2008 Republican Nomination

Its almost that time again where we start looking at candidates for the next Presidential election to figure out who has the early lead in getting the party nominations. I am going to start with the Republican nomination and will do the Democratic nomination sometime fairly soon. Right now we are in July 2006, and the nomination process doesn't begin until about January 2008, but by this time next year the campaign is going to be in full swing with candidates stumping the country. In the latest Gallup poll we have things basically unchanged from how they have been for a long time, but its still able to give us a snapshot of where things stand right now--

Republican Voters (June 1-4)

Rudy Giuliani: 29
John McCain: 24
Newt Gingrich: 8
Mitt Romney: 6
Bill Frist: 6
George Allen: 5
Sam Brownback: 2
Mike Huckabee: 2
George Pataki: 1


It is far too early for any of this to be set in stone, but we can learn a lot from the results of this poll. First, we know the challenges that each of the candidates face going into the nomination process in terms of name recognition. Rudy Giuliani was Mayor of New York on September 11th, 2001, so he has almost universal name recognition, and John McCain is known from his unsuccessful Presidential campaign in 2000. Republicans usually nominate their early frontrunner, and many insiders are saying that McCain is going to win the nomination, and these are people who believed that he didn't stand a chance a few years ago. He is second in this poll, but by many people's reasoning, he is more conservative than Giuliani, who is pro-choice and ambivalent about gay marriage. Giuliani is going to have to overcome those two obstacles in order to win the nomination.

Giuliani and McCain are known to the public at large and are generally respected and that is why they are leading at the moment. They are going to be well in contention for the nomination should either or both of them announce for President. Now, we can move onto the second tier candidates: Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Bill Frist, and George Allen.

Newt Gingrich is known because he was Speaker of the House for four years from 1995 to 1998, but is also viewed unfavorably from that time. He has support that won't ever likely leave him but he has only a limited range to grow on. I can't honestly envision him winning the election.

Mitt Romney's increase in support (from 1-2 percent in many polls a year ago) is a very good sign for him and it shows that there is something very really happening here. He has signed the first universal health care program in the United States into law and this is going to give him and accomplishment that many of the other contenders don't have. When he was Governor of Virginia, George Allen abolished parole and did a few other things but overall there wasn't much that he accomplished that left a real lasting legacy. He's a great politician and a great communicator but I am not sure that he is going to be able to win the nomination or, for that matter the general election. He is battle-tested from tough races but realistically, creation of national concealed weapons' permits is not the most pressing issue nationally in 2008. Many Republicans compare him to Ronald Reagan but forget that while Reagan changed American Politics, the nation has moved past the time where someone like him would be an acceptable Presidential candidate. Bill Frist has been scratched up from running the Senate and failing to get things done, and this is going to damage him should he run for President, but his post as Senate Majority Leader does have the name recognition where he could win the election.

Now, with the third teir candidates: Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, and Sam Brownback. These candidates have to increase their name recognition to win the election, but unfortunately for Pataki, this could also mean that he has no chance of winning the nomination. As Governor of New York he was in a relatively high profile position on September 11th, and if that didn't give him name recognition then there isn't much that will.

More Berlusconi

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was indicted for tax fraud, false accounting, and embezzlement and ordered to stand trial beginning November 21st. Also indicted were corporate lawyer David Mills, estranged husband of British cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri, and several others. The case stems from the purchase of television rights for Americans films and TV shows which was allegedly done by a holding company controlled by Berlusconi, which then sold the rights to Mediaset at an inflated price to create a slush fund for the personal use of Berlusconi and his colleagues. If he is able to delay the final conviction until 2008 then he is going to be able to get off because of the three-year statute of limitations that was passed during his time as Prime Minister.

Also in the news about him was an article saying that he is going to leave Italian politics, with him quoted as telling his close friends "I am leaving" in Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by his brother. One would think this report is accurate but the fact that it is not repeated anywhere else leaves doubt about it. He is 69 years old but that is relatively young in the gerontocracy of Italian politics where the President of the Republic is 80 and the center-right candidate for Senate President is 87. At the end of the five-year parliamentary term he is going to be 74, but that would not make him the oldest Prime Minister that Italy has ever had. Things right now are looking up for Prodi, who has done better than I expected he would as Prime Minister and I will address that in another blog post today or tommorrow. My feeling is that with this case Berlusconi is going to have every incentive to remain at least in parliament if not as Leader of the Opposition because he has some immunities that he would not have otherwise. Even if he leaves politics now, he has made no secret of his ambition to become President of the Republic even as he sought to take power away from that position. The next election comes up for parliament (assuming the government survives the full term) in 2011, and the next Presidential election comes up in 2013. If the center right were to win in 2011, Berlusconi would be 76 at the time of the next presidential election, which would make him younger than either Carlo Azeglio Ciampi or Gregorio Napolitano when they were elected, so that is still a possibility.

I am not sure who the next leader of the House of Freedoms would be if Berlusconi were to resign, as someone is going to have to fill that major void.

It is not likely that Berlusconi is going to spend a day in jail for this, and if he were to return as Prime Minister the trial would be put on hold again. Right before he was about to leave politics, the judge may have given him a reason to stay in.