Quibbling with McCain

I Will Vote For Romney. For Now.

I've been writing about the 2008 presidential campaign since April 2005. During that entire time I have been determined to remain uncommitted. I thought that would make for more objective observations about the campaign. It is also an admission that no candidate came along, whom I felt compelled to support.

As the number of possible nominees has dwindled, especially with Fred and Rudy proving that you can't leave the field to opponents and still prevail, I tried to warm up to Senator McCain. After McCain's South Carolina and Florida victories, it is clear he has again attained the dreaded status of front runner.

Embracing McCain ought to be easy for a security voter like me. If your main issue is victory in the War the Islamic Extremists are waging against us, supporting McCain should not be a difficult thing.

Yet I have quibbles with Senator McCain. And they're not going away, even with the Florida results and the Giuliani and Schwarzenegger endorsements.

There are the usual policy quibbles, which have been repeated so often they have become cliche. Yet like all cliches, they are based on truth:

I continue to wonder if President Bush's tax cuts would now be permanent if only Senator McCain supported the tax cuts in 2001.

I object to the 2002 McCain/Feingold so-called campaign finance reform, which I still consider an abominable infringement on my constitutional rights, even though the Supreme Court says it isn't.

There is also the McCain/Kennedy so-called immigration reform, both versions -- the 2005 edition and the 2007 McCain/Kennedy II -- amount to little more than a dressed up amnesty that like the failed 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act will encourage additional illegal immigration.

More recently, we have been forced to grapple with the McCain/Lieberman Gore-like energy tax that is somehow suppose to magically reverse global climate change.

Even so, as I said, a week ago I was thinking I could set these quibbles aside and support Senator McCain's presidential candidacy. Then the Senator went Hillary -- telling lies about Mitt Romney's position on Iraq. Even in the face of Romney's objections and denials, McCain repeated this criticism in the Reagan Library debate the other night.

Senator McCain, on NBC's "Meet the Press," said that last year Romney wanted to set a secret timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. That plan, similar to what Democrats have proposed, would lead to a victory for al-Qaeda. Romney, on CNN's "Late Edition," said McCain's description of his position was "dishonest." I'm going to rely on upon Paul Mirengoff's "Did he or didn't he?" post to resolve this dispute between the two presidential contenders:

McCain apparently is referring to a statement Romney made last April in which he assumed President Bush and the head of the Iraqi government might discuss timetables and troop levels in Iraq. I don't think Romney's statement fairly can be construed as advocating setting a date for our withdrawal.

I take Mirengoff's post to mean Romney was saying let's see if the surge works and be prepared for it not to. He also says Mitt was definitely less gung-ho than McCain on the surge. Mirengoff's conclusions are also supported by Byron York's "McCain, Romney, and Timetables" post. This presents me with yet another quibble about McCain. This one about my most important issue -- achieving victory in the war the Islamic extremists are waging against us.

There is more to Mirengoff's post, and he credits McCain for being right about Iraq and advocating an approach to Iraq that is "essentially the one that’s working now." So I thought maybe I could overlook this quibble as well. Then I started to think seriously about McCain as Commander in Chief. The more I look into what Senator McCain has actually advocated in Iraq the more quibbles I have about supporting his presidential candidacy.

I may vote for Governor Romney on Tuesday. But I understand the reality of the situation, and that pretty soon my choice will be not between Romney and McCain, but between McCain and Hillary (or Obama). So I hereby pose my quibbles to Senator McCain in the hopes that he will rise to this challenge and make his case to this security voter as to why Senator McCain should be Commander in Chief.

Senator McCain has consistently advocated the deployment of many more troops into Iraq. The Senator's version of a surge envisioned some 100,000 additional troops, and he has been all over Donald Rumsfeld for failing to deploy such a large additional force as early as 2004. Here, I have another problem with McCain's position. We simply don't have enough combat brigades and Marine equivalents to throw into the fight in the numbers the Senator insistently says we should have.

With troops tied down in Central European bases, Bosnia and South Korea, and still others fighting in Afghanistan, the combat units required to make the deployments advocated by Senator McCain don't exist. He has advocated increasing the size of the armed forces, but the additional troops such increases might have produced would not have been available at the time Mr. McCain wanted to deploy them.

The 30,000 or so troops that were used for the surge pretty much used all the available forces. Note that Army Chief of Staff George Casey recently declared that the surge has "sucked all the flexibility" out of the system in a year. General Casey predicts that much of the lost flexibility will be restored if the troops can be drawn down over the next six months, but the current enhanced deployment level is not sustainable for a long period of time. In an encouraging sign, the New York Times quotes Defense Secretary Gates as saying by next summer the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq will be reduced to 15.

Senator McCain has opposed the redeployment of troops out of Germany and South Korea. In doing so he ensures that those forces cannot be used in the current war. I know Senator McCain has called for increasing the armed forces, but given the time it would take to recruit, train and deploy these still on-paper troops, how does he answer the quibble of how he would have staffed his enhanced version of the surge?

I'm willing to give Senator McCain credit for advocating a change in strategy in Iraq. Perhaps he can make an argument that we should have done it sooner. I'm not sure that he can, it seems to me that the key to the success of the surge was a lot of hard work -- blood sweat and tears -- in the years leading up to the surge. More Iraqi forces had been trained to a level where they could be effectively used to support counterinsurgency strategy being used by General Petraeus. The Anbar awakening occurred before the deployment of the surge troops making it more likely the surge would succeed. Plopping down another 100,000 or so troops, even if such numbers were available, years earlier as advocated by Senator McCain may not have had the same effect in 2004 as did the 30,000 troops surged in 2007.

I also have a problem with Senator McCain pinning the perceived lack of instant success in Iraq on Rumsfeld. He has come up with a very simplistic story that Rumsfeld was bad and Petreaus is good. But successful counterinsurgency campaigns take time. A lot of time. More than a year. Everyone, including Senator McCain is willing to credit General Petraeus with the success of the surge. But maybe we should look at the General's first two tours in Iraq for the secrets of his success, and maybe we should consider who promoted General Petraeus, more than once, and who recommended General Petraeus to be the Iraq commander--the very same Donald Rumsfeld that McCain vilifies.

I could go on here, but I think I've made my point, which is that McCain takes too much credit for the surge, especially since I'm not sure he was as involved in the strategy shift as he says he was. This makes me wonder about how he will behave as Commander in Chief. Will the military appreciate his eagerness to grab the limelight and denigrate the long, difficult and frequently unpopular work that leads to success in a mission like Iraq?

I certainly admire the Senator's service during Vietnam, and I respect him as a hero. Nevertheless I don't think he has demonstrated that he is more qualified to be the civilian commander in chief than has Romney. Nor do I think his decades in the Senate and his experience leading a naval air squadron is the type of executive experience I want to see in a president.

Therefore, as things now stand, when I step up to the voting machine on super Tuesday, I will be registering my vote for Mitt Romney. He has executive experience, both in the private sector, where he made a fortune turning around troubled companies, in the public sector as a successful governor and don't forget his rescue of the Salt Lake City Olympics.

I don't find the Governor's positions on Iraq objectionable. Nor do I find the fact that he has changed certain views over the years to be a bad thing. I tend to prefer the newer views and appreciate that he saw the need to change. But I will also give John McCain his fair shake, and I would like to know how he would answer my quibbles, should he chance to see them.

Romney Wins Nevada

Mitt Romney wins the Republican Nevada caucuses. Ron Paul is running second. No surprise here.

Don't Forget Wyoming

Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention.

Wyoming's Republicans had hoped to draw attention by holding their caucuses a full month before most other states. Nevertheless, the Wyoming caucus wound up sandwiched between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

De Facto Amnesty - Driving Illegals

Even Democrats can't understand why their party's national leaders are embracing driver's licenses for illegal aliens, and say their constituents see it as a "de facto amnesty."

Alabama Democrat Representative Artur Davis, said voters in his state "get that a driver's license is a form of legal status" because it can be used to board a plane, enter most government buildings and conduct most financial transactions.

"The American people don't want conferring driver's licenses to become a de facto amnesty," he said.

Kansas Democratic Representative Nancy Boyda, Kansas Democrat, said the stance favoring licenses for illegals taken by Democratic presidential candidates is very unpopular in her district.

"It is ultimately about the rule of law," she said. "We don't give driver's licenses to people who are here illegally. We do something about the fact that they are here illegally."

Texas Democratic Representative Nick Lampson, said "Somebody else might be out of step with the voters of my district, but I'm not."

Driving illegals has exploded as a major issue in the presidential campaign thanks to New York's Liberal/Progressive Democratic Governor Elliot Spitzer's very unpopular proposal to give licenses to illegal aliens and Hillary's inability to say whether she supported Spitzer's proposal at the Drexal University debate.

According to the Washington Times, Hillary isn't the only Democratic presidential candidate to support Driving illegals:

In addition to Mrs. Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said he favors licenses for aliens while New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's state is one of the small number that already allows such licenses.

A recent Fox 5-Washington Times-Rasmussen Reports poll found 77 percent, nearly a five-to-one margin, oppose drivers' licenses for illegal aliens, including (88%) of Republicans, 75% of unaffiliated voters and even 68% of Democrats.

The people get it. Unlike the Democratic Presidential candidates, voters understand that an incentive like a driver's license will encourage more illegal aliens.

Tennessee stopped issuing driving certificates to illegal aliens after investigations found illegal aliens were being shuttled to Tennessee from other states, using fake residency papers and sometimes bribing state workers to get the driving certificates. Tennessee's Driving certificates for illegals, like Spitzer's licenses, were meant to improve driving safety by making sure immigrants living in the state knew traffic rules.

New York Democrat Representative John Hall, broke with Spitzer over licenses for illegal aliens because of the security risk:

"I'm concerned that making licenses available to illegal immigrants could present security risks, make New York a magnet state for illegal immigrants by creating an incentive for more undocumented individuals to come to New York, and that the proposal would create a bureaucratic, confusing system," Hall said in a statement after he was criticized on the issue by national Republicans.

Even though some Democratic members of Congress see the silliness of providing incentives that encourage more illegal immigration, it's only the Republicans that are trying to stop driving illegals.

Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman, introduced a resolution that would put the Senate on record condemning states issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Coleman's resolution is co-sponsored by 15 Republican Senators.

A similar resolution has been introduced in the House by Republican Representatives Tom Latham of Iowa and John Randy Kuhl Jr. of New York

New York Republican Representative Peter T. King of Long Island plans to introduce legislation next week that would prohibit states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

Driving illegals is more problematic than just encouraging more illegal immigration. A driver's license is more than a permit to drive. It's a nationally recognized form of identification that implies citizenship. With the license comes an assumed legitimacy. The same legitimacy achieved by the 9/11 hijackers, who had dozens of state IDs, used to rent cars and apartments, open bank accounts, take flying lessons and board planes.

Instead of arresting and sending illegal aliens back to where they come from when they are discovered driving illegally, the liberal/progressive solution is to give them driver's licenses. I just don't get it.

Driving Illegals - Political Poison

A new poll finds voters oppose drivers' licenses for illegal aliens by a nearly five-to-one margin:

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of American adults are opposed to making drivers licenses available to people who are in the country illegally.

The results won't surprise anyone except the Liberal/Progressive extremists that have taken over the Democratic Party.

Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Republicans oppose giving drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants. So do 68% of Democrats and 75% of those not affiliated with either major political party. There is little difference along gender, age, or income levels.

I have said before, we should trust the people on immigration reform. The people get it. They intuitively understand that it is stupid to give someone known to be here illegally a license to drive.

The poll numbers are the real reason Hillary refused to give a straight answer about New York Democratic Governor Elliot Spitzer's very unpopular proposal to give licenses to illegal aliens.

The same analysis applies to the misguided Liberal/Progressive proposal to provide instate tuition breaks to illegal aliens contained in the so-called Dream Act. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of all voters oppose the concept of the Dream Act. On the left coast, 62% of California voters support Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of the state version of the Dream Act.

Providing any sort of "sanctuary" only encourages more illegal immigration.

Californians Say Rudy Won

The pundits are wrong, A SurveyUSA of California debate watchers finds Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani convincingly won the California debate among Republican presidential candidates.

Giuliani was picked as the winner by 30% of those in CA who watched. Former Massachusetts Governor Romney was picked as the winner by 12%, and Arizona Senator McCain was picked as the winner by 11%. All other candidates were in single digits:

Who Won The Debate?

4% Brownback
8% Gilmore
30% Giuliani
4% Huckabee
7% Hunter
11% McCain
12% Romney
2% Paul
4% Tancredo
2% Thompson
16% Not Sure

Californians are much less engaged in the 2008 presidential campaign than are South Carolinians. One in three South Carolinians watched the Democratic debate, compared to one in eight Californians who watched the Republican debate.

This small number of adult Californians, who watched a Republican presidential debate nine months from the California primary and 18 months from the General Election, is unlikely to be a very reliable guide to California Republican primary voters. More information on the SurveyUSA poll results, or how the survey was conducted, is available here and here.

The California debate watchers think Giuliani has the best plan for Iraq and immigration reform:

20% of CA debate watchers say McCain has the best plan for Iraq, which was only slightly behind Giuliani, who was picked by 25% as having the best Iraq plan. [. . .] Giuliani was seen as having the best solution for immigration reform by 31% of CA viewers. No one else was close.

That is peculiar because I don't recall Giuliani saying much about Iraq during the debate.

Fineman Sizes Up Tonight's Second Tier Candidates

Howard Fineman, in a Newsweek web exclusive, considers most of the second-tier Republican Presidential candidates participating in tonight's debate:

Consider Rep. Ron Paul, a Libertarian Republican from Texas who has opposed the Iraq War from the beginning because of his small-government, isolationist worldview. He is not a nut case but rather a doctor with a degree from Duke Medical School. And he’s steeped in a branch of conservative intellectual history that traces its modern lineage to the Founding Fathers.

Most people back East know nothing of Rep. Duncan Hunter of San Diego, but he is a serious character, too—a Vietnam vet and student of military matters who should not be confused with the Duke Cunninghams of the world. You know the anti-illegal fence near his city, the one that is now a model for a larger fence along the Mexican border? That was Hunter’s project. Living at the other end of the foreign-policy spectrum from Paul—there is no more dedicated supporter of the use of military power in world affairs—Hunter represents the big-stick tradition now known as neoconservatism. He mixes it up with Democrats, big time.

Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado has made a name for himself as the leading proponent of tough immigration rules and sanctions—far tougher than the ideas the GOP front runners are daring to discuss. You think this doesn’t resonate in the core of the base? Of course it does, and the big names know it.

Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore has some anti-tax cred, not so much for what he did as governor per se but for having been a key player in the drive—so far successful—to prevent the imposition of government taxes on Internet transactions.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is best known for having lost 100 pounds, but as I see it he is one of two candidates—the other is Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas—who represent the pure strain of religious conservatism in the party. Huckabee has the best credential of all on that score: he is an ordained Baptist preacher, and that was his day job before he entered politics. If you are an evangelical Christian, why not be for Huckabee? That way you eliminate the middle man.

I don't know why Fineman left former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson out of his commentary

With the focus always on former New York City Mayor Giuliani, Arizona Senator McCain, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, most folks don't hear much about the other prospective candidates.

Like Kucinich and Gravel in the Democratic candidate's debate held last week, the seven lessor known candidates will likely be much more strident during this chance to bask in national attention. The big three will concentrate on trying to avoid making any mistakes.