by Patrick J. Buchanan

Barack Obama routed Hillary Clinton 2 to 1 in the heaviest turnout in a Democratic primary in the history of South Carolina. Such a defeat would normally be a crushing and perhaps fatal blow to a rival’s campaign. Bill and Hillary laughed it off.

Indeed, even before the voting had ended, Bill Clinton had tarnished and diminished Barack’s victory. Responding to an unrelated question, he volunteered that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice in the 1980s.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

In 2004, the voters of Arizona, by 56 percent to 44 percent, enacted Proposition 200, requiring proof of citizenship before an individual may vote or receive state benefits. Forty-six percent of Hispanics voted for Prop. 200, giving the lie to those who say Hispanics support the illegal invasion of their country.

Over 190,000 Arizonans petitioned to put Prop. 200 on the ballot. As it simply required proof of citizenship before receiving the benefits and privileges of citizenship, who could oppose it? Answer: the entire GOP congressional delegation, led by Sen. John McCain.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

“I guess this is how the West was won,” Hillary Clinton exulted at her victory rally in Las Vegas after the Democratic caucuses.

Well, not exactly, ma’am. Yet how the Clintons, by deftly playing the race and gender cards, turned back the greatest single challenge to a Clinton Restoration will be studied for a long time to come.

It began in Iowa, where Barack Obama, the first African-American crossover candidate with broad appeal to all racial and ethnic groups, was on fire in a state that was overwhelmingly white.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Since it began to give credit ratings to nations in 1917, Moody’s has rated the United States triple-A. U.S. Treasury bonds have been seen as the most secure investment on earth. When crises erupt, nervous money seeks out the world’s great safe harbor, the United States. That reputation is now in peril.

Last week, Moody’s warned that if the United States fails to rein in the soaring cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s credit rating will be down-graded within a decade.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

All politics is local, said the late House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill.

Tip was wrong. All politics is tribal – as we just rediscovered in the New Hampshire primary.

With Obama surging and Hillary reeling after a third-place finish in Iowa, it seemed all the dreams of a Clinton restoration would come crashing down on the eighth of January.

All the pollsters predicted it. All the pundits agreed. And all the anti-Clintonites, sensing this was the kill, came streaming out of their closets to mock Hillary and hail Barack, as they once hailed Bill.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

MANCHESTER, N.H. – It is the historic mission of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary to give us the establishment candidate in each party, and then the insurgent candidate. The two pairs then battle it out in South Carolina to give us the probable nominees for November.

Year 2008 looks no different, with this exception: The insurgents, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, swept the first contests and now have the momentum. And both establishments are reeling. Twenty-four hours before New Hampshire, the GOP establishment has not even settled upon a champion.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The huge Democratic turnout in the Iowa Caucuses, over twice that of the GOP, and the stampede by independents to vote in the Democratic precincts, suggests that Iowa, a swing state carried by President Bush in 2004, may be lost irretrievably to the GOP in 2008.

Why is Iowa walking away from the GOP? Why did Barack Obama win almost as many votes as all the Republicans put together?

First, Iraq. Parties that march nations into what the people come to see as unnecessary or unwinnable wars face the inevitable consequences.