This is an endless a campaign of "what ifs." 

That is, a campaign prepares a strategy that presupposes a scenario which apparently will occur with 100 percent probability.  Then, when things don't quite go as planned, the campaign strategists have an alibi. Somehow, externalities undercut a supposedly thoughtful and well conceived plan.

The only problem with all this self-serving Monday morning quarter-backing?  Events with a reasonable probability were assigned zero probability, because the strategy was ineptly created. It often assumed an optimum or best case scenario. Or it sharply or entirely discounted reasonably foreseeable events.

Let's go through the what-ifs of the candidates in the wake of Florida and on the eve of Super Tuesday.

A good man has withdrawn from the campaign.

Fred Thompson, as I predicted, withdrew from the campaign after his predictably disappointing performance in South Carolina. But he has surprised me by not endorsing John McCain...yet.  

Thompson hinted days earlier that South Carolina would be conclusive for him, but it was emotionally taxing on his wife.  One thing at a time.  He may yet endorse, although in a conference call to his maxed-out donors yesterday (1/24), he said he would not.

Perhaps he is waiting to see whether McCain or Romney wins the very competitive Florida primary on Tuesday.  Indeed, the winner of that primary has a real leg up on Super Tuesday.  And for one candidate, Rudy Giuliani, it could be a life line, or the last gasp. 

A scandal is emerging in the Pentagon that may be the most strategically ominous case of official misconduct since the Clinton administration's China-gate.

It began with the firing last month of Stephen Coughlin, a major in the Army Reserves working as a civilian contractor for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he ran afoul of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England's point-man on Moslem community outreach, Hashem Islam.

Mr. Islam is an admirer of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization designated by the Justice Department as a front for the Moslem Brotherhood (Ikhwan Muslimi).

I've done perhaps 1700 surveys and focus groups.  Generally, I've maintained that published polls affect pundits, insiders, and donors - not voters.  But I've been saying for awhile that this year (the way the primaries are clustered and with the hyper-media coverage) would be different, and it is. 

What happens in each primary is affecting national numbers.  And national numbers are affecting what happens in each primary.  There is a momentum effect, and people are looking for validation.  That's why I have long predicted Rudy's collapse, and how national polling numbers would change, and even when they would change. 

Yet I find it easier, at this point, to count out winner Huckabee than no-show Rudy.  Anything is possible in this volatile environment, including a brokered convention.  So here are a few thoughts on where the main candidates are on the eve of the South Carolina primary (1/19), and where I am, and why I continue my view from last year that McCain has the inside track.

Last May, French voters elected Mr. Sarkozy as president because he had promised to restore the authority of the Republic over France's 751 no-go areas, the so-called zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS, sensitive urban areas), where 5 million people live - 8 percent of the population, almost all Moslem immigrants or their children.
 
Eight months later, the situation in the ZUS has remained as "sensitive" as before.
 
People get mugged, even murdered, in the ZUS, but the media prefer not to write about it. When large-scale rioting erupts and officers and firemen are attacked, the behavior of the thugs is condoned with references to their "poverty" and to the "racism" of the indigenous French.  
The French media never devote their attention to the bleak situation of intimidation and lawlessness in which 8 percent of the population, including many poor indigenous French, are forced to live. Moslem racism towards the "infidels" is never mentioned.
 
Xavier Raufer, a former French intelligence officer who heads the department on organized crime and terrorism at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Paris, thinks that bribes from organized crime has a lot to do with the indifference of the French establishment.

As you read these lines on January 11, 2008, our troops are in the midst of Operation Phantom Phoenix, a "mini-surge" to squeeze al Qaeda and its fast-dwindling band of allies out of their few remaining safe havens in Iraq.

Iraqi troops fight beside us against a common enemy. Vast swaths of the country enjoy a newborn peace. Commerce thrives again. At the provincial and local levels, the political progress has been remarkable.

As for Operation Phantom Phoenix, our commanders expected terrorist dead-enders to put up a fight. Instead, they ran, leaving behind only booby traps and disgust among the Iraqis they tormented far too long.

The headlines at home? "Nine American Soldiers Killed." No mention of progress or a fleeing enemy on the front pages. Just dead soldiers.   Determined to elect a Democrat president, the "mainstream" media simply won't accept our success.

As I edited this column while watching the South Carolina debate last night (1/10), I was struck by the sparse coverage of President Bush traveling abroad.   It is surreal that an American President can visit Israel and coverage is relegated beyond the first page. 

Yet if we can escape a recession, foreign policy and defense could be back in the national debate.  Regardless, we remain in a situation where results in states like Iowa and New Hampshire set in motion events that can profoundly affect Super Tuesday (2/5). 

This is such a volatile year that the unthinkable could happen:  a virtual two-way race among Democrats could end up divisively, and a multi-candidate Republican primary could end up unified.

In my last column two weeks ago, The GOP Race One Week Before Iowa, I explained why a win by Huckabee in Iowa would help assure, via downward momentum for Romney,  a McCain victory in New Hampshire. 

Further, I predicted the media spin off New Hampshire would enable McCain to pass Rudy in the national polls, and I still feel that way.  Let's quickly summarize the candidates, from the beginning to now.