Freedom Line Blog

Teagan Goddard of Political Wire repeated a rumor going around about former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) getting some of his political hands together for another run at the White House.  Presumably, those are the same people that talked their boss into a suicidal primary strategy: skip Iowa, abandon New Hampshire, and bypass South Carolina for an all-or-nothing shot in Florida.

Of course, by the time the Florida primary rolled around, the GOP nomination was a two-horse race between John McCain (R-AZ) and Mitt Romney (R-MA).  (Governor Charlie Crist’s late support of McCain sealed the deal for the Maverick’s Sunshine State win.)  In the process, Giuliani spent a ton of money effectively not contesting the nomination until it was too late.

And now he wants to do it all again.  I’m sure his “brain trust” won’t mind dusting off the 2008 playbook while cashing 2012 checks.

The GOP rank and file may be in love with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but there’s one issue on which the Trenton Thunder is out of the Republican mainstream: it seems that he’s the only conservative in America that doesn’t want Chris Christie to run for president.

Yet despite the fact that Christie has repeatedly — and dramatically — forsworn any interest in making a presidential bid, a shocking new Zogby Poll shows that Christie is the Republican favorite for the party’s presidential nomination in 2012, with a whopping 10 point lead over his closest competitor (Mitt Romney). Even more amazing? Christie is the only Republican who currently outpolls President Obama in a general election. Not bad for a man who’s spent one year as the Governor of New Jersey.

Christie’s denials of presidential ambition (at least for this cycle) have been positively Shermanesque. In fact, they’ve been so emphatic that going back on them may undermine his reputation for straight talk. But with numbers like these, look for the Draft Christie movement to catch fire in 2011.

With much of the 2012 presidential election coverage centering on Republican candidates, it’s worth noting – as this blog from the National Interest does – that President Barack Obama posted lopsided support among African-American and Hispanic voters during the 2008 campaign (95% and 67%, respectively).  Those numbers will likely grow as Hispanics continue to increase their share of the voting base.

So, what’s a WASP-ish GOP frontrunner like Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, or even Sarah Palin to do?  Any contestant eyeing a general election takedown of Obama-Biden (or even, heaven forbid, Obama-Clinton) should make travel plans for Santa Fe, New Mexico.  There newly inaugurated Governor Susana Martinez can teach them how to frame a winning position on illegal immigration: “It’s not about the Mexican population.  It’s about the Mexican border.”

That message, combined with Martinez’s career as a state prosecutor and traditional values stances, earned her 30% of the Hispanic vote in a heavily Democratic state.  It’s the kind of success story that just might earn her a place as the next Vice President of the United States.

Hopefully, Charles Djou (R-HI) will be throwing a luau for all the GOP heavies weighing in on his race to replace the retiring congressman, Neil Abercrombie (D-HI).  The May 22^nd special election is getting Djou plenty of face time with CFIF and National Review.  Now, he can claim endorsements by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and outgoing Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Pray tell, could fiscal conservatism be set for an electoral comeback?

One of the curious things about business people turned political candidates is how much they retain the language of commerce, yet shuck its practice.  The best example is of self-funded multi-millionaires (or billionaires) spending gobs of their own money at an unsustainable clip while excoriating career politicians for being fiscally irresponsible.  Although you can’t run a government exactly like a business, the notion that spending should match revenue is perhaps the one financial concept that applies to any endeavor not operating on the barter system.

All of which makes a Republican candidacy like Meg Whitman’s for California governor so paradoxical.  Like her political mentor, Mitt Romney, Whitman is loaning her campaign tens of millions of dollars from her personal wealth to fund her run.  The money is going to support a top-notch staff, endless media buys in California, and a slick website.  It is not, apparently, attracting an equal amount of financial contributions from people with a different bank account.  So, in order to make it to the June primary, Whitman will have to cut herself another check.

That approach won’t fly as governor.  One of the chief criticisms of Whitman’s campaign narrative is that she can’t fire underperforming bureaucrats and politicians in Sacramento the way she did as CEO of Ebay.  Now, it looks like her candidacy can’t muster enough popular support to prop up her big spending ways.  Californians already have a political class accustomed to spending money without regard to sustainability.  It is a lesson with consequences they don’t need to learn from a governmental rookie.

The obvious answer is no, but economist Arnold Kling would like to run an experiment between a completely decentralized market system and a government-run single payer system.  To the victor go the spoils.

Kling writes:

Instead of having a big national contest over what health care system, why not try single-payer in one part of the country and radical deregulation in another? Switzerland, which is about the size of Maryland, has different health care systems in each of its 20-odd cantons, which are about the size of Maryland counties. Surely it must be possible to try different health care approaches in Texas and Massachusetts.

Since states are supposed to be the “laboratories of democracy,” this proposal might make sense.  Of course, Massachusetts and Mitt Romney have already tried aspects of ObamaCare (state-run exchanges and individual mandates) and the results should be a sobering reminder to politicians.

Massachusetts has the highest health care premiums in the nation and state expenditures are far above projected levels.  Massachusetts’ failed experiment finally merited some political capital for supporters of a free market system when Bay State voters essentially derailed ObamaCare with their vote for Scott Brown.

Voters appear to be taking notice.  Politicians?  We’ll find out tonight.

HT: Peter Suderman

While some may have seen former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at Senator-elect Scott Brown’s victory rally on Tuesday night, it may not have been apparent how deeply Romney was involved in getting Brown past the post.  Once again, Romney displayed a stunningly effective campaign machine that was slick, nimble, and full of money.  Unfortunately, Brown’s signature campaign issue was running against ObamaCare, which is achingly similar to RomneyCare – the one term governor’s biggest legislative legacy.

In less than four years, Massachusetts voters are so displeased with their state’s version of universal health care that they sent a Republican to Washington to be the vote that stops ObamaCare.  But Brown has a problem too.  He voted for RomneyCare while a state senator.  Since being elected, he’s said he supports expanding coverage as long as costs are reduced.  Good luck.  Though Brown will vote for a do-over on health care reform he is clearly signaling that he won’t just be a no; rather, a yes-but.  As in, yes, I agree we need to expand health care coverage – maybe even individually mandated universal health care coverage – but I don’t like some of the elements of the Democrats’ current plan.  If that’s the case, then Brown may be less a Tea Party go-er and more of a tinkerer.

The same is true for Romney.  He likes details and policy and loves to get into the weeds of government to make it run more like a business.  Since that’s his background as a highly successful turnaround artist, it makes sense.  But that may not be the path to the Republican nomination in 2012 when so many voters want leaders who will say no to tinkering, and yes to rolling back federal programs, bureaucracies, and spending.  Now that Romney has helped elect Brown, maybe it’s time for Brown to show Romney whether a Massachusetts Republican can gain a national following being a yes-but politician.

Not all behind-the-scenes political books definitively scuttle reputations and ambitions. For instance, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer’s “Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor” caused a stir among fellow former Bushies, but after less than a month of notoriety, the book took its place on the shelves of the chattering classes to be consumed and forgotten. But “Game Change”, the new book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering during the 2008 presidential campaign is different. Way different.

Today’s Drudge Report has no less than four distinct links commenting on the book’s contents. There’s confirmation about John Edwards’ affair, and more than you ever wanted to know about his dysfunctional marriage. There are stories about the Clintons attempting to use slights and smears to undermine Barack Obama’s campaign. And of course, there’s more evidence that John McCain did a disservice to Sarah Palin and his supporters by failing to make sure she was prepared to be a Vice President. Oh yeah; don’t be surprised if Harry Reid’s racist remarks about Obama presage a Dodd-like retirement announcement after a health care “reform” bill gets signed.

While the information in this book isn’t likely to impact the 2010 congressional races because they’ll be a referendum on the Democrats’ control of Washington, the same can’t be said for which Republican candidates become serious presidential contnders in 2012. My guess is that the people most interested in this book are the politicos and journalists that make up the GOP establishment. Most of the sources denigrating Palin since the campaign are the moneymen and professional staff that have a hand in every presidential contest. They’ve seen her act before, and no amount of Tea Party support is going to persuade them to promote her to the top of the ticket next time around. And now they have a printed counter-argument to Palin’s “Going Rogue”.

All of which poses the question of who benefits the most from Palin’s likely marginalization? Probably Mitt Romney. While keeping a low media profile compared to Palin’s book tour and Mike Huckabee’s television show, Romney is doing the kind of chit building that wins primaries. Through his PAC and endorsements he’s currently in full back-scratching mode. Come campaign season, it will be time to cash in those chits for generous, top-down support.

In the rush to secure enough votes to pass the comprehensive health care “reform” bill before Christmas, Democrats in the Senate seem to agree that while a “public option” is out, an “individual mandate” is most certainly in.  Simply put, if passed, every American would be required by federal law to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.  Although there are some subtle distinctions between then Governor Romney’s proposal and a “pure” individual mandate, after only three years in effect, the Massachusetts legislature opted for purity over subtlety.  Thus, the result of Romney’s carefully crafted compromise turned into the blueprint for the first iteration of ObamaCare.

How odd it would be for Romney if his presidential prospects depended on the success or failure of the Democrats’ version of universal health care.  Already, libertarian and conservative commentators are starting to make the connection between the federal bill and Massachusetts.  Come the primaries, it will take a nanosecond for opposition researchers and spin doctors to lash ObamaCare to RomneyCare.  If they do, and the current distaste for nuance still prevails, Romney’s likely explanations of this-but-no-further policy making could be his undoing.

Andy Barr, at Politico.com, outlines a major political problem for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  A former and presumably future Republican candidate for President in 2012, Romney was front-and-center in pushing through and heralding unprecedented health care insurance expansion in the state.

Barr: 

Romney can rightfully boast that he got much what he aimed for, since less than three percent of Massachusetts citizens are currently uninsured.  But critics insist that the cost of Romney’s program has far exceeded the governor’s estimates and have targeted the plan as a prime example of what not to do on the national level.

“Even in Massachusetts there are signs of discomfort with the plan:  A June Rasmussen Reports poll found that only 26 percent of Massachusetts voters thought the state’s health care reform was a success.”

From our periodic scans of Massachusetts media regarding the growing problems with RomneyCare (and its similarities to national proposals), we think he’s got an awful tough row to hoe (as in garden tool, not hip hop slang, can’t be too careful these days) to win the Republican nomination if he just keeps defending the problematic plan, as he seems wont to do.

Still, we think Romney is a smart and honorable man.  And wouldn’t it be refreshing (not to mention unique) if he just stood up and said, “look, this was the problem and this is what we tried and it hasn’t worked, and it’s certainly not going to work on a national scale”?

As much as Massachusetts Democrats fought to remove their Governor’s power to appoint temporary Senators, it appears that principal has taken a back seat to politics once again.

Today, the Massachusetts Senate approved a bill allowing Governor Deval Patrick to name Senator Edward Kennedy’s replacement by as early as this week.

This was the same Senate that removed the power of the Governor to appoint to temporary Senators in 2004 when Republican Mitt Romney ran the show.

If there was ever a reason to loathe political parties, this is it.  Principal and logic, two qualities that most Americans possess, are constantly subsumed to politics in today’s world.