Shooting reshapes the campaigns

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz seethed with disgust for Democrats, declaring the nation " needs a wartime president"

For all the heated expressions from Republicans, there emerged no real detailed consensus among them about how to destroy the Islamic State

The Republican candidates for president angrily demanded that the United States face up to a new world war, one that has breached its borders, threatened the safety of Americans and brought the menace of Islamic terrorism deep into the homeland.

With striking unanimity, they accused President Obama and his fellow Democrats of shrinking from a long-overdue assault on the Islamic State and its frighteningly effective tools of global recruitment.

Their aggression reflected the degree to which the diffuse and chaotic campaign is being reordered as the threat of terrorism moves from the capitals of foreign lands to San Bernardino, California, a working class city outside Los Angeles.

"Our nation is under siege," Gov Chris Christie of New Jersey said at a cafe in rural Iowa. "What I believe we're facing is the next world war. This is what we're in right now, already."

The rising tide of bellicosity gripped the Republican presidential field, as the initial restraint and calls for prayers that followed the shootings gave way to revelations that the massacre may have been inspired by the Islamic State.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas seethed with disgust for Democrats, declaring, "This nation needs a wartime president."

"Whether or not the current administration realises it, or is willing to acknowledge it," he added, "our enemies are at war with us."

Their language was almost apocalyptic. Jeb Bush described the looming threat of "Islamic terrorism that wants to destroy our way of life, wants to attack our freedom."

He gravely added: "They have declared war on us. And we need to declare war on them." As the Republicans spoke of the deadly shooting by a Muslim husband and wife as a clarifying moment, Democrats seemed to offer a more muddled response, torn between their instinctive desire for tighter gun regulations and the need to confront the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism without tarring the religion itself.

In Sioux City, Iowa, on Friday, Hillary Clinton spoke not of war but of the need to ferret out "those folks who are on the Internet radicalising people" and called for fighting "terrorist networks" from the air and from the ground, avoiding the phrase "Islamic terrorism" and urging sensitivity toward Muslims.

And she quickly pivoted to the issue that has consumed the Democratic side of the campaign since the massacre: the ready supply of guns in the United States. "Part of that strategy, I'm just going to say this," she said, "is to try to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on guns in our country."

That, too, was the focus of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who on Friday clamoured for expanded background checks and the closure of gun-purchasing loopholes.

Republicans showed little patience for such nuance. In Greenland, NH, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida mocked the president and the Democratic candidates.

"Forty-eight hours after this is over they're still out there talking about gun control measures," Rubio said, evoking the terror attacks in Paris three weeks ago. "As if somehow terrorists care about what our gun laws are. France has some of the strictest gun laws in the world and they have no problem acquiring an arsenal to kill people."

For all the heated expressions from Republicans, there emerged no real detailed consensus among them about how to destroy the Islamic State or stop it from inspiring future adherents in the United States.

They favoured symbolism over specific policy prescriptions. Cruz on Friday appeared at a shooting range in Johnston, Iowa, emphasising Americans' right to bear arms in these newly dangerous times.

"We need to target the bad guys," Cruz said of the San Bernardino attackers, in a room whose back wall was filled with replicas of historic guns, including a Thompson submachine gun. "But on the flip side, what keeps us safe is we are free people who have a God-given right to protect our homes and and our lives."

©2015 The New York Times News Service