[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, dean of the neocons and now a weekly columnist for the New York Times, says the big difference between John McCain and the rest of the Republican field is that McCain seems refreshingly old-fashioned.

Read between the lines, it implies that McCain has a certain integrity that the others, being thoroughly modern men, are bereft of. McCain, he suggested, was a neo-Victorian – rigid, self-righteous and moralizing, but (or rather and) manly, courageous and principled. Maybe a dose of this type of neo-Victorianism is what the 21st century needs. But can it work Tuesday in California?

Someone less committed to the cause might put the comparison in less flattering terms. McCain's sense of principle shines in comparison to the flippers and flakes he's running against.

Mike Huckabee – who began as a straight shooter, defending his record as governor of Arkansas to provide in-state college tuition to illegal aliens, OK'ing a tax increase and sounding like an economic populist – has now joined the immigration exclusionists and touts a regressive flat tax that makes President Bush look like a Marxist.

by Larry Dudley [courtesy of Blog for America]

Claims the Surge is "succeeding" in Iraq appear to be confusing, even rattling some Democrats. John McCain is now mainly basing his campaign on it, and it seems to have boosted him in the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, there are growing numbers of articles like neo-con prophet Bill Kristol's in The New York Times demanding to know why Democrats "can't admit we're winning the war in Iraq." The short answer is we're not. But this uncertainty is starting to have a serious effect on the Democratic primary race.

From a long view, this race should've been in Hillary Clinton's pocket from the start-- a total non-contest. The reason it was not was because Clinton's support for the war created an opening for anti-war candidates like Obama and Edwards. The war split away the women voters who were long assumed to be Clinton stalwarts: they were repelled by her positions on Iraq.

Restoring some missing clarity on the nature of guerilla war is over due.