The state of my presidential-race mind

It is, I admit, unstable in the best of times. But right now, it feels like it's turned to mush.

I said a few weeks ago that I liked Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. Since then, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Romney have each won contests, and Thompson is in a dead sprint to catch the nomination train before it leaves the station.

And since then, I may be slightly more clear-headed, but no more decided. (Of course, I don't have to worry about that considering my May primary vote will likely be worthless, as I expect the candidate to be determined by then.)

As far as my position with Romney, the more I watch him, the less impressed I feel. It's gotten to the point where I can't read Hugh Hewitt because his spin for the Mittster is stomach-turning. However, my biggest negative for Romney is that, while I cut him some slack on his supposed flip-flopping, others are not so kind. And that's among Republicans! If Romney wins the nomination, the Democrats will be merciless in their flip-flop message, especially after being on the receiving end of that accusation in 2004.

But I also have trouble swallowing his message of change, when it's been clear for a while that he's the closest thing to George W. Bush that we have in the GOP field. "Change" is not so much a factor of address as it is of mindset, and while Romney certainly has examples where he's changed the direction of a rudderless ship (Olympics, Massachusetts politics), he is no better off than Guiliani or Huckabee from the standpoint of his connection to Washington, DC (and little better than Thompson). And this exchange with a reporter, while red meat to an anti-liberal-media GOP electorate, sounded a little bit too much like a willingness to discuss the definition of "is."

This leads me to think more fondly of Thompson, hoping against hope that he can do well tomorrow in South Carolina. If he can, I think that will give him a big boost against fellow southerner Huckabee, considering that southern states Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee vote on Super Tuesday 17 days later. If he can't do well in South Carolina, Thompson may as well hang it up.

I've also been thinking a bit more about Huckabee, and while I still have no intention of voting for him in a primary setting, I think Republicans ignore his populist message at their peril. I believe Huckabee's message is resonating because voters feel he is the only Republican candidate willing to address the fact that the nation's economic numbers have not translated into prosperity in their pocketbooks.

I know this is true in my own life, as my business took a noticeable tumble in 2007, and I can't keep track of all the people I know -- both personally and professionally -- who are in the same boat. One friend (in furniture sales) said she thinks the media covers the economy so negatively that it's scaring people away from spending money. A client (in collectibles) said the government proclaims a strong economy because it's leaving out things like gas prices. A colleague (in commercial real estate) called it a fine line between the American dream and a nightmare. A friend in auto repair saw his business drop 20 percent in 2007. Only now is the party waking to this fact, so I think the fact that Huckabee has been addressing it for months is to his advantage.

An interesting addendum to the Moore Info story

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, Mr. Mapes' info was incorrect -- Bob Moore is not Mormon.
==========
The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes reported yesterday afternoon that Bob Moore, the head of Moore Information in Portland (which is being investigated by New Hampshire officials regarding the anti-Mormon push-polling that occurred there in November), is himself a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I've been resistant to the idea that Mitt Romney has been behind those push-polls; it just didn't seem consistent with his character. But there are so many links to the Romney campaign -- Moore hired Western Wats, a Mormon-owned firm in Utah which employs several financial supporters of Romney, to conduct the polls -- that that the idea will not die.

If Mitt Romney thinks his finish in Iowa was damaging, that will be nothing compared to the damage he will suffer if it's revealed he ordered those push-polls against himself.

Portland connection to NH push-polls

The New Hampshire attorney general is going after a Portland polling firm to determine who launched the anti-Mitt Romney push polling that asked Granite state voters if Romney's Mormonism would cause them not to support him.

We already knew that the polls were conducted by Utah firm Western Wats, causing some to speculate that Romney was secretly behind the whole thing. But the NH AG today said that Moore Information of Portland was responsible for hiring Western Wats, as well as developing the wording and schedule for the poll.

Working with the Multnomah County attorney, New Hamshire officials filed subpeonas to force Moore Information to reveal the name of its customer, but Moore declined, and a hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 16 to give New Hampshire the chance to show why they should have that info. Of course, that's eight days after the NH primary, so the AG is none too happy. It wraps up today's press release this way:

Because the voters of New Hampshire deserve to know whether any presidential candidate violated New Hampshire’s law by conducting this poll, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte requests anyone with information regarding who hired Moore-Information, Inc. to cause this poll to be conducted in New Hampshire, in November 2007, to please contact the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

Even if nothing happens until Jan. 16, if Moore has to reveal its customer, that candidate is toast.

If I lived in South Carolina...

...I'd actually have a say in the Republican nomination for president. But since I live in Oregon, where our primary election is May 20, I have absolutely nothing to contribute (beyond my cash). So until they adopt my idea for a fair primary system, I have to pretend.

So who would I vote for? Honestly, I don't know the answer. If you put a gun to my head, I'd consider either Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson, but that's due in equal part to their strengths vs. their opponents' weaknesses. Much of my support for both men lies in a line from a recent Townhall.com column by Al Cardenas, in which he talked about the broad-based coalition that brought the Reagan victories of the 1980s:

That coalition rested on a three legged stool, a message that the Republican party would support a strong national defense, a strong economy and strong families.
. . .
Yet today . . . some Republicans are considering junking the Reagan model and experimenting with a different approach. That approach comes down to one word – "electability." "Electability," a quality with little ideological meaning, has become a buzz word for surrogates seeking to make the case for a candidate who fails to unite our party and bring together all Republicans, including social conservatives.

I agree with this assessment, and Romney and Thompson come closest to uniting those three legs of the party.

For all my previous concerns about Romney, I've also seen things I like. As an evangelical voter, I have read and considered the idea that I should not consider Romney because of his faith, but I find those arguments short-sighted at best. We are not electing the nation's chaplain, we are electing its president, and I see nothing in Mitt Romney that suggests his faith differs from my own in the things it values in public life.

I also find myself sympathetic to Romney because of the, um, attention he's received over his faith -- attention that no other candidate has experienced. No one insisted that Joe Lieberman explain his Judaism when he ran with Al Gore in 2000. No one has demanded that Barack Obama explain his faith traditions, despite the Muslim influences of his childhood. No one has asked Hillary Clinton to shed light on how her faith might guide her in the Oval Office (and when she's broached the subject, the only thing preventing it from being a disaster is the media's willingness to pretend it didn't hear). Only Mitt Romney has received such demands. Mike Huckabee is catching up in that regard, particularly with requests (which he has refused) for his old sermons; but because his faith is a more mainstream flavor, I still think Romney stands alone in that category.

There is one significant exception to this statement, however. I reject the idea that a person's faith (or lack thereof) cannot be considered as one factor as he (or she) pursues the presidency. I believe that helped sink John Kerry in 2004 -- even though he was a self-proclaimed Catholic, voters of that faith identified better with the values of his opponent.

Perhaps the climate will change in the future, but if a Muslim ran for the presidency, his faith would be a key (and likely campaign-ending) factor in the race. And Americans would have every right (and, I would argue, obligation) to explore how his faith would impact his presidency. And if that is true for a Muslim candidate, it should be true of all faiths. I had been thinking this for a while, and then a few weeks ago on National Review Online, Andy McCarthy put into words what I had been thinking:

If a Muslim were running for high office, even if (however unlikely this seems) he never mentioned his religion or gave public indications of how he understood its doctrines, I would want to know his interpretation of jihad, and his views about such things as whether his first allegiance was to the Muslim umma or the U.S., whether sharia should be the law of the land, the authority of the governed to depart from Islamic doctrine, whether the Qur'an reflects the immutable word of God, whether Mohammed is the ideal role model, whether all people are equal regardless of gender or religion, etc. I think Islam is sufficiently troublesome, and we have enough experience with its being troublesome, that we are entitled to inquire and take these matters into account regardless of what signals the politician himself sends.

This is not just about Islam. If, say, a Christian presidential candidate believes the creation story as set down in Genesis is literally true, I'd like to know that, I'd like to know why he thinks that, and I'd like to probe what that says about how he regards science, history, epistemology, etc. It doesn't make his belief valid or invalid, but I think I'm entitled to evaluate how (if at all) his reasoning is likely to translate into governing.

There are objective reasons why some religions and some religious beliefs are unconventional. When a politician who wants to be president of the United States adheres to them, I don't see why we should hesitate to ask about what those beliefs are and why he thinks they are sensible. And when a politician holds himself out to be a person of deep religious belief, again I don't see why we should not probe. I don't think that's hostility to religion; I think it's common sense.

Others criticize Romney because of his recent conversion from pro-choice to pro-life. I find this difficult to criticize, as I was radically pro-choice less than 15 years ago. This is not to say Romney doesn't have his problems -- the life issue isn't the only thing he's changed his mind about, which causes some to distrust him. His embrace of the current administration causes hesitation in those who are fed up with Bush's missteps. His economic history has some holes (though some of the criticisms are downright silly, such as this drivel from the Wall Street Journal).

Fred Thompson is a tougher nut to crack. Nearly everything I read about him is appealing to me, Thompson's policy positions are similar to mine, yet it's like he's campaigning on Mars and the signal is very weak. I can't figure out if that's because the criticisms of Thompson are accurate (lazy, lacking energy, etc.) or if it's because the media aren't giving him attention due to his unwillingness to play their game. I like that he thumbs his nose at the "establishment," whether that be the political machine or the media, and runs his own show. I like his realistic approach -- if it's meant to be, he will be the candidate -- but I also think back to something my mother used to say: "God can't steer a parked car." Thompson may be destined as the candidate, but sometimes destiny happens in conjunction with busting your butt. I'm just waiting for some indication that Thompson's butt is sore.

That leads me to the other candidates, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Rudy Guiliani.

Mike Huckabee is the biggest problem for me, for a variety of reasons, but one of my biggest concerns -- believe it or not -- is his faith. Or rather, not his faith, but the way people react to it. This may be a surprise coming from a so-con like me, but my problem is spelled out nicely by a man I respect (but disagree with in this case): Randy Alcorn. The head of Eternal Perspective Ministries wrote (on his personal blog) of his support for Huckabee, but it was based almost entirely on how he makes Alcorn feel: Huckabee is winsome . . . witty . . . self-deprecating . . . authentic. It's clear that Huckabee's faith resonates with Alcorn, and that the candidate's position on life issues put him at the head of the class.

All those things are admirable. But if Candidate A is wrong on enough issues, and if other candidates are similarly committed to the issue most dear to you, it seems ludicrous to base your vote for Candidate A on how he comes across in a TV interview.

Don't get me wrong -- character is huge. A candidate who shares my faith is a big plus. Someone like Rudy Guiliani will not receive my primary election vote due to his position on social issues. But those are not the only reasons for a vote, and I feel like Alcorn typifies voters of faith who check the box next to the good Christian without reasoning through any other issues. My impression of Huckabee is that he seems to have made decisions without a guiding principle. His economic and crime decisions are all over the board, and that's bit him in the rear on his tax history and his decisions to pardon certain crimes.

(To contradict that last statement, however, I sometimes struggle with people who think they have to maintain a predetermined set of principles regardless of the circumstances. Life is not so black and white, and sometimes -- such as in the conflicting Republican values of small government and protection for the unborn -- doing the right thing precludes the use of predetermined principles.)

I like Rudy Guiliani's record on defense & crime, and his economic issues seem relatively sound. Like with Romney (and Huckabee), I take his liberal environment into account on the latter issue. But his social history is atrocious. If he wins the Republican nomination, I will support him because he will be better than his opponent on the issues, and that includes the issue of life -- the unborn have a better shot at protection under Guiliani than with any Democrat.

John McCain has a variety of issues that make it difficult for me to support him in the primary -- primarily the Gang of 14 deal and his votes against the Bush tax cuts -- but his national security credentials are unimpeachable, and I can live with his social positions.

Almost any Republican who wins the party nomination -- I make a definite exception for Alan Keyes, and I'll decide about Ron Paul if the unexpected happens -- will have my support in the general election. But only Romney and Thompson are in a position to get anything from me before then.

Quote of the Day: the next president

Mark DeMoss, a prominent evangelical and founder of the DeMoss Group public relations firm, wrote an open letter to evangelicals this week asking for their support of Mitt Romney for president. It was reprinted on Hugh Hewitt's website, and while I haven't made up my mind about Romney or any other Republican candidate, I found this section extremely critical (emphasis mine):

Perhaps most troubling to me is the idea I keep hearing that electing someone like Hillary Clinton would “actually be good for the conservative movement,” since it will “galvanize our forces, enable us to build our mailing lists and raise more money…therefore, I’m not going to vote for anyone this time around.” Well, I am not willing to risk negatively changing the Supreme Court, and our entire judicial system, for the next 30 years in exchange for building our conservative mailing lists and operating budgets for the next four or eight years. That, in my opinion, is selfish, short-sighted and dangerous.

Here is what I believe is at stake in this election: Someone is almost certain to appoint two, three, or four justices to the Supreme Court. Do we want that person to be Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney?

It all goes back to the question of whether voters should insist on purity in their candidates, or whether they can recognize that purity will never be found this side of heaven and choose the best winnable option. I recognize that, for instance, Rudy Guiliani would present an unpleasant choice for those who value the life of the unborn, but if he's the Republican nominee, it will mean the next president is either Guiliani or (most likely) Hillary Clinton; no third-party candidate will have a chance, so voting for Guiliani is a no-brainer.

And the same (though the unborn have a much better shot with him) goes for Mitt Romney.

Counting the chickens?

Mitt Romney needs to stop worrying so much about what Hillary Clinton is doing, and worry more about telling me why I should vote for him instead of supporting Fred Thompson or Rudy Guiliani (or even Mike Huckabee or Duncan Hunter).

When Romney goes to the effort to criticize Clinton (or any other Democrat) in September 2007, his arrogance -- that he expects to be the Republican presidential nominee -- starts to show.

The source of that Oregon campaign money

The people who want to be our next president reported a couple of weeks ago on their campaign hauls through June 30, and the surprise winner in Oregon (surprising to me, at least) was Republican Mitt Romney, who pulled in nearly a third of a million dollars from the Beaver state.

The most surprising thing, however, was not just that Romney pulled in the most money; the real surprise was that he had 56 percent more than runner-up John Edwards, and almost as much as Edwards and Hillary Clinton combined ($326,610 for Romney vs. $208,447 for Edwards and $126,888 for Clinton). Also surprising was the fact that the Republicans, despite being out-raised nationwide by 50 percent, slightly out-did the Democrats in Oregon.

So that got me wondering where Romney's Oregon money is coming from. And just for good measure, I looked at Edwards' money as well.

(I should note that, while I got all this information from the cool New York Times database, my numbers may be slightly different than those of the Times because of errors I found in the Times' database. For instance, the Times listed some California donors under an Oregon Zip code. Also, when I refer to a "donor," that could mean multiple donations from the same person. If Joe Smith made five different donations of $100 each, I would count that as one donor contributing $500.)

One of the first things I found interesting was that Romney pulled in more money from Multnomah County than did Edwards -- almost 20 percent more. Of course, the Democrats as a whole did what you'd expect in Multnomah County: they raised 36 percent more for their candidates than did the Republicans. Still, considering Multnomah County is home to 2.4 registered Democrats for every registered Republican, this remains notable.

Another interesting -- though predictable -- aspect was the source of the money. Virtually all of Edwards' money came from west of the Cascades, while Romney's cash was more scattered around the state.

Also, if you look at the percentage of the haul that came from each county, and compare that to each county's percentage of the state population, very few counties donated proportionately. For Edwards, only Multnomah, Clackamas and Clatsop counties gave more than their population percentage. For Romney, Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Deschutes and Umatilla exceeded their populations. (It would be interesting to do some sort of comparison to per capita income, but -- truth be told -- I've already put in too much effort on this project.)

One of the things that became glaringly obvious was the number of big donors in each camp. As should be obvious by comparing the number of donors to the total haul, the typical Edwards donor was making smaller contributions than the typical Romney donor.

There are certainly plenty of examples of large donations to the Edwards camp -- among them:

• $7,400 from David & Christine Vernier of Portland;
  
• $4,600 from Mark and Sheri Bocci of Lake Oswego;
• $3,100 from State Rep. Mitch Greenlick and his wife Harriet.
• $2,800 from Terri Naito, a policy advisor to Multnomah County Commissioner Lisa Naito;
• $2,300 from Columbia Sportswear's Peter Bragdon, the former chief of staff to Gov. Ted Kulongoski;
• $2,300 from Portland developer Homer Williams;
• $1,656 from Mandate Media's Kari Chisholm (or, as the Times' database calls it, "Madnate Media"); and,
  
• $1,000 from Lynn Lundquist, the former Republican (!) Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives.

But a typical example is Lorre Lewis of North Bend, who made three separate donations of $20 each, plus another for $19.53. Or Priscilla Oien of Tualatin, who made 10 separate donations of $100 each.

Romney, meanwhile, was supported by a variety of business, legal and investment heavyweights, including:

• Rod Wendt of Jeld-Wen, who combined with his wife to give $4,600;
• Kevin Mannix, who gave the same amount with his wife;
• Peter & Julie Stott of Crown Pacific, $4,600;
• Tim & Mary Boyle of Columbia Sportswear, $4,600;
• Frederick & Gail Jubitz, $4,600
• Ron Saxton of Ater Wynne, who gave $2,100 (his wife Lynne gave another $500 through the Christie School);
• H. Gerald Bidwell, $2,000; and,
• Richard Reiten, the retired Northwest Natural exec, $1,500.

I know it takes money to run a campaign, but I think this feeds into an achilles heel of the Republicans: the perception that the GOP is controlled by big-money interests. Should Fred Thompson decide to get into the race, however, I think you'll find that many of his supporters will be more similar to the $80 Edwards supporter I mentioned above.

I call bull

Earlier this week, John McCain and Rudy Guiliani announced they would not participate in the Iowa's Republican Straw Poll in August. That's August 2007, a full 15 months before next year's general election.

The official reason for both campaigns: they want to focus on the January caucuses. However, there's lots of speculation that this means McCain and Guiliani are trailing Mitt Romney badly in Iowa (Romney's internal polls reportedly show him with a 17-point lead) and don't want to hand Romney an early victory.

Of course, the Romney campaign is playing this up:

Our plan all along has been to play in the Iowa straw poll, and that hasn't changed. Campaigns that have decided to abandon Ames are likely doing so out of a recognition that their organizations are outmatched and their message falls flat with Republican voters in Iowa.

It looks as if we just beat those campaigns in Iowa two months earlier than we had planned on beating them.

Never mind that Romney's campaign is spending money hand over fist to make a good showing in Iowa. Never mind that the Straw Poll is hardly a harbinger of future success. Yes, President Bush won the 1999 poll by 10 points over Steve Forbes, but was followed by Elizabeth Dole and Gary Bauer. In 1987, Pat Robertson won the poll ahead of Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush, respectively. In 1995, Phil Gramm tied Dole.

Shortly after the inevitable Romney victory (heck, even before the poll!), you should expect to hear his supporters spin it as a huge victory and momentum booster. But they're wrong -- this is a lose-lose for Romney. If he posts a spectacular win, the press will dismiss it as a meaningless win against meaningless opposition. If he doesn't win by at least 25 points, the press will ridicule it as a failure in an open field. And if he somehow doesn't win at all, well, Romney might as well drop out.

Romney may win the nomination, but it will not have anything to do with winning the Iowa straw poll.

Quote of the Day: Rudy vs. Mitt

National Review's Rich Lowry, writing about last night's GOP debate, sums up the problem many people have with Rudy Guiliani:

Near the end, Romney talked about "the stool" of the Reagan coalition having three legs — national security, free-market economics, and moral issues. He's absolutely right about and it is extremely important to conservatism that that continue to be our coalition. Rudy, immediately afterward, talked about the "two big principles" that unite us, a vigorous national defense and the free market. He basically wants to cut one leg off the stool which is the greatest substantive weakness of his candidacy.

Quote of the Day

From Jonah Goldberg, referring to Mitt Romney in tonight's GOP presidential debate:

What Do I Have to Do To Put You In This BMW Today? That's what Romney seems to be saying if you hit "mute."

By the way, Ron Paul can't seriously believe he has a shot in hades of winning this, does he?