Endorsing McCain in South Carolina

John McCain, who holds a narrow lead in South Carolina polling, received the endorsement of The State newspaper for next week's Republican primary (via Memeorandum):

First Rudy Giuliani, then Mitt Romney looked at political realities and fled the Palmetto State, deciding their priorities lay elsewhere. Fred Thompson seems to be running in this first-in-the-South primary just to say he did. Ron Paul keeps on being Ron Paul, former nominee of the Libertarian Party.

The two remaining contenders here happen to be the two strongest candidates — Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Gov. Huckabee is an exciting newcomer who shows a wonderful ability to connect with voters’ concerns, and Republicans could do far worse than to choose him. But his utter lack of knowledge of foreign affairs is unsettling.

It’s not just about Iraq and Afghanistan. As freshly demonstrated by the incident involving U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz last week and the assassination earlier of the opposition leader in the world’s most volatile democracy (which possesses nuclear weapons, and shelters Osama bin Laden), our commander in chief will need a far broader and deeper understanding of our relationship to the world than on-the-job training can adequately provide.

Clearly, the best Republican candidate to lead our nation at this time is U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona. He has the necessary experience, not just in time served, but in the quality of understanding he exhibits across the board.

The value of his experience is multiplied by his integrity and independence. He is a slave to no ideology or faction. Not only will he work with anyone who wants to do the right thing anytime, he is usually the driving force at the head of coalitions to get the job done — from the Gang of 14 that broke Senate gridlock and paved the way for the confirmation of conservative judges to his principled leadership on campaign finance reform. He knew the political risk he took leading the quest for a comprehensive solution to illegal immigration, but he believed securing our borders was too important a priority not to try.

He is deeply respected by his colleagues in both parties, despite the fact that, as he jokes, he has never sought the “Miss Congeniality” title. No one is as likely as he to fight, expose and defeat waste, fraud or corruption.

Experience, certainly. Integrity, even more so. But John McCain’s most conspicuous virtue is courage. He is a brave and tough man who unlike some candidates has no need to bluster, but is able to speak with humility and generosity to those with whom he disagrees. A McCain presidency would do much to restore confidence in American leadership, at home and abroad.

There is of course the extraordinary physical and moral courage that he displayed as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, where he withstood nightmarish torture for years rather than let his country or his comrades down. But he also possesses the kind of political fortitude that keeps him from giving up on any worthwhile quest. He evinces a wisdom born in pain, a confidence earned in many battles. When others despair, John McCain knows he has seen worse, and keeps striding forward.

For much of the past year, his candidacy was dismissed, his support depleted, his coffers empty. He kept on, and gradually won the doubters back to his cause.

More to the point, consider the wisdom and courage he has displayed with regard to our nation’s struggle in Iraq. For four years, he was nearly alone in his insistent criticism of the Bush administration for sending too few troops to quell the violence. When the president finally adopted the McCain approach a year ago, the senator lent Gen. David Petraeus his unwavering support at a time when so many in both major parties either thought he was wrong, or simply lacked the courage to stand with him. He was right all along.

John McCain has shown more clearly than anyone on the American political scene today that he loves his country, and would never mislead or dishonor it. He is almost unique in his determination to do what is right, whatever the cost. And he usually has a clear vision of what’s right.

So it is that we confidently and enthusiastically endorse John McCain for the Republican nomination for president of the United States.

Rasmussen Reports on Thursday had McCain holding a slight edge over former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, at 27 to 24 percent.

McCain has so far received three major-paper endorsements, in Iowa, New Hampshire, and now South Carolina. The Swamp sees some significance:

"The State," South Carolina's largest newspaper, will endorse John McCain for the upcoming Republican primary in its Sunday editions, saying McCain has "the necessary experience, not just in time served, but in the quality of understanding he exhibits across the board."

Even if the paper's nod helps only a little, it'll be a welcome boost for McCain, who is polling neck-and-neck here for first place with former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee. The endorsement called Huckabee an "exciting newcomer" and said "Republicans could do far worse than to choose him. But his utter lack of knowledge of foreign affairs is unsettling."

South Carolina holds its Republican primary a week from today.

McCain's endorsement completes an editorial hat trick for the candidate, who has been selected by the statewide newspapers in the two previous contested locations: Iowa (The Des Moines Register) and New Hampshire (the Union Leader). McCain won in New Hampshire, and finished third in Iowa.

See also my earlier posts on McCain in South Carolina, here and here.

John McCain and the Surge Effect

Fred Barnes, over at the Weekly Standard, offers and interesting analysis of the effect of Iraq progress on American politics:

The match is almost perfect. As the surge in Iraq has succeeded, the presidential campaign of John McCain has risen from the ashes. This is no coincidence, and the message is simple and unmistakable. The surge is now a powerful force in American politics. In the jargon of the 2008 presidential race, it's a game-changer.

The surge effect is the result of gains in Iraq well beyond the most optimistic dreams of the surge's advocates. The American military, led by General David Petraeus, has under-promised and over-delivered. Violence has dropped precipitously. So have attacks on Americans and combat deaths. Baghdad has been virtually secured, al Qaeda crushed, and sectarian bloodshed significantly reduced. Provinces once controlled by insurgents are scheduled to be turned over to well-trained Iraqi forces, starting with Anbar in the spring. The war, in short, is being won.

The media now say that Iraq is a secondary issue. But the voters, so far mostly on the Republican side, disagree. In New Hampshire last week, two-thirds of Republicans who voted in the primary told exit pollsters they support the war in Iraq. Oddly enough, they like the war more than they like President Bush.

For obvious reasons, McCain is the chief beneficiary of the surge effect. He has relentlessly promoted increasing the number of troops in Iraq and adopting a counterinsurgency strategy that stresses the protection and safety of Iraqi citizens. And a year ago, Bush bucked tremendous antiwar pressure, much of it from Republicans, and announced the surge strategy. Like McCain, he emphatically rejected the notion that the war was lost.

Last summer, when his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination was at a low point, McCain was urged by some of his advisers to downplay his support for the war. McCain rejected that advice. He knew how to evaluate a military plan, understood that the counterinsurgency strategy was different from what had been done before in Iraq, and knew what it could accomplish (and has).

Now other Republican candidates are jumping on the surge bandwagon. At last week's debate in South Carolina, Rudy Giuliani said he had endorsed the surge, just like McCain. "Not at the time," McCain responded, referring to the time before Bush's announcement. McCain said he had "called for the change in strategy. That's the difference." It's an important difference politically.

Barnes discusses the Democrats as well. But events on the ground are completely ethereal to the Democratic candidates, as a withdrawal mandate is all they've got to offer - beyond the "willing suspension of disbelief."

Barnes concludes:

Democrats are gambling on two things. One is that the Shia-led Iraqi government won't take steps toward reconciliation with Sunnis. The other is that the withdrawal of the five American surge brigades will lead to a renewal of violence. There's a chance this will happen, just not a very good one. Reconciliation is proceeding rapidly at the provincial level in Iraq. And now that Sunnis have mostly given up their insurgency, violence is unlikely to return to anything like pre-surge levels.

Of course McCain and Bush have gambled, too. McCain has staked his campaign and Bush his presidency on a victory and a free and independent Iraq that promotes America's national security. From the evidence of the growing surge effect, their gamble is paying off.

I know where I'm placing my bets!

Racial Controversy in the New Hampshire Polling Disaster

Andrew Kohut of the Pew polling organization claimed in an essay this week that lower-income whites declined to vote for Barack Obama in last Tuesday's New Hampshire primary on the basis of race.

It's an old hypothesis, often called the "Bradley Effect," a reference to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's loss in the 1982 California gubernatorial election.

John Judis hammers Kohut in a piece over at The New Republic (via Memeorandum):

Kohut is the eminence grise among pollsters. His interpretation [of the New Hampshire fiasco] was published in The New York Times. Suffice it to say, it carried a lot of weight. Kohut's argument goes as follows: Clinton did much better in the final count than Obama among poorer, less educated voters. These voters "have more unfavorable views of blacks" than wealthier, more educated voters. Kohut doesn't accuse these voters of lying. Instead, he argues that the voters who have unfavorable views of blacks tend to be underrepresented in polling samples, because they "do not respond" to pollsters--thus accounting for the inaccurate readings of support for Clinton and Obama.

This is an incendiary argument. Not only does it purport to explain why the pollsters got the results wrong, but it also implies that Clinton's success in New Hampshire can largely be attributed to the racism of low-income, less educated whites. But Kohut's evidence seems flimsy at best.

Kohut provides no data--none at all--to back up his contention that New Hampshire's lower-income, less educated whites have a more unfavorable view of blacks than their wealthier, more educated counterparts. I think he is simply inferring from national studies or studies that were conducted elsewhere, but he doesn't say. Yet New Hampshire is not Georgia or Mississippi, states with long histories of racial problems, nor is it the polarized New York City of 1989, where Kohut claims he encountered the Bradley effect. This kind of explosive claim deserves to have been backed up by some kind of evidence. I certainly don't know of any.

Judis provides his own data, from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, indicating no election-day decline in Obama voting among among those at lower levels of education. He concludes his analysis by suggesting that a gender-based analysis - why did women switch to Hillary? - is likely to provide the most compelling explanation for New Hampshire's muddled polling results:

Some of the polls seem to have significantly underrepresented the women's vote....

That may not be the reason why other polls got the result so wrong, but the under-representation of woman voters, coupled with the volatility of the electorate (as evidenced by the last minute shift of college-educated women voters), is a far more plausible hypothesis than the one that Kohut, Sullivan, and Robinson provide. This is not to say that there weren't people who did not vote for Obama because he is black. But, clearly, a hidden racist vote is neither an explanation for Clinton's victory nor the pollsters' error in predicting it. A closer reading of the evidence also has the benefit of not accusing half of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters of being racists.

The thesis of persistent racism in America is a staple of left-wing political discourse. Here's more on the debate from John Perazzo at FrontPageMagazine:

In the worldview of the American left, there is no article of faith more central than the notion that the United States is today -- and always has been -- infested with racism in every avenue of private and public life. This racism, we are told, makes its influence felt with particular force in the realm of politics, where the left’s conventional wisdom says that African Americans have no hope of ever garnering enough white support to ascend the political ladder to its highest rungs. This of course raises the issue of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who trounced Hillary Clinton in the January 3rd Caucus in Iowa (where the population is 95 percent white), and was defeated only narrowly by Mrs. Clinton five days later in New Hampshire (where the population is 96 percent white). How can Obama’s strong showings in these races, whose purpose is to determine who ultimately will run for the highest elected office in the nation, be reconciled with the leftist paradigm?

Perazzo's piece is excellent, and includes a nice set of references to the outstanding literature in the debate. I especially like this part:

Academia is replete with eminent professors who...view the United States as a nation that is bigoted to its core. Consider University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Eric Dyson, who laments the “miserable plight of black men in America,” and who recently expressed his hope that the “psychic, internal emotional turmoil that black people struggle against will somehow be lessened by seeing the image of a black man [Barack Obama] in charge” of the executive branch of the U.S. government.

Read the rest.

I discussed the issue in a recent post, "Barack Obama: The Hope of Black America?" But see also my post on Lawyers, Guns & Money, where the view that the U.S. "is bigoted to its core" gets a lot of play.

Must America Improve its International Standing?

One of the most common criticism of the Bush administration is that it has damaged America's international reputation.

From renouncing international treaties to the war in Iraq, activists and analysts alike routinely excoriate President Bush's ideology, style, and policies. Can American foreign policy recover?

This is the topic of a symposium over at the January/February issue of Foreign Policy, "What American Must Do?" Here's the introduction:

America’s relationship with the world is in disrepair. Anger, resentment, and fear have replaced the respect the United States once enjoyed. So, we asked a group of the world’s leading thinkers to answer one question: What single policy or gesture can the next president of the United States make to improve America’s standing in the world?

The selection of responses, by a number of prominent public intellectuals and scholars, is not as balanced as it might be. Jorge Domínguez, who is vice provost for international affairs at Harvard University, captures the typical left-wing academic renunciations of the "Bush regime":

The United States was the leading architect of the international laws and organizations sculpted in the wake of World War II. It built this multilateral framework because it was useful and because it was right. Yet, during the last decade, the U.S. government has undermined important multilateral agreements concerning climate change, the international criminal court, and nuclear nonproliferation. It has shredded the Geneva Conventions. It has embraced dictators who should have been rightly treated as international pariahs....

Torture? Waterboarding? It is difficult to accept such dishonorable practices being used by the same country that rightly denounced the horrific abuses that its adversaries employed against U.S. soldiers during wars in Korea and Vietnam. The United States should not torture the prisoners it holds, just as it would not want its citizens to be tortured anywhere in the world.

The next U.S. president must rebuild respect for international rules and organizations, many of which the United States once helped mightily to create.

No surprises there - pretty standard stuff.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Prize winner, takes it a little further, declaring that the U.S. needs to apologize for its actions:

After the September 11 attacks, an amazing outpouring of sympathy, concern, and love for the United States sprang forth from all over the world. It was proof that there is no instinctive or deep-seated hostility to the United States, no automatic anti-Americanism. There is, of course, frequent resentment of particular policies. The Reagan White House, for example, pursued constructive engagement with the apartheid government of South Africa. Many of us in South Africa opposed this course of action vehemently, but it did not make us anti-American.

Today, the negative feelings about the United States have been provoked by the arrogance of unilateralism. The administration of George W. Bush has routinely thumbed its nose at the rest of the world and told it to go jump in the lake. It did so over the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But nowhere did it do so more spectacularly than in the invasion of Iraq, heaping contempt upon the United Nations and upending international law. That arrogant action has turned out to be a catastrophic disaster on all scores....

More than anything else, the United States is looked upon fondly for its remarkable generosity.... If the world’s superpower has the grace and modesty to say it is sorry, people would rub their eyes in disbelief, pinch themselves, and then smile because a new day had dawned.

Apologize? This is a strangely blinkered demand, and it's too bad, because Archbishop Tutu boasts an esteemed reputation in the fight for justice in Africa.

Indeed, given his humanitarian record, one might think he'd at least credit and praise the Bush administration for its successful African HIV project, now widely recognized as the globe's most important AIDS initiative, which has been vital in combatting the disease on the African continent and around the world. "So far, roughly 1.4 million AIDS patients have received lifesaving medicine paid for with American dollars, up from 50,000 before the initiative," according to Sheryl Gay Stolberg in a recent New York Times report.

Tutu apparently can't see past the Bush Doctrine and our increasingly successful intervention in Iraq. Bush Derangement Syndrome knows no international boundaries.

The symposium boasts an antidote to this anti-Bush sentiment in Fouad Ajami's essay, "Steady as She Goes" :

There is a familiar liberal lament that the United States had the sympathy of the world after September 11, but uselessly squandered it in the years that followed. The man who most vehemently espoused this line of thinking in France, former French President Jacques Chirac, is gone and consigned to oblivion. The French leader who replaced him, Nicolas Sarkozy, stood before a joint session of the U.S. Congress in November and offered a poetic tribute to the land his predecessor mocked. He recalled the young American soldiers buried long ago on French soil: “Fathers took their sons to the beaches where the young men of America so heroically died . . . The children of my generation understood that those young Americans, 20 years old, were true heroes to whom they owed the fact that they were free people and not slaves. France will never forget the sacrifice of your children.” The anti-Americanism that France gave voice to for a generation has given way to a new order. This young leader now wants to fashion France in America’s image.

The man or woman who picks up George W. Bush’s standard in 2009 will inherit an enviable legacy. Europe is at peace with U.S. leadership. India and China export the best of their younger generations to U.S. shores. Violent extremists are on the retreat. Millions have been lifted out of dire poverty. This age belongs to the Pax Americana, an era in which anti-Americanism has always been false and contrived, the pretense of intellectuals and pundits who shelter under American power while bemoaning the sins of the country that provides their protection. When and if a post-American world arrives, it will not be pretty or merciful. If we be Rome, darkness will follow the American imperium.

Ajami argues that no great changes are required for the direction of American foriegn policy under the next administration. Indeed, the U.S. has an interest in the continued and vigorous promotion of America's historic freedom agenda, an international program boosted with ideological and military muscle under Bush 43. The U.S. will be less safe if our next leader abandons that project.

McCain is Clear GOP Frontrunner, Poll Shows

Senator John McCain got a big bump in national public opinion following his New Hampshire comeback, according to a new survey from CNN/Opinion Research:

John McCain's victory in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary appears to be paying off.

Sen. John McCain wins 34 percent of registered Republicans in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.

The senator from Arizona is the front-runner in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the first national poll taken after the New Hampshire primary.

McCain has the support of 34 percent of registered Republicans in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Friday. That's a 21-point jump from the last CNN/Opinion Research poll, taken in December, well before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary earlier this month.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa Republican caucuses, is in second place in the new survey, with 21 percent of those registered Republicans polled supporting him for the GOP nomination.

Rudy Giuliani follows with 18 percent, a drop of six points from the December poll, when the former New York City mayor was the front-runner.

"Only McCain gained support among Republicans nationally. McCain's now the clear Republican front-runner," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is in fourth place, with the backing of 14 percent of registered Republicans, with former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee at 6 percent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 5 percent, and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California at 1 percent.

The CNN poll is based on a small sample, and is thus prone to large statistical error.

Still, via Captain Ed, a new SurveyUSA poll in Florida has McCain also pulling ahead of Rudy Giuliani by 8 percentage points.

The new data - nationally and out of Florida - come in tandem with McCain's lead over Mitt Romney in next Tuesday's battleground Michigan primary (see my analysis of the Michigan race here).

The momentum has shifted dramatically, scrambling the entire GOP field. The true test of McCain's frontrunner assets will come in Tuesday's South Carolina primary. Yet considering how volatile the GOP field remains, as well as the direction of the media bump, a McCain loss in any of the upcoming contests is not likely to knock the Arizona Senator out of contention.

February 5 awaits.

Photo Credit: New York Times; see also Memeorandum.

McCain Leads Romney in Michigan Polling

New polling data is starting to trickle-out on next week's Michigan primary.

According to a survey from Strategic Vision, an Atlanta-based public relations agency, John McCain leads Mitt Romney by 9 percentage points in the Wolverine State. Newsmax has the story:

McCain leads Romney 29% To 20% announces Strategic Vision, LLC, an Atlanta-headquartered public relations and public affairs agency - the key result of a three-day poll of 700 likely Michigan Republican primary voters. The poll has a margin of error of ±4 percentage points.

When Republicans were polled on whom they would support in 2008 for the Republican Presidential nomination, Arizona Senator John McCain led with 29%; former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney received 20%; former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee recieved18% former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani received 13%; former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson received 5%; Texas Congressman Ron Paul received 5%; California Congressman Duncan Hunter received 1%; and 9% were undecided.

“Senator McCain polls very well among male voters and also among voters who list the war in Iraq as their number one issue,” said David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, LLC. “He fares poorly among social conservatives who at this point are mainly split between Huckabee and Romney. Among those who identify themselves as evangelicals, Huckabee has a clear lead. The race is still volatile with voters indicating that they may change their mind before the primary.

“Romney does best in the central area of the state and among female voters,” continued Johnson. “He needs to make stronger inroads among male voters and also among older voters to overtake McCain. Giuliani appears to be a non-factor although had he made a run for it, could have perhaps positioned himself to finish in the top three.”

Also, in a survey realeased this afternoon by Mitchell Interactive, a reseach and communications firm in Lansing, Michigan, finds McCain holding a 7 percent lead over Romney:

A poll released Friday afternoon by Mitchell Interactive, a research company out of Lansing, says Republican John McCain is ahead of Mitt Romney leading into next week's primary in Michigan.

The Poll gives McCain 23%, Romney 17%, and Mike Huckabee at 11%. The poll has Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul tied at 8%.

Mitchell interactive conducted the poll on January 9th and 10th. The margin of error is about 5%. McCain won the primary in 2000 beating President George W. Bush. Steve Mitchell explains, "8 years ago, John McCain won the Michigan Republican Primary because of strong support from Democrats and independents who voted in the Republican Primary," Mitchell goes on to say, "In 2000, he lost to George W. Bush by 2:1 among Republicans.

This time, McCain narrowly leads with Republicans, but is likely to win the primary because of his continued support from independents and Democrats," Mitchell concluded.

A couple of notes:

First, I'm not familiar with either of these survey research firms, and without access to the polling methodologies surveys, I'm not investing full confidence in the findings at this point. Both survey samples are small. I'd like to see some confirming results on the Michigan race from additional, more widely-established polling organizations.

Second, a McCain win in Michigan could spell the end for the Romney organization. George Romney, Mitt's father, was a popular three-term governor of the state, and Mitt was born there. Michigan is Romney's firewall against McCain's momentum. But the former Massachusetts governor has placed second in the year's first two crucial nominating contests, and this is after Romney staked millions of his own fortune building massive ground organizations and running political advertisements. Considering Romney's mediocre performance in last night's South Carolina debate, it's hard to see much life for the Romney campaign in a Southern primary boosting a huge evangelical vote more favorable to Mike Huckabee's Baptist heritage than Romney's Mormonism.

CNN has more background:

On the heels of two second-place finishes and one overshadowed win, an embattled yet confident Mitt Romney marches into Michigan looking to rebound.

The former Massachusetts governor is predicting a win in Tuesday's Michigan primary, but he said the same of New Hampshire, where he finished 6 points behind Sen. John McCain of Arizona....

Another loss - especially in Michigan - could be a big blow to Romney.

If he does lose, "he's going to have to do some serious reassessment of whether his campaign is viable," said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider.

Romney been greeted by sparse crowds in his campaign appearances today, so we'll see how things go for him over the weekend.

See also MSNBC for a late-breaking update on Romney's Michigan push.

UPDATE: From the New York Times' Caucus blog, Romney's calling the Michigan primary "ground zero" of his White House bid:

Mitt Romney, in what may prove an unfortunate choice of words, has taken to referring to Michigan as “ground zero” for his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

He is referring to the fact that he was born here, went to prep school here and is the son of a former top auto executive and Michigan governor. As he told an audience in Warren, Mich., Friday morning, “My mom and dad are buried here.”

But many – including not a few in the Romney campaign – also believe this state could be the ground zero where his 2008 presidential hopes are reduced to rubble.

This is not the kind of buzz Romney wants. Negative momentum's a killer.

McCain Holds Up in South Carolina

Jonathan Martin over at The Politico argues that John McCain held up well in last night South Carolina debate:

Largely untouched after 90 minutes, John McCain left the stage here Thursday night with the same designation he had upon arrival: front-runner.

For the third debate in less than a week, no candidate not named “Mitt Romney” aggressively went after the ascendant McCain, who leads now in polls taken in both Michigan and South Carolina.

And with Romney apparently not airing negative ads in Michigan, it appears that McCain, whose vulnerabilities in a GOP primary are well documented, now could go into the next two pivotal primary states largely untouched by his intra-party rivals.

Romney took after McCain at the outset of the Fox News-sponsored forum, criticizing the Arizona senator for his statements in Michigan Wednesday that the jobs lost in the economically struggling state were not coming back.

“I disagree,” Romney said. “I'm going to fight for every single job - Michigan, South Carolina, every state in this country.”

But McCain parried the question, citing his willingness to dispense hard truths and adding a sharp reminder that it was this trait that enabled him to defeat Romney in New Hampshire.

It was the only notable exchange where McCain was really forced on the defensive.

Later, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson both offered only the most glancing shots at McCain – Giuliani on the Arizonan not being the only one to support the surge policy in Iraq and Thompson on McCain’s immigration stance. And they did so with a dose of honey, beginning their salvos by describing McCain as their “friend.”

McCain was helped further by the emergence of a feister Thompson. The former Tennessee senator came prepared to go on the attack – but not against McCain.

Rather, it was Mike Huckabee he targeted, underscoring that the two are competing for the same vote share here in what is a must-win state for each.

Portraying Huckabee as soft on foreign policy, immigration and unions and with a weakness for a nanny-state government, Thompson cited a trove of opposition research to declare of the former Arkansas governor’s background: “That's not the model of the Reagan coalition, that's the model of the Democratic Party.”

After the debate, McCain supporters seemed thrilled to have seen Thompson weakening the candidate they believe is shaping up to be their top rival here.

Also helping McCain was the decision by Fox to, after much discussion in previous debates, to downplay the immigration issue. It’s McCain’s most significant vulnerability in the primary, and it only it came up in the last ten minutes of the forum, at nearly 10:30 at night.

With immigration absent from the discussion, McCain was able to press his national security credentials — the other most important issue to the GOP base and one where McCain is on much more solid terrain. When the topic of the incident with Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf this week came up, McCain declined to second-guess the decision of the U.S. Navy boats and reminded voters of his own military background.

"And for those of us who are not in that situation, to second guess is a little bit presumptuous," McCain said. "It's a long, hard process to become the commander of a Navy ship."

South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson said afterward he was surprised that nobody on stage really took after McCain.

“It was very respectful tonight,” Dawson said. “It wasn’t a rough debate.”

Yet South Carolina is known for its bare-knuckled politics and Dawson predicted that McCain would not enjoy a glide path to next week’s primary.

But with Romney moving to pull out of the primary here and Thompson, Giuliani and Huckabee indicating again Thursday that they’re not comfortable attacking McCain in person, he’s on track to enjoy the precise opposite of what he experienced in the South Carolina in 2000.

Fred Thompson's looking for the winner's mantle coming out of the debate (Fred's not dead).

Both the New York Times and ABC News have given him glowing coverage, and the right blogosphere got some amphetamine with the jump start of the "red pickup truck" campaign (see Flopping Aces, for example).

See also my post-debate analysis,"The GOP Debate From Myrtle Beach."

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

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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

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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!

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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.