It seems yet another NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, may enter the 2008 race - as an independent. He unveiled a national energy plan in Houston criticizing both parties of politics as usual. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/4796254.html. These are words of an independent and a stance on issue beyond the scope of mayoral politics. The man is a billionaire who could self-finance much as Perot did in 1992.
Former mayor of the city of New York, Rudolph Giuliani keeps landing himself in trouble over abortion. This time a little research into his personal donations reveals he has been a frequent contributor to the nation's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Giuliani tried to defend his six donations to PP by claiming that he gave the money to support adoption. PP, however, is well known for not referring women to adoption agencies and even counseling against it. PP has a vested financial stake in the abortion industry, perhaps the largest financial stake, and over 99.6% of the women they counsel choose abortion and not adoption. Giuliani also defended himself by saying adoptions increased during his term as mayor of New York City by 67%, but records indicate the actual number was only a 17% increase, and no policy of Giuliani's supports his claim that he was responsible for increased adoptions. Rather, Giuliani encouraged public funding of abortion, a position he has gotten into trouble over for doing again recently. http://www.lifenews.com/nat3104.html. Now, it appears he is for both personally funding abortion and using taxpayer dollars to do the same.
Giuliani recently burst out against out an interviewer questioning him about the above information, exclaiming he would not return to her program if questioned about abortion because he preferred to talk to citizens about the war on terror and the economy. In the latest GOP debate, Giuliani sounded wishy-washy on Roe v. Wade, ambivalent about whether it would be good to overturn it. Initially, he promised "strict constructionist" judges for social conservatives - code for Pro-Life Supreme Court justices, but has taken pains to emphasize that, in his view, such judges can go either way on Roe, and his nominees would reflect his views. The past week has seen him take another 8 point dive in the polls, no longer running ahead of Clinton, Obama or Edwards, the 3 likely candidates to win the Democratic nomination. The last time he took such a dive, he tried to mitigate the damage among social conservatives by declaring he supports the initiatives taken to save Terri Schiavo's life when a court ordered her feeding tube removed despite her parents' objections. He has since retracted that position as well. The one concession to Pro-Lifers he has made was that he believed the Supreme Court upholding the partial birth abortion ban was okay, despite his previous position and statements in favor of the abortion procedure where a baby is partially birthed during the abortion. Unlike the other candidates though, he did not seem enthusiastic or happy about the ban on the procedure.
Giuliani has also wedded himself with the Pro-Choice movement via the large sums of money in campaign donations he has received from abortion providers, including most notably Planned Parenthood, declarations of special days to honor the abortion right and PP's founder - Margaret Sanger. Sanger herself was a huge proponent of abortion and birth control as a means to weed out the genetically unfit and "inferior races" and worked hard to network with the KKK to propogate her eugenics philosophy and manifesto. She professed a deep hatred of Catholics and large families. She also believed in abortion and birth control as a means to control the population. PP continues to give out awards in her name. Giuliani professed back when he was mayor that the city of New York must strive to continue the noble work she began.
Ten GOP hopefuls vying for their party's nomination debated on May 3 at the Ronald Reagan library. A transcript of the debate is here - http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=5562636.
The debate was hosted by Chris Matthews, who did the worst job of moderating that I have ever seen. Instead of asking any questions on issues such as education, health care, crime, balancing the budget, or even foreign policy beyond the war in Iraq, Matthews asked questions such as how would the GOP candidates feel about Bill Clinton being back in the White House, (asked each candidate down the line this question), what do you dislike most about America, whether the candidates believed in evolution, whether Giuliani regretted how he dealt with black people when mayor of NYC, whether former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee had a problem with Romney's Mormon faith - (when given a simple no, Matthews proceeded to pull out some quote in a lawyerly cross-examination style that did not remotely demonstrate such a bias), whether Mitt Romney had any problem with Catholic bishops who may want to deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, (especially bizarre given that Romney has never suggested anything of the sort, Romney is Mormon not Catholic, Romney professes to be Pro-Life, and who the hell cares what a candidate for President thinks about the inner workings of one denomination) what is the deal with GOP cronyism and corruption, whether the Constitution should be amended to let Arnold Schwarzennager run for President, (again, every candidate was asked this off the wall bizarre question) and every other Democratic talking point. He gave some candidates far more questions than others, and even the rules on speaking time for those candidates was not evenly applied, cutting off some candidates before their time was even up and letting others go on past the buzzer at times. These are but a few of many many unprofessional moments by Matthews, who was downright rude to some candidates. While gun control and health care predominated the Democrats debate a few weeks ago, it did not come up here. Then again, the GOP organizers of the event should have known better when they invited him to moderate.
A better format for the debate, (given 10 candidates vying for the 90 minutes of time with a hostile moderator), would have been to select key issues for the debate, and give each candidate a chance to speak on them, possibly give each candidate an opening and/or closing statement, and maybe have some lightning round questions from a range of issues that people actually care about. Here's my impression of the top 3 and bottom 3 in terms of debate performance:
TOP 3:
1. Most of the punditry is proclaiming former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the winner of the debate. The polls also show Romney as the clear winner of the debate. While Romney has adopted the "traditional" GOP positions on key social issues, he has been criticized for the recency of some of the positions, particularly on abortion. He gave a forceful and unapologetic affirmation of his beliefs which likely reassured many who have been wondering whether his "conversion" on the abortion issue is sincere.
2. Duncan Hunter came across very well, and though given a disproportionate amount of speaking time, used it to good effect. He addressed many issues, including his steadfast Pro-Life position, an in depth analysis of the war on terror and the Iraq war, (where his son is serving in uniform), his success in promoting border enforcement on illegal immigration, the need to correct hurtful trade practices, etc. This breadth made him more Presidential looking.
3. John McCain came across as a forceful voice on the war on terror and an experienced statesman.
BOTTOM 3:
1. The biggest loser here was Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City. He seemed unable to answer questions about abortion, waffling back and forth about whether overturning Roe v. Wade would be a good thing, and semi-backtracking off his proud declaration of support for taxpayer funded abortions a few weeks ago before reaffirming his role in trying to provide the same in New York. Compared to how the candidates are doing in the polls, Giuliani had by far the worst polling on the issue of who won the debate - over ten percentage points less than how he is doing in the polls. No other candidate did nearly as poorly. This is remarkable considering nobody even attacked Giuliani in their comments.
2. Chris Matthews and MSNBC for displaying unprofessionalism and partisanship. I'd put this one ahead of Giuliani, but MSNBC is already about 7th or 8th among news networks so they can't fall too much further, whereas Giuliani's poor performance has some real world effect.
3. Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, not even registering one percent in the primary polls, was given a lot of speaking time, and I can only imagine he damaged his already near-zero chances. Gilmore proudly declared himself Pro-Life, laundry listing Pro-Life initiatives he signed into law as Governor (the GOP at the time had a 2/3 majority in both VA houses that could have overriden a veto, and were initiatives of his own party), but stated he believes in abortion rights up to 8-12 weeks and always has. He gave no rationale for this curious cutoff point, likely acceptable to nobody who cares about the issue one way or another. He also proudly proclaimed he campaigned and delivered on eliminating the VA car tax (which he, in fact, did not do).
Catholic Presidential candidates Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) had this debate hosted by Tim Russert (host of Meet the Press, also Catholic). http://youtube.com/watch?v=u_ZKd1cQCPc. It runs an hour and twenty minutes.
Hat tip: http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/ for providing the link.
Senator Joe Lieberman, the once Democrat now Independent Senator from Connecticut, has warned that an independent candidate could shake up the 2008 Presidential race. http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/
Independent candidates have potential to play a spoiler role by dividing one base or the other. In 2000 and 2004, Ralph Nader was criticized by the Democrats for splitting their vote. His response was that they did not own voters. In 2004, Democrats used a series of procedural tactics and courtroom maneuvers to force Nader off the ballot in many states. Though Nader usually registered only 0-3% of the vote in most states, and siphoned off support fairly evenly from the two parties, some Democrats blame him for delivering the elections to George W. Bush. In 1992, billionaire Ross Perot launched a campaign that siphoned off predominantly GOP support, sending incumbent President George Bush down in defeat to President Bill Clinton.
A few possible independents who could shake things up this time through include Nader of course, as well as Senator Lieberman and New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, also a billionaire. It would be impossible for any of them to win, of course. Bloomberg would likely siphon off GOP support to some extent, especially if Giuliani were the nominee, as their stances on social issues are very similar. Nader's support would likely continue to be the same as it has these past few cycles.
Lieberman, noting in the above article that the fastest growing party affiliation in America is no party, already wields great power with his position in Washington due to the balance of power in the Senate. The Democrats control the Senate with 49 Senators and two Independents, including Lieberman, who caucus with them. If Lieberman were to switch parties, the GOP would then have 50 Senators and could break all ties in votes with Vice President Cheney's vote. In the recent 2006 Senate election, Lieberman's Democratic Senate colleagues all abandoned him and endorsed his rival Ned Lamont. Lieberman was forced out of the party and now stands at odds with the party over the Democrats' desire to pull out of Iraq. Lieberman is a strong advocate of the United States staying in Iraq and finishing the job and has even written editorials criticizing his party's leadership. Though such a change in party affiliation is unlikely, it is seeming more plausible than it used to. Now Lieberman's comments on an Independent candidate should give Democrats more pause in considering Lieberman. He had been the Vice Presidential candidate of the Democratic party in 2000, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility he could run for President either. He would likely split off many Democratic voters who do not share the party's emerging stance on Iraq.
