Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore "has become the self-appointed pit bull of the 2008 Republican presidential campaign," says a Washington Post story on the wires. His goal: Make primary voters realize that, unlike the front-runners Rudy Giuliani (in the polls), Mitt Romney (in fund-raising) and John McCain (in the minds of the media), Gilmor is a "consistent conservative."
Gilmore uses the nickname "Rudy McRomney" in derisively lumping together former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In a Web video, he lambastes them for not sharing the "core conservative values" of his party.
"John McCain has fought conservatives time after time, even invoking the rhetoric of class warfare to oppose the Bush tax cuts," Gilmore said. "Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney both repeatedly opposed core conservative values to win elections in New York and Massachusetts."
With almost no money (he raised less than 1 percent of what Romney did during the first three months of the year) and almost no staff (he says he has a single "field man" in Iowa), Gilmore has decided to gain ground in the crowded field of 10 candidates through a simple strategy: attack, attack, attack - and hope the rest start attacking one another as well.
Kieran Mahoney, Gilmore's top strategist, lays out the strategy:
"Romney's going to take his $23 million and go shooting at McCain," Mahoney said. "When Giuliani takes his $17 million and shoots at Romney, that's not a bad day, either. It's not necessary that we own the bullets."
The Post says that last week's Republican presidential debate in Columbia, S.C., suggests that Gilmore's strategy "may be working."
By repeating some of his accusations, Gilmore grabbed a bigger share of the post-debate coverage than he did after the Republicans' first debate. And, as Mahoney predicted, his comments may have helped spark feisty exchanges between the other candidates.
At the end of the day, though, one of the current "Big Three" will still be standing - and Gilmore's not got the money or the grassroots support to really compete - and it's not clear his strategy is going to change that.
Not to mention that Gilmore looked VERY weak when he wouldn't name names when asked in the debate. Then, when he was basically shamed into it by one of the moderators, he picks on Huckabee. Despite Gilmore's spin its not good when the audience laughs at you derisively, which that audience did when he mentioned his website and blog.
If I were a candidate in the debate I would have picked on just one of the front runners, probably McCain for several reasons. McCain lost in SC last time and I think the audience would probably like to see him get stuck again, McCain-Feingold DID NOT get the money out of politics, if anything it is worse than before, and how many times has se sided with the Democrats at the expense of the Republicans, that isn't "bipartisanship" its a sellout.
Anyway I would have hammered McCain all night and when not hammering McCain I would have hammered the Democrats (its amazing that there was so little of that in the debate). That's free debate advice to anyone out there.
Posted by: Ken | May 21, 2007 7:38 AM | Permalink to Comment