I've made it clear that there are many things on which I disagree with John McCain. That said, I respect him for his time as a Vietnam POW. Some folks are trying to undermine the heroism he showed while a prisoner.

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Tuesday assailed a two-page attack mailer sent to newspaper editors across South Carolina that claims McCain turned on his fellow POWs to get better treatment while he was a prisoner in Vietnam.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. I know because I was there," Orson Swindle, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and former prisoner of war, said in a statement about the mailing from a group called Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain.

"The deceitful smear tactics by such fringe elements as Vietnam Veterans Against McCain must not be allowed into the political process. We are a better people than that, and those responsible should be denounced," said Swindle said.

I was not in Vietnam – indeed, I was 10 years old when John McCain and his fellow heroes came home. I would be inclined not to give the story much credence because I know the media would have searched out negative information about him before now.

But to me, the best evidence on McCain's behalf is the lengthy list of former POWs who have given him their support. For me, I need to see only one name on that list, Capt. Richard Stratton, to know that McCain's time as a prisoner was marked with honorable conduct. After the war, my father served with Dick Stratton, and our families became friends. And I will say today, three decades later, that my knowledge of Stratton's integrity is sufficient to reassure me of McCain's on this point.

The time has come for all Americans to reject such attacks on John McCain.

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Well, it could be quite interesting if we can make it happen with the right one on top.

Among the legion of GOP Oval Office hopefuls, the oddest of potential political odd couples may be former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

If the two put aside their differences, would they make an unstoppable duo?

"If you look at their resumes and strengths and weaknesses, they'd be a very balanced, strong ticket," said GOP analyst Todd Domke. "But you know that old joke about needing a food-taster."

The two candidates are a study in contrasts, starting with Romney's lustrous coif vs. McCain's comb-over.

Then there's McCain's hardscrabble image as a war hero and a POW Navy captain, vs. Romney's slick persona as a Harvard-educated, wealthy captain of industry.

And don't forget Romney's gee-whiz, H-E-double-hockey-sticks, G-rated banter compared with McCain's unfit-to-print penchant for four-letter phrasing.

Frankly, I would be willing to swallow hard and cast a vote for John McCain in such a situation, despite my misgivings about him for as a presidential candidate. Romney's executive experience and McCain's standing on defense issues would be a great combination. The choice would draw in many independents, while bridging the various constituencies of the old Reagan Coalition. And McCain is certainly a more palatable candidate than Mike Huckabee.

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No, not anything significant in a legislative sense -- but she has changed the menu in the restaurants, snack bars, and other eating establishments under her control as Speaker of the House.

The processed cheese has been replaced with brie. The Jell-O has made way for raspberry kiwi tarts and mini-lemon blueberry trifles. Meatloaf has moved over for mahi mahi and buns have been shunted aside in favor of baguettes.

A revolution is afoot at the deli counters, grills and salad bars of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

But there can be a downside to delicious. Not everyone is happy with the enhanced offerings. Many congressional employees have complained that as the food quality has increased, so have the prices.

In other words, she has no legislative accomplishments to speak of, but Pelosi has still done something revolutionary. Her food choices are remarkable -- and remarkably out of touch with traditional American cuisine and the way Americans eat.

Indeed, there can be only one conclusion to this haute cuisine revolution.

The Speaker of the House has surrendered to France.

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In the last several days, the polls have been all over the place. Romney wins. Romney loses. Romney ties.

But now the only poll that counts has been taken -- ROMNEY WINS BIG!

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney resoundingly won the Michigan presidential primary Tuesday, seizing his first big victory in the Republican competition and blunting the momentum of his chief rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Romney's triumph in the state where he was born and where his father served as governor further scrambles a GOP field in which no candidate has been able to win more than one major contest. McCain captured first place in the New Hampshire primary Jan. 8 and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee topped the Iowa field five days earlier.

The race now shifts to South Carolina, where a tough three-way contest is expected in the first Southern state to vote this primary season. McCain and Huckabee flew to the Palmetto State before the voting in Michigan ended, and Romney will head there Wednesday for a bus tour through the state.

With 89 percent counted, Romney had won 39 percent of the vote to McCain's 30 percent. Huckabee trailed with 16 percent.

What this means, of course, is that the Republican race is wide-open for at least the next three weeks. South Carolina will be a truly interesting contest, with Romney a factor again now that he is seen as able to win somewhere. The momentum boost could derail either John McCain or Mike Huckabee -- especially since Romney did surprisingly well among Michigan's large bloc of evangelical voters, who he split evenly with Mike Huckabee.

Indeed, that performance by Huckabee should lead folks to ask a critical question -- does Mike Huckabee have significant support outside the evangelical community? Michigan's evangelical voters make up roughly 40% of the GOP base -- and Huckabee got roughly 31% of those evangelical votes according to exit polling data I saw last night. His total take of the votes was 16% -- which means that he received the support of only 6% of the non-evangelical vote. How can he win in November with numbers like that? Romney, on the other hand, did well with all GOP demographic groups, while McCain prevailed among independents.

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As I pointed out yesterday, the notion that the courts could order a network to allow a presidential candidate to participate in a debate was absurd on its face. it appears that the Nevada Supreme Court agreed.

The Nevada Supreme Court said Tuesday MSNBC can exclude Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich from a candidate debate.

Lawyers for NBC Universal Inc., had asked the high court to overturn a lower court order that the cable TV news network include the Ohio congressman or pull the plug on broadcasting the debate Tuesday night with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The state Supreme Court's unanimous order said that blocking the debate unless Kucinich got to participate would be "an unconstitutional prior restraint" on the news network's First Amendment rights. The justices also said the lower court exceeded its jurisdiction by ordering Kucinich's participation even though he first requested and was denied relief from the Federal Communications Commission.

So yes, Glen Greenwald's shilling for Dennis Kucinich to the contrary, yesterday's decision by a Nevada district court judge was a case of gross judicial over-reaching AND judicial activism at its worst. Any outcome other than that reached by the Nevada Supreme Court would have turned every booking decision by a television news show into grounds for a lawsuit if some other individual were bumped due to changing news priorities.

H/T Captain's Quarters

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When you imply you are greater than Martin Luther King, it probably isn't a good idea to show up at events commemorating the man. It might get you a less than festive reception.

Dogged by continuing racial tensions around her presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a smattering of boos on Monday when she spoke at a religiously tinged Martin Luther King Jr. rally put together by a union organizing predominantly black security workers.

The catcalls came when Clinton was introduced and her speech drew only tepid applause compared to the boisterous ovations drawn by many of the pastors and reverends — not to mention a hip-hop artist and slam poet — who took the podium before her.

This should have been a friendly crowd. That it wasn't should say something about the fraying of the Democrat coalition. Hillary Clinton cannot take black voters for granted -- and th insensitivity she and her surrogates have shown recently will not endear her to the black community if it continues.

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Mickey Kaus points out that there is still one candidate whose church ties have disturbing racial overtones.

Undernews Alert: It's hard to believe that Obama's Afrocentric church--with its troubling attack on "the pursuit of middeclassness"--isn't going to be an issue in the campaign, soon. There are already wild, inflammatory emails circulating, apparently. ... Update: Here is the offical Obama response page. Excerpt:

"There is information on the Black Values System in the new member packet provided at Trinity, and the new member classes put the Black Values System in the historical context of the civil rights movement."

Hmm. It must be understood in "the historical context." That'll reassure nervous white voters! The Obama camp would seem to be severely underestimating its vulnerability on the church issue if it thinks lecturing people on the civil rights movement will solve this problem for them in the long run.

The problem is not that Obama attends a liberal church in a liberal denomination(for the record, my wife is a former UCC pastor). The problem is not that the congregation has a strong ethnic identity, as do many older congregations in the UCC . The problem is how that identity gets expressed, and the racialist -- if not outright racist -- manner in which that identity is expressed. How deeply he subscribes to such a racial philosophy is a legitimate issue -- especially when official publications of the congregation praise Louis Farrakhan and reject the very uniting message that Barack Obama is campaigning on in his quest for the presidency.

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Face it -- Dennis Kucinich is not a bona fide candidate for President. He has no significant support, has raised no significant money, and has no significant chance of winning his party's nomination. MSNBC was right to exclude him from its upcoming debate.

But a judge feels differently.

A Nevada judge said Monday that Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich must be included in Tuesday's candidates' debate in Nevada.

Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson said if Kucinich is excluded, he'll issue an injunction stopping the televised debate.

The judge sided with a lawyer for the Ohio congressman, who says debate host MSNBC at first invited Kucinich to take part and then told him last week he couldn't.

A lawyer for the network said MSNBC decided to go with the top three candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

The judge called it a matter of fairness and said Nevada voters will benefit if they hear from more than just Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The cable network and the Democratic Party are calling the 9 p.m. EST debate a chance to hear issues from Nevada's minority communities. Tim Russert and Brian Williams are moderating.

Personally, I believe that the network should cite the First Amendment and tell the judge to take his court order, roll it up real tight, and shove it up his @$$. However, a better course of action might be to give Kucinich a podium, and a microphone -- and then not turn the thing on and not ever point the candidate at him. After all, the judge certainly cannot dictate what questions and how many are asked of various candidates without running even further afoul of the First Amendment.

Ed at Captain's Quarters points out some jurisdictional issues, too.

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When you are a conspiracy theorist backing a candidate who has made a career pushing conspiracy theories, it is no wonder that you look for conspiracies in every occurrence.

And how you refuse to accept the simplest explanation for a human error.

Jennifer Call's eyes searched the office for nothing in particular. Her arms waved and her fear spilled out.

"This is where I grew up," Sutton's town clerk said yesterday. "This is my hometown, this is where my family is, and all of sudden, my name is being splashed across the internet as this horrible person. And the frightening part is, I don't know these people and they don't know me."

Call wants the nationwide army of boisterous Ron Paul supporters, believers in more conspiracy theories than Oliver Stone, to know that she's committed no crime.

Not treason, as the dozens of phone callers screamed. Not fraud, as the dozens of e-mails charged. Nothing.

Human error, by someone unknown, caused Call's office to claim Paul received zero votes from the town during Tuesday's first-in-the-nation primary.

Paul actually got a whopping 31 votes.

Out of 920 cast.

Launch an investigation. Alert the media.

The mistake was corrected early the next morning, but that hardly mattered. The Paul machine, upon reading the number in print, quickly went into counteroffensive mode.

Now by my count, the error went uncorrected for perhaps 12 to 14 hours. The mistake was corrected before the day was out. Why then – other than the significant level of mental illness among Ron Paul supporters – is there this effort to drive one small town clerk out of her home, and to imprison or execute her.

Oh, and by the way, it is clear that these Ron Paul supporters do not hold to their idol's views of the Constitution as limiting government. After all, there is no way that even an intentional miscount of 31 votes – which this was not – could constitute treason under the definition set forth in Article III of the Constitution.

H/T Malkin

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I think this was rather a foregone conclusion after the first two major contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. And given the way that the polls have fluctuated on both sides (especially the GOP side), I think that fluid is the best available word.

Republican voters have sharply altered their views of the partyÂ’s presidential candidates following the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Senator John McCain, once widely written off, now viewed more favorably than any of his major competitors, according to the latest nationwide New York Times/CBS News Poll.

The findings underscored the extraordinary volatility in the Republican race and suggested that the party was continuing to search for a nominee to rally around. Nearly three-quarters of Republican primary voters said it was still too early for them to make up their minds “for sure,” meaning that they could shift their allegiances yet again if one or more of Mr. McCain’s rivals breaks through in the two Republican primaries this week, in Michigan and South Carolina.

And I find this little tidbit to be amusing, given my post over the weekend.

But Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are now viewed by Democrats as almost equally qualified on a variety of measures, including the ability to serve as commander in chief.

Yeah, they are both equally qualified there. all right.

But in the end, we are seeing a tightening of the Democrat race and a continued ebb and flow on the GOP side. In the end, which will produce the more qualified, electable candidate?

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The short answer is that it appears that Mitt Romney is going to win in Michigan -- something I have always considered to be a foregone conclusion.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who badly needs to win Tuesday's Michgian primary, has an 8-point lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona in a McClatchy/MSNBC poll of Michigan voters to be released Sunday.

Romney had a narrower lead in a Detroit Free Press poll and was tied in a Detroit News poll.

Now there are those, including the author of this article in Politico, who insist that Michigan is a "must win" state for Romney. I don't know that it is. After all, a series of strong second place finishes would show him to have broad popular support in various parts of the country, while his rivals have spotty support. Indeed, that plays out int he current delegate count, which at this early stage of the game has Mitt Romney leading all other Republican candidates.

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Bravo to Captain Ed Morrissey for pointing out this bit of information.

Just for giggles, look how much time [former VP Dan] Quayle had in Congress when he got picked as Bush 41's running mate, and look how much experience the three leading Democrats have had. He beat Hillary by five years, Edwards by six, and Obama by nine.

Let's spell it out for you.

Dan Quayle had 4 years in the House and 8 years in the Senate when he became VP. And while Quayle was often criticized for his National Guard service during the Vietnam War, he has more military service than any of the three leading Democrats in 2008 -- none of whom have served at all. If Dan Quayle was so unqualified to be Vice President (and to step into the Oval Office in the event of a presidential death, incapacity, resignation, or impeachment), how on earth can ANY of the remaining Democrats be seen as qualified to start in the top spot?

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As many folks know, I have seriously mixed emotions about John McCain.

I do wish someone would ask him about this quote from sometime back.

"He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government."

I mean, it is important to illustrate the fundamental hostility of a major presidential candidate to a part of the Constitution. After all, if elected, McCain would be swearing to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Does his record indicate an inability to do so? I certainly think his own words make that a legitimate issue.

Mark Levin also offers some other areas where McCain should be seriously questioned by the media and his opponents.

The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider:

* McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

* McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

* McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

* McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

* McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

And given some of his defense miscues and his key role in undermining Bush's judicial nominees as a part of the Gang of 14, and you can see there is a lot to ask about besides his compelling story of personal heroism and sacrifice.

Maybe John McCain is not the greatest threat ever faced by the American Republic -- but is he the best that the Republicans have to offer America?

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Let every vote count -- but only the votes of Hillary Clinton supporters. Don't let workers whose unions support Obama participate at all.

NevadaÂ’s state teachers union and six Las Vegas area residents filed a lawsuit late Friday that could make it harder for many members of the stateÂ’s huge hotel workers union to vote in the hotly contested Jan. 19 Democratic caucus in Nevada.

The 13-page lawsuit in federal district court here comes two days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Senator Barack Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama addressed the Culinary Union at their hall earlier Friday.

The lawsuit argues that the Nevada Democratic PartyÂ’s decision, decided late last year, to create at-large precincts inside nine Las Vegas resorts on caucus day violates the stateÂ’s election laws and creates a system in which voters at the at-large precincts can elect more delegates than voters at other precincts. The lawsuit employs a complex mathematical formula to show that voters at the other 1,754 precincts would have less influence with their votes.

Once again we see the problem with the caucus as a nominating device. Lot's of folks are immediately disenfranchised under that method. And now surrogates for the Clinton campaign are working to ensure that even more qualified participants are disenfranchised. Maybe they are trying to make sure that Hillary's statement about caucuses is true.

It is time to do away with the caucus in American politics.

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Maybe.

About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are forgoing their January paychecks, aides said Friday, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate.

Or maybe not.

"We have enough money, but we could always use more money," contended Mike DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager and one of those who now is working for free. "We want to make sure we have enough to win."

At the end of December, he said the campaign had $11.5 million cash on hand, $7 million of which can be used for the primary. He disputed the notion of a cash-strapped campaign, and said Giuliani continues to bring in cash; several fundraisers are scheduled this week in Florida.

Now let's be honest here -- if the top dogs are foregoing salaries to "make sure we have enough to win", then it would appear that the Giuliani campaign believes it might not have enough cash to win. And given the need to dig itself out of a hole created by its own flawed campaign strategy, I think that we are seeing a self-induced implosion of Rudy's campaign.

I wonder -- which of the current candidates does he want to serve under as Attorney General?

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The Texas Primary is March 4th. So is the TAKS test in Texas schools.

The result? Many usual polling places won't be due to the need to ensure test security in school buildings.

Some Texas schools are considering passing up on a front-row seat in a democracy lesson during the March 4 primary to keep their campuses visitor-free and church-mouse quiet during the opening day of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

Leaders of some Houston-area school districts, including Katy, have informed Harris County officials that they're reluctant to fill their normal role as polling sites because of this year's scheduling conflict.

"Sites that are normally used as polling locations may not be available because of administrative policy that prohibits visitors on school campuses during testing," said Hector de Leon, spokesman for the County Clerk's Office. "However, at this point, the use of schools as polling locations has not been ruled out."

Questions remain about whether public schools can refuse to serve as voting locations, an issue state leaders are trying to iron out.

And one thing that apparently has not been a consideration in all this is the loss of some election judges and poll workers. I take election day off to be election judge and run the polls in my precinct, and I know a number of other teachers who do the same thing to serve as election judges or poll workers. We won't be doing that this year, because every school district I know has a strict policy forbidding the use of leave days on state testing days. So I'll be proctoring a test or monitoring restrooms or some other task instead of making sure that Republicans in my precinct have a smoothly running polling place.

Which leads us back to an obvious question -- don't folks with TEA take the time to look at the calendar before they set testing dates?

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With Ron Paul signs!

My wife sent me a link to this one -- great fun for anyone who feels a need to laugh at politics for a few minutes.

Come on -- event he Ron Paul supporters should find this one cute.

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1 Hey thanks for linking! The snowman is no longer there and I haven't seen a new one pop up but he sure gave me a giggle everytime I saw him. Thanx again!

Posted by: Lisa's Chaos at Sun Jan 20 03:08:14 2008 (Oa6sC)

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There is no other possible explanation for this answer.

Paul told CNN's "The Situation Room" Thursday that he didn't write any of the offensive articles and has "no idea" who did.

"When you bring this question up, you're really saying, 'You're a racist' or 'Are you a racist?' And the answer is, 'No, I'm not a racist,'" he said.

Paul said he had never even read the articles with the racist comments.

In other words, he allowed his staff to run wild, writing whatever they wanted with no supervision. Not only that, he doesn't know who worked for him and has no records to make such a determination. He just let all sorts of crap go out with his name attached -- and even signed some fundraising letters with racist content without reading them. All of which indicates that Ron Paul is unfit to run a lemonade stand, much less the US government.

Either that, or he is a liar trying to to cover up for political allies, former employees and himself.

Neither of which constitutes good credentials for a presidential candidate.

H/T Captain's Quarters

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Once again proving that public employes unions are bad for the public.

Gov. Eliot SpitzerÂ’s plan to contain the rising property taxes that support New YorkÂ’s schools could mean a confrontation with the stateÂ’s largest teachersÂ’ union, whose president said on Thursday he was wary of a new commission leading the effort.

Richard C. Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, said he was also wary of the panelÂ’s chairman, Thomas R. Suozzi, named by the governor in his State of the State address on Wednesday.

* * *

. . . Mr. Iannuzzi said of a property tax cap, “I’m not going to let a blunt instrument butcher the progress we’ve made.”

In other words, it doesn't matter if the taxpayers are being bled out by sky-rocketing taxes -- the needs of public employees come ahead of the needs of the public.

And I say that as a teacher who knows that teacher salaries need to be increased -- but that the first priority should be making our school districts less wasteful, more efficient, and free of redundant administrators. Few businesses could operate the way most school districts do.

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I've not detected any desperation in the Romney campaign prior to this move. Is it a concession that he is unable to win in either of the two big southern states rich in delegates? Or is it simply a move to guarantee victory in the state in which he was raised and where his father served as governor four decades ago?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has decided to pull his advertising from South Carolina, where he was hoping to take on Mike Huckabee and John McCain, and from Florida, where Rudy Giuliani has been spending time and money.

"We feel the best strategy is to focus our paid messaging in Michigan," Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said Wednesday as the campaign launched its "National Call Day" fundraising effort.

The decision comes on the heels of back-to-back second-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire for the former Massachusetts governor. Romney, a multimillionaire who had used some of his own cash, had invested heavily in both states, counting on the two to give him the momentum toward the nomination.

Romney should have won in either Iowa or New Hampshire. That he has not is troubling to many of us who have supported him. And yet, a string of second place finishes around the country combined with a few wins and a division of victories between his top two or three rivals (Huckabee, McCain, and, potentially, Giuliani) could leave the former Massachusetts governor with the largest pot of delegates at the GOP convention. At that point, he would be one of the most obvious choices for the nomination -- unless a brokered convention led to the selection of someone not currently running for the office.

Interesting analysis of the Michigan race from Debbie Schlussel, who questions whether Romney will win there for a reason I hadn't considered. Michelle Malkin discusses the fight for pro-lifers and Catholics in the state.

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If the Democrats were looking for quality and experience in a candidate, this would be their guy.

I guess they are looking for something else.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is dropping out of the presidential race, following his fourth place finish in the New Hampshire primary, according to sources familiar with the decision.

Mr. Richardson won just over 4 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, a week after a similar showing in the Iowa caucuses. In a recent interview, a campaign spokesman said that they were hoping for a third place finish in TuesdayÂ’s primary in order to continue on to Nevada and other Western states.

Here's a guy who actually has accomplished something in his career.

A candidate with real expertise in a number of areas.

And Democrats can't be bothered, preferring instead a candidate who married her way to the top and one who has no experience and has never had to face a serious opponent in his 1/2 term in his effort to be elected to the US Senate.

H/T Captain's Quarters, Moderate Voice, Michelle Malkin

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Thank you for proving why efforts to reduce fraudulent voting is so important.

I saw this story yesterday, which mentions 32 Indiana voters who didn't have identification and somehow couldn't find a ride to the voter registrar's office to prove their identity.

But today we find this story about one of them.

On the eve of a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Indiana Voter ID law has become a story with a twist: One of the individuals used by opponents to the law as an example of how the law hurts older Hoosiers is registered to vote in two states.

Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also claimed two states as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property taxes in both states.

In other words, what we have here is a case of voter fraud. After all, she has FLORIDA identification, proving her to be a FLORIDA resident.

Gearing up for the high court's review, news media around the country have been trumpeting the ordeals that Ewing and others in Indiana allegedly suffered due to Indiana's voter ID law. One news story related how Ewing received a standing ovation from poll workers in Lafayette after she spent several hours on Election Day 2006 obtaining an Indiana photo ID.

When poll workers wouldn't accept her Florida license as a valid ID for voting, she was told she could cast a provisional vote, but she declined. Her birth certificate wasn’t acceptable because it didn't have her married – and therefore identifying – name on it, according to a brief filed with the Supreme Court by the Brennan Center.

It took four hours and visits to two cities to secure the necessary documents for Ewing to vote, the brief and news stories said.

That would, of course, help explain how she and her husband have been defrauding either Indiana or Florida of property tax money for a number of years, because she cannot legally have a homestead exemption in both states -- just as she cannot legally register or vote in both states. The only way in which she has been inconvenienced here is by being forced to do additional legwork to vote illegally in Indiana -- and the resultant exposure as a tax cheat.

So tell me -- will we see Faye Buis-Ewing prosecuted for her crimes?

By the way, I'd have to assume that Faye Buis-Ewing is a Democrat -- having been caught in her illegal activity, she immediately claimed that she wasn't a criminal, but that she was instead the victim. No wonder liberals want her to vote.

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Hillary Clinton and and John McCain win the primary in New Hampshire. What does this mean for the race ahead.

Democrats:

It is a two person race between Hillary and Obama. John Edwards will remain in until he can cut the best deal for himself -- maybe another run for VP. This race should be done by February 6.

Republicans.

Another Romney defeat -- but still a respectable showing. He remains in for now, hoping for success in South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

McCain is alive -- but how strong is his candidacy? Do his negatives with many of us conservatives outweigh his positives?

Huckabee shows his weakness as a 50 state candidate. Not many evangelicals in New Hampshire, so his showing was somewhat weak. Can he succeed in South Carolina and derail Romney and McCain?

Rudy -- will Florida and Super Tuesday be too late for him, given his weakness in South Carolina?

Thompson -- time to say goodnight, Fred, though I wish it wasn't.

I think we are realistically down to only three significant candidates -- Romney, McCain, and Huckabee.

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We've got years of frightening statements that appeared in Ron Paul's newsletters. Racism, Conspiracy theories. Just plain wackiness.

Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And, long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.

Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Air Force surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black representative Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."

So let's say this -- there are questions about what Ron Paul wrote and what was written by others. Fine, I'll give him that . But that makes quotes like these even more troubling.

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" would be better alternatives--and says, "Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house."

The October 1992 issue of the Political Report paraphrases an "ex-cop" who offers this strategy for protecting against "urban youth": "If you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example)."

A 1986 newsletter names Jeane Kirkpatrick and George Will as "two of our enemies" and notes their membership in the Trilateral Commission.

In an undated solicitation letter for The Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report, Paul writes: "I've been told not to talk, but these stooges don't scare me. Threats or no threats, I've laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.) The Bohemian Grove--perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress's Mr. New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica."

In other words, we are looking at not a couple of months worth of material, but a couple of decades of strange stuff.

And here's Paul's explanation.

January 8, 2008 5:28 am EST

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – In response to an article published by The New Republic, Ron Paul issued the following statement:

“The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

“In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character, not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S. House on April 20, 1999: ‘I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.’

“This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

In other word's, Ron Paul's definition of "taking moral responsibility" is to say that he didn't write it, he didn't supervise what was published under his name, and he shouldn't be held accountable for such statements. Ron Paul won't tell us what he wrote and what others wrote, won't identify the others, and won't tell us which of the views in question do represent what he believes/believed. "Moral responsibility" is therefore something entirely different from real responsibility. And at least one prominent supporter is willing to let him get away with it.

Sort of like condemning racists while refusing to divest himself of their cash.

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I called for Chuck Rosenthal to get out of the DA's race over his inappropriate emails to his secretary and the relationship they appear to reveal. That said, I didn't necessarily see a need for him to resign -- he could simply serve out his term as a caretaker until his successor took over next January.

Yesterday's revelations make it imperative that he leave now.

New e-mails released Tuesday show District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal sent and received racist jokes and strategized with political consultants and colleagues about his re-election campaign on his county e-mail account.

Also within the correspondence obtained Tuesday by the Houston Chronicle were numerous sexually explicit images. It was unclear, however, if Rosenthal ever forwarded those files.

The latest batch of 730

e-mails was met with concern by Harris County GOP leaders, who had already successfully pressured him to abandon his re-election bid.

"It's time for Chuck Rosenthal to pack his bags and leave," said county GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill.

Rosenthal declined to comment late Tuesday.

Among e-mails that concerned Woodfill were video clips of nudity and sex acts and a racist joke forwarded by Rosenthal that compares former President Bill Clinton to a black man.

The e-mail says Clinton played the saxophone, smoked marijuana and gets a check from the government each month.

Also included within the e-mails is heavy traffic between Rosenthal and Sam Siegler, Rosenthal's physician and the husband of Kelly Siegler, who is running for district attorney.

Now I don't care about inappropriate jokes, etc, received by Rosenthal. If there is evidence of him sending such stuff, that is problematic, but given some of the crap I receive in my email on a daily basis, I don't feel it necessary to hold him responsible for being on someone's email list. Unless he sends them on, to others, that is really unimportant -- and even if he did, it is more of a sign of low class than anything else.

The problem, however, is the material related to his campaign sent on the county account. That is a violation of the law. It merits criminal prosecution. And as such, it is a basis for Rosenthal leaving immediately. It is why Jared Woodfil has called for his resignation, as well as many others.

But this also reveals why Republicans need to dump Ed Emmett as County Judge (besides the back-room deal that got him the job in the first place).

Emmett said Tuesday he wanted to withhold judgment about the e-mails until he saw them. He said allegations of racism or explicit images on the county e-mail system were more damaging than possible campaigning at the office.

Excuse me? Bad taste is more important than criminal activity by the DA? Are you out of your mind? And there is no demand for Rosenthal's resignation.

Fortunately, we have a candidate for the position of County Judge who gets the matter correct.

Emmett's opponent in the GOP primary said Rosenthal should resign.

"I am asking the people of Harris County to join me in requesting Chuck Rosenthal's resignation effective immediately," said Charles Bacarisse. "(He) has lost both the public trust and the moral authority required to serve effectively as district attorney of Harris County."

And I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. Rosenthal must resign now.

UPDATE: Ed Emmett now calls for an investigation of Rosenthal. Good God -- isn't it clear that the man needs to go NOW, and for you to issue a demand that he resign (even though the arrogant DA won't comply)? Makes me wonder how serious Emmett really is about ethics reform.

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And you know what -- they are correct to do so.

The New Hampshire Republican Party dropped their affiliation with a Republican debate sponsored by Fox News tomorrow night because they have limited the number of candidates that can participate.

“The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary serves a national purpose by giving all candidates an equal opportunity on a level playing field," said Republican chair Fergus Cullen. "Only in New Hampshire do lesser known, lesser funded underdogs have a fighting chance to establish themselves as national figures."

The Fox debate is excluding Texas Congressman Ron Paul even though he polls higher in New Hampshire and has raised significantly more money, and is campaigning more in New Hampshire than Fred Thompson who is invited.

Quite honestly, I had not had a problem with the decision to drop Ron Paul until the results came in on Thursday. If a 10% showing in Iowa is not sufficient to get you a place on the platform, then FoxNews should also drop Rudy Giuliani from the debate because he has made no significant effort to campaign in New Hampshire and finished in sixth place, with a pathetic 3.4% showing in that state's caucuses. At this point, any organization sponsoring a debate that excludes Ron Paul while including Rudy is not operating in a principled fashion.

On the other hand, there is solid reason for excluding Duncan Hunter, so I disagree with the NHGOP's call for his inclusion.

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What is it with the Democrats and corrupt donors?

Authorities raided the offices of an influential Democratic donor on Friday, prompting accusations by the donor's attorneys that the raid was politically motivated.

The state attorney general's office said it was assisting the Nueces County district attorney in the criminal investigation of Mauricio Celis, 36, who has given money to major Democratic candidates including Hillary Clinton and is the subject of numerous ongoing lawsuits and charges.

And this is unrelated to the earlier charges that were handed down by a grand jury in Nueces County.

The raid was unrelated to Celis' November indictments by a Nueces County grand jury on four charges, including perjury and holding himself out as a lawyer.

And while Celis and his representatives may want to make this into a political vendetta, it isn't -- Carlos Valdez, the prosecutor in Nueces County who is spearheading the investigation and who sought the earlier charges, is a Democrat.

I'm curious -- is "Mauricio Celis" Spanish for "Norman Hsu"?

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I think this pretty clearly says it all.

The philosophy of political correctness is now firmly entrenched over here, too, and at its core is a refusal to look the truth squarely in the face, unpalatable as it may be.

Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis.

It comes in many guises, some of them so effective that the PC can be difficult to detect. The silly euphemisms, apparently harmless, but forever dripping to wear away common sense - the naivete of the phrase "a caring force for the future" on Remembrance poppy trays, which suggests that the army is some kind of peace corps, when in fact its true function is killing.

The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.

The selective distortions of history, so beloved by New Labour, denigrating Britain's past with such propaganda as hopelessly unbalanced accounts of the slave trade, laying all the blame on the white races, but carefully censoring the truth that not a slave could have come out of Africa without the active assistance of black slavers, and that the trade was only finally suppressed by the Royal Navy virtually single-handed.

In schools, the waging of war against examinations as "elitist" exercises which will undermine the confidence of those who fail - what an intelligent way to prepare children for real life in which competition and failure are inevitable, since both are what life, if not liberal lunacy, is about.

The author, George MacDonald Fraser, spoke of the ills that PC had inflicted upon the UK, but was equally scathing in his view of political correctness in America. And more to the point, such political correctness is more rampant here. If one watches British television shows, you are at least still allowed to laugh at the non-PC -- in this country it will likely get you sent to a reeducation camp sensitivity course, especially if you are a student on a college campus.

Fraser passed away on January 2, but his writings and movies live on.

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Obama and Huckabee. I can't say I'm surprised by those results.

What is surprising, though, is the margins and the positioning of candidates below the winners.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a first-term Democratic senator trying to become the nationÂ’s first African-American president, rolled to victory in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night, lifted by a record turnout of voters who embraced his promise of change.

* * *

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who was barely a blip on the national scene just two months ago, defeated Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, delivering a serious setback to Mr. RomneyÂ’s high-spending campaign and putting pressure on Mr. Romney to win in New Hampshire next Tuesday.

I expected an Obama win in Iowa for months, and for at least the last three weeks have seen the handwriting on the wall for Huckabee. The real question is, therefore what the results below show us.

Republicans:

Mitt's loss by 9 percentage points is rather disheartening to me. His strategy has been to win both Iowa and New Hampshire to start himself on the path to victory. Now New Hampshire is a "must win" for him -- and South Carolina becomes critical as well. But as has been pointed out, Reagan lost Iowa in 1980.

Fred Thompson's finish is important, because it does keep him alive -- maybe. I wonder, though, how much yesterday's wihdrawal rumor hurt him -- and benefited Huckabee.

McCain lives to fight another day -- especially if he gets that endorsement from Fred that was rumored and denied yesterday.

Ron Paul impressed me with a 10% finish. However, I don't think he can sustain that sort of finish in states with primaries, where registering one's preference is much easier than in a caucus.

Rudy Giuliani was even more anemic than I expected. Is his national support this weak, or is it a sign of how he was hurt by ignoring Iowa?

Democrats:

A virtual tie between John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. Does this signal that Hillary is not the odds-on favorite that the media has been painting her as for the last year or so? Could 2009 find her still in the US Senate, having watched the race as an also-ran? Maybe, but I don't think so. More likely, though, is this being a much tougher fight than expected.

Richardson. Sigh! I'm mystified why the Dems don't like this guy with his record of accomplishment. Does this showing mean he won't even make it on to the national ticket as VP?

The rest -- I've commented on the two withdrawals. My guess is that Kucinich will stay in until the bitter end -- what does he have to lose, having surrendered his dignity long ago?

New Hampshire is Tuesday -- should be interesting.

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And, unfortunately, they are two of the most qualified in the pack -- and the guy with the best resume on paper may not be far behind them.

As I went to bed last night, I saw a couple of stories about the demise of the Chris Dodd campaign.

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut abandoned his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday after a poor showing in Iowa's precinct caucuses.

"Tonight I am withdrawing from the presidential race but let me assure you, we are not ending this race with our heads hanging but with our heads held high," Dodd told about 100 supporters here.

"I am not going anywhere," he added, to loud cheers. "I will be fighting for the United States."

When one reads his record of accomplishments, one ought to be mystified why this candidacy never took off -- if the process in place is designed to choose the best qualified candidate.

And then this morning I discovered the second casualty of Iowa, Joe Biden.

One does have to wonder how long Bill Richardson has left in this race -- which is too bad, because on paper he has the best experience for the job.

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Precisely who does Chuck Rosenthal think he is -- Ross Perot?

A day after withdrawing from the District Attorney's race, Chuck Rosenthal said this afternoon he is considering refiling his candidacy.

In his second term, Rosenthal said he had not discussed the matter with Republican leaders. He wouldn't comment beyond that, saying that he is mulling re-entering the race before the deadline expires Friday at 6 p.m.

He also wouldn't comment on whether he supports Assistant District Attorney Kelly Siegler who announced earlier today that she wants his job. Siegler said in her anouncement that she wouldn't have considered running if Rosenthal hadn't dropped out late Wednesday.

Rosenthal has had several changes of heart since a political scandal over intimitate e-mails he sent to his administrative secretary erupted last week. At first, he defiantly vowed to seek re-election despite local Republican leaders' calls for him to step aside. He reversed field late Wednesday by submitting a one-sentence letter to the part chairman requesting his name be taken off the primary ballot. Less than 24 hours later, Rosenthal now says he's not sure what he wants to do.

I am, to say the least, stunned. And quite frankly, Rosenthal's antics only confirm his unfitness for the nomination and continuance in office. It would be nice to see him act like a real man, own up to his mistakes, and accept the consequences -- namely that the Republican Party in this county wants nothing to do with him.

As of this moment, the GOP has two good candidates for DA in Kelly Siegler and Jim Leitner. I suspect that we may have one or two more by close of business tomorrow. But if Rosenthal does attempt to reenter the race, we will also clearly have one unfit candidate on the ballot.

Chuck, you are dead in the water. Stay dead.

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That's the word from Politico.

Several Republican officials close to Fred ThompsonÂ’s presidential campaign said they expect the candidate will drop out of the race within days if he finishes poorly in ThursdayÂ’s Iowa caucus.

ThompsonÂ’s campaign, which last spring and summer was generating fevered anticipation in the media and with some Republican activists, has never ignited nationally, and there are no signs of a late spark happening here in Iowa, where even a third-place finish is far from assured.

This reality—combined with a fundraising drought—left well-connected friends and advisers of Thompson Wednesday evening predicting that he will pull the plug on hype and hope before the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary.

According to sources, anything less than a solid third-place finish will lead the former Law & Order star to leave the race he entered to such great fanfare. And if this does happen, look for an endorsement of Senator John McCain on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, potentially boosting the candidacy of the former POW and perennial loose cannon, who has been making a strong move in the polls in that state.

All of this, of course, stands in sharp contrast with reports coming from some other sources, which show Thompson surging in Iowa.

The latest news from Iowa? According to Zogby’s latest—and I quote: “Sen. Fred Thompson…has seen a late-breaking surge.”

But is that surge enough, especially if Thompson has fallen short of his fundraising goals for the final quarter of 2007? Frankly, I don't hold out much hope for the Thompson campaign accomplishing the goal of a strong third-place finish. After entering with such great fanfare, Thompson just fizzled.

I'll let Mr. Curtis Mayfield have the last word on this one.

UPDATE: Well, maybe not.

The rumor that Fred Thompson will quit the Republican presidential race if he finishes poorly in Iowa is not only false: it rises to the level of a political dirty trick aimed at reducing Thompson-backersÂ’ turnout in tonightÂ’s Iowa caucuses.

The story, which began as a rumor and caught fire as a result of a piece in todayÂ’s Politico, said that Thompson was likely to quit after Iowa if he did poorly there, and might endorse Sen. John McCain before next weekÂ’s New Hampshire primary. The article painted a glum, almost resigned mood among ThompsonÂ’s inner circle.

Thompson and his top campaign advisor Rich Galen both denied the storyÂ’s claims today.

* * *

According to one report, Thompson’s top campaign advisor Rich Galen said, “I'm a Republican official in the Thompson campaign, and I'm denying it." Galen is also reported to have said that no one inside the campaign was a source for the story. "I can't put enough adjectives in front of the 'deny' to accurately describe how vehemently I'm denying the story." That, and other statements by Thompson himself today, leaves the Politico’s story out in the cold.

Sources told me that ThompsonÂ’s campaign was already moving elements to South Carolina where they expect to do very well. If Thompson finished at the bottom of the pack in Iowa -- which seems very unlikely -- he would have to reassess his overall chances. But that seems unlikely. And Iowa is not a determinative race for the Republicans. It is very likely to be of lesser importance than a host of others, as John McCain, Rudy Giuliani -- and Thompson -- are betting. A candidate could easily go from a defeat there to win the nomination.

Personally, this makes me very happy to hear. We Republicans need Fred Thompson in the race. He provides one more ideological configuration for voters to choose from -- and more to the point, seems to be every Republican's second favorite candidate if they are not a FredHead.

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Facing increasing criticism in a scandal over emails to his secretary, Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal has withdrawn his candidacy for a third term in office.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal pulled the plug on his re-election campaign after all Wednesday at the climax of a day of flip-flopping, intrigue, political pressure and clock management.

The local Republican Party officially accepted his one-sentence withdrawal letter three minutes before the deadline for removing candidates from the March 4 primary ballot — and three days after Rosenthal had defiantly vowed to run and win despite a scandal over intimate e-mails he sent to his executive secretary, Kerry Stevens.

The action means Harris County, the nation's leading jurisdiction for sentencing murderers to death by injection, will get a new chief prosecutor next January after eight years of service by Rosenthal. He plans to serve the remainder of his current term through 2008, officials said.

Now this withdrawal triggers a somewhat obscure provision of state election law, which extends the filing deadline for office until Friday (it had been set to close at 6:00PM on Wednesday). This will give candidates time to file to run against the one other individual who did file, Houston attorney (and former ADA) Jim Leitner, who came in third in the 2000 primary won by Rosenthal. At least one other candidate from that race, former judge Pat Lykos, is considering a run -- as are several ADAs from Rosenthal's staff.

But it appears that there may be something more than the disapproval of the public at work in this decision.

Minutes after Rosenthal's announcement withdrawing from the race, a federal judge scheduled a hearing for this month where Rosenthal will likely be asked to explain how more than 2,000 of his e-mails got deleted over a weekend. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit against the county have asked U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt to either sanction Rosenthal or hold him in contempt.

In a sworn deposition last month, Rosenthal denied any wrongdoing.

The missing e-mails were later salvaged and given to the plaintiffs' lawyers, records show, but Rosenthal's information technology director couldn't assure them that no e-mails were overlooked.

This issue alone is reason enough for Rosenthal to be rejected as a candidate. More to the point, this issue could well lead o his being disbarred or even jailed . There is no place for such Clintonesque behavior on the part of a public official, and I believe that Rosenthal's resignation may be in order, depending upon the evidence brought to light in this upcoming hearing.

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I'm curious -- does he also plan on ending the US "occupation" of Japan, South Korea, and other nations where we have American troops and/or security arrangements? Or does he only want to abandon the Iraqis?

John Edwards says that if elected president he would withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police as part of a broader plan to remove virtually all American forces within 10 months.

Mr. Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who is waging a populist campaign for the Democratic nomination, said that extending the American training effort in Iraq into the next presidency would require the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to provide logistical support and protect the advisers.

“To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq,” he said in a 40-minute interview on Sunday aboard his campaign bus as it rumbled through western Iowa.

In other words, John Edwards has just set the surrender date for America in Iraq as Christmas, 2009. And he has told our terrorist enemies that all they need to do in the interim is lay low, so that they can then have their way in Iraq after we have abandoned the friendly government there.

Yes, John Edwards seems to have learned the lesson of Vietnam -- abandon your allies to the hands of your mutual foes.

Brian makes the following observation at HotAir.

ItÂ’s obviously not much of a real plan. We would leave Iraq before its military and security forces are ready to handle itself, which would inevitably lead to more violence, forcing us either to stand by and watch like the Clinton administration did during RwandaÂ’s worst days or get right back in and fight to get back to where we are now so itÂ’s possible to finish the job and leave Iraq stable enough to take care of itself. It makes no strategic sense but it does make some political sense. ItÂ’s an Iraq strategy thatÂ’s all about Iowa.

Sounds about right to me.

By the way -- what is the deal with the picture that goes along with the article in the NY Times?

Looks like something submitted for a high school photography class or entered in the amateur category at the county fair.

Posted by: Greg at 04:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well, that's what the Rasmussen poll is saying.

The number of Americans who consider themselves to be Republicans jumped nearly two percentage points in December to 34.2%. ThatÂ’s the largest market share for the Republican brand in nearly two years, since January 2006 (see history from January 2004 to present).

At the same time, the number of Democrats fell to 36.3%. ThatÂ’s down a point compared to a month ago. During 2007, the number of Democrats has ranged from a low of 35.9% in July to a high of 37.8% in February.

These results are based upon tracking surveys of 15,000 adults per month. The margin of sampling error is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence.

And there appears to be a correlation between these changes and certain other developments. As support for the war has increased, so has the number of people identifying as Republican. On the other hand, the partisan advanteage for Democrats has decreased by 2/3 since they took over control of Congress year ago. And given the shrinking number of self-identified independents, it may be that we are seeing the return of the 2006 prodigals to the GOP and a reestablishment of normal party identification patterns.

One possible conclusion -- the more Americans see of Democrat governance, the less they like it. That party's record of negativity and failure would therefore seem likely to hurt it moving into the November elections.

H/T Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin, Betsy Newmark

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Posted by: Greg at 03:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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For all the Democrat talk about "disenfranchisement" when it comes to if a state attempts to impose a photo ID requirement for voting, I'm curious why none of them have taken on this manifestly unjust and disenfranchising voting system.

Because the caucuses, held in the early evening, do not allow absentee voting, they tend to leave out nearly entire categories of voters: the infirm, soldiers on active duty, medical personnel who cannot leave their patients, parents who do not have baby sitters, restaurant employees on the dinner shift, and many others who work in retail, at gas stations and in other jobs that require evening duty.

As in years past, voters must present themselves in person, at a specified hour, and stay for as long as two. And if these caucuses are anything like prior ones, only a tiny percentage of Iowans will participate. In 2000, the last year in which both parties held caucuses, 59,000 Democrats and 87,000 Republicans voted, in a state with 2.9 million people. In 2004, when the Republicans did not caucus, 124,000 people turned out for the Democratic caucuses.

And the Democrat caucus rules make dismiss such trivial concepts as "one person, one vote" in favor of a weighted voting system that allows some caucus-goers much more influence on the process than others.

While the Republican caucuses are fairly simple — voters can leave shortly after they declare their preferences — Democratic caucuses can require more time and multiple candidate preferences from participants. They do not conform to the one-person, one-vote rule, because votes are weighted according to a precinct’s past level of participation. Ties can be settled by coin toss or picking names out of a hat.

And the concerns of voters who are excluded from the process are blithely dismissed by the head of the Democrats in the state.

Scott Brennan, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said the party had no responsibility to ensure that voters can caucus. “The campaigns are in charge of generating the turnout,” Mr. Brennan said, and the voters who truly care will find their way to their local caucuses.

As for Ms. Tope, the emergency room worker, “there’s always the next cycle,” Mr. Brennan said.

In other words, the Democrats will be using a system that disenfranchises the working-class, minorities, and active duty military personnel to determine the winner of their delegates -- and they just don't care. One really has to wonder how such a system survives scrutiny under the Voting Rights Act and other laws designed to protect the voting rights of all Americans.

And as for my own Republican Party (even though it has procedures and rules in place that are less burdensome and undemocratic) I urge it to explicitly reject the caucus system in future years and move to a primary election system for the selection of delegates in Iowa.

Posted by: Greg at 02:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'll answer that one for you.

NO!

Only two leading Republicans have spent any time campaigning in Iowa, and the Democrats are likely to have a statistical tie between Edwards, Obama, and Clinton.

But for the leading Democrats, an inconclusive ending here would be a much more complicated result.

Because none of them would be judged a decisive loser, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obama would all be able to go on to the New Hampshire primary next week, no questions asked. And you can bet on this: the other Democrats in the race — Senators Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph R. Biden Jr., Representative Dennis J. Kucinich and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico — would feel less of the morning-after-Iowa pressure to pull out.

It would be hard for any candidate to play the “I beat expectations” game and claim some sort of chimerical victory, much the way Bill Clinton proclaimed himself the winner after coming in second in New Hampshire in 1992 — although Mr. Edwards, who for much of the year campaigned in the shadow of his two rivals, would no doubt try.

“Frankly, if there’s a three-way tie, that changes the dynamics of what has been reported the entire year: that it’s a two-person race,” said Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the Iowa campaign director for Mr. Edwards, who has put in more than a year preparing for this week. “It changes the way people look at the race, and they’ll see it as a three-way race.”

It is a good bet, in fact, that one candidate would try to claim a victory, even if it was by a single percentage point or less. Still, that is not likely to get him or her on the cover of Time or Newsweek (that would be the old-school way of measuring the political impact of winning in Iowa). The other two would be left fighting for the right of second place. And politics being politics, it is likely there would be a campaign trying to present a three-way tie as a victory.

Anything but a runaway victory for Hillary in Iowa is a loss. After all, she is the putative front runner in the race, with all the advantages that being married to the former Philanderer in Chief brings to her campaign. And if John Edwards keeps close, even running third, he can claim a victory of sorts given his relative lack of money. And for Obama, the failure to get a boost going into New Hampshire and the other early states will harm his campaign. We could see a real train wreck on the Democrat side.

On the other hand, the GOP race could be settled by February 5 -- and almost certainly following that date. But if it isn't, look for the possibility of a brokered convention in Minnesota this summer.

Posted by: Greg at 04:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Withdraw.

Withdraw now.

You are not wanted on the GOP ballot.

And not just because of your tawdry affair and your continued inappropriate conduct with a staff member. After all, Bill Clinton established that it is perfectly acceptable for elected officials to use their staff to satisfy their own personal lusts. There would be no legitimate way for the Democrats to use it as an issue, especially if Hillary tops their national ticket. And while your conduct had already led me to decide that I would neither endorse you nor vote for you, I was open to your remaining on the primary ballot so that the Republican voters of Harris County could pass judgment upon your continued fitness (or unfitness) for office.

However, your comments in today's Houston Chronicle make it clear that you don't belong on the GOP primary ballot, nor on the general election ballot as the Republican nominee.

In a brief telephone interview Monday, Rosenthal acknowledged he told local TV news programs earlier in the day that the local Republican Party had never done much for him in his 2000 and 2004 election campaigns and that party leaders have become "Chicken Littles," unjustifiably fearful the scandal will damage the entire Republican roster of candidates in the county.

So your argument is that we didn't do much for you in 2000 or 2004. That's funny, I did literature drops for you. I put up signs. I called voters on your behalf. Glad to know that you don't consider that to be significant, s I won't make the mistake of doing it again.

But this also clarifies something quite important. You don't belong don't he GOP primary ballot, and you don't merit the GOP nomination. After all, the leadership of the Harris County GOP has made it clear that the Party does not want you. You have made it clear that you don't need us. That sounds like the grounds for an amicable divorce, which would take the form of you withdrawing from the primary and running as an independent.

After all, it isn't like you will be giving up anything that you consider to be a significant asset.

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Posted by: Greg at 04:23 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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