Barack Obama and the Power of Words

I've noted a number of times now that Barack Obama's lofty rhetoric cannot hide his advocacy of policies that would take the country in a radically different direction, on both domestic and foreign issues.

But many on both sides of the political spectrum underestimate the power of words, according to Stephen Hayes:

These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny:

"More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"

Whose words are these? Ronald Reagan's in 1980.

As Hayes notes, Democrats dismissed Reagan's lofty statements that year, but he went on to win a landslide election, winning 44 states and 489 electoral votes.

Are Republicans making the same mistake with Obama?

For months now, Hillary Clinton has suggested that Mr. Obama is all rhetoric, no substance. This claim, or some version of it, has been at the center of her campaign since November. One day after losing to him in Wisconsin and Hawaii -- her ninth and tenth consecutive defeats -- she rather incredibly went back to it again. "It's time we moved from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions," she said -- a formulation that could be mistaken for a sound bite.

As she complained about his lack of substance, tens of thousands of people lined up in city after city, sometimes in subfreezing temperatures, for a chance to get a shot of some Mr. Obama hopemongering. Plainly, her critique is not working.

And yet, Republicans are picking it up. In just the past week, conservative commentators have accused Mr. Obama of speaking in "Sesame Street platitudes," of giving speeches that are "almost content free," of "saying nothing." He has been likened to Chance the Gardner, the clueless mope in Jerzy Koscinski's "Being There," whose banal utterances are taken as brilliant by a gullible political class. Others complain that his campaign is "messianic," too self-aggrandizing and too self-referential.

John McCain has joined the fray. In a speech after he won primaries in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland, Mr. McCain said: "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude." After Wisconsin, he sharpened the attack, warning that he would expose Mr. Obama's "eloquent but empty call for change."

The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.

Read the rest.

Hayes speaks so glowingly of Obama's substantive firepower you'd think he too was totally in the tank!

I kid, of course, and frankly Obama's coming off as one of the greatest campaigners in the history of American presidential elections.

Still, the key question to remember is where will all these lofty calls to inclusion, equity, and equality lead? To an additional $400 billion in federal spending amid a time of steep budget deficits? That doesn't sound Reaganesque.

On foreign policy, when Obama declared the recent success in Iraq as "tactical" improvements in one of America's greatest strategic blunders, where do those words lead? To the abandonnment of America's hard work at overcoming initial failures to achieve what's now looking like one of modern warfare's greatest strategic corrections? Will Americans surrender the blood and treasure of our emerging victory in Iraq to the angry cries of the nihilist wing of the Democratic Party?

Public opinion's not demanding an unconditional retreat. Iraq can and should be a continuing outpost of American forward military leadership. In partnership with a sovereign Iraq, American power will mark the foundation of a political and strategic commitment to Iraq's democratic future, and to the region's long-term stabilty and progress.

So don't underestimate Obama's words, like these:

Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.

Hayes notes that if elected Obama will govern the same way he's campaigned.

That's exactly what worries me.

McCain Prospects Hinge on Iraq

The general election prospects of John McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting, depend on how well he can convince the public that America's winning the conflict and that our efforts have been worth it:

Senator John McCain said Monday that he needed to convince the American people that the troop escalation in Iraq was working and that American casualties there would continue to decline. If he did not, he said, “I lose” the election.

“Is there any doubt?” Mr. McCain said to reporters on his campaign bus.

But then he pulled back from his blunt assessment. “Let me not put it that stark,” he said, explaining that he believed people would judge his candidacy on his ability to handle the economy, which has emerged as a pre-eminent voter concern, as well as on national security.

Nevertheless, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made clear that he believed his prospects in November would rest in large measure on the way the situation in Iraq played out.

“If I may, I’d like to retract ‘I’ll lose,’ ” he said. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me.”

Mr. McCain said he believed opinion was shifting to his point of view, referring to a recent USA Today poll that, he said, showed that “now the majority of Americans believe the surge is succeeding.”

The USA Today/Gallup poll he was apparently referring to, however, found that not a majority, but 43 percent of Americans believed the troop increase was “making the situation there better,” an increase from 22 percent last July.

The poll, conducted Feb. 8 to 10, also underscored just how unpopular the war continues to be, with 60 percent saying it was a mistake.

Yet the new dynamic in Iraq — with American casualties plummeting and violence in Baghdad falling to 2005 levels — has altered the political landscape for Mr. McCain since last summer, when American troop deaths spiked and his candidacy ran aground.

Mr. McCain has, of course, staked his candidacy on his support for President Bush’s escalation strategy, which was unveiled early last year and resulted in more than 30,000 additional troops in Iraq.

When Mr. McCain’s campaign stalled, he set about reviving it with a “no surrender” tour meant to identify him even more closely with the strategy. He invariably cites his early call for assigning more troops to Iraq as evidence of his ability to handle what he calls the “transcendent challenge” facing the country in the form of radical, violent Islam.

Steven Warshawsky argued yesterday that Iraq's likely to be a losing issue for McCain, and that he needs to stake out a new position on the conflict - some type of "Iraqi Peace Plan" - that reassures voters that American troops will be coming home sooner rather than later.

Warshawsky badly misreads the polling data, however, and labeling a U.S. redeployment from Iraq a "peace plan" will open up the Arizona Senator to charges of appeasement from Defense hawks in his own party. Even Democrats aren't going to be sold by a "Republican Jimmy Carter."

McCain needs to make the case that a limited, long-term presence in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest. American forces are still in Germany, Japan, and other World War II-era missions, and Iraq will likely see a similar outcome.

We don't need 100,000 troops in Iraq permanently. We do need some kind of secure strategic basing arrangements that facilitate interoperability with other continuing American military operations, air, land, and sea. McCain's already articulated portions of that message on the hustings. He might think about making that theme a key part of upcoming stump speeches.

Photo Credit: New York Times

100 Years in Iraq? The Left Takes Aim at McCain

The left's hammering John McCain's statement that U.S. troops could stay "maybe 100" years in Iraq, hoping to paint the Arizona Senator as an unhinged neo-imperialist.

While 100 years sounds like a long time, McCain implied a 100 year commitment to the Iraqi people rather than a permanent Iraqi protectorate. The comment's the focus of a liberal veterans' group attack advertisement, via YouTube:

Allahpundit puts McCain's comments in context:

As McCain has explained numerous times now, the “100 years” comment isn’t a call for another century of hot war; it’s a projection of a token presence in a stable country along the lines of our “occupation” of Okinawa, one that certainly wouldn’t require the trillions of dollars being disingenuously tossed around here. The left knows a good talking point when it sees it, though — and so does Maverick, who’s decided to run away from what he said as fast as his feet will carry him. Let me know when the left makes its stand about getting U.S. troops out of Germany and I’ll start caring about nonsense like this.

Marc Ambinder puts Allah's "run away" statements in context himself:

Today, some new language from Sen. John McCain on the length of the United States's military commitment to Iraq.

Listen to it, here.

The Iraq War, Mr. McCain said, will be over "soon."

He continued: "...the war for all intents and purposes, although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis. ... "

The full context:

“And by the way, that reminds me of this hundred year thing. I was asked in a town hall meeting back in Florida, how long would we have a presence in Iraq? My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis. ... "

See also my earlier post on our strategic commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, which will likely be threatened by a Democratic victory in November.

McCain is Competitive Against Likely Democratic Nominee

New polls from the New York Times and USA Today find Barack Obama favored over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

The Times' survey also shows voters seeing Obama as more electable than John McCain, the GOP frontrunner (see Memeorandum).

Yet, Gallup's new survey finds McCain running competitively in trial-heat matchups against either of the Democratic hopefuls:

Democratic front-runner Barack Obama and likely Republican nominee John McCain are essentially tied in likely voters' preferences for president if the general election were held today.

Forty-eight percent of likely voters say they prefer McCain for president, and 47% Obama, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 21-24. The two have been closely matched each of the three times the question has been asked of likely voters this year.

The contest would be about as tight if Hillary Clinton were the Democratic nominee. In that test ballot, 50% of likely voters choose McCain and 46% Clinton.

The Democratic candidates do slightly better among all registered voters, but the two hypothetical races are still a statistical tie among this larger group of voters.

These close contests come in a political environment that is currently quite favorable to the Democratic Party: Democrats have a significant edge in terms of current party identification; the Democratic Party has much higher favorable ratings than the Republican Party; and when various polling organizations ask the "generic ballot," Americans decisively say that in theory they would prefer a Democrat to a Republican in office....

Thus, it appears McCain is doing better than what might be expected of the Republican nominee in general. One reason for this is that McCain is able to attract support beyond just Republican Party loyalists. McCain currently attracts more support among likely voters who identify as Democrats than either Democratic candidate attracts among Republicans who are likely to vote. Also, McCain is competitive with Obama among politically independent likely voters and leads Clinton by 10 percentage points among this group.

Implications

Gallup polling on the general presidential election thus far has suggested the contest may be quite close, and the outcome could be similar to what occurred in the prior two presidential elections. This is in spite of the fact that everything else being equal, the Democratic candidate this year should be leading the Republican candidate. As these data show, McCain is able to transcend party to some degree, because he has more crossover appeal than either Democrat. Also, the general election campaign is just getting started. Over the next eight months, Democrats will attempt to link McCain to an unpopular incumbent president, and to hold the Republican Party responsible for a faltering economy and general discontent with the way things are going in the country. If they are successful in doing so - assuming Americans' attitudes do not improve considerably between now and November -- then the Democratic candidates may run stronger in future general election trial heats. At the same time, of course, Republicans will be attacking the Democratic nominee - all to suggest that a lot can change between now and next Nov. 4.

A lot could change between now and November, but the data provide more support for my contention that the election's no slam dunk for the Democrats, despite all kinds of indicators to the contrary (see here, here, here, and here).

Democratic Promises May Break Treasury

USA Today adds a cautionary note to election debates by showing how a Democratic administration in 2009 will cost the treasury hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending:

To listen to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaign in Ohio and Texas is to hear pledges on health care, middle-class tax cuts, mortgage assistance, tuition help, energy initiatives and more.

It's all very appealing. It's also almost certainly too good to be true.

In 2009, when the next president takes office, the government is expected to spend $400 billion more than it takes in, adding to a national debt that tops $9 trillion. Yet Clinton and Obama both offer a long list of new spending proposals that suggests a lack of seriousness in confronting the nation's fiscal condition...both candidates have major new health care initiatives and other spending proposals; Obama tacks on a major tax cut for working Americans to offset Social Security tax payments.

While it's hard to come up with a precise price tag given the lack of specifics in many of their proposals, these plans are likely to cost the Treasury well into the hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The National Taxpayers Union, a conservative group that favors lower taxes and smaller government, gives a very rough estimate of $287 billion for Obama and $218 billion for Clinton.

How would the candidates pay for all these new programs without driving the deficit to new heights? Some have specific funding sources; some don't. The candidates rather vaguely claim that costs would be covered primarily by repealing President Bush's tax cuts and ending the Iraq war.

This is where the math gets fuzzy.

Not that fuzzy, actually, if one's realistic about this.

The Democrats will have to raise taxes to finance their spending proposals, and the potential "savings" from winding down America's deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq will add to the already overwhelming demands for surrender among the Democratic Party's antiwar base.

Already, hare-brained theories are being developed among some far-lefties justifying Robin Hood-style confiscatory policies to soak the rich.

The truth is - in this time of potential recession - the country needs expansionary fiscal policies in the form of tax cuts to stimulate spending, precisely the opposite likely to happen under a left-wing presidency.

Budgetary politics is going to be one of the hottest areas of debate in the months ahead.

Will big government sell in public opinion? I wouldn't bet against it.

Election '08: No One Has a Clue

Noemie Emery makes a good case that we're politically clueless on what will happen this year, in "Six Things We Don't Know" about election '08.

Here's what she says about McCain:

John McCain: Does his appeal to independents, centrists, and Lieberman Democrats outweigh the ennui, nausea, and revulsion he evokes among those on the right of the right? In a sense, this is a row between conservatives who are politicians, and concerned with assembling a center-right coalition they can use to wield power, and movement conservatives who are theoreticians and see the coalition as a vessel to contain their ideas. The first camp are mainly in Congress, the second on the radio and online. When the latter realized after the Florida primary that McCain might become head of the party, it set off a week of ferocious assaults; some struck a pose like that of Rebecca in Ivanhoe, and threatened to throw themselves over the parapet rather than submit to the stranger's embrace. Damage control was commenced by McCain allies such as Tom Coburn, Sam Brownback, Jack Kemp, and George Allen, who have strong ties to movement conservatives.

The results of Super Tuesday, which McCain won in the face of an all-out assault from the right, suggested that while movement leaders may be in touch with their base, the base itself is only part of a large coalition. Yet in a country this size, even a niche movement can account for millions of voters, and in close elections every vote counts. If some people don't vote, the states in which they don't vote could be important: A poll done by SurveyUSA in 2007 showed both McCain and Giuliani falling below the Bush totals in some red states (though not by enough to lose), but doing better than Bush in blue states and swing states, the latter of which they might win. Low blows from the left, like the New York Times's muckraking last week, not to mention Democratic attempts to define McCain as a right winger, may be just the thing he needs. Nothing arouses the right like the enmity of the left. Will it be enough to compensate for McCain's enthusiasm gap with conservatives? This is one thing we don't know.

Here's what she says about Obama:

Barack Obama: What goes up must come down, but the Obama balloon has so far defied gravity. Will it still be going up in November? If it falls, will there be a swift collapse, a slow deflation, or just a soft, gentle hissing? So far, his rise is beyond precedent: The two charismatic presidents of the postwar era, Reagan and Kennedy, were canonized in retrospect. Nobody seemed to pass out at their rallies, and they each had a great deal more substance behind them: Reagan, the two-term governor of one of the largest states in the union, and an established conservative spokesman; Kennedy, a 13-year member of the House and the Senate, with a long-standing interest in foreign affairs. The strongest Obama parallels come up in other primary campaigns, and then always with people who lost--with Clean Gene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, who ran against each other in 1968 (until Bobby was murdered); with Gary Hart in 1984, who lost to the über-prosaic Walter F. Mondale; and with Howard Dean in the 2004 cycle, who lost to the very pedestrian John Kerry after the misfortune of being endorsed by Al Gore.

On the plus side for Obama is the fact that his ascent has gone on longer than all of the others; that his low-key appeal is in the style of Reagan and Kennedy, and more durable than the louder variety of charm; that his base is broader than that of most Democratic insurgents, as he links upscale whites to minority voters; and that he is feeding off of a seemingly bottomless urge for civility, after decades of partisan wars. On the minus side is the fact that he shows little substance--there isn't much mention of what he would change to--and that his call for bipartisanship in governing is at odds with his orthodox liberal record, giving no sign of what--if anything--he and the opposite party could compromise on. One sign of trouble is that he has never been seriously challenged by anyone to his right (Alan Keyes does not count). Another is the gap between his soaring and infinite promise and his less than original program.

In the end, Reagan and Kennedy were about winning the Cold War, which is how they defined themselves; and their most famous speeches concerned the advancement and value of liberty. Obama defines himself by his personality. "The message is becoming dangerously self-referential," writes Joe Klein, who notes that the Obama campaign is all too often about how terrific the Obama campaign has been. "Obama's people are so taken with their Messiah that they'll soon be selling flowers at airports and arranging mass weddings," writes David Brooks--who admires him. With Chris Matthews noting that he gets a "thrill up my leg" listening to Obama give one of his speeches, the whole thing verges on parody that may not go over well with Middle America. Middle America has been also ticked off by Michelle Obama, whose comment that she is "proud of her country" for the first time in her adult life because her husband "has done well" shows a trace of the insularity that lost 49 states for McGovern and Mondale, as well as a very tin ear. This is the sort of thing that results in small tears in the fabric, through which small currents of air may shortly be hissing. Thus could happen tomorrow, it could happen in August, it could happen in the first week of November, or it just might not happen. This is still one more thing we don't know.

Emerie - who's always a pleasure to read - also indicates what we don't know about Hillary Clinton, Iraq, the economy, and the unforseen things that erupt - beyond normal expected unexpected situations - to throw years of campaign planning out the window.

The article's an excellent rebuttal to the argument that John McCain's actually not as well positioned to win on the Iraq issue as most observers have assumed.

Captain Ed Joins Hot Air!

In January I was perplexed by Captain Ed Morrissey's counterintuitive endorsement of Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination.

Not only was the Captain's logic in the endorsement strained - considering how it was largely based on Romney's purported superior (but questionable) conservative creditials - it looked as well to perhaps have been motivated more by material interests than the ideological. As I noted at the time:

I respect Ed Morrissey tremendously. He's an outstanding political analyst (wrong only on occasion), and frankly I'm blown away by his blogging fecundity and intellectual scope.

But I can't help wondering if his selection of Romney reflects the path of least resistance.

I mean, he's among the top voices on the right side of the blogosphere, and he's apparently got some pretty big aspirations in radio broadcasting. So why rock the boat? The Rush-bots are unforgiving, you know...one wouldn't want to alienate those bedrock conservatives!

Well, in all humility, let me just say I nailed that one: Michelle Malkin's announced this morning that the Captain will be joining Hot Air, one of the premier conservative blogging platforms on the web, as a regular contributor.

Here's the story, from Michelle:

Hot Air is proud to welcome blogger extraordinaire Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters to the staff. He’ll start cross-posting here today and we’re opening up comment registration to help bring CQ members into the fold. (Go here to register.) In the next few weeks, Ed will close down CQ and make Hot Air his exclusive home.

Ed began blogging at Captain’s Quarters in 2003. During the past five years, his work has been published in the Washington Post, New York Post, New York Times, Weekly Standard, and other national publications. In 2007, Ed made the leap to full-time employment in New Media when he became political director for Blog Talk Radio. You can see all of his past work in the archives at Captain’s Quarters.

Ed has lived in Minnesota for more than ten years after leaving his native California. He and his wife have a son and daughter-in-law finishing their college education and a beautiful five-year-old granddaughter. He has a weekly radio show on Minnesota’s AM 1280 The Patriot every Saturday afternoon.

Ed has been a friend and kindred spirit since I entered the blogosphere. He brings keen political insights, boundless energy and optimism, and invaluable investigative skills/enterprise reporting to the team. His pioneering citizen journalism helped expose government corruption in Canada and brought down a rotten Canadian Liberal Party administration. He’s been the subject of moonbat cartoonist Ted Rall’s class bigotry and a target of Vanity Fair jerk James Wolcott’s snobbery. Ever the gentleman, Ed joked in response: “Success is when all the right people hate you.”

Hot Air now has two of the hardest working men in the blogosphere on board full-time– and one very lucky boss. As has been the case from launch, we’ll agree on many issues. But not all. We have an eclectic mix of conservative-to-libertarian perspectives, distinctive interests, life experiences, and styles. What unites Allah, Ed, and me: Hot Air’s company goal of informing, entertaining, and keeping you plugged in with piping hot blog commentary, headlines, political analysis, original reporting, video and other multimedia offerings all day, every day.

Learn. Enjoy. Laugh. Share. Vent. Mobilize. And always stay tuned.

I want to first wish the Captain a hearty congratulations!

Being on Malkin's team clearly provides the entree needed to move up in the growing conservative media community in radio and alternative journalism platforms on the web (for more on similar media developments, see the New York Times' story on progressive blogger Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, via Memeorandum).

But I'd also note further that the Captain's new voyage raises important questions of blogging journalism and integrity. Malkin's brand is perhaps the most in-your-face style of take-no-prisoners conservatism around. Ed Morrissey, on the other hand, is a voice of conservative reason who often works hard to pull right-wing bloggers back from the brink of extremism.

So it's not unreasonable to speculate as to how things will work out for both Morrissey and Hot Air.

The Captain obviously will now have an even bigger venue for the distribution of his political commentary, which is frankly some of the best on the web.

Yet at the same time, with the nature of Hot Air's centrality in the far-right echo chamber (and its considerable contributions to phenomena like the recent outburst of "McCain Derangement Syndrome"), there's some risk that Morrissey might lose his critical stance of right-of-center moderation, getting pulled - as in quicksand - down into Malkin's right-wing vortex.

On the other hand, Morissey might have the opposite offect on Hot Air. While he's not likely to turn Michelle Malkin into a Rockefeller Republican anytime soon, those conservatives who like good, incisive commentary - and those who realize that purity at the expense of victory this November would be a colossal mistake - the Captain might succeed in adding a tone of conservative statesmanship to the debates among the right-wing commentariat.

Let's hope things develop along this second track I've laid out.

See also Morrissey's farewell post at Captain's Quarters: "The Road Goes Ever On," as well as the additional commentary at Memeorandum.

GOP to Combat Charges of Racism, Sexism

The Republican National Committee is researching possible strategies to rebut likely allegations of racism and sexism as party officials prepare to campaign against the nation's first black or woman presidential candidate.

From the Politico:

Top Republican strategists are working on plans to protect the GOP from charges of racism or sexism in the general election, as they prepare for a presidential campaign against the first ever African-American or female Democratic nominee.
The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved. The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior GOP operatives see for a party often criticized for its insensitivity to minorities in campaigns dating back to the 1960s.

The RNC project is viewed as so sensitive that those involved in the work were reluctant to discuss the findings in detail. But one Republican strategist, who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, said the research shows the daunting and delicate task ahead.

Republicans will be told to “be sensitive to tone and stick to the substance of the discussion” and that “the key is that you have to be sensitive to the fact that you are running against historic firsts,” the strategist explained.

In other words, Republicans should expect a severe backlash if they say or do anything that smacks of politicizing race or gender. They didn’t need an expensive poll to learn that lesson, however.

This should not be surprising.

Last week's news of Michelle Obama's senior's thesis at Princeton generated considerable talk of affirmative action, quotas, and accusations of right-wing conservative bigotry.

Afghanistan and Iraq: The Long-Term Commitments

Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, can hardly be considered a neoconservative war-booster. His analyses of the Iraq war have more often been of the glass-half-empty variety than not.

This makes it all the more important that his recent strategic assessments have been increasingly upbeat (for example, see his new report, "The Situation From Iraq: A Briefing From the Battlefield").

Over at the Washington Post, Cordesman makes the case that both Afghanistan and Iraq are "winnable wars," with the U.S. military in a commanding position in every province in Iraq, while at the same time facing the increasing possibility of a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.

Both wars remain winnable, argues Cordesman, although much depends on American public support, and especially the strategic dispositions of U.S. political leaders:

What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat. There are good reasons that the briefing slides in U.S. military and aid presentations for both battlefields don't end in 2008 or with some aid compact that expires in 2009. They go well beyond 2012 and often to 2020.

If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose. Years of false promises about the speed with which we can create effective army, police and criminal justice capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot disguise the fact that mature, effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012 and probably well beyond. This does not mean that U.S. and allied force levels cannot be cut over time, but a serious military and advisory presence will probably be needed for at least that long, and rushed reductions in forces or providing inadequate forces will lead to a collapse at the military level.

The most serious problems, however, are governance and development. Both countries face critical internal divisions and levels of poverty and unemployment that will require patience. These troubles can be worked out, but only over a period of years. Both central governments are corrupt and ineffective, and they cannot bring development and services without years of additional aid at far higher levels than the Bush administration now budgets. Blaming weak governments or trying to rush them into effective action by threatening to leave will undercut them long before they are strong enough to act.

Any American political leader who cannot face these realities, now or in the future, will ensure defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Any Congress that insists on instant victory or success will do the same. We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience -- or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves.

Of all the strategic analysts I study, I place tremendous trust in Cordesman assessments. He's just scrupulous in his even-handedness - a quality that's hard to deny, even when I disagee with his conclusions.

In this case, for example, I'm obviously more bullish on Iraq (having at least once declared victory in the war), and on Afghanistan I see the picture one more of resources and will than of any long-term military disadvantage.

But I have no disagreement on Cordesman's main point here: We need historic, long-term commitments on Afghanistan and Iraq, no less important than those we made after World War II. The price of peace in this sense appears staggering - especially for those blinded by antiwar derangement - but such costs are not unusual in the history of American foreign policy. We can and should pay the bills.

Photo Credit: New York Times, "Choosing Which War to Fight."

Right Wing Bloggers to Vote McCain

A fascinating but absolutely non-scientific survey of right-wing bloggers finds 75 percent indicating they'll vote for John McCain in November.

From Right Wing News:

Right Wing News emailed more than 240 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to answer 9 questions. The following 59 blogs responded:

Aaron's CC, Absinthe & Cookies, The Absurd Report, Argghhhh!, AtlanticBlog, Baldilocks, Betsy's Page, Blonde Sagacity, Bluey Blog, Keith Burgess-Jackson, Lorie Byrd, The Captain's Journal, Conservative Grapevine, Dispatches from Blogblivion, Classical Values, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Conservatives With Attitude (Hank), Conservatives With Attitude (Michael), Dr. Helen, Eckernet, Musings, Cassy Fiano, Fraters Libertas, David Frum's Blog, Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media, GayPatriot, GraniteGrok, Mary Katharine Ham's Blog, JackLewis, (Brian) Liberty Pundit, Likelihood of Success, Midnight Blue, Moonbattery, mountaineer musings, The Jawa Report, Newsbeat1, Nosiy Room, No Oil For Pacifists, (Buckley) The Nose On Your Face, (Potfry) The Nose On Your Face, Pal2pal, Pirate's Cove, QandO, Reformed Chicks Blabbing, Riehl World View, Right Thinking From The Left Coast, Right Wing Rocker, Samizdata, Say Anything, Don Singleton, Sister Toldjah, Slobokan's Site Of Schtuff, The Smallest Minority, Solomonia , Southern Appeal, dcthornton.com, Townhall (Katie), Trying To Grok, WILLisms.

The bloggers were asked to select answers to the following questions...[see original post].

Right Wing News also queried the bloggers on McCain's ideological credentials: "Do you consider John McCain to be a conservative?" Sixty-six percent said "no."

So, are conservatives rallying to McCain? It's too early to tell.

A look at the list indicates a few conservative heavyweights responding to the questionnaire, although the poll suffered significantly from a steep non-response rate.

Nevertheless, hats off to Right Wing News for putting out considerable effort to survey top conservative bloggers. The results aren't definitive - although a decent statistically-insignificant baseline, at the least.

Republicans Rallying to McCain?

The spin on the post-NYT smear campaign against John McCain is that the GOP pre-nomination rift is healed.

Sure, the Politico reports that the right's rallied only eluctantly behind the Arizona Senator; and I've noted previously that some of the far-right's talk radio mandarins exploited the McCain blow-up to their own advantage.

Still, I do think we're seeing the GOP starting to finally pull together behind the party's nominee-in-waiting. Steve Chapman makes the case that the Times' hit piece episode marks the turning point in the Republican race:

Those who had been angered by McCain's gentle treatment by liberal journalists were angered to see him handled roughly by the same scribes. They quit attacking McCain and began blasting The New York Times, which had given them plenty of ammunition. Note to the Times: When Sean Hannity sounds like the voice of responsible journalism, you've done something wrong.

And with that, the great Republican civil war was pretty much over. Conservatives will never embrace McCain for his views on immigration, campaign finance or global warming. But they may come to echo what was said about Grover Cleveland when he was nominated for president in 1884: "We love him most for the enemies he has made."

The closing of the rift should come as no surprise. After eight years in which they were about the only people to stick with the Republican president, conservatives have gotten used to thinking of the GOP as a wholly owned subsidiary of the right. In reality, though, they have never gained full control of the party, and as the pending McCain nomination suggests, they probably never will.

The party has long consisted of two groups, who might be called Eisenhower Republicans and Goldwater Republicans. In their narrative, conservatives relate a straight line of succession from Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. In fact, the party took some major detours on the way.

After Goldwater in 1964, it veered toward the center, settling on Richard Nixon and then Gerald Ford. When Reagan neared the end of his presidency, GOP voters could have elevated any of several conservative candidates, including Jack Kemp, Paul Laxalt and Pat Robertson. Instead, they chose George H.W. Bush, long considered the embodiment of bland, moderate, East Coast Republicanism.

In 1996, the party faithful passed up Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Phil Gramm and Dan Quayle in favor of Bob Dole, whom Reaganites once branded the "tax collector for the welfare state." Even in 2000, George W. Bush raised some suspicions on the right, due to his centrist pedigree and his habit of calling himself a "compassionate conservative," lest anyone mistake him for that other kind.

In the end, Bush won over conservatives, partly thanks to opposition from their nemesis, John McCain. But polls then showed that most Republicans, far from embracing Bush's support of tax cuts, preferred to concentrate on reducing the national debt. Theirs was, and is, a conservative party, but not that conservative. Hence, McCain.

The experience of the last 40 years shows two things. One is that conservatives can never be sure of getting their kind of presidential nominee. The other is that, as far as the fortunes of the party are concerned, it doesn't matter. Once the nomination is assured, the Republican candidate will always embrace conservative themes, and conservatives will close ranks behind him.

Some Malkin-tents are still getting in their digs, but overall we're seeing a recession of McCain Derangement Syndrome: Conservatives do seem to be closing ranks, although I'm not holding my breath for the likes of Coulter, Ingraham, Limbaugh, or Malkin.

If these contingents really vote Hillary or sit out the election, purity will indeed have prevailed over reason.

Nader's Presidential Bid a Boon to GOP

I pretty much expected Ralph Nader to enter the race for the presidency at some point, and I'm glad he did (as long as he can't win anything!).

He's more likely to draw votes from the Democrats than the Republicans (the 2000 Florida results attest to that).

Here's the Politico with more on the story (via Memeorandum):

Ralph Nader announced on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he'll run as a third-party, anti-corporate candidate for president this fall, which would be likely to drain votes from the Democratic nominee and provide a huge boon to Republicans.

Democrats say they will work behind the scenes — and use court challenges, if necessary — to try to thwart his access to ballots.

The longtime consumer activist said on "Meet the Press" that Washington has become "corporate occupied territory" and that none of the current presidential candidates are sufficiently addressing corporate crime, labor rights or Pentagon waste.

"In that context, I have decided to run for president," he told host Tim Russert.

Nader’s comments mirror those made in an interview with Politico last month, when he said he was considering a candidacy around "the overriding issue of corporate control, of our political economy and anything else the dogma of commercialism wants to latch on to."

Democrats and bloggers are already reacting with fury, fearing a rerun of 2000, when Nader drained crucial votes from Al Gore.

"'Loathe' isn't a strong enough word," said a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign.

The immediate question for Democrats is whether they'll be as ruthless as they were in 2004 in throwing procedural obstacles in the way of Nader's access to the ballot in key states.

Nader has a pending lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee on the issue and recently told Politico that he would make ballot access a central cause of a presidential campaign, which he restated on television Sunday morning.

He also said Sunday that he saw some overlap between his positions and those of libertarian-leaning Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

"His position on corporatism is taking some people who think the overriding political issue is corporate domination," he said. "But he has positions which are not acceptable — like he wants to abolish the regulatory agencies I helped create."

From the looks of this, the Democrats will need to siphon resources to fight Nader on ballot access issues, which helps the GOP as the party seeks to narrow the gap on measures like party finance and voter enthusiasm.

Nader's stated ideological affinity for Ron Paul is freaky. Thank goodness he's got a snowball's chance of winning anything.

Who's the Election's Neoconservative Standard-Bearer?

Candidates talk a lot about change, and this year's no exception. But once in office we often see the implementation of policies different from prominent campaign pledges.

If that's so this year, we might see the candidate who's elected sticking with the country's basic direction if foreign policy, and thus the Bush administration's neoconservative ascendency may get a fresh squall of wind at its back.

Jacob Heilbrunn examines which candidate is the most neonconservative this year, at the National Interest:

On the surface, McCain easily wins that contest. He’s a longtime pal of William Kristol, who, along with David Brooks, has been flogging his candidacy on an almost weekly basis in the New York Times, admonishing conservatives that they need to get behind McCain. McCain exemplifies the kind of Winston Churchill figure that the neocons worship—a warrior turned politician, who also writes books on the side. For the neocons, who want to, as they put it, "remoralize" America, McCain is the genuine article, at least in terms of his talk of valor and manhood. McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann, former president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, has been working overtime to defend him against the charge that’s he’s soft when it comes to Israel. But whether McCain is himself a neocon is another matter. He has both realist (Henry Kissinger) and neocon advisors (Robert Kagan). He may talk tough about stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but there’s no certainty that McCain would actually attack it. Still, if McCain becomes president, it would be a field day for the neocons, as fellow-travelers like former UN ambassador John Bolton are likely to get top posts and battle the realists for influence in the administration.

What about Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)? To judge from her numerous detractors on the left of the Democratic Party, she’s a neocon in all but name. The truth is that the border between liberal hawk and neocon has always been a murky one, and Hillary’s advisors, including Richard Holbrooke and Michael O’Hanlon, are no shrinking violets when it comes to the use of force abroad. O’Hanlon might even be called a professional sanitizer of neocon views, given his recent, rosy assessment of the Iraq War.

And Hillary herself, of course, has taken a tough line on Iran, including voting on September 27, 2008 for a nonbinding resolution that declares the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. She wouldn’t hesitate to bomb Iran if she thought it was necessary; according to Gail Sheehy’s account in Vanity Fair a few years ago, Hillary was pushing Bill to attack the Serbs militarily. She and Madeleine "The Indispensable Nation" Albright are chums and probably see eye to eye on foreign policy. But forget about high politics for a moment. Perhaps Hillary resembles a neocon most in her character: she doesn’t hesitate to impugn the motives of her opponents, sees the world as filled with personal enemies, surrounds herself with a cabal, lacks credibility and is constantly plotting to increase her own power. In addition, many pundits view her with suspicion and hostility, which has also become the fate of the neocon movement.

So at first glance, Barack Obama might appear to be the least likely candidate to maintain the neocon crusade. He’s been espousing the Rodney King theory of international relations—can’t we all just get along? But Obama is pushing an idealistic vision that bears some neoconservative imprints. He’s pushing his own kind of democratization crusade, based not on weapons, but on the notion that the United States can set an example for the rest of the world, which is to say he appears to believe in American exceptionalism. He’s left no distance between himself and pro-Israel Democrats. And with Samantha Power as an advisor, the question about the distance between liberal hawks and neoconservatives once again emerges. Power, as her Pulitzer Prize–winning book A Problem From Hell indicates, believes that the real problem in American foreign policy is that the United States has not been active enough in halting human rights abuses around the world. An Obama administration, no less than a Clinton one, would almost surely view America as the indispensable nation and might well yield to the temptation to intervene abroad militarily in the name of humanitarian missions.

Whether such impulses are neoconservative or simply older American Wilsonian traditions is probably a matter of semantics. For now it’s enough to watch what the candidates promise—knowing that the results of what they actually do may be rather different, which is something, come to think of it, that neoconservatives have developed a specialty in.

Heilbrunn's provided an excellent opening for a discussion of the foreign policy diferences among the candidates.

Yet it's odd he's omitted what both Clinton and Obama would do on Iraq: Implement an immediate withdrawal.

Clinton's repeatedly promised to initiate a troop withdrawal within sixty days of taking office, and Obama's stump speeches have become more shrill in his denunciations of the war effort. Both candidates spent 2007 demonizing General David Petraeus.

Still, I agree that Clinton's personal characer is basically neoconservative, but Heilbrunn leaves out one key element: She's like silly putty in the hands of the Democratic Party's activist base. She'll twist and turn on an issue to satisfy any constituency.

She's John Kerry's evil twin on Iraq, classically voting for the war before she was against it. I doubt she'll be as firm on Iran as Heilbrunn suggests. If her husband's administration is any indication of a renewed Clintonesque foreign policy, we'll see lofty rhetoric, perhaps an airstrike here or there, but any longer term commitment - especially involving a sustained role for ground troops - will likely be out of the question.

The truth is, on Iraq McCain's unbeatable, which has largely neutralized national security as a campaign issue.

What about America's larger role in the world? Are all the candidates equally neoconservative?

Again, I'm surprised at Heilbrunn, who's just written a book on the movement, for his failure to clarify differences on international institutions.

Neoconservatives are suspicous of multilateral institutions, preferring the exercise of raw hegemomic power to the Lilliputian effects of action under the auspices of U.N.-type organizations.

This is why Heilbrunn's point about Samantha Power and Obama is particularly interesting. Power, a Harvard human rights specialist, has been AWOL on the Iraq war, instead pumping up - George Clooney-style - a U.S.-led multinational incursions into countries like the Sudan.

The feeling here is that the exercise of American military might for humanitarian purposes is fine, but the deployment of American capabilities for the power politics of national-security regime change is pretty much off the table.

In this sense, then, McCain remains the true neoconservative in the race. On the basis of his Churchillian eloquence and his staunch record as a national security hawk, McCain's neoconservative aim is true.

Republicans Emerge As Country's Coalition Party

Fred Barnes makes the case for a reversal of roles between the two major parties. The Democrats have long been a party of fissiparous interests, pulling and tugging their candidates every which way. The Republicans, on the other hand, are known for their small number of key contingents who pull together to rally around a frontrunner.

The parties have traded places this year:

In 2008, the parties have reversed roles. You merely have to watch a Democratic presidential debate to realize Democrats are now the consensus party. On everything that matters--Iraq, taxes, immigration, health care, the war on terrorism--Democrats basically agree. Their debates sound like an echo chamber.

In contrast, Republicans have become a party of squabbling ideological groups that John McCain must bring together if he is to win the presidency this fall. With McCain as their nominee--one with whom many conservatives have disagreements-- Republicans have become the coalition party.

I've made similar arguments (see especially, "McCain Forging New GOP Coalition), but I particulary liked Barnes' discussion of Barack Obama's sheltered political existence in the Democratic Party's ideological echo chamber:

In his brief political career, Obama has experienced the easy life. He's rated by the National Journal as the most liberal member of the Senate, but he's never had to defend his liberal views. Certainly in the 18 televised Democratic debates this year, including last week's Texas faceoff with Hillary Clinton, he hasn't. The debates have been liberal lovefests.

Hillary Clinton argues that she'd be a better Democratic nominee because she has been forced to deal with what she calls "the Republican attack machine," and he hasn't. She has a point. Perhaps Obama, if he's the Democratic nominee, will be able to dismiss Republican attacks as easily as he's brushed off Clinton's criticism of him on minor points and peripheral issues. But I doubt it.

Obama has barely had to respond to Clinton at all, since their disagreements are so trivial. She says some of his words are "change you can Xerox" because he plagiarized a tiny portion of his stump speech. His answer in last week's debate was, "C'mon." That won't suffice when McCain insists Obama's plan for Iraq would amount to pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Iraq is an example of a major issue that Obama has not been forced to think through because of the Democratic party's consensus. He has made no adjustment for the success of the surge in Iraq, scarcely even acknowledging that the violence-wracked, politically polarized country of a year ago is no longer the Iraq of today.

The surge isn't a problem for McCain. Getting Republicans to coalesce around him is. Since Ronald Reagan was the party's presidential candidate in 1980, Republicans have lined up reflexively behind their usually conservative nominee. But McCain is anything but a reliable conservative.

So he must, first, attract strong conservatives, including the talk radio hosts who've often zinged him for being insufficiently conservative. McCain has little margin for error. He needs to win the overwhelming backing of social and religious conservatives, too. He must attract the relatively small contingent who've supported Ron Paul to prevent Paul from running as a third party libertarian candidate for president. (Paul says he has no plans to do this.)

It took no effort for McCain to round up Republican moderates. He's their guy. And he's gotten the George Bush wing with endorsements from Jeb and the elder George.

Conservatives may not admit it, but their failure to nominate one of their own may turn out to be a godsend in 2008. It's precisely the things they don't like about McCain--things I'm not crazy about either--that make him a tough target for Democrats: torture, Guantánamo, global warming, guns, stem cells.

Then there's bipartisanship or, as Obama puts it, bringing us together. This is the core of Obama's appeal. It allows him to campaign not from his ideological home on the left but from somewhere above the fray, somewhere in the heavens.

McCain, alone among Republicans, can bring him back to earth. Obama talks about crossing the partisan aisle and ending polarization, but he's never done it in any serious way. McCain specializes in it--one more thing infuriating many Republicans. He's joined with Democrats on campaign finance reform, immigration, global warming, judicial nominations, and a lot more.

Imagine a presidential debate this fall between McCain and Obama, the coalition candidate versus the consensus candidate. McCain, for sure, would skewer him on national security, the war on terrorism, taxes, and spending. Would Obama dare invoke his signature response and claim McCain is being divisive and partisan and we must rise above such disagreements? If he did, would it work?

Many hardcore McCain opponents among the conservative base hate to admit this, and many remain committed to sitting out the election.

But on the key issues faces us this year - on fiscal policy, healthcare, personal responsiblity, and the war in Iraq - the differences between the candidates are stark.

The left hoped for a Mitt Romney nomination, a candidate they could have torn to shreds on ideological inconsistencies and inexperience. Not so with the Arizona Senator: McCain's an endless nightmare to the big government surrender forces of the America-bashing, nihilist left.

The West is Best

Ibn Warraq argues for the superiority of the West, at City Journal:

The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing.

In short, the glory of the West, as philosopher Roger Scruton puts it, is that life here is an open book. Under Islam, the book is closed. In many non-Western countries, especially Islamic ones, citizens are not free to read what they wish. In Saudi Arabia, Muslims are not free to convert to Christianity, and Christians are not free to practice their faith—clear violations of Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In contrast with the mind-numbing enforced certainties and rules of Islam, Western civilization offers what Bertrand Russell once called “liberating doubt,” which encourages the methodological principle of scientific skepticism. Western politics, like science, proceeds through tentative steps of trial and error, open discussion, criticism, and self-correction.

Read the whole thing.

Another excellent defense of the West, from the British perspective, is Tony Blair's, "A Battle for Global Values."

Happy reading!

Americans See China as World Economic Leader

Public opinion pollling in recent months has found Americans to be increasingly pessimistic on the direction of the country.

One of the most recent indicators of such sentiment is the new Gallup finding that a plurality of Americans sees China as the world's dominant country in global economic relations:

In a sharp turnaround from eight years ago, Americans no longer believe the United States is the world's leading economic power. They are now more likely to bestow that mantle on China.

According to Gallup's annual World Affairs survey, updated Feb. 11-14, 2008, 4 in 10 Americans consider China to be the world's leading economic power; only 33% choose the United States. By contrast, in May 2000, the United States dominated public perceptions on this question, with 65% saying it was No.1.

Nearly all of the movement away from the United States as the perceived leading economic power has gone toward China. The percentages today choosing Japan, the European Union, and India are about what they were in 2000.

The United States' drop on this measure is nearly as sharp as the decline in U.S. consumer confidence over the same period. In a May 2000 Gallup Poll, when the country was still riding the dot-com boom, 66% of Americans rated economic conditions in the country as "excellent" or "good." Today, with the country poised on the edge of recession, only 23% are positive about the economy.

Eight years ago, most Americans (55%) were confident the United States would retain its No. 1 economic positioning for at least the next two decades. Few believed China, Japan, or the EU would overtake the United States. Now, when asked to look ahead 20 years, more Americans predict China, rather than the United States, will be the world's leading economic power.

Notably, not many more Americans think China will advance to the economic superpower position in 20 years (44%) than think it is already there (40%). About a third believe the United States will be the top economic power, similar to the percentage naming it as the leading economic power today. Relatively few Americans expect Japan, the EU, India, or Russia to emerge as the top economic superpower.

Appropriately, the Gallup piece puts public opinion in perspective. The fact is the U.S. is not likely to be overtaken by China soon, nor has China's growth knocked other international peer competitors from the top ranks of the great powers:

When considered against the backdrop of China's enormous population, the story of China's explosive economic growth over the last few decades (averaging 9.6% annual growth in GDP since 1978) can seem formidable. According to a recent Newsweek article, "In 2007 China contributed more to global growth than the United States, the first time another country had done so since at least the 1930s."

Still, according to the most recent World Bank figures, the United States leads the world in economic output (as measured by GDP), and by a substantial margin over second-ranked Japan. China has been making impressive strides in climbing the rank order of national economies, rising from sixth in the world in 2000 to fourth in 2006, but still falls below the United States, Germany, and Japan.

Americans' misperceptions about the economic rank order of nations also overlook Japan's stature on the economic playing field, ranking second worldwide. Also, although few Americans mention the EU as an economic powerhouse, 5 of the EU's 27 member countries, including third-place Germany, rank in the top 10 of the world's largest economies.

Gallup notes simply that Americans are in a funk, which contributes to the likely findings that China's taken the lead in the global economy.

See also Daniel Drezner's recent piece, "The Eagle Still Soars: Reports of America's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated."

The General Election Begins

It's been clear this last couple of weeks that Barak Obama's got ineluctable momentum. Things became pretty certain after the Illinois Senator swept the Potomac primaries, and a sense of Obama inevitability was confirmed with his win in Wisconsin the following week.

Michael Barone discusses the shift in focus away from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, and how we're increasingly seeing in essence a general election matchup between Obama and John McCain. It's fairly clear by now that Clinton's not likely to make a comeback (despite her claims she's not conceding the race):

She could win the nomination only with the votes of super-delegates or by counting the results in Florida and Michigan, where the national party commanded candidates not to compete.

Either move will strike many Obama enthusiasts -- and others -- as profoundly unfair. The way Clinton has run her campaign -- like the way she ran health care reform in 1993-94 -- undercuts her claim to be ready for the presidency from day one. In both cases, she had no fallback strategy, no Plan B, in case her best-case scenario failed to come to pass. She started campaigning in Wisconsin only last Saturday and had to cancel her events because of a snowstorm. Didn't anyone check weather.com?

If you look at the numbers, if the general election were held today, Barack Obama would beat John McCain by a solid margin. (McCain would beat Clinton -- another reason the super-delegates are unlikely to foist her on the party.) But the performances of the candidates on primary night -- and the performances of their wives on Monday and Tuesday -- suggests that may not always be the case.

Obama's cut-and-paste job does respond to the complaint that he is without substance. But it's hard to mix poetry and prose and come up with an appealing product. Particularly when, as columnist Robert Samuelson points out, there's not much that's interesting about the substance.

Then there are the wives. In Milwaukee on Monday, Michelle Obama, who has spoken frequently in the campaign, said: "Hope is making a comeback, and let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change."

For the first time in her life? Coming from the realm in which Michelle Obama has lived her adult life -- Princeton, Harvard Law, a top law firm, a $342,000-a year job doing community relations for the University of Chicago hospital system -- this may not sound out of the ordinary. As Samuel Huntington has pointed out, people in this stratum tend to have transnational attitudes -- all nations are morally equal, except maybe for ours, which is worse.

This is not, to say the least, the view of most Americans, including very many who regularly vote Democratic. And it undercuts Barack Obama's most appealing rhetoric, which emphasizes what Americans have in common.

Cindy McCain, who ordinarily doesn't speak in public, picked up on this immediately. On Tuesday, she made a point of saying, several times, that she has always been proud of America. On election night, John McCain said he was "proud, proud of the privilege" of being an American.

I remember the electric feeling in the hall, at the first Republican National Convention I attended, in 1984, when Lee Greenwood belted out his country hit, "I'm proud to be an American." I don't believe that I've heard it at any Democratic National Convention, and I'm pretty sure that some nontrivial number of the delegates would find it off-putting, even obnoxious.

Barack Obama has explained that his wife was just saying that she was proud for the first time of her country's politics. But that's not what she said, and said with considerable emphasis. Tuesday night seemed to be the beginning of the general election campaign. But what was said on Monday may prove to be just as important.

I've made a similar point here. While some commenters have suggested that it's hasty or unproductive to focus on Michelle Obama's statements, I see them as part and parcel to the larger Obama message.

Barack's last few victory speeches have been considerably dour, for example, calling for unconditional surrender in Iraq.

McCain's message - muddled as it's been by recent media controversy - is likely to resonate with that great majority of Americans who love their country and want strong, seasoned leadership in the White House.

If the Obamas keep playing things the way they have, the Democratic Party can forget about reversing the GOP advantage in the conservative states of the Electoral College.

New York Times Hit Piece Pumps McCain Rally

The New York Times' wacky smear against GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain has boomeranged to the Arizona Sentator's advantage:

Senator John McCain declared the battle over on Friday morning, but by then his lieutenants believed he had already won the war.

Conservative radio talk show hosts who had long reviled Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate from Arizona, had rallied to his defense. Bloggers on the right said that this could be the start of a new relationship. Most telling, Mr. McCain’s campaign announced Friday afternoon that it had just recorded its single-best 24 hours in online fund-raising, although it declined to provide numbers.

Both sides traced the senator’s sudden fortunes to an unusual source, The New York Times, which on Wednesday night published on its Web site an article about Mr. McCain’s close ties to a female lobbyist who did business before the senator’s committee. That evening, two of the senator’s top advisers, Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt, flew to an emergency strategy session in Toledo, Ohio, where Mr. McCain was campaigning.

By Thursday morning, when the article appeared in the print editions of The Times, the McCain campaign had begun an aggressive attack against the newspaper, calling the article a smear campaign worthy of The National Enquirer. It was a symphony to the ears of Mr. McCain’s conservative critics.

Operating on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, many conservatives who had long distrusted Mr. McCain on a variety of issues, including his peculiar fondness for talking to reporters for hours on end, rallied to see him at war with a newspaper they revile as a voice of the left. (In fact, Mr. McCain said only that he was “disappointed” with the newspaper, and left the incendiary attacks to his surrogates.)

“This is the most despicable act of liberal bias that I have seen in my life,” Sean Hannity, the conservative talk show host, said Thursday about the Times article. “They wanted you to come to a conclusion, and that is that Senator McCain had some kind of relationship with a female lobbyist and did special favors for her. It is beyond disgusting and despicable.”

Charles Black, a senior McCain adviser who had taken heat from conservative friends after the editorial board of The Times endorsed Mr. McCain in the Feb. 5 New York primary, was pleased. Thursday, Mr. Black said, “was the first day in the campaign that McCain won the day on conservative talk radio.”

Later that afternoon, the McCain campaign began using The Times in an fund-raising appeal sent by e-mail to supporters. “Well, here we go,” the letter from Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, began, then outlined what it characterized as the newspaper’s smear campaign. Mr. Davis quickly got to the point: “We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against The New York Times by making an immediate contribution today.”

By Friday, the campaign was tracing its jump in fund-raising directly to the article in The Times. “Thank you,” Mr. Schmidt said to a Times reporter on Mr. McCain’s campaign plane as it headed back to Washington from Indianapolis. Then he added to a group of reporters, “There was a lot of outrage across the country on the story, and the campaign has raised a lot of money in the last 24 hours.”

Even those conservatives who did not rush to embrace Mr. McCain said his campaign’s condemnations of The Times might have given him an indirect boost, although some were not yet ready to support Mr. McCain’s campaign.

Even those who didn't rush to embrace McCain? You mean the ones who couldn't say "I told you so" fast enough as they sought to attack two opponents with one stone?

See also, "McCain Turns Tables on Times."

Photo Credit: New York Times