After Fred Thompson’s mediocre showing in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary — which his campaign said was a “must win†— it wasn’t surprising that he dropped out of the presidential race today. Despite initial support from conservative Republicans and the endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, Thompson’s campaign never got going, in part because of perceptions that Thompson rarely got going. One campaign insider complained to the Washington Post: “His rivals would do more in a day than Fred would do in a month.â€
On this 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that made a woman’s right to abortion the law of the land, the issue remains a deeply emotional one for the general public and a deeply personal one for the women who seek abortions. That Operation Rescue would see fit to photograph patients going into George Tiller’s Women’s Health Services clinic and post those images on the Internet, even with faces obscured, only furthers the group’s status as a fringe outfit. The group should immediately stop violating these women’s privacy. If more responsible pro-life groups disagree with such tactics, they should say so. Meanwhile, there should be unanimity on one point: that it’s welcome news that abortions nationally are at their lowest level since 1974.
This time, it’s personal. The Democratic debate in South Carolina Monday night was brutal and nasty and riveting to watch.
Chuck Norris should have been the moderator.
I think Barack Obama had his strong and weak moments, but overall accomplished what he clearly set out to do: Stand up and confront Hillary Clinton and her high-profile surrogate, former president Bill, for a string of misleading statements.
He increased his stature by taking them on successfully and showing he’s willing to fight.
Clinton again showed herself to be the best debater on the stage, disciplined in hammering home points and counterpunching. She never misses an opportunity to reinforce her message in passionate, clear terms, as in stressing that universal health coverage is a core Democratic principle that she would “go to the mat†to defend.
But she also reinforced her negatives, coming off as too willing to say anything to take Obama down, at one point accusing Obama of working for a Chicago “slumlord.â€
She actually was booed at one point.
John Edwards might have come off looking the most presidential, when he intervened at one point, asking, “This kind of squabbling — how many children is this going to get health care? How many people are going to get education because of this? How many kids are going to get to go to college because of this?â€
What did bloggers think?
Expect to hear a lot more about “clean coal†in the coming months. The Washington Post reports that in response to increasing public skepticism about coal (the article points to Kansas’ Holcomb decision and public support for it), the coal industry is launching a $35 million advertising campaign in primary and caucus states to push coal as a clean, affordable energy choice.
The group’s newspaper ads say that new coal-fired plants are “70 percent cleaner based on regulated emissions per unit of energy produced.†That’s true when talking about pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. But the article notes that “clean coal†doesn’t apply to greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, the pollutant at the heart of the debate about new regulations. Coal-fired plant technology to capture and sequester carbon is still experimental and expensive.
None of the leading GOP presidential candidates has demogogued the immigration issue more than Mitt Romney. But that isn’t stopping him from appealing to Spanish-speaking voters. Romney is running a Spanish-language television ad in Florida, narrated by one of his sons.
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.†— Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, joking about wanting to get beyond his poor performance in last weekend’s Nevada caucuses, in which he received only 4 percent of the vote
Hillary Clinton so far has shunned a Vogue photo shoot “for fear of looking too feminine,†according to the editor. But Gov. Kathleen Sebelius strikes quite a pose in the February issue, glowing in a $5,450 Oscar de la Renta taffeta gown in the Kansas Senate chamber and also in a snapshot from a White House state dinner last year (seated next to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger). The accompanying profile glows, too, lauding the Democrat’s ability to win over a Republican state and laying on the adjectives — “sleek,†“elegant, circumspect (a trait Kansans approve), and strikingly fit.†Getting Republicans to vote for a Democrat, she suggests, “has to do with leadership and vision and values identification. You don’t get up and say, ‘I’m a Democrat, and I support X, Y, and Z.’ You say, ‘I’m an American.’†After two bad defeats at her hands, Kansas Republicans might have to agree with the piece’s best line: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer says “she’s as tough as a two-dollar steak.â€
After Fred Thompson’s mediocre showing in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary — which his campaign said was a “must win†— it wasn’t surprising that he dropped out of the presidential race today. Despite initial support from conservative Republicans and the endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, Thompson’s campaign never got going, in part because of perceptions that Thompson rarely got going. One campaign insider complained to the Washington Post: “His rivals would do more in a day than Fred would do in a month.â€
