Informed Speculation

Bill Frist is out: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will not run for president in 2008, Republican officials said Wednesday, as the field of White House contenders continued to shrink more than a year before the first convention delegates are chosen. Frist’s formal announcement was expected later in the day. You don’t say…  *As always, [...]

McCain, Rudy G., Tommy Thompson, and Duncan Hunter are the four Republicans who now have formed exploratory committees for 2008 bids: The 2008 race for the White House intensified Thursday as one of the big name Republican players, Sen. John McCain, threw himself into the fray. The 70-year-old Arizona senator is the fourth Republican to [...]

What the HELL? U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular [...]

Hillary’s presidential campaign seems to be in real danger of running out of steam, and that’s bad news for Democrats, as, if the primaries were held today, the number one candidate would appear to be the not-ready-for-prime-time (and horrible campaigner) John Edwards: Today’s Iowa Poll of the 2008 race for president in the Hawkeye state [...]

I disagree with much of this Dick Morris column, but I agree with a lot of it, too, so I’m recommending it as an interesting read, if nothing else: You can’t be a front-runner for your party’s nomination and win 5 percent of the vote in a regional straw poll, finishing fourth, behind Senate Majority [...]

Well, we’ve always known Decision ’08ers are a breed apart – but a poll like this really shows it! Of the 55 votes the GOPBloggers straw poll has received from this website to this point, Rudy G. is the most favorably looked-upon candidate by a good margin, with McCain second, and Huckabee, Romney, and Allen [...]

In the type of hopeless lost cause that gets the progressive tails wagging, Senator Russ Feingold is going to attempt a censure of Bush: In an exclusive interview on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on the Senate to publicly admonish President Bush for approving domestic wiretaps on American citizens without [...]

Pbbbsst – color me unimpressed: Here are the just announced results of the straw poll from the Southern Republican Leadership Conference: Senator Bill Frist 36.9% Governor Mitt Romney 14.4% Senator George Allen 10.3% President Bush (write in) 10.3% Senator John McCain 4.6% Governor Mike Huckabee 3.8% Frist? Well, I suppose…nah, I can’t do it. I [...]

John Hawkins at Right Wing News polled 200+ bloggers (but not yours truly – should I be insulted?) on their most and least wanted 2008 Republican nominees. You can see the results here, but since I wasn’t asked, I’ll share my thoughts on the question (shrewd readers will notice I’m adopting the John Kerry approach [...]

In the midst of a harangue on what a joke our congressional representation has become, Bob Novak sheds light on what happened during James Sensenbrenner’s refusal to grant the six-month extension of the Patriot Act the Senate had passed earlier this month: This bizarre Senate session reflects a general decline on Capitol Hill. If there [...]

Chris Cillizza’s WaPo blog is becoming an essential resource for political junkies. Today, he looks back on ’05 as it related to 2008 hopefuls. Read the whole post, but his best and worst I would largely agree with: Mark Warner and Bill Frist. What about the worst, on the Democratic side? I would have to [...]

Writing in his column/blog at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza offers the following list as the 12 candidates to watch for 2008: Democrats – Bayh, Clinton, Edwards, Fiengold, Kerry, Warner Republicans – Allen, Frist, Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Romney Well, I haven’t done any handicapping lately, so let’s take a look at those candidates. First, the [...]

So says the Washington Post; our good friend Erick-Woods Erickson (who posts both at Red State and his own excellent blog) says it’s being considered, but unlikely. Erick seems to feel that Luttig or Edith Jones or the most likely second choices. Meanwhile, Bill Frist says the Roberts hearings will go on as planned; kudos [...]

Bill Frist will be my next profile, hopefully this week; Frist, of course, is under fire for his recent “turnabout” on stem-cell research. I use the scare quotes advisedly, because, as we’ve discussed before, he really only repeated his position as it has always been. Nevertheless, that’s a story for another time. Has Frist killed [...]