OPINION

Obama Can't Win
Against Palin

By KARL ROVE
September 11, 2008; Page A13

Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against "Sarah Barracuda," captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs?

It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president.

AP

Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states.

Adlai Stevenson spent the fall of 1952 bashing Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, calling him "the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation." The Republican ticket carried 39 of 48 states.

If Mr. Obama keeps attacking Mrs. Palin, he could suffer the fate of his Democratic predecessors. These assaults highlight his own tissue-thin résumé, waste precious time better spent reassuring voters he is up for the job, and diminish him -- not her.

Consider Mr. Obama's response to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who asked him about Republican claims that Mrs. Palin beats him on executive experience. Mr. Obama responded by comparing Wasilla's 50 city workers with his campaign's 2,500 employees and dismissed its budget of about $12 million a year by saying "we have a budget of about three times that just for the month." He claimed his campaign "made clear" his "ability to manage large systems and to execute."

Of course, this ignores the fact that Mrs. Palin is now governor. She manages an $11 billion operating budget, a $1.7 billion capital expenditure budget, and nearly 29,000 full- and part-time state employees. In two years as governor, she's vetoed over $499 million from Alaska's capital budget -- more money than Mr. Obama is likely to spend on his entire campaign.

And Mr. Obama is not running his campaign's day-to-day operation. His manager, David Plouffe, assisted by others, makes the decisions about the $335 million the campaign has spent. Even if Mr. Obama is his own campaign manager, does that qualify him for president?

A debate between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin over executive experience also isn't smart politics for Democrats. As Mr. Obama talks down Mrs. Palin's record, voters may start comparing backgrounds. He won't come off well.

ABOUT KARL ROVE

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Then there was Mr. Obama's blast Saturday about Mrs. Palin's record on earmarks. He went at her personally, saying, "you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person."

It's true. Mrs. Palin did seek earmarks as Wasilla's mayor. But as governor, she ratcheted down the state's requests for federal dollars, telling the legislature last year Alaska "cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks." Her budget chief directed state agencies to reduce earmark requests to only "the most compelling needs" with "a strong national purpose," explaining to reporters "we really want to skinny it down."

Mr. Obama has again started a debate he can't win. As senator, he has requested nearly $936 million in earmarks, ratcheting up his requests each year he's been in the Senate. If voters dislike earmarks -- and they do -- they may conclude Mrs. Palin cut them, while Mr. Obama grabs for more each year.

Mr. Obama may also pay a price for his "lipstick on a pig" comment. The last time the word "lipstick" showed up in this campaign was during Mrs. Palin's memorable ad-lib in her acceptance speech. Mr. Obama says he didn't mean to aim the comment at Mrs. Palin, but he deserves all the negative flashback he gets from the snarky aside.

Sen. Joe Biden has now joined the attack on Mrs. Palin, saying this week that her views on issues show she's "obviously a backwards step for women." This is a mistake. Mr. Obama is already finding it difficult to win over independent women and Hillary Clinton voters. If it looks like he's going out of his way to attack Mrs. Palin, these voters may conclude it's because he has a problem with strong women.

In Denver two weeks ago, Mr. Obama said, "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." That's what he's trying to do, only the object of his painting is Sarah Palin, not John McCain.

In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly.

Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

www.ruffcommunications.com

Sarah Palin represents John McCain's new focus on reform

Like Hillary Clinton before him, McCain decides the experience argument is not the way to beat Obama. Palin helps personify his new message.

By Robin Abcarian and Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 1, 2008

ST. PAUL, MINN. -- With his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain is giving his campaign a political makeover: Rather than selling himself as a war hero with national security credentials, he is donning the mantle of the reformer.

The new approach borrows a page from the playbook of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who late in the Democratic primary campaign framed herself as a hero of the struggling middle class.

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McCain, like the New York senator, has apparently decided that being the candidate of experience is not the formula for beating Barack Obama.

The 44-year-old Palin, with her union-member husband, her staunch conservatism on social issues and her limited foreign policy resume, personifies the new McCain theme.

Republicans conceded Sunday that her presence on the ticket undercuts McCain's argument that Democratic rival Obama lacks the experience to lead in a time of war.

But the surprising pick reflects an acknowledgment by McCain that the old strategy needed fixing at a time when economic woes have overshadowed the foreign policy issues that were once seen as the Arizona senator's greatest strength.

"It's a one-two punch," said John Hinderaker, who helps run Power Line, a popular conservative blog.

Hinderaker said he was initially dismayed, thinking that Palin would diminish McCain's experience argument, but said he had begun to feel that she could help the presumptive Republican nominee.

"You have to have the base turning out and motivated," he said, but noted that Palin would also attract blue-collar voters because of her middle-class roots and taste for hunting and fishing.

Many GOP strategists and voters said they were still digesting Palin's selection and what it meant for McCain's chances. New surveys conducted since Friday's announcement were inconclusive about whether she would have a meaningful effect on the vote.

Campaign officials said Palin could help them woo a constituency that was important to Clinton and remains skeptical of Obama -- so-called hockey moms and other working-class voters. And she has already proved effective in energizing evangelical leaders, some of whom had been threatening to withhold support from McCain.

The Palin announcement was a shock to many Republicans, who had expected McCain, a 72-year-old cancer survivor, to choose someone who complemented his strengths and could easily assume the presidency should something happen to him.

But as McCain and Palin wrapped up their first weekend as a team, it was clear the campaign had changed focus. Palin represents the culmination of a weeks-long search for the best way to blunt Obama's themes of hope and change.

And Palin has quickly been thrust from political obscurity into a starring role.

At the Minnesota State Fair, a hub of political culture in this battleground state, the McCain campaign booth was adorned with a large color portrait of the Alaska governor. There was no comparable McCain photo in sight.

And, while top Republicans such as President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney canceled their scheduled appearances tonight at the Republican National Convention, Palin was dispatched to Minnesota at the last minute to rally the party. The symbolism was clear: Palin, a national newcomer, was now a standard-bearer for the party.

"They had to pivot away from experience," said Republican consultant John Weaver, a former McCain advisor. "In a change election, they have to give that up now."

As recently as Wednesday, in the midst of the Democratic National Convention, a McCain television ad dismissed Obama as "dangerously unprepared to be president." But by this weekend, McCain senior advisor Charles Black was downplaying the idea that experience had ever been a central McCain theme. "We never used experience as the big argument," he said.

And Sunday in St. Paul, the site of this week's Republican National Convention, House GOP leader John A. Boehner dismissed the importance of experience.

"We've all started new jobs from time to time in our career," he said. "And most of you can remember the first day that you spent on almost every one of those new jobs. Because when you got it, you thought, 'Oh my God, how am I going to do this?'

"Nobody's qualified on the first day," he continued. "I don't care whether it's Barack Obama or whether it's John McCain sitting in the White House."

McCain, despite more than a year of casting himself as the best-prepared to be commander in chief, used a Fox News interview to describe the nationally unknown Palin as his "soul mate" for her work as a reformer in Alaska.

"In all due respect to my friends [who think] that she has never been on some of the inside-the-Beltway activities, I say thank God," McCain said.

The McCain shift mirrors Clinton's primary campaign tactics when, trailing Obama, she pushed hard to win support from white middle-class voters with whom Obama failed to connect. The change was not enough to help Clinton overcome Obama's advantages, such as his dominance among African American voters excited about his historic candidacy.

McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds insisted Sunday that McCain's themes had been consistent for months, using the catchphrase "reform, prosperity and peace" to describe the agenda adopted by the GOP since it became clear Obama would be the Democratic nominee.

And Bounds said that experience remained an important issue, noting that Clinton's attempts to exploit it failed only in the context of a Democratic primary decided by liberal voters. "Hillary Clinton's arguments . . . were not illegitimate, ill-founded or ineffective," he said. "It was just a different election."

At the Minnesota fair, many said they were impressed by Palin's unusual credentials, but interviews with a number of voters showed it remained uncertain whether her appeal would translate into support for the Republican ticket.

Tamar Fenton, 45, of suburban Minneapolis, said she admired Palin, a mother of five, and was not bothered by the governor's relative lack of experience. "If you can go up against a teenaged kid," said Fenton, "you could go up against a world leader."

Nevertheless, Fenton said, she could not support a candidate such as Palin who opposes abortion rights and gun control.

Times staff writers Bob Drogin, James Hohmann and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.

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The Republicans Find Their Obama

The Republicans Find Their Obama
By FRANK RICH
Published: December 9, 2007

COULD 2008 actually end up being a showdown between the author of "The Audacity of Hope" and the new Man from Hope, Ark.?

It sounds preposterous, but Washington’s shock over Mike Huckabee’s sudden rise in the polls — he "came from nowhere," Robert Novak huffed last week — makes you wonder. Having failed to anticipate so much else, including the Barack Obama polling surge of days earlier, the press pack has proved an unreliable guide to election 2008. What the Beltway calls unthinkable today keeps turning out to be front-page news tomorrow.

The prevailing Huckabee narrative maintains that he’s benefiting strictly from the loyalty of the religious right. Evangelical Christians are belatedly rallying around one of their own, a Baptist preacher, rather than settling for a Mormon who until recently supported abortion rights or a thrice-married New Yorker who still does. But that doesn’t explain Mr. Huckabee’s abrupt ascent to first place in some polling nationwide, where Christian conservatives account for a far smaller slice of the Republican pie than in Iowa. Indeed, this theory doesn’t entirely explain Mr.
Huckabee’s steep rise in Iowa, where Mitt Romney has outspent him 20 to 1, a financial advantage that Mr. Romney leveraged to crush him in the state’s straw poll just four months ago.

What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s "inevitability" among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.

Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology.
An exhausted and disillusioned public may be ready for a replay of the New Frontier pitch of 1960. That pitch won’t come from Mr. Romney, a glib salesman who seems a dead ringer for Don Draper, a Madison Avenue ad man of no known core convictions who works on the Nixon campaign in the TV series, "Mad Men." Mr. Romney’s effort to channel J.F.K. last week, in which he mentioned the word Mormon exactly once, was hardly a profile in courage.

The fact to remember about Mr. Huckabee’s polling spike is that it occurred just after the G.O.P. YouTube debate on CNN, where Mr. Romney and Rudy Giuliani vied to spray the most spittle at illegal immigrants. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the fringe candidate whose most recent ads accuse the invading hordes of "pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives," accurately accused his opponents of trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo."
Next to this mean-spiritedness, Mr. Huckabee’s tone leapt off the screen. Attacked by Mr. Romney for supporting an Arkansas program aiding the children of illegal immigrants, he replied, "In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." It was a winning moment, politically as well as morally. And a no-brainer at that. Given that Mr. Tancredo polls at 4 percent among Iowan Republicans and zero nationally, it’s hard to see why Rudy-Romney thought it was smart to try to out-Tancredo Tancredo.

Mr. Huckabee’s humane stand wasn’t an election-year flip-flop. As governor, he decried a bill denying health services to illegal immigrants as "race-baiting" even though its legislator sponsor was a fellow Baptist preacher. Mr. Huckabee’s record on race in general (and in attracting African-American votes) is dramatically at odds with much of his party. Only last year Republicans brought us both "macaca" and a television ad portraying the black Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr., as a potential despoiler of white women.

Unlike Rudy-Romney, Mr. Huckabee showed up for the PBS presidential debate held at the historically black Morgan State University in September. Afterward, he met Cornel West, an Obama supporter who deeply disagrees with Mr. Huckabee about abortion and much else. I asked Dr. West for his take last week. After effusively praising Mr. Huckabee as unique among the G.O.P. contenders, Dr. West said: "I told him, ‘You are for real.’ Black voters in Arkansas aren’t stupid. They know he’s sincere about fighting racism and poverty."

Though Mr. Romney’s hastily scheduled speech last week has been greeted by Washington as an essential antidote to the religious bigotry that’s supposedly doing him in, this entire issue may be a red herring. Mr. Romney’s Mormonism has hardly been a secret until now, and Mr.
Huckabee’s eagerness to milk his status as a certified "Christian leader" has been equally transparent from the campaign’s start. Was there really a rising tide of anti-Mormon sentiment in Iowa over the past month, or is Mr. Romney just playing victim?

The real reason for Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance may be that his message is simply more uplifting — and, in the ethical rather than theological sense, more Christian — than that of rivals whose main calling cards of fear, torture and nativism have become more strident with every debate. The fresh-faced politics of joy may be trumping the five-o’clock-shadow of Nixonian gloom and paranoia favored by the entire G.O.P. field with the sometime exception of John McCain.

On the same day of Mr. Romney’s speech, two new polls found Mr. Huckabee with a substantial lead over him and Mr. Giuliani in South Carolina, a stunning reversal from a month ago. Don’t be surprised if a desperate Mitt, who has "accidentally" referred to Mr. Obama as "Osama," does desperate things. South Carolina’s 2000 Republican primary was a jamboree of race-baiting that included a whispering campaign branding Senator McCain as the father of an illegitimate black child. The local political operative who worked for George W. Bush in that race and engineered the infamous Bush visit to Bob Jones University is now in Mr. Romney’s employ.

Mr. Huckabee may well be doomed in the long term. He has little money or organization. He’s so ignorant of foreign affairs that he hadn’t heard of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran a day after its release. His sometimes wacky economic populism riles his party’s most important constituency, Wall Street. And who knows how many other Arkansas scandals will be disinterred along with the paroled serial rapist who popped out last week? That Mr. Huckabee has gotten as far as he has shows just how in sync his benign style is with the cultural moment.

To understand why he can’t be completely dismissed, consider last month’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. Peter Hart, the Democratic half of the bipartisan team that conducts the survey, told me in an interview last week that an overwhelming majority of voters of both parties not only want change but also regard "reducing the partisan fighting in government" as high on their agenda. To his surprise, Mr. Hart found that there’s even a majority (59 percent) seeking a president who would help America in "regaining respect around the world."

This climate, of course, favors the Democrats, especially if the Republicans choose a candidate who brands them as the party of rage and fear — and even more especially if their Tancredo-ism drives a large Hispanic turnout for the national Democratic ticket in Florida, Nevada,
Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. But a Democratic victory is not guaranteed. The huge spread in the Journal-NBC poll between an unnamed Democrat and Republican in the presidential race — 50 to 35 percent — shrank to a 1 percent lead when Mrs. Clinton was pitted against Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Obama’s campaign, though hardly the long shot of Mr. Huckabee’s, could also fall short. But the Clinton camp’s panic over his rise in the Iowa polls shows that he’s on the right tactical track.

The more polarizing and negative a candidate turns in style, the more that candidate risks playing Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy. That Mrs. Clinton’s minions would attack Mr. Obama for unseemly ambition because he wrote a kindergarten report called "I Want to Become President" — and then snidely belittle the press for falling for "a joke" once this gambit backfired — is Rudy-Romneyesque in its vituperative folly.

Experience, like nastiness, may also prove a dead end in the year ahead. In 1960, the experience card was played by all comers against the young upstart senator from Massachusetts. In Iowa, L.B.J. went so far as to tell voters that they should vote for "a man with a little gray in his hair." But experience, Kennedy would memorably counter, "is like taillights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be focusing on where we should be going."

The most experienced candidate in 2008 is not Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney in any case. It’s Mr. McCain, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson who have the longest résumés. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama, meanwhile, are both betting that this is another crossroads, like 1960, when Americans are hungry for a leader who will refocus the nation on the path ahead.

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Mortgage rate freeze reached

Mortgage rate freeze reached
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
Thu Dec 6, 6:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Distraught homeowners facing the grim prospect their monthly mortgage payments soon will surge found hope Thursday they can hold onto their houses by qualifying for a five-year freeze in loan rates.

The plan is the Bush administration's biggest move yet to show it is dealing aggressively with the mortgage crisis. The escalating problem is becoming a political issue and threatening to push the country into a recession.

"The holidays are fast approaching and this will be a time of anxiety for Americans worried about their mortgages and their homes," Bush said. The administration's efforts, he said, are "a sensible response to a serious challenge."

The initiative would hold down rates for certain subprime mortgages, which are loans offered to borrowers with spotty credit histories. These loans offer initial "teaser" rates for the first two to three years before rates climb sharply, potentially increasing monthly payments by as much as 30 percent.

Bush released his plan on a day the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that the number of mortgages entering the foreclosure process in the July-September period set a record. Behind those foreclosures is a steep slump in the housing market. After a five-year boom, home sales are plunging and prices declining in many parts of the country. More foreclosures mean more homes dumped on a glutted market.

The housing slump has caused multibillion-dollar losses at some of the largest banks and investment firms and roiled financial markets. All these problems are expected to drag down economic growth to near recession levels over the final three months of this year and into early 2008.

The administration hopes the rate freeze will slow the pace of foreclosures, buying time for the housing market to stabilize and begin to recover. A rebound in sales and home prices will allow struggling homeowners to switch their current adjustable-rate mortgages to more affordable fixed-rate loans.

Disabled veteran Jerry Alberson, 48, said he hopes he will qualify. He has a $180,000 mortgage on a two-story lakefront house in northern Mississippi that he has spent years gutting and remodeling.

"That freeze will definitely help," he said. "I'm not asking them to give me anything, just some time out."

At his White House announcement, Bush insisted the country's underlying economic fundamentals were sound. But critics said his administration was slow in reacting to the housing crisis and the delay had worsened the slump. Some contended Bush's plan was too narrowly focused.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards cited his proposal for a freeze on any more foreclosures. That is intended to pressure lenders to renegotiate.

"Our nation is facing a housing crisis that could cost millions of families their homes, devastate neighborhoods and seriously damage our economy," Edwards said in a statement. "The Bush plan is months late and more than a million families short."

Bush pointed blame at the Democratic-controlled Congress. Lawmakers, he said, have failed to act on various housing proposals from the administration. One would expand the ability of the Federal Housing Administration to help low and moderate-income borrowers.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans have blocked efforts to get House-passed bills through the Senate in recent weeks.

Sen. Charles Schumer, who has sought a bolder government response, said Bush's mortgage freeze may help but is not a panacea. "There are too many families who have been left out, too much left up to the voluntary willingness of the private sector and too little disclosure and transparency to ensure that families who do qualify are being helped," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

The administration said its plan could help 1.2 million homeowners — either through a freeze or quicker ways to assist homeowners refinance. The Center for Responsible Lending, which battles predatory lending, estimated that only 145,000 homeowners would qualify for the freeze because the criteria are too narrow.

Bush said homeowners concerned about mortgages that are about to jump up should seek help before they fall behind in their payments. For starters, they can call a new hot line operated by an industry alliance known as HOPE NOW: 1-888-995-HOPE.

An estimated 1.8 million homes have subprime mortgages that are scheduled to reset in the next two years. Those mortgages were initially taken out with rates of around 7 percent to 8 percent. Under the scheduled increases, the rates will climb as high as 11 percent in the months ahead without the freeze. That increase could add an additional $350 to a typical monthly mortgage payment of $1,200.

The freeze will be available only to homeowners who have not fallen behind on their payments at the lower introductory rates and who are living in the homes. This requirement would exclude people who bought investment properties hoping to profit from the housing boom.

Also excluded are people who can afford the higher payments. The administration expects these people will move as soon as they can to refinance to more affordable fixed-rate loans.

The administration also highlighted other efforts aimed at dealing with the mortgage crisis and strengthening efforts to attack predatory lending, which critics say was a primary culprit in luring people into mortgages they could not afford.

The Federal Reserve will announce stronger lending standards this month, while the Housing and Urban Development Department and federal banking regulators are acting to improve disclosure requirements, Bush said.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the proposals were a "welcome step in helping Americans protect their homes and communities from the consequences of unnecessary foreclosures." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who led the weeks of negotiations with the mortgage industry, said the new approach is "not a silver bullet" but should provide significant relief.

The big sticking point in the negotiations was getting investors who had purchased the mortgages after they were bundled into securities to agree to lower interest payments. Critics have said even with a deal, there are likely to be lawsuits although the plan's supporters said they believed it will withstand legal challenges.

George Miller, executive director of the American Securitization Forum, which represents companies that package mortgages into mortgage-backed securities, told reporters he expected the industry would face suits from investors unhappy that the original terms of the mortgages have been modified.

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Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Monday, December 03, 2007

If the current round of Huck-a-mania is nothing more than Mike Huckabee’s fifteen minutes of fame, the former Arkansas Governor is certainly making the most of it. Today, in the first full round of national polling completed since last week’s “debate” among Republican Presidential hopefuls, Huckabee has pulled to within three points of the frontrunning Rudy Giuliani. Heading into the debate, Giuliani led Huckabee by twelve.

Not only that, new polling data released today shows that Huckabee has pulled to within a single percentage point of Hillary Clinton in a general election match-up. Huckabee is also a frontrunner in Iowa and essentially tied for second in New Hampshire. Some pundits believe Huckabee’s numbers will surely go down as fast as they’ve gone up while others are beginning to consider the possibility that the bass-guitar playing Governor may become a serious contender for the Republican nomination.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Giuliani with 20% support nationwide while Huckabee attracts 17%. Fred Thompson is at 14%, John McCain at 13% and Mitt Romney at 11%. Ron Paul attracts 7% of Likely Republican Primary voters nationwide and no other Republican candidate reaches 2% (see recent daily numbers). During the past week, three events—a debate, an endorsement, and Huck-a-mania—have created new challenges and uncertainties for the GOP frontrunners.

Rudy Giuliani is still seen as the most electable Republican. McCain, Romney, and Huckabee are essentially tied for second in this category.

Results for the Presidential Tracking Poll are obtained through nightly telephone interviews and reported on a four-day rolling average basis. Today is the first update for which all of the interviews were conducted following Wednesday’s Republican debate.

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Clinton now attracts 37% of the vote while Barack Obama earns 24%. John Edwards remains in third place among the Democratic hopefuls at 15%, Bill Richardson is the top choice for 6%, and no other Democratic candidate tops 3% (see recent daily numbers).

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Democrats believe that Clinton is at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated. That’s down from 81% a month ago. Sixty-six percent (66%) believe Obama is at least somewhat likely to win it all and 58% say the same about Edwards.
New polling on general election match-ups released over the weekend shows Obama tied with McCain, in a toss-up with Giuliani, and leading both Thompson and Romney.

Other polling released yesterday shows that just 23% believe the United States is heading in the right direction. Women are more pessimistic than men.

Also, during the month of November, 37.3% of Americans identified themselves as Democrats while 32.6% considered themselves Republicans. Those figures are virtually unchanged from October, are a bit better for the GOP than November 2006, but represent a significant decline in the number of Republicans since President Bush’s re-election.

See Rasmussen Reports general election match-ups and other key stats for all Republican and Democratic candidates.

The Rasmussen Reports Election 2008 Presidential Tracking Poll is updated daily. Today is the first day of regular weekend updates.

Daily tracking results are from survey interviews conducted over four days ending last night. Each update includes approximately 750 Likely Democratic Primary Voters and 600 Likely Republican Primary Voters. Margin of sampling error for each is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Rasmussen Reports provides a weekly analysis of both the Republican and Democratic race each Monday.

Each Monday, full week results are released based upon a seven-day rolling average. While the daily tracking result are useful for measuring quick reaction to events in the news, the full week results provide an effective means for evaluating longer-term trends.
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.

The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.

This survey includes approximately 750-800 Likely Democratic Primary Voters and 600-650 Likely Republican Primary Voters. Margin of sampling error for each is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

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America's Mayor is on a Roll November 9, 2007

November 09, 2007
America's Mayor Is on a Roll
By Lawrence Kudlow

While Hillary Clinton is slipping in the polls, Rudy Giuliani is on a roll. This is a big swing of momentum. Even the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll puts the two frontrunners in a dead heat.

Sen. Clinton was hurt badly by her flip-flopping performance in last month's Democratic debate. America's mayor, on the other hand, just got a hugely important endorsement from the Rev. Pat Robertson. The message to social conservatives is clear: It's now OK to vote for Rudy.

Why Rudy? Robertson named out-of-control federal spending, appointing conservative judges, reducing crime and, perhaps most importantly, "the overriding issue (of) defending against (the) bloodlust of Islamic terrorists," as issues that strongly favor Giuliani. On the other hand, he called abortion -- something of a sticky subject for Giuliani -- "only one issue" of importance.
The endorsement also suggests that evangelicals are divided on 2008. Indeed, there's no monolithic movement in favor of any major candidate. This is critical. It means no third-party candidacy from the Christian right.

Recall that Bill and Hillary Clinton benefited enormously in 1992 when Ross Perot swiped 19 percent of the vote (most of those Republican) in the race against Papa Bush. And when Perot ran again in '96, he undoubtedly drained votes from Sen. Bob Dole. (I note that Bill Clinton didn't garner 50 percent of the vote in either of these elections.) But Robertson has very likely removed this dynamic. No third-party gifts for Hillary in 2008.

Robertson is a big score for Giuliani, right when he's gaining ground on Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. That said, Romney is still up 15 points in New Hampshire, according to Scott Rasmussen's poll, and 9.5 points, as per the RealClearPolitics average. So you know what? Good for Romney.

To be very clear, I am not picking sides here. I do think Romney is running a strong campaign. And he's gaining strength as a candidate. I also think John McCain is finding his sea legs on the campaign trail. Romney, McCain and Giuliani are all strengthening what they say and how they say it. But at this writing, Giuliani appears to be at the top of his game.

When I interviewed him last week on CNBC, it marked the fourth time we had sat down together this year. But something was different. Giuliani was more in command of a wide breadth of issues, while there was a lot less talk about his considerable accomplishments as mayor of New York City.

For example, when I asked him what a President Giuliani would do to prop up the sagging dollar, he immediately reeled off a series of proposals: Cut spending, and stop the earmarks. Deregulate wherever possible. Curb the stranglehold of Sarbanes-Oxley on the securities market. Make sure there's no new Sarbox for home-loan mortgage credits. Keep the trial lawyers from launching class-action lawsuits against mortgage-security investors, which would only cripple housing credit in the future. Restore confidence in the economy by stopping Charlie Rangel's mother-of-all-tax-hikes proposal.

That was some list. He also came out for cutting the corporate income tax -- both as a pro-growth job creator and as a way to boost the sagging fortunes of the dollar. He's right on both counts. In particular, he was emphatic about reducing the corporate tax so we can better compete with Europe (read the euro).

Grow the economy. Create more jobs. Strengthen worker wages. Giuliani was on fire. In fact, at the end of the interview, as we were walking off the set, he confided in me that he would suggest an immediate corporate-tax-cut proposal to President Bush. Giuliani wants results. And he knows he can win.

"I can beat her," Giuliani said. "I can run in key states other Republicans can't run in. That's why Democrats are attacking me."

I still believe that it's a strong Republican field. And I still believe Hillary Clinton's message of heavy spending, middle-class entitlements and higher taxes is a Mondale-era loser. But there's no doubt about it, America's mayor is on a roll.

Lawrence Kudlow is a former Reagan economic advisor, a syndicated columnist, and the host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company. Visit his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics.

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