Search
Home  |   About  |   Q & A  |   Archives  |   Credits  |   Contact  |  
« New Hamsphire — Safe and Livable Despite Being So Far Away from Cheap Illegal Labor
Obama — I Might Have Left if Wright had Stayed »

Interview w/ Mike Duncan, Chairman of the RNC — Starkest Contrast Ever Between Two Candidates

Thanks to Liz Mair, who is the Online Communications Director, eCampaign Division, for the Republican National Committee (RNC) for working so patiently and professionally with me to schedule this quick interview with RNC Chairman Mike Duncan.

I only had a few minutes to speak with Chairman Duncan, but I wanted to dig into how the GOP plans on campaigning against and beating Sen. Barack Obama in the general election (though Chairman Duncan did mention Sen. Clinton a few times, we spoke as though Sen. Obama was the presumptuous candidate).

Most of the answers I refer to for Chairman Duncan are paraphrased based on my memory and my notes, and may not be actual quotes.

1) How forceful will the GOP be in going after Sen. Obama’s qualifications to be our next Commander-in-Chief, especially compared to Sen. McCain’s distinguished military record and Senatorial record as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee?

Chairman Duncan wanted to reiterate the well-publicized philosophy that Sen McCain intends to run a respectful campaign based on issues. And the issue of qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief is obviously one of the issues where the RNC believes we have a distinct advantage over the Democrats.

In addition to Sen. McCain’s distinguished military education and experience and his extensive Senatorial experience, Duncan added that McCain brings other intangible qualities to the issue: namely his judgment and his strong character.

Sen Obama has built almost his entire campaign around his superior judgment. However, with the recent revelations about his relationship to Tony Rezko, this might be an excellent point to argue against Obama.

Chairman Duncan pounded him the “stark contrast” between Obama and McCain when it comes to who’s most ready to be Commander-in-Chief. He said that the campaign would focus on Obama’s lack of military experience, limited experience in the US Senate, and his limited experience as a state senator.

“Sen. John McCain is the most qualified candidate to be our next Commander in Chief.”

2) Since we are talking about McCain’s desire to run a respectful campaing on the issues, where does the RNC and GOP think Obama is weakest in terms of policy, and how do we exploit those issues?

Chairman Duncan immediatley jumped into Obama’s liberal record — he brought up the recent news that Sen. Obama is the most Liberal senator in Congress. Duncan feels that the more American voters know about and understand Obama’s Liberal record, the more turned off they will be by him.

Duncan noted that it’s not just his liberal rhetoric, but his voting record — consistently voting against our troops and voting for increasing socially liberal issues — brand him as the most Liberal candidate.

I noted that Sen. Obama has eschewed the term Liberal, and would rather be called a progressive. I asked if Sen. McCain and the RNC would shy away from using the term Liberal when discussing Obama.

To the contrary, Chairman Duncan replied that they would be stressing his extreme Liberalism.

Once again, Chairman Duncan stated that in his experience, he has never seen a more stark contrast between two parties and two candidates.

3) What are the keys to victory in November for the GOP?

I wanted to know what the RNC and the GOP would be focused on — what are the keys — to winning.

Chairman Duncan stated that it starts with having an outstanding candidate. I didn’t mention that a lot of Conservatives would argue that we don’t have an outstanding candidate, and that many of us (to include myself) would be holding our nose and voting against Obama/Clinton, rather than for McCain.

But McCain is our candidate, so I didn’t want to diminish his very first key to winning.

However, Duncan did talk about one important difference in the candidates that makes voting for McCain much more palatable and does make him an outstanding candidate in this regard: appointing judges.

Duncan reassured me that McCain intends to nominate and appoint judges who will not legislate from the bench or try to interpret the Constitution, rather would appoint judges who strictly follow the Constitution.

Beyond having a great candidate, Duncan noted the importance of getting out McCain’s message and the contrast in policy and issues between the two candidates. He noted that we have to raise money and have a greater involvement and outreach to the grassroots (which is exactly what he is doing by taking the time to personally speak to numerous bloggers around the country).

4) Let’s talk local — what are your thoughts on the race between Sen. John Cornyn and Rick Noriega?

Chairman Duncan said that he didn’t know much about the race, but talked about his respect and admiration for Sen. Cornyn. Preaching to the choir, he noted that Texas was “well represented” by Sen. Conryn via his constituent services and how well he represents the values of Texas.

I asked how strong the RNC feels about the odds of retaining the seat in the face of a good candidate in Rick Noriega (I have a very high regard and admiration for the Democratic challenger) — Duncan noted that Sen. Cornyn was taking the challenge seriously, but that overall they felt strong about being re-elected.

_______

I came away with the feeling that McCain is going to mostly play up the experience angle against Sen. Obama. If he goes that route, it should be apparent to anybody paying attention that Obama has none.

I didn’t get to my last question, which was: do you have any insight that you’re willing to share on the VP for McCain. I doubt he would have been specific at this point anyway.

Again, many thanks to Chairman Duncan for taking a few minutes out of his busy day to talk to me.

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 | Trackback |

3 Responses to “Interview w/ Mike Duncan, Chairman of the RNC — Starkest Contrast Ever Between Two Candidates”

per the national journal, the people who made the claim that obama is the most liberal senator:

“…in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.”

and even that’s funny since not even six months ago y’all were calling john edwards the most liberal senator.

also, i think its funny that you omitted the line “…of 2007…” from this, since it changes every year. Although that makes sense, because it sounds worse when you lie by omission.

also, here’s some info on your guy McChrist from the same article:

“Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the only other senator whose presidential candidacy survived the initial round of primaries and caucuses this year, did not vote frequently enough in 2007 to draw a composite score. He missed more than half of the votes in both the economic and foreign-policy categories. On social issues, which include immigration, McCain received a conservative score of 59.”

since he didn’t VOTE ENOUGH to be counted this year i’ll just list his rating from last year:

composite conservative score: 56.7
conservative ranking: 46th

he’s barely even in the top 50.

here’s the link to the article, so you know, there’s no calling bullshit.

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/voteratings/

Left by kit churchill on March 27th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Kit, what you don’t get is that most of us don’t like McCain, for a multitude of reasons. The one thing he has going for him over his opponents is, he’s not a flaming Marxist, that wants to raise taxes for massive government programs, or surrender to our enemies in the GWOT.

Left by no2libverals on March 28th, 2008 at 7:52 am

no2, actually, i do get that you don’t like mccain for a multitude of reasons. what i also get is that you’re willing to compromise your beliefs and your ideologies for a non conservative who might, but probably won’t beat, a…well…non conservative.

i thought you said that you’d read marx? calling obama, or clinton for that matter, a marxist only proves that either you’re too stupid to understand it, or that you just out and out lied in an effort to prove your point. marxism is about workers reclaiming the means of production for themselves in an effort to reconnect themselves with the products of their labor, something marx saw as an inherent need in being human, especially in an industrialised society. communism, as he coined the term, was what he deemed the most appropriate means to reach that conclusion. obviously, as is the case with any political system, its never in real life what it seems on paper. however, no where in any campaign speech given by any democratic candidate has anyone made any claim even coming close to calling for the people to reclaim the means of production from the bourgouise. It seems, although your bad grammar may be confusing me, that you’re equating higher taxes for government programs, either of the democratic candidtaes health care policies, or their positions on our occupation of iraq with marxism. funding the government by means of a broad tax base and not through the rising waters raises all ships economic policies of neo-cons is actually a tenant of liberalism, or, and probably more to your uninformed disdain, social liberalism. i would again, simply ask that you look into things before you comment on things you obviously know nothing about, if for no other reason, it makes you look just opinionated, and not like an opinionated moron.

as for the “GWOT”, do you honestly believe that any president, democrat or republican would actually surrender to our enemies? can you really picture anyone walking out in front of the whitehouse with a white flag waving and saying you can have it? if that’s the case, then as robbie likes to put it, you need to get out of the gene pool. quickly and unceremoniously. you have no more a place in the political world, as insignificant as this is, than any member of the Klan or the Black Panthers do. that aside, do you not realize the actual and real irony of what you’re claiming a democratic president would do? what governmental entity is it exaclty that we would surrender to? what country is calling for our surrender? the answer, sadly, is none. as much as you and your ilk have tried to convince us, we’re not at war with any nation. we’re at war with a group of people, who, like yourself, have over inflated their importance in the world. iran is no more out to destroy america than colombia is. i know that you’re going to want to say something about iran’s government threatening our interests or our friends, but all the huffing and puffing in the world won’t make them an actual threat. secondly, what part of this current police action is actually global? do you consider it global becuase it’s not happening here? we’re limited in combat theatres to one region of the globe right now. it would seem simple enough that to call this global we’d have to be engaged anywhere other than the middle east. as it is we’re only in one continent. so you should more accurately call it the MEWOT, although, being the propagandist, that probably doesn’t help your cause all that much. as for that w, the united states consititution (look it up when you check out that marxism stuff) says that only congress has the authority to declare war. which they didn’t do. so what we have now is the president bypassing congress, and therefore the people, to wage what is actually a military run, region specific, police action, not an actual war, by an stretch of reason or the imagination. so really, when you break it down into actual facts and not politicised distortions, the democrats are supposed to surrender to our over emphasized non threat enemies in the MEPAOT. for some reason, that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but then again, neither does anything any republican ever says when you expend the effort to shovel through all the hypocritical bullshit, or in your case, the neo-fascist, teat suckling, moronic bullshit, but hey, apples are apples either way you slice ‘em.

Left by kit churchill on April 1st, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Got something you want to say?

Quicktags:


Notes:

You have 10 minutes after you submit your comment to edit it. Simply click the E(dit) link above the countdown-counter at the bottom of your comment. You can only edit a comment from the same IP address from where the original comment was submitted.

If your comment does not appear immediately, it has been sent to the moderation queue for approval.

Your comment either contained more than 2 hyperlinks, or it used a word(s) that are on my Spam blacklist. Comments awaiting moderation will usually be approved within a day.

And, being that it's my blog and all...I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.