Daily News Roundup, 12/07/07: Campaign Innovations and Derivations

It's Friday, and I find myself faced with a tough choice. Do I talk about matters of significant political import, or do I talk about Ron Paul's blimp? (Hint: I actually do both.)

Texas figured large in political news yesterday as Mitt Romney rolled in to College Station and gave what is probably the most important speech of his political career so far.

"I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest," Mr. Romney said in a speech that comes as Mike Huckabee has gone ahead in polls in Iowa with strong support from evangelicals.

We know what this is all about, and we've discussed it here, as it has been everywhere: a big chunk of Republican voters (and Iowa GOP caucus-goers in the very, very specific) count themselves as evangelicals. To generalize about evangelicals, the scuttlebutt is that they aren't crazy about voting for a Mormon. This speech was engineered to accomplish the same thing that JFK's speech to Protestant ministers in Texas did lo these many years ago - in both cases, to assure people that if elected, the White House would not be immediately ceded to the leaders of each man's religion.

And in case you were to ever forget that Romney was Reaching for a Kennedy moment, observe this totally coincidental photograph taken of Romney, and juxtaposed with JFK's presidential portrait for no particular reason by Andrew Sullivan:

Source: Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Dish

You Make The Call!

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has a message for Texas landowners who would really rather not have the US-Mexico border fence running through their backyard: Submit, serfs, or suffer the wrath of the landed gentry. Chertoff may have used more modern, legalalistic language, but the point is the same. The landowners who don't want to fork over access to their land argue that they have a very good reason for putting up a fight:

Several members of the group could lose access to the Rio Grande, which they rely on for irrigating crops, or to rich farmland that abuts the river.

This isn't going to turn out well for either side, probably.

Karl Rove was in Austin last night, speaking at a Republican gathering and warning against any laurel-resting on the part of the Texas GOP. We're starting to hear that message quite a bit from Republican hotshots who have been supremely confident in the last four or five years, and I think that's because they've started to sense some danger.

As a marker of that danger and the fact that is has a statewide and national character, observe yet one more story about how Republican efforts to alienate Latino voters have thoroughly succeeded:

"A plurality of Hispanics view the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party as the one that shows more concern for Latinos and does a better job on the issue of illegal immigration," says the Pew report, "Hispanics and the 2008 Election: A Swing Vote?"

This is not just imaginary or anecdotal poll; it's a Pew Hispanic Center poll, and it details some conditions that will have serious implications for the GOP in the coming years.

Now, as promised: the Ron Paul blimp. I wasn't kidding. It is real, even if it isn't an official arm of the Ron Paul campaign:

“We’re not doing a blimp because traditional political wisdom maybe doesn’t say that that’s the best way to spend money,” said Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton. “But who knows? It could turn out that the blimp is the best thing that anyone’s done.”

The goal of Team Ridiculous Dirigible is to gain earned media, which I am currently giving to them. But I wanted you to know that there's going to be a campaign blimp. For Ron Paul. Next thing you know, The Unauthorized Giuliani Hydrofoil Racer will be careening up the Potomac.