Britain and America

Quickly retreating from Iraq could destroy the presidencies of Clinton or Obama

A must-read column from David Brooks in today's New York Times:

"Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have seductively hinted that they would withdraw almost all U.S. troops within 12 to 16 months. But if either of them actually did that, he or she would instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency.

There would be private but powerful opposition from Arab leaders, who would fear a return to 2006 chaos. There would be irate opposition from important sections of the military, who would feel that the U.S. was squandering the gains of the previous year. A Democratic president with few military credentials would confront outraged and highly photogenic colonels screaming betrayal.

There would be important criticism from nonpartisan military experts. In his latest report, the much-cited Anthony Cordesman describes an improving Iraqi security situation that still requires “strategic patience” and another five years to become self-sustaining.

There would be furious opposition from Republicans and many independents. They would argue that you can’t evacuate troops just as Iraqis are about to hold national elections and tensions are at their highest. They would point out that it’s insanity to end local reconstruction and Iraqi training efforts just when they are producing results. They would accuse the new administration of reverse-Rumsfeldism, of ignoring postsurge realities and of imposing an ideological solution on a complex situation.

All dreams of changing the tone in Washington would be gone. All of Obama’s unity hopes would evaporate. And if the situation did deteriorate after a quick withdrawal, as the National Intelligence Estimate warns, the bloodshed would be on the new president’s head.

Therefore, when a new Democratic administration considered all these possibilities, its members would part ways. A certain number of centrists would conclude that rapid withdrawal is a mistake. They would say that the situation had changed and would call for a strategic review. They’d recommend a long, slow conditions-based withdrawal — constant, small troop reductions, and a lot of regional diplomacy, while maintaining tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for the remainder of the term.

The left wing of the party would go into immediate uproar. They’d scream: This was a central issue of the campaign! All the troops must get out now!

The president would have to make a terrible decision."

Brooks goes on to discuss the nightmare tensions that might erupt between Democrats on federal spending.  Read it all here.

Could Colin Powell back Barack Obama?

This video suggests that he might.  Although a registered Republican and George W Bush's first Secretary of State, General Powell speaks highly of the Illinois Senator's personal qualities.  Powell also emphasises the need to restore America's standing in the world - a key Democrat theme.

Does Obama have enough time to beat Clinton?

OBAMA IS GAINING ON CLINTON...

A few months ago it looked like Hillary Clinton had the Democratic race sown up.  All of the uncertainty was on the GOP side.  Times have changed.  McCain is now the overwhelming favourite for the GOP nomination - leading in all five recent Super Duper Tuesday polls - and Obama is gaining on Mrs Clinton.  The extent of Obama's momentum is discussed by Dick Morris in a special post for Rasmussen polling.  Most notable is a reduction in Clinton's California advantage to just 3% from 20% a few weeks ago.   The overall national lead for the former First Lady in the RCP moving average is 8.5%; although the most recent poll - for Gallup - put Obama just 4% behind.

...AND HE HAS THE MONEY TO DRAW CLOSER

Obama has the money to contest every Super Tuesday state.  He raised $1m every day in January and is planning a $10m spending campaign over the next few days.

Ads cannot compensate for an inadequate campaign, however.  Romney spent more money (much of it his own) than all of the other GOP candidates combined.

One of the other big differences between the GOP and Democrat contests is that the GOP is running a number of winner-takes-all votes.  Second-placed Democrats, notes The Economist, still get delegates in key states which reduces the chance of a Super Tuesday wipeout.

THE IRAQ FACTOR

John O'Sullivan worries that Iraq - although better - will still hurt the Republicans:

"Whether we like it or not, Democrats are closer to the majority view on Iraq. The success of the surge has reduced the salience of Iraq as an issue damaging the GOP but that has not made it an issue that wins votes for the GOP. So it did no damage for Hillary and Obama to discuss it endlessly and their disagreement—who is most reliably determined to leave — will not anger their supporters or most uncommitted voters."

BEST JOKE OF THE DAY

From Hillary Clinton during the Democrats' debate: "It did take a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush and I think it might take another one to clean up after the second Bush."  Okay; it wasn't that funny.

Was this the moment when McCain sealed the GOP nomination?

The popular Governor of Florida has just endorsed John McCain.  Charlie Crist's endorsement was most sought by Rudy Giuliani who was once the overwhelming favourite to win Florida but is now trailing in third place.  Crist's backing is likely to be enough to see McCain prevail in the sunshine state.  Pre-endorsement polling had McCain edging Mitt Romney by just 0.3%.  That should lengthen now.

As expected Barack Obama has won the South Carolina primary but with a big racial divide potentially emerging in the Democrat party.  Senator Obama has been keen to avoid being seen as a racially partisan candidate but he won 80% of South Carolina's black voters but only a quarter of the state's white voters.

2.15am: James Forsyth, at the Obama victory party, notes how Bill Clinton's image was jeered when it appeared on TV screens.

Clinton and Obama throw the china at each other

"With all this broken china on the floor, it’s hard to know where to start picking up the pieces." - New York Times

In last night's Democratic debate in South Carolina things got uglier between the leading candidates (graphic from The Page):

• Obama on Clinton: "This is one of the things that has happened in the course of this campaign. There are a set of assertions made by Sen. Clinton as well as her husband that are not factually accurate."
• "Obama said to Clinton that “while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart”. Shortly afterwards, she shot back that she was fighting against Reagan’s ideas “when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago”."  (Toby Harnden).
• Hillary Clinton: "Senator Obama, it is very difficult having a straight up debate with you because you never take responsibility for any vote."

Watch the key clashes below:

PS A poll for the LA Times says that Americans may be more ready for a black man as President than a woman: "72% of whites and 61% of blacks believe the country is ready for a black president. That's up from 65% and 54%, respectively, two years ago... But asked if the country is ready for a female president, blacks and whites both are in agreement; they're less sure -- only 63% of both whites and blacks answer yes."

Barack Obama offers hope but does he possess wisdom?

Joe Loconte is concerned about Barack Obama's preparedness to be America's Commander-in-Chief with so many gathering storms on the horizon.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—For a flickering moment, at the start of the New Hampshire Democratic debate on Saturday night, Barack Obama had the stricken look of the school boy who discovers he can’t answer the opening essay question on the final exam.

For months Obama mostly has dismissed any serious discussion of America’s national security threats with his tidy mantra: “I’m for a politics of hope instead of a politics of fear.” Hope is our friend, he constantly reminds us. And he’s definitely not for fear. No more fear-mongering politics, please. "We can't afford the same politics of fear that invokes 9/11 as a way to scare up votes." We just can’t afford it anymore. It’s scary to scare up votes that way. So I’ll say it again: “I don’t want to talk about fear.”

But there was the debate moderator, Charlie Gibson of ABC News, and all Charlie wanted to talk about was fear and the politics of fear.

GIBSON: Let me start with what is generally agreed to be, I think, the greatest threat to the United States today, and, somewhat to my surprise, has not been discussed as much in the presidential debates this year as I thought would be, and that is…nuclear terrorism.

What a minute! That’s the Bush Administration’s bogeyman routine! They’ve even turned news anchormen into their marionettes! Where’s that talking snowman when you need him?!

GIBSON: And for some background, here’s ABC’s Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross.

BEGIN VIDEO CLIP

BRIAN ROSS, ABC CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: After more than six years of trying, the United States still does not have a reliable way to spot nuclear material that terrorists might smuggle into the country, much as ABC News twice did in demonstrations without being caught. And after six years of trying, the United States has yet to capture the man who says it is his religious duty to get nuclear weapons: Osama bin Laden.

GIBSON: Well, Osama bin Laden, as he pointed out, has said it is his duty to try to get nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has been reconstituted and re-energized in the western part of Pakistan. And so my general question is, how aggressively would you go after Al Qaeda leadership there? And let me start with you, Senator Obama…

Barack Obama's worldview

Yesterday, in the first of a series examining the foreign policy priorities of the main presidential candidates, we spotlighted John McCain.  Today it's Senator Barack Obama's turn.  Tomorrow Senator Hillary Clinton.  All of the posts are largely based on the candidates' contributions to Foreign Affairs magazine.  Senator Obama's full essay - Renewing American Leadership - can be read there.

There can be no understating of today's dangers: "This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts."

Only a phased withdrawal will force the political solution that Iraq needs: "we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country."

>> Video: Unlike other Democrat hopefuls Obama opposed the Iraq war from the beginning but makes it clear that he's a hawk on terror generally and supported the Afghan campaign

>> Video: Obama and McCain differ on Iraq strategy

Do celebrity endorsements make a difference?

Over the weekend Oprah Winfrey openly endorsed and campaigned for Barack Obama.  Before then Mike Huckabee's surging campaign received help from Chuck Norris.  Do endorsements make a difference?  The video above attempts to answer that question.

Whatever the answer to that question, Huckabee is surging in the Republican race - he is now only 4.2% behind Rudy Giuliani in RealClearPolitics' national tracking of the crowded GOP field.  His support has more or less doubled in just a month.  Governor Huckabee is now well ahead in Iowa.  He also leads in South Carolina.  And is picking up reasonable support in the Giuliani stronghold of Florida.

The 'Oprah effect' on the Democrat race is yet to be properly tested but Hillary's national lead remains formidable.  Her difficulties are in the early states - notably Iowa, where Senator Obama has moved into a narrow lead.

Mark Steyn on Barack Obama

Steyn at his best:

"“Change can’t just be a slogan,” says Senator Obama, who’s committed to a Democratic party “that doesn’t just offer change as a slogan but real, meaningful change, change that America can believe in. That’s why I’m in this race, that’s why I’m running for the presidency of the United States, to offer change that we can believe in.”

Any cynical hack pol can offer change as a slogan, but Senator Obama’s offering “Change You Can Believe In” as a slogan. It’s on the side of his “Change You Can Believe In” campaign bus. “I don’t want to settle,” he declared in Bettendorf, Iowa, “for anything less than real change, fundamental change, change we need, change we can believe in.” Obama is reshaping the debate: He’s changing the way we think about change. As his chief strategist, James Axelrod, told Politico, the senator is arguing for “real and authentic change, not synthetic change.” He’s passionately opposed to “synthetic change,” mentioning no names. If you’re looking for a synthetic-change candidate, sorry, he’s not your guy. Include him out. He’ll change his hair, he’ll change his tie, but he won’t change his fierce righteous opposition to synthetic change.

In the stirring words that conclude his new TV ad in New Hampshire: “This is Barack Obama. I approve this message to ask you to believe — not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington. I’m asking you to believe in yours.” ...“I am here,” Obama told the crowd at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, “because I feel a fierce urgency that the time for change is now.”

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The Democrats are the party of stasis: On affirmative action, there can be no change; on abortion absolutism, there can be no change; even on a less cobwebbed shibboleth such as the Iraq War, there can be no change — they’ve booked the band and caterers for the big Defeat Parade and no matter what happens on the ground in Baghdad and Anbar they’re not going to change their plans."

Obama-Clinton tensions give Republicans fresh hope

The YouTube video above records gloves-off exchanges between Democrat presidential hopefuls Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton with their fellow Senator Barack Obama.  Both Senators were targeting last week's remarks by Obama in which he naively suggested bombing Pakistan.  The Illinois audience cheered their embattled Senator but he is having the roughest time since he announced his nomination and Senator Clinton's chances of securing her party's nomination are, according to latest polling, increasing.

As Toby Harnden reports in today's Daily Telegraph Senator Obama hasn't been taking Clinton's attacks lying down.  He has been painting the former First Lady as a creature of the Washington establishment and a crony of corporate lobbyists.  The Republicans are loving this.  Long embattled they are seeing the first signs of the Democrats getting ugly with each other.  They are now hoping that in their desperation to get the nomination Clinton and Obama will severely damage each other.