Starting Gate: The GOP's Final Answer?
Behind all of Romney's talk about who McCain has done shady and liberal legislative business with in the past (names like Feingold, Kennedy and Lieberman) and his position that anyone endorsed by the New York Times can't be a true conservative (although he seemed to think that paper was a legitimate defender of his own campaign against McCain's charges), there lay a clear message to conservatives: This is your last chance to deny McCain the nomination.
McCain's sometimes stiff, sometimes stumbling, defense of his record and continued insistence that Romney did at one point support timetables for withdrawing troops from Iraq (or, in the rather tortured reasoning, at least was willing to give politically safe non-answers on the topic) held a similar message to the same audience: You might want to think twice before deciding that this former Massachusetts governor is a conservative.
Romney's attacks on McCain are more straightforward and transparent, and are the same made by many conservative leaders and opinion-shapers. They are based on his record, on his publicly-stated positions and statements. McCain's arguments are more, well, subtle. Romney correctly pointed out that many media fact-checkers have largely debunked the idea that Romney supported timetables.
But McCain stuck to his guns which did two things that favor him: First, it keeps the topic on the friendly ground of Iraq and national security and, second, he was able to tie it to Romney's reputation for taking positions that are convenient at the moment. "Your answer should have been 'no,'" McCain said. Not, that timetables should be discussed but not announced, simply, "no."
McCain's tactic on the question may not do him much good among conservatives already predisposed to find an anyone-but-McCain candidate to back. But it's kept a bit of the heat off himself and put Romney on the defensive at a key moment in this campaign. With a favorable calendar on Super Tuesday and big endorsements coming in by the day (he gets Gov. Schwarzenegger's backing today), McCain is smelling the nomination he has long sought and doesn't appear ready to back off now.
McCain appeared to justify his line of attack by blaming Romney for the millions of dollars of attack ads he's run in this campaign. "Your negative ads, my friend, have set the tone, unfortunately, in this campaign," he told Romney. McCain is not about to change that tone with the big prize seemingly in reach.
Final Look At Florida: GOP pollster David Winston, a CBS News election analyst, provides us with his take on just what happened in Florida:
Given the tight pre-primary polls in Florida, John McCain won there by a wider margin than expected and has established himself as the frontrunner. There were several key elements to his victory.The first, and most obvious, this was a Republicans-only primary, and McCain won by 5 percent. The previous contests had shown mixed results. In New Hampshire McCain carried registered Republicans by a 37-33 margin; in South Carolina he trailed Huckabee among Republicans by the slim margin of 32-31; but in Michigan, he lost to Romney by the wider margin of 41-27. Going into Florida, it was fair to ask how McCain would do in a Republicans-only contest, and the results answered the question. The economy continued to be the top issue by a wide margin among Republicans. Forty-five percent identified this as their top issue, with terrorism finishing a distant second at 21 percent. Conventional wisdom had it that this would be an advantage for Romney because he had won economic voters in Michigan. But, McCain won them in New Hampshire; and in South Carolina, he tied with Huckabee. In Florida, McCain won these voters by a 40-32 margin over Romney. This was an important outcome. If McCain can sustain this in other states, given his advantage on foreign affairs, it will make things very difficult for Romney or Huckabee. Among evangelicals, the result was an even split between McCain, who got 30 percent, Romney at 29 percent, and Huckabee at 29 percent. In Florida this group made up 39 percent of the electorate. There was a split among conservatives. Among those who said they were very conservative, which represented 27 percent of the electorate, Romney won by the wide margin of 44-21. Among those who said they were somewhat conservative, representing 34 percent of the electorate, McCain won by the much smaller margin of 35-32. Late in the race, Giuliani pinned his hopes on the significant focus his campaign had placed on early voting. Early voters/absentee voters made up 24 percent of the electorate. Giuliani finished third among them finishing with 16 percent, behind McCain (33 percent) and Romney (31 percent).
Oh-Bama!: People who care about such things have buzzed in recent years as they've watched a growing friendship between Hillary Clinton and conservative publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch. Tongues wagged when Murdoch hosted a fund-raiser for the New York Senator two years ago, raising speculation that the businessman might be hedging his political bets.
All bets are off today though as Murdoch's flagship U.S. tabloid, the New York Post, endorses Barack Obama in the Democratic primary in an editorial more anti-Clinton than pro-Obama. "A return to Sen. Clinton's cattle-futures deal, Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate, the Lincoln Bedroom Fire Sale, Pardongate - and the inevitable replay of the Monica Mess? No, thank you," reads the editorial. "And don't forget the Clintons' trademark political cynicism. How else to explain Sen. Clinton's oft-contradictory policy stands: She voted for the war in Iraq, but now says it was a bad idea. She'd end it yesterday - but refuses to say how. It's called "triangulation" - the Clintonian tactic by which the ends are played against the middle. Once, it was effective - almost brilliant. Today, it is tired and tattered - and it reeks of cynicism and opportunism."
Document Dump: Clinton's daily schedules as First Lady are expected to be part of the nearly 10,000 documents from the Clinton administration that have been sent to the Clinton library in preparation for public release. The documents were released in response to freedom of information requests and a lawsuit filed by the conservative group, Judicial Watch. Clinton has been criticized during the campaign by her opponents for the failure of the presidential library and national archives to release papers from her husband's presidency. She has responded by claiming that the process for release was out of her hands. The documents will be released – but the Clinton library has 30 days to review them – and can request and extension, so we're unlikely to see anything before the nomination is settled.
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