Battle for the Republican Vote in Texas

While John McCain mounts an effort to woo the conservative base in Texas, Barack Obama's reaching out to "Obamacans" - Republicans who might cross over to vote for the charismatic Democratic frontrunner.

Here's the Dallas Morning News on McCain's outreach:

John McCain was on a mission Thursday in Texas – consolidate the Republican base and frame the November election on his terms.

Far ahead of rival Mike Huckabee in delegates and the polls, Mr. McCain has taken advantage of the lack of meaningful primary competition to highlight the differences between himself and the eventual Democratic nominee.

And while he mentioned both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton by name, his sharpest criticism was aimed at the Illinois senator in what sounded like a rehearsal for the general election campaign.

"Senator Obama has, according to the National Journal, the most liberal record in the U.S. Senate," said Mr. McCain, who took his three-day Texas swing Thursday to a town hall meeting at Texas Instruments Inc.

In a twist on the current campaign narrative, the 71-year-old opened a new line of attack – accusing Mr. Obama of dwelling on the past while he is focused on the future.

Of Mr. Obama's criticism that America should never have gone to war against Iraq, Mr. McCain said: "That's history, that's the past."

"What we should be talking about is what we're going to be doing now," he told 600 workers gathered in a large manufacturing hall festooned with flags and orange Texas Instruments banners.

The Washinton Wire has the background on Obama's crossover appeal to Lone Star Republicans:

MSNBC’s Alex Johnson looks at looks at a secret weapon for Sen. Barack Obama in Texas: Republicans who say they’re going to cross over to vote for him in the Democratic primary. Obama, Johnson notes, often says in his speeches that Republicans come up to him and whisper that they are supporting him. “If the latest polling data are to be believed, those Republicans aren’t whispering in Texas, where 195 of the 228 delegates the state will send to the Democratic National Convention will be chosen in a primary and caucuses Tuesday,” Johnson writes. “As many as a tenth of the Texans voting in the Democratic contests could be Republicans, and overwhelmingly they favor Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, the polls show.” Some, he says, genuinely like Obama; some dislike Sen. Hillary Clinton so much they’ll vote for another Democrat next Tuesday just to stop her.

Also commenting on Obama’s ties to Republicans, The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne takes a look at the similarities between Obama and Ronald Reagan. Both were criticized by opposing campaigns that charged that the candidates had nothing more than oratory skills. Both faced concerns about their ability to handle foreign policy. Both endured complaints that they wouldn’t achieve bipartisanship - Obama will reveal himself as a “big, bad liberal” and Reagan as a right-wing extremist. But the electorate wanted a change in 1980 and they took a risk to achieve it. And they’re doing it again this year. “Now is the time to go for broke, to challenge not only the ruling party but also the governing ideas of the previous political era and the political coalition that allowed them to dominate public life,” Dionne writes.

Will those same Republicans now looking to Obama in the Texas primary stick with him in November, assuming he's the nominee?

Obama Republicans... today's Reagan Democrats?

Doesn't have to same ring to it.

U.S. Will Succeed in Iraq, Poll Finds

I've long noted that public opinion on Iraq is far more complicated that the standard left-wing line that Americans want to "bring the troops home."

Indeed, not only are claims of a public demand for withdrawal unsupported, a recent Pew Research poll finds that a majority of 53 percent of Americans sees the United States ultimately prevailing in the conflict. Here's some background from Hot Air:

In case you were wondering why the Democrats are running from this debate, it’s because the more public opinion shifts, the more their willingness to abandon Iraq looks less like a “realist” exit strategy than calculated defeatism. Even so, note how inelastic most of the results are despite the security gains (especially in Anbar). The microresults show impressive shifts — click the image and follow the link to see double digit swings in the “Growing Perceptions of Iraq Progress” graph — but the baseline results below are static. I wonder why.

Here's the Pew summary of results:

Public perceptions of the situation in Iraq have become significantly more positive over the past several months, even as opinions about the initial decision to use military force remain mostly negative and unchanged.

The number of Americans who say the military effort is going very or fairly well is much higher now than a year ago (48% vs. 30% in February 2007). There has been a smaller positive change in the number who believe that the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals (now 53%, up from 47% in February 2007).

The polls have been moving in the right direction since last summer, but you wouldn't know it from the journalistic coverage.

Here's the Economist's latest on McCain, for example:

The success of the surge has done almost nothing to reduce Americans' desire to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.

This meme on the "demand" for withdrawal will continue, and I'll continue to debunk it.

War Goes Glam? Angelina Jolie Rejects Iraq Retreat

Recall Daniel Drezner's recent point about celebrities and world politics:

IT IS TRUE that star activism can influence the global policy agenda. But as we’ve seen, when it comes to concrete achievements, celebrities have a spotty track record.

Not only that:

Celebrity activism rubs many policymakers and pundits the wrong way.

So, with that, what do we make of Angelina Jolie's rejection of antiwar demands for a precipitous retreat from Iraq? Jolie make the case for a long-term U.S. commitment to Iraq on humanitarian grounds:

The request is familiar to American ears: "Bring them home."

But in Iraq, where I've just met with American and Iraqi leaders, the phrase carries a different meaning. It does not refer to the departure of U.S. troops, but to the return of the millions of innocent Iraqis who have been driven out of their homes and, in many cases, out of the country.

In the six months since my previous visit to Iraq with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this humanitarian crisis has not improved. However, during the last week, the United States, UNHCR and the Iraqi government have begun to work together in new and important ways.

We still don't know exactly how many Iraqis have fled their homes, where they've all gone, or how they're managing to survive. Here is what we do know: More than 2 million people are refugees inside their own country -- without homes, jobs and, to a terrible degree, without medicine, food or clean water. Ethnic cleansing and other acts of unspeakable violence have driven them into a vast and very dangerous no-man's land. Many of the survivors huddle in mosques, in abandoned buildings with no electricity, in tents or in one-room huts made of straw and mud. Fifty-eight percent of these internally displaced people are younger than 12 years old.

An additional 2.5 million Iraqis have sought refuge outside Iraq, mainly in Syria and Jordan. But those host countries have reached their limits. Overwhelmed by the refugees they already have, these countries have essentially closed their borders until the international community provides support....

The Iraqi families I've met on my trips to the region are proud and resilient. They don't want anything from us other than the chance to return to their homes -- or, where those homes have been bombed to the ground or occupied by squatters, to build new ones and get back to their lives. One thing is certain: It will be quite a while before Iraq is ready to absorb more than 4 million refugees and displaced people. But it is not too early to start working on solutions. And last week, there were signs of progress.

In Baghdad, I spoke with Army Gen. David Petraeus about UNHCR's need for security information and protection for its staff as they re-enter Iraq, and I am pleased that he has offered that support. General Petraeus also told me he would support new efforts to address the humanitarian crisis "to the maximum extent possible" -- which leaves me hopeful that more progress can be made.

UNHCR is certainly committed to that. Last week while in Iraq, High Commissioner Antonio Guterres pledged to increase UNHCR's presence there and to work closely with the Iraqi government, both in assessing the conditions required for return and in providing humanitarian relief....

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made.

Now that's an interesting development!

While Jolie states she's "not an expert," humanitarian activism's brought her around to the longstanding expert position that a U.S. cut-and-run from the deployment would be a disaster: It's fantasy to think that "our exiting Iraq would leave us better off, when in all likelihood it would fan the flames of jihadism."

See also Anthony Cordesman, "Victory and Violence in Iraq: Reducing the "Irreducible Minimum."

Jolie and the experts start off at different points on the spectrum, but they all end up at a point of consensus on the importance of American's commitment to the Iraqi people (humanitarian and strategic).

Perhaps this will be a case of celebrity interest in world politics that works to make a difference.