Can McCain save his relationship with the base?
John McCain walked into the lion's den Thursday. He spoke at theConservative Political Action Conference, a gathering of the kinds of activists who have staunchly opposed to his candidacy for president.
I don’t think a CPAC speaker has ever stressed his differences so many times before the conservative base–not even Sam Donaldson!
I respect his decision to stand in the lion’s den, and I agreed with much of the speech. I found myself nodding as he touted his opposition to ethanol subsidies, national catastrophic insurance, and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. But I don’t for a minute buy his claim that he “respects the opposition” of his staunchest opponents, especially the anti-amnesty crowd. These are folks he has cursed and likened to Bull Connor-style bigots. He has done nothing to rid his campaign staff and finance board of the most extreme open-borders zealots.
I said he needed to do more than mouth the Right platitudes. Still waiting.
If McCain believes he can make nice with the rightwing talkers, he's kidding himself. This group--especially Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter--have no incentive to be pragmatic. They each earn much money by being provocative. Their first loyalty is to their audience, which expects hard-edged ideological warfare from them. They go soft--or reasonable--and they risk their reputations. It's possible McCain could engage in an act of self-flagellation so extreme, his right-wing critics could claim victory and boast that he kissed their rings. But in the absence of such a move, they will keep pounding him. It makes good TV and radio.
Clearly, they're not afraid of CNN.
Hillary Clinton is ready to debate on Fox News. Barack Obama? We're not sure. But rank-and-file Democrats hate the idea: They think Fox is a bought-and-paid-for subsidiary of the Republican Party.
Fox New CEO Roger Ailes has a different take: "The candidates that can't face Fox," he says, "can't face Al Qaeda."
I wonder why these courageous Democrats only feel free to speak when appearing on CNN. I mean, the Congressional Black Caucus doesn't seem to feel the same fear as the candidates. They had their 2004 debates on Fox, and they survived the ordeal -- twice. Those debates included Edwards on both occasions, and he wound up on the ticket for the Democrats.
Once again, I will ask this question: how can we expect these candidates to face off against America's enemies when they can't bring themselves to face Fox? Do they expect that this demonstration of cravenness to actually impress anyone but the radical defeatists of MoveOn?
On a conference call today, Howard Wolfson of the Clinton campaign has said that Hillary Clinton will appear in a Fox News debate on February 11 in Washington, DC. After Roger Ailes made a joke comparing Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden, Harry Reid rightfully nixed a Democratic Fox debate in Nevada.
Wolfson defended the choice to accept the Fox debate because Obama has appeared on Fox News himself recently. Which is true, he has, but it doesn't excuse how many awful lies and distortions Fox has peddled in order to damage Obama, Clinton and Democrats in general. Fox is not a news outlet, it's an openly partisan opinion factory and the Democrats should not be legitimizing them (and allowing them to recruit Democratic viewers to propagandize to) by doing this.
Bowing to reality?
Mitt Romney's race is over, according to Ben Boychuk, Red Moderator for redblueamerica.com, who attended the announcement speech at CPAC today. Once seen as a leading contender for the GOP nomination -- because of his money and backing from the conservative establishment -- he saw the writing on the wall after Super Tuesday left him too far behind
The trouble isn't so much that John McCain's delegate lead is insurmountable, although it is significant. And Romney's problem isn't that John McCain will get an enormous bounce out of yesterday's wins. This is the year of no bouncing.
Romney's problem is that the fully mature version of his campaign has faced the fully mature versions of the Huckabee and McCain campaigns all over the country. Romney hasn't done well. Although past performances don't necessarily guarantee the results of future contests, it's tough to picture what Romney can do to shake up the race and begin getting those extra votes he'll need in each future state to turn losses into victories.
Mitt Romney found himself in a desperate quest to rally true believers – a role for which his even temper and uneven record leave him spectacularly unsuited. Romney knows how to tell the party faithful everything they want to hear. But it's not easy for a man who prides himself on his optimism, polish, and good fortune to stir anger and mutiny in the conservative base. Only a pitchfork rebellion can stop McCain now, and Luddites won't man the ramparts because they like your PowerPoint.
Should a degree cost an arm and a leg?
Yale, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and other elite schools are offering generous new tuition packages to make college more affordable for American families. But they have giant endowments that can soften the financial blow of such generosity; but other private schools say they don't have the same cushion. Meanwhile, Congress is considering a rule requiring colleges and universities to spend 5 percent of their endowment every year.
What can make college more affordable? Should the government step in?
Private foundations have such a requirement already, and while college officials argue that foundations are expressly designed to spend their endowments, and colleges use theirs to support the institutions for the long haul, the idea of applying it to colleges is gaining currency as their endowment coffers swell. Last month, an annual survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers showed that 76 college endowments now exceed $1 billion, up from 39 in 2004.
Colleges and universities also benefit from huge direct investment of federal funds, especially in the form of financial aid and research grants, and tax breaks (state and federal) that allow them to use tax-free bonds to build facilities and take in many kinds of revenues (including donations) without taxation to them or their donors.
Most colleges already tend to favor the affluent because their budgets require it. More than 90 percent of America’s private colleges have endowments less than 1 percent the size of Harvard’s. Giving an upper-middle-class applicant even a generous partial scholarship puts less strain on their budgets than giving a full scholarship to a student whose family can afford to pay nothing.
Only a few colleges can afford to make tuition affordable for both the poor and the affluent. For every college to become accessible to talented students regardless of income, the federal government must create enhanced grant programs, progressive tax incentives and programs that reduce the debt of graduates who spend time in public service. Otherwise, America will be the loser, no matter who wins the Harvard-Yale game.
Still a mastermind?
Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove has not left the building. He's on Fox News, giving election analysis. And he looms in the minds of Democrats looking to November, as they plan a defense against the types of strategies he used to help George W.
Rove's wins can never be taken away from him, especially when in 2000 and 2004 he had so little margin for error. It's in his ambition to realign American politics that he fell short. Big government "compassionate conservatism" degraded into the indefensible excesses of the late GOP congressional majority. The vision of an "ownership society" foundered with the failure of Social Security reform. Outreach to Hispanics backfired when it was based on a nonenforcement of immigration laws offensive to law-and-order conservatives.
If a Republican wins the presidency in 2008, it will have to be Rove-style -- a masterful, but narrow victory won in parlous political circumstances.
Blessed, in Romney, with an opponent who approaches the Platonic Ideal of Inauthenticity, McCain has racked up primary-season successes more because of the personal contrasts between the two candidates than because of differences of program. But his personal merits have yet to sway those Republicans who classify themselves in the polls as very conservative.
A more direct affront to the Republican strategy devised by Karl Rove -- to build support within the party's right-wing base and then try to win over just enough moderates to carry elections -- cannot be imagined. McCain's whole campaign is anti-Rovian
