The Iraq Study Group report is giving Sen. John McCain a chance to show he's strong on terrorism. Responding to the report, he called for an increased troop presence in Iraq. From CNN:

"The Arizona Republican, who has said the U.S. won't win in Iraq without upping troop levels, said he disagrees with the report's assertion that troop levels can't be increased 'because we do not believe that the needed levels are available for a sustained deployment.'"

And what did McCain have to say about the report's recommendation for talks with Iran and Syria? "I don't believe that a peace conference with people who are dedicated to your extinction has much short-term gain," the senator told CNN.

Foreign policy has always been a strength for McCain, a Vietnam veteran, and the report is allowing him to showcase this strength, which is something other Republican contenders for 2008 lack (Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney).

There was a time when I announced proudly here on AOL that I would not be upset if McCain became president. I said he would be a great commander in chief because of his military service. I listed his military awards and praised his determination.

Now I am getting to a point where I am confused. Surely the guy "seems" to have strong opinions and he never fails to make a statement one way or another. But let's face it -- as of late it seems that his words don't mean anything. What he says today he doesn't mean tomorrow.

Back then I was impressed by how he defended his long time friend John Kerry when it came to the Swift Boat ads. Now, as you already know, he hired the same people for his own campaign. Well, when I heard about that a couple weeks ago I just thought: "If it works..." Today he calls Rumsfeld one of the worst secretaries of defense. He went on to say that the price of Rumsfeld's mismanagement is regrettable. Statements like that would be fine considering that I am not a huge fan of Rumsfeld myself. But he just praised him back in November and announced then that Rumsfeld is worthy of our gratitude and respect.

Surely a guy is allowed to change his opinion once a while. As I am doing right here. But I am not so sure any more if he would be a great commander in chief since I don't see a clear direction. And our military needs clear direction for them to be successful in their missions. I am confused.

Sen. John McCain, who echoed Teddy Kennedy on taxes when he ran for president in 2000, now sounds more like Jack Kemp as a 2008 candidate. "I've never voted for a tax increase in 24 years," he told me last week. "Never, ever, not under any president including President Reagan, and I will never vote for a tax increase, nor support a tax increase."

He wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts. ("If I didn't vote to make those tax cuts permanent, it would have the effect of a tax increase.") He supports radically scaling down the estate tax and does not now favor upper income increases in the Social Security tax. McCain gets tax policy advice from conservatives, including supply-side founding father Arthur Laffer. "I may have changed some of my views," the senator said in an interview. "You learn over 24 years."

One of the few decisions that John Kerry made in 2004 that was right, was when he wanted John McCain to be his running mate. Just a reversal of 100,000 in Ohio, and Kerry would no longer be the whipping boy. Losers make mistakes. The mistakes made by winners are soon forgotten.

Reading the recent blog of a fellow blogger, I read that John McCain did not believe that Republicans lost in November because of the Iraq War. I believe he is correct. It seems to me that corruption and the budget deficit caused by the war were contributing factors. However, since November, the American voter is beginning to realize how inept the administration had been in the way the war has been conducted. Americans don't like losers and the support for the war is sinking. The "cut and run" defense is no longer working.

McCain is stuck on Iraq. It is too late for him to bail out. His support for more troops is not an act of courage. Instead, it is the hope that maybe an increase in troops might turn things around. If it does, he will look like a genius and certainly will win the nomination. If losses mount and there is no end in sight by the end of 2007, McCain is in trouble.

However, it looks like John McCain is remembering what John Kerry had hoped to do. Maybe, if McCain could link Arizona and Connecticut, he could win the election no matter what happens. The east and the west would be combined. John Kennedy did that with Lyndon Johnson. McCain could pull this off. Lieberman is an "independent" who votes Republican. McCain's interpretation that Connecticut supported the war by voting for Lieberman might not be completely accurate but a McCain/Lieberman ticket is much more compatible than a Kerry (liberal)/McCain (conservative) ticket could ever be.

Over the past month, ideological perceptions of John McCain have shifted somewhat. Today, 28% of American voters view the Arizona Senator as politically conservative. That's up from 16% in December. However, that shift is not helping McCain in the GOP competition because most of the change has come from Democrats and unaffiliated voters who are now more likely to see McCain as politically conservative than moderate.

In fact, while a plurality of Democrats and unaffiliated voters see McCain as conservative, a majority of Republicans see the Senator as politically moderate.

McCain finally said what a lot of us have been saying for a long time. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as the worst Secretary of Defense ever. The article goes on to say that it was only a short time ago that McCain was saying that the country owes Rumsfeld a debt of gratitude for his past service. In other words, thanks for being here but you did a lousy job.

McCain's beef seems to be that Rumsfeld did not put enough troops into Iraq in the beginning. John must be finally reading the poll numbers. The American voter is sick of this war and they want out of it. McCain is still harping on the troop numbers. However, that wasn't the only problem. As pointed out in other articles that I have written, good use was not made of the Iraqi military. They should have been put to work immediately restoring buildings and infrastructure that has been destroyed. In fact, they should have looked at the programs used by Franklin Roosevelt to get America out of the depression.

McCain is falling fast and someday, somewhere he will be saying I could have been the president.

Senator John McCain said that the election of Joe Liebermen was proof that the electorate was not yet ready to be done with the Iraq situation and calls for 25,000 more troops:

"Of course I disagree" with the notion that last November's election was a mandate to end the Iraq deployment, McCain said heatedly in comments to reporters. Gesturing to Lieberman at his side, McCain said, "There's no way this guy could have been re-elected if it was as simple as that. Americans are frustrated and angry and that frustration and anger is justified. But when you ask most Americans should we get out right away, most of them say no."

This is a gutsy move by McCain but the right one. The media made it out that the vote was a vote about Iraq, but that was never proven and polls show that it was not the case.

McCain is the front-runner at this juncture and will continue to be unless another viable candidate steps up. Conservative hate his politics, but he would be able to draw in the Independents that voted Democrat in November.

Looking at McCain during this campaign cycle as opposed to 2000, he looks much more sure of himself and seems like he's playing hardball. His downfall last time was his inability to think on the fly and he always reverted to his talking points when questioned. It was a turnoff to Republicans. Don't expect him to make the same mistakes again.

McCain told Letterman: "The last time we were on this program, I'm sure you remember everything very clearly that we say, but you asked me if I would come back on this show if I was going to announce. ... I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States."

McCain said he would make a formal announcement in early April. He later told reporters that he would visit Iraq first and that his campaign would be about "whether I have the vision, experience and knowledge to lead the nation."

Republican presidential contender John McCain, a staunch backer of the Iraq war but critic of how President Bush has waged it, said U.S. lives had been "wasted" in the four-year-old conflict. Democrats demand the Arizona senator apologize for the comment as Sen. Barack Obama did when the Democratic White House hopeful recently made the same observation.

Just scrolling through some McCain stories and I am beginning to believe that he will not be the Republican nominee for President. I came upon an article by the conservative columnist, Robert Novak. He stated that Democratic strategists who had considered McCain almost unbeatable, were excited by the Senator's "dour appearance." The article goes on to describe McCain as comatose and rates the appearance as one of his worst ever. I don't think that Novak was ever fond of McCain.

In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment he has frequently bucked, McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections. That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.

...But now the contrast between McCain the presidential candidate and McCain the reformer can be jarring. McCain's campaign says that he is still studying whether to forgo the public financing and spending limits he has long supported, but that he will not be handicapped by restrictions his competitors will not face in 2008.

On Saturday, the same day Rudy Giuliani addressed a Republican state committee meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire, another politician worked the crowds for John McCain.

Some of the folks who heard Giuliani speak at the Palace Theater then came to the Merrimack Restaurant, where Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. praised the Arizona Republican, who won the New Hampshire primary in 2000.

In Huntsman's speech, he cited two anecdotes about McCain: an exchange between the senator and hundreds of American servicemen, and a visit to the Hanoi Hilton in the wake of 9/11.

"I saw the looks on the faces of these troops, 400 of them," Huntsman said. "He shook their hands. To me, it was a remarkable display of the human spirit."

Scott Rasmussen said this on Friday, in response to the news that his polling firm just pegged John McCain at just 11% of the GOP vote:

In retrospect, it appears that McCain was never really the dominant frontrunner that many had assumed. The early polls showing Giuliani ahead were dismissed as meaningless because "everybody knew" that Giuliani couldn't win the Republican nomination. America's Mayor has shown a lot more staying power than expected. Looking back, it now appears that McCain and Giuliani were holding their own preliminary competition for the right to face off against a more conservative challenger for the nomination. Giuliani won that round and the most likely scenario now is for GOP voters to end up with a choice between Giuliani and either Romney or Thompson.

Scott and some of the other big time analysts are finally, just now figuring this out. The clues were always there but no one is or was paying attention. My conclusion is that the Conventional Wisdom can be very dim-witted sometimes.

In another example of a politician saying things that just don't sound right, John McCain supports overturning Roe vs. Wade:

"I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned," the Arizona senator told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.

McCain also vowed that if elected, he would appoint judges who "strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States and do not legislate from the bench."

That's pure Christian Conservative red meat; anti-abortion and against activist judges. The problem is that it just doesn't fit McCain well. It sounds insincere at best. He's an authority on foreign policy, while social issues have always tripped him up. I find this doubly interesting as he has fallen behind Giuliani (as reported by NixGuy on this blog), who is smart enough to know that he can win in '08 without hard-core social conservatives. Rudy realizes that if he bent over for that not-so-significant voting bloc, he'd alienate himself from the majority of the GOP.

Most liberals and Democrats believe that the Christian-Conservatives rule the Republican party. That is a myth that has been perpetuated by leftist bloggers and the media. The largest part of the GOP, or the at least those that support President Bush, are those who see the danger of radical Islam, and the potential for major attacks on our nation and infrastructure. As the Democrats have shown over the last few days, they are not at all serious about this most pressing of issues. President Bush has gone on the offense (and suffered incredibly because of it) and the non-Christian Republicans support him for that reason.

McCain is making the conscious decision to suck-up to the Christian Right, and, as a result, looks like a panderer, something that is not going to help him in the long run. I'm not saying that he isn't against abortion, rather, he does not do well when discussing social issues, and should stick to his strong points this far out from the primaries.