date of birth alone, not every young man in the 1960s and early 1970s was equally likely to get drafted to go to Vietnam.
The Selective Service website explains how the draft changed over time:

Before the lottery was implemented in the latter part of the Vietnam conflict, Local Boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first. This resulted in uncertainty for the potential draftees during the entire time they were within the draft-eligible age group. A draft held today would use a lottery system under which a man would spend only one year in first priority for the draft – either the calendar year he turned 20 or the year his deferment ended. Each year after that, he would be placed in a succeedingly lower priority group and his liability for the draft would lessen accordingly. In this way, he would be spared the uncertainty of waiting until his 26th birthday to be certain he would not be drafted.

As to student deferments:

Before Congress made improvements to the draft in 1971, a man could qualify for a student deferment if he could show he was a full-time student making satisfactory progress toward a degree.
Under the current draft law, a college student can have his induction postponed only until the end of the current semester. A senior can be postponed until the end of the academic year.

A lot of my information on the Vietnam draft comes from this site, the provenance of which I can’t vouch for, although a good deal of the information about the Vietnam-era lottery is also here on the Selective Service website. (There’s more here). Apparently, the lottery was introduced in 1969:

December 1, 1969 marked the date of the first draft lottery held since 1942. This drawing determined the order of induction for men born between January 1, 1944 and December 31, 1950.

In addition to the draft procedures, you need to understand the changing circumstances of the war over time. U.S. involvement in Vietnam did not become a major manpower commitment until 1965 (see here), with troop levels rising from 23,300 in 1964 to 184,300 in 1965 to a high of 536,100 in 1968. Under Nixon, troop levels dropped off to 334,600 by 1970 (a 37% reduction), then dropped in half to 156,800 in 1971, and to 24,200 in 1972, with the war ending by the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973. As you can see, the need to draft men to go to Vietnam was falling off sharply from 1971 on. This chart shows the peak and dropoff in the number of draftees taken into the Armed Forces; I’ll reproduce the key figures:

1962	82,060
1963	119,265
1964	112,386
1965	230,991
1966	382,010
1967	228,263
1968	296,406
1969	283,586
1970	162,746
1971	94,092
1972	49,514
1973	646

To give some sense of perspective for the proportions involved, the link above notes that a lottery for six years’ worth of potential draftees affected 850,000 young men. In other words, if you came of age between 1965 and 1969, your odds on being drafted were pretty high; other years, much less so.
CANDIDATES BORN BEFORE 1939
1936 – Draft Eligible 1954-62
John McCain (R-AZ) (8/29/36) – Navy 1958-80. Almost certainly the man with the most distinguished Vietnam service record in American politics; McCain, from a career Navy family, attended Anapolis and flew as a Navy pilot before and during Vietnam, where he was a POW for seven years, was tortured, and even refused an opportunity for early release.
CANDIDATES BORN 1939-1943
The men in this age group were draft eligible before the institution of the draft lottery in 1969, and thus were exposed to the draft at age 18 1/2 and became gradually less likely to be drafted as they approached age 26, becoming ineligible on their 26th birthdays. While women served and in some cases died in Vietnam as volunteers in non-combatant positions, women were not eligible to be drafted.
1942 – Draft Eligible 1960-68
Joe Biden (D-DE) (11/20/42) – Did not serve. According to this source:

Biden himself was in graduate school during the Vietnam War and avoided it. He was described by Vietnam veteran David Hackworth as a “well-connected draft dodger” . . .

I’m not sure what the basis of “draft dodger” is; presumably, Biden used student deferments to avoid service, but I don’t have better sources on this.
1943 – Draft Eligible 1960-68
Phil Bredesen (D-TN) (11/21/43) – Did not serve. Bio here. Bredesen entered Harvard College in the fall of 1961, presumably with an educational deferment. Then:

He took a nine-month break before his senior year to work for Cornell University at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico. He returned to earn his Harvard degree, but something had changed. “I enjoyed it, but I was ready to move on,” Bredesen said.
So he took a job in 1967 at Itek Corp. in nearby Lexington, Mass., working as a computer programmer on a classified surveillance satellite project. This job, considered vital to the national interest, provided Bredesen with a deferment from military service in the then-escalating Vietnam War.

Link.
John Kerry (D-MA) (12/11/43) – Navy 1966-70, Navy Reserve, 1970-78. Volunteered for the Navy after being denied a deferment; served two tours, 1966-70, including four months of hazardous combat duty in Vietnam, December 1968-March 1969. I won’t rehash here the various controversies over Kerry’s service, but he was awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
CANDIDATES BORN 1944-45
The men in this age group became draft eligible before Vietnam heated up, but were still of draft age in the years 1965-69, and were covered by the initial draft lottery in 1969.
1944 – Draft Eligible 1961-69
Ed Rendell (D-PA) (1/5/44) – Army Reserve, 1968-74, according to the Almanac of American Politics. There’s no mention of whether he served abroad, although presumably if he had he’d be listed as having been in the Army.
Rudolph Giuliani (R-NY) (5/28/44) – Did not serve; received a deferment in 1968 for a clerkship with a United States District Court judge. Got a letter from the judge to sustain this deferment, after receiving student deferments for college and law school.
Wesley Clark (D-AR) (12/23/44) – Army 1966-2000. Graduated from West Point, 1966. After two years at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, served in Vietnam with honor and distinction 1969-70, being wounded four times and earning a Silver Star and Purple Heart. Remained in the Army until 2000. Link.
1945
George Pataki (R-NY) (6/24/45) – Did not serve; medical deferment due to poor eyesight. Also got student deferment.
Tom Tancredo (R-CO) (12/20/45) – Did not serve. According to Political State Report, Tancredo “avoided service in Vietnam by obtaining a medical deferment for mental health reasons.” This and this link, from critics of Tancredo’s views on immigration, are harsher in their descriptions.
CANDIDATES BORN 1946-51
This is the real heartland of the Baby Boom, the generation born after World War II that was most directly affected by the Vietnam draft (Clinton and Bush were both born in 1946, for example).
1946
Chuck Hagel (R-NE) (10/4/46) – Army, 1968-69. Volunteered together with his brother to join the Army; I’m not sure what Hagel’s draft status would otherwise have been. Fought heroically in Vietnam, earning two Purple Hearts and other decorations (various sources mention a Bronze Star). The Almanac mentions an incident in which Hagel, while on fire, rescued his brother.
1947
Mitt Romney (R-MA) (3/12/47) – Did not serve. Received several deferments, at a time when his father was running for president and souring on the war:

Romney was given a religious deferment while a Mormon missionary in France during the late 1960s and a student deferment while at Stanford and Brigham Young universities. . . . In fact, millions of American men received deferments during the Vietnam War. In 1964, for example . . . 1.2 million men received student deferments, according to the Selective Service. In 1965 — the first year of Romney’s deferment — 1.7 million men received student deferments. . . Romney . . . declined to be interviewed on the subject. But in 1994, when he was trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, Romney denied that his 2 1/2 year Mormon mission to France was taken to avoid being drafted. He said his father, a three-term Michigan governor and 1968 presidential candidate, never intervened.

I believe that the mission is a religious requirement for Mormons; while I’m not sure if there are strict rules as to when you take them, most Mormons today do the mission in or around the college years.
Newt Gingrich (R-GA) (6/17/47) – Did not serve. It appears that Newt got deferments for college, graduate school and fatherhood. This link states that Newt also got a deferment for being a father. PBS’ Frontline has a good timeline; Newt was married in 1962 as a college freshman, had his first child in 1963, and was in college and grad school from 1962-70. On the draft:

Gets draft deferment because of school and children (flat feet and near-sightedness also probably would have kept him out).

Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) (7/30/47) – Austrian Army, 1965-66. Military service was compulsory, but Austria was not at war in those years. Arnold spent a week in military prison for going AWOL to enter his first bodybuilding competition, but was thereafter given permission to compete in bodybuilding events while in the military. Link.
Haley Barbour (R-MS) (10/22/47) – Did not serve.
Hillary Clinton (D-NY) (10/26/47) – Did not serve. Woman, not eligible for draft.
Bill Richardson (D-NM) (11/15/47) – Did not serve. Got college degree in 1970, Masters Degree in 1971.
1948
Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) (5/15/48) – Did not serve. Woman, not eligible for draft.
1950
Mike Easley (D-NC) (3/23/50) – Did not serve. Bio here and here. Graduated from college in 1972.
Bill Owens (R-CO) (10/22/50) – Did not serve. According to USAToday, Vietnam is a problem for Owens, who’s had a lot of problems lately:

Shortly before the 1998 Republican primary, reports surfaced that he had misrepresented his Vietnam War draft status. Owens told The Denver Post he was never called up, but a review of his records showed college deferments in 1969, 1970 and 1971. Owens said he simply forgot.

Tom Vilsack (D-IA) (12/13/50) – Did not serve.
CANDIDATES BORN 1952-1953
The men in this age group were subject to the annual draft lotteries at a time when the draft was in decline.
1952 – Subject to 1971 Draft Lottery for Induction in 1972
Bill Frist (R-TN) (2/22/52) – Did not serve, despite what was apparently a very low draft number (13, according to this source on the 1971 draft lottery). Village Voice says he got a student deferment.
George Allen (R-VA) (3/8/52) – Did not serve. According to the same source, his lottery number was 229, a high number.
1953 – Subject to 1972 Draft Lottery for Induction in 1973
Jeb Bush (R-FL) (2/11/53) – Did not serve. Wikipedia says he was exposed to the draft but not drafted. Had a low draft number of 26 (see here on the 1972 draft lottery). Village Voice says he got a student deferment.
Russ Feingold (D-WI) (3/2/53) – Did not serve. Very high lottery number of 322.
John Edwards (D-NC) (6/10/53) – Did not serve. Lottery number: 178. Edwards’ Vietnam exposure is discussed by Tim Noah here.
CANDIDATES BORN AFTER 1953
1954
Condoleeza Rice (R-CA) (11/14/54) – Did not serve. Woman, not eligible for draft. Bio here.
Mark Warner (D-VA) (12/15/54) – Did not serve.
1955
Mike Huckabee (R-AR) (8/24/55) – Did not serve.
Mary Landrieu (D-LA) (11/23/55) – Did not serve. Woman, not eligible for draft.
Evan Bayh (D-IN) (12/26/55) – Did not serve.
1956
Sam Brownback (R-KS) (9/12/56) – Did not serve.
1958
Rick Santorum (R-PA) (5/10/58) – Did not serve.
1959
Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) (2/5/59) – Did not serve. Woman, Canadian.
1960
Mark Sanford (R-SC) (5/28/60) – Did not serve.
Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) (11/27/60) – Did not serve.
1961
Barack Obama (D-IL) (8/4/61) – Did not serve.