Mitt's Money: Romney's Wallet Keeps Him in the Race

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Mitt Romney's personal wealth is sustaining his otherwise marginal campaign:

Mitt Romney lost three of the first five big Republican contests and lags behind in most major state and national polls. Yet he is still widely seen as a credible contender for the nomination thanks mainly to one trait: his wallet.

A senior aide to Mr. Romney says the millionaire investor plans to spend as much as $40 million in the campaign. Mr. Romney spent $17.4 million of his own money on his campaign through the third quarter of last year, according to the Federal Election Commission.

By comparison, Arizona Sen. John McCain raised a total of $31.4 million in individual donations during the same period. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised $2.3 million.

At a time when some campaigns are running dangerously low on funds, Mr. Romney's ability to self-finance will make it difficult to count him out of the race until the very end.

"At the end of the day, he doesn't have to worry about the things that other people have to worry about," said Ed Rollins, a senior adviser to Mr. Huckabee who recently agreed to forgo his $25,000 monthly paycheck because the campaign was running out of money. "He just goes to his ATM machine and pulls out whatever he needs."

"Each of us runs our campaign the best way we know how," Mr. Romney responded yesterday, "given, if you will, the cards we were dealt."

Mr. Romney's use of his wealth doesn't seem to bother Republican voters. "I think he's fortunate," said Freeman Healy, an 85-year-old retiree who lives in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Mr. Healy hasn't decided between Messrs. Romney, McCain or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but he, like many other Florida residents, said Mr. Romney's wealth wouldn't be a concern. "He's worked hard and he earned it," he said.

Mr. Romney, who is reportedly worth at least $250 million, is certainly not the first, or the largest, self-financing politician. Ross Perot spent a combined $71 million in his pair of bids for the Oval Office in 1992 and 1996. Steve Forbes gave $76 million of his own money during two unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000. And the White House isn't the only prize that prompted others to dig deep in their pockets. Jon Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sachs and Democratic governor of New Jersey, spent more than $60 million on his successful U.S. senate race in 2000.

For presidential hopefuls, money matters most during the primary season - as a rule, it's easier to get donations during the general election - and never more than this cycle. The front-loaded schedule leaves little time for victors of key states to hold fund-raisers and cash-in on their winnings. Feb. 5, known as Super Tuesday, will be the toughest time of all, with the candidates trying to hit as many of the 21 states holding Republican contests as possible. Each contender needs millions of dollars just to stay viable.

Also today, the New York Times reports that Romney's not well liked along the campaign trail among the other top contenders for the GOP nomination:

At the end of the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire this month, when the Democrats joined the candidates on stage, Mitt Romney found himself momentarily alone as his counterparts mingled, looking around a bit stiffly for a companion.

The moment was emblematic of a broader reality that has helped shape the Republican contest and could take center stage again on Thursday at a debate in Florida. Within the small circle of contenders, Mr. Romney has become the most disliked.

With so much attention recently on the sniping between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democratic side, the almost visceral scorn directed at Mr. Romney by his rivals has been overshadowed.

“Never get into a wrestling match with a pig,” Senator John McCain said in New Hampshire this month after reporters asked him about Mr. Romney. “You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

Mike Huckabee’s pugilistic campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, appeared to stop just short of threatening Mr. Romney with physical violence at one point.

“What I have to do is make sure that my anger with a guy like Romney, whose teeth I want to knock out, doesn’t get in the way of my thought process,” Mr. Rollins said.

Campaign insiders and outside strategists point to several factors driving the ill will, most notably, Mr. Romney’s attacks on opponents in television commercials, the perception of him as an ideological panderer and resentment about his seemingly unlimited resources as others have struggled to raise cash.

Romney's money could be a decisive factor if he wins the Florida GOP primary on January 29. He could, with a win, combine his massive personal wealth with a rush of "earned media" time that comes free of charge with the momentum of campaign victory.

As I've said all along, this year's an amazingly interesting race.

The hope of many, of course, is for the Republicans to unify around a strong party standard-bearer, which would position the GOP to be more competitive against the Democratic nominee in November.

Rush Limbaugh's Diminished Power?

I'm not a big fan of Rush Limbaugh. I've paid more attention to him this week than ever before, considering his intemperate attacks on John McCain.

That said, note Peter Wehner's analysis of Limbaugh's influence:

I think there is some amount of ignorance when it comes to people who don’t often listen to Rush Limbaugh trying to explain him and his influence. For one thing, he doesn’t view himself as the commanding general of a political army and his listeners as his troops. He has said, time and again, that his listeners are not “mind-numbed robots” who take order from him or anyone else. Limbaugh is above all a radio-talk-show host — an immensely talented, humorous, and well-informed one, and among the most important voices in the history of radio. He is that before he is anything else — and he has never fashioned himself as a political kingmaker or even the leader of a movement. Obviously he exerts great influence over conservatism and has influenced our understanding of it. Yet he calls things as he sees them, and sometimes his audience doesn’t agree with him. He seems wholly untroubled by that. I recall that in 1992, many of his listeners were early and enthusiastic supporters of Ross Perot. Limbaugh knew all that — and yet he criticized Perot anyway. It turned out he was right and his listeners were wrong about Perot — but at the time, Limbaugh was said to be out of step with the views of his audience. Yet he continued to make his case — and, eventually, he won over many of his early critics.

I think Rush will be wrong in 2008. Or, at least, he's wrong to villify the Arizona Senator as a traitor to the Republican Party.

To borrow from Michael Medved's column on McCain over at Townhall:

He [McCain] has never backed Democratic candidates for president or lesser posts – other than supporting his friend Joe Lieberman in his Independent campaign for US Senate in 2006. Over the years, he has campaigned tirelessly for Republican office-holders in every corner of the country – including vigorous campaigning that helped win elections for his former rival George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. McCain has earned a lifetime rating of 83 for his Senate voting record from the American Conservative Union; his friend, Fred Thompson, won a very similar lifetime rating of 86 and appropriately dubbed himself “a consistent conservative.” While some of McCain’s harshest critics regularly talk of abandoning the GOP for some third party option (and some did so to back Pat Buchanan’s embarrassing run in 2000), McCain has never abandoned his party. On three crucial items in the Bush agenda – taking the offensive against terrorists, cutting wasteful government spending, and comprehensive immigration reform – no member of Congress has provided more loyal or significant support for the President of the United States and the leader of the Republican Party.

Now, the primary process is designed to narrow the field of candidates and clarify the party's governing vision. Unfortunately, narrow partisan battles and criticism weaken the party in the long run, which is exactly what Rush Limbaugh's doing right now with his incessant attacks on McCain.

At this time candidates are required to appeal to narrow voting constituents. Pandering to single-issue groups contrains candidates in the straightjacket of ideological conformity. There's less appreciation of a candidate's moderating propensities, and especially general election viability.

This is why parties seek to pick a nominee quickly, wrapping up partisan haggling to unify under a party standard-bearer. The GOP in the last few openly contested nominations quickly centered around a frontrunner and made that candidate their man for the White House (Reagan in 1980, G.H.W. Bush in 1992, and G.W. Bush in 2000).

This year's race for the Republican nomination - as dynamic and competitive as it has been - may ultimately be contributing to the emergence of GOP minority status, should the party prolong the process of backing a clear frontrunner.

The closest anyone's come to securing that mantle is John McCain, with his dramatic wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina. It's no wonder the media's focused so intently on the McCain campaign - his is the up-from-the-bootstraps, feel-good, straight-talk comeback of the year.

Rush Limbaugh doesn't like it. Nor do the base conservatives who gravitated to Fred Thompson's lazy waltz of a candidacy, or those who now back Mitt Romney's personally-financed bid.

Folks are certainly entitled to suppporting their preferences, but with so much at stake this year - the Democrats are looking at the best electoral environment in decades - it might behoove Rush and his Dittoheads to think about the prospects of a Democratic administration to come. They might look at the totality of McCain's conservativism and reconsider, rather than risk destroying the GOP from the inside-out, ultimately engendering a disastrous hard-left presidency in 2009?

Bill Kristol, Iraq, and the New York Times

The controversy over William Kristol's New York Times gig continues with a piece by Gabriel Sherman over at The New Republic.

Sherman reviews the massive hard-left criticisms of the Times' choice of Kristol as the paper's second right-wing op-ed columnist: Kristol's a neoconservative water-carrier for the reviled Bush-Cheney regime; he's a hack of a writer whose name belongs nowhere near a NYT byline; and, indeed, his debut essay itself illustrated how unfit The Weekly Standard publisher is for the big leagues of print journalism.

But underneath all of this is one organizing thorn: The Iraq war. Here's Sherman on this:

...behind much of the internal distaste for Kristol lies the paper's complicated relationship with the Iraq war. In an August 2002 column in The Weekly Standard, as the Bush administration began marshaling its case for war, Kristol labeled the Times a member of the "Axis of Appeasement," and a piece in his magazine commented that the paper's bias against the war "colors . . . practically every news story on the subject."
According to a former Times staffer, criticism from Kristol and other conservatives weighed heavily on the Times' pre-war coverage, which turned more hawkish under then-executive editor Howell Raines and Washington bureau chief Jill Abramson. In September 2002, Judith Miller's credulous front-page pieces on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction began appearing with increasing frequency and were echoed in The Weekly Standard.

Miller's discredited coverage created a near-open revolt in the newsroom, especially in the Washington bureau. Even today, staffers there chafe at Kristol's appointment. "There is a concern internally about Judy. No one wants to go back to those bad old days," the senior staffer said. Another worried that Kristol's columns signaled that "Judy's point of view has returned." (Miller doesn't share her former colleagues' reservations. "[I]t's an appointment that's a long time coming. The page needed balance," she told me. But "an unabashed neocon without remorse is unacceptable to Times people. . . . He's not kosher in that sense.")

More recently, Kristol attacked the Times' publication of a June 2006 piece disclosing the CIA's classified monitoring of international bank transfers. "I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution," Kristol said on "Fox News Sunday" three days after the article was published.

"My personal opinion is it's an appalling choice," a former veteran Times staffer said of Kristol's appointment. "Not because he's been wrong about so much, but because he called for prosecuting the Times for treason. You're entitled to your opinion, but, in all due respect, go fuck yourself."

(Sulzberger and Rosenthal declined to comment on the appointment; a spokeswoman said the paper had "brought Mr. Kristol on board after a long and thoughtful search." Kristol declined to comment about his column. "I'm going to let the column speak for itself," he said.)

Read the rest. Sherman concludes by joining the attack on Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s leadership of the paper, noting that the choice of Kristol cast aspersions on his tenure.

Be that as it may, perhaps this will be the last discussion we'll see on the outrage for a while. Kristol's in the slot now, and if his column fails to lift off, he'll be canned at the end of his term. But let me add my own perspective, beyond the couple of quick posts I've already written on this (here and here).

I've never met Kristol, for one thing, although I've seen him in attendance at American Political Science Association meetings a couple of times. It turns out Kristol's a trained poltical scientist, with a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard. He's certainly got the academic credentials to speak intelligently about politics and policy (even if it's uncouth to appeal to such things).

Not only that, the guy's a successful publisher of one of the most important conservative journals on the market. Sure, the Weekly Standard's a long way from the stature of, say, the National Revew among the mass media elite, but it's no hill of beans either.

Okay, perhaps he's not the greatest writer after all. Still, let's be honest: William Safire - one of the foremost journalistic experts on the English language - is a hard act to follow. Kristol, in any case, will surely publish both good and bad essays by the bagful. In time, he may even generate some critical praise - and this might perchance result from Kristol himself being acculturated to the very journalistic ethos of the newspaper he once denounced.

Such an outcome would probably never satisfy Kristol's vociferous detractors on the left: The Iraq war will forever consign Kristol to journalistic purgatory among Bush-bashers and antiwar peaceniks.

In that Kristol must be enjoying some delicious schadenfreude, since for all the talk of him being wrong on Iraq, he's been proven right in the most important development of the war: We're winning.

Indeed, not only are we winning, neoconservative ideas are currently gaining mass popular steam in the candidacy of GOP frontrunner John McCain. A McCain presidency would not only vindicate proponents of the surge (Kristol being one of the greatest), it would possibly extend the life of the most important doctrinal innovations in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War (the Bush Doctrine of preventive war).

That's what's really driving New York Times readers nuts - their worst nightmares aren't going away any time soon.

See Memeorandum for more.

John McCain: No One More Qualified

Here's another new John McCain campaign ad, now flooding Florida media markets in advance of Tuesday's primary (from YouTube)::

See also my post yesterday on McCain's fundraising push, and an earlier campaign ad, "No Surrender."

Plus, via Jonathan Martin, don't miss Chuck Todd 's analysis of the political dynamics of the Florida race.

Clinton, McCain Pull Ahead in New Nationwide Poll

A new nationwide survey from the Los Angeles Times finds Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama by a substantial margin, with 42 percent support, compared to 33 percent for Obama.

On the Republican side, John McCain holds a slight lead over his GOP challengers. The Times' report has the details:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) maintains a solid lead in her party's presidential race among Democratic voters nationwide, despite a surge in support since late last year for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll has found.

Clinton was preferred by 42% of the likely Democratic voters polled, Obama by 33% -- a significant increase for him since a similar poll in early December, when he was the choice of 21%. Clinton's support remained virtually unchanged over that period.

The overall preference figures mask a pronounced racial divide among Democratic voters: About two-thirds of black respondents said they would vote for Obama, while only about one-fourth of white respondents said he was their choice.

The poll also found that an increasing number of Democratic voters -- about two-thirds -- say they are certain who they will vote for, making major swings in preference less likely as the primary season heads into the states with the most delegates at stake.

"Now that Democrats have winnowed down their race to two leading candidates, they are moving toward the candidates they will probably vote for," said Susan Pinkus, the poll's director. "Obama has gained some support, but Clinton has not lost any. The question now is: Where do the remaining voters go?"

Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina drew the support of 11% of Democratic respondents.

When asked for whom they would vote if their first choice dropped out, slightly more Edwards voters leaned toward Clinton than toward Obama, the poll found.

In the Republican presidential contest, voter support is scattered among four candidates.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona has inched up to first place, though his lead is within the poll's margin of error. Meanwhile, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, once the clear front-runner nationally in the GOP race, has sagged to fourth place.

The survey found that 22% of likely Republican voters preferred McCain, 18% backed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and almost as many -- 17% -- chose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Giuliani was supported by 12%, down dramatically from 32% in an October poll and 23% in the December survey. Giuliani decided not to compete actively in the first several contests in the Republican race and has staked his candidacy on a strong showing in Florida's primary Tuesday.

Fred Thompson, who ended his candidacy Tuesday after a disappointing showing in Saturday's South Carolina primary, garnered 10%, while Ron Paul, who has proved surprisingly successful at raising money from a core of supporters, drew 6%.

The Republican electorate remains volatile.

For the Democrats, Clinton has consolidated a clear national frontrunner position following her victories in New Hampshire and Nevada. Senator Obama's likely to do well in South Carolina on Saturday, however - where polls in the Palmetto State have him holding a lead - but it remains to be seen if he'll be able to pick up enough momentum to overtake Clinton's clear national favorability ratings before the February 5 round of 22 state primaries.

Still, Clinton's weakness in South Carolina has forced a shift in strategy, as the campaign is now looking at competing for delegates in states where the candidate's known to have the advantage.

Trends for the Republicans are less clear, as the current poll shows a tight race. Things are probably even more complicated than the survey reveals, as respondents were contacted before Fred Thompson quit the race.

So far it's too early to tell which candidate jilted Thompson supporters will back, although Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post thinks McCain might get a slight boost in his numbers, after Huckebee and Romney divvy up the initial batch of former Thompson backers.

See also the discussion of the survey at Bloomberg.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

McCain Out Front in California Field Poll

A new survey on the GOP presidential nomination by the highly-respected California Field Poll finds Senator John McCain out front in the Golden State:

On a hot summer day at the Santa Clara Marriott, Sen. John McCain found himself on the defensive before a crowd of local business people having lunch: His campaign for president was imploding, his staff was resigning, his bank account was nearly empty. But he still told them all: "I can out-campaign anybody."

Sure enough, six months later, the Arizona Republican has surged to the top of the GOP heap in California, with 22 percent support among the state's voters, followed closely by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 18 percent, a Field Poll published today shows. When Tuesday's withdrawal of Fred Thompson is factored in, polling shows an even tighter race between McCain and Romney, split by just 2 percentage points instead of 4.

Perhaps as impressive as McCain's resurrection from fourth place last month is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's dramatic drop. Once on top in California with 37 percent support - and still first with 25 percent last month - Giuliani has plummeted to a distant third with 11 percent, tying Mike Huckabee. Giuliani has skipped the early primary states and has been spending his time getting ready for the Florida primary next week, hoping to prove his all-eggs-in-Florida strategy will make polls like today's California Field Poll obsolete.

"All of us knew that there would be a period in January where there would be - let's just say - an awkward phase," said Bill Simon, chairman of Giuliani's California campaign. What this poll and polling across the nation shows is that the race is very fluid. Whoever happened to win the most recent primary gets a bump."

McCain already got two bumps in New Hampshire and South Carolina, giving him leads across the country just two weeks before Feb. 5, when California, New York and numerous other states hold their contests. But in California, McCain's lead is hardly strong. About as many voters are undecided - 21 percent - as support McCain. But today's poll shows McCain clearly takes away voters from Giuliani's core constituency - moderates and moderate conservatives. Support from strong conservatives is coalescing around Romney, instead of Huckabee, the former Baptist minister, who dropped to third from second place last month among California Republicans.

True, McCain's lead is hardly strong, although the Los Angeles Times also found McCain leading the GOP primary race in California.

Plus, as I reported in my previous post, the Arizona Senator's leading in surveys out today in Arizona, Florida, and New Jersey. McCain's also leading Giuliani New York.

We have two weeks before the February 5 Super Tuesday primaries. McCain's national momentum seems to be holding firm thus far.

Polls Favor McCain in Florida, Arizona

New polling data on Florida's GOP primary shows John McCain holding a slight lead over Mitt Romney, a result within the survey's margin of error (via Memeorandum):

A new St. Petersburg Times poll shows the former Massachusetts governor and Arizona senator neck and neck among Florida Republicans, while Rudy Giuliani’s Florida-or-bust strategy has been a bust.

Among Florida voters likely to vote in Tuesday’s primary, 25 percent are backing McCain and 23 percent Romney, a statistical tie, while Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were tied for third place with 15 percent each.

In Florida’s odd candidate-free, campaign-free Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton is trouncing Barack Obama by 19 percentage points in a race with stark racial divisions. The poll found 42 percent backing Clinton, 23 percent supporting Obama and 12 percent former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

But it’s the volatile GOP race the nation is mainly watching, as Florida Republicans stand to have a huge influence over which candidates have a shot at competing as nearly two dozen states vote on Feb. 5. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani staked his candidacy on Florida, and even with 27 percent of Florida Republicans saying they might change their minds, it looks like a bad gamble.

"Giuliani's decision to pull out of the early states is going to go down in history if he finishes out of the money in Florida as one of the worst political decisions,'' said pollster Tom Eldon.

The survey was conducted Jan. 20-22 for the St. Petersburg Times, Bay News 9 and the Miami Herald. It was conducted by telephone from a list of registered and frequent voters in Florida who described themselves as likely to vote Jan. 29.

The full sample of 800 interviews has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, while the margin of error for the Democrats is plus or minus 5.4 percent and for the Republicans it's 5.1 percent.

The poll included actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who dropped out of the race Tuesday afternoon. But Thompson’s departure appears unlikely to change much as only 4 percent of those surveyed backed him, just ahead of Ron Paul with 3 percent.

The same pollsters in November found Giuliani leading the field by 17 percentage points, but since then his support in South Florida has dropped dramatically.

Where he dominated the region with 50 percent support in November and 70 percent support among Hispanic voters, the latest poll shows him trailing McCain by 10 percentage points in south Florida. His support among Hispanic was cut almost in half, with him and McCain effectively tied 36 percent to 33 percent.

Also, McCain's home state of Arizona has likely GOP voters backing their favorite son by a huge margin over his Republican challengers:

Arizona Sen. John McCain has opened a wide lead in his home state for the Feb. 5 Republican presidential primary, according to a poll released Tuesday. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton leads fellow Democrats by a similar margin.

McCain was the choice of 41 percent of likely GOP voters surveyed in Arizona State University's Cronkite/Eight poll. His closest rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, drew the support of 18 percent, leaving four other hopefuls with single digits....

McCain's lead represents a sharp rebound from a statewide poll last fall that put him behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The new poll also suggests that voters are supporting McCain despite the strong distrust of him by many core GOP conservatives in the state and the nation.

On the Florida findings the interesting news is Giuliani's collapse.

I tend not to make predictions, but if I've made one strong claim throughout my campaign blogging, it's that Rudy Giuliani's Florida-launch-strategy has so far proved to be a disaster in terms of media, momentum, and poll standings. I simply don't see the former New York Mayor making a dramatic turnaround by next Tuesday's voting, and I wouldn't be surprised if he exited the race before the February 5 round of national primary voting.

(Giuliani's even fallen behind in his home state of New York - obviously not a good sign - and a new Quinnipiac University poll in New Jersey finds Guliani trailing McCain by 3 percentage-points).

As for the Arizona findings, it's remarkable that Grand Canyon State voters back McCain despite the controversy surrounding the Senator's conservative credentials.

I'm sure talk radio's going to get even more fired up when they get a look at the data.

John McCain's Truth

Michael Medved has an essential essay over at Towhall, "Six Big Lies About John McCain."

It's a comprehensive piece, but particularly good is Medved's response to conservative attacks on McCain's immigration record:

Alone among Presidential candidates, McCain has shown the courage to stand up against such simplistic sloganeering. No President will ever succeed in driving out all 12 million illegals – the greatest forced migration in all human history. Illegals represent more than 5% of America’s work force and the cost of firing and, ultimately, deporting for forcing out every one of those people would cripple the economy far worse than any recession. The immigration bills McCain supported (along with President Bush and the Senate Republican leadership of Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott and John Kyl) never granted “amnesty” or automatic citizenship for undocumented aliens. Instead, McCain’s idea of immigration reform always emphasized “earned legalization” and assimilation– not automatic privileges – in an effort to separate the immigrants who wanted to begin playing by the rules and to enter the American mainstream, from those who continued to defy those rules and have no long-term stake in the country. It’s not amnesty to charge $6,000 in fines and payment of back taxes, to require background checks and mastery of English, and to demand registry with the government and acknowledgment of wrong-doing before an immigrant received legal status. Before an illegal could become a citizen, the process required at least nine years (and in most cases fourteen) of cooperation, commitment and patience. Moreover, two crucial elements of last year’s immigration bill received almost no attention: under the bill any immigrant who attempted to enter America illegally after the passage of immigration reform would be apprehended, identified, finger-printed and biometrically recorded, and forever banned from receiving legal status to work or live in the United States. Second, the unfinished (and ultimately unsuccessful) compromise bill included a “trigger provision”: no illegal immigrant would receive legal status until after Congress certified that the border had been effectively secured. McCain emphasizes this provision in his current proposals: insisting we secure the border first, before we make arrangements for future guest workers and give a chance to some (but by no means all) current illegal residents to earn legal status in the U.S.

Medved's defense of McCain - on immigration or any of the other five issue-areas under discussion - won't satisfy the Arizona Republican's detractors, many of whom are intent to destroy his campaign.

See campaign news at more at Memeorandum.

John McCain: No Surrender

Here's John McCain's new campaign advertisement, part of the $1 million ad buy scheduled to flood Florida's media markets (from YouTube):

See also my earlier analysis on McCain's fundraising push as we head to the post-Florida national round of primaries.

McCain Bulks Up on Fundraising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's more analysis at Memeorandum.

Conservatives Must Back McCain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**********

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hillary Clinton: The Good Democrat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The McCain Rally

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blond Bombshell: Scarlett Johansson Visits Troops in Kuwait

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John McCain, Neoconservative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out of Sight? Giuliani's New York Advantage Slides

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republican Race Moves to Florida

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

The Washington Post has the story (via Memeorandum):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll have more analysis in the week ahead.

Photo Credit: Washington Post

American Politics After the Bush Presidency

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

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

Here's Newsweek:

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

Read the whole thing.

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

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

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

Photo Credit: Newsweek

Note to Krugman: It's Not the Economy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's Krugman on the conservative Reagan legacy:

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

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

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

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

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

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

America's Marines

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



From the blurb:

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

From Blue Crab Boulevard:

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

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin