Aren't the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq conducted completely off the books? How does NOT spending money you DIDN'T ALREADY HAVE count as "savings"?

I think Markos used a credit card comparison.

I read McCain's economic plan and all I got was this stupid headache.

Napolitano is well liked by the party faithful. In the four years I spent at the University of Arizona in Tucson, I never heard one bad thing said about her from the local activists.

I remember my freshman year in 2002, when she narrowly won the Governorship by a shade under one percent. Last year, she won handily with over 62 percent of the vote.

If McCain decides to stick it out in the Senate or not after his presidential candidacy finally tanks for good, I say run, Napolitano, run!

I agree that sagereader is a very great pro-candidate blogger, and I have her linked on my list of pro-Obama blogs.

But, to the best of my knowledge, she isn't a paid campaign blogger, per Election Geek's main point.

Rather, Think on These Things is more of the original pro-candidate blogs of 2003/2004 that E.G., I think, believes is lacking due to the hiring of external bloggers to officially cheer lead candidates.

That's one of my many complaints about HRC, thus, why I am not supporting her for the nomination.

For The Right's Field power rankings, I am planning on christening Mitt Romney as the front runner for the first time in the history of our blog.

Giuliani is just getting hit day after day and the McCain campaign is on life support. Rumors have it that FDT will be vying for McCain supporters as they scurry of the "Straight Talk Express" before it crashes into a mountain.

I hear this Matt Ortega guy is really good. Anybody else hear that?

Wasn't Wes Clark drafted in 2004?

Sorry, forgot to add this to the above comment:

While Mrs. Clinton declined to estimate the size of a residual American troop presence, she indicated that troops might be based north of Baghdad and in western Anbar Province.

"It would be far fewer troops," she said. "But what we can do is to almost take a line sort of north of -- between Baghdad and Kirkuk, and basically put our troops into that region, the ones that are going to remain for our antiterrorism mission, for our northern support mission, for our ability to respond to the Iranians, and to continue to provide support, if called for, for the Iraqis."

Page two of the article. She does not explicitly say that she would keep 75,000 in but her plan is said to be similar to one crafted in the Pentagon that would need 'no more than 75,000':

In the interview, she suggested that it was likely that the fighting among the Iraqis would continue for some time. In broad terms, her strategy is to abandon the American military effort to stop the sectarian violence and to focus instead on trying to prevent the strife from spreading throughout the region by shrinking and rearranging American troop deployments within Iraq.

The idea of repositioning American forces to minimize American casualties, discourage Iranian, Syrian and Turkish intervention, and forestall the Kurds' declaring independence is not a new one. It has been advocated by Dov S. Zakheim, who served as the Pentagon's comptroller under former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Mr. Zakheim has estimated that no more than 75,000 troops would be required, compared to the approximately 160,000 troops the United States will have in Iraq when the additional brigades in Mr. Bush's plan are deployed.

Deep consideration? This should effectively end her front runner status.

She's preaching 'stay the course'!

He's not going to run and people continually talking about it is getting very, very old.

What is the definition of "normal Americans"?

There's the belief that "normal Americans" are not politically active and/or simply do not follow politics a whole lot.

Therefore, the belief would hold that bloggers -- readers and writers -- are not "normal" because our consumption of political news is deeper than, say, the aforementioned average American who may just glance the headlines of the morning paper, or catch the 6 o'clock news and call it a day.

We are not seen as "normal Americans" that politicians typically aim to garner support from. Instead, we are seen as political actors within an interest group.

Adam:

Sam Watterson is a huge supporter of UNITY AUGHT EIGHT and appearing on the teevee pushing for it.

I disagree a bit, Matt.

I do believe issues matter to conservatives, but they also seek an authoritarian father-figure at the same time.

At this point, in a post-9/11 world, they are willing to let up on their stringent social issues in order to feel safe. It could be, however, a conjunction of post-2006 defeatism coupled with the need to appear not racist, bigoted or homophobic to win the White House in 2008.

Conservatives believe Giuliani is tough on security. But belief is not synonymous with fact. Truth is, Giuliani is not tough on security. He made a serious security blunder by putting the emergency command center in WTC 7. His "leadership" on 9/11 has nothing to do with stopping terrorists. He earned that moniker after the towers fell. He didn't do anything to stop terrorism.