Right Wing Nut House

I remember the heady days in early 2005 when it appeared that Republicans had a limitless future and the Democrats were the party of burnt toast and rancid eggs. It appeared that there was no way that the recently defeated Democrats would be able to pull their party together in time to challenge for the 2006 mid terms. And while everyone knew Hillary Clinton was preparing for a presidential run, most viewed that prospect with a certain relish, convinced that Mrs. Clinton’s high negatives would make taking her on a relatively simple task. (Most still prefer Hillary today but don’t see the job of beating her quite as easy.)

But if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to political success can often be boobytrapped with the sins of arrogance and overconfidence. If any of us had bothered to think about it seriously in the first months of 2005, we would have discovered precious few truly conservative candidates available to run for president - and none who stood out as real Commander in Chief material. As it turned out, several potential candidates met ignomious ends during the Mid Term Massacre of 2006 while others, like Newt Gingrich, showed little interest in running.

Now, with the continuation of the candidacy of Fred Thompson in question, the brutal truth is hitting home; the GOP standard bearer could very well be John McCain; a candidate with impeccable national security credentials but little else to offer conservatives save a promise that he will be better than his record indicates. The prospect of a McCain candidacy has set off flurry of pledge takers - as in, conservatives taking a pledge to stay home on election day if McCain is the nominee.

Stephen Bainbridge is one of them:

But it’s not just Bush. The deeply corrupt K Street gang discredited the GOP Congressional leadership, who proved to be concerned solely with clinging to power for power’s own sake.

God made the people of Israel wander in the desert 40 years so as to remake the Israelis Israelites into a people fit for the tasks ahead. The GOP seriously needs a time out so that it can rethink its role in American democracy. There are a lot of legitimate questions facing the GOP. Do you adhere to the limited government principles of Reagan and Thatcher or do you follow the lead of UK Tory leader David Cameron? As the Economist recently opined, “it seems likely that the Republican Party, as a number of its members are already urging, will have to embrace environmentalism and cuddly economics as the Tories were forced to.”

Fred Thompson was a more than acceptable Reaganesque conservative who offered the GOP a chance to delay having to face those tough choices. Indeed, to borrow a football metaphor, a Thompson presidency offered the GOP a chance to reload rather than going through the painful process of rebuilding. The other 4 are all so deeply and irredeemably flawed that their presidency likely would be doomed to failure from the outset.

I’m not quite as pessimistic as Stephen for the simple reason I know of too many presidents who were horribly underestimated by their contemporaries who ended up doing very well. Linconln was one. Reagan another. The office itself will have its way with the occupant and the forces of history will shape and be shaped by anyone who sits in The Big Chair. Who is to say how any of those men will perform?

But Bainbridge is correct otherwise. The GOP is a broken party. If the next nominee could win through to victory, they would have the opportunity to place their imprint on the party for years to come. And the chances of a McCain or Romney getting that opportunity chills the bones of conservatives from all factions of the movement.

But I have argued in the past (and despite some moments of weakness) will argue again in the future that voting is a civic responsibility and that if you are mad at Republicans, there are other, more legitimate ways to show your displeasure than sitting home. Voting for the Democratic alternative is an option for some. Voting for a third candidate is another way to protest against the direction the party is taking.

But frankly, I will hold harmless any conservative who wishes to stay at home on election day if John McCain is the nominee. For myself, I don’t know what I will do as far as voting but I know that he will receive no favors from me on this blog. The same would probably be true for Romney as well. My heart just wouldn’t be in promoting the candidacy of a man as changeable as the former center-left governor of Massachussets.

James Joyner has it about right:

Alternatively, I suppose, one could argue that the intellectual base of the party is fine. Rather, its politicians are abandoning principle for expediency in pandering to an electorate that constantly demands more government subsidies. Traditionally, conservative Republicans embraced tax cuts and small government. Now, the movement’s elected leaders, with very few exceptions, embrace tax cuts and big government.

Hagiography aside, that trend started with Ronald Reagan. He wanted tax cuts, huge increases in defense spending, and big cuts in domestic spending. He settled for the first two, however, along with massive public debt. It proved to be a very popular platform. Aside from the Ross Perot boomlet in 1992, fiscal responsibility turned out not to be a very salient electoral strategy.

Joyner highlights the biggest challenge of all; how to play an effective scrooge when Santa Claus is so wildly popular. By abandoning fiscal responsibility as a tenet of conservative governance, we have made other conservative values like personal responsibility and self-discipline irrelevant. The American people demand services from government whether it is government’s business to dispense that service or not. What’s more, they still want their children and grandchildren to pay for it judging by how unpopular raising taxes has become.

Conservatives have no credibility in seeking to deny or restrain the people’s appetitite for these benefits simply because our so-called conservative leaders are as eager to play Santa as the liberals. Hence, the disconnect between conservatives and mainstream America is complete. We simply are not believed when conservative candidates talk about small government or individual responsibility. Conservaties in government don’t practice those values. Why should anyone else?

Did Fred Thompson have a chance to turn this around? Joyner points out Thompson’s voting record being not that much different from McCain’s. This may be true but at the same time, I truly believe that Thompson had thought long and hard about changing this relationship between the government and the governed and hit upon a new kind of federalism to bring some balance back to the equation. Whether he could have pushed it through Congress is open to question. But he was basing his candidacy on the principles of Reaganism and federalism - a powerful combination that could have prevailed if the courage to enact it could have been found.

Whether conservatives hold their nose and vote for him or stay at home it will hardly matter in the long run. McCain will not govern as a conservative and will almost surely freeze conservatives out of major policy positions. If this is what Rush Limbaugh and others mean by destroying the party by making it simply a poor echo of the Democrats then count me out. I hardly see a difference between the damage that would be done by a McCain or Obama/Hillary.

Few choices. Fewer options.

They will raise money from whatever source, regardless of the reputation and intent of the giver.

They will play whatever dirty trick on their opponent that they think they can get away with.

They will call their opponent whatever name they can think of no matter whether they divide their party in the process by doing so or not.

They will employ whatever strong arm tactic available to harass, threaten, and annoy their opponents.

They will use whatever means at their disposal to win the nomination and the election in order to get back into power.

Man, what a crew. The crap that Hillary and Bill pulled in Nevada should make all of her supporters right proud of the witch - if you’re a member of a Mafia family. A review of what has transpired over the last fortnight should be instructive to the American people as to what we can expect next fall - and beyond - if Hillary gets the nomination.

1. On January 10, Hillary surrogate Andrew Cuomo pulled the race card out of his sleeve, dropping it into the contest like a rat turd being dropped into a formal dinner and said of Clinton’s New Hampshire victory:

”It’s not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can’t buy your way into it,” Cuomo said. “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference,” he added. “All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

The Clinton camp raised its hands saying innocently, “Who me? My friend Andy was talking about politicians in general.” I believe her. Cuomo was talking about generally black politicians.

2. A January 11 column by Ben Smith of Politico detailed statements by both Clintons about Obama and race that were so incendiary that one would have to come to the conclusion that the Clintons were either political morons or knew exactly what they were doing.

3. On 1/12, the New York Times reported that Hillary was moving to tamp down criticism from blacks for the racially charged comments made by herself, her husband, and most especially surrogates. In the week leading up to New Hampshire, surrogates were especially active (” “If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.”). The strategy was obvious. Deploy the race card and then move quickly to plead ignorance or misconstruing by the press. Of course, the media let them get away with it.

4. On 1/13, another surrogate, Bob Johnson of BET Television, alluded to Obama’s drug use and implied he was a drug dealer. While not likely that the Clinton camp knew that loose cannon Johnson was going to make those specific remarks, to say they didn’t expect some kind of fireworks from the colorful Mr. Johnson is equally unlikely. To say they were displeased would also be incorrect.

5. On 1/14, a memo from the Obama campaign surfaced that detailed chapter and verse the Clinton’s use of the race card as well as Bill Clinton’s propensity for misrepresent Obama’s position on the Iraq War. In fact, Clinton would return again and again to this theme, trying to convince people that Obama’s opposition to the Iraq invasion was “a fairy tale.”

6. On 1/15, the Clinton’s brought Obama’s church into the mix by criticizing him for belong to a congregation where the minister published a magazine that handed out an award named after the notorious racist Louis Farrakhan. Obama had nothing to do with the magazine nor should he have to answer for the activities of his minister. Tell that to the Clintons who were attempting to raise a strawman in order to distract attention from their underhanded politics.

7. After solemnly promising to “count every vote” for years, the Clintons had a memory lapse and tried to suppress the vote of possible Obama supporters by suing to keep shift workers on the Las Vegas strip from participating in the Nevada Caucuses, arguing that the so-called “at large” Caucus sites violated the rules. The sheer cynicism of this move was born out on Caucus day - Clinton carried the sites handily.

8. On Caucus day, the Obama campaign catalogued more than 200 election violations:

“We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.”

And what of Bill Clinton? With Hillary’s fortunes at their lowest ebb he stepped out from the shadows and began to assert himself - some would say, throw his weight around. He demanded and got as much attention from the press as he desired. His schedule in New Hampshire was almost as heavy as the candidate herself and sometimes he eclipsed her in media coverage.

All this points to a couple absolutely driven to once again get their hands on the levers of power. And the closer to the election we get (if Hillary is the nominee), the questions about what role Bill Clinton will specifically have in the White House will multiply.

They will try to dismiss such questions as irrelevant but that surely is not the case. Never before in American history has such a coupling of the personal and political been given the reins of power. One can see some unique advantages to such an arrangement as having a former president around with Clinton’s gifts. But the potential for abuse is also tremendous. And given the demonstrated amorality of both the candidate and her husband, it should strike fear into the hearts of all those who don’t trust those two any farther than they can throw them.

All presidents aspire for power - mostly so that they can enact policies they believe in. The Clinton’s have demonstrated an appetite for power simply for the sake of exercising it with policies a secondary consideration or worse, simply a means to an end. And that end is the acquisition of control.

This has been their modus operandi since coming to Washington 16 years ago. Why should we expect them to change now?

For the Republicans, South Carolina ended up clarifying what previously had been a muddle.

With John McCain’s narrow but significant win over Mike Huckabee, the Arizona senator has now become the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination. Only a Rudy Giuliani win in Florida would put the issue in doubt. And Rudy’s chances in the Sunshine state may have just gotten considerably longer thanks to McCain’s South Carolina victory.

McCain is the only GOP candidate so far to receive a significant bounce from a primary win. His New Hampshire victory has propelled him to front runner status nationally and has given him momentum in every state that has been polling since that contest. Huckabee, by contrast, has not benefited much from his Iowa win, finishing distant thirds in New Hampshire and Michigan and 4th in Nevada. His second place in South Carolina was a defeat due to the fact that in a state tailor made for his candidacy - a large evangelical population in the first southern primary - the former Arkansas governor received barely 30% of the vote.

Romney’s Michigan win translated into a 4th place in South Carolina, the only contested race of the day. His Nevada win, while garnering him delegates, was a foregone conclusion since he and Ron Paul were the only candidates who bothered to campaign there. Plus, Romney’s national numbers barely moved as a result of his Michigan victory.

McCain will not get the same kind of bounce out of South Carolina but he doesn’t need it. A 3-5 point boost will almost certainly give him victory in Florida. Appearing on my radio show last night, Ed Morrissey believes that Giuliani can win Florida and then go into Super Tuesday on February 5 with enough momentum that he can capture the “winner take all states” to put him in the lead in the race for delegates. This has been Rudy’s strategy all along but McCain may just have foiled it with his win in South Carolina.

Will Rudy still be seen as electable in 48 hours? I believe over the next week you will see a decisive movement toward McCain in Florida and elsewhere as GOP voters seem to settle on a candidate. Romney, who in some polls is close in Florida (others, not so close) will blanket the state with millions in advertising. It may be enough to give him another second place, moving past Giuliani. But McCain is hitting his stride as a campaigner, drawing large, enthusiastic crowds. Unless he stumbles, I just don’t think either Romney or Giuliani can knock him off.

There is still a chance for Romney after Super Tuesday. If he can steal a couple of states and finish second almost everywhere else, he can emerge to go one on one with McCain the rest of the way. With a huge money advantage (McCain is taking federal matching funds and is extremely limited), there is a slight chance that Romney could overtake him or win enough delegates to deny him a first ballot nomination. This scenario is not out of the question especially if Huckabee, who will almost certainly stay in the race through Super Tuesday, ends up winning 4 or 5 southern states. This would make Huckabee a kingmaker -a role I’m sure he would relish.

Regardless, someone has to show that they can knock McCain off before the Arizona senator loses his status as the Anointed One. And unless Rudy or Mitt can do it in Florida, it appears that John McCain will coast to the nomination fairly easily.

If you’ve been following the polls for SC, you know how confusing that race has become. However, let’s go to the geniuses at Pollster.com for a look at what they consider the “endgame:”

For McCain, there is little dispute that he has surged since early December when he was in the low-teens to somewhere in the mid-to-upper 20s today. The sensitive estimator thinks the rate of climb since Iowa has been more rapid that does the blue estimator, but again both put his support between 26.9% and 29.3%.

The “Sensitive estimator” tracks the polls and through a formula, supplies a value based on the numbers. (There is a “Standard Tracking” line that works like the RCP averages). The sensitive estimator reflects a bounce for Huckabee out of Iowa that has ebbed slightly while McCain’s numbers took off in December and have kept climbing.

As for the others:

One big question in South Carolina is whether conservative criticism of both Huckabee and McCain is having any effect. If Thompson is benefiting from that, his polls only modestly show it. The sensitive estimate suggests a rise from about 10% to about 14%, but there is no polling evidence for a surge that would allow him to compete for first place.

Finally, Romney’s Michigan win seemed to help him in Nevada (based only on 3 polls, I should add) but there is no evidence of a bounce in South Carolina. After spending Wednesday and part of Thursday in the state, Romney appeared to concede the race and moved on the Nevada to campaign, where his chances look better. The Romney trends are also in complete agreement: No substantial trend, and both agree on 16%.

Based solely on the polling then (and this is not the best predictor of what is going to happen) it appears that there is some separation between McCain/Huckabee and Romney/Thompson with the former group in the mid to high 20’s and the latter in the mid-teens.

But for a variety of reasons, all we can do is use this data as a starting point. As many as 1 in 5 Republican voters are undecided as of this weekend with another third who may switch their votes.

Pollster.com points out that those undecideds in Iowa and Michigan broke decisively for the eventual winner which is why I think McCain will win going away. There is also the matter of Huckabee whose late gaffes regarding the confederate flag and some comments about the Constitution and religion may have hurt him slightly.

However, the Huckster probably has enough juice to hold off Thompson for second place.

And Fred? I think he surges past Mitt but comes up short, still finishing relatively strong.

SOUTH CAROLINA PREDICTIONS

1. McCain (29-33%)
2. Huckabee (19-23%)
3. Thompson (15-19%)
4. Romney (13-17%)
6. Giuliani (5-9%)
7. Paul (5-9%)

I think there is a chance a sizable number of undecideds will break for Fred rather than Huckabee or Romney. That may be enough to push Fred into second place but it is a long shot - say 10-1.

No polls out really reflect what has been happening the last 48 hours of the race so all of this might be totally off. But I’m not paid to be right, I’m paid to give it my best shot. And there you have it.

As for Nevada, the Republican race appears pretty straightforward. The Pollster.com guys point out there really haven’t been enough polls to draw any conclusions in which one could feel confident. I would agree except that despite McCain’s popularity in the state, that doesn’t necessarily translate into Caucus goers. We have the same situation we had in Iowa. Romney’s got a great organization in place and has visited the state several times - including the last two days. McCain has some enthusiasm and not much else.

Unlike Iowa where Huckabee had a network of churches and Fair Tax enthusiasts to get his people to the Caucuses, McCain has virtually nothing. So give this one to Mitt going away:

NEVADA CAUCUSES (GOP)

1. Romnney 31%
2. McCain 22%
3. Thompson 15%
4. Huckabee 13%
5. Giuliani 11%
6. Paul 6%

The Democratic race is a true muddle. Hillary probably hurt herself by suing to keep shift workers from caucusing. Obama probably stepped in it with his comments on Reagan. And like the Republicans, there just haven’t been enough polls to determine trends.

Some in the Netroots are reporting that there appears to be a late Obama surge. Take that with a grain of salt and a dose of wishful thinking. I think the race has been pretty static with Hillary holding a slight lead and Obama well within striking distance. Anything could happen and probably will (except an Edwards win).

I have no confidence at all in this prediction:

NEVADA DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS

1. Hillary Clinton 42%
2. Barack Obama 39%
3. John Edwards 14%
4. Dennis Kucinich 4%

Neither candidate helped or hurt much by the results, regardless of how it goes.

I really, really wish that there was evidence that Fred Thompson would do better than I’m predicting but I can’t find any. The latest ARG poll has Fred moving from 13% to 21% which I think is about right - an 8 point surge. But I don’t think he was starting at 13% - he was in single digits in late December and early January. So for Fred, a nice try but he will come up short.

Will he go on? I’m sure he will. Thanks to a pick up in fundraising, Fred can continue until after Super Tuesday when I’m sure all but the top two candidates - probably McCain and Romney - will reassess their chances.

UPDATE

Byron York writes what is almost an obituary for Thompson:

The RealClearPolitics average of polls in South Carolina has Thompson virtually tied with Mitt Romney for third place, well behind John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Most observers view this state as Thompson’s last stand, although his aides say simply that they don’t know what’s coming next. If he does leave the race, there will be lots of suggestions that he didn’t really want to run, that he didn’t have the taste for the frenetic campaigning that wins presidential primaries. No one beyond Thompson himself knows the answer to the first question, but there’s no doubt the latter is true; throughout the campaign, Thompson showed great impatience with some of the ridiculous demands presidential campaigns place on candidates. But on those occasions when he put himself into it fully, as he did at the Embassy Suites on Friday, Thompson left supporters wanting more — and wishing they had seen this months ago.

Thompson always seems most animated and most passionate when he talks of saving the Reagan coalition and battling for the “heart and soul” of the Republican party. These themes seem to hit him at a gut level and I wish he had drawn his campaign around them rather than his early emphasis on the danger to the country because of the growing menace of out of control entitlement programs and deficits.

But no use going back. The campaign is now what it is and nothing can change that. The candidate has found his voice and his themes. But it may not be enough.

UPDATE II: INTRADE

The markets are swinging decisively to Huckabee today. Not quite sure what to make of that except that if true, Fred drops considerably - down to 4th and the low teens for his support. That would finish his candidacy.

UPDATE III

It’s AP calling it for Mitt in Nevada. CNN will wait for raw numbers (do they see something screwy in the entrance polls?)

Dem race still to close to call.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey reports on the ARG poll that shows Huckster winning handily and Fred breaking the 20 pt barrier. (Note the huge jump between Thursday and Friday for Huck from 23% to 33%.)

ARG called the Dem primary in New Hampshire in their last poll: Obama 41% Hillary 30%.

Just sayin.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Fred Thompson is not the most inspiring speaker in the GOP race for President. Nor is he the best looking or the smoothest talking among the candidates running. He doesn’t have Mitt Romney’s hair or Mike Huckabee’s glibness. He isn’t as aggressively positive as Rudy Giuliani. And while his personal story is compelling, it can’t compete with John McCain’s inspirational journey from POW to the gates of the White House.

But Fred Thompson is perhaps the most substantitive candidate to run for President in many years. He has taken the time to think about what should be the relationship between the government and the governed. He has framed his thoughts within the context of a set of bedrock conservative principles that animates his thinking and generates sound ideas about where America should be headed.

There is a heft to Thompson, a seriousness of purpose that none of the other candidates can match. It is most pronounced during the debates where Thompson’s answers to questions are more subtle and nuanced than those of his rivals. His sometimes laconic style zings his opponents with brutal accuracy.. Often, the candidate will answer a question by stating “Yep” or “Nope” and pause a few seconds to gather his thoughts. What follows is almost always coherent and is informed by years of experience in government.

His now famous moment during the Des Moines Register debate where he refused to raise his hand like a schoolboy when the moderator asked who believed in global warming was a metaphor for the entire Thompson campaign; keeping the Mickey Mouse to a minimum while trying to be as substantative as possible with the voters. In short, Thompson is running the campaign his way and not in a manner dictated by any previous candidate’s success or any criticism that comes his way from media pundits.

His well thought out policy positions - “White Papers” the campaign calls them - have won him almost universal praise from souces as wildly divergent as the Washington Post and the National Review.

For instance, the Wall Street Journal had this to say about Thompson’s tax plan:

“However, what’s refreshing about the Thompson plan is that it goes well beyond the current Republican mantra to make “the Bush tax cuts permanent.” That is certainly needed, but the GOP also needs a more ambitious agenda, especially with economic growth slowing. The flat tax has the added political benefit of assaulting the special interests who populate the Gucci Gulch outside Congress’s tax-writing committee rooms. Lower rates and simplify the tax code, and you instantly reduce the opportunities for Beltway corruption. It is both a tax policy and political reform.

ABC had this to say about his plan to save Social Security:

Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson’s plan to save Social Security and protect seniors, which he introduced Friday afternoon in a Washington, D.C., hotel, differs starkly from standard election year pablum on the subject in one key way: He’s actually treating voters like adults.

If all of this is true, why is Fred Thompson fighting for his political life this Saturday in the South Carolina primary?

It is a question that, if Thompson’s bid falls short, will be asked by many who saw the former Tennessee senator’s entry into the race as a godsend. In the end, the candidate must look to his own efforts and the way the campaign began.

Leaving aside the question of whether Thompson’s September entry into the race could be considered “too late” there is the reality of how that campaign was conducted. Looking back, one could see it was unfocused, even aimless, in its first weeks with the candidate himself trying to find his voice. His early efforts were spotty and sometimes dreadfully boring. By many reports, voters came away perplexed and not a little disappointed.

Thompson’s socratic style of addressing those early crowds was a good way to discuss issues on a substantive level but a lousy way to run for president. Voters more attuned to snappy, one sentence solutions to the problems of the world coming from other candidates found that when listening to Thompson, they had to think, not react emotionally.

In this way, Thompson appealed to people more on an intellectual level. This was fine as far as it went but it brought him few converts and elicited nothing but contempt from the media.

How often have we heard the refrain that the American people wanted a campaign that dealt with issues not personalities? Well, here was Fred Thompson supposedly giving people what we were told they wanted and his once robust poll numbers began to plummet. Seeking an explanation, reporters and pundits who saw Thompson arrived at the conclusion that the candidate didn’t want it bad enough, that he had no “fire in the belly,” that he hated campaigning and didn’t extend himself as the other candidates were doing.

There may be a glimmer of truth in some of that conventional wisdom. Perhaps the candidate believed it was enough that he put his ideas on the table and let the American people decide whether or not they were worthy of consideration. Indeed, Thompson has said as much in the past. What perhaps the candidate didn’t realize is that fighting for those ideas and tying them to overarching themes is the most effective way to reach the voter.

But for whatever reason - the befuddlement of the press over his style of campaigning or a perceived lack of energy and desire - the candidate found himself at the end of November trailing badly in the polls. It was then that the campaign seemed to find itself and Thompson found those themes as well as his issues and tied them together. Crowds began to react more positively. It appeared the candidate himself was more energized and active.

But Thompson was pushing against weeks of very negative press and a conventional wisdom that had all but written him off. It was a daunting task to turn the campaign around but he has. Now he must convince voters in South Carolina and beyond that the conventional wisdom about his candidacy is wrong and that he deserves a second look.

His most recent appearances in South Carolina have shown an entirely different candidate than the one who appeared unfocused and low key during the first three months of his campaign. He has now found his mission; that the campaign is for the heart and soul of the Republican party and the future of the old Reagan coalition. When speaking in this vein, the candidate exudes a passion that may have been lacking in his earlier campaign stops. It carries over into his contrasting the records of his opponents with his own as he hammers away at their lack of true conservative credentials. He still talks specifics and issues but in a way that delineates his positions from those of his rivals. In short, he has found the bridge between a way to campaign effectively without sacrificing his belief that the voters hunger for substance in their candidate.

Thompson still pauses and thinks before he answers questions either from the media or voters. He speaks in complete sentences. He treats voters like “adults” as ABC mentioned above. In this sense, he is the anti-soundbite candidate. Whether Thompson’s no-nonsense approach to campaigning will give him victory will depend largely on whether voters are moved to support a man who views running for president not as the fullfillment of raw ambition but as a chance to serve the people.

Two polls out today show Fred Thompson picking up a head of steam and moving toward the leaders.

A PPP poll out today (sampling from yesterday) shows Fred in a virtual tie for second with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee:

Public Policy Polling South Carolina Republican Primary (PDF warning)

McCain - 28%
Huckabee - 20%
Romney - 18%
Thompson - 17%
Paul - 4%
Giuliani - 4%

And Zogby’s 4 day tracking poll has Fred moving up also, passing Romney for third place:

Zogby South Carolina GOP Primary Poll

John McCain 29% (-)
Mike Huckabee 22% (-1)
Fred Thompson 14% (+2)
Mitt Romney 12% (-1)
Ron Paul 5% (-)
Rudy Giuliani 5% (-1)

Historically, a candidate that is surging sees a lag in poll numbers of a couple of days because of the way polls are conducted. Even a tracking poll will have a slight lag for similar reasons.

Other polls released in the past few days show Fred in a slightly worse position. But if you take out the highs and lows while averaging Fred’s support it would appear that Thompson is virtually tied for third with Romney with Fred’s numbers going up, Huckabees going down, and McCain staying pretty much the same (about a 6 point lead over Huckabee).

Romney took one look at this situation and headed for Nevada. Declaring McCain the winner in South Carolina, Mitt will race around Nevada until the Saturday Caucuses, trying to build on his narrow lead over McCain in that state.

Meanwhile, Fred is still splitting the anti-McCain vote in South Carolina three ways and is desperately trying to peel supporters away from Huckabee.

It’s working. But is it working fast enough for Fred to win in South Carolina?

The answer is almost certainly no. Another week and who knows? But the primary is 48 hours away and I don’t think he can cut into McCain’s lead enough to overtake him. The Arizona senator has what Zogby calls a “very stable” lead. It would be the upset of the campaign season if Fred were to beat him.

I do think, however, that a strong second place is within Thompson’s grasp. Huckabee is changing his positions on issues almost every news cycle now, trying to stop the bleeding. What I’m sure he sees in his own polls is Fred’s surge and the fact that being hammered on immigration and taxes is playing very well for Fred in the state.

And cheer up, Fredheads. I think a second place for Thompson means a ticket to Florida and probably Super Tuesday. Why should Fred drop out when nothing has been decided and he has proven he can come back? There’s another debate before the Florida primary and lord knows what Fred will come up with for that one. Probably has the rest of them wondering too.

I predict Fred will get into the low 20’s on primary day. Considering he was single digits in South Carolina earlier this month, that would be a stupendous comeback. And in this, the wackiest primary season in a while, none of the top 5 candidates can really be consigned to the dustbin of history quite yet.

UPDATE

Allah links the Quin Hillyer fantasy piece in American Spectator and wonders what stage of the grief process he’s in over the imminent demise of Fred’s candidacy.

Color me between denial and bargaining. I’d sell my soul for a Fred win.

Mike Huckabee has said some very strange things this campaign season - mostly to obscure his center-left record as a tax and spend populist while governor of Arkansas. But during his speech Monday night in front of his most fervent supporters in Michigan, Huckabee said something that revealed perhaps the true nature of his candidacy and what it means for America and his brand of “conservatism:”

“[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards,” Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

The Reverend Huckabee must be a privileged individual indeed to know the mind of God. I suppose it’s all a matter of interpretation; some people might violently disagree with the good reverend about just what those “standards” of God might be. But since Reverend Huckabee has been given the grace to see the light and pronounce the one true list of standards God has set for us then I guess the debate is over and we can simply bow to his superior insights and extra special holiness.

Christian conservatives are fond of saying that their critics don’t want freedom of religion but freedom from religion. In the grossest sense I suppose that’s true. But those making that argument ignore the ramifications of what they are proposing when protesting that they only want to be able to practice their religion in the public square. If that’s all there was too it, I doubt that too many Americans would be uneasy or even fearful. But then along comes Mike Huckabee talking about basically establishing God’s kingdom here in America by amending our Constitution to reflect his idea of “God’s standards” in moral behavior and even Christian evangelicals must look in askance at the Reverend’s candidacy.

As a conservative, I stand on the side of tradition so that when headline seeking atheists and their buddies at the ACLU initiate some unnecessary court action to remove a creche that has been placed in front of some city hall for a hundred years or a cross that has stood atop a mountain for 80 years and has become the centerpiece of a Korean War memorial, I stand with the Christians in complete confidence that I am living up to my conservative ideals. But Huckabee’s all too revealing utterance about exactly how he seeks to accomplish his idea of a “just moral order” should cause every conservative worth their stripes to denounce the candidate’s words and deplore his candidacy.

The impulse that drives Huckabee and his supporters is not a conservative one. It is a statist impulse - a desire to use the power of the government to enforce arbitrary standards of moral behavior on the rest of us. It is taking the conservative dictum requiring a moral order for justice to thrive and twisting the concept to allow for one group to not only dictate morality but also impose their own, necessarily narrow view of justice.

For my lefty friends who may not be familiar with conservative philosophy, I can assure you that going all the way back to Locke and coming forward to the present, you will not find Mr. Huckabee’s notion of state imposed religious standards for either personal behavior or law anywhere. It is, as Andy McCarthy of NRO puts rather mildly, anti-Democratic in the extreme:

Lisa, it’s really infuriating if you’ve had the experience — as I have — of being portrayed at various panels as part of the “American Taliban” for defending the purportedly Islamophobic efforts to root out Muslim terrorists. Part of my usual response, as a demonstration of how nuts this accusation is, focuses on the Taliban, their imposition of sharia (i.e., God’s law), and the marked contrast to our system’s bedrock guarantee of freedom of conscience.

Huckabee is made to order for the Left: his rhetoric embodies their heretofore lunatic indictment that we’re no better that what we’re fighting against. Let’s “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards”? Who needs to spin when the script speaks for itself? Where has Huck been for the last seven years? Does he not get that our enemies — the people who want to end our way of life — believe they are simply imposing God’s standards?

McCarthy’s reference to a “bedrock guarantee of freedom of conscience” is, in fact, the essence of conservatism. Huckabee apparently rejects this basic freedom as not being up to “God’s standards” and seeks to substitute a capricious slavishness to a single, dominant, narrow moral criterion that brooks no questions because it establishes itself from God.

As McCarthy points out, this is exactly the same thing our enemies wish to impose upon us and the rest of the world. Who cares if it comes from a devout Christian or a devout Muslim. The effect is the same.

The friction between genuine conservatives (even genuine social conservatives) and Huckabee and his acolytes is the story of this election. The Huckabites feel they are being put upon for their religious beliefs. Not hardly. In fact, most Christian conservatives are not supporting Mr. Huckabee. Where the fracture is occurring is in the Huckabites contention that their narrow, warped view of conservatism should dominate and rule the Republican party, that their issues should be given superior weight to other conservative issues.

Giving in to them would betray everything most of the conservative movement stands for. And giving them the leadership of the party would be a catastrophe for conservatism and for the country.

I would suggest those conservatives who prior to this had been taken in by Mr. Huckabee’s easy smile and winning personality to think twice before voting for this charlatan.

How’s this for a McCain scenario:

1. McCain derails Romney today in Michigan.

2. McCain destroys Huckabee on Saturday in South Carolina.

3. McCain sends Rudy packing in Florida on the 29th.

If that scenario comes to pass - and it is well within the Arizona Senator’s reach - McCain would have won a primary in the Northeast, the Midwest, and two in the South (probably finishing second to Romney in Nevada).

GOP voters see his broad appeal and decide to coalesce behind him due mainly to his electability, giving McCain a big Super Tuesday run of primary wins, driving a stake through Romney, and garnering an insurmountable delegate lead.

Not credible? It’s already happening.

In Rudy Giuliani’s backyard, a new poll out shows McCain ahead in New Jersey:

Monmouth University/Gannett GOP New Jersey Primary

John McCain 29%
Rudy Giuliani 25%
Mike Huckabee 11%
Mitt Romney 9%
Ron Paul 5%
Fred Thompson 5%

And in California, another new poll has McCain shooting into the lead (numbers in parentheses are from last month’s poll):

SurveyUSA GOP California Primary

John McCain 33% (14%)
Rudy Giuliani 18% (28%)
Mike Huckabee 14% (20%)
Mitt Romney 13% (16%)
Fred Thompson 9% (13%)
Ron Paul 4%
Other 3% (7%)
Undecided 4% (3%)

Is this love affair between McCain and the voters a one night stand or something more permanent? Ordinarily, I’d say it looks like it would be difficult to stop McCain given his huge lead in the national polls.

But this is the wackiest primary season I’ve ever seen. A loss in Michigan could deflate McCain’s balloon faster than it expanded while setting Mitt Romney up as the next victim/frontrunner. Romney just went back on the air in South Carolina so it is evident he feels a win in Michigan puts him right back on top.

A little more perspective on the hazards of being inevitable - for any candidate - from David Freddoso:

Consider:

* Even a win in Michigan next Tuesday cannot guarantee McCain anything further. He will probably do poorly in Nevada next Saturday and South Carolina will at least be a challenge.

* Although it appears unlikely, no one can yet rule out a Florida resurrection by Rudy Giuliani.

* Mike Huckabee could win Michigan and South Carolina, and then dominate the South on February 5, but is likely to lose badly throughout the West and the Northeast.

* Mitt Romney could still win in Nevada next Saturday — a state with more delegates than either Michigan or South Carolina. He could keep it close or even stay ahead in the delegate count with a “second-place-everywhere-until-Super-Tuesday” strategy, since most of the early states award delegates proportionally or by congressional district.

* And while it seems doubtful, it’s conceivable that Fred Thompson could win South Carolina after his debate performance.

(HT: Malkin)

GOP primary voter angst is not the result of too many choices but rather no good choices - at least if you can believe the pollsters. Believe me, I feel their pain.

But hey! Someone has to win. If it’s McCain, the party has a shot at the presidency next November - a long shot to be sure but McCain has demonstrated appeal among indpendents and Democratic hawks. Since a presidential election is actually 50 different elections, McCain could take some blue states away from the Democrats to offset the almost certain loss of Ohio and a few other formerly red states.

Giuliani could also but would lose some toss up states as well. Fred is the only candidate with a shot at repeating Bush’s success in 2000 and 2004 but would probably come up short in a couple of key states.

So if the voters are interested in winning and nothing else, it’s going to be McCain. If it’s anyone else, I think Republicans are looking at varying degrees of defeat. Close if Mitt, Giuliani, or Fred is the nominee. Historic landslide loss if it’s Huckabee.

No, McCain is not inevitable. But given his pluses for many GOP voters, he may be the default choice of a party in transition.

The fat lady has been canceled. The obit in the New York Times has been pulled. Funereal flower arrangements have been replanted. Behests have been returned.

And a moribund candidacy, coming to life at last, can boast that famous Mark Twain retort “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

Fred Thompson is alive and well and surging in South Carolina.

The latest Rasmussen poll shows Fred Thompson in a statistical tie for second place:

Over the past several days, the only real movement in South Carolina’s Republican Presidential Primary has been a four-point gain for Fred Thompson and a five-point decline for Mike Huckabee.

The big winner from that trade-off is John McCain.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows McCain at 28%, Huckabee at 19%, Mitt Romney at 17%, and Fred Thompson at 16%. Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul are tied with 5% support. Giuliani is betting his entire campaign on a strong showing in Florida, where he is now tied for the lead with three others. …

There has been much talk about Thompson going easy on McCain in the debate and in TV appearances since then. Yesterday on CNN’s Late Edition, Fred barely laid a glove on McCain. This has led to some spurious rumors that Thompson is a stalking horse for McCain and will drop out after South Carolina and endorse the Arizonian, being rewarded with the Vice Presidential nomination later.

That’s not quite how I see it.

It makes sense for Fred to lay off McCain until after Michigan. If his friend can knock off Romney in the state of his birth, even Daddy Warbucks would have to concede his candidacy is virtually finished. After Michigan, Fred would be free to go after McCain’s immigration record - a very easy task and one that would resonate powerfully with South Carolina voters.

Even if he doesn’t go after McCain, Romney might do it for him, seeing a Thompson win as the only way he stays viable into Florida.

A Thompson victory in South Carolina would essentially mean there would have been 4 major primaries with 3 different winners. This would mean on to Florida for everyone. Even a strong second by Thompson may tempt him to go on to Florida where Fred has also seen an uptick in his support, finding himself just 8 points out of the lead.

Okay, so it’s only 4 point surge. But it is a surge nonetheless and if it denotes momentum on Thompson’s part, watch out. The biggest hurdle Thompson has now is convincing people it is not too late to vote for him. The fact that a sizable number of South Carolinians have made that decision is heartening.

Someone pass the word to the eulogist to stand down. Fred ain’t dead yet.

UPDATE

Allah continues his torture of Fredheads. What is truly remarkable is that the Fredheads keep coming back for more. It’s like Allah has them trained to give a Pavlovian response to his sly insults and clever bon mots.

Allah evidently still doesn’t think Fred has much of a chance and I’d agree. But his prospects have improved since last week - even Allah would have to admit that. And given the utter weirdness of this primary season, I say that anything can and probably will happen before all is said and done. Whether that lightening strikes Fred or not is another matter.

UPDATE: “10 at 10″ Drive for a Million

C’Mon Fredheads. We’re almost there. Less than $30,000 to reach that million dollar goal (that was originally a $540,000 goal and then a $750,000 goal). Last Thursday, we had about $400,000 in the tank of the little red pickup. Now we’re kissing a mil thanks to your generosity and Fred’s building momentum.

If we all give just $10 at 10:00 PM tonight, we’ll smash that million dollar barrier so that Fred can blanket the airwaves in South Carolina with his positive message of true conservatism.

UPDATE: “WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER TRUCK…”

At around 8:15 PM central time, the campaign surpassed their $1,000,000 goal.

The website is crashing. The videos on the site won’t load because of the heavy traffic. The campaign is turning people away from events an hour before Fred makes his appearance.

TOO LATE MY ASS!

For a party based on putting Americans into little boxes that identify them by their race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, the Democrats have been able to skate through for about 35 years with no major clashes among their many and varied interest groups which threatened the unity of the party.

Oh there have been ideological struggles to be sure. But as long as the party kept putting up white males for the top spot, clashes between people pigeonholed in those boxes was avoided.

Well, it can’t be avoided any longer:

After staying on the sidelines in the first year of the campaign, race and to a lesser extent gender have burst into the forefront of the Democratic presidential contest, thrusting Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton into the middle of a sharp-edged social and political debate that transcends their candidacies.

In a tense day of exchanges by the candidates and their supporters, Mrs. Clinton suggested on Sunday that Mr. Obama’s campaign, in an effort to inject race into the contest, distorted remarks she had made about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Obama tartly dismissed Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion, adding that “the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign then attacked Mrs. Clinton for failing to repudiate one of her top black supporters for “engaging in the politics of destruction” with an apparent reference to Mr. Obama’s acknowledged drug use in the past. And throughout the day, supporters of Mrs. Clinton and of Mr. Obama each accused the other of injecting race in search of political gain.

The exchanges created apprehension among many of their supporters who viewed this moment — if perhaps inevitable, given the nature of the contest — as divisive for Democrats. At the same time, it offered a portrait of a party struggling through entirely unfamiliar terrain that has been brought into relief by Mr. Obama’s victory in Iowa and Mrs. Clinton’s in New Hampshire.

Hillary owes her victory in New Hampshire to the spectacular turnout of women to support her candidacy. Fully 57% of Democratic primary voters were women and Clinton received nearly 50% of their votes far outpacing Obama’s total. If women are going to support her and come out for her in such numbers, Obama is truly in trouble.

Meanwhile, we have yet to have a contest in a state where Mr. Obama’s race will give him a huge advantage. The latest CBS-New York Times poll shows that Obama garners nearly 50% of the black vote, besting Clinton by 15%. That same poll shows Hillary over Obama by 16% among women. Hence, we have the makings for a lot of potential friction that neither campaign wants but won’t be able to avoid.

Obama actually carried the women’s vote in Iowa, showing a measure of strength that absolutely floored the Clinton campaign. In fact, part of the feeling that Obama would sweep through New Hampshire was the stunning way in which women flocked to his candidacy in Iowa.

For whatever reason - many point to the “Crying Moment” as key - women came home to vote for Hillary. Perhaps part of it was the historic nature of her candidacy. Perhaps it was the feeling that the press was ganging up on her. The fact is, Hillary can thank women for her victory in New Hampshire and she knows it. Now comes the trick of maximizing that vote throughout the primaries.

For Obama, it is a little different story. With black support rising for him, he is expected to do very well in the deep south where African Americans make up from 40% to 50% of the vote in most states. He is comfortably ahead in South Carolina, the first southern state to hold a primary (1/26) and is making up ground fast in Florida.

Due to the historic nature of both their candidacies, it could have been predicted that some kind of row would erupt where the candidate’s identity was involved. After all, Obama’s race and Hillary’s gender are the ultimate cards to play for and against them. And Obama apparently either was planning to get off the mark first or it just happened that the Clinton’s played into his hands. It turns out that his campaign had already prepared an attack that would accuse the Clintons of raising the issue of race. A memo has surfaced that cataloged what the Obama people consider racially insensitive remarks:

In a tense day of exchanges by the candidates and their supporters, Mrs. Clinton suggested on Sunday that Mr. Obama’s campaign, in an effort to inject race into the contest, distorted remarks she had made about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Obama tartly dismissed Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion, adding that “the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign then attacked Mrs. Clinton for failing to repudiate one of her top black supporters for “engaging in the politics of destruction” with an apparent reference to Mr. Obama’s acknowledged drug use in the past. And throughout the day, supporters of Mrs. Clinton and of Mr. Obama each accused the other of injecting race in search of political gain.

The exchanges created apprehension among many of their supporters who viewed this moment — if perhaps inevitable, given the nature of the contest — as divisive for Democrats. At the same time, it offered a portrait of a party struggling through entirely unfamiliar terrain that has been brought into relief by Mr. Obama’s victory in Iowa and Mrs. Clinton’s in New Hampshire.

Their identity politics is a double edged sword. Each knows that an attack that appears directed at Obama’s race or Clinton’s gender risks energizing the supporters of that candidate and can also loose the dogs of the media on the attacker as the press sees itself, as always, as a referee in these matters. On the other hand, accusing your opponent of falsely using the identity card is akin to crying rape where the victim was a willing partner. And in Obama’s case, it appears he was ready to unleash the race card using somewhat innocuous statements as “proof” of the Clinton’s “insensitivity.”

On the other side, the Clinton’s are hardly innocent. Using a loose cannon like BET’s Bob Johnson - inoculated against charges of using the race card by virtue of his African American heritage - was virtually a guarantee for some racial fireworks directed against Obama. As it was, Johnson alluded to Obama’s past drug use in a rather elliptical - and deniable way. Both the Clinton’s and Johnson now say that the TV exec was referring to Obama’s days as a community organizer. The snickers from one and all after that explanation should tell the Clinton’s that they need to be a little more subtle next time.

Clinton has already tried to play the gender card, especially at the debates where attacks by the other candidates on her became the guys ganging up against the girl. But each time, the press has called her out for it and the gambit failed to elicit the kind of response among women that she was looking for. And then came the day before the New Hampshire primary and the emotional moment in the coffee shop. Suddenly, the gender card was irrelevant - even though, intentionally or not, it had just been played. Now it was “cracking of the ice queen” that played out and Hillary Clinton recaptured the women who had deserted her in Iowa.

Where this is headed is anyone’s guess. Obama risks a backlash if it is perceived he is using the race card unnecessarily and solely for political gain. Clinton, on the other hand, must be able to attack Obama in ways that don’t bring race to the fore. She tried the experience vs. inexperience attack and that didn’t work. Now she is trying to co-opt Obama’s message of change by trying to show that she has worked for real change for many years. That seemed to play well among a very important constituency; the over 55 age group. The oldsters vote in higher percentages than any other group of Americans and are vital in the large states voting on Super Tuesday.

But the race card for Obama is just too good a weapon not to use. And judging by that memo and what it represents, I have no doubt that the candidate will make use of that weapon as often as the thinks he can get away with it.

This then is where identity politics has taken the Democrats. Walking on egg shells one moment and shamelessly pandering to their respective constituencies the next. It has the potential of splintering the party if one side goes to far. But I doubt that will happen. Self-interest being the driving force in both camps and given the temperament of both candidates, I would suppose that there will be limits to the lengths to which they will go in savaging each other.