November 30, 2006
The 2008 Republicans
Live from the The American Democracy Conference at the Reagan Federal Center in DC.
A panel on the 2008 Republican race, with Rich Galen, Dave Kensinger (representing Sam Brownback), Mark McKinnon (representing John McCain), Jan van Lohuizen (representing Gov. Mitt Romney) and Alex Vogel (an adviser to Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN).
Who Is The Frontrunner?
Vogel: "The historical view is.. Republicans always, someone runs, they don;'t blow themselves up, it;'s yours. By historical definition, it;'s McCain. I think you look at top-tier candidates now, you have McCain, you have Giuliani and you have Romney..."
Galen: "I think at this moment that it's a two-way tie between McCain and Romney." Re: Giuliani: "I would go interview that ran Schwarzenegger's campaign ... he got 91 percent of the Republican vote in a state where the Republican Party is pretty right-wing. I think that that tells us something about where at least in California I think Republicans may well be more eager to win than they are to lose on the point on an ideological sword."
Kensinger: "In terms of name recognition, Giuliani tops the field with McCain a close second. In terms of demonstrated ability to raise funds, you've got to put Romney in there. But the Republican Party is ... fundamentally a coalition that is forged by president Reagan and there is a lot of room there for someone who has been a principled Reaganite conservative for his career..."
Van Lohuizen: "The Schwarzenegger model is: don't have a primary." The frontrunner question is kind of a really neat question because between now and January 15th and we can ask it 400 times and get a hundred different answer. Who cares?
McKinnon: "The polls speak for themselves, and the polls say that Rudy Giuliani is the frontrunner."
Galen: "The difference between governor or running for mayor even of New York and running for president is enormous because the pressures, the spotlight, parsing every sentence... is very often just overwhelming to candidates who haven't been in there before."
First quarter 2007 FEC report, a top tier presidential candidate has raised..
Vogel: "...at least $30 million." Those "who have filed before the end of the year are going to have a year end report, which is going to put more pressure on them." How many? "There are two people who will raise that..."
Galen: "There is an unlimited amount of money...."
Kensinger: "I'm making a case that money per se, that early money, in particular, the bar is higher than every before and that [money isn't worth as much.]"
Vogel: "These two candidates [McCain and Romney] are about to go nuclear."
Van Lohuizen: "If $30 million is the number, Hillary Clinton has already raised it. I really don't think that the kinds of numbers are going to do in 2008 what the Bush campaign did with these numbers in 2000. I think [the minimum amount that needs to be raised] is less than you think. If organization was all that mattered and feet on the ground were all that mattered, Richard Gephardt would be president."
Kensinger: "If you win Iowa, you're going to get all the money you need."
McKinnon: "In many ways, it's not as important because you can raise it quicker and can raise it more easily. Things can happen overnight."
Calendar frontloading? Does the winner of Iowa win everything?
McKinnon: "I don't think so. I think there is an unusual constellation of candidates and primaries this particular year. You could have someone pop in Iowa, someone else pop in New Hampshire and someone else pop in South Carolina." He said he thinks candidates could pick their state and still stay in the game.
Galen: "It is the expectation, like listening to the quarterly earnings report. It's the same thing with candidates."
Van Lohuizen: "There was 18 days between NH and SC and in the first ten we were behind. There was recovery time. [This cycle,] there is no recovery time. So I really think it does matter and it does elevate the priority of Iowa."
Kensinger: "Brownback.. if he runs, he runs to win in Iowa. He;s the only candidate who's a member of the FFA. If we ran in Iowa, we run to win."
Vogel: "You have Sen. McCain in this race who won some of these places last time. Gov. Romney has ... this burden of expectations as well."
Opting out? Can you be a viable nominee without opting out?
Vogel "in the primary, no."
Kensinger disagreed.
Galen: "It is the second and third tier candidates who will avail themselves of the matching funds, because that's how they will stay in the race."
The Media
Galen: "It is three dimensional chance. It's not just the linear game between the Republican candidates, it's also who's up, who's down among the Democrats."
McKinnon: "The press will not sit on a static story. The press will find ways to try to continue to make the race interesting, dynamic, compelling."
Kensinger; "Used to be that you didn't have any news to fill the time, now you don't have enough news for all the time."
Van Lohuizen: "We can now carry two primaries and two conservations on at the same time."
Galen: "It's very expensive to cover these campaigns. If you have a campaign that ain't in the top tier, you're not going to get any coverage."
Religion?
Van Lohuizen: "There are two levels to the answer. One level is the inside baseball between now and, call it August. The people in this room are going to hear questions about the Mormon thing until its ridiculous or its embarassing. I think the question will wear itself out. There is no answer because the question is a weapon and you keep repeating the question until people...don;t want to hear it anymore. At the voter level, the polling on it has been just really mixed. Some people say it;'s a problem to more than 40%, other people say 20%."
Kensinger: "Campaigns are about voters. To the extent that voters think it matters, and a disproportionate share of people who are...active in the nominating process are religious. ... The country will be ready for [a Mormon president] at some point. i think the big challenge right now for LDS candidates is that so many of their voters are under 35."
McKinnon: "I have to think of the whole Mormon issue as way overstated and I think that in this country today, voters are much more thoughtful and tolerant."
Is Giuliani Viable Given that He's Not A Social Conservative?
Galen: "I think a candidate can get beyond that."
Kensinger: "It's possible."
McKinnon: "Anything is possible."
Van Lohuizen: "The answer is yes on the possible because the presidential elections are the one campaign where you get to represent the multidimensional candidates. I think, probable, no."
Vogel: "I think it's possible but it is going to have to be a different crop of delegates than were sitting in the platform committee last time."
Democrats they most want to or least want to face?
Galen: "If Newt were the Republican nominee, I'd want Hillary, just for the sport of it."
Kensinger: "Jim Traficant."
Van Lohuizen: "Al Gore 1.0"
McKinnon: "The problem for her is going to be is that the one thing about presidential elections is that they are reflection of the previous administration or administrations...given the envirionment, are people going to want another President Bush or President Clinton?"
Running away from Bush?
Kensinger: "Enormous respect. To throw that coalition away would be an enormous mistake."
Van Lohuizen: "Within the Republican primary electorate, the President is enormously poopular."
Galen: "A White House that is aggressively on message is an unstoppable force."
Other comments:
Vogel, on Frist's departure: "We had discussed with him that Thanksgiving was a critical decision point. I really didn't know until Monday morning how that decision was going to go. We had breakfast Monday morning, and ... at the end of the day, he made a gut decision and said I've thought about it and said it's not the time."
McKinnon, on McCain's preparing to run: "I think he's 99 percent there. The airplane is on the tarmac, gassed up and is ready to go."
Kensinger: "There's a final round of consultation with friends and family, and prayer to be done, and I think he'll announce a final decision shortly."
Galen: "There is zero downside no matter what he decides to do. Newt has always been inclusive to the point that it hurt him when he was Speaker.... Newt has the advantage of being able to be a presidential candidate until he decides he's not a presidential candidate." Newt "wants to be able to frame the debate over the presidential nominating process."
On '06 Lessons
Van Lohuizen: "If you look at voting for Bush and voting for Republicans in '04 and '06, the correlation was the same. We really have to look beyond what happened to the President as the result of the War on Iraq and look at what happened to the Republican brand. There are three legs to the stool... social conservatism, fiscal conservatism and national defense." More: "There is nothing in any of the post-election surveys...that show the social conservatism part of the brand is changing...:" But "we have to really rethink our branding."
McKinnon: "There was a conventional mythology that Democrats increased their margins substantially in this election, and that wasn't true. The real phenominon was that independents went in droves to vote for Democrats." On issues where the GOP "has great equity," they "abandoned their principles and took half measures." That's an argument, he says, for a McCain presidency.
Kensinger: "Do what you said you would do. If you're elected for a set of principles, stick to those principles."
Galen: "Nobody is going to spend a great deal of time campaigning as being the person that understands how Washington works better."
Posted at 01:13 PM
Comments
Vogel, on Frist's departure: "We had discussed with him that Thanksgiving was a critical decision point. I really didn't know until Monday morning how that decision was going to go. We had breakfast Monday morning, and ...
Why is Vogel dignifying Frist's bail out? He is under investigation on ethics charges. He sold his hospital stock just prior to it becoming worthless. And why does Vogel call Frist a scientist? He was a doctor. He let his license expire. I only bother to post this because I find this to be the currently amusing and absurd.
Rachel | 11.30.06 12:33 PM
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