Politics

Starting Gate: It's Getting Rough Out There

By Vaughn Ververs

November 26, 2007 / 8:45 AM EST / CBS News

The dinner-table feasting may be in the rear-view mirror but the main course of the presidential primary season is just starting to be served. Some of the dynamics roiling the campaign waters this week:

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are becoming increasingly pointed – and personal – in New Hampshire. Giuliani, who has downplayed the need to perform well in the early states, has spent more and more time in the Granite State in the hopes of derailing Romney there and the result is an escalating war of words between the two men. They've gone back-and-forth on immigration, fiscal policy and health care – and now it's getting more heated. Giuliani is taking aim at Romney's appointment of a Massachusetts state judge who released a convicted murderer who has now been accused of murdering again.

"This whole appointment of a judge goes to a much bigger point -- that Governor Romney had a very poor record in dealing with murder and violent crime as governor," Giuliani said. More pointedly, according to CBS News' Ryan Corsaro, Giuliani told reporters, "I think Governor Romney is trying to distract from what is a mistake that he clearly made, but the bigger mistake he made was that crime went up – violent crime and murder – went up while he was governor. And I think is something that talks about not just an isolated mistake, it talks about a series of mistakes."

Romney has called for the resignation of the judge and shot back with a reference to Giuliani associate Bernard Kerik, who was once recommended by the former mayor to lead the Department of Homeland Security and is now under indictment. "Of all the people who might attack someone on the basis of an appointment, I thought he would be the last to do so," Romney said.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are accusing one another of playing politics with their health care plans. The topic has been a primary point of discussion since it sparked an exchange in the last Democratic debate. "Senator Obama and I have been having a debate about health care for a couple of days and it's a very important debate," Clinton told the AP. "The difference is my health care plan covers every American and Senator Obama's plan will not."

More pointedly, Clinton said Obama's health care place was more about politics than policy. ""He leaves 15 million people uncovered. It's a plan crafted for politics, not for people," she said. "Hillary's idea is that we should force everyone to buy insurance," Obama retorted. "But this is yet another issue where she is not being straight with the American people because she refuses to tell us how much she would fine people if they couldn't afford insurance." And Obama added, "Unless she can answer those questions this is yet another calculation that's more about getting through an election than actually solving the health care problems."

Obama has risen in Iowa in recent polls and the prospect of a win there for him would almost certainly set off one of the most intense primary battles we've ever seen heading into New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond.

Mike Huckabee is finding that criticism comes with improving poll numbers. The former Arkansas governor was a primary target of Fred Thompson yesterday on issues ranging from taxes to immigration to abortion. Other GOP candidates, including Romney, have increasingly argued that Huckabee is not the conservative he claims to be. And Huckabee is less well positioned to defend himself from critics due to lack of funds and organization. But what he lacks in that area he compensates for in his ability to garner free media exposure. Huckabee is speaking with reporters and bloggers in conference calls again this morning and has already appeared on at least one cable news channel.

John McCain is looking to turn one of his vulnerabilities into a strength. In a new ad being launched in New Hampshire today, McCain takes on critics he's angered over the years. McCain has been hampered in the GOP primary with his support of campaign finance reform, immigration reform that would allow a path towards citizenship for some and his past battles with social conservatives. In the new ad, McCain allows that he's made some enemies, but focuses on government bueracrats. The script:

"Since I've been in Washington, I've made a lot of people angry. I made defense contractors angry when I blew the whistle on a $30 billion dollar boondoggle and the culprits were sent to jail. I upset the special interests and Washington lobbyists when I passed campaign finance reform. I made the Pentagon angry when I criticized Rumsfeld's Iraq strategy, and I upset the media when I supported the strategy that's now succeeding. I angered the big spenders in Congress when I called for earmark and spending reform. No more $233 million dollar bridges to nowhere or $74 million for peanut storage in a defense spending bill. I didn't go to Washington to win the Mr. Congeniality award. I went to Washington to serve my country. I might not like the business as usual crowd in Washington. But I love America. I love her enough to make some people angry."

A Whole New "Bias" Argument: From CBS News' John Bentley, on the road with the Fred Thompson campaign: Thompson got a little testy with Chris Wallace yesterday on "Fox News Sunday" after Wallace asked him, "Do you know anybody who thinks you've run a great campaign, sir?" Thompson retorted by saying "It's not for me to come here and try to convince you that somebody else thinks that I've run a great campaign." He also said the "constant mantra" of Fox had been highlighting the negatives of his presidential run so far.

But he didn't just go after the host. Thompson reiterated his attacks on Giuliani, saying that when he was mayor of New York City he "apparently felt like gun control was a great idea," and he also took aim at Huckabee. "He did everything he could as governor to keep the state legislature from restricting illegal immigration," he said of the former governor of Arkansas. "He objected when they were arrested."

Attacks on his rivals aside, the reason Thompson appeared on Fox was to roll out his tax plan. The biggest change from the current system is Thompson's plan to offer taxpayers a choice between paying a flat tax - 10% for couples making less than $100,000, 25% if you make more - or sticking with the current system. "This would be a major move towards tax reform, which I think is greatly needed," he said.

Otherwise, Thompson basically pulled together all the tax and economic statements he's been making on the stump for the past two months and laid them out as his tax plan (you can read it here. The basic tenants are: Permanently extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts; Permanently repealing the Death Tax (aka the estate tax); Repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax; Reducing the Corporate Tax Rate from 35 percent to no more than 27 percent; Permanently extending small business expensing and updating and simplifying depreciation schedules.

A More Serious Turn: Huckabee is following up his Chuck Norris ad with a more traditional offering for Iowa voters. In a veiled shot at Mitt Romney, whose positions on core GOP issues like abortion have evolved in recent years, Huckabee makes a pitch for the conservative base. "Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me," he says in the opening. The ad then switches to footage of a Huckabee speech: "I don't have to wake up everyday wondering, 'What do I need to believe?" More from the ad (mixed footage of to-camera statements and speech excerpts): "Let us never sacrifice our principles for anybody's politics. Not now, not ever. … I believe life begins at conception. … We believe in some things. We stand by those things. We live or die by those things."

Around The Track

John Edwards was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee in 2004 but you wouldn't know it from listening to him in 2007. "I've made it a practice not to go back and analyze the campaign," he tells the Des Moines Register. "I don't think there's anything to be gained from it. I don't. I'm sure you can get lots of other people to do it."

If you think the fight over being the first-in-the-nation primary contests is just a silly matter, you will reconsider in light of a Boston Globe analysis which found that Iowa received the seventh highest amount of congressional earmarked appropriations passed earlier this month. Hey presidential candidates, what have you done for Iowa lately?

Which will get older faster for residents of Iowa and New Hampshire – the campaign ads or the holiday shopping ads?

Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hof (of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch) said he'll collect contributions from his customers for libertarian-minded GOP candidate Ron Paul. A spokesman for the Texas congressman says Paul doesn't approve of prostitution personally but added, "it's not the role of federal government and it's not in the constitution for federal government to regulate these things."