Reforming Health Care for All Americans. Real reform will put families in the driver's seat of our health care system. The road to reform does not lead through Washington and a hugely expensive, bureaucratic, government-controlled system. John McCain will harness competition to offer more affordable insurance options for as many Americans as possible, leveraging the innovation and cost-effectiveness of our nation's firms to put an end to existing rigid, unfriendly bureaucracies. He will build a national market where insurance is more available, portable, and accessible across state lines; in which patients' rights are respected and their information under their control; and one in which people may save more in tax-exempt Health Savings Accounts. He will assist those who need help in getting private insurance.

John McCain will provide incentives for a national market - including the reimportation of pharmaceuticals - that offer greater transparency about effective patient care, options for preventative care and therapies, and prices so that competition makes it easier for families to navigate toward quality and low cost. He will demand reform to medical malpractice laws to curb abusive lawsuits that squeeze doctors, prevent innovation, and drive up the cost of health care. We need more transparency of prices and quality measures so that patients can make informed choices.

I predict that it's what all Republicans are going to be saying in the coming months, as soon as they recognize two out of three things. 1. Perfect is the enemy of good, and 2. Time's up for the standard social conservative hardline. 3. McCain gets serious bills passed in a partisan Congress.

A McCain/Giuliani ticket can only be beaten by a Clinton/Obama ticket. And if Obama sells out to Clinton, well then he'll never get any respect around here any more, and shouldn't get any from any of his devotees to 'change' no matter how misled they already are. It seems to me that Obama only works in Obamavision, but I digress.

A McCain presidency ought to be a single-termer, and I think we'd all be happiest with that. He'll have the good sense to not run again, I think. But the real news here is what a Romney failure means in light of what social conservatives aim to do in the GOP. I think it means that we break from a full press to the right on every issue to a reasonable press on the issues that matter most, National Security and the Economy. If America goes Socialist, a lot of us won't want to have our babies born here. But I kid. The clear message that Florida has sent is that they want McCain, and it really starts to change from here on out, because it wasn't even close.

Novak speaks of 'very conservative' voters in Florida, who were by the count I saw at the NYT were 27%. In SC they were 5%. So let's call these guys the Super Conservatives. Are they the base of the party? They are the *energized* base of the party, and that is primarily because Karl Rove decided to make them that and because Ann Coulter has so much airtime. But they are not the majority of Republicans and that is what I've been struggling with all these years. It is why McCain's candidacy, which in some ways I might have rather had Rudy, is very important to me.

I am rather shocked to see how Patterico has crawled deep into the Romney foxhole and is tossing bombs towards McCain, but I'm willing to categorically deal with the complaints against McCain. I think they're all red herrings but I am willing to check to see exactly how red they are.

1. Tom Ridge
Ridge has been stuck in neutral politically for a long time, but this guy has all the right credentials and brings all the right personality to the ticket. He's the former Gov. of Penna and ran Homeland Security at the outset. All concerned say if it weren't for 9/11 he would have been a top candidate for '04. I've seen him. I like him. I say he's McCain's best choice.

2. Michael Steele
Only because I've heard a rumor do I say Steele. He is my model moderate Republican and he has a real touch of class. I think of him particularly as the head of the Congress - he would do a selfless and honorable job, and he's the perfect Old School demographic. I think the GOP is looking for the right place to put him.

3. Mitt Romney
Mitt was my number one choice at the outset for the nominee, but he personally rubs me the wrong way. He's super impressive and probably the smartest candidate out there, but his advantages were canceled out by two groups of wingnuts in our party who had a jones for Ron Paul or Huckabee. Unfortunately, the wingnuts all think that the GOP is just an organ of their moral evangelism, not a party for all Americans so they spoiled things. Bringing Mitt back could put everything in place.

It's not too complicated to understand. Here are two other tidbits that didn't get into our conversation about Alaska. Her governorship, for what it's worth, puts her as the executive over 24,000 employees and a $10 Billion budget. That ain't hay.

But before I go into my other specifics, I need to link all parties concerned with the official Right Blogospheric answer(s), to the incredible amount of hatred and spew against Sarah Palin. I haven't really bothered much to get outraged because I spared myself the trouble of reading much of the degenerate nonsense. You can start and end with this post by The Anchoress.

What in the world has happened to liberal/Democrat values in the last 48 hours? It seems like the appearance of Sarah Palin on the GOP ticket has caused an immediate disintegration of all of the hard-fast rules and values that have been preached at us ‘lo these many years.

Palin was not a half hour in the ring, when a male reporter wondered, “Shouldn’t she be home raising” that Down Syndrome baby. He needed to be reminded by a female reporter that a male politician would not be asked that question, especially when there was a loving spouse in support.

Then, Alan Colmes posted (and apparently immediately took down) a piece basically questioning Sarah Palin’s instincts as a mother (does he even have children?) because she, a month before her due date, and far away from her doctor, did not immediately fall apart when she noticed some amniotic fluid leaking.

This not being her first pregnancy, Palin did what a prudent, experienced woman who knows her own body would do; she called her own doctor, kept him apprised and did not panic. She made a scheduled speech, traveled home and went to the doctor.

When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well. I detest war. It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us.

In so many ways, we need to make a clean break from the worst excesses of both political parties. For Republicans, it starts with reclaiming our good name as the party of spending restraint. Somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose. The only power of government that could stop them was the power of veto, and it was rarely used.

If that authority is entrusted to me, I will use the veto as needed, and as the Founders intended. I will veto every bill with earmarks, until the Congress stops sending bills with earmarks. I will seek a constitutionally valid line-item veto to end the practice once and for all. I will lead across-the-board reforms in the federal tax code, removing myriad corporate tax loopholes that are costly, unfair, and inconsistent with a free-market economy.

As president, I will also order a prompt and thorough review of the budgets of every federal program, department, and agency. While that top to bottom review is underway, we will institute a one-year pause in discretionary spending increases with the necessary exemption of military spending and veterans benefits. "Discretionary spending" is a term people throw around a lot in Washington, while actual discretion is seldom exercised. Instead, every program comes with a built-in assumption that it should go on forever, and its budget increase forever. My administration will change that way of thinking.

I'll hold the agencies of the federal government accountable for the money they spend. I'll make sure the public helps me, and I'll provide federal agencies with the best executive leadership that can be found in America. We're going to make every aspect of government purchases and performance transparent. Information on every step of contracts and grants will be posted on the Internet in plain and simple English. We're going to post an agency's performance evaluation as well. We're going to demand accountability. We will make sure that federal spending serves the common interests... that failed programs are not rewarded... and that discretionary spending is going where it belongs -- to essential priorities like job training, the security of our citizens, and the care of our veterans.

In my administration there will be no more subsidies for special pleaders -- no more corporate welfare -- no more throwing around billions of dollars of the people's money on pet projects, while the people themselves are struggling to afford their homes, groceries, and gas. We are going to get our priorities straight in Washington -- a clean break from years of squandered wealth and wasted chances.

Second, voters are human beings, not automatons. As always, there were perplexities in the exit polls. The economy was the top voter concern. McCain did well among economically minded voters even though Romney talks economics far more. As Tom Bevan of the invaluable RealClearPolitics site points out, Romney was the second choice of many Rudy Giuliani voters while McCain was the overwhelming second choice among the very conservative Mike Huckabee voters. These things happen because voters are not ideological robots. They vote in ways that defy ideological categorization, but make sense as character judgments.

Third, the big conservative issues did not bark, once again. Can we please stop pretending that immigration is a good issue for Republicans? The restrictionist side can’t even produce a victory for their man in a Republican primary. Rudy Giuliani promised gigantic tax cuts. Got him nowhere. Romney also promised big tax cuts. Nada. Romney hit McCain for being soft on social issues. Goose egg.

CNN has official called John McCain the winner in the Florida primary, beating out Mitt Romney and giving himself a clear shot at the nomination. At this point, I think McCain will be the Republican nominee.

This marks the likely end of the Giuliani campaign, and already there are rumors that Giuliani will drop out and endorse McCain. That seems likely. Giuliani’s whole strategy was to wait out the early contests and pick up all his momentum in Florida. It was a risky strategy, and it appears to have backfired against him. Giuliani is a great leader, and I don’t think this is the end of his political career, but he didn’t show the kind of oratorical brilliance that I’ve seen from him on several occasions.

Mitt Romney’s strong executive experience doesn’t seem to have helped him in Florida. Romney has been a stalwart conservative in this race, but ultimately I don’t think he has enough momentum out of Super Tuesday to make it all the way. He’s certainly not out of the race, but he has a great deal of ground to gain in very little time.

Republican Sen. John McCain on Wednesday provided a stout defense of his odd-couple ally, Sen. Russ Feingold, against charges made by Wisconsin Republican rivals that a Feingold national security vote was "un-American" and "cowardly."

"I've dealt with Senator Feingold for years . . . and we agreed on campaign finance reform and we have disagreed on other issues. I've never known him as cowardly," McCain said in a phone interview. "I've never characterized any of my colleagues as 'un-American.' "

Those charges were made April 15 in Madison during a debate among candidates seeking the Republican nomination and a chance to unseat Feingold, a two-term Democrat. The comments were a reference to Feingold's lone dissent in 2001 against the USA Patriot Act. That legislation expanded federal powers in the name of combating terrorist threats. Feingold argued that it went too far and eroded civil liberties.

Mr. Romney questioned Mr. McCain’s commitment to conservatism, citing a series of bipartisan bills Mr. McCain sponsored with Senate Democrats, while Mr. McCain accused the former Massachusetts governor of flip-flopping on major issues.

Mr. McCain, speaking at a shipyard in Jacksonville, swatted aside Mr. Romney’s charge that he is a “liberal Democrat” by saying: “He is consistent. He has consistently taken both sides of every major issue. He has consistently flip flopped on every major issue.”

He cited Mr. Romney’s support as governor for a regional greenhouse gas emissions control program, for a lenient policy toward illegal immigrants and for campaign finance revisions, all positions he has reversed as a presidential candidate. “People, just look at his record as governor,” Mr. McCain said. “He has been entirely consistent. He has consistently taken two sides of every major issue, sometimes more than two. So congratulations.”

Mr. McCain also went after Mr. Romney for his work as head of Bain Capital, a leveraged-buyout firm. “As head of his investment company he presided over the acquisition of companies that laid off thousands of workers.”

...and I, for one, think it's a good thing. After being given up for dead just a few months ago, John McCain is surging in the polls and turning up in the news. Liberals are trying to make something of the fact that he answered a question by a Republican partisan about "how we beat the bitch" (i.e., Ms. Hillary) without falling over in a dead faint. This, of course, can only be good for his primary prospects.

Today, McCain held his more or less weekly blogger conference call. He was his usual direct, irreverent, uncompromising self. McCain began by noting that some bloggers (e.g., Paul Mirengoff) have come on board his bus "in response to my insults," and he encouraged others to do the same. He went on to apologize for the fact that there was no blogger call last week, which he attributed to "incompetent staff...these work release programs aren't what they should be."

Then he was off and running on a tour of Iraq, Iran, the Senate, pork, health care, military procurement, judges, you name it. On every topic he was good-humored, engaging, knowledgeable, tough and conservative. I can't think offhand of anything he said I disagreed with; much of what he said was inspiring. McCain talks with the freedom of a candidate who knows that win or lose, he will go down in history as a hero. He also has complete confidence, I think, that on the big issues of our time--the threat of Islamic extremism, the need to rein in federal spending for the sake of future generations, the superiority of market solutions to government programs--he is not only right but on the side of history.

In the speech he is set to deliver to the Florida Broadcasters Association, Mr. McCain calls Cuba “a national security threat.” He calls for providing “more material assistance and moral support to the courageous human rights activists who bravely defy the regime every day,” for increasing America’s Radio and TV Marti broadcasts into Cuba and for using the Justice Department to prosecute Cuban officials who are implicated in crimes. And he calls for continuing the embargo.

Such a hard line on Cuba could appeal to the Cuban-Americans who make up a vital voting bloc in Florida, which recently moved its primary to Jan. 29, making it an early, delegate-rich prize next year. Last month Mr. McCain chose the Miami area to make a speech ardently defending the Senate’s immigration proposal, which came under fire from conservatives.

But the speech set for tomorrow addresses Latin America. In it Mr. McCain accuses Mr. Chavez of using “the cloak of electoral legitimacy to establish a one-party dictatorship in Venezuela.’’

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain envisions a "League of Democracies" as part of a more cooperative foreign policy with U.S. allies.

The Arizona senator will call for such an organization to be "the core of an international order of peace based on freedom" in a speech Tuesday at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

"We Americans must be willing to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies," McCain says, according to excerpts his campaign provided. "Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom, knowledge and resources necessary to succeed."

"To be a good leader, America must be a good ally," he adds in the speech, another in a series of policy addresses as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

“Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission,” McCain said in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute that was touted as a major policy address by his campaign. “Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering.”

DON'T LOOK NOW, but 26 months before November 2008 the race for president has already started. McCain and his potential rivals are out on the campaign trail virtually every week. They are raising money and support for federal and state candidates in the 2006 election. But they are also collecting chits, building name recognition and garnering backers for the presidential campaign to come.

"Teddy White must be turning over in his grave," says John Weaver, McCain's chief campaign strategist, referring to the late author of The Making of the President books. "I can't believe we're doing this so early."

But doing it they are. And no one more assiduously, nor with more apparent success, than McCain, who has vaulted to the front of the GOP field. Early polls indicate he gets twice as much support as any other likely Republican candidate except Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, who runs close behind. Even in liberal, blue-state strongholds such as Massachusetts, McCain runs even with or better than the two most recognizable Democratic names, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. As a former Navy pilot who was shot down over Hanoi and spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, he's got impeccable military credentials and stature, and a reputation for bipartisanship and fierce independence that appeals to a broad spectrum of voters. He's also got star power: Turn on your television most days, and you'll find McCain on one of the morning talkfests or on "Larry King Live," "Imus" or "Hannity and Colmes."

In his first direct challenge to the Democrat he expects to face in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today alleged that Sen. Hillary Clinton and Democrats fail to recognize the gathering threat posed by North Korea in voting to block a national missile defense program and by supporting an approach to Asian diplomacy that McCain believes is a proven failure. McCain scheduled a press conference late this morning in Michigan, where he is campaigning for Senate candidate Mike Bouchard, to draw a bright line between himself and Clinton on national security, according to an adviser.

In doing so, McCain tethered himself to the Bush administration's foreign policy initiatives on the Korean peninsula, which are supported by a wide range of conservatives, including realists and hawks. McCain's negotiations with the administration over detainee interrogation legislation strained his relationship with many of his foreign policy allies, including Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. Ahead of the 2006 election, an adviser said he hopes to heighten the contrasts between policies favored by Democrats and those propounded by Pres. Bush.

Today's Reading Assignment

Hugh Hewitt and the WSJ, on John McCain's refusal to embrace the conservative blogosphere, and how it may hurt his prospects for 2008.

As Hugh and Journal reporter Amy Schatz correctly point out, McCain is reluctant to engage the new media because he's very much a creation of the old media. During the 2004 GOP convention in New York City, just hours after he delivered a speech in support of President Bush, Senator McCain celebrated his birthday at Tavern on the Green. The guest list included virtually every big media "A" list type from New York and Washington. Most showed up to celebrate the senator's birthday, with smiles, hugs and laughter all around.

By currying favor with the press, McCain seems to believe that he can avoid the withering criticism leveled at most GOP presidential contenders, and cruise to the '08 nomination. Unfortunately, the Senator is living in a fool's paradise. His media stock rose only when he broke with the administration and showed his "maverick" streak. Observers will note that the press seems far less interested in McCain's support for the troop surge in Iraq, than his past criticism of administration war policies. Senator McCain apparently hasn't learned one of the cardinal rules of GOP politics: if you're a Republican and the MSM loves you, it's time to check your recent statements and voting record, because you're probably out of step with your party, and a good chunk of America (paging Senator Hagel).

And, if that weren't enough, Senator McCain's erstwhile media "allies" are about to teach him another elementary lesson. In presidential campaigns, the support (and sympathy) of the press inevitably falls with the Democrats, even if the GOP contender was a media darling in the past. Over the next year, the media will turn on the Arizona Senator with a ferocity and viciousness that will even surprise Mr. McCain. Exhibit A in this transformation process is the recent profile of Senator McCain by Todd Purdum (Mr. Dee Dee Myers) in this month's Vanity Fair. Barely 1,000 words into the article, Mr. Purdum wonders if McCain is really up to the job, or could live with himself in making the compromises often required to win the White House.

As he embarks on his second presidential campaign, a campaign he once assumed he would never get the chance to run, there are many questions for John Sidney McCain III. Can he bank the fires of temperament that routinely put him atop insiders' lists of the most difficult senators on Capitol Hill and become a unifying leader? Can he reconcile his unstinting support for the war in Iraq with his unsparing criticism of the Bush administration's execution of it—and with the electorate's evident yearning for a new approach? Would he be, at 72—more than two years older than the oldest man ever to assume the presidency, and more battered by old injuries than most men who have held it—too damned old to do the job?

But the biggest questions of all are whether, by forcing himself to become some kind of something he just isn't, John McCain can win the presidency to begin with, and would he consider himself to be worthy of the honor if he did.

The rest of Purdum's article echoes these themes, raising more doubts about McCain and his ability to win in '08. It's hardly a hit piece, but the Vanity Fair article isn't exactly the fawning coverage that the Senator has received in the past. In fact, the "profile" is nothing more than a first attempt to soften up Senator McCain for next year's campaign, highlighting his potential liabilities as a candidate.

Admittedly, some of these "faults" are trivial. Senator McCain has a temper? Well, I'm told that a certain Senator from New York has a volcanic temper, but you won't see that sort of stuff in her Vanity Fair profile. McCain--a retired Navy Captain--has a bit of a salty tongue? I've met (and covered) politicians from both parties who could make a longshoreman blush, but you won't find that in the MSM, either. In fact, you've got to wonder why McCain's vocabulary is an issue at all, until you remember McCain's meltdown in South Carolina in 2000, the same state where thousands of evangelical voters might be offended by a politician who sprinkles g--d--- into his casual conversation.

It's the first media salvo in the campaign to destroy John McCain, and it will be fascinating to see the Senator's reaction as his "friends" in the press finally turn on him. Meanwhile, as Hugh and Ms. Schatz observe, Senator McCain deliberately ignores potential allies in the conservative blogosphere, a key constituency in solidifying your support among the GOP base. It's a choice Mr. McCain makes at his own peril, and as criticism from the MSM intensifies, the Senator may wish he had built some bridges to the bloggers and the rest of the new media.