A Dilemma For Both Parties

The protracted, almost unendurable, 2008 campaign season for the national Republican Party began in the extreme pain of its losses in the 2006 elections, and under the historical precedents that few parties in the past six decades have won more than two presidential elections in a row.

After a period of controlling the White House and the Congress, the GOP now faces the prospect of controlling none of them, and having their significant recent gains wiped out.

To make matters worse, large numbers of their veteran members of Congress have decided to retire, and not a few of those, previously safe Republican seats, will now be competitive. The likely GOP nominee for president, Senator John McCain, faces an insurrection in his own party among some who feel his long record in Congress is not conservative enough, and threaten to bolt the party in November. Finally, Republican turnout in the primaries and caucuses so far has been far less than the Democratic turnout in most cases, indicating a relative lack of GOP enthusiasm for the 2008 campaign.

On its face, it does not seem it could get worse than this.

But beneath the face of these circumstances is another set of circumstances.

The catalysts for Republican defeat in 2006, the war in Iraq and political scandals at home, have faded from primary public controversy. A military surge in Iraq, initiated by President Bush, but vitally encouraged and supported by Senator McCain, seems to be working. A mood of national defeat has been transformed to a mood of some optimism. The Democratic Party, initially expected to settle early on its presidential candidate, has been stalemated with its two top contenders in a campaign likely to
approach if not reach its national convention before being resolved. The Democratically-controlled Congress is led by unattractive, ineffective figures, and the Congress has become even more unpopular than the outgoing president.

With John McCain as its candidate for president, the Republican party goes into unchartered seas for this election. The GOP has no reasonable prospects to regain control of either the Senate or the House. It is likely to lose seats in both bodies. Although Senator McCain is, by any definition I know, a
political conservative, he appears to be alienated from a considerable portion of the GOP conservative base. Should Hillary Clinton be nominated by the Democrats to run against him, most of that unhappy base will ultimately vote for him, but there will be noticeable defections by the far right, cheered on by social conservative spokespersons and some radio talk show hosts, no matter who the Democrats choose.

Political conversation now turns to his expected efforts to make some kind of peace with unhappy conservatives, and with his choice for vice president. Conventional wisdom argues that he will move quite to the right in both tasks.

John McCain has been, throughout this political season, the only Republican with a reasonable prospect of winning the 2008 election.But he is not only a maverick, he is a crusty and often unpleasant one in his political relationships. His appeal to independents and conservative/moderate Democrats has been demonstrated repeatedly in the primary/caucus season. What he and his advisors must now decide is how much an abrupt tilt to the right will cost him in the general election in November. If conservative hardliners will not compromise, then there is little to be gained in chasing their political ghostly figures.

Just as Mr. McCain has serious problems in the conservative base, Mrs.Clinton has serious problems outside her political base. These are "poll negatives" that do not seem to go away. If she defeats Mr..Obama for the nomination, most of his vote will easily fall in behind her. Most partisan Democrats intensely want to win the presidency in 2008, and will support either candidate enthusiastically against Mr. McCain. Mrs. Clinton's nomination,however, would create a particular opportunity for the GOP nominee in the political center where he is already credible. It is unlikely that Mrs. Clinton's negative swill simply go away. They are grounded in her political history and her political personality.

Independent and centrist voters may no longer support President Bush, and may now oppose many of his policies, but there is no evidence that most of them feel the anger and intensity that partisan
liberal Democrats do. The dilemma for the Democrats is that it is these voters who will determine the outcome of the 2008 election. The dilemma for John McCain is that he cannot afford to alienate the political center as he tries to bring unity to his own party.

This political year has seen more turns, twists and surprises than any in memory. There is no reason to think, having come this far, and with the agonizing choices facing both party's campaigns in the eight months before election day, that more shocks and surprises do not lie ahead.

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-This article was first published in The Washington Times on February 8, 2008.

Fred in Hunt for Red November?

The 2008 presidential nominating contests are going to be remembered as a cycle of political "musical chairs." The subtitle of this show might be a variant of Andy Warhol's famous dictum, i.e., "Everyone gets fifteen minutes as the frontrunner."

So far, Hillary Clinton has been the long-time Democratic frontrunner, and then Barack Obama got it for a few days by winning an upset in Iowa. As of now, following Mrs. Clinton's surprise win in New Hampshire, no one on that side is the frontrunner. But soon enough, there will be one again.

John McCain was the original Republican frontrunner, but he was soon superceded by Rudy Giuliani who held that status for most of the summer and autumn. Leading in early polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Mitt Romney was then arguably a frontrunner, but when Mike Huckabee won an upset in Iowa, he was briefly the frontrunner. John McCain won convincingly in New Hampshire, and now he is the frontrunner once again. If he wins in Michigan this week, he will firm up his standing as the leader of the pack.

But then the national focus turns to South Carolina, the fourth leg of the newly-created official early caucus-primary season. Here we may discover that the voters are graciously determined to have all the major candidates enjoy at least a brief moment in the spotlight. John Edwards, in fact, has to win here or face near certain elimination.

Fred Thompson also must either win here, or come in a very strong second, to revive his flagging campaign. And he might just do that. This is a state which is made for the low-key but solid conservative credentials of the lawyer-actor-senator-turned actor back again. Judging by his debate performance at the South Carolina GOP debate, Thompson has finally figured out how to campaign for president.

"The Hunt for Red October" is probably my favorite movie of the past twenty years, and I do not tire of the brilliantly constructed suspense of its story line even though I know exactly how the movie will turn out. Fred Thompson was not the major star of the movie, but he was one of the co-stars as the rear admiral. Similarly, he did not have that much camera time on the hit TV show "Law & Order," but he has played his role as the district attorney with consummate laid-back finesse, something which is natural to his style.

Republican voters, like their Democratic counterparts, are taking their time picking their nominee, This infuriates the media and many of its pundits who want their polls and theories to produce a quick conclusion, and not be embarrassed when each primary produces a surprising result that few if anyone predicted.

With that in mind, I want to make it clear that I am not predicting a Thompson upset in South Carolina (which is what it would be if he won or came in close second, trailing as he does now most of his rivals). But I do want to point out that South Carolina is just the place for Thompson to draw a line in the sand and make his biggest stand.

The Republicans are in the hunt for a "red November" this year, unlikely as that outcome has seemed to be over the past spring, summer and autumn. They need a candidate who can keep the conservative GOP base and still attract moderates and independents and perhaps some unhappy Democrats, too. For the moment, the most likely candidate seems to be John McCain. Messrs. Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani seem more
associated with the various wings of their party, and might have more difficulty in uniting it for November, although any one of them could win the nomination.

Thus it is Thompson's moment of opportunity if he can convince South Carolina GOP voters he has both the conservatism they require (he does have the endorsement of the National Right To Life organization), the independent spirit of a John McCain and the charm of a Mike Huckabee. We have seen brief flashes of these qualities during the campaign up to now, but nothing has been sustained, and his rivals have outperformed him.

His small part as a lawyer in Watergate, his ervice as a U.S.senator, and his stardom in movies and TV were perhaps only a rehearsal for what he is now doing this week. He could still turn out as a bit player in 2008, or after his South Carolina tryout, he might well end up with his biggest part of all.

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-This article first appeared in Real Clear Politics on January 14th, 2008.

Hurray for the Voters

The Beltway punditocracy had another bad day on Tuesday in New Hampshire, but I suspect the voters had a good day upsetting so many intricately-wrought scenarios for the presidential nominating contests.

As I have consistently pointed out over the past year, this is an almost perfect contrarian political cycle, with conventional wisdom receiving one blow after another.

Now that Hillary Clinton has upset their apple cart, count on the punditocracy to rush in with a grocery bag full of reasons why she will now win the nomination. Florida is hers, they will argue, and the big industrial states following will succumb to her appeal to the traditional Democratic base. As for Barak Obama, for the media he may now turn out to be a one-night stand. Of course, John Edwards, most of the punditocracy concluded after Iowa, is the walking political dead.

I suggest, however, that we continue not to know where the two nomination contests are going to conclude. That is because the nation¹s voters are still sorting everything out. Perhaps the system we have used for the past several decades, with primaries and caucuses scattered over several months, is not quite so bad as many have been saying it is.

I do think it is now clear that the electorate is in a visible state of transition, and that models of the past, while still of some use, are being replaced with new voter groups and attitudes. Being in transition, voters are not acting decisively, but rather are trying out various political ideas and candidates for size and quality.

The races for the Democratic and Republican nominations have only really begun in spite of the historically prolonged preliminaries. The question of whether there or not there will be a serious independent challenger in November is far from settled. Under certain circumstances, a third party candidate (such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg) could still be a very major factor in the race.

On the Democratic side, we are likely now to see a protracted contest through, and perhaps past, Mega-Tuesday on February 5. Anyone who has observed the post-Iowa excitement for Senator Obama in the Democratic grass roots across the country will have a difficult time believing his candidacy will now politely fold up and withdraw. And apparently, John Edwards is not yet prepared to leave the field for a quiet life in his big new house. His populist message has not been entirely ignored by Democratic voters so far, and may yet have some prospects ahead. At the very least, as he accumulates delegates, he makes it difficult for either of his rivals to build an overwhelming lead.

On the Republican side, the picture of the race is very out of focus. John McCain has made a remarkable comeback out of personal grit and candor. He is not quite yet a frontrunner, but he definitely has a chance to win. Mike Huckabee now has the attention of a major part of the GOP base, and his personal campaign skills make him a formidable competitor. Mitt Romney has suffered two disappointing second- and third-place finishes, but he still has money and organization with so many states yet to be heard from. South Caolina will be a good test to see if Fred Thompson can be a major player in the contest; if he remains in the race after that, he will surely begin to accumulate delegates. Finally, although the conventional wisdom has begun to rule Rudy Giuliani out of the picture, he has still not competed in the kind of state where he is likely to do well, particularly in the industrial northeast. It is mistake to say, at this point,that Giuliani cannot re-emerge in the weeks ahead.

Many of the traditional tools of the punditocracy are no longer as useful. The polls, in particular, are no longer reliable. It was good to see that exit polls are not being used as they once were, particularly by news organizations. (In New Hampshire, exit polls showed Obama beating Clinton.) Focus groups, the darling of some consultants, increasingly become less accurate predictors when the electorate at large is in the state of transition I now believe it is.

This brings us back to those who are counted, the voters. Iowa and New Hampshire have demonstrated, and future primaries will likely continue to demonstrate, that voters are not in a mood this year to be second-guessed. They are doing important and necessary work, as our representative democracy requires, in a political year with no incumbent, lots of real change ahead, and so much at stake.

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-This article first appeared in Real Clear Politics January 14, 2008.

Lieberman Speaks Up

I had a lot to say on these pages last year about the ludicrous attempt of far left Democrats and the radical blogosphere to scuttle Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic Party and remove him from office.

That crusade against Mr. Lieberman failed, although he is no longer a Democrat, but an "independent" in the U.S. Senate where he wields more power than ever before. Mr. Lieberman is today the personification of the political center, and retains a working relationship with numerous significant centrists in both parties, including Democrats Tom Carper, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Diane Feinstein, Ken Salazar, Evan Bayh, Robert Casey, Amy Klobuchar and Ben Nelson; and Republicans Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, Norm Coleman, Arlen Spector, Olympia Snowe, John Warner and
Richard Lugar.

Now Mr. Lieberman, in 2000 the then popular Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States, has injected himself into the 2008 contest for president by endorsing a candidate in the New Hampshire primary.

He did not endorse one of his U.S. senate colleagues such as Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden or fellow Connecticut senator Chris Dodd. Nor did he endorse Governor Bill Richardson who, during the height of his difficult re-election race in 2006, called on him to to withdraw as a candidate. He did not even endorse Hillary Clinton, his colleague from New York, whose husband, later the president of the United States, had come to Connecticut as a student to campaign for Lieberman in one of his
earliest races.

Nor did he endorse the Republican frontrunner, the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. He did not endorse the Republican candidate who is leading in New Hampshire, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Nor did he endorse the man who has apparently taken the lead in Iowa, former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. Finally, he did not endorse his former colleague in the senate, Fred Thompson.

So whom did he endorse?

Senator Lieberman said he preferred Repulbican John McCain, a man who is down but not quite out of the race for president in 2008.

How can we explain this, remembering that John McCain came very close to defeating George W. Bush for his party's nomination in 2000, and if he had, would have been running against the Democratic ticket of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman?

The answer is that John McCain, a true Republican conservative, is also the only candidate running for president this year who consistently acknowledges that the person who wins the highest office in the nation must win it in the political center.

How else to explain Mr. McCain's stubborn advocacy of his campaign reform legislation, banning torture, the environment and a plan for dealing with illegal immigration that does not include mass deportation, each an issue that is controversial in the Republican grass roots?

In the unlikely outcome that Mr. McCain wins the Republican nomination next year, he is the one candidate for president who won't have to revise himself to compete against his November opponent.

That reminds us of Joe Lieberman's difficult race for re-election in 2006 when, after being defeated in the Democratic primary by a leftist parvenu, he defended his seat to the voters of Connecticut by running on his record, including his support of the war in Iraq. He won that race because he won not only many Democratic votes, but the votes of independents and Republicans as well.

Since I do not think that most endorsements, by politicians or newspapers, matter that much, I do not suggest that Mr. Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain will sway many voters in New Hampshire. (Some endorsements do matter, and one of those may be Oprah's indefatigable support of Barack Obama.)

But I do suggest that Joe Lieberman's support for John McCain is an important statement of principle and reality in an already protracted campaign season filled with slogans and rhetoric mostly about the peripheral issues facing the nation.

When Newt Gingrich appeared to be running for president earlier this year, he expressed many views that seemed politically "risky" or inappropriate. That is, he proposed serious and tough strategies and solutions for solving the nation's most critical problems of foreign policy, health care, education, and immigration. (In his "shadow" campaign called American Solutions, he continues to do so although he is not running for president.)

With Mr.Huckabee's and Mr. Obama's apparent upsetting of conventional wisdom this year with their own unconventional campaigns,it is becoming clear that the American people do not want "more of the same" from either party or any of their presidential candidates.

One more time, Joe Lieberman reminds the country that the solutions to our problems can only be found in common purpose with the consent of the majority.

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-This article first appeared in The Washington Times on December 21, 2007

What Will We Know, and When Will We Know It

There are two distinct themes in the Democratic and Republican contests for the presidential nomination next year.

The Democrats theme is " big change." Their challenge is not only to find a nominee who can change their losing 2000-2004 losing streak, but to decide how to change the way Democrats do public policy business.

The Republicans theme is "some difference." Their challenge is to determine not only how different their nominee will be from incumbent president George W. Bush, but also to decide if the difference they want will enable them to remain viable as a party which appeals to the majority of American voters..

It should be noted that the "big" change sought by Democrats and the "some" change by Republicans indicates a greater intensity for the out-of-White House Democrats. This gives them a natural emotional advantage in 2008, although it does not insure their victory.

A subtheme of the Democrats' theme of big change is that they want to win very badly. We will be finding out, beginning with Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, how the Democratic voters assess who it is who can get this job done. In the Democratic field, only Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards appear to be in the finals. Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd do not appear to have made it through the long preliminaries, although the sudden rise of Mike Huckabee on the Republican side indicates that nothing this political season is impossible. Of those three in the top "tier," only Mr. Obama qualifies as a "new" face. Mrs. Clinton is universally known, and John Edwards came in second in 2004 against John Kerry, and was Mr. Kerry's vice presidential running mate that year.

Of those who seem to have made it to the finals in the Republican contest, Mitt Romney, Mr. Huckabee and Fred Thompson qualify as "new" faces. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are well-known national figures.

Armed with the news of Mr. Obama's and Mr. Huckabee's "surges" in recent days, there is once again a rash of predictions and analyses about the outcome. I continue to believe, as I have stated continually in recent months, that we do not know who the party nominees will be.

But we are getting very close to knowing a great deal more. Iowans will caucus in two weeks. Five days later, New Hampshire voters will hold their primary. This cycle, a Nevada caucus and a South Carolina primary will take place shortly afterwards. After the questionable Michigan primary (only one Democrat is competing) and an "illegal" Florida primary (where everyone is competing), there will be the mother of all primary days on February 5 (where almost half the delegates will be chosen on one day).

The winning Democratic and Republican candidate in Iowa has no assurance of winning the nomination, but this year, as in some others in the past, Iowa is turning out to be more important than anticipated. In the long, and many say tedious, preliminary campaign for 2008, voter attitudes and preferences were only speculated about. The frontrunners in the opinion polls, always Mrs. Clinton on the Democratic side; first, Mr. McCain and then Mr. Giuliani on the Republican side; seemed to defy certain laws of political gravity. In Mrs. Clinton's case, it was her chronic and extraordinarily high poll negatives. In Mr. McCain's case, it was his stubborn advocacy of issues unpopular to the GOP base (which eventually did take him out of first place). In Mr. Giuliani's case, it was history of social liberalism equally unpopular to GOP base voters.

Only the polls conducted in the week before the Iowa caucus are usually reliable, so the outcome there is not really known, but it would appear that Mr. Obama has a reasonable chance of winning there. Should he do so, it is unclear whether Mr. Edwards or Mrs. Clinton would come in second. It is even possible, with his organization and his good 2004 Iowa result, that Mr. Edwards could win. And it is also possible, despite the Obama surge, that Mrs. Clinton could win. If Obama and Edwards finish first and second,in either order, and Mrs. Clinton finishes third, her current lead in New Hampshire could melt away. If her "inevitability" thus evaporates, it could become a long contest that goes past February 5. This would be even more likely if some of the "second tier" candidates remain in the race, particularly Mr. Biden. On the other hand, if Mrs. Clinton wins or comes in a close second in Iowa and wins New Hampshire big, her nomination would seem to be assured.

Of particular importance this year are the so-called "super-delegates" made up of elected Democrats and party officials. This is a very large group, and considered the Democratic "establishment." It was widely thought that these delegates would go overwhelmingly to Mrs.Clinton, and they may, but even more than grass roots delegates, this bloc has a powerful stake in choosing a nominee who is likely to win in November. If the early primaries, and February 5, indicate that Mrs. Clinton is perceived by Democratic voters as weak or unlikeable, the super-delegates will likely switch to Mr. Obama, or to Mr. Edwards if he closes very strong and wins a lot of primaries.

On the Republican side, it is even foggier. Mr. Romney was supposed to win Iowa by a big margin. He is currently well ahead in New Hampshire. A defeat in Iowa and New Hampshire would almost certainly be mortal blows. Mr. Giuliani, a frontrunner for so long, has reverted to his original strategy of largely ignoring Iowa and New Hampshire, and devoting himself to big wins in Florida and then in the large northeastern and midwestern states and California. But not only Mr. Huckabee is surging. Mr. McCain seems much back in the news with prominent newspaper and political endorsements, and some have suggested that Mr. Thompson is at last showing some life in Iowa.

In fact, a reasonable scenario could be made at this point in the campaign for any of the five top tier GOP candidates to win. Since each of them has potential strengths in the February 5 primary states where so many delegates are chosen, it would seem that the Republican delegate count after February 5 could be far from decisive, even possibly leading to a contested convention in St.Paul in September.

If Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Romney or Mr. Giuliani fail to capture their party's nomination in the next six weeks or so, and even fade from contention, I think it will be because they did not really address their voters deepest concerns. All Democrats want change, i.e., change in who is running the country, but Democratic voters might also deeply crave a new kind of liberal politics. Mrs. Clinton's strategy of "overwhelming force" (of name recognition, money, organization and her husband) may itself be overwhelmed by a greater force of generational change. Mr. Giuliani's strategy of performing an end-run on social conservatives in his party by emphasizing his fiscal conservatism and his war on terror bona fides may be overwhelmed by a need for more conservative likability and charm. We don't know yet how badly Republicans want to win in 2008.

Whoever the nominees of each party will be, they will have to face each other in a bruising November campaign that will be decided, as virtually all U.S. presidential campaigns are decided, in the political center. Perhaps that is why John McCain's candidacy, long ago pronounced deceased, remains alive and still kicking, and perhaps that is why we do not yet understand the full consequences of Barack Obama's sudden appearance on the American political landscape.