RK ARCHIVE - Republican Insiders on the Most Electable Democrat in 2008

Even more striking were the comments. Remember, these are by Republican "insiders" in Congress:

*"I don't want to have to run against Clinton. It's easy to make fun of her and dismiss her as polarizing. But the people who hate her aren't going to vote for Edwards or Biden, either."

""Senator Clinton will be very, very difficult to beat. Even her recent steadfast refusal to apologize for the war vote, though unpopular with some liberals, is both correct and shows some backbone. If the war is going as poorly as it is now, the Republicans don't have a chance of winning."

*"All [Hillary Clinton] has to do is hold the Kerry '04 states and win Ohio and New Mexico -- definitely in the realm of the possible."

*"Edwards, as a populist Southerner, would pose the greatest threat to our electoral base in the South and West."

*"Hillary is as much about the past as the future. Obama, in contrast, is defined as a change agent -- something folks are hungry for."

Fascinating. By the way, 39% of Democratic "insiders" said that Rudy Giuliani would be the strongest Republican candidate, followed by Mitt Romney (20%) and John McCain (17%). McCain fell from 73% in December 2006!

Comments

Interesting, but... (Kindler - 3/24/2007 8:40:04 PM)

I'm not so sure I trust the judgement of Washington insiders.

Did they include Bob Shrum, who advised a half-dozen Democratic presidential candidates to failure? Jim Carville, who blamed Howard Dean for mismanagement the day after the Democrats swept the last election? Ed Gillespie, Dick Wadhams and the other Republican insiders who helped George Allen plummet from presidential contender to national embarrasment?

Sometimes the remarkable thing about Washington insiders is how removed from common sense and reasonable judgement they really are. And the way that the Dem insiders downgraded McCain from 73% to 17% tells me that there's something of a herd mentality going on here too.

From National Journal (Lowell - 3/24/2007 8:46:46 PM)

GOP Insiders Dan Allen, Stan Anderson, Gary Andres, Saulius "Saul" Anuzis, Rich Ashooh, Whit Ayres, Brett Bader, Mitch Bainwol, Gary Bauer, David Beckwith, Wayne Berman, Charlie Black, Kirk Blalock, Carmine Boal, Jeff Boeyink, Jeff Buley, Luke Byars, Nick Calio, Danny Carroll, Jim Cicconi, Jake Corman, Greg Crist, Diane Crookham-Johnson, Rick Davis, Mike Dennehy, Ken Duberstein, Steve Duprey, Debi Durham, Frank Fahrenkopf, John Feehery, Don Fierce, Carl Forti, Alex Gage, Sam Geduldig, David Girard-diCarlo, Bill Greener, Lanny Griffith, Janet Mullins Grissom, Doug Gross, Steve Hart, Ralph Hellmann, Chris Henick, Clark Judge, David Keating, David Kensinger, Bruce Keough, Bob Kjellander, Ed Kutler, Chris Lacivita, Jim Lake, Chuck Larson, Steve Lombardo, Joel Maiola, Mary Matalin, Dan Mattoon, Bill McInturff, Mark McKinnon, Kyle McSlarrow, Ken Mehlman, Jim Merrill, Mike Murphy, Terry Nelson, Neil Newhouse, David Norcross, Ziad Ojakli, Jack Oliver, Van B. Poole, Tom Rath, Scott Reed, David Rehr, Steve Roberts, David Roederer, Ed Rogers, Dan Schnur, Russ Schriefer, Rich Schwarm, Brent Seaborn, Rick Shelby, Andrew Shore, Don Sipple, Javier Soto, Fred Steeper, Bob Stevenson, Eric Tanenblatt, Heath Thompson, Jay Timmons, Warren Tompkins, Dirk van Dongen, Jan van Lohuizen, Dick Wadhams, John Weaver, Dave Winston, and Ginny Wolfe.

All how you see it (Nick Stump - 3/24/2007 11:15:37 PM)

I'd say the candidate you're supporting now has a lot to do with how you feel about this National Journal piece. The point about Hillary not apologizing shows strength is interesting to me. I've never really understood why some on the left are so hung up on this apology. Is this the Obama campaign? It's not a real issue. A bunch of Democrats were sucked into this mess, and even the bastion of the so-called liberal press, the Gray Lady, was suckered over this war. If Hillary Mea Culpas now, she's just rolling over. She has a reasonable position on this war, probably not that far from Jim Webb's. They all want out, and the question is: How are we gonna get out. It's a big question and there are no simple answers. Easy to get in. Even Bush could do it, but it's hard to get out right.

I take the listed Republicans at their word, and think they do fear Hillary more than anyone and say what you want, but the people on that list have won more elections than we have over the last few years. Though some of them are the worst sort of curs, they know the politics of a Presidential race and they understand how important it is to know your enemy. That's something we Democrats rarely get.

I'm still waiting for the punchline.... (Detcord - 3/25/2007 10:07:05 AM)

"They all want out, and the question is: How are we gonna get out. It's a big question and there are no simple answers. Easy to get in. Even Bush could do it, but it's hard to get out right."

Bingo! OK, we all want it to be over and we all want young Americans home and safe. What I'm waiting to hear from any of them is the "Then what?" piece to this puzzle. Without closing the loop and tieing a plan to victory and success, an incomplete solution seems worse than a simply bad solution. Simply leaving fixes nothing.

Clark vs. Giuliani: Clark wins (Bernie Quigley - 3/25/2007 1:27:58 PM)

This second comments - "If the war is going as poorly as it is now, the Republicans don't have a chance of winning." - is instructive. Giuliani is now the ideal Republican candidate. He can continue to rail against the running of the Iraq war taking down Bush as well as McCain, but defending 9/11 as well. He is the hero of 9/11 and has no culpability for the incompetence in the running of this war. McCain and Hillary Clinton, more than any in the Senate, are as culpable as Bush - only Lieberman promoted this disaster as much as they did and they were supposed to provide leadership. Giuliani only needs the nomination; the election is his in a landslide vs. pseudo-New Yorker Clinton. 'Bout Semptember, when Giuliani is 15 points ahead of McCain, the Dems will finally come out of Cloud Cookooland and realize they will be losing all 50 states to him because the Yankee hat never fit their candidate. They will draft Wesley Clark. Only Clark can and will beat Giuliani.

Machinations are in the background (Rebecca - 3/25/2007 3:08:51 PM)

I think there are a lot of machinations going on now among those who think they run the country from the shadows. These are the folks who try to countrol both parties. I'm worried about vote tampering. There was massive fraud in the 2006 election, just not enough to counteract the landslide for the Democrats. The software for the election went out about 6 weeks before "the great tear down" was in full swing so the odds had changed by election time.

I fear we have all gone to sleep again on this issue because the Democrats took the Congress. Virginia is not as much as risk as some other states because we don't use a central tabulator connected electronically to the precincts. Other states are no the same. Several lawsuits are pending against individuals in Ohio over vote fraud. In short, as long as private contrators and political operatives control the elections, and their methods are secret, we are screwed.

Wesley who? (Detcord - 3/26/2007 9:07:09 PM)

That's a little too much fantasy-land even for me. There's a reason Clark fell of the face of the earth and I doubt we'll see him (politically) much again except as a talking head. Just an opinion I suppose but he puts me to sleep faster than Al Haig did...zzzzzzzz.

You've been seeing Clark politically since 2004 (vadem - 3/26/2007 10:23:37 PM)

You may not have been paying attention, but his political effort for many candidates during the '06 campaign was widely touted with helping to turn the tide in Congress. He made it a priority; in Montana with John Tester he was the only Democrat (of those who are currently running) invited and welcomed. Clark will be integral in Democratic politics and many think he's likely to run again and will be there to work for him.

Clark's political relevance (vadem - 3/26/2007 10:38:19 PM)

Meant to include this in my previous post. Take a gander at Wes Clark's recent political contributions, then explain how he "fell from the face of the earth politically."

http://corner.nation...

He's not done yet. Take it to the bank.

Nothing inconistent here... (Detcord - 3/26/2007 11:41:50 PM)

...and I really hope it wasn't taken the wrong way. Sure he's very active behind the scenes although without the Iraq war he'd be without portfolio like most retired generals. The original claim was he'd win vis-avis Guiliani and i just don't see it. I still think he has the charisma and personality of sawdust and, as the attached article of yours clearly shows, his biggest contributions are off camera and behind the scenes. It'd be like Mondale all over again.

WE Are The DECIDERS (Lee Diamond - 3/25/2007 4:54:16 PM)

Thank you very much, but we will be making this decision. We should demand, through this website and every other available source:

Frequent candidate appearances at open forums with lots of time for questions. Candidates who are afraid of the public should not bother to run for office.

The key is to talk for 15 minutes and then stop. Take questions/comments.

The record will show that letting elites make these decisions does NOT work.

Lets have a real nominating process where real people have an opportunity to raise their concerns.