Rudy Giuliani goes negative on Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. Jonathan Martin covers it in the Politico while the back-and-forth between the two candidates grabs the front page of the Washington Post.
Why is Giuliani going down the tricky primary path of taking overt public swings at the competition (which can actually offend likely primary voters)? Because a sustained double-digit gap in New Hampshire doesn't work for Giuliani if he hopes to get to Florida and then February 5th in one piece.
Another Martin story has Giuliani's campaign saying they're spending "700,000 bucks on TV for the next few weeks" in the Granite State. Note quite Romney's pace, but that's a sizeable buy.
Is there an election coming soon or something?
Posted by Eric Earling at November 26, 2007 07:54 AM | Email ThisLater, I found out the mob bosses voted 3-2 to let him live.
But, I can't believe Giuliani pooh-poohed Iowa and New Hampshire. Sounds like he is regretting that decision. And that makes Romney, the plug and chugger, all the more immpressive.
Rs gotta be happy with those 2.
With the Clinton machine in full distraction mode, expect some juicy stuff to come out to distract the media away from her downturn. That may mean stuff against an R.
Posted by: swatter on November 26, 2007 08:56 AMAre our Paulbearers concerned at all about some of the folks he attracts?
God, I'll be glad when the primaries are over... I won't miss RP but I sure will miss his daily dose of entertainment value!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 26, 2007 09:10 AM..."Assuming Paul loses, where does small-l libertarianism go from here? His movement already did the smart thing by making peace with social conservatism. Libertarianism is no longer aligned with libertine stances on abortion and gay rights."
"To become the ascendant ideology within the GOP, I suspect they'll have to find a way to do the same thing on national security. The war on terror writ large is the one big thing social and economic conservatives agree on, and Ron Paul is vocally aligned against both."...
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 26, 2007 09:17 AMRagnar,
Thanks for bringing up the latest RP endorsement. Got to love it :-)
All I think is if the candidates can't take the heat, then they are ready for the general election.
Posted by: tc on November 26, 2007 09:18 AMIt's heating up.
Posted by: Doug on November 26, 2007 09:20 AMLet's think about prostitution for a minute. I've heard it's the world's oldest profession, though that is a major slander against womenkind. If it is so old, shouldn't conservatives, who seek to preserve the old ways, embrace it?
I've heard prostitution called a combination of sex and the free market. So which of those two are conservatives opposed to? Certainly not the free market...
Prostitutes for Paul! Has a great ring to it.
Look, I've never been to a prostitute, and never will, but conservatives are supposed to believe in liberty and limited government. If they oppose prostitution, and I agree that there are good moral reasons to do so, especially if the "John" is married to another woman, then they have to do so without resort to the law. Conservatives should picket outside the brothels, expose johns, write letters to editors, shun prostitutes, johns and madams, but they can not make prostitution illegal and still be conservatives. At that point, they become big-government, anti-business, nanny-state liberals who want to engage in social engineering to protect us from ourselves.
Personally, I have no moral problem with an unmarried guy buying sex from a prostitute. (I have no problem with consensual, pre-marital sex between adults, and I am pretty sure that most Republicans under the age of 50 agree with me.) I don't think it is likely to be in the john's or the prostitute's interests, but the law is not in place to protect us from ourselves. Any law that creates a victimless crime is a stupid and unenforcible law, that violates our liberty.
What the prostitutes in this article are doing is totally legal in Nevada. I think of them as small business owners; a Republican constituency!
And I am sure that Ron Paul, himself, is morally opposed to prostitution, even if I am not. He has said many times that if someone he disagrees with is stupid enough to make a campaign donation, he is happy to use that money against the interests of the donor! Yes, Ron Paul would keep the Federal Govt. out of the business of regulating prostitution, but that is just because there is no enumerated power in the Federal Constitution that allows such legislation. It is left to the states. It is a states rights issue. That is another conservative principle.
So, this endorsement, which was not sought by the Ron Paul campaign, should not hurt him in the least, even if it does cause him bad PR among people who don't think logically, or don't understand the concept of limited government.
And do you social conservatives really think that pro-choice, cross dressing Giuliani, or formerly pro-choice, Mormon Romney is a better choice for your side?
If you do, I think that is quite odd.
Here is Ron Paul's statement of faith. I suggest you social conservatives read it before you judge him:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/87/statement-of-faith/
By the way, Ron Paul won another on-line poll again. This one was run by AOL and had about 239,000 responders. It was set up so that you could not vote twice. Ron Paul got 24% to Giouliani's 20%. Here is the link:
http://news.aol.com/elections
Scroll down a bit to find the poll on Democrats and Republicans in two columns. Feel free to vote for your favorite! :)
Ron Paul's support is strong on the web, and this is not a scientific poll, but I think it suggeests that the mainstream polls are underestimating Ron Paul's support.
I think Ron Paul is in third place right now nationally, behind Giuliani and Romney, but ahead of McCain, Thompson and the rest. I think he is doing even better in NH. Probably second, maybe even first! And remember, John Kerry had only 7% in the polls at this point in 2003!
Go, Ron Paul! Hope for America.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on November 26, 2007 01:24 PMI just spit out my soup, that is just hilarious. Prostitution is now at the heart of the conservative movement. We republicans need to fully support prostitution. If we are true conservatives we would vote for Ron Paul because prostitutes support him and truly deep in our hearts prostitution is the backbone of the conservative movement.
What's next? Madison and Jefferson were hashing out the ideology that would make up the first Republican party while partaking in the time honored conservative principal known as prostitution. Abe Lincoln, himself, the father of our current Republican Party, secretly considered legal prostitution as the future economic base and next logical step of which the southern states could turn to if only they would abandon slavery?
Posted by: Doug on November 26, 2007 01:40 PMProstitutes for Paul!
Go, Ron Paul! Hope for Whores
Go, Ron Paul! Hope for Whorabillary
GOOD GRIEF!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 26, 2007 02:04 PMPolitical Whores
"Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an underdog Texas congressman with a libertarian streak, has picked up an endorsement from a Nevada brothel owner," the Associated Press reports from Reno:.
Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, said he was so impressed after hearing Paul at a campaign stop in Reno last week that he decided to raise money for him..
"I'll get all the (working girls) together, and we can raise him some money," Hof told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I'll put up a collection box outside the door. They can drop in $1, $5 contributions." .
The Wall Street Journal reports on some of Paul's other backers:
The Paul campaign has also drawn support from antigovernment fringe groups and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Since mid-September, a large "Ron Paul for President" banner has flashed at the bottom of white-supremacist Internet forum Stormfront.org. "Really, we haven't seen a candidate like Ron Paul in some time. The closest would have been Pat Buchanan" in 2000, says Don Black of West Palm Beach, Fla., the group's founder and a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, who donated $500 to Mr. Paul's campaign..
It's enough to give the Moonlite BunnyRanch a bad name.
God, I'll be glad when the primaries are over.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 26, 2007 03:16 PMDoug @ 9, I didn't say that prostitution should be endorsed by Republicans, I said that no Republican should be in favor of making it illegal. There are lots of things that are legal that are immoral, and this is the way a real Republican thinks it should be. Should morality be legislated? Should dancing on Sundays be illegal? That's the slippery slope you are on. Protest privately, as I suggested above @ 7, but don't make it illegal. That's not Republican or conservative.
And Ben Franklin really was a frequent advocate and perhaps even a frequent customer of prostitutes.
Look, making it illegal does not work to reduce the incidence of prostitution. It just drives it underground, and increases disease, exploitation and violence. It increases corrpution among the police, who pimps pay to look the other way. In that way, it is much like the failed war on drugs.
Private means have a chance of reducing prostitution. That's the goal, right?
And Ragnar @12, all candidates have a minority fringe of odd folks who support them. This is nothing more than a smear tactic. It is guilt by association, and it makes you look bad to use that kind of argument. You are better than that, my friend.
Ron Paul has said countless times he is not a 9/11 truther or a KKK or Nazi type. You obviously did not check out the link I sent you to his position on racism from his campaign website. But just keep bringing this kind of smear up. It only makes you look bad.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on November 26, 2007 03:30 PMIt wasn't a good trade.
God, I'll be glad when the primaries are over...
OH MY GOSH... we won't have to listen to you sing pointless unelectable Libertarian candidate dirges, will we??
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 26, 2007 03:47 PMI predict that Giuliani and Romney will get so negative and strident with each other that the electorate of Iowa and NH will be looking for other candidates. A lot of the dirt the front runners will sling will stick. Also, the candidates will make themselves look negative by their use of personal attacks. Doing so does not make people more favorable to you, as I keep trying to explain to Ragnar and others.
Ron Paul is in third place in NH. I predict he will move up in the next few weeks!
Sling that mud, Rudy!
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on November 26, 2007 06:00 PMOut of curiousity, why do you think it is a bad thing to have a man endorse you because of your stance that prostitution is not a federal issue?
The fact that Paul is morally opposed to Prostitution yet is endorsed by a man running a whore house shows how principled Dr Paul is. We know that regardless of what Dr Paul thinks is right or wrong morally, he will first and foremost abide by the constitution. What more could we ask for?
Travis Pahl
Posted by: ravis Pahl on November 27, 2007 09:24 PMObviously, social conservatives want the Constitution ignored when they want their pet issue regulated and they want the liberty of the people to be limited by the force of the government when the exercise of their liberty hurts their feelings.
But they want the Constitution followed only when it suits their interests.
They want drugs and prostitution outlawed as a way to show their moral outrage, in spite of the fact that the federal constitution does not allow such regulation, and in spite of the fact that these are victimless crimes, better prevented thought civil society, not via the government.
It is SO tempting to go to the government to use force against peaceful people to attempt to solve social problems. But it is short-sighted, creates more problems than it solves, and just doesn't work. It just leads to the loss of our liberties, it sets the precedent that the liberals can use to get in to our personal or family lives, and it subverts the rule of law.
Of the presidential candidates , only Ron Paul seems to understand all of this.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on November 27, 2007 11:58 PM