Media Bias & National / World Politics 28 Jan 2008 07:45 am
Sinking Like a Stone (Rudy’s hopes)
If I can be allowed a bit of whining here… there are two assumptions made in the post below from powerlineblog that I would like to understand more…
1) I don’t believe that Rudy and John’s # of appearences in Iowa or NH were all that different and neither engaged in the Straw Poll.
2) Keeping Rudy out of the headlines is only under the control of the Main Stream Media who I still believe think (as powerline notes below) Rudy is the strongest candidate for the general election. The MSM will have done their job minimizing his candidacy to an electorate that just has NOT been paying attention.
Rudy was NOT going to win the early primaries regardless of strategies and he did compete at the retail level as I’ve mentioned before – he was actively fundraising or handshaking and townhall-ing, nearly every day since he announced in Feburary 2007.
Sadly (although his attacks against Romney on the time table issue are lame) – I can support McCain but Rudy is clearly the more conservative of the two by a country mile. Not even close. And I don’t think he can beat Clinton. And McCain standing beside the rhetorically sublime Obama – he will fail the visual test too (screams past v. future) – people will not take time to listen to issues. I’ve lost a lot of faith in the electorate in the last months.
What does it say about a system where the press can report a demise and then make it so? Conservatives will get what they wanted (Rudy out of the race) but if they get McCain as an alternative – who won? -pf
(emphasis added below is mine..)
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Every indication is that Rudy Giuliani is sinking like a stone in Florida. Barring a miracle, he’ll finish either a bit above or a bit below Mike Huckabee. Once Florida Republicans saw that Rudy was dropping in the polls, I think a lot of them jumped ship, thinking they’d rather make a choice between McCain and Romney than use their vote on a candidate who isn’t going to win. Hence, I suspect, the continued downward slide.
If Florida is between McCain and Romney, then the nomination race is between McCain and Romney. It’s too bad; I think Giuliani might have been our strongest candidate in the general election. He was expected to fight McCain to be the first choice of the party’s moderate wing, and, given the problems McCain has had with the party’s base, Rudy had every reason to think he could come out on top and be one of the last candidates standing, even if he skipped the early primaries.
That strategy was a huge gamble, and it doesn’t appear to have paid off. One lesson, I think, is that Rudy’s participation in the debates, in which he always performed well, wasn’t enough to keep him in the public eye given his absence from the day-to-day headlines associated with the early primaries. It’s too bad; at the same time, it’s hard not to credit McCain for going out and wresting the finalist’s slot through hard work in the early states.
Barring a surprise in Florida, Republican primary voters and caucus-goers on mega-Tuesday will face a stark but classic political choice: do they go with Romney, whose views across a broad range of issues are more palatable to conservatives and whose economic expertise may be badly needed, or with McCain, who seems pretty clearly more likely to prevent the Clintons from re-inhabiting the White House? It’s not an easy choice. We’ll have more to say about it in due course.
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on 28 Jan 2008 at 9:55 pm 1.Political Football said …
FROM AN ARIZONA voter who’s watched and voted for McCain for over 20 years.
I have been listening to talk radio off & on today. This is the big reason that I don’t like McCain [for president].
The way he took Romney’s comments on the Timetable totally out of context. He tends to do this – shoot off his mouth without even listening to the whole clip. He does this a lot.. This isn’t an isolated incident.
I would not argue that McCain is not fiscally conservative. He is one of the only Senators that NEVER has an earmark. He is the watchdog in the Senate that shines the light on other outrageous earmarks. The reason he voted against tax cuts that time, was because he also wanted to see spending cuts itemized in the same way – not because he was against the tax cuts.
I heard on Michael Medved that both Romney & Rudy said that McCain’s age doesn’t matter. Is that true? [yes -pf] (Medved is supporting McCain. He had Tom Ridge on last Friday which was quite an apologetic!)
The other reasons I argue against McCain at this point are:
Management Skills – McCain was a high ranking military officer. However, management in the military is very different from the public or private sector. Senators don’t have to manage anything other than their staff and they usually have someone else doing that too. Both Romney & Rudy have outstanding management skills.
Leadership Skills – I wish Rudy’s ideas – white papers – had more publicity. He really appears to be one of the only Republicans with real ideas instead of rhetoric. I haven’t heard any real ideas out of either Romney or McCain.
Put Rudy, Mitt or McCain next to Obama. Who would win in a debate? (1) Rudy, (2) Mitt, (3) McCain.
McCain is really lower than (3) because he would shoot off his mouth like he did with Romney – out of ignorance. (I have already written off Huck because of money. But in a debate against Obama – he would entertain with a cute comeback, but no substance.)