America in Transition

• Immigration It’s likely that the Senate won’t be passing any immigration legislation after this move today before the ‘08 election.  This leaves the wedge issue out for discussion among the candidates, some of whom (most recently Fred Thompson), already have come out with statements.
• Rs John McCain’s campaign released this ad, highlighting his remark at the Fox News debate this weekend about Clinton’s former support for the Woodstock museum in up-state New York.  His “I was tied up at the time” comment serves multiple purposes: not only does it allow his team to use colorful tied-eyed backgrounds in the ad, but it also highlights, yet again, his service and capture during Vietnam.
• Rs Mitt Romney released a new ad today, featuring his plans to bring change and spending accountability to Washington.  Per The Caucus, the campaign says it will air in South Carolina.
• Ds The folks at DailyKos are pushing for a stronger response from the Clinton campaign and Senate office re her stance on the FISA legislation.  This as Politico’s Ben Smith reports on possible threats to Clinton’s campaign from the left.

LOS ANGELES – The sprawling coastal megapolis of Southern California continues to battle fires in its arid chaparral-filled hillsides, so for the moment the local focus is not on politics or elections but on disaster relief and providing shelter for a half million displaced residents. But Hurricane Katrina proved that a botched relief effort can have enormous repercussions on national politics and even international relations. As the President visits the disaster area tomorrow, accompanied by Governor Schwarzenegger, comparisons with Katrina will be hard to avoid. Both men are oddly in the background of the 2008 elections landscape – the unpopular Bush shunned by Republican candidates to replace him, Schwarzenegger a victim of his foreign birth. Amidst the natural tragedy, political ironies are inescapable: Schwarzenegger has a “Giuliani moment” but can’t run for higher office while President Bush, learning from Katrina, will be faulted for treating San Diego better than New Orleans.

A visitor to Los Angeles is struck by this region’s Hispanic character and complexion and, along with it, the salience of the Hispanic vote in next year’s election. Bush did well with the Hispanic voters in 2000 and 2004, but this is one part of the electorate whose sympathies next year are hard to predict. The first Hispanic candidate, Bill Richardson, has run an oddly listless race. Non-Hispanic politicians tread carefully while, behind the scenes, many are preoccupied with the immigration issue. The Internet was awash yesterday with warnings about Senator Reid’s maneuvers in the Senate on the so-called “DREAM” legislation to grant citizenship to the younger generation of foreign born (illegal) residents. Lou Dobbs, on CNN last night, was particularly strident, accusing both parties of “pandering” to the Hispanic community.

Immigration, of course, has a foreign policy dimension, as President Bush’s speech on Cuba today in Washington illustrates. A Cuban reaching Florida’s shores gets legal sanctuary, a Mexican fleeing poverty and chaos becomes an illegal immigrant in California. Austrian-born immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger, watching from the election sidelines, probably has more than a few thoughts on the subject, as he ponders the Constitutional provision that keeps him out of the race.

• Rs and Trade Romney proposes opening markets in his “Reagan Zone of Economic Freedom” plan. He suggests opening markets and helping American workers “succeed,” claiming it would be the largest free trade zone “ever.” By raising the trade issue, not only does Romney get policy points (which he may be in even more need of after this rough morning), but he would renew a dialogue about the issue in Republican circles. Democratic candidates have taken stances on NAFTA and Doha before, but broadened debate could propel this issue to the fore.
• Ds and FISA Obama and Clinton offered “conditional support” for filibustering the FISA bill, which has yet to make it through Committee. They join Dodd and Biden in their distaste for the measure, which liberal bloggers are touting as “defending the Constitution against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.”
• Rs and Immigration Mark Krikorian over at The Corner is a fan of Fred Thompson’s recently announced platform on immigration.
• Endorsing Rs Mitt Romney lost an endorsement today from Pastor Don Wilton of South Carolina today, the pretty heavy-handed state Baptist Convention President. If nothing else, the loss of Wilton’s support signals the continued hesitation on the part of social conservatives to back the candidate. Does it all come down to his Mormon faith, or is there something more political going on here?
• Ads Bill Richardson (D) released this ad yesterday, highlighting his role in negotiating the release of hostages out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1995. He has made his experience the focus of his spots in the past; this new ad drills down onto the finer points of his CV.

Yesterday’s Republican debate was another installment in their “Who’s the Best Conservative?” televised mini-series. This episode, brought to you by Fox News and the Florida Republican Party, played before an appreciative live audience in Orlando that warmly greeted the on-stage performers and loudly booed the absent villain – Hillary Clinton. She was, as Fred Thompson put it at one point, “always a good applause line (for us).”

This was the kind of audience Republicans yearn for. At one point, the boisterous group beat Mitt Romney to the punch. “Is Hillary Clinton fit to be commander in chief?” the moderator asked Romney. The transcript records:

“AUDIENCE: No!
ROMNEY: The audience — the audience is telling you the answer….”

The ex-governor of Massachusetts then digresses, his thespian’s timing a bit off, until the questioner lobs the softball once again across the plate:

“QUESTIONER: I asked you specifically is she fit to be commander in chief?”
ROMNEY:…I think you heard what they said. The answer is, absolute — anyone here want to vote for Hillary?
AUDIENCE: No!
ROMNEY: I agree with them.

This segue into foreign affairs topics came toward the end of the debate, and perhaps it was just as well. Iraq is a divisive issue among Republicans, immigration equally so. So in this red-belt section of Florida, the eight-man ensemble sparred with each other mainly on domestic policy – who cut taxes more, opposed abortion more, promoted family values better than others, who managed a business, state or city the best, who could best “fix” the health care system. When asked about his views on gay marriage, Rudy Giuliani had a chance to show off his own skillful timing. Marriage is not just a religious commitment, he said. After all, he had married 210 couples when he was Mayor of New York. Then, almost rolling his eyes, a theatrical pause:

“…They were all men and women.
(LAUGHTER)
I hope.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
GIULIANI: You got to give me a little slack here. It was New York City, you know…”

If Hillary was the number one villain for this Republican gathering, then Vladimir Putin was – among foreign leaders – a kind of understudy for the role. John McCain pronounced him “a dangerous person” and, taking a jab at President Bush, said that “…when I looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes, I saw three letters: a K, a G and a B….The first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don’t care what his objections are to it.”

(Disregard, for a moment, the fact that Czechoslovakia became two separate states – the Czech Republic and Slovakia – 15 years ago. The image of McCain — experienced, skeptical and patriotic – was probably what stuck with the audience.)

As you can see, the characters and their interaction are by now well established, and most are becoming well practiced at delivering a feisty quip, a barbed comment or a comic aside. It’s understandable that, after ten televised debates, each lasting 90 to 120 minutes, there’s no longer much news (or drama) made, but it’s excellent preparation for whomever finally becomes the Republican candidate. After all, less than a year from now, one of the players in this off-Broadway pilot will co-star in prime time TV debates with the nominee of the Democratic Party – and the results will be scrutinized like TV networks’ “sweeps week” ratings. The best sound bites will be broadcast again and again in the final days of the campaign, as millions of Americans may still be deciding who they’ll vote for. Timing – and sound bites – are everything.

On Thursday Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, while campaigning in South Carolina, announced his belief that the United Nations had been “an extraordinary failure of late,” and went on to call for a “coalition of free nations” to take its place (mult). His comments play to a distrust among some conservatives of the U.N. and international institutions in general, but also draws attention to his somewhat wanton—relatively speaking—foreign policy credentials.

These days, Romney is employing many tactics that cater to social and religious conservatives; disputing the need for a United Nations is only the most recent. Romney lags behind in polls among Republicans nationwide, although he stands in first place in South Carolina. Recently he’s won endorsements from key social and religious conservatives, including Bob Jones III, the grandson of the religious leader and former head of Bob Jones University. Romney barely edged out a victory in Saturday’s Family Research Council straw poll, in which he won a plurality among those present (at the Washington Hilton in D.C.), but received a sorry total of 99 votes online to Mike Huckabee’s 488. Romney has yet to become the darling of religious conservatives, but he certainly is trying.

On Thursday, Romney proposed that the U.S. lead a “coalition of the free nations of the world” in lieu of lending support to the United Nations, particularly to her human rights arm, the UN Human Rights Council. After his comments aired, a spokesman for the campaign clarified that the candidate was suggesting that the US pull financial support from the Council, from which the U.S., of course, already abstains (the Human Rights Council has made pointed comments about Israel in the past, and is also responsible for the review of members’ compliance with the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, among others). Whether this was an error on the campaign’s part or simply a misspeak, is to be determined.

As one might have guessed, liberal internationalist voices were furious. FP’s Passport blog had these harsh words. Bloggers at UN Dispatch are glad that other candidates, namely Democrat Bill Richardson, have the experience to counter Romney (Richardson is a former ambassador to the U.N.). What these authors do not address, however, are the possible benefits Romney’s pronouncement can have to his campaign.

His opponents, mainly Giuliani and McCain, have prominent backgrounds in foreign affairs. Voters, especially Republican primary voters, know that it was Giuliani who was New York’s mayor in September of 2001 and that McCain was once a guest at the Hanoi Hilton. Mitt Romney’s foreign policy experience does not match up. As a former governor of Massachusetts, much of his international experience comes from his time as CEO of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, and from managing the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. It’s likely that Romney’s comments were targeted to boost his appeal among conservatives, though foreign policy this election is a delicate arena. It would serve Romney to tread softly.

Amid today’s Family Research Council straw polls and conference speeches, the blogs are a bit preoccupied. Here’s a round-up what little foreign policy commentary is out there.

• From the Right Michelle Malkin discovers why Ahmadinejad visited Ground Zero last month.
• Somewhere near Center Andrew Sullivan points to Kupchan and Trubowitz’s piece in this fall’s issue of International Security. They assert that the Bush era has led to the “unraveling of the liberal internationalist compact,” of Twentieth Century U.S. foreign policy.
• From the Left Dan Drezner hits Clinton on her revised stance on economic policy and her hesitation on foreign trade agreements, which, he says, are key components of a foreign policy that would restore America’s place in the world.

Oh, and a major candidate declared that the U.N. is no longer relevant. More on that to come.

The news that Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback is withdrawing today from the race is a reminder that the phalanx of candidates on both sides is about to start thinning out. Like characters in an Agatha Christie murder mystery, both Republicans and Democrats will soon start disappearing from debate stages — slowly at first, then after the first primaries, quite rapidly. We will lose several colorful personalities who, for reasons of conviction or tactics, offered some of the more interesting policy choices and provocative comments. Regardless what you think about Ron Paul’s libertarianism or Dennis Kucinich’s social policy, both have made the campaign more interesting. (On foreign policy, their views even occasionally overlap — on Iraq, for instance, or warrantless wiretapping.) Whatever insights (or entertainment) these “second tier” candidates offer, they will be pressured to drop out early in the primary season if they can’t poll above single digits.

Sam Brownback’s problem was not that he was too colorful, but less so. His views on social policy were not far from Romney’s and his views on terrorism similar to Giuliani’s. If you enter the race without national name recognition or deep pockets, you have to cause a stir with your policies or the way you present them. The Senator from Kansas did neither.

Now the NYT’s David Brooks wants us to help a more engaging candidate, the other “Man from Hope (Ark.),” Mike Huckabee, to step into the limelight. However, he acknowledges that Huckabee’s foreign policy thinking is “thin.” Among other faults, Huckabee promises to make the United States energy independent within eight years. Statements like this will be challenged, and could nix the chances of a candidate until now best known for his weight loss. It’s a tough reality, but it doesn’t take much now for a candidate to get voted off the island and onto Brownback Mountain.

Way back when, campaigns started around the winter before Election Day. Now, still over a year prior to the 2008 contest, I’m wondering where to begin discussion; there’s so much to catch up on. For now, let’s stick to some points of interest from this week.

Ivory Tower American Interest launches a series among top public intellectuals on foreign affairs in the 2008 election. Barry Posen starts off the exchange, with comments from heavyweights like Fukuyama, Ferguson, Joffe, and Ikenberry following. This first debate, at least, seems to commence a worthwhile academic dialogue on post-November ’08 foreign policy. A must-read, indeed.

In the Journals John McCain and Hillary Clinton are the latest contributors to the Foreign Affairs Election ’08 segment. CFR.org puts their pieces in context. Clinton and McCain’s essays, like those of the other candidates’, prove adequate in conveying worldviews and issues of interest.

Rs Kathryn Jean Lopez contemplates John McCain’s call to serve at National Review Online. Kate O’Brien thinks he might be a better option than Giuliani. Is the conservative commentariat coming around on McCain?

Ds Bloggers on the left are happy that Chris Dodd announced he would place a hold on the Senate FISA legislation, though as the Washington Post notes, the bill has yet to come to the Senate floor and is still in mark-up. According to Dodd, the bill would grant immunity to telecommunications companies who cooperated with the president’s terrorist surveillance program. Dodd has fared poorly in recent polls and the move is seen as a means of courting, among others, liberal bloggers.

Congress has not been very surefooted of late when it comes to declaring foreign policy by means of Congressional Resolution. The latest example comes in the form of H. Res. 106, passed last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which condemns the Ottoman Empire’s murderous behavior in 1915, when the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia was nearly extinguished.

After several days of repercussions that included Turkey recalling its ambassador and threatening to end bilateral military cooperation with the United States, there were signs today that the Democratic leadership in the House was planning to quietly shelve the resolution so it would not get voted on in the full House.

Now the U.S. is now in the baleful position of having worsened relations with Turkey without even getting points for principled action.

From the standpoint of current U.S. foreign policy, the timing of this whole affair could not have been worse. The Republic of Turkey is a key U.S. ally and partner. Ankara’s cooperation and support are crucial to U.S. military activities in Iraq. Turkey represents a modern country with an Islamic majority that endorses the separation of mosque and state. Add to this the extremely sensitive situation on Turkey’s border with Iraq, Turkey’s restive attitude toward the Kurdish semi-state developing in northern Iraq, and the latest vote today by the Turkish parliament to authorize military incursions across the border to attack suspected PKK enclaves, and one is left with a sinking feeling about what may happen next.

This is not to say that Turkey should be allowed to deny the actions of the Ottoman Turks ninety years ago. But there are better ways – and much better timing – to achieve atonement and reconciliation.

It would also help if congressional resolutions were more consistent, and less politically expedient. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- CA) must have thought at first it would be easy to support this measure because her party is not in the White House and would not have to bear the consequences – at least not yet – for worsening US-Turkish relations. She appears now to be reconsidering.

For better or worse, when Democrats or Republicans control both the Executive Branch and Congress, Congress passes very few resolutions that are considered offensive to key allies. When power is divided in Washington, Congressional forays into foreign policy don’t have the same consequences and it becomes easier to stand on “principle.”

Perhaps more important, the temptation is great, during election seasons, to solicit votes by actions that appeal to ethnic voters. California, home to the largest part of America’s Armenian diaspora, will be key to the outcome of the 2008 elections. Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan – other sites of more recent genocides – are less present in America’s immigrant/ethnic communities, or we might see more resolutions in this election season on their behalf.

As Congress recalculates its interest in this issue, it might also keep in mind its October 2002 Resolution supporting the Iraq war, which seems so hasty in light of subsequent events. When the U.S. moved ahead and invaded Iraq, the Turkish parliament opposed its own government and refused to authorize use of Turkish airspace for the U.S.-led invasion. Maybe Congress would do well to listen occasionally to its counterparts in Ankara.

The stunning news that Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize should make Americans proud – even as it upsets his political detractors and worries Democrats running for the White House. After all, it’s a prestigious recognition that the United States helped to lead the international debate on climate change, something that was easily forgotten in the acrimony over the US stance on the Kyoto Protocol. It’s also a kind of personal vindication – the kind Americans love – where the guy who’s had a tough break picks himself up and comes out a winner. Whatever F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about no “second acts” in American lives, we relish those exceptions, whether it’s Richard Nixon in ’68, or Albert Gore forty years later. Who remembers “Sore Loserman” now? An Oscar, an Emmy, and now a Nobel!

It perhaps should be no surprise that the guy who was in charge, during the Clinton years, of “government re-invention,” turned out to be pretty good at re-inventing himself. He’s more at home in Silicon Valley than any of the Republican candidates, the putative backers of entrepreneurs. Having been out of politics since 2001, Gore has no votes on Iraq that he must defend. So, with his name recognition, and benefiting from Republican miscues, Gore would be a remarkably strong candidate, blessed even by the Swedish academy. Even our mammoth energy conglomerates would probably like him, since they are all deeply into re-inventing themselves as purveyors of alternative energy products (and the government subsidies they earn).

So why won’t Gore run? Almost certainly, the answer lies once again in the frosty, symbiotic relationship between Gore and the Clintons, dredged up once again in a new book by Sally Bedell. If one believes only half of what has been written over the past ten years or so, Gore took umbrage at Hillary’s initiatives as First Lady, Bill resented Al’s go-it-alone attitude during the 2000 campaign, and Al chaffed at the Clintons’ fund-raising successes on behalf of Hillary’s first Senate race. Hillary’s current, commanding lead among Democratic candidates can only be challenged by one individual – and no one knows this better than Al, Hillary and Bill.

Less than three months remain before the first party caucuses, which gives Nobel Laureate Gore only a couple of weeks in which to reconsider – if he chooses – his demurrals. Those who want – or fear – a Gore candidacy are well aware of this and are engaged in last ditch efforts. An election, like a hanging, concentrates the mind. But if there were any doubt that foreign publics take an interest and try to influence the outcome of our quadrennial confusion, the voters in Oslo put that to rest. They held their own caucus, cast their secret vote, and announced the results of the first primary of the 2008 election. The only question is, will the winner be a candidate?