Democracy and the Senate (II)

The notion that the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald represent ideologically opposite editorial positions is overblown. The Herald and its editorial-page editor, Rachelle Cohen, aren't really all that conservative. And the Globe, whose editorial page recently transitioned from longtime editor Renée Loth to former Washington-bureau chief Peter Canellos, is just contrarian enough on issues like charter schools to keep liberals agitated.

An exception is today. The Globe offers its full-throated endorsement to Sen. Ted Kennedy's proposal that would allow Gov. Deval Patrick to name an interim senator in the event of a vacancy. The interim would serve until a special election could be held five months later. With Kennedy's battle against brain cancer apparently entering its final stages, the matter has taken on special urgency.

In supporting Kennedy's proposal, the Globe criticizes the Legislature for having taken the gubernatorial appointment away five years ago, when it appeared that Sen. John Kerry might be elected president and Democratic leaders at the Statehouse did not want then-governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, to name Kerry's successor. The Globe calls the 2004 law "a partisan bill."

Which, of course, it was. And which leads the Herald to invoke that same 2004 action as a reason to reject Kennedy's current proposal, in an editorial headlined "Hypocrisy factor."

Yet Kennedy is not proposing that the 2004 be repealed. Instead, he's suggesting a slight tweak that would benefit the state, which otherwise would go without a vote in the Senate for five months. (I'll note without comment that Massachusetts went without two full-time senators during Kerry's presidential campaign and, now, through long stretches of Kennedy's illness.)

Kennedy's idea is to choose a person who would make a personal pledge not to run in the special election. The Herald observes that Romney had proposed a similar provision only to get shot down. But that's no reason not to adopt a good idea now. And I'll go one better. Assuming there isn't some constitutional reason not to do it, why not write the no-run requirement directly into the Kennedy proposal and give it the force of law?

Obviously that's not going to satisfy Herald columnist Howie Carr, who portrays Kennedy's move as one last grand gesture of deathbed hackery — and makes much of the fact that Kennedy's letter to state leaders, reportedly sent on Tuesday, is dated July 2 (a catch made yesterday by friend of Media Nation Beth Wellington). Carr takes the mysterious timing of the letter as a sign that Kennedy's time is almost up, and he may be right.

But so what? This strikes me as a can't-lose idea. The benefit of the 2004 law would remain intact — Kennedy's successor would be chosen at the ballot box, not by the governor. Meanwhile, the state would continue to have representation in the Senate.

Which is why I'm especially intrigued by Globe columnist Scot Lehigh's suggestion that former governor Michael Dukakis fill the role as interim senator. (Disclosure: Dukakis is a colleague of mine at Northeastern, although only to the extent that we exchange hand waves.)

Media Nation commenter Amused thinks Dukakis "comes with too much baggage, a lot of it unjustifiable." I disagree. Dukakis' three terms as governor did not end well, but, outside the exceedingly small universe of talk radio, he is mainly seen as competent and honest. And, as Lehigh notes, Dukakis knows health-care policy. It's a great idea.

A final note. Also in the Herald, once and future Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom quotes from a 2004 Boston Phoenix editorial supporting the bill that took away the gubernatorial appointment. I may well have had a hand in writing that editorial — I recognize some of the clichés as being all mine.

But the editorial specifically objected to the idea of a governor filling the remainder of a senator's term if his seat became vacant. In Kerry's case, that would have been two years. By contrast, what we're talking about now is having an interim, temporary senator appointed as soon as there's a vacancy, followed by a special election five months later. That's quite a difference.

Another good day for Mitt Romney

Now that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's national ambitions are a thing of the past — left behind on the extreme southern stretch of the Appalachian Trail — it's interesting to think about the number of up-and-coming Republican stars who've been taken off the board in the past year. Five (including Sanford) come quickly to mind.

Two — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — were damaged by their own party, pushed in front of the public long before they were ready. Hype-versus-reality questions aside, Palin and Jindal were routinely described as rising stars until, suddenly, they weren't.

Jindal can certainly recover from his poor performance in delivering the Republican response to President Obama's national address last February. All he has to do is not act like a dork the next time. But the arc of Palin's post-running-mate political career has already been determined: hero to the right wing of her party; pariah to everyone else.

Sanford's finished. So is Nevada Sen. John Ensign, although at least his sexual indiscretions do not include a secretive flight to Argentina. I must confess I'd barely heard of Ensign before learning that (1) he'd been unfaithful in his marriage and (2) he was a possible presidential candidate.

Finally, there is former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, chosen by Obama as his ambassador to China. Huntsman hasn't been tainted (except possibly in the eyes of a few partisan Republicans), but he's not going to challenge Obama in 2012.

As Rich Lowry observes at National Review (via Talking Points Memo), Mitt Romney may be the last candidate standing by the time the '12 campaign rolls around in earnest.

Romney's speech

Good grief. That was awful. Something about liberals and pornography and terrorists, all served up in comic-book caricatures. I know I thought McCain should pick Mitt as his running mate, but I confess I'd forgotten what a terrible speaker he can be. Tonight we were all reminded of why nobody voted for him.

More on the Palins and the AIP

John McCain's campaign staffers are pushing back hard on Jake Tapper's ABC News report that Sarah Palin had once been a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), which tells you all you need to know about how toxic they fear this issue will become.

Kate Klonick, writing for TPM Muckraker, has now verified that Todd Palin was a member from 1995 through 2002. What's still hanging out there is this: the McCain camp also denies that Sarah Palin attended the party's state convention in Wasilla in 1994 — but Tapper's got three on-the-record witnesses who say they saw her there.

And so it continues.

Media Nation was talking a little while ago with a friend whom I would describe as slightly right of center and deeply versed in foreign-policy issues. He probably would have voted for McCain if he had chosen Joe Lieberman or, for instance, Condoleezza Rice. Mitt Romney? Maybe.

The Palin choice, though, has driven him into the Obama camp for two reasons: his fear of what would happen if she became president; and what it says about McCain's judgment.

Spinning the obvious

In an "analysis" headlined "Biden pick shows lack of confidence," Ron Fournier of the Associated Press writes:

For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

That's because, well, Obama probably can't beat McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack.

Let me lend a hand and help Fournier with what he may be writing one week from today:

For all his self-confidence, the 72-year-old Arizona senator worried that he couldn't beat Democrat Barack Obama without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Romney selection is the next logistical step in a McCain campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

Any questions? Other than wondering how many brain cells Fournier fired up before putting fingers to keyboard?

David Brooks on Friday: "Biden's the one. The only question is whether Obama was wise and self-aware enough to know that."

Kerry and Romney for vice president

In my latest for the Guardian, I try to make the case that John Kerry and Mitt Romney make the most sense as running mates for the Democratic and Republican tickets.

Born-again secularism

In my latest for the Guardian, I observe that John McCain, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have all paid dearly for the sin of inflicting religion upon the voters. Could we be witnessing the beginning of the end when it comes to political pandering on matters of faith?

The feeding frenzy is under way

The John McCain story has led to the media-ethics feeding frenzy of 2008. We're going to know a lot more in a few days. Right now, we should just hang on. Still, I can't resist posting a few tidbits.

The New Republic's backgrounder, by Gabriel Sherman, is a must-read. It seems possible — even probable — that it was Sherman's nosing-around that finally led the New York Times into running what it had. Bill Keller sounds really steamed. I'd love to hear a recording of him sarcastically spitting out the phrase "special correspondent." Except that it was in an e-mail.

I and others have already speculated how miffed Mitt Romney must be that the Times waited until after McCain had all but wrapped up the nomination before dropping its bombshell. Well, Charles Kaiser of Radar now says one of the Times' tipsters was former congressman Vin Weber, who just so happened to have been an official with the Romney campaign. Weber has denied it, but Kaiser's not taking it back. So who knows?

Adam Reilly points out that the Boston Globe chose to run the Washington Post's version rather than the Times' more incendiary (i.e., sex rumors included played up) story, even though the Globe is owned by the New York Times Co. Interesting. But last night, I noticed that there was a link to the Times story featured prominently on the home page of the Globe's Boston.com site.

Finally, no offense to Ryan Lizza, but I don't think I'm going to get around to reading his New Yorker article on whether McCain can remake the Republican Party. Talk about bad timing.

File photo of Cindy and John McCain (cc) by Chris Dunn and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Making sense of the McCain story

Josh Marshall, fresh off his Polk Award, does a good job of putting into perspective today's New York Times story on John McCain, which suggests, without quite saying out loud, that he may have had an affair with a lobbyist for whom he did favors during his 2000 "straight talk" campaign.

Word is that the McCain campaign tried to spike this story back in December. At Salon, Alex Koppelman recalls that it made a brief appearance on Drudge around that time, then went underground. Is it a legitimate story? Marshall thinks so, but hedges his bets:

I find it very difficult to believe that the Times would have put their chin so far out on this story if they didn't know a lot more than they felt they could put in the article, at least on the first go. But in a decade of doing this, I've learned not to give any benefits of the doubt, even to the most esteemed institutions.

If this has legs, Mitt Romney clearly has plenty to howl about. It would have been the story of the campaign. Then again, Romney has merely "suspended" his campaign, hasn't he?

Not that this can be compared to the Times' mind-blowing decision to hold its story on the Bush administration's no-warrant wiretapping program for more than a year, until after the 2004 presidential election. That still stands as some sort of record.

More: The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz offers some context.

Still more: Adam Reilly notes that Sam Stein hit the Romney angle last night. OK, let me try for something else original: Is this bad news for Hillary Clinton or what? For her to have any chance of staging a comeback in Texas and Ohio, she's got to (a) get the media to subject Barack Obama to a raking-over of epic proportions and then (b) hope something turns up. Right now, thanks to the Times, (a) looks pretty unlikely.

Romney's timely end

Mitt Romney has been justly criticized for moving far to the right on a whole range of issues in order to pander to conservatives in the presidential campaign. What hasn't been noted often enough, though, is that Romney never stopped shape-shifting, adopting a range of different personas in order to suit the state of the week. Peter Canellos gets at it nicely in today's Globe:

In the end, all those inconsistencies combined with a somewhat plastic presence on the stump made Romney seem inauthentic and opportunistic — a meat-and-potatoes car guy in Michigan who morphed into a Pollo Tropico lover in Florida.

Romney furthered those impressions by changing his emphasis in state after state, from being a social conservative in Iowa, to an anti-Washington crusader in New Hampshire, to an economic nationalist in Michigan, to the one true Reaganite who played to right-wing talk shows in the days leading up to Super Tuesday.

By the time Romney took the stage in Boston on Tuesday night, wearing the frozen smile of a politician desperate to stave off defeat, his message had unraveled into a series of generic platitudes and warnings.

Also in the Globe, Joan Vennochi mocked Romney effectively yesterday, and Scot Lehigh comes back with more today.

In the Herald, Peter Gelzinis is on fire:

Mitt Romney's quest for the White house dissolved under the weight of some very expensive brainwashing by a circle of consultants who sold him on the ludicrous notion that he could become president by running to the right of a genuine war hero.

That would've been a tough sell even if Mitt had spent 13 months in Vietnam, rather than two years searching for Mormon converts in the Bordeaux region of France.

But then, when you subscribe to the world according to Rush Limbaugh — the OxyContin-popping Charles Foster Kane of talk radio who bloviates his conservative rant from behind the locked gates of his Florida compound — you've already lost touch with a large part of reality.

Personally, I think Republican voters took the measure of Romney's character and found it lacking. Even by the debased standards of politics, Romney was unusual in his willingness to say anything in order to get elected. Too bad he didn't realize that's not the way to get elected.

As Republican political consultant Todd Domke said on WBUR Radio yesterday, if Romney were the person whom he claimed to be, he'd be sailing to the nomination right now.

Further thoughts from the Outraged Liberal, himself a recovering journalist.

Channeling the same wavelength: A Globe editorial refers to Romney's "shape-shifting," too.

Photo (cc) by Tim Somero. Some rights reserved.

No surprises in Mass.

No live blogging tonight, except to observe that rumors of Hillary Clinton's and Mitt Romney's demise in Massachusetts were greatly exaggerated. My record of making predictions is pretty grim, but I'll give myself a mild pat on the back for this. I'll have further thoughts on the media and Super Tuesday in the Guardian tomorrow afternoon.

Amnesty is back

When John McCain complained that a Mitt Romney advertisement had characterized McCain's program for dealing with illegal immigrants as "amnesty," Romney denied it. "I don't call it amnesty," said Romney. McCain, though, was telling the truth. Romney, well, wasn't.

Now Romney has a new Internet-only ad out comparing McCain to Hillary Clinton. And guess what? The ad criticizes McCain for supporting "amnesty." Somehow I don't think Romney will deny it this time.

WSJ whacks out Romney

Wow. Check out this editorial about Mitt Romney on the Wall Street Journal's ultraconservative editorial page, which is no fan of John McCain. Here's just a tiny taste:

Plenty of politicians attune their positions to new constituencies. The larger danger is that Mr. Romney's conversions are not motivated by expediency or mere pandering but may represent his real governing philosophy....

John McCain's difficulties in selling himself to GOP voters reflect his many liberal lurches over the years — from taxes to free speech, prescription drugs and global warming cap and trade. Republicans have a pretty good sense of where he might betray them. Yet few doubt that on other issues — national security, spending — Mr. McCain will stick to his principles no matter the opinion polls. If Mr. Romney loses to Senator McCain, the cause will be his failure to persuade voters that he has any convictions at all.

Very tough stuff. (Via Blue Mass Group.)

Not a great night for McCain

I wasn't going to post during the debate. But I dozed off, and woke up to watch McCain and Romney going at it on the timetables McCain says Romney advocated to withdraw from the war in Iraq. McCain seems petulant and petty tonight, his contempt for Romney barely disguised. McCain's not telling the truth about Romney, and he all but admitted it, justifying it by pointing to the millions of dollars Romney spent on negative ads aimed at McCain and Huckabee.

Responding to a question about whether Romney was qualified to be commander-in-chief, McCain made a crack about Romney's experience selling and buying companies and eliminating people's jobs.

Huckabee's whining incessantly about not getting equal time. He's lucky he's up there. It's not as if anyone has voted for him lately. And Ron Paul is even luckier.

A huge step forward for McCain

Democratic leaders must be unhappy tonight. By designating John McCain, finally, as the frontrunner, Florida Republicans have given a huge boost to the strongest candidate who could be nominated in terms of appealing to independents and conservative Democrats. McCain's hardcore support for the war in Iraq may be poison in November. But he's far more likely to expand his vote beyond the Republican base than Mitt Romney.

At 71, McCain is an old-fashioned guy. He's wearing a hideous tie (no, not the one in the photo), and he began his speech by talking to the folks in the room, not the television cameras — reminiscing about his naval training in Pensacola, introducing Gov. Charlie Crist, Sen. Mel Martinez and several members of Congress. He also hailed Rudy Giuliani, who's likely to endorse him this week. That will be huge, as it will unite moderate Republicans around one candidate.

Now he's giving his stump speech, aimed at solidifying his shaky support among conservatives. "I am as proud today to be a Republican conservative as I was then," he said, repeating his frequent line of being a "foot soldier in the Reagan revolution." Essentially it's a list of conservative nostrums aimed at trying to unite his party, complete with a whack at judges, always popular with the red-meat crowd.

"We have a ways to go, but we're getting close," he said in closing. "And for that you have my profound thanks."

Live-blogging note: When I don't edit myself, I tend to write "huge" a lot, don't I?

Photo (cc) by marcn. Some rights reserved.

Romney speaks

Romney's speaking now. By all rights, he should be just about out of it now. But it's a strange year, so who knows? He seems nervous and upset, but that doesn't necessary presage a pullout.

One of the more unusual findings I saw on CNN tonight was that McCain beat Romney solidly among voters for whom the economy is their most important concern. The economy has been Romney's mantra since Michigan, but it didn't work in Florida.

Romney: "I think it's time for the politicians to leave Washington and the citizens to take over." He's running through his usual talking points, bashing "Hillarycare" and teachers unions. He's for families and the military. And George W. Bush. But he really sounds like he's straining — very different from Giuliani a few moments ago. Then, Giuliani had known for weeks that he was going to lose.

I can't imagine he's going to quit quite yet. He's got money, and, as Huckabee continues to fade, he might pick up the evangelicals.

But it looks like the Republicans finally have a frontrunner, and it's not Mitt Romney.

Closer than it looks

It's now McCain, 35 percent, and Romney, 31 percent, but they still won't call it. What's going on? Take a look at this map from WashingtonPost.com. Most All (that's a lake!) of the untallied counties are from the Panhandle. This is going to get tighter.

Oh, and now the word is that Giuliani is going to pull out and endorse McCain. And here we go — the AP and Fox just called it for McCain.

McCain, 34; Romney, 31

But no indication of where the votes are coming from. Presumably, Romney's going to do better in the conservative Florida Panhandle, where the polls closed an hour later. So, uh, maybe I'll just watch for a while.

Did McCain overreach?

John McCain, already sucking wind in Florida, may have hurt himself in the area that's his greatest strength — his reputation for "straight talk." Check out the headline on this AP story: "Romney didn't say what McCain says he said on withdrawing from Iraq." By mischaracterizing Romney's position, he's succeeded in taking the spotlight off Romney's own tenuous relationship with the truth.

Last Republicans standing

It is with some amazement that I find myself thinking of Mitt Romney as one of the last two Republicans standing — and as the person who might at this point be the favorite to win the nomination. Yes, just last night I said that John McCain probably had a clearer path than anyone else. But I've been rethinking that.

First, let me deal with the also-rans, all of whom are pretty much done at this point.

• Mike Huckabee. It ended last night for the good reverend. If he can't ride the Confederate flag and his bizarre equation of homosexuality and bestiality to victory in South Carolina, he certainly can't do it anywhere else.
• Fred Thompson. Dead man walking or dead man withdrawing — it's up to him.
• Rudy Giuliani. Wasn't he supposed to be running for president? Of the United States, not just Florida?
  
• Ron Paul. He'll keep getting whatever he's getting.

So we've basically got a two-man race between McCain and Romney, which was pretty hard to imagine after Romney lost New Hampshire. I didn't hear any squawking last October when Ryan Lizza wrote in the New Yorker that Romney's only chance was to win Iowa and New Hampshire, then hope for momentum. He lost both, of course, and has won only one competitive state — Michigan. Yet he's very much alive.

Consider that McCain has won two hard-fought primaries, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but has yet to win a plurality of Republicans anywhere. As Adam Nagourney observes in the New York Times today, many of the upcoming primaries are for Republicans only.

Consider, too, that conservatives have been split among Romney, Huckabee and Thompson. Not anymore.

Add to this Romney's personal fortune and his willingness to say absolutely anything to get elected, and he may very well have the edge.

Finally, check out Jeff Jacoby's column in today's Globe. Jacoby, a conservative who's been mocking Romney since 1994, is appalled at Romney's attempt to don the cloak of Ronald Reagan.

Photo (cc) by Joe Crimmings. Some rights reserved.