THE NOTE: Colbert Seeking Votes, Laughs

October 17, 2007 — -- We know you were wondering: What could this presidential race need that Mike Gravel isn't already giving it?

What about the steely-eyed glare of Stephen Colbert? Sure, his name may sound a little French for the GOP, and he may channel Bill O'Reilly a bit too convincingly for Democrats' taste.

But here comes Mr. Colbert, filing papers to run in both parties' presidential primaries in South Carolina, per The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. He announced his presidential candidacy on his Comedy Central program last night, ensuring that the line between politics and entertainment will be as fuzzy as a Teddy bear -- if Colbert weren't too manly for such things. (He is not pregnant, despite what he said last week on ABC's "Good Morning America.")

"After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call," Colbert said. Colbert said he planned to run in South Carolina, "and South Carolina alone," per the AP's write-up. (In case you forgot, he's hawking a book, and no, he's not giving up his show.)

"Colbert's chances may be less than slim, but in today's infotainment culture, he could draw precious media attention from the second-tier contenders," Kurtz writes in the Post. "And he has a nightly platform to milk the spectacle for jokes, if not votes."

He will not be the next president, and he won't win South Carolina, either, but what will his candidacy do to the Clinton-Obama-Edwards rivalry that's percolating in the Palmetto State?

Nine more questions to ponder on a busy Wednesday:

1. Does Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wish that Iowa was 11 days from now instead of 11 weeks ? (Yes.)

2. Back when former mayor Rudolph Giuliani was bleeding for the Republican Party in New York, did Mario Cuomo help him heal? (No -- and how many clips like this have yet to drop?)

3. Does being endorsed by George W. Bush's successor make you George W. Bush's successor? (No, but it probably doesn't hurt.)

4. Where is Fred Thompson? (In Washington, D.C. -- we think -- working on his "cuddly and friendly" side.)

5. Is the Republican National Committee pleased that three of the Big Four GOP candidates skipped its fundraising dinner last night? (No, and neither are the donors who don't need another reason to keep their checkbooks closed.)

6. Does close count for Republicans in a special House election in Massachusetts? (Maybe.)

7. Is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi going to let a nonbinding resolution spark an international confrontation? (Unlikely.)

8. Did Sen. Barack Obama's campaign mean to send out a memo that included a link to the (non-working) Website My.BO.com? (No.)

9. Is it possible for a campaign to get too much good news too soon? (Maybe.)

Clinton, D-N.Y., is about to test that proposition. Another national poll has her north of 50 percent, and she's now officially erased the fund-raising edge that had been enjoyed by Obama. (It's clever to raise money off of that gap, but a gap is a gap.)

This leaves two trajectories: Clinton stays steady and has this locked up by Christmas. Or something happens to knock her off her pedestal, either an outside event, a campaign misstep, or an anti-Clinton message that starts to resonate from one of her increasingly aggressive rivals. The Republicans are already taking her on (and they love when she finds new ways to spend money) though such criticism may wind up helping her in the primaries.

Whether Clinton has to break a sweat could depend on Obama, who is tweaking his message on the trail. Obama, who hits Leno tonight (nothing left for him to announce for, unfortunately), is talking policy in a way that designed to connect with voters directly, as with the plan to address rural issues he unveiled yesterday. And he is just beginning to start the direct engagement with Clinton so many Democrats have been waiting for.

If Obama's message is going to grow his support, it's going to have to happen soon. "His call for a 'new kind of politics' faces a broad test in his own party," Alec MacGillis writes in The Washington Post. "It may be that his summons to 'turn the page' past the country's red-blue polarization is not what many Democrats want to hear after seven years of mounting anger at Bush and the Republican-dominated government."

"Obama faults a broken system in Washington for failures that many Democratic voters attribute simply to having the other side in power," MacGillis reports. "By contrast, Clinton more directly exploits Democrats' feelings of resentment."

Obama was asked directly last night by a female voter why she should vote for him instead of Clinton, ABC's Sunlen Miller reports. This is a fascinating answer: "It involves a little more risk with me," Obama conceded, calling Clinton a "known commodity." Then this (hardly crisp) explanation: "If every move you're making is based on a static politics, or you're looking backwards and you're saying, 'Okay, this is what the polls tell me, this is how much we have to maneuver, and this is how I don't open myself to too much criticism from the Republicans.' If that's your strategy . . . you are not going to deliver on the big challenges."

And Clinton has to be careful about how she portrays her "inevitability" -- Iowa voters don't like being taken for granted. "Did I miss something? Did we already have the Iowa caucuses? Did we already have the New Hampshire primary?" former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., said yesterday in Iowa, per the Des Moines Register's Tony Leys. "Have we decided who the nominee's going to be? Have you decided?"

Among the Republicans, Giuliani, R-N.Y., decided to take the bait yesterday by addressing charges that he's not a pure-enough adherent of party dogma. "Am I real Republican?" Giuliani asked members of the Republican Jewish Coalition, per ABC's Jan Simmonds. "I gave my blood for the Republican Party in New York."

This fight is no more favorable to Giuliani than it is to former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass., who started the dust-up in the first place. Rudy's rivals quickly reminded reporters that yesterday's statement came from the Liberal Party nominee for mayor who backed Mario Cuomo over George Pataki for governor.