Big, Bruising Week Ahead for GOP in South Carolina

The Michigan primary results have left the GOP still scrambling to settle on a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

With the first Southern primary scheduled on Saturday, all eyes are turning to the Palmetto State for some relief from the suspense. The New York Times has an analysis:

Fresh from a commanding primary victory in Michigan, Mitt Romney’s campaign rolled into South Carolina Wednesday morning, declaring he was committed to fighting hard in the state’s crowded Republican contest.

There had been some question about whether Mr. Romney would even compete here — a matter his advisers debated over the last few days — given how influential evangelicals are in the state’s Republican’s primary and the suspicions many harbor about Mr. Romney’s Mormon faith. Aides for Mr. Romney, who won Michigan on Tuesday night with nearly 40 percent of the vote, said he was now committed to “playing hard” in the Palmetto State.

The rest of the Republican field meanwhile had its sights on South Carolina already. On Wednesday, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who leads in the polls there, immediately began a sprint to the vote on Saturday, and picked up a key endorsement along the way. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who has a reputation as a voice for fiscal discipline, announced his endorsement of Mr. McCain in Greenville on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. Coburn called Mr. McCain a man “whose rudder is deep, whose principles are sound, and who has been tested, time and time again,” adding, “Our children are worth John McCain.”

Mr. McCain, for his part, pledged to crack down on pork barrel spending and to keep up a strong military, and he talked about his opposition to abortion, a big issue in South Carolina. “I’m proud of my pro-life record of 24 years in the United States Congress,” he said.

From there, Mr. McCain is expected to travel to Spartanburg and Lake Wylie. Mr. McCain is hoping to appeal to the many veterans in South Carolina and to military families with relatives serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also looking to sharpen his talk about the economy.

The campaign is dispatching Senator Joseph Lieberman to campaign for Mr. McCain in Florida, where Rudolph W. Giuliani has camped out to try to lock down support while the rest of the field has been competing in Michigan and South Carolina.

After losing on Tuesday night, Mike Huckabee and Mr. McCain each need a victory in South Carolina to keep their momentum from flagging. Mr. Romney finished with 38.9 percent of the vote, compared with 29.7 percent for Mr. McCain and 16.1 percent for Mr. Huckabee. Ron Paul, the antiwar congressman from Texas, came in fourth with 6.3 percent of the vote.

The outcome on Tuesday means three different Republican candidates have won each of the first three major contests. The race also moves to Nevada this weekend with no clear front-runner and two credible candidates, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and former Senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee, yet to seriously contest a state.

Thompson supporters this morning are bearing the ignominy of their candidate losing to Ron Paul in Michigan.

Meanwhile, Giuliani's completely off the radar, and doubts are swirling that he can pull anything off in Florida:

Florida is crucial to his strategy, and a win in the Jan. 29 primary would give Giuliani momentum going into the Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5. His campaign recently unveiled several new ads here and has moved dozens of staffers and volunteers into the state to help with absentee balloting.

South Carolina's pretty much coming down to Huckabee and McCain. The state's obviously key for both candidates, as the momentum from their respective wins in Iowa and New Hampshire fades.

Polling data shows McCain edging the former Arkansas governer by a couple points.

McCain's flirted with permanent frontrunner status going into Michigan, and some sectors of the GOP coalition are trying stem the Arizona Sentor's advance. In South Carolina a vicious attack advertisement has surfaced hammering McCain's integrity during his internment as a POW in Vietnam (see here and here).

Some analysts are dissecting the Michigan results for evidence of a McCain collapse, as well as the potential for the lower-tiered candidates to pull together and "take McCain out."

That might be wishful thinking, according to Fred Barnes:

...McCain's loss in Michigan--a stage on which he trounced George W. Bush in 2000--is hardly fatal. Nor does victory make Romney the frontrunner. Not that he'd want to be so dubbed. Winning improves a candidate's poll numbers, but actual voters don't appear to be affected. They don't swoon. Momentum? Winning hasn't generated much of that in 2008.

This means Romney shouldn't expect a serious bump in South Carolina, which holds its primary on Saturday. In fact, he doesn't. Instead, Romney intends to concentrate on winning the Florida primary10 days later on January 29. However, if he doesn't finish in the top three in South Carolina--that's a distinct possibility--the press will surely gig him for it.

In case you hadn't noticed, the media loathes Romney and likes McCain. Reporters think Romney is a stiff and a phony. They give McCain credit for straight talk, though not as much credit as they gave him in 2000.

Anyway, this allows McCain to call reporters "jerks" and other playful names. They know he's joking. On Fox News yesterday, McCain said he needs not only "Republican, Democratic, libertarian, vegetarian" votes, but also "Trotskyites. I know there's still Trotskyites around because I travel with the media on the bus."

If Romney had said that, the press would have pilloried him.

I'll have more analysis this afternoon. See Memeorandum in the meanwhile.

The Democrats and Martin Luther King

John McWhorter's got an analysis of Hillary Clinton's roiling of the racial waters with her dismissal of Martin Luther King's significance, at the Wall Street Journal.

Clinton commented that in fact President Lyndon Baines Johnson bears primary responsibility for the rights revolution of the 1960s, for his leadership in shepherding Civil Rights legislation through the Congress. By implication, a strong leader in the White House - assumably Clinton - is preferable to a grassroots activist - Barack Obama.

What's the problem? Here's McWhorter:

Why do people like op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn and countless black bloggers hear a grievous insult in her simple observation? The outcry is so disproportionate to the stimulus that one can barely help suspecting something outright irregular.

I think of a study published last year in the Journal of Black Psychology. It documented that the extent to which black Americans perceive their lives to be affected by racism correlates with symptoms of general paranoia disconnected from racial issues.

To be able to hold in one's mind the notion that Mrs. Clinton would attack King suggests a bone-deep hypersensitivity that overrides sequential reasoning. "We have to be very, very careful how we speak about that era," Rep. Clyburn explains.

But why so very, very careful? What effect does it have on anyone's life if that era is occasionally discussed in less than perfectly genuflective phraseology? Is the Klan waiting behind a hill? Will a black man working at an insurance company in Cleveland have a breakdown because someone didn't give King precisely enough credit in a quick statement?

There is a willful frailty, a lack of self-confidence, in this kind of thinking. It suggests someone almost searching for things to claim injury about, donning the mantle of the noble victim in order to assuage a bruised ego.

Of course, there is a less depressing interpretation of the current uproar: Mrs. Clinton's critics are playing political hardball. You know, let's get blacks to vote for Mr. Obama by playing the race card to pretend Mrs. Clinton is dumping on King. John Edwards, for example, is obviously not mouthing agreement with these people out of insecurity about his blackness.

Well, politics is rarely pretty, but in this case the price is too high. For one, misinterpretation of statements in this vein makes black people look disinclined to process detail and context -- in other words, dim. It only gives that much more fodder to views on black intelligence like those uttered by James Watson.

Think, for example, how utterly unreal the notion is that Bill Clinton, our "first black president," would call Mr. Obama's whole candidacy a "fairytale" rather than referring, specifically, to perceptions of his record on the Iraq war. It's as if the outraged crowd is only capable of processing seven words at a time.

In an election that is supposed to focus on larger issues such as America's role in a violent world, playing the race card in this fashion distracts us from real problems. When most new AIDS cases are black and the murder rate among young black males is sky high, what kind of black representative throws tantrums over extremely unlikely implications of something someone said?

In the name of speaking for Mr. Obama, the people throwing these tantrums are presenting a parochial, cynical face, rather than the thoughtful, cosmopolitan one that the candidate himself is trying to show.

Overall, Mr. Obama has not run a "black" campaign. The past few days suggest that if he did, many would consider it a favor to him to churn up 10 more months of dustups over phrases carefully lifted out of context and held up as evidence of racism. Hopefully Mr. Obama is too smart, and too much a man of the world, to succumb to this twisted rendition of black identity.

Obama's so far above such pedestrian race politics. Still, he'd better get ready for more attacks ahead. The Clintons will use their race authenticity to provide cover for subtely insidious race-based attacks on Obama's "blackness," credibility, and integrity.

The buzz is that the Democrats are pulling back from the racial brink, but when push comes to shove things could still get nasty.

See more analysis at Memeorandum.

Romney Wins Michigan Primary!

Mitt Romney secured his first primary victory in 2008's topsy-turvy race for the GOP nomination. The New York Times reports:

Mitt Romney, seizing on his personal ties to a state where his father made his family’s political fortune, captured a must-win victory in the Michigan primary on Tuesday, claiming the first major trophy for his ailing campaign and throwing the wide-open Republican field into further disarray.

Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, led Senator John McCain by 9 percentage points. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, the winner of the Iowa caucus, conceded after polling at 17 percent of the vote.

In the Democratic race with 14 percent of precincts reporting, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won by a commanding margin in a field that did not include her closest competitors, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards. However, about a third of voters in the Democratic primary opted to allow the party to choose uncommitted delegates to the national convention, effectively a vote against Ms. Clinton.

“It’s a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism,” Mr. Romney told The Associated Press. “The people of Michigan said they believe in someone who is going to fight for them.”

Mr. Romney’s victory guarantees a headache for political watchdogs as the competitive Republican field heads to South Carolina for its Saturday primary. Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain and Mr. Huckabee have each won a major primary or caucus, leaving the party without a clear frontrunner.

Another top Republican, former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, is putting most of his immediate efforts into Florida, which will hold its primary on Jan. 29.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, conceded the Michigan race, but he told supporters in South Carolina that he would not be deterred in his campaign.

“Starting tomorrow, we’re going to win South Carolina, and we’re going to go on and win the nomination," Mr. McCain said.

Mr. Huckabee has also flown to South Carolina, a state he is looking to win with support from his evangelical base.

Mr. Romney, who was born and raised in Michigan, used his final campaign appearances to remind voters of his personal ties to the state, where his father served three terms as governor. He promised, if elected president, to “not rest” until the state’s battered economic fortunes have been restored.

The message appeared to resonate with Republican voters, more than half of whom said in exit polls that their vote was driven by overwhelming economic concerns. A majority of those polled after they voted said a candidate’s position on the economy was more important than the war in Iraq, illegal immigration or terrorism. The exit poll was conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and the Associated Press.

Early reports of sluggish voter turnout may also have helped Mr. Romney’s cause. Freezing temperatures, an early morning snowfall, and a dearth of Democratic contenders on the ballot may have affected turnout, according to a state official.

It appeared from early returns that much of Mr. Romney’s support came from the three-county Detroit metropolitan area, home of many well-off Republicans and where the Romney name is better known from his father, George, being governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969.

Surveys of Michigan voters leaving the polls on Tuesday also showed that Mr. Romney did well among those who decided in the last day or two, validating his strategy of saturating the state with advertising and personal appearances over the last five days. Mr. Romney aired almost twice as many television ads as his two leading opponents combined.

In exit polls, more than half of Republican voters in Michigan said their vote was driven by overwhelming economic concerns. A majority of those polled after they voted said a candidate’s position on the economy was more important than the war in Iraq, illegal immigration or terrorism. The exit poll was conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and the Associated Press.

While the voters said a candidate’s position on the issues was more important than a candidate’s personal qualities, more than 4 in 10 voters said it was more important to them that a candidate share their values than be able to win in November against a Democrat or have the right experience.

About a quarter of the voters said it mattered a great deal to them that a candidate shared their religious beliefs.

On the issues of abortion, about 10 percent of Republican voters said it should be legal in all cases, 25 percent said abortion should be legal in most cases, about 35 percent said it should be illegal in most cases and about 25 percent said abortion should be illegal in all cases.

A plurality of voters said immigrants should be deported to the country they came from rather than be allowed to stay as temporary workers or offered a chance to apply for citizenship.

A majority of voters approve of the war in Iraq. When asked to describe their feelings about the Bush administration, they were closely divided.

Michigan’s primary occurred much earlier than usual this year, and many residents interviewed over the past few days said they were not even aware there was an election on Tuesday. Mrs. Clinton is expected to lead the pack on the Democratic side because she was the only major candidate whose name is on the ballot. Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards withdrew their names at the request of the national Democratic Party, which stripped Michigan of its delegates because the early date of its primary violated party rules.

But state party leaders said they believed the Michigan delegate slates would be seated.

The race here in Michigan forced the Republican candidates to focus chiefly on the dismal economy of the state, where thousands of manufacturing jobs have evaporated over the last several years and where the unemployment rate, 7.4 percent, is the highest in the nation.

Mr. McCain may have hurt himself here when he declared in a debate in South Carolina last week that because of the restructuring of the global automobile industry many of those jobs would never be restored in Michigan.

As I noted in the update to my previous post, Romney's optimistic message of economic revitalization appealed to Michigan voters who have been battered by economic transformation and the housing collapse (thanks to Elaine, over at Elaine's Place, for providing me with inside information on Michigan's housing market).

There's a lesson of caution for John McCain's straight-talk campaign: He's right that most jobs lost to global economic competition and market restructuring won't be coming back to the Great Lakes region. But his message was easily attacked by Romney as "economic pessimism." McCain's realism plays better in foreign policy than in economic affairs, where people need a voice of hope to lift their spirits.

I'll be looking at the polling data and political analyses over the next couple of days, but even without checking Memeorandum, I predict that the Daily Kos netroots will take credit for an independent crossover impact in blunting the McCain momentum (which early voter turnout data shows to be false).

Now, while I think McCain's right to focus on the next stop in South Carolina, the bigger impact of the Michigan results is to topple Mike Huckabee from his top-tier perch secured by his win in Iowa.

Romney - with his Michigan take - will have a big push heading into South Carolina. A Huckabee win in the Palmetto state is the former Arkansas governor's do-or-die sitiuation. Fred Thompson's down but not out, and he too will have to secure a victory or a strong second place showing in the first Southern primary to have any hope of being competitive heading into February 5.

John McCain, fresh off his New Hampshire comeback, has the wind of national public opinion at his back - and note that national polls show way more diversity of opinion than the views coming out of the Wolverine State, so it remains to be seen how substantial a bounce Romney gets heading into the later contests.

What's not in doubt is this is the most exciting GOP nomination process in decades!

The "Super Tuesday" round of nominating contests will truly be a crowning event if one of the GOP candidates taps some compelling theme to carry him to victory in a plurality of states, especially the big states like California and New York.

Don't forget, Florida votes before then. Maybe Florida will indeed provide Rudy Giuliani with the bounce that he needs to avoid an utter collapse, although things aren't looking good.

Photo: New York Times

McCain in Michigan: Is There a Push-Back?

Yesterday's Washington Post noted a substantial push-back by conservatives against GOP frontrunner John McCain.

It remains to be seen how right-wing opposition to McCain influences the race. But according to Jonathan Martin over at The Politico, the conservative fire is more heat than light, and McCain's facing little opposition within the overall Republican coalition, in Michigan at least:

His opponents aren’t going after him. There isn’t a single third-party group hammering him in broadcast TV or radio ads. Even anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, a longtime adversary, is taking it easy on John McCain this time around.

In short, McCain is getting a free pass, and it’s beginning to show. In campaign events across western Michigan, voters are once again being reminded of the qualities of character that have made him an admired figure on the national political scene, without the distraction of ads designed to muddy that image.

Asked why she likes McCain, Tina Wolfis of Kalamazoo pointed to “his honesty, his straight-forwardness.”

Other voters, Republicans all, cited similar qualities. Pressed about issues, some mentioned federal spending or the war.

“He puts country ahead of politics,” added David Hassenger, a Republican official in St. Joseph County, just south of Kalamazoo. “[Republicans] deserved to have their asses kicked in the last election. ... We’ve forgotten what we were supposed to be doing there.”

Even those who mentioned immigration — or “the illegal aliens,” as Wolfis put it — seemed unaware that McCain was an outspoken Republican advocate for providing illegal immigrants with a pathway to citizenship last spring.

Sharon Hoogendoorn, who works at Hope College in Holland, Mich., where McCain also had a town hall meeting Monday, said she was a border hawk and felt strongly about the issue. Asked how that squared with McCain’s stance on immigration, Hoogendoorn, who is leaning toward the Arizona senator, said, “I think that’s how he feels — we didn’t bridge that issue today. But I’m pretty sure that’s how he feels, as well.”

As McCain campaigns through western Michigan ahead of tomorrow’s primary, it’s abundantly clear that he’s running a race in stark contrast to the 2000 election, when the conservative establishment united against the maverick senator and went after him in full force after his New Hampshire victory.

McCain’s support appears less tied to any one particular issue than to his well-cultivated, straight-talking persona — one that is unsullied this year as opponents such as Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson express their own admiration or friendship for McCain rather than a desire to defeat him. And the lack of negative messaging has led to widespread unfamiliarity with McCain’s position on illegal immigration. Mitt Romney, for his part, is broadcasting only spots about his own record here after seeing what a barrage of negative ads got him in the first two states.

The Republican candidates aren’t the only ones treating McCain with kid gloves. Norquist, who helped spearhead third-party anti-McCain efforts in 2000, has overseen just a single round of little-noticed phone calls into New Hampshire urging voters to call both McCain and Thompson and urge them to sign the no-tax-increase pledge. He said his group has no plans to do any further calls.Norquist’s approach this year is indicative that McCain is in a stronger position this time around. By Norquist’s reckoning, he has come around on some key issues, while others don’t have the resonance they once did.

“In 2000, we criticized McCain’s call for campaign finance reform,” Norquist noted in an e-mail message. “The whole movement was concerned with that issue — the NRA, Right to Life, Right to Work, American Conservative Union, most business groups.

“Today, McCain is calling for continuing the Bush tax cuts — that is leading with a $2 trillion tax cut,” Norquist added.

So instead of trying to defeat McCain, Norquist has simply declared victory and welcomed him as a convert to the cause.

It may be that McCain's already appearing the most electable Republican to party insiders and voters looking for experience and intgrity on foreign policy.

There's been a backlash in some quarters, of course.

Mark Levin at National Review pulled out the knives in an attack on McCain last week. Bloggers are seeing red over the maverick's New Hampshire resurrection (here and here, for example).

The Michigan results today will sort things out a bit. May the best man win!

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

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UPDATE: Captain Ed predicts a Romney victory in today's primary:

I predict that the crossover vote will not be as heavy as predicted, discouraged in part by lousy weather. Three inches of snow wouldn't keep motivated voters from reaching the polls, but I don't think that the Republican slate will motivate non-Republicans to turn out in force while it's dark, snowy, and miserable on the roads. That favors Mitt Romney, and I think he edges out John McCain for his first significant win. My full prediction:

Romney - 30%
McCain - 28%
Huckabee - 17%
Giuliani - 12%
Thompson - 6%
Paul - 4%

I got New Hampshire wrong on the Democrats, but I had plenty of company. Let's see how this turns out ....

I frankly haven't the slightest clue as to who's going to win. Captain Ed doesn't mention other variables beyond the weather.

Romney has bankrolled a huge ad buy in Michigan, spending almost three times the amounts of McCain and Huckabee. Moreover, Romney's upbeat message on the economy is extremely attractive to voters, with Michigan suffering a "one-state" recession that could be a prelude to greater economic troubles nationally.

I think these two points give Romney an edge, although the campaign on the ground may end up being more vigorous than Captain Ed acknowledges.

I'll have more tonight.

Michigan is Do-or-Die for Romney

A victory for Mitt Romney in tomorrow's Michigan primary is a do-or-die situation, as the New York Times reports:

With economic issues at the top of the agenda, the leading Republican presidential candidates set off Monday on a final flurry of campaigning in Michigan ahead of the state’s primary that could again shake up a remarkably fluid Republican field.

Recent polls have indicated the contest is neck-and-neck between former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Senator John McCain of Arizona, with former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas further back.

Mr. Romney’s advisers have acknowledged that the state’s primary is essentially do-or-die for him after successive losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has been campaigning heavily throughout the state, emphasizing his childhood in Michigan and delivered a policy speech on Monday focused on aiding the automotive industry.

In his speech at the Detroit Economic Club, Mr. Romney took Washington lawmakers to task for being a “disinterested” in Michigan’s plight and imposing upon the state’s automakers a litany of “unfunded mandates,” including a recent measure signed by President Bush that requires the raising of fuel efficiency standards.

He criticized Mr. McCain and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, for a bill that they have pushed to cap and trade greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Romney asserted that the bill would cause energy costs to rise and would ultimately be a “job killer.”

Mr. Romney further pledged to bring together in his first 100 days representatives from the automotive industry, unions, Congress and the state of Michigan to come up with a plan to “rebuild America’s automotive leadership” and to increase to $20 billion, from $4 billion, the federal support for research and development in energy, fuel technology, materials science and automotive technology.

“There are some people who don’t think there’s a future for the domestic automobile industry,” Mr. Romney said. “They think the industry and its jobs are gone forever. They are wrong.”

Mr. Romney has hit hard at Mr. McCain for saying that Michigan’s manufacturing jobs are gone and are not coming back. At an event with more than 1,000 people at Kalamazoo Christian High School on Monday morning, Mr. McCain attempted to counter the accusations that he is a pessimist by saying that he would focus on job retraining programs to help the thousands who have lost their jobs in the state.

“We’re not going to leave these people behind,” Mr. McCain said, according to the Associated Press.

McCain had some rough campaigning over the weekend, getting booed over immigration at some events.

Yet polling shows an extremely tight race in the Wolverine State, and McCain even leads in the latest Zogby tracking poll (via Memeorandum):

Arizona Sen. John McCain holds a slim lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney heading into the Republican primary election in Michigan, a new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll shows.

The survey shows McCain with a 27% to 24% edge over Romney, with Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee trailing with 15% support. McCain, fresh off a 37% to 32% victory in New Hampshire over Romney, is battling the former governor on what is essentially Romney’s home turf, having grown up in the Detroit suburbs while his father, George, was governor of the state in the early 1960s.

The Zogby findings are a little at odds with the weekend's trend toward Romney, but in the case of a large independent cross-vote to McCain, the Arizona Senator may carry the day.

See Captain Ed's analysis, in any case:

Two arguments can be made from these results. The Romney argument will focus on the response of Republicans to the candidate. They will argue that their lead among Republicans shows that Mitt represents conservatives best in the race, and that McCain will shift the party to the Left. They can point to New Hampshire for support, where CNN's exit polling had Mitt winning the plurality of "very conservative" voters 43%-18% over McCain, while McCain won the plurality of "moderate" and "somewhat liberal" Granite State voetrs (both in the mid-40% range).

McCain's team will press the electability of their candidate. Having the ability to draw Democrats and independents constitutes a feature and not a bug, they will argue. The Republican nominee has to be able to beat Hillary Clinton in the general election, or perhaps Barack Obama, and recent polling shows him best positioned to do both. Romney's limited draw from the center will be their message if McCain wins Michigan.

Which will it be -- electability or policy reliability? On the latter, McCain can be expected to point out his 82.3% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. That stacks up against Fred Thompson's lifetime 86, and Ron Paul's 76. (Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee never served in Congress and have no ACU rating.) Will that give conservatives a big enough fig leaf to vote for electability? Expect that to be the central Republican debate over the next couple of weeks, which is at least better than what roils the Democrats lately.

As I've noted here, here, and here, national polling trends favor McCain.

A Romney win tomorrow will staunch the flow a bit, but a knockout for any of the candidates will have to wait until February 5. In California, one of the biggest, trendsetting states voting that day, McCain was ahead this afternoon with 20 percent over Romney's 16 percent.

It's obviously early, and the latter poll results are based on a small sample with a high number of undecideds (6 out of 10), although voters judged McCain the most electable Republican by far.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Gallup Poll Finds McCain Leading Nationally

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds John McCain leading in national public opinion after his surging come-from-behind victory in the New Hampshire primary:

A new USA Today/Gallup poll documents the net effect of the mixed results from the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary on national preferences for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

On the Republican side, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have essentially swapped positions since a mid-December USA Today/Gallup poll. According to the weekend survey, conducted Jan. 10-13, McCain now leads the GOP field with 33% of the vote of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. Giuliani has traded his front-runner position for third place (although he is just two points ahead of Mitt Romney), with 13% now supporting him for the nomination, down from 27% in the Dec. 14-16 poll. Mike Huckabee is in second place with 19% -- similar to where he was before the real voting started. He was tied for second place with 16% in mid-December, though he briefly rose to first place with 25% support immediately after his strong win in Iowa.

Romney is hanging on to his second-tier position with 11%. Support for Fred Thompson, at 9% in the new poll, has faded from the 14% recorded in December, and is his worst showing since he entered the race last spring.

The Gallup findings match up well with today's New York Times poll, which found McCain favored by 32 percent and Mick Huckabee following well behind with 18 percent support nationally. Gallup and NYT's findings for McCain were higher than the results from the Washington Post's poll out today, which found McCain at 28 percent over Huckabee at 20.

What's interesting in this last comparison is the difference in support of undecideds, who are less attached to the lower-tier candidates (Romney and Giuliani), which could work to strengthen polling trends for the leading contenders.

See also the Los Angeles Times, which has a poll out today finding California voters favoring John McCain (more on this survey later).

Poll Shows McCain Leading GOP Pack

Today's Washington Post, with its poll findings on the presidential nomination horse race, provides the second jab in today's one-two polling knockout for GOP frontrunner John McCain (the New York Times' new presidential poll is also out this morning).

Here's the WaPo story:

The first contests of the 2008 presidential campaign have led to a dramatic shake-up in public opinion nationally, with Sen. John McCain now leading the Republican field and Sen. Barack Obama all but erasing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-overwhelming advantage among Democrats, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

As the campaigns head into the next round of voting this week, the competitive contests in both parties have captured the public's attention. Four in five are closely tuned in, and a third are "very closely" following the races, a sharp increase from a month ago, and well higher than the proportions saying so at this stage in 2000 or 2004.

Clinton had dominated in national polls from the outset, holding a 30-point advantage as recently as a month ago, but the competitiveness of the first two contests appears to have reverberated among Democrats across the country.

In the new poll, 42 percent of likely Democratic voters support Clinton (N.Y.), and 37 percent back Obama (Ill.). Clinton's support is down 11 percentage points from a month ago, with Obama's up 14. Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) held third place with 11 percent, followed by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) at 2 percent.

The big gains by McCain (Ariz.), which come after his victory in the New Hampshire primary, mark the first time he has topped the Republican field in a Post-ABC News national survey. His rise mirrors a dramatic tumble for former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who led most national polls throughout 2007.

Giuliani, who finished well back in both Iowa and New Hampshire, ranks fourth in the new poll at 15 percent. McCain, meanwhile, has more than double the support he had a month ago and now stands at 28 percent among likely GOP voters. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who scored a big victory in the Iowa caucuses, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the runner-up in both early contests, sit just above Giuliani, at 20 and 19 percent, respectively.

Former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) registers 8 percent, in single digits for the first time, with only half the support he had in early November. Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.), who got 10 percent of the votes in Iowa and 8 percent in New Hampshire, is at 3 percent; Rep. Duncan Hunter (Calif.) is at 2 percent.

The sudden turnaround in national sentiment partly reflects the continued uncertainty among Republican voters about their field of candidates. Although McCain sits atop the GOP field, only a third of his supporters back him "strongly."

And this week's primaries may further unsettle the race. Victories by McCain over Romney in Michigan on Tuesday and in Saturday's South Carolina GOP primary, where his main rival appears to be Huckabee, would stamp McCain as the front-runner, but stumbles in either contest could further disrupt the GOP nomination battle.

First up is Michigan. The Los Angeles Times has the background:

Castigated by the national party for moving their primary ahead in the nominating calendar, Michigan Republicans could inject even more volatility into the 2008 GOP presidential campaign when they go to the polls Tuesday.

Although only half of the state's delegates will be seated at the Republican National Convention as punishment for flouting party rules and jumping ahead of the approved Feb. 5 date, Michigan is a crucial state for all three of the top contenders.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the son of a popular former Michigan governor and auto executive, needs a win to counter growing perceptions that he can't do better than his second-place finishes in the first two significant nominating contests.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who won here in 2000, needs a win to keep his New Hampshire-born comeback alive.

And a first-place showing by Mike Huckabee could help propel the former Arkansas governor through the South Carolina and Florida primaries heading into the coast-to-coast balloting Feb. 5, on which former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who is not campaigning in Michigan, has pinned his hopes for the nomination.

The significance of the vote here can be read in the candidates' schedules. With South Carolina and the Feb. 5 states looming, McCain and Romney focused exclusively on Michigan over the weekend, each arguing in town halls, drop-ins and party dinners that he is better suited to end Michigan's economic slide.

Romney is to address the influential Detroit Economic Club today. Huckabee, who spoke before the club Friday, returned here Sunday night after a whirlwind spin through South Carolina, where he is trying to protect a lead in the polls.

Recent Michigan surveys show a tight contest among Romney, Huckabee and McCain, but a local Detroit Free Press-Local 4 poll released Sunday gave Romney a slight advantage. Conducted by Selzer & Co., the poll found that he had a 27% to 22% lead over McCain, with Huckabee trailing at 16%, tied with "uncommitted."

If the poll holds up and Romney wins, that would mean that three different candidates had won the first three major Republican nomination fights.

With state unemployment at 7.4% -- the highest in the nation -- and an industrial base dominated by the embattled auto industry, the campaign has focused more directly on economic issues than it did in Iowa and New Hampshire.

An added wild card: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is the only major candidate on the Democratic ballot Tuesday -- Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina dropped off after Michigan scheduled its primary for Tuesday.

State rules allow anyone to vote in any party's primary, and it was independents and crossover Democrats who gave McCain the win in 2000. With an uncompetitive Democratic primary Tuesday, they could again be a determining factor.

"McCain needs momentum and crossover. Huckabee needs the young voter turnout, and he needs the evangelical turnout," said Ed Sarpolus, a veteran Lansing pollster. "Romney's really in the best position when you consider he's got the time [campaigning in the state], money and organization."

But Romney also has the most pressure on him to win, said Bill Ballenger, a Lansing-based analyst.

"Romney has got to stop the hemorrhaging," Ballenger said. "His strategy is predicated upon winning in the first three contests, and he's already lost two of them. This is his native state. He's invested an enormous amount of time . . . and he's spent $1.5 million on TV already."

My weekend analysis of the Michigan race is here.

The GOP May Need McCain

The media buzz over John McCain's comeback continues to grow. Check out John Heilemann's article over at New York Magazine, where he argues that Republicans may in fact need the Arizona Senator's leadership and stature:

The McCain resurrection in New Hampshire was, no question, a remarkable thing to behold. Six months ago, the extent of his meltdown was so severe that he was mired in fourth place in the state behind Mitt Romney, Giuliani, and, yes, even Fred Thompson. But by December, McCain, back to waging a guerrilla campaign, had scrapped his way into the lead. In the days before the primary, the sense of nostalgia was palpable: the Straight Talk Express crisscrossing the snow-banked byways, McCain cracking wise and holding forth, the hack pack huddled around him, lapping up every word. His town-hall meetings were jammed to the rafters, his wit, spontaneity, and candor on vivid display. “You’re still in purgatory,” said one independent voter, who questioned McCain’s devotion to fiscal discipline. “Thank you,” replied McCain. “That’s a step up from where I was last summer”....

The concept of McCain as the candidate of the Republican Establishment may cause some minds to reel, but there are already signs that it may become a reality: On the eve of New Hampshire, 100 alumni of the Reagan administration—including George Shultz, Alexander Haig, and Iran/contra pardonee Robert McFarlane—trumpeted their endorsement of McCain. What makes him attractive to such people despite his transgressions against Republican orthodoxy is crystal clear. As McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt put it bluntly in New Hampshire, “He is the most electable of all Republicans.” Though one Democratic strategist licked his chops when I mentioned the prospect of a McCain-Obama matchup—“It would be the future versus the past, change versus more of the same”—the septuagenarian senator would compete fiercely with his younger rival for independent voters, and would be able to play far more effectively the experience card that Clinton has employed against him. And having been carpet-bombed by Bush in 2000 and Romney this time around, he’d be well prepared to handle the brass-knuckle brawl into which a race against Clinton would surely turn.

Read the whole thing.

Heilemann is clear that McCain's far from wrapping up the nomination - surprisingly, he suggests, things could go down to a final Giuliani-McCain showdown.

A McCain win tomorrow in Michigan ought to confirm all the speculation of McCain as unstoppable frontrunner. Mitt Romney's doing well in Wolverine State polls, so the suspense may continue for some time.

The Origins of Neoconservatism

The New York Times is probably the least conducive place to read a review of neoconservatism, but Timothy Noah's review of Jacob Heilbrunn's new book, They Knew They Were Right, is still worth a look.

Here's a bit on the intellectual origins of the movement:

The first half of Heilbrunn’s book relates neoconservatism’s origins and its journey to the brink of political power in the late 1970s. It’s a familiar tale, told better in “The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America’s Politics,” published in 1979 by Peter Steinfels (then the executive editor of Commonweal and now a columnist on religion for The New York Times). Steinfels came at the neocons from farther to the left than Heilbrunn and consequently was more critical. But the Steinfels book was also more rigorously analytic and, strangely, more generous in granting neocons their due as thinkers. Chalk it up to the narcissism of small differences. As best I can make out, Heilbrunn retains most of the foreign-policy views that he held before but applies them with greater judiciousness, and can no longer bear the sight of those who don’t. (The neocons’ domestic policies seem to interest Heilbrunn not at all; he scarcely mentions them.)

From both Steinfels and Heilbrunn, we learn that neoconservatism was the final stop of an ideological journey for a group of New York intellectuals, typically the children of Jewish immigrants, that began during the early 1940s in Alcove 1 of the cafeteria at City College. Alcove 1 was the gathering place for a group of brilliant young Trotskyists that included Irving Kristol, Seymour Martin Lipset, Nathan Glazer and Melvin Lasky. Along with Irving Howe, who would later break with Trotskyism but not with the left, and Daniel Bell, who never accepted Marxist orthodoxies in any form, the Alcove 1 Trotskyists waged intellectual battle with the Stalinists in Alcove 2, who vastly outnumbered them.

Coaxed by a diverse group of thinkers that included Sidney Hook, Reinhold Niebuhr and Samuel M. Levitas, known as Sol, the veterans of Alcove 1 eventually drifted away from Trotskyism, becoming stalwarts of the anti-Communist left, where they were joined by Norman Podhoretz, then a young literary scholar. With the advent of the cold war, the proto-neocons pushed for a hard line against the Soviet Union, sometimes harder than that of anti-Communist liberals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and George F. Kennan; few if any of them expressed concern when they discovered that Encounter, a magazine that Irving Kristol co-founded in 1952, was secretly underwritten by the Central Intelligence Agency. The student radicalism of the late 1960s disillusioned proto-neocons about the left; George McGovern’s landslide defeat in 1972 disillusioned many of them about mainstream liberalism and the Democratic Party; and after Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, a number of them stopped resisting the “conservative” label, joined the Republican Party and began to exercise power.

During the presidencies of Reagan and George W. Bush, neocon influence followed parallel arcs, gaining influence in the first term and losing it in the second. In Reagan’s case, the break came with the Iran-contra scandal, which dulled the White House’s enthusiasm for proxy wars against the Soviet Union, and the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev, in whose glasnost and perestroika many neocons did not believe. (Heilbrunn nicely compares the Soviet Union’s imminent collapse to “a Christmas present handed to a grumpy child who was not in the mood to accept it.”) In the case of Bush, the loss of influence followed the military debacle in Iraq.

The great mystery of George W. Bush’s presidency is why he ever jumped into bed with neoconservatives in the first place. During the presidential primaries in 2000, The Weekly Standard, by then neoconservatism’s pre-eminent publication, had preferred John McCain. Bush had no great fondness for intellectuals, and a disinclination to engage in nation-building. And before 9/11, even Wolfowitz had predicted that the big foreign-policy challenge would not be Iraq, but China. What brought about this unlikely alliance?

It helped that as neoconservatism relocated from the Upper West Side to the Virginia suburbs, it had mostly abandoned the intellectual sphere for politics and journalism, where Bush felt more comfortable. No longer a lively debating society, by the 1990s it had become, Heilbrunn writes, “an echo chamber.” Probably the most significant factor was the presence of Vice President Dick Cheney, who helped Wolfowitz secure his berth with Rumsfeld, which in turn allowed Wolfowitz to install Feith. What transformed Cheney from a mild skeptic about Iraq intervention when he was defense secretary in the early 1990s (one “former colleague” informs Heilbrunn that in those days Cheney was “not in thrall” to Wolfowitz) to the unappeasable hawk he revealed himself to be after 9/11?

On this, Heilbrunn is stumped, just like everyone else. Maybe an evil spirit terrorized Cheney while he slept. The ghost of Hitler, perhaps?

How about September 11, 2001?

I'm picking up a copy of Heilbrunn's book tomorrow, and will likely posts some thoughts on it at some point.

In the meantime, as an antidote to Noah's dismissal of neoconservative ideology, see James Kirchick's "The Anti-Neocon Fervor" or my post, "Preventive Strike? Declaring War on Neoconservative Foreign Policy."

McCain is Favorite Nationwide, Poll Finds

Senator John McCain is favored by 33 percent, nationwide, for the Republican presidential nomination, the latest New York Times poll has found:

Republican voters have sharply altered their views of the party’s presidential candidates following the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Senator John McCain, once widely written off, now viewed more favorably than any of his major competitors, according to the latest nationwide New York Times/CBS News Poll.

The findings underscored the extraordinary volatility in the Republican race and suggested that the party was continuing to search for a nominee whom it could rally around. Nearly three quarters of Republican primary voters said it was still too early for them to make up their minds “for sure,” meaning that they could shift their allegiances yet again if one or more of Mr. McCain’s rivals breaks through in the two Republican primaries this week, in Michigan and South Carolina....

The survey was begun one day after the primaries in New Hampshire, where Mr. McCain won, and amounted to a snapshot of a Republican contest that remains remarkably fluid after almost a year of campaigning. While national polls are of limited value in predicting the outcome of primaries in particular states, they capture broad shifts in opinion, in this case a sharp movement for Mr. McCain after a big victory and a wave of media attention. Thirty-three percent of Republican primary voters in the poll named Mr. McCain, of Arizona, as their choice, up from 7 percent a month ago.

Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, whose favorability ratings jumped after he won in Iowa, was the choice of 18 percent of Republican primary voters. Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who is focusing his campaign on later contests, had the most precipitous fall; he was the choice of 10 percent of Republican voters, down from 22 percent last month. Support for other candidates was in single digits.

The poll also had worrisome signs for Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who finished second in both Iowa and New Hampshire and is in a tough three-way battle in Michigan against Mr. McCain and Mr. Huckabee. Not only did support for him among Republican voters plummet over the past month, but he was also viewed much less favorably than a month ago.

Mr. McCain, a longtime maverick in his own party, was named by Republican primary voters in the survey as the candidate most likely to win his party’s nomination. Thirty-nine percent of these primary voters saw Mr. McCain as the likely nominee. Only 11 percent saw Mr. Giuliani prevailing.

Mr. McCain’s image ratings also have soared. More than half of the Republican primary voters (57 percent) — including more half of the conservatives — viewed him favorably in the new poll, compared with 37 percent in December.

“I don’t always agree with him on all the issues,” Jeff Little, a 34-year-old actuary and Republican from Apple Valley, Minn., said in an interview after he participated in the poll. “But I feel he, more than most politicians, tells you what he thinks.”

Patrick Herron, a 61-year-old retired social studies teacher from Syracuse, described Mr. McCain as “more of a moderate.”

“He’s willing to cross the aisles and work with the Democratic Party,” said Mr. Herron, another poll participant.

The poll also includes data on the Democratic Party favorites.

Heading into Tuesday's crucial Michigan GOP primary, voter preferences are unstable, with various polls showing nearly 4 out of 10 voters undecided as they prepare to head to their polling stations. The New York Times graphic below shows the unsettled nature of this weekend's surveys on the Michigan race:

The timing of the poll - out in hardcopy with tomorrow's edition, complete with banner headlines declaring McCain's national stature - is perfect for momentum-building.

See also Memeorandum.

Photo: Detroit News

McCain, Romney See Big Battleground in Michigan

The Michigan Republican primary is shaping up to be a truly crucial contest.

Henry Payne of the Detroit News, in an essay over at the Wall Street Journal, suggests that Michigan's decision to advance its primary earlier in the calendar is not as significant as party officials had hoped, at least on the Democratic side.

With the decline of automobile manufacturing, the Wolverine State's lost political clout, a fact of political life exploited by Chrysler 300-driving Barack Obama, whose hypocritical envirnomental pandering is not lost on Michigan political observers:

As their industrial union base has shrunk, Democrats have forsaken blue collars for green elites....

Most emblematic of the shift is Barack Obama, senator for Archer Daniels Midland, the corporate behemoth from Illinois that turns corn into ethanol. Thanks to the ethanol mandates Mr. Obama supports, ADM has been racking up profits.

In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club last May, Mr. Obama could barely hide his contempt for auto execs in attendance. The "change candidate" -- who had a gas-guzzling, powerful Chrysler 300 in his garage -- lit into the Big Three for producing the very vehicles he uses: "While foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American auto makers were spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars. The auto industry is on a path that is unacceptable and unsustainable. And America must take action to make it right."

So much for discussing "Michigan issues."

It's the Republican primary, however, that's turning out to be a decisive breakneck affair:

Mike Murphy, a Republican campaign guru who cut his teeth in Michigan, says the state is the candidates' first true test because of its demographics. Michigan is a quilt of inner city blacks, suburban businessmen, Reagan Democrats, religiously conservative reformers and liberal college towns.

The state's unique mix of voters has produced surprises in the past. Eight years ago, Mr. McCain won the state's primary despite George W. Bush's strength nationally. Mr. McCain looks to do well again, but must contend with Mr. Huckabee, who has caught fire with west Michigan's vast grassroots evangelical network. Even without much of an organization in the state, he has made this a three-man race, says veteran Michigan pollster Steve Mitchell. Mr. Huckabee's theme -- "Americans want a president who reminds them of the guy they worked with, not the guy that laid them off" -- resonates here.

John McCain and Mitt Romney will likely refight the 2000 McCain/Bush battle. Like Mr. Bush, who won Republicans by a 2-1 margin, Mr. Romney is pushing to get out the GOP vote, and is trying to exploit the fact that his father was once a popular governor here.

But with an uncompetitive Democratic contest, Mr. Mitchell predicts that, as in New Hampshire, Mr. McCain will reap votes from independents and crossover Democrats, which he carried by respective margins of 2-1 and 3-1 eight years ago.

Mr. Romney's best chance is to go after Mr. McCain for his flip-flops on the Bush tax cuts. Michigan is aflame with anti-tax sentiment at the moment because Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm pushed through a big income tax increase last fall, sparking recall campaigns.

As the country has moved left in recent elections, Michigan too has become more reliably blue and ceased to be a swing state. But after two small, beauty pageant primaries, the Republican survivor of Michigan will deserve the crown of 2008 frontrunner.

Who's going to get that frontrunner crown?

John McCain had pulled ahead of Mitt Romney in midweek polling, but this weekend's survey data is showing a tossup.

A Detroit News poll out today shows a statistical dead-heat for the GOP in Michigan (via Memeorandum):

With just two days left before the primary, Michigan's volatile Republican presidential race is going down to the wire for frontrunners John McCain and Mitt Romney.

And Mike Huckabee is still a factor.

A Detroit News/WXYZ Action News poll shows McCain with 27 percent, Romney at 26 percent; and Huckabee at 19 percent. All three campaigned in Michigan on Saturday. McCain, a senator from Arizona, and Michigan-born Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, are scheduled to continue their sprint drive Sunday. Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, is campaigning in South Carolina on Sunday, but is expected to return to Michigan on Monday, election eve.

The poll shows not just a statistical tie, but a full 45 percent of those surveyed remain undecided. Thus, this weekend's campaigning will be a key factor in Tuesday's vote, as well as the ground-game efficacy of the respective campaigns.

Also out today is another survey from the Detroit Free Press:

Republican primary voters whose greatest concern is the economy could give Bloomfield Hills native Mitt Romney his first major state victory in Tuesday’s Michigan presidential primary, according to the Detroit Free Press-Local 4 Michigan Poll.

Romney leads John McCain, 27%-22%, with Mike Huckabee in third at 16%, the poll showed. Romney’s core of support is in metro Detroit, where he has a 2-1 advantage.

Of the 40% who named the economy as their top concern, Romney had a 42%-25% advantage over McCain. McCain wins by about the same margin over Romney among the 24% of Republican voters whose top issue is the Iraq war.

But Romney's lead could evaporate, depending on how tentative, undecided and uncommitted voters lean over the next two days. About 38% of voters who had a favorite said they might change their mind by Tuesday. Another 22% hadn't picked a candidate.

We see again - as with the Detroit News survey - the key role undecideds will play Tuesday.

What may be even more important is the role of Michigan's independents. The state issues non-partisan ballots, and independents may cross-over to vote in either major party primary.

A heavy crossover vote presumably favors McCain, who has polled well among independents. But former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his economic populist message might hit home here as well.

Either way, an independent surge likely damages former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who does best among pure Republicans.

A McClatchy/MSNBC poll vote finds McCain the preference of 38 percent of independents and Democrats, while Huckabee had 22 percent and Romney taking 18 percent.

At this point, the vote appears wide open, and considerable skepticism over the polling trends is warranted.

Watch out for the unexpected, in any case: Michigan's unemployment rate is the highest in the nation at 7.4 percent, and the results Tuesday may again upset all consensus views, given the volatility of economic issues in the sate.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Iraq and the Election

Is Iraq off the political agenda for campaign '08?

Time has an analysis of the issue, with this week's Bush administration shuttle diplomacy to the Mideast the point of departure:

On his grand tour of the Middle East, George Bush was far away from the ground wars of the U.S. presidential campaign. Indeed, thanks to the success of the U.S. military surge, the war he started in Iraq is now a second-tier issue in American politics. But Iraq may become a resurgent factor in the strategies of those who want to succeed him in office. The "good news" of the surge and tentative steps forward in Iraqi internal politics may weigh on how voters view the politicians maneuvering to become the next President of the United States.

On Saturday, the current President stopped at the 3rd Army's Camp Arifjan in Kuwait to get a briefing on the war from Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, and to do some morale-boosting with the troops. He made the most the timing: his visit came just over a year since he announced the troop surge, and he reminded his audience that last year's strategy shift was initially scorned in the U.S. but has turned out to be remarkably effective. At the dusty rally with troops, flanked by an enormous American flag, Bush projected that success out into the future, saying history will judge that "victory was achieved by the U.S. military [in Iraq] for the good of the world."

The event was paralleled in Iraq with a political breakthrough of sorts: the parliament's unanimous passage of a law that allows former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to take government jobs for which they have expertise and experience. The so-called de-Baathification of the Iraqi government after the fall of Saddam contributed significantly to the violent sectarian divisions of the country as well as to a collapse in the way the country was run. The new law is meant heal the rift between the Shi'ites who now dominate the government and the Sunnis who used to. "I come with an upbeat message," Bush said at the news of the passage of the Accountability and Justice law. It is, he said, "an important step towards reconciliation... an important sign that the leaders of that country must work together to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people."

While Bush spoke of history's judgment, the short term may be more important right now for most Americans. If the last year in Iraq has changed the course of the war and the region's future, the next year in that country may determine who will succeed Bush in the White House. Petraeus and Crocker have started an analysis that will determine the troop levels through the heat of the election season from July through November. The success of the surge has diminished the role of Iraq in the U.S. campaign; but the political — and electoral — ramifications of the next decision on troop levels remain an open question. Bush even said Saturday that the current draw down, which is expected to bring troops to pre-surge levels by July, and as low as 100,000 by the end of the year, could be reversed if Petraeus decides he needs to beef back up.

Despite left-wing spin to the contrary, the war will be a political plus for Republicans heading into November.

Certainly, events on the ground - security and stability - will shape political perceptions at home. But there should be no mistake that the Bush administration and GOP backers were right that the war was not lost. The effects of the strategic shift under General Petraeus have been dramatic and were unanticipated by most political actors. The military is currently not rushing to redeploy, and if the continued progress in Iraqi political cooperation holds, we'll see more and more evidence that this war is being won.

Republican candidates can take that to the bank in November.

Photo Credit: Time

Conservative Troubles in '08?

By now it's well established that contemporary conservatism is in disarray. Are the reports of conservatism's death greatly exaggerated?

A couple of today's authors at the Washington Post don't think so, particularly Jonah Goldberg and George Will.

Start with Goldberg:

As pretty much everyone has noticed, the Republican race hasn't exactly followed any of the scripts laid out for it. Mitt Romney has been hacked apart like the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." John McCain's fortunes -- which had been bouncing up and down like a printout of Dick Cheney's EKG -- have suddenly spiked northward after his victory in New Hampshire. Fred Thompson ran a brilliant "testing the waters" campaign from his front porch, but when he tried to walk on the water, he sank like a basset hound trying to swim. Pushing the poor beast under the waves was Mike Huckabee, whose down-home folksiness makes Thompson look like David Niven.

Huckabee's surprise surge in Iowa has made him this season's pitchfork populist, albeit a much nicer one -- sort of a Disneyland Pat Buchanan. Then there's Ron Paul. He started out as the designated wack job, then became so successful that the Des Moines Register had to cast Alan Keyes in the role of hopeless firebrand wingnut for a brief campaign cameo. And it's a sign of how poorly Rudy Giuliani -- once the indisputable front-runner -- has done that I'm now mentioning him only after Paul.

Of course, this could all change with the next contest.

Much of this chaos is attributable to the fact that this is a very flawed field, or at least one ill-suited for the times we're in. If a camel is a horse designed by committee, then this year's Republican field looks downright dromedarian. This slate of candidates has everything a conservative designer could want -- foreign policy oomph, business acumen, Southern charm, Big Apple chutzpah, religious conviction, outsider zeal, even libertarian ardor -- but all so poorly distributed. As National Review put it in its editorial endorsement of Romney (I am undecided, for the record): "Each of the men running for the Republican nomination has strengths, and none has everything -- all the traits, all the positions -- we are looking for."

But conservatives should contemplate the possibility that the fault lies less in the stars -- or the candidates -- than in ourselves. Conservatism, quite simply, is a mess these days. Conservative attitudes are changing. Or, more accurately, the attitudes of people who call themselves conservatives are changing.

How are they changing?

Well, check Goldberg, but the main point seems to be that "get-government-off-my-back" conservatism isn't currenlty hip in the electorate. Pent-up social demands have put conservatism in a bind: If small-state conservatism is going to work, markets and limited government still need to produce political, socio-economic outcomes in which a majority feel like they have a chance - that their children will have a chance. It's not clear this is case, with the economy, health care, fiscal stress, and international conflict all putting strains on government's ability to stay small and perform effectively.

How will this play out in the election this year, after the drama of the primary season has passed, and the press and politicians get down to offering tangible solutions to a considerably stressed populace? Can conservatives stay vital, be competitive, and offer hope?

George Will, looking beyond the early primaries last week, sees no positive dynamics on the right:

Nov. 4 could be their most disagreeable day since Nov. 3, 1964. Actually, this November could be even worse, because in 1964 Barry Goldwater's loss of 44 states served a purpose, the ideological reorientation and revitalization of the party. Which Republican candidate this year could produce a similarly constructive loss?

Today, all the usual indicators are dismal for Republicans. If that broad assertion seems counterintuitive, produce a counterexample. The adverse indicators include: shifts in voters' identifications with the two parties (Democrats now 50 percent, Republicans 36 percent); the tendency of independents (they favored Democratic candidates by 18 points in 2006); the fact that Democrats hold a majority of congressional seats in states with 303 electoral votes; the Democrats' strength and the Republicans' relative weakness in fundraising; the percentage of Americans who think the country is on the "wrong track"; the Republicans' enthusiasm deficit relative to Democrats' embrace of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, one of whom will be nominated.

Iowa and New Hampshire were two of the three states (New Mexico was the third) that changed partisan alignment between 2000 and 2004 -- Iowa turning red, New Hampshire blue. This month, Democratic participation was twice the Republican participation in Iowa and almost 22 percent higher in New Hampshire. George W. Bush won Iowa by just 0.67 percent of the vote. Whomever the Republicans nominate should assume that he must replace Iowa's seven electoral votes if he is to reach Bush's 2004 total of 286.

Republicans try to take comfort from the fact that 61 Democratic members of Congress represent districts that President Bush carried in 2004. But 37 of those won with at least 55 percent of the vote. Furthermore, 14 Republican representatives won in 2006 by a single percentage point or less.

Granted, in the past 150 years, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter (barely) are the only Democrats to achieve 50 percent of the popular vote. And this year Democrats might still give Republicans the gift of Hillary Clinton, who probably has a popular vote ceiling of 52 percent. A subliminal -- too much so -- subtext of Obama's message is that Clinton cannot receive the big mandate required for big changes: Enactment of Social Security in 1935 followed Franklin Roosevelt's 57.4 percent victory in 1932, and in 1965 Medicare came after Lyndon Johnson's 61 percent victory over Barry Goldwater.

But even if Democrats nominate Clinton, Republicans must remember that Bush's 2.4-point margin of victory in 2004 was unimpressive: In the 12 previous reelections of presidents, the average margin of victory was 12.9 points. Bush's 50.7 percent of the vote in 2004 was the third-smallest for a reelected president (Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton won 49.2 percent in 1916 and 1996, respectively). Kerry's 48.3 percent was the largest ever against a president being reelected. (In the 12 previous reelections, no losing candidate received more than 46.1 percent; nine of the losers received less than 45 percent.)

Tuesday's Republican primary is in one of the nation's worst-governed states. Under a Democratic governor, Michigan has been taxed into a one-state recession. Native son Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who best understands how wealth is created, might revive his campaign by asking: Whom do you want to be president in 2010 when the Bush tax cuts, which McCain opposed, expire? Can automakers endure more regulations such as the fuel efficiency mandates that climate-fixers such as McCain favor? Do you want a president (Mike Huckabee, proponent of a national sales tax of at least 30 percent) pledged to radically increase the proportion of federal taxes paid by the middle class?

Republicans should try to choose the next president. They cannot avoid choosing how their party will define itself, even if by a loss beneath a worthy banner.

Romney gets a mini-George Will endorsement there. But on the larger analysis, the comparison to keep in mind is Michael Dukakis. The liberal former Massachusetts technocrat was hammered by the Republican Party Machine in 1988. Between outside attack ads and Lee Atwater-style take-no-prisoners political warfare, Dukakis dropped from a 17-point lead in public opinion to a traumatic defeat at the hands of George H.W. Bush.

There's no denying, of course, that '08 is shaping up to be the biggest election year for Democrats in decades. But with Iraq largely off the table as a volatile campaign issue, the Democrats have a huge challenge in presenting an alternative to conservatism that appears both competent and fiscally-prudent.

We're not going back to the New Deal or Great Society. The Democrats would like to...and conservatives need to drive that point home as the election year progresses. Much remains to be seen.

See more analysis at Memeorandum.

Giuliani Campaign On the Ropes

Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign is on the ropes, according to the latest reports.

Here's this morning's Los Angeles Times story:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, once the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said Friday that some of his staffers had started forgoing their salaries to ease the strain on the campaign's budget.

Giuliani told reporters at an appearance in Florida that the aides volunteered to defer their pay "to stretch the dollars even further." The former New York mayor has $7 million in hand to spend in upcoming primaries -- enough, his campaign said, to compete through the crucial Super Tuesday contests in more than 20 states, including California, Feb. 5.

Still, many political observers said the news signaled a surprising cash squeeze in a campaign that was thought to be managing its finances well. It also underscored Giuliani's sharp decline in recent weeks from front-runner to struggling contender, they said, while renewing questions about the wisdom of his decision to essentially take a pass on the earliest contests. The candidate has staked his prospects on winning in Florida on Jan. 29.

"He's in a tough spot," said John J. Pitney Jr., a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former Republican National Committee staffer. "Up to now, Giuliani's fundraising appeared to be a major advantage, but . . . he's probably burned through a lot of money."

Campaign officials said that the budget situation dovetailed with their strategy of betting heavily on Florida and of using momentum from a primary victory here to galvanize fresh fundraising and support.

Giuliani, speaking to reporters after a stop at a school in the southern Florida community of Coral Gables, playfully said his campaign was using "a strategy of lulling your opponents into a false sense of security."

"Everyone has their own strategy," he said. "We think this is the best strategy, given our assets."

I've noted with increasing frequency of late how disastrous Giuliani's Florida launch pad strategy is looking. It's hard to beat the phenomenon of momentum, especially in with such a tightly frontloaded calendar, and not to mention the hunger in the electorate for change, leadership, or whatever's out there.

Sunday's Times of London fairly well places Giuliani's campaign on the precipice of disaster:

STRUGGLING to regain his former eminence in Republican presidential polls, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, last week announced the formation of a “catastrophe advisory committee” to help him form policies on handling national disasters. Some of his rivals promptly quipped that he should start by investigating his own campaign.

“Either Rudy is a genius, and is about to defy half a century of conventional political wisdom,” noted one leading New York Democrat last week. “Or he has run the most stupid presidential campaign in history.”

As Giuliani set off on a three-day bus trip around Florida yesterday, his once-commanding lead in Republican opinion polls had evaporated, he was trying to save money by not paying aides and his campaign strategy of focusing mainly on big industrial states was threatening to reduce him to also-ran status.

It has been a terrible new year for the former mayor, whose leadership credentials - built on his internationally acclaimed performance in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001 - established him as the frontrunner last year.

As recently as early last month, Giuliani was almost 15 points clear of the field in national polls; he was 33 points ahead in his native New York and 15 points up in Florida, which holds its primary on January 29. But a series of embarrassing political setbacks has knocked his legs from under him.

In one national poll last week, he plunged to third place among Republican candidates, with only 16% of the vote. In New York on Friday a Survey USA poll showed that his lead over John McCain, the surging Ari-zona senator who won the New Hampshire primary, had sunk to just three points.

Even Florida, long targeted by Giuliani as his ideal state to launch a winning campaign, is turning into a minefield. In a poll last Friday, he slipped into second place, eight points behind McCain.

Giuliani joked last week that he was lulling his rivals into “a false sense of confidence” and that victory in Florida would catapult him to the front of the race, a week before Super Tuesday on February 5, when 22 states will vote and the Republican nomination may be decided.

Yet his decision to ignore Iowa and to campaign only desultorily in New Hampshire has left him dangerously marginalised and running out of cash as McCain and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won in Iowa, have grabbed the political momentum and media limelight regarded as crucial to a successful White House campaign.

“Giuliani is done,” claimed Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire’s poll survey centre. “He has run possibly the worst campaign of a leading candidate that I can remember. They made an incredibly bad strategic decision.”

It's not just strategic missteps hurting Giuliani's presidential aspirations:

Yet it is not just poorly conceived campaign strategy that is to blame for Giuliani’s woes. The emergence last year of embarrassing revelations about the costs of providing security for his mistress when he was mayor was followed by a run of negative publicity about his family, his business connections and his health.

At one point he entered hospital after a crippling headache forced him to turn around his campaign jet in mid-air, although tests revealed nothing serious. As the national media began to focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, Giuliani found himself starved of attention.

Suddenly America no longer seems interested in Giuliani’s 9/11 exploits, the cornerstone of his electoral appeal. As the violence in Iraq appears to be subsiding, and with the economy rapidly becoming the issue of most concern to voters, Giuliani has begun to sound like a broken record when he talks of his performance as “America’s mayor”.

The "9/11 theme" has worn thin, no matter how powerful a message underlies its initial appeal.

Still, the strategic mistakes for Giuliani seem monumental, considering how basic the crucial importance of Iowa and New Hampshire are to students of political science. Titles to some of the basic texts in electoral studies - for example, Media and Momentum: The New Hampshire Primary and Nomination Politics - are a pretty clue to importance of the early contests in contemporary nomination politics (a quick Google search turns up more recent titles).

Sure, the journalists could be wrong. The former New York Mayor could pull out a dramatic win in one of the upcoming elections and sweep into contention on February 5. I'm not a betting man, but there'd be good odds against a Guiliani comeback.

Photo Credit: New York Times.