Risky Moves: Rudy's "Virtual" Fence, Romney's "Universal" Health Care, and Fred's "Open" Phone Bank
By Anteater Posted in 2008 — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It looks like some presidential candidates are starting to embrace risky political moves in order to gain an advantage. Let me give three examples.
1. Rudy is starting to push for a "virtual" fence [source].
The former New York mayor said that while a physical fence is needed in some places, most of the border should be policed with high-tech monitoring...Giuliani said his approach could end illegal immigration within three years.
This is a risky move for Rudy to make at this time. I think that most of other Republican candidates are pushing for the construction of a physical fence, and I am not sure that Rudy is helping himself by taking this position.
2. Romney promises that every American would be insured in four years [source]
"I just want to underscore something — we can get everybody in this country insured," Romney said. "My plan is designed to get everybody in this country insured. My estimate is that from the time you would put in place this program—pass the legislation necessary to put in place this program — within four years every American would be insured."
Romney said Republicans need to work with Democrats on this issue and cited his unlikely partnership with Sen. Ted Kennedy, which he attributed to helping get the reform bill through in Massachusetts.
While Romney promises that his health care plan will be based on free enterprise rather than government expansion, it is unsettling that he is touting his partnership with Ted Kennedy. The idea of insuring every single American in 4 years sounds a bit unrealistic too.
3. Fred will allow online volunteers to call voters on his behalf [source].
Few campaigns have ceded this sort of control to their volunteers because of the risks. The campaign can't monitor what the volunteers say when they reach out to early-state voters, many of whom might not have been contacted by the Thompson campaign before. Also, since anyone who is registered on Mr. Thompson's Web site can download lists of voters, supporters of other candidates could use the lists of voters to create a little mischief.
Fred's innovative plan will give his campaign much-needed free help. However, it is also very risky, since the odds that this system will be misused is very high. If you thought that the push poll story got out of hand...
These are all risky moves by the candidates. Every candidate has to take risks to a certain extent in order to remain competitive. I am not sure though that the potential gains of these particular political moves offset the high risks involved.
Rudy is pushing for constructing the 800-mile fence that is approved. The way he wants to end the rest of illegal immigranttion accross the border (remember the other 1,200-odd miles of border) is through a virtual fence. I'm not sure whether that will be effective or not, but I am very encouraged by a goal as audacious as ENDING illegal immigration in three years. How can you complain about that after decades of millions of illegal immigrants streaming across the border?
The Rudy "virtual fence" statement is a problem for me.
A physical fence is a mark of seriousness. Furthermore, it's easy to demonstrate the continuing seriousness of border security, because crossing the border will require physical destruction of the fence or the building of tunnels. Those are physical things which can be shown to people to demonstrate that the state is not backing up the fence with enforcement patrols.
With a virtual fence, all you will get are suspect statistics. My opinion is that Rudy knows that.
BUILD THE FENCE.
The Fred groups are well organized. SW Ohio 4 Fred is wonderful :) Nice people
This baby is a monster