Inside Politics

Hillary’s path

“As the months preceding New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eventual presidential announcement dwindle to weeks, it’s worth exploring just how difficult her path to the Democratic nomination really is,” Chuck Todd writes at NationalJournal.com.

“It’s tricky to write about her these days, because it seems that everything’s been said — just not everyone has said it. But let’s attempt a fresher look,” Mr. Todd said.

“Too many of us have awarded Clinton the ’08 nod too soon and too easily. The conventional-wisdom crowd is easily impressed by two things about her candidacy: money and her last name. There’s also a dirty little secret that those of us in the media are leery to admit: She’s good for business (particularly expense reports).

“Take the money and surname drama and add a dash of media anticipation, and you get the simplest explanation of the perceived Clinton juggernaut.

“There’s one flaw in all of this, though, and that is the electorate. As the likelihood of a Clinton campaign becomes a reality, more reasons turn up that suggest why she could lose the nomination. In fact, the primary may be harder for her than the general election. A bad three-week period at the wrong time in the wrong state could doom a bid, particularly with this front-loaded primary calendar. While the same thing can happen in a general, the same ridiculous scoring of expectations doesn’t apply to general elections the way it does in primary battles.”

Byrd and Gates

Longtime Iraq war critic Sen. Robert C. Byrd said yesterday he knew of no obstacles to Robert M. Gates becoming the new Pentagon chief, helping keep the nominee’s prospects bright ahead of Senate hearings next week.

Mr. Byrd, 88, one of the most relentless opponents of the war since Congress four years ago authorized Mr. Bush to use force in Iraq, stopped short of promising to support Mr. Gates as he hosted President Bush’s nominee for a chat on Capitol Hill.

But the West Virginia Democrat, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that will vote on Mr. Gates’ nomination, said he was pleased Mr. Bush had chosen Mr. Gates to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Reuters news agency reports.

“[Gates] is very capable, no question about that. He has the qualifications,” Mr. Byrd told reporters as a smiling Mr. Gates, a former CIA chief, sat next to him.

Blogger on blogs

After spending part of the 2006 campaign season as official blogger for Republican Sen. George Allen’s unsuccessful Virginia re-election bid, Jon Henke has some advice for getting along with the blogosphere.

“Bloggers blog for many reasons, but ’to help [insert your institutional interest here]’ is rarely one of them,” Mr. Henke said at his site, www.qando.net.

“Bloggers are not … reporters, obligated to dispassionately transcribe your message,” said Mr. Henke, who was hired by the Allen campaign in the wake of the August incident in which the senator referred to a volunteer for Democratic rival James H. Webb Jr. as “macaca.”

“Treat bloggers as the enemy, and you will be rewarded with an enemy,” Mr. Henke said, adding:

“To appeal to bloggers, you must figure out what they want — on an individual level — and become a service to them. As the old ESPN saying went, you cannot stop them … you can only hope to contain them. Treat bloggers as the enemy, and you will be rewarded with an enemy; treat bloggers as valuable constituents — with individual interests — and you may be rewarded with allies.”

End of ’compassion’?

“It has been three weeks since the midterm elections and many Republican leaders are still trying to figure out a plan for recovery,” New Orleans talk-radio host Jeff Crouere writes at RingsidePolitics.com.

“Unfortunately, several prominent ’moderate’ leaders believe the message of the election was that the party had moved ’too far to the right.’ According to Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, ’The American people made it clear that our party’s decision to ignore the middle of the American electorate was a disastrous one.’

“Of course, such a statement is nonsense because almost everything the Republican Party has done over the past six years has been an abandonment of the conservative principles which built the GOP into a majority party. The GOP became known as ’big government conservatives,’ which is ridiculous because conservatism is supposed to stand for limited government and the advancement of personal freedom. However, George W. Bush began his presidency touting a platform of ’compassionate conservatism,’ so that quickly translated into bigger government, much bigger government. Unfortunately, the GOP congressional leaders went along for the big government ride and became cheerleaders for the expansion of unseemly earmarks, pork barrel spending, unnecessary government expansion, the creation of new entitlements, and so on. …

“A return to Reagan Republicanism is just what the doctor ordered for the GOP, not more ’big government conservatism’ or ’compassionate conservatism.’ … If Republicans in Congress have to become the opposition party to the White House, so be it. Better that strategy than more accommodation with the Democrats which has certainly proved to be a disastrous policy for the last six years.”

No joke

Enough with the joke, John Kerry says.

The Massachusetts senator and former Democratic presidential nominee said Wednesday night that it’s time to move on from his botched attempt at humor before the midterm election.

Mr. Kerry had said young people might get “stuck in Iraq” if they do not study hard and do their homework. He said he was trying to poke fun at President Bush, but Mr. Bush and others accused him of criticizing the troops.

“This is getting silly,” Mr. Kerry said on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” “The country needs to think about a policy that has young men and women at risk on a daily basis that is not working.”

Happy ACLU days

Tongues firmly in cheeks, the University of Texas chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas have announced plans for an “ACLU Nativity Scene” next week at the Austin campus.

In a press release, the group said it aims to “bring to light [the American Civil Liberties Union’s] secular-progressive efforts to remove Christmas from the public sphere. The display will be “quite a bit different than the standard creche,” the group said.

“We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for homosexual marriage, and of course there isn’t a Jesus in the manger,” Chairman Tony McDonald said. “The three Wise Men are Lenin, Marx and Stalin because the founders of the ACLU were strident supporters of Soviet style Communism.”

• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/635-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.