CQ Weekly: The '08 Race for the White House Begins (Craig Crawford)

[Catchawave]

From CQ Weekly: The '08 Race for the White House Begins
By Craig Crawford | 5:24 PM; Nov. 10, 2006 |

Civilians not accustomed to the guerrilla warfare of a presidential campaign might well think it is amazingly early for so many candidates to be so active. Not so. To win the biggest political prize on Earth, it pays to start now. Indeed, those who have not at least begun testing the waters by now might already be too late — so much of the big money and so many of the smart campaign people having already been spoken for.

Lining up top-shelf strategists and policy experts almost becomes a primary campaign unto itself at this early stage.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is set to inherit the bulk of her husband’s constellation of political stars, James Carville first among them. And John Edwards has won the services of a top rural strategist, Dave “Mudcat” Saunders. But many of the major Democratic operatives, while quietly placing their bets on potential candidates, are hedging those bets until Clinton makes a final decision on whether to run.

On the Republican side, John McCain is mainly sticking with the team he assembled for his run in 2000 and has added some interesting names on the policy front, among them former Clinton administration drug czar Barry McCaffrey. Mitt Romney, though, scored a coup in signing on Mike Murphy, who was McCain’s top adviser last time. George Allen attracted the services of GOP super-nova Mary Matalin and former Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie.

But nobody has won the biggest prize of all in this subcampaign — the ear of Karl Rove, the president’s longtime political Svengali, who has painstakingly avoided even hinting at who he might help, or even whether he will join the fray at all.

Much more with rundowns on:

Democrats: Bayh | Biden | Clark | Clinton | Daschle | Dodd | Edwards | Feingold | Gore | Kerry | Obama | Richardson | Vilsack

• Republicans: Allen | Brownback | Frist | Gingrich | Giuliani | Hagel | Huckabee | Hunter | McCain | Pataki | Rice | Romney | Tancredo

http://www.cqpolitics.com/2006/11/from_cq_weekly_the_08_race_for.html

[BootinUp]

1. Thanks, looks interesting. n/t

[Carolina Voice]

2. Nice thread

We must win the presidency in 2008.

[MontanaMaven]

3. Pre-election perspective is interesting, but he needs to amend now

Rove was surprised that the war and the war on terror didn't work this time.
So who gets Rove as an advisor? He's basically a fear and dirty tricks guy and the American people are fed up with this. They want an optimist again whether it's a Repug or Dem. They liked Reagan and Clinton and JFK and FDR because they played to the "can do" spirit of Americans. Rovian politics won't work. McCain won't work. He's a symbol of everything negative. And of Facsim.
I wrote "It's the Fascism, Stupid" on Huffington and my own website. Whether or not people in Montana called it Facism or not, they could smell it. They want checks and balances. We the people write Congress's paychecks, not the corporations. And now we fired them. In 2 years, we will fire some more "pigs at the trough". We will not be "Good Germans." Enough is enough.

[benny05]

4. I agree

Hopefully, Jon Tester will restore integrity to Burns' chair. Burns needed to go; it was definitely time. :dem:

[BruceMcF]

6. Yes, Rove is a double edged sword ...

... he might be a benefit for winning the Replicant primaries, in fighting for the votes of the severe wingnuts, theocrats, and krewe that make up the core of the Replicant base. But in the general, his strategy of get out the base and try to govern with 50%+1 has already run its course.

[MontanaMaven]

5. Jim Webb quote is great on Class warfare

Jim Webb is not afraid to talk about class warfare. he said on NPR "I ran on the economic breakdown along class lines." In a thank you letter to his supporters, he wrote:
" We’re going to work hard to bring a sense of responsibility to our foreign policy that will, in my view, result soon in a diplomatic solution in Iraq. We’re going to work very hard on issues of economic fairness in a country that has become divided too much by class in an age of the internationalization of corporate America, where corporate profits are at an all time high while wages and salaries are at an all time low. I look forward to joining my fellow Senators in voting very soon to increase the minimum wage."

[Catchawave]

7. Feingold officially withdrew today :(

Here's Crawford's rundown from the article:

Rationale: The ultimate insider-acting-like-an-outsider, Feingold often breaks ranks with his party and sometimes the entire Senate. The campaign finance overhaul enacted in 2002 over the objections of the leadership in both parties is known as the McCain-Feingold law. Perhaps the most uncompromising liberal in the Senate, Feingold’s name appears as the only dissenter in the occasional Senate roll call. His lone-ranger status forever endeared him to civil libertarians in 2001, when he cast the single vote in the Senate against the counter-terrorism law dubbed the Patriot Act — and did so just six weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. More recently, party leaders refused to even seek a vote on his resolution to censure Bush for ordering “warrantless” surveillance.

Resources: Even Democratic Party insiders grumble that Feingold goes too far in spurning the campaign finance system by refusing to accept most forms of outside money, even before McCain-Feingold took effect. Still, he has managed to raise more than $2 million for his presidential exploration fund, most of it from individual donors. The law he helped write could level the playing field to his advantage, as rivals must play by the rules he set.

Hobby Horse: No one in the presidential field for both parties has a better track record for advocating clean government, even when his stands irritate his own party’s leaders. Voters cynical about corruption in Washington should find him to be a refreshing exception and tireless champion.

Hobble Horse: Feingold’s social liberalism — he opposes the death penalty and supports gay marriage — delights his loyal followers, but it could be a devastating target in a general election and severely limit his reach into middle America. He didn’t help matters by once referring to Greenville, Ala., as a place of “check-cashing stores and abject trailer parks.”

Also, here's Russ's diary on Dkos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/12/8554/2518