A sampling of recent polls in the '08 race for the White House:
Zogby: (GOP) Giuliani 29%, McCain 20%, Romney 9%, Gingrich 7%
(Dems) Clinton 33%, Obama 25%, Edwards 12%
Rasmussen:(GOP) Giuliani 33%, McCain17%, Gingrich 13%, Romney 10%
(Dems) Clinton 37%, Obama 26%, Edwards 13%
Quinnipiac:(GOP) Giuliani 40%, McCain 18%, Gingrich 10%, Romney 7%
(Dems) Clinton 38%, Obama 26%, Gore 11%, Edwards 6%
Ronald Wilson Reagan
America's 40th President
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Podhoretz: "WHY SO MANY RIGHTIES ARE ROOTING FOR RUDY"
WHY SO MANY RIGHTIES ARE ROOTING FOR RUDY
February 27, 2007 -- IT is nearly impossible for the chattering classes - on all sides of the political divide - to comprehend the heat being generated by Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid.
The fallback explanation is just to say "9/11" and be done with it. After all, how else can you explain a man with Giuliani's supposedly liberal social views possibly rise as high as he has - besting John McCain among Republicans by as many as 22 points in one poll?
Many on the right profess amazement at the lead he's opened up among Republican primary voters, considering his pro-choice views and sloppy personal life.
Meanwhile, writers on the left express disbelief at the notion that a pro-choice Republican candidate might be able to win the GOP nomination. According to the best Leftist analyst of American politics, Michael Tomasky, abortion is simply "too fundamental an issue for most Republican caucus goers and primary voters (even in California, with its likely Feb. 5 primary) to work around."
There's a perfectly simple answer to the Rudy paradox. When Republican voters look at Rudy Giuliani, they know one key fact about him: They know he's no liberal.
They may not exactly know why yet, but they know it.
And they're right.
Rudy may call himself pro-choice. He may have signed legislation mandating benefits to gay couples. He may have been a supporter of gun control. He may even have endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. These are all things he's going to have to explain and answer for in Republican debates and the like.
But more than any other candidate in the race, Rudy Giuliani is a liberal-slayer. When he rejects liberal orthodoxy, which he does often, he doesn't just oppose it. He goes to war with it - total, unconditional war.
He spent his political career chewing up liberal orthodoxy and spitting it out - and I think that somehow, in some way, voters in Oklahoma and Kansas get that about him even without knowing the specifics.
His success in turning New York around wasn't merely a matter of changing policies. He had to sustain those policies when they came under deliberate, systematic and unrelenting assault by the city's liberal elite.
In case after case, he refused to accept the veto of liberal public opinion. He drove porn shops out of residential neighborhoods, even though his administration had to fight more than 30 lawsuits on the matter. He crusaded against bilingual education, a disastrous policy that had gone unquestioned in this city for decades.
And most important, he stood up for the police department against any and all attacks - which were incessant and incredibly unjust. The race baiters and their shills at the Not-So-Great Grey Lady talked as though the NYPD was engaging in genocide when the opposite was the case - many thousand of people are alive today who would have died if the NYPD hadn't taken on its newly aggressive posture under Giuliani.
Did Giuliani go too far in defending the police against charges that officers were trigger-happy and brutal? Sure he did, and some of his more aggressive efforts in this regard will also become campaign fodder over the course of the next year or more. But his defensiveness was nothing compared to the shameful and shameless effort to delegitimize his crime-fighting approach by slandering the NYPD as a bunch of goons and killers.
He basically took the view that these 38,000 people were an army fighting an enemy, and that they were liberating the people of New York City from a reign of lawlessness.
And this, more than anything else, ties into the national sentiment about Rudy as the Hero of 9/11. He didn't just represent New York to the nation and the world. He had, in fact, changed New York in a way that made this city's response to 9/11 so astounding.
In September 2001, as his mayoralty was winding down, New York had achieved civic equilibrium. This was a city at peace with itself, no matter what Al Sharpton might have said. The New York of 1991 would not have responded with the calm dignity and sense of common purpose that the New York of 2001 did.
The New York of 1991 was a city governed by the liberal elite. The New York of 2001 had been changed utterly by an anti-liberal mayor.
We're going to hear a lot about how rude, abrasive, arrogant, high-handed, combative, isolated, difficult and aggressive Rudy Giuliani was as mayor. And yet he was the key factor in turning New York into the safe, clean, pleasant, polite, neighborly and genuinely nice place it was when we were attacked on 9/11.
His record is clear: He fought the left mercilessly, and he not only won politically, he won as far as history's proper judgment of his tenure in New York.
Is it any wonder conservative Republicans are so eager to think the very best of him?
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
February 27, 2007 -- IT is nearly impossible for the chattering classes - on all sides of the political divide - to comprehend the heat being generated by Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid.
The fallback explanation is just to say "9/11" and be done with it. After all, how else can you explain a man with Giuliani's supposedly liberal social views possibly rise as high as he has - besting John McCain among Republicans by as many as 22 points in one poll?
Many on the right profess amazement at the lead he's opened up among Republican primary voters, considering his pro-choice views and sloppy personal life.
Meanwhile, writers on the left express disbelief at the notion that a pro-choice Republican candidate might be able to win the GOP nomination. According to the best Leftist analyst of American politics, Michael Tomasky, abortion is simply "too fundamental an issue for most Republican caucus goers and primary voters (even in California, with its likely Feb. 5 primary) to work around."
There's a perfectly simple answer to the Rudy paradox. When Republican voters look at Rudy Giuliani, they know one key fact about him: They know he's no liberal.
They may not exactly know why yet, but they know it.
And they're right.
Rudy may call himself pro-choice. He may have signed legislation mandating benefits to gay couples. He may have been a supporter of gun control. He may even have endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. These are all things he's going to have to explain and answer for in Republican debates and the like.
But more than any other candidate in the race, Rudy Giuliani is a liberal-slayer. When he rejects liberal orthodoxy, which he does often, he doesn't just oppose it. He goes to war with it - total, unconditional war.
He spent his political career chewing up liberal orthodoxy and spitting it out - and I think that somehow, in some way, voters in Oklahoma and Kansas get that about him even without knowing the specifics.
His success in turning New York around wasn't merely a matter of changing policies. He had to sustain those policies when they came under deliberate, systematic and unrelenting assault by the city's liberal elite.
In case after case, he refused to accept the veto of liberal public opinion. He drove porn shops out of residential neighborhoods, even though his administration had to fight more than 30 lawsuits on the matter. He crusaded against bilingual education, a disastrous policy that had gone unquestioned in this city for decades.
And most important, he stood up for the police department against any and all attacks - which were incessant and incredibly unjust. The race baiters and their shills at the Not-So-Great Grey Lady talked as though the NYPD was engaging in genocide when the opposite was the case - many thousand of people are alive today who would have died if the NYPD hadn't taken on its newly aggressive posture under Giuliani.
Did Giuliani go too far in defending the police against charges that officers were trigger-happy and brutal? Sure he did, and some of his more aggressive efforts in this regard will also become campaign fodder over the course of the next year or more. But his defensiveness was nothing compared to the shameful and shameless effort to delegitimize his crime-fighting approach by slandering the NYPD as a bunch of goons and killers.
He basically took the view that these 38,000 people were an army fighting an enemy, and that they were liberating the people of New York City from a reign of lawlessness.
And this, more than anything else, ties into the national sentiment about Rudy as the Hero of 9/11. He didn't just represent New York to the nation and the world. He had, in fact, changed New York in a way that made this city's response to 9/11 so astounding.
In September 2001, as his mayoralty was winding down, New York had achieved civic equilibrium. This was a city at peace with itself, no matter what Al Sharpton might have said. The New York of 1991 would not have responded with the calm dignity and sense of common purpose that the New York of 2001 did.
The New York of 1991 was a city governed by the liberal elite. The New York of 2001 had been changed utterly by an anti-liberal mayor.
We're going to hear a lot about how rude, abrasive, arrogant, high-handed, combative, isolated, difficult and aggressive Rudy Giuliani was as mayor. And yet he was the key factor in turning New York into the safe, clean, pleasant, polite, neighborly and genuinely nice place it was when we were attacked on 9/11.
His record is clear: He fought the left mercilessly, and he not only won politically, he won as far as history's proper judgment of his tenure in New York.
Is it any wonder conservative Republicans are so eager to think the very best of him?
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
"`Happy Warrior' McCain Struggles as an Establishment Candidate"
`Happy Warrior' McCain Struggles as an Establishment Candidate
By Edwin Chen
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain, who's spent 20 years in the Senate challenging Republican Party orthodoxy, is having a hard time establishing himself as its champion.
Through fund-raising prowess, endorsements and his standing in polls, McCain, 70, has tried to create an aura of inevitability around his presidential campaign; the free- wheeling ``Straight Talk Express'' bus caravan of his 2000 bid is now a buttoned-down juggernaut that's trying to please the Republicans' many factions.
It may not be working. Conservatives, especially religious activists with whom he clashed in the past, remain suspicious of him; meanwhile, some backers who admired his maverick streak are disillusioned with his appeals to the conservative base. Polls show him losing ground to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the Arizonan seems visibly uneasy cast as a pillar of the Establishment.
``McCain has to adjust to his new-found role,'' said Scott Reed, a Washington political consultant who managed former Kansas Senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. McCain's effort to reach out to party constituencies is ``a lot different from sitting in the back of a bus throwing out red meat'' to his own supporters, Reed said. ``He's not comfortable with it, and he's not doing well at it.''
McCain, in an interview, said that somber times created by the Iraq war -- he's a strong supporter -- demand a different demeanor from 2000. ``I'm still a happy warrior,'' he said. ``But with the Iraq war, it's a little hard to be happy-go- lucky.''
Leading a Party
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, said ``the biggest change is that John now is trying to establish himself as the leader of a party, and not just a movement.''
That effort is complicated by leftover hard feelings from McCain's previous race, and his years in the Senate. Some party activists still haven't forgiven him for criticizing television evangelist Jerry Falwell in 2000, backing stem-cell research, opposing President George W. Bush's tax cuts and pushing a proposal that would give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
``He has to make the case that he's a true Reaganite and the best Reaganite,'' said Grover Norquist, a Republican activist who heads Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington-based anti-tax lobbying group, and who has expressed doubts about McCain's faith in tax-cutting.
`Odd Lapses'
The senator ``has to explain some odd lapses in his decisions, and why that won't happen again,'' Norquist said. ``This is not impossible, but this is work.''
Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington-based organization dedicated to fighting what it calls ``moral decay,'' said that ``many social-issues conservatives have said to me that they will not vote for or support John McCain.'' McCain, Weyrich said, has ``made it clear that he hates the Religious Right.''
McCain's top lieutenants say their boss has never deviated from core Republican principles. Mark Salter, his Senate chief of staff and collaborator on several of his books, including the 2000 biography ``Faith of My Fathers,'' said McCain has ``always been pro-life, for a strong defense, against gay marriage.''
Scrutiny on Abortion
McCain has found his opposition to abortion under especially close scrutiny. Though he says he is philosophically opposed to abortion, McCain in his first White House run opposed repealing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy. He said that ``thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations.''
This year, as McCain has tried to make his peace with evangelical leaders, he has said Roe should be overturned.
McCain has named former Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma, who has close ties to Bush, as his ambassador to religious activists. Keating is trying to reach out to the movement's leaders, such as James Dobson, head of Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Focus on the Family. In a recent interview on a Dallas Christian radio station, Dobson said that he couldn't support McCain ``under any circumstances.''
McCain already has made amends with Falwell, whom he once denounced as an ``agent of intolerance,'' and appeared at the May 2006 commencement ceremonies of Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Costing Him Support
McCain's repositioning may be costing him some support, especially with the independents who once flocked to his side. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in Feb. 9-11 put Giuliani ahead by 40 percent to 24 percent among Republicans and independents who lean Republican; in January, Giuliani's lead in the same poll was 31 percent to 27 percent.
Merle Black, a political science professor at Atlanta's Emory University, said McCain may have lost many of the independents, and even Democrats, who crossed party lines in states where it's allowed to vote for him during primaries seven years ago.
``In 2000, he ran strong among independents and Democrats,'' Black said. Those voters likely ``will not be voting in the Republican primaries this time, and that may cost him some support, especially if he's perceived as moving to the right.''
A Closer Race
His strategic shift may not be such a big impediment in early primary and caucus states, which have a disproportionate say in selecting party presidential nominees. In New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation primary, a CNN/WMUR poll conducted Feb. 1-5 showed McCain with 28 percent support to Giuliani's 27 percent. A Jan. 29-Feb. 1 American Research Group survey in Iowa, whose caucuses precede New Hampshire, found Giuliani with 27 percent support to McCain's 22 percent.
As he seeks to make peace with party activists, McCain dismisses the notion that he's strayed from his reformist roots. ``I just reject that,'' he said in the interview. ``When you look at my positions on the issues, none of them have changed.''
``Of course I'm reaching out to all parts of my party,'' he said. ``But there's a difference between reaching out and pandering.''
Rick Davis, the campaign's chief executive officer, said the senator is ``exactly the same guy that he was in 2000, but it's hard to have a political rally with balloon drops after giving a serious speech on Iraq on the Senate floor.''
Letting McCain Be McCain
As McCain spends more time campaigning, Davis and Salter say, the antidote for declining poll numbers will be a less- structured style that lets McCain be McCain.
The senator's favorite forum in 2000 was the town-hall meeting, in which he'd trade quips and banter with the audience while providing crisp answers to their questions. Glimmers of the old McCain began surfacing during a recent campaign swing.
At a Feb. 21 Los Angeles appearance with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has taken aggressive action to combat global warming, McCain was asked about Bush's record on the issue.
``Terrible,'' McCain said.
And the Iraq war?
``A train wreck.''
The next day, McCain declared: ``We're back on the happy- warrior route.''
By Edwin Chen
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain, who's spent 20 years in the Senate challenging Republican Party orthodoxy, is having a hard time establishing himself as its champion.
Through fund-raising prowess, endorsements and his standing in polls, McCain, 70, has tried to create an aura of inevitability around his presidential campaign; the free- wheeling ``Straight Talk Express'' bus caravan of his 2000 bid is now a buttoned-down juggernaut that's trying to please the Republicans' many factions.
It may not be working. Conservatives, especially religious activists with whom he clashed in the past, remain suspicious of him; meanwhile, some backers who admired his maverick streak are disillusioned with his appeals to the conservative base. Polls show him losing ground to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the Arizonan seems visibly uneasy cast as a pillar of the Establishment.
``McCain has to adjust to his new-found role,'' said Scott Reed, a Washington political consultant who managed former Kansas Senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. McCain's effort to reach out to party constituencies is ``a lot different from sitting in the back of a bus throwing out red meat'' to his own supporters, Reed said. ``He's not comfortable with it, and he's not doing well at it.''
McCain, in an interview, said that somber times created by the Iraq war -- he's a strong supporter -- demand a different demeanor from 2000. ``I'm still a happy warrior,'' he said. ``But with the Iraq war, it's a little hard to be happy-go- lucky.''
Leading a Party
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, said ``the biggest change is that John now is trying to establish himself as the leader of a party, and not just a movement.''
That effort is complicated by leftover hard feelings from McCain's previous race, and his years in the Senate. Some party activists still haven't forgiven him for criticizing television evangelist Jerry Falwell in 2000, backing stem-cell research, opposing President George W. Bush's tax cuts and pushing a proposal that would give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
``He has to make the case that he's a true Reaganite and the best Reaganite,'' said Grover Norquist, a Republican activist who heads Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington-based anti-tax lobbying group, and who has expressed doubts about McCain's faith in tax-cutting.
`Odd Lapses'
The senator ``has to explain some odd lapses in his decisions, and why that won't happen again,'' Norquist said. ``This is not impossible, but this is work.''
Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington-based organization dedicated to fighting what it calls ``moral decay,'' said that ``many social-issues conservatives have said to me that they will not vote for or support John McCain.'' McCain, Weyrich said, has ``made it clear that he hates the Religious Right.''
McCain's top lieutenants say their boss has never deviated from core Republican principles. Mark Salter, his Senate chief of staff and collaborator on several of his books, including the 2000 biography ``Faith of My Fathers,'' said McCain has ``always been pro-life, for a strong defense, against gay marriage.''
Scrutiny on Abortion
McCain has found his opposition to abortion under especially close scrutiny. Though he says he is philosophically opposed to abortion, McCain in his first White House run opposed repealing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy. He said that ``thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations.''
This year, as McCain has tried to make his peace with evangelical leaders, he has said Roe should be overturned.
McCain has named former Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma, who has close ties to Bush, as his ambassador to religious activists. Keating is trying to reach out to the movement's leaders, such as James Dobson, head of Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Focus on the Family. In a recent interview on a Dallas Christian radio station, Dobson said that he couldn't support McCain ``under any circumstances.''
McCain already has made amends with Falwell, whom he once denounced as an ``agent of intolerance,'' and appeared at the May 2006 commencement ceremonies of Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Costing Him Support
McCain's repositioning may be costing him some support, especially with the independents who once flocked to his side. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in Feb. 9-11 put Giuliani ahead by 40 percent to 24 percent among Republicans and independents who lean Republican; in January, Giuliani's lead in the same poll was 31 percent to 27 percent.
Merle Black, a political science professor at Atlanta's Emory University, said McCain may have lost many of the independents, and even Democrats, who crossed party lines in states where it's allowed to vote for him during primaries seven years ago.
``In 2000, he ran strong among independents and Democrats,'' Black said. Those voters likely ``will not be voting in the Republican primaries this time, and that may cost him some support, especially if he's perceived as moving to the right.''
A Closer Race
His strategic shift may not be such a big impediment in early primary and caucus states, which have a disproportionate say in selecting party presidential nominees. In New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation primary, a CNN/WMUR poll conducted Feb. 1-5 showed McCain with 28 percent support to Giuliani's 27 percent. A Jan. 29-Feb. 1 American Research Group survey in Iowa, whose caucuses precede New Hampshire, found Giuliani with 27 percent support to McCain's 22 percent.
As he seeks to make peace with party activists, McCain dismisses the notion that he's strayed from his reformist roots. ``I just reject that,'' he said in the interview. ``When you look at my positions on the issues, none of them have changed.''
``Of course I'm reaching out to all parts of my party,'' he said. ``But there's a difference between reaching out and pandering.''
Rick Davis, the campaign's chief executive officer, said the senator is ``exactly the same guy that he was in 2000, but it's hard to have a political rally with balloon drops after giving a serious speech on Iraq on the Senate floor.''
Letting McCain Be McCain
As McCain spends more time campaigning, Davis and Salter say, the antidote for declining poll numbers will be a less- structured style that lets McCain be McCain.
The senator's favorite forum in 2000 was the town-hall meeting, in which he'd trade quips and banter with the audience while providing crisp answers to their questions. Glimmers of the old McCain began surfacing during a recent campaign swing.
At a Feb. 21 Los Angeles appearance with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has taken aggressive action to combat global warming, McCain was asked about Bush's record on the issue.
``Terrible,'' McCain said.
And the Iraq war?
``A train wreck.''
The next day, McCain declared: ``We're back on the happy- warrior route.''
Human Events: "Rudy Causes Confusion in GOP"
Rudy Causes Confusion in GOP
by John Gizzi Posted: 02/27/2007
One of the early -- and quite amazing -- sidelights of the race for the Republican nomination for President in ’08 is how so many prominent conservatives are lining up behind Rudy Giuliani, who has perhaps the slimmest conservative credentials of any of the major GOP hopefuls.
The Republican Party has had a strong pro-life plank in its national platform since 1980, but the former New York mayor still characterizes himself as “pro-choice” and has never reversed his oft-stated 1990s opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion. When I questioned him during the recent California Republican convention about his support of gun control while mayor and his Bush-like support of a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants, Giuliani again declined to change his past, non-conservative stances. He did, though, refuse to use the term “guest-worker program,” instead describing his position as favoring “immigration, assimilation and Americanization.”
While never actually endorsing gay marriage, Republican Giuliani broke with the President and most GOP members of Congress by opposing a constitutional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. During his stint as mayor from 1993-2001, Giuliani actively courted the gay community by appointing gays to various city offices and marching in gay-pride parades.
“How could we not be for Rudy?” is how James Vaughn, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, responded when I asked him who his group would support in ’08.
Endorsed Cuomo
Many New York Republicans still bitterly recall how Giuliani, while New York’s first elected Republican mayor in nearly 30 years, endorsed Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo in Cuomo’s losing bid for re-election in 1994.
None of this record seems to bother the conservatives from coast to coast who have enthusiastically boarded the Giuliani bandwagon. William Simon, Jr., the ’02 Republican nominee for governor of California and a pro-life conservative, is heading up the New Yorker’s efforts in the Golden State. Republican Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan and former Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, both of whom sport lifetime American Conservative Union ratings of 86%, are the quarterbacks in their respective states for the Giuliani campaign’s hunt for national convention delegates. Even the New York Conservative Party, which steadfastly refused to consider giving Giuliani its ballot line in 2000 when he was briefly a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton, now finds itself with more members increasingly open to the idea of backing the former mayor for President.
Many of those on the right, in conceding their differences with the 62-year-old Giuliani on cultural issues, say they nonetheless support him for President because they believe the charismatic Giuliani would be the most formidable Republican candidate against likely Democratic nominee Clinton. Others find less to dislike in Giuliani than they do in the other two GOP front-runners: Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Left of McCain
“I am really excited about Rudy Giuliani,” Gary Watson, former chairman of the Mohave County (Ariz.) Republican Central Committee, told the New York Times recently. The paper noted that “the former New York mayor has a more liberal record on abortion rights, gun control and gay rights than Mr. McCain.” Watson admitted that “the social issues are a little bit looser than what I appreciate,” but quickly added that he felt Giuliani “is stronger than McCain on the border issue.” (McCain, who opposed an ’04 Arizona initiative that would have denied state benefits to illegal immigrants, sounds little different from Giuliani or President Bush in his support of a comprehensive guest-worker/amnesty program).
A California GOP legislator who was part of a closed-door meeting of lawmakers with Giuliani during his appearance at the state Republican convention (and who requested anonymity) told me afterwards that “my wife and I are very pro-life” and that when he addressed the issue with Giuliani, “Rudy said, ‘I’m for adoption, not abortion,’ and said that he would like to see children whose parents are going to abandon them adopted. He brought out statistics showing how the number of abortions declined in New York while he was mayor.” In dubbing himself “neutral at this point,” this legislator said, “I’m leaning to Rudy.”
The most frequent reason cited by conservatives for backing Giuliani is what they perceive as his leadership ability during a time when terrorism is a critical issue. Michael Der Manouel, Jr., former California state GOP treasurer and founder of the Lincoln Club for major Republican donors in Fresno, told me, “The most important issue is: Who is going to protect our country? Rudy Giuliani showed what he could do in a crisis after 9/11. If our cities are burning, issues like abortion and gay rights -- on which I do differ with Rudy -- aren’t going to matter that much.” He added that a number of other Central California conservatives would soon be weighing in with him for Giuliani, among them former State Sen. and ’06 attorney general nominee Chuck Poochigian, State Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines and Republican U.S. Representatives George Randanovich and Devin Nunes.
Agreeing that judicial appointments are a major part of a President’s legacy, Der Manouel said that Giuliani’s stated intent to name judges of the caliber of Bush Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito was “good enough for me.”
Self-described conservative Der Manouel also said that he “is sick and tired of people who, for the last 10 years, call themselves conservatives, talking about things and not putting anything into action. I’ve moved beyond conservatism now, and I just want a doer.”
by John Gizzi Posted: 02/27/2007
One of the early -- and quite amazing -- sidelights of the race for the Republican nomination for President in ’08 is how so many prominent conservatives are lining up behind Rudy Giuliani, who has perhaps the slimmest conservative credentials of any of the major GOP hopefuls.
The Republican Party has had a strong pro-life plank in its national platform since 1980, but the former New York mayor still characterizes himself as “pro-choice” and has never reversed his oft-stated 1990s opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion. When I questioned him during the recent California Republican convention about his support of gun control while mayor and his Bush-like support of a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants, Giuliani again declined to change his past, non-conservative stances. He did, though, refuse to use the term “guest-worker program,” instead describing his position as favoring “immigration, assimilation and Americanization.”
While never actually endorsing gay marriage, Republican Giuliani broke with the President and most GOP members of Congress by opposing a constitutional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. During his stint as mayor from 1993-2001, Giuliani actively courted the gay community by appointing gays to various city offices and marching in gay-pride parades.
“How could we not be for Rudy?” is how James Vaughn, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, responded when I asked him who his group would support in ’08.
Endorsed Cuomo
Many New York Republicans still bitterly recall how Giuliani, while New York’s first elected Republican mayor in nearly 30 years, endorsed Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo in Cuomo’s losing bid for re-election in 1994.
None of this record seems to bother the conservatives from coast to coast who have enthusiastically boarded the Giuliani bandwagon. William Simon, Jr., the ’02 Republican nominee for governor of California and a pro-life conservative, is heading up the New Yorker’s efforts in the Golden State. Republican Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan and former Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, both of whom sport lifetime American Conservative Union ratings of 86%, are the quarterbacks in their respective states for the Giuliani campaign’s hunt for national convention delegates. Even the New York Conservative Party, which steadfastly refused to consider giving Giuliani its ballot line in 2000 when he was briefly a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton, now finds itself with more members increasingly open to the idea of backing the former mayor for President.
Many of those on the right, in conceding their differences with the 62-year-old Giuliani on cultural issues, say they nonetheless support him for President because they believe the charismatic Giuliani would be the most formidable Republican candidate against likely Democratic nominee Clinton. Others find less to dislike in Giuliani than they do in the other two GOP front-runners: Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Left of McCain
“I am really excited about Rudy Giuliani,” Gary Watson, former chairman of the Mohave County (Ariz.) Republican Central Committee, told the New York Times recently. The paper noted that “the former New York mayor has a more liberal record on abortion rights, gun control and gay rights than Mr. McCain.” Watson admitted that “the social issues are a little bit looser than what I appreciate,” but quickly added that he felt Giuliani “is stronger than McCain on the border issue.” (McCain, who opposed an ’04 Arizona initiative that would have denied state benefits to illegal immigrants, sounds little different from Giuliani or President Bush in his support of a comprehensive guest-worker/amnesty program).
A California GOP legislator who was part of a closed-door meeting of lawmakers with Giuliani during his appearance at the state Republican convention (and who requested anonymity) told me afterwards that “my wife and I are very pro-life” and that when he addressed the issue with Giuliani, “Rudy said, ‘I’m for adoption, not abortion,’ and said that he would like to see children whose parents are going to abandon them adopted. He brought out statistics showing how the number of abortions declined in New York while he was mayor.” In dubbing himself “neutral at this point,” this legislator said, “I’m leaning to Rudy.”
The most frequent reason cited by conservatives for backing Giuliani is what they perceive as his leadership ability during a time when terrorism is a critical issue. Michael Der Manouel, Jr., former California state GOP treasurer and founder of the Lincoln Club for major Republican donors in Fresno, told me, “The most important issue is: Who is going to protect our country? Rudy Giuliani showed what he could do in a crisis after 9/11. If our cities are burning, issues like abortion and gay rights -- on which I do differ with Rudy -- aren’t going to matter that much.” He added that a number of other Central California conservatives would soon be weighing in with him for Giuliani, among them former State Sen. and ’06 attorney general nominee Chuck Poochigian, State Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines and Republican U.S. Representatives George Randanovich and Devin Nunes.
Agreeing that judicial appointments are a major part of a President’s legacy, Der Manouel said that Giuliani’s stated intent to name judges of the caliber of Bush Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito was “good enough for me.”
Self-described conservative Der Manouel also said that he “is sick and tired of people who, for the last 10 years, call themselves conservatives, talking about things and not putting anything into action. I’ve moved beyond conservatism now, and I just want a doer.”
Sunday, February 25, 2007
AP: '08 candidates look to governors for support
Candidates lean on governors for support
By ROBERT TANNER,
AP National Writer
Sun Feb 25, 4:59 AM ET
Seven governors already have made endorsements early in the 2008 White House race and pressure is growing for others to choose soon, bringing along their networks of fundraisers and activists.
Their support can prove influential, some analysts say, because the most effective governors have an election-tested base of motivated voters, willing donors and the ability to help sway undecided primary voters.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has the support of three governors and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the backing of two. Two former GOP governors — Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas — each has picked up the endorsement of one governor. And one current governor, Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico, is in the race himself.
"They all call," Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass., said Saturday as the state leaders attended their annual winter meeting. "I'll get involved in the primary. But not yet."
The competition for the governors' support is good strategy, said Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan.
"Governors in their states know where the votes are and know how to produce a winning majority. That's a pretty good ally to have when you head into someone's back yard."
Still, the endorsements are just one piece of a long and expensive race that has attracted a crowded field in both parties and a quick push for campaign money.
"I've talked to a number of governors," Huckabee said. "Many of them are not quite ready to make their move, kind of waiting to see how things shake out."
Huckabee last week announced the endorsement of South Dakota GOP Gov. Mike Rounds.
Among Republicans, McCain has the support of Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Jon Huntsman of Utah and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. Romney was endorsed by Matt Blunt of Missouri.
Among Democrats, Obama has the backing of Rod Blagojevich of Illinois and Tim Kaine of Virginia.
Those are the critical formal announcements, while the private conversations, quiet lobbying and occasional public appearances play out.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., recently took the stage with McCain on an environmental issue and said the lawmaker was a "great senator," "very good friend" and "a great national leader." The governor skirted a question about whether he would endorse McCain.
Last month, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., met with Chet Culver, the new Democratic governor in Iowa, whose caucuses kick off the nominating season on Jan. 14, 2008.
In Alabama, GOP Gov. Bob Riley praised Romney in public. "This guy is the quintessential candidate. He's nice looking. He's articulate. He's eminently successful," Riley said. But he held back an endorsement.
Democrat John Edwards' staff said the 2004 vice presidential nominee will make announcements about endorsements in the coming weeks. Richardson said he is working with several governors and their staff on fundraising but is not yet asking for endorsements.
Several states moved up the date of their contests so their voters have an earlier say in helping select a nominee. As a result, much of the focus has turned to how much money a candidate can raise.
Democratic hopeful Tom Vilsack, Iowa's former governor, quit the White House race this week. The reason? "Money and only money," he said.
But money and endorsements often go hand in hand, a kind of surrogate for early and influential voters, political observers say.
"It's kind of a pre-poll poll, in a way," said Walter Stone, political science professor at University of California, Davis.
Governors can help build money and momentum, particularly in the campaign's crucial early months.
"The financial pressures on the candidates are enormous. Essentially what candidates must do is plug into networks," Stone said. "And a governor is an elected official in a state with a lot of existing contacts."
Some governors are just very popular and that can help influence undecided primary voters. Voters might follow the endorsement by a governor they like and trust, Stone said.
Others are more skeptical.
Culver, the Iowa governor, said he is happy to talk with any Democratic hopeful and offer suggestions. Just don't expect an endorsement.
"The bottom line is endorsements don't matter much — at any level," Culver said. "Just one state legislator endorsed me."
By ROBERT TANNER,
AP National Writer
Sun Feb 25, 4:59 AM ET
Seven governors already have made endorsements early in the 2008 White House race and pressure is growing for others to choose soon, bringing along their networks of fundraisers and activists.
Their support can prove influential, some analysts say, because the most effective governors have an election-tested base of motivated voters, willing donors and the ability to help sway undecided primary voters.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has the support of three governors and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the backing of two. Two former GOP governors — Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas — each has picked up the endorsement of one governor. And one current governor, Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico, is in the race himself.
"They all call," Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass., said Saturday as the state leaders attended their annual winter meeting. "I'll get involved in the primary. But not yet."
The competition for the governors' support is good strategy, said Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan.
"Governors in their states know where the votes are and know how to produce a winning majority. That's a pretty good ally to have when you head into someone's back yard."
Still, the endorsements are just one piece of a long and expensive race that has attracted a crowded field in both parties and a quick push for campaign money.
"I've talked to a number of governors," Huckabee said. "Many of them are not quite ready to make their move, kind of waiting to see how things shake out."
Huckabee last week announced the endorsement of South Dakota GOP Gov. Mike Rounds.
Among Republicans, McCain has the support of Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Jon Huntsman of Utah and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. Romney was endorsed by Matt Blunt of Missouri.
Among Democrats, Obama has the backing of Rod Blagojevich of Illinois and Tim Kaine of Virginia.
Those are the critical formal announcements, while the private conversations, quiet lobbying and occasional public appearances play out.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., recently took the stage with McCain on an environmental issue and said the lawmaker was a "great senator," "very good friend" and "a great national leader." The governor skirted a question about whether he would endorse McCain.
Last month, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., met with Chet Culver, the new Democratic governor in Iowa, whose caucuses kick off the nominating season on Jan. 14, 2008.
In Alabama, GOP Gov. Bob Riley praised Romney in public. "This guy is the quintessential candidate. He's nice looking. He's articulate. He's eminently successful," Riley said. But he held back an endorsement.
Democrat John Edwards' staff said the 2004 vice presidential nominee will make announcements about endorsements in the coming weeks. Richardson said he is working with several governors and their staff on fundraising but is not yet asking for endorsements.
Several states moved up the date of their contests so their voters have an earlier say in helping select a nominee. As a result, much of the focus has turned to how much money a candidate can raise.
Democratic hopeful Tom Vilsack, Iowa's former governor, quit the White House race this week. The reason? "Money and only money," he said.
But money and endorsements often go hand in hand, a kind of surrogate for early and influential voters, political observers say.
"It's kind of a pre-poll poll, in a way," said Walter Stone, political science professor at University of California, Davis.
Governors can help build money and momentum, particularly in the campaign's crucial early months.
"The financial pressures on the candidates are enormous. Essentially what candidates must do is plug into networks," Stone said. "And a governor is an elected official in a state with a lot of existing contacts."
Some governors are just very popular and that can help influence undecided primary voters. Voters might follow the endorsement by a governor they like and trust, Stone said.
Others are more skeptical.
Culver, the Iowa governor, said he is happy to talk with any Democratic hopeful and offer suggestions. Just don't expect an endorsement.
"The bottom line is endorsements don't matter much — at any level," Culver said. "Just one state legislator endorsed me."
AP: "Romney family tree has polygamy branch"
Romney family tree has polygamy branch
By JENNIFER DOBNER and GLEN JOHNSON,
Associated Press Writers
Sat Feb 24, 9:25 PM ET
While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.
Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.
Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.
Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.
Romney's great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt's brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Romney's father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mormons fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued "The Manifesto" banning polygamy.
"When you read the family's history, you realize how important polygamy was to them," said Todd Compton, a Mormon and independent historian who wrote a book about the polygamous life of the church's founder, Joseph Smith. "They left America and started again as pioneers, after they had done it over and over again previously."
B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was "a very important part of Miles Park Romney's family."
Hardy added: "Now, very gradually, as you moved farther away from it, it became less a part of it. But during the time of Miles Park Romney, it was an essential principle of the Romney family life."
Other Mormons have run for the White House, including Romney's father in 1968 and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in 2000. But Mitt Romney's stature as a leading 2008 contender has renewed questions about his faith and its doctrines.
At the same time, polygamy remains a part of current events.
HBO is airing a television series, "Big Love," that features a man in Utah — where the Mormon church is based — with three wives. Self-proclaimed "Mormon fundamentalist" Warren Jeffs, formerly on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, is facing multiple felony charges for sex crimes related to underage marriages among members of his breakaway church's 10,000 members in Utah and Arizona, who openly practice polygamy.
Romney has joked about polygamy, saying in various settings that to him, "marriage is between a man and a woman ... and a woman and a woman." But in serious moments he has called the practice "bizarre" and noted his church excommunicates those who engage in it.
An introductory film played at his fundraisers and campaign appearances features his wife, Ann, talking about their 37-year marriage. Romney himself notes they started as high school sweethearts.
This month, Ann Romney tried a different tack, taking a lighthearted jab at her husband's main Republican competitors, Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as she introduced Romney at a Missouri GOP dinner.
The biggest difference between her husband and the other candidates, Ann Romney said, is that "he's had only one wife."
McCain has been married twice; Giuliani three times.
The Romney campaign had no comment for this story.
Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon church in 1830, quietly introduced polygamy. He believed it had roots in the Old Testament and was necessary to reach the highest salvation in heaven. Smith is believed to have had 33 wives.
Brigham Young expanded the practice after the church's migration from the Midwest to Utah, which began in 1846. He is said to have had 55 wives. Historical texts show Young also asked Orson Pratt to publicly proclaim the church's belief in polygamy in 1852.
In 1862, while Utah was a territory, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, banning plural marriage. In 1882, Congress also passed the Edmunds Act, an anti-polygamy law. That was followed in 1887 by the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which disincorporated the church and threatened to seize its nonreligious real estate as part of the crackdown on polygamy.
In 1890, Mormon President Wilford Woodruff issued "The Manifesto," in which he declared the church no longer taught or permitted plural marriages.
Nonetheless, the law of polygamy — Smith's revelation that God authorized polygamy — remains in Article 132 of the church's Doctrine and Covenants. In addition, Mormon widowers who remarry today believe they will live in eternity with their multiple wives.
Mormon genealogical records, among the most detailed and complete of any religion, show that two of Mitt Romney's great-great grandfathers, Miles Romney and Parley Pratt, had 12 wives each.
Compton, the polygamy scholar, disputes that. He believes Miles Romney only had one wife because the records do not show the dates for his other 11 marriages or any offspring from them.
Miles Romney and his one clearly documented wife, Elizabeth Gaskell, had 10 children. Among them was Miles Park Romney, one of Mitt Romney's great-grandfathers.
Miles Park Romney had five wives. With his first wife, Hannah Hood Hill, he had 11 children. Among them was Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney's paternal grandfather.
Hannah Hood Hill's autobiography offers an eyewitness account of the Romney family's polygamous past. Hardy, the Cal-State historian, found it amid research for his upcoming book, "Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy."
Hood Hill wrote of Miles Park Romney: "I felt that was more than I could endure, to have him divide his time and affections from me. I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a woman's heart ache, it is for her husband to take another wife. ... But I put my trust in my heavenly father, and prayed and pleaded with him to give me strength to bear this great trial."
Miles Park Romney's final marriage, to Emily Eyring Smith, came in 1897, more than six years after "The Manifesto."
Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney's grandfather, was not a polygamist. He married Anna Amelia Pratt, the daughter of polygamists and the granddaughter of Parley Pratt, the apostle with 12 wives. Their marriage took place Feb. 20, 1895, in Dublan, Mexico.
Gaskell Romney had moved to Mexico with his parents in 1884 amid the proliferation of U.S. laws prohibiting "unlawful cohabitation." Anna Pratt was born in Utah, but had emigrated to Mexico and lived in one of nine Mormon colonies established over the border.
Gaskell Romney and Anna Pratt had seven children, including George Wilcken Romney, the former Michigan governor. He lived with his parents in Mexico until 1912, when the family returned to the United States.
George Romney married Lenore LaFount, who does not appear to have polygamy in her family tree. The couple, now deceased, had four children, including Mitt Romney.
Associated Press writer Glen Johnson reported from Boston.
By JENNIFER DOBNER and GLEN JOHNSON,
Associated Press Writers
Sat Feb 24, 9:25 PM ET
While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.
Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.
Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.
Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.
Romney's great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt's brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Romney's father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mormons fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued "The Manifesto" banning polygamy.
"When you read the family's history, you realize how important polygamy was to them," said Todd Compton, a Mormon and independent historian who wrote a book about the polygamous life of the church's founder, Joseph Smith. "They left America and started again as pioneers, after they had done it over and over again previously."
B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was "a very important part of Miles Park Romney's family."
Hardy added: "Now, very gradually, as you moved farther away from it, it became less a part of it. But during the time of Miles Park Romney, it was an essential principle of the Romney family life."
Other Mormons have run for the White House, including Romney's father in 1968 and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in 2000. But Mitt Romney's stature as a leading 2008 contender has renewed questions about his faith and its doctrines.
At the same time, polygamy remains a part of current events.
HBO is airing a television series, "Big Love," that features a man in Utah — where the Mormon church is based — with three wives. Self-proclaimed "Mormon fundamentalist" Warren Jeffs, formerly on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, is facing multiple felony charges for sex crimes related to underage marriages among members of his breakaway church's 10,000 members in Utah and Arizona, who openly practice polygamy.
Romney has joked about polygamy, saying in various settings that to him, "marriage is between a man and a woman ... and a woman and a woman." But in serious moments he has called the practice "bizarre" and noted his church excommunicates those who engage in it.
An introductory film played at his fundraisers and campaign appearances features his wife, Ann, talking about their 37-year marriage. Romney himself notes they started as high school sweethearts.
This month, Ann Romney tried a different tack, taking a lighthearted jab at her husband's main Republican competitors, Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as she introduced Romney at a Missouri GOP dinner.
The biggest difference between her husband and the other candidates, Ann Romney said, is that "he's had only one wife."
McCain has been married twice; Giuliani three times.
The Romney campaign had no comment for this story.
Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon church in 1830, quietly introduced polygamy. He believed it had roots in the Old Testament and was necessary to reach the highest salvation in heaven. Smith is believed to have had 33 wives.
Brigham Young expanded the practice after the church's migration from the Midwest to Utah, which began in 1846. He is said to have had 55 wives. Historical texts show Young also asked Orson Pratt to publicly proclaim the church's belief in polygamy in 1852.
In 1862, while Utah was a territory, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, banning plural marriage. In 1882, Congress also passed the Edmunds Act, an anti-polygamy law. That was followed in 1887 by the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which disincorporated the church and threatened to seize its nonreligious real estate as part of the crackdown on polygamy.
In 1890, Mormon President Wilford Woodruff issued "The Manifesto," in which he declared the church no longer taught or permitted plural marriages.
Nonetheless, the law of polygamy — Smith's revelation that God authorized polygamy — remains in Article 132 of the church's Doctrine and Covenants. In addition, Mormon widowers who remarry today believe they will live in eternity with their multiple wives.
Mormon genealogical records, among the most detailed and complete of any religion, show that two of Mitt Romney's great-great grandfathers, Miles Romney and Parley Pratt, had 12 wives each.
Compton, the polygamy scholar, disputes that. He believes Miles Romney only had one wife because the records do not show the dates for his other 11 marriages or any offspring from them.
Miles Romney and his one clearly documented wife, Elizabeth Gaskell, had 10 children. Among them was Miles Park Romney, one of Mitt Romney's great-grandfathers.
Miles Park Romney had five wives. With his first wife, Hannah Hood Hill, he had 11 children. Among them was Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney's paternal grandfather.
Hannah Hood Hill's autobiography offers an eyewitness account of the Romney family's polygamous past. Hardy, the Cal-State historian, found it amid research for his upcoming book, "Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy."
Hood Hill wrote of Miles Park Romney: "I felt that was more than I could endure, to have him divide his time and affections from me. I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a woman's heart ache, it is for her husband to take another wife. ... But I put my trust in my heavenly father, and prayed and pleaded with him to give me strength to bear this great trial."
Miles Park Romney's final marriage, to Emily Eyring Smith, came in 1897, more than six years after "The Manifesto."
Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney's grandfather, was not a polygamist. He married Anna Amelia Pratt, the daughter of polygamists and the granddaughter of Parley Pratt, the apostle with 12 wives. Their marriage took place Feb. 20, 1895, in Dublan, Mexico.
Gaskell Romney had moved to Mexico with his parents in 1884 amid the proliferation of U.S. laws prohibiting "unlawful cohabitation." Anna Pratt was born in Utah, but had emigrated to Mexico and lived in one of nine Mormon colonies established over the border.
Gaskell Romney and Anna Pratt had seven children, including George Wilcken Romney, the former Michigan governor. He lived with his parents in Mexico until 1912, when the family returned to the United States.
George Romney married Lenore LaFount, who does not appear to have polygamy in her family tree. The couple, now deceased, had four children, including Mitt Romney.
Associated Press writer Glen Johnson reported from Boston.
Tom Vilsack pulls out of presidential race
In case you haven't seen it, the Democratic presidential field is now minus one former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. Citing money concerns, he withdrew Friday.
N.H. backer laments loss of Vilsack
By Holly Ramer, Associated Press Writer
February 23, 2007
CONCORD, N.H. --Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack called Gary Hirshberg on Thursday night to tell him he was ending his presidential campaign. Friday morning, the phone rang again: it was Sen. Barack Obama, who waited just two minutes after Vilsack's public announcement to ask for Hirshberg's support.
Hirshberg, the founder and chief executive officer of Stonyfield Farm yogurt, was one of Vilsack's earliest and most prominent New Hampshire supporters.
He said Vilsack's departure from the race was disappointing both personally and in terms of what it says about the political process.
Vilsack told reporters that his inability to raise enough money to compete with his top-tier rivals was the sole reason for his decision to leave the race for the Democratic nomination. According to his most recent financial documents, Vilsack raised more than $1.1 million in the last seven weeks of 2006 but had less than $400,000 in the bank.
"He's governed, he's been absolutely correct on foreign policy, on energy security and on agriculture," Hirshberg said. "So it's tragic that he really has everything except money."
Hirshberg said he also believes Vilsack suffered from an eagerness by the media and to some extent voters to define an early front-runner instead of having a serious conversation about the issues.
"It's not just about money, though that's what did Tom's campaign in," he said. "It's our focus on the process, not the product."
"Everybody I know who has met Tom has come away wowed," he said. "Admittedly, many have come away shaking their heads saying, `Too bad he can't win.' As a guy who started a company with seven cows that's now and for 18 years been the fastest growing yogurt company in the world, I just say, that's unfortunate."
Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said the rush to hold early primaries forced Vilsack out of the race, and she worries the same will happen to other lesser-known candidates. Several large states, including California, are considering moving up their contests to play more prominent roles in the nominating process. New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the first primary, hasn't set its date yet.
Sullivan praised Vilsack for embracing New Hampshire's tradition of retail politics while criticizing national leaders of both parties for not trying to stop the shift to early primaries and caucuses.
"How many qualified and dynamic leaders do we have to lose in this race before something is done?"
During their conversation Thursday night, Vilsack asked Hirshberg to keep his decision quiet -- a tough request given that Vilsack's national field manager has been living with Hirshberg's family.
"I had to kind of tiptoe around my house," he said.
As for his conversation with Obama, Hirshberg said he told the Illinois senator he isn't ready to commit to another candidate just yet.
"Although we're absolutely undecided, I was very impressed," Hirshberg said.
"Though we can wring our hands now about the role of money in these campaigns, it's still really vindicating to me to see, particularly here in New Hampshire, that grassroots, house-to-house, person-to-person politics is still the order of the day. I think Sen. Obama just proved that."
N.H. backer laments loss of Vilsack
By Holly Ramer, Associated Press Writer
February 23, 2007
CONCORD, N.H. --Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack called Gary Hirshberg on Thursday night to tell him he was ending his presidential campaign. Friday morning, the phone rang again: it was Sen. Barack Obama, who waited just two minutes after Vilsack's public announcement to ask for Hirshberg's support.
Hirshberg, the founder and chief executive officer of Stonyfield Farm yogurt, was one of Vilsack's earliest and most prominent New Hampshire supporters.
He said Vilsack's departure from the race was disappointing both personally and in terms of what it says about the political process.
Vilsack told reporters that his inability to raise enough money to compete with his top-tier rivals was the sole reason for his decision to leave the race for the Democratic nomination. According to his most recent financial documents, Vilsack raised more than $1.1 million in the last seven weeks of 2006 but had less than $400,000 in the bank.
"He's governed, he's been absolutely correct on foreign policy, on energy security and on agriculture," Hirshberg said. "So it's tragic that he really has everything except money."
Hirshberg said he also believes Vilsack suffered from an eagerness by the media and to some extent voters to define an early front-runner instead of having a serious conversation about the issues.
"It's not just about money, though that's what did Tom's campaign in," he said. "It's our focus on the process, not the product."
"Everybody I know who has met Tom has come away wowed," he said. "Admittedly, many have come away shaking their heads saying, `Too bad he can't win.' As a guy who started a company with seven cows that's now and for 18 years been the fastest growing yogurt company in the world, I just say, that's unfortunate."
Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said the rush to hold early primaries forced Vilsack out of the race, and she worries the same will happen to other lesser-known candidates. Several large states, including California, are considering moving up their contests to play more prominent roles in the nominating process. New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the first primary, hasn't set its date yet.
Sullivan praised Vilsack for embracing New Hampshire's tradition of retail politics while criticizing national leaders of both parties for not trying to stop the shift to early primaries and caucuses.
"How many qualified and dynamic leaders do we have to lose in this race before something is done?"
During their conversation Thursday night, Vilsack asked Hirshberg to keep his decision quiet -- a tough request given that Vilsack's national field manager has been living with Hirshberg's family.
"I had to kind of tiptoe around my house," he said.
As for his conversation with Obama, Hirshberg said he told the Illinois senator he isn't ready to commit to another candidate just yet.
"Although we're absolutely undecided, I was very impressed," Hirshberg said.
"Though we can wring our hands now about the role of money in these campaigns, it's still really vindicating to me to see, particularly here in New Hampshire, that grassroots, house-to-house, person-to-person politics is still the order of the day. I think Sen. Obama just proved that."
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