Completely sunk in work this week, I missed the debate and a lot of the coverage. Trying to catch up today and most of what’s worth reading is coming out of London. The Financial Times [might need a subscription...] provides excellent commentary and is sure to throw in the above Biden gem:
…it is historically the case that candidates run to their party’s activist extremes to secure a nomination and then run back to the middle to win a general election, so the GOP establishment may be taking the long view that Mr Romney will come to his senses eventually, if he can find them.
Mr Giuliani’s affinity with the neocons makes more transparent sense. They talk the sort of tough game that is the basis of the candidacy of the man saved from political oblivion, the fate of most New York mayors, before the events of September 11 2001 transformed him into a national figure. As Mr Biden neatly put it in the Democratic debate this week, a Giuliani stump speech consists of three elements – a noun, a verb and 9/11.
I’ll post a longer chunck of that article below - an excellent look at how choosing advisers during the primaries is a lot like choosing a jacket for the debate. But first, more from Britain - The Economist has some numbers and says it will continue to poll thoughout the campaign [click to enlarge]:
…and the commentary does well to pick-up on the real story from the Republican side:
This makes the race for the Republican nomination extremely hard to predict. As the primaries draw near, will voters learn more about Mr Giuliani and reject him?
And The Guardian delivers a nice scare for Democrats on Halloween:
The Christian right has shown that there is sufficient democratic space for movements to play a role in shaping the political narrative, regardless of who the electoral protagonists are, so long as those movements can prove their clout and exercise their independence.
“Some might compare the religious right to a snake,” a Wichita evangelist, Terry Fox, told the New York Times. “We may be in our hole right now, but we can come out and bite you at any time.” It’s time for progressives to get out of their hole and find some teeth.
As I type, an infomercial for Open the Eyes of My Heart blasts in the background…
Ok, with Halloween over, here’s hoping value voters won’t be scaring me again any time soon - and more from that great FT article:
On economic policy, Mr Giuliani is listening to the siren voices of another group whose time seemed to have passed. They are led by Steve Forbes, unable to parlay his advocacy of flat taxes into the Republican nomination back in 1996, and the like-minded Bill Simon, who lost a California governor’s race to an unpopular incumbent in 1998. At least he is more of a born populist than them.
Comfortably the best assessment of the old Giuliani was provided by Calvin Trillin in his wickedly funny novel, Tepper Isn’t Going Out, about a New Yorker whose avocation is to sit in his car in scarce legal parking spaces, thus driving the city bananas. This was due to be released in the autumn of 2001 but publication was delayed for a year because it was considered too irreverent for those traumatic times.
In it, the mayor of New York has an Italian name (Ducatelli) and very authoritarian tendencies. He wants to be known as Duke (after John Wayne) but the local media insists on christening him Il Duce (after Mussolini). I think the Trillin book should be reissued now as a political tract.
Other pretenders have also attracted some high-profile advisers. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who ran Jimmy Carter’s national security council and has been an effective critic of neo-conservatism, is in the Obama corner, though he is probably a bit long in the tooth to get back into government. An adviser of longer standing, the very smart Samantha Power, now at Harvard, would surely feature prominently in an Obama administration.
John McCain, by no means out of the Republican race, still marches mostly to his own drum, which serves him best. Mike Huckabee does not appear to have anybody notable on board but if he continues to move up in the field he will not lack for foreign policy tutors.
In ancient times, once a nominee was chosen the respective parties would impose policy advisers on him, squeezing out the primary gurus. But the parties themselves are now so sundered that it is up to the candidate to pick a team. Dick Holbrooke knows that better than anyone.
Posted by Andrew Bennett
Posted by Andrew Bennett
Posted by Andrew Bennett
