Thank goodness! The actual voting will likely begin weeks earlier than planned, putting us out of our misery far earlier than we would have dared hope. That's good news, and it will probably imbue all the campaigns with an extra sense of urgency, excluding the Thompson campaign which seems unable to show interest let alone urgency.
We have a fresh new batch of poll numbers to dive into. The latest Rasmussen national numbers show Rudy at 25%, Fred at 21%, Romney at 14% and McCain at 9%. If you've sensed (as I have) that Fred has been losing momentum while his campaign temporizes, the Rasmussen trends bear that out. Fred has gone from a peak position of a 5 point lead to a 4 point deficit in the past three weeks. If he wants to win, Fred has to get into the game and play well.
There are also some fresh numbers out of Iowa. The latest Des Moines Register poll shows Romney holding a commanding lead pulling 27%, Rudy at 11% and Fred at 6.5%. You need a ground game to do well in Iowa, and the dilatory nature of the Fred campaign means he doesn't have one. For what it's worth, John McCain has drifted into Ron Paul/Pasadena Phil territory, drawing a ridiculous 3% of the vote. With the date of the Iowa caucuses drawing nearer, so too does McCain's decision that he's needed in the Senate on a full-time basis. When it finally happens, some lucky reader here will receive a signed copy of a "Mormon in the White House?" Unlike many politicians, Hugh and I never forget our promises.
One additional note about the Iowa polls: Click over now to Real Clear Politics' summary of all the recent Iowa numbers. You'll see three polling outfits with results more or less in line with one another. And then you'll see ARG which has numbers wildly out of whack with everyone else's. Hear me now, and know what the pros know – no one who knows about these things trusts the results of an ARG poll. Please, when an ARG poll comes out that casts a favorable light on your candidate of choice, don't send me a crowing email demanding that I link to it. I won't.
SPEAKING OF CANDIDATES OF CHOICE, it's been an interesting week for mine, Mitt Romney. Last Thursday, he went into talk show host Jan Mickelson's studio and engaged in a heated discussion over "the Mormon issue." I thought Romney came across great in that exchange, and so did most other bloggers and commentators. The YouTube has been viewed over 170,000 times, something that probably makes the Romney campaign very happy.
On a less sunny note, yesterday, at an "Ask Mitt Anything" session, Romney was asked to defend his five sons against the charge that they're chickenhawks. Romney started out extremely well by saluting our volunteer army and mentioning his niece's Reservist husband who had just been activated, and then concluded rather clumsily by saying his sons are serving the country by trying to help him get elected president. Generally speaking, volunteering and sacrificing for political campaigns is a noble thing and shows a level of civic involvement that most people respect. But there was something a little off about Mitt saying his sons were serving the country by serving his campaign, especially in the context of discussing military service. Listening to the tape, it seems Romney intended it as a joke and the crowd did laugh. But it wasn't a particularly good joke, and it definitely was an ill-advised one. It was exactly the kind of comment that the press would replay as a "Gotcha!" moment. (Here's the entire clip if you're interested.)
Obviously this isn't a big deal. The chickenhawk thing is a Democrat obsession, not a Republican one. And family members, even if they're involved in the principal's campaign, are widely considered civilians by everyone except the left-wing blogging community and sometimes Mike Wallace. I've never heard a single Republican complain that the Bush twins aren't in Iraq. Or that Chelsea Clinton isn't in Afghanistan. During the 2004 election, I don't think a single Republican made a talking point out of the fact that Senator Kerry's daughters and stepson (the one who did all those hilarious impersonations on the campaign trail) opted for the civilian lifestyle.
What's more, I doubt the Romney campaign would mind if the media collectively decided that the candidates' lives at home should be a pressing issue. I think the Romneys would happily put themselves up against the Clintons in that regard. Lastly, I don't think anyone has suggested that Romney supports the troops with insufficient vigor.
But yesterday's happenings should provide a teachable moment for all our candidates. In this day of YouTubes and cell phone video recorders, now more than ever presidential candidates are one Macaca away from history's ashbin. Hillary Clinton is at a huge advantage in this regard. She's been under this kind of glare for 16 years now, and it shows. She hasn't made a single gaffe this entire campaign. No botched jokes, no clumsy TV interviews, not a single misstep that has sent her campaign into crisis management mode. She has proven herself the master of every circumstance and situation. The woman's got game. It's why she'll be the Democratic nominee.
It works out well for the Republicans that the campaign got so intense so early. Right now, by my estimation, Rudy and Mitt are the two most likely nominees. I like Fred, too, but the train is leaving the station and Fred's not yet aboard. He has reduced his margin of error down to zero, and both Romney and Rudy (like Obama) made a bunch of missteps when they first hit the hustings. It's a new game out there, a lot different from the last time Thompson ran for Senate.
Mitt and Rudy have both gotten better, a lot better, since the campaign started. They'll have to keep improving to defeat Hillary.
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