It's the Economy-- Again

There is no doubt now that the economy is, and will remain, the No. 1 issue in this year's presidential election -- and very likely influence who the nominees will be.

Barring a major setback in Iraq or the war on terrorism, the economic slowdown, and the guessing game about whether it falls into a recession, has set the stage for another long political battle over how to create new business investment, jobs and economic growth.

"Americans are most likely to mention aspects of the economy as the country's most important problem, followed by the war in Iraq," the Gallup Poll said last week. "Top-of-mind concern about the economy ... is now as high as it has been in about a year and a half."

The clearest sign of the economy's influence in the nominating contests came last week in Michigan, where the jobless rate soared to 7.4 percent, the highest in the nation.

Mitt Romney, whose early business career was spent plowing venture capital into promising companies that created jobs, won the GOP primary there convincingly with an optimistic message of investment and economic growth. He trounced John McCain, who said the state's lost jobs were "not coming back."

It was a must-win for Romney, who was born and raised there as the son of a popular governor, George Romney. But his victory also sent a timely reminder that both parties were in danger of forgetting last year: "It's the economy, stupid."

Whatever Romney's weaknesses may be on other issues, he certainly knows supply-side economics and how to unleash the power of the free market through tax-cut incentives to unlock the investment capital needed to innovate, create, compete and grow.

McCain's disturbing opposition to President Bush's tax cuts, a position he changed last year but one that suggested growth economics was not his strong suit, certainly helped Romney. Michigan has already been hurt badly by higher taxes, and Romney was running on cutting them.
But there was another image that helped him, too -- one of a take-charge, business-minded executive who has run a large investment company and who knows what works and exudes optimism about America's underestimated economic resilience.

Optimism seemed to be missing in much of the Democratic field. John Edwards was attacking "greedy" corporations, promising to bombard them with higher taxes and stiffer regulations if he becomes president. Hillary Clinton's campaign took a detour into racial politics, with several below-the-belt attacks on Barack Obama. If either one of them had an economic-growth message, it got lost in the crossfire of their civil-rights feud.

There was little difference in their economic agendas anyway, but on the message meter, Obama comes off as far more upbeat about the future, with a we-can-do-better challenge for the nation to set its sights on larger goals and ending the polarization that has paralyzed Washington in gridlock.

"I would say overall that few people are more bullish for the long term of the country and the economy than Obama," his adviser, University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, told me last week.

When Obama talks euphemistically about "turning the page" and "not going back to refight past battles," he is talking about the bitter, polarizing, scandal-ridden era of the Clinton presidency. With his numbers rising and Clinton's eroding, his more optimistic view of the economy's future seems to be gaining ground among Democrats who want to move on.

In the meantime, the focus in Washington has turned to an economic-stimulus package that can put some liquidity into the hands of consumers to soften the downturn in the economy.

cont....

By Donald Lambro

The Huck Hoax

Mike Huckabee has pulled a neat trick. His appeal so far has been limited exclusively to evangelicals, yet the press has taken him seriously as a new populist force in the Republican Party who could at any moment "break out" to appeal to lower-income voters.

Who knew a candidate of Christian identity politics would be afforded such respect? But Huckabee has managed it, which is one reason why he should open a strategic-communications firm the day after he leaves the presidential race. The ability to gull analysts into making so much from so little is a rare and potentially lucrative talent.

Huckabee won Iowa for one reason -- he won an overwhelming plurality of evangelical voters in a GOP caucus where they made up an astonishing 60 percent of the electorate. Huckabee won 47 percent of evangelical voters, and only 14 percent of nonevangelicals -- less than John McCain and Fred Thompson, who tied for third in Iowa, and barely more than Ron Paul, who finished fifth.

On this basis, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post declared "a revolution in Republican politics." David Brooks of The New York Times opined that Huckabee's win "opens up the way for a new coalition," given how profoundly he understands "middle-class anxiety." Huckabee's national campaign chairman Ed Rollins talked in similarly grand terms of rallying working-class voters to the GOP.

But working-class voters haven't cooperated. In New Hampshire, where Huckabee finished a distant third, he won 33 percent of evangelicals, but just 7 percent of nonevangelicals -- less than Ron Paul. In Michigan, he lost evangelicals to Mitt Romney 34-29, and got just 8 percent of nonevangelicals -- again, less than Ron Paul. So among nonevangelicals, Huckabee is as much a fringe candidate as the sometimes bizarre libertarian purist.

Huckabee is a kinder and gentler Pat Robertson. His twinkle-in-the-eye and skill as a performer make him an upgrade over previous Christian conservative candidates, but don't give the average voter any reason to vote for him. His campaign has specialized in sanctimony layered on top of disingenuousness, low demagoguery and policy incoherence.

In Iowa, Huckabee played the religion card against his Mormon rival, all the while pretending he was doing no such thing. Then, he became enamored of his line that people should vote for a candidate who looks like someone they work with rather than someone who lays them off -- another shot at Romney. He concluded his TV ad in Michigan with the line, but it got him nothing. Ordinary looks don't constitute an economic policy.

Huckabee's campaign has been run on, to invoke two of his favorite substances, duct tape and WD-40.When reporters asked who his foreign-policy advisers were, he cited former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton as someone with whom he has "spoken or will continue to speak." But he never had. His advisers then said he had e-mailed Bolton, which he had once without ever following up. It was vintage Huckabee -- slippery and laughably unserious.

Now Huckabee has gone from supporting the Bush amnesty plan and righteously declaring in a debate that children of illegals shouldn't be punished for the sins of their parents, to promising to chase them all -- man, woman and child -- from the country. It might be the most nakedly political turnabout any GOP candidate has made in the race.

The tragedy of Huckabee's campaign is that if he had sat down two years ago and thought seriously about what it would take to become the next president, he might have been able to make much more of his winsome ways. Instead, he ran on a kind of lark, without carefully considered policy, without fundraising, without organization. His warm persona and religious rhetoric have won evangelicals, but left other voters cold, despite the fanciful theories spun around his candidacy.

There are enough evangelicals in South Carolina and Florida for Huckabee to do well in the weeks ahead, but, ultimately, he is bound by the limits of his own Christian identity politics.

By Rich Lowry
Source: Townhall.com

Iraq: The Next Forgotten War

Photo © by David Leeson

Somewhere between the focus on the early Iowa Caucus and Brittney’s sister proving that a 16 year old can still ruin her life and future if they really put their mind to it, the Iraq war and the good it is doing has faded. The war that seemed to be the focus of the presidential candidates has been silenced by its unequivocal motion towards success. A new war has unfolded over the last several months and this war has been kicked aside by the mainstream media.

The John’s, or John McCain and John Edwards are the only two, both on opposite sides of the fence, that feel compelled to talk about it. Five months ago the democratic candidates almost seemed to plan out Iraq speeches and attempt to one up each other on what seemed to be the latest fad in taking the first opportunity to slander the Bush administration.

"I have said that as soon as I become president, I will ask the Joint Chiefs, secretary of defense, my security advisers to give me a plan to begin withdrawing our troops within 60 days," Hillary said on Meet The Press.

Let's take a look at the stats and how “well” the war has been going. According to the The Brookings Institution which is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC that conducts independent research, Troop and civilian casualties have been at record lows.

-Civilian casualties were at around 2,900 civilians in Jan of 07, down to just about 600 last month.

-October, November and December represented some of the lowest soldier casualties since the beginning of the war. All three months combined yielded fewer casualties than the entire month of June.

-Attacks on coalition troops have fallen since June from 4,500-5,000 reported attacks, to around 1500 attacks.

-Iraq military and police casualties from August have decreased 88%.

-U.S. troop casualties caused by IED’s have fallen 87% since June.

-2007 was also a benchmark for clearing out nearly 4 times the number of weapons cashes over previous years. In 2004 we cleared out 1,712 weapons cashes, and in 2007 we cleared 6,799.

Tom Foreman, from CNN Washington Bureau, had this to say. “The Iraqis no matter how much they have stumbled and failed in the political process are finally reopening their shops, their schools, and their neighborhoods.”

The point is to show how the war in Iraq has pushed candidates away because of the uncertainty it yields. There are of course a few moments of truth when a candidate can take credit for the current climate in Iraq without even doing anything. This is what Hillary said to Tim Russert on Meet The Press Sunday, January 13th.

"The point of the surge was to quickly move the Iraqi government and Iraqi people. That is only now beginning to happen, and I believe in large measure because the Iraqi government, they watch us, they listen to us. I know very well that they follow everything that I say. And my commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009 is a big factor, as it is with Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, those of us on the Democratic side. It is a big factor in pushing the Iraqi government to finally do what they should have been doing all along."

Now with the current success in Iraq, there are tough decisions that may need to be made. What if the war continues to do well, and a Democratic elect decides to still carry out a 30 or 60 day withdrawal plan put in motion from the campaign? Why would you leave if the operations are successful? It is this uncertainty that has shut the candidates up, and may keep them quiet.

Success in Iraq is now as tangible as a hanging chad and it cannot be flicked aside. I believe it is more important now to discuss a candidates plan for Iraq while it seems to be moving forward. How would Huckabee continue success there? How would running out on our allies look to the rest of the world? Would Obama continue to push oil revenue sharing in Iraq without military support? How would McCain convince Iraq of it's desperate need for new election laws? Will John Edwards be able to find that nice bottle of Port in his 40,000 square foot home? These are all questions that need to be answered.

One thing is for certain in my mind, if the war continues to be successful and we continue to win in Iraq, pulling our troops out on a 60 day retreat would destroy everything we have fought for, and everything some 3,921 Americans have died for. It will make Iraq the next Korea, and it will become a forgotten war. We will have gone in, toppled Sadam, lost lives and bolted; leaving the people of Iraq to the fate of our enemy.

By: Shawn VanHuss
Shawn is a writer for the American Defense Initiatve

Photo © by David Leeson

A Conservative Nightmare: Republican Nominee, John McCain

Mike Huckabee's campaign manager Ed Rollins has been ceaselessly pilloried on the Right for saying, "It's gone. The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition -- social conservatives, defense conservatives, anti-tax conservatives -- it doesn't mean a whole lot to people anymore."

While my gut impulse is to disagree with Rollins, the rapid rise of John McCain, the man who has done more to thwart Reagan conservatives than any other Republican over the last few years, is evidence that Rollins is right -- or at a minimum, evidence that movement conservatives have been marginalized in the Republican Party.

Amongst grassroots conservatives, John McCain's name is an expletive -- and for good reason -- because he has made a name for himself by knifing conservatives time and time again for the amusement of his liberal pals in the mainstream media.

McCain supports amnesty for illegal aliens, was behind the Gang of 14, is a gun grabber, opposed the Bush tax cuts, ran roughshod over the Constitution with McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform, opposes a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, was rumored to be considering switching parties multiple times, talked with John Kerry about being his Vice-President, lines up with the global warming alarmists, wants to close Gitmo, wants to coddle captured terrorists -- you can go on and on with this. In essence, John McCain is hawkish, he's fiscally conservative, he has a solid pro-life voting record that is at odds with his previously stated opposition to overturning Roe v. Wade ("I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade." --John McCain, 1999) -- and on everything else, he's a Democrat.

In other words, we're talking about a man who could fairly be called a Rockefeller Republican, a Country Club Republican, a RINO, or just a toweringly arrogant, out of touch D.C. insider who seems to assume that any position he takes is right solely because he happens to hold it. However, what John McCain cannot fairly be called is a conservative.

Granted, some of his leading competitors for the Republican nomination depart from the conservative orthodoxy in a number of ways as well, but in their defense, none of them has built a career out of smashing a boot into the faces of the very people they're going to need to vote for them in November.

.......Which brings me to the current mood of the Republican base: as is, they're grouchy, irritated, and unmotivated by the GOP's performance of late. If John McCain becomes the Republican Party's nominee, you have to think conservatives will become utterly despondent. Sure, a John McCain vs. Barack Obama or John McCain vs. Hillary Clinton match-up might look good on paper, but how are we going to elect someone who makes conservatives despondent?
Moreover, how are we going to elect someone who is richly, heartily despised by most of the conservative media? Republicans are always complaining that the mainstream media is against them and that the conservative media, diligent though it is, doesn't have the firepower to adequately combat them. So what happens when the mainstream media inevitably turns on John McCain and predictably, few members of the already outgunned conservative media like McCain well enough to even fight for him?

Then there's the illegal immigration issue, which was the biggest domestic issue of 2007 and figures to be an enormous emotional issue in 2008. John McCain does not represent the position of most Republicans on illegal immigration. To the contrary, he has a position that is functionally identical to that of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

So here's a little "straight talk" for you: having John McCain lose in 2008, because he's pro-amnesty, would probably scare Congress so badly that they wouldn't even consider voting on a path to citizenship before 2013, while a John McCain victory would signal to Congress that they can go ahead and proceed with amnesty, because conservatives don't care about the issue very much.

Now, am I saying that Republicans should vote for a third party or stay home if John McCain is the nominee? Absolutely not. I don't believe in protest votes and besides, the presidency is bigger than any one issue. Still, when you set up a situation where people on your own side are perversely incentivized to sabotage the candidacy of your party's President over the biggest domestic issue of last year, you're not just asking for trouble, you're begging for it.

What kind of trouble? Millions and millions of Republicans staying home, conservatives putting equal priority on fighting the Democrats and fighting against the ideas of their own candidate for the presidency, a third party effort, fund raising for Republican candidates dropping even lower than the anemic level it's already at and perhaps losing an extra 2-3 Senate seats and another 5-10 House seats -- or perhaps not.

After all, this has been a wildly unpredictable election season and gloom and doom scenarios often don't come to pass. However, when a political party selects a man as a leader who is wildly out of step with the views of the majority of people who belong to it, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that party is going to have one hell of a rough time. If that's the road that the Republican Party goes down in 2008, may God help us all.

By John Hawkins
from: Towhnall.com

Giuliani Talks About Insurance in Fla.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Saturday that his experience as New York City's mayor during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is a big reason why he supports a national insurance backup fund.

"Maybe I feel more strongly about this because of what I went through as mayor. I don't even know how to describe Sept. 11. I don't know if catastrophe is even the right word," Giuliani said. "There's no possible way we could have gotten through that alone. No possible way."

A national catastrophe fund is a top federal priority for Gov. Charlie Crist and two Democratic congressmen from Florida, Ron Klein and Tim Mahoney, have a bill that passed the House which would create a the backup fund in hopes of making property insurance more affordable and accessible.

"I more than most realize how important it was to us to have federal help, federal backup," Giuliani said during a town hall meeting at a senior center. "Look, it's going to be there because of the kind of people we are. We might as well try to organize it in a sensible way."

He spoke about familiar themes before taking questions _ fighting terrorism, limiting medical malpractice lawsuit awards and improving health care through private competition.

One young boy asked him if he was scared during the terrorist attacks which brought down the World Trade Center towers.

"I didn't have time to be," Giuliani said, before talking for several minutes about the experience. "Because it happened so fast, all that you could do was to think about the next decision to make and to remain as calm as possible."

While other Republican candidates are focusing on the Michigan primary Tuesday and next Saturday's South Carolina primary, Giuliani is sinking nearly all his time and resources into Florida's Jan. 29 primary.

He later spoke to about 300 people at a Charlotte County Young Professional Republicans dinner, where he stressed the importance of the Florida primary.

"You're like the door opener to 20 more primaries. What Florida says is going to be enormously important," he said. "Let's make Florida really count."

BY: BRENDAN FARRINGTON
Townhall.com

FOREIGN AID FOR U.S. PRISONERS

OK before you dismiss this notion offhand - hear me out. According to a recent CRS report for Congress titled "Foreign Aid Reform: Issues for Congress and Policy Options" dated November 7th 2007 it was stated in the section headed CURRENT FUNDING as follows: - "Since the evens of 9/11 amounts requested and approved by Congress for Foreign Assistance have steadily increased. The Foreign Operations budget request for FY2008 totals $24.4 Billion in Foreign Assistance programs, representing a 12% increase from the previous years enacted level of $21.7 Billion excluding FY2007 Supplemental funds. This level of increase is the largest within the Budget requests government-wide. The proposed level for FY2008 represents 1.2% of the total US Budget" Now - I ask you my friends, exactly what are we - the charitable people of the United States getting for this large outpouring of our tax dollars?? Can someone please answer me that question? Is it the love and loyalty of our allies? Is it the respect and admiration of the United Nations? The International Red Cross??

Alright - I'll come back to my thoughts on US Foreign Aid policy in a minute as I turn to a brief discussion concerning the US Prison population. We are all familiar, at least I would think we are, that it seems one of the new US business cores is the building of new prisons. Yet, we still hear how overcrowed they are. Just the other day I was amused to hear about various states attempting to alleviate overcrowding by "deporting" prisoners who happen to be illegal aliens. It appears the prison systems and in turn the state governments can save the taxpayers millions by this practice. At an average of $20,000 per day that it costs to house your average run of the mill inmate, savings can accrue in quick order.

This leads me to why I brought up our US Foreign Aid policy. It seems to me that since we provide various countries with so much in the way of US dollars and other Aid that an exchange program should be initiated. This program would provide so much foreign aid, but these countries would also have to accept certain sections of our prison population. By "certain section" I mean those who are already serving several life sentences, are known sociopaths in which it has already been determined that they are not to see the light of day ect., My point is - ship these incorrigibles out and save the taxpayers a ton of money. They would reside in the prisons of another country, and they could sue their new prison overseers when their soup was cold, their was no TV, or their exercise time was cut short, until they were blue in the face.

One more thing - to Hell with the ACLU - these prisoners have lost any rights they may have had.

It is utterly amazing to me that our Supreme Court is agonizing if a needle prick is cruel and unusual on a murderer who hacked someone to death - go figure!!!

-PA Citizen

PA citizen is a writer for In Defense of America.

Border Patrol steps up recruiting

A NASCAR race car, sponsored by the U.S. Border Patrol. Billboards hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande, promoting a career as a border agent. TV commercials for the federal agency, aired during Dallas Cowboys games.

With the Border Patrol undergoing an unprecedented hiring boom, the agency is going to extraordinary lengths to compete with police departments around the country for an unusually small pool of qualified applicants.

"We've not done anything this ambitious before," said Assistant Chief Michael Olsen. "Our biggest task, our biggest hurdle, is just getting our message out to parts of the country that maybe didn't know we existed."

Previously, the Border Patrol relied heavily on word of mouth and job fairs to find recruits. But it has been forced to get creative to compete with local and state agencies, including the expanding Texas Department of Public Safety, that are mimicking the corporate world with hiring incentives such as take-home cars, paid internships and five-figure signing bonuses.

The multimillion-dollar recruiting campaign was also prompted by a shortage of qualified candidates, blamed on a number of factors. Among them: the strong economy, which can offer jobs that pay more than the Border Patrol's starting salary of about $35,000 to $45,000; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has reduced the flow of military retirees applying for second careers in law enforcement; and the Border Patrol's own stringent requirements.
Too many applicants lack the clean criminal records and good credit required for patrol duty along the border, where bribes are an ever-present temptation.

Nationally, only about 3 percent to 5 percent of applicants for law enforcement jobs meet the requirements, according to Jason Abend, executive director for the National Law Enforcement Recruiters Association. Olsen said the Border Patrol finds an average of one qualified candidate for every 30 to 40 applicants — a rate as low as 2.5 percent.

With politicians demanding more "boots on the ground" to secure the Mexican border, the Border Patrol is expanding rapidly. It has gone from about 12,000 agents in 2005 to nearly 15,000 now, and wants to reach about 18,000 by the end of the year.

To reach recruits, the agency is posting highway billboards well inland, including suburban Salt Lake City, 800 miles north of the Mexican border, and is looking into other new corners of the country.

Michael E. Douglas, a Border Patrol assistant chief patrol agent in Washington, said a team of eight agents is canvassing about 13 Southern states to look for new hires.

"We're going down into the Southeast where we haven't traditionally had a lot of candidates. We are hitting minority groups and trying to make them more aware of who we are," Douglas said.
During the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series season, the Border Patrol put its agency name and seal on the No. 28 Chevy in a sponsorship arrangement worth more than $1 million.

And under a deal signed in November with the Dallas Cowboys, football fans around the country will be seeing TV commercials reminding them that the agency is hiring.

Border Patrol officials are also talking about making a slogan for the agency, one they hope would become as ubiquitous as the Marines' "The few, the proud."

Also, the Border Patrol has raised its age limit for new hires to 40 from 37.
Douglas said it may take several months to know exactly how successful the department's efforts are.

Despite such enticements, recruiting for law enforcement jobs is likely to be a challenge for a while, said Merle Switzer, a consultant and retired law enforcement officer in California.

"Right now, I am telling agencies five to seven years," Switzer said.

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer
Article Link

Will the Democrats Find an Adult of Their Own?

OK. So where do things stand in the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary?
On the Republican side . . .

John McCain reclaimed his role as the principal adult in the room — solid, experienced, wise. Across the state, he spoke of the war on Islamofascist terror as the “titanic” and “transcendental struggle of the 21st century.” In accepting victory, he cited the need for fiscal integrity and a strong defense, and eloquently employed words such as “truth,” “respect,” and “trust.” This is the guy who gets it.

Mitt Romney is toast, though he possesses the cash to press on in a failing enterprise. Fred Thompson cannot long survive. Rudy Giuliani probably can’t either — having resolved to forego the early contests and devote his time and energy to Florida later this month and the 23 states holding primaries Feb. 5.

Mike Huckabee tanked in New Hampshire after his surprising success in Iowa. Yet Iowa is not a reliable predictor of ultimate success. Huckabee may win heavily evangelical South Carolina and carry that success into Florida, where he also may do reasonably well if McCain and Giuliani divide what might prove a common constituency there.

Huckabee represents the Republicans’ social conservatives, who have issues with McCain. But McCain trumps him in experience and depth, and it’s difficult to foresee how Huckabee can prevail through the convention — let alone against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama come fall. The party’s social conservatives seem destined to face this choice: accept a less-than-perfect nominee (e.g., McCain) or resign themselves to a Democratic president reigning in Washington, with a Democratic Congress just down the street.

On the Democratic side . . .

It’s now a two-person race. Angry plaintiffs’ lawyer John Edwards should get out, but he is the Democrats’ Romney — albeit with less money. What may force him to leave is recognition that thereby he would strengthen Obama against the dread Clinton machine.

Obama is a sensational political property — electric, inspiring, a communicator verging on the demagogic, and decidedly left-wing. Many in the press view him, in the words of The Washington Post, as “(John) Kennedy, Santa Claus, and the Messiah all rolled into one.” So do many of those rallying to his banner and his mantra of “change.”

It may take a more disciplined intellect, like Hillary Clinton’s, to force a discussion as to what sort of change Obama has in mind — and such a discussion could determine the Democratic nominating outcome. So far the two are saying fundamentally the same diaphanous thing. Obama: change we can believe in; Clinton: change you can count on.

If Sen. Clinton found her “voice” in New Hampshire — as she said Tuesday night — she may have meant any of several things:

(1) That she has learned the importance of an image softer, more caring, more capable of (yes) tears;
(2) That however she may cast them, her White House years as the wife of Bill hardly qualify her as presidentially experienced; and/or . . .

(3) That devoutly liberal as she is broadly known to be, she can present as a moderate/centrist and begin differentiating herself from Obama by contrasting her record of action with his airy, action-free talk of dream-fulfillment and “post-partisan” hope.

The Democratic result may turn on the extent to which the newly voiced Hillary Clinton is willing to stick it to Barack Obama — forcing a comparison of records and views.

Hillary Clinton must grow, and soon, beyond such campaign pabulum as these bon mots in Manchester, N.H., when she greeted a little girl walking a cocker spaniel: “I will be a good president for dogs, I promise!”

Obama must grow beyond offering the sum of his experience in foreign policy as his madrassa school years in Indonesia and a visit or two to his grandmother in Africa. The very-nice Sen. Obama also needs to grow beyond enlisting recruits such as the very-nice Oprah Winfrey, who says nonsensical things on his behalf, such as: “You can’t be fooled by this experience question because you know it’s not the amount of time you spend with your child, it’s the quality of that time.”

Obama must grow beyond statements such as this, too:
“What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to — a dumb war.”

Obama and Clinton might productively style themselves after John McCain — a certifiable grown-up. He believes global warming is less important right now, and less susceptible to human remedy, than global terror — and boasts abundant experience in terrorism and national security: “I know how to handle the issues. I’ve been there.”

He understands the war in Iraq, terming it “an American war, and its outcome will touch every one of our citizens for years to come.” Osama? “I’ll get (him) if I have to follow him to the gates of hell.” And the U.S. troops? “I’ll bring ’em home, but I’ll bring ’em home with honor.”
If the Republicans are moving toward nominating a grown-up — an adult — in McCain, prudence would suggest the Democrats find an adult of their own to run against him.

By Ross Mackenzie
Townhall.com

McCain Promises Bin Laden's Head

John McCain promised he would “get” Osama Bin Laden if he were elected President in 2008 in a GOP televised debate two days before the second in nation New Hampshire primary.

““I know how to get him and I’m gonna get him” McCain said on the campus of St. Anselm College on Manchester.

Moderator Chris Wallace followed up on McCain’s promise later in the debate. Wallace asked McCain if he had heard him say he would catch the terrorist.

“Sure,” McCain replied. McCain said he would do so by “improving our intelligence capability dramatically.”

During the debate, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also tried to puff up his security credentials. “I am the only one here who has had to face an Islamic terrorist attack, at the center of it” Giuliani said.

GOP presidential candidates sparred over national security and other issues for the second time in two nights, as each of them participated in a nationally televised debate sponsored by ABC News, CNN and WMUR Saturday night. Missing from the Sunday evening debate, however, was Ron Paul who was not invited by Fox News to participate.

On January 3, Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus. Mitt Romney came in second and Fred Thompson was third. The most recent CNN/WMUR poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire gives McCain 32 percent, Romney 26 percent and Huckabee 14 percent. Giuliani polled 10 percent.

When the debate concluded a Fox News focus group deemed Romney the winner of the debate by a show of hands.

By Amanda Carpenter
Townhall.com

Michael Ramirez - Funny Because It's True

Political Cartoons of Michael Ramirez

Editorial Cartoonist for Investor's Business Daily

The Tearing of the Conservative Fusion

WASHINGTON -- Like Job after losing his camels and acquiring boils, the conservative movement is in distress. Mike Huckabee shreds the compact that has held the movement's two tendencies in sometimes uneasy equipoise. Social conservatives, many of whom share Huckabee's desire to "take back this nation for Christ," have collaborated with limited-government, market-oriented, capitalism-defending conservatives who want to take back the nation for James Madison. Under the doctrine that conservatives call "fusion," each faction has respected the other's agenda. Huckabee aggressively repudiates the Madisonians.

He and John Edwards, flaunting their histrionic humility in order to promote their curdled populism, hawked strikingly similar messages in Iowa, encouraging self-pity and economic hypochondria. Edwards and Huckabee lament a shrinking middle class. Well.

Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 -- because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder." Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased.

Huckabee told heavily subsidized Iowa -- Washington's ethanol enthusiasm has farm values and incomes soaring -- that Americans striving to rise are "pushed down every time they try by their own government." Edwards, synthetic candidate of theatrical bitterness on behalf of America's crushed, groaning majority, says the rich have an "iron-fisted grip" on democracy and a "stranglehold" on the economy. Strangely, these fists have imposed a tax code that makes the top 1 percent of earners pay 39 percent of all income tax revenues, the top 5 percent pay 60 percent, and the bottom 50 percent pay only 3 percent.

According to Edwards, the North Carolina of his youth resembled Chechnya today -- "I had to fight to survive. I mean really. Literally." Huckabee, a compound of Uriah Heep, Elmer Gantry and Richard Nixon, preens about his humble background: "In my family, 'summer' was never a verb." Nixon, who maundered about his parents' privations and wife's cloth coat, followed Lyndon Johnson, another miscast president whose festering resentments and status anxieties colored his conduct of office. Here we go again?

Huckabee fancies himself persecuted by the Republican "establishment," a creature already negligible by 1964, when it failed to stop Barry Goldwater's nomination. The establishment's voice, the New York Herald Tribune, expired in 1966. Huckabee says "only one explanation" fits his Iowa success "and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people." God so loves Huckabee's politics that He worked a Midwest miracle on his behalf? Should someone so delusional control nuclear weapons?

Speaking of delusions, Edwards seems unaware that the world market sets the price of oil. He says a $100-a-barrel price is evidence of -- surging demand in India and China? unrest in Nigeria's oil fields? No, "corporate greed." That is Edwards' explanation of every unpleasantness. Mitt Romney's versatility of conviction, although it repelled Iowans, has been a modest makeover compared to Edwards' personality transplant. The sunny Southerner of 2004 has become the angry paladin of the suffering multitudes, to whom he shouts: "Treat these people the way they treat you!" Presumably he means treat "the rich" badly -- an odious exhortation to one portion of Americans, regarding another.

Although Huckabee and Edwards profess to loathe and vow to change Washington's culture, each would aggravate its toxicity. Each overflows with and wallows in the pugnacity of the self-righteous who discern contemptible motives behind all disagreements with them, and who therefore think opponents are enemies and differences are unsplittable.

The way to achieve Edwards' and Huckabee's populist goal of reducing the role of "special interests," meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money. But populists want to sharply increase that role by expanding the regulatory state's reach and enlarging its agenda of determining the distribution of wealth. Populists, who are slow learners, cannot comprehend this iron law: Concentrate power in Washington and you increase the power of interests whose representatives are concentrated there.

Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee -- an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic "fights" against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.

By George Will
Townhall.com

Requirement about American flags is among new state laws

Lee Herold of Rochester has thousands of flags crammed into his store on Second Street Southwest, with nations from Cuba to Sri Lanka represented.

Herold Flags also has a fair share of its best-selling flag, the U.S. flag, which a state law that started Jan. 1 requires must be made in the U.S.A. to be sold in Minnesota.

The law won't hurt Herold Flags because the American flags in stock are already manufactured in the U.S., Herold said.

At the same time, a provision governing novelties and other items featuring American flags was removed from the flag bill before it was passed. As a result, U.S. flag stickers in Herold's store that were made in Taiwan are not covered by the law.

It isn't clear how the flag law will be enforced.

Cont....

By Matt Russell
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN