John McCain has taken his show in the road, making appearances in places that were significant in his life as a sort of reunion tour. At stops in Annapolis, Maryland and in Pensacola and Jacksonville, Florida, McCain seeks to continue to shore up his credentials as a qualified commander-in-chief by concentrating speeches on military issues and the war on terror. Radical Islamic terror is a grave and compelling threat, McCain says, and one the United States should approach bravely and without reservation. He has called it "the transcendent challenge of the 21st Century."

In a short interview with Newsweek, McCain was asked about President Bush's definition of the War on Terror. "I think it's a military, intelligence, diplomatic and ideological conflict. Most importantly, in the long run it is an ideological struggle...within the Muslim community, between those who are extremists and those who are moderate."

Never shy about his early disapproval of Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq War, McCain says it was a grievous mistake to go into both Afghanistan and Iraq without a suitable plan in place to recruit more soldiers and sand bag effectively for what we knew could turn into a long, protracted war. As an enthusiastic early supporter of both the wars from even before their start, McCain was nevertheless skeptical of the Rumsfeld doctrine, which limited the number of boots on the ground and made no concession for a possible expansion of personnel. McCain was vocal in his concerns that a downsized military could handle what he envisioned would require a great many more men and women under arms. Now, with re-enlistments and new volunteers down, the Army and the Marines in particular are stressed to keep their numbers adequate at a critical stage of the Surge.

"What we've achieved in this country is very much worth defending and worth fighting for," McCain said in Pensacola. At these campaign stops McCain talks bluntly about creating an atmosphere in the country to encourage military service as a rewarding stage in a young American's life. He says as a nation we need to again work with colleges and universities to get ROTC programs in place where they do not exist, and expand the programs where they do exist.

Creating a draft or some form of compulsory service is an option, he says, "but it is neither necessary nor desirable." McCain's position is clear on this point: we need to once again instill in our society--as we did in previous generations--a compelling sense of military service as a form of national service. With the threat of radical Islamic terror gaining a footing on every continent, we are better off with more troops than not enough.


While Texas Representative Ron Paul's persistent and tenacious challenge still lingers out there--Paul has not officially withdrawn from the GOP race--McCain is assured of the nomination even if Paul picks up more votes in the few remaining contests. Paul has stopped generating news in the last few weeks, but one of his old stomping grounds, that of the Libertarian Party, has again entered into the fray with a prominent Republican as a potential candidate.

Former Georgia U.S. Representative Bob Barr has said he will consider running for president on the Libertarian ticket. The Libertarian Party holds its convention in May, but Barr said he would make a decision--and a possible formal announcement--at a Saturday meeting of Libertarian leaders in Kansas City, Missouri. Though there are already a dozen or more active candidates within the third party, including Alaska's Mike Gravel, a recent Democratic presidential candidate, Barr's name would be the biggest, and he would probably become the presumptive front-runner in the Libertarian field almost immediately. (Gravel dropped out of the Democratic contest to enter the Libertarian contest on March 26).

Barr left the GOP, in part, after becoming dissatisfied with Republican failures to reduce spending and cut taxes. But he was also forced out of office, at least in part, due to a complex redistricting of congressional districts in Georgia after the 2000 census changed the political landscape. Barr has differed publicly with the GOP and President Bush on the handling of the Iraq War, questioning the justifications for war and expressing disapproval of many of the domestic measures used to cull intelligence about terror activities--governmental actions which Barr feels are not in keeping with the spirit or the strict intent of the constitution.

Congressman Paul himself ran as the Libertarian candidate for President in 1988. Besides Gravel and Barr, the current Libertarian field also includes Florida businessman Daniel Imperato and political activist and author Steve Kubby.

Whether the Libertarians will gain much traction this year remains doubtful, at least in the context of the enormously high stakes battle being waged between the two heavyweight Democrats. Certainly, there will be some conservatives with unfiltered views of the constitution whose strict opposition to taxation at home and interventionism abroad will lead them to the Libertarian Party, especially in the wake of doubts about McCain. But these defectors will probably not damage McCain in any serious way in November.

The real hot button issue for many Democrats and liberals is whether Ralph Nader's entry into this race as an independent will once again siphon away left-of-center votes where they are most needed--with the Democrats. More than a few Democrats are still sore at Nader for the votes he received in Florida in the deadlock of 2000, votes that by some accounts could have put Gore over the top.

Nader has been openly displeased with the current crop of Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, who he has called an opportunist, a dissembler and a panderer. Nader's campaign website is equally harsh on all the major Democrats as being no less greedy than their counterparts in the GOP. "The Democrats are just another corporate party. As such, they are a disaster for the American people." Nader routinely points out that the seven or eight largest industries in the U.S. have donated larger sums of cash to the major Democrats than they have given to Republicans. Clinton has received millions from pharmaceutical companies, insurance agencies and health care related business, making her unfit, in Nader's view, to fairly operate in the best interest of the average American--no matter how high-minded her talk of health care reform.

"Now ask yourself," Nader's website implores, "if the Democrats were the party of the people, if they were truly going to make corporations the American people, would the corporate executives be dumping millions into their campaigns?"

So will Nader's brand of anti-corporate-greed be compelling enough to draw significant numbers of votes away from the Democrats in November? The smart money says no. But that won't stop some folks from complaining anyway, especially if the general election turns out to be another close one.


Monday, April 07, 2008:


In what should be the quiet time for this seemingly never ending political cycle, April continues to get sillier and stranger.

Mark Penn, senior advisor to the Clinton campaign, has stepped down--well, more like stepped aside, or maybe more like accepted a demotion--from his central role in the Clinton organization. The reason? He was involved directly in promoting a trade deal with Columbia--a package of trade arrangements and agreements supported by none other than President Bush--even though Penn's own candidate has been outspoken in her opposition to the plan.

The contradiction--between Penn's support by way of the one his lobbying clients and Clinton's opposition--which keeps her comfortably in line with the position of most labor unions--was simply too stark to be ignored. What had started as a minor fracas over the weekend escalated quickly into a nasty turnaround for Clinton; Clinton had made much of Obama's own close connection to a similar trade agreement under discussion between the U.S. and Canada.

But in addition, many analysts said that Penn's ouster--or demotion--was long in the works. Many other top officials within the Clinton organization had differed sharply with Penn's handling of the campaign. Some have blamed him rather directly for the second place position she now occupies, and still others--recognizing his talents and skills--have said his abrasive and sometimes volatile personality contributed too much of the loss of morale and internal chaos that has at times plagued the Clinton machine.

Penn will remain a part of the Clinton campaign, but has been moved down a few notches from the top command, raising speculation that his mere presence may be enough to keep some of the discord active, and may, worse yet, give the Obama campaign a blunt tool with which to bludgeon Hillary Clinton for an obvious case of hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign struggles mightily for every inch of ground in polling in Pennsylvania and Indiana where Democratic voter registration has already broken every known record. In the Keystone State alone, 210,000 new Democrats have joined the voter rolls, nearly three times the GOP figures for this year. The dynamic and viral Obama campaign continues to recruit volunteers to use their excess cell phone minutes to call every registered voter in Pennsylvania between now and April 22.

And Obama and Clinton are each breaking records with their fundraising, with Obama netting twice the cash of the Clinton campaign. In March Obama raised over $44 million, compared to Clinton's $21 million. The real power is Obama's mostly small-ticket givers, who average about $100 per donation.

With Obama leading comfortably in North Carolina (primary date: May 6), it still looks as if the current pattern of math will remain the same. Barring mass defections from the traditional Clinton voters in upcoming contests, and barring some sort of unseen and unlikely meltdown by Obama, neither candidate will reach the convention with enough pledged delegates to claim outright victory--tossing the question solidly into the hands of the super delegates. That means that the Democratic nominee will emerge from some form of convention floor fight--presumably live on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Watch for nasty fights over credentials, over who gets seated, and over who gets into the convention hall.

The last time this happened to the Democrats? The year was 1968, and the result was not very pretty, nor was it productive in the general election. Democratic disarray helped pave the way for Nixon's victory. More than a few political historians have suggested that the Democratic Party has been engaged the same unresolved family feud ever since.

 

Road Show is published each week by Thursday Review publications, copyright 2008

BACK  HOME   NEXT