Democrats for McCain?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right...

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

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

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

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

That said, Abel makes an interesting argument this morning:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's beefy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See more analysis at Memeorandum.

More On Heilbrunn and Neoconservatism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll have more later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, there you have it.

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

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

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

John McCain Wins South Carolina Primary!

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

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

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

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

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

The New York Times has more details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations to John McCain!

I'll have more analysis as the campaign unfolds.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Thompson May Quit!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo Credit: The State

Romney Wins Nevada GOP Caucuses!

The Associated Press has called the Nevada race for Romney:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Times notes an important point:

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

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

Photo Credit: New York Times

Photo Finish in South Carolina's GOP Primary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll have more this afternoon. Go McCain!

Fred Thompson's Slow-and-Steady Strategy

Fred Thompson's campaign for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination has been one of the biggest flops of the season.

It's beyond comprehension to me to formally enter the race less than six months before the first contests in the most frontloaded nominating season in the history of the post-1972 primary system.

What explains it?

This morning's New York Times offers an analysis of Thompson's "slow-and-steady" strategy for the Republican primary race:

The presidential candidate known as Fred moseys into Whiteford’s Giant Burger, possessing that La-Z-Boy manner and a fistful of conservative principles.

Applause washes over him and he smiles faintly at the crowd of 100 or so and tugs at his jacket. Then he folds his long frame into a short chair. Then he checks the knot in his tie.

Then he takes a few questions.

Fred D. Thompson, 65, is plying the comeback trail in South Carolina, his poll numbers showing a tease of life — he is, statistically speaking, tied for third in recent polls — and his country wit growing more serrated. He has opened cuts in the flanks of two rivals, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, neither of whom he much cares for. But his campaign does not gallop; a gentlemanly canter is more to the point.

Keeping it steady is a favored phrase of Mr. Thompson’s, calling to mind a hunter whose hound has caught the scent of a particularly laid-back bear. The style plays well in the rural reaches of South Carolina....

Once upon a time, in June 2007, Mr. Thompson, a former senator and an actor, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, stood as the It Men of the Republican presidential circuit. Conservative pundits and bloggers could not stop talking about Mr. Thompson’s strengths, not least his 100 percent rating from almost any organization with conservative in its name.

“He’s the six-million-pound gorilla,” Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist, exclaimed on Fox TV. “His awareness-to-support ratio was just off the chart.”

But Mr. Thompson’s awareness-to-actual-votes-garnered ratio has not been too hot. He waited so long to officially join the race that an editorial writer for The State, in Columbia, S.C., took to calling him “a hound-dog-faced Godot.”

His campaigner’s wit was barnacled. His town-hall-style meetings in Iowa left voters worried that he was a somnambulist. He finished third there and took seventh in New Hampshire (with 1 percent of the vote). He more or less skipped the Michigan primary, where he finished fifth, and repaired to South Carolina, proclaiming it his stockade.

He has cranked up his energy here, talking of protecting rights that come not from government but “from God.” Recent polls show him trailing Senator John McCain of Arizona and Mr. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, and tied for third place with Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

What happens if he pulls up short in Saturday’s primary? His manner suggests a loss for the nation.

“I was back home having earned a Ph.D. in Washington, D.C.,” he tells a crowd at the Golden Corral restaurant in Rock Hill. “I swore I’d never do that again. But I hitched up my horse.”

That sounds like a good line for Arthur Branch, the DA Thompson portrayed on Law and Order.

Thompson's trailing badly in polling for today's South Carolina primary. I'm not going to be surprised if we soon see an announcement from Thomspon that he's quitting the race.

Stayed tuned. Today's a big day for the Republican Party!

Photo Credit: New York Times

Iraqi Army to Take Full Control of Security by 2009

Via Liberty Pundit, Iraqi security forces are projected to take control of all of Iraq's provinces in 18 months:

Iraq's army and police could be ready to take over security in all 18 provinces by the end of this year as the U.S. military moves toward a less prominent role in the country, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

"We look at it every month. We make recommendations. I think that if we continue along the path we're on now, we'll be able to do that by the end of 2008," Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said when asked when Iraqi forces could take the lead in all provinces.

He said that a joint operation under way led by Iraqi troops and supported by U.S. troops against al Qaeda militants in the northern city of Mosul was a model for the future.

"That's how I see our role frankly in the future here," he told Pentagon reporters via videolink from Baghdad.

Iraqi security forces are now in control of nine provinces after assuming control of Iraqi's southern oil hub, Basra, in December. Iraqi forces are also expected to take control in Anbar province, a one-time insurgent stronghold, as early as March.

The ability of Iraqi forces to take the lead in security operations is vital to President George W. Bush's plan to withdraw 20,000 U.S. troops by the middle of this year.

The troops were sent to Iraq last year in a bid to quell sectarian violence in a war now in its sixth year. With U.S. troop levels up to about 155,000 now, violence levels have since dropped sharply.

Look for the Bush administration's antiwar opponents to cite this news as justifying a complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Yet, strategically, prudent forecasts suggest the need for at least 100,000 troops to remain in country, perhaps for a decade or more, to protect the security gains from the surge, and to guarantee a stable environment in which to consolidate the Iraqi democracy.

Target Dismisses Bloggers Over Advertisement

From Memeorandum: Feminists don't appreciate Target Corporation's Times Square advertisement depicting a woman lying on a target symbol with her vagina centered in the middle (via Amy Alkon).

The company dismissed the concerns of a youth advocacy blogger:

Target billboard depicting a woman spreadeagled over a Target logo with her vagina centered squarely on the bullseye has some parents and feminists all riled up. One of them, Amy from ShapingYouth.org, contacted Target to see if they realized, you know, that their ad had a woman's crotch centered on the bullseye.

"Good Morning Amy,

Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.

Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day."

Whatever you may think of the ad, (we don't really care) the idea that blogs do not reach Target's "core guest" is idiotic. This website is a non-traditional media outlet and we're certain that our readers shop at Target.

I'm not too fired up about it, and probably would not have thought of a woman's reproductive organ first upon seeing the billboard. But I like Amy Alkon's comment:

She's making a snow angel, retards. For people who are supposedly about seeing women "as people first," these feminists sure are all about pussy!

Target wisely told the nitwit bloggers who whined to them that they don't deal with "non-traditional media outlets." Which is much politer than saying "We don't negotiate with morons."

Personally, I find the billboard kinda kicky.

Looks Christmasy to me - I sometimes go to the beach on Christmas day, without neck scarves.

Interesting, in any case.

For a company that's supposed to be so hip, they're awfully square when it comes to online communications. Maybe that's why Isaac Mizrahi left Target to rescue Liz Claiborne from oblivion.

Democrats Have No Slam Dunk in '08

The Democratic Party enjoys no lock on the White House in election '08, according to survey analysis by Frank Newport at the Gallup Poll:

In many ways, it's a promising year for the Democrats to win the presidency. Gallup's Jeff Jones has just finished the calculation on American party identification in 2007, finding that at 27.7% this is the lowest yearly average since Gallup began consistently measuring it with telephone polls back in 1988. Favorable ratings for the Democratic Party are now running 13 points higher than favorable ratings for the Republican Party. Generic ballot measures that ask voters which party's candidate they would like to see win the presidency in November - but without specific names - show the unnamed Democratic candidate beating the unnamed Republican candidate consistently - often by double digits. The significant majority of Americans want the next president to bring change to Republican President George W. Bush policies, and, logically, a Democratic president is most likely to bring about these changes.

But for months now, we have found that when we translate the abstract to the concrete by putting the actual names of candidates before the voters, we often find that the GOP candidate holds his own in a hypothetical trial-heat ballot.

In our Jan. 10-13 poll, we pitted Republican John McCain against Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The results: McCain had a slight lead over both. The lead wasn't statistically significant, but it's certainly an indication that if the election were held today, at least one Republican candidate would not be going down in flames, but, instead, would be making it a competitive race.

It's not just that Hillary Clinton evokes strong negative reactions from voters, because McCain does just as well against Barack Obama.

John McCain is an unusual Republican in some ways because he has a strong appeal to independent voters, but he typically hasn't shown the same strong appeal to Republican voters as other prominent Republican politicians have. Some recent polling by other organizations shows that other GOP candidates don't fare as well as McCain. In fact, in our own poll, the lesser-known Mike Huckabee loses to Clinton and Obama.

But the point is that the right GOP candidate, with the right positioning, can make this a real contest next fall - not a romp for the Democratic candidate. At least that's what the data show at this point.

Also, the findings from a new CNN/Opinion Dynamics survey reveal that John McCain is rated higher than any of the candidates - Democrat or Republican - on the personality and leadership qualities the public looks for in a president.

Sixty percent of respondents rated McCain as possessing the requisite characteristics, compared to 59 percent for Barack Obama, 55 percent for Hillary Clinton, 40 percent for Mitt Romney, and 38 percent for Mike Huckabee (the data is available here).

I've mentioned a few times that I'll be glad when the GOP decides on a nominee, so the party elite, activists, and rank-and-file can all unite around the candidate. We have clear choices between parties this year, in both domestic and foreign policy.

The sooner Republicans can start hammering the Democrats on their far left tax-and-spending policy, as well as their disastrous proposals for America in world affairs, the better.

Israel Readies Nuclear ICBM Capabilities

Via Pat Dollard, Israel's on the verge of joining the great powers in nuclear weapons delivery capabilities:

Israeli and US defense officials tied up the last ends during President George. W. Bush’s visit last week. The successful test of a propulsion system for the dual-stage missile from the Palmahim base Thursday, Jan. 17, was a breakthrough. Western military experts report the new system can propel the missile to any point on earth – an intercontinental capability owned only by the US, Russia, China and France, with important applications for Israel’s military and civilian satellite programs as well.

The test’s context was as much the huge Russian naval maneuver launched in the Mediterranean Tuesday, Jan. 16, as missile and potential nuclear threats from Iran. Eleven vessels were drawn for the war game from two Russian fleets, Atlantic Northwest and Black Sea. It is led by the Admiral Kuznetsov air carrier with 47 warplanes and 10 helicopters on board and the Moskva missile cruiser.

The Israeli propulsion test coincided with a tactical Russian missile launch and landed in the same part of the sea. It sent out a signal that the entire Mediterranean, including the permanent bases Moscow is in the course of establishing in the Syrian naval ports of Tartous and Latakia, are within range.

Our military sources report that US Sixth Fleet vessels cordoned off the landing area of the Israeli missile and prevented Russian ships from closely tracking its course.

Those sources stress that the missile tested Thursday was not the Jericho-3 described by “foreign sources” as having a range of 5,000 km, which is a three-stage missile, whereas the weapon tested had a dual-stage engine.

The day before the test, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the US anti-missile missile authority commented that Iran was the most active country in flight-testing missiles last year, behind Russian and China. “They’re developing ranges of missiles that go far beyond anything they would need in a regional fight, for example, with Israel,” he said.

Western military sources sum up the test as demonstrating that while Iran was still in the development stage of its ballistic missiles, Israel had raced ahead and left the Islamic Republic standing.

Amid these developments, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni arrived in Moscow Wednesday, Jan. 16, and, in an unusual tone of reproof, remarked that the fuel rods Russia was letting Iran have to power its nuclear reactor in Bushehr could be used for making nuclear weapons. The third shipment went out this week.

She was challenging Russian president Vladimir Putin’s assurance last December, when the first delivery was made, that he had received Tehran’s guarantees that this was not happen. At the time, President Bush justified his approval of the consignment by arguing it would serve to convince Iran to give up uranium enrichment.

By challenging the two presidents, Livni made it clear that Israel has no intention of standing by for Iran to arm itself with a nuclear bomb. The public demonstration of Israel’s intercontinental missile capability gave her extra muscle.

Here's the U.S. statement on Iran, following President Bush's Mideast Summit:

US PRESIDENT George Bush has accused Iran of undermining peace in Lebanon, funding terrorist groups, trying to intimidate its neighbours and refusing to be open about its nuclear program and ambitions.

In a speech described by the White House as the centrepiece of his eight-day trip to the Middle East, Mr Bush said "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere" and urged other countries to help the US "confront this danger before it is too late".

He focused not only on Iran's nuclear ambitions, but also its suspected support for militants in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories. He called Iran's Government "the world's leading sponsor of terrorism" and accused it of imposing repression and economic hardship at home.

Mr Bush has warned Iran that it faced "serious consequences" for a recent incident in which the Pentagon accused Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats of harassing US warships in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passage for oil.

But details have emerged in recent days that raise questions about parts of the US account, including a Pentagon acknowledgment that a threatening radio message may not have come from the Iranians.

Iranian officials, meanwhile, pledged to answer all remaining questions about their country's past nuclear activities within four weeks. The timetable was announced by a spokeswoman for Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who wrapped up a two-day visit to Tehran that included meetings with the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

With Mr Bush in the middle of a trip to the region intended to build a united Arab front against Iran, the White House acknowledged that the announcement represented progress, but expressed scepticism about Iran's willingness to provide complete information and said it was still obliged to suspend its enrichment of uranium.

"Answering questions about their past nuclear activities is a step," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman. "But they still need to suspend their enrichment and reprocessing activity. Another declaration is no substitute for complying with the UN sanctions."

Bush Administration officials say many Arab states are wary of Iran's growing influence in the region, especially among Shiite communities in Sunni-dominated states such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Caroline Glick has more:

For the past several weeks, the leaders of the global jihad and their state sponsors in Syria and Iran have escalated their rhetorical and military attacks against Israel and the US. Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and his American lackey Adam Gadahn all issued video and audio appeals on the eve of Bush's trip. Their messages were devoted mainly to the campaigns against US forces in Iraq and against Israel. Bin Laden labeled Iraqi opponents of al-Qaida in Iraq apostates and called for Iraqis to rally around his allied forces. Gadahn called for Bush's assassination. All three men called for Israel's annihilation and for the unification of the forces of global jihad....

BUSH STATED that he has come to the Middle East to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians and to ensure US allies that the US is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet on both scores US actions do not accord with the president's message.

On the Palestinian front, his calls for Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and for Palestinian statehood make little sense given the central role that Palestinians play in the global jihad. Bush repeatedly stated that he will not support a Palestinian state that will serve as a base for terror operations against Israel. And yet, under the current circumstances when all Palestinian forces - from Fatah to Hamas to al-Qaida - are committed to Israel's violent destruction, there is no chance that a Palestinian state will be anything other than a base for terrorist attacks and not only against Israel.

Even if Israel were to conclude an agreement with Abbas that sets out the contours of a Palestinian state in the next year, such an agreement would not engender peace. Given the current jihadist state of Palestinian society as a whole, such an agreement would simply serve to empower jihadists still more.

As to Iran, Bush's decision to visit the Middle East was made immediately after the National Intelligence Estimate effectively removed his most potent threat against Iran's nuclear ambitions. The thought was that by visiting the region, Bush would be able to convince US Middle East allies that America is still serious about thwarting Iran's nuclear and regional ambitions despite the NIE.

Unfortunately, the US navy's refusal to open fire on the Iranian boats in the Straits of Hormuz and America's continued refusal to combat Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias in Iraq send the opposite message.

In their statements and actions in the run-up to Bush's visit, jihadist groups and state sponsors made clear that they are serious about fighting their war for regional and indeed global domination. Had Bush acknowledged their plans and expressed a strategic plan for countering their actions and intentions, his visit here could have gone a long way towards cementing alliances to combat and defeat them. Unfortunately, both Bush's statements and US actions on the ground give the jihadists every reason to believe that they will be able to continue their war without fear of America.

Well, it's a good thing Israel's not waiting around for a diplomatic breakthough.

"Blindsiding" the Democrats on Foreign Policy?

Thomas Edsall argued yesterday that the GOP could "blindside" the Democrats on foreign policy in the November election:

While many Democratic strategists are confident that the deteriorating economy virtually assures the victory of their presidential candidate on November 4, there is a quiet debate over whether the party and prospective nominee are likely to get blindsided by Republicans raising issues of terrorism and national security.

Republicans are making no secret of their intentions in the general election.

Edsall follows this introduction with some comments from party insiders on both sides of the divide. He indicates, for example:

Alex Castellanos, Republican media strategist, told the Huffington Post that the continuing concerns of American voters about the dangers of another terrorist attack will be the engine behind a Republican victory in November...

Read the whole thing.

It's likely that Republicans will get the benefit of the doubt on national security this fall. The Democrats have been weak on that issue for decades, and the improvement in Iraq over the last year has lessened some of the demands for withdrawal in the electorate.

But it's not as though the Democrats haven't thought about what they'd do on international policy. Yet, that's pretty much exactly what Captain Ed argues when discussing the Edsall post:

According to Edsall, the Democrats have high confidence in succeeding on economics in this cycle. They expect the economy to worsen in 2008 and make it easier for them to sell higher taxes and more entitlements to nervous voters. They wonder whether the Republicans will somehow sandbag the election by talking about national security and terrorism instead, a battle for which Democrats are apparently unprepared.

Let's pause a moment and let this sink into the consciousness. More than six years after 9/11, the Democrats still have no comprehensive national security or counterterrorism plan....

They have no preparation for this discussion, and apparently consider it some kind of dirty trick....

Somehow, the Democrats feel that an election that focuses on policy for the government's primary duty works out to an unfair attack. They don't want to engage on that topic, but instead focus on everything else.

While it's true that the Demcrats haven't engaged foreign policy issues as much as they might, it's a stretch to intrepret Edsall's essay this way. Edsall himself indicates a diversity of opinion on the potential for blindsiding:

Opinion on the likely strength of such Republican challenges to the Democratic nominee varies widely.

But more importantly, all of the remaining Democrats in the race have published a major statement of their foreign policy views in Foreign Affairs, our top American foreign policy journal.

Not only that, a look at the candidates websites shows a considerable bit of information on their international positions.

Hillary Clinton's homepage includes links to some of the candidate's major foreign policy addresses, at the Center for a New American Security, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The website also posts the text of a Clinton speech on Iran, which declares that the White House should defer to the Congress for legislative authorization in the face of an Iranian challenge to U.S. national security; the address also calls for opening diplomatic relations with the Iranian regime.

Over at Barack Obama's campaign home page, the candidate boasts an extensive set of links to proposals on most of the major U.S. foreign policy issues of the day. Further, the site breaks down some broad issues in great detail, like energy and the environment and homeland security (each of which have a major foreign policy component).

John Edwards - who's committed to staying in the Democratic race until the convention - also provides considerable material on his foreign policy at the Edwards campaign website - for example, on "reengaging the world," "America's moral leadership in fighting global poverty, U.S. leadership on humanitarian intervention in Sudan and Uganda, homeland security, and terrorism.

Further, in a proposal with potentially disastrous implications for U.S. foreign policy, Edwards has called for an immediate and complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

A look, then, at the websites of the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination reveals a great deal of information on the likely contours of foreign policy under a future Democratic White House.

What can we expect?

All three of the campaigns have committed to bringing the troops home by ending the war in Iraq. Timetables and numbers on residual troop levels vary, of course, but there's a clear unanimity among the candidates in repudiating the Bush adminstration's policy in Iraq. This is no surprise. Since 2006, Democratic foreign policy debate have not been driven by hard-headed calculations of American national interests, but instead by the scarcely veiled anti-Americanism of antiwar organizations and netroots outfits like Daily Kos and MoveOn.org.

Further, the Democrats are much more likelty to seek accomodation with Iran over its nuclear weapons development program. Barack Obama, in particular, has made provocative statements on Iran, in effect blaming the Bush administration for Tehran's support of terrorist organizations committed to the destruction of Israel.

The Democrats - as laid out in the Foreign Affairs essays - tend to place major faith in multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, or tend to champion "rebuilding" America's post-WWII alliances, which have allegedly atrophied under the Bush administration's tutelage. Forget that much of these proposals ignore the contemporary reality of robust cooperation with our allies in global health, energy, and security. The gist is that America needs to rein in its overwhelming global power, to allay supposed fears of a hegemonic tyrant astride the world stage. We need to repair our "international standing."

Oil and the environment? Look for a Democrat to revive the Kyoto process, which could damage the U.S. economy while do nothing to rein in the unrestrained growth in country's like China. How about humanitarian intervention? We could see the revival of foreign policy as social work, which sees international intervention acceptable only when national security interests are not at stake.

But most fundamentally, the Democrats advance a radically different view of the ideological and strategic challenges facing the United States.

At a time when some scholars have argued that militant Islam will not rest until its mission of global supremacy is complete, the Democratic Party continues to mount aggressive opposition to U.S. counterterror policies that have been effective in protecting the country.

In sum, the issue for conservatives is not whether the Democrats have a "comprehensive national security or counterterrorism plan." They do, or at least the major Democratic campaigns have provided advisory memos and think-tank style public policy articles laying out their positions.

The key fact is that Democratic plans - to the extent they are developed thus far - would take the U.S. away from a forward domestic and foreign policy of antiterrorism and strategic primacy, in the intelligence, law enforcement, and military realms.

Conservative bloggers need to be hammering this point, not whether the Democratic retreatists might be "blindsided" by the Republicans in the fall campaign.

McCain Stays On Top in South Carolina

Although there's been some tightening, John McCain remains on top in South Carolina's GOP primary, according to this morning's FOX News poll:

The new FOX News poll shows McCain holds onto his lead in South Carolina by capturing the support of 27 percent followed by Huckabee at 20 percent and Romney in third with 15 percent. Fred Thompson, who was hoping to perform well in a state neighboring his home state of Tennessee, receives 11 percent, up just two points from earlier in the month....

The telephone poll of 500 likely South Carolina Republican primary voters was conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation for FOX News from January 16 to January 17 (after the Michigan primary). There is a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for results based on the entire sample.

In a state with several military bases and more Vietnam veterans than any state in the country, McCain’s background as a Navy officer and a Vietnam veteran is a plus. Among those living in a military household, McCain has a double-digit advantage: 33 percent to Huckabee’s 18 percent and Romney’s 17 percent. Over half of likely Republican primary voters in the state live in a military household (52 percent).

The Wall Street Journal discusses McCain's political support among South Carolina's military families:

The McCain team has reason for optimism on the military front. Veterans carry heavy weight in South Carolina's Republican politics. They were 14% of the adult population in 2000, according to the Census Bureau, but 27% of voters in the Republican primary, according to exit polls. Though Mr. McCain lost South Carolina to George W. Bush in 2000 by 53% to 42%, he won the veteran vote 48% to 47%, according to exit polls.

South Carolina is home to 400,000 veterans, according to the Census Bureau. It has high numbers of military personnel stationed in-state and abroad. Almost 29,000 active-duty soldiers claim the state as their legal residence, making up about 1% of its population -- only nine states have a higher percentage. And there are 66,000 soldiers stationed here, constituting about 2% of its adult population, greater than all but eight states.

At campaign stops yesterday, Mr. McCain hammered home his pro-military message about caring for the troops, resolving the Iraq war and improving veterans' health care. He spoke glowingly of the 2,000 South Carolina National Guard and reserve troops who are in Afghanistan and called out veterans in the audience.

And as he often does on the stump, he read a quote from George Washington about the importance of looking after veterans. "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, will be directly proportional as to how they perceived the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country," Mr. McCain said, echoing President Washington.

That message plays well with voters such as Gary Wells, 73 years old, a Greenville resident and veteran who said he served as a Russian linguist in military intelligence in Berlin during the Cold War. He came to a McCain event in Greenville yesterday undecided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney. But he liked what Mr. McCain "said about the veterans and the military," particularly the senator's plan to give veterans an insurance card for routine visits to be used at any doctor, rather than having to go to Veterans Administration hospitals, he said. Mr. Wells calls VA hospitals "really horrible."

The FOX poll also shows McCain pulling out a big lead with political independents - who were a significant factor in the Arizona Senator's New Hampshire win - and a slight lead with Republicans:

Among independents voting in the Republican primary on Saturday, McCain bests Huckabee by a wide 20 point margin (34 percent to 14 percent). Independents helped McCain achieve his victory in New Hampshire, and this swing voting group can also vote in either primary in South Carolina.

McCain also has a narrow 4-point advantage over Huckabee among self-identified Republicans.

The final result tomorrow will depend on Huckabee's ability to siphon some of McCain's support among these groups. The former Arkansas governor's got the religious vote pretty well locked up.

Photo: CBS News

Baghdad Now 75 Percent Secure

This morning's USA Today reports on U.S. military data showing Baghdad to be 75 percent secured (via Memeorandum):

About 75% of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now secure, a dramatic increase from 8% a year ago when President Bush ordered more troops to the capital, U.S. military figures show.

The military classifies 356 of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods in the "control" or "retain" category of its four-tier security rating system, meaning enemy activity in those areas has been mostly eliminated and normal economic activity is resuming.

The data given by the military to USA TODAY provide one of the clearest snapshots yet of how security has improved in Baghdad since roughly 30,000 additional American troops arrived in Iraq last year.

U.S. commanders caution that the gains are still fragile, but at the moment U.S. and Iraqi forces "basically own the streets," said Col. Ricky Gibbs, a brigade commander in southern Baghdad.

The fight to control Baghdad is the centerpiece of the counterinsurgency strategy launched a year ago by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. The plan, popularly known as the "surge," seeks to reduce sectarian and other violence by moving troops off large bases and into dangerous neighborhoods to protect civilians.

The 310 neighborhoods in the "control" category are secure, but depend on U.S. and Iraqi military forces to maintain the peace. The 46 areas in the "retain" category have reached a level where Iraqi police and security forces can maintain order, a more permanent fix. The remaining areas have fewer security forces based there, though they are not necessarily violent.

Continued security improvements in Iraq mean the war will tend to push the war to the backburner in 2008, while at the same time making the Democrats even more vulnerable on national security.

War opponents will continue to hammer that there's been no Iraqi political reconcilation - "this is an endless war" they'll decry.

Not true. Check out Pete Hegseth's commentary from earlier this week:

For anyone who truly understands the stakes in Iraq, the achievement of national “political benchmarks” has never been an effective metric of success. Sure, Iraqis passing laws at the national level is important, but not more important than neighborhood-level security and grassroots political progress.

I learned this the hard way in Samarra, Iraq. Absent strong local security forces and fair, representative government at the neighborhood level, local populations never felt “more secure,” no matter how much useless (or useful) legislation was passed at the national level. Iraqis need to see a better life in their neighborhood, not hear more promises from Baghdad.

And for the past six months — because of General Petraeus’s new counter-insurgency strategy and the courage of 165,000 Americans — Iraqis have seen hope (one might even say “audacious hope”), and they have responded. Bolstered by American commitment, and weary of al-Qaeda brutality, the Iraqi people — Sunni and Shia together in many areas — have started cooperating at the local level.

As a result, violence continues to plummet, with attacks throughout Iraq down 60 percent since June and civilian deaths down 75 percent from a year ago. Iraqis are returning home by the tens of thousands. The incoming flow of foreign fighters have been cut in half. And despite a “surge” of troops, American combat deaths are near all-time monthly lows in Iraq. This is all wonderful news.

All the while, the Defeat-o-cratic leadership in Congress (Reid, Pelosi, & co.) and the Defeat-o-cratic presidential candidates have done everything they can to deny — obvious — progress....

So, with their “defeat in Iraq” talking points in shambles (what happened to the “religious civil war with no end in sight” talking point?), this weekend’s news was a deathblow to defeatists. The Iraq parliament passed national de-Baathification legislation, and the New York Times printed it on the front page, which means it must be important, right?

For months the only argument the antiwar crowd could cling to was: “The surge has not brought about the national-level political progress it was intended to induce.” Ergo: We lose, bring ‘em home. While this argument requires a “willing suspension of disbelief” in light of recent improvements in Iraq, it was “technically” true.

No more.

The Iraqi parliament, flaws and all, came together — Sunni, Shia, and Kurd — to craft a law that relaxes restrictions on the right of former-members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to fill government posts. The law will reinstate thousands of Baathists in government jobs from which they had been dismissed shortly after the war.

In short, less than five years after the fall of a genocidal Sunni dictator — who killed thousands of Shiites and Kurds — a democratically elected Shia government granted de-facto “amnesty” to former Baathist co-conspirators. Kind of makes our domestic illegal-immigration “amnesty” debate look silly, doesn’t it?

We should expect more progress in Iraq, although results will be mixed and the streets will not be quiet soon. But this groundbreaking settlement is a testament to the potential for political reconciliation, provided the security environment is stable enough to allow politicians to peek out from behind their sectarian divisions.

The Washington Post is cautiously optimistic on Iraq's reconciliation. But the eidtors agree: Things are moving forward, and the situation is a world away from the chaos of just over a year ago.

It's no wonder the economy's become the new hot button issue in the election. Improvement in Iraq will decrease demands for immediate withdrawal, and the Democrats will turn to demonizing the Bush administration for the collapse of the domestic welfare.

The national security issue never goes away, of course, and rightfully so.

Despite Captain Ed's comments to the contrary, the Democrats have a very well developed direction for the U.S. in international affairs: abandon Iraq, cut defense, and weaken U.S. sovereignty through greater multilateralism in U.N.-backed international agreements.

Heilbrunn on Neoconservatism

I've written two posts now on Jacob Heilbrunn's new book, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (here and here).

I picked up my copy yesterday, and the prologue was a blast!

Heilbrunn spends a good deal of time on the Jewish origins of neoconservatism. He suggests the Jewish background is key to understanding the movement, and that it's not anti-Semitic to analyze neoconservatism in terms of religion. Heilbrunn highlights, for example, acceptable and unacceptable discourses in the debate (it's not okay, for example, to argue that neocons have abandoned that law of Moses and have endangered America's survival - although it's been said).

Here's an excerpt:

The neocons claim to be an intellectual movement with no ethnic component to speak of. But neoconservatism is as much a reflection of Jewish immigrant social resentments and status anxiety as a legitimate movement of ideas. Indeed, however much they may deny it, neoconservatism is in a decisive respect a Jewish phenomenon, reflecting a subset of Jewish concerns. One of the few members of the movement willing to address this has been the British neoconservative Melanie Phillips (herself the author of a controversial book which asserts that radical Muslims have overrun London and have turned it into a base of worldwide operations). Phillips has observed that "neo-conservatism is a quintessentially Jewish project: a resanctification in everyday life of the core values of western civilisation, and the achievement of human potential through virtuous practice. The neo-cons' crucial insight is that public signals through law, custom and tradition are the key to getting people to behave well. And that is a Jewish insight"

And that insight is one of the reasons I'm drawn to the neoconservative project. But I'm not Jewish.

I've thought about this a bit, for I don't myself look at neoconservativism through the lense of faith. I see neoconservatism as more an ideology (although so far Heilbrunn's discussion has avoided that label).

Moreover, despite the slurs, some of the most influential neocons in American foreign policy have been non-Jewish: Bill Bennett, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Michael Novak. Some top neocon heavyweights - President Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton - aren't Jewish.

Certainly, though, identification with neoconservativism - irrespective of religion - correlates with support for Israel. I think in my case, after September 11, when I really started paying attention to the radical diatribes against American foreign policy, I gravitated toward neoconservative ideology, and its identification with the survival of the Jewish state.

It was natural for me. My main identity as a neoconservative corresponds to the notion of an alienated Cold War liberal who's had an awakening. I voted Democrat in every election from Michael Dukakis in 1988 to Al Gore in 2000. I would have voted for Walter Mondale in 1984, but skipped the election due to my own apathy. I studied international relations as an undergraduate, never questioning America's bipartisan anti-Communist project. Indeed, I absorbed strategic nuclear theory in college under the assumption that the Cold War arms race was far from resolved. Moreover, I knew - early on in my studies - that the Soviet Union indeed threatened America's core interests; and the world correlation of forces, if turned to the Soviets' advantage, would work to the detriment of the U.S. - and even toward the possible destruction of our nation (only one contender would survive the long, twilight engagement with Leninist internationalism ).

Soviet foreign policy was on the march in the 1970s - after America's defeat in Vietnam - and pro-Moscow Marxist insurgencies throughout the Third Word pledged the revolutionary overthrow of the pro-American capitalist classes.

At home, however, I was a Johnson Democrat on civil rights, and I dismissed the Reagan administration's domestic policies as reactionary.

That all changed in time. Throughout the 1990s the Clinton administration was a source of endless frustration, with its casualty sensitivity from Somalia to Kosovo. I was working on my dissertation at the time, researching the domestic sources of underbalancing against the Nazi threat to international security in the 1930s.

I thought, upon starting my career as a teaching political scientist, that American unipolarity was underutilized - that is, U.S. power could be exercised to the advantage of world freedom and security. With great power comes great responsibility. American political debates - "come home America" - ignored the call of history.

America's toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan put to rest the notion of the graveyard of empires, and I was on board with the Bush revolution in foreign affairs. I didn't know it yet, but I was moving into the neoconservative neighborhood.

Some longtime readers will recall that I've just been disgusted with leftist anti-Americanism; that combined with my unapologetic view of American material capabilities to put me in line with pro-victory forces in the debate over American intervention overseas. I voted for George W. Bush in 2004. I started blogging in 2006, not once flinching in the rightness of our cause, nor in my commitment to combatting leftist irrationalism and nihilism.

In any case, I just like the vigor of the neoconservative mission. Heilbrunn, in the prologue to They Knew They Were Right, suggests that adherents have experienced exile without ever reaching the promised land. This creates a missionary faith, and the movement often ends up on the wrong side of traditional American conservatism:

The reason is that the neoconservatives are less intellectuals than prophets. They tend to be men (and women) of an uncompromising temperament who use (and treat) ideas as weapons in a moral struggle, which is why the political class in each party regards them with a mixture of appreciation and apprehension, even loathing.

Loathing sums it up for me, at least in my experience as a pro-victory professor on campus, and as a blogger implacably committed to America's mission in Iraq and the larger global war on transnational terrorism.

It's something of a badge of honor to piss off radical lefties on foreign policy to no end, in any case. I had no idea that I'd embrace the neoconservative label, but it fits just fine, and I'm proud to advance the cause. The United States indeed represents the light of the world, that ultimate good that exists out there in the cosmos. We're not always right, but we - like no other country - have always pushed for betterment though democratization and development, at home and abroad. Current U.S. foreign policy will be vindicated in the sweep of history (and success, near at hand now in Iraq, is irresistable as a force for progressive change).

I make no apologies. This is how I am; this is what I do

See my introductory post, "Welcome to American Power," for more on my ideational groundings. See also James Kirchick's killer essay, "The Anti-Neocon Fervor," on how neoconservatives just unhinge the radicals.

I'll have more thoughts on Heilbrunn's book as they come to me. I'm off to go read right now!