Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Some Thoughts on the Races   [Rich Lowry]

1) We still don't know all the fall-out from the debate and its aftermath last week, but Hillary has at least taken a small hit from her debate performance. Obama is still pounding on her, but I'm not sure how much hitting her on vague answers gets him in the long run. He needs to find issues that cut against her, and "I favor a massive pay-roll tax increase and she doesn't" isn't going to do it. He's probably got to go hard, hard left on the war.

2) Rudy is opening up a huge vulnerability by continuing to insist that the GOP stool should have only two legs—free-market economics and a strong national defense. Here is a quote from a clip on Brit Hume's show yesterday: "You take those two broad principles—strong national defense, fiscal restraint, growth principles, free trade, lower taxes, smaller government. That makes us a majority party. Those are the two things that get us above the 50 percent mark and make us a 50 state party." He thus proposes fundamentally changing the successful Republican coalition of the last 30 years. Why is he doing this? Well, maybe he really believes it. Otherwise, it is self-destructive and unnecessary. Rudy's speech at the Values Voters summit a few weeks ago shrewdly emphasized all his common ground with social conservatives. He should be saying that there are three pillars to the GOP coalition—free market economics, national defense, and social conservatism—and he's going to keep them intact, even if he doesn't always agree with the social cons. But he's not. It's Romney who talks about the three legs and is reaping the benefits. 

3) Speaking of Romney, he is probably best positioned of any of the candidates to win the nomination at this point. Doesn't mean it will happen obviously. But he has solid leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, is real close in South Carolina where he has been weak, and has done his utmost to become the right-most viable candidate in the field. He's not always inspiring, but has to get credit for doing the blocking-and-tackling it takes to win the nomination. 

4) Finally, the Washington Post ran an illuminating chart Sunday on the history of the Iowa caucuses. It shows that sometimes the race changes right at the end, and sometimes it doesn't. Kerry was in third place at 15% two months out from the caucuses in 2004 and won, and Dick Gephardt wasn't in the top four two months out and won. But Al Gore was in first at 54% in 2000 two months out and won with 63%, and Mondale was in first at 43% in 1984 and won with 49%.

11/06 01:06 PMShare