Two polls show unease over Afghanistan among American public

As President Obama continues to wrestle with what to do about sending more troops to Afghanistan, two new polls show the American public is unhappy about the choices.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows that public support for the war, now 8 years old, is at 40%, down from 44% in July. Almost seven out of 10 people who describe themselves as Republicans favor sending more troops, while 57% of Democrats oppose such an increase.

Obama and his national security team are examining the possibility of sending as many as 40,000 more American soldiers to Afghanistan. The U.S. has authorized 68,000 troops and NATO 40,000 more.

By 65% to 28%, American voters are willing to use American soldiers to fight terrorism threats from groups in Afghanistan, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of 2,630 U.S. voters released today.

By 49% to 38%, voters said they do not...

Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two

On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.

Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.

Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.

In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.

His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.

His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.

Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."

Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.

The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.

Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...

Breaking News: Romney quits; McCain now likely GOP nominee

Facing the political reality of an almost certain nomination victory by Sen. John McCain -- and vowing to return to politics -- former Gov. Mitt Romney formally dropped out of the GOP race for president minutes ago.

Clearly, Romney had been pondering this decision for days, as reported in detail here Monday. Despite large boldfaced vows to continue the fight for months, aides say he reached a tentative conclusion with his wife Ann to quit last night, but decided to sleep on it before making it formal today.

In Washington, where he advanced his well-financed but at-the-time little-known run about 10 months ago before the same CPAC group of conservatives, the 60-year-old Romney said all the right words in a speech to....

Breaking News: Des Moines Register picks McCain, Clinton

A big, big night for John McCain, scoring two major unexpected newspaper endorsements in two varied regions.

The Des Moines Register, the most important newspaper in the first state to choose presidential nominating delegates, will endorse the senator from Arizona for the Republican nomination and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nod in Sunday's editions.

“The times call for competence," the newspaper stated."Americans want their government to work again. The times call for readiness to lead. Americans want their country to do great things again. They’ll regain trust in their government when they see a president make that happen.”

McCain, who was tied for fifth in the Register’s November Iowa poll of likely caucus-goers, was described this way in the Register editorial:

“Time after time, McCain has stuck to his beliefs in the face of opposition from other elected leaders and the public. He has criticized crop and ethanol subsidies during two presidential campaigns in Iowa. He bucked his party and president by opposing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. A year ago, in the face of growing criticism, he staunchly supported President Bush’s decision to increase troop strength in Iraq.

“McCain would enter the White House with deep knowledge of national-security and foreign-policy issues. He knows war, something we believe would make him reluctant to start one. He’s also a fierce defender of civil liberties. As a survivor of torture, he has stood resolutely against it. He pledges to start rebuilding America’s image abroad.

“The force of John McCain’s moral authority could go a long way toward restoring Americans’ trust...

Not Breaking News: Note to Top of the Ticket Readers

Attention Top of the Ticket readers (especially Ron Paul supporters):

Due to the growing popularity of the Top of the Ticket blog and its welcome and somewhat overdue inclusion into the Internet area now routinely scanned by the Web's independent search engines, there has been in the last several hours a sudden appearance of many older items from this blog on the web.

These are not re-postings, as easy as that would make our work for today. And as perfectly as that would fit into the conspiratorial suspicions of some political partisans who've left comments today. This is quite simply the discovery today by the search engines of several hundred items written over the past five months since we opened this blog dialogue on June 11.

All of the comments have been posted, albeit on items that are many weeks old. They can be accessed through the subject category words in the right-hand column of this blog. (There's even a separate subject line for Ron Paul, who is allegedly ignored so much by the media.)

We heartily welcome all of our new readers and hope you will make this unusual and eclectic political blog a regular part of your browsing day, along with this vibrant, constantly changing LATimes.com website.

There are two or three of us regularly posting political items here -- one from the East Coast and one from the West. So we span a lot of country as well as several time zones through each long blogging day. You never know what you'll find here at all hours.

Bookmark this: www.LATimes.com/TopoftheTicket

And keep on reading and leaving those comments. This is intended as a place for fans of politics written by fans of politics.

--Andrew Malcolm and Don Frederick

Ron Paul gets his late-night moment with Jay Leno

Well, the tension is mounting today as the world waits to see what scripted joke Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will drop tonight during his negotiated dialogue with Jay Leno.

Paul, whose political passion can come across as strident and pushy on the TV debates, is not known for his comebacks, one-liners, quips or even smiles, although he's got a big grin on his website.

As we've noted before here and here and here, NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" has become a required stop for candidates to show a more human side to potential American voters when the kids are tucked in and the adults are preparing for bed and have fewer distractions, though it's actually taped late afternoon California time.

Already this year Jay has hosted John Edwards twice (Jan. 10 and June 25 with Elizabeth), Tom Vilsack (Feb. 15), whose candidacy didn't last much longer than his program segment, Joe Biden (March 22), Mitt Romney (May 2), Bill Richardson (May 11), John McCain (June 28), Barack Obama (Oct. 17), Dennis Kucinich (Sept. 24) and Fred Thompson on June 12, when he announced he might announce, and Sept. 5, when he actually announced he would announce.

Paul, a former Libertarian Party candidate for president, has, as we've noted, a range of non-traditional ideas that have placed him on the flanks of the Republican Party debates. He's a strict Constitutionalist with outspoken views against the Iraq war and American interventionism. He's suggested that the U.S. caused the 9/11 attacks by its bombing of Iraq, which drew barbs from other Republicans, mainly national GOP front-runner Rudy Giuliani.

Paul did well in numerous minor straw polls and has attracted to his political niche a fervent band of thousands of followers who patrol the sidewalks and interstate bridges with "Ron Paul 08" signs and monitor the Internet for any mention of their underdog candidate and jump in to praise or defend him. The Times' Scott Martelle recently followed two Paulites seeking some GOP delegates in the Bay Area.

In their own chat rooms Paul supporters discuss writers they don't like and advise each other on...

Mike Huckabee's long-shot last shot

The Marines are looking for a few good men. But former Gov. Mike Huckabee would settle for one -- a new national campaign finance chair.

The genial Arkansan, a Baptist minister, got a rush of publicity when he finished a surprising second to Mitt Romney in the high-profile Ames, Iowa, straw poll in July, albeit a straw poll without John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Huckabee was then invited to appear on a lot of national TV shows, where he made his conservative case and enjoyed a modest rise in some polls.

But it turns out his low-budget campaign -- Huckabee flies commercial and is often delayed like the rest of us -- was simply not organized to take advantage of the publicity bonanza, a potentially fatal flaw for what was always a long-shot bid, despite the esteemed columnist David Broder being impressed with him.

In the third quarter Huckabee reported raising barely $1 million, enough, he claims, to keep going. Never mind his party's finance leaders -- Romney with an additional $18.5 million and Giuliani with $11 million. Huckabee's total was barely 20% of what libertarian long shot Ron Paul raised through his fervent followers and niche-market on the Internet.

"I don't want some fast-talking, slick guy. I want somebody who believes in me," Huckabee says, before joking: "That's the hard part: finding somebody who believes in me."

Huckabee had some trouble recruiting staff because not everyone believed he had a chance. And he said his original finance chair had to quit for personal reasons. Huckabee blamed campaign finance laws that he says favor the wealthy and elected officials like senators who can transfer funds between campaign accounts.

And while much can still change between now and January, Huckabee's chances of the second spot on a GOP ticket might be better--a conservative Baptist southern former governor could be a felicitous balance for, say, an urban northeastern former governor or former mayor. Americans in recent history have overwhelmingly favored electing executives to the presidency, not legislators.

But Huckabee's hanging in there. He maintains he's assembled a group of 100 supporters who've each pledged to raise $100,000. And now he faces the hard part, finding a finance chair. "We've got to find somebody who is interested in moving to Little Rock and raising money," he says.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Breaking News: Ron Paul scoops in $5 million!

The fervent supporters of Ron Paul, who seem to swim the internet 24 hours a day, are always complaining about their candidate being ignored. Sometimes they even do it politely.

They'll get back to that tomorrow. But for today they'll have to shut up and revel in a singular achievement--and its growing notice in the media. They contributed more than $5 million to the Texas representative's insurgent campaign in the third quarter. $5,080,000 to be exact. A 114% increase over the second quarter, while some other prominent candidates had lower numbers.

"As these fundraising numbers show," said Kent Snyder, Paul campaign chairman, "more Americans each day are embracing Dr. Paul's message."

For weeks Paul supporters, who huddle on their own chatsites to organize Comment-writing campaigns on widespread websites, have been claiming that the 72-year-old ob-gyn was gaining strength. But all they could point to as evidence were minor straw polls. Now, they've got a not-insignificant pile of money, which serves as votes in the public mind until the actual balloting begins come January.

True, $5 million pales in comparison to the $27 million Hillary Clinton raised this past quarter or the $100 million she and Barack Obama are each expected to raise this year. But Paul's haul isn't far behind the far-more-established John Edwards' $7 million for the third quarter.

And get this: Ron Paul's $5 million is about five times what former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised last quarter, despite all his enhanced publicity springing from a second-place finish in the Ames straw poll.

Despite his good reviews--last weekend former president Bill Clinton, also from Hope, Ark. even called Huckabee the best GOP speaker--Huckabee's long-shot campaign like Edwards' may face increasing money difficulty these next three months as the elections near and financial supporters start inching--or flooding--toward the favorites' camps to protect themselves and their interests. For now, the Newsweek poll has the Arkansan statistically tied with Giuliani for third in Iowa.

Huckabee's name, however, continues to be mentioned as a nice Southern/Heartland conservative flavor to add as a vice presidential partner if the top of the GOP ticket is from the Northeast.

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani's campaign are playing press release chicken with each other today, each holding back their third-quarter numbers for the best timing for them. They're the consistent poll and fundraising leaders with Paul in the low single digits. His supporters claim the polls are biased and under-report Paul people.

But for this afternoon the attention is focused on Paul. Oh, and by the way, his low-budget campaign reported having $5.3 million cash on hand, which may even enable it to buy a TV ad in Iowa and New Hampshire. If they purchase 9,999 more, they'll equal just Romney's TV buys so far.

--Andrew Malcolm

Ron Paul and his fans celebrate

Republican presidential contender Ron Paul turned 72 today, but his devoted supporters delivered an early present Saturday, showing up in sufficient numbers to dominate two little-noticed -- and sparsely attended -- straw polls.

At a gathering of the West Alabama Republican Assembly in Tuscaloosa, Paul's people apparently were the only ones who had kept their calendars clear.  He garnered a whopping 81% of the straw poll vote (out of 266 ballots cast).  His showing at a similar contest in New Hampshire's Stafford County was only slightly less impressive: Paul won 73% of the 288 votes.  No other candidate broke into double digits in either competition.

Let's give this to Paul's backers: they're willing to put in the time on behalf of their man.

Paul now turns his attention to his home state -- a straw poll of Texas Republicans is scheduled for Sept. 1 in Fort Worth.  This presents more of a challenge for the anti-establishment candidate; participation is limited to those who were delegates to past state or national GOP conventions, which isn't exactly Paul's constituency.  Still, he's hosting a "Texas Pride" party the night before the vote, with music provided by blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan (brother of the late, legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan).

Score one for Paul on the entertainment front.

-- Don Frederick

 

Tommy Thompson drops out of GOP race

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, who said he would drop out of the Republican race for president if he didn't come in first or second in Saturday's Ames Straw Poll, finished sixth of 11 candidates. And minutes ago he made it official.

The 65-year-old former secretary of Health and Human Services said he was officially dropping out of the race. "I respect the decision of the voters," he said. Despite visiting all 99 Iowa counties, his campaign never got much traction, though he did push his colleagues to talk more about health care.

In a brief statement he said he would take some time off before returning to the private sector and his nonprofit work. Historically, the role of the Ames straw poll has been as an early spring weeding of the candidate garden, as discussed here yesterday.

Thompson's departure, which follows that of former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore last month, leaves the GOP pack at eight. It is unlikely to change the current field's dynamics that await the anticipated arrival of another Thompson (Fred) in early September. Tommy Thompson gave no indication of endorsing another Republican yet.

The Times' Michael Finnegan has the complete story on the day after the Ames straw poll here on the website and in Monday's print editions.

--Andrew Malcolm