Coverage of the race to succeed President Bush would be incomplete if it didn't mention Karl Rove's effect on 2008 now that he's leaving the White House. The open question is who, if anyone, will adopt Rove's brand of politics that secured three elections for the GOP.
In the Republican race, Mitt Romney still faces "fierce competition" for the support of social conservatives as evidenced by the combined Ames straw poll totals of Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee that exceeded Romney's first-place total, writes the Los Angeles Times' Michael Finnegan. Brownback and Huckabee's finishes will be for naught if neither draws greater financial support, as the Des Moines Register's Thomas Beaumont writes. "Lower-than-expected turnout at the straw poll suggests Huckabee's task will not be easy, with Iowa Republicans experiencing an untimely bout of ambivalence just months ahead of the leadoff caucuses."
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe's Brian Mooney writes that Rudy Giuliani is backing away from his previous support for civil unions for same-sex couples in favor of a "modest set of rights for gay partners than civil union laws in effect in four states offer." Giuliani's campaign "offered little explanation of what specific rights he would support for same-sex couples," but explained that he supports "domestic partnership laws similar to the one he initiated in New York in 1998."
After Giuliani said he was at Ground Zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers," the mayor backtracked. "What I was trying to say...is that I empathize with them, because I feel like I have that same risk," Giuliani said. "There were people there less than me, people on my staff, who already have had serious health consequences, and they weren't there as often as I was but I wasn't trying to suggest a competition of any kind, which is the way it come across."
Afterward, Giuliani "tapped someone with first-hand experience of a 9/11-related illness to chair his NYC campaign: His former deputy mayor, Rudy Washington," writes the New York Daily News' Elizabeth Benjamin. Washington has a respiratory illness he said came from being at Ground Zero overseeing rescue and response efforts.
There are three significant developments for the GOP in Florida and California. The Florida GOP again promised to deliver all of its delegates to the 2008 nominating convention after the RNC warned it will revoke half of Florida's delegation if the state party goes ahead with a Jan. 29 primary.
More significant, Hispanics in Miami-Dade county are "increasingly becoming free agents," after being solidly Republican, reports the Miami Herald's Beth Reinhard. Less than half of the county's Hispanic voters are registered Republicans, down from 59 percent less than 10 years ago.
Lastly, GOP strategists are pushing a ballot initiative in California that would apportion electoral votes by who wins congressional districts – a difference that would have given Bush 22 electoral votes from California in 2004.
On the Democratic side, the Associated Press' Ron Fournier writes that Democratic leaders "quietly fret that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top of their 2008 ticket could hurt candidates at the bottom." In more than 40 interviews, these officials "pointed to internal polls that give Clinton strikingly high unfavorable ratings in places with key congressional and state races." Apparently they also fret about crossing Clinton: most "agreed to talk frankly about Clinton's political coattails only if they remained anonymous, fearing reprisals.... They all expressed admiration for Clinton, and some said they would publicly support her fierce fight for the nomination -- despite privately held fears."
Lastly, Clinton's 2007 fundraising total was downgraded some after subtracting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Q1 total because of a "variety of problems, including donors whose credit cards were mistakenly charged twice, contributions exceeding the legal limit and checks that bounced," reports the New York Times' Mike McIntyre. "As a result, her total was reduced to $25.6 million -- dead even with Mr. Obama, whose first-quarter take also shrank, albeit to a lesser degree."
Get these and today's other election stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.
