Despite congressional Democrats’ efforts to draw sharp lines between Ds and Rs on Iraq, the intra-Democratic debate on Iraq rages on, as illustrated by several sharp candidate exchanges during Monday’s CNN/YouTube debate. And it’s as good a time as any to take stock of where that debate stands, and where it might soon go.
One issue that used to divide Democrats–the advisability and winnability of the Iraq misadventure–has obviously been resolved, assuming you exclude Joe Lieberman from the discussion.
A second issue–whether to impose a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq–has also largely been resolved, given broad Democratic support for language establishing a deadline in the suppmemental appropriations bill that Bush vetoed earlier this year, though some antiwar Democrats opposed it as insufficiently mandatory. The exact deadline date, however, still hangs fire, particularly in the presidential contest, mainly because of Bill Richardson’s efforts to distinguish himself by halfing the withdrawal timetable. During Monday’s debates, Richardson’s “six months and out” position gave Joe Biden the opening he sought to angrily claim that it’s logistically impossible to withdraw that quickly without dire danger for U.S. troops and/or civilians.
The third issue, which is steadily emerging as a dividing line among Democrats even though most Americans probably haven’t heard or thought much about it, is the question of residual troops commitments to Iraq once “combat brigades” (defined rather hazily) are withdrawn. Many antiwar activists, especially in the blogosphere, have made this a virtual litmus test, arguing that any sizeable residual military force in Iraq represents a continuation of the war, not a post-war safeguard. Among the presidential candidates, Biden, Clinton and Obama have embraced Iraq plans that include a significant residual force. Richardson, Dodd and Kucinich have explicitly opposed residuals. Edwards, best I can tell, hasn’t completely ruled it out or in, though it appears he would oppose the kind of robust residual force that Hillary Clinton is talking about, and would probably limit it to embassy security. (For an unusually explicit pro-residual argument, contemplating a lengthy if smaller troop commitment, check out PPI president Will Marshall’s post today at the DLC’s new-and-improved Ideas Primary site).
And the fourth issue, which flared up sharply during the spring, and is almost certain to return in the fall, is the question of whether congressional Democrats should take the dramatic step of cutting off funding for the war to force the administration to start withdrawing troops. As was nicely articulated by Dennis Kucinich in the Monday debate, this is the one step that Democrats, theoretically at least, could take in Congress that does not require Republican support. Ironically, this issue is highly emotional precisely because it is essentially tactical. The reluctance of Democratic congressional leaders to pursue a funding cutoff to the bitter end reflects, in the eyes of many netroots activists in particular, the timidity or even cowardice that “DC Democrats” have exhibited throughout the Bush administration.
There’s still another tactical-but-contentious issue lurking in the background of all the intra-Democratic debates over Iraq: the fear that Democrats will enable Republicans to blur partisan differences on the war, reducing its salience in the 2008 elections. This is clearly the thinking behind Harry Reid’s determined efforts to oppose any bipartisan resolution in the Senate endorsing the Iraq Study Group approach, which many observers believe Bush himself will ultimately embrace, however insincerely.
And finally, there’s significant disagreement among Democrats about how, exactly, to judge public opinion on Iraq. Pollsters have not done much to shed light on the insider “residuals” debate, and public opinion on the impact of a protracted funding cutoff debate remains murky, though support for that strategy has clearly grown this year as Bush’s intransigence on Iraq has become more obvious.
Moreover, as Chris Cillizza points out today in a fascinating glimpse at the internals of the recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, support for “immediate” as opposed to “gradual” withdrawal from Iraq among Democrats doesn’t follow any predictable pattern of ideological self-identification, age, or candidate preference (though region does seem to have an impact, with support for immediate withdrawal strongest in the West and weakest in the South). Most notably, the Post found that those favoring immediate withdrawal are a larger percentage of Hillary Clinton’s base of support than of Barack Obama’s. This finding alone is one that will almost certainly contribute to an escalation of efforts by Clinton’s rivals to make Democratic differences over Iraq front and center in the nomination fight. Where that leaves the ultimate nominee going into the general election is a question that all Democrats should begin to ponder.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

Last night’s Democratic presidential debate, sponsored by YouTube and CNN, has become an instant legend, with the most frequent comment being that future debates will never be the same. In case you missed it, the debate was organized around thirty-nine YouTube videos posing questions (culled from over 3,000 submissions) to particular or all candidates, with moderator Anderson Cooper occasionally supplying follow-ups.
The most obviously different thing about the format was that the questions were not framed in the ostensibly objective voice of journalism. While a few questioners adopted the Concerned Citizen tone of pre-selected Real People at campaign events, most took a very personal approach. There was lots of humor (singing questions, faux rednecks, and one representative of the “snowman community”) and drama (a man sitting in front of the burial flags of three family members, a cancer victim removing her wig, a question sent from a refugee camp in Darfur). And more generally, the questioners were as complicated as the electorate itself, reflecting very different political perspectives (frustrated base voter, disengaged cynic, earnest swing voter) and levels of knowledge.
You do have to wonder, however, if the positive reaction to the debate among journalists and bloggers is mainly about its sheer entertainment value, particularly for political junkie viewers who have come to loath candidate debates. I mean, it’s nice if this debate was a lot more fun to watch, and maybe that will eventually help engage voters, but it’s not necessarily grounds for widespread civic celebration. Moreoever, the apparent spontaneity of the event was partially artificial, given CNN’s role in selecting and ordering questions. And as in all recent debates, the need to spread questions among the candidates produced some serious distortions and reduced opportunities for candidate interaction. (I’m sure I’m not the only Democrat who’s fed up with the endless whining for equal time by Mike Gravel, whose Potemkin Village campaign is entirely composed of his opportunities to be the Angry Man of the debates).
With these reservations, however, the YouTube format did have some important and arguably positive effects on the informational value of the debate. For one thing, the personalization of the questions made them harder to dodge or deflect. One of the most dramatic moments of the debate came when John Edwards had to explain his position of “personally” opposing gay marriage on religious grounds while supporting civil unions. I’ve heard him do this many times, very fluidly. But last night, his answer was preceded by videos of two lesbians plaintively asking if the candidates would let them get married, and then an African-American minister specificially asking Edwards if religion is ever a legitimate reason for tolerating discrimination. Whatever you think of Edwards’ response–and some observers thought it was very effective–it was telling that the Joe DiMaggio of Trial Lawyers visibly struggled with the question.
More generally, the video questions, whether earnest or humorous, inevitably made it more noticable when candidates utilized their decades of “flag-and-bridge” training to quickly shift into their pre-ordained campaign messages. In traditional debates, the dynamic is often one of the men-in-suits on the stage trying to outwit the men-in-suits asking questions; it sounds and feels quite different when the questions are framed by wary citizens seeking a straight answer. For the same reason, candidate use of insider and legislative language was more jarring and unappealing in this format, which I’m sure the handlers of Senators Biden and Dodd noticed to their chagrin.
Yet another unusual feature of the debate was CNN’s decision to let each campaign screen its own YouTube video. Some simply cut-and-pasted campaign ads; others tried hard to get edgy, reflecting different levels of commitment to the New Social Media trend. (HRC’s campaign actually posted a video on YouTube during the debate, featuring her exchange with Obama over presidential negotiations with famous dictators).
One of the imponderables is whether the format leads to different assessments of candidate performances by junkies and pundits on the one hand and actual voters on the other. I’ve certainly read enough Drew Westen by now to understand that the College Debate Model of “scoring” candidate interactions may have little to do with their actual impact. And we got a glimpse of that disconnect last night. Immediately after the debate ended, and even before the self-congratulatory talk about CNN’s genius in partnering with YouTube, CNN’s commentators highlighted the Clinton-Obama negotiations exchange as the Big Moment (reflecting the belief that it showed HRC’s savvy and Obama’s inexperience, a big campaign talking point for Hillaryland). Seconds later, a CNN analyst called the debate’s real story “Gladys Knight and the Pips,” reflecting HRC’s total domination. Then next thing you knew, a CNN-sponsored focus group of undecided Democrats in New Hampshire declared Obama the overall debate winner.
MSM perceptions, of course, do influence public perceptions, so we may have to wait a while to see who was right. And we’ll also have to wait til September to watch the Republican candidates deal with the same format.
But for now, it looks like the Medium was the Message last night, with the candidates learning another lesson in the difficulty of holding onto the stage in the New Media era.

In case you’ve missed it, George W. Bush has picked a major fight with Democrats, many Republicans, virtually all of the governors, and most health care advocacy groups from left to right, over health care policy.
The context is the about-to-expire SCHIP program, the ten-year-old initiative, which has enjoyed strong bipartisan support, that helps states provide health coverage to children whose parents don’t qualify for the restrictive low-income Medicaid program. SCHIP is currently struggling to meet its original goals; more than 3 million eligible kids aren’t being covered, and thanks to rising health care costs, the current level of federal SCHIP funding is certain to create a serious erosion of past coverage.
The Senate Finance Committee has reported, on a 17-4 vote (with ranking Republicans Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch strongly in support) a SCHIP reauthorization bill that strikes a compromise between the funding levels supported by most Democrats, and those necessary just to maintain current coverage. The cost of the bill would be paid for by a substantial increase in the federal tobacco tax.
And now Bush has clearly signalled he’d veto this bill, not, as you might expect, on grounds of its cost, but on “philosophical grounds,” because he views SCHIP as a threat to private insurance coverage and sort of a Trojan Horse for “government-run health care.” Instead, he’s demanding congressional action on his own proposal to replace the employer tax break for health insurance with an individual deduction for purchase of health insurance in the chaotic and expensive individual market.
This, my friends, offers Democrats a heaven-sent opportunity to wedge Republican on health care and expose the extraordinary radicalism of Bush’s (and by extension, that of many of the GOP candidates seeking to replace him) approach to health care. The government/private distinction Bush is trying to draw here is completely specious. The vast majority of those covered by SCHIP (and for that matter, by Medicaid) are actually participating in private health plans that contract with the states. The government’s role is simply to finance and organize coverage. Since Bush’s own plan would obviously continue the federal role in financing coverage for those without employer-sponsored coverage, the real “philosophical difference”‘ is over government’s role in creating an insurance pool that holds down premiums, prevents discrimination, and spreads the cost of health risks.
But it gets worse. Bush’s proposal is for a tax deduction for health insurance purchasing, which is highly regressive to begin with (since deductions have a greater value to those in higher tax brackets) and useless to poorer families with little or no tax liability. Since the proposal is explicitly designed to undermine employer-sponsored health insurance, it represents a radical attack on the very idea of pooled purchasing, and would send the U.S. health care system back towards the 1950s, when individual plans, and/or non-insured direct payment of health care costs, was the norm. With the exception of Mitt Romney, who appears reluctant to talk about the Massachussets coverage expansion initiative he signed, the Republican presidential candidates have generally embraced the same sort of “thinking” tilting towards tax-driven individual insurance purchasing.
Will Democrats effectively expose this retrograde GOP approach to health care? They should, but some will be tempted to reinforce Bush’s government/private distinction, to the extent that they support a single-payer system that would radically reduce or eliminate the public role of private insurers and/or providers. It’s a classic dilemma: do you hold the GOP responsible for the evils of the status quo, and propose a decisive break with it, or focus on the GOP’s intentions to make a decisive break with the status quo in precisely the wrong direction?
The entire subject may well offer a fateful decision for both parties.

If watching a couple of white guys talking politics for an hour appeals to you, check out the bloggingheadstv “diavlog” I did with Dan Dentzler earlier this week. We cover the Senate “sleepover,” Cheney’s nefarious intentions towards Iran, the populist-versus-centrist debate among Democrats, various developments in the presidential campaign, and a strange new group of global celebrities that’s calling itself “The Elders.”

A very unexpected thing has happened this week in the Democratic presidential nominating contest: something of a debate broke out between John Edwards and Barack Obama on the subject of how to deal with entrenched inner-city poverty.
Edwards was concluding his eight-state “poverty tour,” an emulation of a similar effort by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, while unveiling his comprehensive anti-poverty agenda.
Obama delivered a speech in the hyper-poor Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC (picking up an endorsement by Mayor Adrian Fenty), and offered his own prescription for reducing inner-city poverty.
As an excellent analysis by the Washington Post‘s Alec MacGillis explains, Edwards and Obama are offering sharply different approaches to what might be called the geography of inner-city poverty, with the former arguing that some poor and isolated urban neighborhoods need to be broken up, and the latter arguing that they can be revitalized. This difference is most dramatically reflected in Edwards’ proposal for dispersed low-income housing through rental vouchers, and Obama’s proposal for a new inner-city housing Trust Fund. On a more personal note, Edwards is touting his long-standing work on poverty issues, dating back to the 2004 campaign, while Obama’s speech is full of references to his own work as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago.
The dispersal-versus-revitalization debate is an ancient one. Low-income housing dispersal, while popular among urban policy wonks, has always been politically perilous for the obvious reason that it simultaneously offends the community sentiment of inner-city dwellers while threatening those whose neighborhoods would be the target of relocation efforts. On the other hand, national inner-city revitalization plans (the most recent being the Clinton-era Empowerment Zone initiative, headed up by Andrew Cuomo), have at best a very checkered history. Obama appears to be distinguishing his own approach from its predecessors by emphasizing small, locally-driven and field-tested programs, though his emphasis on community-based non-governmental organizations was also an emblem of the Johnson-era War on Poverty, which deliberately bypassed state and local governments.
There is more than a bit of historical irony in Edwards’ invocation of RFK’s 1968 campaign. One of the most famous moments in that campaign was during the debate between RFK and Gene McCarthy on the eve of the California primary, just prior to Kennedy’s assassination. Asked about inner-city housing, McCarthy, much like Edwards today, called for public housing dispersal. And Kennedy responded by saying:

We have 10 million Negroes who are in the ghettos at the present time. . . You say you are going to take 10,000 black people and move them into Orange County. It is just going to be catastrophic.

This incident has always been a favorite of Bobby-haters, who view it as reflecting at best political opportunism, and at worst a willingness to exploit racial fears (a bit implausible, since RFK won California by sweeping the minority vote).
The other irony, of course, is that John Edwards’ presidential hopes completely depend on his ability to win the caucuses in Iowa, a place where efforts to deal with entrenched inner-city poverty is considerably less important than three or four different questions involving ethanol subsidies. Meanwhile, Edwards is by universal assessment not doing very well among low-income and minority voters (Garance Franke-Ruta has a provocative commentary on that subject over at The American Prospect).
Obama’s decision to contest Edwards’ mantle as a poverty-fighter does make some basic political sense. Aside from the fact that the subject enables him to tout his own experience–and highlight a biographical credential that predates his political career–Obama really needs to improve his narrow lead over Hillary Clinton among African-American voters.
However it all turns out for Edwards or Obama, you don’t have to be an inner-city resident, or a nostalgic baby boomer, to be happy about the growing visibility of this issue in the 2008 campaign.

At the risk of reading too much into a single newspaper column, I recommend Mike Gerson’s Washington Post entry today as an example of what Rudy Giuliani’s going to be facing during the remainder of the presidential nomination contest. Entitled “R. Milhous Giuliani,” the column’s comparison of Rudy to Tricky Dick is just part of Gerson’s indictment. He also describes Giuliani as a guy whose policy positions–pro-choice, pro-death penalty, pro-torture (he could have added pro-war)–are guaranteed to make him a target for the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, to which he is already hanging by his fingernails due to his second divorce and remarriage (his first marriage was annulled).
As you may know, Mike Gerson’s not just some random conservative columnist. Aside from his cult status as the speechwriter who managed to occasionally make George W. Bush sound eloquent, Gerson is a longstanding leadership figure in Washington’s tight-knit conservative evangelical community. (Alongside Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, he’s a parishioner at The Falls Church, one of two evangelical Episcopal congregations in suburban Washington that recently left the national denomination to protest its ordination of a gay bishop). He’s also got a reputation as a very genial man, so there’s no question his knee-capping of Rudy was entirely premeditated.
Gerson’s use of the Nixon analogy is quite interesting. A lot of Democrats are either too young or too old to remember that Nixon was loathed as heartily by some conservatives as he was by liberals, well before he destroyed his presidency and inflicted serious short-term damage on the GOP. Gerson mentions Nixon’s imposition of wage and price controls, and his nomination of Harry Blackmun–author of Roe v. Wade–to the Supreme Court as examples of his heresies. But conservative unhappiness with Nixon extended into foreign policy, where he and Henry Kissinger (whose retention by Gerald Ford was a significant issue in Reagan’s 1976 nomination challenge) were blamed for losing the Vietnam War and for allegedly excessive coziness towards the Soviet Union.
In Gerson’s eyes, the root of the Nixon problem was the man’s “secular” nature; his conservativism, such as it was, was not rooted in moral or religious views but in cynical opportunism and an adversarial character. He seduced “real” conservatives into supporting him mainly by attacking their enemies relentlessly. That is one theory (notably promulgated by Tom Edsall in a New Republic article in May) about Giuliani’s appeal to conservatives today. Gerson is clearly warning conservatives that Rudy, like Nixon, is “a talented man without an ideological compass, mainly concerned with the accumulation of power.”
Interestingly, despite his focus on Giuliani’s “secularism” and questionable character, Gerson doesn’t get into Rudy’s marital history. But he probably doesn’t need to: the celebrity media and the late-night comics will soon take care of that, feasting on all the sordid-sounding details once the possibility of a Giuliani presidency becomes more proximate.
I strongly suspect that Gerson’s assault on Giuliani is the opening shot in what will soon develop into a highly concerted Cultural Right effort to take Rudy down. There’s been a lot of talk in the last couple of years about the declining power of the Cultural Right. And without question, if social conservatives can’t veto someone with Rudy’s background as a presidential nominee, then they ain’t what they used to be. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on their failure in blocking Giuliani. In fact, I wouldn’t be a dime on it.

In the Editorial Philosophy section of this web site, The Democratic Strategist pledges to “actively seek to be a meeting ground for both centrists and populists, readers of The Nation and The New Republic, professional political consultants, grassroots activists and every significant candidate and perspective within the Democratic Party.”
So it was with a sense of foreboding that I read yesterday’s front-page New York Times article by Robin Toner on Democratic economic policy and message. Though her tone is mild and it takes her a while to get to the main point, Toner suggests a state of irrepressible conflict between “populists” and “centrists” based on rejection or championship of Bill Clinton’s legacy, with “populists” currently in the ascendancy.
It’s certainly no surprise that all Democrats are highly critical of the current administration’s stewardship of the economy, which ranges from indifference to an aggressive promotion of concentrations of wealth and privilege. But by implicitly conflating the (Bill) Clinton and Bush economic strategies, Toner creates a false choice between robust attacks on Bushonomics and use of the Clinton legacy to demonstrate the superiority of Democratic approaches to the economy. And in doing so, she exaggerates Democratic disagreements on economic policy on virtually every issue other than trade.
Two particular issues stand out in this distorted picture of Democrats: the role of investments in education and training, and of fiscal discipline, in creating long-term economic growth and economic security.
Toner quotes Barack Obama as mocking the idea that training in high-skill fields will enable Americans to cope with global competition, given the outsourcing of tech and services jobs. But I don’t know of any Democrats who (a) think education and training alone will make individual Americans or the economy as a whole competitive, or (b) oppose strong efforts to create better schools or provide genuine access to lifelong learning. Since Republicans do, by and large, reject major new public investments in education and training as an illegitimate expansion of government, the differences between Democrats and Republicans on this topic are much larger than those between Democrats.
As for fiscal discipline, Toner twice cites Robert Rubin’s focus on deficit reduction and its impact on interest rates as part of the Clinton legacy that’s come under fire from Democrats. But think about this: when John Edwards, in launching his health care plan, announced that a balanced budget was not his highest priority, it made news. Why? Because Democrats, including Edwards, have become the unquestioned party of fiscal discipline, and will continue to make that a point of differentiation with Republicans with or without the economically trivial commitment to an actually balanced budget. Indeed, that’s one, though not the only, reason that virtually all Democrats favor a rollback in the Bush tax cuts, leaving Republicans with the politically perilous choice of continuing to ignore deficit spending, advocating drastic scalebacks in popular government programs, or resuscitating discredited supply-side theories about the self-financing nature of tax cuts.
There is, of course, one issue where divisions among Democrats are real: trade policy. But even there, the divisions are not as stark as is often assumed. For one thing, Democratic “free traders” have long conceded that labor and environmental standards are a desirable element of trade agreements, where they can actually be negotiated; that the U.S. government has a responsibility to deal with trade scofflaws like China; and that we are morally obligated to provide more than training vouchers to workers whose jobs are displaced by trade. Moreover, many pro-trade Democrats have vociferously opposed Bush’s trade agenda, most notably when a large majority of the House New Democratic Coalition voted against CAFTA.
Meanwhile, it’s simply not accurate to typecast Democrats as pro- or anti-trade. Yes, there are some highly visible “populists” who believe trade agreements are the single largest factor creating economic inequality and insecurity, and advocate repeal of past agreements along with systemic opposition to new ones. But as Will Marshall and Ed Gresser usefully pointed out in these pages recently, another Democratic faction, which they call “social democratic,” favors an aggressive international economic strategy focused on emulating the high-wage, high-benefit policies of European nations, instead of reflexive opposition to trade and globalization. And in practice, many Democratic politicians and voters combine elements of all three of the “pro-trade,” “populist,” and “social democratic” philosophies.
There are obviously very large omissions in Toner’s picture of Democratic economic policy preferences. Democrats are united as never before in making universal access to health care; universal access to college; and a serious assault on global climate change, major goals for the party and for the country. They are equally committed to a broad and progressive income tax (not unimportant at a time when Republicans continue to flirt not only with regressive tax cuts, but with “flat tax” and national sales tax schemes); to reductions in corporate subsides and measure to insure corporate accountability; to a strengthening the social safety net; and to a restoration of the endangered right of workers to organize unions. On all these issues, most Republicans, and most Republican leaders, are far on the other side of the battle-lines.
And that leads me to what may be the mother of all false choices for Democrats on the economy: “optimism” versus “pessimism.” There’s plenty of room for empirical debate among progressives about the exact extent of income inequality, or the current economic condition of the middle class, with all its political implications, including the advisability of “class warfare” rhetoric. But at a time when two-thirds of voters consistently say the country is on “the wrong track,” I hope no Democrats would counsel a sunny, positive feeling about the current trajectory of the U.S. economy. And I hope no Democrats would fail to understand the importance of conveying confidence in the country’s economic prospects under a future Democratic administration, with the success of the last Democratic administration being a significant if not dispositive talking point.
Indeed, while maintaining an open atmosphere of intraparty debate, Democrats need to remember two fundamental facts that transcend factions: we are all “populists” now in opposing and seeking to reverse Republican policies aimed at entrenching wealth and privilege in every aspect of economic policy. And we are all “centrists” now in seeking to explain to the American people that their interests and the national interest have been subordinated to an ideological and partisan-power-building agenda which is far out of the mainstream of economic thought and practice.

Today’s Washington Post provides a little clarity in the over-reported but under-analyzed story of where the various presidential candidates stand in the money-grubbing competition. In particular, there’s a chart that summarzes second-quarter and total fundraising; second-quarter spending; cash-on-hand as of June 30; and the second-quarter “burn rate” (the ratio of spending to new money), for all D and R candidates.
The top-line story for the Post is that early spending–and thus the burn rate–is proceeding at a uniquely high pace this cycle, and particularly in the second quarter. Interestingly enough, Barack Obama, whose first-quarter 26% burn rate was the highest among Democrats, had the lowest in the second quarter–but it was 50%.
It’s also obvious that different candidates are getting highly variable bangs for their buck. The second-quarter spending champ, Mitt Romney ($20.5 million), has invested in early-state television ads that have clearly helped catapult him into the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire. John McCain spent more ($13 million) in the second quarter than any other Republican besides Romney, and more than Hillary Clinton, for that matter, and all he got for it was an imploding candidacy.
The cross-party comparisons continue to show the Democratic money edge. There’s already been a lot of talk about the (roughly) two-to-one overall Democratic fundraising advantage for the second quarter. But Democrats have nearly a three-to-one advantage ($93 million to $32 million) in cash-on-hand. John Edwards, often depicted as a fundraising under-achiever in this cycle’s environment, actually has as much money in the bank ($12 million) as Mitt Romney, even after the latter’s $9 million “loan” of personal wealth to his campaign.
Edwards’ situation raises the larger question of whether money requirements in this campaign are comparative or absolute. Edwards’ campaign consistently answers all questions about its finances by saying it needs to raise and spend $40 million before the Iowa caucuses, regardless of what others have. One of the odder features of the Post article is an assertion by lowa political bigfoot Gerald Crawford (whom the Post failed to identify as an HRC backer) that $30 million is “an absolute floor” for pre-Iowa fundraising. This probably didn’t endear him to Chris Dodd’s campaign, which is saying its total budget is $20-25 million.
As for Republicans, the two candidates hoping to earn media designation as “the dark horse to watch,” Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee, have, respectively, $500,000 and $400,000 on hand going into the very expensive Iowa Republican Straw Poll in August. In terms of the insanely high financial demands of this cycle, that’s enough to buy a meal deal, but not enough to supersize it.

Sorry for the failure to post earlier today, but I was attending a funeral in Georgia for an aunt who died after a long illness. It was a thoroughly Southern Baptist event, with hymns I suddenly found myself remembering from early childhood (e.g., Marching to Zion), and also offered a reminder that most conservative white evangelical Protestant Americans are kind, decent, well-adjusted people who (whatever their voting habits) don’t really reflect the angry views of some of their self-appointed political leaders.
And it’s as good a time as any to note that said leaders are especially angry and anxious these days. George W. Bush has let them down by turning out to be a completely incompetent president. Their flocks are restive, threatening the long-term deal they cut with the GOP. And when they look at W.’s potential successors, they get very, very nervous.
Just during the last week, a weird campaign has emerged to hold Mitt Romney accountable as a long-time member of the Marriott Corporation board for the hotel chain’s practice of offering pay-for-porn to its guests. And on a different front, a casual comment by gay conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan about Fred Thompson’s “colorful and wide-ranging sex life” spawned hysterial conservative claims that Sullivan was suggesting that Fred was gay.
As the David Vitter saga illustrated, there are in fact plenty of time-honored ways of having a “colorful and wide-ranging sex life” without being gay. And as both the Romney and Thompson problems reflect, the Christian Right leadership’s anxiety is not limited to gays and lesbians or abortion: their more or less consistent position is that our whole culture, especially with respect to sexuality, is plunging hellwards.
So when they look at the men who are in the best position to take over the GOP’s side of the contract with the Christian Right, they see the thrice-married Guiliani, the Mormon porn-peddler Romney, and the reputed Tennessee Stud Thompson, all reflecting to some degree the degeneracy of the broader culture.
And that’s only the stuff they know about. It’s got to make them crazy.

One of the hot topics surrounding the 2008 presidential campaigns is the effect of the “compressed calendar,” and especially the mega-primary scheduled for February 5, just 22 days after the opening bell in Iowa. There are two diametrically opposed theories about the impact of the new calendar. One holds that the mega-primary is so mega and so early that candidates might well downplay or even skip Iowa and New Hampshire, whose results will quickly be dwarfed, especially in terms of actual delegates won. And the second holds that the Iowa-New Hampshire duopoly will actually be enhanced, since the mega-primary will occur in the immediate wake of the “bounce” from those two states, particularly if one candidate wins both.
For candidates, gambling on the accuracy of the first theory is tempting if you (a) have the money and name ID to campaign heaviily in the February 5 states, and (b) don’t particularly want to spend months on end meeting every single voter in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But so far, no leading Democrats have taken that particular bait. Indeed, when an internal campaign memo making the case for downplaying Iowa got leaked, Hillary Clinton reassured the notoriously touchy residents of that state by immediately stepping up her Iowa scheduling and sending legendary field organizer Teresa Vilmain in to take over her effort there. And even the lower-tier candidates are at this point adhering to the hoary rituals of Iowa and New Hampshire campaign expectations, with occasional stops in Nevada, whose caucus was inserted between IA and NH by the DNC in an effort–of questionable efficacy–to dilute the duopoly.
On the Republican side, however, there odds are rising every day that we will see one if not two major candidates pursuing a February 5 strategy. Last month Rudy Giuliani (followed quickly and opportunistically by the imploding John McCain) announced he would not compete in the August Iowa Republican Party straw poll, a huge deal since more than a third of those who ultimately participate in the caucuses typically attend. Some observers think Rudy shrewdly made the straw poll irrelevant, but since the event is the state party’s major fundraiser for the presidential year, he will definitely pay a price at the caucuses for this act of disrespect. Moreover, though Giuliani’s doing reasonably well in Iowa polls, he hasn’t built much of an organization there, and his staff has been hinting for weeks that it may focus on the February 5 states in the end.
Meanwhile, Fred Thompson’s handlers announced yesterday that he was pushing back his anticipated July campaign launch, perhaps even to September. And even though Fred’s envoys are sniffing around in Iowa, and letting it be known that he might contest the straw poll, a late launch could become the perfect excuse for downplaying or even skipping Iowa and/or New Hampshire, and instead making a first stand in SC–where he’s already runnng first in the polls–as a lead-in to the mega-primary.
If Rudy and Fred both head in this direction, they would be essentially conceding IA and NH to Romney, which would give the Mittster quite a head of steam. But the other thing it could do is to create an opening for a dark horse to emerge in Iowa. One thinks immediately of Mike Huckabee, whose strong debate performances have enhanced his insider reputation as the Lower Tier Candidate To Watch. He’s even beginning to show up with visible support in Iowa polls. The poor guy, however, seems to have inordinate problems raising money, and there are signs in Iowa that he’s being out-organized by the lightly regarded Sam Brownback. The Kansan, who has committed to the August straw poll, has close ties to Iowa’s formidable anti-abortion movement, a credential he is emphasizing by campaigning with the late Terry Schiavo’s brother.
(On a side note: if Brownback does emerge from the pack, he may give Mormon Mitt and Is-He-Still-Catholic Rudy some competition on the religious controversy front. He’s one of those Washington celebrities converted to Catholicism by the Opus Dei organization, so we may find out if the gazillion readers of The Da Vinci Code took the book seriously).
As for the ultimate outcome, nobody knows, but as a historical matter, it’s worth remembering that the last serious candidate who tried to skip both Iowa and New Hampshire was Al Gore in 1988. It didn’t work out too well for him. In 2000, he dutifully competed and won in both the early states, basically croaking Bill Bradley’s challenge before the contest moved on to the rest of the country.
If the above ruminations aren’t complicated enough for you, remember that the calendar could still shift. Florida’s decision to defy both parties’ rules by moving up its primary to January 29 (the same day as SC’s Democratic primary, and four days before its Republican primary) is widely expected to produce a domino effect, with IA, NV, NH and SC all likely to move up at least a week. This will either enhance or dilute the IA/NH effect, depending on which theory turns out to be right about the compressed calendar.