The head of one of America’s most powerful conservative organizations says the ‘08 presidential election is going to be close. Very close. Reflecting the almost equal political divide we find ourselves in. And it could go either way — Hillary in the White House is a distinct possibility.
David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, was my guest on Sunday night’s radio program at WDBO AM 580 in Orlando. (It’s the only terrestrial radio I do. I LOVE BlogTalkRadio folks, ok?)
Keene is described as a bulwark of the conservative movement who knows all the Republican candidates personally. Political leaders like Karl Rove consult him. The ACU runs the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference in Washington (where Ann Coulter made her controversial remark about John Edwards, using the “f” word in the same sentence), and publishes an annual Rating of Congress, the gold standard by which the ideology of Congressional members is measured. A passing grade is 80% or better.
We ran through the list of Republican presidential wanna-be’s, beginning with John McCain.
“He’s dying a slow political death right now,” Keene said. His candidacy has fatal problems. He has the largest base, but the lowest ceiling of support. Prior to ‘98 or ‘99, he was a reliable conservative senator. But then he discovered the media, was seen to be involved in the Keating 5 scandal, and developed that campaign finance reform, which was seen as an attack on the Republican Party and an assault on the 1st Amendment.”
There was more. Much more. Keene also gave his assessment of Rudy Giuliani. “Not America’s Mayor. Manhattan’s mayor, and that doesn’t reasonate with the rest of the country.”
Mitt Romney.
“There’s no ‘there’ there.”
Fred Thompson? Newt Gingrich? To hear what Keene had to say, the show is podcast available at ASKShow.com
As interesting was Keene’s take on the President’s woes.
“I think at this point, as we know, he’s got real credibility problems… He’s still got the support that he needs from his own party in Congress as long as things don’t deteriorate too much further in Iraq. He is, to his credit, fighting a lot of the democratic spending plans, but I think he’s weakened himself and I know they feel cornered there at the White House, but I think he’s got some dead wood in the administration that ought to be cleaned out. His attorney general has not done a very good job across the board and the current flap that was wholly constructed by the Attorney General and his deputy with Congress is standing in the way of some things.
“I think he’s got to be tough on the things he cares about and he’s got to rally his own party and he’s got listen to them and talk to them more than he has been. There’s a problem particularly in the second term of an administration toward the end when they come under fire and they start to develop a bunker mentality and then things get worse rather than better.
“He came in and the Bush Administration constructed a White House operation that was very tightly held and, for the plus side? There weren’t leaks, they seemed to marching down the road in the same direction … On the negative side though, is they made it clear to a lot of people they really didn’t broach much criticism, so it developed over time that they weren’t getting much advice that was critical. You know, politicians — but particularly presidents — there aren’t many people that’ll go in and say “you know Mister President, you really screwed this up”. They developed an attitude where — I happen to think Karl Rove is very very smart — but no matter how smart you are, if after three or four years nobody’s telling you the truth, nobody’s giving you what’s really going on out there, you’re gonna start making the wrong decisions.
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About the hand wringing Republicans who went in to talk to the President last week in a private meeting, then blabbed about it to the media:
“I think that was foolish on their part in the first instance to be talking about it. Of course, that was supposed to be an off-the-record meeting, which the President to his credit, was willing to get together with them on and discuss. But then a couple of them decided to talk to the press. It was foolish from a substantive standpoint because we have troops in the field over there. And is it any better for these guys to say “Mister President, if you can’t achieve A, B and C by September, we’re bailing out on you”? Is that any different that what Nancy Pelosi wants to do?
And it’s wrong for the very same reasons. So they had every right to go in, to talk about the political consequences of where they are and the difficulties they’re having, their own misgivings. Lord knows this is a democracy and they should tell the president those things but they can’t expect on the one hand for the president to sit down and listen to that and then on the other hand, for them to just walk out and announce it to the press.
“I’m always amazed. I used to ask people when they’d say ‘Well we should we distance ourselves from the president.’ I’d say ‘Go ask Al Gore how that worked in 2000′. It doesn’t work. Because even if you’re president, if you decide that you’re a Republican or a Democrat, and your president is becoming unpopular and you — as one of his team — bail on him, the odds are that’s not gonna help you. Because even at his least popular most of his partisans are going to be with him, and from a purely political standpoint, you’re not gonna get forgiven for it. So, it’s a foolish thing from a political standpoint to do. It doesn’t work.
“That doesn’t mean you should slavishly follow your president or your party… part of the problem that the Republicans have had over the last few years is to slavishly do whatever the team wants done. That’s a mistake. But at the same time you can stand for principle without taking gratuitous shots at your president or your leaders.”
To listen to the entire interview, click here. Go ahead. You’ll even get to hear Michael Barone, who joined us during the first hour. Two great guests for the price of one click.
Also posted at The Radio Patriot.
