Former Mayor Tries To Chip Away at Lead
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 26, 2007; A01

CONCORD, N.H., Nov. 25 — With Rudolph W. Giuliani looking to spring a surprise against Mitt Romney in the state hosting the nation’s first primary, the race for the Republican presidential nomination took a sharply negative turn here Sunday as the two candidates traded accusations about taxes, crime, immigration, abortion and ethical standards.

The rhetorical volleys underscored the growing stakes here in New Hampshire, where Romney leads in the polls but Giuliani now believes he has a chance to derail the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign before it can build the kind of momentum that could make him unstoppable.

Leading in national polls, Giuliani had long appeared to be playing down the importance of early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire in favor of the bigger states that hold their contests in late January and early February. But he said in an interview Saturday that he intends to win here. “We think we can catch him and get ahead of him,” he said of Romney.

Romney responded by tweaking the former New York mayor, saying Giuliani sounded increasingly worried about losing the nomination. “He’s not in the top three in Iowa, and he’s not in the first two in New Hampshire, so desperate times for Mayor Giuliani call for desperate efforts,” he said before leaving Concord for campaign events in western New Hampshire.

Romney dramatically escalated the attacks Sunday with a salvo at Giuliani, who had earlier criticized him over a judicial appointee who had overruled a lower court and ordered the release of a convicted killer, who has since been charged with another killing. Romney has called on the judge to resign. With his wife, Ann, and other members of his family at his side, he said it is essential for Republicans to pick a nominee “who can distinguish himself on family values” from the Democratic front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

He then proceeded to link Giuliani to Clinton on abortion, gay rights and immigration, and ended with tough words for the former mayor’s support for former New York police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik to be secretary of homeland security. Kerik, a longtime friend and confidant of Giuliani’s, was recently indicted on multiple corruption charges.

“I believe it’s important for someone to be pro-life, to be pro-family and pro-traditional marriage, to be in favor of legal immigration but against illegal immigration and to have a record of insisting on the highest ethical standards, and I’m afraid that on all four of those measures that Mayor Giuliani would be the wrong course for our party,” Romney said. “He is in the same position as Hillary Clinton on life and on marriage and on the ethical history of his administration, and also on sanctuary cities and immigration policy.”

Giuliani’s weekend assault on Romney went well beyond the matter of a controversial judicial appointment. During an interview aboard his campaign bus on Saturday, Giuliani belittled Romney’s claims to be a committed conservative and accused his rival of turning his back on his “one” notable accomplishment: expanding health care to cover all citizens of his state.

“When you look back on Romney’s governorship of Massachusetts, there’s only one accomplishment, and he’s running away from that,” Giuliani said as the bus rolled through New Hampshire.

“I don’t see where he’s going to make the claim to being particularly conservative as the governor of Massachusetts,” Giuliani said. “I can certainly make the claim quite accurately at being the most successful at reducing crime of any mayor in the country, probably in history.”

With former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee gaining in Iowa, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) clinging to some of the support he enjoyed in New Hampshire when he won here eight years ago, and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) increasingly on the attack, the Republican race has taken on the feel of a five-ring circus.

Romney leads public polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, while Giuliani and Thompson are essentially tied for third behind Huckabee in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll of Iowa Republicans. In New Hampshire, recent polls show Giuliani and McCain statistically tied for second place.

Throughout the campaign, Giuliani’s advisers have outlined a strategy that they said could overcome early losses to Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire with victories in subsequent contests in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. But Giuliani expressed little interest in putting that theory to the test unless absolutely necessary.

“It is not inconceivable that you could, if you won Florida [after losing in the early states], turn the whole thing around,” Giuliani said. “I’d rather not do it that way. That would create ulcers for my entire staff and for me. . . . We want to win as many of the early ones as possible. That’s why we’re here and not in Florida right now.”

Giuliani was dismissive of the other leading Republican candidates, particularly Thompson. Asked about Thompson’s criticism that he spends too much time talking about his record in New York, Giuliani laughed.

“I will not really respond to Fred, because it might discourage him from campaigning, and he’s doing so little of it I don’t want to discourage him,” he said, taking a shot at Thompson’s reputation as a less-than-frenetic campaigner. “It’s okay. Fred can say what he wants.”

But his toughest comments were reserved for Romney. “Nobody thought of him as a fiscal conservative,” Giuliani said. “People did think of me as a fiscal conservative. Romney says he tried to lower taxes. I give him credit for that. But he never accomplished it. I did accomplish it. . . . He wasn’t particularly good at reducing crime. I was the most effective in the country at reducing crime. Murder went up when he was governor. Robbery went up. Violent crimes went up.”

Romney accused Giuliani of mangling his facts. “He’s got a real problem checking facts,” Romney said during a Sunday afternoon interview, arguing that violent crime in Massachusetts declined 7 percent while he was governor. Giuliani aides immediately challenged that assertion.

On health care, Giuliani challenged Romney to stand behind the plan enacted while he was governor, which mandates health care for all individuals in Massachusetts. “The oddest thing is he doesn’t want to do for America what he did for Massachusetts,” he said, laughing. “He did mandate health care for Massachusetts, which is Hillary Care, and he doesn’t want to do that for America.”

“I was just across the country this week talking about my plan,” Romney said in response. “I’m very proud of my health-care plan and think it should be a model for other states to adopt.” Giuliani, he noted, has not yet laid out details of how he would address concerns about the health-care system.

Romney insisted that his decision to talk about family values on Sunday had nothing to do with the personal life of a rival who has been married three times. He said he was angry that Giuliani had used the judicial controversy to attack him after he had refrained from personally criticizing Giuliani over Kerik’s indictment. “I must admit that of all the people who might attack someone on the basis of an appointment, I thought he would be the last to do so,” Romney said.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) will announce this afternoon that he’s retiring from the Senate late next month, stunning Republicans who had only last year reinstated Lott to their leadership ranks.

Lott, 66, the minority whip, made the decision over the Thanksgiving weekend with his family in Pascagoula, Miss., according to a senior Republican insider. Lott’s move shocked Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have seen a wave of veterans announce their decision to retire next year as the GOP looks increasingly certain to remain in the minority. But Lott is the most senior Republican to announce he is leaving office, and his decision comes barely a year after he won re-election to a six-year term.

Lott’s departure is equally stunning because, after cruising to his re-election last year, he completed a political rehabilitation from allegations of racial insensitivity because of remarks he made at a 100th birthday party for Strom Thurmond in December 2002, which led to his banishment from GOP leadership. Last November, after four years as a back-bench Republican who burnished his image as a deal-maker, Lott won a narrow race to become GOP whip, the No. 2 post in leadership.

“Fatigue has set in,” said the GOP aide, requesting anonymity to speak freely about a decision that will not be formal until a noon press conference in Pascagoula. (Check back to Capitol Briefing during the day for updates on Lott’s press conference.)

Lott grew tired of the political infighting in the Senate as Republicans have been forced into a position of merely blocking a Democratic agenda, the aide said, stressing that the decision was not connected to any health or ethical issues.

Gov. Haley Barbour (R) will be allowed to appoint a successor to the seat, but a special election to fill the remainder of the term is likely to be scheduled for next November. Barbour and Lott are both close to Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.), who worked for the senator before winning his own House seat. Pickering had decided earlier this year to retire at the end of next year rather than run for re-election to his House seat. Democrats had been wooing former state Attorney General Michael Moore to run against Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) next year but Moore demurred. (See “The Fix” for more details about the race to succeed Lott in Mississippi.)

Lott’s departure is the biggest blow yet to Republicans who have been fighting the perception that they will remain in the minority in both the House and Senate for some time to come. While many of the retiring GOP lawmakers were former subcommittee chairs and senior members not happy with minority status, Lott is the first member of either chamber’s leadership to announce he will walk away from the Capitol.

Today’s decision will complete a two-year roller coaster ride for Lott and his emotional investment in the Senate. In December 2005, Lott returned home for the holidays expecting to announce his retirement at the end of 2006. But, as he and his aides later explained, he reversed course and decided to run for re-election because he wanted to help the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, which was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Lott lost his home in the storm, and complained at the time that he had little personal money to rebuild his Pascagoula home destroyed by the hurricane.

Billions in hurricane rebuilding funds have been approved, and a veto override this month to save a water projects bill should keep the Gulf Coast in good stead for years to come. Moreover, Mississippi Sen.Thad Cochran, Lott’s Republican counterpart, surprised some in Washington when he announced he would seek a sixth term. That took political pressure off Lott, who would not have wanted two Mississippi Senate seats up in the same year, Republican officials said.

He was first elected to the House in 1972, where he served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Nixon. He rose to House Republican whip in the 1980s, then won a Senate seat in 1988. He became GOP whip in 1995, and won the race to succeed former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) when he stepped down as majority leader in June 1996 to pursue the presidency.

Lott had been excoriated for his remarks at Thurmond’s birthday party five years ago, during which he reminisced about Thurmond’s failed presidential bid in 1948, saying that the United States “wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years” if the segregationist candidate had won. The comment was widely condemned, including by President George Bush, who helped recruit Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to replace Lott as majority leader.

By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 — Confronting an enormous fund-raising gap with Democrats, Republican Party officials are aggressively recruiting wealthy candidates who can spend large sums of their own money to finance their Congressional races, party officials say.

At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way.

These wealthy Republicans have each already invested $100,000 to $1 million of their own money to finance their campaigns, according to campaign finance disclosure reports and interviews with party strategists. Experts say that is a large amount for this early in the cycle.

In New York’s 20th Congressional District, in the Albany area, Alexander Treadwell, an independently wealthy former State Republican Party chairman, has invested more than $320,000 of his money in a race that Republicans predict will cost each candidate at least $3 million.

While Mr. Treadwell, the grandson of a founding executive of General Electric, plans to raise money from donors, he has privately told party officials that he is ready to invest more of his money to unseat Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a freshman Democrat, Republicans close to him said.

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the House Republicans’ campaign committee, said that the recruiting effort has made the party more competitive heading into the elections.

“We have been very fortunate in our recruiting efforts,” he said. “There will be a number of credible Republican challengers running for Congress next year that happen to have access to personal financial resources. They are in position to run strong, well-financed grass-roots campaigns next year in some of our top targeted districts.”

But Democrats, who have been closely monitoring the Republican millionaires, assert that the recruiting underscores the Republicans’ financial weakness since they lost control of Congress in 2006.

The most recent figures show that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised $56.6 million and has $29.2 million at its disposal. By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee has raised $40.7 million with a cash balance of $2.5 million.

That is a striking turnabout for the Republicans, who have outraised the Democrats by considerable margins for years. As recently as 2006, the Republican Congressional campaign committee raised $40 million more than its Democratic counterpart, $179.5 million to $139.9 million.

“National Republicans are in disarray, forcing them to recruit inexperienced and unprepared self-funders,” said Doug Thornell, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Self-financed, deep-pocketed Congressional candidates are nothing new for either party, and the Democrats have their own share for 2008. But the Democrats do not have a concerted campaign to find such candidates, they say, while the Republicans describe the recruitment of these candidates as central to their plan for the 2008 elections.

There were 14 Republicans who had already contributed at least $100,000 to their own campaigns, compared with nine at the same point in the 2005-6 election cycle, according to an analysis of campaign finance reports and interviews with strategists. (One of those candidates is an incumbent and one recently dropped out.) Republicans say they are in discussions with other wealthy potential candidates, but declined to say how many. In particular, party leaders are targeting Democrats from districts that President Bush won in 2004.

Party strategists note that a 2002 rule known as the millionaires’ amendment has tended to discourage wealthy candidates from pouring large sums into their own campaigns early on. The rule raises campaign contribution ceilings to candidates whose opponents spend large amounts of their own money.

The Republican recruiting process typically starts with party strategists identifying wealthy contributors, businessmen or individuals who have helped finance their own races in the past. Party officials then try to provide extra help developing strategies and finding consultants and staff.

Earlier this year, Republican strategists seeking a candidate for the Eighth Congressional District in Illinois met with Steve Greenberg, a wealthy businessman who was thinking about running for the United States Senate against Senator Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat.

Over several meetings at the party’s headquarters in Washington, those strategists showed Mr. Greenberg charts and maps of the district’s demographic and voting patterns to make the case that he could unseat the two-term Democratic incumbent, Representative Melissa Bean.

The pitch worked: Mr. Greenberg, who owns Herr’s Pacific, a chain of stores that sell art supplies and craft materials, entered the race, telling party leaders that he was willing to spend his own money to run the campaign, party officials said.

National party strategists have not made any endorsements, because some of the candidates face primary challenges. Other wealthy Republican candidates who have been privately wooed include James D. Oberweis, an Illinois dairy magnate who is seeking to replace Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the former House speaker, who is retiring; Mike Erickson, a business executive seeking to unseat Representative Darlene Hooley, an Oregon Democrat; and Ed Tinsley, the owner of a restaurant franchiser, who is running for an open House seat in New Mexico.

Some senior Republicans, frustrated with what they describe as anemic fund-raising by the party’s House campaign committee, say that luring wealthy candidates is no easy fix, as it does not guarantee victory. “I’ve seen many a rich guy blow cash and still not become a member of Congress,” said one top House Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing his colleagues.

This Republican and others argued that ready access to large sums of money was no substitute for a candidate with the personal qualities and political assets needed to meet the demands of a modern campaign, from an unflappable manner on the trail to an established network of allies and supporters.

In fact, past elections show that candidates who spend large sums of their own money frequently end up losing. In 2006, for example, only 2 of the 10 candidates who spent the most of their own money on their own races for House seats won the elections, according to an analysis of finance records and election results.

The potential limitations of relying on candidates whose most conspicuous asset is money were on display last week when a millionaire expected to pour his own money into a Congressional bid in the suburbs north of New York City abruptly dropped out of the running.

The candidate, Andrew M. Saul, a vice chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, quit the race after disclosures that he had raised money from real estate executives seeking business from the agency. Democrats say Mr. Saul’s aborted campaign shows the inexperience of the Republicans’ wealthy recruits.

But in a campaign when Democrats are trying to expand their majority, some Republicans argue that candidates able to tap personal fortunes may, at the very least, help put some Democratic incumbents on the defensive and thereby tie up money party leaders might otherwise spend challenging Republican incumbents.

“Democrats have cause for concern,” Mr. Spain said. “Not only are these candidates well-funded. But they are running full-blown campaign operations that are already putting them on the defensive.”

Indeed, in Texas’s 23rd Congressional District, in the San Antonio area, for example, Francisco Canseco, a wealthy businessman known as Quico, has invested more than $700,000 of his own money in his campaign. He has hired a staff, including a pollster, media consultants and fund-raisers, and has already begun running television advertisements, including during the San Antonio Spurs’ N.B.A. playoff and championship games last June.

Democrats, in turn, dispatched the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Texas to headline a fund-raising event for the district’s first-term Democratic incumbent, Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez, who has $600,000 in his campaign war chest.

Todd Smith, a top adviser to Mr. Canseco, says that the Republican candidate’s willingness to bankroll his campaign allows him to reach out to voters earlier than other candidates, who must instead court donors.

“Quico’s investment has given us an opportunity to put a full-scale campaign operation in place,” he said. “Right now, you have Congressional candidates around the country meeting with donors just to get the funds necessary to run.”