The Lost Promise of Democratic Power

Check today's Los Angeles Times piece, "Democrats Savor Power For a Year but End It Feeling Unfulfilled:

Congressional Democrats ended their first year in control of Congress in more than a decade Wednesday, approving a $555-billion government spending measure that gave President Bush $70 billion for an Iraq war they had promised to end.

And underscoring the frustrations that have beset the new majority much of the year, Democratic leaders left the Capitol complaining that much of their agenda had been thwarted by congressional Republicans who repeatedly stopped their most cherished initiatives.

"We could have accomplished so much more," said a rueful Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) at a news conference in the old office of a Reid predecessor, Lyndon Johnson.

Despite the more than five dozen Iraq-related votes throughout the year, Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) were never able to muster the support needed to compel the president to begin withdrawing U.S. forces.

They were also forced to renege on their pledge not to add to the federal debt. On Wednesday, the House spared more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from paying the alternative minimum tax but abandoned any effort to recoup the $50 billion in lost revenue.

And as Democrats scrambled to pull together a budget bill in the face of veto threats from the president and solid GOP opposition on Capitol Hill, they scaled back plans to expand funding for education, Head Start, community health centers and other domestic programs.

In the end, Democrats were able to shift spending "only slightly at the margins," said G. William Hoagland, a former senior Senate GOP budget aide. "But not for want of trying."

Democratic leaders strove Wednesday to highlight the changes the party had accomplished after 12 years of almost uninterrupted Republican control on Capitol Hill. "America is in a better place than we were one year ago today, and the fact that Democrats control the Congress is part of the reason," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)

Congressional Democrats this year shifted the national debate about the war, the environment, even fiscal responsibility -- once a bedrock concept for the GOP that had been largely ignored by the president and his allies on Capitol Hill for the last six years.

The Democratic energy bill signed Wednesday by the president marked a historic change in the nation's environmental policy, providing the most significant increase in fuel-economy standards for vehicles in more than three decades.

Democrats passed the most sweeping overhaul of ethics rules for Congress since the Watergate era. They raised the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. They cranked up dormant oversight machinery, subjecting the Bush administration and others to a stream of subpoenas and investigations, forcing Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales to resign and focusing new attention on fraudulent activities by U.S. contractors in Iraq.

And, although Democrats could not overcome GOP resistance to their budget priorities, many federal budget watchers credit them with bringing a new focus on the consequences of running up the national debt, which now tops $9 trillion, or $30,000 for every American.

"The major accomplishment is what they didn't do that a Republican Congress might have, like more tax cuts that weren't paid for, more spending that wasn't offset," said James R. Horney, who follows federal fiscal policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But in a year in which the two parties were locked in a fierce showdown over the war that inflamed partisan tensions, those accomplishments were often overshadowed.

And as Democrats and Republicans maneuvered for political advantage, legislative business in the Capitol frequently ground to a halt.

In the Senate, the 49-strong Republican caucus used the chamber's procedural rules to filibuster legislation by demanding a 60-vote supermajority to move dozens of bills. Senators held 62 roll-call votes this year to break filibusters, more such votes than most Senates see in a two-year session.

Frustrated Republicans, many of whom chafed at their new minority status, accused Democrats of breaking their pledge to run a more bipartisan Congress by limiting GOP amendments to bills and shutting out Republicans from negotiations on drafting of bills.

"The Democratic majority said they wanted to try to work in a bipartisan way to get things done, but we've seen anything but bipartisanship," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

As Democrats battered Republicans over the war in Iraq, Republicans repeatedly blocked Democratic attempts to impose timelines for withdrawing troops.

The partisan divide also took a toll on tax and budget legislation.

Democrats took power offering pledges to offset tax cuts and spending increases through new pay-as-you-go budgeting rules. But the president and Senate Republicans prevented any move to pay for the $50 billion in alternative minimum tax relief with new taxes on wealthy Americans.

Democrats also couldn't enact one of their most popular measures, a plan to extend health insurance to more low-income children nationwide.

And, facing veto threats, Democrats found themselves severely hamstrung in how they could use the federal budget to fund domestic priorities they claimed had been neglected under the Bush administration.

Democrats did provide more money than Bush sought for veterans care, student aid, energy subsidies for the poor, grants to local law-enforcement agencies, housing programs, and programs to promote energy conservation and develop cleaner fuel sources. But in many cases, the additional funding was modest.

Democrats, for example, had to scale back their plans to expand research funding for the National Institutes of Health to a point that did not cover inflation.

"Unfortunately, we did not do as well as we believe we should have," said Mila N. Becker, director of government relations for the American Society for Hematology. "We ended up with an amount that is very disappointing. I think people had higher hopes."

Even some traditional Democratic allies expressed disappointment.

"The year began with a lot of promise," said AFL-CIO Legislation Director William Samuel. "It's been much more difficult than I expected. . . . We're not making as much progress as we had hoped."

Wednesday evening, the $555-billion omnibus budget bill passed the House 272-142, with 194 Republicans and 78 Democrats voting for it. Most Democrats voted against the measure because it included war funding.

Congressional Democrats' struggles have not gone unnoticed. Public approval of Congress, which climbed to near 40% in surveys taken at the beginning of the year, a high mark for recent years, dropped to 22% in a Gallup Poll earlier this months.

Click here for the Times' graphic, "Budget Changes."

The Democrats' year as majority party has been strange, especially in their inability to get anything of substance accomplished.

See also, "Congressional Pork Helps Vulnerable Democratic Freshmen," "President Bush Surging at End of Tenure," "Democratic Finger-Pointing ," "John Murtha's Cut-and-Run Turnaround," and "Democrats Can't Get Things Right on Iraq."

Interest Groups to Dominate Big Money Campaign Finance

Interest Groups have picked up influence in the campaign financing regime in the wake of the 2002 bipartisan reform of federal election laws. The Wall Street Journal has the story:

One of the defining features of the 2004 presidential campaign was the devastating attack on Sen. John Kerry by an obscure group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In the years since, such independent political groups have only grown stronger, and they are poised to play an even bigger role in the 2008 elections.

Political groups unaffiliated with the two major parties account for an increasingly large share of spending on federal campaigns -- 19% of the total in 2006, up from just 7% in 2000, according to an analysis of campaign-finance data by The Wall Street Journal. They now are horning in on crucial campaign activities once dominated by the parties, such as buying ads and getting out the vote.

In Iowa, independent groups are whipsawing voters with a range of conflicting messages. An organization called Common Sense Issues has funded automated phone calls backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and criticizing his chief Republican rivals. The Club for Growth, an antitax group, is working to defeat Mr. Huckabee with attack ads.

On the Democratic side, an organization called the American Federation of Teachers AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education has spent $250,000 on radio ads in Iowa backing Sen. Hillary Clinton. An environmental group called Friends of Earth Action is running ads against Sen. Clinton.

Over the past four years, the national Democratic and Republican parties have raised and spent less on elections than during the prior four years, when adjusted for inflation. At the same time, independent political groups have more than doubled their spending, and have begun to rival the parties as an election-season financial force, the Journal's data analysis shows.

The shift, largely the result of campaign-finance laws intended to curtail big-money donations to parties, could further polarize the American political landscape. Because the Republican and Democratic parties aim to appeal to broad swaths of the electorate, they tend to be moderating forces in politics. That isn't true of the independent groups, which range from the Sierra Club and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to fringe groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which disbanded after the 2004 election. They often pursue narrower agendas or causes further out on the political spectrum.

The nonprofit groups are financed by wealthy individuals, corporations, labor unions and other interest groups. Unlike the national parties, they face no limits on how much money they can take in from contributors. They often don't have to disclose their donors' names until months after an election -- if at all.

During the 2000 election cycle, such outside groups spent at least $260 million on presidential and congressional races, one-fifth as much as was spent by national political parties, according to the Journal analysis of campaign data provided by the Federal Election Commission and two nonpartisan organizations that track political spending. During the 2006 midterm elections, these outside groups spent about $600 million, almost two-thirds as much as was spent by the Republican and Democratic parties, the data indicate. Candidates themselves still account for the biggest piece of spending -- a bit less than half.

Overall, the amount of money poured into each two-year election cycle continues to climb. Data from the FEC and several groups that track campaign finance indicate that total spending during presidential-election cycles rose from $2.8 billion in 1995-96 to $3.6 billion in 1999-2000 to $4.8 billion in 2003-04. This year and next, it is expected to hit $6 billion, political strategists say.

Read the whole thing.

The rise of big money group financing - and the concomitant decline of the political parties - is the most important implication of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act of 2002. The consequences of reform are understandable, as I've noted before with respect to the rise of big-money "bundlers" in recent elections:

...as any student of campaign finance knows, money in politics is like the winding waters of a raging river. Should a dead log block the river's passage, the water finds a way to continue its flow, up, over, and around the impediment. So it goes with money. The McCain-Feingold reform act of 2002 is largely responsible for making the current crop of bundlers so powerful. The law has also made interest group 527 organizations (a regular target of criticism) powerful producers of campaign advertising. Who knows what consequences will flow from the next round of "progressive" campaign finance reforms?

It actually pretty fascinating how groups have adapted to the laws. They increased their activity and made the political process dramatically more pluralistic. The flow of money as such is how our politics should operate: Anyone can contribute and both sides of the political spectrum have influence.

It'll be interesting to see the types of "527" attack organizations that emerge in the 2008 general election. More "General Betray Us" from the left, and swiftboating from the right. Let the games begin!

New Poll Shows No Republican Frontrunner

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows a dead heat between Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney in the race for the GOP presidential nomination:

Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead in the Republican presidential race, creating the party's most competitive nomination fight in decades just two weeks before voting starts.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows the former New York City mayor now tied nationally with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 20% among Republicans nationally, just slightly ahead of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 17% and Arizona Sen. John McCain at 14%. At a time when Mr. Romney has fallen behind Mr. Huckabee in the leadoff state of Iowa, the result signals a dramatic shift in the nature of the Republican contest: In a party with a history of rewarding established front-runners, there's no longer a front-runner of any kind.

In part, this reflects the extraordinary openness of the first White House race in 80 years without an incumbent president or vice president seeking the office in either party. Though the survey shows Sen. Hillary Clinton maintaining a 22 percentage point national lead over Sen. Barack Obama, she too faces a stiff challenge in Iowa and other early states from Mr. Obama and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

In Mr. Giuliani's case, his fall from a high of 38% of the Republican vote earlier this year appears to stem largely from unfavorable publicity surrounding his personal life, his security business and his relationship with controversial figures such as one-time police commissioner Bernard Kerik. Just 35% of Republican voters rate Mr. Giuliani highly on having "high personal standards that set the proper moral tone for the country."

By contrast, 65% rate Mr. McCain highly on that score, 60% for Mr. Romney, and 53% for Mr. Huckabee. At the same time, fewer than half of Republican voters say that Mr. Giuliani, a moderate who favors abortion rights, or Mr. Huckabee, a conservative Christian with a populist tilt, or Mr. McCain, an ex-prisoner of war who has staunchly backed the Iraq war, "shares your position on the issues."

A fifth candidate, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, also draws double-digit support at 11% after shooting up to second-place support in the Republican field earlier this year. The fluidity in the race has scrambled calculations for the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary, and the Jan. 19 contest in South Carolina -- all of them historically important in shaping the nomination outcome. Aside from fluctuations in the candidates' personal images, the issue agenda is shifting as well amid rising concerns about an economic downturn.

I just wrote about the increasing salience of the economy among voters. But what interests me here is how well John McCain does on moral standards (as readers know well by now, I'm pulling for McCain). Unfortunately, the ethics issue's not a driving factor for most voters, but it could combine with other important factors - like concern on Iraq - to lift McCain a bit over the next couple of weeks.

As the article notes, the GOP race is extraordinarily open, and fun to watch as well!

Economy Moving to Forefront of Political Agenda

Peter Wallsten over at the Los Angeles Times argues that the economy is causing a shift in the presidential election debate:

As an election approaches, campaigns often brace for a last-minute event that could alter the political landscape. But the surprise this time isn't a scandal or a calamity overseas. It's an abrupt shift in the debate away from the battlefields of the Middle East and toward kitchen-table issues, such as the economy.

Suddenly the presidential campaign's longtime front-runners are facing new challenges, and lower-tier candidates are climbing.

The decline of national security and the rise of economic concerns has scrambled the race in both parties, helping underdog candidates make a case for themselves and forcing the leaders to change their tactics.

Rudolph W. Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton have built their campaigns around the argument that they would step into the Oval Office best-prepared to be a strong wartime commander-in-chief. They have belittled rivals and each other as weak or naive when it comes to dealing with enemies.

Now voters in both parties are looking less for strength than for candidates who can offer change or a more reliable adherence to each party's core values -- or simply for someone who feels more likable.

The shift has benefited Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee, who in recent weeks have narrowed or closed the gaps in key early-voting states, challenging front-runners Clinton and Giuliani. And it has fostered the sense that both parties' nominations are up in the air, with Democrat John Edwards and Republicans John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson all homing in on domestic issues to connect with voters, or emphasizing differences in leadership style.

"There has been a shift, a subtle shift," said nonpartisan pollster Scott Rasmussen. "You can overstate it, because Iraq and security issues are still important."

The shift helps explain why Clinton, the Democratic New York senator, and Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City, have moved to retool their images before caucuses are held Jan. 3 in Iowa.

Each front-runner had been feeding off the other: Giuliani boosted his Republican credentials by attacking Clinton, and Clinton pointed to those attacks as evidence that her party needed a tested survivor of the brutal partisan wars of the 1990s.

But this week the two are talking more aggressively about working hard to solve problems on voters' minds.

Clinton is showing a softer side by featuring friends giving sentimental website testimonials about "the Hillary I know." And Giuliani, while still embracing the aura of strength he gained after leading New York through Sept. 11, is trying to broaden his image. In what his campaign billed as a defining speech over the weekend in Florida, Giuliani pledged to fight poverty, improve education, cut taxes and end illegal immigration.

It was no coincidence that Giuliani's address in Tampa -- a hub of moderate Republican voters in the crucial battleground state -- seemed to put his once-dominant theme of strength in a new context. Cautioning that "middle-class families feel that the American dream may be slipping away," Giuliani exhorted the crowd to "decide for optimism, not pessimism; for hope, not despair; for strength, not weakness; for victory, not defeat."

The public's mood shift has been detected in a number of surveys and is viewed by analysts as the result of the housing-sales slump, fears of recession and an ebb in violence in Iraq. In an ABC News-Washington Post poll released last week, 24% of adults ranked the economy and jobs as their most pressing concern in choosing a candidate, slightly higher than the 23% who said Iraq.

Last month, the same poll showed 29% ranking Iraq as their highest concern, compared with 14% who pointed to the economy and jobs.

In New Hampshire, with voting set for Jan. 8, more than one in five Republican voters surveyed for Fox News ranked the economy as their leading concern, compared with 14% who listed the war. Immigration was the second most-cited issue in that poll, at 16%.

And in Florida -- which holds its primary Jan. 29 and has long been considered Giuliani's strongest early-voting state -- one survey by Rasmussen Reports showed Huckabee not only leading Giuliani overall but also among voters who claim to care most about Iraq.

I'm not fully convinced that Iraq's receding all that much from the public eye. It is true - as I noted in a previous post - that the economy is emerging as a priority among voters, although not by much.

Certainly both the economy and foreign policy will be driving factors in voter preferences next November. But some economists are betting against a recession in 2008, so it remains to be seen if we'll have full-blown pocketbook voting in the presidential election.

Vladimir Putin is Person of the Year

Time magazine has selected Russian President Vladimir Putin as Time 's Person of the Year. The editors explain why they chose Putin here:

In a year when Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize and green became the new red, white and blue; when the combat in Iraq showed signs of cooling but Baghdad's politicians showed no signs of statesmanship; when China, the rising superpower, juggled its pride in hosting next summer's Olympic Games with its embarrassment at shipping toxic toys around the world; and when J.K. Rowling set millions of minds and hearts on fire with the final volume of her 17-year saga—one nation that had fallen off our mental map, led by one steely and determined man, emerged as a critical linchpin of the 21st century.

Russia lives in history—and history lives in Russia. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Soviet Union cast an ominous shadow over the world. It was the U.S.'s dark twin. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia receded from the American consciousness as we became mired in our own polarized politics. And it lost its place in the great game of geopolitics, its significance dwarfed not just by the U.S. but also by the rising giants of China and India. That view was always naive. Russia is central to our world—and the new world that is being born. It is the largest country on earth; it shares a 2,600-mile (4,200 km) border with China; it has a significant and restive Islamic population; it has the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and a lethal nuclear arsenal; it is the world's second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia; and it is an indispensable player in whatever happens in the Middle East. For all these reasons, if Russia fails, all bets are off for the 21st century. And if Russia succeeds as a nation-state in the family of nations, it will owe much of that success to one man, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

No one would label Putin a child of destiny. The only surviving son of a Leningrad factory worker, he was born after what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War, in which they lost more than 26 million people. The only evidence that fate played a part in Putin's story comes from his grandfather's job: he cooked for Joseph Stalin, the dictator who inflicted ungodly terrors on his nation.

When this intense and brooding KGB agent took over as President of Russia in 2000, he found a country on the verge of becoming a failed state. With dauntless persistence, a sharp vision of what Russia should become and a sense that he embodied the spirit of Mother Russia, Putin has put his country back on the map. And he intends to redraw it himself. Though he will step down as Russia's President in March, he will continue to lead his country as its Prime Minister and attempt to transform it into a new kind of nation, beholden to neither East nor West.

TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years. Whether he becomes more like the man for whom his grandfather prepared blinis—who himself was twice TIME's Person of the Year—or like Peter the Great, the historical figure he most admires; whether he proves to be a reformer or an autocrat who takes Russia back to an era of repression—this we will know only over the next decade. At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME's 2007 Person of the Year.

The interview with Putin is here.

The editors note that the title of Person of the Year is not an honor, and I personally don't pay much attention to the announcement.

The full list of finalists is here, a listing which includes General David Petraeus.

Bill O'Reilly says Petraeus is "The Factor" person of the year:

On Wednesday, Time magazine will announce its person of the year. And on its Web site, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is the leading vote getter. Memo to Time: No.

Al Gore is also a crowd favorite because of his global warming campaign. Ahmadinejad getting some attention. But again, he would not be a good choice and Time knows it.

Now "The Factor's" Person of the Year must meet some very strict requirements. The person must have done something extraordinary, must be a world player, and must have changed history in some way. That is our yardstick.

And so, "The Factor" person of the year is General David Petraeus, who has turned a disastrous military situation in Iraq into a possible victory in less than a year. You will remember how the general got worked over by some Congress people, how many folks said publicly the so-called "surge" in Iraq would not work.

Well, they were wrong. Violence is now at the lowest levels since the conflict began in 2003. —Obviously, a stunning turn around in less than a year.

As "Talking Points" has stated, there are Americans who desperately want the USA to lose in Iraq. Some of those people are in the media. So reporting on the surge has been sparse to say the least.

The hate-Bush crowd simply will never admit anything good can come from the Iraq conflict. These people are bitter, dishonest, and of course, damaging to America.

A fair amount of people can oppose the war in Iraq yet want to see their country succeed in that place. There's no question that a stable Iraq is good for the world because it provides a bulwark against Islamic terrorism and Iranian expansion.

The cost has been great. We all know that. In suffering and cash. And the Iraqi government is still a mess. But General Petraeus, backed by a brave and professional U.S. military, has restored much order, largely defeated the Iraqi A Qaeda thugs, and at least given the good people of that country a chance to prosper. General David Petraeus is "The Factor" person of the year by a wide margin.

Petraeus is the "American Power" person of the year as well.

Toll of the Campaign: Hillary Clinton Old and Bitchy?

There's been few turns in the debate over Hillary Clinton's campaign the last few days.

Note first this gnarly picture of Hillary Clinton above, which was first published at the Drudge Report. Hillary Clinton's a 61 year-old woman. - why is she looking so haggard and wrinkly here? Is it the toll of the campaign?

Ann Althouse wants to know:

My first reaction to that picture is simple disbelief. How can she suddenly look that much older? I know Presidents age horribly in their few years in office, but she's not President yet, and this seems to have happened overnight. Did some treatment wear off?

But here's my second reaction, on reflection: We make high demands on women. A picture like this of a male candidate would barely register. Fred Thompson always looks this bad, and people seem to think he's handsome. We need to get used to older women and get over the feeling that when women look old they are properly marginalized as "old ladies." If women are to exercise great power, they will come into that power in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We must — if we care about the advancement of women — accommodate our vision and see a face like this as mature, experienced, serious — the way we naturally and normally see men's faces.

Althouse is responding to Immodest Proposals, which called the Hillary mug shot the photographic event of the year:

Right here, that's it, this is the most significant photo taken in the year 2007. Think it will win a Pullitzer? Whichever photog snapped this photo effectively ended Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

There's no recovering from that, image isn't everything, but it counts for a lot, and her image in that photo isn't the image most Americans would want us to project as a nation. You don't have to be wrinkle free to be president, but you can't look haggard and bedraggled, either.

Drudge captioned it "The Toll of the Campaign", but campaigning as arduous as it is, is still nothing compared to the toll that actually serving in the roll these folks hope to fill. Sen. Clinton has had some scary pictures in the past, but none have escaped that looked like this one.

She's done, whether or not the intention of the person behind the lens was to alter the path of the election or not, that's what this snap will do. She may have been too negative, too managed, and too divisive to ever convince the primary voters to choose her. So her winning was far from assured, but just as the "Dean Scream" solidified the concept of Gov. Dean that many voters already had of him, and just pushed away a ton of undecided voters, this photo will turn off the people who were on the fence regarding Hillary.

Rush Limbaugh weighed in on "the toll of the campaign" as well:

Now, this theory of mine based on this Drudge picture of Mrs. Clinton, with the headline: "The Toll of a Campaign." Now, it could well be that that's a sympathy photo, too, to make people feel sorry for how tough the campaign trail is. Now, I want to preface this by saying I know it's going to get out there. Media Matters is going to get hold of this and they're going to take it all out of context. We can expect that. It's a badge of honor when this happens, but for the rest of you, I want you to understand that I am talking about the evolution of American culture here, and not so much Mrs. Clinton. It could be anybody, and it is really not very complicated. Americans are addicted to physical perfection, thanks to Hollywood and thanks to television. We know it because we see it. We see everybody and their uncle in gyms. We see people starving themselves. We see people taking every miracle fad drug there is to lose weight. We see guys trying to get six-pack abs. We have women starving themselves trying to get into size zero and size one clothes; makeovers, facials, plastic surgery, everybody in the world does Botox, and this affects men, too. As you know, the haughty John Kerry Botoxed his wrinkles out during the campaign....

We know that the presidency ages the occupants of that office rapidly. You go back and look at... Well, you can't use Clinton because he dyed his hair based on the audience he was speaking to, but take a look some pictures of Bush in 2000, when he was campaigning, or 2001 when he was inaugurated. Take a look at him now. Just been eight years. The difference is stark. He's kept himself in good shape and so forth, but you can say that this is a sad, unfortunate thing. But men aging makes them look more authoritative, accomplished, distinguished. Sadly, it's not that way for women, and they will tell you. (interruption) Well, Snerdley, you're just sitting there thinking I'm on the precipice of the cliff here without a bungee cord. I'm not. I am trying to be... Look, if I'm on the edge of the bungee cord, then I'll take the leap. The bungee cord will save me. I'm just giving an honest assessment here of American culture. Look at all of the evidence. I mean, I've just barely scratched the surface with some of the evidence, and so: Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis? And that woman, by the way, is not going to want to look like she's getting older, because it will impact poll numbers. It will impact perceptions.

Read the whole thing.

While Limbaugh's got a point that we have a simplistic, narcissistic demand for glamor and beauty in our public figures, there's something fishy about that Clinton shot (Photoshopped?).

There's more though: What is it about how we discuss Hillary Clinton? Is the political debate nastier, more demonizing than in earlier eras, perhaps because of greater political polarization?

I thought about this after see this post over at Crooks and Liars, which links to a Bill Moyers interview with Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Moyers is hammering on what he alleges is a double standard in the vitriolic attacks in Hillary Clinton as a woman Democratic frontrunner. Try as he might, he can't get Jamieson to go all the way toward fully condemning Hillary Clinton's attackers:

BILL MOYERS: ...You've been looking this year at how the new media, the Internet, the blogs, the Web-- YouTube, MySpace, Facebook-- have been affecting politics. What have you found so far?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Well, first, there's more information available than there ever has been, and it's more easily retrievable. So we can, within minutes, locate candidates' issue positions, contrast them to other positions, search news interviews with the candidates where they're held accountable for discrepancies between past and current positions. We can get contextual information, also largely gotten from news. And you can hear in the candidates' own voices their arguments for those issue positions, sometimes at great length. Greater than you're going to find in ads. Or greater than you're find-going to find in news....

BILL MOYERS: What is Facebook, for my audience?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Facebook is a place that was originally designed for college students to go and post information about themselves, to talk with each other -- in which groups are formed that post-- people post pictures of themselves and they talk with each other on wall postings. And so you could form a group that would say this is the Bill Moyers discussion group about something on Facebook. And it might have a perfectly fine discussion about anything that we're talking about tonight. Or you could, you know, post a discussion group that says things that I have difficulty even talking with you, even privately much less in public.

BILL MOYERS: Because of the language, the words that are used.

BILL MOYERS: Because of the language, the words that are used.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Because the words and because the graphic images, the images that are manufactured to be placed in these sites are such that you wouldn't want to be associated with them in any way, nor would I. And they contain such things as graphic representations of what a donkey should do to Hillary Clinton. They contain language suggesting various sexual acts in relationship to Hillary Clinton. They reduce Hillary Clinton to various sexual body parts. They engage in characterizations of her in relationship to her policies. They're nothing but name calling in relationship to all of those categories of language. And so if you came home when you were, oh, say, a 15-year-old boy from school. And you said to your mother "Let me give you some of my language for the day," and you repeated any of those words, you know, your mother would have been shocked.

BILL MOYERS: Here are some of the entries from Facebook, you know? "Hillary can't handle one man; how can she handle 150 million of them? Send her back to the kitchen to get a sandwich. She belongs back with the dishes, not upfront with the leaders." It goes on and on like that. I mean, and it is fairly misogynist, but it isn't just the Internet. I mean on Rush Limbaugh, he talks about Clinton's testicle lockbox. MSNBC's Tucker Carlson says there's just something about her that feels castrating. One of his guests, a former spokesman from the Republican National Committee, Clifford May, says that if Clinton is going to appeal to women for support on the basis of her gender, at least call her a vaginal-American. I mean, in fact, isn't the sexist vilification of Hillary Clinton being set by the mainstream media?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: It's being set by both. The mainstream media has a much larger audience. When you look to the size of the groups that have this sort of vulgar, gross language on them about Hillary Clinton, their membership is actually very low. Where mainstream media can reach that number of people with the first second that it's articulated. Underlying this is a long-lived fear of women in politics. For example, we know that there's language to condemn female speech that doesn't exist for male speech. We call women's speech shrill and strident. And Hillary Clinton's laugh was being described as a cackle....

--and why we're looking at a laugh and whether it's appropriate or not is of itself an interesting question. We also know that underlying many of these assertions is the assumption that any woman in power will, by necessity, entail emasculating men and, as a result, a statement of fundamental threat.

So, why shouldn't you vote for Hillary Clinton? Well, first, she can't be appropriately a woman and be in power. She must be a man. Hence, the site that says Hillary Clinton can't be the first woman president; Hillary Clinton's actually a man. But also explicit statements that suggest castrating, testicles in lockbox. She's going to emasculate men. It's a zero-sum game in which a woman in power necessarily means that men can't be men.

Okay, note right here how Jamieson indicates that these attacks are from people on the fringe. But here's more:

BILL MOYERS: Let me show the audience that particular-- it's at real time. It happened. Senator McCain was at public meeting. And this woman stood up and asked-- woman. Wasn't a man who asked him this question. Look at it.

WOMAN: How do we beat the bitch

MCCAIN: May I give the translation?

BILL MOYERS: I know people don't like that word. I don't like that word. I'm using it only because it is out there. It's in common discourse on the Internet and you know, Senator McCain had the chance to say, "That's out of bounds. Don't ask me that question. Ask the question you want to ask differently and I'll answer it." But he didn't. He laughed. And he, in effect, gave it legitimacy.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Well, he looked uncomfortable and then he tried to find a way to reframe it, and he didn't reframe it very artfully. But those first seconds that you're showing on camera, you can see he's not very comfortable in that moment. And I wonder why the national audience didn't see that moment and feel that discomfort and ask the question, "Would you be comfortable saying about the woman who teaches your child, the woman who is your doctor, the woman who heads this corporation, you know, 'Well, how's the bitch doing today?'"

You know, where are the boundaries of when you will use that language and what does it mean? Was this a Hillary-specific comment? Or is this about women who get this far seeking the presidency? Or was this language that has been circulating in private circles for a very long time and now erupted into public? The people have heard it so often that they're not surprised by it? And as a result, they don't think we need to talk about it.

I think one way to reframe this is to ask: How would you ask a comparable question about a male candidate you really wanted to defeat? Where would you find comparable language to use?

BILL MOYERS: And where would you? There is no language of degeneration like this that describes men, is there?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Well, you could say, "How are we going to beat the bastard?" But it wouldn't carry all the same resonance of that word in the context of its use now.

BILL MOYERS: And you couldn't say, "How are we going to defeat the nigger?" How are we going to-- which is the word that was so common when I was growing up in the South. "How are you going to defeat the kike?" referring to Jews-- you wouldn't do--- that woman would not have done that, I don't think.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Well, and we have language is constantly open for discussion. We know what's appropriate and what's inappropriate by the way in which society responds, what our peer group responds, the community we turn to responds. And so when someone uses language that is considered inappropriate and there is a national discussion, we dampen down that use. That's what happened with Imus, who is now just coming back on the air. When something like this happens and we don't have the discussion, we move it in to acceptable use.

BILL MOYERS: But some of this stuff on the Internet about Clinton is just downright pornographic. Words are used, toxic words-- are used that I can't use and wouldn't use on the air. I mean, let me just show you some of the stuff we pulled off-- a montage we strung together from the web with using some of the worst comments about them, which would be offensive to people if we didn't bleep them out and still may be offensive. But take a look....

BILL MOYERS: I want to say how would I write this off as just Internet graffiti, the kind of stuff you'd find sometimes on the subway or you found on your high school gym wall. But I have to say it seems to me to have reached far beyond that.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: When you look at the number of members who identify with the sites that post these sorts of things, they're actually fairly small. One question is: How much social disapproval of this actually is there? Another is, within these communities, where is the capacity to talk back and ask where the boundaries of appropriate discourse would be? That is, is there a way to engage productively in the disagreement they want to express and have some substantive content attached instead of simply, you know, ad hominem, in this case I guess ad feminem, name calling?

BILL MOYERS: How does this make you feel as a woman?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: I think most of the professional women who see this happening have had enough professional experiences in their lives to realize that these sorts of sentiments are actually out there and have probably experienced some of these sorts of things. And the question it raises for me is, you know, as this happens nationally and as moderate Republican women become more aware of it, do they increase their identification with Hillary Clinton or not?

BILL MOYERS: Which came first, the episode with McCain from the woman who asked him that question or all the pornographic stuff about Hillary Clinton on the Internet?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The material was on the Internet long before the McCain question. And these kinds of characterizations of Hillary Clinton go back to her emergence in the public sphere as the spouse of the Democratic candidate in 1992.

BILL MOYERS: So this is really unusual?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: It's un-- this amount--

BILL MOYERS: Unprecedented?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: This amount of content is unprecedented. But because the medium of the Internet is new, we don't know what would have happened with previous candidacies of women. So we can't go back and actually study it. The way we find that these kinds of characterizations of Hillary Clinton have been out there is to look to other forms of media throughout the 1990s where we do, indeed, find them. Hillary Clinton as dominatrix, for example, is one of the ongoing themes and one of the parodies on Rush Limbaugh.

BILL MOYERS: We share the same floor here with the BBC. And a BBC producer, I was talking about this with him the other day. He said, you know, this did not happen when Margaret Thatcher rose to power. Of course, the Internet was not a phenomenon then. But it did not happen even in the pubs, it wasn't said about Margaret Thatcher. What's different about the British culture and the American culture?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: What I remember being asked about Margaret Thatcher is who wears the pant in the family? And her husband, you know, basically is suggesting that he did. So a kind of light joking tone about - the question, you know, what is it like to have a female assuming power? But you've got to remember that Britain had a history of female leadership. You know, Elizabeth Rex is, you know, the queen that we all turn back to as, you know, the monarch that is an exemplar of exercise of power, including in times of war. The United States doesn't have a tradition, except an indirect one with Edith Bolling Wilson. And then with very strong first ladies with Rosalyn Carter, with Nancy Reagan, with Hillary Clinton.

BILL MOYERS: I covered the campaign in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic vice-presidential running mate. I do not recall these kind of attacks on Geraldine Ferraro. There's something, as you say, unique in this present experience.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Or there's another possibility. There's a possibility that these kinds of attacks have always been there, but they were never posted in public space before. Is it possible that in these past environments, for example, with Margaret Thatcher in Britain or, for example, when women were running for governorships. When, you know, you saw, for example, Jean Kirkpatrick emerge as a Republican leader or Ann Armstrong, earlier than that. Perhaps these things were being said. But perhaps we didn't have any way of seeing them.

Perhaps the comments that you're reprising from public space elsewhere, largely on cable or on talk radio, were actually out there but we only had network evening news as a way of getting access to the political world. And they never would have gotten into that forum. So it's possible that nothing has changed except our access to a window on a part of a world. And that we haven't found a way to create boundaries around it and say within it, "Don't you want to have a different kind of discourse here? Do you really want to conventionalize this?"

Jamieson does not take the bait!

She comes down squarely that the wild, demonizing attacks we see are not something new, or at least it would be impossible to confirm empirically a more substantial courseness in today's political speech than in earlier eras (certainly Margaret Thatcher got some of the nastiest attacks imaginable in her day, from the left!)

So a question for readers: Are Limbaugh or Moyers two sides of the same coin, one conservative and one liberal, both trying to put their own spin on the issues?

I'm mostly just observing. But honestly, I don't think the "toll of the campaign photo" is a matter for serious discussion beyond a morning of talk radio chatter. Of the two, I see Moyers engaging in more of a partisan project, as part of the liberal media elite driving the hard-line discourse among much of the nation's press establishment.

Blaming America for Terrorism?

The Los Angeles Times is currently running a new new editorial series, "American Values and the Next President." While I rarely agree with the paper's editorials, this set of essays is worth a good read.

Yet what really caught my attention was one of this morning's letters to the editor, which was commenting on a previous installment of the series on liberty and American values. The author, J.G. Berinstein, argues the Times is playing it a bit soft:

Your editorial does not go far enough. Part of the reason citizens and Congress have acceded to the unprecedented power grab by the Bush administration is that they have bought into the notion that the U.S. faces a "stateless philosophy" that has drawn it into a "conflict without end."

I submit that the administration's war on terrorism isn't a war at all, and that the best way to reduce the level of terrorism is by altering foreign policy.

The plain truth is that current administration policy provokes terrorism. If its policies were based on respect for the right to self-determination, true freedom of religion and human rights and liberties in general, there would be far less enmity directed toward the United States.

Instead, the administration has arrogantly pursued "preventive war," "regime change," torture, imprisonment without due process and other policies that make the U.S. appear to be an overgrown, immature bully. And no one likes a bully.

Once it refashions its foreign policy in such a way as to demonstrate respect for the rest of the world, (and less of a sense of entitlement to the other countries' resources), the threat of terrorism will fall dramatically.

Well, that's a lot to think about:

Let me see, an "unprecedented" power grab? I'm sure Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt might feel slighted.

"Citizens and Congress" have "bought into the notion that the U.S. faces a 'stateless philosophy' that has drawn it into a 'conflict without end?'" Could that "stateless philosophy" be Islamic fundamentalism, which was the ideological basis for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (and I'd bet Berinstein discounts the danger of state-sponsored - but "non-state" - terror movements around the Middle East, notably Hezbollah and Hamas)? A "conflict without end? Was that the Cold War?

What about how the administration "arrogantly pursued preventive war, regime change, torture, imprisonment without due process and other policies that make the U.S. appear to be an overgrown, immature bully?"

Is it "arrogant" to wage a preventive war against a state recognized internationally as a danger to world peace, which had been in violation of over a decade's worth of U.N.-sponsored resolutions mandating full compliance with global disarmament demands? Was it "arrogant" to fulfill the promise of the Clinton administration's "Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998" when we toppled the murderous regime in Baghdad in 2003?

(I think detainee's due process rights were at issue at the Supreme Court recently, but hey, with President Bush in office Berinstein's got no time for the fine points of separation of powers.)

And how will the United States refashion its "foreign policy in such a way as to demonstrate respect for the rest of the world?" By electing a Democrat to the White House in 2008 who will adopt international multilateralism, diplomatic concessionism, and defense downsizing in the face of a worldwide movement of radicals and religious fundamentalists intent on the destruction of this country?

I don't think so, and blaming America first is the last thing we need to do in terms of generating the respect of the rest of the world.

McCain Battles Romney, Giuliani in New Hampshire

This morning's Los Angeles Times has an analysis of the political dynamics of the New Hampshire primary, focusing on John McCain's chances there in the wake of this weekend's big endorsements:

In an increasingly fractured Republican race, three top presidential hopefuls fanned out across New Hampshire on Monday, with Mitt Romney seeking to downplay expectations, John McCain basking in key endorsements and Rudolph W. Giuliani pressing his case to siphon votes from Romney, the leader here.

McCain was joined at his first stop by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate turned independent, who officially endorsed the Arizona senator Monday.

McCain's campaign hopes the endorsement will broaden his appeal to independent voters, who can register to vote on election day in either primary. Such voters helped boost McCain to an 18-point victory here over George W. Bush in 2000.

He received the backing over the weekend of New Hampshire's Portsmouth Herald, the Boston Globe and the Des Moines Register, although he has placed less emphasis on Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses.

With his efforts heavily concentrated on New Hampshire, where ballots will be cast five days later, McCain has managed to rebuild some support after hitting a low this summer when his once-dominant campaign sank to fourth place in the state behind Romney, Giuliani and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.

Many core Republican voters here were turned off by his push for legislation that would have created a path to citizenship for some of the nation's more than 12 million illegal immigrants. But McCain has since explained to voters, as he did in Concord on Monday night, that he moved too hastily on those plans without first making sure the borders were secure.

Some think that revised message and positive headlines about the "surge" in Iraq, which he backed, are helping draw voters into his camp.

Though McCain is jockeying with Giuliani for second place here, some 10 points behind Romney, few political analysts are discounting the possibility of a McCain resurgence.

"This is where the Iowa factor, the electability factor, comes in," said Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. "If Romney gets beaten in Iowa, the perception of him as being an electable candidate is going to drop."

Despite his lead in New Hampshire, Romney suggested that even a second-place finish here would not mark the end of his campaign.

After he noted that Bill Clinton had finished second here in 1992, Romney said at a Londonderry news conference: "The political wins, and the implication of them, is something I'll leave to others. But typically one says coming out of Iowa there are three tickets and coming out of New Hampshire there are a couple of tickets, and I'm hoping to pull a ticket from both of those states, at least."

Romney's remarks underscored the building pressure on his campaign and the unpredictability of the New Hampshire contest, where more than 40% of likely Republican voters have yet to make up their minds.

The article also discusses Mike Huckabee's fortunes, and then concludes with a mention of Rudy Giuliani's recent campaign stop at Goss International, a New Hampshire-based manufacturing firm. Some in the crowd weren't happy with Giuliani's response to his support for gun control as Mayor of New York:

Richard D. Wamsley, 57, Goss' director of engineering, said afterward that he was disappointed by those answers.

He thought Giuliani seemed unfocused and tended "to drift."

"I expect somebody who is going to be in a position of power like the president to be very clear-thinking," said Wamsley, who came to the meeting undecided between Giuliani and McCain and departed leaning toward McCain.

"More than anything else," Wamsley said of McCain, "it's his background. He is a true hero. I think what Giuliani did and how he behaved during the 9/11 crisis was commendable, but I am not sure he did anything out of the ordinary."

Well, perhaps McCain's looking more solid in the Granite State after all!

See my earlier posts on the McCain campaign, and his comeback, here, here, here, here , and here.

Can McCain Win New Hampshire Swing Voters?

One of the assumptions underlying John McCain's purported electability in New Hampshire is the role of political independents, who can swing to one side or the other in the primaries, prividing the pivotal votes needed for victory.

How will the swing vote play out in January? The Washington Post has the analysis:

As Sen. John McCain, a Republican running for president, touted the endorsement Monday of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a maverick Democrat-turned-independent, it seemed designed to capture a legendary brand of New Hampshirite, a state icon on par with the moose: the independent voter.

New Hampshire law allows people who are registered as "undeclared" to vote in either party's contest in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. That has led political strategists to speak respectfully of the swing voters who wait until the last minute to decide which party's primary to vote in, thereby exerting an outsized, and unpredictable, effect on the outcome.

Such voters are expected to make up at least a quarter of the vote on Jan. 8, and all the candidates are in hot pursuit. McCain (Ariz.) is touting his appeal among centrists such as Lieberman (Conn.). Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is offering his mix of social moderation, fiscal conservatism and hawkish anti-terrorism rhetoric. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is promoting his reach across the political divide, and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) argues that there is nothing more independent on offer than his grass-roots libertarian crusade.

Yet the battle for the independents is taking on a new aspect this year, with implications for both parties' primaries: There are signs that the true swing voter, trying to make up his mind between parties, is much less in play.

Political scientists studying the state have noted in recent years that most of its undeclared voters favor one party, with a slight majority now leaning Democratic, and are thus independent in name only. While a growing share of the state's voters are undeclared -- 44 percent -- at most a third of those voters are seen as true independents.

"A lot of these independents are people who have a leaning, but are typical Yankees who don't want to be identified with any party. Who knows -- maybe they think that they'll get less appeals for money that way? But the bottom line is that they either lean Republican or lean Democratic," said Steve Duprey, a former state Republican chairman who is advising McCain here.

The partisan cast of the undeclared is being borne out even more this election season because of the polarizing effects of the Iraq war and President Bush's tenure in general, both of which are unpopular with the state's unaffiliated voters. In 2000, McCain, running as an anti-establishment reformer, vied with Bill Bradley, the former Democratic senator from New Jersey, for the affections of New Hampshire independents -- a battle McCain won, and one that probably cost Bradley an upset win over Al Gore.

This time, there is far less evidence of a direct battle for independents between McCain (or Giuliani) and Obama, the Democratic candidate who is appealing to many of the same voters that Bradley did. There is a gulf between the platforms being offered by McCain and Giuliani on the one hand, and Obama on the other, that is unlike anything that existed between McCain and Bradley.

McCain and Giuliani vow to stay the course in Iraq; Obama cites his early opposition to the war. McCain is relying heavily on the support of older veterans, while Obama is going after the youth vote. Obama is proposing a large expansion of health insurance, but Giuliani mocks such plans as socialistic.

Many independents who voted for McCain in 2000 or considered it say doing so in January is out of the question because of his staunch support of the war.

"I think George Bush has been simply horrible . . . and I'm afraid that Mr. McCain just doesn't see the direction the country is going in," said Bill Nostrom, a retired dairy farmer from Newmarket. He voted for McCain in 2000 but is planning to vote for Obama.

McCain's weakening hold on independents holds enormous potential for Obama. In opinion polls done by the University of New Hampshire this year, 55 to 70 percent of undeclared voters said they would vote in the Democratic primary. (In 2000, 62 percent of independents who voted did so in the GOP primary.) A few months ago, there was little sign that Obama was taking advantage, as polls showed him doing no better among undeclared voters intending to vote Democratic than he was among registered Democrats.

But in last week's UNH survey, he showed gains among undeclared voters intending to vote in the Democratic primary, with 36 percent saying they would vote for him and 26 percent saying they would vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), putting him in a tie with her overall. Obama's advisers here say it simply took a little longer for independent voters to move to him than it did for them to rally around Bradley in 2000, because Obama is newer to the political scene.

"Voters did not know who Barack Obama was. Barack Obama was someone they had to learn about," said Jim Demers, a Concord lobbyist who is co-chairing Obama's campaign here.

The McCain campaign does not dispute that it is pursuing a more limited universe of New Hampshire independents than in 2000. Advisers say the campaign is still targeting independents more than it is establishment Republicans, with an effort that includes a television advertisement showing McCain speaking directly to the camera about the special interests and establishment Republicans he has aggravated over the years. But this time, advisers say, McCain is competing less for undeclared voters who are also considering voting for a Democrat than going after undeclared voters who would vote in the GOP primary no matter what.

Lieberman's endorsement, they said, helps in that regard, drawing Republican-leaning independents who admire his resolve on the war, as well as establishment Republicans who perhaps see in his endorsement proof that McCain would be electable next fall. But there is little illusion that the support of Lieberman, who draws the scorn of many Democrats, will win over independents interested in Obama.

"There's going to be a good percentage of independents who historically take the Republican ballot and don't care about Barack or Hillary, and we want their votes, and this is a great way to solidify that," said Duprey, the McCain adviser.

The lack of direct competition between the Obama and McCain campaigns is clear in the contrast between their appearances here. In a recent visit, Obama presided over a panel discussion with his foreign policy advisers before about 120 voters in Portsmouth. In it, he laid out his plans for using diplomacy to reengage America with the rest of the world.

McCain, by contrast, has adopted a much more muscular tone than he did in 2000, with a martial campaign logo, a video highlighting his military heroism played for crowds at his appearances, and a heavy emphasis on his support of the Iraq war. At most appearances, McCain asks veterans in the crowd to stand to be applauded, and questions regarding veterans' issues -- and inside jokes between McCain and veterans -- dominate his events more than they did in 2000. In Bedford, McCain dismissed a question by a young woman who cited poll numbers showing that a majority of military families question the war, telling her: "I know the military, and I know that by the thousands they categorically reject that assertion."

While the approach may have a narrower appeal than McCain's reform platform of 2000, it has solidified his support among some core Republican-leaning independent backers, such as Ed McCabe, a landlord and Army reservist who has served in Iraq.

"A lot of us were with McCain last time, and a lot of those same people want to be able to say 'I was right last time' " by backing McCain again now, he said.

The polling data provided here's not to be fully trusted. There's no breakdown in support for those who are likely to vote in the GOP primary. How many of those voters will go for McCain? He's going to need their support.

There's bound to be lots more guys like Ed McCabe, the Army reservist quoted above. Go McCain!

See my earlier McCain posts, here, here, here, and here - and don't forget this one, "McCain Deserves a Second Look."

More McCain: Why the Comeback?

I'm very pleased that John McCain is getting the attention he deserves as the one to beat for the GOP presidential nomination. The Wall Street Journal explains why the Arizona Senator's making a comeback:

Endorsing John McCain for President yesterday, Joseph Lieberman stressed that his Senate colleague would always elevate his country above his party. Coming from a man who was excommunicated by Democrats for his views on Iraq, this was a fitting sentiment--and it may also explain why Mr. McCain seems to be staging something of a primary resurgence.

As recently as January, Mr. McCain was the putative Republican favorite, but his support collapsed amid his campaign mismanagement and the GOP's immigration meltdown. Now primary voters seem prepared to give him a second look in an unstable race. Mike Huckabee has galloped to a lead in Iowa, bruising Mitt Romney, though without much scrutiny of the former Arkansas Governor's record. Fred Thompson has yet to offer a compelling rationale for his candidacy. Rudy Giuliani for a time defied political gravity based on his New York reform leadership, but he has been hurt by questions about his judgment and ethics.

Re-enter Mr. McCain, who is nothing if not a known GOP commodity. One of his problems has been that to some Republicans he is too well known. This is the John McCain who was adored by the media for opposing tax cuts, favoring limits on free speech as part of "campaign finance reform," and embracing a cap and trade regime for global warming. This is the John McCain who was also endorsed this weekend by the Des Moines Register and Boston Globe, two liberal papers that are sure to endorse a Democrat next year.

Our own differences with Mr. McCain have mainly been over economics, and especially taxes. Despite record surpluses in 2000, the Senator refused to propose tax cuts as part of his Presidential bid--one reason he lost to George W. Bush. He also opposed the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, often using the language of the left.

Mr. McCain paid a visit to our offices last Friday, and he now says he supports extending the Bush tax rates, even admitting they helped the economy emerge from recession. "Without a doubt. Without the slightest doubt," he told us. "Absolutely."

In a spirited exchange, Mr. McCain justified his previous opposition by arguing that there was no discipline on spending. "To the everlasting shame and embarrassment of the Republican Party and this Administration," he noted, "we went on a spending spree and we didn't pay for it." That's true enough, and in an ideal world tax cuts would be offset dollar-for-dollar by spending cuts.

But in practice Congress will never do so, which means Republicans are left to be tax collectors for the welfare state. The experience of the Reagan and Bush years is that tax cutting has its own economic benefits, and that revenues will rebound far more quickly than the critics claim. We asked Mr. McCain what he'd do when faced with a Democratic Congress that insists he raise taxes in 2009, and he replied that he'd say "No" and cite JFK's successful tax-cutting in the 1960s. This is intellectual progress, and we trust such McCain advisers as Phil Gramm and Tim Muris will conduct further tutorials.

More than economics, Mr. McCain has two main strengths in this GOP race: His record on national security, and the belief that he can reach enough non-Republicans to assemble a viable center-right coalition and defeat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in what could be a difficult GOP year. Mr. Lieberman's endorsement is notable because it reinforces both of those claims. Mr. Lieberman had to win GOP and independent voters to keep his Connecticut Senate seat after he lost the Democratic primary, and Mr. McCain won in New Hampshire in 2000 with the help of independents who could vote in the GOP primary. He'll need their support again this year.

The two men have also been stalwarts on Iraq, even when it became unpopular, and despite paying a political price for it. Mr. McCain also argued persuasively for the changes in strategy now known as the surge. In his Friday visit with us, the Senator spoke with authority on all manner of foreign policy. He is a hawk in the Reagan mold on Iran, the larger Middle East and overall defense spending.

Our guess is that this national security record is the main reason for his own political surge. With the success of General David Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, even some conservatives have taken to arguing that foreign and military policy will become less important in 2008. We doubt it. This is still a post-9/11 country, and voters know they will be electing a Commander in Chief in a world that is as dangerous as it was during the height of the Cold War. In an election against any Democrat next year, Mr. McCain would have little trouble winning the security debate.

See also some of my earlier McCain posts here, here, here, and here.

**********

UPDATE: Captain Ed weighs-in on the McCain comeback:

In a strange way, the elements of the primary campaign have conspired to give McCain a second shot at the nomination. He fixed his campaign problems in time to maintain his national standing as a candidate. Meanwhile, while Republicans still have issues with his policies and track record, the same can be said about all of his competitors. Critics have lambasted Huckabee's record in Arkansas, dinging his momentum, while the conservative base has continued to have issues with Giuliani's pro-choice social centrism. Romney has tried to overcome policy shifts and past rhetoric, but still has not quite built trust with the voters.

Can McCain take advantage of that? He has admitted error on two key positions that generated considerable ire among Republicans: tax cuts and immigration. His position on cuts now unreservedly recognizes the economic boost that Bush's reductions created, and says he will defend them as President. That's at least as believable as Romney's reversal on abortion, although a President has a much greater effect on taxes than on abortion, making it pragmatically much more critical.

On immigration, the sale will almost certainly not succeed. As late as this summer, McCain tried forcing through a reform package that infuriated conservatives. He now says that he "heard the message" and will pursue border security first before turning his attention to the status of illegal immigrants. Had he done that this summer, he may have found some credibility -- but that opportunity has passed. The same is true with campaign-finance reform, where some conservatives and liberals find agreement that the effect has been to curtail political speech and not corruption. In this case, McCain remains politely defiant.

McCain has been magnificent on the war and on spending. He has bucked his own party on what turned out to be a poor strategy in post-war Iraq and fought hard for the White House when they finally took his advice. For porkbusting, one could not find a better candidate, one who has already fought in the trenches against the thinly-veiled bribery system that has gripped Congress.

Those qualities have rightly kept him in contention -- but will they be enough for him to prevail? Only if Republican voters decide that the other top-tier candidates have more negatives than McCain. If GOP voters perceive him as the most reliable conservative, one who can hold the Republican big tent together, he has a fighting chance. Unfortunately, McCain's record as a "maverick" will make that conclusion very difficult to reach.

Only if the "other top-tier candidates have more negatives than McCain?"

Perhaps, although maybe McCain's record as a straight-talker should be taken into consideration now. If he says he's seen the light on immigration, he's not one to pull your leg.

In any case, The Griper made similar arguments about McCain's maverick streak. The whole debate's showing exactly what a political campaign should be all about: evaluating the candidates and sizing up the most qualified.

McCain Endorsements Piling Up

Senator Joseph Lieberman has endorsed John McCain for president:

This morning in New Hampshire, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) endorsed
John McCain for President of the United States. Senator Lieberman issued the following statement on his endorsement:

"I have come to New Hampshire this morning to ask Republican and Independent voters to support John McCain in the first-in-the-nation primary on January 8.

"I know that it is unusual for someone who is not a Republican to endorse a Republican candidate for President. And if this were an ordinary time and an ordinary election, I probably would not be here today. But this is no ordinary time - and this is no ordinary election -- and John McCain is no ordinary candidate.

"In this critical election, no one should let party lines be a barrier to choosing the person we believe is best qualified to lead our nation forward. The problems that confront us are too great, the threats we face too real, and the opportunities we have too exciting for us to play partisan politics with the Presidency.

"We desperately need our next President to break through the reflexive partisanship that is poisoning our politics and stopping us from getting things done. We need a President who can reunite our country, restore faith in our government, and rebuild confidence in America's future.

"My friend John McCain is that candidate, and that is why I am so proud to be standing by his side today. "I have worked closely with John for many years on many issues -- from stopping genocide in the Balkans to combating global warming to creating the 9/11 Commission and enacting its recommendations into law. I have seen John, time and again, rise above the negativism and smallness of our politics to get things done for this country we love so much. I have watched him, time and again, work across party lines to make our country safer and stronger.

"John McCain has proven that we can trust him to do what is right for our country, not only when it is easy, but when it is hard; to do what is necessary, not only when it is popular, but when it is not; and to tell us the truth, not only when it is easy to hear, but when it is not. "As President, John McCain will bring America together again. He will inspire a new American unity and a new American patriotism. He will push all of us to work together to solve our biggest problems, and defeat our most dangerous enemies.

"Throughout our history, succeeding generations of brave Americans have risked their lives for the cause of freedom - which is America's cause. Throughout his career, from the ranks of the military to halls of the Congress, John McCain has made freedom's cause his own. He learned the ideals of patriotism and service from his father, he taught them to his sons, and he will hold those ideals high as an inspiration for all Americans.

"When it comes to keeping America safe in this time of war, John has proven that he has the experience, the strength, and the character, to be our commander-in-chief from day one. I have traveled the world with John, so I can tell you how much he is liked and admired by leaders across the globe. He will be a President our friends will respect and our enemies will fear, and a President who will lead our nation on the world stage with purpose and principle.

"When others were silent, and it was thought politically unpopular, John had the courage and common sense to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq and to call for more troops and a new strategy there. And when others waivered, when others wanted to retreat from the field of battle, John had the courage and the common sense to stand against the tide of public opinion and support the surge in Iraq, where we are at last winning.

"You may not agree with John McCain on every issue, but you can always count on him to be honest with you about where he stands, you can always count on him to stand for what he believes is right for our country -- regardless of pressure from politicians or vested interests. And you can count on him to be restless in pursuit of progress. In that sense, John McCain is the real change candidate in this race for the Presidency.

"There are many fine people running for President. Many of them are good friends of mine. But I have concluded -- and I hope you will, as well -- that John McCain is the candidate who can best reunite our country and lead us to victory in the war against Islamist terrorism.

"The nomination for President remains wide open, so on January 8th, New Hampshire's voters can - and I hope will - make history and send John McCain from the Granite State to victory.

See also the New York Times for an analysis of the politics of pre-primary endorsements.

Civilian Casualties in Iraq: The Hidden War?

War is hell, right?

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.

How many Americans appreciate this, especially in the time of an all-volunteer Army, and amid the increasing deligitimization of warfare as a tool of statecraft among the antwar left?

These ruminations arise upon reading Michael Massing's," Iraq: The Hidden Human Costs," in the current New York Review of Books. Massing focuses on the dark side of our current conflict. He reviews new works on the war, written from what he sees as a richer, more personal perspective than what's been available in most newspapers and books:

As probing and aggressive as the reporting from Iraq has been, it is subject to many filters. There are, for example, "family viewing" standards that make it difficult for journalists to write frankly about such sensitive aspects of military life as the profane language soldiers often use. It's also hard for journalists to get an accurate sense of what soldiers really think. Through embedding, reporters have enjoyed remarkable physical access to the troops, but learning about their true feelings is far more difficult, all the more so since soldiers who speak out too freely can be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Finally, there are limitations imposed by the political climate in which the press works. Images that seem too graphic or unsettling can cause an uproar. When, for instance, The New York Times in January 2007 ran a photo of a US soldier lying mortally wounded on the ground, the paper was angrily accused of showing disrespect for the troops. More generally, the conduct of US soldiers in the field remains a highly sensitive subject. News organizations that show soldiers in a bad light run the risk of being labeled anti-American, unpatriotic, or—worst of all—"against the troops." In July, for instance, when The New Republic ran a column by a private that recounted several instances of bad behavior by US soldiers, he and the magazine were viciously attacked by conservative bloggers. Most Americans simply do not want to know too much about the acts being carried out in their name, and this serves as a powerful deterrent to editors and producers.

Books are less susceptible to such pressure and as a result can be far more pointed. The picture they present is not always bleak. They describe many affecting scenes in which soldiers try to do good, administering first aid, handing out food, arranging for garbage to be picked up. For the most part, the GIs come across as well-meaning Americans who have been set down in an alien environment with inappropriate training, minimal cultural preparation, and no language skills. Surrounded by people who for the most part wish them ill and living with the daily fear of being blown up, they frequently take out their frustrations on the local population. It's in these firsthand accounts that one can find the most searing descriptions of the toll the war has taken on both US troops and the Iraqi people.

Massing's main attention is on two books: One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, by Nathaniel Fick, and Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War, by Evan Wright.

Here's another passage, focusing on civilian casualties in the war:

Taken together, Fick and Wright provide a chilling account of what it was like to be in Baghdad as the city descended into anarchy. A stream of terrified and desperate Iraqis shows up at a cigarette factory the Marines are occupying, begging them to put an end to the looting, but the soldiers feel powerless. At night, the gunfire in the streets becomes so fierce that they don't dare venture out. By this point, Fick has learned that the seemingly reckless way in which his men had been deployed was actually part of a bold Marine plan to attract the fire of Iraqis and distract them from the main invasion force thrusting into Iraq much farther to the west. The plan succeeded, but this seems of little consolation in light of the lawlessness sweeping Baghdad. Fick, Wright observes, "appears to have lost his belief in his mission here." The cause is not so much the disorder itself as his realization that the Americans have no real plan to remedy it.

As Wright's time with the platoon nears an end, he looks back on all that he has seen:

In the past six weeks, I have been on hand while this comparatively small unit of Marines has killed quite a few people. I personally saw three civilians shot, one of them fatally with a bullet in the eye. These were just the tip of the iceberg. The Marines killed dozens, if not hundreds, in combat through direct fire and through repeated, at times almost indiscriminate, artillery strikes. And no one will probably ever know how many died from the approximately 30,000 pounds of bombs First Recon ordered dropped from aircraft.

Wright leaves it at that. By this point in his book, the death of civilians has emerged as a major theme, and I was sorry he didn't discuss the matter further. To learn more, I contacted Marc Garlasco, the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. (During the invasion, he worked at the Pentagon, recommending targets for air strikes.) Garlasco told me that, according to the most widely accepted estimates, 10,000 civilians at a minimum were killed during the invasion, the large majority victims of the coalition. Few Americans seem aware of this number.

Wright did elaborate on this in an interview he gave soon after his book appeared. "For the past decade," he said,

we've been steeped in the lore of The Greatest Generation, the title of Tom Brokaw's book about the men who fought World War II, and a lot of people have developed this romanticism about that war. They tend to remember it from the Life magazine images of the sailor coming home and kissing his fiancée. They've forgotten that war is about killing. I really think it's important as a society to be reminded of this, because you now have a generation of baby boomers, a lot of whom didn't serve in Viet Nam. Many of them protested it. But now they're grown up, and as they've gotten older I think many of them have grown tired of the ambiguities and the lack of moral clarity of Viet Nam, and they've started to cling to this myth of World War II, the good war.

I never read Tom Brokaw's book, but if you go back and look at the actual greatest generation writers, people like Kurt Vonnegut—who wrote Slaughterhouse Five—and Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, and their contemporaries, who actually fought in World War II and wrote about it, there's no romance at all. In fact, a lot of their work is very anti-war.

His book, Wright added, "goes into how soldiers kill civilians, they wound civilians." In Iraq, the shooting of civilians

was justified in the sense that there were some civilian buses that had Fedayeen fighters in them.... But when you see a little girl in pretty clothes that someone dressed her in, and she's smushed on the road with her legs cut off, you don't think, well you know there were Fedayeen nearby and this is collateral damage.

Overall, Wright said, "the problem with American society is we don't really understand what war is." The view Americans get "is too sanitized."

Just how sanitized is the American view of the war? Notice Massing's theme, that the American public is shielded from Iraq's brutality.

Certainly the public cannot fathom the fog of war, the blood and guts, the true human toll, on all sides, and obviously, the real grunt's eye-view of combat isn't appropriate for family-hour television viewing.

I don't think, however, that the public is systematically deprived of coverage of the war's horrors. Indeed, one could argue the opposite, that the American media has been obssessed with civilian deaths in its war reporting, and on the alleged atrocities committed by American service-personnel.

I'm reminded here some recent scholarship on civilian casualties in Iraq by Colin Kahl, who writes:

Based on field research and an extensive review of primary and secondary materials, I contend that the U.S. military has done a better job of respecting noncombatant immunity in Iraq than is commonly thought. Moreover, compliance has improved over time as the military has adjusted its behavior in response to real and perceived violations of the norm. This behavior is best explained by the internalization of noncombatant immunity within the U.S. military’s organizational culture, especially since the Vietnam War. Contemporary U.S. military culture is characterized by what I call the “annihilationrestraint paradox”: a commitment to the use of overwhelming but lawful force. The restraint portion explains relatively high levels of U.S. compliance with noncombatant immunity in Iraq, while the tension between annihilation and restraint helps account for instances of noncompliance and the overall level of Iraqi civilian casualties resulting from U.S. operations—which, although low by historical standards, have still probably been higher than was militarily necessary, desirable, or inevitable.

Kahl's research is scrupulously non-partisan, and in personal communications with me he wrote this:

...although the number of casualties caused by the *direct* action of U.S. is relatively low by historical standards, we should not trivialize the fact that 8,000-15,000 Iraqis have still died at their hands, and the failure of the U.S. to plan, prepare, and execute a strategy to bring stability to Iraq in the aftermath of regime change contributed to the anarchy and chaos that has claimed perhaps as many as 100,000 additional lives.

I think this is probably a more productive way to look at the problem of civilian casualties.

There are costs in war and conflict, military and civilian. But it's important to put things in context. While it's true to some extent that, "Most Americans simply do not want to know too much about the acts being carried out in their name," it's also probably true that Americans don't like to watch sausage being made. People still eat sausage, of course. Just as there's balance in diet, there should be a balance in how we perceive the costs and benefits of this nation's wars.

Articles like Massing's - and the books he reviews - can help us appreciate the human toll in war. Still, the literary project covered in this article is interested in much more than fostering fuller appreciation of battle. Left-wing journalistic attention to the purported "hidden human costs of war" is part of the broader deligitmization campaign to demonize the use of American military power.