Welcome to Debate Week. Let's Get Ready to Rumble.
Welcome to Debate Week. (Cue "Sirius," The Alan Parsons Project.) Don't like the fact that your favorite is stuck at the kiddie table debate/warm-up act? Blame Fox News . . . and yes, the Republican National Committee signed off on the idea. The Aug. 6 debate is hosted by Fox News, in conjunction with Facebook and the Ohio Republican Party. The 9 p.m. ET stage will be open to the top 10 candidates in recent national polls. With 17 total candidates now in the race -- former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore was the latest, announcing his bid Thursday – not everyone will make the cut. Those who don't can qualify for an earlier debate, at 5 p.m. Fox News has eased the criteria for that debate, and candidates will no longer have to reach at least 1 percent in the polls to make the stage, though there are other criteria. Right now, it looks like the prime-time selection won't include Carly Fiorina (groan) Bobby Jindal (double groan) or Rick Perry (triple groan). Also, the guy who won the Iowa caucuses last time probably won't be up there, either. "National polls mean nothing," Rick Santorum said. "It's just an arbitrary figure. And unfortunately the networks and the RNC have gone along with this irrelevant legitimacy of candidacy and then have the ability to influence who is in the top ten by the amount of coverage they get and the amount of advertising dollars." If you're not on the big stage, it makes sense to downplay it. But let's face it -- being in the top ten by early August shouldn't be an impossible goal for most of these candidates. It was an early threshold they failed to reach. "This is not a one-shot pony here," Rick Perry said on Fox News Sunday. "We've got a full campaign in front of us." James Thurber, head of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, said that while making the top tier obviously is preferred, "it guarantees nothing but some publicity for a day unless a candidate makes a major mistake or slip of tongue." But Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, asked: "Who would willingly trade a place at the adult debate for the kids table? Placement sends an unmistakable message about a candidate's chances to win—and donors and activists will get it right away." I'm Sorry, I Can't Get My Hopes Up about Chuck Schumer I know I was Mr. Rah-Rah Cheerleader last week, but I don't think there's much chance the House and Senate override an Obama veto on legislation to scrap the Iran deal and keep sanctions in place. When Obama wants to ignore public opinion, he just ignores public opinion: American voters oppose 57 - 28 percent, with only lukewarm support from Democrats and overwhelming opposition for Republicans and independent voters, the nuclear pact negotiated with Iran, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Voters say 58 - 30 percent the nuclear pact will make the world less safe, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll finds. Opposing the Iran deal are Republicans 86 - 3 percent and independent voters 55 - 29 percent, while Democrats support it 52 - 32 percent. If I end up being wrong, you can argue I've grown way too cynical in my (COUGHCOUGH) years of covering Washington. But I just don't buy the idea that Chuck Schumer is going to abandon President Obama on the most important vote of Obama's second term. Or more specifically, Schumer won't kill the Iran deal. Maybe he'll end up offering a quiet "no" vote once it's clear that Senate Democrats have the 34 votes they need to save the deal. People who have spoken with the senior New York senator believe the pressure campaign is having an effect: They say there is a growing sense inside and outside the Capitol that Schumer will vote against the deal when the Senate considers it in September. The bigger question many have now is this: How hard will he push against it? Schumer is one of about 15 Democratic senators who will decide the fate of President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal in Congress. The president can afford to lose no more than a dozen Democrats on the Senate floor, and as the next Democratic leader, Schumer may be the most critical of them all. In an interview with POLITICO, Schumer insisted he's still weighing his vote. He said he would decide based on the merits of the deal, not lobbying from either side. "I haven't made up my mind," said Schumer, who is in line to be the first Jewish Senate leader next Congress. "There are expectations all over the lot. I'm doing what I'm always doing when I have a very difficult decision: Learning it carefully and giving it my best shot, doing what I think is right. I'm not going to let pressure or politics or party get in the way of that." If Schumer ends up opposing the deal -- and I still see that as less likely than quiet support -- it's going to be quiet, reluctant, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger opposition. In other news of the deal, a key Democrat in the House -- Representative Adam Schiff -- is signing on: . . . The final deal has materialized, and Schiff, in a telephone call over the weekend, told me that, based on an "extensive review," he has decided to come out in favor of the deal. He said he plans to formally announce his support later on Monday, but that he has already informed the White House of his intentions. His decision should carry some weight with national security-minded Democrats, and with still-undecided members of the House Jewish caucus. In our conversation, Schiff told me wants to see Obama and Congress work together to strengthen key aspects of the deal—most notably, he wants the administration to promise Iran that the United States will have zero tolerance for any instances of Iranian cheating. But he said he believes the deal could serve its stated purpose: to keep Iran south of the nuclear threshold. "At the end of the day, I could not find an alternative that would turn out in a better way than the deal," he said. "Rejection of the deal would not lead to something credible. And I think that there are enough ways to mitigate the risks associated with the deal that it makes sense to me to move forward." He went on, "The risks associated with rejection of the deal are quite a bit higher than the risks associated with going forward." Fast & Furious Gun Used in Garland Attempted Terror Attack? As Instapundit likes to say, "We're in the very best of hands." Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol. At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi's history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process. Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers. What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels. Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona. Soofi's attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter. President Obama, March 23, 2011: ''There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made, and if that's the case then we'll find out and we'll hold somebody accountable.' One Department of Justice official resigned after the inspector general's report came out, saying he "didn't want to be a distraction." He now works at the prestigious Washington firm Steptoe & Johnson. ADDENDA: Ouch, Jay Nordlinger: "If the Norwegian Nobel Committee gives John Kerry the peace prize for the Iran deal, and Iran goes nuclear, will he throw away his Nobel medal?" | 
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