The GOP Debate From Myrtle Beach

My first reaction upon tuning into the GOP debate tonight in South Carolina was: "Why is Ron Paul even on the stage?" Certainly his utter collapse in the New Hampshire primary shoveled the last few mounds of dirt on his sinking pine box of a campaign, right?

I guess not. Paul was good for a laugh or two (Brit Hume hammered him on his "WW III over Iran" gaffe), which worked to simply confirm one more time his utterly whacked reputation.

Who won the debate?

Ask backers of each of the candidates and they'll say their man won. To the Fred Thompson supporters I'll say right away that old Fred had some zippy one-liners, but for the life of me, his note-reading is a spontaneity-killer. As any first-year college professor knows: Never read your notes! I guess being an actor gets one a free pass on the cue-card gravy train.

In any case, Mitt Romney started out strong, but it seemed the dynamism shifted away from him as soon as Huckabee got the microphone, giving a detailed response on the economy that brought the former Massachusetts governor's jaw dropping to the floor!

John McCain provided the standard rock-like performance expected of him, and I've got to say, Brit Hume's question on now he would have handled the naval skirmish in the Strait of Hormuz had to be gift-wrapped. No one's going to touch McCain on military operations - I guess FOX is hopping on the McCain bandwagon!

Rudy Giuliani's lost the momentum and it showed - he was subdued, easily overshadowed by the new frontrunners.

Katherine Seelye live-blogged the debate at NYT, and here's her summary:

This debate was a bit of a hard slog, mostly a repetition of talking points with a few sharp elbows thrown in.

Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani didn’t do themselves any favors tonight, at least not in South Carolina, which they both seem to be ceding. They’ve got other fish to fry, Mr. Romney in Michigan, Mr. Giuliani in Florida.

Mr. Thompson had an 11th-hour burst of life. Will it be enough to give him a decent showing in South Carolina? His flat-out assault on Mr. Huckabee was one of the most detailed of this long-running debate series.

Mr. Huckabee is expecting to revive his Iowa win with this state’s Christian conservatives, who were absent from New Hampshire. But what a curious response to the question about wives submitting to their husbands. It probably won’t deter his values voters, but it may mystify many others.

Mr. McCain generally kept his head down.

Here's the take over at USA Today:

John McCain, seeking to maintain momentum from his New Hampshire win this week, pledged to "stop out-of-control spending" by the federal government. "I'm called the sheriff by my friends in the Senate who are the appropriators," he added.

Mike Huckabee, winner of the Iowa caucuses, said the party needs to focus more on "middle-class, working-class Republicans."

Mitt Romney, who won the Wyoming caucuses, stressed his business background and said more tax cuts would help the nation head off a potential recession.
Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani, who are looking for their first victories in the nominating contests, also promoted tax cuts at the debate Thursday night sponsored by Fox News Channel and the South Carolina Republican Party. Ron Paul also participated.

In the past, the South Carolina GOP primary has been something of a good-luck charm for the winner: Since 1980, each has gone on to claim the party's presidential nomination.

George W. Bush won a bitterly fought primary in 2000 over McCain, whose campaign then had a hard time recovering.

The results could prove different this time. Hours before the debate, two new polls showed McCain leading Huckabee in South Carolina. Romney was in third.

McCain, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, stumped across the state before the debate and reminded voters of his support for the Iraq war. Thursday was the one-year anniversary of President Bush's announcement that he would temporarily boost U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

McCain reminded audiences he took a lot of heat then for supporting Bush but said today "the surge is working…We will succeed in Iraq if we don't lose our resolve."

Over at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza thought McCain benefitted from the forum:

The six Republican presidential candidates disagreed repeatedly but politely in a debate tonight in Myrtle Beach, S.C., a dynamic that affirmed Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as the frontrunner for his party's nomination heading into votes in Michigan and South Carolina over the next nine days.

McCain entered tonight's festivities with the biggest target on his back following his win in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary and a new South Carolina poll that showed he had leapt into the lead there.

But, two things worked in McCain's favor: the content of the questions asked by the the Fox News Channel moderators and the unwillingness of anyone other than former governor Mitt Romney (Mass.) to take a shot at McCain.

For 85 of the 90 minutes of the debate, the topics -- the troubled economy, spending, foreign policy, conservative credentials -- played to McCain's strengths as he recited his campaign's message: That he alone of the field has the experience in and out of elected office to lead the country in treacherous times.

Even the five minutes (or so) spent discussing illegal immigration -- a weak spot for McCain -- ended as well as possible for the Arizona senator. McCain was the first one to respond to the question about curtailing illegal immigration, a primacy that allowed him to preempt potential attacks from his rivals. "We will reward no one," McCain said of illegal immigrants living in this country. "They will have to get at the end of the line."

Romney tried to score points on the issue, arguing that he and McCain differ on what to do with the 12 million immigrants living illegally in the United States. "I believe others who have come here illegally should stand in line with all of the others who want to come to this country," he said.

It was the second time in the debate that Romney had tried to draw a clear line in the sand between himself and McCain. In the opening moments of the debate, he condemned McCain's pessimistic statement that there were jobs leaving Michigan that would never come back. McCain had a ready response: "One of the reasons why I won in New Hampshire is because I went there and told them the truth. . . Sometimes you have to tell people things they don't want to hear."

And, unfortunately for Romney, none of the other men on stage were willing to take up his cause against McCain.

That does it then: Nothing shattering...just a chance for the candidates to demonstrate their continued relevance. I get the feeling the momentum's shifted irrevocably.

Photo Credit: New York Times

**********

UPDATE: This morning's New York Times gives Fred Thompson high marks for his debate performance last night:

The performance by Mr. Thompson, which including several pointed one-liners, capped a debate that showed the altered terrain of the Republican field as it moved beyond contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Mitt Romney took on Senator John McCain, the victor in New Hampshire, over economic issues in an effort to sway voters in Michigan before its primary on Tuesday. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Thompson tussled over South Carolina voters. And Rudolph W. Giuliani took a muted swipe at Mr. McCain in an effort to win over security-minded voters before the Jan. 29 Florida primary.

But it was Mr. Thompson’s performance, in which he shook off the laid-back style that has defined his candidacy, that provided some of the liveliest moments of the debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C..

“This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and its future,” said Mr. Thompson, who has staked his run on a strong showing in South Carolina. The primary there is Jan. 19.

“On the one hand,” he said, “you have the Reagan revolution, you have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security. And the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies.”

Mr. Thompson then lit into Mr. Huckabee, the former Baptist preacher and Arkansas governor who won the Iowa caucus, for wanting to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, for supporting what he called “taxpayer-funded programs for illegals” and for wanting to sign a law restricting smoking.

“That’s not the model of the Reagan coalition, that’s the model of the Democratic Party,” he said.

McCain Leads in South Carolina

A new FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll has Senator John McCain leading the GOP pack in the crucial South Carolina primary vote:

A new FOX News South Carolina Republican presidential primary poll shows McCain is now the front-runner with 25 percent, followed by Iowa caucus winner Huckabee at 18 percent and Romney at 17 percent. The results for all three top candidates are within the survey’s margin of sampling error.

Fred Thompson, who is from the neighboring state of Tennessee, captures the support of 9 percent, while Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul both receive 5 percent.

Read the whole thing.

The FOX poll results are based on a small sample, with a large margin of error (plus or minus 4 percentage points). The numbers are significant nevertheless, confirming the normal conventional wisdom of an expected boost in the polls coming out of McCain's comeback win in New Hampshire.

This morning's Los Angeles Times notes that South Carolina's where it all fell apart for McCain in 2000, so a win in the Palmetto State could really prove McCain's Lazarus touch:

In his maverick 2000 presidential bid, South Carolina was McCain's Waterloo, where he was crushed by the state establishment's favorite, George W. Bush.

The senator from Arizona now returns to that blood-soaked political battlefield hoping to prove his appeal to the conservative party regulars he needs to keep his resurgent campaign on track for the long haul.

But South Carolina remains littered with political land mines for McCain. There are more evangelical conservatives here than in New Hampshire, and they view him with suspicion. And no one has forgotten the 2000 battle, which featured scathing personal attacks from both sides.

"There's some lingering resentment that sticks in your mouth," said David Woodard, a pollster at Clemson University who supported Bush.

McCain kicked off the new phase of his campaign Wednesday in economically troubled Michigan, a state he won in 2000.

GOP primary rules in Michigan allow independents to vote. That could make it possible for him to outpoll former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- whose father was a popular GOP governor there -- by assembling the same coalition of independents and Republicans that brought him victory in New Hampshire.

But in South Carolina, an all-Republican primary will test McCain's ability to compete with more-conservative candidates like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has been leading in recent polls; Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who is banking heavily on a strong showing in the state; and Romney, who came in second in New Hampshire.

Republican candidates fanned out across the post-New Hampshire political map Wednesday. But all of the major candidates will converge in Myrtle Beach, S.C., tonight for a debate to be broadcast by Fox News (at 6 p.m. PST).

McCain plans to remain in the state through the weekend. He is inaugurating a very different campaign than the one he conducted here in 2000, underscoring changes in his style, and in the country, in the last eight years.

The article notes that McCain has formed a high-power rapid-reaction organization, ready to provide instantaneous rebuttals to potential oppostion attacks and slurs:

South Carolina's 2000 primary was a turning point for McCain, coming on the heels of a surprising victory over Bush in New Hampshire. Bush fought back hard. The state was flooded with negative ads and mailings and phone-jamming calls from both campaigns. The most personal slam -- coming from anonymous sources -- was a rumor that McCain had fathered a black child. He and his wife have an adopted dark-skinned daughter from Bangladesh.

"We were literally stunned the last time by some of that," McCain said early this week, reflecting on the ferocity of the campaign. "To think that people would be making phone calls to say that -- did you know that we have a black baby? -- I mean, that was beyond belief."

This time McCain's campaign has formed a "truth squad" to respond to any attacks on the candidate. Addressing another perceived shortcoming, McCain worked hard to build the institutional support he lacked in 2000, heavily courting the top party leaders and former Bush fundraisers.

It remains to be seen how nasty things get this year, but we've still got a weekend of full campaigning.

USA Today reports that Fred Thompson has staked his presidential comeback on a strong South Carolina showing:

Saying, "This is where I make my stand," Fred Thompson launched a 10-day bus tour from here Tuesday morning to salvage his Republican presidential primary campaign.
"I'm staking an awful lot on South Carolina," the former Tennessee senator told The Greenville News.

Thompson's arrival signaled the start of the stretch run to Jan. 19's GOP primary. At least six candidates have released schedules showing campaign events this week before Thursday night's nationally televised Republican debate from Myrtle Beach....
Asked what he needed here in the Jan. 19 primary after a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and flagging in New Hampshire, Thompson said: "It might be first place." He declined to speculate further.

While Mitt Romney has blown off South Carolina - pulling advertisements from the state to focus on Michigan - Mike Huckabee's been considered a likely South Carolina winner, given the large bloc of conservative evangelicals there.

The Huckabee campaign is looking to use the Palmetto State as a "firewall" against further damage from McCain's New Hampshire momentum. Running ads in South Carolina for weeks, Huckabee's forces see McCain vulnerable on immigration, and have hammered the issue.

That strategy might help. Immigration is expected to be the hot topic at tonight's Republican debate in Myrtle Beach (although a large plurality of South Carolina voters favor a path to legalization for undocumented aliens, perhaps blunting the immigration issue against McCain).

A lot can happen over the next few days, but the FOX poll numbers indicate how dramatic McCain's turnaround has become.

Photo Credit: FOX News

**********

UPDATE: Sister Toldjah, citing additional polling figures supporting McCain's lead in South Carolina, asks: "If it comes down to it …and McCain gets the nomination, would you support him?"

The Choice After McCain?

What will deep conservatives do now that John McCain has reemerged as the Republican frontrunner?

The same bedrock GOP activists who see the Arizona Senator as RINO were happy to see McCain's campaign crashing down last summer. Where will they go in search of the Ronald Reagan of 2008?

Peter Brown over at The Politico has a nice examination of the available choices:

It is worth remembering that the Arizona senator was the front-runner for the nomination when the race began more than a year ago. But his manner and refusal to adhere to the party orthodoxy turned off too many GOP activists.

He began the campaign as the establishment choice because Republicans usually nominate the aspirant considered next in line — and since there was no incumbent president or incumbent or previous vice president, he inherited that slot.

But strong opposition to his candidacy among some of the most conservative elements of the Republican Party, who suspected he really was not one of them, cost him dearly.

By last summer, McCain's campaign was almost broke, and there was serious talk that he might throw in the towel. Reporters began writing his political obituary.

Nevertheless, his New Hampshire victory has put him back at the top of the pack. Those same folks who rejected him are now on the spot.

They can go with one of the other candidates or, upon reflection, decide that perhaps McCain isn't that unacceptable after all — especially given polling data suggesting he might be a stronger candidate in November than many of his competitors would be.

Given that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's inability to win either Iowa or New Hampshire has badly damaged his candidacy, to which many conservatives had flocked, those Republicans may not have many more palatable choices.

They can hope former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson — perhaps the most conservative of the remaining candidates — mounts a comeback that would make McCain's look like a piker. But that hardly seems in the cards.

Or they can go to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose record and rhetoric on taxes and terrorism makes many economic and foreign policy conservatives very nervous, perhaps even more so than does McCain.

Their other alternative is throwing in their lot with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who, on a host of issues, is far to the left of McCain and whose messy personal life makes many conservatives uncomfortable. Besides, after the candidate finished just ahead of quasi-fringe candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) in New Hampshire and lost to Paul 3-to-1 in Iowa, Giuliani's chances for the nomination don't look very good.

Even those who don’t trust McCain can read the polls. During the past few months, when McCain was wandering in the Republican wilderness, he retained a strong image with the overall electorate. Both nationally and in a variety of states, McCain ran better than all but Giuliani when matched against the potential Democratic contenders.

I would add that McCain's been right on Iraq, and he's the most respected figure from either party on national security. But he doesn't invoke the terror issue, like Rudy Giuliani; and on the stump McCain rarely mentions he has a son fighting in Iraq, although the personal nature of war has taken a toll of the McCain family.

I argued the case for a McCain pick by GOP activists in an earlier post, "Can McCain Win the Conservative Vote?"

Perhaps tonight's GOP debate will clarify the issue further.

Photo Credit: New York Times

McCain and Romney Do Battle in Michigan

Michigan's primary is next Tuesday, and win for John McCain in the Wolverine State could deal a near-fatal blow to Mitt Romney's presidential bid.

The Boston Globe has an analysis:

With their rivals focused on other states and the race for the Republican nomination still unsettled, John McCain and Mitt Romney battled each other in Michigan yesterday, turning their attention to the state's suffering economy and its crucial presidential primary on Tuesday.

Both men are chasing history, with McCain trying to reprise his victory in the 2000 Michigan primary and Romney his father's success as a three-term governor. Several hundred cheering supporters gave Romney a big welcome in an upscale shopping village in Grand Rapids yesterday afternoon, with one man yelling: "Gold, Mitt! Gold!"

"I've watched with concern as I've watched Michigan go through a one-state recession," the former Massachusetts governor said, standing on a chair and yelling without a microphone. "It's just not right, and we need to have somebody who cares very deeply about this state - and I do."

McCain also zeroed in on the economy. Noting that Michigan's unemployment rate is nearly 3 percentage points above the national average, the Arizona senator floated a plan to use community colleges to retrain workers.

"I'm aware of the economic difficulties here in the state of Michigan," McCain said at a rally in Grand Rapids, just a few hours before Romney arrived. "I am aware that you have high unemployment. I'm aware that the state of Michigan has lost jobs and that there are tough times, tough times here in the Heartland of America."

For McCain, Michigan presents an opportunity to keep alive the momentum from his campaign-saving victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

For Romney, the state is close to a must-win after he planned for months - and outspent his rivals - to win Iowa and New Hampshire, but came in second to Mike Huckabee in Iowa and to McCain in New Hampshire. In a sign of how much his campaign is banking on a win, Romney has decided to pull his advertising from South Carolina and Florida, but continue running ads in Michigan, as he has for weeks.

Huckabee, who finished third in New Hampshire, is in the top tier with McCain and Romney in recent polls in Michigan, where he hopes to establish himself as a national candidate. He launched a new TV ad in the state yesterday, focusing on jobs. In the ad, Huckabee says that he knows what it is like to struggle financially while growing up, and then boasts of his record as governor in Arkansas in cutting taxes and "achieving record job growth."

The rest of the GOP field is ignoring Michigan; the candidates are cherry-picking states where they believe they can win. Former senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee rolled yesterday across South Carolina on a bus tour, hoping his Southern roots and conservative platform will give him a make-or-break win in the Jan. 19 primary. Rudy Giuliani stumped yesterday in Florida, where he is staking his candidacy on its Jan. 29 primary.

This is first mention of Thompson I've seen in days - indeed, I was almost expecting an annoucement of his withdrawal yesterday while wathching the news. And Giuliani? It must be excrutiating sitting on the sidelines, watching political momentum pass you by, hoping and praying your late-primary campaign strategy won't turn out to be a disaster. So much for being a one-time national frontrunner.

The big bill for the next week is McCain, Romney, and Huckabee. In Michigan, McCain narrowed Romney's lead in public opinion throughout 2007, and he's currently just a couple of points behind in RCP's polling average for the state.

It's a safe bet that new data forthcoming in Michigan will show the Arizona Senator pulling even with Romney, given McCain's momentum out of the Granite State.

The Republican debate tonight could be key to a Romney comeback next Tuesday in Michigan's voting. Can the former governor deliver a knockout tonight in South Carolina?

See the New York Times for more analysis, especially on economic variable influencing the Michigan vote.

It's exciting!

McCain-Lieberman on Iraq: Troop Numbers Matter

John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, at today's Wall Street Journal, have an analysis of American success in Iraq and the way forward after the surge.

The bottom line: the Bush-Petraeus build-up worked, troop numbers matter, and we still have work to do:

It was exactly one year ago tonight, in a televised address to the nation, that President George W. Bush announced his fateful decision to change course in Iraq, and to send five additional U.S. combat brigades there as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and under the command of a new general, David Petraeus.

At the time of its announcement, the so-called surge was met with deep skepticism by many Americans -- and understandably so.

After years of mismanagement of the war, many people had grave doubts about whether success in Iraq was possible. In Congress, opposition to the surge from antiwar members was swift and severe. They insisted that Iraq was already "lost," and that there was nothing left to do but accept our defeat and retreat.

In fact, they could not have been more wrong. And had we heeded their calls for retreat, Iraq today would be a country in chaos: a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran.

Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001. Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst -- prompting Osama bin Laden to call them "traitors."

As al Qaeda has been beaten back, violence across the country has dropped dramatically. The number of car bombings, sectarian murders and suicide attacks has been slashed. American casualties have also fallen sharply, decreasing in each of the past four months.

These gains are thrilling but not yet permanent. Political progress has been slow. And although al Qaeda and the other extremists in Iraq have been dealt a critical blow, they will strike back at the Iraqi people and us if we give them the chance, as our generals on the ground continue to warn us.

The question we face, on the first anniversary of the surge, is no longer whether the president's decision a year ago was the right one, or if the counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus is working. It is.

The question now is where we go from here to sustain the progress we have achieved -- and in particular, how soon can more of our troops come home, based on the success of the surge.

McCain and Lieberman note that it's not just the new counterinsurgency strategy that's working, but the absolute level of boots on the ground as well, and of course the courageous fortitude of U.S. service personnel in beating back the forces in terror in Iraq.

The window to victory has been opened, and we must continue to welcome the light.

South Carolina is Key to Presidential Nominations

The Chicago Tribune offers a nice analysis of South Carolina's role in shaping the nomination contests of both parties:

As the presidential candidates arrive from the chilly North , the Palmetto State is ready to welcome them with balmy weather and winnow them with a first-in-the-South primary that may provide the political equivalent of Harry Potter's "sorting hat." A conservative, heavily Republican state, rarely has South Carolina had the opportunity to play such a pivotal role in the fortunes of White House hopefuls from both parties, and never have both the Republican and the Democratic primaries taken place so early.

The growing intensity of the races and the possibility that South Carolina can make a difference has prompted excitement and contributed to the recent registration of more than 50,000 new voters in this mannerly state known for its beaches, boiled peanuts and barbecue.

South Carolina's races also represent -- with the exception of Michigan's primary next Tuesday, in which some campaigns are not participating -- the first primary tests of the candidates in such a diverse state. Compared with New Hampshire, where more than 92 percent of the population is white, South Carolina is 66 percent white, 29 percent black and 2.4 percent of Hispanic origin, according to 2000 Census Bureau figures.

"The South Carolina voters, in the sorting-out process, have looked and have supported the candidate they feel is the most viable and electable candidate," said Bruce Ransom, a political scientist at Clemson University."On the Republican side, the candidate who won here has generally gone on and gotten the nomination. I think that's possible for both parties this time."

A number of factors further burnish South Carolina's importance this time around. Not only are there tight or unsettled races on both sides, but South Carolina is wedged in an unusually short time frame between the New Hampshire primary and the massive Tsunami Tuesday lineup on Feb. 5. As a result, the state holds greater potential as a springboard for its winners and as an influence on the states that so closely follow it.

Many believe that here, where the Civil War began and the site of the Secession Convention in 1860, some embattled candidacies well may fall on their swords after the Republican primary on Jan. 19 and its Democratic counterpart on Jan. 26.

"I think there will be two winners here -- and not double digits apart -- who will go on to Florida and fight it out," said South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson of the muddled GOP field.

The results in Iowa and New Hampshire have limited influence on South Carolina beyond an initial culling of the field, he said. "We have either put an exclamation point [on their choices] and said Hallelujah, or South Carolina primary Republican voters have corrected their mistakes," he said.

"South Carolina has a habit of taking established candidates who have been knocked down in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, picking them up and putting them in the White House," said Tucker Eskew, a Washington, D.C- based consultant with extensive political experience in South Carolina, who played key roles in George W. Bush's 2000 campaign in the state and in the Bush administration.

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush are examples of candidates who lost in Iowa but rode to Pennsylvania Avenue on the momentum afforded by South Carolina victories. In fact, since 1980 no candidate has become the GOP presidential nominee without winning the South Carolina primary.

For the Democrats, South Carolina this year also is crucial, demonstrating the ability to appeal to more conservative voters, which describes most voters here. "To be honest, I don't think Democrats in South Carolina have seen anything like they will see this year," said Joe Werner, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party, describing the intensity of his party's tight race. "There is a lot of excitement here to be a Democrat."

South Carolina hosts a FOX News GOP presidential debate tonight. Check back here for updates on the political dynamics of the Palmetto State!

**********

UPDATE: USA Today offers an analysis of the debate tonight in Myrtle Beach.

McCain is Likely GOP Nominee

Robert Novak argues that John McCain, with his win last night in New Hampshire, has all but wrapped up the GOP nomination:

During four final days of campaigning after the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire's Republican primary was one-on-one between Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Because the winner would become the party's most likely nominee, McCain's decisive victory puts him in a commanding position after being counted out for much of the last year.

McCain won a majority of registered Republican voters here as well as New Hampshire independents who voted in the GOP primary (as he did in 2000 when he swamped George W. Bush). Romney's attacks on McCain's liberal immigration policies were popular with Republican voters, but did not resonate with McCain's independent base.

Diminished by losing in Iowa, Romney entered the final weekend in New Hampshire some five percentage points behind. His strategists hoped the immigration issue would erase that lead. In fact, accusing McCain of advocating amnesty for illegal aliens had no more impact in New Hampshire than it had in Iowa.

Romney's loss here was devastating. He planned to boost his modest national ratings with wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he led in spending, organization and polls.

At the beginning of December, Romney enjoyed twice as much New Hampshire support as McCain. The senator's local supporters attribute his comeback to the endorsement here of independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman. But what propelled McCain's victory was Romney's loss in Iowa to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The onetime Baptist preacher relied on Iowa evangelicals, an asset lacking in New Hampshire.

The next two weeks are filled with promise for McCain and peril for Romney. Michigan, where Romney grew up (the son of Gov. George Romney), is the next primary, on Jan. 15. But McCain is popular in Michigan, where he defeated Bush in 2000. Another loss for Romney probably ends his candidacy.

South Carolina comes after that on Jan. 19, with Huckabee running in his first Southern primary. But there are substantially fewer evangelicals in South Carolina than Iowa. McCain's South Carolina campaign is led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has recruited much of the 2000 organization.

If McCain wins South Carolina, it will be up to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his late-starting, big-state strategy. Giuliani leads in Florida's Jan. 29 primary and the California, New York and New Jersey tests Feb. 5. But those leads may not survive McCain's surge.

McCain strength with New Hampshire's Republicans is significant.

Still, Novak's a bit more bullish than I am. We'll see how well the Arizona Senator does in upcoming contests. I'm fairly convinced it's a two-man race, McCain versus Huckabee, going forward.

Photo Credit: Time

McCain Victory Throws Open the Republican Race

John McCain's victory last night has thrown open the race for the GOP presidential nomination. The Los Angeles Times has an analysis:

John McCain's comeback victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday puts the Arizona senator back in contention in a Republican presidential race that still doesn't have a clear front-runner, but he faces a series of challenges.

McCain split registered Republicans with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and won decisively among independents who voted in the GOP primary, an exit poll showed. But he lost among one key group: Voters who consider themselves conservatives favored Romney.

That suggests McCain faces an uphill battle in states where the Republican electorate is more conservative than in New Hampshire.

"I don't think this makes him the national leader" among Republican candidates, said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster. "I don't think there is a national leader. I think this keeps it completely wide open."

Political analysts said the next primary, in Michigan on Tuesday, will probably be a three-way contest among McCain, Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won last week's caucuses in Iowa but finished a distant third in New Hampshire.

After that, the Republicans head for South Carolina, where social conservatives are likely to play a major role in voting Jan. 19.

Florida, where independents cannot vote in party primaries, casts its ballots Jan. 29; polls show former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who finished well back in New Hampshire, in a leading position in Florida.

California and 20 other states hold Republican primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5, choosing almost half of the party's convention delegates in a single day.

That compressed schedule, combined with the fragmentation of support for the leading candidates, means that McCain faces determined competition from Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani.

The New York Times offers a more optimistic perspective:

After Senator John McCain’s victory here on Tuesday, the Republican field is more scrambled than ever, with the battleground now shifting to a series of states where each of the leading candidates believes he holds certain advantages.

The next showdown will be on Jan. 15 in Michigan, a vast state struggling with a recession and the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is where Mitt Romney was born and reared, and many still fondly remember his late father, George, a three-term governor. Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, will fly there on Wednesday afternoon, with his aides saying the state has become his fire wall.

But his campaign has clearly been crippled by a second loss, this time in a state where he even has a vacation home.

Mr. McCain, who will also go to Michigan on Wednesday, is looking to finish off Mr. Romney there. In 2000, Mr. McCain defeated George W. Bush in Michigan, largely on the strength of support from independents and Democrats who switched over to vote for him.

Already, the McCain campaign has seen a tremendous uptick in its fund-raising, going from $20,000 a day on the Internet to well over $100,000, and raising a million dollars this month alone.

A wild card is Mike Huckabee, who has surged to the lead in some national polls. He hopes to be competitive in Michigan but is looking more toward the Jan. 19 primary in South Carolina, a state with many evangelical Christians who are drawn to this former Baptist pastor.

Waiting in the wings is a weakened Rudolph W. Giuliani, who is now focused almost exclusively on a victory in Florida’s primary on Jan. 29 to slingshot him to the nationwide contests on Feb. 5.

I hate to say it, but it's as though the electoral momentum has left Giuliani on the sidelines (January 29 seems like eons in this lightning fast election cycle).

That leaves the top three candidates in serious competition.

McCain won the Michigan primary in 2000. He is current trailing Romney in Michigan opinion polls, but his New Hampshire momentum could change that. As Ann Marie Cox notes:

The six-day spread between today and the Michigan primary will make it difficult for Romney to overcome the impression that he has lost not just momentum, but any chance to beat the eventual Democratic nominee.

McCain will also have choice pickings on the Michigan independent vote, as the top Democrats are not contesting the state.

In South Carolina, McCain's expected to do well with the military vote, and is currently vying for second place in public opinion polls out of the Palmetto State.

McCain's going to have trouble with South Carolina's deep conservatives and evangelicals. Still, like the situation in Michigan, McCain could benefit from a snowball effect given the media and momentum from his New Hampshire comeback; and a win in Michigan could really make the McCain campaign unstoppable.

Photo Credit: Time

What Happened to the Paulbots?

This post is a follow-up to my earlier entry, "Ron Paul: The Angry White Man."

In the wake of Jamie Kerchick's New Republic article exposing Ron Paul's extremist newsletters, as well as the Paul campaign's non-showing in the New Hampshire primary, Captian Ed asks, "Did The Ronulans Disappear Overnight?" Check it out (via Memeorandum):

A funny thing happened on my way to the predictable onslaught of Ron Paul supporters in my comments section after yesterday's post about his newsletters. The onslaught never arrived -- and neither did the supposed Revolution from New Hampshire. Could the two be related?

Almost like clockwork, any time a blogger posts anything remotely critical about Ron Paul, it attracts hundreds of comments, most of them refusing to deal with the substance of the criticism. Instead, they usually contained cap-locked diatribes about the Federal Reserve, the Constitution, and how anyone who doesn't support Paul is a traitor or a fool. Many start off by saying, "I am a Hispanic/Jewish/black voter who cares about freedom ..." as a means of defusing the awkward inks between Paul and his newsletters and donation from neo-Nazi Don Black, as well as his 40-plus appearances on the radio show of Truther and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

But not today. It's been more than 14 hours since I posted about the TNR story, and so far ... nothing. I really expected to find scores of outraged commentary in the Disqus moderation queue when I woke up this morning, but so far, it's been as quiet as a church mouse.

The results from Iowa and New Hampshire may have finally broken the spell. Paul's supporters had insisted that the Revolution would launch from Iowa and New Hampshire, but Paul only won marginal support. Even in Iowa, where he ran only against Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson -- and where his libertarianism should have won significant traction -- his campaigning left him without a single delegate to the convention. Last night's election put him behind Rudy Giuliani in fifth place, even though Giuliani didn't exactly strain himself with Granite State campaigning.

The Revolution turned out to be a dud. Even the writers at Reason now wonder what kind of crypto policy Paul may have been hiding, and Andrew Sullivan has (rather bravely) called out Paul for his association with the vile rhetoric published for over seventeen years under his own name.

The green curtain has been pulled back, I think, and rational minds have taken control. The comment sections will never be the same.

Perhaps. We won't really see the end of Ron Paul's 2008 phenomenon until he formally withdraws from the race. It won't be too soon.

Clinton Will Do Well in "National Primary" on February 5

One of my reasons for being skeptical of talk of a Hillary Clinton collapse after a Barack Obama win in New Hampshire is the fact that 22 states have scheduled primaries on February 5, including California and New York.

In the event of an Obama victory in the Granite State, the Clinton campaign could have remained in the race, seeking to blunt the Illinois Senator's momentum with an effective nationwide campaign.

With Clinton pulling out a win in New Hampshire after all, her national strategy heading into the February 5 voting looks better than ever. The Los Angeles Times has the details:

The big news Tuesday was not merely that Hillary Rodham Clinton scored an unexpected comeback victory. Emerging from that win was something more durable: a road map that could guide the former first lady to the Democratic presidential nomination.

The margin in the New Hampshire primary was razor-thin. But she clearly beat Barack Obama among core Democratic voters, the very bloc that will grow in influence as the nomination fight continues in the coming weeks.

Strip away the independents who made up about four in 10 participants in Tuesday's Democratic primary, thanks to the state's open-balloting rules, and Clinton outpaced Obama among registered Democrats 45% to 34%, according to an exit poll conducted for a media consortium.

Moreover, she beat the Illinois senator among women - a crucial group for her and one that she lost in last week's Iowa caucuses - and among lower-income households and older voters.

"This is an amazing comeback story for her over the course of a relatively few days," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist who advised Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

"It would seem to indicate that she has the ability to remobilize her constituents."

If her advantage among Democrats holds true in the flurry of primaries set for Feb. 5 - when core Democrats are expected to be more dominant - Clinton could regain the traction that seemed lost when last week's defeat in Iowa ended her yearlong reign as the Democratic front-runner.

I also don't think Hillary's taken advantage of Obama's weaknesses. Had she lost last night, it's likely we would have seen a really nasty round of mudslinging coming from the Clinton camp. As one of my commenters suggested:

If Obama wins big today, as is expected, he will be the focus of the most vicious political attacks seen in decades, initiated by Clinton interests. Drugs, race and "experience" (among other topics) will be fair game. Look for the campaign to get very ugly between now and February 5th.

See the earlier comment thread here.

An interesting hypothesis holds that the Clintons are too invested themselves in identity politics and racial authenticity to mount some type of salacious, racially-tinged attacks along the lines of the provocative Harold Ford "call me" ad from the 2006 midterm.

A key test of Obama's transcendental racial appeal is whether a Clinton ad of this sort would trigger a backlash, or whether a "call me" style attack on Obama would indeed elicitsa good-ole boy effect effect in public opinion.

Time (and polling) will tell.

New Hampshire Results Stir Polling Controversy

Why were the polls so miserably wrong on Tuesday's Democratic New Hampshire results, after Barack Obama held a double-digit lead on the eve of vote? Gary Langer at ABC News is on the big question of the morning:

There will be a serious, critical look at the final pre-election polls in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire; that is essential. It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong. We need to know why.

But we need to know it through careful, empirically based analysis. There will be a lot of claims about what happened - about respondents who reputedly lied, about alleged difficulties polling in biracial contests. That may be so. It also may be a smokescreen - a convenient foil for pollsters who'd rather fault their respondents than own up to other possibilities - such as their own failings in sampling and likely voter modeling.

There have been previous races that misstated support for black candidates in biracial races. But most of those were long ago, and there have been plenty of polls in biracial races that were accurate. (For more on past problems with polls in biracial races, see this blog I wrote for Freakonomics last May.) And there was no overstatement of Obama in Iowa polls.

On the other hand, the pre-election polls in the New Hampshire Republican race were accurate. The problem was isolated to the Democratic side - where, it should be noted, we have not just one groundbreaking candidate in Barack Obama, but also another, in Hillary Clinton.

Langer's main hypothesis - assuming confidence in the poll findings - is that Clinton's voter turnout efforts were decisive, and perhaps the undecideds switched over to Hillary's banner at the last minute.

The Washington Post provides a deeper analysis:

There will be a serious, critical look at the final pre-election polls in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire; that is essential. It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong. We need to know why.

But we need to know it through careful, empirically based analysis. There will be a lot of claims about what happened - about respondents who reputedly lied, about alleged difficulties polling in biracial contests. That may be so. It also may be a smokescreen - a convenient foil for pollsters who'd rather fault their respondents than own up to other possibilities - such as their own failings in sampling and likely voter modeling.

There have been previous races that misstated support for black candidates in biracial races. But most of those were long ago, and there have been plenty of polls in biracial races that were accurate. (For more on past problems with polls in biracial races, see this blog I wrote for Freakonomics last May.) And there was no overstatement of Obama in Iowa polls.

On the other hand, the pre-election polls in the New Hampshire Republican race were accurate. The problem was isolated to the Democratic side - where, it should be noted, we have not just one groundbreaking candidate in Barack Obama, but also another, in Hillary Clinton.

Here's more, on the racial angle and other possible factors:

Yesterday's result is sure to fuel debate among poll-watchers about the accuracy of polls in contests with African American candidates. In several well-known past examples, pre-election polls of such campaigns underestimated support for the white candidates. But a strong showing by polls in 2006 in elections with black candidates seemed to put that notion finally to rest.

Other factors that are more probable than the role of race include "likely voter" modeling, with pollsters perhaps over-counting the boost of enthusiasm among Obama supporters following his victory in Iowa last Thursday.

Independents may have opted at the last minute to participate in the Republican primary, depriving Obama of voters.

The New Hampshire ballot rules may also have played a role. In previous contests, the state rotated candidate names from precinct to precinct, but this year the names were consistently in alphabetical order, with Clinton near the top and Obama lower down. Stanford professor Jon A. Krosnick, a survey specialist, has estimated the impact of appearing high on the New Hampshire ballot at three percentage points or greater. Regardless, there were no immediate clear answers, and lots of data analysis ahead.

There's going to be more talk, throughout the campaign, of the racial vote.

But given the intensity of Obama's support in Iowa, there's little reason to support the hypothesis of a significant racial backlash in Tuesday's vote. More likely, the youth turnout in Iowa flowed to the Obama camp, but in New Hampshire older voters cast their ballots along more moderate to traditional lines.

Both Langer and the Washington Post mention Krosnik's "ballot order hypothesis," which sounds valid, as we know from 2000's "butterfly ballot"controversy that name-order and ballot-card design can have a large effect on the vote (although suggesting an Obama victory under rotating ballots requires deeping substantiation).

Clinton almost certainly benefitted from an "empathy vote," a surge of last-minute deciders influenced by Hillary's teary mini-meltdown, which flooded the media on Monday and Tuesday.

The Times of London looks at the data on "the crying game":

A rare moment of public emotion in a New Hampshire coffee shop was credited today with helping to bring Hillary Clinton back from the political dead and handing her victory in yesterday's crucial presidential primary.

Analysis of exit polls from New Hampshire showed that women voters, traditionally her most loyal supporters, flooded back after deserting her for Barack Obama in last week's Iowa caucuses. Mr Obama narrowly edged Mrs Clinton for the female vote in Iowa primary last week but yesterday she enjoyed a clear 13-point lead.

The psephologists will be poring over the New Hampshire results for some time to work out how the pollsters got it quite so wrong, but already it appears that a much-broadcast episode in which she welled up while talking to supporters in a Portsmouth restaurant could have earned Mrs Clinton a priceless sympathy vote in the state.

This is the "reverse Muskie effect," a reference to the 1972 campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie, which collapsed after he allegedly shed some tears in an emotional speech outside the headquarters of the Manchester-Union Leader.

But see Maureen Dowd's take over at the New York Times (via Memeorandum): "Certainly it was impressive that she could choke up and stay on message."

**********

UPDATE: Frank Newport, of the Gallup Organization, has an analysis of the New Hampshire polling fiasco, over at USA Today:

My best hypothesis is that Democratic voters in New Hampshire didn't cooperate with pollsters by maintaining their weekend voting intentions, but instead continued to evaluate candidates and to take new information into account right up until the time they went into the voting booth – and that a number in fact changed their minds about their vote at the last minute.

Newport's frankly blown away that voters changed their minds!

That's strange, coming from a polling expert of Newport's caliber - who's part of the Gallup organization no less - since one of the longest standing lessons of public opinion is that polls can miss late shifts in voter preferences. The key example: Gallup's own disastrous call of Thomas Dewey over President Harry Truman in the 1948 election:

I think Newport's right, though. Voters weren't exactly sure about their preferences when they spoke to pollsters over the weekend of January 4-6. Late-breaking events changed minds. That's actually to be expected from time to time, although a little humility is good in politics and public opinion.

The Comeback Queen and the American Democracy

Sometimes you just have to be amazed by politics. No matter what you think of her, for the moment, give it up for Hillary Rodham Clinton!

Here's the New York Times story on the New Hampshire results:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary in a surprising show of strength after losing the Iowa caucuses to Senator Barack Obama last week. Senator John McCain prevailed meanwhile on the Republican side, breathing life into a campaign that had been given up for dead just months ago and scrambling a race that now has no clear front-runner.

“Now it’s a one-on-one race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” said Terry McAuliffe, Mrs. Clinton campaign manager. He said that Mr. Obama came out of Iowa with momentum but Mrs. Clinton turned it around with her debate performance Saturday night and what he called a humanizing moment on the campaign trail on Monday.

Mr. Obama conceded the race to Mrs. Clinton, congratulating her on a “hard-fought victory.”

He told cheering supporters in Manchester: “You made it clear in this moment and this election there is something happening in America. We are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction.”

I'm retiring for the night. I'll have lots to say in the weeks and months ahead, although I can say now that for all of the country's worries, our democracy's as vital as ever.

New Hampshire, if it was ever important as a first-in-the-nation primary, has burnished its reputation forever by tonight's results. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain stunned the political establishment with victories at odds with consensus opinion and recent polling trends.

There will be bitter battles ahead, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears. But for now, sleep well knowing the Americans settle their differences at the ballot box. We will have a vigorous contest through February 5, a day when many of the states of the nation who have long felt shut out of the nomination process will have their say.

Critics who dismiss Iowa and New Hampshire have to ask themselves: What if it was me? What would I do, would I want to change the system? We can go to a regional primary, but after this year's results, even democratic pessimists have to concede that the dynamics of election 2008 energized a nation. This is what it's all about! The drama, the highs and lows, the agony and the ecstasy. You've got to love it!

Tune in back here tomorrow for more analysis.

As regular readers know, I'm extremely pleased with John McCain's comeback. I've felt like it was Christmas Eve all day, waiting for bedtime and then opening my "presents" the next day - in this case, the big gift of a McCain triumph! Merry Christmas in January!

But as McCain said, "tomorrow, we begin again." Thank goodness.

John McCain Wins New Hampshire Primary!

CNN has called the New Hampshire Republican primary for John McCain:

Sen. John McCain will win the New Hampshire GOP primary, CNN projects....

With 9 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain had 37 percent of the vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was second with 28 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the winner of last week's Iowa GOP caucuses followed with 12 percent.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had 9 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 8 percent.

Voters turned out in higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday, with a sizable chunk making decisions on who to support at the last minute, according to early exit polls.

Eighteen percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats said they picked their candidate on Election Day.

But the fate of the candidates could rest in the hands of New Hampshire independent voters, who make up about 40 percent of the electorate. A CNN-WMUR poll Sunday found independent voters split almost evenly between the parties this year.

The state's governor predicted a record turnout for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary as candidates zigzagged across the New England state trying to influence undecided voters.

Gov. John Lynch said he expects half a million people to vote.

The governor's prediction followed record-breaking numbers in last week's Iowa Democratic and Republican caucuses.

See also the New York Times, "McCain Leads Romney in Early Returns."

**********

UPDATE: The New York Times has the report on the McCain win.

The caption to the photo below reads, "John and Cindy McCain after television networks called the Republican primary in Mr. McCain's favor."

I'll post the text of McCain's victory speech when I find it, but I loved his conclusion: "Tomorrow, we being again!"

*********

UPDATE: Here's the text of McCain's victory speech in New Hampshire:

...I learned long ago that serving only oneself is a petty and unsatisfying ambition. But serve a cause greater than self-interest and you will know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of fame and fortune. For me that greater cause has always been my country, which I have served imperfectly for many years, but have loved without any reservation every day of my life. And however this campaign turns out - and I am more confident tonight that it will turn out much better than once expected - I am grateful beyond expression for the prospect that I might serve her a little while longer. That gratitude imposes on me the responsibility to do nothing in this campaign that would make our country's problems harder to solve or that would cause Americans to despair that a candidate for the highest office in the land would think so little of the honor that he would put his own interests before theirs. I take that responsibility as my most solemn trust...

Ron Paul: The Angry White Man

James Kirchick has created a rumble across the blogosphere with his Ron Paul expose over at the New Republic:

If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jake Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."

Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And, long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.

Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Air Force surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black representative Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."

Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

Read the rest.

The blogosphere reaction can be found at Memeorandum.

I've blogged much about Paul. See my posts, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. My favorite entry is my most recent, covering Paul's recent Meet the Press appearance, where the Texas congressman demonstrated his total hypocrisy on earmarks and federal spending.

I vehemently disagree with Paul's policy advocacy, especially his disastrous cut-and-run position on Iraq. What's especially interesting about Paul, though, is his appeal to fringe elements of both the left and right, including neo-Nazis.

The constroversy over the Paul campaign's refusal to return campaign contributions from extremist groups continues to dog Paul's paleoconservative reputation.

See the blog reaction, including Paul's own rebuttal, at Memeorandum.

Hillary Clinton Bracing for Another Loss

Political developments have been breathtaking since Iowa, especially on the Democratic side, where Hillary Clinton - once considered a virtually unbeatable frontrunner even among political professionals - is bracing for a loss in New Hampshire.

Jackie Calmes over at the Wall Street Journal has a penetrating analysis of the Clinton campaign's plight. Things aren't looking good, and I'm trying not to jump on the "Hillary's done" bandwagon:

With Barack Obama strongly favored - even within Hillary Clinton's camp - to win a second straight victory in today's New Hampshire Democratic primary, both rivals are looking to the next battle grounds. But his momentum threatens to swamp her in the next two states as well and shows signs of fracturing her support in the party establishment.

Already some Clinton associates have begun lobbying for her early exit if she loses the primary by a big margin, as polls suggest she could. Several Senate colleagues who have sat on the fence are now in talks with Obama advisers about endorsing the freshman Illinois senator over his more experienced colleague.

Despite raising more than $100 million, Sen. Clinton also faces financial worries as contributions have begun to slacken. But she vows to fight on: Her campaign will pivot to focus more heavily on "Super Tuesday" Feb. 5, when 21 states vote. "We are going all the way to the convention," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.

Still, the maneuverings marked an extraordinary turn, and underscored the power of small, early-voting states to scramble all bets - especially in a year when the states' contests are so closely scheduled. Sen. Clinton until now continued to hold wide leads in national polls; a new Gallup poll has her slipping into a dead heat. Her original campaign strategy, aimed at positioning her as the inevitable nominee who would capture the early states and wrap up the nomination before February, is now in shambles.

Sen. Clinton uncharacteristically bared the strain of her plight and the grueling campaign pace yesterday: She momentarily choked up with tear-filled eyes after a woman at a Portsmouth, N.H., cafe inquired as to how she gets ready for the campaign each day. "I have so many ideas for this country, and I just don't want to see us fall backwards as a nation," she said, her voice cracking. "This is very personal for me."

Things could be getting worse.

The Culinary Workers union in Nevada - said to be a crucial interest group consitituency for the Democrats - will likely endorse Barack Obama tomorrow after his likely New Hampshire win today. Plus, Clinton's campaign is running out of money - or at least the organization might not have the resources to spend heavily in California and New York, two of the key states in which Clinton's forces hope to stage a comeback.

(Karen Tumulty over at Time examines Hillary's money troubles, with the campaign having "as little as $15 million to $25 million left on hand.")

Calmes in the WSJ piece indicates that internal strife has racked Clinton's top-level staffers, with controversy centered on senior strategist Mark Penn's underestimation of the electorate's demand for change, as well as the significance of the Obama bounce coming out of Iowa.

Should Hillary plug the plug tomorrow, after a loss tonight, and then back Obama, as some party insiders are hoping? I noted earlier that it's too early for Clinton to concede:

I just don't think Obama's got it locked up yet, even with a win today. Sure, history and the odds are in favor of an Iowa/New Hampshire double-winner, but we've still got essentially a national primary on February 5, and the Clinton machine is well-organized (with James Carville waiting in the wings), backed by Bill Clinton's star power (which will have more bite in "left-coast" type of states), and Hillary's not yet gotten down-and-dirty with political attacks on Obama (who might not be here if it wasn't for Jeri Ryan!).

Maybe that's a bit conservative.

Note though that today's Washington Post stresses how the early nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire have exceeded expectations as turning points on the way to the nomination.

The 2008 election season is the most frontloaded in history. The Iowa/New Hampshire contests come just five days apart, and analysts for the first time might likely be right to consider the pair the functional equivalent of a one-two nominating coronation!

Maybe Hillary really is done! More updates later!

Hillary Clinton's Stress

What was it about Hillary Clinton's teary episode yesterday: A genuine burst of spontaneous emotion by an embattled erstwhile frontrunner, or a cold, calculated effort to pull on America's heartstrings for political purposes?

Hard to say. Maybe a little of both.

But whatever the case, Hillary's crying bout showed how disastrously her fortunes have fallen in the Democratic presidential race. The New York Times provides an analysis:

Key campaign officials may be replaced. She may start calling herself the underdog. Donors would receive pleas that it is do-or-die time. And her political strategy could begin mirroring that of Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican rival, by focusing on populous states like California and New York whose primaries are Feb. 5.

Everything is on the table inside Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign if she loses the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, her advisers say — including her style of campaigning, which shifted dramatically on Monday when Mrs. Clinton bared her thoughts about the race’s impact on her personally, and her eyes welled with tears.

“I couldn’t do it if I just didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do,” she said here in reply to a question from an undecided voter, a woman roughly Mrs. Clinton’s age.

Her eyes visibly wet, in perhaps the most public display of emotion of her year-old campaign, Mrs. Clinton added: “I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don’t want to see us fall backwards. This is very personal for me — it’s not just political, it’s not just public.”

Mrs. Clinton did not cry, but her quavering voice and the flash of feeling underscored the pressure, fatigue, anger and disappointment that, advisers say, Mrs. Clinton has experienced since her loss on Thursday in the Iowa caucuses and that she continues to shoulder at this most critical moment.

Mrs. Clinton has felt frustrated and at times rejected as she has watched the rise of Senator Barack Obama, her main rival here and the victor in Iowa, advisers say.

But she is also worried that her political strategy, polling and communications message have not reflected the mood and desire for change among Democratic voters.

In an interview on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said she choked up at the Portsmouth event because the other woman had expressed concern for her feelings, after months when Mrs. Clinton was focused on voters’ anxieties.

“It was just so touching when this woman said, ‘Well, what about you?’” Mrs. Clinton said. “I just don’t think about that, I think about what I can do for other people I have spent a lifetime trying to help others; I’m very other-directed. That’s maybe why people don’t get me in the political world.”

The article goes on to note that Hillary's not throwing in the towel. The campaign plans a big ad push, and will step up the focus in California and New York.

I've been careful in my assessment here at American Power. I just don't think Obama's got it locked up yet, even with a win today. Sure, history and the odds are in favor of an Iowa/New Hampshire double-winner, but we've still got essentially a national primary on February 5, and the Clinton machine is well-organized (with James Carville waiting in the wings), backed by Bill Clinton's star power (which will have more bite in "left-coast" type of states), and Hillary's not yet gotten down-and-dirty with political attacks on Obama (who might not be here if it wasn't for Jeri Ryan!).

Having noted this, I got a kick out of Big Dog's analysis of Clinton's difficulties:

If we are lucky, by this time tomorrow Hillary Clinton's campaign will be gasping for its last breaths of air and it dies a long overdue death. I realize that even if she loses New Hampshire she could go on but there are indications that many of her supporters have secretly said she is not going much further and there are also indications that she is or will soon be strapped for cash. What once seemed a juggernaut of political and money raising efficiency is now heading down to the bottom very rapidly.

Hillary was out giving a please vote for me speech today when someone asked her how she does it. Hillary got tears in her eyes and her voiced cracked a few times during her answer which largely consisted of her her desire to make the country better and her beliefs blah, blah. The truth is Hillary expected to be the next president. She has been planning her chance for years and her pact with Bill looked like manifest destiny when she was way ahead in the polls and raising millions upon millions of dollars. She started out asking people to max out by giving the largest amount possible for both the primary and the general election. Now she is just asking for the amount needed to continue in the primary.

Hillary Clinton spent a fortune in Iowa and has a third place show for it. She has blown millions of dollars to convince people to vote for her and it is not working. She has brought out the big guns in her husband and while he is exciting many people it is because of their cult like worship of him and his decadent ways and not so much for her. They seem not to like her very much and I don't really blame them. Hillary was all set to be the next president and now it looks like she might bow out. This is why she is crying though some might think she is trying to show she is actually a caring human. In reality, she can hear her dreams shattering and that shatter sounds like Senator Obama.

Dan Joseph over at Falling Panda 's got a nice dissection as well:

Hillary Clinton is not completely responsible for what is shaping up to be her meteoric fall from her status as the Democratic front-runner. In fact it's really not her fault at all. There's probably nothing she can do about it, which I would imagine is a very discouraging position for an uber-ambitious individual, such as Mrs. Clinton, to be in. She's crying at her rallies. Not a good sign.

Mr. Obama is running solely on his charisma. This completely undefined concept of "hope" and his incredible speaking skills have catapulted him ahead of Clinton in every early primary state. That's all! There's nothing else to it.

By contrast, Mrs. Clinton has no charisma, and her presentation style ranges from phony to shrill with very few points in between. However, to give this charisma dividend all of the credit for Clinton's troubles would be a vast oversimplification, even when handicapping a Democratic party which frequently favors style over substance. Especially younger members of the party.

Joseph goes on to provide a nice counterfactual analysis of Barack Obama (lack of) experience.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Check Memeorandum for more information.

Gallup's New Hampshire Republican Vote Breakdown

The Gallup Poll has an interesting breakdown of the New Hampshire primary vote. Here's the take on the Republican side:

* McCain is the top choice among Republican men in New Hampshire; his lead is nine points over second-place Mitt Romney. McCain and Romney tie among women, each with 32% of the vote.

* Younger Republican voters (under age 50) are about equally likely to say they would vote for McCain as for Romney, but among older Republican voters (aged 50 and older), McCain has a significant lead, with Romney in second.

* McCain and Romney are roughly tied among Republican voters without college degrees. McCain leads other Republican candidates among college graduates and those with postgraduate educations.

* If McCain manages to win New Hampshire, it will be because of the independent voter. Among registered Republicans, McCain (32%) and Romney (31%) are evenly matched. But McCain has a clear advantage among independents, with 40% of these "undeclared" voters saying they would vote for him, compared with 25% for Romney.

* Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist minister, fares best among New Hampshire Republican voters who attend church every week, but still trails McCain and Romney among this group. McCain's support is slightly higher among those who rarely or never go to church, as is the case for Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani.

* The majority of Republican voters who say illegal immigration is their top vote issue this year (55%) say they plan to vote for Romney. McCain bests Romney and the other leading Republicans on terrorism and the economy.

* Voters who say the candidates' leadership skills are more important to their vote for president choose McCain as their preferred candidate, while those who say the candidates' issue stances are more important are more likely to pick Romney over any other candidate.

Survey Methods

The results for Republicans in this report are based on interviews conducted Jan. 4-6, 2008, with 776 New Hampshire residents deemed most likely to vote in the Republican primary. For this sample, the maximum margin of error attributable to sampling is ±4 percentage points.

The likely voter model assumes a turnout rate of 60% of those who say they plan to vote in the Republican presidential primary, approximately 25% of New Hampshire adults. The likely voter results are weighted to match this assumption (weighted sample size is 732).

All results reported here are based on likely voters.

The results for Democrats in this report are based on interviews conducted Jan. 4-6, 2008, with 778 New Hampshire residents deemed most likely to vote in the Democratic primary. For this sample, the maximum margin of error attributable to sampling is ±4 percentage points.

The likely voter model assumes a turnout rate of 60% of those who say they plan to vote in the Democratic presidential primary, approximately 25% of New Hampshire adults. The likely voter results are weighted to match this assumption (weighted sample size is 722).

All results reported here are based on likely voters.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Looking at the numbers one sees McCain vulnerable only on immigration, quite vulnerable, as a majority of 55 percent see immigration as their top issue. As the discussion above suggests, the Arizona Senator takes 4 out of 10 independent voters, who are considered key to a McCain victory.

McCain might be hoping for a bit of a nostalgia vote as well, a "those-were-the-days" vote, harking back to 2000. A bit of luck's going to help as well.

USA Today's discussion of the survey is here.