Charlie Black

ST. PAUL—Rudy Giuliani will finally deliver his keynote address tonight, marking his most high profile role in electoral politics since his own ill-fated presidential run.

The Giuliani campaign was done in by a variety of factors, not least among them a flawed strategy that put all its eggs in a Florida basket, an ability to assuage conservative concerns about his liberal positions on social issues, his unorthodox personal history, as well as this and this and this and this.

But the real death-blow to Giuliani’s campaign was arguably his association with Bernie Kerik, who Giuliani vouched for to be Secretary of Homeland Security, and who was later  read more »

ST. PAUL—John McCain confidant Charlie Black told a private reception of conservative leaders Monday evening that in his first-ever nonpolitical conversation with the candidate earlier that day, McCain asked him to help solicit donations for the victims of Hurricane Gustav.

“I deliver that message and hope for the best,” Black told the crowd, eating vegetables and wearing pro-life buttons in the atrium of the Hilton Garden Inn. “He always puts his country first."

In keeping with the Republicans' decision to scale back their activities and political rhetoric, Black kept his public remarks focused on the Gulf states and led a prayer asking for the protection of the people who live there.  read more »

This morning, The Politico ran an innocuous-seeming story in which a series of unnamed Republican consultants and strategists – with the exception of Ed Rollins, who went on the record – took turn taking shots at various aspects of the McCain campaign’s strategy.

The story didn’t seem particularly surprising, given (a) McCain’s underdog status in the presidential race, which automatically makes many Republicans uneasy; and (b) the general willingness of unnamed consultants and “strategists” to use the cloak of anonymity to tell the world how much better Campaign X would be if they were running the show.  read more »