McCain Bulks Up on Fundraising

Reports out this morning suggest that John McCain is seeking an infusion of cash to compete effectively against Mitt Romney in the next round of primaries. Here's this from The Hill:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has scheduled at least seven fundraisers in the week leading up to Tuesday’s Florida primary, scrambling to raise enough money to compete with a rival who can loan his campaign tens of millions of dollars.

McCain held a major event at the St. Regis hotel in New York City Tuesday evening that advisers estimated would raise close to a million dollars. McCain has also scheduled several fundraisers in Florida, advisers said. He has planned events in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville.

On Monday, the night of President Bush’s State of the Union address, McCain will hold a fundraiser with his Senate supporters at Charlie Palmer Steak House on Capitol Hill.

By packing his schedule with fundraising events, McCain has risked devoting less time to stumping for votes at a critical moment. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), by contrast, has made campaigning his top priority and relegated fundraising to an afterthought, said a Giuliani ally.

The winner of the Jan. 29 primary is widely expected to have a big advantage heading into Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when 21 states will hold Republican elections.

McCain advisers say the strategy is necessary because they expect his rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), will spend millions of dollars of his personal fortune to advertise in California, New York, New Jersey and other Super Tuesday states.

McCain supporters said they will not be able to match Romney’s personal war chest after Florida but vowed to raise enough to compete.

“We’re going to be able to fully fund a Florida campaign with a multi-million dollar television advertising buy,” said a McCain adviser.

The McCain ally acknowledged that advertising in Feb. 5 states would be difficult because they contain so many expensive media markets — New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Atlanta. Yet those hold the bulk of votes in key Super Tuesday states.

Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, estimated a week of thorough advertising in California might cost between $4.5 million and $5 million.


“Can we match Romney because Romney can raise a lot of money by writing himself a check?” the McCain adviser asked. “No. But we don’t need to match Romney.”

McCain has taken the necessary steps to make his campaign eligible for public matching funds, but advisers say there is no chance he will accept them as long as he has a shot at the nomination. That’s because public funding would limit McCain to a $21 million spending ceiling until the GOP nominating convention in September. Experts say that approach would put McCain at a significant disadvantage to Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) or Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who have set fundraising records this election cycle and are expected to have large sums of money for the general election.

If McCain accepted public funds, the money would then be used to pay off a $3 million line of credit he secured at the end of last year, an adviser said. McCain is eligible for $5.8 million in matching funds, according to the Federal Election Commission, a paltry sum in the context of the colossal scale of this year’s fundraising landscape.

McCain is touting a message that he is better known nationally among Republican voters than Romney, advisers say, and he does not need to spend as much money on advertising to introduce himself to voters. They also contend that the scope of the Feb. 5 contests is so vast that not even Romney will have enough money for ads reaching more than a fraction of the electorate.

Recognizing this, McCain is counting on heavy media exposure to spread his campaign message far and wide. He is hoping for favorable news coverage in the wake of his victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina and what he anticipates to be a strong showing in Florida.

Independent experts agree that so-called earned media — exposure through news and entertainment outlets — can often be more effective than television ads paid for by the candidate because it comes from an independent source and sometimes reach more voters.

“Earned media is more important than unearned media on Super Tuesday,” said Michael Toner, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “Earned media is vital.”

Not just vital, earned media's propelled McCain forward since his New Hampshire win. Indeed, the virtual blanket coverage after the Granite State primary - and then the substantial McCain media barrage after the South Carolina win - has put Romney at a disadvantage, forcing him to dig deep into his fortune to remain competitive on Super Tuesday.

Still, McCain's need to take time for fundraising puts his Florida campaign at risk. A McCain win in the Sunshine State - now that Fred Thompson's left the race - is more important than ever. The conservative opposition to McCain among the right-wing media and blogosphere is intensifying, and thus a victory in Florida could keep the media and momentum rolling in McCain's favor, helping to convince rank-and-file fence-sitters to hop on the McCain bandwagon.

See also Jay Cost at RCP's HorseRaceBlog, who indicates just how powerful the inside conservative oppposition is - and the quite possible chance that the anti-McCain movement could succeed.

Plus, the New York Times suggests that McCain's picking up major support from New York's GOP establishment.

There's more analysis at Memeorandum.

Conservatives Must Back McCain

Fred Barnes has the perfect analysis of John McCain's dilemmas in attracting the right-wing of the Republican Party, at the Wall Street Journal:

John McCain has a problem. After winning South Carolina's primary last Saturday, he should be the overwhelming favorite to capture the Republican presidential nomination. He's not, at least not yet, and the reason is that he's alienated so many conservatives over the past eight years.

Mr. McCain may become the Republican nominee anyway -- in spite of thunderous opposition by conservatives including radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and American Conservative Union (ACU) head David Keene. Even then, to win the general election, he must find a way to reconcile with conservatives and unify the Republican Party.

Mr. McCain will have to take the initiative to repair the relationship, and he appears ready to do just that.

His victory speech in South Carolina marked a new step. Rather than dwell on the hardy perennials of his campaign message, national security and patriotism, Mr. McCain spoke more broadly about his conservative goals. "We want government to do its job, not your job," he said, "and to do it with less of your money." He praised "free markets, low taxes and small government."

Moreover, Mr. McCain intends to go beyond conservative boilerplate and actually campaign as a conservative. His congressional voting record is predominantly conservative (ACU rating 82.3%), qualifying him to do so. He's already stepped outside his comfort zone on taxes, endorsing a cut in the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%.

If he echoes the talking points dispatched to his surrogates over the weekend, he'll be fine. Besides touting Mr. McCain's ability to step in as "commander in chief on Day One," they were urged to emphasize what an ally calls a "Kemp-Gramm mishmash" of tax and spending cuts. Another point to stress: "Winning in November" is crucial to putting conservative judges on the Supreme Court.

It's worth noting the presence of supply-sider Jack Kemp and spending foe Phil Gramm on the McCain team. In fact, the Arizona senator has attracted an impressive array of conservative supporters, including Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Trent Lott of Mississippi, former Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, and ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Read the whole thing, since Barnes is penetrating on McCain's remaining obstacles.

Deep conservatives fear the destruction of the GOP under a McCain presidency. The Arizona Senator's compromises with the Democratic opposition have forever marked him as a traitor to many in the party.

I think this is mistaken. Already McCain's toed the conservative line in recent statements, and his overall conservative ratings are comparable to any other candidate in the race.

The irony is that McCain's most important qualification - his readiness for commander-in-chief - is being discounted precisely because his signature support for the war in Iraq has been vindicated.

I think the real threat to the Republican Party is the continued demonization campaign waged against McCain. The dynamic of momentum has turned nearly irrevocably in McCain's favor. Fred Thompson's on the way out, and Mitt Romney's hanging on largely on account of personal wealth. Public opinion has not only elevated McCain to the status of GOP frontrunner, he's clearly seen as the most competent candidate of either party on leadership qualities.

The longer conservatives hammer McCain - delaying the party rally that's necessary to showing a unified parisan front in the general election - the deeper the damage will be.

**********

UPDATE: Via Captain Ed, Michael Medved says conservative talk radio was the biggest loser coming out of South Carolina's primary:

The big loser in South Carolina was, in fact, talk radio: a medium that has unmistakably collapsed in terms of impact, influence and credibility because of its hysterical and one-dimensional involvement in the GOP nomination fight.

For more than a month, the leading conservative talkers in the country have broadcast identical messages in an effort to demonize Mike Huckabee and John McCain. If you’ve tuned in at all to Rush, Sean, Savage, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, and two dozen others you’ve heard a consistent drum beat of hostility toward Mac and Huck. As always, led by Rush Limbaugh (who because of talent and seniority continues to dominate the medium) the talk radio herd has ridden in precisely the same direction, insisting that McCain and Huckabee deserve no support because they’re not “real conservatives.” A month ago, the angry right launched the slogan that Mike Huckabee is a “pro-life liberal.” More recently, after McCain’s energizing victory in New Hampshire, they trotted out the mantra that the Arizona Senator (with a life-time rating for his Congressional voting record of 83% from the American Conservative Union) is a “pro-war liberal.”

Well, the two alleged “liberals,” McCain and Huckabee just swept a total of 63% of the Republican vote in deeply conservative South Carolina. Meanwhile, the two darlings of talk radio -- Mitt Romney and, to a lesser extent, Fred Thompson—combined for an anemic 31% of the vote.

How conservative was the electorate that cast ballots on Saturday (in a big, enthusiastic turnout despite inclement weather)? Exit polls showed 69% of GOP voters described themselves as “conservative” (as opposed to “liberal” or “moderate.”) Among those self-styled conservatives, an overwhelming 61% went for Mac and Huck; only 35% for Mitt and Fred).

The exit polls even sorted out voters who described themselves as “VERY conservative” –a group that represented a full 34% of the primary day electorate. If any segment of the public should have been influenced by all the apocalyptic shouting about “the end of conservatism” if Huckabee or McCain led a national ticket and defined a new direction for the GOP, it would have been these folks. Among “Very Conservative” voters, however, Huckabee won handily (with 41%). Again, the Huck-and-Mac duo, representing talk radio’s two designated villains, swept 60% of the “Very Conservative” voters in very conservative South Carolina while Mitt and Fred combined for only 38% (22% for Thompson, 16% for Romney).

In other words, even among the most right wing segment of the South Carolina electorate, talk radio failed – and failed miserably – in efforts to destroy and discredit Huckabee and McCain.

And here's Medved with a message I've pumped up on this page:

Heading into Florida (on January 29th) we need to acknowledge that one of four remaining contenders will almost certainly head the Republican ticket. He (whoever he turns out to be) will need a united party and a revived, renewed conservative coalition.

Captain Ed disagrees with a lot of what Medved has to say, but he adds this:

In my opinion, the tone of this primary has strayed unnecessarily into negative attacks on valuable members of our own team. Instead of focusing on positive aspects of a favored candidate, too often our advocates have opted to seize on any criticism of others and make that their main message....

It has led to what I call Ultimatum Politics -- where people start to demand that either their specific candidate gets nominated or they refuse to participate in the general election. That results from overcranked partisanship clouding mature judgment. In a general election, voters have to make a choice, and as Ronald Reagan warned, it's better to support a candidate with whom one agrees on 70% of the issues rather than allow a 30% candidate to prevail instead. Demonizing all of the other options (which Alan Keyes literally did at the CLC in October) paralyzes a political party.

I've made the same basic point here, perhaps not as smoothly as the Captain. I certainly hope those with more blogging stature than mine are able to rouse the angry conservatives into some clear-minded thinking. We need to unite!

Hillary Clinton: The Good Democrat

Hillary Clinton's a good Democrat. She perfectly espouses all the (politically) correct Democratic Party positions, on issues from foreign policy to poverty.

The notion of the "good Democrat" was a term some activists I knew, back in the 1990s, used to describe true-blue liberal partisans. Today's New York Times story on Hillary Clinton's orientation toward the role of government reminded me of the notion:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration.

In one of her most extensive interviews about how she would approach the economy, Mrs. Clinton laid out a view of economic policy that differed in some ways from that of her husband, Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton campaigned on his centrist views, and as president, he championed deficit reduction and trade agreements.

Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.

She said that economic excesses — including executive-pay packages she characterized as often “offensive” and “wrong” and a tax code that had become “so far out of whack” in favoring the wealthy — were holding down middle-class living standards.

Interviewed between campaign appearances in Los Angeles on Thursday, she said those problems were also keeping the United States economy from growing as quickly as it could.

“If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.”

She added: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.”

In the last two weeks, Mrs. Clinton has devoted most of her public remarks to the economy, and she won the New Hampshire primary and the Nevada caucus largely because of support from households making less than $50,000 a year, according to polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky.

Mrs. Clinton’s approach to the economy would have three main components. She would roll back the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000 while creating more tax breaks below that threshold; impose closer scrutiny on financial markets, including the investments being made by foreign governments in the United States; and raise spending on job-creating projects like the development of alternative energy.

“We’ve done it in previous generations,” she said, alluding to large-scale public projects like the interstate highway system and the space program. “But we’ve got to have a plan.”

Using blunt and at times populist language in the interview, Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, tried to steer a course between the often business-friendly themes embraced by her husband and the straight populism that John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, has used in his presidential campaign this year. Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s main rival for the Democratic nomination, has also begun using more of her kitchen-table language in recent days.

Although the two Clintons share similar views on a wide range of economic issues, she has long been more skeptical about the benefits of freer trade and other aspects of a free-market economy. While he peppered his 1992 campaign speeches with both populism and calls for personal responsibility, including welfare reform, she talks less about irresponsibility among individuals and more about irresponsibility in corporate America and the government.

Perhaps the bigger difference, though, is that Mr. Clinton was running for president when the federal budget deficit was much larger than it is now and the United States seemed to be falling behind Western Europe and Japan in economic competitiveness. Mrs. Clinton is running when the economy has grown at a healthy clip for six years but incomes for most Americans have barely outpaced inflation.

Republicans say that her tax increases on the affluent and her spending proposals would increase the deficit, but Mrs. Clinton’s advisers respond that she, like her husband, is a fiscal conservative. They add that reducing the deficit is no longer sufficient, because today’s problems have less to do with the size of the economic pie than the way it is divided.

“Inequality is growing,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The middle class is stalled. The American dream is premised on a growing economy where people are in a meritocracy and, if they’re willing to work hard, they will realize the fruits of their labor.”

It's controversial to claim that "the middle class has stalled." In fact, more and more families have seen upward mobility since the decade of the 2000s began.

But more about that later. I'm watching Hillary Clinton right now at the CNN Democratic debate in South Carolina. She's riffing on how the U.S. is "disrespected" in the world and how Americans need to have a "stake" in the political economy again.

I'm not "live blogging," though. Check out Ann Althouse for that, or Katherine Seelye at the New York Times.

Instead, just remember that there are clear differences between the parties this year, which I think about more and more as we get into this election season.

No matter who the nominees of the respectives parties are, the Democrats will push to expand government by raising taxes and increasing entitlements, while the Republicans will push to limit tax liability through the extension of the Bush tax cuts; and the GOP will best represent traditional values of personal responsibility and upward mobility.

Sure, but the GOP has lost its fiscal responsibility under the Bush administration, folks will say, right? Not exactly, spending as a percent of GOP under the Bush administration has been at historical lows, largely driven up by defense expenditures - to fight the implacable foes bent on America's destruction - and emergency hurricane relief.

Don't bet on a comparable level of restraint under a Democratic administration in January 2009. The next "good Democrat" in the White House - whoever that ends up being - will make sure of that.

The McCain Rally

Robert Novak, who predicted earlier that McCain would win the GOP nomination, dissects McCain's rally coming out of the South Carolina primary:

Sen. John McCain's win over Mike Huckabee in South Carolina was no landslide, but it stands as by far the most important win in his quest for the presidency. It means that McCain by any measurement is the front-runner for the Republican nomination. He leads in Florida's Jan. 29 primary, and a victory there would send him into what is virtually a national primary on Feb. 5 threatening to wipe out his competition.

The question is whether the Republican establishment's grudges will persist, as they have for former House majority leader Tom DeLay, to somehow keep from the nomination the candidate that Democrats believe would be the strongest Republican in the general election. The probable answer is no, because it is Republican nature to abhor a Democrat-like free-for-all and to seek an anointed candidate. McCain is far closer to such status than is his principal rival, Mitt Romney.

That is the importance of McCain's winning in conservative South Carolina, where George W. Bush trounced him in 2000. Huckabee's strong showing was an aberration (as was his win in the Iowa caucuses), with his disproportionate support from evangelical voters. Romney was the real threat to McCain here, but his massive television buy failed. Romney's embarrassing fourth-place finish was preordained when he abandoned the state two days before the primary to go to Nevada, where he essentially ran unopposed and where his win in the state's caucuses was fueled by fellow Mormons.

McCain's transition from 2000 maverick to 2008 establishmentarian was symbolized by his election-eve rally aboard the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier (now a museum) in Charleston harbor. Sen. Lindsey Graham, his top supporter here eight years ago, was at McCain's side, as usual. So were other prominent South Carolina Republicans, such as state House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Attorney General Henry McMaster - plus McCain's longtime conservative ally, former Texas senator Phil Gramm.

But the most significant person on the Yorktown's platform was state Rep. Chip Limehouse, scion of a famous South Carolina Republican family who supported Bush in 2000 and this year did not make up his mind until Thursday. Limehouse told me he decided to back McCain because of concern about national security (an issue especially important in a state heavy with both military installations and veterans). But he added another factor: "I felt badly about what happened eight years ago" - referring to the smear campaign against McCain in the state.

It remains to be seen how the GOP establishment comes out for the Arizona Senator in Florida. But early indications are good for a McCain consolidation in the Sunshine State.

Blond Bombshell: Scarlett Johansson Visits Troops in Kuwait

American actress Scarlett Johannson visited U.S. forces at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, as part of a USO tour this last weekend.

The Marine Corps News has the story (via Memeorandum):

If anyone has wondered what can make a battle hardened Marine act like a love-struck high-schooler, the answer is simple—a meet and greet with Scarlett Johansson.

The 23-year-old bombshell met with nearly 600 service members at Camp Buehring, Kuwait Jan. 20 during her five-day United Service Organizations (USO) tour to the Gulf region.

Hundreds of Marines and sailors from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit put on their best smiles as they waited anxiously to get a glimpse of the Hollywood actress.

“I’m a huge Scarlett fan,” said Lance Cpl. Nathan Long, a calibration technician with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166 (REIN), 11th MEU. “When I found out she was coming, I couldn’t believe it. All I thought about was that I needed to meet her.”

A hush fell over the crowd as Johansson, wearing a pink sweater, knee-high boots and cherry-red lipstick, entered the USO. Long’s wait to meet her would end soon.

Johansson wasted no time after she arrived at the packed USO and headed toward the assembled crowd to introduce herself and meet her peers.

“It’s important to give people a piece of home and to boost morale,” Johansson said about her visit. “Everybody out here is risking everything, giving us one of the biggest gifts they can. I want to be out here to support them.”

Johansson’s friendly demeanor and sincere interest in her fans quickly won them over.

“I didn’t know what to expect or what she was going to be like,” said Sgt. Brian Dryer, a pay agent with the 11th MEU command element. “She seemed truly interested and wanted to spend time getting to know you.”

Johannson's a winner - what a great morale booster!

John McCain, Neoconservative

Jacob Heilbrunn argues that GOP frontrunner John McCain's poised to maintain neoconservative power in Washington, should he win the presidency this November:

The canonization of John McCain has begun. In his Monday New York Times column, William Kristol suggested that McCain isn't simply a candidate for president. He's something more - the next Winston Churchill who can lead the U.S. to victory in the war on terror. According to Kristol, who has long been a close friend of McCain's and quoted him reciting a turgid Victorian poem, he is a "not-so-modern type. One might call him a neo-Victorian - rigid, self-righteous and moralizing, but (or rather and) manly, courageous and principled." For both Kristol and David Brooks, McCain epitomizes the belief in American national greatness that can replicate the glories of the nineteenth century British empire....

The neoconservatives, who believe, or pretend to believe, that supposed foes abroad always represent new Hitlers and that wimpy liberals are about to recapitulate the appeasement that English liberals espoused in the 1930s, are constantly searching for a new Churchill. They see Churchill as the last great representative of the Victorian era in contrast to the weaklings that surrounded him. (George W. Bush himself keeps a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office.) For the neocons, McCain, a military hero who has written a number of books and become a politician, eerily resembles Churchill himself. McCain himself has made his admiration for Churchill abundantly apparent in his most recent book, Hard Call, in which he hails the great man's prescience in warning of Germany's aggressive intentions in the run-up to both World War I and World War II. But more to the point, McCain represents for the neocons the ultimate synthesis of war hero and politician. And McCain, in turn, has been increasingly drawn to the neocons' militaristic vision of the U.S. as an empire that can set wrong aright around the globe.

The neocons became close to McCain in the 1990s, when they supported American intervention in the Balkans. According to the New Republic's John Judis, the first sign of neocon influence on McCain came in 1999. McCain delivered a speech at Kansas State University in which he touted "national greatness conservatism," arguing: "The United States is the indispensable nation because we have proven to be the greatest force for good in human history." He went on to state that the U.S. should have "every intention of continuing to use our primacy in world affairs for humanity's benefit."

Heilbrunn, readers will recall, is the author of a new book on neoconservatism, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (see my posts on Heilbrunn here, here, here, and here).

Some reviewers have suggested that Heilbrunn's a mildy disaffected former neocon, remaining sympathetic to the movement. He warns here, though, that a McCain presidency could "ramp up" America's international intervention, ultimately destroying the imperial project the neocons themselves seek.

That, of course, is a matter for history to decide, but if the current success in Iraq is any indication, smart money wouldn't discount the sustained primacy of American power under a McCain administration.

Out of Sight? Giuliani's New York Advantage Slides

I've suggested numerous times now that Rudy Giuliani's Florida election strategy is likely to turn out poorly for him. Mainly, the dynamics of media and momentum - taking place for nearly a month - will have passed him by, relegating his once frontrunner presidential campaign to the dustbin.

We won't know for sure until the Florida election on January 29. However, the New York Times reports on the results of a WNBC/Marist poll that finds Giuliani slipping badly in public opinion relative to GOP frontrunner John McCain:

The strong advantage that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani enjoyed in his home state appears to be slipping away, according to the latest WNBC/Marist Poll, while Senator Hillary Clinton is still leading among the Democrats of New York.

Among likely Republican voters, 33 percent said they supported Senator John McCain. Mitt Romney is the preference of 19 percent, while 18 percent said they would vote for Mr. Giuliani and Mike Huckabee is backed by 15 percent.

When undecided voters who lean toward a particular candidate are included, Mr. McCain has 34 percent, Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani both have 19 percent and Mr. Huckabee is still supported by 15 percent.

Some media outlets are sticking by Giuliani's cause; and some polling data indeed shows Giuliani contending well in the Sunshine State.

But the former New York Mayor polled just 2 percent in South Carolina's primary last Saturday. With a week to go before the next vote, Giuliani somehow needs to shift the media focus away from frontrunner McCain and his main challenger for the nomination, Mitt Romney.

Giuliani's circumstances seem more do-or-die than ever.

Republican Race Moves to Florida

The race for the Republican presidential nomination is headed to Florida, where the Sunshine State holds its primary on January 29.

The Washington Post has the story (via Memeorandum):

Riding the momentum from his weekend victory in South Carolina, John McCain turned his attention Sunday to Florida and the high-stakes primary there that will test whether the Arizona senator can consolidate support among Republican voters and take control of the GOP nomination battle.

The Jan. 29 contest in Florida will be the first Republican primary closed to independent voters, who have provided McCain with his margins of victory in both New Hampshire and South Carolina. A victory, strategists agreed, would stamp McCain as the front-runner in what has been a muddied Republican race and give him a clear advantage heading toward Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.

Leaving South Carolina on Sunday, McCain at first seemed hesitant to adopt the mantle of Republican leader. "I don't know how to define a front-runner," he told reporters asking him if he believed he was now the candidate to beat in the GOP race.

Minutes later, he changed his mind. Asked about critical comments from former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, McCain shot back with a grin, "When someone hasn't run a primary, I can understand why they would attack the front-runner."

Florida has played a pivotal role in the past two general elections and now is poised to help determine who the Republicans will send into the main event this November. The primary looms as a potential showdown in the GOP nomination battle not only because of its size and importance but because it will be the first this year in which all the leading candidates are competing.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who has won Nevada's caucuses and the Michigan primary in the past week, sees Florida as a potential breakthrough for his once-battered candidacy and is pouring more of his personal fortune into the state in an effort to deny McCain a victory.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, after a loss to McCain in South Carolina, looks to Florida as perhaps a last opportunity to show that his Iowa caucus victory at the start of the nominating season was not a fluke. A second consecutive Southern loss would be especially costly for the underfunded Huckabee.

But what makes Florida most different from the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina is the presence of Giuliani as a full-fledged participant. The onetime national front-runner has finished far back in the Republican pack this year -- behind Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in Iowa, Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina. But Giuliani has been parked in Florida for several weeks and has made the primary the critical test for his candidacy.

Whether former senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee will be competing at all remains a question mark after his third-place finish in South Carolina, the state he was hoping would give him his first breakthrough of the year.

There was considerable speculation that Thompson would quit the race if he did not do well in South Carolina, but aides said Sunday that no decision had been made. "We are in the process of assessing the state of the campaign, but as of this point no decisions or plans have been made one way or the other," spokesman Todd Harris said.

Florida offers a large and complex battleground for the Republican candidates.

Certainly, Florida will likely prove to be the GOP's next bellwether state. But frankly, I'll be surprised if any of the other GOP contenders are able to slow McCain's momentum (see my comments yesterday on McCain's assumptive frontrunner status).

McCain currently is leading the GOP field in Florida pollling (see the polling averages over at RealClearPolitics). While there's been a good deal of criticism of the polls this season, the predictions on the Republican side have been accurate. Polls showed the race in South Carolina tightening by the end of last week, and Saturday's results ended up being right in line with most of the major surveys.

It's still too early to rely on a polling snapshot for Florida at this point. But McCain emerged as the national frontunner in the polls following his big New Hampshire victory. Surveys find the Arizona Senator as the top candidate of either party on experience and leadership, and McCain's most likely to defeat the Democratic nominee in November. Look this week for new national surveys finding McCain consolidating his frontrunner status. The dramatically increased media and momentum for the McCain campaign is a huge asset leading up to the Florida vote.

Pundits had said all last week that McCain had to win in South Carolina to prove his viability. He's done that now. The burden is on the rest those in the GOP field to demonstrate their staying power (or starting power, in the case of Rudy Giuliani).

I'll have more analysis in the week ahead.

Photo Credit: Washington Post

American Politics After the Bush Presidency

This week's cover story at Newsweek looks at the collapse of the Republican Party's governing consensus, and what it means for American politics.

Both parties are affected: The GOP has struggled to unify on a compelling theme or partisan frontrunner in its campaign for the Republican nomination. The Democrats will have to confront the powerful legacy of George W. Bush, who shifted the nation's priorities in domestic and foreign policy, and who's made it difficult for a new grand political vision to gain acceptance among Democratic voting constituencies.

Here's Newsweek:

Political eras, in modern times, have not been wiped away in landslides. In 2000, ending eight years of Democratic rule, Bush did not even win the popular vote against Al Gore. In 1960, after eight years of Republican rule, John F. Kennedy eked out a narrow win against Richard M. Nixon, and some historians still suspect the Democrats had to steal votes to do it. This time around, however, the Republicans appear poised on a precipice. Their candidates have raised only about two thirds as much money as the Democrats (about $168 million to about $245 million), and GOP turnout badly lagged the Democrats' in both Iowa and New Hampshire. There's no clear front runner: McCain's victory in South Carolina last Saturday gave him two wins in early nominating contests; Romney's win on the same day in Nevada gave him three; Huckabee has one. It is possible that one of the GOP candidates will patch together the old coalition and at least make it close in November, and it's true that the Democrats have shown a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But it is just as likely that the long run of Republican dominance in national politics is coming to an abrupt end.

Read the whole thing.

I've been skeptical that 2008 offers a political environment conducive to a partisan realignment or electoral earthquake.

It's certainly shaping up as a Democratic year, after 7 years of the Bush administration, and the concomitant left wing derangement this has caused. Still, while the war in Iraq has been difficult, we're achieving our goals now. And current public opinion trends are indicating a close race this November, based on potential matchups of the top candidates from both parties.

The GOP's not out of the ballgame by any means, despite Cassandra-style cover stories to the contrary.

Photo Credit: Newsweek

Note to Krugman: It's Not the Economy

Paul Krugman perpetuates the left's Ronald Reagan take-down effort in his column today.

He focuses on the economic comeback of the 1980s, which is often considered the key element of the Reagan Revolution. But to borrow from James Carville, note to Krugman: It's not the economy (and Krugman's not stupid, so he knows better than to insinuate such).

What Reagan restored was the spirit of American grandeur and readiness to lead. He brought new ideas that moved the country in a dramatically different direction. Instead of telling Americans we can't do it, we can't improve out lives - turn down your thermostat and put on that sweater - he said our best days are ahead of us, and we'll continue to be that shining city on a hill. Reagan rightly belongs in the pantheon of great 20th century presidents.

That's something contemporary leftists can't stand. They hate the glorious exceptionalism Reagan trumpeted. Barack Obama gets it, and his radical antagonists hate it, including Krugman:

Contrast that with Mr. Obama’s recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a “sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?

For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.

When the inevitable recession arrived, people felt betrayed — a sense of betrayal that Mr. Clinton was able to ride into the White House.

Given that reality, what was Mr. Obama talking about? Some good things did eventually happen to the U.S. economy — but not on Reagan’s watch.

Here's Krugman on the conservative Reagan legacy:

I understand why conservatives want to rewrite history and pretend that these good things happened while a Republican was in office — or claim, implausibly, that the 1981 Reagan tax cut somehow deserves credit for positive economic developments that didn’t happen until 14 or more years had passed. (Does Richard Nixon get credit for “Morning in America”?)

But why would a self-proclaimed progressive say anything that lends credibility to this rewriting of history — particularly right now, when Reaganomics has just failed all over again?

Like Ronald Reagan, President Bush began his term in office with big tax cuts for the rich and promises that the benefits would trickle down to the middle class. Like Reagan, he also began his term with an economic slump, then claimed that the recovery from that slump proved the success of his policies.

And like Reaganomics — but more quickly — Bushonomics has ended in grief. The public mood today is as grim as it was in 1992. Wages are lagging behind inflation. Employment growth in the Bush years has been pathetic compared with job creation in the Clinton era. Even if we don’t have a formal recession — and the odds now are that we will — the optimism of the 1990s has evaporated.

Krugman's an economist by training, so he should know better than to spout off such boilerplate left-wing economic baloney. When president Reagan took office the consensus was that the economic crisis of the late-1970s under President Jimmy Carter was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The recession of 1990-91 is considered mild by economists, and there's considerable debate today that the U.S. economy will face recession this year.

No, Krugman's the one who's rewriting history, in an effort to advance a left-wing demonization campaign that's picked up steam since a top Democratic contender committed the heresy of praising Reagan as a genuine agent of change.

America's Marines

Here's the new advertisement for the U.S. Marines, from the Marine Corps blog:



From the blurb:

We traveled to 10 different states and 15 locations across the U.S. to create the "America's Marines" commercial. In the process, we captured so much incredible footage, we made the extended version featured here. If you haven't watched it yet, please do, and then come back to this blog when you're done.

From Blue Crab Boulevard:

I come from a family that has a long history of serving this nation in the United States Army. This ad might have changed some of my ancestor's choice of branch of service. It is a fabulous ad.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Democrats for McCain?

The more we get into the GOP primary season the less sure we are of a frontrunner, right?

I'm close to staking my reputation on McCain's emergence as the clear GOP standard bearer, but by the looks of this morning's Los Angeles Times' analysis you'd think McCain was still a longshot:

John McCain's victory in South Carolina puts the Arizona senator in a strong position to win the Republican presidential nomination -- but only if he can follow up with another win in Florida nine days from now.

"This is a huge win for McCain," said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican campaign manager who is not affiliated with a candidate. "He has the most momentum going into Florida next week."

South Carolina was an important test for McCain because its Republican electorate is dominated by Southern social conservatives, the voters who derailed his presidential campaign in 2000.

An exit poll of primary voters showed that McCain didn't win a majority among conservative or evangelical Christian voters this time, either - but he won just enough of their votes to deny victory to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who failed to unify social conservatives behind his cause....

McCain can now claim that he has won hotly contested primaries in the campaign's most conservative Southern state, South Carolina, and its most moderate Northern state, New Hampshire -- a useful argument in a party that is searching for a candidate capable of unifying its fragmented parts. That puts McCain "in the strongest position of any candidate at this point to win the nomination," Reed said.

But the results in South Carolina still fell short of the kind of unalloyed triumph for McCain that might have vaulted him into a clear lead.

Right...

And who's going to challenge McCain for the Republican mantle (he's hardly the underdog anymore)?

Perhaps Romney, if he can win some voters outside of his Mormon base. I don't think Giuliani's going to come out of Florida as the GOP's white knight. His strategy of holding back from the early contests has dramatically relegated him to the sidelines. Thompson's holding off on announcing his exit from the race, although it's clear that his third place finish yesterday is about as high as he's going to go. Sadly, Huckabee sullied himself in S.C., and I doubt he'll recover (he hasn't won since Iowa).

Having said that, I was impressed to see Pete Abel at The Moderate Voice endorse John McCain for the presidency as the choice for the Democrats in November!

Abel founded the moderate blog, Central Sanity ( which now looks to be going under). He writes from a decidedly eclectic persuasion, which sometimes results in unusual political positions. Frankly, I don't read him much anymore, because I can't stand the ideological hypocrisy at TMV.

That said, Abel makes an interesting argument this morning:

The contemporary Republican establishment does not like McCain and is expected to pull out the stops to derail him leading up to Florida and Super Tuesday. And if the Senator from Arizona still manages to win Florida despite that opposition, watch out. The week from Florida to Feb. 5 will get very ugly, to the point that some of us will be looking over our shoulders, fearful that the alert hairs on the back of our necks pre-sage the rise from the dead of the pre-reformation ghost of Lee Atwater.

What’s more, regardless of what the GOP Establishment thinks, the boost that McCain’s 2008 S.C. primary victory gives him among Republican voters could have precisely the opposite effect among Democrats.

BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) Democrats will remember, all too well, South Carolina’s role in their nemesis’s march to the GOP nomination in 2000 and, from there, to the White House. In turn, that memory will make BDS sufferers question the judgment of S.C. Republicans and thus force them to question the candidate for whom a majority of S.C. Republicans voted this year.

Other Democrats — who are not fond of Bush but don’t froth at the mouth every time they hear is name — will fear McCain for different reasons, namely: He is the one Republican candidate who consistently keeps pace with Sens. Clinton and Obama in head-to-head polls for the general election.

Collectively, these factors paint a grim picture for McCain in the 16 days remaining between now and the evening of Super Tuesday, when the polls close.

I won’t attempt to talk the Republican establishment or BDS sufferers out of their opposition to McCain. They’ve already lost their collective minds. But I do want to make a special appeal to non-BDS Democrats, whom I believe are still grounded in reality and who, at the end of the day, are not that much different than their moderate GOP counterparts like me.

Those Democrats should support McCain – if not in votes, then in dialogue – for two key reasons.

1. McCain raises the ire of the contemporary Republican establishment because he rejects their meaner instincts. As I’ve written before, McCain decries torture while the Establishment excuses it. He fights pork-barrel spending while they enable it. He calls for policies to combat global warming while they deny it. He seeks reasonable compromises on immigration policy while they stoke fear and prejudice.

2. McCain represents for Republicans what Obama represents for Democrats: a meaningful step away from the last 15-plus years. I’m not saying either man will revolutionize partisan politics as we know it, but both promise (at a minimum) evolutionary progress toward a different America. And if we truly believe country is more important than party, then we owe it to ourselves to boost the two candidates who (among all their peers) represent the best hope for moving us in a post-partisan direction, regardless of our individual party loyalties.

That’s my argument. Take it or leave it … but at least, consider it.

That's beefy.

What's not clear is why non-BDS Democrats should switch partisan loyalties to vote for a Republican?

Abel's right though: It is going to be a tough couple of weeks for McCain.

Still, I'm almost convinced that the political momentum of the electorate will overpower a GOP demonization campaign against McCain. Public opinion polls forthcoming this week will likely record a solid bounce in support for McCain as the GOP nominee. I've already noted many trends in public opinion here, and one in particular stands out: McCain stands above every other candidate in the race - Democrat or Republican - in leadership qualities and electability.

As McCain has progressed, I've been dismayed at denunciations of him among conservative bloggers (one said the thought of choosing him "makes me throw up a little in my mouth").

I find such sentiment strange and disturbing, considering the stakes for the country should the Democrats take power in '09.

It's a fascinating thing that some Democrats are now calling for a McCain presidency. I'd be even more fascinated if some regular old Republicans did so as well.

See more analysis at Memeorandum.

More On Heilbrunn and Neoconservatism

Andrew Bacevich reviews Jacob Heilbrunn's, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, in today's Los Angeles Times (here).

The review's useful, but I'm still waiting to read a review of Heilbrunn by someone who's at least marginally removed from the impassioned debates surrounding neconservative influence on the Bush administration and Iraq.

Sure, that's hard in the current environment. But Bacevich - an Army veteran who served in Vietnam - lost his son to the Iraq war (when he was killed by a suicide bomber in May 2007). Bacevich wrote of the loss in a moving tribute to his son in the Washington Post.

Bacevich is a professor in international relations at Boston University, so he's certainly got the experience and resume to analyze neoconservative foreign policy. But for those who are sympathetic to American goals in upholding international order and fighting for democratic consolidation in Iraq, it might be useful to take Bacevich's criticism with some caveats.

What does Bacevich say? His introduction starts with the usual dismissals of the neocons as "pretentious" and "pernicious," as well as the obligatory denuciation of the war as a "debacle." None of this is original.

The same section includes some decent background on the intellectual origins of the movement, however:

Beginning his account in the 1930s, he surveys the people, publications and events that have combined in the present-day to give us the Weekly Standard, the American Enterprise Institute and various talking heads on Fox News, along with the Bush Doctrine of preventive war and the debacle of Iraq.

Along the way, Heilbrunn rousts all the usual suspects -- the Trotskyist Max Shachtman, the political theorist Leo Strauss, the nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, the cultural critic Allan Bloom and the militantly anti-communist Democratic "senator from Boeing," Henry "Scoop" Jackson -- and he recounts the contribution each made in shaping today's neoconservative worldview. Heilbrunn devotes particular attention to political journalists Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, who over the course of very long careers have never ceased to write, to organize and to agitate. Absent Kristol's considerable entrepreneurial talents and Podhoretz's flair as a polemicist, neoconservatism as we know it would not exist.

Beyond this, Bacevich breaks up Heilbrunn's disquisition into three parts, or "impressions," which mostly go to catalog Heibrunn's discussion of the reputation for anti-intellectualism among neoconservative proponents. See here, for example:

...although they pose as intellectuals, neoconservatives more typically function as propagandists. Theirs is not the disinterested pursuit of truth so much as the endless repetition of ostensibly self-evident truisms. The neoconservative universe allows little room for ambiguity, irony or paradox. According to Heilbrunn, they subscribe to a vision of "binary simplicity," in which right and wrong, black and white, friend and foe are easily distinguished. Whatever the topic -- whether science or sexuality, the future of war or the future of the Middle East -- for neocons it's all cut and dried.

This is all Heilbrunn, Bacevich attests. But one can't help seeing some partisan validation in Bacevich's overview of the book. Bacevich homes-in on the book's discussion of the neocons' ideological surety, which is founded in a more systematic political philosophy than we can discern from Bacevich's 1000 words:

They [neocons] revel in crisis, confident that they alone stand between survival and Armageddon. As Heilbrunn observes, "it's always imperative to have, somewhere, somehow, an enemy -- both at home and abroad." This suits the neoconservatives' "need to see themselves as lonely prophets standing in the breach between implacable foes on the one hand and weak-kneed liberals (and paper-pushing bureaucrats) on the other."

I'm still getting into the book. I can comment more in future updates. But discussing neoconservatism is more complicated than denouncing adherents as universal absolutists intent on the taking over the world. We've been hearing such talk since the Bush administration's war in Iraq looked imminent (according to this essay over at Front Page Magazine):

Forget 50 years of neoconservative political, social and economic thought; forget Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Nathan Glazer; forget Ronald Reagan whose neocon-influenced foreign policy won the Cold War. From now on, just think of them as warmongers. Stereotyping can be a complicated business, but anti-war pundits have mastered its intricacies, distilling intellectual movements into trouble-free critique: neoconservatives are duplicitous right wingers, prodding the United States towards war to a.) advance our colonial gains b.) facilitate the racist Israeli government’s subjugation of defenseless Arabs and c.) wag the dog for oil fetishists George Bush and Richard Cheney.

I'll have more later.

In the meantime, check out my post on Heilbrunn, as well as my neoconservative introduction to this blog.

The Descent of Knowledge? Online Communications and the Cult of the Amateur

I came across some commentaries on Andrew Keen's book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, and thought I'd add my two cents.

Are blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and all the other new forms of mass online communications destroying intelligent debate in the marketplace of ideas?

I haven't read Keen's book, but this seems to be the gist of it. I look at the issue (or problem) more in terms of democratization. Online communications - in all its forms, blogs, chat, social networking, interactive news media, etc. - have simply let loose the uncleansed hordes on the public square, and in the popular imagination.

I often refer to the "Wild West" of the blogosphere. Writing online - in the daily blog format - makes one's views available to everyone. If someone doesn't like what you have to say, you'll be attacked remorselessy. Intimidation and threats go with the terrority. Complete repudiation of authoritative knowledge and credentials is common. A Ph.D. in political science? Nah, this asshole still doesn't know what the f%@#!k he's talking about!

You know what I'm saying. The Founders weren't oblivious to the passions of the mob, which is why Madison and his allies established a constitutional structure that filters and insulates mass opinion, preventing tyranny of the majority.

Certainly, though, traditional media - especially newspapers and political television - will never be the same. This is good, for though much if not most of the internet political space is unleavened and uninformed, the political blogosphere provides an almost endless stream in-depth, knowledgeable, and perceptive commentary and analysis.

Thus, these communication enrich the realm of ideas, and add to the base of information required for democratic decision-making. It's rough sometimes, and those writing online need to have thick skin (I'm still working on it). But for the most part, it's all well and good.

What do some of the elite have to say about the argument? Here's this from the New York Times:

This book, which grew out of a controversial essay published last year by The Weekly Standard, is a shrewdly argued jeremiad against the digerati effort to dethrone cultural and political gatekeepers and replace experts with the “wisdom of the crowd.” Although Mr. Keen wanders off his subject in the later chapters of the book — to deliver some generic, moralistic rants against Internet evils like online gambling and online pornography — he writes with acuity and passion about the consequences of a world in which the lines between fact and opinion, informed expertise and amateurish speculation are willfully blurred....

For one thing, Mr. Keen says, “history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise,” embracing unwise ideas like “slavery, infanticide, George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, Britney Spears.” The crowd created the tech bubble of the 1990s, just as it created the disastrous Tulipmania that swept the Netherlands in the 17th century....

Because Web 2.0 celebrates the “noble amateur” over the expert, and because many search engines and Web sites tout popularity rather than reliability, Mr. Keen notes, it’s easy for misinformation and rumors to proliferate in cyberspace. For instance, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (which relies upon volunteer editors and contributors) gets way more traffic than the Web site run by Encyclopedia Britannica (which relies upon experts and scholars), even though the interactive format employed by Wikipedia opens it to postings that are inaccurate, unverified, even downright fraudulent. This year it was revealed that a contributor using the name Essjay, who had edited thousands of Wikipedia articles and was once one of the few people given the authority to arbitrate disputes between writers, was a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, not the tenured professor he claimed to be....

Mr. Keen argues that the democratized Web’s penchant for mash-ups, remixes and cut-and-paste jobs threaten not just copyright laws but also the very ideas of authorship and intellectual property. He observes that as advertising dollars migrate from newspapers, magazines and television news to the Web, organizations with the expertise and resources to finance investigative and foreign reporting face more and more business challenges.

Here's this about Keen and bloggers, from London's Independent:

Blogs also get short shrift from the author. Keen mocks the notion that the blogosphere represents a return to the vibrant intellectualism inherent in London's coffee-house scene of the 18th century. He notes that Dr Johnson, Burke and Boswell didn't hide behind aliases, whereas most bloggers do. Keen refers to bloggers as "anonymous and self-obsessed". He ennumerates examples of companies, PR firms, and political organisations who use this very anonymity to take all sorts of liberties, from denigrating opponents to passing advertising off as user content on sites such as YouTube. YouTube itself comes under the spotlight when Keen discusses the contentious issue of intellectual property rights.

Well, there you have it.

Keen's book came out last year, and frankly if there was a big intellectual debate over it, I missed it.

Sometimes the power of the blogosphere and the influence of online communications are overrated (Daily Kos types take note). There's always going to be a demand for authoritative, peer-reviewed, or scientific information and knowledge. The best ideas float to the top, in any event.

John Stewart Mill made the case for the unfettered marketplace of ideas. We're certainly seeing such forces at work today.

John McCain Wins South Carolina Primary!

John McCain won the South Carolina Republican primary tonight, in an election that, while close, never saw the Arizona Senator trailing in the vote count.

McCain's victory speech made an effort to reach out to all South Carolinians who cast a vote, not just for their candidate, but in support of the American way.

McCain now heads to the next round of voting with a significant win over Mike Huckabee, who had the backing of at least half of the Palmetto State's evangelical voters. The former Arkansas governor's failure to win tonight raises serious questions as to his campaign's national viability.

McCain has recaptured the campaign's momentum. Mitt Romney's win in the Nevada caucuses today means that the race is likely to unfold as a two-man contest between McCain and the former Massachusetts governor.

Fred Thompson's third place showing in South Carolina is a huge disappointment for the former Tennessee Senator, who staked his chances on a big win in the country's first Southern primary. Rudy Giuliani's been out of the limelight for weeks. With the dramatic fortunes of the race passing him by, the former New York mayor's election strategy appears increasingly dangerous.

The New York Times has more details:

Senator John McCain staved off a spirited challenge by former Gov. Mike Huckabee to win the South Carolina primary on Saturday, exorcising the ghosts of the attack-filled primary here that derailed his presidential hopes eight years ago.

Mr. McCain’s victory here, on top of his win earlier this month in New Hampshire, capped a remarkable comeback for a campaign that was all but written off six months ago. In an unusually fluid Republican field, his campaign said it hoped the victory would give Mr. McCain a head of steam going into the Jan. 29 Florida primary and the nationwide series of nominating contests on Feb. 5.

“It took us a while, but what’s eight years among friends?” Mr. McCain said at a boisterous victory celebration that broke out into shouts of “Mac is back! Mac is back!”

Mr. McCain did best among voters who said experience was the most important quality in a candidate, among those who said the Iraq war and terrorism were their top concerns and among the state’s veterans, who made up a quarter of the vote. He ran about even with Mr. Huckabee, who pressed a populist message here, among the many voters who said their top concern in the election was the economy.

Mr. Huckabee’s loss in a southern state with a strong turnout of religious voters was a setback to his campaign as it heads toward potentially less hospitable states. Nearly 60 percent of the voters in South Carolina identified themselves in exit polls as evangelical Christians, a group that was heavily courted by Mr. Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher. And while Mr. Huckabee captured 4 in 10 of their votes, Mr. McCain also made inroads with the group, capturing more than a quarter of their vote.

With 97 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, led with 33 percent of the vote, just ahead of Mr. Huckabee’s 30 percent.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, who coasted to an easy victory earlier on Saturday in the Nevada caucuses, fell to fourth place behind Fred Thompson, the former senator of Tennessee.

A triumphant Mr. McCain greeted cheering supporters in Charleston, where he thanked South Carolina voters “for bringing us across the finish line first in the first-in-the-south primary.”

Here's more, on the demographics of the vote:

While open to all voters, the primary was dominated by Republicans and conservatives. Eight in 10 voters described themselves as Republicans (up from six in 10 in the 2000 primary), and more than half were white evangelical Christians.

About 45 percent of Mr. Huckabee’s supporters described themselves as very conservative, while about the same number of Mr. McCain’s supporters said they were moderate or liberal, according to a poll conducted as people left polling places around the state.

Most of Mr. Huckabee’s supporters described themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians, and most said they attended religious services at least once a week. Six in 10 Huckabee supporters said it mattered a great deal that a presidential candidate shared their religious beliefs.

On the matter of electability, more voters said Mr. McCain had the best chance of winning the general election in November than any of the other candidates. But voters were divided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Huckabee over who was most likely to bring change to the country.

Voters said they were more concerned about the nation’s economy than they were about illegal immigration, the war in Iraq or terrorism.

They said it is more important that the eventual nominee shares their values than that he has the right experience or is forthright or is likely to beat a Democrat in the fall, according to a poll conducted as people left polling places around the state.

Two-thirds of the voters say their own family’s finances are holding steady, while about one in ten say they are falling behind. More than a third of those who participated in the poll taken as voters left polling places said it matters a great deal to their vote that a candidate share their religious beliefs. More than 4 in 10 say abortion should be illegal in most cases and another 3 in 10 say it should be illegal in all cases.

Congratulations to John McCain!

I'll have more analysis as the campaign unfolds.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Thompson May Quit!

Jonathan Martin at The Politico reports that former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson may end his campaign for the GOP nomination:

Fred Thompson made it clear at a midday campaign stop that he won't continue in the race without a strong showing out of South Carolina tonight.

"We'll see how we have to do, we'll see what the results are," Thompson said, when questioned at a small press availability if he needed to win to go forward. "I’ve always said I have to do very well here; there’s no question about that. I stand by that."

"We won't have too much longer to wait," he added.

Asked what his plans were for Monday, Thompson repeated the question: "Plans for Monday currently?"

"It depends on the outcome," Thompson admitted. "We'll see."

In his brief chat with reporters before greeting a handful of voters at Columbia's Lizard Thicket restaurant -- there were fewer of them than there were Thompson relatives, aides and members of the media -- Thompson waxed nostalgic about his campaign experience in language that suggested the end was near.

He said his spirits were up because he was joined by his wife, Jeri, and their two young children, as well as his two older sons and a cadre of loyal aides and old friends from Tennessee.

"The guys who are back over there that have been with me for so long and fought so hard for me," Thompson said, pointing to former Tennessee GOP chairman Bob Davis and a small group of advisers. "It's one big family,"

"We’ve been doing what we want to do, saying what we want to say -- the way we want to say it -- and being who we are and all together, you know, with your loved ones," Thompson reflected.

I mentioned the possibility in my morning post on Thompson's steady-as-she-goes campaign.

Photo Credit: The State

Romney Wins Nevada GOP Caucuses!

The Associated Press has called the Nevada race for Romney:

Mitt Romney won Republican presidential caucuses in Nevada on Saturday while John McCain and Mike Huckabee dueled in a hard-fought South Carolina primary, a campaign doubleheader likely to winnow the crowded field of White House rivals....

Romney's western victory marked a second straight success for the former Massachusetts governor, coming quickly after a first-place finish in the Michigan primary revived a faltering campaign.

Nevada Republicans said the economy and illegal immigration were their top concerns, according to preliminary results from surveys of voters entering their caucuses. Romney led among voters who cited both issues.

Mormons gave Romney about half his votes. He is hoping to become the first member of his faith to win the White House. Alone among the Republican contenders, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas aired television ads in Nevada.

The first scattered returns showed Romney with more than 50 percent of the vote. Paul, McCain and Huckabee were tightly bunched, far behind the leader.

He also won at least 14 of the 31 Republican National Convention delegates at stake.

The New York Times reports on Romney's victory statement:

As the rest of the Republican field focused on the primary in South Carolina, Mr. Romney flew to Nevada last week for a last-minute push. His rivals overlooked Nevada, largely because state rules do not automatically assign delegates to the winning candidate, unlike in South Carolina, where voters were going to the polls Saturday.

“Today, the people of Nevada voted for change in Washington,” Mr. Romney said in a statement released by his campaign. “For far too long, our leaders have promised to take the action necessary to build a stronger America, and still the people of Nevada and all across this country are waiting. Whether it is reforming health care, making America energy independent or securing the border, the American people have been promised much and are now ready for change.”

Before flying to Florida on Saturday to campaign for the next Republican contest, Mr. Romney handed out doughnuts to supporters and caucusgoers at a 7:30 a.m. stop at a Las Vegas high school. Many of the several dozen in the enthusiastic crowd, however, appeared to be supporters who had driven in from California, as caucusgoers did not need to show up until 9 a.m.

In a sign of just how much better organized Mr. Romney was in the state than his rivals, all but one of the signs lining the entrance to the high school were his, with a lone sign for Senator John McCain of Arizona interrupting the pattern.

Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, got on the back of a pickup truck to address the crowd of well-wishers in the early morning cold.

“You guys have been turning folks out, and by virtue of that I think we’re going to have a great, successful day today,” Mr. Romney said.

“Across the country in South Carolina, people are voting there also and I’m hoping to do real well there,” he continued. “I’m hoping to win, but I don’t know what the outcome will be. But with two golds and two silvers, we’re feeling pretty good.”

Mr. Romney also focused on Nevada because the state has a sizable Mormon population.

Although Mr. Romney came in second in the two early contests that attracted the most attention, Iowa and New Hampshire, his success here does give him claim to three victories. He won the Michigan primary on Tuesday and the Wyoming caucuses earlier in the month.

The Times notes an important point:

Still, his victory here is certain to be overshadowed later in the day by the outcome in South Carolina, where pre-election polls had shown Mr. McCain and former Gov. Mike Huckabee to be in a tight race.

Check back for news on the S.C. primary!

Photo Credit: New York Times

Photo Finish in South Carolina's GOP Primary

Today's South Carolina primary could clarify the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The Wall Street Journal has an analysis:

The muddled Republican race for president may grow a tad clearer as South Carolina votes Saturday, with both Sen. John McCain and Mike Huckabee competing to build on early wins and Fred Thompson needing a strong showing in his home region to survive.
Messrs. McCain and Huckabee have each claimed victory in an early state. But neither has been able to stake a firm claim on the nomination, and both need a second win to prove their campaigns have staying power. Whoever wins will have momentum going into Florida against Rudy Giuliani, who has bet his once front-running campaign on that state's Jan. 29 primary....

Republicans are caucusing in Nevada on Saturday, as well. In a state with a large Mormon population, Mitt Romney is expected to win, if only by default; none of his rivals campaigned there. A win in Nevada will allow Mr. Romney to claim momentum coming off his victory Tuesday in Michigan. But the real contest among Republicans this weekend is in South Carolina, where the race has been both ugly and complex.

Mr. Romney, whose Mormonism has hurt him in largely evangelical South Carolina, pulled out of the state despite having run more total TV ads than any of his rivals. Now at the top of the polls: Mr. McCain, the senator from Arizona, and Mr. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor. A tracking poll released Friday by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion found them tied with 26% of the vote, with each and everyone else far back.

One unknown: the weather, with rain, snow and chilly temperatures predicted. Lee Bandy, a 40-year veteran political columnist who now works for the InsiderAdvantage report, said that could help Mr. Huckabee. "His voters are more passionate and will turn out come hell or high water," Mr. Bandy predicted.

Mr. McCain himself addressed that concern Friday. "I understand the weather is going to be pretty chilly tomorrow, so you're probably going to have to put on an extra sweater and go out in the cold," he told a gathering at a hospital in Florence, S.C. "But I need your vote. I need it. And I'm asking for it."

Mr. McCain, who won New Hampshire, and Mr. Huckabee, who won Iowa, appeal to different segments of the electorate.

Mr. McCain, a Vietnam prisoner of war, is strongest among military families who are concentrated along the coast, the so-called Lowcountry, and he spent the final day of campaigning in Florence, Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head. He ended the day with a rally at the decommissioned aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown.

The Washington Wire has more on McCain's Yorktown visit:

John McCain wrapped up his final day of campaigning in South Carolina with an evening rally on the decommissioned aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown, outside of Charleston.

With a dozen boy scouts and a B-25 bomber as a backdrop, Mr. McCain hit on the major themes of his campaign the last few days, especially his appeal to the state’s large population of military voters. He talked about improving veterans’ health benefits, the Iraq war, cutting corporate taxes and his opposition to government spending.

“The president just signed into law a couple of weeks ago a spending bill with 9,200 earmarks worth $17 billion of your money,” he said. “It’s disgraceful.” He vowed to veto such bills as president.

Mr. McCain emphasized his commitment to appoint conservative Supreme Court judges. At a rally earlier in the day he called justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito “two of the finest judges … in the history of this country.” On the Yorktown, he told the crowd that as president he would “look for a clone of Justice Roberts. I’ll look all over the planet.”

The speech took place in a hangar below deck, ensuring no direct comparisons could be made with President Bush’s infamous 2003 “mission accomplished” speech, which took place on the deck of a carrier in San Diego. (In other aircraft carrier political history, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry launched his campaign with a speech in front of the same U.S.S. Yorktown in Sept 2003.)

Also, unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain didn’t arrive by plane. He and his wife, Cindy McCain, strode through the crowd to the stage. The theme to Rocky, Sylvester Stallone’s classic 1976 movie about an underdog boxer, played in the background. (It’s an inspiring tune. But as movie buffs note, Rocky loses in the end.)

McCain has repeatedly predicted a victory here over the past few days, even as his lead over Mike Huckabee in opinion polls has slipped. McCain campaign adviser Charlie Black told Washington Wire earlier in the day that the senator has a “comfortable but not overwhelming lead,” but implied the result will be close. “All we have to do is win by one vote,” he said.

Mr. McCain, meantime, understands the implications of tomorrow’s result. “South Carolina will most likely determine who the nominee is,” he said at a rally in Florence, S.C.

Although yesterday's FOX News poll had McCain leading Huckabee with a 7 percentage-point lead, this morning Zogby tracking poll on the S.C. race has Huckabee pulling up dead-even with McCain:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has drawn into a statistical dead heat with Arizona Sen. John McCain here as voters began finalizing their decisions about whom to support in the Republican presidential primary election to be held today, a two-day Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll of the race shows.

McCain slipped a bit while Huckabee enjoyed a surge in last-minute support. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney continued to gain ground, while former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson continued to slip. Renegade Republican Congressman Ron Paul and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani remained in the low single digits and non-factors in this state’s race.

Yesterday's McClatchy's poll also showed a virtually tie in the Palmetto State, with McCain leading Huck 27 to 23 percent, a result within the poll's margin of error.

Still, polling trends this week appear to favor the Arizona Senator, and from the buzz I've heard among cable news pundits, McCain's widely expected to win today.

Check out this McCain campaign ad, which has been playing well in South Carolina:

I'll have more this afternoon. Go McCain!