Townhall.com The Blogspot for Political, Conservative and Republican Blogs and Bloggers

Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Carl Bernstein, best known for his reporting work with Bob Woodward about the Watergate scandal, will join CNN this election season as an analyst, it was announced today by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. He will appear on the full line-up of CNN’s broadcasts and election coverage.  

Aside from the fact that he's clearly a throwback to a previous generation (if CNN existed in 1975, this would have been a coup), it is unclear what qualifies this journalist would be a good political analyst. 

As one respected journalist, who wished to remain nameless, told me:  "Ideology aside, the guy knows zero about politics."

But Ron Paul will take his libertarian-tinged Republican ethos in another direction Tuesday, when he marches straight into the henhouse.

He’ll appear opposite Whoopi, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Kate Walsh of Gray’s Anatomy and Private Practice fame, who co hosting in the absence of Elizabeth Hasselbeck on ABC’s woman-oriented chat show ‘The View’ Tuesday.

The spot mocks Hillary for proposing $5,000 "baby bonds" then backing off them after Republican attacks. Democratic Courage's founder, Glenn Hurowitz, says the group has the resources to place a "modest" cable buy Wednesday morning, and is hoping today's release will raise them a bit more.

The point of the ad goes to one of Clinton's real vulnerabilities: The perception that she's driven by polls, not conviction. It also counters Monday's message that she, not Obama, is the fighter.

A couple of notes: The group's founders like Edwards, and have contributed modest sums to him, but there's no evidence the group is linked in any way to his campaign.

"ATR considers Rudy's statement in writing to achieve both the spirit and the letter of the Pledge.  We are moving him into that column." 

This now leaves only Fred Thompson and John McCain as the remaining GOP candidates who refuse to forswear tax hikes.

Taxes are a big issue in New Hampshire, so it's no surprise Rudy decided to sign the no tax pledge.

David Limbaugh:

Huckabee's Christian credentials are doubtlessly helping him with many Christian conservatives. But I don't think Mitt's Mormonism is driving Romney voters to Huckabee. If Romney's Mormonism didn't bother them before Huckabee surged, it isn't bothering them now.

This is not to say that Romney's Mormonism isn't a potential liability for him. I think it is, but not among those who have already been supporting him. The more attention he draws to his religion, the more of a liability it will become. He should leave well enough alone.

Limbaugh also picks at the other issue seemingly haunting the Romney campaign -- his flip-flops on "life" issues:

I sincerely believe that most evangelical Christians could support a Mormon -- even if they learn Mormonism is different than what they thought -- as long as he is right on the issues and can be trusted. Does he really share their values? Is he really who he says he is -- about religion or anything else? That's what inquiring conservatives want to know.

They love that he professes to be strongly pro-life and an ardent supporter of traditional marriage. But is he really? If so, why did it take him so long to come around to these views? Was it a religious conversion? How can that be when he's been a Mormon for decades? I know he said that wrestling with the stem cell question changed him, but it strikes me as implausible that one could be moved over a Petri dish and not an ultrasound. But I would love to be wrong about this.

  Why is Mike Huckabee surging in the polls?

  He’s not only moved into a five point lead in Iowa (according to the latest Des Moines Register Poll) but he’s also in second place in Florida and within striking distance of the lead in South Carolina (which is virtually a four way tie).

   Some voices in the Romney camp suggest that the recent strength of the former Arkansas governor derives from religious bigotry. According to this logic, Evangelical Christians who can’t accept Mitt’s Mormonism, have rallied to the Baptist Pastor, Huckabee. Romney’s scheduled speech on Thursday at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas will confront the doubts about his affiliation with the LDS church and, Romney supporters ardently hope, show skeptical Christians that he shares their values. Meanwhile, they focus on the religious prejudice against their candidate because it offers the only comfortable explanation for the fact that no poll shows him with a strong Iowa lead over Huckabee despite outspending his Arkansas rival by a ratio of some 20 to 1.

    Meanwhile, other campaigns (Thompson, Giuliani) dismiss Huckabee’s growing support as a fluke and a flash-in-the-pan, focusing on his tepid fund-raising success (even Crazy Uncle Ron Paul has raised far more) and his lack of organization in the states that follow Iowa in short order. Some talk show hosts have even discerned a media conspiracy in the press coverage of Huckabee in the last few days—suggesting that liberal journalists are building up the former clergyman as a way of discrediting the Republican Party as rural and fundamentalist, while undermining the only GOP contenders with a real chance of winning in November.

   Actually, it seems obvious that the real reason for the intense media attention to the Huck Man involves an irresistible story line: the ultimate underdog coming out of nowhere with charm and folksy humor to challenge established candidates with vastly more financial resources and greater name recognition. In baseball, the Colorado Rockies became a huge story for a few weeks, beating teams with big-name stars and lavish payrolls in a hugely improbably winning streak – until the well-funded Red Sox machine crushed them in the World Series.  America loves “Cinderella” stories in politics as well as sports, and in that context the “Impossible Dream” of a President Huckabee makes a great fairy tale--- at least until he wakes up during he primary process and finds out the glass slipper doesn’t fit, or that his White House coach has turned back into a pumpkin.

     Aside from eternal affection for an underdog, there’s another crucial factor driving Huckabee’s surge: he’s run a far more positive, less petty, less bitter campaign than his prominent rivals. “I’m a conservative, but I’m not angry about it,” Huckabee tells eager crowds. Meanwhile, Rudy and Romney snipe at each other with childish, demeaning, “gotcha” assaults (who didn’t cringe at the “Sanctuary City” vs. “Sanctuary Mansion” exchange in the last debate?) and damage their credibility, dignity and stature.

    For Giuliani in particular, his recent counter-punching with Romney makes America’s greatest mayor look sad and small: in asking the confidence of his fellow citizens for the nation’s highest office at a time of terrorist and economic threat, does it truly matter that his opponent once contracted with a landscaping company that may have employed illegal aliens?.

   Huckabee, meanwhile, floats above the battle and conveys an unshakable sense of warmth, decency, good humor, and unmistakable (and appropriate) affection for his Republican opponents.

   It’s not an accident that in nomination battles since 1980, the most affable, positive, optimistic Republican candidate always wins. Reagan and both Bushes earned the Presidency because they shunned anger (unlike rivals like Bob Dole or Pat Buchanan or the 2000 model John McCain) and came across as pleasant personalities, comfortable in their own skin.

   In this sense, Huckabee fits the bill – and naturally gains on his bickering competitors.

   Meanwhile, it’s also worth a few lines here to defend the Arkansan from the claim that he’s a secret “big government liberal” or, in the phrase of the Club for Growth, “Tax Hike Mike.”

   According to figures from the non-partisan Tax Foundation (based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce), Huckabee’s term as governor (1996-2007) led to a modest increase in the overall State-Local tax burden for Arkansas: from 10.1% in the year he became governor to 11.1% the last year he served. In terms of overall tax burden (state-local-federal) Arkansas remained virtually unchanged--- from 30.3% (39^th among the 50 states) to 30.5% (32^nd place).

   Mitt Romney, on the other hand, saw sharper increases in taxes during his single gubernatorial term (2003 to 2007) in Massachusetts. The state-local burden rose from 9.8% the year of his election to 10.5% his last year as governor. Meanwhile, the total tax burden went up from 31.2% to 33.9% -- vaulting Massachusetts from 9^th place to 7^th place in the nation.
   These numbers don’t prove that Huckabee was a great governor, or that Romney was a poor governor: actually, both men count as exemplary public servants and authentic conservatives (and both of them have taken Grover Norquist’s “No New Taxes” Pledge—in contrast to their rivals Giuliani, Thompson and McCain, who have refused to do so). Both candidates deserve respect for doing a solid job in handling state legislatures with overwhelming Democratic majorities and scoring some notable achievements as governor (though both states flipped to Democratic control in 2006).

    For those who are interested in the truth, however, the growth of the tax burden in Arkansas under 11 years of Huckabee looks no worse (and actually a tad better) than the growth of taxes in Massachusetts under 4 years of Romney.

   Oh yes, and as to the total tax burden under President Bush---

   Federal Taxes went down from 22.5% in 2001 to 21.7% this year, and the total tax burden (including state-local-and-federal) shrank from 33.0% to 32.7%. Inspiring progress? Hardly. But in view of the substantial cost of defending the nation against the terrorist threat, it certainly counts as a step in the right direction.

   One can only hope that Huckabee, Romney or any other Republican will more decisively in that direction (particularly through tax simplification), while all Democrats have announced their attention to raise taxes. On this particular Democratic promise, there's every reason to believe them.       

Judging from Cillizza’s pie chart of the instant reaction, about 52 percent said McCain’s answer on Darfur made them “somewhat” more likely to support him, 25 percent much more likely to support him. It was 10 and 15 percent “somewhat less” and “much less likely” to support him.

They aren't fighting for oil and they aren't fighting for empire and they aren't fighting illegally. They're fighting because they want America to be safe and if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't be fighting. Quite frankly, Congressman Paul is wrong. I know what the American fighting women and men want. I'm with them too much not to know what's on their mind and unless I see incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, that's where I'll stand.

As a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam, I was tied in torture ropes by my tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening, a guard I had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve my suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to me. Some months later on a Christmas morning, as I stood alone in the prison courtyard, that same guard walked up to me and stood next to me for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.

"I argued against it and I said I had no confidence in Sec. Rumsfeld...I can tell you that this new strategy is succeeding but it's still at great cost...al Qaeda is not defeated. They're on the run, but they're not defeated...The men and women fighting over there believe it's imporant to fight them there or we will have chaos here. This success needs to be met with caution, but a little optimism...

There are no Thomas Jeffersons in Iraq. For a long time, Saddam Hussein killed everyone who put his head up...Many of us are divided in the war...It has divided our nation very much, but it has divided none of us in our love and support for those who are fighting. Thank you for supporting them."

McCain touches on how great the volunteer force is and wonders why we would do away with that model. He notes that we can increase recruiting and points out that the draft during the Vietnam War asked poor folks to fight while the rich folks who could get out of it stayed home.

"The facts on the ground is that we are succeeding..." He mentions that Truman was not swayed by opinion polls during the Korean War and should not have been.

MTV's Gideon Yago - wearing those square intellectual glasses - is there to greet him, and, he thinks, to do a quick pre-interview. "Senator McCain, are you excited to be participating in tonight's presidential dialogue?"

"I am excited. Hey gang! I'm about to go do Hardball now, but I'll see you all inside!" And with that, he's off.

Scott Wilder: There are an awfull lot of people worried right now that the Republican Party really is is flirting with the possibility of having a nominee that is not pro-life, what would that mean if they did that.

Mike Huckabee: It Means President Hillary Rodham Clinton. It means the Republican Party loses a whole lot of folks including people like me who didn't become pro life because of my politics I became political because of my pro life convictions. That's what worries me when I see some of the people who say I've argued it both ways, I can be for or I can be against. Hey whatever you need. Well I'm not a whatever you need kind of a guy.

Click To Play

Over the last several months I've met with most of the Republican Presidential candidates at their request.  I have sat down face to face and discussed policy issues with all of the leading candidates but one. 

These have been productive meetings in terms of advancing the policy issues that impact the family.  Even the meeting with Mayor Giuliani had value as he made his qualified support for a marriage amendment more widely known.  Many of you have e-mailed inquiring about whom I am going to endorse; others have urged me to support their favorite candidate.  Left-leaning journalists and embittered conservatives have said the lack of endorsements from me, Jim Dobson, Gary Bauer and others shows that the Religious Right is melting down, that the leaders are out of step with their followers. 

Well, if those things are true then they've been true for a very long time.  In the almost 25 years that FRC has been here in Washington, D.C., neither FRC Action nor its president has ever endorsed a presidential candidate.  Further, the first presidential candidate that my close associate, Jim Dobson, ever personally (not in behalf of Focus on the Family) endorsed was President George W. Bush for his second term in 2004, and that was only because of his strong pro-family record in his first four years.  I've been involved in almost every level of electoral politics.  I've been a candidate, I've managed campaigns, I've been a consultant, and I've held office.  My role now is different - it is to shape public policy, as it relates to families, from a Christian perspective.  FRC Action does that best by being open to meeting and advising all the candidates, Republican and even Democrats who care about family issues. 

I want FRC Action to shape the debate and that does not happen when you simply become a trophy that a campaign can hang on the wall as just another endorsement.  We are looking for those candidates who endorse us and what we stand for: family, faith and freedom.  FRC has been promoting and defending these fundamentals for almost 25 years, and that is what we will continue to do.