The Blue State

McCain needs to weigh the opportunity cost of each scenario

Speaking this weekend at the California Republican Convention, John McCain warned of grave consequences if the United States withdraws from Iraq:

"The consequences would threaten us for years and I am certain wouldeventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that wouldimpose even greater sacrifices on us," he said.

Exactly who would threaten us for years, Mr. McCain?  Only a small percentage of all the violence in Iraq is being caused by al Qaeda.  And now, al Qaeda is in trouble in al Anbar because local Iraqis have turned against them.  It looks like the al Qaeda problem is about to be taken care of if we just stay out.

But consider the alternative.  Consider what would happen if we stayed there.  Al Qaeda would have every reason to flow into the country.  We would continue to spend $12 billion each week on this war.  Mr. McCain, as a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative, how can you justify spending that kind of money on a mission that after four years still has not been clearly defined for the American public to understand?

When you weigh the opportunity cost of each possible strategy, each plan has its downsides.  But how can you possibly say that over-stretching our military, paying $12 billion each week, watching more soldiers die and remaining as an occupying force in a Muslim country is a better option than letting local Sunni fighters destroy al Qaeda themselves?

Grave consequences?  Yes, only if we stay.

McCain worried about oil

Yesterday, John McCain tried to pull off the unthinkable.  The Arizona Republican Senator cited a pessimistic study that referred to the Iraqi police force as dysfunctional, and spun it to further the notion that we need to stay in Iraq.  More than anything, as all of us expected, John McCain is particularly concerned about the oil:

"The report states that 'the strategic consequences of failure, oreven perceived failure, for the United States and the coalition areenormous,'" McCain said in a statement Thursday.

McCain quotes the reporter further: "Iraq's regional geo-strategicposition, the balance of power in the Middle East, the economicstability made possible by the flow of energy to many parts of theworld, and the ability to defeat and contain terrorism where it is mostmanifest are issues that do not lend themselves to easy or quicksolution."

We all predicted this would happen.  They had their "energy" reasons for going into Iraq, and it's no different when it comes to leaving the country.  It's all about doing whatever possible to remain as dependent on foreign sources of energy.  The $136,000 that energy companies have donated to Mr. McCain's 2008 presidential campaign is paying off.

Might McCain call it quits?

John McCain's 2008 run at the presidency could come to an end by this fall.  No campaign with five months still to go before the first caucus has taken this bad of a hit.  Each day there are new reports of high-level staffers leaving his team.  Today, for example, CNN reported that Deputy Campaign Manager Reed Galen and Political Director Rob Jesmer resigned.  Political Wire hinted that it may have had something to do with the other two staffers that were fired yesterday.  Now it looks like ten more staffers may resign in the near future.

Last week, McCain fired more than 50 staffers, just days after his dismal fundraising numbers for the second quarter went public.  McCain now only has nine paid Iowa staffers left.

I already posted the chart below in today's Blue Radar.  But it illustrates perfectly how bad of a free-fall it has been for the Arizona Senator.  Remember, he was once the favorite:

(click to view larger image)

Graham: Troop surge "working beyond my expectations"

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has returned from Iraq to proclaim that the security situation there is getting better.  Of course, this subjective assessment is not surprising when keeping in mind that Graham and John McCain -- whose spring Baghdad photo-op backfired politically -- have been close friends for years.

Not only did Graham say the military aspect of the surge was working -- but that it even surpassed his own expectations:

Incontrast with the stalled political progress, Graham said, the surge --the dispatch of 30,000 more U.S. troops that Bush began in January --is yielding clear results.

"The military part of the surge isworking beyond my expectations," Graham said. "We literally have theenemy on the run. The Sunni part of Iraq has really rejected al-Qaidaall over the country. We're getting more information about al-Qaidaoperations than we've ever received."

Seven US soldiers have died within the last two days.  Talks on a possible oil compromise between Sunnis and Shiites have stalled.  War costs are up by one third in 2007 because of the surge.  The conservative Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies -- which helped produce the modern-day neoconservatives -- is calling for a course change.  Even Colin Powell said on Friday that the Administration has allowed the situation to get out of control.

If any aspect of the surge has surpassed Graham's expectations, then one can only wonder how low Lindsey Graham's expectations were in the first place?  Part of the reason for the diplomatic stalling within the Iraqi government is because we put the bar so low to begin with.

Get ready for another McCain photo-op in Iraq

GOP presidential candidate John McCain will spend the 4th of July holiday with troops in Iraq:

The Arizona senator, who supports the war and President Bush's troopincrease strategy, plans to spend the July 4 holiday with U.S. troops.

McCain last was in Iraq in April and was criticized for saying he wascautiously optimistic of success even as he toured Baghdad under heavymilitary guard. In the months since, McCain has said the U.S. cannotafford to fail.

Just in case you forgot, here is a refresher about what was diverted for the Senator's sake during his April Baghdad market photo-op:

• 100 US soldiers
• 3 Black Hawk helicopters
• 2 Apache gunships
• 1 flack jacket

All so that McCain could tell Americans that they are misinformed about the war.

Commentary: How Bloomberg would fare in the general election

Immediately after New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg officially announced his defection from the GOP ranks, political analysts quickly began hyping a possible general election match-up between three New Yorkers: Giuliani, Clinton and Bloomberg.  Already, the media is in love with the idea of a three-candidate New York showdown in '08.

Prematurely though, these pundits are assuming that Clinton and Giuliani will win their party's nominations.  We are six long months away from the first vote.  Anything can happen on both the Democratic and GOP ends.  Giuliani's pro-choice stances could be his undoing.  Hillary's Washington establishment label could cause a massive voter revolt in January.  We cannot presume anything at this point.

So while other blogs, news sites and so-called 'pundits' salivate over a possible Clinton-Giuliani-Bloomberg showdown, Newsweek's Jonathan Darman thought outside the box about Bloomberg's possible impact on all the other candidates:

Other candidates could also feel the Bloomberg effect in a generalelection fight. John Edwards has made a strong pitch for his party'spopulist wing. Should he win the Democratic nomination, pro-businessvoters in the middle might view a Bloomberg vote as a protest againstboth Bush-backing Republicans and Labor-pandering Dems. Barack Obama'scampaign is centered around the idea he would introduce a new,different kind of politics. Whatever you may think of it, Bloomberg'scandidacy would certainly be new and different. On the right, MittRomney has taken conservative positions on every major social issue inthe hopes he will emerge as the choice of Christian conservatives inthe primary. Should he win the nomination, he's counting on moderatevoters remembering he was the governor of liberal Massachusetts forfour years. But that pivot could prove harder with a viable, sociallymoderate Independent candidate in the race. John McCain and FredThompson's aides talk up their candidates' appeal to a broad swath ofvoters as evidence they can lead the GOP out of troubled times. Butthat appeal may well be limited as long as McCain and Thompson refuseto break with Bush on the unpopular war in Iraq.

This is a pretty decent analysis.  Mitt Romney is expected to perform yet another political makeover if he becomes the GOP nominee -- transforming himself back into the moderate candidate he was as Massachusetts Governor.  Many of Romney's moderate positions on social issues will be canceled out by Michael Bloomberg.  There would be too much overlap.  For that reason, if Romney and Bloomberg were two of the three candidates in the general election, almost any Democrat would win.

But I don't think it will come to that.  The Karl Rove's strategy of pandering to the far-right works well.  That is why someone like Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee, two conservative southerners that are good at reaching out to Evangelical conservatives, would be affected the least if Bloomberg got into the race.

Obviously, these hypotheticals are nothing more than late-night thought unless Bloomberg actually does run.  But if he chooses to, Bloomberg would be much more electable than Ross Perot.  It would be unlike any other election in American history.

SC-2008: Obama and Thompson lead in polls

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there.  We're lite on posts today, but we'll be back up to full speed at midnight eastern tonight with the nightowl clips.

Meanwhile, new NBC poll numbers are in from South Carolina, which are great news for Obama and Thompson.  Obama, within the last month, has vaulted ahead of Clinton.  Here are the numbers.  First, the Democrats:

South Carolina Democrats
Barack Obama - 35%
Hillary Clinton - 24%
John Edwards - 12%
Joe Biden - 2%
Undecided - 24%

Now to the Republicans.  Thompson, who is scheduled to announce his run for the White House in July, leads Giuliani, Romney and McCain:

South Carolina Republicans
Fred Thompson - 25%
Rudolph Giuliani - 21%
Mitt Romney - 11%
John McCain - 7%
Mike Huckabee - 5%
Undecided - 28%

Maybe it's not some coincidence that the two candidates on top, Obama and Thompson, are thought of as Washington-outsiders.  People on both sides of the spectrum are sick of business as usual in Washington and want change.

McCain accuses someone else of pandering

In an obvious reference to Mitt Romney's recent criticisms about the current immigration bill, GOP presidential candidate John McCain fired back and accused him of pandering:

"Pandering for votes on this issue, while offering no solution to theproblem, amounts to doing nothing. And doing nothing is silentamnesty," McCain said to applause from more than 100 people gathered tohear him address the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

Pandering is almost always an issue of convenience -- something that McCain knows a lot about:

• Convenience in 2000: "Governor Bush swung far to the right and sought out the base support of PatRobertson and Jerry Falwell. Those aren’t the ideas that I think aregood for the Republican Party."
• Convenience in 2006: "I believe that the 'Christian Right' has a major role to play in the Republican Party."

Or try McCain's confidence in Donald Rumsfeld:

• Convenience in 2004 : "I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence."
• Convenience in 2006 : "I will continue to work with Secretary Rumsfeld as much as I can aslong as he is secretary of Defense. We have to, because we need to winthis war."

Interesting how McCain's opinions suddenly altered themselves just months before he considered running for president in 2008.

Now We Can assign "them" weapons and finally win this war!!

After seeing Lieberman arrive in Iraq and donning his flakvest and Kevlar,I had to laugh and ask myself "didn't he pack a khaki shirt to enhance the illusion?I suppose you don't go to war with the body protection and clothing you want,you go with want you have.

Anyway, the  post 'Editorial:Lieberman, please leave our party' prompted the following dark humorpost.

I just know these guys can get the job done, we have the #1 cheerleader rooting for us!

At this point I do not believe the politicians are voting with their heartsor using common sense to decide their votes. It is all about self/party gain. ANYONEthat says things are getting better is just plain old full O' crap. i.e."we had a great success today, a Humvee passed right by an IED (or it looked like a good place to hide one) and itdidn't go off". Come on guys, let's stop this and start being honest.

Here are a couple of helpful Reference sites worthy to bookmark.

               

Vote      from abroad

Military      Service Records of Senate Candidates

Who      Performed Military Service

These patriotic safe at home politicians could get the job done (I'm sure they could) The only change I would make would be to alter their gear. This would even up the playing field for their lack of combat service (excluding McCain, he can have the current issue armor) (I couldn't pass up the Dukakis pic)

We can suit them up with these ole' reliables, and  be assigned this top of the line Humvee (vid)

At least they wouldn't be walking, so they wouldn't complain, or piss and moan (ingrates)

Where has McCain been?

John McCain has spent the last 48 hours attacking Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for their votes against the war funding bill.  But is McCain really in a position to criticize someone else's vote on anything?  Until the Arizona Senator voted 'yea' on Thursday, he had not cast a single Senate floor vote in more than one month:

McCain returned to the Capitol on Thursday to cast his first floorvotes since April 12. He missed 46 in between. When a reporter askedwhy he chose Thursday to show up, McCain let loose --with a cheerysmile.

Obviously McCain is spending less time in Washington because of his "Straight Talk Express" tour across the country as he runs for president.  But not voting for an entire month?  Too bad for Arizona taxpayers that elected him.