Conservative President ‘08
Written by Mark Harris on January 28th, 2007For all those curious about the presidential try-outs that were the National Review Institute, I’ll leave a few of my thoughts:
- Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich were the stars of the show
- There is zero excitement behind Huckabee. Saturday night he spent twenty minutes walking around the foyer by himself, no serious presidential candidate would be left unmobbed for twenty minutes.
- People wanted more out of Romney. He was smart, pro-business, and has the presidential look but there was no fire in the belly. Nothing that would motivate folks to get out there and fight
- At the Saturday night session when Jonah Goldberg asked which GOP Presidential candidate was “unacceptable” there was a roar from the crowd about 75% McCain and 25% Giulani. I thought this was a surprising show of weakness for McCain, who made no appearance nor any surrogate appearance at the event.
- Brownback, Giulani, McCain all skipped out on the event and failed to even have a presence there. This was a very interesting development. NR is fairly hospitable to Giulani due to NR’s HQ in New York City and McCain has spent a lot of time trying to reach out to conservatives. The one who missed the biggest opportunity was Brownback, his absence made little sense.
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Brownback may have missed an opportunity, but I think his game plan is to focus on getting grassroots support rather than cozying up with the establishment. It’ll cost him a couple of National Review covers, probably, but that might not hurt him in the long run.
I think McCain is done. His candidacy is predicated on how well he can weather the period when the media turns on him (a given if he remains to the right of John Edwards), and he just looks too physically tired to be able to do that. Besides, a lot of the Bush people hate McCain.
The National Review types in the party are probably going to split between Giuliani and Romney, and I would give the edge to Giuliani there.
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I just read an item on Yahoo! news saying that Lieberman has left the way open for him to support a Republican in 2008.
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Huckabee recieved an “F” from CATO, has picked a public fight with the Club for Growth and passed multiple tax increases while Governor. Grover Norquist even mocked his frequent tax hikes in one of his Christmas cards. Yet who knows, I certainly don’t, who would be better.
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I have no interest in Huckabee. Personally, I think he is a W clone.
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Huckabee has noticeably been staying away from social conservatives, making little mention of it in his announcement, and usually replies with one-liners when questioned about it. He was a no-show at the March for Life as well… Left the door wide open for Brownback to dominate.
I am just having a hard time trying to figure out what faction of the party he is trying to pursue… We all know he’s horrible on economic policy.
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I have no idea who he thinks his core demo will be.
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Don’t count out Huckabee yet, guys. He is a delightfully satisfying-to-pronounce last name. That certainly gives him an advance over “Gingrich” (eew, awkward to pronounce).
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Huckabee is worse than W.
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Huckabee is awsom! Solid as a rock. Scares the heck out of the Dems.