National Democratic officials are playing a dangerous game with their Florida party affiliate over that state’s determination to leapfrog the presidential nominating calendar.

In the latest round of the intense fight over Florida’s Jan. 29 primary date — a week before the Feb. 5 threshold set by the Democratic National Committee for most states to begin holding their presidential nominating contests — national Democratic leaders have demanded and obtained pledges from their major White House hopefuls to skip campaigning in Florida (although they can still raise money there).

But national Republican Party officials are not attempting to muscle their candidates out of Florida — even though, as in the Democratic Party, the state’s Republicans stand to be punished by losing delegates to the party’s 2008 national convention.

This all means that only Democrats would forgo campaigning during the coming months in an electoral vote-rich state that the party must keep fired up for the general election. Florida Democratic activists are so furious that they predict the controversy will dampen their enthusiasm come November 2008.

While Democratic leaders in kickoff states such as Iowa and New Hampshire forced the move against Florida to protect their “first in the nation” status, it seems politically dumb to slight such a crucial state simply to protect a nominating calendar that has already fallen apart.

Whether the next president is a Democrat or a Republican, it looks like the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is permanent until further notice. In the Democratic presidential debate last night, none of the top three hopefuls would commit to withdrawing all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013 (which would be the 10th anniversary of the invasion).

“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

“It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said.

“I think it's hard to project four years from now,” Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said.

Anti-war voters expecting a Democrat in the White House to get the U.S. completely out of Iraq are likely to be as disappointed as the Democratic Congress has turned out to be for them.

The big question could be answered at tonight’s first Democratic presidential debate of the fall season – Can Hillary Rodham Clinton be stopped?

Not that anyone will definitively topple the New York senator tonight, but will any of her party rivals at least try to shake loose her grip on the frontrunner mantle?

The evidence of Clinton’s potential invincibility for the nomination is mounting. National and key-state polls show her widening the gap well into the double digits, although Iowa surveys still show a tight race. The latest CNN New Hampshire survey puts Clinton 23 percentage points ahead of the field, up from a 9-point lead in July.

Clinton’s biggest vulnerability could be the doubts nagging many Democratic voters about her elect-ability, but so far her opponents for the party nomination have not directly exploited those concerns in a debate.

Tonight’s debate at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, moderated by NBC’s Tim Russert, airs live on MSNBC at 9:00 PM ET.

Sen. Evan Bayh’s timing in choosing yesterday to endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid produced speculation about his chances to be the New York Democrat’s running mate at the precise moment when she would want to see such things discussed.

The Clinton camp is now seeking to lock down an image of invincibility in the Democratic race, and provoking buzz about her potential running mates well serves that goal.

Clinton has many reasons to put Bayh at the top of her list. The Indiana Democrat is telegenic, but without the fiery charisma that might upstage her. And he is popular in a red state where he once served as governor. Bayh and Clinton are colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee and it was notable that she took him along on her trip to Iraq and Afghanistan in January, making sure to include him in the press conferences after that journey.

And it surely helps his chances with her that he opted out of his own run for the presidency.

It might be an unintended consequence, but Florida Democrats boosted Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid over the weekend by announcing they will defy national party leaders and stick with a Jan. 29 primary.

As a result, the Democratic National Committee will punish Florida for leapfrogging the calendar, refusing to seat the state’s delegation at the nominating convention. And the leading candidates agreed to boycott campaigning for Florida’s renegade primary, a move urged by party officials in early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

This boycott means that Clinton’s rivals will have no chance to undercut the New York senator’s runaway lead in Florida polls: She was ahead of the field by 29 percentage points in the latest Quinnipiac University survey released Sept. 13.

When an expected 2.5 million Democrats vote in Florida’s primary, it might be just a “beauty contest,” but it looks like Clinton will be its queen.

If Rudy Giuliani pulls this one off, perhaps he deserves to win. Speaking to the National Rifle Association today, the former New York mayor and longtime advocate of gun control is betting that he can nudge the NRA to at least look the other way as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

But GOP rival John McCain was only too happy to note in his NRA speech that in other news today a federal appeals court hears oral arguments in a 2000 lawsuit that Giuliani filed as mayor against gun makers and distributors to hold them liable for violent crimes committed with guns.

Oh, and there’s that little problem about the time that Giuliani referred to the NRA as “extremists.” Still, NRA officials are sounding conciliatory, although dismissing his chances for a full endorsement.

Any gun-control advocate running for president who can manage to nullify the NRA is a skilled politician indeed.

Jesse Jackson now says he doesn’t remember saying it, but South Carolina’s largest newspaper, The State, is standing by its story that the civil rights leader complained after a speech there that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is “acting like he's white” for not speaking out more forcefully about a racially charged schoolyard beating in Louisiana.

Even if he did say it, Jackson asserted, he was quoted out of context. Still, the episode underscores the Obama difference as a black candidate. When Jackson, who has endorsed the Illinois senator, ran his groundbreaking campaign for president in 1988 he did it as a civil rights activist and preacher who most certainly would have joined the march today in Jena, Louisiana to protest the racial turmoil there.

But Obama is trying not to run as a black leader, but rather as a worthy contender who happens to be African American. And he so far has no plans to join today’s march in Jena.

George W. Bush can say goodbye to a big chunk of the tax cuts enacted during his presidency if any of the three leading Democratic White House contenders gets elected next year with a Democratic majority in Congress. Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 a year are squarely in the Democratic crosshairs.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina would each divert at least $50 billion in tax cut rollbacks to help pay for part of the cost for their universal health coverage plans. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would use the money to help offset $80 billion in tax cuts that he proposed this week for working people, homeowners and seniors.

By the way, none of these Democrats are talking about repealing tax cuts to help pay off the national debt, despite blaming those cuts for the rising tide of red ink during the Bush years.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney hurled some of the harshest words of anyone at the health care plan that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced yesterday, even though as Massachusetts governor in 2006 he created a strikingly similar system.

Shortly after Clinton unveiled her proposals, including a requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance, Romney blasted her approach, calling it “European-style socialized medicine.” Weird stuff, considering that Romney’s reforms in Massachusetts included the individual mandate and other key elements that he dislikes in Clinton’s agenda.

Both shared the same guiding principle — to build on the existing employer-based private healthcare system instead of replacing it with a government-run system. If anything, Romney should be accusing Clinton of stealing his plan. Instead, he is so obsessed with appealing to conservatives and Clinton haters in his party primaries that he has abandoned what could have been a popular item for his resume as a party nominee trying to appeal to swing voters in a general election.

Now we know for sure that Hillary Rodham Clinton learned the main lesson from her 1994 failure to overhaul health care during the presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton: Don’t mess with the insurance industry. Which is why the New York senator and 2008 Democratic presidential contender unveiled a new health care reform agenda today that not only leaves the nation’s insurance-based system in place, but would expand the revenue potential for private industry by requiring all Americans to buy insurance.

More than a decade ago, as first lady, Clinton came up with a more revolutionary blueprint that threatened industry members of the Health Insurance Association of America, which sponsored a withering television advertising campaign featuring actors playing a married couple, “Harry and Louise,” who became famous for their complaints about Clinton’s proposals. This time around, Clinton has something that might keep Harry and Louise out of the picture.

If another unpopular president ever needs a manual for how to maintain an unpopular war, George W. Bush has written it. Titled “Surge Gambit,” it’s now proved to work well enough to sustain until the end of the Bush presidency a war in Iraq that most in Congress and across the country want to stop.

The manual’s instructions are simple: Create a manageable war within the unmanageable war. Call for a modest increase in troops. Give them a limited and achievable task. Make the debate about that — not about the entire war.

Ever since announcing the surge in January, Bush managed to distract foes from the bigger picture and keep this micro-war front and center. The war’s top general, David H. Petraeus of the Army, served the president last week in his congressional testimony, steadfastly portraying the surge as a success and giving political cover to nervous Republicans, who now seem to have all the encouragement they need to continue opposing Democratic efforts to legislate an end to the war.

The final step in the Bush manual is to begin rolling back the buildup as soon as the commanders provide some evidence to label it a success. By announcing that the extra troops will be coming home — although not detailing exactly when all of them will return — Bush can take credit for winding down the war on his watch, even though his plan would still leave the same number of troops on the ground as were there before the surge.

It is called having it both ways, presenting yourself as seeking common ground with war critics while keeping the war going exactly how you want it. And that is what Bush did last week, using his eighth televised address on the war to portray his modest troop withdrawals as an occasion for unity with his critics. “Those of us who believe success in Iraq is essential to our security, and those who believe we should bring our troops home, have been at odds,” Bush said. “Now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home.”

Having played out the surge maneuver to his advantage, Bush then added a new distraction that again roiled the war debate and unnerved his critics. He upped the ante by proposing a permanent security relationship with Iraq. Iraqi leaders “understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency,” he declared. “These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests in the region.”

For setting the agenda of the next round in the debate, there’s probably nothing so bold as proposing that the United States never leave Iraq. The clear advantage to Bush is that his move gets everyone bitterly arguing about the future — while the course of the war during his tenure strays out of focus.

The rolling distractions — first the surge and now the notion of permanency — are similar to the way a magician draws attention to one hand while his other hand carries out the trick. Force levels in Iraq will continue to stay high and the war will go on, giving Democratic leaders fits in their failing efforts to satisfy their anti-war base.

Mission Transition

Bush’s winning gambit has forced the Democrats to give up hope that enough Republicans would abandon the president this month and help override vetoes of a legislated timetable for withdrawal. Many GOP lawmakers still publicly complain about the war and Bush’s handling of it, but there are no signs that their concerns go so far as actually voting against him.

Democrats face limited options without the two-thirds majorities necessary to trump Bush. And so “mission transition” has become the new buzz phrase on Capitol Hill for Democrats trying to attract Republicans to their side. The idea is to redefine the mission in Iraq to something that would require fewer troops, rather than mandating withdrawals. This would involve reassigning the military from its combat role in Iraq’s civil war to more of a support function, while still stressing counterterrorism.

While there is a chance to draw Republicans to the mission transition model, it will probably not satisfy the legions of anti-war Americans who voted Democratic for Congress last year and expected that a change in control of the Capitol would get them what they want. Perhaps that’s why Democratic leaders are considering their own gambit in the art of distraction, preparing for 2008 by shifting focus to domestic issues such as student loans, children’s health care and energy. The head of the party’s Senate campaign team, Charles E. Schumer of New York, hinted at the shift to domestic issues last week, saying, “This election is shaping up to be about change. Not only change in Iraq, but change at home.”

If Democrats really do give up trying to legislate their own way in Iraq, it will put the finishing touches on Bush’s manual for how an unpopular war president can beat the political odds.

Three of the most remarkable words in President George W. Bush’s televised address to the nation last night appeared in the passage where he referred to a world “beyond my presidency.”

Sure, the entire passage was a news blockbuster, as it was the point where he proposed a permanent security relationship with Iraq that would outlast his term in office. But in so publicly acknowledging the obvious — that he will not be president forever — Bush turned the page to his last chapter.

With most of his original top aides now gone and so little time or political leverage left for launching new initiatives, Bush almost invited the lame duck label with those words. And in a pre-speech lunch with journalists yesterday, he reportedly displayed a keen awareness that the end of his term is near. Still, considering that he seems to be winning the fight with Congress over Iraq, this lame duck is not looking so lame.

There is so much risk in calling someone a liar that politicians are always coming up with genteel sounding alternatives. Hillary Rodham Clinton offered two crafty examples this week.

Today in an online forum on The Huffington Post the New York senator called her Democratic presidential rivals "a little inauthentic" for criticizing her campaign contributions from lobbyists since they accept money from lobbyists' employers and relatives. Clinton moved a bit closer to the L-word when questioning Iraq commander David H. Petraeus this week. She said the general’s rosy report on the troop surge required a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

That sounds mild, but it is quite damning when you think about it — and it prompted Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani to accuse Clinton of spewing “political venom.” Had Clinton outright called Petraeus a liar Giuliani’s attack would not seem so ridiculously over the top, which is why she was smart to carefully choose her words.

Now that George W. Bush seems to be around the corner on Capitol Hill to keep control of the Iraq War, he can move on to his other military target: Iran.

And while Congress dithers about Iraq, developments on the Iranian front are playing into the president’s hands. Europeans, especially the Germans, are stepping back from sanctions against Iran that might delay or prevent a U.S. bombing campaign. The British are once again playing ball by agreeing to a U.S. request to move troops to the Iraq-Iran border. And Iran is conveniently heightening tensions by ignoring State Department requests for information about an American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in March.

All this comes at a time when Democratic leaders in Congress show no interest in legislation that would tie Bush’s hands if he wants to make a move on Iran — which he will probably do before the year is out.

By carefully selecting facts to accentuate the positive as well as calling for troop reductions, Gen. David H. Petraeus gave President George W. Bush what he needed — political cover for Republicans in Congress to continue their successful blockade against Democrats trying to end the Iraq War.

Testifying in the House yesterday and in the Senate today, the top U.S. general in Iraq is winning the moment for the White House. Recommending a troop reduction that conveniently equals the 30,000 additional forces for the so-called surge should help nervous GOP lawmakers calm down their constituents.

But even with this pullback, the most likely scenario for the 2008 elections is that just about the same number of troops will be in Iraq as were in theater for last year’s midterm elections — which means that Democrats have plenty of explaining to do to anti-war constituents who thought they helped the party take control of Congress in order to make a difference in Iraq.

The timing of Osama bin Laden’s reappearance on video could not be worse for Democrats now preparing their fifth and possibly final round of voting to stop the Iraq War.

The al-Qaida leader, who takes credit for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is back on screen for the first time since the weekend before the 2004 presidential election — an event widely thought to have helped George W. Bush win a second term. In this week of 9/11 remembrances he is helping out Bush again by taunting Democrats for failing to stop the war — and allowing the White House to argue that a vote against the war would be giving in to bin Laden.

Whether or not it is intentional, the political effect of bin Laden’s rare appearances on video these past few years suggest that he and Bush have two things in common: Keeping the president in office and keeping U.S. troops in Iraq.

Fred Thompson offers a stock response that resonates with many voters when addressing complaints that he was way too slow getting into the Republican presidential race. “People treat politicians sort of like the dentist: They don’t have anything to do with them until they have to,” the former Tennessee senator says.

Still, for someone so widely considered less than energetic as a politician, Thompson’s official announcement of his candidacy last week came so late when compared with his rivals that questions about his seriousness of purpose already present his biggest challenge.

The fate of Thompson’s latecomer strategy will go a long way toward settling whether or not it made any sense for the 2008 contenders to stage the longest pre-season in presidential campaign history. If he wins the 2008 GOP nomination, perhaps Labor Day in the year before a general election could again be the sensible starting gate for primary campaigns, instead of the end point that so many political junkies suggest.

Thompson’s official launch wasn’t too shabby for a candidate being written off as too little and too late. By announcing his bid on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” the prosecutor-actor-politician upstaged his Republican foes, whose debate in New Hampshire earlier that night on cable television’s Fox News Channel drew less than half the audience that Thompson drew on NBC.

Even the debate’s moderator, Brit Hume, gave a nod to the competition by making the first question about Thompson, the only candidate who wasn’t there. Sen. John McCain of Arizona’s “maybe we’re up past his bedtime” was the put-down response that got the biggest laugh.

Thompson’s team even added a slight insult to the potential injury done to him by staying away from the debate, running his first television advertisement on Fox News just minutes before the debate started. This dodge-and-conquer strategy worked for one night, but the next few weeks will soon tell whether his splashy launch was little more than a wet firecracker.

The rationale for Thompson’s late entry is persuasive, although it could hurt his chances in early organizing states such as Iowa. His advisers, including veteran campaign guru Mary Matalin, insist there is plenty of time for him to get his message out. “This ‘too late’ talk is Washington nonsense,” she said.

Thompson aides say his star power limits any damage from his delayed launch. He is a familiar face to millions thanks to his roles in NBC’s “Law & Order” and movies such as “The Hunt for Red October.” While many voters might not know his name, Thompson’s aides predict that just recognizing his craggy face, Southern accent and down-home demeanor will earn him an interested hearing — something that many of the more established candidates are still struggling to attract.
Scratching the ‘Conservative Itch’

On style points, Thompson could quickly outshine the GOP field. His easygoing, spontaneous and accessible manner stands in contrast to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s scripted performances or former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s abrasive ways. But the Thompson camp knows that to make it all the way to the nomination he must use his friendly style to market an inspiring and substantive message on the issues.

“Fred is the scratch we need for the conservative itch,” says Matalin, who sees the rest of the field as not entirely satisfying the party’s base voters.

Thompson is soon planning to make a provocative and potentially risky play for conservatives by releasing a plan to overhaul Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The risk for a Republican on this front is that in the past Democrats have quite successfully attacked such talk as a dire threat to retirees and the poor. The Thompson team’s theory, however, is that showing the guts to talk tough about entitlements will dramatically impress conservatives, who grumble that the other leading contenders are too timid to effectively take on the Democrats on domestic issues. And it is true that few topics fire up social and economic conservatives as much as what they see as runaway spending for entitlements.

While he will also emphasize that he’s consistently to the right of front-runners Giuliani and Romney on social issues, Thompson’s advisers see his most promising approach as convincing base voters that he has the commanding stage presence and fortitude to beat the Democrats on their economic turf. They also believe that his calm, levelheaded bearing will assure voters in a time of war.

As the chaotic GOP race enters this final sprint to the first primaries and caucuses, Thompson is counting on a majority of the party’s voters to make their final choice late enough to allow him plenty of time to make his pitch. And, of course, he plans to be a bit more appealing than the dentist he joked about avoiding.

Fred Thompson’s latecomer strategy could work. Skipping tonight’s Republican presidential debate to instead announce his candidacy with comic Jay Leno on NBC’s “Tonight Show,” combined with running his first television ad during the GOP debate, the former Tennessee senator already has garnered more news media coverage than a conventional launch might have done.

Getting in so late has probably denied Thompson the opportunity to build the all-important grass-roots team that it takes to win the Iowa caucuses, but at least it gives him an excuse for losing (an excuse, by the way, that national front-runner Rudy Giuliani cannot offer for running behind in current Iowa polls). And with the compressed nominating calendar cramming so many states into the first month of next year’s voting, Thompson will have a quick opening to leverage his national fame as a Hollywood actor.

Still, Thompson has to nail the moment with Leno tonight and hit the road with high energy — or risk having this maverick launch seen as little more than a wet firecracker.

Now that Sen. John Warner has chosen not to run for re-election next year, the Virginia Republican should take up Hollywood. No actor alive today actually looks like a senator as much as Warner does.

With that wavy gray hair, courtly accent and genteel manner, Warner could be the new favorite for playing politicians now that former-senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson is planning a return to politics, as a GOP presidential candidate. And, of course, Warner knows a thing or two about Hollywood, thanks to his brief marriage to Elizabeth Taylor.

Maybe Warner could be cast as what he was in real life — a statesman who shunned the politics of personal destruction and partisan warfare. Such old school ways are sorely needed, and if Warner must no longer be a real senator, let him play one on the screen and perhaps he will continue to inspire politicians and citizens alike to get along and solve the nation’s problems.

The longest pre-season in presidential campaign history is finally over. Iowa’s caucuses are just four months away, but because of the customary no-A-politicking zones around Thanksgiving and Christmas, the candidates will really have closer to 90 days of full-scale rhetorical battle before the voting begins.

Labor Day has customarily served as the traditional kickoff of the campaign season — for general elections. This year, an earlier-than-ever schedule of primaries and caucuses makes Labor Day an obvious starting point for the final charge toward the nominations.

While the calendar is still in flux, Iowa is likely to hold its first-in-the-nation caucuses the first week of January, two weeks earlier than ever before. State officials are even struggling to resist the possible need to move the caucuses to late December as more and more states leapfrog toward Iowa’s opening position.

The unprecedented pace after Iowa gives candidates precious little time to maneuver. The bulk of delegates to the nominating conventions will be chosen within a month — mainly on Feb. 5, when there will be caucuses or primaries in about 20 states, from New York to California.

The compressed calendar makes the next four months as mind-bogglingly complicated as they are critical for the candidates, even though most have been campaigning and fundraising for nearly a year. The unusually long pre-season provides clues to what’s next, but voters have a way of surprising the experts once they actually get into the mix.

Although they face talented and well-financed opponents who are positioned to topple them, it’s clear that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York won the Democratic pre-season and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York bested the Republican field. Giving Clinton and Giuliani the pre-season nod is based on their consistent leads in national polls as well as their strong showings in early-voting states. Both have campaigned remarkably well as front-runners, demonstrating the instincts and fortitude it takes to stay on top.

It is stunning that Giuliani has so far been able to sell his party’s dominant conservatives on the notion that his other credentials should justify overlooking his moderate-to-liberal views on abortion, gay rights and other hot-button social issues. Much of his success with this strategy has been focused on relentlessly attacking Democrats — especially Clinton — as out-of-sync liberals who can’t be trusted with the nation’s budget or security.

Clinton’s jujitsu on the Iraq War is almost as remarkable as Giuliani’s co-opting of conservatives. She has deftly moved away from her early support for the war while never caving to pressure for a complete disavowal of her vote to authorize it. Despite still voicing support for keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely, Clinton appears to be suffering no meaningful backlash from the anti-war crowd. Indeed, among Iowa Democrats, who are dominated by passionate war opponents, she has even been moving up in recent polls.

Enter the Rivals

In persuading voters to consider overlooking what would be their major political weaknesses, Clinton and Giuliani effectively survived the pre-season. But that could change as voters now begin to pay much closer attention. And there are plenty of candidates who could overtake the front-runners.

Fred Thompson will present Giuliani with his first big test this week, when the former senator from Tennessee formally enters the race. But Thompson might have sapped the enthusiasm of his own supporters by waiting so long. Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts looms as Giuliani’s biggest threat if Thompson fades. Already it appears that the former mayor’s camp is prepared to accept Romney as the Iowa favorite. Giuliani skipped last month’s GOP straw poll there because he expected Romney to win — and he did, with ease. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is a good bet for most promising dark horse in the GOP race. A surprisingly strong second-place finish in Iowa’s straw poll and an affable campaign personality have kept him afloat.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina are the only Democrats truly nipping at Clinton’s heels. Among the dark horses, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is doing well. The trouble for Obama and Edwards is that they are splitting the anti-Clinton sentiment among Democrats, and they appear likely to keep doing so once the voting starts. At this juncture, Clinton could lose the nomination only if one of her closest rivals clearly eclipses the other in the coming months.

For the sake of excitement, hopefully the voters will completely scramble the field, pushing other candidates to the forefront. Iowa voters especially seem to enjoy proving the experts wrong. And they are famous for delaying their final choices until the last month before voting. If that happens again, then the candidates have only a couple of months for hard campaigning before the die is cast.