Dogs and Cats Playing Together

Remember when I said having PA be uncommitted at the national GOP convention was a political 80% issue?  For a review of what I mean by 80% issue click on the video below to learn from Newt.

It appears both Arlen Specter  [HT Pennsyltucky] and Rick Santorum believe PA’s delegates ought to remain uncommitted.

If this issue can bring concurrence between those two, I think we should take it to the middle east when we’re done here.

More Asher and Rudy Talk

While I was off at a professional conference I missed this ABC story— brought to my attention by Josh at The Morning Call– suggesting that Team Giuliani is trying to square a tricky circle with Bob Asher.

Some people– ahem– suggested months ago that aligning with Asher may be politically necessary, but perhaps less than ideal.  For those who’s memories need refreshing, Asher did time in the big house for his participation in the corruption scandal that make public suicide an attractive option to Bud Dwyer.

Since then, Asher has somewhat rehabilitated his image.  He is still a major PA rainmaker, participating intimately in the Kean, Ridge, Specter, and Bush II organizations.  For a time, it appeared he would have some sort of official role with the Giuliani campaign as well.

Well, it appears the campaign is trying to place some distance between Hizzoner and Asher, which is probably wise, even though it was probably wise for him to solicit Asher’s help in the first place.  One wonders, though.  Giuliani’s popularity has always been high in the Keystone State.  Given this, perhaps Asher’s help could have been less vigorously sought.

Of course, there always something to be said from addition by subtraction.  At least Asher wasn’t out raising money for someone elsewhile he was arranging fundraising events in the Philadelphia suburbs for Giuliani.

Open Primaries

I was looking at a NH poll today showing Mayor Giuliani lagging behind Romney– which was a bummer as Hizzoner had tightened things up there during the last round of polls– and saw that the bulk of independent voters in NH still aren’t sure which primary they’ll vote in.

They get to make that choice as NH has an open primary: You don’t have to be registered as a member of the same party in who’s primary you’d like to cast a ballot.  I think this bodes will for Giuliani.  The GOP race will be more comeptitive, and hence should draw more independent voters.  I bet Giuliani is very strong with that crowd.  I have not seen commentary regarding this.

As a matter of theory I don’t know how I feel about this.  On the one hand, we are a de facto two party system, if not a de jure one.  I used to be a registered libertarian, and one of the main reasons I now am a registered member of the GOP– and now a ward leader– was I became sick of having no voice in the primaries.  It was a real bummer to be unable to cast a ballot against Arlen Specter…

On the other hand, though, political parties are private organizations.  Now, I think it might be difficult for the Dems to restrict their primary to only illegal immigrants, and for the GOP to restrict theirs to men named Cleetus.  Still, as private organizations I instinctively support their rights to handle their affairs however they want.

I do wonder, though, if Giuliani’s fight for the GOP nod would pretty much be fait accompli if all states had open primaries.  It would certainly be the case here in the Commonwealth of PA.

It’s a problem as old as the GOP, actually.  The primaries are the place where minority factions carry the most water.  But does this end up giving us the best possible candidates for a general election?  Ronald Reagans aren’t very commonplace…

Squaring the PA GOP Circle

Take a look at this piece if you have a moment.  It reports on events in Bucks County, where a GOP Township Supervisor sent an e-mail to PA Reps urging them to lean on “courthouse employees and consultants” for help in registering new GOP voters.It went on to point out “Many people owe their jobs to GOP leadership…Professionals, consultants, contractors, and loyal GOP supporters have benefited handsomely.”

This seems to me entirely typical of the behaviour of PA’s GOP leadership.  This is exactly the sort of thing that motivates so many in the GOP grassroots to dislike their own party’s alleged leaders.  In what definition of conservatism does it make sense to view government as a gravy train for “professionals, consultants, and contractors”?

Even if it sadly represents political reality, to what levels of corruption has this guy sunk that it seems normal to explicitly point it out in a freaking e-mail?  I am not saying it was merely impolitic, I am suggesting that this level of logrolling is so endemic that Supervisor Vincent Deon must have found it unremarkable.

Oddly, though, the GOP leadership is still, in fact, the GOP leadership.  So campaigns like Giuliani’s must out of political necessity make allies of these corrupt cronies.  At the same time, though, presidential campaigns must realize the most motivated GOP voters are NOT allies of this cabal.

How does a campaign square this circle in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?  It seems the Giuliani campaign enjoys a natural affinity with the grassroots, so they have spent a fair amount of time cultivating the established leadership.  In this Commonwealth, at least, they would do well to slowly put the breaks on the latter before it alienates the former.

Pat Toomey & Club for Growth on Giuliani

The Club for Growth has recently released another white paper discussing Giuliani’s role as a fiscal conservative who led New York City out of a financial death spiral.  A man from Pennsylvania who will not be mistaken for a notorious liberal– social or fiscal– recently wrote a piece summarizing that paper for National Review Online.  You can find Pat Toomey’s remarks for NRO here, and the original Club for Growth white paper here.

This is not a hagiography.  The Club obviously is critical of Giuliani’s support for publicly financed baseball stadiums, and also his instinct there’s something wrong with the way we run our elections.  On the latter I happen to agree.  McCain / Feingold certainly isn’t the answer, but I am not aware of anyone who can long make a straight-faced case that it is ideal to have a two-year long presidential election fueled by more than a billion dollars mostly from the well-heeled.

The Club makes seems to make the case, though, that Giuliani is clearly the presidential candidate with the strongest economic bona fides.  They also point out something that is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine:  The media and political environment in which he effected his conservative agenda was the most hostile one possible in the country.  Therefore:

“…[O]ne cannot help but conclude that if Giuliani could accomplish the pro-growth record he did in the hostile environment of New York City, the potential for him to accomplish even more amid the more politically balanced federal government is great.”

This is obviously great for the campaign nationally.  It is also great for the campaign here in Pennsylvania.  Pat Toomey’s failed coup against Arlen Specter was the cause célèbre arguably responsible for the coalescence of grassroots conservatism in PA.  The Toomey movement has morphed into a dominating constituency in Pennsylvania conservative politics as represented by the PALC crowd.  This piece is obviously an indication that an official Toomey endorsement is possible, and such an endorsement would be huge for Giuliani here in the Commonwealth when it comes to securing the GOP nomination.

Pennsylvania Leadership Conference

I will be attending a conservative confab called the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference this Saturday.  Can’t make it Friday, unfortunately, so I will miss Laura Ingraham.  I will only be a guerrilla advocate for the Mayor while there as the campaign will not have a formalized presence.  They were not able to make the scheduling work, although I know there were a number of folks that really wanted the mayor to make an appearance.

The only presidential candidate who will be appearing is one who has not announced:  Newt.  If Pennsylvania had a relevant primary I’m sure GOP candidates would all be there.  Alas, our Governor and General Assembly seem unperturbed by the fact I have little say in who my party elects to run the Free World.  I think we can charitably say they have embraced the delegative notion of democracy over the representative.  They think it would be best for all of us if they choose the respective nominees.  We voters may make rash decisions that interfere with their fiscal liquidity.

I’m looking forward to hearing Newt speak.  When he’s not trying to suck up to a debate opponent he is rather compelling.  I could have been a Newt supporter, except for the fact that he is totally unelectable in a general election.  That’s the price a politician has to pay for infuriating half the world and most of the media by successfully breaking the Democrat’s death grip on the Federal legislative branch.

My other goal while there will be looking for business opportunities.  I don’t mean this in the sleazy, backscratching way which is all too common in both parties.  Instead, what I have discovered is I like being involved in politics, and would like to find a way to subsidize my new habit.  In real life I am a PR, marketing, and sales consultant.  As such, I create case studies, white papers, press releases and marketing materials.  I also do competitive intelligence projects, market research, phone room management, cold calling, PR solicitations, and secure speaking engagements for my clients.

It occurred to me this skill set is pretty much exactly what is required for a political operative, and the Lord knows our politics could use more honest and results-oriented conservatives like myself.  Our politics, I think, could also use an elevation in tone.  So while at the conference I will be seeing if there are any local candidates who would like to hire my consultancy on a reasonable project basis.  I suspect a little professionalism could go a long way towards doing things like unseating State Senator Dinniman, who cannot be bothered to tell one of his constituents where he stands on moving up the PA primary.

Or maybe Pat Toomey will need some help running for the Governor’s office?  Or I could lend a hand to whoever will try and keep Arlen Specter honest in the GOP primary?

I will have a report upon my return late Saturday night.  Or Sunday.  We’ll see.

Romney’s Heavy PA Hitter

Interesting interview from Josh with Charles Kopp, the new tip of Mitt Romney’s financial spear here in Pennsylvania.  I hereby submit this slogan for Josh’s work:  Keeping primary sources available for this blog’s exploitation 24/7.  Writing here near-daily would be impossible without him.

Interesting things about background on Kopp not from the interview:

Likes to write four-figure checks for Arlen Specter.

Former big cheese at law firm WolfBlock [formerly Wolf, Block, Schorr, and Solis-Cohen], arguably the most politically keyed in law firm here in Pennsylvania.  It is probably important to note the most influential Philadelphia law firm nationally is probably Blank, Rome.  I think a bunch of those guys are for Edwards.

Kopp is bi-partisan with his financial donations, having also sent money to former Congressman Bill Gray, Clinton’s advisor on Haitan affairs.  Happened to sit on the corporate boards of Dell, JP Morgan Chase, and Rockwell International at the time.  Gray retired from the House to run the United Negro College Fund.

We learn Kopp organized Romney’s first major fund-raiser at the Union League.  Charlie seems to think this helped people see Romney in an intimate environment.  While I acknowledge the League’s membership doesn’t quite run Philadelphia the way it used to, I think that venue really just comfortingly murmurs “insider” to those inclined to find that message comforting.

[Aside:  I happen to find Union League events delightful in an old-school sort of way, even though most people tend to find it stuffy, even oppressive.  Of course, some people find me stuffy, exhibiting mannerisms and habits of a bygone age.  I am conservative after all!  Those of you unfamiliar with the club may know it from the movie “Trading Places”.  It is the home club of the patrician Duke brothers from which Dan Ackroyd’s character was ejected after being framed for stealing.]

More re. Rudy, Specter, and John Lindsay

A commenter in the post below makes the case that Specter is influential in Washington, but can’t deliver votes in PA.  He also remarks that given some comments Rudy Giuliani has made in the past praising John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller, maybe Giuliani is really just trying to be the RINO candidate of choice.

Given Giuliani’s perceived squishiness on social issues this is a line of thinking that is prevalant.  I think the commenter misunderstands Specter’s influence, though, and also misunderstands both the strength of Giuliani’s conservative record and the context in which is was achieved.

First off, many conservatives are so repulsed by Arlen Specter that the only democrat they regularly vote for is whoever runs against him.  The commenter, in fact, is one of those people.  I will refer to my right to a private ballot on that matter.  This makes conservatives likely to underestimate his influence.  He may have only narrowly beaten Toomey, but he did defeat him.  And he has been reelected to the Senate for a quarter century.  So he clearly can attract, and potentially deliver, voters.  We should not get ahead of ourselves, but this would be especially true in the general election as many voters mistake self-serving iconoclasm for moderation and wisdom.  As for being suspicious of politicians that associate with Arlen, I don’t imagine conservatives ever mistook Santorum for a squishy RINO, but he campaigned for Specter against Toomey.  Why do you think that was?

Re. Lindsay, I think you can probably deduce from Giuliani’s positive remarks about that failed mayor and also Rockefeller– documented here in the George Marlin column the commenter brought to my attention– as an acknowledgment that there are many New Yorkers who still picture those Republicans as idealists who just wanted to do the right thing.  This view is especially prevalent among registered democrats that can theoretically be persuaded to vote Republican.  Besides, it seems déclassé to most people when a politician speaks uncharitably of the aging or dead.  Especially former leaders of your own party.

Remember, those remarks were made in the heady days of “compassionate conservatism”, a misguided attempt to counter constant epistles in the press asserting Republicans were crypto-fascists that hated the poor, blacks, latinos, gays, etc.  New York City, of course, is arguably the tap-root from which such calumnies grow.  There is nothing wrong with attempting to mitigate the impact of those lies by paying homage to people like Rockefeller and Lindsay to whom those lies clearly don’t apply.

Finally, a politically neutral argument can be made that a flat-tax revision to federal tax policy would indeed make the life of a major metropolitan mayor very,very difficult.  As a representative of of the people of New York it is entirely appropriate for a Mayor Giuliani to be suspicious of such potential revisions.  Of course, he is not running for Mayor of New York City any more, is he?  The same mistake is made by critics of Giuliani’s Second Amendment position.  One’s priorities as the nation’s most prominent law enforcement executive are different than those of the President of the United States.  This is not vacillation, this is executive leadership.  If someone has a problem with that, their problem is with the federal model of representative government.

Again, Giuliani’s record speaks for itself.  Did he run NYC like Lindsay?  No.  Is there a better example– or record– of fiscally conservative executive governance in the GOP field?  No.  Is there a better example of executive competence generally in the GOP field?  Some may say Romney is close, but I don’t agree.  So no.

Specter and Guiliani

I cannot tell you how unsurprised I am that Arlen Specter will likely attempt to ride both strong horses in PA GOP presidential politics for as long as he can.  Arlen was seen at a Giuliani fundraiser in DC some weeks ago.  Josh at The Morning Call recently noticed him blowing some kisses in McCain’s direction.

I can assure you Specter will eventually endorse whichever candidate can do the most for Specter, or whatever candidate becomes the prohibitive favorite in the Commonwealth, whichever he can determine first.  If it were up to the voters, Giuliani would likely become that prohibitive favorite.  As of right now, though, the voters have nothing to do with it, and McCain is a fellow senator.  So Specter will need to be coy for a bit.

Remember, Arlen is already running for reelection in 2010 when he’ll be approaching both the institutional persistence and plummeting relevancy of Strom Thurmond in his later days.  So any endorsement from him will be entirely determined by the effects that endorsement will have on the propagation of Arlen, Inc.

Of course, in the US Senate mental acumen, loyalty, and competence pale in comparison to seniority when it comes to acquiring influence and power.  While I’m not so sure we voters are on the right end of this Faustian bargain with Specter– just ask the former employees of the Willow Grove Naval Air Station– Arlen is a heavy, heavy hitter with insiders.  An endorsement from him would carry a great deal of water for the Giuliani campaign, so I hope they can woo him.

More State GOP Support: Charlie Roberts

The other news from the piece linked here, at least it was news to me, is that Charlie Roberts has officially endorsed Rudy Giuliani.  He is a committeeman and activist from Bethlehem Township, and this certainly bodes well for the campaign.  It seems Giuliani has been racking up support in PA from party leadership elements that one, perhaps, would have expected to go to more insider candidates.  Especially McCain.

McCain may feel like this is still “spring training” , as he was saying a month ago and reiterated on a blogger conference call yesterday, but this cycle has started.  And the Phillies know all about how a crappy April can sink you for the rest of the season.  [see, politics and baseball again]

I don’t know much about committeeman Roberts, except for the fact he is a Specter guy.  So the day after Steve Forbes joins the Giuliani campaign he lines up a local supporter of Arlen Specter.  Giuliani’s tent is big, and if I were the other GOP candidates I would be pretty sure at this point that his early polling is not a name recognition hiccup.  It is, rather, a confirmation that Giuliani isthe clear frontrunner in the race, able to garner support from diverse constituencies within the GOP with his leadership and his message.