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February 20, 2007
Casting Stones
As we have mentioned in recent days, the 2008 GOP presidential nomination contest is the first real race in many moons. The party of control and discipline has in recent years quickly coalesced around its nominee, and not looked kindly on continuing challenges -- hence many a Republican faithful's lingering hard feelings toward a certain Arizona senator, who had the audacity to impede George W. Bush's coronation in 2000. Things have changed.
There will be no preordained coronation of the 2008 Republican nominee; in fact, the field is wide open, just like on the Democratic side. Three candidates currently inhabit the top tier -- John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. McCain, he of the insurgent Straight Talk Express 2000, now qualifies as the establishment candidate. A senior senator, and the oldest nonincumbent presidential candidate in modern history, McCain has eschewed his maverick independent style in recent months, in favor of hardline conservative positions on everything from Iraq to reproductive rights.
The question is, do GOP primary voters trust McCain? Do they really believe he has abandoned that pesky tendency to violate Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment and speak out against his party from time to time, or has his recent very public tack rightward been simply a calculated political move to strengthen his support among the party's social conservative base?
Well, one of McCain's rivals, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, is betting on the latter, and as Politico's Jonathan Martin writes, has come out on the offensive against McCain on the hot button abortion issue.
Gary Marx, Romney's director of conservative outreach is playing hatchet man, taking McCain to task for "ducking" the abortion issue since the 2000 campaign. He has sent an email to 100 influential conservative leaders questioning McCain's commitment to ending abortion. An interesting strategy.
Romney has significant upside as a candidate, but suffers from being far less known than his two chief rivals -- McCain and Giuliani. This initial salvo, coupled with new TV ads that have begun running in early primary states, is likely part of a dual effort to raise his own profile while having a staffer start tearing down the competition. Again, interesting, but such a strategy is not without risks for Romney.
In particular, Romney's attacks are almost certain to generate a response from his opponent, and Mitt's own history on the abortion issue is arguably more controversial than McCain's. Romney is about to find out just how thin the glass is in his house; John McCain has some stones of his own to throw.
Posted by houtopia at February 20, 2007 06:51 PM