The St. Petersburg Times reports that, as the GOP contest moves on from open primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina to more significant states like Florida where Republicans actually decide the winner of the Republican primary, the form of the decisive battle is taking shape.

It’s Mitt Romney vs. John McCain in the final stretch of Florida’s crucial Republican primary.

A new St. Petersburg Times poll shows the former Massachusetts governor and Arizona senator neck and neck among Florida Republicans, while Rudy Giuliani’s Florida-or-bust strategy has been a bust.

Neocon Michael Medved pulled out all the casuistical stops yesterday in a shameless attempt to defend Senator John McCain. Evidently moving over to the conservative side has not cured Michael of the liberal habit of employing highly selective evidence to make a preposterous case.

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter summed up McCain’s candidacy far more accurately and succinctly: “John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth.”

David Brooks (the New York Times’ resident ersatz-conservative) thinks that the Conservative Movement’s definition of a conservative is too narrow, and ought to be enlarged to include not only himself but also Senator John McCain.

McCain is the MSM’s current anointed front-runner on the basis of having come in in first in primaries open to non-Republican voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina. I think myself all those primaries really did establish the fact that John McCain is, by a small margin at the present time, the favorite Republican candidate of non-Republicans.

When I contemplate John McCain’s candidacy and his political record, I feel obliged to agree that McCain deserves to be the presidential candidate of a major party, just not of the Republican Party.

What John McCain really is is a pre-McGovern era, non-urban patriotic democrat. McCain has been a reliable democrat vote in the Senate on every major issue, except for taxes (sometimes) and defense issues. He is not in the least conservative on restraining government, limiting regulation, or defending the rights of the individual outside the sphere of rights supported by the community of fashion. He is the sort of person who would sit comfortably in the Council of Foreign Relations, and who could be trusted to be largely guided by the perspectives of the editorial pages of the Post and the Times.

He differs from other democrats only with respect to a Scoop Jackson-like enthusiasm for defense funding and propensity to take the side of the US rather than that of any available foreign adversary in conflicts overseas.

Dave Brooks thinks McCain is a potentially winning presidential candidate.

If so, I’d say the party he really belongs in, the party of statism, establishmentarianism, and intellectual conformity, ought to be nominating him. He should not be trying to run as a Republican.

Of course, it’s the press that has manufactured a great deal of drama which wasn’t really there, in Iowa and New Hampshire. Lady Macbeth has again found her voice (1:01 video) and is back on step toward her virtually inevitable coronation in Denver.

Huffington Post:

Hillary Clinton has eked out a crucial win in New Hampshire, a state her aides have long staked out as the “firewall” in her quest for the Democratic nomination. At roughly three points, the margin of victory is far smaller than her lead in state polls over the past 11 months, which often topped 20 points. But Clinton’s success will surely help stabilize her presidential campaign, which was rocked by infighting since her loss in Iowa. Rumors of a major staff shakeup had percolated for days: Campaign Co-Chair Terry McAuliffe already annouced that the campaign would “bring in more people to help,” while James Carville and Paul Begala spent the primary day denying rumors they were taking over. On Tuesday afternoon, a Democratic source told The Nation that Team Hillary was still debating whether to hand the reins over to Steve Richetti, who served as President Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff – the strategic post that Karl Rove made famous.

Yet Clinton cleared away the doubts and struck an inspiring note in her victory speech, telling New Hampshire voters, “I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice. I felt like we all spoke from our hearts and I am so gratified that you responded!” She was met with roaring applause. Clinton likened the narrow victory to her husband’s famous “comeback” in 1992, when he battled back to a surprising second place finish in New Hampshire. Then she offered a much more important parallel, vowing to give America the “kind of comeback” that New Hampshire just gave her.

McCain’s victory, of course, is just an artifact of the New Hampshire open primary. He is the non-Republican’s preferred Republican candidate.

The ever-witty Mark Steyn comments on the Republican Winter of our Discontent.

Confronted by Preacher Huckabee standing astride the Iowa caucuses, smirking, “Are you feelin’ Hucky, punk?”, many of my conservative pals are inclined to respond, “Shoot me now.”

But, if that seems a little dramatic, let’s try and rustle up an alternative.

In response to the evangelical tide from the west, New Hampshire primary voters have figured, “Any old crusty, cranky, craggy coot in a storm,” and re-embraced John McCain. After all, Granite State conservatism is not known for its religious fervor: it prefers small government, low taxes, minimal regulation, the freedom to be left alone by the state. So they’re voting for a guy who opposed the Bush tax cuts, and imposed on the nation the most explicit restriction in political speech in years. Better yet, after a freezing first week of January and the snowiest December in a century, New Hampshire conservatives are goo-goo for a fellow who also believes the scariest of global-warming scenarios and all the big-government solutions necessary to avert them.

Well, OK, maybe we can rustle up an alternative to the alternative.

Rudy Giuliani’s team is betting that, after a Huck/McCain seesaw through the early states, Florida voters by Jan. 29 will be ready to unite their party behind a less-divisive figure, if by “less divisive figure” you mean a pro-abortion gun-grabbing cross-dresser. …

Where I part company with Huck’s supporters is in believing he’s any kind of solution. He’s friendlier to the teachers’ unions than any other so-called “cultural conservative” – which is why in New Hampshire he’s the first Republican to be endorsed by the NEA. His health care pitch is Attack Of The Fifty Foot Nanny, beginning with his nationwide smoking ban. This is, as Jonah Goldberg put it, compassionate conservatism on steroids – big paternalistic government that can only enervate even further “our culture.”

So, Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that’s the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

Quinn Hilyer looks at John McCain, who has been garnering endorsements in new Hampshire recently, and shudders.

As truly horrific as it would be for the liberal and unethical Mike Huckabee to win the Republican presidential nomination, many Republicans still believe it would be almost as difficult to stomach the nomination of John McCain.

Huckabee, of course, would utterly destroy the old Reagan coalition, as even his campaign chief Ed Rollins has acknowledged. Huckabee’s bizarre propensity for letting criminals return early to freedom, combined with his utter cluelessness about foreign policy, also means that he would get absolutely crushed by the Democrats in a general election contest.

But McCain’s problems are almost as great, which is why reports of a comeback by the Arizona senator have so many conservatives scratching their heads.

McCain is, and looks, more than two years older than Ronald Reagan was when Reagan was elected president, and a poll last year showed that 42 percent of respondents said they would not vote for somebody who is 72 years old. That is a far higher percentage than that of people who would not vote for a Mormon (24 percent), a woman (11 percent), or a black person (5 percent).

McCain is not a tax cutter in a party that has made tax cuts one of its most basic tenets for nearly 30 years. Not only did he vote against President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 — cuts that clearly are responsible for the booming economy of the past four-plus years — but just last week he told National Review’s Rich Lowry that he was correct not to vote for those tax cuts.

David Kurtz, at Talking Points Memo, wonders why the New York Times isn’t doing its job of serving the interests of the Left in today’s campaign politics story by finger-pointing and hyperventilating over John McCain’s failure to punish the supporter in South Carolina who referred to the Lady Macbeth of Chappaqua using a less than complimentary term.

(Incident originally linked here).

Not only did the Times’ Katharine Q. Seelye fail to punish John McCain and Republicans generally, she actually did what is even more unthinkable, and noted that the incident could actually work against Hillary.

And then, in expressing his own indignation over this completely irresponsible disclosure, Kurtz then falls into exactly the same trap himself and winds up saying the same (true) thing even more explicitly.

But we also learn from Seelye that this whole incident could really hurt Clinton because, you know, it’s a reminder of how much voters don’t like her:

Mr. McCain’s attack on CNN also serves to keep the episode involving the hostile question alive and as a reminder that many voters view Mrs. Clinton as divisive.

Sort of a polite way of saying Hillary really is a bitch.

A hat tip, and thanks for an afternoon laugh, to TPM!

John McCain: “That’s an excellent question.”

1:13 video

Hat tip to John Amato, who is shocked… shocked.

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11/16: I just noticed that I had overlooked the link to “John Amato” above. Apologies to readers, and to Mr. Amato.

John Hinderaker, at Power-Line, quotes an eloquent remonstrance from John McCain to his despicable colleagues in the Senate. He titled it: A Man Addresses the Boys.

Let us keep in the front of our minds the likely consequences of premature withdrawal from Iraq. Many of my colleagues would like to believe that, should the withdrawal amendment we are currently debating become law, it would mark the end of this long effort. They are wrong. Should the Congress force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, it would mark a new beginning, the start of a new, more dangerous, and more arduous effort to contain the forces unleashed by our disengagement.
No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism. Already, the terrorists are emboldened, excited that America is talking not about winning in Iraq, but is rather debating when we should lose.

***

Mr. President, the terrorists are in this war to win it. The question is: Are we?

***

The supporters of this amendment respond that they do not by any means intend to cede the battlefield to al Qaeda; on the contrary, their legislation would allow U.S. forces, presumably holed up in forward operating bases, to carry out targeted counterterrorism operations. But our own military commanders say that this approach will not succeed, and that moving in with search and destroy missions to kill and capture terrorists, only to immediately cede the territory to the enemy, is the failed strategy of the past three and a half years.

***

Mr. President, this fight is about Iraq but not about Iraq alone. It is greater than that and more important still, about whether America still has the political courage to fight for victory or whether we will settle for defeat, with all of the terrible things that accompany it. We cannot walk away gracefully from defeat in this war.

What a fine leader and desirable Republican presidential candidate a reliably conservative John McCain could have made!

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I don’t agree with Harold Meyerson‘s politics or his defeatist view of the situation in Iraq, but I wholeheartedly endorse his characterization of a number of Republican senators:

Anyone searching for the highest forms of invertebrate life need look no further than the floor of the U.S. Senate last week and this. These spineless specimens go by various names — Republican moderates; respected senior Republicans; Dick Lugar, John Warner, Pete Domenici, George Voinovich.

But if weak-kneed Republican bedwetters running for political cover are rightly described as invertebrate, leftist democrats who make a profession and career out of opposing their country’s cause and stabbing American troops in the back are obviously still lower on the evolutionary scale.

John McCain has been making serious movements in a rightward direction recently, speaking out against gun control, urging America to stay the course in Iraq. (You might almost think he was running for president, or something.)

This little vignette at the Murrells Inlet, South Carolina VFW Hall was downright endearing. The moonbats were wetting their beds over at Daily Kos over it: Splash1, Splash2, Splash3.

0:42 video

That Kos-linked video is being flooded with attention, and isn’t loading in a timely fashion. Here’s the same thing at an alternative link.

Here’s the complete version (on a leftwing site, but I enjoyed it anyway).

Pat Toomey, whom Bush ought to have supported in a primary against Arlen Spector, explains why John McCain’s record makes him unacceptable as Republican nominee for the presidency.

The reduction of tax rates on income and investment is a cornerstone of limited-government philosophy and a powerful driver of economic growth. When the most important pro-growth tax cuts in a generation were proposed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, Sen. McCain vigorously opposed them. While he has more recently supported the extension of the Bush tax cuts and has previously proposed requiring a supermajority vote in Congress to raise taxes, the extent of his opposition in 2001 and 2003 supersedes any potentially redeeming votes.

Sen. McCain was one of only two Republican senators to oppose the 2001 tax cuts and one of only three GOP senators to oppose the 2003 reductions. Furthermore, his reason for opposing the cuts was taken straight from the playbook of the most radical left-wing Democrats. In 2001, Sen. McCain argued, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.”

That statement is virtually indistinguishable from the class-warfare demagoguery used by Democrats like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. More importantly, it was grossly inaccurate. The Bush tax cuts lowered income taxes, and other taxes, for every American who paid them. In percentage terms, lower-income workers enjoyed the greatest savings, and today, upper-income workers pay a larger share of total income taxes than they did before the Bush tax cuts.

Sen. McCain did much more than just criticize the Bush tax cuts–he also joined leading liberal senators in offering and voting for amendments designed to undermine them. All in all, he voted on the pro-tax side of 14 such amendments in 2001 and 2003. These included an amendment he co-sponsored with Sen. Tom Daschle to limit the rate reduction in the top tax bracket to one percentage point and an amendment sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold against full repeal of the estate tax, aka the death tax. This latter vote is in keeping with Senator McCain’s 2002 vote against repealing the death tax…

Over the years, Sen. McCain has supported a number of other big-government bills, including an amendment that would authorize the government to set prices on prescription drugs under Medicare and an amendment to prohibit oil drilling in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

But of all his infringements on personal freedom, Sen. McCain’s persistent attacks on political speech are the most worrisome. The First Amendment is an important safeguard of pro-growth policies. When government strays from sound economic policies, citizens must be free to exercise their constitutional rights to petition and criticize those policies and the politicians responsible for them. The 2002 McCain-Feingold bill (or the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act), named in part for the Arizona senator who gave it life, seeks to squash political dissent by imposing grossly unconstitutional restrictions on citizen participation in political debate.

In defense of the bill’s provision severely limiting the freedom of private groups to run political TV ads, Sen. McCain argued in a Supreme Court brief, “These ads are direct, blatant attacks on the candidates. We don’t think that’s right.” He thus anointed himself the arbiter of appropriate political speech, worthy of deciphering which speech is “right” and which should be permitted in American political debate. His law constitutes the greatest modern infringement of the First Amendment right to political free speech. While bestowing significant advantages upon incumbent office holders, it has created neither a less corrupt political domain nor a more democratic one.

I would support Newt Gingrich, possibly Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson, but definitely not Giuliani or McCain.

The McCain campaign has some very professionally produced videos on its website, which are worth a look. Some of the left blogs are screaming in indignation about them.

The tribute to Reagan (and to Goldwater) is very nice indeed. Pity that John McCain is not a Reagan and Goldwater Republican after all.

Sucking up to California liberals at San Francisco’s Churchill Club, Rudolph Giuliani hurriedly jumped on the environmental bandwagon.

I do believe there’s global warming, yes,” said Giuliani, in response to reporters’ questions following his talk to the Churchill Club. “The big question has always been how much of it is happening because of natural climate changes and how much of it is happening because of human intervention.”

But “the overwhelming number of scientists now believe that there is significant human cause,” he said, adding the debate on the existence of global warming “is almost unnecessary … because we should be dealing with pollution anyway.”

Meanwhile, the ever-liberal John McCain was editorializing with Joe Lieberman in the Boston Globe:

THERE IS NOW a broad consensus in this country, and indeed in the world, that global warming is happening, that it is a serious problem, and that humans are causing it. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there is a greater than 90 percent chance that greenhouse gases released by human activities like burning oil in cars and coal in power plants are causing most of the observed global warming. This report puts the final nail in denial’s coffin about the problem of global warming.

In addition, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has identified a warming climate, and the resulting melting of sea ice, as the reason polar bears may now be threatened as a species.

Right!

Ice Storm Cancels Congressional Global Warming Hearing

A recent scientific study shows that glacier melting can vary from year to year. Surprise!

And some Indian scientists think Himalayan glaciers are not changing, and reports to the contrary have been sensationalized by a few individuals.