Oh, by the way...

The new political wisdom says that Mike Huckabee's victory in Iowa, which scares the bejesus out of establishment Republicans, is a big boost to John McCain's candidacy (see the previous post).

But consider this: Obamania is likely to attract a lot of independent voters to the Democratic primary election in New Hampshire next Tuesday. Those are independent voters who won't be available to McCain to help him gain new traction on the Republican side.

If Huckabee wins in New Hampshire, he's going to be hard to stop, no matter the fervent wishes of his party's elders.

Now what?

In the wake of Iowa's stunning results, the 2008 presidential race suddenly turns a corner and heads down a path so strange that John McCain, with only a fourth-place finish Thursday night, is now seen as a much stronger contender for the Republican nomination.

How weird is that?

BooMan says Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are finished and predicts that Barack Obama will defeat McCain in November.

The Politicker explains why Mike Huckabee's victory is good news for McCain.

Arianna Huffington wonders if the outbreak of Obamania might be just a fleeting thing.

The Rockford Rascal says it won't be fleeting and offers this bit of eloquence as evidence:

Huckabee will win GOP nomination?

That's what this guy says.

I'm not so sure. I think Romney still has a decent chance.

McCain? His prospects are exceedingly slim. He's a long, long, long shot.

Giuliani? Thompson? No way for either of them. They're toast.

Ron Paul? C'mon. Get serious.

UPDATE: Bob Novak, the Prince of Darkness, writes of infighting on the Religious Right over Huckabee's candidacy.

The McCain "surge" (if that's what it is)

Roy Edroso over at Alicublog has an interesting take on the sudden signs of a pulse in John McCain's presidential candidacy, which has won endorsements from the Des Moines Register, the Boston Globe and Democratic (?) Sen. Joe Lieberman:

"Joe Lieberman's expected endorsement of John McCain offers a great opportunity that the Republican Party may be too fractured to avail. McCain is the least absurd of the current pro-war GOP contenders. There are many things I don't like about him, but he was saying from the beginning that the war would require far more effort and cost than the Administration was letting on. And unlike most of his fellow GOP contenders, he doesn't consider torture a fun way to rouse the yahoos.

"In a better world this would have made McCain a more formidable candidate long since, but the Jesus people and many hardcore rightwing operatives actively despise him. These folks are negligible in a general election, but hard to get past in the primaries. The Lieberman endorsement is a great way to signal to relatively sane pro-war voters that McCain might their best bet. But in the current environment, who knows how many of them exist?"

Des Moines paper endorses McCain, Clinton

The Register's arguments in both the Democratic and Republican races are far from persuasive (but let's concede that choosing from among the GOP candidates had to be painful and difficult).

Drudge says Dems rooting for Huckabee

The theory is that the religious extremist from Arkansas would be, by far, the easiest Republican to beat in next year's presidential election.

The Rascal has long figured that Rudy Giuliani would be the most likely pushover. But, upon reflection and in light of recent events, I'm beginning to see the logic of hoping that Huckabee gets the GOP nod.

Actually, I don't see any of the Republican candidates as tough to beat.

Romney? Flip-flopper whose Mormonism would drive away lots of evangelicals. Thompson? Boring and out of his league. McCain? Craven geriatric whose straight-talk pretensions have long since worn thin; besides, the GOP right-wing base doesn't trust him. Tancredo? Paul? Hunter? Get serious.

McCain not aware of what he'll say

Am I the only one who's noticed this?:

The Associated Press has a story this morning about remarks prepared for delivery later today by John McCain. The subject of those remarks strikes me as less important than the fact, buried down in the AP story, that McCain doesn't know what he'll be saying.

Here's the key passage:

The Associated Press obtained excerpts of McCain's remarks Tuesday from his campaign.

Later Tuesday, McCain said he had not yet seen the remarks. "But I will look at them very carefully," he said.

The Arizona senator was to deliver the speech Wednesday at a South Carolina military academy. Campaign spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said while McCain had not seen the language in the speech about Hillary Clinton, he still plans to deliver the critique.

UPDATE: It turns out that McCain won't deliver that speech today after all.

McCain has said it again

Remember last winter when John McCain and Barack Obama riled some folks by suggesting that American lives have been "wasted" in Iraq?

Well, McCain said much the same thing last night during the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire.

By way of claiming that he was presciently early in his dissatisfaction with how the Bush administration prosecuted the war in its early stages, McCain said: "Back in 2003, amid criticism from my fellow Republicans, I spoke strongly against the then Rumsfeld strategy, which I knew was doomed to failure and [would] cause so much needless sacrifice."

According to the English language I learned in school back in the 1940's and '50s, the term "needless sacrifice" is pretty much synonymous with the word "waste."

But I've yet to hear any pseudo-patriots taking McCain to task for what he said last night.

Of course, the lives lost in this stupid war have, in fact, been wasted.

POSTSCRIPT: On this blog, Dan Balz of the Washinton Post has an item about McCain's performance in last night's debate and about prospects for a rebound in the Arizona senator's bid for the presidency.

(Balz, by the way, lived just down the street from me when we were growing up in Freeport. Oddly enough, there were two other future journalists in the neighborhood. Must have been something in the water.)

Hey! Some of that was MY money!

Some bad guys in Iraq have stolen $300 million in American scratch from a bank in Baghdad, and I'm pretty pissed about it.

I distinctly remember giving some of my hard-earned bread to Uncle Sam, and now it's gone.

I mean, I'm just a poor little blogger in Rockford, Ill., and I don't get much in response to my humble little plea (see upper right-hand corner of this screen) for tips. And now some of my dough is missing from some bank in a country where it ought not have been in the first place.

As soon as I'm finished dealing with John McCain (as promised here), I'm going after those guys who stole my money. I'll show them what a real surge looks like.

J'accuse!

Turnabout is fair play.

A few weeks ago, John McCain accused The Rascal of illegal behavior (unjustly, I might add).

Well, I'm here today to accuse the senior senator from Arizona of his own illegality. On Tuesday of this week, McCain apparently committed a blatant violation of federal criminal law.

Accordingly, I hereby call upon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (Oh, God, I forgot that that incompetent little hack is still running the Justice Department) to take appropriate action against McCain.

Or am I going to have to make a citizen's arrest?

UPDATE: Looks like one of McCain's pals also has run afoul of the law.

You can't get away with slandering The Rascal

John McCain recently implied some bad stuff about The Rascal, and now his presidential campaign is on the brink of death.

That'll teach him!

McCain slanders The Rascal; lawyers alerted

On several occasions in recent months, The Rascal has predicted that John McCain eventually will drop his hopeless bid for the Republican presidential nomination, and I still think he will.

But McCain struck back today, declaring that anybody who dares suggest that he'll quit the campaign has been "smoking something stronger than is legal..."

Well, I'm not going to take that kind of slander lying down. No, sir. The Arizona senator's rhetoric in this matter is outrageous, and he's going to be held to account for it.

If McCain has evidence that I've written disparaging things about him while under the influence of anything stronger than V-8, I'd like to see it. So would the countless admirers of this blog who visit here regularly for a political-wisdom fix (if I might use that drug-culture term in this context).

I'm currently conferring with lawyers from the firm of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe (whose clients have included Johnny Carson and the Marx Brothers), and we're contemplating legal action. You haven't heard the last of this.

McCain makes emotional gesture

In tonight's debate among Republican presidential hopefuls, John McCain, in a gesture that reminded some observers of Bill Clinton in a debate of 15 years ago, stepped toward a woman in the audience who lost a brother in Iraq and answered her question.

Videos of McCain's moment and Clinton's are here.

Brilliant conservative analysis

Have you ever heard of a guy named Erick Erickson?

He's the head man over at RedState.com, a prominent conservative Web site that draws tens of thousands visitors each day. He's apparently also a man who likes to cover all his bases, even to the point of being ridiculous about it.

The Rascal was roaming the Net this morning in search of commentary on last night's debate among the Republican presidential candidates when I stumbled upon a piece by Erickson. It was so confusing, I had to read it three times.

In short order, Erickson declared that "John McCain won" and that "Fred Thompson...really won." He said that "not one of the men on the stage rose to a level to really stand out" and that "Mitt Romney shined, he stood out, he did well." Getting back to McCain, Erickson said he "reigned supreme."

Oh, Erickson also said: "Let's not dance around about this."

They actually pay this guy to write this stuff. Read it here.