The accuracy of the findings are based on interviews with 30,655 adults in 2006, an 0.57-point margin of error — “about as close as you can get to perfection in the world of polling.”

From 2001 through 2005, “party identification balance” in the Gallup polling, before independents are queried, stayed within 2 points of each other. But for 2006, Democrats pulled away, leading Republicans by 3.9 points, with 34.3 percent identifying themselves as Democrats, 30.4 percent as Republicans and 33.9 percent as independents.

“This represents a swing of 5.8 points in just three years, from a GOP lead of 1.9 points to a deficit of 3.9 points. It’s not that Democrats grew that much; it’s that Republicans dropped, with the independent column picking up much of the slack,” argues Cook.

But for Cook, “the real jaw dropper” is the responses of independents when asked which party they lean toward. Here, Democrats jumped from a 1.3 point advantage in 2001 to a 10.2 advantage in 2006: 50.4 percent for Democrats, 40.2 percent for Republicans.

According to Cook, “This 10.2-point advantage is the biggest lead either party has held since Gallup began tracking the leaners in 1991.” For the last quarter of 2006 the Democratic advantage actually rose to 14.2 points.

Cook admits that these figures measure the attitudes of adults, not voters. However, he doubts that there is a differential of more than 10 points between adults and voters. He limits his interpretation of this data to the view “that whatever inherent advantages the GOP had in Electoral College math might be gone.” ~G. Tracy Meehan III

Karl Rove used to dream of the permanent Republican majority and he liked to draw comparisons between our own time and the era of Republican presidential dominance for the first third of the twentieth century.  Mark Hanna was his god.  Karl Rove seemed very clever, as we all still (sort of) remember, for discovering that independents weren’t really as independent as they claimed they were, which made pandering to the center less important than mobilising “the base.”  We all know this.  Well, those days of the non-independent independents are apparently truly and completely gone.  The prospects of the GOP holding the White House for 16 of the next 24 years after 2008 are not at all good.  The chances of recovering the House given the current GOP bunker mentality are remote.

As I was thinking about this, I realised that the fate of the GOP here reminds me a great deal of the state of the Conservative-Liberal Unionist Party in the early twentieth century.  Unlike the progressive Republican Party over here at the same time, the Conservative-Liberal Unionists did not enjoy dominance for most of the early twentieth century.  They had presided over the Boer War and won the famous Khaki Election of 1900, capitalising on popular enthusiasm for the successful conclusion of the first, formal stage of the war (two years of insurgency in the veld followed the surrender of the Afrikaner republics).  However, soon thereafter, in 1906, they experienced an electoral drubbing the likes of which no man today living (except perhaps for those who would still admit to having been a Progressive Conservative in Canada in the ’90s) has ever seen.  (They lost 246 of 402 seats.)  2006 may be quite analogous to the 1906 Conservative defeat.  2006 was the chance for the GOP to learn where they had gone off track.  Everything they have done since November suggests they have no idea that they even went off track.  They seem constitutionally incapable of acknowledging Iraq as the source of the party’s deserved woes.  As long as Iraq continues to drag down the GOP, it may not matter which candidate they nominate next year, because any one of them is going to get blown out of the water if these numbers hold up among likely voters.

Rumors abound that conservative Republican “activists” are now targeting the GOP naysayers for primary opposition. These reactionaries couldn’t be more misguided and wrong about what’s best for the Republican Party and the nation whose interest the party serves. Instead of excoriating Republicans who said no to Bush’s plan, they should be privately thankful that someone in their party broke ranks. In the long run, if handled right, those “no” votes will benefit GOP candidate recruitment and electoral success in swing districts, helping the party recapture majority control. ~David Hill

I rarely comment on quotes with which I agree so strongly.  Usually, the quote says it all and I leave it at that, but I would just like to cheer on David Hall here for making what seems to me to be the obvious, common sense observation about GOP anti-surge dissenters and the political insanity of the so-called Victory Caucus.  This is pretty sensible stuff.  Obviously, I would say this because I agree with it, but it does make sense.  I am less sure that Joe Lieberman’s support for the war had much of anything to do with the Dem victory in November, but leave that for another time.  The only thing I object to (there had to be something) is Mr. Hill’s bestowal of the noble name of reactionary on a crowd of Red Republican lackeys.  They don’t deserve that name.  I won’t let them have it.     

But Mr. Hill goes on to explain in greater detail why the Hewitts of the world are so stunningly wrong:

It speaks volumes the [sic] some Republicans feel so strongly about their principles that they chose to walk the hard path of defecting. It says that Republicans think. It says that Republicans listen to the people they represent. It says that Republicans are principled. It says that Republicans stand their ground even when it’s tough. These messages benefit all Republicans. 

Absolutely–and what a shocking change for most of these 17 from their behaviour over the last few years!  Of course, that is part of the problem.  With the exceptions of Paul, Duncan and Jones, you have never heard one of these Congressmen make a peep about the flaws of how the war was managed, much less the injustice of the war itself, and now all of a sudden they have become gravely concerned.  It is hard not to conclude that Keller, Walsh, LaTourette and others in competitive districts felt the need to distance themselves from the administration on this one for political reasons, because that is what their constituents are demanding.  Nonetheless, even if political pressure from back home is part of the reason why many of these Congressmen have offered even this small dissent from the party line, that is partly how representative government is supposed to work.  These Congressmen don’t work for “the base” per se, but for their constituents first and foremost.  That’s a good thing–it’s a sign that the system occasionally works, albeit in sputtering, irregular fashion. 

The message that Hewitt and his fellow lackeys would like to send to the country is that Republicans in Congress really are the blind, Bush-loving, Bush-supporting automatons that you have come to expect them to be.  The Victory Caucus is an organisation dedicated to spreading the news far and wide that Republicans are, or ought to be, mindlessly obedient to the executive branch’s propaganda about the war, which tends to confirm the low opinion so many of us have about Republican pundits and office-holders.

Surely Kirchner thinks that Chávez is an insufferable tropical parrot, but he cannot oppose him without betraying his own origins. ~Carlos Alberto Montaner

I imagine that Argentina’s President Kirchner has more pressing things on his mind as he tries to govern Argentina in the wake of its massive economic debacle a few years ago than what Chavez is doing on the other end of the continent.  Kirchner is a left Peronist, so he probably does not have a reflexive hostility to Chavez and his policies of inflationary subsidies and price controls, but neither is there some abiding ideological brotherhood among all leftists in Latin America.  It is quite possible, indeed likely, that many social democrats and populists in Latin America view Peronists poorly because of the quasi-fascist character of Peron’s regime, but why worry about that?  

Mr. Montaner is the latest in the chorus expressing deep fears of the descent of a Banana Curtain in Latin America.  In fact, the man is obsessedwith this topic.  (He has even started throwing around the word ‘fascist’ to describe the populists, which automatically robs him of whatever credibility he may have had.)  Having invoked the dark image of Stalin and the history of the Cold War, Mr. Montaner leads off his dire warning about Chavista imperialism thus:

On a diminutive scale, with some grotesque features and without the danger of nuclear armaments, Latin America today is living through a similar experience. However, no one notices it or no one deems it important.

So, there is something that is taking place in Latin America, that geostrategic pivot, on a “diminutive scale” and it lacks the threat of nuclear proliferation and yet it is not being noticed or considered important.  Oh, and, as he says later, “everyone knows” that it will  burn itself out in time.  So this is noteworthy why exactly?  Why should anyone who doesn’t live in the countries immediately affected by neo-populism be terribly concerned?  Oh, right, sorry, because the Chavistas are really, really threatening.  Threatening how?  Venezuela, unbeknownst to anyone in Venezuela or elsewhere on this planet,

today attempts to rule a 21st century Moscow and has set off, with some degree of success, to achieve the political conquest of Latin America.

Even supposing that Chavez in all his neo-Bolivarian egomania actually sought to rule a “21st century Moscow” (doesn’t “a 21st century Moscow” already exist in…Russia?) and wanted the political conquest of Latin America, he could not be less successful so far.  As surprising as it may seem, the red, blue and yellow tricolour has not yet been hoisted over a single foreign capital.  Elections in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador have brought left populists to power, and all of the winners have expressed goodwill towards Chavez and have more or less tried to emulate his politics to some degree, but this has nothing to do with Venezuelan “political conquest of Latin America.”  These populists are concerned with domestic problems and have little interest in cultivating the ties with Venezuela except insofar as it may prove useful to their countries.  But we might as well speak of the election of the CDU in Germany as the result of the American “political conquest of Europe” or the election of Calderon in Mexico as the American “political conquest of Mexico”–that would make as much sense. 

Pretty Scary, Huh?

Left populism is a political trend in many Latin American countries today because of the perceived and real failures of neoliberalism.  Like the old liberalism of the 19th century, neoliberalism is much better for some than for others in the short and middle terms, and those who don’t see many benefits but who experience significant dislocation because of the austerity plans and economic insecurities, which “pro-market” ideologues deem necessary for “growth,” tend to view this neoliberalism as a gigantic con perpetrated on them for the benefit of the few.  It doesn’t hurt the populist case that this is not entirely false, though it is undoubtedly exaggerated.  Along come some fiery demagogues who promise them the moon, and these dissatisfied people will rally to their cause.  Presto–you get Chavismo and other similar protest movements.  Call this Exhibit A for Why Modern Mass Democracy Is A Bad Idea. 

This populism is unlikely to address many of the needs of the poor masses who have catapulted several left populists to power and brought a few others within reach of government, but it succeeds because of the disparities in wealth and power in these countries that the poor many seek to rectify through the use of the mechanisms of mass democracy.  Does Venezuela have good relations with these countries?  Yes.  Is Venezuelan influence increasing in Latin America?  Yes.  Does Venezuela dictate terms to these countries?  Is it able to tell them how to run their own governments?  No and no.  The thing to remember about most of the left populists in these countries is that they are fiercely suspicious of outsiders, and so have no greater sympathy for the Venezuelan outsider than they do for foreign investors and their oligarchic friends.  Morales’ cultivation of Aymara Indian nationalism is such that his movement tends to regard the white population of eastern Bolivia as fairly alien to the mass of Bolivians–how much more removed are people who are from both another country and another Indian people?  Is Venezuela in any position to coerce smaller states to do its bidding, as the USSR was able to do with its satellites?  Obviously not.  To start any discussion of modern Latin America with references to the Cold War in which Venezuela plays the role of the Soviets is to already make oneself a laughingstock.

But Mr. Montaner will not be denied.  After explaining why no one in the region regards the Caracas Pact (or whatever we want to call this non-existent threat) as enough of a threat to take any real action against Venezuela, he continues:

Is there someone who can take a step forward and lead the Latin American resistence to this impoverishing and dangerous imperial spasm against democracy? 

We’ll get to Mr. Montaner’s amusing answer to his own question in a moment.  First, let’s consider the tendentious definition of the thing being described.  Is Chavismo an impoverishing ideological tendency in terms of its economic policies?  Almost certainly, and not just for the wealthy oligarchs whom it had sought to dispossess or disempower.  As we are already seeing, the Venezuelan economy is overheating from the glut of oil money subsidies that Chavez is using to buy off the population, and over the long run, especially when oil prices go down (as they probably will at some point), poor Venezuelans will suffer the consequences of the decline in oil revenues and continued high costs of living from the years of inflation they are currently experiencing.  This is most unfortunate for Venezuelans, but you do get the government you vote for and you also get the government you deserve (just as we unfortunately get the government we deserve up here in El Norte).  Maybe in the future they will choose more wisely.  But if we know anything about Latin American history, we would bet against that proposition.  The nations that follow the route of Chavismo (and Moralismo?) will continue to experience the old whiplash effect of going from the extreme of elite, “pro-market” forces to the extreme of popular socialist protest movements until such time, if it ever does come, that these countries develop a reasonably large, property-holding middle class that will provide some political stability and continuity in policy. 

Fundamentally, what the Chavistas and their imitators around the region are not engaged in is an “imperial spasm against democracy.”  Not even the most dedicated anti-leftist can buy this myth of Venezuelan anti-democratic imperialism.  It is utter nonsense.  If there is something horribly flawed about Chavismo, it is that it is far too democratic and lacks respect for law and property.  Chavez is another example of the democratically-elected authoritarian populists currently winning in many parts of the world.  But Chavismo is about as imperialistic in reality as an anti-colonialist rebellion.  By that I mean that the Venezuelans are not really embarked on the domination of other nations, much less are they looking to squelch the democracies of other nations.  Chavez and his allies have no interest in doing so: democracy in Latin America is more or less moving in their direction.  That is what really bothers Americans who get themselves so worked up over Chavez: having made democracy into their idol, they find it offensive that other nations have profaned it by using it for different and quite probably irrational and destructive purposes.  Every Morales or Chavez that crops up through the democratic process is a vote against the sanity and justice of democracy and more proof that it is a dangerous, volatile kind of government.  For those who are convinced that democracy is either a panacea or the single acceptable political model for the entire world, Chavismo and similar democratic disasters represent threatening counterexamples of the ways in which democracy can give rise to terrible policies and ruinous political movements.  What is worse for these democratists is that Chavismo arose not because of some failure or deficiency of democracy in Venezuela, but because it worked exactly as it was supposed to: it brought to power the political movement chosen by the vast majority of the people to represent what they believe to be their interests.  Chavismo is democracy in action–behold and be afraid.  If you find it abhorrent and awful, you will be compelled to repudiate the type of regime that made it possible. 

But all is not lost, friends, for Mr. Montaner has discovered a saviour for Latin America.  Populists, beware…

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. He has enough talent and experience to realize that the risks are enormous. The expansion of Chavism will exponentially increase the poverty in the region and its propensity for conflict.

Arias also has the valor and determination needed to confront an adversary a lot more powerful than he. In 1987, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for successfully imposing his peace plan for Central America despite the opinion and threats of the United States. The man who was not daunted by Ronald Reagan will not fear Chávez.

Naturally, Costa Rica does not have the resources to wage this fight all by itself, but Arias has enough leadership and enjoys enough recognition to summon to democratic resistance other leaders who are concerned by the advances of Chavism: politicians with the heft of Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, Alan García of Peru, Antonio Saca of El Salvador, Oscar Berger of Guatemala and maybe Michelle Bachelet, the prudent president of Chile.

Somehow the word “heft” and Alan Garcia don’t go together in my mind, but then for some reason I think that most Latin American states are not going to follow the lead of Costa Rica in anything.  Why might that be?

You get the sense he’d say babies come from storks if he [Romney] thought that was the way to advance his political career. ~Matt Yglesias

He may yet be too much his father’s son to close the sale, but that’s not to say he isn’t trying–the semiotics behind tying Romney to Ford may even have been intentional. Again, Madden denies it: “This was about innovation and transformation.” But that museum–a cavernous and strange facility where one can find everything from cars of the future to a test tube filled with what is purported to be Thomas Edison’s last breath–is not simply a paean to American innovation and transformation. It is also the opposite: Half of the facility (the half not populated by futuristic kitsch and automotive souvenirs) is “Greenfield Village,” a Colonial Williamsburg-style living museum of glassblowers, blacksmiths, and one-room schoolhouses. And it is simply not credible that a son of the Motor State like Romney is unaware that, for millions of Midwestern tourists, a trip to Dearborn is as much about celebrating “innovation and transformation” as it is conjuring up the wistful nostalgia for the pre-automotive–and, by plain implication, pre-immigrant–America that Ford worshiped. ~Rick Perlstein

But it was also hard to see how a man with deeply held convictions on abortion rights — either for or against — could take a position so calibrated and inconclusive. Listening to Romney that day was like watching a chameleon in the fleeting moment that its color changes to suit its environment. ~Ruth Marcus

I have been following the zigs and zags of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and now Republican presidential candidate, watching him grow progressively less progressive, sort of making himself up as he goes along. As a result, I surf the Web with trepidation, bracing myself for the story that I fear might be coming: “Romney Says He Is Not Really a Mormon.” ~Richard Cohen

Plus, the video of Romney’s 2002 gubernatorial race pro-choice statements is making the rounds.  His 2002 statements are pretty old news to Romney critics such as myself by now, but it’s fun to watch.  Quoth the Mitt: “I do take exception to Shannon [O’Brien] characterizing my view as being any different than hers in this regard.  The Boston Globe recently reported that there’s not a paper’s width worth of difference between our two positions in this regard…”  This followed a statement in which he seemed to say that it was acceptable to him if teenage girls younger than the current age of consent of 18 wanted to seek court permission for an abortion against their parents’ wishes.  Russert threw him a softball question about whether he would institute a 24-hour waiting period for a woman to be counseled when seeking an abortion, but Romney was ironclad: no changes to the state abortion laws, period.  He was offended at the implication that he might, at some level, be considered secretly pro-life, whereupon he invokes the memory of his mother’s 1970 Senate campaign and even manages to sneak the “separation of church and state” into the discussion.  He then explains a letter to the editor he wrote in which he claims he was rejecting both pro-life and pro-choice labels: “Instead, I make it clear that I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose.  I will not use a single hyphenated word…”  Even as he is trying to prove that he will protect Massachusetts’ “pro-choice laws,” as he called them, he refuses to be labeled pro-choice, even though he insists, quite vehemently, that he will protect a “woman’s right to choose.”  These aren’t the words of someone who just cynically changes to whatever is most politically expedient–these are the words of someone who has no respect for the basic meaning of words and will try to manipulate language in every way possible to make himself come out smelling like a rose in every case.  It depends on what the meaning of “choice” is, right, Mitt?

Of course, per Perlstein’s article, all of these observations from people on the left quoted above will possibly be taken by many as solid proof that Romney must really be conservative.  (Such is the pitiful level at which some people actually do define conservatism: as whatever the “liberal media” doesn’t like.)  Why, look at all the people who keep saying that he’s a massive fraud–there must be a huge conspiracy out to get him!  Well, maybe, or maybe he’s a pandering pol who will say whatever he thinks you want to hear and lots and lots and lots of people across the spectrum are noticing.   

Conservatives would probably make more noise about John Edwards as a fraud, but I think everyone already recognises that the man is a two-faced liar (he was a trial lawyer, after all, so what else needs to be said?).  He has done our work for us by being so egregiously tacky in his complete change from centrist DLC hawk to left-wing populist antiwar champion.   Edwards in 2003-2004: “You want another Bill Clinton?  I can be Bill Clinton.”  Edwards in 2007-2008: “You want another Howard Dean?  I can be Howard Dean, but without the yelling.”  In 2012, he will probably try to channel Obama. 

Personally, I don’t buy Perlstein’s supposition that anyone heard that Romney was at the Henry Ford Museum and thought, “Oh, good, Romney is paying homage to my deepest desires to return to an age of glorious Anglo-Saxonism free of unruly Italians and Greeks!”  (Or whatever it is that Perlstein thinks people opposed to mass immigration believe.)  I can’t imagine someone like Romney even understanding nostalgia for the Old America–he is a venture capitalist by background who is more excited about technology and efficiency than Newt Gingrich.  Even if his positions on tax policy have morphed and changed over the years, he is socially and culturally a perfect fit for Wall Street Journal Republicanism. 

Never having been to Michigan (strange, but true), my reaction was: “There’s a Henry Ford Museum?  I suppose there would be.  Oh, okay.”  Likewise, my reaction to his line about border security was more along the lines of, “That’s all he had to say about immigration?  That’s not very interesting.  Even Bush mouths platitudes about securing the border–not that he means any of it.”  If Romney were trying to appeal to restrictionists, he would have done it by, oh, maybe mentioning something about being against amnesty or indeed by saying anything that gave a hint that he understood that the question wasn’t just over what to do about the current state of the border. 

The one thing I do believe is that Romney really is a big believer in “innovation and transformation”: on this point, he literally practices what he preaches.  He believes in trying out new things, such as core beliefs and deeply personal reasons for believing these core beliefs, and adapting to changing circumstances (such as preparing to run for President) and transforming himself to be more competitive.  It’s not dishonesty–it’s more like improving fuel economy, just like his old dad did back when.  In his own way, he probably doesn’t think of his flip-flopping as an attempt trick or deceive the public.  He probably thinks that he is just responding to market demand and maximising vote-gathering efficiency.  This is a man who likes to cut out unnecessary waste, after all, and nothing would be more wasteful than to deprive his ambition and big hair from a shot at the White House.  In a sense, it is the ultimate challenge for the “turnaround” artist that Romney genuinely is.  He wants to show that he can not only bring faltering enterprises out of the red and save the Olympics from embarrassing failure, but that he can do blatant turnarounds on every issue in the book and somehow make a successful campaign out of it. 

If he did somehow pull it off, even Bubba himself would have to bow down before the new master of spin and the new king of the comeback.  To triangulate, it is necessary to first have some sort of credible position against which to triangulate.  Romney gives the impression of someone who would attempt to ricochet around at every possible angle until he found the one that would work.

And did I mention he was also Secretary of Energy? Too bad nobody thinks energy independence and global climate change are important policy areas in which it would be good for the chief executive to have some knowledge. Oh, well. ~Matt Yglesias

This is a good article about my home state’s governor, and Mr. Yglesias is absolutely right that Richardson should be taken a lot more seriously than he is, but a few words of warning are in order.  While I have been saying for the last few weeks that Bill Richardson is a relatively credible candidate, and that I think he will probably wind up pulling out an upset victory to get the nomination before it’s all said and done (partly because his competition is so risibly weak and flawed), he has his own vulnerabilities.  His record in Congress put him much farther to the left than he is today, his record at the U.N. was basically unremarkable and his time as head of DOE was a catastrophe. 

All of this will come back to haunt a Richardson ticket, should he make it that far, and the DOE tenure especially will prove potentially devastating when it comes to the whole Chinese espionage bit.  Richardson boosters probably will want to not mention his time at DOE if they can possibly help it.  His opponents can just keep replaying that scene from the Senate oversight hearings as Robert Byrd declares Richardson’s career finished: 

You had a bright and brilliant career, but you will never again receive the support of the U.S. Senate for any office you seek. You have squandered your treasure.

LANL security problems weren’t a new thing when Richardson took over, but he did bumblingly preside over some of the worst security lapses at a national nuclear lab ever and then proceeded to keep on bumbling in organising the appropriate response.  Only by comparison with Hazel O’Leary, his immediate predecessor, does Richardson come off looking like a competent administrator of a federal department.  In other words, in his only executive experience at the federal level, he was a monumental failure. 

If you think Richardson is some battle-hardened veteran of serious campaigning, think again.  He was elected in the Third District, a district so overwhelmingly Democratic that it makes the South Side of Chicago seem like a moderate, centrist sort of place.  He never faced real competition for re-election.  In his gubernatorial races, he faced the two weakest Republican candidates for governor in living memory and…managed somehow to beat them!  John Sanchez, New Mexico’s answer to Barack Obama at the state level, was not able to win the governorship after one term in the state senate–why might that be?  John Dendahl, a virtual last-minute replacement candidate, was so widely disliked even by many other Republicans that he never had the slightest chance of competing.  Richardson even refused to debate Dendahl, whom his campaign declared to be a “thug” (Dendahl is something of a brass-knuckles political operator for the state party), but he didn’t suffer for it at all.  His landslide re-election victory looks good on paper, but it comes from a state where a Democratic candidate has huge built-in advantages against non-existent competition.  Richardson has charisma and can gladhand with the best of them, but he has never really been tested, despite having stood for election many, many times.

Anyway, not to get overly serious about this, but there’s a lesson here: it’s a mistake to mindlessly copy the other side’s successes. We haven’t been able to copy Rush Limbaugh, and they haven’t been able to copy Kos or Jon Stewart. Sometimes it’s best to understand that and move on. ~Kevin Drum

Quite.  Hugh Hewitt and Joel Surnow, meet Al Franken.  Isn’t Hewitt from Colorado?  Maybe he can run for Senate, too.  There’s an open seat in ’08, and he can’t possibly make more of a fool of himself campaigning than he has on his blog for the last month and a half.

Why have the big lefty blogs evolved into online “communities” that sponsor political activism that actually has a remote chance of influencing elections?  Because the people on the left are very big into a) political activism and b) collective expressions of that political activism.  They also tend to be generally outraged about the state of the world, which lends itself to blogging, while there is nothing more uninteresting than Hewittian, “Gee, I sure do support the President a lot” posts and the old chestnuts of “why aren’t they reporting the good news from Iraq?” 

Republican bloggers, even those who are technically political activists, are very much party men who exist to reproduce the party line, but in a way designed to limit and reduce the electoral reach of the GOP.  That does not mean that they will always reflexively support everything any Republican pol does, but that they take their lead from some part of the party leadership, usually the President, and then act as enforcers.  There really has not been that much of a strong online Republican presence before the Bush Era (that Hewitt now tries to imitate MoveOn is as sad as it is telling about how far behind the GOP is in competing in this arena), so we don’t quite know whether they could adjust and become a more effective force for mobilising grassroots conservatives–most signs point to no.  Conservative talk radio is rather different, since many of these hosts actually will challenge the GOP on immigration and other failures, but there are some litmus test questions (such as Iraq) that will brook little dissent here as well. 

Consider that the big example of Hewittian activism today is an attempt to enforce party discipline against wayward backbenchers over a…non-binding resolution.  This is not really grassroots activism, but the use of a megaphone to try to whip the Republican caucus in the media.  It is furthermore the ego trip of some big name bloggers and pundits who want to display their servile attachment to the President.  What is different between Kos and Hewitt?  Kos actually wants to win elections and the Kossacks spend a fair amount of time thinking, however poorly, about how to do that.  They haven’t had that many successes, obviously, but they actually want to expand the reach of the Democratic Party rather than retreat into the bunker with the last five true believers.  Will the Kossacks become a pathetic White House-defending gang should the Dems win in ’08?  You better believe it.  Nonetheless, the model of their blogs will continue to make them politically relevant in a way that the celebrity-blogging on the right never can be.

During that time, the American secretary of state — quoted above — has not been alone in expressing surprise. With varying degrees of shock, commentators and politicians have speculated about the significance of Putin’s “new” language, wondering whether it means Russia’s road to democracy has reached a fork, whether Putin was really speaking to his domestic audience or whether the speech heralded some kind of policy change. ~Anne Applebaum

The quote from Secretary Rice at the start of Ms. Applebaum’s column is actually rather worrisome.  If she isn’t simply coming up with a polite public statement to conceal Washington’s agitation, it suggests that she has literally no idea how the Russian government or people view American policies.  That is a fairly horrifying thought.  Even by the standards of this gang of jokers, it would be a new low of incompetence and ignorance.  It would be one thing if she and others in the administration knew how badly they were angering Russia with their policy decisions, but chose to ignore it for ideological or other reasons, but for them to actually notknow fills me with dread. 

This would that mean that she, an old Soviet policy expert who speaks fluent Russian, understands less about the current state of the country she has spent most of her life studying than she does about the Near East (about which she seems to know virtually nothing).  More frightening in its way, she seems not to understand Moscow as well as a random amateur foreign policy enthusiast such as myself does.  This really is not boasting on my part–it is a statement of how miserable the Secretary of State must be at her job.  I don’t pretend to know all that much about Russia (and my spoken Russian is virtually non-existent), but it hardly takes an international relations Ph.D. (or even an IR major!) to recognise where Putin’s frustrations with American intrusions into Moscow’s sphere of influence are coming from.  No wonder Condi Rice is Krauthammer’s preferred presidential candidate–they share an obliviousness about the rest of the world that is matched only by their presumption to rule it.

Ms. Applebaum has hit on a strange part of the relationship with Moscow: the phoney front of goodwill and enthusiasm for Russian democracy together the ridiculous expressions of friendship for the Russian President.  When an American President nicknames the Russian President “Pootie-Poot” (no, I’m not making that up) and oversees the expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia and prepares to deploy a missile shield to former Warsaw Pact nations (in violation of past promises), what is the Russian to make of this?  Does he say, “Well, it might appear on the surface that Mr. Bush is trying to threaten and contain Russia, but I know–because of the endearing nickname that he has given me–that all is well and the Americans mean no harm”?  No, the Russian says, “The American is trying to play me for a fool, while he continually provokes us with intrusions and meddling that no self-respecting nation would tolerate.”  He responds accordingly and, as a Russian nationalist and patriot with an authoritarian style, sets about trying to counter what he can only regard as threats to his country’s influence in its immediate neighbourhood. 

Imagine, if you will, how we would respond if the Russians were meddling in, say, Nicaragua or Cuba or even some tiny island like, oh, let’s say Grenada.  We just might find this to be an intrusion into our part of the world and an attempt to project power in a way detrimental to our interests!  Now imagine if the Russians committed to a mutual defense pact with Mexico, and ask yourself whether we would regard this as a rather unfriendly and unnecessary act.  Then imagine that the Russians begin installing advanced weapons systems in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with an eye towards protecting these satellites from U.S. missile attack–would you not regard these as provocative, or even outrageous, actions?  Might the President feel the need to say fairly bluntly that this is unacceptable?  If the Russians had made a habit of more or less randomly selecting target nations to bomb or invade for the last fifteen years, wouldn’t we view their encroachments into our part of the world as part of some potentially nefarious design?  For goodness’ sake, when Ahmadinejad visits Nicaragua and says various blustery, idiotic things Rick Santorum et al. believe that the Irano-Venezuelan empire is practically about to take over the southern United States, but when our Vice President goes to Lithuania and tells the Russians how to run their own country it is supposed to be considered “mild criticism” in support of “democracy.”  These are dangerous double standards that will alienate current and potential allies and help forge a broad coalition of powers against the United States.   

Secretary Rice not understanding what Putin meant in his speech is sadly an only too common phenomenon in this administration.  It is as if none of these people in the administration is able to imagine why it is that other nations might look askance on the aggressive policies that the administration officials regard as benevolent or generous behaviour.  This is the same Secretary Rice who thought it was diplomatic to tell the people of Lebanon that the destruction of their country was the “birth pangs” of a new era–very reassuring!  These are the people who think that turning an entire land into a killing field should be met with gratitude and feel annoyed that the subjects, er, liberated, joyful citizens have not kept up their end of the deal.  Unfortunately, none of this is surprising.  It is a product of a dangerous, fanatical ideology that dictates that America must dominate and be able to project power everywhere.  It will unfortunately lead to more dangers for our country and more threats to our people because our government does not know how to use its power sparingly and judiciously.

Arguably, waffling on the war is what is costly for Republicans. In June Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, cautioned other Republicans not to go wobbly. A month later he went wobbly himself. After returning from Iraq, he declared that the U.S. lacked “strategic control” of the country and called for a limited troop withdrawal to “send a message” to Iraq’s government. In November the six-term congressman watched independent voters abandon him as he lost by more than 5% to Democrat Tim Waltz. Meanwhile, in a neighboring congressional district, Rep. John Kline, another Republican facing a stiff challenge for his seat, didn’t waver. He ended winning enough support from independents to defeat FBI “whistleblower” Colleen Rowley by 16%. ~Brendan Miniter

Arguably, Brendan Miniter is an embarrassing hack.  Let us consider the case of the unlamented former Congressman from the Fighting First of Minnesota, Mr. Gutknecht.  He was rated the third-most conservative member of the House and had consistently won re-election with at least 55% of the vote in every cycle except 1996 when he got 53%.  In 2002 and 2004 he enjoyed a little Bush boost and won 61% and 60% of the vote respectively.  In 2006 something changed and he wound up losing 47-53 in a district that gave Kerry only 48% of the vote.  As a Republican incumbent, you don’t usually drop 13 points in two years as a six-term Congressman in a predominantly Republican district unless you did something to really anger your voters.  It turns out that old Gil had run up against his Contract With America pledge to serve no more than 12 years and was nonetheless running for re-election in ’06, so evidently his voters weren’t so thrilled with him breaking one of his original pledges.  Then there was also the general anti-GOP mood in the country, and antiwar sentiment in Minnesota generally is likely higher than it is elsewhere–all of this couldn’t have helped Gutknecht.  To attribute Gutknecht’s defeat to his belated shift towards disengagement from Iraq is not real political analysis, but the most opportunistic invention.  If anything, distancing himself from the President on Iraq earlier might have helped, but if it was his term limits pledge violation that brought him down his positions on Iraq would have been irrelevant.  To take other examples where positions on the war didn’t help even the most principled antiwar Republicans: Hostettler and Leach were both against the war from the beginning, which should have made them immune to antiwar resentments, but they nonetheless suffered from the general anti-GOP backlash in their home states.

Miniter’s citation of Rep. Kline‘s victory is similarly misleading, since it suggests that Kline’s large margin of victory had something to do with his position on Iraq.  Kline had made no term limits pledge and had only been serving since 2002 in any case, so he was suffering no backlash from his core supporters.  He had consistently won 53-57% of the vote against a DFL candidate pulling 40-42%, which reflected the strengthening of the Republican character of the district after reapportionment.  This is a district that has been, with the exception of the interruption of the Clinton years, reliably Republican going back to the days of FDR.  It would take monumental blunders for a Republican incumbent to lose in this district.  It is doubtful that Kline’s supposed steadfastness on Iraq was what secured his re-election–it was gerrymandering that won him this race. 

I might as well cite Steve Pearce’s re-election in New Mexico’s heavily Republican Second as proof that the Iraq war is wildly popular and the administration is beloved by one and all.  That would make as much sense.  And Miniter gets paid to write this stuff?

In a democracy, power is useless unless you can use it… ~Phil Gramm

In a monarchy or a republic, too.  Why isn’t Phil running again?  With writing like this, he’d really win over the crowds.

I don’t know how important it is, but thanks to a new feature on Alexa you can see the traffic ranking of websites in different countries if they are in the top million.  (Eunomia has, alas, fallen on hard times and doesn’t currently qualify for this new feature.)

The Japanese, for instance, love Steve Sailer out of all proportion to the amount of time he spends on anything related specifically to Japan.  Curiously, Chronicles‘ website is much more popular in Georgia than here, which is slightly odd, since I don’t know of much in the magazine that has pertained directly to Georgia.  But I knew that ordinary Georgians had to be decent folks.  Hurrah for Sakartvelos!  In spite of your language’s baffling internal conjugation rules, I salute you!  Perhaps a little less inexplicably, American Conservative‘s website is relatively beloved in Bulgaria and Switzerland.  I guess the Swiss-Taki connection makes sense, but Bulgaria?  Regardless, they are all most welcome.