Andrew Sullivan on the debate and foreign policy

Andrew Sullivan agrees that McCain won the debate. But he isn't too happy with what passes for foreign policy these days:

very little nuance, very little subtlety, almost no fresh thinking. Conservatism now means simply projecting something called "strength" rather than articulating something called strategy. On the question of thinking through the lessons of Iraq, they seemed frozen. On the question of Iran, they never seemed to include any understanding of what constraints Iraq has placed on us. Just bomb them and kill them and we'll "win". That was about as sophisticated as it got (with the modest exception of McCjavascript:void(0)
Publishain's endorsement of Petraeus). And these people seem more aware of the Islamist threat than the Democrats. That's the state of the country and those entrusted with its defense.

With regards to the Islamist threat, just substitute "are absolutely obsessed with and scared witless by" in the place of "seem more aware of" and I agree 100%.

The winners (and the loser) in the Republican debate

Unlike the Democratic debate, I think this was a debate with clear winners and losers. One winner was John McCain, who turned in a vigorous performance, got the most laughs of the night, and delivered a forceful response to questions about his age. On Iraq he did about as well as he could, given that he’s defending an escalation of the war. He managed to distance himself from Bush by criticizing the mismanagement of the war. He also stood out by slamming pork barrel spending and vowing to clean spending bill, saving special criticism for cost overruns in military bills. (My only question: who exactly is going to “follow us home” from Iraq? The Shiites? The Sunnis? Al Qaeda? I think it’s clear that even if we pull out that neither the Shiites nor the Sunni militias would tolerate an al Qaeda mini-state in Iraq.) Nonetheless, a strong performance overall from the senator from Arizona.

The other winner was Mitt Romney. He just seemed presidential. As a Massachusetts native, I’m not a huge Romney fan. He ran for governor as a pro-choice, pro-gay rights moderate, and then flip-flopped to set up his run for president. But I will say this: he certainly is competent and charismatic, and it showed on stage. He did a great job defending the Massachusetts health care plan.

The big loser was Giuliani. His defense of a woman’s right to choose stuck out like a sore thumb in the Republican field. Props to him for not completely flip-flopping like Romney, but it’s going to hurt him. His more moderate positions might be an advantage in the general election but they sure aren’t here.

As for everyone else: Ron Paul did a good job representing the paleoconservative wing of the party. Tom Tancredo managed to differentiate himself on immigration without frothing at the mouth like he usually does. (Although I’m a little disturbed by how completely he conflates American and Israeli interests. I’m all for supporting an ally, but still… ). Tommy Thompson did a decent job, but how exactly does he think he’s going to implement his partition plan for Iraq? The Iraqis don’t want it, and last time I checked we handed control of the government back to them. None of the other candidates really stood out.

Overall, the level of the debate was higher than I expected, but I don't think the party-line conservatism supported by most of the candidates stands a chance against the Democrats come 2008.

"The announcement preceding the formal announcement"

Fz over at the Great American Political Blog takes issue with John McCain's recent announcement that he is running for president:

So, apparently Senator John McCain formally announced his candidacy for president yesterday.

...

What?

If I'm not mistaken (and I read the New York Times, so I don't think I am), John McCain has been campaigning for president for a number of months now. Indeed, I was under the impression that he had announced his candidacy on the Late Show with David Letterman on February 28, almost two whole months ago.

What is this? Struggling candidates will re-announce their candidacy every few months in hopes of drawing media attention and gaining stature in the polls? Well, the former worked; I guess we'll have to wait and see about the latter.

Far be it from me to disagree with Fz, one of the smartest political thinkers I know. But if you watch the clip all the way through, you’ll notice that McCain is careful to qualify his statement, admitting: “By the way, I’ll be making a formal announcement in April…You drag this out as long as you can… you know, you don’t just have one rendition, you do it over and over.” While it’s quite funny to hear him describe his appearance as the “announcement preceding the formal announcement,” McCain is actually showing an admirable degree of honesty about the way these things work. I don’t think he is at fault here; if anyone is, it’s the news media, who allow these little games in the name of manufacturing 24 hours of news every day.

UPDATE: Fz responds here:

The media can only report what goes on; indeed, that is their job. However, DC seems to suggest that the media should take the high road and not "allow these little games." When did we lose so much faith in our electoral process that we started to think that the media should be more mature than the candidates?

My response: it's a fact of life that people respond to incentives. It's true in economics, and it's definitely true in politics. Change the incentives, change the behavior. If a hypothetical high-minded, mature candidate can work up a little buzz by announcing multiple times, what's the harm? I'd prefer we had a more substantive, issue-driven media, but we don't. This is no worse than putting on a miner's helmet/farmer's overalls/cowboy hat at a campaign photo-op. It's a little silly, but let's face it, running for president is an inherently undignified process anyway.