Politics Blog

Joe Lieberman is hitting out at Weasel Clark:

Joe Lieberman accused new presidential rival Wesley Clark on Friday of taking “a journey of political convenience, not conviction'’ from the Republican ranks to the Democratic Party.

On the day after a 10-way Democratic presidential debate, Lieberman took issue with Clark expressing support for the Bush administration’s policies in a May 2001 address to the Arkansas GOP. Bush was pushing his tax-cut package at the time.

“I was fighting that reckless economic strategy while Wes Clark was working to forward the Republican agenda by raising money for the Republican Party,'’ the Connecticut senator said.

-- PoliPundit

Rather than using lurid tales from Arnold’s past, the tabloids are actually helping him in the final days before the recall:

American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer and Star tabloids, has produced a 120-page glossy magazine called “Arnold, the American Dream.'’ The $4.95 magazine is crammed with flattering photographs and auspiciously hit the streets as Schwarzenegger heads into the final lap of his campaign for governor in the Oct. 7 recall election.

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“This may be a first of its kind in the country,'’ said Robert M. Stern, head of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. “I can’t think of a candidate that has been so popular that they were actually selling something like this.'’

(Link via The Note.)

-- PoliPundit

Lawrence J. McQuillan looks at the only governor ever recalled and finds similarities to Gray Davis.

-- PoliPundit

Many, many TV viewers watched the recall debate and Fox News kicked butt in the ratings.

-- PoliPundit

The Wall Street Journal has posted Weasel Clark’s speech to the Pulaski County Republicans in May, 2001. This one speech could sink his candidacy. Some nuggets of puregold:

We were really helped when President Ronald Reagan came in. I remember noncommissioned officers who were going to retire and they re-enlisted because they believed in President Reagan.

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And we will always be grateful to President George Bush for that tremendous leadership and statesmanship.

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And do you ever ask why it is the Europeans, the people that make the Mercedes and the BMWs, that got so much money, can’t put some of that money in their own defense programs and they need us to do their defense for them?

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Don’t you ever believe it when you hear foreign leaders making nasty comments about us. That’s them playing to their domestic politics as they misread it.

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We’ve got a great group of men and women in the armed forces. Well, I do want to say that they’re underfunded. I’m going to get to that in a minute. And I also want to say that when they vote, we better count their ballots.

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I’ve met evangelical Christians–missionaries all over the world and seen the tremendous fruit of their efforts. That’s what America stands for.

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And I’m very glad we’ve got the great team in office: men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, DickCheney, Condolzeezza Rice, Paul O’Neill–people I know very well–our president, George W. Bush.

-- PoliPundit

“Angry Virginians Blow Up Power Substation”

-- PoliPundit

Mickey Kaus has more good stuff on the recall debate.

As for the ten dwarfs debate, it was so horribly boring (maybe I was spoiled by the recall debate) that I couldn’t bear to watch for more than about 30 minutes. Observations from what I saw:

• Weasel Clark is Arnold without the charm and wit. In fact, he’s much more clueless than Arnold. Still, all he needed to do was stand there and not commit a huge gaffe and he did so admirably. However, this debate didn’t do anything to further his putative frontrunner status.
• Nobody attacked Clark (well, Kucinich did, brefly.) While Arnold came off as a pumped-up leader type, Clark looked like a wimp.
• Kerry has taken over Lieberman’s “moderate Democrat” mantle.
• Everyone hates Dean.
• Graham had an unusually low number of “uhhh” and “umms,” but his candidacy died long ago.
• Everyone’s still calling for a tax hike. That may not hurt them now, but just wait for the general election.
• Having ten people on stage makes them look alike. There’s a serious twiddledum-twiddledee problem that hurts any frontrunner and will probably continue to do so.

-- PoliPundit

It takes an Australian journalist to analyze the recall debate correctly:

ANY doubts over Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting abilities may have finally been put to rest yesterday when he delivered an Academy Award-winning performance as a politician.

The movie muscleman was treated like a schoolyard weakling by his four prime rival candidates for governor of California. They ganged-up on him over his questionable political credentials and fuzzy policies during a 90-minute televised debate.

But the star of the Terminator movies, who had avoided close scrutiny and TV debates ahead of the October 7 recall election, returned fire with the ease and apparent enjoyment of a veteran political combatant.

I couldn’t agree more. Arnold cleaned their clocks.

And then again, many foreign journalists get things even more horribly wrong than our homegrown liberal media. Like in this dispatch titled “Schwarzenegger is an angry man”

-- PoliPundit

A new Zogby poll shows the president’s job approval rating rising 5 points to 50 percent. Zogby’s numbers are usually about 5 points lower than other polls; so it wouldn’t surprise me if, say Gallup, were to show the number at 55 percent in a few days.

In fact, I expect the president will get the UN resolution he wants and will look very presidential as he meets with various world leaders, like he did with Gerhard Schroeder yesterday. It wouldn’t surprise me if his job approval numbers went even higher over the next month.

However, these polls are as worthless as the polls that showed the president’s job approval at 90 percent or 45 percent. At this stage in the campaign, job approval ratings are meaningless. The election is still 13 months away. I expect the economy to soar like a rocket by then, setting the president up nicely for election.

UPDATE: A new Battleground poll shows job approval at 54 percent. As I noted, Zogby is usually about 5 points below other polls.

-- PoliPundit

“I’ve said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position.”

– Weasel Clark on whether he would have voted for the Iraq congressional resolution last year.

-- PoliPundit