Retail Powerhouse: McCain is Consummate Campaigner

Say what you will about John McCain, the man's a tremendously energetic campaigner.

The Arizona Senator seems to absorb the energy of a crowd, and he never flinches from engaging his audience. Today's Los Angeles Times has more:

John McCain was in his element: a crowded town-hall meeting in an open-air Fort Myers, Fla., seafood restaurant. He strolled from one side of the room to the other with a microphone in one hand, jabbing his finger in the air as he called for honorable victory in Iraq and better veterans healthcare.

When a heckler shouted "4,000 American dead!" and "Bring them home!" McCain paused and asked him to wait his turn. "We all know America is divided by this war, as this gentleman is here, and we're frustrated and saddened by it," he said calmly. When it came time for questions, McCain handed his heckler the microphone to ask the first one.

The moment wasn't just vintage McCain. The exchange convinced Charles Matthews of North Fort Myers to vote for the Arizona senator instead of Mitt Romney.

McCain believes town-hall meetings are a major reason he is the leading Republican candidate for president. "Let's face it," he told reporters recently. "That's why I succeeded in New Hampshire and South Carolina."

But even the candidate admits that the format is best suited to the single-state campaigns he has run up until now. On McCain's campaign bus last week, advisor Steve Schmidt framed the reality: "You can't appear one-on-one in front of 100 million people," he told McCain and a clutch of reporters.

As he covered nearly 1,500 miles Saturday, touching down for rallies in three states where he spoke for about 15 minutes each, McCain confessed nostalgia for his old style of campaigning.

"I miss the town-hall meeting, and we'll try to have more of them as we go through this campaign," he told reporters in Nashville. "People deserve to have an opportunity to not only see my message but ask [me] questions and have the dialogue that I think is important."

Looking ahead to Tuesday, when voters in 21 Republican state primaries and caucuses will cast ballots, the campaign is devoting far more of McCain's time to one-on-one interviews, abbreviated rallies and television-friendly events. McCain insists on keeping the town halls, but he and his aides appear to have negotiated a middle ground: fewer of them, mixed with round-table events and speeches in which he succinctly hones his message.

"He's going to do it the way he wants, and the campaign is going to have to accommodate him," said longtime advisor Mark Salter.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said that one of McCain's great challenges will be translating the authenticity he conveys in those exchanges into sound bites for the evening news.

"The immediate audience sees that he engages people of a different point of view, he doesn't patronize them, he tries to persuade them and listens to what they have to say. That's very impressive," Jamieson said. "The national audience rarely gets to see that."
She added that for McCain, who is 71, the town-hall format also negates questions about his age because he moves briskly from topic to topic. In rallies and speeches, she said, he sometimes seems bored. "He is less effective when speaking to a mass audience," Jamieson said.

I've often thought that McCain's stilted behind a podium, but perhaps he can take the town-hall format to new heights as a straight-talk commander-in-chief.

Daniel Henninger provides an awesome example of McCain's ability to rouse a crowd, at the Wall Street Journal:

When Mr. McCain took the stage in Sun City, the applause was polite. When he finished, he got a standing ovation. He has been at this game a long time, and his ability to sense and ride the emotional flow of an audience is astonishing.

It discomfits some, including me, that Mr. McCain seems like a live, capped volcano. But in front of an audience like this, and before a younger group two days later at the Tampa Convention Center, he stood with that tight, little upper body of coiled electricity and plugged his message of honor, commitment and threat straight into the guts of his listeners.

Rudy Giuliani's antiterror message has been strong and credible, but it was almost an abstraction compared to the meat and potatoes of the McCain presentation.

He asks veterans to stand. About 70 men rise, to great applause. He's talking about the "transcendent threat of radical Islamic extremism" and from there to homicidal doctors in Scotland and arrests in Germany. "Al Qaeda is on the run, but they're not defeated!" He wraps himself, justifiably, in the "Petraeus" surge. And then, "My friends, doesn't the president deserve credit that there hasn't been another attack on the U.S.?" They are going nuts. It wasn't demagogic. He does it with tone and timing. You can almost see his eyes calibrating.

Retail politics still matter, and in an era of terror, war and loss of national self-esteem, John McCain is a retail politics powerhouse.

I'm watching McCain on cable news right now. He's stumping on Iraq, clarifying the differences between his campaign and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's.

"If you remember one thing, my friends," McCain implores, "al Qaeda is on the run, but not defeated...as president I will listen to our commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and we will never surrender!"

That's a message for November.

Photo: CBS News

Pew Survey Finds McCain Leading Nationwide

I'm seeing some interesting polling trends this morning.

In a new Pew Center survey, John McCain wins the support of Republicans across the board:

McCain holds a substantial lead among all segments of the Republican electorate, with the sole exception of white evangelical Protestants. Huckabee equals McCain's support among these voters (34% each). McCain now holds a 37% to 26% lead over Romney among conservative Republican voters, and wins the support of a majority (52%) of moderate and liberal Republican voters.

While McCain's earlier victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina were assisted by his strong backing from independent voters, McCain's ability to win in Florida's "closed" Republican primary is reflected in the current national figures. He continues to hold a commanding lead among independents who "lean" toward the Republican Party, but also has opened a 15-point lead over Romney (38% to 23%) among those who consider themselves Republicans.

Besides leading in the horserace, McCain is the candidate most likely to unite the Republican base. McCain is the only candidate of the three who is viewed favorably by both Huckabee's supporters (61%) and Romney's supporters (59%). In contrast, Huckabee's backers are divided in their view of Romney (41% unfavorable vs. 37% unfavorable). And Romney's supporters are equally ambivalent about Huckabee (44% favorable vs. 39% unfavorable).

Also, today's Washington Post poll has additional data on McCain's leading position as the most electable Republican in the race.

Fully two-thirds of Republican respondents in the Post's poll say McCain "has the best of getting elected president."

Also, in the general election, McCain leads Hillary Clinton by three percentage points, although Barack Obama tops McCain among likely voters. Both Hillary Clinton and Obama lead Romney by double-digits in likely general election matchups.

McCain Hammered Romney on Olympic Pork Barrel

I'm watching John McCain campaigning on cable right now. He's railing against earmarks and he's pledging the congressional pork barrel extravaganza will end under his administration.

This could be more bluster than beef, although McCain's generally unassailable as a tough-on-spending conservative.

This morning's Los Angeles Times reports, for example, indicates that McCain was hammering Mitt Romney in 2000 for his lobbying in favor of federal subsidies for the Salt Lake City Olympics:

On Sept. 19, 2000, John McCain rose in the Senate to rail against what he called the "staggering" sums that the federal government planned to spend to help Salt Lake City stage the 2002 Winter Olympics.

"The American taxpayer is being shaken down to the tune of nearly a billion and a half dollars," McCain said.

The Arizona Republican vowed to "do everything in my power" to delay or kill "this pork-barrel spending" and to end the "fiscal abuse" related to the Olympics. "This is preposterous and it must stop," he said.

Mitt Romney, who headed the Olympics, counseled calm when reporters from Utah's Deseret Morning News reached him in Sydney, Australia. Romney challenged McCain's arithmetic, arguing that taxpayers would provide only $250 million. In any case, he asserted that he already had obtained backing in Congress.

"I'm expecting the funding we need to host the Games," he said. "I'm quite confident."

The clash over Olympics spending, which dragged on for two years, helps explain some of the acrimony that now characterizes the race between the two front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination. The dispute provided an early preview of the fissures that still divide McCain and Romney as they face what may be decisive contests Tuesday.

Read the whole thing.

The Times piece notes that McCain, as Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, never held hearings on Romney's lobbying for Olympic largesse.

Nevertheless, the article provides an excellent case of how Romney has exaggerated his record as an innovative leader.

The truth is the Salt Lake City Olympics were underwritten by American taxpayer dollars.

Sign of Desperation? Romney Says Far-Right Will Stop McCain

This is just in, from CNN: "Romney Predicts Conservatives Will Stop McCain":

Mitt Romney predicted Sunday his party's conservative base will rally behind him on Super Tuesday in order to prevent John McCain from winning the Republican nomination.

"What I have to do is continue to see what's been happening the last few days, specifically that is conservatives across the country are saying, 'whoa, we have to get behind Mitt Romney,'" he said on CNN's Late Edition.

"You've got people like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham and the list goes on and on and on — Hugh Hewitt, Lars Larson — conservative voices, both from radio and from publications, are saying, 'you know what, we've got to get behind Mitt Romney,'" he continued. "We really can't afford John McCain as the nominee of our party."

Following McCain's victory in Florida Tuesday, some prominent conservatives have expressed dismay with the prospect of the Arizona senator capturing the Republican nomination. On Wednesday, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said McCain's rise was the product of a 'fractured' conservative base and an "uninspiring" GOP presidential field.

"He is not the choice of conservatives, as opposed to the choice of the Republican establishment — and that distinction is key," Limbaugh said. "The Republican establishment, which has long sought to rid the party of conservative influence since Reagan, is feeling a victory today as well as our friends in the media."

Meanwhile, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said Thursday she would support Hillary Clinton over McCain.

"If you are looking at substance rather than if there is an R or a D after his name, manifestly, if he's our candidate, than Hillary is going to be our girl, because she's more conservative than he is," Coulter said. "I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism."

But McCain also picked up support from some key conservatives this week, such as former Solicitor General Ted Olson and Georgia Sens. Johnny Isaacson and Saxby Chambliss, and on CBS Face the Nation Sunday the Arizona senator said, "I have a strong conservative record that I'm proud to run on."

I'm just not convinced that the Malkin-tents and Rush-bots can stop McCain. They've been hammering him for weeks, and the Arizona Senator's campaign has just picked up steam.

Indeed, McCain is quoted today,saying "I assume that I will get the nomination of the party."

Momentum's a powerful thing, and McCain's got it.

The Emerging Conservative Minority

utAmerican politics really is about finding the happy middle on the ideological spectrum. Candidates of both parties are forced to compete for the great mass of moderate voters who reside along the median point of the political continuum.

In 5 of the last 7 presidential elections, the Republican Party's been best able to capture this "vital center" of the American political universe. In the process, the GOP has forged a historic voting coalition unifying conservatives of various stripes - from social traditionalists to no-tax absolutists to national security neocons.

This year's primary season, as everyone knows, has split the Republicans like no other time in recent decades. Consequently, we're seeing more talk among both rank-and-file conservatives and political pundits on the emergence of a conservative minority in the U.S.

Some evidence of this can be found, informally, with an afternoon's surf around the conservative blogosphere (for a couple of top examples, see here and here).

But I think this comment over at Bloviating Zeppelin is a thoughful perspective on the minority status of deep conservatives in election '08:

I believe we [conservatives] all need to realize up front that, though we'd care to think we are, we are not representative of the general population or even the bulk of the Republican party, if that is your association. And by "we," who do I mean?

I mean you, me, any of my dedicated readers or anyone just dropping by. I mean those who listen to Conservative talk radio, who hit the internet for news stories, who will choose something for a particular political reason, who purposely choose certain venues of communication and media.

I believe it is we who are out of the mainstream - of the bulk of people comprising the Republican Party.

Bloviating Zeppelin offer these comments in justifying conservative defiance against GOP frontrunner John McCain. It's a compelling read.

A social science perspective on the emerging conservative majority can be found in James Joyner's piece at Outside the Beltway:

Perhaps “conservatives” are now a minority, even among Republican primary voters? If so, given that there are virtually no conservatives remaining in the Democratic Party these days and that voters who aren’t aligned with either party are almost by definition non-ideological, that would mean that conservatives are a small minority, indeed, among the American electorate.

Alternatively, perhaps the definition of “conservative” has become so narrow and esoteric that it’s become virtually meaningless?

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and again in 1984, he did it by putting together a coalition of small government conservatives, social conservatives, and anti-communists. He famously engendered the support of blue collar folks who were dubbed “Reagan Democrats.” Most of that group simply became Reagan Republicans.

Has the country gotten that much less conservative since then?

In some ways, yes. We’re much more tolerant on lifestyle issues, notably the role of women and acceptance of homosexuality, than we were a generation ago. Abortion has now been legal for 35 years, not a mere seven. We’re also much further removed from the days of the military draft, which means fewer of our menfolk have served.

But, fundamentally, we’re the same country we were in 1980. We’re still the most religious country in the developed world and probably the most patriotic. We’re more citified and more homogenized than we were but we still cling to the John Wayne rugged individualist mythos to a large degree.

The conservative majority has become a Conservative minority.

The Conservative Movement has morphed from a handful of intellectual true believers trying to shape the debate into something approaching a civil religion with loyalty tests and a clericy that has the power to excommunicate.

Read the whole thing.

Joyner looks at the opinion data, which is fairly compelling on the facts of conservative minority status.

Yet it's important to remember - as I suggested a bit in the introduction - that Americans historically are moderate in their political orientations. We've always had, even among those on the left, general consensus on enduring principles of individualism, liberty, and markets. (We've never, on the other hand, had mass popular support for extreme parties of the left, a case more characteristic of the European continental democracies in the 20th century.)

The schism we're seeing today, as I have argued, may have long-term consequences for the party system.

It could be that the intense political polarization that has become a buzz phrase of recent years is genuinely erupting to create irreparable fissures in the GOP coalition.

If the conservative base becomes fundamentally irreconciled to a Republican Party seen as disastrously liberal on social policy, immigration, and so forth, the far-right constituency of the party may bolt the coalition never to return.

This is the biggest story of election '08 so far. If Barack Obama wins the nomination on the Democratic side, we'll see some of the most funamental change in the overall party system since the 1960s.

For now though, the best bet for radical ideological change is on the right side of the dial. The implications of the great conserative debate of '08 will have far reaching consequences.

McCain Tops Public Opinion, is Clear GOP Frontrunner

John McCain has consolidated his lead as the national GOP frontrunner heading into Super Tuesday, a new Washington Post poll shows:

McCain leads former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney 48 percent to 24 percent among probable GOP voters as he continues to rapidly consolidate support, particularly among moderates and liberals. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee runs third in the new poll with 16 percent, and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) is fourth at 7 percent....

McCain outperforms Romney in the general-election tests because he picks up significantly more support among independents and political moderates. These groups have been crucial to the senator in early-state caucuses and primaries, and his biggest gains in this poll came among them.

Among GOP voters who are politically moderate and liberal, McCain has a whopping 51-point advantage over Romney in the new poll, while conservatives divide 37 percent for McCain, 29 percent for Romney and 19 percent for Huckabee. Moreover, most of McCain's improvement since mid-January is among moderates and liberals; he is up 28 percentage points in this group, while he and Romney have both climbed 12 points among conservatives.

McCain has taken control of the GOP race by picking up mainline Republican supporters as well. Nearly half of self-identified Republicans now support him, up nearly fourfold from December. He appears to have benefited from the decisions by former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) to quit the race. Both Giuliani, who has endorsed McCain, and Thompson appealed to many of the voters McCain now counts in his camp.

Two-thirds of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents saw McCain as the party's strongest general-election candidate, and about three in five described him as the strongest leader. He also now has a double-digit advantage over Romney on the question of who best represents the core values of the party. On this measure, he is up 14 points from three weeks ago.

While moderates and liberals have coalesced around McCain as the GOP standard-bearer (56 percent said he best reflects party values), conservatives are less than fully convinced. Among those who describe themselves as "very conservative," 34 percent said Romney best embodies GOP values, and 25 percent said McCain.

McCain also leads on all five issue areas tested in the poll, with overwhelming advantages on national security issues (69 percent call him tops on Iraq; 67 percent on terrorism). He has double-digit advantages over Romney on the economy and immigration, and leads both Romney and Huckabee on social issues. About four in 10 Romney supporters said McCain is better on Iraq and terrorism.

For all his advantages, however, McCain does not enjoy the kind of enthusiastic support that Clinton and Obama have among their voters. Thirty-eight percent of his backers said they strongly support him. And among those Republicans who are most closely following the GOP race, he and Romney are running essentially even.

Really?

The authors, Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, must have missed my post, "What Conservative Crackup?"

LOL!!

Actually, the real public opinion action is on the Democratic side, as the poll shows: Barack Obama is essentially running neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton.

See also the San Francisco Chronicle's report on the new Field Poll, showing Barack Obama pulling up even with Hillary Clinton in the Golden State (via Memeorandum).

Campaign Finance Before Super Tuesday

The Monkey Cage has a brief synopsis of the campaign finance situation heading into Super Tuesday:

The Campaign Finance Institute will issue a new report on campaign spending by the presidential candidates very soon, but yesterday it circulated a press release yesterday that covers some of the high points. These data were current as of December 31. Obviously, much has happened since then, but in the words of the press release, there are some good clues here “for those who may be wondering about what will come next.”

* About half of Hillary Clinton’s campaign money came in amounts of $2300 or more. Because those donors had given the legal maximum, Clinton couldn’t go back to them again in January.

* By contrast, Barack Obama had raised only about one-third of his funds from “maxed out” donors. “This clearly suggests that Obama had more room than Clinton to seek additional support from his donors under the law’s contribution limits.”

* Obama raised a “remarkable” 47% of his individual contributions in the fourth quarter from donors who gave unitemized contributions of $200 or less. Only 15% of Clinton’s fourth-quarter contributions came in these small amounts.

* About half of Mitt Romney’s fourth-quarter money came from individuals, half of whom were maxed out; the rest came from Romney himself.

* John McCain was “essentially broke with less than $1 million in cash in hand at the end of the year.” The next CFI report presumably will show a big boost in McCain’s donations, reflecting his emergence as the front-runner in the race for the GOP nomination.

For the full CFI press release, click here.

McCain's compelling journey from financial collapse to GOP frontrunner is relayed in this piece for the Washington Post.

The Conservative Case for McCain

Jeff Jacoby makes the conservative case for McCain, at the Boston Globe:

The conservative case against McCain is clear enough....

The issues that have earned McCain the label of "maverick" - campaign-finance restrictions, global warming, the Bush tax cuts, immigration, judicial filibusters - are precisely what stick in the craw of the GOP conservative base.

But this year, the conservative case for McCain is vastly more compelling.

On the surpassing national-security issues of the day - confronting the threat from radical Islam and winning the war in Iraq - no one is more stalwart. Even McCain's fiercest critics, such as conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, will say so. "The world's bad guys," Hewitt writes, "would never for a moment think he would blink in any showdown, or hesitate to strike back at any enemy with the audacity to try again to cripple the US through terror."

McCain was never an agenda-driven movement conservative, but he "entered public life as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution," as he puts it, and on the whole his record has been that of a robust and committed conservative. He is a spending hawk and an enemy of pork and earmarks. He has never voted to increase taxes, and wants the Bush tax cuts made permanent for the best of reasons: "They worked." He is a staunch free-trader and a champion of school choice. He is unabashedly prolife and pro-Second Amendment. He opposes same-sex marriage. He wants entitlements reined in and personal retirement accounts expanded.

McCain's conservatism has usually been more a matter of gut instinct than of a rigorous intellectual worldview, and he has certainly deviated from Republican orthodoxy on some serious issues. For all that, his ratings from conservative watchdog groups have always been high. "Even with all the blemishes," notes National Review, a leading journal on the right (and a backer of Romney), "McCain has a more consistent conservative record than Giuliani or Romney. . . . This is an abiding strength of his candidacy."

As a lifelong conservative, I wish McCain evinced a greater understanding that limited government is indispensable to individual liberty. Yet there is no candidate in either party who so thoroughly embodies the conservatism of American honor and tradition as McCain, nor any with greater moral authority to invoke it. For all his transgressions and backsliding, McCain radiates integrity and steadfastness, and if his heterodox stands have at times been infuriating, they also attest to his resolve. Time and again he has taken an unpopular stand and stuck with it, putting his career on the line when it would have been easier to go along with the crowd.

A perfect conservative he isn't. But he is courageous and steady, a man of character and high standards, a genuine hero. If "the House that Reagan Built" is to be true to its best and highest ideals, it will unite behind John McCain.

Read the whole thing.

Jacoby reminds us that the Reagan standard is nostalgia. Romney's no Reagan; Huckabee's no Reagan; and neither is McCain.

Reagan granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. McCain's sworn against it.

See also my previous post, "What Conservative Crackup?"

What Conservative Crackup?

Karl Rove, over at Newsweek, argues there's no conservative crackup, or at least it's too soon to tell.

He suggests that each presidential election is about change, and both parties undergo crises and transformation along the path to a new governing era:

Why then the media's recent fascination with the supposed demise of the Republican Party? What are the reasons given for why, at least when it comes to the Republicans, "the party's over," as NEWSWEEK recently pronounced? First, we are told the GOP nomination has not been won "fairly quickly," as in recent contests. This is a horrible misremembering of history. The senior Bush took 45 days after the first contest to secure the nomination in 1988. It took Bob Dole 35 days to become the presumptive nominee in 1996. The current president took 45 days to clear the field in 2000. The first contest this year was on Jan. 3. Let's at least give the process until the middle or end of February before pundits start predicting doom because of how long it's taking. And if the Republican nomination not being settled is evidence of disaster, what does the Democratic nomination being up for grabs say? It's normal for both parties' nominees to be undecided at this point. The season is not moving too slowly. If anything, it is moving too quickly this time, with 38 contests in the first 33 days.

Second, we are told recently by Susan Page, also in USA Today, that "never before in modern times has there been such a muddle," and then by Jon Meacham in this magazine that the "chaotic nature of the Republican primary race" means "the party of Reagan is now divided in ways it has not been in more than a generation." Many who witnessed the primary battles of 2000, 1996, 1992 or 1988 might disagree. By their nature, primary races are chaotic. Then a nominee emerges, and the chaos recedes (most of the time). If spirited competition on the Republican side is evidence of a crackup, then what about the Democratic battle? It is focused more and more on race and gender, and Hillary Clinton has the highest negatives of any candidate at this point in an open race for the presidency. The Democratic House and Senate have plummeted to the poorest congressional approval ratings in history.

Third, we are told Democrats have raised more money. You will search in vain for a similar declaration of last rites for the Democrats in 2000 when Republicans outraised them. And having more money doesn't decide the contest. Consider 2004, when Democratic presidential candidates, committees and 527s outspent their Republican counterparts by $124 million—and lost. Besides, the RNC has nearly eight times the cash on hand as the DNC. Just a month has passed since voting began, and nine months remain before November. Let's see what happens to Republican bank accounts as the year goes on.

Maybe we are not seeing the crackup of the GOP. Rather, America is more likely to be at the start of an intense and exciting election. The contest will be hard fought, the actions of the candidates each day hugely significant. It's far too early to draw sweeping conclusions about the health of either party; the presidential race, after all, has barely begun. Lots of surprises lie ahead.

I don't disagree with the analysis, so much as I wish there were more. Rove cites key MSM reports of conservative angst, but neglects this last week's controversy between McCain and conservative purists.

This is not an insignificant split. Rush Limbaugh in particular has a reputation in the party as a galvanizing force for the GOP's ascent to power in the 1990s. His following of potentially millions of listeners could hold grudges long after the nomination's decided and a new occupant moves into the White House.

I think this is the key to whether there's a conservative crackup.

In an earlier passage of the article (check the link), Rove mentions that Reagan came to power with a whole new set of ideas on the role of government and American power in the world. After seven years of the G.W. Bush administration, the party is exhausted from trying to hold the fissiparous elements of its coalition together: fiscal conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and social conservatives.

While the size of government as a percent of GDP is lower than during the Reagan years, Bush budget-busters like Medicare Part-D amount to apostasies for conservatives intent to "starve the beast" in the Reagan image.

Not only that, while rank-and-file Republicans continue to support the war in opinion polls, there's a greater sense of political divisiveness associated with the Bush Doctrine and the war on terror than was the case in the 1980s over containment and U.S. nuclear strategy.

As Time suggested last year:

The Iraq war has challenged the conservative movement's custodianship of America's place in the world, as well as its claim to competence. Reagan restored a sense of America's mission as the "city on a hill" that would be a light to the world and helped bring about the defeat of what he very undiplomatically christened "the evil empire." After 9/11 Bush found his own evil empire, in fact a whole axis of evil. But he hasn't produced Reagan's results: North Korea is nuclear, Iran swaggers across the world stage, Iraq is a morass. "Conservatives are divided on the Iraq war, but there is a growing feeling it was a mistake," says longtime conservative activist and fund-raiser Richard Viguerie. "It's not a Ronald Reagan type of idea to ride on our white horse around the world trying to save it militarily. Ronald Reagan won the cold war by bankrupting the Soviet Union. No planes flew. No tanks rolled. No armies marched."

Rove should spend some time online for a couple of evenings.

The sense of outrageous betrayal felt by conservatives over John McCain's impending nomination has created almost a bedrock conservative insurgency against the political establishment, the mass media, and the very legitimacy of America's presidential primary system.

Major players on the conservative right are swearing a no-vote against a McCain presidency, by either abstaining from participation, or by pulling the lever for the other side.

This is why I disagree that it's too early to draw conclusions about the future of the GOP, with all respect to the mastermind Rove.

If the conservative base keeps its word and refuses to ally itself with the eventual Republican nominee, there will be a huge, unanchored, and discontented constituency exiled to the fringe of the party system.

There are no guarantees of political reconciliation. The disaffected base could form the genesis of a new third party movement, waiting until perhaps the 2012 election, or 2016 in the case of eight more years of Republican Party rule, to stage a coup d'etat.

This could result in circumstances such as 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt bolted from the party to mount his own Bull Moose presidential bid, ushering in two-terms of the progressive Woodrow Wilson and one of the earliest and most expansive eras of federal regulatory policy in American history.

In contemporary terms, a weakend GOP either this year, or in forthcoming elections, could elevate the Democrats to the country's governing party, and mostly by default. The liberal policy ramifications could be disastrous for American society, its security and sovereignty.

Yet, the 2008 election is no shoo-in for the Democrats and their hard-left, nihilist, surrending netroots hordes.

Indeed, McCain's emerging attractivenesss to the GOP establishiment reflects a pragmatic sense of electability and GOP political primogeniture.

In any case, I think much of the dissent among base conservatives is frankly unhinged (see here and here). But I'm reading time and again how deep conservatives will not sacrifice principle for political expediency.

This is the McCain challenge, then, presuming he prevails in Super Tuesday voting (a strong possibility).

How well with the Arizona Senator moves to heal the deep party rifts that have emerged over this year's electoral season - as well as over the last few years of GOP governmental power - will demonstrate how genuine his claim to superior leadership really is.

McCain Makes Headway With Conservatives

Sounding counterintuitive, the Wall Street Journal reports that John McCain is making inroads with conservatives heading into Super Tuesday:

The Republican presidential campaigning rolls on this weekend, with Sen. John McCain working to make headway with the party's stalwarts and Mitt Romney facing renewed attention on his Mormon faith.

Mr. McCain stepped up his attempts to court the Republican right, scoring a number of high-profile endorsements this week. Yesterday, he received the support of billionaire Steve Forbes as well as former Solicitor General Theodore Olson. Mr. Olson, who served as assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, represented President Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore.

The picture was a bit mixed earlier in the week when Mr. McCain got near-simultaneous endorsements from moderates California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York Mayor and rival Rudy Giuliani, causing some consternation among party conservatives. Some prominent pundits, including Laura Ingraham and former Sen. Rick Santorum, have decried his more liberal votes and come out in favor of Mr. Romney.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter went a step further, saying that if the race came down to Mr. McCain and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, she would rather see Mrs. Clinton elected.

Polls show Mr. McCain, who won contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, leading nationally by double digits, according to an average compiled by Real Clear Politics, a nonpartisan political-news Web site. The Arizona senator has about 34% of support, compared with 22% for Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who won Wyoming, Michigan and Nevada. The other contenders, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, have 20% and 5%, respectively.

Perhaps some Malkinite, musket-and-pitchfork conservatives will continue to resist McCain's momentum.

That would be unfortunate, for the national polling picture heading into Tuesday's voting portends a McCain blowout.

This Newsmax article shows McCain leading in 13 of 15 states voting Tuesday where survey data is available. Some big states, with huge delegate counts - like California and New York - show McCain enjoying a double-digit advantage.

(Romney's ahead in Colorado - although ground-level factors in the Rockies may make it a tight race - and Massachusetts - where the data reflect a home state, favorite-son advantage for the former governor.)

Indeed, new reports suggests McCain sees this weekend's campaign as a victory tour, with the Arizona Senator looking beyond Super Tuesday to the general election matchup (here and here).

This news will be indigestible for many among the conservative base.

Consequently, I want to remind readers that I've put out the call for a movement toward national conservative reconciliation.

This year's extremely frontloaded primary system - for its flaws and uncertainties, may indeed be working to produce an early GOP nominee for '08.

Moreover, a consensus is growing that it's time for all Republicans to rally behind their party's standard-bearer, should he finally emerge this week.

Romney Tries to Salvage Campaign

This morning's New York Times reports that Mitt Romney's taking emergency steps to salvage his faltering bid for the GOP presidential nomination:

After devoting two years and more than $35 million of his money trying to win his party’s nomination for the presidency, Mitt Romney and his advisers face the possibility that his effort could end with the nominating contests on Tuesday.

Senator John McCain of Arizona has won a series of major primaries and landed big-name endorsements as he seeks to present himself as the Republican Party’s putative nominee.

Operating in survival mode, Mr. Romney’s circle of advisers has come up with a detailed road map to try to salvage his campaign. The plan is complete with a new infusion of cash from Mr. Romney, a long-term strategy intended to turn the campaign into a protracted delegate fight and a reframing of the race as a one-on-one battle for the future of the party that seeks to sound the alarm among conservatives about Mr. McCain.

The advisers have drawn up a list of states, dividing and ranking them into those considered relatively easy and inexpensive targets, along with a broader grouping of more costly battlegrounds where the advisers hope that Mr. Romney can be competitive.

Some states like Arizona and Arkansas, the home states of Mr. McCain and Mike Huckabee, respectively, are largely written off.

The question is whether the planning, along with the campaign’s one trump card, the candidate’s vast wealth, can overcome the growing sense of inevitability that has begun to attach itself to Mr. McCain.

I doubt that it can.

As The Politico reports, Romney's alienated some top Republican governors around the country, weakening his establishment base heading into next week's voting (via Memeorandum):

As chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2006, Mitt Romney crisscrossed the country to elect GOP governors and broke the group’s fundraising record by hauling in $20 million.

Yet just two of the 16 governors he worked to elect then are supporting his presidential bid.

In fact, just three of the nation’s 22 Republican governors have endorsed him.

There are plenty of reasons that might explain the former Massachusetts governor’s surprisingly weak support among his former colleagues. But one of them stands out: He appears to have inadvertently alienated a good many of his fellow governors as RGA chairman.

“Right or wrong, the general impression was that he spent way too much time on himself and building his presidential organization,” said a top Republican strategist who has worked closely with the RGA in recent years. “I don’t think anyone ever questioned Romney’s commitment to the organization or the work he put in. They questioned his goals or his motives. Was it to elect Republican governors, or to tee up his presidential campaign?”

That's not the kind of endorsement I'd want on the eve of a series of do-or-die primaries.

Maybe there's hope for Romney among rank-and-file voters, as some surveys see the fromer Bay State Governor closing the gap in national public opinion:

In the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination, it’s John McCain at 30%, Mitt Romney at 30%, and Mike Huckabee at 21%. Ron Paul is supported by 5% of Likely Republican Primary Voters (see recent daily numbers). Romney leads by sixteen percentage points among conservatives while McCain has a two-to-one advantage among moderate Primary Voters.

Rasmussen's finding appear questionable, frankly, so it's probably better to keep in mind the rolling averages across a number of surveys.

For example, here's the results on the national GOP picture, from Gallup:

John McCain continues to be the primary beneficiary of Rudy Giuliani's recent exit from the Republican race for president. The percentage of Republican primary voters nationwide favoring McCain for the nomination rose from 39% in interviews conducted Jan. 29-30, to 44% in Jan. 30-Feb. 1 polling. Neither Mitt Romney nor Mike Huckabee picked up any additional support.

As a result, McCain now holds a 20-percentage point lead over Romney in the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 Gallup Poll Daily tracking results. It is McCain's largest lead since he assumed the front-runner position following the New Hampshire Republican primary.

Perhaps Romney can win enough states Tuesday to avoid a blowout, and extend the GOP race beyond next week.

Still, the rush of media, momentum, mony heading McCain's way makes him the prohibitive favorite heading into Tuesday's crucial vote.

Conservative Clarity? A Call to Unity

As readers know, I've long called for conservative unity in the face of the Democratic threat this election year.

Unfortunately, John McCain's ascendancy has worked to split the GOP precisely when political developments indicate the priority of right-wing solidarity.

Recall my recent posts on McCain Derangement Syndrome (here and here), where I've noted that the Malkin-tents and the Rush-bots are working their darnest to ensure a Democratic White House next January.

Everything's upside down on the conservative side of the political universe, right?

Not necessarily.

Cooler heads are beginning to speak up, and I'm confident some clarity will break through in time to put up a good fight against the pro-terror socialist-Islamist alliance hellbent on America's destruction.

For instance, check out Rachel Lucas and her smackdown on the rightwing holdouts, "Dear People, Have You Lost Your Minds?":

Just what in the hell kind of crack are Ann Coulter and lots of other conservatives (even the normally brilliant Michelle Malkin) smoking when they say they won’t vote for him if he’s the Republican nominee? Coulter actually said last night on Hannity and Colmes that she would campaign for Hillary instead. Granted, she probably didn’t mean that, but good god damn!

I’ve read several dozen blogs yesterday and this morning, and there are even comments on my own blog, saying that if McCain is the candidate, they won’t vote at all. ARE YOU PEOPLE SERIOUS?

Let me get this straight: you’d rather have Hillary Clinton, a bona fide socialist, liar, all-around bad person, as president. You’d rather have Obama, the senator with the most liberal voting record, as president.

Really? I throw up my hands in disgust. I truly do.

I know some say that they’d rather “have the country ruined” by a real liberal than by a RINO. You know what that sounds like? Something you’d read on DailyKos. He’s not going to ruin the fucking country, y’all. At most he has 4 years to do whatever he does and I’m pretty sure recent experience proves that no matter how bad a president is, they can’t “ruin the country”.

He’s not going to socialize healthcare like Hillary or Obama would. He actually gives a shit about fighting the war against towelheads, unlike Hillary or Obama. He’s not going to appoint liberal activist judges. So what if he thought Alito was too conservative? I DO, TOO. So what if he works across the aisle? That’s the only way to get anything done, hello, especially with a Democrat majority.

So what if he doesn’t like all the mouthy Christian leaders? I don’t, either. Jerry Falwell is a pompous ass and it’s okay to say so. I really, really, really think that the whole religion thing has way too much sway with the Republicans and is one of the reasons I’m not a card-carrying Republican myself. Having your morals is one thing; expecting everybody to kiss the asses of your evangelists is another.

Don’t get excited. I don’t like a lot of his record, particularly a long list of quotes he’s given about class warfare and taxes. I think he’s nuts to want the Gitmo population put into American prisons. YEAH RIGHT. I think he’s an asshole for things he’s said and supported about gun shows.

And I don’t even have enough curse words in my brain to communicate my opinions about McCain-Feingold. Jesus on a muffin, that is some bad, bad stuff.

BUT.

Seriously, people. Seriously. You’d rather have Hillary? You’d rather have Obama?

I don’t even know you.

There's a few more respectable conservatives among the right blogosphere who're making their voices heard.

Check out Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard, who notes with respect to Ann Coulter's endorsment of Hillary Clinton:

An all or nothing mindset is political suicide, frankly. And a rejection of your basic principles in a fit of pique because you did not get your way brings your principles into question in the first place. Maybe that's a harsh way to put it, but maybe it is time for some harsh words. I regularly castigate the same behavior coming from the left. I do not wish to see the right go down that same road.

That's well put.

I've been saying much the same thing around here, and frankly some conservative have just battened down the hatches.

So, I'm putting out a call for unity: It's time to pull together.

We need to speak with one voice. Super Tuesday's primary results will clarify the Republican race, and I'm betting McCain comes out on top.

This will be the time for those on the right to support a movement of national conservative reconciliation. The product will be a unified, pro-victory coalition for '08, at home and abroad.

Seize the moments, my friends.

A Clear Perspective on McCain

The conservative base is up in arms over the McCain ascendency, but there's a bit of hypocrisy in all the outrage.

The fact is John McCain's the Republican best qualified to lead the party in the November general election, and Victor Hanson puts things in perspective in a post this morning

It is understandable to lament the absence of conservative purity, but ahistorical to suggest that any recent Republican president would have met any of the litmus tests now demanded, given the dependency of the middle class on entitlements and its touchy-feely worldview.

Reagan, and Bush I and II all adjusted to that unfortunate reality. A Democrat did not appoint Souter, O’Connor, or Kennedy, nor raise payroll and gas taxes in the 1980s, nor sign amnesty and de facto open-border legislation in 1986, nor, later, increase federal spending well past the rate of inflation, or offer amnesty again in 2007. Tax cuts were great, but without caps on spending they were unfairly slurred as revenue reducers once deficits soared. Recent Republican congressional scandals mirror-imaged some of the Clinton-era roguery.

Reagan’s pragmatism on taxes, amnesty, new federal programs and government expansion, was continued by both Bush I and II. In that regard, McCain seems a continuum, not an abject disconnect. His problem is mostly temperament — when he strayed he was blunt about what he was doing and sometimes gratuitously offended his base in a way that neither Reagan nor the Bushes dared. That is a legitimate concern of tactical aptitude, but not one so much of ideology.

He also never was a conservative idealist that voiced conservative themes on the campaign trail which he could not enact once elected. But in terms of judicial appointments, foreign policy and the war, and federal spending, he is not much different from any of the prior three Republican presidents, and might well prove tougher, given his age and occasional contrarianism. We worry over his immigration stance, but his former mistaken position was Reaganite to the core and reflected the Bush consensus. His new stance of closing the borders first would be a radical departure, and a conservative remedy.

In short, anyone who saw the Democratic debate Thursday night can envision the new future on their horizon: identity politics and self-congratulation over race and gender; tax increases (back to estate tax hikes, income tax rates go up, payroll tax caps lifted, etc); internationalism for the sake of internationalism (defer to the U.N., E.U., apologies for past conduct, contextualizing terrorism), more government (teachers, the poor, the middle class, etc. all need new government programs to add to those we have), and legislating judges (more Ginsburgs and Breyers).

Given all of the above, I don’t think it’s in the interest of conservatives for much longer to worry about McCain’s class ranking at Annapolis or how many planes he was nearly killed in.

This logic is going to be hard to swallow for those afficted with McCain Derangement Syndrome, but at some point it needs to sink in.

As I've blogged a couple of times now, the military situation has reemerged as a top campaign issue (here and here).

I hope events on the ground will work to clarify minds on the right, for the left-wing is wasting no time is exploiting new bombings in Iraq for political purposes.

McCain Prospects Put Iraq on Front of Policy Agenda

It looks like I'm a little ahead of the media spin cycle.

In last night's post, "Security in Iraq: Will Surge Gains Hold?," I wrote "The Iraq war is starting to seep back into election year political calculations."

Now this morning's Los Angeles Times has a story on the new political developments surrounding the war: "McCain Surge Puts Iraq War at Fore":

The growing likelihood that Sen. John McCain will win the Republican presidential nomination has sparked renewed debate between the Democratic front-runners over the Iraq war -- and over who possesses the strongest credentials to challenge a war hero for the duties of commander in chief.

The issue provoked one of the sharpest moments in Thursday's Democratic debate in Los Angeles, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York argued that the party's eventual nominee would need sufficient "gravitas" to persuade American voters that he or she can be a strong leader while arguing for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The jousting continued Friday when a top military advisor to Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, ridiculed Clinton's implication that she would offer voters the better credentials.

The advisor, retired Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak, said in a telephone interview that Obama has "real gravitas, not artificially created, focus-grouped, poll-directed, rehearsed gravitas."

He also said Obama "doesn't go on television and have crying fits; he isn't discovering his voice at the age of 60" -- references to Clinton's much-publicized show of emotion during the New Hampshire primary campaign and her speech after winning the contest in which she declared that she had "found my voice."

So, that's it?

The Democrats, when talking about national security credentials, are weighing which candidate's least likely to break down in tears at news of an assault on America's interests?

Not good...

Here's more from the article:

The battle over who best could press the Democratic case on foreign policy is one of the key ways that Obama and Clinton are trying to distinguish themselves as they campaign for convention delegates in Tuesday's voting in California and more than 20 other states.

Both Clinton and Obama have criticized McCain for his past comments that the United States likely would have to maintain a military presence in Iraq for many years. At Thursday's debate, both offered assurances that they would start troop withdrawals within the first months of their presidencies.

McCain, a vocal supporter of President Bush's so-called surge strategy in Iraq, has charged that the Democrats have been pushing a "false argument" in focusing so much attention on removing troops from Iraq.

Noting that the United States has maintained a lengthy military presence in South Korea, he said during a GOP presidential candidate debate Wednesday near Simi Valley that "we are going to be [in Iraq] for some period of time, but it's American casualties, not American presence" that should be the main concern.

Polls throughout the campaign have shown that Democratic-leaning voters see Clinton as better prepared than Obama to be commander in chief. The survey respondents, even if they disagree with her war vote, also rate her as best equipped to end the war.

But exit polls of voters in states that already have held primaries or caucuses have found that Obama, who was an Illinois state senator in 2002 when he delivered a speech opposing the war, has made up some of that ground. In New Hampshire, Democratic primary voters were split over who they believed was the "strongest leader."

On Iraq, surveys continue to show strong public opposition to the war -- setting up what many Democrats believe is a winning campaign issue.

But, again based on the polls, McCain, a decorated naval aviator who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, appears to pose a challenge for the Democrats: The senator from Arizona scores high marks with voters for candor and his decision to back the troop surge, even when it was unpopular.

In addition, the Democratic Party's got the entire MoveOn.org Iraq surrender establishment to hammer the party's nominee to commit to a precipitous pullout, and the likely resurgence of violence in country.

As I noted yesterday, representative hard-left opinion thinks al Qaeda'a tactic of deploying Down's syndrome suicide bombers is a "brillliant" military adaptation.

Is there any question that left forces want the U.S. to lose the war? They hate the forward projection of American power, and they despise the military, as events up in Berkeley attest.

I'll be happily reassured that this campaign's moving in the right direction after the GOP nomination is wrapped up, and the disgruntled conservative base comes to its senses, lining up behind the GOP standard-bearer.

Time is of the essence. Let's get this campaign rocking with some straight talk!

John McCain: True Conservative

Here's John McCain's new Super Tuesday TV ad, "True Conservative," already airing on national cable and select spot markets (via YouTube):

Here's the text:

ANNOUNCER: As a prisoner of war, John McCain was inspired by Ronald Reagan.

JOHN MCCAIN: I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution.

ANNOUNCER: Guided by strong conservative principles, he’ll cut wasteful spending and keep taxes low.

A proud social conservative who will never waver.

The leadership and experience to call for the surge strategy in Iraq that is working.

John McCain:

The true conservative

Ready to be commander-in-chief on day one.

JOHN MCCAIN: I’m John McCain and I approve this message.

See also my previous post, on why we need McCain's leadership in 2008 most of all: "Security in Iraq: Will Surge Gains Hold?"

Security in Iraq: Will Surge Gains Hold?

The Iraq war is starting to seep back into election year political calculations.

Progress in Iraq security had become the big news story of late-2007, and then, suddenly, war progress became the non-story, as the heavy media coverage of the conflict dropped off precipitously as less "if it bleeds" headlines came out of Baghdad. Public opinion polls in the U.S. showed Americans' interest in the confllict at an all-time low, and most pundits have suggested the economy will be the driving force in election '08.

Yet U.S. military officials never trumpeted victory in Iraq as security gains picked up. Officials know that remants of the insurgency could move back into action, and outside actors like Iran would have a continuing interest in chaos on the Iraqi street.

This week's Time reports on the success of the surge in Iraq, noting both dramatic gains in security and the real fragility of life in the country:

Like many retail districts in downtown Baghdad, al-Kindy Street has lately had little to offer shoppers but a fine assortment of fear, blood and death. Shootings and regular bombings have shuttered many of al-Kindy's stores, where some of Baghdad's wealthiest residents once bought everything from eggplants to area rugs. At this time last year, al-Kindy was deteriorating into just another bombed-out corner of a city spiraling out of control.

Then came the surge—President George W. Bush's controversial deployment, beginning last January, of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops, that seemed as tactically bold as it was politically unpopular. With his approval ratings ebbing and a bipartisan group of wise elders urging him to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, Bush went in the other direction. Overcoming the opposition of the Joint Chiefs, Bush sent five additional combat brigades to secure the capital, hunt down al-Qaeda in Iraq in the countryside and, at least in theory, stop the violence long enough for the country's Sunnis and Shi'ites to find common ground on power-sharing.

The surge's successes and limits are both plainly visible on al-Kindy today. A well-stocked pharmacy has reopened. A new cell-phone store selling the latest in high-tech gadgets opened in December. A trickle of shoppers moved along the sidewalks on a recent chilly morning as a grocer, who asked that his name not be used, surveyed the local business climate. "Things are improving slightly," he said. "But not as much as we hoped." Indeed, if al-Kindy is coming back, it is doing so slowly, unevenly—and only with a lot of well-armed help. Sandbagged checkpoints stand at either end of al-Kindy, manned by Iraqi soldiers with machine guns. Iraqi police in body armor prowl back alleys and side streets to intercept would-be car bombers. U.S. military officials often point visitors to al-Kindy Street as a metaphor for what is working—and what remains undone. "We still have some work to do," says Lieut. General Ray Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq. "I tell everybody we've opened a window. There's a level of security now that would allow [Iraqi politicians] to take advantage of this window in time, pass the key legislation to bring Iraq together so they can move forward. Are they going to do that? In my mind, we don't know."

One year and 937 U.S. fatalities later, the surge is a fragile and limited success, an operation that has helped stabilize the capital and its surroundings but has yet to spark the political gains that could set the stage for a larger American withdrawal. As a result of improving security in Iraq, the war no longer is the most pressing issue in the presidential campaign, having been supplanted by the faltering U.S. economy. Voters still oppose the war by nearly 2 to 1, but Democrats sense the issue could be less galvanizing as troops begin to return home. Republicans who supported the surge, like Arizona Senator John McCain, have been trying out tiny victory laps lately, but because the hard-won stability could reverse itself, both parties are proceeding carefully. Interviews with top officials in Baghdad and Washington and on-the-ground assessments by Time reporters in Iraq reveal why the surge has produced real gains—but also why the war still has the capacity to cause collateral damage half a world away.

This brings us to today's news of two devastating car bomb attacks in Baghdad, which serves as a reminder of the country's potential for an uptick in violence.

There will likely be more bombings, as U.S. and Iraqi forces adapt to the drawdown of 2007's beefed up troop contingents.

Already, however, radical antiwar types are celebrating the carnage (here and here), proclaiming today's violence as proof that the surge not only failed, but that the shift in U.S. strategy under General David Petraeus was a scam, an "unscrupulous" bait-and-switch promotion full of "artificial manipulations" and "relative metrics" designed to hoodwink American public opinion.

One of the most depressing aspects of the story is that al Qaeda deployed two women believed to have Down's syndrome in the attacks. The Daily Mail reports:

Al Qaeda fanatics plumbed sickening new depths yesterday when they turned two women with Down's syndrome into human bombs to kill 70 people in Baghdad.

The unwitting pawns were apparently fooled into wearing explosive vests which were then detonated remotely by mobile phones as the women mingled with crowds.

The two blasts caused carnage at two busy markets in the Iraqi capital's deadliest atrocity since last spring.

Americans have learned, over and over again, since 9/11, of the bottomless depths of depravity shown by our enemies.

Yet back home, among the radical blogosphere, we get not only applause for the atrocity but fulsome praise for the terrorists' "brilliant" strategy. Here's Libby Spencer pumping up al Qaeda's tactics used in the bloody, nihilist killing of dozens of innocent Iraqis:

I think it's just horrible that whoever was behind this latest disaster used Down's women to perpetrate the bombings but I don't see it as a sign of desperation. I see it as a sign of adaptation and a brilliant one at that.

Just "horrible"?

Right. Ms. Libby's salivating at the prospects of additional casualities in the days, weeks, and months ahead, better for growing the prospects of Iraq becoming a big election year rallying point for the nihilist antiwar hordes and their Democratic allies back here at home.

Daily Kos took advantage of the Iraq bloodshed to portray the GOP presidential frontrunner as out of touch with reality on the war.

Even some in the leftist journalistic set are getting into the surge-is-failing orgy. Joe Klein at Time, ever the prevaricator, hammers away at the surge while trying to appear objective, even linking to true experts who can provide some realist perspective on the progress and the stakes.

These events - in Iraq and in American electoral politics - should not be surprising. Much of the concern throughout 2007 was whether security gains would be large enough to leave residual stability long after the increased brigades were called back.

While the Democrats are giddy at the prospects of the war becoming an election year issue, no one wins if violence indeed returns with greater frequency.

Unfortunately, the developments in the war have taken a troubling turn precisely when the conservative base is most upended over the GOP nomination race.

The candidate most prepared to lead on the war is the one most reviled by the irrational right -Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, and the huge number of discontented Thompson fanatics who've refused to put down their muskets and pitchforks.

I blogged the other day on Kimberly Kagan's Wall Street Journal essay, which argued for a careful evaluation of the right pace and scope of troop withrawals in Iraq.

But see also Max Boot's essay, "We Are Winning. We Haven't Won," at the Weekly Standard.

Things are dramatically better in Iraq today than a year ago, but we have work to do.

As the presidential campaign continues, I want to suggest to conservative readers that the war will be an election issue in November. Our best chances for it to be a winning issue for the GOP, however, will emerge if we have a former U.S. Navy Squadron leader as the Republican standard-bearer, one who'll put the Democrats up on his knee and give them a lesson on how to defeat our enemies.

Some may disagree, but to suggest otherwise, I would argue, might tempt a bout of the dreaded "McCain Derangement Syndrom."

See more news and commentary at Memeorandum.

Los Angeles Times Endorses John McCain!

The Los Angeles Times has endorsed John McCain for the GOP presidential nomination:

At a different moment in American history, we would hesitate to support a candidate for president whose social views so substantially departed from those we hold. But in this election, nothing less than America's standing in the world turns on the outcome. Given that, our choice for the Republican nominee in 2008 is sure and heartfelt. It is John McCain.

McCain opposes abortion and rejects the right of gays and lesbians to marry -- two positions we reject. He supports the war in Iraq, whereas we see this nation's interests better served by a prompt and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces. But the Arizona senator's conservatism is, if not always to our liking, at least genuine. It reflects his fundamental individualism, spanning his distrust of big government, his support for immigration reform and his insistence on a sound American foreign policy.

Indeed, McCain's suitability for the presidency at this moment begins with how he would conduct the nation's foreign affairs. As noted, we do not support his determination to fight on in Iraq, but we welcome his insistence that America's military posture be matched by its moral purpose. Alone among the Republican candidates, he would close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has become an international symbol of U.S. arrogance. He has waged a principled and persistent effort to end the Bush administration's embrace of torture as a weapon of war, a frightening concession to terrorism and an abdication of basic American values. He alone among the Republican candidates has condemned torture in all its forms; he alone among all the candidates in this race has endured it.

Those are positions that should impress voters across the political spectrum; indeed, part of the argument for McCain's candidacy, as for Barack Obama's on the Democratic ballot, is its appeal across the center. That won't help McCain next week, at least in California, where the Republican Party does not permit independents to vote in its primary. But there are other, more specifically Republican, reasons why GOP voters should support him.

McCain is committed to free trade, a welcome alternative to the protectionist views of leading Democrats. He is clear-eyed about the imperiled futures of Social Security and Medicare, and though he has yet to say precisely what he'd do about those looming crises, he has placed them near the top of his domestic agenda. He has opposed pork-barrel spending in the form of undisclosed earmarks and has been a lonely, determined voice against the government's handing out cash to stimulate the economy.

Then there is an issue on which McCain has broken from the mainstream of his party and on which the party would do well to rejoin him: immigration. As the Republican field indulged this campaign season in an orgy of ignorance on immigration, McCain stood his ground, sponsoring legislation that would provide a route to citizenship for the 11 million to 12 million immigrants here illegally. His rivals have argued for mass deportations and strong border fences. McCain too backs toughened enforcement, but he has defended the humanity of those at the center of this debate. "We are all God's children," he says with conviction. McCain equivocated alarmingly on this issue last week, saying during the GOP debate that he would not today support the immigration bill that he courageously championed last summer. He should return to his support for immigration reform, and Republicans should follow him.

I wrote earlier on the immigration issue, suggesting that McCain's position on immigration has been one of the most divisive in the GOP nomination battle.

Contrary to the Times' point, McCain should keep his recent promise from the campaign trail: to secure the borders first before moving to other issues on the immigration agenda. Such an approach will help win back disaffected conservatives, and will consolidate McCain's reputation as the country's top national security candidate of either party.

Note that many deep conservatives will of course denounce the Times endorsement, just as they did with McCain's backing by the New York Times before the Florida primary.

All this will do is further inflame the already afflicted Malkin-tents and Rush-bots, but will do little to slow McCain's building support nationally among the country's institutional elite.

McCain's snowballing momentum explains why Mitt Romney refuses to lavish his personal fortune in a massive advertising buy for next week's Super Tuesday contests.

Photo Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

The McCain Electoral Calculus

I've noted previously John McCain's towering electability in matchups against potential Democratic rivals.

It turns out that Kimberley Strassel, at today's Wall Street Journal, has laid out McCain's general election potential in more strategic detail:

For all his flaws, many top Republicans are concluding the Arizonan has the best shot of winning a Presidential election that many had figured was doomed. Their calculation goes like this:

In a race that will be fought on national security, Mr. McCain is one of the few public figures with the potential to convince Americans to stick with Iraq, and in turn neutralize the war. This would also boost congressional Republicans. On the broader question of security, he'd cut Hillary Clinton's "experience" down to size. He'd arguably run national security rings around the Illinois rookie, and that's before Barack Obama got a chance to make another foreign policy gaffe.

Mr. McCain has the potential to swing critical independents. This would matter against any Democrat, but in particular against Mr. Obama. New Hampshire Independents got to choose their primary last month, and the early betting was that they'd flock to the Democrats and Mr. Obama. In fact, they made up a greater share of the Republican primary vote than they did in 2000, drawn by Mr. McCain.

A related point: Mr. McCain's independent support is in part a function of his ability to manage the Bush question. As Mr. Romney has walked a tightrope, unsure whether to embrace or decry an unpopular president, Mr. McCain has simply pointed to his own record. Voters loyal to President Bush see in Mr. McCain a man who stood firm on the Iraq war. Voters who dislike Mr. Bush see a man who criticized the president on the conduct of that war. This is useful.

He also has the potential to stem the flood of Hispanics from the GOP. His new immigration strategy was on display in this week's debate: He'll talk about the importance of securing the border, and say no more. With this he hopes to mollify conservatives, and will leave it to others to remind Hispanics of his record. Florida was a useful test case, with Mr. McCain winning more than half the Hispanic vote. Another quarter went to Rudy Giuliani, who has since thrown in with Mr. McCain. Mr. Romney got 14%.

Mr. McCain has a better opportunity to make a Clinton competition about character and believability. He's no flip-flopper, and his duty-honor-loyalty persona would stand in stark contrast to both Clintons. He has a better opportunity to make an Obama race about core beliefs. Like or dislike Mr. McCain's views, Americans know what they are. Mr. Obama has been a cipher.

Most important, Mr. McCain retains the potential to make inroads with those who've had to hold their noses just to read this far. He does have a real problem with the GOP base. The key difference between Mr. McCain in 2000 and 2008 is that he knows it, and appears intent on making amends. Watch for him to be as pure as the New Hampshire snow on the two core issues of taxes and judges. His campaign has thrown its all into collecting establishment endorsements who will make his case with their state faithful. Supply-side icons such as Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm will try to soothe the feistier organizations in the GOP camp.

All of this establishment lobbying and support may not, in the end, be enough to win over base conservatives sick-to-their-stomachs with McCain's apostasies.

The question, then, is how much it will matter, once McCain sews up the nomination and sprints toward a general election victory?

The emerging consensus among pundits is that McCain will lock up the independent vote in the fall. Some GOP purists will indeed hold their noses and vote for the party's standard-bearer.

The rest of the unreconciled Malkin-tents will increasingly rail away at the GOP nominee from the weeds of the extreme right-wing partisan fringe.

That's not to say McCain should dismiss the job of political reconciliation among Republicans. He indeed needs to reach out in big-tent fashion.

Still, elections are decided in the middle of the political spectrum. McCain will no doubt compete favorably on that ground.

Arizona Seizes National Spotlight on Immigration

Today's Wall Street Journal has a penetrating front-page story on Arizona's immigration crisis and response:

Arizona is at the heart of what many say is the biggest, angriest storm over immigration to hit the U.S. in nearly a century.

Efforts to combat illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America are popping up across the state, fueled in part by an influx of immigrants of another sort: Americans from the North and East.

The collision of these two groups has helped turn Arizona into a laboratory for new ways to crack down on illegal immigrants. Employers here can lose their licenses if they hire undocumented workers. English is now the state’s official language. And the latest idea being floated in the state legislature would bar U.S. citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants.....

Immigration has become one of the most hotly contested issues heading into Tuesday’s presidential primaries. Arizona Sen. John McCain was an architect of the defeated U.S. Senate bill last year that included a guest-worker program and a pathway to legal status for illegal immigrants. He is now the Republican party’s front-runner, but the issue has hurt his standing among some voters. Among the remaining Democrats, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support comprehensive immigration reform....

Hostility toward immigrants has waxed and waned throughout U.S. history. At the turn of the 20th century, restrictionists denounced Italian and Eastern European immigrants as crime-prone, diseased and unable to assimilate. After isolationist sentiments flared during World War I, nativists in Congress pressured President Warren G. Harding into signing the first immigration Quota Act in 1921. The law effectively ended the open-door policy that had allowed millions of foreigners to settle in the U.S. in the previous decades. The National Origins Act of 1924 further stymied the flow, and the impact lasted for decades — the stanched flow of immigrants to the U.S. did not pick up again until the 1960s.

Today’s debate is partly a reaction to the fact that the U.S. is now home to more than 35 million immigrants, an all-time high in absolute numbers, scholars say. The density of the foreign-born population — almost 13% of the total — is approaching the 15% peak reached in the last massive wave of immigration from the 1880s to 1920s, according to scholars who study immigration. “In the last two years nativism has become as intense as it was during its last peak, the 1920s,” says Gary Gerstle, an immigration historian at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

The current wave of immigration has reached pockets of the country untouched by immigration for decades, and the fact that a huge number of the immigrants — 12 million — are here illegally further inflames passions.

Nationally, more than 1,500 pieces of legislation were introduced in state houses last year related to illegal immigration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Coming from all but four states, 244 of them became laws — three times as many as were passed in 2006. Arizona is one of the top states in terms of enacted laws last year, with a total of 13. The proposals typically tackle employment, law enforcement, drivers’ licenses and public benefits. Many of them are facing legal challenges; others are yet to be enforced.

Here's another link to the article.

More than any other issue, immigration is driving the grassroots conservative backlash to John McCain's campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

I've blogged quite a bit on immigration policy. I discussed the key crisis-issues in my earlier post, "John McCain, the Irrational Right, and the Politics of Immigration Control."

Also, for an argument on slowing down the flow of new migrants to the U.S., see Peggy Noonan's, "What Grandma Would Say."