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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (2160)	3/13/2007 6:04:56 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

Far too much the public doesn't know about most of the candidates, at this early stage, for any snapshot of public opinion to be definitive. Expect LOTS of volatility in the numbers before '08 gets here, lots of changes.... And, there are around THIRTEEN CANDIDATES on the GOP side now... with possibly more to come (some just lying 'doggo' in the undergrowth, waiting for the front-runners to implode and clear the way for their advance: Message 23365674

To: John Carragher who wrote (2160)	3/13/2007 6:26:41 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

EARLY WARNING by William M. Arkin: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security blog.washingtonpost.com Hagel vs. Obama: What a Dream Since I've bored my friends and family with my prediction that ex-Marine and anti-Iraq war Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NB) will be the next President of the United States, now I'll bore you. Nothing in the Senator's non-announcement yesterday dissuades me. Chuck Hagel announced yesterday that he wasn't announcing about his candidacy to be President until later this year. "In making this announcement, I believe there will still be political options open to me at a later date," Hagel said. The political junkees will say that low name recognition Hagel, the Nebraska senator without a war chest, has killed his chances. For those two very reasons, he has not. Who is the candidate with the greatest name recognition? Hillary. Who has the most money? Hillary. And yet she will not be the next president. Not be because she is Hillary, because she is a woman, because she is married to what's his name, etc., etc. I know that Hillary is about ideas, but on Iraq, the most important issue of the day, she has positioned herself in such a way that she comes off as being just a Washington operator. Her position on the war and national security is carefully constructed to match conventional centrist Democratic Washington wisdom, a position that I think doesn't appeal to most Americans. They desperately want to end the war with honor, and yet they also want a strong leader committed to protect America in the wars ahead. Hillary just seems too slick and partisan. Obama has the right position on Iraq, but he will be pilloried by the-powers-that-be for lacking the credentials to be a wartime president. His candidacy may in the end be the triumph of ideas, and he may indeed demonstrate his qualifications to be president by surviving intact through a campaign where he will have to raise vast sums and yet stay true to his ideas. Obama, in fact, is Hagel's best ally, proof that it isn't all about front-runner status and money. Rudy Giuliani has all the name recognition on the Republican side, but he ultimately will not appeal to the Republican conservative base. It is not only his liberal New Yorker positions, which he is already changing to get elected. It is also the money grubbing aspects of Giuliani's post Sept. 11 consulting and business career. Is Sept. 11, repeated over and over, enough of an idea for Americans to elect a president? The danger Giuliani faces is that he so overplays the Sept. 11 card it starts to sound like some neocon chorus hankering after more war. This is equally John McCain's problem: Mr. Independent, Mr. Honest, is indeed being both in calling for even more troops and even more war. This is a guy whose national security policy truly reflects who he is. But Americans are fatigued by war, and McCain's more war stance disqualifies him - without even getting into his issues around age and temperament. Giuliani equally needs to find the balance between strong and too strong. But starting so early and needing the Republican base, he also cements himself into the Sept. 11 chant, dangerously listing as time goes by. So time is on Chuck Hagel's side. He is the ex-Marine and he has been consistently anti-war and has talked about America's challenges and his dissatisfaction with U.S. foreign policy in intriguing ways. When the Republican front runners flame out for seeming too enthusiastic about spilling American blood, and particularly when Giuliani repeats over and over that Sept. 11 is our permanent future, people will want something else. Hagel said yesterday that America is "divided by raw political partisanship" and seeks a "national consensus of purpose." He correctly observed that America is facing "it's most divisive and difficult issue since Vietnam" in the war in Iraq and he called a war a "tragedy" that he wants to find a responsible way out of. My analysis is not an endorsement. It is my own dream that America is aching for new ideas and new politics and that it will equally reject the pre-selected choice of the absurdly partisan Democrats while turning its back on any Republican ideologue seeking the presidency on an even more extreme red vs. blue coloring. That would leave Obama and Hagel to actually go up against the conventional wisdom and the machines, a presidential campaign that is actually about ideas. By William M. Arkin \| March 13, 2007; 8:03 AM ET