Dick Polman's American Debate

"A little rough in the sandbox"

2008-04-24T13:32:00.006-04:00

We've moved!
The "American Debate" blog can now be found at this address:
http://go.philly.com/polman

-------

If we all weren't so focused on the slow-motion Democratic death march, we would have already spent some time this week talking about "McNasty" and debating whether reports of his "volcanic temper" would imperil his prospects for the White House.

I am referring, of course, to John McCain. You may remember the name. He's the guy currently cruising America on his "It's Time for Action Tour," while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton busy themselves with the ongoing task of pounding each other to jelly.

Obama and Clinton are on the front page every day, their perceived character flaws in full view. McCain's signature character flaw - his well-documented propensity for blowing his stack, for lashing out at colleagues and little people who cross him - did actually make it to the front page last Sunday, in one newspaper, but that little fire sputtered and died amidst the mega-focus on Pennsylvania's primary.

In a normal primary season, the story in The Washington Post would have garnered a great deal of attention. A united Democratic party would have circulated it. The cable TV chatterheads would have relentlessly flogged it. Bloggers would have feasted on the story's choicest tidbits, like the time McCain screamed at the young leader of the Arizona Young Republicans, jabbing a finger in the factotum's chest, calling him an "incompetent little (bleep)" all because the poor guy had rigged a speaking platform at the wrong height. Or the times that McCain hurled profanities at Republican colleagues in the midst of tirades. Or the time that he tried to wreck the career of a young Arizona Republican aide named Karen Johnson, all because Johnson had dared to verbally rebuke McCain during an encounter that had occurred years earlier.

The temper story was essentially vetted yesterday by Michael Gerson, now a Post columnist, who served six years as Bush's chief speechwriter. He wrote yesterday that McCain is a tad off the charts, even for Washington: "I can report that it is not common for one member to tell another '(expletive) you' - as McCain did to Sen. John Cornyn during the immigration debate."

This kind of material has surfaced before - actually, back in 1999, when he was gearing up for his first presidential campaign. At the time, many suspected the undetectable fingerprints of the rival George W. Bush campaign. (I know, it's hard to believe.) Word quickly circulated about a shouting and shoving incident between McCain and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley that took place in 1992, and there were incessant insinuations that McCain's long POW stint had rendered him dangerously imbalanced. McCain was forced to defend himself; during a GOP debate in late 1999, he spun his temper as a badge of honor ("From time to time, those of us...who stand in an independent fashion are going to break some China"), and also as an opportunity for Reaganesque self-mockery (reacting to a rival's statement by satying, "a comment like that really makes me mad"). But the temper factor was rendered moot when McCain's candidacy collapsed.

Now it's back. Indeed, it was back before The Post got around to bringing it up. Back in February, Mitt Romney's surrogates rediscovered it. One prominent Romney practitioner was Rick Santorum.

This, of course, was before Santorum got the memo that it was time for all good Republicans to fall in line behind McCain, and he has dutifully obeyed. But he was against McCain before he was for him, as evidenced by what he said about McCain in a robocall to voters on Super Tuesday: "I don’t think he has the temperament and leadership ability to move the country in the right direction." Then Santorum followed up in remarks to a reporter: "(McCain) is a little rough in the sandbox. Now this is coming from someone who is pretty rough in the sandbox too, but I am rough because of the causes I believe in and the issues and try not to make it personal, try not to make it strident. So I think it's a legitimate issue to have out there only because it's an issue that will be out there, and we'll hear a lot about it if he is the nominee."

I suspect the Democrats will find ways to talk about McCain's temperament, assuming they are not still consumed with the rites of self destruction. It's a legitimate character topic - far more valid than whether Barack Obama is Muslim, a lie that has reportedly been embraced by 15 percent of the American public - but the fact is, a temper is not by itself a disqualifier for high office. For a lot of high achievers, a temper is simply part of the package.

Bill Clinton had a bad temper ("purple rages" in the words of ex-aide George Stephanopoulos). Richard Nixon had bad temper (yes, he did precipitate Watergate, but he also was balanced enough to open China and negotiate arms deals with the Soviets). Dwight Eisenhower had a bad temper, a vein in his forehead wout pulsate, and his face would take on the coloration of a hot stove burner (one aide, Merlo Pusey, wrote that "sometimes his anger is aroused and it may set off a geyser of hot words. The President's emotions are close to the surface"). And in my own backyard, we had Mayor Ed Rendell, who once got so ticked at a pesky reporter that he put her head in a hammerlock as he walked down the hall.

I tend to think that most Americans won't be perturbed by the news that McCain cusses out colleagues, given the fact that most Americans probably believe that U.S. senators deserved to be cussed out. But a new ABC-Washington Post survey suggests that the Democrats may be able to leverage the temper factor. When people were asked whether McCain's temperament would help or hurt his ability to serve effectively as president, 48 percent said yes and 37 percent said no.

Those numbers were garnered a week before the Post ran its story, which means only one thing: The character issue first floated nine years ago has become part of the national consciousness. But what we can't know, for another six months, is whether it will be trumped by whatever tag the Republicans try to hang on Clinton or Obama.

-------

"American Debate" is moving. Today's entry has been cross-posted at the new site, which will be fully operational in early May. The new address, suitable for book-marking, is http://go.philly.com/polman

Take these candidates, please!

2008-04-23T00:22:00.014-04:00

Six weeks of bowling and Bittergate and Pastorgate and nonexistent Bosnian snipers....and for what? The Pennsylvania results have essentially changed nothing. There is seemingly no cure for the chronic Democratic migraine - and the fear, among so many members, that they are tearing themselves asunder.

Memo to the voters of Indiana and North Carolina: Take these candidates, please!

Now that Hillary Clinton has secured her solid Pennsylvania victory, we know two things - both of which we basically knew before:

1. She will slog onward against increasingly heavy odds. (And why shouldn't she, given the fact that she just won another big state and again demonstrated that she is the preferred candidate of the working-class whites who will be crucial to Democratic hopes this autumn?)

2. Barack Obama can't seem to seal the deal, thereby torturing the sizeable number of exhausted Democrats (including many unpledged superdelegates) who yearn for closure.

Obama's attempt last night to spin the defeat was empirically absurd. Hewing to the loser's ritual of flying to the next state while the bad news is still being tallied, Obama shared this assessment of the Pennsylvania race with a group of Indiana supporters: "We rallied people of every age and race and background to the cause."

Problem was, he lost all the older voter categories, starting at age 45. He lost white people, both genders. And with respect to every background, he lost the working-class folks, the union members, and the non-college educated. He lost suburbanites (including two of the suburban Philadelphia counties, Montgomery and Bucks, that he needed to win by comfortable margins), small-town dwellers, and rural residents. He lost the white Catholics and he lost the Jews. He lost the culturally-conservative Democrats on Bob Casey's home turf, Lackawanna County, by a 3 to 1 margin.

And let's return to the racial factor for a moment, because there is a jarring and highly sensitive finding that showed up in the exit polls. Thirteen percent of white voters statewide said that the race of the candidate was important to them; of those voters, 74 percent cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. This is arguably a warning sign that Obama may face a higher racial hurdle than many observers have generally assumed.

An arguably bigger problem is his persistent deficit among late-deciding voters. I mentioned here yesterday that, in most primaries, Obama has stumbled at the finish line because voters making up their minds during the final 24 hours have tended to break for Clinton, the known quantity. Well, in Pennsylvania it happened again. Eleven percent made up their minds on the last day; 6 out of 10 wound up breaking for Clinton, thereby padding her victory margin.

All told, he appears to have won only five of the 67 Pennsylvania counties. The template for victory was Ed Rendell's '02 gubernatorial campaign, which notched victories in 10 counties - winning overwhelmingly in Philadelphia and its suburbs, then basically hanging on everywhere else. Obama didn't even get the winning margins he needed out of Philadelphia.

So it's easy to see where this campaign is headed: nowhere fast. Clinton's Pennsylvania win (by more than 200,000 votes, slashing his national popular vote lead by more than 25 percent) will gain her some breathing space - forestalling any pro-Obama stampede by the unpledged superdelegates, and prompting some donors to pony up the money that she so badly needs (given the fact that she's currently awash in red ink). She'll net more Pennsylvania delegates than Obama, thanks to her victory, but not nearly enough to appreciably dent his national lead. And Obama will have to reload, yet again, and demonstrate in Indiana that he can relate to, and win over, the lunch-bucket Democrats.

They essentially split the delegates there...he recoups whatever he lost in Pennsylvania delegates by winning a majority of North Carolina delegates...she wins West Virginia...he wins Oregon...she's got the seniors, he's got the kids...she's got the whites, he's got the blacks...she's got the bowlers, he's got the brie-eater...she the whiskey, he the wine...tomato/tomahtoe, let's call the whole thing off.

But nobody seems to know how. And therein lies the danger for Democrats this autumn.

-------

I had more thoughts on Pennsylvania and the Democratic race during an hour-long conversation last night on PBS' "Charlie Rose" show. And so did my betters: historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Washington journalist Al Hunt, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, Time magazine's Mark Halperin, and Jacob Weisberg of Slate.
The video is posted here.

-------

"American Debate" is moving. Today's entry has been cross-posted at the new site, which will be fully operational in early May. The new address, suitable for book-marking, is http://go.philly.com/polman

The undecideds versus the newbies

2008-04-22T09:21:00.008-04:00

"So whattaya think?"

I'm getting that question a lot, as Pennsylvania Democrats - old and new - head to the polls today in expected record numbers. And I generally respond like this:

"Beats the heck out of me."

Naturally that is not viewed as a sufficient response, but, given the events of January, when Hillary Clinton foiled the predictors and won New Hampshire, it seems wise not to bloviate excessively about the unknowable. This is an election season like no other in my long memory, and we alleged seers have been chastened too often already.

So I'll confine myself to discussing a couple factors that could well shape the Pennsylvania results:

The army of the undecideds. The final round of polls report that roughly 10 percent of the Pennsylvania voters had not yet decided between Clinton and Barack Obama. That's a sizeable number of people; if, as widely expected, this primary draws a record two million voters (or 50 percent of the Democratic registration), this means that 200,000 Democrats haven't made up their minds.

And if the past is prologue, this translates into a sizeable advantage for Clinton - one that could arguably add several percentage points to a Clinton victory.

Notwithstanding Obama's successes in 2008, the inescapable fact is that he has been a poor closer. In most of the primaries thus far, he has been spurned by those voters who withheld their choice until the eleventh hour. The late undecideds have broken for Clinton in almost every contest, opting to go with the known quantity instead of taking a leap with the new guy.

The exit polls tell the tale. A sampling:

In Ohio, 12 percent of the voters decided on the final day. Clinton won those voters by 11 points, and the overall contest by 10.

In Texas, 11 percent decided on the final day. Clinton won those voters by nine points, and the overall contest by four.

In Massachusetts, 18 percent decided on the final day. Despite Ted Kennedy's ballyhooed Obama endorsement, Clinton won those voters by a whopping 20 points, and the overall contest by 15.

In New Mexico, 14 percent decided on the final day. Clinton won them by 11 points, and the overall contest by one.

In California (a state where an Obama win would have shoved Clinton toward the exit door), 14 percent waited until the last day, and Clinton won them by eight points, cementing her victory.

Even in states where Obama was victorious, the undecideds trimmed his margins. In Virginia, 10 percent decided on the final day, and he split them with Clinton, roughly 50-50. In Wisconsin, 12 percent held back until the final day, and they too split roughly 50-50.

It's hard to imagine that undecided Pennsylvanians will break for Obama today; the state's political culture has long preferred familiar brands to the flavor of the month. And the latest surveys indicate that the undecideds are heavily concentrated on Hillary-friendly turf. A poll sponsored by MSNBC, McClatchy and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports a Clinton lead of only five points statewide, but finds that 11 percent of the folks in the so-called "T" region (between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) were still undecided on primary eve.

Logic suggests that the late-deciders will stick with the person they know, rather than take a risk on Obama. Clinton's eleventh-hour TV ad, the one where she touts herself as the candidate best able to handle everything from Osama bin Laden to energy crises, seems aimed squarely at these voters. If she wins tonight, the undecideds could be crucial in padding her margin and helping her spin the bragging rights to maximum advantage.

And yet, there is also...

The army of the newbies. Roughly 307,000 new Democrats (potential first-time voters and party-switchers) have signed up for this primary. Assuming an overall record turnout of two million, the newbies could be roughly 14 percent of the total. And by every measure, Obama appears poised to win the newbies by a landslide. Nearly half of the new registrants hail from Obama territory - Philadelphia and its suburban counties (Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, Delaware, plus Lehigh and Berks); and roughly a third hail from counties with big college populations (Centre has Penn State, and Union has Bucknell). Some pollsters think that Obama will get anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the newbies statewide.

So maybe the newbies trump the undecideds, in terms of sheer numbers and greater motivation to vote. Or not. The bottom line, for Clinton, is that her needs tonight are greater than Obama's. She needs to roll up a huge popular-vote victory - say, a 200,000-vote margin (attainable via a 10-point victory with two million people voting), in order to slash deeply into Obama's national lead of 700,000. She needs something of that magnitude to sell to the unpledged superdelegates. The newbies and the undecideds will help determine her future.

-------

"American Debate" is moving. This entry has been cross-posted at the new site, which will be fully operational in early May. The new address, suitable for book-marking, is http://go.philly.com/polman

-------

Just finished a gig as guest online chat host at The Washington Post. It's all about the primary. The transcript is here.

The Washington Post wants you

2008-04-21T18:03:00.004-04:00

I'm doing an online lunch-hour chat for The Washington Post at noon EST Tuesday, as guest chatterer, talking about the Pennsylvania primary and the state of the race. You're invited to visit the site and send in good questions, before or during the gig.

Always pleased with where they are

2008-04-21T07:10:00.004-04:00

Whatever happens in the Pennsylvania primary tomorrow night, rest assured that Hillary Clinton’s spinmeisters will have it covered. Here’s a rhetorical tip sheet.

Scenario: Clinton wins in a landslide, by 10 percentage points or greater, trimming her national popular vote deficit to about 500,000, and cutting slightly into Obama’s national pledged delegate lead.

Spin: "It was 3 a.m. for America, and the common-sense voters of Pennsylvania answered the call. The bowlers and hunters of this great state stood up to the barrage of Obama TV ads, the flood of Obama money, and the hype about hope, and they simply said enough! The bowlers and hunters and worshippers and whiskey drinker all believe – as we do – that Senator Obama is an honorable man and a patriotic American, and tonight we are confident that they will join us in urging that Senator Obama immediately end his candidacy in the interests of party unity.

"He had a great run, while it lasted. We salute him for his contributions to this marathon race that we, of course, had anticipated all along. We always knew, even in our earliest planning stages, that April in Pennsylvania would prove to be the crucial time and place, the pivotal turning point, and we’d like to assure Senator Obama that his inclusion on Senator Clinton’s list of prospective running mates is virtually guaranteed. Unless, of course, she decides that Senator Obama would be more useful working for the next eight years as an assistant to the roving ambassador-in-chief."

Scenario: Clinton wins by modest single digits, a far cry from her original 20-point lead in the Pennsylvania polls, and she gains virtually no ground in the national pledged delegate count.

Spin: "A win is a win is a win. We always knew that this would be a close primary, and we always knew that many voters would inevitably be influenced by the barrage of Obama TV ads, the flood of Obama money, and the hype about hope. We always anticipated, even in our earliest planning stages, that Pennsylvania would be merely one marker in a long and arduous campaign, and now we will press ahead, firm in our belief that only a divided and fractious Democratic party can beat John McCain in November.

"As Senator Clinton has always stated, she is honored to share this race with Senator Obama - just as she is honored to question both his fitness for office, and his troublesome associations with people who might not love this country the way he undoubtedly does. We know that some want Senator Clinton to quit this race, just because she trails nationally in popular votes, pledged delegates, polls, states won, and campaign contributions. But real fighters don’t quit just because they don't always win. In fact, we sought all along to ensure that Senator Clinton would be the heavy underdog well into the spring season, in order to better demonstrate her fighting capabilities. That's why we changed campaign managers, fired our chief strategist, and allowed Senator Obama to win all the caucus states. All told, we’re very pleased with where we are."

Scenario: Clinton loses Pennsylvania.

Spin: "We're very pleased with where we are. We always knew that Pennsylvania would be a very tough environment for us. However, we strongly believe – as we have always believed – that the primary results in any state with 12 letters in its name, conducted at a point in the calendar when many potential voters are likely to be distracted by baseball games and spring cleaning, should be deemed an inaccurate representation of the electorate’s mood, and therefore illegitimate.

"Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are crucial to this party’s prospects in November, and therefore we urge Senate Obama to join us in calling for re-votes in all three states. We think this would be an excellent way for Senator Obama to demonstrate his love of America, which of course is unimpeachable, as far as we know. We are confident that Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Wright, and William Ayers will not influence his decision to support a Pennsylvania re-vote.

"But even if Senator Obama retains his negligible national lead after all the re-votes, and after the remaining nine primaries are conducted, we nevertheless believe there should be no rush to judgment, and that the people should be heard. We’d like to see the democratic process play out. Accordingly, Senator Clinton, in the interests of fairness, fully intends to reset the primary calendar and start over. Come June, we’ll see you all in Iowa. Iowa, the great state of corn. When Senator Clinton was a child, traveling through Iowa on car trips, she often ate corn..."

-------

"American Debate" is moving. This entry has been cross-posted at the new site, which will be fully operational in early May. The new address, suitable for book-marking, is http://go.philly.com/polman

Attention all readers!

2008-04-18T08:06:00.004-04:00

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this special announcement:

This blog is being moved to a new platform, with a new address. Or, to put it more colloquially, this blog will soon have a new look. The changeover process officially begins on Monday.

My overseers at Philly.com are supervising the redesign. The work in progress – right now, a construction site – can be accessed today via the new address, http://go.philly.com/polman. I’m quite fond of the Americana iconography; now I won’t need to wear a flag pin.

Another big change is immediately obvious: the presence of advertisements. I have no problem with doing my bit for commerce. We all have to eat and pay the bills; if the new media are indeed the journalism vehicles of the future, they will naturally require sufficient revenue. Please be patient until your eyes adapt to the new aesthetic.

My online archives – the last 26 months of work – will remain stored on the old blog, forever accessible at this old address, www.dickpolman.blogspot.com, unless Google goes out of business. All new archives, starting with April 21, 2008, will be stored on the new blog.

Another big change: Readers wishing to post comments will be required to register on the new site. It’s free, naturally, and only needs to be done once. If you click on “post a comment,” the policy is further explained. The purpose is obvious: to raise the quality of the conversation, by making everyone more accountable for what they write. I assume that this policy will reduce the comment traffic for awhile; inevitably, some of you will bridle at the requirements. But I’m confident that, long term, many regular habitués of the old clamorous neighborhood will pick up and move to the new clamorous neighborhood.

I intend to ease into the changeover. Beginning Monday, and for the next several weeks, I plan to post simultaneously in both locales. The changeover will be completed – with this old site used strictly as an archive repository – on Friday, May 2, assuming that I suffer no cognitive glitches. Most importantly, I sincerely appreciate your continued patronage.

Obama shaken, rattled, and rolled

2008-04-17T06:46:00.009-04:00

Just how bad was Barack Obama's debate performance last night? Not as bad as Britney Spears' song-and-dance routine at the MTV Awards. Not as bad as Bill Buckner's legendary error during the '86 World Series. Not as bad as Bob Dylan's music during his God phase. Not as bad as John Travolta's Scientology cinema experiment in Battlefield Earth. Not as bad as Mike Dukakis' fateful ride in a military tank.

In other words, Obama could have done worse. Neverthless, if he still harbors any hopes of driving Hillary Clinton from the Democratic race by scoring an upset victory in Pennsylvania, he might be wise to get real. It's hard to imagine that he won over the working-class, culturally-conservative Democrats who constitute the swing vote; if anything, his performance during the first 45 minutes of the debate may well have cemented their suspicions.

Obama's devotees will no doubt complain today that the ABC News inquisitors were grossly unfair, that they focused their fire on Obama while leaving Hillary Clinton relatively unscathed, and that they asked too many dirtball questions at Obama's expense. (George Stephanopoulos to Obama: "Do you think Rev. Wright loves America as much as you do?") Whatever. Whining about the media is the last resort of losers. The bottom line is that Obama didn't successfully adapt to the environment. For instance:

1. He muffed his latest explanation of his recent remarks on small-town America. He said last night: "The point I was making (last week at a private San Francisco fundraiser) was that when people feel like Washington's not listening to them, when they're promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change, and it doesn't, then politically they end up focusing on those things that are constant, like religion. They end up feeling 'This is a place where I can find some refuge. This is something that I can count on.'" (italics mine)

I doubt that churchgoing small-towners will be satisified with that. They worship for affirmative spiritual reasons - "in good times and in bad times," as Clinton quickly pointed out last night. They don't think "politically" about the importance of worship. And, most importantly, they don't merely "end up" worshipping.

Obama defenders might dismiss all this as quibbles over wording. But, as Obama himself frequently points out, "words matter." And his latest words on the matter aren't likely to charm the voters whom he needs to break through in Pennsylvania.

Nor did he ever try to turn the tables, and offer a policy critique of the '90s, when the Bill Clinton administration fought for free-trade deals that hastened exoduc of jobs in those same communities. At one point in the debate, Hillary gave him an enormous opening when she lauded her husband's record ("an economy that lifted everybody up at the same time"). He failed to take it. Hillary gave him another opening when she lauded the importance of "good union jobs where people get a good wage." It's a matter of record that unions lost clout during the Clinton era, in part because her husband, even when he had a Democratic Congress, didn't push hard for legislation that would have curbed union-busting. But Obama didn't point this out, either.

2. He was only semi-coherent while discussing his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. When asked to explain why in 2007 he had disinvited Wright to his announcement of candidacy, he said: "This was (because of) a set of remarks that had been quoted in Rolling Stone Magazine and we looked at them and I thought that they would be a distraction since he had just put them forward...They were not of the sort that we saw that offended so many Americans. And that's why I specifically said that these comments were objectionable; they're not comments that I believe in."

Huh? I thought this guy was supposed to have a golden tounge. He sounded rattled, fatigued, or both.

Clinton then took the opportunity to remind those culturally-conservative Pennsylvanians that Wright had delivered a sermon, right after 9/11, essentially blaming America for the terrorist attacks. Whereupon Obama felt compelled to say: "Absolutely, many of these remarks were objectionable. I've already said that I didn't hear them, because I wasn't in church that day. I didn't learn about those statements until much later." And regarding why he disinvited Wright to his announcement of candidacy, "that was on, that was on something entirely different...That, that was on a different statement."

Oh.

Imagine you were a Pennsylvania swing voter, wary of Obama or simply undecided, and you were watching this debate, and you were trying to unpack these responses. You may well have asked yourself: "He only thinks that Wright's 9/11 sermon was 'objectionable'? He kept Wright away from his candidate announcement not because of his 9/11 statements, but because of some other statements? Are we supposed to assume those other statements were worse? But wait, I did hear him say that he didn't learn about Wright's 9/11 statements 'until much later'...but when was that? And, hey, ya think it's plausible that a sharp guy like Obama wouldn't have known about Wright's 9/11 sermon pretty quickly? Without, like, six or seven years going by?"

3. He even failed to slam-dunk the easiest hot-button question of the evening. It came, via videotape, from a lady in Latrobe: "I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don't." (ABC co-host Charlie Gibson added, "It's all over the Internet," as if that somehow validated the question.)

His response: "I have never said that I don't wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from what should be my job when I'm commander in chief..."

Instead of answering straightforwardly, Obama lied.

Contrast his statement last night with what he said on Oct. 3, 2007, when a TV reporter in Iowa asked why he wasn't wearing a flag pin: "You know, the truth is that, right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that (pin) became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is (about) speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security. I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Apparently, he decided last night that a truthful response would not be a sufficient pander; either that or he was too rattled to remember what he had once said. The bottom line, however, is that he had a golden opportunity to demonstrate the idiocy of this phony issue. He could have simply said this:

John McCain doesn't even wear a flag pin. In fact, when eight Republican candidates debated last autumn, seven of them did not wear flag pins.

4. He fumbled his responses to the newest scandale du jour, his Chicago associations with William Ayres, an English professor and neighbor who had been a bomber for the Weather Underground during the late '60s, and who remains unrepentant, telling The New York Times - on 9/11, no less - that "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

Stephanopoulous broached this topic, which guarantees that the Ayres saga will be moving through the mainstream media bloodstream at least for the next few days. It had largely been simmering at the margins of the race. But now, on the eve of the Pennsylvania vote, it's potentially toxic for Obama, because many small-towners of a certain age don't have particularly fond memories of the days of rage.

Obama's initial impulse was to try to finesse the subject, then change it: "(Ayers) is not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis....The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either."

Yeah...but was Obama well served by equating a U.S. senator with a guy who may have been connected to as many as 25 domestic bombings (the number claimed by the Weather Underground)? Obama's vague answer - that Ayres "is not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis" - gave Clinton an opening, and she drove a Hummer through it.

She said: "Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position. And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more."

Again, imagine you were an undecided, culturally-conservative swing voter, and you were hungry for information about this new guy Obama, and now you were hearing about Ayers for the first time. And Obama gave a vague answer, whereupon he was immediately trumped by Clinton's revelation that Obama and Ayers served on a board together. The result? It looked as if Obama had been trying to minimize the association by hiding something...thereby making a relatively minor story look worse than it is.

By contrast, Clinton was crisp in her responses. Her full mea culpa on the Bosnia sniper lie - "I'm very sorry that I said it. And I have said that, you know, it just didn't jibe with what I had written about and knew to be the truth" - left little opportunity for follow up. And she was crisp and detailed when the debate finally moved to the policy front, particularly when the ABC inquisitors asked whether she would dare defy (may we all bow our heads in reverence at the mere mention of his name) General David Petraeus. Yes, she said, even if the surge is going well next January, she'd still require an incremental pullout plan: "You know, thankfully we have a system in our country of civilian control of the military."

Obama also had some good moments late in the debate, on substance. During an exchange about the future solvency of Social Security, for instance, he suggested the possibility of raising the payroll tax, Clinton knocked him for that and suggested instead that somebody should appoint a bipartisan commission to study the matter...and Obama quickly pointed out that, when a bipartisan commission last met, back in 1983, it wound up raising the payroll tax, and that the sky didn't fall.

But the viewing audience is biggest during the first 45 minutes, and it's questionable whether a sufficient number of Obama skeptics stuck around to hear him recoup on policy. So I score the night for Clinton...with John McCain smiling in the wings.

This piece has been cross-posted here, for easy emailing to friend or foe.

Actions speak louder than words

2008-04-16T09:06:00.005-04:00

Focusing on his real audience - the unpledged Democratic superdelegates, and the independent voters who will ultimately swing the November election - here's what Barack Obama needs to say tonight during the debate in Philadelphia (assuming he hasn't sufficiently damaged himself already):

"...I'm glad that Senator Clinton has again brought up my remarks about small-town America, because I do have a few things to say about that. Obviously, as I have repeatedly admitted, I regret my choice of words and intended no disrespect. Yet while we continue to fight over words, we risk ignoring the real problem: that actions speak louder than words. And it is the actions of several recent administrations - or perhaps I should say inactions - that have put small-town hard-working Americans so deep in the hole.

"I'm speaking not just of President Bush, of whom we naturally expected so little, but also of my opponent's husband, of whom we expected so much.

"Senator Clinton has called my words 'elitist.' But where was she during the '90s, when she was supposedly gaining White House experience, when Bill Clinton took a series of actions that benefited the elite at the expense of the small-town worker? It is a matter of record that NAFTA, which President Clinton fought for and signed in 1993, without sufficient protections for domestic workers, has severely hastened the exodus of jobs from so many of these towns, and worsened the living conditions of the very people that Senator Clinton professes to speak for today.

"In 2000, her husband also successfully pushed for giving permanent trade privileges to China, again without adequate safeguards for adversely affected American workers. Her husband also said, 'the evidence is clear that not just in the long run but in the near run, we'll have more job gains than job losses' out of these trade deals. Well, tell that to the small-town workers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in America. In fact, one of the Democratic congressmen here in Pennsylvania, Tim Holden, said a few years back that 'Pennsylvania has been the most adversely affected state in the union as a result of these trade agreements that we entered into.' Those were elitist actions, and actions speak louder than words.

"You know, it was Henry Ford who once said, 'I gotta pay my workers enough so there is somebody to buy the cars they are making.' But now we have a situation where companies are firing their own customers. They're shipping the jobs overseas, then goods get made overseas, then the goods are shipped back here to be sold - but the problem is, laid-off Pennsylvanians can't afford to buy them. That's all the result of elitist actions, and actions speak louder than words.

"By the way, organized labor leaders noticed all this happening back when Senator Clinton was partnering with her husband. Way back in 1995, one top Democratic labor strategist said in the newspapers that 'there's a lingering feeling among many in the rank and file that you can't quite put all your trust in this guy.' Another said, 'They screwed us on NAFTA, what have they done for us?' I'd invite Senator Clinton, who today champions the economic underdog, to tell us why she never uttered a word of protest during her in-house training for the presidency.

"Yes, actions speak louder than words - and so do statistics. The Census Bureau reported in 2000 that the income gap between rich and poor actually widened during the Clinton years, and that every household income category below $80,000 lost ground during the Clinton years. The median wage, adjusted for inflation, was actually lower than what it had been in 1989, when the first George Bush took office. And, in fact, during the final year of the Clinton era, the average CEO compensation at Fortune 500 companies was $37.5 million, while the average worker salary of all companies was $38,000.

"So let's take a break from all this back-and-forth about bad wordplay, and give this issue the context it deserves. I would expect John McCain to make the 'elitist' charge, because it's a great way to divert attention from his new economic plan - which offers fiscally irresponsible tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, including CEOs, at the expense of the small-town Americans whom he professes to revere, and which offers huge new tax cuts to the same corporate sector that is outsourcing these jobs I'm talking about. But I expected better from Senator Clinton. The least she can do, right now, is to explain the elitist economic actions of the Clinton era - explain and defend, or reject and denounce. Unless she truly believes that actions are less important than words.

"Senator? Go right ahead."

The brave (and brutish) new world

2008-04-15T08:58:00.012-04:00

There once was a time when presidential candidates could utter an awkward unscripted remark, or a crude joke, or a loaded phrase, and conceivably get away with it - particularly when the press was barred at the door.

But today, thanks to the democratization of technology, there is no place to hide. There are no private moments, even at an ostensibly private event such as a fundraiser in suburban San Francisco. There is no such thing as "off the record" anymore, because anything and everything shall be recorded and ruled admissable for use in the tumultuous public square.

Which brings us to the manner in which Barack Obama was outed for riffing so inartfully about the plight of small-town America. It's a classic example of how the political/media culture has been so profoundly altered during the first decade of the new century.

Amidst the political fallout, this issue has been largely overlooked. If you watched Meet the Press on Sunday, you might easily have assumed that Obama's words were transcribed the old-fashioned way, by reporters scribbling in notebooks or hoisting their digital recorders. As Tim Russert phrased it, "Obama went to a fundraiser in San Francisco, made some comments. They became public on Friday afternoon..."

But no. Obama was outed by a new breed of watchdog, the "citizen journalist," somebody without the traditional press credentials, in this case an Obama supporter named Mayhill Fowler. Unlike the working journalists, she had a ticket to the private fundraiser in Marin County. She also had an audio recorder. She also had a relationship with Off the Bus, a subsidiary of The Huffington Post, one of those blogosphere outlets where citizens can break news of their own without filtering it through the traditional media.

Fowler doesn't fit any of the old press categories. As journalism professor Jay Rosen, an Off the Bus founder, wrote the other day, Fowler "is a particular kind of Obama loyalist...the kind with a notebook, a tape recorder, friends in the campaign, a public platform of decent size, plus the faculty of critical intelligence." And her editor, Marc Cooper, wrote that Fowler "employs a highly personalized, reflective narrative style (that) almost violates all of the conventions of traditional reporting."

The faculty of critical intelligence, indeed. At the fundraiser, she heard Obama make some remarks that struck her as problematical or worse, so she posted a piece (screened by an editor) on Friday afternoon. It was a long, discursive exercise, with much of the news buried within. Yet in less than 48 hours, the political-fallout story was on page one of The New York Times. As Cooper puts it, "citizen journalism can do many, many things still inaccessible to the MSM (mainstream media). It's also quite a bit of fun to see how a report like hers can actually set the agenda for the entire national press."

So it's a brave new world - and arguably more brutish. Anybody who crosses a candidate's path is now a potential auteur with the power to rewrite the narrative of a campaign. We will long be debating whether this technological development is a boon to our civic dialogue - perhaps reinvogorating democracy by giving average citizens an enhanced opportunity to hold politicians accountable - or whether this is just the latest treacherous form of political blood sport, as well as one more reason why many sane and qualified public servants would prefer not to seek the presidency.

It's probably all of the above. Risks aside, it's indisputable, in this particular case, that Fowler latched onto a good story. Obama's poor phrasing suggested any number of things, none of them particularly complimentary to him - a tin ear, a desire to curry favor with an affluent California audience, cluelessness about the nuances of small-town life, or simply inexperience. And it's also worth noting that his initial response, early last weekend, was defiant, as if he couldn't grasp why his remarks were troublesome. All these factors are worthy of discussion, because many Americans are still scavenging for meaningful clues to the man's character - in part because he's still so new to the national scene.

The downside, of course, is the enhanced potential for brutish behavior among those who inevitably seek to exploit the information unearthed by citizen auteurs. Case in point, yesterday, was Connecticut Senator Joe McCarthy....excuse me, I meant to say Joe Lieberman. Asked by his friends on Fox News whether Obama's recent remarks suggest that he might be a Marxist, Lieberman replied: "Well, you know, I must say that’s a good question....I’d hesitate to say he’s a Marxist, but he’s got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America."

With respect to our new YouTube culture, let's recall that one potential presidential candidate, Republican George Allen, was virtually destroyed in 2006 after an audience auteur, working for the opposition and armed with video, caught the Virginia senator uttering "macaca," a common slur word aimed at immigrants. Allen lost his Senate race in part because the state's burgeoning immigrant electorate perceived that his moment of spontaneity - as forever enshrined on YouTube - was a revealing clue to his true character, and they voted thumbs down. Barack Obama must now seek to ensure that New Media misadventure does not become a Macaca Moment.

-------

Two undisputed Pennsylvania political gurus, Terry Madonna and Michael Young, now believe that Obama has screwed up, big time: "Obama's words are likely to do serious damage to his campaign in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania working class voters constitute about 40 percent of the Democratic vote. Obama's claim to understand and to identify with them has been dealt a serious blow after a largely successful two-week surge in the state. The Clinton campaign is already capitalizing on the controversy. It may be enough to propel her to that big victory that seemed so unlikely only a few days ago."

On the other hand, a new survey from the Quinnipiac pollsters shows Hillary Clinton up by only six points in Pennsylvania. Another, sponsored by Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times, has her up by only five. I suspect that Obama would be relieved to lose by either margin.

-------

I had other thoughts about the Obama incident this morning on Philadelphia NPR, joined by David Paul Kuhn of Politico.com. The link is here.

I had yet other thoughts about the Obama incident while guesting last night on "The Charlie Rose Show," on PBS. The link is here. As well as here.

Obama and the perils of Cling-gate

2008-04-14T07:18:00.015-04:00

Can Bill and Hillary achieve Restoration by exploiting Cling-gate?

Perhaps the small-town burghers and downscale workers of Pennsylvania will answer that question when they vote in the primary eight days hence. But, until then, all we can do is speculate - and marvel at the notion that the outcome of this Democratic death march might actually hinge on a single ill-considered verb.

No doubt you know the verb already, but I'll highlight it anyway. Here was Barack Obama, recorded a week ago at a private fundraiser: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

As Obama told an audience of steelworkers last night, "I am not a perfect man and the words I chose, I chose badly." He certainly did. Politically, that latter sentence is a potential train wreck. The Democrats have been trying for several decades to reconnect with the white culturally-conservative working stiffs who exited the party during the Reagan era, and it's questionable whether the reconnection process can be enhanced by implying (however inadvertently) that these voters react to hard times by "clinging" to their God and their guns.

Church-goers don't "cling" to religion out of bitterness; they tend to see religion as an affirmative pursuit, in both good times and bad. And small-town Pennsylvanians don't "cling" to guns out of bitterness; they happen to enjoy hunting, in a state where hunting has long been a tradition (at least outside of the Obama-friendly Philadelphia region). Obviously, Obama did not intend to paint these folks as dummies who worship and shoot only because they have nothing better to do - why would he want to insult people whose votes he has been seeking? - but that's how the sentence reads. And it would appear that his uphill climb in Pennsylvania has become a bit steeper, given the fact that those people are also the swing voters in this primary.

Nevertheless, it's fair to ask - in the interests of proportionality - whether a race such as this, with so much at stake at home and abroad, should hinge on some errant phrasing. The Hillary Clinton counterattack this weekend was truly something to behold; the barrage of Saturday afternoon messages in my email box (11 in six hours) prompted me to suspect that perhaps Obama had promised on Day One to convert to Islam and make it the national religion.

If you want to enjoy a belly laugh, here are three reliable suggestions: (1) rent an old Woody Allen movie, especially Bananas, (2) rent Borat, or (3) listen to Hillary Clinton, of all people, attack Barack Obama as "elitist."

This is the same woman who, during the past seven years, as evidenced by her tax returns with Bill, has become a millionaire 109 times over; whose husband has long supported the Colombian free-trade deal (which is deemed hurtful to American workers), and long defended his signing of NAFTA (also hurtful); whose husband earned $800,000 in speech fees from Colombian interests; who, during her Senate career, voted in favor of confiscating guns during a national emergency (one of only 16 senators to do so; Obama voted against confiscation); and who, during the Democratic debates, has refused to shed any light on why the Clintons are safeguarding the identities of the global heavy hitters who are bankrolling the Clinton Presidential Library...and whether any quid pro quos are involved. Not to mention any deals that may have been struck with the felons whom Bill pardoned in his final days as president (the Clintons are blocking release of those records as well).

The Republicans are also trying to paint Obama as "elitist," but that's the standard GOP template (twice used successfully by George W. Bush - a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover, Yale University, and Harvard Business School, son of a former president and grandson of a former U.S. senator). It's particularly amusing to hear that "elitist" label being thrown around by John McCain, given the fact that McCain is married to a multimillionaire heiress; that McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts that help the rich at the expense of the working class; and that he has spent weeks tweaking his mortgage assistance proposal, which originally offered homeowners the same quality of aid that Herbert Hoover extended to Great Depression victims nearly 80 years ago. (Another thigh-slapper: William Kristol - descendent of a Manhattan intellectual family, and son of a New York University professor - used his New York Times column today to argue that Cling-gate is proof of Obama's attitudinal ties to...Karl Marx.)

But I digress. Hillary was more fun to watch this weekend, as she went into blue-collar overdrive - waxing nostalgic about how as a youngster she was taught to shoot a gun; walking into a bar and downing a drink in one gulp; telling a faith forum last night how she always feels "the enveloping support and love of God"....by tomorrow, I half expect to see her marching in the Lehigh Valley, clad in a bowling shirt, with a 12-gauge in one hand and the New Testament in the other, with John Mellencamp's "Small Town" blasting on a loudspeaker.

But that's politics. If she can successfully brand as "elitist" a guy who was raised by a single mother far from the comfortable suburban trappings that she enjoyed as a child...well, to the victor goes the spoils. If Cling-gate buoys her Pennsylvania vote tally, and helps her surpass the 10-point margin she won in Ohio, Obama will have to deal with the consequences - including talk, encouraged by the Clinton camp, that he's just another rareified Adlai Stevenson egghead.

Hillary will take it to him during the debate on Wednesday night, probably in the first 10 minutes (unless they reprise the traditional opening spat over who has the better health insurance plan). His challenge is similar to what happened during the Wright controversy. He has to turn this flap to his advantage, reframe the issue in a broader context, make the case for an economic populism that connects with Pennsylvania's working-class voters - and force Hillary to explain why those same voters, long ignored and taken for granted, received so little help from the Bill Clinton administration.

Obama screwed up badly during that fundraiser in San Francisco. But it's the successful politician who bounces back from adversity, aided by outsize powers of persuasion. He tried out a few lines last night, and no doubt there will be more. We'll soon see whether Obama has the gift that saved Bill Clinton from Bimbo-gate in 1992.

-------

Regarding any further thoughts on Cling-gate, I'm guesting tonight on PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show," sharing a segment with Joe Klein of Time magazine. Bob Casey holds forth during the first 30 minutes.

-------

In a Sunday print column, I wrote about the "experience" issue, with the inevitable historical references.

-------

Last night, during the sixth installment of HBO's splendid John Adams miniseries, the president was urged by his fellow Federalist party members to drum up war fever against France. Even though the partisans were well aware that France posed no real threat, they insisted that if the president stoked war sentiment, he and his party would benefit greatly during the imminent election season. But Adams, concerned with dividing his countrymen and sowing domestic factionalism, adamantly refused.

Imagine a president behaving like that.

Condi and Bill in the silly season

2008-04-11T09:21:00.010-04:00

On the presidential election calendar, April often marks the start of the silly season. April is typically a time for silly stories that come and go within the space a single news cycle (bulletin: a talk-radio loudmouth calls John McCain a "warmonger" - and refuses to apologize!), and silly stories that linger for awhile until people come to their senses (April, 1992: a semi-loon named Ross Perot is the top choice for the presidency, beating Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush in the polls).

So it's in the spirit of silliness that today I linger briefly over this week's silliest - and most hilarious - April story: the chatter about Condoleezza Rice showing some interest in the number-two slot on John McCain's Republican ticket. If I hadn't been tracking the stories all week long, I would have sworn that the whole thing had been crafted by Bill Maher's gag writers as some kind of cosmic joke.

It all started last Sunday, when former Iraq occupation spokesman Dan Senor surfaced on ABC to declare that Rice was interested in running with McCain and that, in fact, she "has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this."

Then Senor tried to make his own case for Condi: "What the McCain campaign has to consider is whether or not they want to pick a total outsider, a fresh face, someone a lot younger than him, a governor who people aren't that familiar with. The challenge they're realizing is that they'll have to spend 30 to 45 days, which they wont't have at that point (in the weeks after Labor Day), educating the American public about who this person is. The other category is someone who people instantly say, the second they see that (running mate) announcement, 'I get it, that person could be president tomorrow. Condi Rice is an option.'"

Then we had a story featuring McCain's reaction; he politely called Rice a great American and said that her purported interest was news to him. Then we had a story featuring Rice's demurrals, and about her professed intention to return to Stanford. Then we had a story about how she had dazzled conservatives two weeks ago at a Washington confab, and about how conservative leader Grover Norquist viewed her as a great choice for veep. Then we had a story about a new poll which claims that a McCain-Rice ticket would actually win the deep-blue state of New York if matched against a Democratic dream ticket (a classic silly season tabulation, right up there with the aforementioned '92 polls about Ross Perot).

Dare we waste (cyber)space by enumerating the gaping holes in this trial balloon?

The very last thing McCain needs is to place a Bush enabler on his ticket. His prospects of winning this election - and I believe he has definite prospects - hinges on his ability to distance himself from Bush, not lash himself to the tattered mast by picking one of Bush's credibility-challenged acolytes.

If McCain chose Rice, the stench of the last eight years would overwhelm his campaign. He would be forced to explain, defend, reject, or denounce all kinds of golden odlies, such as:

Her Sept. 8, 2002 assertion that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed because "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Her other assertion, that same day: "We do know there have been shipments going into...Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to—high-quality aluminum tools that only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." (The State Department and the Energy Department had both concluded, long before, that those tubes were to be used for "conventional ordnance production," not nukes.)

Her certitude, voiced on July 30, 2003, that Saddam definitely had the goods and therefore had to be deposed by force: "This man was a threat. He had weapons of mass destruction." (Two days before her statement, David Kay, Bush's top weapons inspector, had told administration officials during a briefing that he had found nothing.)

Her insistence, during the spring of 2002, that the 9/11 attack had been a complete surprise: "I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." (Back in 1998, that exact scenario had been war-gamed by terrorist experts, in consultations with the Federal Aviation Administration; in 1999, the CIA-affiliated National Intelligence Council had warned about al Qaeda flying aircraft into symbolic American targets.")

Could this Condi silliness morph into something real? The Democrats should be so lucky.

-------

Speaking of silliness, let us today consider Bill Clinton. It may soon be time for Hillary to ship him off to a private fund-raiser in Guam, where perhaps security guards can foil YouTube by confiscating all camera-ready cellphones in advance.

Yesterday, Bill actually decided to talk (and talk) about the lies that Hillary recently told about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. He said it was so unfair that she has been criticized for that. He said that it was all the media's fault. (Naturally.)

Here's what he said while stumping for his spouse in Indiana, courtesy of NBC: "A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me...there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated, and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up....I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. And you would’ve thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too."

At least when Bill said, in 1998, that he "didn't have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," he was only uttering one falsehood. The remarks above are replete with falsehoods:

Hillary didn't just lie about sniper fire "one time late at night." She did it on a number of occasions, including the light of morning. And she didn't "immediately" apologize for it; she stuck with her story for days, even after it was being questioned, and apologized only after she was busted by the video footage from 1996 (not 1995, as Bill had said.) And she wasn't the first first lady since Eleanor to visit a war zone; Pat Nixon went to Saigon in 1969, a fact that has been in the news since late March.

Earlier this morning, Hillary's office issued a statement thanking Bill for his concern, but stressing that the sniper story "was her mistake, and she takes responsibility for it."

Memo to Bill, who is imperiling his reputation as the smartest pol of his generation: When your wife is caught lying on camera, just leave it alone. Bringing it up again, and seeking to rationalize it, is the ultimate in silliness.

-------

I'm guesting on MSNBC's Hardball tonight (5 p.m. EST), probably at the bottom of the hour. No doubt we'll be discussing this story - and whether, as a result, Obama will lose some votes in Philadelphia on April 22.

A politician, not a messiah

2008-04-10T07:38:00.006-04:00

The flip flop is a staple of politics as usual. Here’s a fresh example, starring Barack Obama:

A mere five months ago, in Iowa, Obama didn’t like it when outside “special interest” groups sided with his rivals, pumped their own money into the campaign, and ran independent ads against him. Most of those groups were actually affiliated with organized labor – and three quarters of the money came from labor - but he didn’t cut them any slack.

Obama assailed these independent groups as symptoms of "the same tired old political textbook that so many Americans just don’t trust anymore." He denounced their independent efforts, and said that he intended to run "a new kind of campaign." Meanwhile, his campaign manager, David Plouffe, cited several prominent unions for their pro-Clinton activities, and complained about how "shadowy" organizations were unleashing a "flood of Washington money" in an "underhanded" attempt to influence the caucuses.

In particular, Plouffe assailed AFSCME, referring to the public employes’ union as "Hillary Clinton’s friends in Washington" - that’s the kind of attack that Republicans typically launch, tagging labor as just another Beltway special interest – but AFSCME was hardly alone. The Obama campaign put out a December memo railing against "huge, unregulated contributions by special interests" and singled out, among others, the Service Employes International Union, which had affiliates working on behalf of John Edwards.

One liberal commentator, Ari Melber, wrote at the time: "Obama’s concerns sound more like sour grapes – AFSCME and SEIU would probably face little criticism if they were spending money on him."

He got that right. Fast forward to the Pennsylvania primary, present day...and the news that SEIU and an affiliated health-care local union are pouring upwards of $1 million into an independent pro-Obama effort that parallels the official Obama operation. Nothing illegal about that, then or now. The issue here is the difference between Obama’s stance, then and now.

Of the current outside effort by this "shadowy" "special interest," the candidate has said exactly zilch, uttering nary a whisper of protest. (Nor did he protest when SEIU spent $5 million on his behalf in several other primaries that preceded Pennsylvania.) Apparently he was against "the same tired old political textbook" before he was for it.

At times like these, I am tempted to send this message to his ardent devotees: Let us all remember, this guy does not walk on water. He’s a politician who is trying to win, and he will flip where he once flopped if that’s what it takes.

And why shouldn’t he? He pays no real penalty for expunging his December convictions. The issue of "independent campaign expenditures" and "special interest campaign influence" is of burning importance to roughly one percent of the general public, and that’s only if you include the good-government reformers and the editorial writers. Few others care about this stuff. And all Democratic politicians, including Obama, are well aware that, during the autumn campaign, labor’s independent expenditures will be crucial to the party’s White House prospects.

-------

Today, President Bush said a few upbeat words about Iraq, the surge, and the latest Petraeus-Crocker road show. I know, your pulse is quickening already. Actually he signaled his sentiments (the same as his old sentiments) in advance late yesterday, by granting an exclusive interview with the like-minded neoconservative William Kristol (who, naturally, reports to us this morning that Bush is "impressive").

Here's what Bush told Kristol. Stop me if you've heard this before: "There is progress...We are better off now than we were prior to the surge. And we're headed toward a day when the Iraqis are going to be able to manage their own affairs from a security perspective. But we're not there yet."

Then today he said that "it's clear we're on the right track," and that "progress" was being made.

But rest assured that, regardless of whatever Bush says now, it can’t possibly compete with what he articulated five years ago, almost to the day, in a message to the Iraqi people. Here it is, verbatim from the White House transcript of April 13, 2003:

"You’re free. And freedom is beautiful. And, you know, it’ll take time to restore chaos and order – order out of chaos."

Iraq and rhetorical aspirin

2008-04-09T09:09:00.010-04:00

George Orwell, best known for his novel 1984 but renowned in some circles (mine, anyway) for his spirited attacks on the bureaucratic debasement of the English language, would have winced at the evasive euphemisms repeatedly employed yesterday by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

In perhaps his most famous essay, written 62 years ago, Orwell wrote that government bureaucrats and political idealogues had grown fond of "gumming together long strips of words...and making the results presentable by sheer humbug....It is easier - even quicker, once you have the habit - to say, In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption than to say I think." He complained that the typical euphemism "falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details." Orwell likened it to "a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow."

Well, it was sure snowing yesterday when Petraeus broke out his aspirin bottle. After completing the modest U.S. troop drawdown that's already scheduled for July, he foresees "a 45-day period of consolidation and evaluation. At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment, to examine the conditions on the ground, and over time, determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions."

English translation: The place is a mess. We have no idea when things might get better. We're not pulling out any more troops. We're running out the clock on 2008.

Actually, I feel bad for the guy. Crocker, too. They're basically tasked with the thankless job of mopping up after George W. Bush and his discredited neocons, and one of the requisite chores is to trudge to Capitol Hill and gum together long strips of words. Nobody is going to shine in that role, waxing Orwellian on a war without end.

In a sense it was Crocker who had the worst moment, during a Senate Armed Services Committee exchange with Hillary Clinton (in her best moment), on a potentially far-reaching development that has been largely overlooked, thanks to the relentless media focus on the '08 Democratic primaries. Put on the spot by Clinton, Crocker responded predictably: He blurred the outline.

Some quick background. The Bush administration since November has been negotiating a sweeping long-term defense pact with its client regime in Iraq - a pact that, in the draft wording, would require the U.S. to provide open-ended "security assurances and commitments" to the embattled government. Bush and Prime Minister Maliki are aiming to wrap up negotiations this summer. It doesn't take a foreign policy genius to ferret out the implications of such a deal; America would be duty bound to respond, in some military fashion, when the Iraqi government was thought to be imperiled by foreign invaders or "outlaw groups" (again, the draft wording) operating inside the country. It's a blueprint for war without end, although it's couched in classic Orwellian language as a "long-term relationship of cooperation and friendship."

Given the fact that such a pact could bind us to Iraq for generations, at further expenditure of taxpayer money and American lives, and foist the Bush legacy on future presidents, one might assume that the American people (more than 60 percent of whom favor a withdrawal timetable) would at least get the chance to have their voices heard - through their representatives in the U.S. Senate. Because, as many legal experts have already pointed out, this deal has all the characteristics of a treaty, the kind that constitutionally requires the approval of 67 senators. After all, when Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower gave security assurances to Japan, South Korea, and the Phillippines after World War II, those pacts were treated as treaties and submitted for Senate ratification.

But the Bush regime doesn't intend to go that route.

Clinton has complained about this several times during the Democratic debates; she has been far more vocal on the issue than Barack Obama. And when Crocker brought up the "cooperation and friendship" pact yesterday - explaining that America must exhibit "continued resolve and commitment," that this pact would provide the necessary "authorizations and protections," and that, rest assured, "Congress will remain fully informed as these negotiations proceed" - Clinton threw out a simple question:

"Does the administration plan to submit this agreement to our Congress?"

Here was Crocker in response, with Orwell turning in his grave: "At this point, senator, we do not anticipate that the agreements will have within them any elements that would require the advise and consent procedure, we intend to negotiate this as an executive agreement."

English translation: Buzz off.

(By the way, Clinton has long been sponsoring a bill that would deny federal money for the implementation of such a pact, unless that pact was sent to the Senate for approval. As she said yesterday, after Crocker uttered his Orwellism, she finds it "odd" that Bush wants to submit the pact to the Iraqi Parliament for ratification, but not to the U.S. Senate. And yes, you read that correctly, that is Bush's intention.)

But at least one member of the Bush team isn't swaddling his words. It was Dick Cheney, three weeks ago, who best summed up the administration mindset; when asked whether he was cognizant of the national polls showing that two-thirds of Americans viewed the war as a mistake, he dismissively replied: "So?" Orwell would have been grateful that, for once, somebody had not sought to dull the pain of candor by reaching for the aspirin.

Ten questions for Petraeus

2008-04-08T09:48:00.012-04:00

Gen. David Petraeus is back on Capitol Hill, talking about "progress" and pleading for more "patience." We all know the drill by now. Perhaps some lawmaker will ask him questions like these:

1. General Petraeus, four years ago you were in charge of training the Iraqi troops to stand up so that American soldiers could stand down. You insisted at the time that the training was going well. In fact, you wrote in The Washington Post: "I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up...Training is on track and increasing in capacity....Considerable progress is also being made in the reconstruction and refurbishing of infrastructure for Iraq’s security forces...Iraq’s security forces are developing steadily and they are in the fight." That's what you said in 2004. Yet, today, Iraqi troops are still unable to take the lead in any significant battle, and when they tried to take on the Shiite militias in Basra late last month, more than 1000 soldiers deserted - along with some top Iraqi commanders. How do these realities square with your 2004 claims of "significant progress" in the training of the Iraqi troops?

2. Following up on that question, when do you realistically believe that the Iraqis will finally be able to defend themselves by fighting their own battles? And what realistic metrics are you using? The date originally envisioned by Iraqi officials was late 2006, but our Defense Department was repeatedly revised that timetable. Now it's supposed to be July of this year, but we all know that is fiction. Given the fact that your 2004 optimism has not been borne out by events, can you now provide more credible forecast criteria?

3. General, it's already clear that, at the end of 2008, we will have more troops in Iraq than we did when the "surge" was launched. Yet there is abundant evidence that our commitment is seriously impacting our combat troops. An official Army survey of soldiers' mental health now shows that more than 25 percent are suffering from clinical anxiety, depression, or acute stress - much of it triggered by the repeated redeployments. And the Joint Chiefs of Staff told President Bush last month that they are deeply concerned about these stresses on the soldiers. How long can we realistically be expected to bail out the Iraqis before our own military is broken?

4. General, when Prime Minister Maliki sent his government troops into battle late last month against the Shiite militias that are loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, President Bush hailed Maliki's move as "a defining moment" in the evolution of "a free Iraq." Given the failure of Maliki's military venture, would you agree with your president that this was a "defining moment"? And would you agree with Senator John McCain, who said at the outset of battle that Maliki's move was "a sign of the strength of his governnment"?

5. Let's see if we have this right: We're arming the minority Sunnis, and, even though we routinely denounce Iranian influence, we're nevertheless arming the Iranian-backed Shiite Maliki government, which in turn is fighting al-Sadr as well as other Iranian-backed Shiite warlords. Given all these complexities, general, what constitutes "victory" in Iraq?

6. General, when you appeared on Capitol Hill last September, you were asked whether the surge strategy would succeed in making America safer. You replied, "I don't know, actually." Do you feel today that the war, as waged during the last seven months, has made America safer? Failing that, have you at least made Americans in the Green Zone safer - or, as we have now learned, is it too risky to even go to the fitness center?

7. General, on the issue of incremental U.S. troop withdrawals, there appears to be a Catch-22 in the Bush administration's position. If the situation in Iraq is "fragile," to use the word of one official, then it's deemed foolish to send troops home, because that would make the situation worse. Yet even when Bush officials speak of "progress" in Iraq, it's still deemed foolish to send troops home, lest the progress be jeopardized. In other words, apparently we can't draw down when things are bad, and we can't draw down when things are good. Is there a third scenario that has escaped us, that would allow for gradual withdrawals?

8. General, one of your staunchest supporters is Senator John McCain. After he returned from his most recent trip to Iraq, McCain said, "We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says." Could you please provide a more nuanced assessment? For instance, the State Department has determined that Iraq this month is providing less electricity to its citizens (58 percent of demand) that it did during the same month one year ago (66 percent of demand). President Bush originally intended to make Iraq safe more democracy. Would it be more realistic, as a measurement of success, to strive to at least make Iraq safe for electricity?

9. General, the experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group have now issued a new report. This report concludes that Iraqi political reconciliation - the ultimate goal of the surge - has been "slow, halting and superficial," and that the political divisions are "so pronounced" that we are no closer to leaving Iraq than we were one year ago, in the early phase of the surge. Do you have any evidence that further American military deaths, and further American expenditures (at the current rate of $3 billion a week), will somehow convince the warring Iraqi factions to reconcile?

10. Last September, President Bush told the deputy prime minister of Australia that, with respect to the American surge in Iraq, "we're kicking ass." Seven months have passed. General, are we kicking ass?

------

UPDATE: We have an answer to question #6...well, sort of an answer. Asked again today whether the war is making America safer, Petraeus replied: "It can only be answered by history, once the outcome in Iraq has been determined."

------

UPDATE: Not even Petraeus feels comfortable joining McCain in the waving of pom poms.

Here was McCain on Iraq this morning, the "maverick" in full Bush mode: "We can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success."

Here was Petraeus, a few hours later: "We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator."

Blame the Clintons, not Mark Penn

2008-04-07T09:27:00.007-04:00

The Clintons were reportedly shocked, shocked to learn this weekend that chief strategist Mark Penn had recently donned his other hat - as CEO of a global consulting firm - and sought to lobby on behalf of a client for a trade treaty that Hillary opposes on the campaign trail. The Clintons let it be known that they were "angry" with Penn, and last night they made it clear that Penn will no longer pilot Hillary's lurching ship.

Most voters don't really care when a campaign plays musical chairs with its personnel. As the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Penn is clearly a prominent figure among his farflung corporate clients (including Countrywide Financial, our top mortgage lender; Blackwater Worldwide, the security mercenaries who have been blamed for reckless and deadly actions in Iraq, Shell Oil, Pfizer and many others), but he is hardly a household name to the American electorate. So I am less interested in Penn than what Penn's rise and fall tells us about Hillary Clinton herself, and about the boneheaded fundamentals of her campaign. Penn has not been the source of her woes, only a symptom.

Ever since her campaign was launched, she and Bill have condoned and tolerated Penn's dubious dual role. They appeared not to understand their own problem, that it might be difficult to sell Hillary as the candidate of "change" when their own chief strategist was so enmeshed in the special-interest world of Washington. Clearly, they never demanded that Penn, as a condition of his campaign employment, step down from his executive position and thus distance himself financially from clients whose business needs might clash with Hillary's political needs.

Heck, even Karl Rove did that; in fact, Rove did better than that. Back in 1999, at the dawn of George W. Bush's excellent adventure, Rove sold off his Texas consulting firm, and thus avoided all conflict of interest charges during the subsequent campaign. One might have assumed that a Democratic candidate - who bills herself as a fighter against the special interests - would insist that Penn work out a similar arrangement. But no.

So, not surprisingly, there was a report last Friday that Penn met with one of his clients, the government of Colombia, for the purpose of helping Colombia secure passage of a bilateral trade treaty that Hillary has publicly opposed because she believes it hurts American workers. Colombia signed up Penn last year; the contract was worth $300,000. There would have been no such contract last year if the Clintons had insisted in advance that Penn wear only his campaign hat, at least for the duration of the campaign.

And, lest we get caught up only in the present moment, it's important to remember that this Colombia episode is hardly the first Penn flap. Nearly a year ago, the news surfaced that Burson-Marsteller was fond of advertising its expertise in the art of union-busting. In other words, at a time when Hillary was trying to sell herself as a fighter on behalf of the average worker, her chief strategist's lobbying firm was helping corporations thwart the organizing efforts of unions that sought to help the average worker.

For instance, as reporter Ari Berman documented last spring, Penn's firm counseled Cintas, a leading laundry supply company, in its persistent efforts to block its workers from organizing. (The chief officer of Cintas, by the way, had long been a leading fundraiser for Bush.) Penn, in his defense, later said that, notwithstanding his position as CEO of the firm, he had never "personally participated" in offering any union-busting advice. Clearly, however, Burson-Marseller did not enjoy being outed; last year, the firm also erased, from its website, all references to its union-busting expertise.

The important point here is that even after these embarrassing stories surfaced, and even after a number of prominent national union leaders complained in writing to the Clintons about Penn's conflicts and the mixed campaign message that his conflicts implied, nothing changed. The Clintons didn't force Penn to make any changes. And Penn continued to wear his two hats, thereby laying the groundwork for the most recent political embarrassment. At a time when Hillary's campaign may well hinge on whether she can bond successfully on April 22 with Pennsylvania's downtrodden workers, it didn't help that her chief strategist was trying to feather his own nest by working a trade deal deemed hurtful to workers.

So the Clinton's purported fury with Penn is badly misplaced. They enabled Penn from the beginning, and thereby made it easier for Barack Obama to capture the "change" label and tie Hillary to the "status quo." They have only themselves to blame. (Meanwhile, they're still allowing Penn to keep polling for the campaign.)

And they certainly can't blame Penn for Hillary's latest credibility embarrassment. She managed this one all by herself.

For weeks on the campaign trail, Hillary has been repeating an anecdote ("I heard a story that just kinda haunted me...") about an uninsured Ohio woman, Trina Bachtel, who lost her baby and died because a hospital turned her away; according to Hillary, the woman was denied care because she failed to come up with a $100 fee. You can see the yarn in action on video.

Well, it turns out that Hillary's tear-jerker was wrong in most key respects: (a) the woman was actually insured, (b) the woman was not refused medical care, (c) the woman - who did die after her baby was stillborn - was under the care of an obstetrician affiliated with a hospital. And that purported $100 fee? That's as true as Hillary's snipers.

The fact is, Hillary did "hear a story." As an Ohio newspaper reported on Friday, and as the New York Times followed up on Saturday, some sheriff's deputy in Ohio first told Hillary a second-hand yarn about what he had heard about Bachtel. But he got most of the facts wrong...and Hillary didn't bother to have the facts checked out by her staff before doing a rhetorical polish on the stump.

On Saturday, the Clinton campaign promised to excise the Bachtel yarn from the standard stump speech. In all probability, this incident will now be trumped by the news of Mark Penn's departure as chief strategist. But both stories are essentially the same, in this respect: it is the candidate who is ultimately responsible for campaign quality control.

Obama and the benefits of time

2008-04-03T10:32:00.006-04:00

I’m traveling the rest of this week – and not for work reasons – so new postings will be light (today) or non-existent (Friday). The normal regimen resumes on Monday.

However, with respect to the Pennsylvania primary, a passing thought did occur to me. This six-week interregnum between Democratic contests is definitely benefiting Barack Obama - as evidenced by numerous polls, all of which show a tightening race. Consider the reasons:

1. He’s getting plenty of time to introduce himself to a state where Hillary Clinton is as familiar as Hershey chocolate. Pennsylvanians generally don’t warm to candidates with whom they are unfamiliar; Ed Rendell finally won the governor’s job 16 years after his first try. The Clinton brand has been around since 1992, and if the Pennsylvania campaign window had been a lot narrower, Hillary would be blowing Obama away on name ID alone. But thanks to the elongated calendar, Obama has the luxury of traveling by bus, doing retail politics in small cities and towns, and getting himself known in ways that slick TV ads can never accomplish. Sort of like he managed to do in Iowa.

2. He’s had the time to rebound from the Jeremiah Wright crisis. If that bomb had gone off during a tight turnaround between contests, he would have been toast. But his bold speech on race, notwithstanding some lingering concerns, has tamped down the flames, and he delivered it early enough in the Pennsylvania cycle for maximum resonance.

3. Cursed by the slow time clock, Hillary created her own little crisis. Obama's woes got trumped by her Bosnia sniper fantasies, thereby rekindling the old doubts about Clintonian credibility. It appeared at first that the cable TV shows, faced with the need to fill air time during this long vote-free interregnum, would be forever flogging the Wright story, but Hillary has given them something new to chew on. And chew on. Nothing stirs the commentators more than footage of a politician lying on camera.

4. The horserace story is frozen, and that benefits Obama. Until the Pennsylvania verdict on April 22, Hillary is stuck with her pledged-delegate and popular-vote deficits. She can’t change the basic narrative of the race, and, as these weeks drag by, more and more Democrats are fretting that the contest (translation: prolonged by Hillary) is hurting their prospects for November. In response, Hillary has had to spend valuable time scoffing at suggestions that she should quit. It’s not a good sign when a candidate’s basic pitch is essentially reduced to, "Vote for me so that Indiana can vote, too."

5. Without new votes to count, every new superdelegate endorsement receives greater media attention – and that’s another plus for Obama. The drip-drip continues: Bob Casey...Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar...Wyoming Gov. David Freudenthal (a former Bill Clinton administration appointee, no less) signed on yesterday...Former Montana Sen. John Melcher did the same...And so did former 9/11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton. He’s not a superdelegate, but he’s a party elder with strong national security credentials who also co-helmed the Iraq Study Group...And superdelegate Jimmy Carter all but signaled yesterday that he has signed on.

6. And without new votes to count, the media watches the money. Obama just endured the worst month of his campaign, yet he still raised upwards of $40 million. That’s reportedly double the Clinton total. The word is that she also has debts in the range of $9 million – not even counting the $5 mil that she recently donated from her own bank account. Obama, again taking advantage of the calendar, is outspending Clinton by a 3-1 margin in the state where he can potentially break her campaign.

All told, Clinton may think it’s a boon to cast herself in the role of Rocky, but perhaps she forgets the plot. Rocky lost.

Gas prices and pander politics

2008-04-02T09:20:00.008-04:00

In his bid to bond with blue-collar Pennsylvanians during the runup to the April 22 primary, Barack Obama engaged yesterday in some old-school substance-free politicking. He denounced the price of gasoline.

"Gas prices are killing folks," he said in hardscrabble Wilkes-Barre. "I got an email from a friend of mine. It says, 'just in case you're not living in the real world, being driven around by the Secret Service, it just cost me $85 to fill my tank.'" Obama continued, referring to the oil companies, "They have been in fat city for a long time. They are not necessarily putting that money into refinery capacity, which could potentially relieve some of the bottlenecks in our gasoline supply. And so that is something we have to go after. I think we can go after the windfall profits of some of these companies."

Politicians love to rail against high gas prices and Big Oil; it's easy rhetorical populism, a way to stand up for the little guy. And it's a potentially good tactic for Obama, who's trying chip away at Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania lead by demonstrating that he's more than just a guy who wows the intelligentsia with pretty speeches; that, in fact, he also empathizes with the working stiff (especially the modest-income white male swing voter). And there's no faster route to the heart of the average Joe than a lament about pain at the pump - as he also demonstrates in a Pennsylvania TV ad.

But, dandy soundbites aside, it's basically a phony issue.

The last thing that presidential candidates want to tell voters is that, quite frankly, there is little they can actually do, once in office, to control (much less lower) the price of gas. There is an increasingly robust global market for oil these days, and America is merely one of the buyers - competing in particular with China and India, two nations with burgeoning economies and a billion people in each. With those nations driving up demand, and demonstrating an ability to pay, then the price of oil will naturally stay high. That's capitalism.

Americans like to think of themselves as Number One; woe to the politician who tries to truthfully explain the facts of life in the 21st century. Americans also believe in the right to drive their gas-guzzling SUVs; woe to the politician who tries to explain that voters themselves are actually part of the problem on the demand side. (John Zogby, the pollster, once told me a story: "My son and I went to a book party for Arianna Huffington. She waxed eloquent about the pitfalls of SUVs. everybody listened - and when we left, maybe 11 SUVs were parked outside, waiting to pick up guests. Point is, you can't call on Americans to sacrifice during a presidential campaign. That's a loser.")

Yet while demand in America and abroad has sharply increased, supply has not kept pace, for a host of reasons. Such as: OPEC, the 12-nation combine that produces roughly 40 percent of the world's oil, has barely increased its output since 1979. Ongoing civil unrest in Nigeria has hurt production there; Venezuela during the past several years has nationalized its oil fields, and its regime, which is hostile to American interests, has been routing oil to China - oil that was supposed to go to Exxon refineries in Louisiana.

But none of that makes for good campaign rhetoric. It's catchier for Obama to attack "windfall profits," as he did yesterday, or for politicians to charge Big Oil with "price gouging," as Republican politicians did several years ago. In fact, when gas prices rose in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, even President Bush asked the Federal Trade Commission to find out whether the oil companies were manipulating the market at the consumer's expense. The FTC found no such evidence. As one energy analyst drily noted in 2006, the companies weren't "price gouging"; rather, this analyst said, they were charging the highest price that the global market would accept - which is another definition of capitalism, at least in its more rapacious form.

Democrats also have a big blind spot on this issue. They'll get on the stump and call for cheaper gas prices, yet the laudable environmental measures that they champion are virtually guaranteed to drive the price higher. For instance, I remember a 45-cent spike at the pump in California five years ago, and the politicians yelled "price gouging" - while somehow overlooking the fact that the state had just enacted strict environmental rules that forced refineries to mix in two new low-pollution fuel blends. And two years ago, there was a national spike in gas prices - thanks in part to a new congressional law requiring that the oil refineries convert to cleaner fuel blends for the warmer weather, a process that slowed production and tightened supply.

Meanwhile, it's amusing these days to hear some Democrats still pine for Al Gore. Gore's whole pitch is that gas prices should be a lot higher, in order to wean more Americans from their cars; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to ease traffic congestion; to lower the pollution-related health risks and costs. He knows darn well that if he was ever to be a candidate again, there's no way he could say on the stump what he truly believes, not if he wants to win.

In fairness to Obama, he did call yesterday for the investment in new technologies, "so we can replace the internal combustion engine," but such a process, even if fully engaged, would require decades to complete. And many energy analysts believe that high gas prices are beneficial, because they would hasten the day when alternative fuel sources are economically viable.

That, too, is capitalism. But such talk won't work on the stump, and sure won't deliver Pennsylvania in this election cycle.

-------

But speaking of Pennsylvania, congressman John Murtha did Hillary Clinton no favors yesterday when he declared that she would win the state primary by double digits. Murtha, who has endorsed Clinton, would have been far wiser to lowball the expectations for victory - particularly since the latest polls show that the contest is tightening. One new survey even puts Obama ahead.

Gargling the neocon Kool-Aid

2008-04-01T09:10:00.008-04:00

I know this is not a big news story in America anymore, but the question is still worth asking:

How goes President Bush's Iraq democratization crusade these days - the same crusade that would be waged next year by John McCain?

Well, last I checked, America's fighting men and women were putting their lives on the line for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and for the Badr Organization militia. That's been the situation during the past week, which makes you wonder why Bush bothers to insult the U.S. citizenry with his talk about how we are helping a "young democracy." This is not Thomas Jefferson and John Adams dramatized on HBO, debating constitutionalism and trading rhetorical ripostes. This is about a violent power play in the streets, with American troops caught in the middle.

Our client in Iraq, the prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki - whose chief ally, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, runs the Islamic Supreme Council (a political party) as well as his own militia (the aforementioned Badr Organization) - last week put his fragile political capital at risk by seeking to crack down on his Shiite rival in Basra, the militia-backed cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Local elections are scheduled for Oct. 1 in Basra, where Sadr is popular. So, the way things work in this "young democracy," Maliki made the decision to engage Sadr's Mahdi Army in street battles - with military victory as his goal, thereby presumably ensuring political victory at the polls for Maliki's allies in the Islamic Supreme Council and in his own Dawa party.

True to their shared instincts, both Bush and McCain lauded Maliki at the outset of fighting, and raised the stakes accordingly. Bush declared last Thursday that Maliki's decision to battle Sadr in the streets was "a very positive development," indeed "a defining moment" in the brief history "of a free Iraq." McCain a day later characterized Maliki's move as "a sign of the strength of his government." (If you're trying to differentiate between these two cheerleaders, here's a handy tip: Bush is the one who was roundly booed Sunday night at Washington's baseball opener.)

Not suprisingly, over the past few days we have heard nothing further from Bush and McCain about "defining moments" and government "strength" - because, as it turns out, Maliki's Iraqi security forces (the forces that we have long been training to stand up, so that we can stand down) failed in their mission to tame Sadr's fighters. Maliki had vowed to win a clear victory; instead, Sadr's militia ceded almost no ground, and fought the government forces to a standstill.

The result - for now, anyway - is a negotiated ceasefire between the rival Shiite groups that was brokered by the Shiite leaders of Iran. Sadr's militia remains virtually intact; Maliki, so recently lauded by McCain for his "strength," basically sued for peace. As a result, he lost face and political capital.

McCain's reaction? Today on CNN, he tried to characterize the ceasefire as "very helpful." Then, finally, he admitted that Maliki's military campaign, conducted by his U.S.-trained forces, "was not the success, apparently so far, that we hoped it would be."

All of which prompts these questions: Amidst all the attention being paid to the steel-cage match between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, will John McCain be closely questioned about his fealty to the ongoing Iraq fiasco - and to the Bushspeak that, for five years, has repeatedly been contradicted by the realities on the ground? Or are the Iraq realities - all those Shiite factions warring with each other, plus the discontented Sunnis - simply too complicated for most Americans?

Here are two possible scenarios for next November:

(1) Voters simply tune out the war. They have no patience to differentiate between Shiite factions or keep the names straight (see fourth paragraph). Being Americans, they prefer a clean fight with designated good guys and bad guys; denied that in Iraq, they wash their hands of the whole mess and go to the mall. They look at the candidates, and figure that maybe the one with the most military and foreign policy experience is best qualified to clean things up, whatever that means. Advantage, McCain.

(2) Voters lead busy lives and don't have the time to figure out all the factions in Iraq. So they skip to the bottom line and instinctively recognize that the constant ebb and flow of sectarian fighting, and the shellings of the supposedly safe Green Zone, are all signs of the ongoing chaos that undercuts Bush's incessant booster rhetoric - and here is McCain saying the same stuff. Advantage, Democrats.

Candidate McCain is currently embarked on a biographical tour, backed by a 60-second TV ad that culminates with the newly-freed POW reciting his Navy serial number from a hospital bed. It's powerful material that plucks traditional American chords. Assuming (just for the heck of it) that the Democrats manage not to implode this summer, the autumn race is likely to be close. And the outcome may well hinge on whether McCain's heroic profile is deemed more important by swing voters than the fact that he is Bush's echo on Iraq, still gargling the neocon Kool-Aid.

Breaking bread with the vast right-wing conspiracy

2008-03-31T08:55:00.005-04:00

While scanning the various Sunday commentaries, I stumbled across these laudatory effusions for Hillary Clinton: "...courage and confidence...political courage...impressive command...her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on...a very favorable (impression) indeed..."

The author of this particular newspaper editorial was Richard Mellon Scaife.

If that name doesn't ring a bell, here's some short-hand: Richard Mellon Scaife praising Hillary Clinton is roughly analagous to George Steinbrenner wearing Red Sox regalia. Or Keith Obermann vacationing with Bill O'Reilly. Or Woody Allen quoting approvingly from Mein Kampf. Or George W. Bush confessing all his screwups to Cindy Sheehan. Or some other topsy turvy notion, straight out of Bizarro World in the Superman comics.

Scaife is the reclusive rich guy who financed what Hillary once called "the vast right-wing conspiracy." She returns to that theme on page 449 of her memoir, referring to Scaife as "the reactionary billionaire who had bankrolled the long-term campaign to destroy Bill's presidency." That's basically accurate.

In late 1996, while I was researching a magazine story on the interlocking alliances of conservative Clinton-hunters, I found Scaife's fingerprints everywhere. Scaife, a western Pennsylvania heir to the Mellon fortune, financed something called "The Arkansas Project," an ambitious (and ultimately futile) effort to destroy Bill Clinton's presidency by probing his tenure as governor of Arkansas and unearthing evidence that he had run drugs and murdered people. He also funnelled money to the conservative American Spectator magazine, which at the time was hot on the trail of Bill's various Arkansas paramours.

He also funnelled money to the various conservative legal groups that offered legal advice to sexual-harassment accuser Paula Jones. He also sought to prove, via his generous largesse, that a Clinton aide who in 1993 was found to have committed suicide (Vince Foster) had actually been murdered by undetermined assassins, presumably at the behest of the Clintons. The coroner's suicide ruling was repeatedly debunked in the pages of Scaife's newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - more on that newspaper in a moment - and Scaife himself told a magazine in 1998 that Bill was a potential murderer: "Listen, (Clinton) can order people done away with at his will. He's got the entire federal government behind him."

But Scaife was still wearing his tinfoil hat long after the Clintons left the White House. As recently as three years ago, as Hillary was gearing up to run on her own, some of the Scaife-financed conservative "news" websites were flacking a new Hillary-bashing biography written by Ed Klein, with special emphasis on the "widely rumored" whispers that Hillary was a lesbian...and that her daughter was allegedly conceived during an act of rape.

But Scaife's influence extends far beyond his anti-Clinton crusades. He has reportedly donated upwards of $1 billion (in current dollars, adjusted for inflation) to conservative causes and institutions, thereby playing an instrumental role in establishing the think tanks and publications and law firms and watchdog groups that have put liberals and Democrats at a distinct disadvantage over the past four decades. In other words, he stands for everything that the Clintons and their political compadres have long been working against. (And in 1981, when a Columbia Journalism Review reporter stopped Scaife on the street and tried to quiz him about his influence in conservative circles, he called her a "communist," along with a common pejorative slang for the female genitalia.)

Yet this very same guy, in the same Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, was gushing about Hillary in his signed commentary yesterday. And this was because Hillary herself stopped by early last week to shoot the breeze with Scaife and his editorial writers for 90 minutes. Result: "(A) lesser politician - one less aself-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign affairs, less confident of her positions - might well have canceled the interview...I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting - and it's a very favorable one indeed."

Nobody is quite sure why Scaife has suddenly morphed into a pussycat; there have been various reports that Scaife admires Bill's post-presidential work on global issues, or that he's boosting Hillary because he thinks she beatable in November, or he's merely trying to stick it to his estranged wife (with whom he is immersed in an ugly divorce) because she is reportedly a Barack Obama supporter. Or maybe he was sincerely dazzled last week by Hillary's wonky presentation.

Whatever. What most interests me is why Hillary decided to seek out Scaife and sit with him in the first place.

At a time when Obama is still getting grief for his long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it's worth debating whether Hillary can justify enlisting, as a new best friend, the same guy who has called her own husband a murderer - and whose money has long empowered the conservative movement that Hillary views as an impediment to social and economic progress. A reasonable case can be made that Richard Scaife's money has had more impact on the life of the average citizen than Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric.

Yet, as a short-term tactic, Hillary's sitdown with Scaife was arguably a smart move. Upscale liberals probably scoff at Scaife's paper, but those folks are voting for Obama anyway. Culturally conservative Democrats in western Pennsylvania are more likely to read Scaife's paper, and Hillary badly needs those people to turn out on April 22. Secondly, by declawing somebody like Scaife, the Clinton camp can float the message that she's not such a polarizer after all, that she too has the potential to unite Americans across partisan lines. (Indeed, a Clinton spokeswoman said yesterday that the candidate "has demonstrated the ability to bridge old divides and get things done. Winning over Mr. Scaife is just another example.")

But with yet another Democratic senator today declaring support for Obama - Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the 64th superdelegate to back Obama since Feb. 5, as opposed to just nine for Clinton - it may be too late for the trailing candidate to shed her polarizing image. Scaife helped cement that image, and breaking bread with the guy won't make it go away.

-------

On the broader issue of when (or whether) candidates should (or should not) be judged by the company they keep, I wrote about the outbreak of '08 proxy scandals in my Sunday print column.

-------

And on the veracity front, this might not rank with Hillary's fantasy claim of dodging sniper fire, but nevertheless it stands as another tall tale from the trail:

Barack Obama has claimed that he owes his "very existence" to the Kennedys, because, in his telling, the legendary family provided the student scholarship money that enabled his future father to visit America in 1959 and meet his future mother. Turns out, however, that the Kennedys didn't kick in money for that particular program, which involved the airlifting of Kenyan students, until 1960.

The Obama campaign came clean yesterday. Unlike Hillary on the Bosnia falsehood, at least Obama didn't try to blame it on sleep deprivation.

Casey at the bat, and the brushback pitch

2008-03-28T09:03:00.007-04:00

Big story this morning, broken by one of my colleagues: Senator Bob Casey, the ever-cautious Democratic centrist whose surname is golden among white Catholic working-class Pennsylvanians, is endorsing Barack Obama today. It's a surprise, because Casey (also a superdelegate) was expected to hang back during the runup to the April 22 primary. Theoretically, Casey will help Obama with the voters whom Obama needs most.

Endorsements don't always translate into votes, of course, and maybe Casey's nod won't make any difference in the end. Nevertheless, we can expect Hillary Clinton's message practitioners to lurch into characteristic overdrive today, maybe like this...

11:30 a.m., from the spin shop: "Senator Clinton does not need a lecture from Bob Casey about how to reach the hardworking Pennsylvanians who in four weeks will launch her on the road to a party-unifying victory at the Democratic convention. This race is ultimately about the candidates, not about endorsements. Endorsements are not important. We are pleased that Gov. Rendell and congressman John Murtha have endorsed us, and we are confident that the voters will note that importance."

1 p.m., from the spin shop: "Bob Casey lost to Ed Rendell in the 2002 gubernatorial primary, and now he is seeking to avenge his defeat by breaking ranks with the popular governor. It is regrettable that, at a time when Senator Clinton is enjoying unstoppable momentum, Bob Casey is reduced to playing partisan political games."

2 p.m., from the spin shop: "Some may suggest today that Bob Casey is attempting to settle an old score with the Clintons, by endorsing Senator Obama. Some may suggest that this endorsement is just petty payback for what happened at Bill Clinton's 1992 Democratic convention, when Casey's father, the governor of Pennsylvania, was barred from speaking because of his anti-abortion views. But today Bob Casey is not engaging in this kind of petty payback, as far as we know."

3 p.m., from the spin shop: "All endorsements by first-term senators of any state with more than 20 electoral votes, tendered before voters get the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights, should be considered automatically illegitimate. And any presidential candidate with a gift for pretty speechmaking who accepts such endorsements should be considered illegitimate."

4 p.m., an open letter to Bob Casey, from prominent donors to the Clinton campaign: "We have long been strong supporters of Democratic senatorial candidates. We request that you re-clarify your position on the Pennsylvania primary, that you keep an open mind, and that you show respect for the electoral process. If you prefer instead to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters, we have no choice but to remember that you are up for re-election in four years. We have warned House Speaker Pelosi about the consequences of opposing Senator Clinton, and now we are warning you."

5 p.m., a special message from James Carville: "Bob Casey is Judas. Sold her out for a money bag and a fistful of silver. Not tryin’ to say that he’s a turncoat betrayer or that she’s the same as Jesus Christ, but there ya go."

6 p.m., a special message from Bill Clinton: "There's no good reason for male bullies to gang up on a girl who loves this country. Senator McCain, I know he also loves this country. I think it's a shame that others would try to disrupt an election between these two candidates who at least do love this country."

6:10 p.m., from a media availability with Hillary Clinton: "Rev. Wright, Florida. Rev. Wright, Michigan. Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright."

6:11 p.m., during a spin shop conference call with reporters: "We also think it's important to remember that Bob Casey hails from a famous political family, and, while we want to underscore our belief that this endorsement is no big deal, we do think that it shows what can happen when a political dynasty presumes to throw its weight around...(long pause)...OK, we'd like to rephrase that."

More quote marks for McCain

2008-03-27T12:17:00.006-04:00

As part of my continuing effort to persuade media colleagues to put quote marks around the word maverick when writing about John McCain, here's his latest pit stop on the flip-flop express.

Ten years ago, while burnishing the "maverick" image that has prompted so much swooning among Washington scribes, McCain styled himself as a courageous foe of the tobacco industry. He routinely condemned them and he vowed to take their money. He championed a Senate measure to slap a tax on Big Tobacco - to the tune of $1.10 per pack - and route the revenue to federal programs designed to curb underage smoking.

When Big Tobacco squawked, and vowed to spend tens of millions of dollars to stop him, McCain declared, "I'm honored by the attacks by people who have addicted our children and lied to Congress" - the latter, of course, referring to the tobacco CEOs who testified under oath about the safe, non-addictive properties of their products.

When he first announced his $1.10 tax plan, he said in a press release: "The health and well-being of America's children is a cause that transcends party affiliation."

When fellow Republicans asked McCain how he could dare push for a tax hike and still call himself a Republican, he replied on the Senate floor (June 17, 1998): "Maybe we ought to remember the obligations that we incur when we govern America. We might want to understand that our obligation first of all is to those who can't care for themselves in this society, and that includes our children. Isn't it out obligation - shouldn't it define the Republican party that we should do everything we can to handle this scourge, this disease that is rampant throughout young children in America? Doesn't that define the Republican party?"

And when fellow Republicans that day called him a tax-raiser, he replied: "This bill is not about taxes. It's about whether we're going to allow the death march of 418,000 Americans a year who die early from tobacco-related disease and do nothing."

Indeed, when McCain was asked earlier that spring on PBS whether he'd give in to his Republican critics, he replied, "Never."

Well, you guessed it. McCain has given up. Today he is against the concept of taxing Big Tobacco, after he was for it.

Right now, there's a Senate bill - nearing a vote - that would slap a 61-cent tax on every pack of butts, and earmark the money for a children's health program. But as McCain reportedly remarked at a recent policy conference, "Now help me out here: We are trying to get people not to smoke, and yet we are depending on tobacco to fund a program that's designed for children's health? I can't buy that."

Who would ever want to buy such a whacky concept? McCain did, of course, but that was in his previous incarnation. McCain 2.0 has recalibrated his convictions, bringing them more into line with Republican orthodoxy. By that standard, the idea of imposing a sin tax on a major industry - one, by the way, that gives most of its money to the Republican party - is ludicrious and, even worse, smacks of liberalism. As such, it was necessary for the "maverick" to stand down.

Ten years ago, while championing the tobacco tax, he told GOP colleagues that the vote was about "whether we're going to have the will to serve the public interest, or the special interest."

The new McCain has now given us his answer.

-------

Did you know that Hillary Clinton really did brave sniper fire in Bosnia, after all? See the exclusive video right here.

Under fire, but not from snipers

2008-03-26T09:29:00.007-04:00

Maybe she was hoping that the toy companies would agree to market a Hillary Clinton Action Figure. More likely, she was probably hoping that she could inflate her meager foreign policy experience by goading the electorate into swallowing a lie.

Now that Clinton has been exposed as a serial peddler of falsehoods, in her retelling of the 1996 visit she made to Bosnia as First Lady, it's worth noting why this campaign episode is important. She has based her increasingly desperate candidacy on the proposition that she is best qualified to be commander-in-chief at 3 a.m. on Day One, and that in turn hinges on the argument that she has passed some of the character tests that are requirements for command. Physical courage, for example.

Hence, her desire to make people believe - in direct contradiction to the facts, as captured on video - that she braved sniper fire in Bosnia. And it's not actually the lie that was most telling. It's her attempt to lie about the lie.

This week, Clinton has claimed that she merely "misspoke" when she said in a March 17 speech: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." (Whereas, as the video clearly shows, she sauntered across the tarmac, bent down to engage a Bosnian child in conversation, with daughter Chelsea in tow, then continued to saunter.)

But in fact Clinton did not "misspeak" (as she insisted again yesterday on Pittsburgh radio); nor was it merely a case of being "sleep-deprived" (as she insisted yesterday in a chat with a Pittsburgh newspaper). Her March 17 remarks were scripted in advance, and even appeared in the text of the speech posted on the Clinton campaign website. It was clearly the campaign's intention to show her braving enemy fire.

Nor was it the first time that she sought to rewrite reality.

She also apparently "misspoke" in Texas on Feb. 29, when she told an audience: "I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia, where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire." And maybe she was merely "sleep-deprived" in Iowa on Dec. 29, when she said that she and her entourage "ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac."

On Dec. 29, she also told the Iowans that since the airport was too dangerous for a presidential visit, she was sent instead ("if a place was too dangerous, too small, or too poor, send the First Lady")...which, if true, prompts me to wonder why she decided to bring her daughter along. Are we supposed to believe that the Tuzla airport was too treacherous to risk Bill's life, but not Chelsea's?

Her last spin offering yesterday was a surrender of sorts. She said that she'd "made a mistake," and that "it proves I'm human." In a sense, she is right. Aspirants for the highest office are very human; by definition, they are often abnormally driven and self-absorbed and prone to believe whatever delusions leap off their tongues.

So Clinton is hardly the first to fit that profile. Ronald Reagan, whose World War II experiences never extended beyond the Hollywood lot, used to give speeches implying that his scripted roles were actually real. Lyndon Johnson, as a young congressman in 1942, flew once as an observer on a Pacific bombing mission, but the plane turned back within 13 minutes because of a faulty generator, having never reached its target - yet LBJ later claimed that (a) he had been under fire, (b) he had actually flown on many missions, and (c) the crews had nicknamed him Raider Johnson.

So you can rightly characterize this kind of bull-slinging as "human," but, really, it is something more. It is calculation. In the Bosnia case, it was a deliberate attempt to falsely inflate, by dint of repetition, the "experience" credentials that supposedly will inspire the superdelegates to overturn the verdict of Democratic primary voters...and inspire Barack Obama's delegates to abandon their pledges and flock to her banner.

Regarding the latter, she's clinging to that possibility as well, telling Time that "every delegate with very few exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment."

So-called pledged delegates...I suppose that tearing one's party apart in the service of personal ambition can also be categorized as very human.

-------

Speaking of very human: If you're missing the Eliot Spitzer story, and the whole topic of political sex scandals, you can journey down memory lane to the scandal that changed the rules of political reporting. That would be the Gary Hart affair, two decades ago. I wrote this freelance article, in the new issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

-------

And speaking of freelance articles, I wrote this new piece, in Obit Magazine, about the 4,000th American death an Iraq. It barely overlaps with what appeared on this blog yesterday.

The 4,000th death as metaphor

2008-03-25T10:13:00.010-04:00

The occasion of the 4,000th American military death in Iraq has actually triggered something akin to a miracle on the home front, forcing people to focus anew (albeit briefly) on President Bush's historic misadventure - at the expense of ignoring (albeit briefly) the potential death spiral of the fractious Democrats.

I won't use this milestone to broadly recount how the "cakewalk" morphed into a catastrophe, or to lament on how Bush will be dropping his slop into the lap of his successor. I'll simply note the manner in which the 4000th soldier met his demise (in the company of three comrades), and suggest why the incident is a metaphor for the ill-begotten war.

The 4,000th was killed by a roadside, makeshift bomb - in military parlance, an improvised explosive device (IED). How perversely fitting. According to the Pentagon, IEDs for the first time are now responsible for a majority of American military deaths. Twenty-one percent of the first 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 35 percent of the second 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 46 percent of the third 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; for the fourth 1000 deaths, it's 54 percent.

Why the death toll? Because, as has been well documented, the Bush war planners in 2002 and 2003 did not anticipate that insurgents armed with IEDs would be an obstacle to the vaunted American military juggernaut - because they didn't forsee the possibility of an insurgency, despite CIA prewar warnings. All this, despite Bush's assurance, in an Oct. 7, 2002 speech, that "we will plan carefully" for any conflict in Iraq.

The Bush planners, in the early months of 2003, spoke instead of quick surrenders and citizens greeting us with flowers. They hinted at times of a two-week war. They never bothered to draft a plan to secure the thousands of Iraqi munitions caches, which reportedly contained as much as one million tons of explosives; as Gen. John P. Abizaid, the new chief of U.S. Central Command, confessed to Congress when the war was four months old, "I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control. We don't."

So explosives, reportedly by the tens of thousands, were spirited away from these ill-guarded munitions dumps, and, by the summer of 2003, IEDs were killing American soldiers, many of them traveling in lightly-armored Humvees that offered little defense from the blasts. Soldiers foraged on their own for scrap metal, in the hopes of shoring up their vehicles. The Pentagon set up a team to figure out how they could combat the IED epidemic; the task-force workers put up a sign on the wall that said "Stop the Bleeding."

The bleeding continued, but for several more years the Bush team didn't see the urgency. Military specialists and outside consults reportedly staged presentations on the IED issue for then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, the now-disbarred felon Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But the Bush team felt that training the Iraqi army was sufficient, and Cheney hewed to his belief that the insurgency was dying. These sentiments slowed Pentagon efforts to combat the IEDs by, among other things, investing in more solidly armored vehicles.

Result: In 2005, the Marines Corps' inspector general was still complaining that the 30,000 Marines in Iraq were traveling in vehicles that were no match for the IEDs. Part of the problem was that, faced with a weapon that nobody seemed to have anticipated during the runup to war, the government finally responded by flailing in all directions. At one point, 132 different government agencies were reportedly scrambling to address the IED issue, with minimal coordination among them.

The military during the past several years has become more adept at protecting the soldiers and tracking down IED bomb-makers - at a cost, during the Pentagon's current fiscal year, of at least $4.5 billion in off-budget "supplemental" funding - but, as recently as last May, the House Armed Services Committee still concluded that the anti-IED project had achieved only "marginal success."

And so the 4,000th soldier died, yet another facet of the failed Bush legacy.

A Hillary surrogate retrofits his convictions

2008-03-24T09:25:00.005-04:00

It was excrutiating yesterday to watch Senator Evan Bayh audition on CNN for the job of Hillary Clinton's running mate. One of the requirements, apparently, is that the applicant must be ready and willing to scrap his convictions for the good of the team. By that measure, Bayh probably ensured his status on her short list. Assuming she ever gets the chance to wield such a list.

One of the tasks of any Clinton surrogate these days is to pick up the goalposts and move them around, with the aim of supplying Democratic superdelegates with a plausible reason why they should coronate the chronically trailing candidate. And Bayh, who is also being entrusted with delivering his state of Indiana to Clinton in the May 6 primary, spun a very creative argument on CNN.

Bayh said that the Democratic nomination should be awarded to the candidate whose primary victories, when added together, represent the most electoral votes in the November election; not coincidentally, Clinton's victorious states currently add up to 219 electoral votes, while Obama's stack up at 202. (I'm not counting meaningless Florida and Michigan, for reasons I explained on Friday.)

The absurdity of this argument - that winning big primary states is proof of November electability - is easily demonstrable; in 1980, 1988, and 2004, Jimmy Carter, Mike Dukakis, and John Kerry, respectively, all triumphed during the primaries in a number of big states with a lot of electoral votes, only to be defeated in those states by their Republican opponents in November.

But that's not what interests me most about Bayh's argument. The hypocrisy is what interests me most.

Here he was yesterday, on CNN: "...we do elect presidents based upon the Electoral College. So who carried the (primary) states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because, ultimately, that's how we choose the president of the United States."

So Evan Bayh believes that the Electoral College should be an important determinant, both in choosing a nominee and choosing a president? Wait a sec, let's take a quick stroll down memory lane.

On Nov. 16, 2000, Bayh appeared on CNN and voiced his support for a constitution amendment eradicating the Electoral College as the means for choosing a president, and relying instead on the popular vote. He said, "I do believe that we should have popularly elected officials in our country. I think our government officials should reflect the will of the governed...we ought to try and make sure that in the future we have the person who gets the most votes hopefully will be the president."

Here he is in a speech on April 10, 2001, when he dismissed the Electoral College as outmoded: "Times have changed over the last couple hundred years, and where before we were interested in insuring that every state was adequately represented, now we are a country of people, not just of political subsidiaries. And you can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president. You can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president...I personally feel that we've moved to the point where we ought to have people choosing the president."

Here he is again five years later, in a North Carolina newspaper: "I think our president should be chosen by the majority of the American people." As for using the Electoral College to elect presidents, "I just don't think in the modern era that is appropriate."

It should also be noted that the abolition of the Electoral College has long been a Bayh family crusade; Evan's father, Birch Bayh, a long-serving Indiana senator a generation ago, has spent part of his time as elder statesman serving on reform panels that want the College gone.

Still, I have a twinge of sympathy for the younger Bayh. Politicians often retrofit their principles in accordance with the exigencies of the moment. And the moment apparently calls for desperate rhetorical measures, since Clinton is losing in the popular vote, the pledged delegate count, and has been routed in the tally of superdelegates who have made up their minds since early February.

And, in this case, Bayh is merely toeing the Clintonian line - because the candidate for whom he is currently auditioning was also apparently against the electoral-vote standard before she was for it. As Hillary said at the end of 2000, "I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president." (Hat tip for that quote to Kit Seelye of The New York Times.)

But this retrofitting doesn't work even on its own terms. Clinton's 14 winning states, totaling 219 electoral votes, includes California and New York. Those two states are worth 86 electoral votes. Those two states, in 2008, will almost certainly vote Democratic in November - no matter who wins the nomination. So, even by the electoral-vote measure that Bayh and Clinton formerly denounced, Clinton is inflating her primary season achievements.

And every day that she and her surrogates persist, the Republicans sit back and smile.

-------

Speaking of Republicans, John McCain got a helping hand yesterday from Brit Hume on Fox News. Although in the end I wonder whether Hume did him any favors.

Hume was opining about McCain's error last week about how the Shiites in Iran were supposedly training terrorists for al Qaeda (a Sunni group) and sending them into Iraq. The error was so flagrant that even fellow warrior Joe Lieberman felt compelled to correct him. But, as I mentioned here last Thursday, McCain repeated this error in several venues, thereby grossly exaggerating the al Qaeda threat in Iraq (just as Bush and Cheney routinely do).

Of course, if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had gone to Iraq and uttered such a jaw-dropping inaccuracy, Fox News would be running the video on every talkfest. But Hume told his viewers yesterday that, since McCain did it, it was not such a big deal.

"The mistake," Hume said, "raises not the question about his knowledgeability - we all kind of believe that he has that. The question perhaps is about his age, which is an issue...that he might have had kind of a senior moment there. And I think that's unfortunate for him."

So...It was really OK that McCain screwed up so badly on a fundamental piece of national-security info, because he was merely having a "senior moment." This is a defense? To suggest that the guy carrying the nuclear football may be prone to a "senior moment?" Better that such moments be reserved for botching the food order at the early-bird special.

Good riddance to the rule breakers

2008-03-21T09:22:00.010-04:00

Scanning the landscape at week's end:

There has been a paucity of commentary in this space about Florida and Michigan. And now that the Democratic do-over scenarios have evaporated, I can summarize my reaction in just two words.

Good riddance.

It's really quite simple. The Democratic National Committee, in its attempt to stop the extreme front-loading of the calendar, established rules barring those states from staging primaries in January. Both states were determined to break the rules anyway, by staging primaries in January. The DNC warned that the states would be stripped of their delegates if they broke the rules. The states ignored the threat and broke the rules. They were then stripped of their delegates. Now they have to live with the consequences. Too bad. Deal with it.

Hillary Clinton (who has taken up Michigan's cause only because she desperately needs to find ways to topple frontrunner Barack Obama) claims that this "disenfranchisement" of Michigan will hurt the Democrats in the autumn campaign against John McCain, but that's just spin from a seriously trailing candidate. Six months from now, the Democratic nominee (whoever it is) will be spending a lot of time in Michigan, talking about the kitchen-table economic issues that Michigan voters care about most, issues that typically favor the Democrats, issues that McCain is barely conversant about. Six months from now, the spat over the primary calendar will mean squat to the average Michigan voter. Six months is an eternity in politics.

Meanwhile, what a huge relief it is to learn that Florida will not be conducting a do-over primary. It's akin to getting the news that the lunatic distant cousin in your family will not be coming for Thanksgiving after all. Now we can eat in peace.

Seriously, can you imagine Florida trying to run a newfangled kind of primary, by mail or whatever, with only 60 days notice? Florida in 2000 couldn't even run a general election with four years notice. Then they brought in touchscreen machines, and, sure enough, in 2004, a state legislator in Broward County won his race by 12 votes because some new machines inexplicably failed to record the votes of 134 people; state law required a hand recount, but there was nothing to recount because the machines had no paper receipts. Then, with two more year's notice, another beaut occurred in 2006. On the Gulf coast, a congressional candidate declared victory by a margin of 369 votes; the only problem was, touchscreen machines in Sarasota County failed to record the sentiments of as many as 18,000 voters.

And today? Eight Florida counties are currently junking their touchscreens and changing over to optical-scan voting equipment...and probably wouldn't have been ready in time for any June primary do-over.

I have a smidgen of sympathy for the Florida Democratic party, because it is true that the Republican-run state legislature was primarily responsible for passing the bill that mandated a January primary date for both parties. However, the bill was co-sponsored by a Democrat, state party leaders echoed the desire for a January primary, and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson wanted it as well. The DNC's threat to strip the delegates was always clear, and the Florida Democrats ignored it. Nor did I ever hear Hillary Clinton cry "disenfranchisement" back when she assumed she'd cruise to the nomination; it was not until this winter, when it became clear she'd need to scrounge for every vote, that she chose to make Florida a moral cause.

Today she insists that the meaningless Florida primary should be retroactively decreed a genuine victory for her, but I'll make two points about that: (1) Floridians were repeatedly warned in advance that the Jan. 29 contest was meaningless, so there's no way of knowing how many prospective voters (sympathetic to Obama or Clinton) decided to simply stay home, and (2) The playing field was tilted in Clinton's favor. Neither candidate actively campaigned in Florida, in accordance with a DNC rule, which meant that Clinton had the advantage because she was universally known already. Obama, at the time, was not. More than Clinton, he needed to be there in person. But he was not. So this imbalance skewed the vote tally as well.

So enough with Florida. We should be happy if the state simply gets its act together in time for November, with all voting machines, of whatever technological nature, in good working order.

-------

The Florida and Michigan meltdowns have further narrowed Clinton's prospects of surpassing Obama in the national popular vote and pledged delegate count. And today, another blow: New Mexico Gov. and former candidate Bill Richardson - twice a member of Bill Clinton's Cabinet - is formally endorsing Obama.

We know that generally the value of endorsements is limited; Ted Kennedy's Obama endorsement couldn't even sway Massachusetts. But Richardson's nod could matter in several ways:

1. Richardson is a superdelegate. He may well have influence over New Mexico's 11 other superdelegates. And, lest we forget, this race has devolved into a national competition for the unpledged superdelegates.

2. Richardson - a popular western governor, and an Hispanic - can help make the case to other superdelegates about Obama's electability. New Mexico has been a swing state in the last two presidential elections. Colorado and Nevada are also western states with large Hispanic populations.

3. Richardson has a lot of foreign policy experience (thanks largely to the Clintons, who must be ticked off today), and he elevates the less experienced Obama simply by the act of vetting him. And we can expect months of buzz about a prospective Obama-Richardson ticket. Which would suit Richardson just fine. And which probably played a role in his thinking.

-------

By the way, Clinton's desperation tactics are getting worse. While trying to inflate her own foreign policy credentials during a speech last Monday, she boasted that she braved "sniper fire" after landing at an airport in Bosnia in 1996. She said, "We just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles."

Now take a look at this photo, snapped on the day in question. Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of the word ran is. A candidate who is already perceived by a majority of Americans as untrustworthy probably shouldn't be spinning tall tales.

The intellect versus the visceral

2008-03-20T09:46:00.007-04:00

Millions of Americans, and certainly the media commentariat, were bedazzled by Barack Obama's eloquent and gutsy plea for racial reconciliation. Forty-eight hours later, however, it's time to return to the nuts and bolts world of practical politics - as distasteful as this exercise may be - and ask whether his speech has erased the questions voters might have concerning his relationship with the Rev. Jerimiah Wright. Is he in the clear, or not?

Not.

Ideally, from Obama's perspective, his speech would be read in its entirety by one and all, thereby magically transforming our civic dialogue and human nature itself. Americans of all racial and ideological persuasions would suddenly rise above their basest petty suspicions and march together on the high road. Our politicians would travel that path as well, aiming their messages at the intellect, not the gut.

But here in the real world, where the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes once ruminated about the "nasty, brutish" nature of our species; a world where journalists are expected to probe rather than swoon; a world where many voters will always be guided by their visceral instincts, certain nagging questions about the Obama-Wright connection still remain:

1. Why did Obama wait until his speech to admit that, yes, he had indeed heard Wright utter incendiary remarks during church sermons - after previously claiming that he had not heard anything of the sort? Why is he now characterizing certain Wright remarks as inflammatory and even ignorant, whereas, in Ohio earlier this month, he said that "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial"? These questions go to the issue of credibility.

2. What specific incendiary remarks did he personally listen to, and did he ever make it clear to Wright or other church leaders that those remarks were inappropriate or worse? What provocative comments, uttered when he was not in attendance, did he nevertheless learn about, and did he lodge any private protests against them? As an influential Illinois political leader, did he ever share any concerns with fellow congregants? These questions go to the issues of character, judgment, and leadership.

Obama did explain, at some length in his speech the other day, that Wright's rhetorical excesses should be viewed in a broader context, as the bitter utterances of an African American who grew to manhood at a time when whites were systematically relegating blacks to second-class status. It was a worthy argument. However, a lot of white working-class voters will not embrace that argument; fairly or not, a lot of them don't want to hear anymore about how blacks were suppressed in the past. Obama's argument may play well with highly-educated white liberals in the Philadelphia suburbs - but not with lunch-bucket whites in northeast Philadelphia and in the downtrodden towns that are the swing battlegrounds in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. That's just reality.

His full speech text was an appeal to the intellect, but the short-hand version of this affair packs a visceral punch. Some voters will simply reduce it all to a few sentences: Why didn't Obama, upon hearing something vile or hateful, simply get up and walk out? How could Obama stick by a reverend who stands in the pulpit and says "God damn America?"

(Dick Morris, the ex-Clinton pollster, suggested the other day that Obama stuck with Wright for old fashioned earthbound political reasons: "Because he's a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can't say that.")

Anyway, I suspect that these questions will also be a concern for many Jewish voters, particularly those who are strong supporters of Israel and who are now aware that Wright once accused Israel of practicing "state terrorism against the Palestianians." Jewish voters may not be particularly numerous - just three or four percent of the national electorate - but they are highly concentrated in the big electoral states, and they are loyal Democratic donors. They will also vote heavily in Philadelphia and its suburbs on April 22 - the region where Obama needs overwhelming support.

Obviously, they're not all obsessed with Israel. My point is that, if Obama has any hopes of winning Pennsylvania, or blunting Hillary Clinton's victory margin, he can ill afford any erosion in the populous southeastern corner of the state. And it's worth noting that, according to the exit polls thus far, Clinton has bested Obama among Jewish voters, 52 to 46 percent.

William Galston, a longtime Democratic activist/scholar who likes Obama, nevertheless addressed Jewish concerns in an online commentary the other day: "I attend a small synagogue in Washington D.C. When my rabbi says something controversial, the entire congregation quickly learns about it. Members who are offended do not remain silent. They often reprove him. Some threaten to leave unless he apologizes and changes course. A few have left to join other congregations...Successful leaders must know when to draw lines and say no. They must accept that, as they do so, they will leave some people out and make enemies...I do not believe Senator Obama yet understands how questionable (his refusal to reject Wright) appears to many Americans..."

All told, Galston wrote, these nagging concerns "present a window on his character and help us judge what kind of president he would be." And the problem for Obama is that there are few other windows available. He is so new to the national scene, and still such a blank slate to so many low-information voters, that an issue this visceral becomes all the more magnified. His words on Tuesday were magnificient, but one speech can't remake the world.

John McCain, congregant in the church of Bush

2008-03-19T09:35:00.010-04:00

I'm just wondering. Which of these affiliations is worse: Barack Obama and his pastor...or John McCain and his president?

The 24/7 story du jour continues to be Obama-Wright, but let us at least briefly pause to ponder the McCain-Bush connection. Because I would argue that McCain's fealty to the lame-duck Decider who launched a needless war based on false premises (at a current cost of 4000 American dead and three quarters of a trillion dollars) is at least as worrisome for America as Obama's fealty to a preacher who talks fast and loose.

And yesterday, buried beneath the news about Obama's speech, we got a vivid reminder that when McCain opens his mouth about Iraq, Bushspeak dribbles out.

Bush's penchant, over the past few years, has been to characterize all anti-American combatants in Iraq as "al Qaeda" - even though, as has long been documented, only a fraction of those combatants have any ties to Osama bin Laden's organization. Bush's conflation of all fighters into "al Qaeda" has allowed him to maintain the implicit link to 9/11 (a falsehood still embraced by a healthy minority of credulous Americans), and has enabled him, with some success, to paint all Democratic dissenters as soft on Osama bin Laden, thereby forestalling any fundamental change in America's overall strategy.

McCain worships in the same church, where fact-averse sermons have become commonplace these past eight years. Yesterday in Iraq, McCain stated: "Well, it's common knowledge, and has been reported in the media, that al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training, and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That's well known."

OK, here we go, just as we always do with Bush: It's actually not common knowledge, it has not been reported in the media, and it is not well known. Because McCain's whole statement was false.

Iran is a 90 percent Shiite nation. The al Qaeda organization is Sunni. Iran, according to the U.S. government, is indeed making mischief across the border by sending in Shiite extremists (thanks to the war we launched, which toppled the Sunni dictator who had kept the Iranian Shiites at bay), but that has nothing to do with al Qaeda.

Note the certitudes in McCain's remark, about how it's "well known" and "common knowledge." That's the way Bush's mentor, Dick Cheney, and Bush's chief war planner, Donald Rumsfeld, used to talk when they would claim that there was "bulletproof" incontrovertible evidence of Hussein-al Qaeda-WMD complicity.

It speaks volumes about the strength of the Bush-McCain mind meld that McCain had to be corrected, on the spot, by, of all people, uber-hawk Joe Lieberman. Lieberman whispered in McCain's ear, whereupon McCain said, "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al Qaeda." And shortly afterwards, a McCain spokesman said, "John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself."

The problem is, McCain said the same thing this week on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show: "As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq." Hewitt, naturally, didn't question this remark; talk-show hosts on the right have long been acclimated to accept Bushspeak as synonymous with empirical truth.

And McCain used the same rhetorical conflation on Monday, when he assailed Hillary Clinton for daring to suggest in a speech that perhaps a new Iraq strategy might be worth trying. Referring to her speech, he said: "So I just think what that means is al Qaeda wins...And their dedication is to follow us home."

That's verbatim from the Bush playbook - the idea that all new ideas must be summarily shot down, lest we give aid and comfort to "al Qaeda"; the implication that any Democrat who dares discuss a pullback of troops is enabling "al Qaeda."

All this Bushspeak from McCain, despite the inconvenient fact that the offshoot group known as al Qaeda in Iraq did not exist until Bush's invasion gave it a reason to be formed. All these Bush echoes from McCain, despite the documentation that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda never had traction under Hussein; indeed, as the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee concluded back in September 2006, Hussein was "distrustful of al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaeda to provide material or operational support."

Perhaps McCain's verbatim allegience to Bush - and its core relevence to the '08 election - is dismissed merely as an old story, lacking the visceral power of the race issue. But I have yet to hear Barack Obama utter so much as a single verbatim phrase from the reverend's incendiary playbook.

Wright, race, and the post-racial campaign

2008-03-18T12:18:00.009-04:00

Barack Obama delivered a remarkable speech this morning in Philadelphia, directly tackling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy with daring arguments and nuanced historical context rarely heard on the American campaign stump.

He challenged white voters to better understand the roots of black anger. He challenged black voters to move beyond their sometimes "shocking ignorance." All told, Obama sought in his ambitious address to deliver tough love to both sides of the racial divide, while simultaneously trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature. I know that the Robert Kennedy analogies have gotten a heavy workout in recent months; this speech, however, was an RFK classic, and I'm old enough to remember that '68 campaign.

Was Obama effective? That will depend on how it is received, particularly by the millions of white voters who, in the midst of forming their first impressions of Obama, may have been spooked by Wright's most incendiary remarks. Indeed, Obama's immediate audience was probably the white working-class, culturally conservative voters who may prove pivotal in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary; a lot of those folks undoubtedly were not charmed to learn that Obama's favorite pastor, for two decades, was a guy who intoned "God damn America" from the pulpit.

Obama clearly needed to put his firm imprint on this burgeoning dispute; to spin it to his advantage; to squelch the nagging questions about what he as a congregant had heard or not heard; to explain Wright and rhetoric and race in a way that would fit with the overarching narrative of his aspirationally post-racial campaign. Above all, he needed to supplant the video images of a ranting Wright with fresh clips of himself speaking to the issue without apology, and with his sights still fixed on the high road.

The speech was effective, if only in the sense that he accomplished most of those goals. For starters, he 'fessed up that he indeed had heard Wright say some loopy stuff during Sunday sermons: "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely..."

Then he laid out his disagreements: "(Sometimes Wright) expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems..." Moreover, some of Wright's comments have "denigrated the greatness and goodness of our nation."

Skeptical white voters, listening to those passages, might still wonder whether Obama had ever protested to Wright in private. Obama did not address that question. And Obama is still open to the flip-flop charge, since, just a few days ago, he had suggested that none of Wright's strongest rhetoric (perhaps slogans such as "US of KKK A") had ever directly reached his ears...whereas now he says some of it did, albeit unspecified. But at least, by confronting the awareness question, Obama may avoid being nagged further on that front.

But one of his trickiest tasks was to rebuke Wright for sounding insufficiently patriotic (thereby reclaiming the flag for himself), without sounding as if he was throwing Wright under the bus in the service of his own political ambitions. So he said that Wright has a good side that doesn't show up on YouTube, that Wright is an ex-Marine who "has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over 30 years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS."

Most importantly - and this was his challenge to white voters - Wright was shaped, for better or worse, by his experiences growing up in an America segregated by race, an America where blacks were relegated to second-class status: "For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table...And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning."

This was gutsy stuff, perhaps impolitic. It's always risky to tell white voters that they are willfully clueless about how black people really feel. Although Obama also made sure that he honored the legitimate grievances of the white working stiff: "They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense."

But Obama also challenged his own brethren, the heart of his political base, by suggesting that the harsh rhetoric in black churches is too often a dead end: "The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America...That anger...all too often distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change...It means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans - the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."

Then he pivoted to the high road, challenging all sides: "For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words...

"We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'"

One hardy piece of political advice is: Cut your losses, and turn things to your advantage. Obama today tried just that, to knock down a bad story and challenge the electorate in a manner consistent with his core campaign theme. I won't hazard a guess on whether he succeeded; the risk is that too many skeptics will cherry-pick the passages that tick them off, and ignore the rest. But Obama's future as a potentially transformative politician may hinge on the outcome.

-------

Tonight, I'll be in the CNN studio in New York, for Campbell Brown's show (8 to 9 pm). No doubt I will be asked something about the Obama speech, and maybe I can find something new to say.

Obama plays by the Friday Rule

2008-03-17T07:31:00.016-04:00

Barack Obama says he's a new kind of politician, but, when necessary, he knows how to play by the old unwritten rules. One such rule decrees: Always release bad news on a Friday, when the news audience is arguably the smallest.

And so, last Friday, there were two developments. Obama told the Chicago Tribune that, hey, you know what, as a matter of fact, it must have slipped his mind, but his former buddy, the indicted real estate hustler Tony Rezko, actually had raised a lot more money for his political campaigns than he had previously stated. Obama had said that Rezko, prior to being collared by the feds on corruption charges, had raised $150,000 for his first three political races; but late Friday, Obama said it was actually $250,000.

With respect to a particularly nagging question - why would Obama agree to let Rezko help him swing a deal for his new home in 2005, at a time when Rezko was under federal investigation? - Obama told the Tribune that, as a matter of fact, he had asked Rezko about his questionable dealings while the house deal was being worked out...and Rezko had basically shrugged off Obama's concerns. Which apparently was good enough for Obama; as he told the Tribune late Friday, "my instinct was to believe him."

So Obama gave Rezko the benefit of the doubt. And it was also clear, in another Friday development, that he had given his pastor, the Rev. Jerimiah Wright, the benefit of the doubt.

In a statement posted online Friday, Obama essentially said that he knew nothing about Wright's most provocative sermons, such as the time Wright essentially blamed America for 9/11 and the time Wright suggested that the phrase "God damn America" was preferable to "God bless America." Obama's key line: "(Those) were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation." But there was a lot of wiggle room in that sentence. Had he not heard about the controversial preachings from others, at the time? He now says that those preachings were "inflammatory and appalling," but did he believe that at the time?

In other words, with respect to both Rezko and Wright, what matters more: his contemporaneous behavior, or his after-the-fact statements issued in accordance with the Friday Rule? Most importantly, I'm just asking: Do these episodes provide insights into Obama's character? Do they tell us anything important about Obama's judgment?

If what happened in Iowa this weekened is any guide, however, the Rezko and Wright affairs probably won't damage Obama among Democratic activists. Twenty four hours after his Friday disclosures, Obama actually picked up more delegates, thereby widening his national lead over Hillary Clinton. Such were the results Saturday at the Iowa county conventions.

I know, you thought Iowa was all over. But the January caucuses were actually only the first step toward delegate selection; phase two occurred at the county level. And apparently, Obama gained as many as nine new adherents - primarily refugees from the defunct John Edwards campaign. As one Iowa participant reportedly remarked, "If (Wright's words) didn't come out of (Obama's) mouth, I don't care about it."

But, as I mentioned Friday, the Wright factor may matter more down the road. As a nominee, Obama would need the working-class white Democrats who are currently voting for Hillary Clinton. If many of these voters come to believe (or are encouraged to believe) that Obama had chosen to be willfully oblivious about, among other things, "God damn America," the '08 autumn showdown with John McCain could be extremely close.

-------

Catching up on old stories the other day, I ran across this paragraph, buried deep within a March 10 article about the Clinton campaign's internal turmoil:

"Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise."

Insular...sticking with inept aides...valuing loyalty over expertise...

Gee. Does that sound like anybody we know?

By the way, one of the most underreported stories lately is how Clinton's lead over Obama, among superdelegates, has steadily eroded since early February. According to trackings by CBS News and The New York Times, 303 superdelegates had declared for a candidate back on Feb. 2; of those declarants, Clinton was ahead by a margin of 105 (204 to 99). Contrast that to March 14, when 322.5 had declared a preference (superdelegates affiliated with Democrats living abroad get half a vote each); on that date, according to the trackers, Clinton's margin was down to only 20.5 (221 to 201.5).

-------

Here's the quote of the weekend, seeking to explain why the Republican prospects for winning back the House and Senate seem so dim: "It's no mystery. You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He's just killed the Republican brand."

He's just killed the Republican brand...Those are the words of Tom Davis, a prominent House Republican. And the reason that Davis felt free to speak so boldly is because he's bailing out of the House. It's amazing how the happy prospect of voluntary retirement will sometimes inspire a lame-duck politician to commit candor.

-------

Speaking of Iraq, this week the war is five years old. McCain, who continues to get a free ride from Democrats, thanks to their obsession with their own troubles, is touring Iraq as we speak (in his role as senator, thereby allowing him to make a de facto campaign stop on the taxpayer's dime). Meanwhile, I offered some thoughts on that ignominious milestone in a Sunday print column, sort of a mordant tone poem.

-------

In recent years, The New York Times has been embarrassed by staffers who made stuff up (Jayson Blair), and wrote phony WMD stories on page one (Judith Miller). So I found it puzzling, several months ago, that the paper would hire, as an op-ed columnist, neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose hawkish whoppers on behalf of the Iraq war have long been documented. (Among many examples, here he is in 2003: "There’s been a certain amount of pop psychology in America...that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni, and that the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all.")

There are many quality conservative columnists; I am a George Will fan, for instance. The problem with hiring an ideologue, however, is that you give up a certain amount of journalistic quality control. In his very first column, he misattributed a quote to the wrong conservative ally. And yesterday, more importantly, Kristol, in his eagerness to tie Obama to Wright, stated in his Sunday column that Obama had been seated in the congregation last July 22 during one provocative Wright sermon. Kristol attributed this information to a report from journalist Ron Kessler; however, he did not tell readers that Kessler's story had appeared on Newsmax, which is one of those fevered right-wing websites that is - how shall I put this delicately - known primarily serving up red meat.

Anyway, it turns out that Obama was actually in Florida last July 22, addressing an Hispanic organization, and not in the Trinity Church; there is even a YouTube clip from his speech that day. Kessler, meanwhile, had based his own report on a single source who has now backed away from his original claim. And this statement now tops his column, as it appears online: "The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error."

Perhaps a certain institution, by lowering its journalistic standards, should also be expressing regret.

The thread of truth in the web of lies

2008-03-14T10:44:00.006-04:00

If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, his longtime church pastor is going to be a big political headache.

Most voters won't hold Obama responsible for the Rev. Jerimiah Wright's most provocative pulpit pronunciamentos. Most voters won't automatically assume that Obama shares the views expressed at the Trinity United Church of Christ. But for those voters who are prone to believe that Obama is insufficiently American, or a Muslim foreign agent who is bent of destroying America from within, certain Wright rhetorical tidbits will fit the profile just fine.

From 2003: "The government gives (blacks) drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

From 2006: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world...We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers...We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi...We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic...We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means...We started the AIDS virus..."

From 2001, five days after 9/11: "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Those excerpts are a treasure trove for voters who want to believe the worst about Obama. (The Obama-as-Muslim scenario is actually contradicted by the fact that Wright's church is Christian, but this will be overlooked.) I can foresee the circulation of this kind of meta-rumor: "Barack Obama, who was schooled as a Muslim in a foreign country and who was sworn into office on a Koran, and who refuses to wear an American flag pin or place his hand on his heart during the Pledge of Allegience, has for 20 years entrusted his soul on Sundays to a pastor who rails against 'God damn America,' attacks Israel, and blames our own country for 9/11."

And I know first-hand that the rumors have legs; if anything, the rumors have metastisized. One emailer wrote me yesterday: "I know someone who watched the debates. According to this person, at the start of the one debate she said that Obama just stood there during the Pledge of Allegiance while the other candidates placed their hands over their hearts. I have been looking for video of this ever since. Have you seen this?" I wrote back to say that, if Obama had ever behaved that way on national television, at the start of a presidential debate, we would all have been talking about it. I told her that this particular rumor was just a new form of the old Pledge of Allegiance lie that has been circulating for many months.

But back to the Wright factor. When ABC News aired a segment on Wright yesterday morning, a Obama spokesman said that the candidate "does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things (Wright) says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is (newly) retired, that doesn't detract from Se. Obama's affection for Rev. Wright, or his appreciation for the good works he has done."

And here's Obama himself, quoted yesterday in a Pittsburgh paper: "This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements. Obviously, I disagree with (the 9/11 sermon). Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe."

Most voters probably accept that line of reasoning. But it's not just the paranoid who could pose problems for Obama. Many Jewish voters have been slow to embrace Obama - in the exit polls thus far, they reportedly have favored Hillary Clinton by six percentage points - in part because they too have heard the rumors and seen the viral emails. Wright's remarks championing the Palestinians as victims of "state terrorism" will further compel Obama to spend more time allaying their concerns.

Jewish voters are a fraction of the electorate, but they are disproportionately strong in the biggest electoral states. For instance, if senior Jewish Floridians Florida cherry-pick some of the false rumors and tie them to Wright's documented words, Obama as nominee could face serious obstacles in that crucial state. It needs to be remembered that a grand lie is often spun from a thread of truth.

Obama's whole campaign is a daring appeal to our better angels; the problem is that some people are often prepared to believe the worst. Obama is merely battling Hillary Clinton at the moment; if he wins the nomination, he will be battling the basest impulses of human nature.

The latest Clinton Keystone spin

2008-03-13T13:41:00.004-04:00

On a conference call with journalists late this morning, the Clinton spinners basically spelled out their strategy for wresting the nomination away from Barack Obama. The overlapping items:

1. Market the April 22 Pennsylvania primary as the most important event on the political calendar between now and the August convention, on the assumption that Hillary will win it.

2. Market Pennsylvania as a microcosmic cross-section of America itself, on the assumption that Hillary will win it.

3. Market the Pennsylvania primary as a bellwether contest that will demonstrate which candidate is best positioned to win the general election. On the assumption that Hillary will win it.

4. Pile up the largest possible victory margin in Pennsylvania, in the hope that, by the end of the primary season, and with Florida and Michigan perhaps re-voting, Hillary can wipe out Obama's national lead in the popular vote.

Mark Penn, the chief strategist and pollster, pushed the first item vociferously ("this is an incredibly important state"). Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter cited a recent Obama campaign memo which seemed to indicate that Obama was just as focused on some of the states that vote in May; indeed, the Clinton team will float the notion that Obama is insufficiently committed to competing in Pennsylvania and is therefore insulting Pennsylvanians. Nutter suggested that Obama will be satisfied to merely play "political rope a dope" in the state.

But this spin was later undercut - inadvertently, of course - by the ever-locquacious governor, Ed Rendell. During the conference call, he mentioned in passing that Obama has hired one of Rendell's former political lieutenants to work the state, a smart ground-game guy who helped Rendell win both of his gubernatorial races. Rendell then told us that Obama, by making such a hire, would be "formidable" in Pennsylvania. Which prompts me to wonder: why would Obama bother to hire that strategist if he wasn't planning to take the primary seriously?

(Obama, on his plane this morning: "We will go there, we will campaign vigorously, we will spend money, we will have staff on the ground, I will spend a lot of days in Pennsylvania...we’re going to compete actively and we want to try to win the state like we tried to win every other state...We think they’re all important, and Pennsylvania is important. Now we do think the other nine states afterwards are also important, so we’re going to be spending time there as well, but there’s no notion whatsoever that we are ceding Pennsylvania. We’re going to try to compete there as hard as we can." He has also agreed to debate Clinton in Philadelphia on April 16.)

Anyway, regarding items two and three: The Clinton people - making their electability argument to fence-sitting superdelegates nationwide - want to frame the Pennsylvania primary as a mini-general election. Their pitch is that if Hillary wins the primary, it means that she'd win the state in November (yes, it's a critical state in any winning Democratic scenario); and if Obama loses the primary, it means that he'd lose the state in November.

They're conveniently forgetting something: The state's primary electorate differs greatly from the state's general electorate. The primary is closed to independents - one of Obama's strongest constituencies. Which means that Hillary has a structural advantage on April 22. It's a different deal in November, when all can participate; independent voters are likely to swing the state, and, although the Clinton spinners are loathe to say this, Hillary is far less popular among independents than Obama. That has proven to be true in virtually every open primary.

Rendell, at one point, had to partially concede that an Obama loss in the primary would not necessarily foreshadow an Obama defeat in November: "Nobody is saying that Barack Obama would definitely lose Pennsylvania in the fall. Absolutely not."

Rendell also tackled item four. Clearly, the Clinton team does not want to be in the position of asking the superdelegates to overturn the verdict of the primary electorate. (And a good thing, too, since that would tear the party apart.) They seem to grasp that it would be bad PR to wrest the nomination away from the guy who has more pledged delegates and more popular votes. So since it will be nearly impossible to pass Obama in the delegate count, the goal is to surpass him in popular votes. That way, at least the Clinton team would have something they could wave at the superdelegates. Rendell has already teed up the talking point: "Which is more democratic - to give the nomination to (the winner of) the popular vote...or to the leader in pledged delegates?"

There were other matter of interest (aside from spokesman Howard Wolfson's deadpan observation that Geraldine Ferraro "is no longer a member of the campaign's finance committee"). Wolfson was asked about a new poll that shows Clinton leading Obama by 18 points in the Pennsylvania primary - yet shows Obama performing better than Clinton in an autumn matchup in Pennsylvania. Doesn't that contradict item three? His response: "Different polls show different things."

Also, Wolfson was asked how, having built up the importance of Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign would react if Obama winds up winning the primary. Would that mean the Democratic race is effectively over?

Uh, well, he said, the Obama campaign "would publicly promote that notion." Then more stalling: "Should Senator Obama be successful, that's obviously a decision voters should make." (Whatever that means.) Then, finally, "if our optimism is not borne out, we can revisit the question."

Translation: If they lose Pennsylvania, they'll just move the goalposts again.

Archie Bunker at the kitchen sink

2008-03-12T09:48:00.006-04:00

As Hillary Clinton falls farther behind the frontrunner - her delegate gains last week have been wiped out, courtesy of Barack Obama's landslide wins in Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi last night; she has received 700,000 fewer popular votes; in the pledged delegate count, she trails by roughly 160 - one can only imagine what new rhetorical weapons she will unleash upon Obama, as part of her "kitchen sink" strategy.

But whatever she comes up with, it may be hard for her to top Geraldine Ferraro. When last seen on the national stage, 24 years ago, veep candidate Ferraro worked with presidential nominee Walter Mondale to lose 49 states in a Ronald Reagan landslide. Today, she's a Clinton surrogate and member in good standing of Clinton's finance committee. In that capacity, she's trying to do her part to diminish Obama before it's too late.

Her apparent tactic of choice is to morph into Archie Bunker.

As I briefly referenced late yesterday, Ferraro told a California newspaper the other day that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." And, as I also noted, her assertion reminded me of something that baseball pitcher Bob Feller said 62 years ago about Jackie Robinson, shortly before Robinson broke the color line: "If he were a white man, I doubt that they would even consider him as big league material."

In 1946, after Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, whites typically sought to denigrate the notion that he had risen on his own merits (notably, his rare athletic gifts). They typically argued, as Feller did, that he was in favor only because he was black - a bizarre argument, since at the time the number of blacks playing big-league baseball totaled exactly zero.

Now consider Ferraro's remark. By attributing Obama's strong position to the color of his skin, she is denigrating his rare political gifts - all of which have actually enabled him to transcend the de facto color barrier that, until now, has prevented black candidates from ascending to the top tier.

Or look at it this way: If Obama is indeed well positioned in this campaign primarily because he is black, why is it that no black has ever achieved this position before?

It's tragic for the Democratic party that one of its pioneer feminists would sound like Archie Bunker in his easy chair on All in the Family, grousing about affirmative action, about how blacks are getting a leg up solely because of their race. Because this is the message of reverse racism, widely embraced by whites who believe that they're getting a raw deal in an unfair modern world. (Witness Ferraro's anger at being criticized for her Obama remark; her latest retort is, "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.")

Clinton has characterized Ferraro's remark as "regrettable," but that's basically the extent of it. In fact, I bet the Clinton camp doesn't mind at all that her lament has gained wide circulation. For proof, just consider the political landscape in Pennsylvania, and her current political requirements:

Clinton needs to roll up a huge popular vote victory on April 22, if she hopes to make even a dent in Obama's national delegate lead. To trump Obama's expected victory margin in Philadelphia (blacks and white liberals), and perhaps in the Philadelphia suburbs (affluent, highly educated white liberals), Clinton needs a huge outpouring of support, elsewhere in the state, from working-class and culturally conservative whites. That's a sizeable demographic in Pennsylvania; accurately or not, a lot of those folks believe that blacks have unfair advantages in today's society. And, with respect to Ferraro's remark, if they can be encouraged to assess Obama not on his merits, but as an affirmative action symbol, all the better for Clinton.

But even if Clinton somehow manages to get the nomination in this fashion, I wonder whether she will be able to eradicate all the dirt that has accumulated in the kitchen sink.

Rumblings in the hinterlands of Illinois

2008-03-11T09:59:00.009-04:00

If this was March 2006 - as opposed to March 2008, which is dominated by an historic presidential race, and (fleetingly) by the rise and fall of "Client 9" - we would be fairly transfixed by what occurred last Saturday night in a reliably Republican congressional district that extends westward from the outskirts of Chicago.

This is the district where ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert reigned for more than two decades; where other Republican congressmen reigned before him; and where George W. Bush posted solid victories in 2000 and 2004. This district is home to the town of Dixon, where Ronald Reagan grew up. This district includes rural stretches that political analyst Michael Barone has called "traditionally some of the most heavily Republican territory in the country."

Yet, in a special House election on Saturday night, made necessary because of Hastert's recent resignation, this district chose a Democrat. A Democrat who had never run for office before. A Democrat who wound up winning even Hastert's home county, on the way to a six-point victory, 53 to 47 percent.

Some desperate Republican spinners have tried to insist that Bill Foster's victory over Republican Jim Oberweis was some kind of aberration, triggered perhaps by Oberweis' unlikeability (he had run unsuccessfully for statewide office three times in the past). Nice try. This is a district where, in a normal year, any Republican candidate with functioning brain cells can get elected to Congress. Hastert, in all his races, typically drew 65 percent of the vote or better. Plus, Oberweis spent $2 million of his own money (he's a dairy magnate), and got another $1.2 million from the National Republican Campaign Committee (the GOP's strategy arm) in Washington. Plus, Hastert stumped for him. So did a current House leader, Roy Blunt. And so did a guy who supposedly would have extra sway with the reliably Republican voters, John McCain.

And Oberweis still lost by a healthy margin. This tells us something important. A high-ranking Republican aide reportedly tells Politico that, as far as the GOP is concerned, "symbolically, losing Hastert's seat is like the toppling of the Saddam statue in Baghdad." I doubt that Hastert would welcome such a crude metaphor, but we get the gist. There's no way to shrug this one off.

This event needs to be put in context, one that only ratifies its significance. House Republicans, sensing that 2008 will be a repeat of the 2006 debacle, are bailing out of the chamber this year in heavy numbers (roughly 14 percent of the current GOP roster); choosing "retirement," they fear precisely the kind of result that occurred in Hastert's old bailwick.

These departures will make life even tougher for the National Republican Campaign Committee, which now has to defend a lot more seats - at a time when it's seriously strapped for cash, thanks to the reluctance of donors to ante up in a bad political environment. The NRCC in January reported having about $6.4 million in the bank; its Democratic counterpart had $35.4 million. Traditionally, or at least before President Bush wrecked the party, House Republicans were always far better financed than the House Democrats.

Worse yet, the sleaze factor, which was strong in 2006, is still lingering. One of the incumbents, whom the party will be compelled to defend, is Arizona congressman Rick Renzi, who sees no problem in pursuing his re-election bid despite the fact that he is currently under indictment on 35 federal corruption charges.

And as for the NRCC itself, the party's campaign arm recently discovered that a fair chunk of its money - reportedly, in the six figures - had gone mysteriously missing, and that its financial records may have been falsified repeatedly over the past few years. Apparently, its newly-departed treasurer is the focus of an FBI criminal investigation. (This is another story that would have drawn more public attention in a normal year.) I am tempted to make a joke about the GOP's so-called reputation for fiscal responsibility, but, instead, let us merely nod in bemusement at the news that ex-treasurer Christopher Ward in 2004 had also worked for the Orwellian-named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

House races typically get short shrift from the public in a presidential election year, but it's clear, from the Saturday result in Illinois, that a Democratic president in 2009 might find himself (or herself) enjoying an augmented congressional majority. One gets the feeling that the grassroots electorate is poised to vote Democratic, and is merely waiting for the party to get its act together. Assuming it can.

-------

Speaking of the party, has anybody else noticed that Barack Obama picked up a new superdelegate - or, more specifically, a newly created superdelegate?

Obama did a TV ad in that Illinois district for Bill Foster. Foster, by winning, automatically becomes a superdelegate. He'll back Obama, the home-state guy.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Hillary Clinton may soon lose a superdelegate, the aforementioned Client 9. If/when Eliot Spitzer steps down, he will be replaced in the governor's chair by his Democratic number two, David Paterson, but Paterson (already a Hillary superdelegate) will not be replaced until the next election. In other words, no Democratic lieutenant governor.

Taken together, these events translate into a potential net gain of two superdelegates for Obama. Plus, we also have the Mississippi primary tonight; an expected strong Obama win is likely to influence those seven superdelegates as well.

So I wonder: why does the trailing Democratic candidate presume to think that she can offer the leading Democratic candidate the second spot on her ticket?

-------

Geraldine Ferraro, the '84 Democratic veep candidate and '08 Hillary surrogate, quoted in a California newspaper last Friday: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."

Baseball pitcher Bob Feller, speaking in 1946 about Jackie Robinson: "If he were a white man, I doubt they would even consider him as big league material."

Get my point?

Ed's Clintonian spin (and a Client 9 bonus)

2008-03-10T09:53:00.018-04:00

Notwithstanding the Clinton camp's attempts to paint last week's primary victories as evidence of "momentum," and notwithstanding their latest flurry of attacks on Barack Obama (he's not ready to command, he's just like that right-wing blue-noser Ken Starr, he's not a Muslim "as far as I know"), I wish to provide, as Hillary herself would put it, a reality check:

In the competition for pledged delegates last week, she gained almost no ground on Barack Obama. And she will probably lose ground again tomorrow.

No spin can mask that fundamental fact. For instance, the latest CBS-tabulated results show that, for all her electoral success in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island last Tuesday, she has managed to trim Obama's lead by only six delegates. Then, when you factor in the results of Saturday's Wyoming caucuses (where she lost by another landslide), her net gain over the past week stands at four delegates. And when you factor in tomorrow's Mississippi primary (where African-Americans will vote heavily), and the resulting delegate allocations, Clinton's March gains are likely to evaporate completely.

In other words, Obama will have nearly the same pledged delegate lead (ranging, in various media estimates, from 110 to 142) that he had when the month began. It would not be a surprise, six weeks hence, if Clinton trims that gap by winning Pennsylvania; however, anything short of a landslide would not yield her enough delegates to truly change the dynamic. Moreover, her likely modest gains could well be erased again, two weeks later, in North Carolina (a large black electorate) and perhaps in Indiana (Obama has generally performed better in the red states).

Given these realities, it's no surprise that the Clintons keep trying to shift the goalposts, work the media refs, and consider all options, even nuclear. Clinton herself, in a Newsweek interview, has just hinted that she might be willing to violate the most basic Democratic rules of behavior in her pursuit of victory: "Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to." (italics mine)

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, pitched in yesterday on Meet the Press, with all the subtlety of a buffalo attempting a balletic pirouette.

One of his basic goals was to denigrate all the contests that Obama was won. For starters, he dismissed all the Obama caucus victories, because, in his words, caucuses are "undemocratic" - which, if true, prompts me to wonder why Clinton spent so many months and so many millions contesting Iowa, where she repeatedly extolled both the people and their electoral tradition.

Overall, Rendell basically dismissed Obama as a guy who does "wonderfully well in Wyoming and Utah and places like that," somehow omitting the fact that Obama has waxed Clinton with primary victories in places like Wisconsin (critical Democratic state that was closely contested in the autumn elections of 2000 and 2004), Virginia (red state that is turning purple), Colorado (same description as Virginia), Maryland (reliable blue state), Missouri (America's bellwether, and a red state in 2000 and 2004) and Louisiana (potentially winnable southern state, especially if African-Americans are energized). And does Rendell really believe that reliably blue California and New York won't vote Democratic in November, even if primary loser Obama is topping the ticket?

Rendell also made the usual Clintonian pitch for Florida and Michigan, lauding her meaningless victory in the former, and claiming that her meaningless performance in Michigan - alone on the ballot, she got only 55 percent of the vote - was really a testament to her strength.

But enough of that. The most significant moment yesterday came when Tim Russert asked Rendell whether he thought that Obama was qualified to be president. Rendell replied, "I think he's qualified" - certainly qualified enough to be vice president, and, moreover, if Obama turns out to be the nominee, Rendell said he would work his heart out for him.

Well, those were certainly inconvenient remarks - given the fact that Clinton during the past week has suggested precisely the opposite about Obama's creds. Here she was last Monday: "I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander in chief threshold, and I believe that I've done that. Certainly Senator McCain has done that. And you'll have to ask Senator Obama with respect to his candidacy."

Rendell was then asked to square his assessment of Obama as "qualified," with Clinton's intimation that Obama is not.

His response: "Well, I, I think he's ready. He's not nearly as ready as Hillary Clinton is, there's no question about that. But, look, make no mistake about it, he's a talented, dynamic politician and, and a, and a good senator, and I think he would make a fine president..."

Russert, moments later, asking the key question: "But if, in fact, there's a possibility Obama may be the Democratic nominee, would it be better, in the interest of the Democratic Party, that the Clintons not suggest that he hasn't passed the threshold to be commander in chief?"

Rendell: "Well, sure. Look, there, there's rhetoric in a campaign on all, on all sides, and I, I think the, the issue should be framed as 'ready compared to Hillary Clinton.' And, and that's the way I would frame the issue going forward."

(Here's Obama on Monday afternoon, at an event in Mississippi, addressing himself to Clinton: "If I’m 'not ready,' how is it that you think I should be such a great Vice President?")

I bet the Clinton camp is less than thrilled with Rendell today. If Clinton's spinners are going to successfully distract the public from the fact that their delegate deficit remains unchanged, that they have won half as many contests as Obama, and that they have garnered 591,000 fewer popular votes than Obama in all the states that have awarded delegates, spin discipline is essential.

-------

By the way, there are reports that Karl Rove has become an unofficial, informal advisor to John McCain. (Indeed, two weeks ago, Rove told an audience at the University of Pennsylvania that McCain should embark on a national tour to "reintroduce himself" to the American public, to highlight his biography...and, sure enough, McCain's campaign late last week announced that he intends to do just that.)

Democrats no doubt fear that Rove will concoct negative talking points to use against Obama, should he become the nominee. But why should Rove even bother, when Hillary Clinton is busy doing that work for him - by impugning Obama's commander readiness?

To Ed Rendell, the attacks on Obama by his own candidate are mere "rhetoric." To Karl Rove, they are the sweetest music since the Beatles.

-------

Has George W. Bush lived up to Ronald Reagan's legacy? Not a chance, especially if one assesses Reagan the man as opposed to Reagan the myth. I explored this issue yesterday, in a book review for The Washington Post.

-------

Hypocrisy alert, featuring "Client 9":

What is it with these male politicians, anyway? Do they have delusions of omnipotence, or what? Do they fool themselves into thinking that there are still secrets in this new world of transparency, and that nobody will ever ferret out a disconnect between their public and private behaviors?

Last year we had (among others) Senator David Vitter, the Republican whose "family values" image turned out to be at variance with his yen for mercenary nookie. And now, today, we have New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, billed last summer by USA Today as "one of the next great hopes of the Democratic party," a Democrat whose "reformer" image - including a 2004 crusade against a call-girl ring - appears to have been trumped by the revelation that, just last month, he paid for intimate services rendered in a Washington hotel room...by a member of a call-girl ring.

His payment: $4300 (partly an advance, for future services).
His request, according to a prostitute quoted in a federal court document: "(H)e would ask you to do things, like, you might not think were safe."

Start an office pool on when this guy is going to quit his job. But don't dally.

By the way, there's a sentence that typically appears in news stories about the governor: "Spitzer, who is widely known to harbor presidential ambitions..." I don't suppose we'll be seeing that one again. Unless he tries to form a bipartisan rogue ticket with Rudy Giuliani.

Ken Starr versus the monster

2008-03-07T09:28:00.006-05:00

I miss the Swedes. When I was a foreign correspondent back in the early '90s, I covered a national election in Sweden, and the experience was memorable for several reasons: (1) The whole campaign lasted four weeks, which is considerably less time than the warring Democrats will spend in the state of Pennsylvania, and (2) The dialogue was unremittingly civil. Candidates from the seven or eight political parties - spanning the political spectrum, from communists to right-wing nationalists - calmly recited their issue agendas; none of them dared try to assail a rival in personal terms, or rip somebody a new posterior. Such behavior was culturally unacceptable.

Excuse this pang of nostalgia, which was brought on by the latest outbreak of name-calling in America's longest running steel-cage death match: The attempt by a Hillary Clinton flak to paint Barack Obama as the reincarnation of conservative prosecutor Kenneth Starr; and an intemperate outburst by an Obama foreign policy advisor, who told a Scottish newspaper that Clinton is a "monster."

Which insult is worse? You be the judge. What I find most noteworthy is how the candidates reacted to the behavior of their own surrogates - and what their contrasting reactions tell us about the current dynamic of the race.

But first, here's what happened: After the Obama people renewed their demand that the Clintons release their tax returns from the past eight years, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson took umbrage, charging that Obama was "imitating Ken Starr." Starr, of course, is best known as the special counsel who pursued Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal; his official report detailed the trysts, as well as Bill's creative use of cigars, and paved the way for the GOP impeachment drive. Starr is a dirty name to the Democratic base, so, in that sense, Wolfson was smart in his choice of epithets.

One might argue, however, that the issue of secret tax returns is a tad more substantive than the issue of oral sex, and that Wolfson's attempt to equate the two is nothing more than a transparently clever con. One might also argue that his Starr insult is nothing more than rank hypocrisy - given the fact that, when Hillary ran for the Senate eight years ago, one of her big complaints was that Republican opponent Rick Lazio had failed to release his tax returns. Indeed, one of the demonstrators who showed up at a Lazio event, and yelled at Lazio to release his tax returns, was a Clinton campaign aide named...Howard Wolfson.

Meanwhile, in the Obama camp this week, foreign policy advisor Samantha Power, a Pulizer Prizewinning author and Harvard academic, gave an interview to a Scottish newspaper and said of Hillary: "She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything." She also said of Hillary: "The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive." It's a tad unusual for a foreign policy advisor to assail a rival candidate in such personal terms.

And note, in particular, Power's attempt to retroactively remove her "monster" insult from the record, which is somewhat surprising, given the fact that Power is a former journalist herself. (Full disclosure: While I was reporting in Croatia back in 1994, I met Power. We traveled together to a refugee camp at the border, where we interviewed victims of the war in Bosnia. It was quickly clear that she was excellent at her job.)

But, most importantly, note the difference in candidate reactions. When Hillary was asked by reporters yesterday about Wolfson's Ken Starr insult, she simply said, "I'm not going to respond to that." Translation: She had no problems with what Wolfson had said. He was in the clear.

By contrast, Obama spokesman Bill Burton rebuked Power yesterday, stating: "Sen. Obama decries such characterizations, which have no place in this campaign." And Power followed with her own statement: "I should not have made these comments, and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms." Then, today, Power resigned (a largely symbolic gesture, since, in her own words, she was only an "informal advisor").

Therefore: advantage, Hillary. She has been portraying herself as a "fighter," somebody who knows to do what it takes to win. If her people want to rumble in a back alley on her behalf, that's fine with her. But Obama has been promising a "new politics" of civility, which means that he can't sanction back-alley rumbles without losing some of his luster and compromising his core principle. Indeed, he's on record as vowing to sack any underlings who talk trash about the opposition.

Hence, the Obama conundrum. If Hillary pulls a knife on him, and he refuses to slash back, can he win over the lunch-bucket Pennsylvania voters who yearn for a fighter? On the other hand, if he does meet her in the alley, can he outfight such a seasoned street pugilist? Either way, this looks a bit like what the military specialists refer to as asymmetrical warfare. And I feel farther and farther away from Sweden.

The odd couple's latest mating dance

2008-03-06T10:02:00.011-05:00

For the sake of sanity, I'm taking a one-day break from the Democratic phantasmagoria, and dwelling instead on the photo op that occurred yesterday at the White House. You probably saw it. There was the newly crowned Republican presidential nominee, John McCain (not wearing a flag pin, by the way), staging his umpteenth awkward love embrace with George W. Bush.

The Rose Garden pictures cried out for cartoon captions. For instance...

McCain's inner thoughts: "This guy is presiding over a $3-trillion war, record-high budget deficits, record-high oil prices, and a record-low dollar when pegged against the euro, and two-thirds of the American people - including the the independents who will decide the election - think he's a buffoon. But if I hide him in a closet, the nutty conservatives will go ballistic on me. So I'm stuck with him."

Bush's inner thoughts: "He was a pain in the butt who got in my way eight years ago, which is why we had to falsely smear him with rumors that he'd fathered a black baby out of wedlock, and a host of other things I knew nothing about. I still don't totally trust him, because he's not always a loyal Bushie. But he's the nominee, so I'm stuck with him."

These two have rarely been comfortable bedfellows. I remember the first mating dance, back in May 2000. Bush, having steamrolled McCain in the Republican primaries, wanted his vanquished foe to endorse him, but for many weeks McCain resisted. Certain memories were still fresh. Bush allies had spread the rumor that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock (whereas, in reality, he and his wife had adopted a girl from Bangladesh); and had run TV ads claiming that McCain was hostile to breast cancer research and thus to women with breast cancer (whereas, in reality, he had backed legislation to double the funding of the National Institutes of Health, and, besides, his own sister had breast cancer).

Suffice it to say that McCain had not enjoyed being slimed. Finally, however, he grudingly said, yes, he would endorse. The two men met in Pittsburgh, then emerged to face us journalists. They barely shook hands, and they wore political smiles. McCain even said that he felt like a child being forced to "take the medicine now" for his own good. When asked why he seemed to be having trouble saying the word endorse, he grimace-grinned and mimicked the tone of an errant schoolboy writing on a blackboard after class: "I endorse Governor Bush, I endorse Governor Bush, I endorse Governor Bush!"

In a sense, he's still taking the medicine. He needs Bush to run interference for him, and help cure his ills with the conservative base. He needs Bush to pry some money from the hands of conservative donors. Ideally, he might be inclined to hide Bush in a closet for the next eight months, but he knows that if he distances himself too much, most conservatives will go ballistic.

The problem is, every medicine has its potential side effects. He can't go public with Bush in any of the swing states without risking the ire of independent voters. It's instructive that, in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll autumn matchups, McCain trails Barack Obama by 12 points and Hillary Clinton by six points - primarily because Bush-averse independents run the other way. McCain would prefer that independents see and hear Bush as little as possible.

And independents are not the only concern. Political analyst and Emory University professor Alan Abramowitz, having studied voting behavior in the '06 congressional elections and in the recent Virginia and Wisconsin primaries, warned today that "John McCain's efforts to woo GOP conservatives by stressing his support for the war and his determination to continue President Bush's policies if he is elected are likely to cost him support among moderate-to-liberal Republicans in November."

Abramowitz notes that these Republicans, "dissatisfied with the performance of President Bush in general and with the war in Iraq in particular," defected in sufficient numbers to elect Democratic senators in three red states (Missouri, Montana, Virginia), thereby wresting Senate control away from the GOP - while also contributing to the Democratic takeover of the House. More awkward Bush-hugging could repeat the pattern this year.

Which is probably why McCain chose his words so carefully yesterday. He said that he hoped to schedule some joint events "in keeping with the president's schedule," which he characterized as a "busy schedule."

In translation: "George, I know you don't have all that much to do, given the fact that your lame-duck agenda is going nowhere, but I'd be happy to buy you a new mountain bike to keep you occupied."

Indeed, 36 hours after the Bush-McCain Rose Garden embrace, there was still no mention of the event anywhere on the McCain campaign website.

Naturally, the Bush White House insists that there's no debate going on over whether Bush is an albatross; in the words of press secretary Dana Perino, "It's not normal for the president and the nominee to campaign a lot together."

Oh, really? Back in 1988 - as former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein recalled yesterday - Reagan stumped alongside the senior George Bush in 16 states, including the key battlegrounds of California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Perhaps what Perino meant to say is that it's not normal for a nominee to campaign with a president in crucial states when the latter is a virtual pariah.

Onward they slog

2008-03-05T05:46:00.025-05:00

So onward they shall slog across the electoral landscape, like a pair of prison escapees joined at the wrist by handcuffs, each yearning and scheming to be free of the other, and we still don't know how this movie will end. Rumor now has it that they're fixing to hole up for six long weeks in Pennsylvania.

Hillary Clinton can thank the kind souls of Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island for providing some much-needed aid and comfort. She can reasonably claim that she has the wherewithal to persevere. Let's face it, no candidate who wins a state like Ohio - a bellwhether state, a linchpin state for any Democrat planning an autumn victory strategy - is going to celebrate that achievement by dropping out. Especially after winning it so decisively. And when you add that with the Rhode Island win (decisive again) and the Texas win (narrow), that's sufficient ammo for the psychological warfare that we are sure to witness in the days ahead.

"As Ohio goes, so goes the nation...and so goes this campaign," Clinton declared last night, and indeed her goal is to frame the Tuesday results as evidence of a paradigm shift in momentum, a theme aimed in part at her worried donors and superdelegates. She wants them to focus on the Clinton spin, not on Barack Obama's math.

Indeed - and we won't know this for many hours - it's probable that Obama's national delegate lead (roughly 150) will remain virtually unchanged after all 370 pledgees from the four states are allocated. The latest reliable estimate is that his lead was trimmed last night by roughly a dozen delegates. In terms of the big picture, he tops Clinton in delegates, states won (roughly two-thirds of them, in fact), and the aggregate popular vote. (In all the states that have awarded delegatesn thus far, Obama is ahead by 49 to 47 percent, or a margin of 600,000 votes.) Clinton last night, while seeking to demonstrate her national reach, felt compelled to extol her meaningless, delegate-free victories in Florida and Michigan - but that itself is a sign that she will renew her demand that the delegates from those states be seated (even though it means changing the rules that she originally agreed to).

Nevertheless, she did manage to halt Obama's steady incursions into her base. In the last few rounds of primaries, in places like Wisconsin and Virginia, Obama had done well among working-class voters, Hispanics, and even seniors. Not this time, however. Clinton recouped strongly among all those folks (working-class voters and seniors in Ohio; Hispanics and seniors in Texas). In both those states, she even outperformed Obama among white men, a switch from earlier contests.

And, perhaps most tellingly, when Ohio and Texas voters were asked in exit polls which candidate had a "clear plan" for America, Clinton was favored over Obama. In other words, she was perceived as more specific on the issues. This suggests that her anti-Obama message - that he is more rhetorical than substantive - gained some traction. She sowed doubt about her opponent; the "3 a.m." TV ad may have been a scare-mongering ripoff of an ad that Walter Mondale ran in 1984, but it may have connected with voters who were worried that Obama lacks experience - while shoring up support among women with kids. We'll no doubt hear more about this "gravitas" theme in Pennsylvania, where Obama would be well advised to make some adjustments.

(Regarding that ad: Clinton was asked on CNN today whether she can cite any experience dealing with a wee-hour crisis, amd she replied: "Well, you know, there isn't any way that anyone who has not been president, but you know, the administration sent me to war-torn zones." Italics mine.)

Despite her delegate deficit, she has stuck around partly in the hopes that Obama would screw something up. And finally he did. He and his aides were slow and hamfisted in responding to the flap involving his economic advisor, who may have winked to Canada that Obama's anti-NAFTA rhetoric was mere politicking. The timing could not have been better for Clinton, given the fact that it occurred while Obama was seeking votes in Ohio, where NAFTA is a dirty word among the blue-collar working stiffs - and given the fact that Clinton's husband was the president who signed NAFTA into existence. We'll soon see how (or whether) the Canada incident plays to Clinton's advantage in Pennsylvania, which is also home to a large number of blue-collar working stiffs.

By the way, last night provided fresh proof that negative attacks work. People say they don't like those tactics - exit polls showed that they pegged Clinton as the more negative campaigner - and yet, Ohio voters who made up their minds in the final three days broke strongly for Clinton. And what dominated the discourse over the final three days in Ohio? The 3 a.m. TV ad, and the NAFTA/Canada flap. And late-deciding Texas voters broke for Clinton as well, erasing Obama's reported popularity among those who cast early ballots ahead of primary day.

This is all great news for John McCain. He gets to set up his general-election operation, raise money, potentially frame the terms of the autumn campaign, and unite the Republicans (the latter, not necessarily an easy task) all while Clinton and Obama spend six weeks and tens of millions of dollars beating each other up from one end of Pennsylvania to the other. If Clinton trashes Obama as an inexperienced naif, McCain can use that against Obama in the fall, citing Hillary; if Obama goes on offense and trashes Clinton as a typical pol who's hiding her tax records and the donor lists to her husband's library, McCain can use all that against Clinton in the fall, citing Obama.

Only the Democrats could manage such a scenario, in a year when the prevailing winds are supposedly in their favor.

After Mississippi votes next Tuesday, Pennsylvania will become the new Iowa; with no competing contests, it will be the target of unremitting national attention. And it will be a brutal battlefield. For all the glib comparisons to Ohio, its rustbelt neighbor, there are significant differences that could aid Obama. Pennsylvania has a larger black population than Ohio, larger cities, and a larger student population. In contrast to Texas, it has a small Latino population. It has populous white liberal suburbs around Philadelphia.

On the other hand (advantage Hillary), it has the second-largest senior electorate in America, behind Florida. It has a large population of lunch-bucket guys, just as in Ohio. And, perhaps most importantly, the Keystone State primary is open only to registered Democrats. Obama-friendly independents need not bother to show up - unless they re-register as Democrats in advance, by the March 24 deadline. It's hard to imagine that these converts will vote in the same numbers as the independents in other states.

The overall delegate math still looks bad for Clinton, even if she wins Pennsylvania, and she would no doubt like to ignore one jarring statistic in the exit polls. When voters were asked whether superdelegates should pick the candidate they feel would win in November, or whether superdelegates should ratify the candidate who leads at the end of the primary season, the ratification option won in a landslide (62 percent in Texas, 61 percent in Ohio). That's basically the Obama argument, but she'll slog onward anyway. Her basic character pitch is that whatever hasn't killed her has merely made her stronger, and that "fighter" argument goes over well with a lot of Democrats.

So I'm passing the word to my fellow Philadelphians: The circus is coming to town.

-------

I did a gig on C-Span's "Washington Journal" earlier this morning, verbalizing much of what appears above, and then came the questions from viewers. That's always a high-wire act. My favorite: "I believe that Jeb Bush is going to end up being president. And I believe that, because McCain will choose him as a running mate...McCain is suddenly going to get sick, or not able to fulfill the duty, and you're going to have Jeb Bush as your president."

I politely suggested in response that nobody with the name of Bush would be appearing on any ticket in 2008...and that I don't think any of us are capable of handling any more twists and turns, beyond those we perpetually seem to be experiencing.

Sound and fury, signifying nothing?

2008-03-04T09:51:00.015-05:00

So what's gonna happen, anyway? Beats the heck out of me. There are too many scenarios to contemplate, too many potential plot twists still in the offing, more trash-talking that needs to play out, too many lies that still need to be sorted out, and no way of knowing who will be left standing at the end.

But enough about HBO's Sunday finale of The Wire.

By comparison, the Democratic presidential contest is a cakewalk. All we need contemplate tonight are these possibilities:

1. Obama wins decisively in Texas, Ohio, and Vermont, losing only Rhode Island - thereby virtually cementing the nomination in the minds of everybody except the Clintons and their most loyal allies.
2. Obama wins Texas and Vermont decisively, wins Ohio narrowly, but loses Rhode Island decisively - another scenario that would put pressure on Clinton to quit.
3. Obama wins Texas and Vermont decisively, but loses Ohio and Rhode Island decisively - thereby setting off a spin war over the results.
4. Obama wins Texas narrowly and Vermont decisively, but loses Ohio narrowly and Rhode Island decisively - thereby encouraging Clinton to fight on, particularly since most Democrats apparently would applaud her decision to stay the course in the event of a split verdict.
5. Clinton wins Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island decisively, but loses Vermont decisively - thereby encouraging her to behave as if she has won the nomination.
6. Clinton wins Texas narrowly, and Ohio and Rhode Island decisively, but loses Vermont decisively. See her behavior in #5.
7. Clinton wins Texas and Ohio narrowly, and Rhode Island decisively, or maybe narrowly, but loses Vermont decisively. See #5, but take her behavior down half a notch.

Then we have to determine the proper definitions of narrow and decisive. In the scenarios above, I consider a narrow margin to be two points or less, but it would not be a surprise tomorrow if the Obama and Clinton campaigns offer warring definitions of their own, depending on how they want the media to frame the story line.

But here's the thing: With the possible exception of #5, Clinton at this point has virtually no chance to change the fundamental dynamic of this race.

Obama has a triple-digit delegate lead going into tonight (with roughly 150 more pledgees than Clinton), and he will likely emerge tomorrow with a similar delegate lead. In that sense, the contests in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island are not nearly as important as they seem. Arguably, to paraphrase Shakespeare, they're a lot of sound of fury, signifying nothing. I'm betting that, in the end, it'll all be a wash - with Obama and Clinton basically splitting the new delegates - just as Tsunami Tuesday proved to be. Translation: Advantage, Obama.

My seven scenarios are even more complicated than they appear, because it's quite possible that Clinton wins the Texas popular vote narrowly, yet still racks up fewer delegates than Obama. Under the Texas rules, the primary votes are broken down by state senate districts. Each of the 31 districts has a pool of delegates, but those districts that voted heaviest for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2006 are given more delegates as a reward. Clinton is reportedly stronger than Obama in Texas' Hispanic districts, but those districts were not nearly as loyal to the Democrats in 2004 and 2006 as the black districts were. So the black districts have more delegates, and Obama is stronger than Clinton there. The white liberal districts around Austin (a university town)also have more delegates than the Hispanic districts, and Obama is stronger there as well.

Then remember that Texas has a two-step process: a primary, followed by an evening caucus. Only people who voted in the primary can join the caucus. A separate pool of delegates is awarded in the caucus, and Obama repeatedly demonstrated, during February, that his people are better organized to win caucuses. The Clinton people, overconfident during the planning process, never thought they would need to be.

Then remember that, because Ohio's Democratic delegate rules are similar to the Texas rules, Obama could lose the state and still garner a hefty share of the delegates (particularly in heavily-black enclaves, which are delegate-rich as a reward for their loyal Democratic performances in previous elections). Just a few weeks ago, Clinton was leading in the Ohio polls by as many as 17 points. That's still the winning margin she needs, to really narrow the delegate gap. I doubt she'll get that now. Then remember that the likeliest prospects for a blowout are in Vermont, where Obama is strong, and where he could wind up netting around five delegates, cushioning whatever marginal slippage he might suffer in the big states.

And then remember what comes next: Wyoming holds caucuses on Saturday (another state where Obama is organized at the grassroots), and Mississippi holds its primary next Tuesday (a heavily-black electorate, and thus another Obama victory). So those are two more pit stops where Obama can refuel and add to his delegate count, further mitigating whatever erosion occurs tonight.

If Clinton wins three out of four tonight, in terms of the popular vote, her spin tomorrow will be about "momentum" and about anti-Obama "buyers' remorse." Her people will conveniently forget spokesman Howard Wolfson's prediction on Feb. 11: "I think we will be ahead in the delegate race after Texas and Ohio."

But smoke and mirrors are no substitute for the delegate math - which is precisely what the Clinton team would be arguing if the positions were reversed.

-------

Regarding the primary results and the state of the Democratic race, I'm slated to share my thoughts on C-Span tomorrow morning, from 7:30 to 8 am.

Tony Rezko and the Obama image

2008-03-03T09:38:00.007-05:00

On the eve of yet another round of crucial primaries, Barack Obama will be stumping for votes in Texas - which means he'll be 1000 miles away from Tony Rezko. No doubt he'd like to keep it that way.

His old friend and fundraiser, a real-estate hustler and political fixer who also helped Obama swing a nice deal for a sumptuous house, is set to stand trial today in Chicago on federal bribery, kickback and extortion charges. Obama is not mentioned in the Rezko indictment, nor is there evidence that Obama performed any favors for Rezko in exchange for Rezko's financial generosity. However, their past ties - and Obama's general reluctance to discuss those ties - is evidence that Obama is not necessarily as saintly as his image would suggest.

I doubt the Rezko case will have much of an impact on the voters in Texas and Ohio tomorrow. The details are too "inside baseball"; as Obama strategist David Axelrod said yesterday on ABC News, "this is not what people want us to be talking about. They want to talk about their lives, their problems" (which is exactly what the Clintons used to say in 1992, when Bill's aberrant behavior was front and center). Nevertheless, Obama in this campaign has painted himself as an ethics purist; therefore, he needs to be assessed accordingly.

Which is why it's noteworthy that his judgment seems less than stellar, at least with respect to this particular friend.

Rezko helped Obama become a credible U.S. Senate candidate in 2004, raising at least $150,000 for the upstart state legislator, and the court documents reportedly suggest that Rezko played fast and loose with campaign finance laws (without Obama's knowledge) in order to make it happpen. But that's the small stuff. The gist of the Rezko story is that Obama decided in early 2005 to do some real-estate business with Rezko even though the guy at the time was under active federal investigation, and was being sued by various creditors in a dozen different lawsuits.

Obama had his eye on a house near the University of Chicago, but it came with an adjoining lot that he could not afford. The seller insisted that the house and the lot were a package deal. Things worked out beautifully in June 2005. Rezko bought the lot at the full asking prices - or, more accurately, he bought it in his wife's name, in order to keep his creditors at bay - and Obama got the house for $300,000 less than the asking price. Not long after, Obama expanded his yard by swinging a deal with Mrs. Rezko to buy a portion of that lot.

There are no indications by any authorities that these dealings were illegal. Still, in politics, appearances matter. Obama has virtually presented himself as a paragon of clean government. Yet here he was electing to do business with a guy who was already under a legal cloud. Rezko had been mentioned, in numerous press accounts dating back to 2003, as an alleged shakedown artist, a confidant of the Democratic governor who was suspected of extorting money from prospective government appointees. Obama, nevertheless, insisted on TV two months ago that "no one had an inkling" about Rezko's legal woes during their relationship.

It must be embarrassing for Obama to be rebuked by the good-government watchdogs in Illinois; as Jay Stewart of the state's Better Government Association has reportedly said (to various news organizations), Obama "should have been on high alert" at the time he was house-hunting. Indeed, Stewart said, "If you run as an agent of change, a reformer...that's holding yourself to a pretty high standard. But when you're laying out that kind of rhetoric...it makes sense for people to say, 'Let's look at what you've done. Let's see if your rhetoric matches with reality."

Obama has responded sluggishly to the Rezko story. More than a year ago, he released a mea culpa statement: "It was a mistake to have been engaged with (Rezko) at all in this, or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor."

Since then, the candidate has generally remained vague on the details, reportedly claiming that he couldn't remember how the real-estate deal with Rezko came into being ("I don't recall exactly"..."I am not clear"), but that, after an initial conversation with Rezko, "I just worked through my real estate broker." Last month, however, Obama added one new detail, telling reporters that he and Rezko had toured the house together prior to the deal.

The Chicago press corps has other questions - such as whether Obama ever asked Rezko to find jobs for Obama allies in the Democratic governor's administration - but answers have been slow in coming. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet wrote the other day, "Obama has never agreed to an interview with the reporters from the Chicago papers who know the story best, and it has not been for lack of trying." (On ABC yesterday, Obama strategist Axelrod said that Sweet was "wrong," and that the Rezko saga has been "thoroughly reviewed."

I'd leave it to Democratic primary voters, assuming they care, to determine whether Obama's ties to the indicted Rezko (house deal, roughly $150,000 in campaign money raised) are more or less problematic than Hillary Clinton's ties to the escaped felon Norman Hsu (no house deal, roughly $850,000 in campaign money raised). Perhaps they balance out on the merits (or lack thereof), if one considers that politicians are always going to attract hustlers.

On the other hand, Obama's core pitch is that Clinton is a typical pol and he is not. By that measure, perhaps he comes off as the loser. And here's another measure, as proposed by Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz this morning: "Would Clinton have skated as easily (in the media) if she were found to have...bought land from an indicted businessman, as in the Rezko case?...That is hard to imagine."

Nor would Obama's image be well served if he winds up being called to testify this spring in the Rezko trial - for the defense, no less. He might want to rack up a larger delegate lead before the mileage between him and Rezko is narrowed.

-------

So on one front, Obama is laboring not to be seen as just another politician. Yet on another front, he's laboring not to be seen as a foreign wierdo with a funny name and an aversion to the red, white, and blue. I wrote about that in a print column yesterday.

Bush flummoxed, Hillary aides stumped

2008-03-01T11:16:00.008-05:00

We interrupt your leisure time to bring you the latest chapter in the Lame Duck Chronicles.

While finally getting the chance to scan the transcript of President Bush's Thursday press conference, I was struck by his response to the question about rising gasoline prices. Economic analysts, as well as spokespeople at AAA, have been predicting that the '08 price of a gallon in some states could hit close to $4. This has been well reported, but, not surprisingly, one particular person didn't have a clue:

Q: "What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing -- "

THE PRESIDENT: "Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?"

Q: "A number of analysts are predicting -- "

THE PRESIDENT: "Oh, yeah?"

Q: " -- $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate."

THE PRESIDENT: "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."

If Bush wants to at least appear to be in touch with the concerns of the average American (who, unlike Bush, needs to fill a car tank on a regular basis), he might request that his aides beef up his briefing books. Failing that, maybe he should borrow the index card that his father used on the stump in 1992. It was a reminder that the senior Bush needed to exude empathy. The card said simply, "Message: I Care."

-------

A priceless moment yesterday, during a conference call between Hillary Clinton aides and reporters:

In the wake of the new Clinton TV ad - one of those "red phone" motifs, where we're asked to believe that this is the candidate best equipped to handle a 3 a.m. national security crisis - a reporter asked, "What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?"

Had somebody hit the mute button? The three aides were tongue-tied for six long seconds. Finally, strategist Mark Penn said this:

"Well (throat clearing), I think that she has been tested, you know, throughout her life, uh, in so many matters. I think that she, again, has the experience and the strength that people see through her work on the Armed Services Committee, uh, and her work extensively on the military matters. I think it was a moment of test when she was in China (in 1995) and stood up and said women's rights are human rights, that she showed the kind of, the kind of, wisdom that it takes to know when to, when to, push basic elements, uh, basic elements in difficult circumstances. She has highlighted, you know, participated, in a number of international things."

Translation:

"A foreign policy moment? Sorry, we're stumped."

Memo to Dems: Don't pop those corks

2008-02-29T08:19:00.010-05:00

Grassroots Democrats who are giddy at the prospect of taking on John McCain might be wise to consult the results of two new national polls.

The general assumption, on the blue side of the national divide, is that McCain is highly vulnerable because he has so vigorously aided and abetted the biggest foreign policy disaster of our generation, thereby making it easy for Democrats to brand Iraq as a "Bush-McCain" production. After all, as the polls have noted for several years now, most voters view the war as a mistake, and believe that Bush's sales pitch was fraudulent.

And yet, the latest New York Times-CBS News survey tells a far more nuanced story. Despite McCain's staunch cheerleading for the war; and despite the fact that he has suggested that U.S. troops may have to remain in Iraq for 100 years; and despite the fact that senior Pentagon figures are publicly complaining that our military is being dangerously stretched because of the war, 58 percent of the surveyed registered voters said, nevertheless, that they have confidence in McCain to make the right decisions about Iraq. That's one point higher than Barack Obama (whose antiwar stance is supposedly more in sync with general public sentiment), and eight points higher than Hillary Clinton.

In the same poll, 56 percent said they had confidence in McCain's ability to deal wisely in an international crisis. That's nine points higher than Obama, and 17 points higher than Clinton. And when asked whether McCain "would be an effective commander in chief of the nation's military," 80 percent said yes. That's 11 points higher than Obama, and 26 points higher than Clinton.

The latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows similar results. Among independent voters - who have been strongly antiwar for the past 18 months - the hawkish McCain is still viewed more favorably than either Obama or Clinton. When all respondents were asked which candidate would best protect the country from terrorists, McCain beat Obama by 37 percentage points. When asked who has the "right experience" to be president, McCain beat Obama by 31 points. When asked who would "best handle the situation in Iraq," McCain still won, beating Obama by 13 points.

This tells us several things: (1) Voters' base-line respect for McCain's character trumps whatever string disagreements they may have with his Iraq stance. And (2) Democrats who are pumped for the autumn election would be well advised not to pop the champagne corks prematurely, because McCain's abiding popularity among independents could make some of the blue states more competitive. In other words, this race could be very close.

-------

Speaking of McCain, his new best friend is John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. McCain flew into town the other day to garner Hagee's endorsement, and said how proud he was to receive it. No doubt McCain believes that Hagee will give him some evangelical street cred with recalitrant Christian conservatives.

But here's a sampling of what Hagee really believes. In his 2005 book, entitled "What Every Man Wants in a Woman," Hagee wrote this: "Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist." And he wrote in 1992 that the feminist movement was "a rebellion against God's pattern for the family."

During an NPR interview in 2006, Hagee blamed gay people for Hurricane Katrina: "All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."

In that same interview, he also said that all Muslims, by definition, are enemies of America because "those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews." But apparently only some Christians are acceptable; in other venues, Hagee has taken aim at the Catholic Church, calling it "The Great Whore," and a "false cult."

So here's what I want to know: Given the fact that Hagee has made insulting remarks about women, gays, Muslims, and Catholics, are McCain's friends in the media going to insist that he denounce and reject Hagee, just as Obama was asked this week to denounce and reject Louis Farrakhan?

Update...Here's what McCain said today: He lauds some of Hagee's ideas, but "that does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues. I don’t have to agree with everyone who endorses my candidacy. They are supporting my candidacy. I am not endorsing some of their positions."

I guess that counts as a semi-denunciation.

-------

The Clintonian spin these days is downright dizzying. For weeks, Hillary's people (starting with the First Spouse) had been telling us that the candidate absolutely needs to score solid victories in Texas and Ohio next Tuesday in order to remain viable. But today they have moved the goalposts. Now they're telling us that if Obama doesn't score solid victories in those states, as well as in the two minor contests (Rhode Island and Vermont), it means that he is the one in trouble. Here's the word, from strategist/pollster/spinner Mark Penn:

"Should Senator Obama fail to score decisive victories with all of the resources and effort he is bringing to bear, the message will be clear: Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date, have their doubts about Senator Obama and are having second thoughts about him as a prospective standard-bearer."

In other words, they're trying to establish a rationale for staying in the race even if they extend their losing streak to 15 consecutive contests. It now appears that they're prepared to say, in essence, "Obama may have beaten us by a few points in some of these states, but since we don't consider those results to be decisive, we will soldier on."

Or, as Bill might have said it, "It all depends on what the meaning of the word decisive is."

William F. Buckley, an appreciation

2008-02-28T08:06:00.006-05:00

I want to mark the passing of William F. Buckley, intellectual godfather of the modern conservative movement, who died on Tuesday night at the age of 82. But rather than offer the standard celebration of his wit and significance and contentious iconoclasm, I prefer to resurrect a long newspaper profile that I wrote about Buckley 22 years ago, around the time of his 60th birthday. I spent a delightful day with him in New York, and one of the last things he said to me - a quote which I used to close this article - now seems apt. "Heaven," he opined, "is a place where you cannot be unhappy."

If you don't know much about Buckley, here's one place to start. From the Philadelphia Inquirer, April 17, 1986:

--------------------

"Hhhaaa, hhhaaa, hhhaaa ..."

William F. Buckley Jr. was indulging his languorous laugh in the rear of his limousine as it whisked him through Central Park - past the cabbies with their caustic tongues and the vendors with their leather lungs.

Not one dissonant decibel intruded on Buckley's trip; the windows took care of that. With nary a nod at the world beyond the glass, the celebrity conservative sank into the cushions and pondered the meaning of life and death.

"I wouldn't want to be 30 again," said Buckley. "It's the exertion. It's the fatigue, too. It makes me think of the last letter Whittaker Chambers (the communist who became a conservative scholar) wrote to me before he died. 'I'm fatigued, Bill,' he said. 'It hasn't hit you, but it will. History has hit us like a freight train. We've tried to put ourselves together again, but at a price - weariness.' No, I couldn't bear to do it all again."

His immediate destination, on this April day, was a radio talk show - just another episode in the never-ending adventure of being Bill Buckley, of buffing and polishing the image of the aristocrat in overdrive, at turns affable and acidic, with nose tilted skyward as if straining to sniff the sea at Nantucket.

He just turned 60. His magazine, National Review, is now 30, and his TV show, Firing Line, is now 20 - both surviving in a world marred by what the magazine calls "liberal degeneracy." History, with its clash of ideologies, has hit him like a freight train, but he perseveres. His Cold War rhetoric still soars like a hawk. He still thinks some Americans are too dumb to deserve the vote. And now he thinks AIDS-virus carriers should be tattooed on their buttocks.

There are conservatives who say his influence has waned, but he has never been known to cede ground to his critics. He has a lust for the last word, and he will get it at all costs, as fecund dictums drop like overripe fruits from his darting tongue, and woe to the listener who cannot invoke the words of saints and scholars six centuries dead.

"I don't stoop to conquer," he quipped, while lounging in the radio station lobby. "I merely conquer."

As he spoke, his talk-show host was already on the air, announcing Buckley's arrival. The original plan was for Buckley to plug his latest spy novel, but instead the host was now telling listeners that his guest would be on to defend "the Buckley treatment" of AIDS carriers.

"Uh oh," said Buckley. "Did you hear that?" There was a glint in his eye, like a diamond turned toward the light, and he flashed a naughty grin that gave him the look of a schoolboy who'd just been caught clipping the wings off the family parakeet. He could hardly wait for the scolding to commence.

***

But one cannot say that Bill Buckley, with all his wealth and fame and friends in the White House, is a happy man. It's more complicated than that.

An hour before the radio show, he was ruminating on this in his Park Avenue maisonette, sipping coffee brought on a silver tray by a servant.

"You must screen 'happiness' through the Christian understanding of the word," he said. "In G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi, he concludes that St. Francis was happy when he died. But it was ambiguous whether St. Francis was happy due to a retrospective view of his life, or whether it was because he was nearing an imminent reunion with God. Happiness, in the form of a (temporal) 'high,' is not reconcilable with Christian orientation."

So to avoid melancholy, he just stays busy. He said, "I probably inherited that from my father, who was very successful and very industrious." Indeed, William Buckley Sr. was a self-made oil magnate and devout Catholic who loathed socialism and embraced elitism. ("The mass of people have not the ability to think clearly," he told a Senate panel in 1919, referring to a Mexican revolution that hurt his oil holdings.)

Young William wound up at Yale, where, upon graduation, he wrote a book charging that the teachers were anti-God and "collectivist" in their politics. In 1955, he founded National Review to provide a forum for right- wing thought - thus plowing the intellectual ground for a resurgent American conservatism. In 1966, he launched Firing Line, proving that conservatives can be witty, too. This was no small achievement; said Richard Brookhiser, a National Review colleague, "Buckley broke the liberal monopoly on style." At one point in 1971, during a taping break, he leaned over to a long-haired guest and whispered, "Hhhowww's the revolutionnnn?"

John Judis, who has spent 30 hours interviewing Buckley for a forthcoming biography, says: "Bill was brought up to be at odds with the outside world. There was a sense of being embattled. That's why Bill was best in the '50s and '60s, when he thought liberals controlled the country. I don't think he functions as well when things are going his way (politically)."

Nevertheless, Buckley remains vexed by much of modern life. After all, this is a man who plays harpsichord music on a tape deck while sailing the Atlantic. Back here on dry land, he complains that democracy has become . . . how shall he put it . . . debased.

"All you have to do is exist, at age 18, in order to get the vote," he lamented, sipping his coffee. Recalling an old poll, he said that "apparently 30 percent of the American people have never heard of the United Nations. I'd say those 30 percent are not ready to vote."

The cup was lowered to the silver tray. The eyes flashed, inviting a challenge. So it was suggested to him that the universal franchise is, by definition, a pillar of democracy. But he said, "You know, when the Statue of Liberty was erected 100 years ago, blacks were only nominally franchised, and women weren't franchised at all. And yet it didn't occur to a great many people that it was a fraud to hold her up as a symbol of liberty." Besides, too many voters care only about their "personal economic enhancement."

He cited Jose Ortega y Gasset - a Spanish philosopher who, in 1930, charged that "the masses" were debasing government and the arts. This was no surprise; Ortega y Gasset has long influenced him. As Buckley now put it, ''Ortega said the sin of the masses was their remoteness from their own patrimony. People get all these books to read, beautiful pictures to look at, beautiful music to listen to - but without awakening in them a sense of reciprocity. We have to do something for society in return."

Minutes later, he was bound for his limousine, knotting a rep tie around his throat in midstride. Ah yes, the limousine. When he first wrote about this car three years ago - about its dual-control air conditioning ("for driver and driven") and its palatial proportions - his critics howled, and a Buckley friend had to explain to the puzzled pundit that a limo is an offensive symbol to the average urbanite.

But Buckley cherishes his custom-made cocoon. He composes letters on the Dictaphone. He makes calls on the telephone. In short, he stays busy; he does not permit quietude in his life, because what he fears most, he says, is the thought, which might steal upon him in an unguarded moment of contemplation, that he has somehow failed to measure up in the eyes of his Maker.

All of which prompted former Sen. Eugene McCarthy to quip, on a recent Firing Line, that, "When I first met Bill, he was pursuing God. God's been running from him ever since."

***

"Hhhaaa-yyyiii!"

He greeted the talk-show callers as if they were old schoolmates joining him on a sailing cruise. But many were not amused by him. They'd just heard Buckley insist that AIDS-virus carriers be tattooed. "I suggest the buttocks and the upper forearm," he told his host, Barry Gray. "Matter of fact, you might call this a gay right." Healthy gays, he said, had a right to be protected.

He fenced effortlessly with his choleric callers - until one woman declared: "There were tattoos in Germany in World War II, and it doesn't seem right. . . ."

"I honestly resent that," he broke in. "I do wish you'd be a little more sensitive." Later, in the downbound elevator, the barb still smarted. "I'm sensitive about that (a Nazi analogy)" he muttered. "People should guard against that." When Gore Vidal made a similar analogy in 1969, Buckley sued and won.

Outside, his limo was waiting on West 56th Street, right where it was supposed to be. The next stop would be a restaurant; intellectual Irving Kristol and New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal were waiting. That night, he was due at a party for his spy novel. The next day, he would introduce a Mozart concert.

His is the life of a gadabout, and not everyone is charmed. Garry Wills, the writer, who got his start at National Review, calls Buckley "a dandy" who is "applauded for striking poses." Biographer Judis says, "He goes very fast on the surface of life, and he doesn't try to figure out what it all means."

"Not many people have spent more time than I have, writing on a central theme, and have seen a change in the political climate," Buckley said of his critics, as the mute traffic slid by the window. "I'm not uniquely responsible for that change, but I certainly had something to do with it. So for people to say they think of me as a sailor or a showman is the lazy way out."

He boasts that he writes his column in 20 minutes; critics say it reads that way. But he sees no reason to slow his pace. "Boredom is an enemy," he said. "When Sir Harold Nicholson (the English historian) was 75, his friends gave him a gift of a voyage on a steamer. But he wound up writing a book, because he couldn't find relaxation by spread-eagling himself to the sky."

Besides, there's still so much to take umbrage about. For one thing, he said, "the public sector is still marching." For another, too many gays ("sexual aberrants") are spreading disease. Too many people, even churchmen, are making moral judgments about nuclear weapons, whereas what's really important is to "risk death in pursuit of Christian life." And he can no longer lecture to high-schoolers, he confesses, because "I'm not particularly skilled at picking up their idiom."

As for being happy, he prefers to await the afterlife. "Heaven," he said, as the limo pulled up to the restaurant, "is a place where you cannot be unhappy. When I was a schoolboy in England, a Jesuit told us about an old lady who once told him, 'If my dog Fifi can't go to heaven, I won't be happy there.' He then said to her, 'If it's really true you won't be happy without Fifi, then that means he'll be there.' But, don't you see, he was implying that she might not even need the dog once she got there. Hhhaaa, hhhaaa, hhhaaa!"

But until then, he will content himself with his sailing - a master of his fate on timeless waters where the freight train of history cannot intrude. "It gives you such a strange sense of power," he said, oh so seductively. "You decide on the course, you decide what to do in a storm. It is such a distinct sensation, really, to be totally in charge of one's own destiny."

Defusing, deflecting, deferring, disarming

2008-02-27T07:12:00.008-05:00

Hillary Clinton delivered a decent performance last night, as she and Barack Obama shared a debate stage for the 20th time. With the exception of one or two cringeworthy episodes, she was assertive without being strident, and she managed to score a few points at Obama's expense. But I question whether the voters in Texas and Ohio (particularly the former) will pave the way for a 21st meeting.

The problem for Clinton was that Obama seemed basically unflappable. He played defense for the most of the debate - such is the lot of frontrunners; it's the downside of success - but never seemed to break a sweat.

Compelled as he was, by both Clinton and the questioners, to explain himself on a number of fronts (his flighty rhetoric, his health care plan, his lack of foreign policy experience, his allegedly insufficient distancing from Louis Farrakhan), he even cheerily conceded a few points, defusing and deflecting and deferring and disarming at every turn. Particularly the latter. Taking various opportunities to flatter Clinton ("Sen. Clinton is right"..."Sen. Clinton speaks accurately"...Sen. Clinton is a "magnificent public servant"), he went into magnanimity mode to take the wind out of her sails. If her goal was to rattle him into making a game-changing error, she failed.

He was comfortable in the role of counter-puncher. When she noted (accurately) that she and Obama have basically the same Senate voting records on Iraq, and that, for all the foresight of his pre-Senate antiwar position, "he didn't have the responsibility, he didn't have to vote," Obama calmly countered with the kind of soundbite that viewers remember. On their Iraq similar voting records: "Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways to get out." On Clinton's '02 war authorization vote: "The question is, who's making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch?"

When she explained why she believes that Obama lacks the requisite experience to run our foreign policy, he countered by saying, "Sen. Clinton equates experience with longevity in Washington. I don't think the American people do" - and, indeed, voters have long demonstrated that they will elect outsiders, such as Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Clinton's spouse in 1992. Not to mention Woodrow Wilson in 1912, a governor of New Jersey and ex-professor who wound up running World War I.

When she squeezed him on Louis Farrakhan (who, unfortunately for Obama, has tendered his endorsement), it appeared for a moment that he might get defensive. But no. The episode began when Obama was asked whether he would accept this anti-Semite as a supporter. Obama sounded a tad shaky on the matter, even to the point of temporarily losing his gift for articulation: "I am very familiar with his record, as are the American people. That's why I have consistently denounced it...I obviously can't censor him. It's not support that I sought...I can't, uh, say to somebody that he can't say that he thinks I'm a good guy."

Clinton countered with an effective response that was firm without sounding too sanctimonious. Recalling an incident when her Senate bid was endorsed by an anti-Semitic party in New York, she said: "I made it very clear that I did not want their support...I thought it was more important to stand on principle....There's a difference between denouncing and rejecting...We've got to be even stronger."

Whereupon Obama, rather than taking the bait and digging in, simply responded this way: "I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. There's no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word reject Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word denounce, then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce."

Clinton declared, "Good, good, excellent," as if she had just taught a pupil to shape up, while scoring a major victory. But Obama seemed to convey, with faint bemusement, that this political wordplay was not worth fighting about, all the while appearing conciliatory. I doubt he suffered any damage in this episode.

Clinton was articulate, as usual, on the issue of universal health care, but Obama hugged her on that as well ("95 percent of our health care plans are similar"). When she complained - accurately - that some of Obama's mailers have distorted some features of health care plan, he shrugged off the matter by saying that the Clinton campaign has sent out, or condoned, a fusillade of negative attacks, yet "we haven't whined about it because I understand that's the nature of these campaigns."

She nailed him on one point, however. While defending his foreign policy credentials, he mentioned his membership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But Clinton pointed out that, even though Obama chairs a subcommittee with jurisdiction over NATO and Afghanistan, "he's held not one substantive meeting" during his chairmanship. Obama's response: "I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven't had oversight hearings on Afghanistan." Perhaps he gets kudos for acknowledging this without sounding defensive, but it does arguably prove the critics' point that Obama is a young man in a hurry who hasn't done sufficient spadework in the trenches.

Nevertheless, Clinton had her own shaky episodes. She has repeatedly refused to release her joint tax returns, and when asked about this last night, she said she would do so upon becoming the nominee, "or even earlier." Given the possibility that her candidacy could be effectively over by next Tuesday, that isn't much of a time window. Meanwhile, at another point in the debate, she tried to paint Obama as a reckless naif by claiming that he wants to "bomb Pakistan" - whereas, in reality, he has said no such thing. He has repeatedly made it clear that he's talking about special operations (last summer: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will"). Clinton's erroneous charge was literally out of the John McCain playbook.

But her worst moment, a self-inflicted wound, occurred in the 17th minute of the debate. The timing itself aggravated the injury. A rule of thumb in these events is that it's unwise to screw up during the first half hour, when the TV audience is biggest and when the journalists are still writing for deadline. Clinton has a habit of delivering leaden one-liners, and this was no exception. Asked a question about NAFTA, she started to whine about being picked on, claiming that debate hosts always "seem" to ask her questions while Obama can hang back and respond. "I don't mind," she said, although she clearly did, which was why she brought it up. "I'm happy to answer it," although she wasn't, thereby telegraphing insincerity.

Then came the pre-scripted clinker: "If anybody saw Saturday Night Live, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow," a remark that predictably drew boos, all the while demonstrating that Clinton was prepared to hang her hat on a comedy show - which, while taking her side the other night, has just as often depicted her in skits as the queen of entitlement.

I doubt she shifted the dynamic of this contest; at this late stage, the trend lines are probably impervious to the impact of a single debate. For instance, the latest Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania now shows that Clinton leads by only six points in her alleged stronghold - assuming the race even goes that far. These pollsters attribute the narrowing of the Pennsylvania margin (from 16 points just two weeks ago) to young voters, and last night Obama the Unflappable did nothing to imperil their devotion.

The behavior of unhappy campaigns

2008-02-26T10:13:00.009-05:00

Tolstoy wrote that "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In American politics, however, it's the unhappy campaigns that are all alike. In their growing desperation to stave off defeat, they tend to behave in very similar ways. And the Hillary Clinton campaign is currently a textbook case, for three reasons:

1. The candidate is exhibiting multiple personalities, mellow one day and volcanic the next, seemingly incapable of settling on a consistent tone and approach. Last Thursday night, she said she was "honored" to run with Barack Obama; yet on Monday, she painted him as a clueless Bush-style naif who would imperil America in a dangerous world. All this reflects the fact that her advisors have no clue what will work best to slow Obama's ongoing momentum. When a candidate is reduced to throwing everything but the "kitchen sink" (in the words of a Hillary advisor), it's a sign of weakness. Which Hillary will show up at the Ohio debate tonight?

2. The campaign is blaming the media for its woes. Spokesman Howard Wolfson whines that "the press has largly applauded (Obama)...that is a fact of life we labor under," and surrogate/Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell grouses that "the media doesn't like the Clintons for whatever reason." Scapegoating the messenger is standard practice for losers. But the scapegoaters seem to have amnesia. As recently as last summer, Hillary's detractors were complaining that the media had already anointed her as the inevitable nominee, based on her universal name ID and the alleged prowess of her political machine. (To cite one of many examples, here's New York Times blogger/professor Stanley Fish, writing last August: "It’s time to start thinking seriously about Hillary Clinton’s running mate...this one is over before it’s over.") I don't recall the Hillary people having any problems with the coverage at that point in time. Their argument today, apparently, is that the media should ignore or downplay the fact that Hillary has lost 11 straight contests, all by landslides. That losing record is really the "fact of life" that they labor under.

3. Another standard practice for losers is to try and explain away primary defeats as either statistical flukes or aberrations. The Hillary people have been trying this all along, shrugging off caucus losses as unrepresentative of general Democraric opinion (whereas, in reality, their failure to organize for these grassroots events has been vivid proof of their ineptitude), and blaming a string of primary losses on the presence of independent voters (as if Obama's strength with independents is a bad thing).

Now it's happening again. The other day, the ever-helpful Bill Clinton began to pre-spin the next potential defeat, this time in Texas. That key state, which votes a week from today, has a complex arrangement - a primary all day and a caucus in the evening; delegates are awarded in acordance with both sets of results. Referring to the caucus, here's what Bill told a crowd yesterday: "The doors open at 7 (pm) and they close at 7:15. It would be tragic if Hillary were to win this election in the daytime and somebody were to come in at night and take it away."

Translation: Bill is pre-spinning the primary as legitimate, and the caucus (where Hillary's organization, as we know, is far weaker) as illegitimate. So if Obama wins Texas narrowly, thanks to the caucus results, the Clintons are prepared to say in effect, "Well, this loss doesn't really count either, because she won it fair and square until the Obama people came in under the cover of night and took it away."

And one other thing: Bill told a falsehood about the hours of the caucus. The doors don't open at 7 and close at 7:15. According to a spokesman for the Texas Democratic party, the doors actually open around 7:15 and close at 9. Did Bill misspeak on purpose, narrowing the caucus times perhaps in the hopes discouraging voters from showing up? Gaming the system is also a standard practice for losers.

Ralph Nader, tragedy and farce

2008-02-25T07:06:00.003-05:00

In the apparent belief that he has not sufficiently damaged his own legacy, Ralph Nader now seems determined to wield the wrecking ball one more time.

Havng told himself - and the nation yesterday, on Meet the Press - that Americans are clamoring for a third-party candidate in 2008, Nader has decided to offer himself as the purist alternative. Even though, as Gallup makes clear, there is little empirical evidence that Americans are clamoring for a third-party candidate in 2008.

Nader is the living embodiment of the Karl Marx dictum that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." The tragedy for Democrats, of course, is that Nader (despite his persistent denials) played a pivotal role in the ascension of George W. Bush eight years ago. The math speaks for itself; Bush officially won Florida by 537 votes over Al Gore, while Nader drained away 97,488 Floridians. And exit polls showed that, if Nader had not stumped to be on the Florida ballot (while telling Floridians that there were scant differences between Gore and Nader), his voters would have favored Gore by a 2-1 margin.

The farce is what's happening now.

Nader had argued in 2000 that Gore was a corporate stooge, tethered to the centrist compromises of the Bill Clinton era. Nader had argued in 2004 that John Kerry was a corporate stooge, tethered to the compromises of the Democratis establishment. And Nader is now arguing that the new kid on the block, Barack Obama, is also a corporate stooge ("he has leaned toward the pro-corporate side of policy-making"), one who refuses to measure up to Nader's high standards because "his better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself."

No doubt many issues are getting short shrift in this campaign, and Nader plans to highlight them, from a liberal perspective, on what he calls his new "exciting, informative, participatory website." But he is badly misreading the national mood.

Consider this Gallup statistic: When voters in January were asked whether any of the '08 candidates would make a good president, 84 percent said yes - the highest share in 16 years, and nearly twice the share recorded in 1992, when Ross Perot ran as a third-party hopeful. Gallup's Frank Newport concludes that "the environment (in 2008) would not be nearly as propitious this year as it was for Perot that year. It is true that Americans are broadly dissatisfied this year with both the state of the nation and the economy, as they were in 1992. But Americans at this juncture seem much more willing to say that the current crop of candidates running in the major parties have discussed good solutions to the nation's problems, and, as a result, there is a high level of satisfaction with those currently running."

Indeed, while Nader was busy yesterday talking about how voters feel "shut out, marginalized, disrespected" (without, of course, acknowledging his own role in helping to install a president who has left voters feeling shut out, marginalized, and disrespected), he conveniently overlooked one of the key factors that potentially distinguishes 2008 from its electoral predecessors: Voter enthusiasm.

It stands to reason that if voters were truly yearning for Nader or another third-party candidate, they would not be storming the ballot box in record numbers during this primary season. Thanks largely to Obama's presence in the race, Democratic turnout has broken all previous party records, and has dwarfed the GOP turnout. If Obama does win the nomination, young voters and first-time voters are likely to marginalize Nader further. Even in 2004, the record turnout for John Kerry (who drew more votes than any losing candidate in history) overwhelmed Nader, reducing him to 0.38 percent of the popular vote, and reducing him to a non-factor in every state. It's hard to see how he would improve on that percentage in 2008.

What's truly sad is that the young Obama fans are likely to dismiss Nader as merely a cranky contrarian; the relatively few who study political history will see him as a parody of the perpetual also-ran, a latter-day Harold Stassen. They will remain largely unaware that Nader has favorably impacted their lives every time they drive their cars in safety; it was Nader, more than any other American, who helped pad their dashboards and strap them in.

But it is Nader himself who has consigned this estimable legacy to the mists of memory. And that is not farce, it is tragedy.

-------

Speaking of turnout, and the impending Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio, here's a statistic worth noting in the Lone Star State:

Texans are already casting ballots for the crucial March 4 contest, thanks to the state's early-voting law. So I took a look at the state turnout figures thus far. I was stunned by what I saw.

I'll just focus on Collin County, in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, reputedly the richest county in Texas. It's a place where Democratic voters have been virtually invisible in recent years. For instance, during the first three days of early voting in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, only 503 people bothered to do it.

Yet for the same time period in 2008, here's the turnout number for Collin County:

6845.

That's nearly 12 times the previous number for Collin County. And the pattern is similar elsewhere in Texas; for instance, in Harris County (Houston and adjacent suburbia), the '04 early turnout was 2392; today, it's 26,729. That's more than 10 times the early tally of 2004.

Are we to believe that Hillary Clinton, in her dire hour of need, is the candidate driving this turnout?

A sense that the end is near

2008-02-22T07:37:00.004-05:00

I'll begin at the end, because somehow it seems most pertinent. At the close of last night's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton conveyed the impression that she is preparing herself for defeat.

Some of this was communicated in her words: "And, you know, no matter what happens in this contest - and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored. Whatever happens, we're going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends." More importantly, it was communicated in the way she spoke those words. She sounded wistful, as if resigned to her political fate.

Actually, she seemed to be going through the motions for much of the evening - repeatedly forfeiting opportunities to skewer Barack Obama, and reciting scripted attack lines with no apparent fervor. Perhaps the news yesterday of her latest 11th straight loss (roughly 20,000 voters living overseas, organized in a party-sanctioned contest called Democrats Abroad, had opted for Obama in another 2-1 landslide) had taken the stuffing out of her. Or perhaps it was the news that the polls in Texas and Ohio have tightened considerably, and that her latest firewalls may indeed fall to the prevailing winds. Even the Teamsters have now endorsed Obama.

Whatever the reason - and perhaps it's just plain fatigue, given the pace that she and Obama have been compelled to sustain - she seemed tentative at a time when she could least afford it. She needed to do something, or have something happen, that would dramatically change the dynamic of the Democratic race. But nothing changed. Obama wants his momentum to be the prevailing story line of the week, and nothing came out of the debate to change that.

She was repeatedly invited, by the moderators, to shake things up. She was asked, for example, to explain why she believes (at least in stump speeches) that Obama is just a guy who talks a good game. In Texas lingo, she was asked whether she believes that her rival is all hat and no cattle.

She launched into a laborious, cautious response, the verbal equivalent of tiptoeing in bare feet on hot coals ("I know that there are comparisons and contrasts to be drawn between us"), along with a rote observation about the hapless Obama surrogate who was hammered by Chris Matthews the other night for his failure to cite any Obama achievements. She didn't explain the reference. More significantly, she passed up a chance to confront Obama with an argument that might have made some news. She could have quizzed him on his thin Senate record, and asked him to cite a single instance when he has taken a leadership role on any of the big issues (poverty, education, immigration, health care). She didn't, and the moment passed.

Later, she was asked to explain why she believes (at least on the stump) that she alone is ready to be the next commander-in-chief. Why doesn't she believe that Obama has those qualities?

Again she punted. She launched instead into a long recitation of her own resume ("What I mean is that, you know, for more than 15 years, I've been honored to represent our country in more than 80 countries..."), and didn't say a word about Obama.

Perhaps, at this late stage of the debate, she was simply gun shy about assailing Obama; earlier, while talking about how Obama had borrowed some rhetoric from his friend and national co-chair, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, she had uttered one of her scripted attack lines ("lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox"), and the audience had booed.

But perhaps there's a more high-minded reason why she didn't question his commander creds: Facing the prospect of defeat in the primaries, she may not have wanted to undercut Obama on this key qualification and thereby give the Republicans ammunition. (The GOP has already been cranking out press releases contending that Obama is not ready to command).

Whatever the reason for her hesitance, she afforded Obama the luxury of responding in the manner of his choosing. And he took full advantage. Not only did he talk up his own priorities ("My number one job as president will be to keep the American people safe"), but he didn't hestitate to say a few words about Clinton. He shifted to the offense and whacked her for voting to authorize the Iraq war, weaving it into his overall response:

"And on what I believe was the single most important foreign policy decision of this generation, whether or not to go to war in Iraq, I believe I showed the judgment of a commander in chief. And I think that Senator Clinton was wrong in her judgments on that."

A year ago, when Obama was an untested debater, he would not have seized such an opening and twisted the knife so deftly.

Nor did Clinton show much fight on the sensitive issue of the superdelegates. When asked whether the superdelegates should choose a nominee in defiance of how the public voted in the primaries (an option that the Clinton camp has vigorously promoted), yet again she punted. Her full non-answer:

"Well, you know, these are the rules that are followed, and you know, I think that it will sort itself out. I'm not worried about that. We will have a nominee, and we will have a unified Democratic Party, and we will go on to victory in November."

And Obama took that open opportunity to put himself on the side of the people's will, and imply that the superdelegates should follow suit: "Well, I think it is important, given how hard Senator Clinton and I have been working, that these primaries and caucuses count for something. And so my belief is that the will of the voters, expressed in this long election process, is what ultimately will determine who our next nominee is going to be." And then he wove that into his larger theme about making politics and government work for the average citizen, and "knocking down the barriers that stand between the American people and their dreams."

Meanwhile, Clinton's aides were reduced to sending out press releases about how, for instance, Obama last night used a word that John Kerry had used four years ago. It seems that Kerry, while lamenting the loss of factory jobs in the Rustbelt, described how machinery had been "unbolted" from the floor and shipped to plants overseas...and last night, early in the debate, Obama said he has talked to Ohio workers who have seen their equipment "unbolted" and shipped to China.

If this is the best they can do, then it's no wonder that Clinton sounded so elegiac at the closing.

McCain to The Times: Thank you very much

2008-02-21T13:06:00.007-05:00

John McCain should send a dozen roses and a thank-you note to The New York Times.

There he was, trudging from one primary to the next, racking up underwhelming victories because of his chronic inability to bond with the Republican right...and, lo and behold, The Times comes along today and provides him with a gift-wrapped opportunity to bond with the Republican right.

The Times is the enemy, the paper that conservatives love to hate. The Times has just published a front-page story insinuating that something unseemly (we know not what, exactly) may have occurred nine years ago between McCain and a Washington lobbyist who looks like Michelle Pfeiffer. Therefore, even though conservatives have generally viewed McCain as an enemy, they now have a visceral reason to bond with him.

As the old political adage goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Here's how conservatives feel today about their new friend: Rush Limbaugh, who for weeks has been assailing McCain as a nutty lefty, now declares that poor McCain is being victimized by "the Drive By media," which is "trying to destroy him." Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, a popular conservative organ, says The Times is trying to smear the presumptive GOP nominee because "they're political activists posing as news people." David Brody, a conservative commentator with a big religious-right readership, points out that, in his circles, "if The New York Times does a 'hit job' on you, then you wear that as a conservative badge of honor."

Many others have leapt to McCain's defense, but the cleverest remark comes from publicist/author Craig Shirley, who says that "Ho Chi Minh was more professional in his dealings with John McCain than The New York Times," a two-fer that puts The Times to the left of a communist, while invoking the candidate's war-hero credentials. (Those creds will be invoked all year, to innoculate McCain against whatever charges may be hurled his way.)

Frankly, why shouldn't McCain spin this episode into gold? The Times story, reportedly in the works for many months, is ideal material for conservative base mobilization - precisely because, with respect to its allegations, it seems lighter than a souffle.

There was some cackling in Democratic circles today about this story - which suggests that McCain's undefined "relationship" with lobbyist Vicki Iseman had once threatened his image as a man of honor - but suffice it to say that if the same story, with the same sourcing and details, had been published about a leading Democratic contender, those same cacklers would be going ballistic right now.

The story says that, back in 1999, some McCain aides (unnamed) were "convinced the relationship had become romantic" (but it doesn't say what evidence, if any, led them to believe this). At the very least, these aides worried about "the appearance of a close bond" and the possibility of "potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest," since Iseman's telecommunications clients had business with McCain's Senate Commerce Committee.

But there's no evidence in the story that "the appearance" ever led to any actual conflicts of interest - beyond the fact that McCain once sent two letters to the Federal Communications Commission, asking that it rule soon on whether a key Iseman client, Lowell Paxson, should be granted a TV license. McCain himself has mentioned that episode in his memoirs, and it's old news anyway, because the press reported on it nine years ago - noting at the time that while the FCC rebuked McCain for writing those letters, there was no evidence that McCain had tried to muscle the agency into ruling a certain way.

But back to the Times story. It says that the unnamed aides got McCain to admit that he had been "behaving inappropriately" with Iseman, but there's no way to know whether that phrase refers to the behavior of lovers, or the behavior of platonic pals who are plotting to help a lobbying client in violation of the public interest, or the behavior of pals who are simply hanging too often in the gossipy world of politics. Meanwhile, at a press conference this morning, McCain said he had no such confessional conversations with aides.

And that's where we stand at the moment. The latest Fox News poll, which sampled voters earlier this week, finds that roughly one-third of the Republican base is still resistant to McCain. The Times story will help him, especially with Limbaugh and some of his confederates rushing to battle the common enemy. Still, I'd bet that some of the diehard McCain critics on the right - especially Mitt Romney's people - are wishing today that the common enemy had run this story six weeks ago, before the primary season began.

-------

The Democratic finalists debate again tonight, with Hillary Clinton still trying to figure out how she can go negative on Barack Obama in an effective fashion, without somehow alienating the millions of Democrats who have come to believe he walks on water. Whatever happens, rest assured that, when the event ends, Obama will not be chivalrously pulling her chair back this time...unless she's still sitting in it.

It's hard to spin when you don't win

2008-02-20T00:13:00.012-05:00

Did I mention one week ago, in the wake of landslide losses in Virginia and Maryland, that the Hillary Clinton campaign resembled the Titanic just as the second-class cabins were starting to flood? I did indeed. But here's an update:

The water is ascending the grand staircase, and threatening the first-class dinnerware.

It's hard to imagine how the Clinton people can possibly spin away what happened last night in Wisconsin, when in reality the next round of voters, in Ohio and Texas, will awaken this morning to news stories declaring that Barack Obama has buried Hillary in yet another landslide; that, on a percentage basis, Hillary lost almost as badly as Mike Huckabee lost to John McCain on the Republican side; that Obama has now won 10 contests in succession (the 10th was Hawaii, last night), all of them blowouts; and that, most importantly, he has effectively whittled away at her electoral base, to the point where large chunks of that base seem poised to defect. It's hard to imagine that Texas and Ohio, voting 13 days from now, will not be influenced by the magnitude of Obama's achievements.

But hang on: The Clinton people did try to spin away Wisconsin last night. Lisa Caputo, a longtime Hillary ally and intimate, went on cable TV and insisted (just as I predicted yesterday) that the loss was partly attributable to the fact that Obama spent more money. But that wasn't the real spin. She proceeded to argue that Hillary bombed out because Wisconsin has "a different demographic situation. Wisconsin is very prone to the independents."

There were three fundamental flaws in that remark. First, a Democratic candidate's ability to attract independents is actually an asset (Obama topped Hillary among independents by 27 percentage points), because, after all, independents generally swing presidential elections. Which means that the candidate who is weaker among independents is arguably less electable. Caputo, by saying in essence, "We lost because Obama is strong with independents," implicitly admitted that her candidate is weak with swing voters.

Second, even if she wants to minimize Obama's Wisconsin victory by shrugging off the independents, here's something she failed to mention: The Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4 are also open to independents. Given that reality, how does Hillary expect to post the lopsided victories she so badly needs?

And third, by focusing only on the independents in Wisconsin, Caputo somehow omitted her candidate's more fundamental problem: the fact that her base is leaching away, courtesy of Obama's steady incursions.

Just as he did a week ago in Virginia and Maryland, Obama went deep into Hillary's strongholds. As evidenced in the exit polls, he won blue-collar voters, the people who make $50,000 or less, by 10 percentage points. He won the voters who didn't finish college, by 13 points. He won self-identified Democrats, by seven points. He split white Catholics, winning them by one point, and he won white voters overall, by nine points. He even captured 47 percent of white women (Hillary's Ground Zero constituency), whereas, just six weeks ago in New Hampshire, he only drew 33 percent.

He won every income bracket, and every region of the state. He won the cities, suburbia, and the rural regions. On the question of who is more qualified to be commander in chief, he won by four points. On the question of who is more electable in November, he won by 26 points. On the question of who would better unite the country, he won by 27 points.

Conversely, on the question of who was the most unfair attacker, Hillary outdistanced Obama by 20 points - which suggests that her last-ditch bid to paint Obama as a plagiarizer was akin to a grenade blowing up in her hand. Clearly, most voters were not impressed by her (accurate) complaint that Obama had borrowed some rhetorical flourishes employed by his buddy, the governor of Massachusetts. She and her aides had hammered Obama on that point during the final three days - yet it's instructive to note that Obama won 53 percent of the voters who made up their minds in the final three days.

So what can Hillary do next, now that she has fallen farther behind in the aggregate popular vote, and in the all-important pledged delegate count?

She'll obviously try to tweak or even overhaul her message, but mostly she may be forced to sit tight and hope for the best - hope that Obama makes a mistake in the next debate on Thursday night, or perhaps in the debate next Tuesday night; hope that some of the smarter criticisms of Obama (offered by respected commentators) somehow register with the besotted electorate; hope that she isn't hit with a speight of defections among the superdelegates who committed to her early (indeed, after last night, it's doubtful that any of the current fence-sitters are going to sign on with her during this hiatus before Texas and Ohio); and hope that she can raise new money from donors who might now be tempted to view her as damaged goods.

By contrast, Obama can now plausibly argue that he has national appeal; that he can win in northern swing states (Wisconsin), bellwether midwestern states (Missouri), and diehard Democratic states (Maryland), and even red states that are trending Democratic (Virginia). He can argue that his strength among independents and white males, combined with his apparently growing appeal to core Democratic voters, would make him the more effective November candidate. He can even point out, in the days ahead, that Ohio's demographics are roughly the same as Wisconsin's.

Which brings us back to the perils of lousy spin. Early yesterday, Politico reported that Hillary and her people, if facing defeat, might ultimately try to raid Obama's pledged delegates in a last-ditch bid to win the nomination. The story - which was actually a trial balloon floated by a Hillary operative - kicked up such a fervor that within hours the Hillary campaign felt compelled to deny it. Apparently the Democratic party rules do not explicitly require pledged delegates to honor the primary results in their states, but here's the thing:

It's hard to imagine, barring a miracle reversal of Obama's fortunes, that any pledged Obama delegate would volunteer to defy the popular will and sign up with a candidate who seems to be going down. More importantly, the Politico story itself demonstrates just how desperate the Hillary people have become. Ditto Hillary's new delegate website, which insists that "the race is currently a virtual tie." It's hard to serve up credible spin when you don't win.

And speaking of spin, a politically-wired Philadelphia lawyer has just emailed his own thoughts on what Hillary's people would be saying today if the candidates' situations were reversed:

"Imagine this. If Clinton had just won her 10th straight primary/caucus, and 24th and 25th out of 36 states, how much talk would there be from (her spokespeople) that Obama needs to 'step down' for 'the good of the party,' to allow the party to coalesce around its 'obvious frontrunner'?"

Exactly.

The stakes in the cheesehead primary

2008-02-19T10:04:00.009-05:00

Ah Wisconsin, birthplace of the presidential primary (yes, nearly a century ago) and a state where so many candidacies have come to ruin (Hubert Humphrey in 1960, Mo Udall in 1976, John Edwards and Howard Dean in 2004, among many others). For the 2008 Democratic finalists, Wisconsin might ultimately prove to be a mere pit stop, but at the moment it looks like a potential fork in the long and winding road.

If Hillary Clinton wins tonight (defying most of the polls, as in New Hampshire), she would slow Barack Obama's momentum ahead of the Texas and Ohio showdowns on March 4, and calm the nerves of fans who have been laboring to come up with rationales for why she should be awarded the nomination in the absence of voter approval. If she loses narrowly and essentially splits the 74 Wisconsin delegates with Obama, she can always try to spin it as a comeback and insist that she always knew Wisconsin would be a tough state, that she nearly won even though Obama vastly outspent her, and that she is pleased with where she is in the race.

If Obama wins tonight in cheesehead territory (along with a victory in his native Hawaii), he heads toward Texas and Ohio with a 10-game victory streak and the aura of a winner - which matters in politics, because voters torn between two candidates often are tempted to go with a perceived winner. And if he wins big tonight - in a state, after all, where the demographics would seem to be friendly to Hillary - then he can spin it as further evidence (coupled with Virginia and Maryland last week) that he is steadily broadening his appeal to the greater Democratic electorate.

To gauge his appeal, I plan to check out these demographics, some of which overlap:

White working-class Democrats. They have been loyal to Hillary in most contests thus far, and they're numerous in Wisconsin (in the 2004 Democratic primary, 50 percent of the voters earned less than $50,000 a year), particularly in the old manufacturing towns on the east side of the state. The potential problem for Hillary, however, is that they've suffered heavy job losses and they blame NAFTA for accelerating the exodus of jobs overseas...the same NAFTA that Hillary's husband signed into law. One of the strongest NAFTA critics is Wisconsin Congressman David Obey, who represents a heavily blue-collar district and is stumping his turf heavily for Obama.

(In February 2004, during the Wisconsin primary campaign, I was visiting a laid-off union worker named Gary Miller, in the town of Manitowoc, when his phone rang. Miller's side of the conversation went like this: "Hello?...OK, you should know that our local went out of existence...Yup, a few months ago...The company we worked at is gone, took all the jobs to China and Mexico, we have no members now. We do nothing...Wish I could help you more, sorry." Then Miller hung up. The caller was a John Kerry organizer, looking for labor help.)

Voters who didn't go to, or finish, college. Despite Wisconsin's general reputation as a liberal academic bastion - thanks largely to its university in Madison - it's worth noting that, in the 2004 Democratic primary, 55 percent of the voters did not have a college degree. Hillary has generally outdueled Obama for these voters (although not in Virginia and Maryland), and if she can't hold them in Wisconsin, it will be evidence of further base erosion.

The golden-age voters. Hillary has generally fared better than Obama among seniors (although, again, not last week), and voters over age 65 are expected to comprise roughly 20 percent of the Wisconsin electorate. Supposedly, they would be strongly attracted to Hillary's detailed policy prescriptives for health care and other kitchen-table staples, as practical correctives to Obamamania.

Catholics. Close to 4 in 10 Wisconsin voters are expected to be members of the faith, and Hillary was routinely beating Obama among Catholics until last week. If they tilt to Obama in Wisconsin (or not), it probably wouldn't be attributable to anything he has said (or hasn't said) about religion, because there has been very little faith talk lately on the Democratic side. Catholics will likely be voting on the same grounds as everybody else - with respect to their wallets/pocketbooks, their impressions of the two candidates, and their thoughts about candidate electability.

Then there are the reliable Obama demographics. We all know that young voters will favor Obama; the question is whether they will turn out in greater numbers than before, particularly in the university towns (in the Wisconsin primary four years ago, voters aged 18 to 29 were 11 percent of the elecrorate). We all know that blacks will vote overwhelmingly for Obama in Milwaukee; the question is by how much they will exceed their '04 turnout (six percent of the electorate).

And since Wisconsin's primary is open to all voters, I plan to track the size of the independent turnout, and its share of the total electorate. This too is reliable Obama turf - many of the Wisconsin independents are downstate affluent professionals who commute to Chicago - and they are one big reason why Obama is favored to win. Wisconsin has been a tough state for the Democrats in the last two general elections - Al Gore and John Kerry barely won it in 2000 and 2004 - and a huge independent turnout tonight might provide clues about a candidate's autumn viability.

The Clinton campaign has been working hard to lower expectations in Wisconsin, but I think that Jeff Greenfield, the seasoned CBS political commentator, put it best the other day: "If Clinton cannot rally the beer-drinking Democrats in the state that gave us Pabst, Schlitz, and Miller, where can she?"

-------

As I noted yesterday, the Clinton people apparently assumed they'd wrap up the nomination on Tsunami Tuesday, thereby obviating the need for a Plan B if the race went longer. They never bothered to learn about the complex Texas delegate rules that could work against them on March 4. And now, as we see from this report (hat tip, John Baer), they couldn't even get their act together last week to file a complete slate of delegates for the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

Even though the state filing deadline was helpfully extended for a day and a half by their ally-in-chief, Gov. Ed Rendell (official reason for the extension: bad weather), the campaign still came up short by around 10 delegates. By contrast, Obama's camp had no such problems.

For their own sake, while there is still time, the Clinton people might want to shake off the last vestiges of their coronation mentality and focus on nuts and bolts.

Dean's muted scream, Mac's new pander

2008-02-18T09:35:00.010-05:00

As I noted in my Sunday print column, the Democratic presidential race (barring a miracle breakthrough by either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama) is careening toward a potential train wreck. Space did not permit me to explore an important question:

Are there any party elders, with the requisite clout and nonpartisan credentials, who can step forward to yank the brakes and prevent a derailment? Somebody, anybody, who can propose wise voting criteria for unpledged superdelegates, and who can come up with a solution to the emasculated status of Florida and Michigan?

The roster thins very quickly. Bill Clinton, the titular elder-leader, has a vested interest in the outcome. Al Gore would be suspect no matter what stance he took; if he came up with ideas that seemed to tilt against Hillary, he'd be widely accused of trying to stick it to the Clintons, as payback for the difficult 2000 election and for all the years he vied with Hillary for power and resources in Bill's administration.

What about other national-ticket alumni? John Kerry has already endorsed Obama. John Edwards will endorse somebody, as soon as he cuts a deal to his liking. Joe Lieberman, in the wake of endorsing John McCain, might want to call his convention hotel and make sure his bed isn't in the boiler room. Walter Mondale, landslide loser of '84, has endorsed Hillary. Jimmy Carter, whose clout expired roughly 30 years ago, has not even been available to issue a no comment. And Mike Dukakis...'nuff said.

The only one left - on paper, anyway - is Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean. And that's a problem as well. Despite his recent remark that a stalemate in April would trigger the need for "some kind of an arrangement," he has neither the clout, nor the inclination, to take the lead.

The Clinton people have long disliked Dean; four years ago, lest we forget, they scrambled to find an alternative to presidential candidate Dean, and came up with Wesley Clark. So Dean is currently ill-positioned to get the Clinton people to agree to anything. Nor has he tried very hard. After passively allowing the DNC's Rules Committee to strip Florida of all its delegates as punishment for holding a primary too early on the calendar, he said nary a word when the Clintons (after having won the meaningless primary) began to insist that those delegates be seated. And that, in turn, has ticked off the Obama people. All told, even Dean sympathizers say he's not particularly adept at conflict resolution.

In Dean's defense, contemporary party chairmen are generally not viewed as power brokers; they're supposed to be message cheerleaders and money-raisers. The image of the backstage party boss, the guy who knocks heads together, died nearly two generations ago, roughly at the time that power was entrusted to primary voters.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, they may soon suffer from this power vacuum at the top. A Clinton-Obama stalemate, a potentially historic rarity, hits the party where it's most vulnerable, and prompts the question:

If the primary voters have had their say, and still there is no nominee, what's supposed to happen next? The Democratic scream might be louder than anything Howard Dean once managed to muster.

-------

Following up on my post last Thursday, John McCain has done it again.

It's a mystery why he keeps getting media plaudits for "sincerity" and "authenticity." Judging by his appearance yesterday on ABC News, it can now be said:

He was for the wealthy paying their fair share of taxes, before he was against it.

In the midst of his "no new taxes" pledge yesterday, he ridiculed the idea that taxes should be raised on the wealthy. He did this by mocking the people who complain about the wealthy:

"Oh, yes, sure, 'the wealthy, the wealthy.' Always be interested in when people talk about who the, quote, 'wealthy' are in America. I find it interesting." For emphasis, he gestured with his middle and index fingers, tracing quote marks to underscore his use of the word.

Yet here's what McCain was saying just a few years ago: "I won't take every last dime of the (budget) surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy." He used to laud his Republican hero, Teddy Roosevelt, for having railed against "the malefactors of great wealth," a line that McCain quoted approvingly. He used to say that the federal government should have a major role in policing "the abuses or potential abuses of the capitalist system." He twice voted against the Bush tax cuts, because, as he told NBC, "you will find that the bulk of it, again, goes to wealthiest Americans."

But now he has again amended his authenticity in the pursuit of power. The latest version of John McCain needs to curry favor with the GOP establishment in order to cement his nomination. And there's no way that a Republican can be a nominee in good standing unless he stands up for the rich.

-------

By the way, here is further evidence of why Hillary is in so much trouble. According to this report, her top strategists only discovered this month that the complex rules in Texas might yield her an insufficient number of delegates in crucial Latino districts on March 4, thereby imperiling her latest firewall.

These rules have been in force for two decades, yet Hillary's people have just learned about them?

An ABC News reporter today asked Hillary's top two spinners about the Texas delegate rules, and the perils of coming up short on the delegate count...and they were both flummoxed. It should be noted that Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer, at least publicly, are not known to be flummoxed by anything.

ABC's David Chalian: "I'm asking would you consider it a victory if you don't win the delegate allocation in Texas that night?"

Wolfson: "Ummm, you know, I'd have to think about that. I don't know the answer to that."

Chalian: "Okay, thank you."

Wolfson: "That is a, ah, less than unequivocal, but I don't know, Phil, do you have a thought on that?"

Singer: "Umm, no."

Wolfson: "You've stumped us. The last question has stumped us."

This tells us something very important: Hillary was so confident of winning the nomination on Tsunami Tuesday that she and her strategists didn't think there was any need to focus on the subsequent states, or do the fundamental homework for a Plan B. Such are the perils of political hubris.

And with respect to the latest CNN poll in Texas, I have two words for the Clinton camp: Uh oh...

Does Obama have the right stuff?

2008-02-15T09:59:00.003-05:00

Back to the Polman mailbag, where an emailer newly touched by Obamamania shares his deepest fears: "Are we high? Are we intoxicated by love? Are we casting Hillary aside for this dream boat, only to wake up in summer and fall to find a candidate who doesn’t hold up?"

It's a tad early for buyer's remorse. Still, many grassroots Democrats, chastened by experience in recent presidential elections, are already thinking hard about electability - and whether Barack Obama, so new to the national stage, has the right stuff to successfully withstand Republican attacks. Some of the primary voters in Wisconsin, Texas, and Ohio are surely wondering about this; some of the uncommitted superdelegates, who may be called upon to choose between Obama and Hillary Clinton in the wake of a stalemate, are undoubtedly wondering as well.

If he wins the nomination, here's what the Republicans are likely to say about him:

1. Obama can't be entrusted to keep us safe in the age of terror, because he is woefully inexperienced. Actually, they're saying that already. Strategist John Brabender (who is not working for John McCain) tells Harper's Magazine, "Russia is becoming an energy superpower, Iraq seems to be on the verge of getting a nuclear bomb, there's Iraq, China, Islamic fundamentalists. Who's going to be tough enough to deal with these threats: a guy whose only full terms were as a state senator from Illinois, or McCain, who has a lifetime of service to the country. That will be a long, drawn out comparison....These are turbulent times, and the safe pick might be the best pick."

In response, it would not be enough for Obama to assert that the Republicans are running on fear. The threats cited by Brabender are real. Nor would it be enough for Obama to assert that the Republicans have blown their credibility on national security, thanks to what he is already calling the "Bush-McCain" disaster in Iraq. he would have to articulate his own detailed blueprint for fighting terrorism - one that marks a significant departure from the Bush doctrine, but also reassures crucial swing-voting independents that he is no Bambi on matters of life and death.

2. Obama is liberal, liberal, liberal. The L-word has been a reluable Republican attack staple for more than a generation, and it would surface again, particularly since the nonpartisan National Journal has rated Obama the most liberal member of the Senate, in terms of his '07 voting record. One of McCain's top aides has already sniffed that Obama is "a conventional liberal," under the assumption that the word can still be spun as a synomym for wimp. They would highlight some of his votes in the Senate, and his positions back in Illinois, and contend that, behind all the hype and hoopla, there lurks an out-of-the-mainstream lefty.

For instance, Obama at one time supported a total ban on handguns. This was in 1996, back when he was running for the Illinois Senate. He no longer backs a ban, but one can envision the GOP telling gun owners in key states such as Pennsylvania - fair game - that Obama was for a gun ban before he was against it.

Again, it would not be enough for Obama to assert (as he did in a recent debate) that the GOP has lost the right to complain about liberals, given the way George W. Bush and the GOP Congress betrayed conservative principles by spending lavishly and racking up record budget deficits. Obama would need to articulate an affirmative, fleshed-out liberal vision, and frame it as patriotism. Running from the label, or trying to explain it from a defensive crouch, would not be good enough.

3. Obama is all rhetoric, and no substance. I question whether this would be an effective theme in the long run, because by the time the autumn campaign begins, Obama would have already provided more policy details than most Americans would even bother to read. (Just this week, in Wisconsin, he laid out an economic plan.) He still has months to get sufficiently wonky.

Besides, Republicans have long demonstrated that candidates win on the intangibles (character, values, inspiration, the flag), not on the issues. Brabender, the GOP strategist, acknowledged this: "Obama...brings a lot to the table in terms of electability. In a presidential race, the issues are somewhat seconday to leadership, hope and vision, which seem to be strong suits for Obama."

Lastly, here's how the Hillary Clinton campaign is questioning Obama's electability:

He would whither under fire from the Republican attack machine. Hillary's chief strategist, Mark Penn, is correct when he points out that Obama has no experience on that front, and that in fact Obama "has never faced a credible Republican opponent." Obama's '04 Senate race was a cakewalk; his strongest opponent had to quit the race in the wake of a sex scandal, and his autumn opponent turned out to be Alan Keyes, the right-wing rhetorician and perennial loser.

It's unknowable, of course, how Obama would deal with the fact-challenged rumors likely generated on talk radio, direct mail, and web videos. Some voters have already received mysterious emails that show Obama at an Iowa event, purportedly declining to put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. (Obama says that the photo was taken during the playing of the National Anthem, when the hand-on-heart gesture is optional.) I've heard that this moment is already common grist in grassroots Republican circles.

But here's a thought: Can we necessarily assume that the noxious smoke from the GOP machine would be as strong, with McCain as the nominee? Would he be comfortable tolerating, or condoning, the same kinds of rumors and attacks that derailed his own candidacy eight years ago?

This past week, one of McCain's key advisors told NPR that he would stay on the sidelines rather than participate in any attacks on Obama; as Mark MacKinnon put it, "I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama. I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign." All this, from a guy who did ads for Bush in 2000 and 2004; clearly, he has no appetite for another season of slime, and I suspect that McCain feels the same.

And then we have this today, from the GOP-friendly commentator Fred Barnes: "Every poll I've seen this year shows that Obama would attract far more independents in the general election against a Republican than (Hillary) Clinton would. Indeed, there's a growing consensus among both Republican and Democratic strategists that Obama would be the stronger general election candidate. He may be more liberal than Clinton, but by almost every other yardstick he's a more appealing candidate."

Perhaps that might calm the nerves of Democrats who are fretting about the downside of Obamamania...unless they decide that Barnes is just playing with their heads, hoping to lure Democrats into picking the candidate whom the GOP secretly believes is weaker. Paranoid? Probably. But that's what happens to the mind after losing two close national elections.

McCain's rightward march

2008-02-14T12:51:00.008-05:00

Since I'm tied up today with other deadlines, I'll confine myself to this little item that surfaced last evening:

McCain (R-AZ), Nay.

I found that on the list of senators who voted against passage of an anti-torture provision that seeks to bar the CIA from engaging in the practice of waterboarding. The sponsors of the provision - which is part of a bill that passed by a 51-45 vote, not nearly enough to sustain President Bush's inevitable veto - insist that the intelligence community should follow the interrogation rules that are spelled out in the U. S. Army Field Manual. Those rules prohibit waterboarding.

So, by dint of his vote yesterday, presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain is for waterboarding...but wait a minute...isn't he supposed to be against waterboarding?

Back in 2005, he said that waterboarding was "very exquisite torture," and should be outlawed. Last October, he told The New York Times: "All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today...It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture."

And in a Republican debate last November, he stated: "I would hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and Jack Bauer. Life is interrogation techniques which are humane and yet effective. And I just came back from visiting a prison in Iraq. The army general there said that techniques under the Army Field Manual are working and working effectively, and he didn’t think they need to do anything else. My friends, this is what America is all about."

So what gives? Why is he now for waterboarding after he was against it? Why is he now against hewing to the Army Field Manual after he was for it?

You guessed right, pun intended.

His first priority at the moment is to pamper his right flank and persuade the wary Republican base that, contrary to the "maverick" label routinely affixed to him by his media admirers, he can pander just like any other opportunistic pol, and to heck with such trifles as consistency and principles.

(McCain explained himself yesterday by trying to split hairs in the Bill Clinton tradition. Regarding his nay vote, he said: "I think that waterboarding is torture and illegal, but I will not restrict the CIA to only the Army field manual." I guess the first phrase is intended for moderate voters, and the second phrase for conservative voters.)

The problem is that, by flip-flopping so blatantly, he undercuts his image as a man of conviction (to the delight of Democrats who fear his appeal) - without even mollifying his conservative critics, some of whom seem to believe that today's pandering can never erase yesterday's heresies. He could be saddled with this dilemma well into autumn.

Poaching on Hillary's turf

2008-02-13T07:36:00.009-05:00

Picture the Titanic in mid-crisis, just as the second-class cabins are starting to flood. That's how the Hillary Clinton campaign looks this morning.

Three more Barack Obama landslides have left her in a perilous position. She has coughed up her lead among pledged delegates nationwide (having lost 21 of 31 states), and she will have a difficult time getting it back - if only because, thanks to the party's proportional allocation rules, Obama will still garner new delegates even if he loses the primaries in Texas and Ohio on March 4.

Hillary could conceivably turn the tide in those big states if she blows him out in twin landslides, thereby winning a huge proportion of the delegates. But I doubt this will happen. In fact, it's hard to imagine at this point that Hillary can win the Democratic nomination without some last-ditch backstage maneuvers after the primary season is over.

What happened last night was basically Obama's dream scenario. What mattered most was not that he won big, but the manner in which he did it. He poached on Hillary's strongest demographics in two very different states - Virginia, a longtime Republican enclave that has been trending Democratic, and reliably blue Maryland, with its solid Democratic base. (His Washington, D.C. win was more predictable.)

In Virginia, for example, Obama won the white vote (52 to 47 percent). He won the suburban vote (61 to 38). He won the Latino vote (54 to 46). He won white Catholics (49 to 48), a traditional swing group that Hillary previously had been winning by 2-1 margins. And he won every income bracket, including the working-class/blue-collar categories where Hillary has typically held sway.

Obama swept all income brackets in Maryland as well, winning the working-class categories in a landslide. In Maryland, he won the white Catholics by two percentage points. And, for the first time, he won the senior vote (by four points).

White women have been very loyal to Hillary during this primary season, rescuing her in New Hampshire and in the big states on Tsunami Tuesday. More than any other demographic group, they have anchored her candidacy. But Obama has now invaded that turf as well. Last night, he won 47 percent of white women in Virginia, a southern state (by contrast, his share back in New Hampshire was 33 percent).

All told, the exit polls in Virginia and Maryland suggest that Obama is moving beyond his base (upscale liberals, blacks, independents) and beginning to put together a broad Democratic coalition. And it was also clear last night that Obama is viewed more enthusiastically. When the Maryland voters were asked whether they'd be satisfied if Hillary won the nomination, 69 percent said yes. When asked the same question about Obama, 79 percent said yes.

And there's more. Of those who said yes to the Hillary question, 45 percent still voted for Obama. Of those who said yes to the Obama question, only 26 percent voted for Hillary. In translation: the depth of emotional support for Obama is greater, and the depth of disappointment, if he lost, would be greater as well. (By the way, the same questions were asked in potentially swing-state Virginia, and Obama's numbers were even better there.)

And this too is noteworthy: In Virginia, when voters were asked which candidate is better qualified to be commander-in-chief, 56 percent chose Obama. In Virginia, no less. Hillary has long been seeking to convince voters that this was her strong suit.

So I'll again raise the issue that I mentioned the other day. Is it feasible that the next Hillary firewalls in Texas and Ohio will remain firm, given Obama's momentum in February? Is it realistic to believe that the unpledged superdelegates can be cajoled to bail her out if these firewalls ultimately fall? (One unpledged superdelegate, David Wilhelm, announced today that he intends to back Obama. Normally I wouldn't bother to single out one individual, but this happens to be the guy who served as national manager of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign.)

Indeed, for Hillary, perhaps the worst indignity last night was John McCain's decision to ignore her and focus on Obama.

McCain gave a victory speech last night in Virginia, where he won his primary, despite (yet again) being waxed by Mike Huckabee among the religious conservative voters who comprise so much of the party base (nearly half the Virginia electorate was born-again or evangelical, and 60 percent of them voted for Huckabee). He also won in a primary where the turnout was less than half the size of the Democratic turnout. And his victory speech was unfortunately timed for television. Minutes earlier, Obama had delivered one of his trademark stemwinders to an SRO arena audience; then the camera switched to McCain on a small platform in a small room, looking very much Obama's senior by three decades, and he was surrounded by aging Virginia politicians, two of whom are leaving office this year. Not the best contrast for the presumptive GOP nominee.

Anyway, he poked at Obama, implying that the young man is all about himself ("I used to think that all glory was self glory"), and that the young man is full of hot air ("To encourage a country with only rhetoric...is not the promise of hope. It's a platitude").

Hillary had better recoup quickly if she wants to enjoy the honor of coming under attack. That's an honor generally reserved for frontrunners.

-------

Meanwhile, in the "Where Are They Now?" department, Rudy Giuliani is back on the speaking circuit. The '07 GOP frontrunner, whose disastrous candidacy deserves to be studied in political science classes, has been welcomed back to the Washington Speakers Bureau, and here's my favorite line in the official announcement:

"Giuliani galvanized the electorate by focusing much-needed attention on such issues as security, domestic and international terrorism and securing a future that's prosperous and beneficial for all Americans."

I never realized that losing repeatedly to Ron Paul was synonymous with galvanizing the electorate.

The lame duck chronicles

2008-02-12T09:13:00.000-05:00

We interrupt the campaign news to bring you the latest quackings of our lame duck.

Seriously, amidst all the historic doings in the Democratic presidential race, with three more contests on tap for tonight, we do need to remember that President Bush is still on the job and wreaking havoc. Luckily for him, the multiple failures of his administration are drawing scant attention these days; most Americans have tuned him out, and the media is focused on the race to succeed him. But, lest we allow him to slip below the radar, some occasional coverage seems warranted.

Here's one little episode. This past weekend, Bush surfaced for nearly an hour on Fox News Sunday. At one point, he was asked whether his ambitious quest to democratize the Middle East had been undercut by the well-documented incompetence of his own war team, as evidenced by the inept occupation of Iraq. In other words, he was asked whether he had given democratization a bad name.

Specifically, host Chris Wallace said, "The idea is, that the principles you advanced were in at least some cases undermined by the way they were executed." Then Wallace buttressed his question by quoting one of Bush's former national security aides. He continued, "Kori Schake, who was a professor at West Point and served on your National Security Council, wrote this: 'I fear that the biggest foreign policy legacy of the Bush administration will be that it delegitimized its own strategy...'"

When that quote flashed on the TV screen, all I could think was, "Poor Kori Schake. She's in for it now." Sure enough, Bush dismissed her as inconsequential. Actually, it was worse than that: "Well, I don't know whether this person - sorry, I don't know who that person is."

Let's give Bush a little help: Kori Schake served him for three years on the National Security Council, as Director of Defense Strategy and Requirements.

She has also taught at West Point, taught at the National Defense University, held a fellowship at a conservative think tank, and worked on the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff when it was chaired by Colin Powell.

It's certainly possible that Bush has no clue who she is, since he doesn't breach his bubble very often. But here's what he was really saying: She's somebody I don't know, therefore her opinion is worth zilch.

In truth, of course, it has long been documented that Bush's democratization dream was fatally undermined by poor execution. The latest evidence is vividly rendered in the documentary film No End in Sight, which features a host of disillusioned Bush aides speaking on the record about the ineptitude of the Bush war planners. Indeed, much of this evidence first surfaced in a magazine article that was published 10 months before Bush stood for re-election.

And now comes the news - largely overlooked yesterday, thanks to our laser-like focus on the presidential race - that the Army has been suppressing, for the past three years, a federally-financed study that laid bare the war-planning incompetence of the Bush administration.

The study, authored by a team of specialists at the RAND Corporation, discovered (yet again) that the Bush war planners had vastly underestimated the challenge of democratizing Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein; in fact, said a draft of the report obtained by The New York Times, the poor planning had "the inadvertent effort of strengthening the insurgency."

There was constant tension between the State Department and Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department, and that further undermined the democratization planning. However, the report concluded, these tensions "were never mediated by the president or his staff."

But the report itself was kept under wraps, and remains so, because, in the words of one military source, "The Army leaders who were involved did not want to take the chance of increasing the friction with Secretary Rumsfeld" - whose basic philosophy, which he sold to Bush, was that postwar reconstruction could be done on the cheap. (Bush had designated Rumsfeld as his top postwar planner, even though the RAND report faults Rumsfeld for a "lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution.")

Fortunately for Bush, this news story was barely noticed yesterday, and won't deter him, or the Republicans generally, from suggesting that the two Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, will weaken national security if elected. The Republican National Committee has begun to crank out emails, plucking that particular chord.

...But wait, what's this: Another news story that was widely overlooked, just last week, perhaps because it ran on the same day as the Super Tuesday results. It seems that Bush's own intelligence chief, Mike McConnell, trekked to Capitol Hill last Tuesday and told lawmakers that al Qaeda is actually getting stronger, and is actively enhancing "its ability to attack the U.S." inside our borders.

Such is the record of Bush's tenure, one that should not be overlooked just because the spotlight is trained elsewhere.

-------

And here's another byproduct of the Bush years: Yesterday, Arizona Republican congressman John Shadegg became the latest member of the House GOP to call it quits this year. He said that even though his health is great and his campaign coffers are brimming, he will forego running for re-election in November.

He said, "I'd like to do something else with my life." Translation: I don't want to risk being drowned in a Democratic tsunami that will lock me into minority status for the rest of my career.

He's the 29th House Republican to cut and run in 2008; in other words, 14 percent of the current GOP roster is bailing out of the chamber. They don't need to read the news to know which way the wind blows.

-------

And as we await tonight's primary results in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C., here's one noteworthy political tidbit:

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, meeting with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh newspaper, has offered a provocative reason why his presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, should do well in the state primary on April 22. Here it is:

"You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."

Not ready?...Rendell sounds like those baseball club owners, back in the 1940s, who always insisted that white fans were "not ready" for black ballplayers.

Rendell is probably right about some of the white voters, strictly speaking. But, in terms of politesse, there are far better arguments to make for Hillary's potential prowess in Pennsylvania (lots of senior voters, lots of suburban Democratic women). It seems a tad off message for the governor of Pennsylvania to suggest that Hillary is the stronger candidate because she can outduel Barack Obama for the racist vote.

So goes Maine in the Democratic drama

2008-02-11T09:57:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time - actually, it was 168 years ago - the triumphant Whig party came up with the slogan, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." The slogan somehow endured, despite the fact that, in presidential elections over the next century, Maine and the nation frequently chose differently.

But yesterday, at least, Maine did act as a barometer of sorts. Democratic caucus-goers, braving bad weather, turned out in heavy numbers to give Barack Obama an unexpected landslide victory - thereby reflecting much of the current national grassroots unease about Hillary Clinton, and demonstrating that Hillary's woes can't simply be blamed on her now-departed campaign manager.

Maine was a state where Hillary figured to do well, and thus avoid the quite real possibility of going zero-for-February. Maine's demographics were assumed to be in her comfort zone: a large pool of older, white blue-collar voters who earn less than $50,000 a year. She had scored victories in other New England states, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. She was endorsed by Maine's governor. She campaigned in Maine on Saturday, as did Bill and Chelsea.

Yet she was hammered in Maine yesterday, 59 percent to 40 percent - completing a weekend of defeats (Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington State, Virgin Islands), and losing her thin lead in the national delegate count. So what happened?

Last night I received an email from an old friend who participated in the Maine caucuses. Like so many other Democrats, she has been angsting about the two candidates, both of whom she likes. However, her decision - and those of her fellow caucus-goers - spotlights the problems that continue to imperil Hillary's candidacy. Key excerpts:

"People realize that both candidates have qualities that are appealing, and yet (there is) resistance towards Hillary...She is from the status quo, she has too much 'Billy baggage,' she voted for the war...Those seem to be the issues preventing people here from supporting her. On the other hand, Obama is appealing because he seeks to unite the country and is not a divisive public figure. He voted against the war from day one...I know she is really intelligent, she has a very good plan for universal health care, and has done much good work in her lifetime...but still, I do not especially trust her. She is too caught up in the old politics game, I feel...Of course, it would be great to have a woman in top leadership for a change. (But) Obama I found to be really inspiring and sincere, and the work he has done so far is admirable. He is very idealistic, I do not believe, as some do, that he is just a showman...I feel that Obama speaks to a new time...It is all about uniting us as a national community, which is something Americans are longing for."

It will be interesting to see how Maine's 10 superdelegates react to the Maine results. As you know by now, this Democratic race may ultimately hinge on the behavior of the 796 elected officials, party big shots, elder statesmen who have "super" status and can vote as unpledged delegates for whomever they choose, irrespective of the results in their own states.

Will Maine's superdelegates think it best to honor the decisive verdict of the caucus-goers? Or will they opt to exercise their own independent judgment, weighing other factors such as past loyalties to the candidates (Hillary has an edge) and autumn electability (the polls say Obama has an edge)? Such are the stakes in Maine, and for superdelegates nationwide. (By the way, these superdelegates may face quite a dilemma. If they opt to reflect the will of the people, they'll be forefeiting their independence, which is the big reason why the national party created the supers a quarter century ago; yet if they hew to their independence, they risk being assailed as backroom dealers by the people who would feel their votes have been ignored.)

And speaking of autumn electability, it's worth noting that both candidates in recent days have talking up their November bona fides - to the voters (Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC stage primaries tomorrow), as well as to the superdelegates. Hillary says she's tougher and better-tested to battle the GOP message machine, whereas Obama says he's sufficiently tough already, thanks to his battles with the Clinton message machine.

Perhaps Obama is right, but his fans might want to think hard about whether he would effectively refute the official Republican attack line that is already beginning to take shape: that he is an "inexperienced" "liberal" who can't match John McCain's commander-in-chief credentials. And that's just the polite stuff, as opposed to whatever gets whispered under the radar. Long before Obama even gets a chance to forge "a national community," he may need to convince late-voting Democrats (and especially the superdelegates) that he has the intestinal fortitude to blow the Swift Boats out of the water.

McCain's embarrassment, Hillary's risk

2008-02-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

A few thoughts on the Saturday contests:

Conservative Republicans clearly aren't anxious to march in step for John McCain. Notwithstanding his hard-won status as putative GOP nominee, they're still in a mood to smack him around.

Republicans generally close ranks once the top guy is essentially chosen, but not this time. McCain was disrespected everywhere yesterday, from the deep South to the far West - further evidence of the intraparty fractures that could undercut McCain's autumn prospects.

Once again, McCain's unpopularity with Christian conservatives was on glaring display. In the Louisiana primary, those folks were pivotal in his narrow defeat. A whopping 57 percent of the GOP primary voters described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians; and of those who did so, Mike Huckabee was the overwhelming favorite, by a margin of 56 to 31 percent.

In the Kansas caucuses, Huckabee smoked McCain in a landslide, 60 to 24 percent. To win in that kind of format, a candidate needs to attract enthusiasts who are willing to show up in droves and stick around for hours. McCain apparently didn't have much pull with the state's old-line Republicans, the kind who always voted for home-boy Bob Dole. By contrast, Christian conservatives are very active within the Kansas GOP (they have fought hard in recent years to deny the teaching of evolution), and Huckabee is their kind of guy.

As for the caucuses in Washington State, McCain has apparently eked out a narrow win over Huckabee (although the votes are still being tallied). But again, this is evidence of a serious passion deficit. McCain, at last count, won only 26 percent of the participants - in a place heavily populated by McCain-friendly moderates. Huckabee was only two points behind, and Ron Paul was only five points behind. Paul was the beneficiary of a large libertarian turnout - another conservative faction, one that is strong in western states.

So clearly, with respect to his right flank, and with an eye to November, McCain still needs to genefluct a lot more. President Bush thinks so, too. This morning, Bush told Fox News: "I think that if John’s the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative. And I’ll be glad to help him if he’s the nominee."

I'll be glad to help him...Maybe Bush can go to the conservative base and say, "Hey, remember how my surrogates smeared McCain eight years ago by spreading rumors that he'd fathered a black baby out of wedlock? And that he had voted against cancer research, even though, in reality, he had voted for it many times? And that he had a 'loose screw' because of his years as a POW? And that his wife was a drug addict? And that he was 'the fag candidate'?...Well, never mind!"

-------

As for the Democrats, I sense that Hillary Clinton might be at risk for contracting Rudy's Disease.

She was waxed yesterday in all three contests - the Louisiana primary, and the caucuses in Nebraska and Washington State - as well as in the Virgin Islands. (When, in the past, has there ever been a race that compels us to pay attention to the Virgin Islands?) All told, Barack Obama appears to have scored a net gain of roughly 40 delegates, which means that he and his rival are nearly tied.

Maine is holding caucuses today, and she may do well there. But she is likely to lose on Tuesday, perhaps badly, in the Virginia and Maryland primaries (lots of upscale white liberals live in northern Virginia, and lots of black voters statewide; in Maryland, a large black electorate.) Nine days from now, she may lose again in Wisconsin (lots of upscale white liberals, and a big college town). But her people figure that she'll recoup lost ground in the big states of Texas and Ohio on March 4.

Perhaps she should beware of Rudy's Disease. The Giuliani people figured that, even if Rudy lost all the early primaries, he could always recoup lost ground by winning in Florida; the problem was, by putting all his chips on Florida, he allowed other candidates to gain momentum and successfully use it against him.

The conventional wisdom at the moment is that Hillary will be strong in Texas (lots of Hillary-friendly Hispanics) and Ohio (lots of downscale working-class white Democrats). And maybe that wisdom is correct. But is it possible that if Obama has a strong February, generating a string of OBAMA WINS headlines, he might just take on the aura of a winner and shift enough Texas and Ohio votes to fight Hillary to a virtual draw for those delegates? It's worth pondering.

Conversations with myself

2008-02-08T10:32:00.000-05:00

What a week. My head hurts. So let's wind down with a Q & A.

Q: How come Mitt Romney decided to cut and run, hours after he had promised to soldier on?

A: Because, thinking like a businessman, he came to the conclusion that he was a bad investment. (Makes sense to me. He wound up spending roughly $125,000 for each delegate received - and that's money from his own pocket.) Yesterday, he claimed that he was leaving the GOP race only because he wants to stop the Democrats from winning the White House and staging a "surrender to terror." But that parting blast of demagoguery can't mask the truth, which is that he surrendered his candidacy because the conservative base judged him to be a flip-flopping fraud. It was clear to me, way back last summer during the Iowa straw poll, that he was weak on his right flank, and he remained so. Thinking ahead, he has probably calculated that McCain will lose this year, allowing him to retool himself for 2012 as Ronald Reagan 2.0.

Q: So what about a John McCain-Mike Huckabee ticket? Doesn't the Huck bring along the conservatives that the Mack lacks?

A: Not necessarily. If we assume that running mates help at all (and I sometimes question that premise), then Huckabee potentially pulls in the religious conservatives. But, lest we forget, he is anathema to a lot of fiscal/economic conservatives, as well as traditional big business/Wall Street conservatives. The latter faction doesn't like Huckabee's populist rhetoric against corporations. The former faction doesn't like Huckabee's record as governor of Arkansas, where he raised a lot of taxes and increased government spending. And I wonder whether independent swing voters would be charmed by the idea of positioning, a heartbeat away from the presidency, a guy who doesn't believe in evolution.

Q: OK, but what about Hillary Clinton hooking up with Barack Obama, or vice versa? There's all this buzz about a Democratic dream ticket.

A: Dream on. If Hillary wins the nomination, why would she want to pick a silver-tongued partner who overshadows her every time he opens his mouth? Why would she want to trump her own narrative, about breaking the gender barrier, with an arguably more compelling narrative, about breaking the racial barrier? Besides, why would Obama want to be her understudy? Perhaps the worst job in the world, aside manning a highway toll booth, would be vice president in Hillary's White House - because you'd actually be the number-three official, with Bill as number two. Meanwhile, if Obama was the nominee, why would Hillary want to play second fiddle? She has already spent decades as backup to a charismatic male, so what's the upside of potentially spending yet another eight years waiting her turn?

Q: How come, all of a sudden, Hillary is saying that she wants to have lots and lots of TV debates with Obama, starting with a Fox News invitation on Monday night? Don't frontrunners generally want to debate less, not more?

A: Several theories. (1) She truly believes that she has lost her frontrunner status, and now she's thinking like a scrappy challenger. (2) She privately believes that she is still the frontrunner, but wants people to view her as a scrappy challenger because the latter image is more appealing. (3) She genuinely feels - not without justification - that she is the better debator, more substantive on policy issues. (4) With Obama holding the money advantage, she needs the free media exposure. The bottom line is that Obama, acting like a frontrunner, has indicated that he will not debate her again until the end of the month.

Q: McCain's support among independents is truly bizarre. All the polls have long shown that independents are strongly opposed to the war in Iraq...yet here they are, showing the love for a Republican who strongly supports the war. The exit polling, during the primaries, have verified this. McCain has repeatedly scored well with voters who are unhappy with the war. What gives?

A: Personalities trump issues in our mediagenic age. Even when one of those issues involves the expenditure of $10 billion a month to sustain one of the worst foreign policy miscalculations in American history.

Q: Will you please explain who the heck these Democratic "superdelegates" are, where they came from, why they exist, and how come they may become pivotal if Hillary and Obama are still stalemated when spring yields to summer?

A: I told you, my head hurts. I'll deal with the superdelegates early next week. In the meantime, entertain yourself with The New Yorker's primary season pop quiz, courtesy of the ever-witty Paul Slansky. It's designed for junkies only. And the wrong answers are the most amusing of all.

John McCain, in the lion's den

2008-02-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

The putative Republican presidential nominee sought today to mollify all those angry conservatives who have essentially declared that they would rather set fire to their hair than follow his lead. I wonder whether he did enough to hose them down. He did not apologize for any of his past heresies. Nor did he promise not to commit fresh heresies in the future. His basic pitch, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, boiled down to this:

I agree with you most of the time, and that should be good enough. And besides, the Democrats are way worse than me.

One speech won't be enough, of course, but he did take one small step down the long road to reconciliation. And for McCain to be fully competitive this fall, reconciliation is required. His vaunted popularity among independent swing voters won't mean squat if he fails to unite and energize the GOP's conservative base.

Indeed, his CPAC speech this afternoon reflected, in part, his need to strike a delicate balance. He had to reach out to wary and hostile conservatives, but he didn't want to pander shamelessly and risk alienating those independent voters.

His first task was simply to show up at all. He wryly noted at the outset, "It's been awhile since I've had the honor of addressing you." Gee, why is that? Left unsaid was the fact that for years McCain has deliberately skipped this annual gathering of right-leaning activists, the biggest event on the conservative calendar. Which is one reason why conference sponsor David Keene remarked the other day that McCain "has pretty much blown his credibility with these people."

But these McCain speech passages were key: "Many of you have disagreed strongly with some positions I have taken in recent years. I understand that. I might not agree with it, but I respect it for the principled position it is. And it is my sincere hope that even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative....We have had a few disagreements, and none of us will pretend that we won't continue to have a few. But even in disagreement, especially in disagreement, I will seek the counsel of my fellow conservatives. If I am convinced my judgment is in error, I will correct it. And if I stand by my position, even after benefit of your counsel, I hope you will not lose sight of the far more numerous occasions when we are in complete accord."

Some of his conservative critics might have a problem with that. For starters, they think McCain has done more than "occasionally err," given his deviations from conservative orthdoxy on all kinds of high-profile issues: his support for federal regulation to halt global warming (which some of them believe is a hoax anyway); his law that set up federal regulations designed to curb campaign spending; his opposition to waterboarding the bad guys; his attacks on the U.S. pharmaceutical industry and his support for lower-priced drug imports from Canada; his opposition to the original Bush tax cuts; his opposition to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage; and many more. He didn't cite any of those stances in his speech today, much less apologize for them.

But his broader point, in the excerpt above, is that he's making no promises about toeing the conservative line in the future. He wants conservatives to judge his record "as a whole" (a phrase he used several times), and that gives him plenty of wiggle room to decide issues in accordance with his own view of the national interest - at the expense of ideological purity. I can't imagine that his vague reassurances will satisfy the likes of Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson.

Nor did his reassurances satisfy the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group. Within minutes of McCain's speech, it emailed this statement: "He will need to go beyond talking about those issues on which he agrees with conservatives, and address those areas in which we’ve had strong disagreements. More specifically, he will need to reassure conservatives regarding his vision on tax policy; political speech during campaigns; global warming remedies; and his general approach towards regulatory matters."

McCain did mention one sensitive issue today. He started this way: "I have held other positions that have not met with widespread agreement from conservatives. I won't pretend otherwise, nor would you permit me to forget it. On the issue of illegal immigration" - whereupon he was interrupted by a cacophony of boos and catcalls, despite the fact that conventioneers reportedly had been urged in advance not to boo him. They would have loved a full pander on this issue; if McCain had then said that he regrets having championed a path to citizenship for illegals, he would have captured their hearts.

But no. Instead, he said only this: "I respect your opposition, for I know that the vast majority of critics to the bill based their opposition in a principled defense of the rule of law. And while I and other Republican supporters of the (path to citizenship) were genuine in our intention to restore control of our borders, we failed, for various and understandable reasons, to convince Americans that we were. I accept that, and have pledged that it would be among my highest priorities to secure our borders first, and only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure, would we address other aspects of the problem in a way that defends the rule of law and does not encourage another wave of illegal immigration."

Translation: His "failure" was not his support for a path to citizenship, but merely his communication skills, in not sufficiently stressing his concern about the border. He did not renounce his support for a path to citizenship, nor did he promise not to pursue the issue in the future. On the contrary, he referred to the issue in code, as the need to "address other aspects of the problem."

But if he was a tad light on the red meat, he may have helped himself during the second half of his speech, when he focused on the Democrats. In essence, he was giving them a taste of his autumn campaign stump speech, and inviting them to put aside all differences in recognition of the common enemy.

And so it went, with pages seemingly torn from the standard GOP playbook: Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will be soft on Islamic extremism ("their resolve to combat it will be as flawed as their judgment"); that they will stress "the muddled thinking of large and expanding federal bureaucracies"; that they'll try to bring health insurance to every American via "big government," and raise your taxes to boot. And, on issues of life and death, he said that his war-hero background trumps the life stories of both Democratic rivals: "There is no other candidate for this office who appreciates more than I do just how awful war is."

I'm sure that elected conservative leaders will continue to fall in line. But some key activists seem less than thrilled by McCain's speech. Richard Viguerie, one of the founders of the modern conservative moment, emailed this statement: "After the last eight or ten years, in which Republican leaders were elected with conservative votes, but then betrayed conservative principles, grassroots conservatives are not so willing to take John McCain at his word. He is an honorable man, but, given the record of the Republican Party and given his own record, conservative rhetoric is not enough to convince people. Conservatives will not be so trusting this time."

He wants McCain to hire prominent conservatives for his campaign staff, and he wants to see McCain pick fights with "Washington establishment liberals," rather than just talk a good game. And if McCain doesn't act soon, "conservatives will start writing off the presidential race. Yes, most - not all – will vote for him, if he is the Republican nominee. But they will not make telephone calls, send out e-mails and postcards, go door to door, contribute money, and do all the hard work that makes victory possible in November."

Given McCain's potential as an estimable autumn candidate, Democrats had better hope that these grassroots conservatives sit on their hands.

John McCain, hat in hand

2008-02-07T08:15:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, John McCain will deliver a major speech with one purpose in mind: to convince his many conservative critics that a guy with a solid conservative voting record deserves to be viewed as sufficiently conservative.

The highlight of the conservative calendar, a magnet for 6000 activists and movement leaders, is the annual CPAC conference in Washington. McCain did not speak to the group one year ago. But now that he appears destined to be crowned as the Republican nominee, he needs these people. Or, at a bare minimum, he needs to defuse their ire.

So he'll trumpet their shared values, and urge them to join him in focusing on the common enemy, the Democrats. I also anticipate that he will hew to the conservative catechism and invoke the name of Ronald Reagan at least a dozen times.

I will write about this late today, after McCain finishes his remarks.

EARLY AFTERNOON UPDATE: And now McCain's remarks seem more crucial than ever, given Mitt Romney's late-breaking announcement that McCain won't have him to kick around anymore.

-------

For the moment, I'll just leave you with these statistics, teasing out the aggregate popular vote in all the Democratic primaries and caucuses that were staged on Tuesday...

For Clinton: 7,347,971
For Obama: 7,294,851

She got 50.2 percent, he got 49.8 percent. Out of 14.6 million votes, the national margin was a mere 53,000, roughly the size of a capacity crowd at one ballgame. We've never had a primary season like this one. I plan to double-check my hotel reservation for the Democratic convention in Denver.

The Bill Murray primaries

2008-02-06T08:13:00.000-05:00

I pore over the myriad tallies of Tsunami Tuesday, and all I can hear, in my imagination, is the comedic actor Bill Murray, delivering one of his droll pronouncements:

"This is one...nutty...campaign."

There’s no other way to say it. This date on the political calendar was supposed to clarify the two races, not confuse us further. Nothing decisive has occurred. There has been no finality, only the hint of fresh skirmishes ahead. Frontrunners have not closed the sale. Challengers and upstarts have found ample reasons to soldier on.

Take the Republican race, for starters. The guy in the lead, John McCain, racked up a series of big-state victories in places like New York, New Jersey, California, and Illinois – thereby cementing his top-dog status in the delegate hunt. The problem is that those states generally vote Democratic in November. In other words, McCain is strongest with moderate Republicans (the type of Republicans who are populous in blue states), but still can’t seem to draw well among red-state conservatives who comprise the base of the party.

Which brings us to Mike Huckabee, who seemed to have vanished after winning Iowa way back on Jan. 3 – only to surface last night as the favorite of red-state southerners who yearn for an authentic conservative. He defeated McCain in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. And remember, the Republican party has long considered the South to be its home region. By performing well at home, Huckabee has every incentive to stay in the race and squeeze McCain on his right flank.

Yet while Huckabee vividly demonstrated that McCain is still weak with the base, he also did McCain a big favor. He has thwarted Mitt Romney’s greatest desire, which is to take on McCain in a two-person race and unite all anti-McCain conservatives under the Romney banner. Huckabee swiped an enormous share of those voters. He is weighing Romney down, to the point where it’s fair to wonder why Mitt would want to keep spending his children’s inheritance.

At this point in the calendar, Republicans are generally united behind a front-runner, but the results last night and this morning argue against closure. They’re stuck at the moment with sectional and ideological strife. Broadly speaking, it appears right now that Huckabee is the candidate of the south, and the candidate of religious conservatives. McCain is the candidate of the northeast and big blue states, while Romney…what is he, anyway?

He’s the guy who demonstrated, on the biggest night of the primary season, that he can win the state where he once governed (Massachusetts) and the state that serves as headquarters to his Mormon faith (Utah), while cobbling together a few caucus victories here and there (Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, and North Dakota). And as for California, the main event, Romney missed his biggest opportunity. As I mentioned yesterday, the California GOP electorate is quite conservative; indeed, the exit polls last night reported that 6 in 10 Republican voters identified themselves as conservative. Yet Romney drew only 39 percent of those people, with Huckabee, again, draining away 14 percent. Clearly, Romney’s reputation as a weathervane – and perhaps his Mormon faith – continue to undermine his candidacy, and his condition is critical.

Bottom line? McCain isn’t strong enough to unite the party, because the base has yet to accept him. For the final word, let us turn to the sage who gave us George W. Bush. I am referring, of course, to Karl Rove. He said on Fox News last night: "The unity issue and the enthusiasm issue both have to be addressed by whoever the nominee becomes in the coming months. And I don't mean in August, September and October. I mean in March, April and May." Translation: We’re a mess.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, the picture is far murkier. This is great news for political junkies, who relish the idea of a protracted competition between Hillary and Obama. It’s not so great for the party insiders, who fear that a long guerrilla war for delegates will risk creating fissures among Democrats, pitting race against gender, and potentially embittering millions of young people who have taken the leap for the first time.

Hillary and Obama both racked up a lot of wins last night – eight for her and 13 for him - and no doubt each will try to spin the victories as proof of momentum. She can cite her victories in a slew of the most delegate-rich states (most notably California), and boast with justification about her institutional strength within the party, particularly among female voters who continue to power the high party turnout. He, meanwhile, can trumpet his national reach in places as far flung as Connecticut, Georgia, and bellwether Missouri; he can argue for his electability, since he won contests in nine red states, versus four for Hillary; and he can even point out that he beat Hillary among white voters in California. (My favorite bit of spin from last night: At 11 p.m., Hillary sent out an email congratulating herself on winning Missouri, "this important tossup state," yet within an hour, Obama surged ahead and stayed there.)

But it’s misleading, of course, to focus on the popular vote victories. Unlike the Republicans, who generally favor the "winner take all" delegate formula, the Democrats award their delegates in rough proportion to a candidate’s share of the popular vote. So, for instance, even though Obama lost California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York, he’ll gain delegates in all four; and even though Hillary lost Illinois, Connecticut, Georgia, and Missouri, she’ll get delegates in all four. California in particular will take some time to sort out, because the Democrats award most of the delegates according to performance in each congressional district, and that state has more districts than any other.

And since Obama has finished within striking distance of Hillary in the delegate count – her own people peg Hillary's lead at only around 80 delegates, and outside surveys confirm this – he’s in good shape going forward. The next round of contests features Louisiana this weekend, and Virginia and Maryland on Feb. 12 - all of which have large black electorates. (As opposed to large Latino electorates. It should be noted that Obama failed last night to undercut Hillary’s strength among Latinos in key states such as California and Arizona. It appears that the Ted Kennedy endorsement was of limited utility. Kennedy, a hero to Latinos because of his immigration reform work, was supposed to help deliver Latinos. Heck, he couldn't even deliver his own state of Massachussetts. Goodbye, Camelot.)

Obama clearly has the money to lavish attention on the next round of states, having raised a stunning $32 million during January, the largest monthly haul on record; Hillary’s tally, for the same month, was $13 million. But if they cancel each other out next Tuesday, by essentially splitting the next batch of delegates (and that's very likely), and if Wisconsin doesn't bring clarity on Feb. 19, they’ll just move on to Ohio and Texas on March 4. And if Ohio and Texas don’t bring clarity...dare we suggest that Pennsylvania, six weeks later on April 22, could actually become the pivotal state? It would, in fact, become the new Iowa, a state that gets national attention for more than a month, because there are no other Democratic primaries in April.

And it is no longer fanciful to talk about Pennsylvania. Indeed, based on my conversations today, it is clear that there are serious plans afoot to contest Pennsylvania and to raise new money for the effort. There is already talk in the Hillary camp, for example, that the state's demographics (lots of suburban women, working-class whites, senior voters) are ideal for her.

Other maneuverings are likely to take place before Pennsylvania, of course. There will be much attention paid to the "superdelegates" — the hundreds of Democratic officials and activists who have delegate status, and who can support any candidate regardless of how the states have voted - and right now Hillary has the edge there. Will Obama give them incentives to switch over? That might depend on how well he performs over the next month. Meanwhile, Hillary's campaign wants to seat the delegates from Florida, which had its delegates taken away because the state scheduled its primary too early. This is backstage stuff seemingly from another era.

But still...Pennsylvania would be ripe for a little attention. It has been 16 years since Democrats cast a meaningful primary vote, and even 1992 was a dull, low-turnout affair dominated by the new kid on the block, Bill Clinton. His sole competition Jerry Brown, a former California governor with a flaky reputation, yet he wasn't getting much respect. At one point, he was stumping with Mayor Ed Rendell in Philadelphia’s Italian Market when a heckler across the street yelled out, "If you cheated on your wife, what would you do to the country?" Clinton smiled weakly, then turned his rapt attention to the broccoli on display.

Surely Pennsylvania is ready for some new primary season experiences, perhaps some that might prove to be historic. Although the way this Democratic race seems to be going, perhaps the final verdict will be rendered by the voters who bring up the rear of the calendar. Many of them live in Guam.

-------

I had further thoughts this morning, during an hour-long discussion on Philadelphia's NPR station. It's archived here.

My Tsunami Tuesday scorecard

2008-02-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the most historic primary day in American political history. That's no hyperbole.

Consequential contests are being staged from coast to coast, two dozen in all, featuring three of the five biggest states (California, New York, Illinois), featuring tossup races in autumn bellwether states (Missouri, Arizona), with a passel of questions begging to be answered (will the large pool of undecided Democrats break for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? will conservative Republicans slow the John McCain bandwagon and breathe life into Mitt Romney?), with roughly 40 percent of the delegates in each party slated for allocation, and with both nominations still hanging in the balance.

To make sense of the multi-dimensional maze, here's what I plan to track tonight (more specifically, here's what I plan to track in the wee morning hours, with caffeine administered via an IV line):

Cahleefoneyuh (to use Arnold Schwarzenegger's pronunciation). The land of milk and honey is the linchpin of Tsunami Tuesday - no other state awards as many delegates - although easterners will have to burn the midnight oil to find out what happened in the popular vote.

The California stakes are huge in both parties. On the Republican side, Romney's candidacy is probably doomed if he loses to McCain. Unlike the Democrats, the GOP awards all its delegates to the winning candidate. Unfortunately for McCain, however, the California GOP primary is open only to Republican voters; they're traditionally a very conservative crowd, and, given all the time spent in traffic, they listen to talk radio. That electorate drove a stake into McCain's first candidacy eight years ago. California's talk-radio conservative hosts are currently agitating against McCain, and the late polls suggest that Romney has a real shot. If Romney can win California, he'll be tempted to keep writing himself checks.

But the real drama is on the other side. The Clintons have been working California successfully since the '92 campaign, schmoozing with Hollywood big shots and Silicon Valley entrepeneurs. When Bill was president, the care and feeding of California (and lifting it out of its early-'90s recession) often seemed to be his first domestic priority. Hillary was ahead in the polls by double-digits not long ago; now she is reportedly tied with Obama, and perhaps even trailing in the wake of his late surge. (Is this due to voters people switching over? Undecideds breaking for Obama? Latinos being swayed by the Kennedys?) If Obama wins here, as a "change" candidate in the state where "change" often starts and then rolls eastward, the symbolic message will be huge.

It's a complicated situation - the delegates are awarded in accordance with how the candidates perform in each congressional district, and those results won't be known right away - but the winner of the popular vote will attain what I call 7-Eleven clout...meaning, what Obama wants is to have Americans drop by their local 7-Eleven for coffee and a newspaper, and see a giant headline announcing, OBAMA WINS CALIFORNIA. Needless to say, it's the same for Hillary, and, as I mentioned yesterday, she may have an advantage with the early-voters (an estimated 33 percent of the primary electorate) who cast their ballots before Obama took off.

Illinois and New York. The latter is Hillary's base, the former is Obama's base. I'll want to know which candidate is more succcessful in winning at home. For instance, will Obama's victory margin in Illinois exceed Hillary's in New York (or vice versa)? Right now, the polls suggest that Obama will win bigger in Illinois than Hillary in New York. This is important because of the way delegates are allocated, basically in proportion to how the votes are cast. If the polls are right (a big if, these days), then Obama will pick up more delegates on Hillary's turf than she will pick up on his turf. Whoever invades more successfully tonight will have some bragging rights tomorrow.

Missouri. Another state with strong symbolic value for the Democratic candidates. The state borders Arkansas, where Hillary once reigned as First Lady; on the Democratic side, it also has a mix of black voters (in the cities and suburban St. Louis County) and rural white conservative voters. The polls are virtually even. Whoever wins this high-turnout affair will probably spin the victory as a statement of autumn electability, because Missouri is one of our most durable bellwethers. In the last 104 years, it has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election, with the sole exception of 1956.

Republicans in this primary season have lagged behind the Democrats in turnout, but the GOP race in Missouri is hot enough to bring people out. Romney needs to stop McCain here, because the state awards 58 delegates to the winner (a larger number than Missouri normally gets; the national party has given Missouri extra clout because it voted for Bush in 2004). The problem for Romney, however, is Mike Huckabee, who, according to the polls, is swiping religious conservatives away from Romney in southern Missouri, depriving Romney of the chance to unite all anti-McCain conservatives under his banner. (If this happens tonight, Huckabee will have further polished his political credentials to be McCain's running mate).

New Jersey. The nation's most suburban state, which has become fertile turf for Democrats in autumn elections, was once assumed to be strong for Hillary, its neighbor to the north. But polls suggest that Obama has been rapidly ascending here as well. If he can win in her territory - or, more likely, finish close enough to rack up significant delegates - the spin will be big. The same is potentially true in Massachusetts (where Hillary started way ahead, but where Ted Kennedy's pro-Obama clout will be tested), and Connecticut (where 13,300 former independent voters have re-registered as Democrats, and another 17,500 new residents have signed up to vote as Democrats, prompting me to wonder which Democrat has most motivated them to do so).

On the reverse side, Obama is expected to win big in Georgia, where the electorate is expected to be around 30 percent black; but Hillary can spin that state favorably if she does better than expected, and we'll know that early tonight because Georgia will be one of the first states to post results.

Arizona. Obama reportedly has been lagging badly with Latinos nationwide, and Latinos will comprise roughly 25 percent of the Democratic primary electorate. In polls not long ago, Hillary was ahead by a 2-1 margin. But, again, the gap has been narrowing, and this race could be a test of the Democratic governor's powers of persuasion. Janet Napolitano has endorsed Obama, so we'll see whether she has sway with other white women in the Democratic electorate.

All told, McCain seems well positioned to put a headlock on Mitt, notwithstanding the last-ditch opposition on his right flank (indeed, Christian conservative leader James Dobson announced today that if McCain gets the party nod, "I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life").

The Democrats seem destined to fight onward. Maybe Obama was lowballing expectations this morning when he predicted "a split decision," and maybe Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson was lowballing a few hours later when he said, "I don’t think that either side is in a position to win appreciably more delegates than the other." But, considering the way in which Democrats allocate their delegates, in rough proportion to the candidates' share of votes, it appears they are a long way from closure. Which might be good news for the hotels and restaurants in Ohio and Texas, in the first days of March.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. An obsessive evening awaits. And for those of you who are already craving some news, any news at all, here's a hot tip: Some of the earliest Democratic returns should be available by 7 p.m. EST...from American Samoa.

Falsehoods and embarrassments

2008-02-04T09:37:00.000-05:00

Sensitive Sunday issues, a three-act play:

John McCain may well become the GOP's putative nominee after the smoke clears on Feb. 5, but he's still anathema to many conservative soldiers. I was reminded of this last night, after suggesting in a Sunday print column that the anti-McCain forces, by refusing to embrace him and theatening to sit out the election, might wind up undercutting the only electable Republican.

The emails were scalding, and I almost had to call the fire department. Calie Stephens, a conservative in Texas, wrote of McCain: "He has drunk the Kool Aid on global warming. He is wrong on freedom of speech issues such as McCain-Feingold. He is wrong on Guantanamo. We do not trust this man. A Republican cannot win the general election without the base. The base ain't gonna show up on election day. They say that an alcoholic or drug addict must hit rock bottom before he learns his lesson. The nomination of John McCain, to myself and millions of principled Republicans, is a strong indication that we have hit rock bottom..."

A conservative in Arizona, who knew McCain years ago, writes: "He was a true Reaganite then. But he has changed over the years and gotten bitter. He now represents the liberal side of the GOP, not the conservative side. He has stabbed the mainstream republicans in the back over and over again. And you expect us to just roll over and play nice to a man that will continue to stab us in the back as president? I will not be voting for John McCain ever. And if the conservatives in this party know what's good for them, they won't vote for him either."

I'll spare you the numerous personal attacks on McCain; apparently, it still bugs some conservatives that he ended his first marriage and wedded a rich young woman nearly 30 years ago. Suffice it to say that, if he's the nominee, his prospects in November are nil if he can't galvanize the conservative base. If George W. Bush had failed in that task back in November 2004, he would have been a one-term president.

The problem is, McCain keeps acting as if he doesn't have a problem. Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, he said this: "We're doing fine with conservatives...In Florida, we got, as you know, a majority of the Republican voters in a Republican-only primary."

That's a fresh twist on his favorite falsehood. A couple weeks ago, he was publicly insisting that he had won a majority of Republican voters in the open primaries of New Hampshire and South Carolina, whereas, in truth, he hadn't even won a plurality of the Republican voters in either contest. Now comes his claim about the Florida primary - and, again, he was not being accurate. The exit polls show that he won only 33 percent of the self-identified Republicans, while Mitt Romney pulled an equal share. And among those who called themselves conservative (6 of 10 primary voters), only 27 percent favored McCain.

Meanwhile, Fox News nailed him on an issue that conservatives continue to hold against him. As I have noted several times lately, McCain keeps insisting that he voted against the Bush tax cuts back in 2001 only because there no corresponding spending cuts. But Fox News found McCain's Senate statement of May 26, 2001, explaining why he was opposing the Bush cuts. Here's what he said at the time:

"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief."

He didn't say a word about the lack spending cuts. Instead, he echoed what many Democrats were saying at the time - and what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are saying today.

Confronted yesterday with his own words, McCain insisted that he had complained about the lack of spending cuts "many, many times." But he was stuck with the statement that Fox dredged up, and that's one reason why so many grassoots conservative are loath to compromise. We'll see whether he can melt their hearts, when he speaks Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, a gig he has skipped in the past.

-------

Speaking of falsehoods, Hillary Clinton yesterday contributed one of her own. While also appearing on Fox News Sunday, she said: "We've had six contests. I've won four of them."

The factual record is that, of the four fully contested caucuses and primaries (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina), she and Obama have each won two. She was including, in her victory tally, the two states (Michigan and Florida) where Obama had agreed not to campaign, because they had been stripped of delegates by the national party, as punishment for scheduling their primaries too early. Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan (Hillary "won" by defeating Uncommitted), and he stayed away from Florida (where Hillary "won" by getting her supporters to run up the score, at least for symbolic value).

She exaggerated yesterday, claiming a sense of momentum via smoke and mirrors, perhaps out of concern that the opposite may be true. The final polls seem to suggest an Obama surge in key Feb. 5 states (including California and New Jersey), and he has apparently pulled even in the latest polls of Democrats nationwide. In California, where Hillary was once ahead by 25 points, the latest survey shows her topping Obama by only three.

I wonder about those California numbers, however. The state permits early voting, and apparently there was a huge early turnout - back when Hillary was the clear favorite. This might mean she is stronger than the current numbers suggest, and that the eleventh-hour sentiment for Obama might not be enough to stop her.

Still, the late sentiment for Obama, in California and elsewhere, is worth tracking. I suspect that some of it reflects Democratic concerns about a Clinton co-presidency. And that issue surfaced anew yesterday, during Hillary's appearance on Fox News.

She was asked about the recent New York Times story (which I referenced last Friday), showing how her husband had done some business deals with the anti-democratic despot who runs Kazakhastan, and how Bill had championed the despot for an international job that involved promoting global democracy - even while Hillary was on record in the Senate attacking this despot for his human rights abuses.

Fox News asked her a reasonable question: "If you're president and he's the former president, and he's conducting and making statements that are out of step with your policy, isn't it going to be awfully confusing?"

She at first tried to change the subject: "Well, Dick Cheney also went to Kazakhstan and praised the current regime." (Don't Democrats always complain when Bush's defenders try to change the subject by talking about Clinton?) Then she tried this: "You know, you sometimes have to use both carrots and sticks to move these regimes to do what they should be doing." (So, is she suggesting that, in a Hillary White House, Bill would play the carrot to her stick?)

I doubt that most Democrats watch Fox News Sunday anyway. But this whole Clinton co-presidency issue has yet to be sorted out. If the race extends beyond Feb. 5, as now appears likely, it will flare again.

-------

Speaking of sensitive issues, Barack Obama got off easy yesterday. During his appearance on CBS' Face the Nation, he was not asked about the embarrassing story that ran in The Times one day earlier.

He's been claiming on the campaign trail that as a senator he has fought to require that all nuclear plant owners - including the biggest firm, Exelon Corporation - notify state and local officials of even small radioactive leaks, so that the affected communities would know what was going on. Obama said in December that this was "the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed."

But this claim was false, on two counts. The legislation never passed. And the final version that went into limbo contained no such requirement. It was repeatedly watered down by Obama's office, to meet the demands of Senate Republicans and - more importantly - the demands of Exelon....whose top officials happen to be major donors to Obama, backing him financially ever since he was a state senator.

In exaggerating his record, Obama was merely using the familiar legislative nomenclature: as he told a Nevada newspaper, he "led an effort" to require disclosure of radioactive leaks. You see that wording in candidate brochures all the time; when a politician says that he or she has "led an effort," it generally means that the effort itself went nowhere.

Fortunately for Obama, he wasn't asked yesterday about his Exelon connection. One of Bill Clinton's biggest beefs is that the national press has been easier on Obama than on his spouse. Maybe, in terms of the big picture, that's just sour grapes; but at least with respect to the latest Sunday shows, Bill was right.

The Democrats' Hollywood comity

2008-02-01T00:53:00.000-05:00

It’s fitting that the two Democratic finalists debated last night in the Los Angeles theatre that hosts the Oscars. The envelopes, please...

Most cringe-worthy imagery: Democratic party leaders were not well served by CNN, which kept training its cameras on the Hollywood celebrities in attendance. Look, there’s Diane Keaton wearing white gloves! And Stevie Wonder in cornrows! And Rob Reiner (twice)! Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are on stage trying to talk about the everyday vicissitudes of the average Joe...and, meanwhile, the cameras are focused on people who probably define "poverty" as the inability to afford a Porsche Cayenne Turbo SUV. This kind of imagery hurts the Democrats in the heartland.

Most invoked Republican: John McCain. His name was first invoked by Obama barely 30 minutes into the debate, and five times thereafter. Obama was intent on making the case to undecided primary voters, particularly former John Edwards voters, that he, not Hillary, would be a more formidable candidate against McCain. He repeatedly stressed this theme, which suggests that he’s not yet confident of his standing with the Democratic base; by contrast, Hillary never tried to trump him and argue for her own superior electability, which suggests that her confidence level is higher on the eve of Tsunami Tuesday.

Still, when Obama linked the electability theme to Hillary’s 2002 Iraq war authorization vote, he racked up a few debating points: "I would be the Democrat most effective in going up against John McCain or any other Republican…I would offer a clear contrast, as somebody who never supported this war, thought it was a bad idea. I don’t want to just end this war, I want to end the mindset that got us in the war in the first place." And speaking of the war...

Worst defensive crouch: Hillary. After 18 debates, she still has the same problem. Whenever the discussion turns to what happened during the prelude to war, she is back on her feels, trying in vain to explain herself. I’ve already written at length about her ’02 vote, and her various attempts to defend it; without reprising the whole topic, suffice it to say that she can’t extinguish it with a few well-chosen phrases. Her defense is convoluted, and doesn’t play well in a debate format.

By contrast, Obama can reduce his position to a sentence – he was against the war then, and against it now – notwithstanding the fact that he has voted in sync with Hillary to fund the troops. And even though this particular debate was civil (more on that below), he still managed, repeatedly, to link her war vote to his larger theme about judgment. He took her line about being "ready on day one" and gave it a twist: "It is important to be right on day one."

On the other hand, I question whether many undecided Democrats are going to base their decisions on what the candidates were doing or saying about Iraq nearly six years ago.

Smartest response on a politically sensitive topic: Hillary. A black worker wanted to know why the candidates aren’t addressing the growing problem of joblessness and wage loss in the black community, caused by "the flood of immigrant labor." That was a tricky one, given black-brown tensions in some locales, and the fact that Hillary and Obama are competing for both black and Latino votes next Tuesday.

Obama, perhaps mindful that he needs help from Latinos in the California primary, stood up for Latinos and said that the questioner was "scapegoating." Hillary’s answer was far more nuanced. She stood up for the average worker: "I believe that in many parts of our country, because of employers who exploit undocumented workers and drive down wages, there are job losses. And I think we should be honest about that. There are people who have been pushed out of jobs in factories and meat processing plants and all kinds of settings."

Hillary has a lot of support among downscale workers, and they probably appreciated that. And then she segued into her Latino-friendly pitch for a comprehensive path to citizenship – requiring illegal immigrants to learn English, pay taxes, and wait in line – and "once we have those conditions met, and people agree, then they will not be in a labor market that undercuts anybody else's wages." She was substantive without being wonky, and deftly defused the issue’s underlying racial tensions.

Lamest response on a politically sensitive topic: Hillary. When it was pointed out that many Democrats are worried about Bill Clinton’s role in a Hillary White House, she switched to auto-pilot: "At the end of the day, it is my name that's on the ballot. And it will be my responsibility as president and commander in chief, after consulting broadly with a lot of people who have something to contribute to difficult decisions, I will have to make the call. And I am fully prepared to do that....and that is what I'm asking to be entrusted to do."

But that answer didn’t begin to address the substantive questions that have been raised lately about Bill Clinton’s various business, consulting, and fund-raising endeavors, and whether his activities might complicate her White House decision-making.

For instance, Obama did her a favor by failing to bring up the New York Times investigative story that ran yesterday. It disclosed that Bill and a mining financier recently did a business deal with the despot who runs Kazakhstan; that the financier has since donated $30 million to Bill’s charitable foundation; and that Bill has been trying to get the Kazakh despot a job heading up an international group that champions democracy and free elections. Meanwhile, this despot, who rigged his own election in 2005, has been denounced for human rights violations…by Senator Hillary Clinton. And this is just once case study.

Most gallant moment since Walter Raleigh spread his cloak over a puddle for Queen Elizabeth I: Obama, at debate's end, pulling out Hillary's chair so that she could stand. This visual was no doubt intended to replace the "snub" visual, whereby Obama appeared to turn away from Hillary on State of the Union night. And just in case the chivalry visual wasn't enough, they smiled upon each other at such close range that they seemed on the verge of a lip lock. Hey, cosmetics matter. They wanted to send a message that the Democrats are in no danger of tearing themselves asunder (unlike many times in the past).

They also realize that the race could go on for awhile, way past Feb. 5, and become a guerilla war for delegates. Hence their civility last night (a deliberately sought contrast to the McCain-Romney enmity). Hillary and Obama clearly sense the need to pace themselves, and that might be good advice for the rest of us.

Bile and guile with a smile

2008-01-31T00:49:00.000-05:00

When the mood strikes him – as it did last night, with the GOP brass ring finally in sight – John McCain can sure be a duplicitous rascal.

In the final Republican debate before the Feb. 5 primaries, McCain took Mitt Romney apart. He gleefully tormented his rival – bile with a smile - while Romney just sputtered and whined. McCain was hit with a few tough questions along the way, but he shrugged them off, bobbing and weaving and stonewalling…and Romney, perhaps still reeling from his critical primary defeat in Florida, let him get away with it.

In other words, there wasn’t much "straight talk" from McCain last night. But if the Feb. 5 voters are in the hunt for a wily SOB, they’ve probably found him. As the fabled baseball manager Leo Durocher supposedly said half a century ago, "Nice guys finish last."

In fact, we saw the frontrunner in a variety of guises:

McCain the dirty trickster. He repeatedly insisted – as he had during the final 48 hours in Florida – that Romney waved the white flag back in April 2007, by supposedly endorsing a secret timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Romney had said no such thing.

In his interview that month with ABC News, Romney said that President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister should establish a set of confidential "timetables and milestones" that would help them measure progress "in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police and the leadership of the Iraqi government." And when the reporter sought clarification, and asked whether Romney, as president, would veto any timetable on troop withdrawals, he replied, "Of course."

Romney, visibly flustered, again tried to point all this out last night, but McCain stuck with his charge. He argued that Romney had engaged in surrender talk simply by uttering the word timetable, which was a "buzz word for withdrawal" back in the spring of ’07 - and, worse yet, it was a Democratic buzz word. McCain was clearly flogging a lie, but it worked brilliantly as a debate tactic, because it forced Romney to spend precious time playing defense.

And the clever part was that McCain wove the lie into his larger narrative – the true part – about how he had vocally supported the surge early last year while virtually everyone else, including Romney, was silent or circumspect. All the while, Romney was lamenting about how he had been wronged, and I suspect that many Republican viewers reacted by thinking, "Deal with it, girly man."

McCain the artful dodger. When the questioning got tough, he climbed aboard the double-talk express.

It was pointed out, for example, that back when he opposed the Bush tax cuts, he complained that they were skewed too heavily toward the rich. Yet now he supports making those tax cuts permanent. So, he was asked, if those cuts were too skewed to the rich before, aren’t they still too skewed to the rich?

Naturally, it was an inconvenient question, since it reminded Republican viewers that he had assailed the Bush cuts and had offered a liberal populist rationale for doing so. He thus stonewalled the question. Instead of talking about 2001, he time-traveled to 1981: "I was part of the Reagan revolution. I was there with Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm and Warren Rudman and all these other fighters that wanted to change a terrible economic situation in America with 10 percent unemployment and 20 percent interest rates. I was proud to be a foot soldier."

Yet Romney, rather than pouncing on McCain’s transparent evasion, offered only a mild rejoinder, then went wandering off into a policy rap about entitlements. And that was the pattern last night.

A questioner also reminded McCain that the senator’s original immigration reform bill had featured a path to citizenship for illegals. He was asked whether he would vote for that same bill today if it came to a vote on the Senate floor (which is tantamount to asking whether he still supports a path to citizenship, an idea that is anathema to much of the conservative base).

He replied: "It won’t. It won’t..."

Question: "But what if it did?"

Again he replied: "No, it would not." He said he now believes that border security trumps all other immigration issues (it is, he says, "the mandate of the American people"), and he explained his new priorities before adding testily, "if you want me to go through the description all over again, I would be glad to."

Yet Romney, rather than pouncing on McCain as a flip-flopper, as just another Washington politician who bends with the prevailing winds (in this case, the conservative base), he stayed silent.

McCain the counter-puncher. Early in the debate, when Romney tried to rally conservative voters by citing McCain’s various past heresies, McCain basically said, "I’m proud of my conservative record," and quickly pivoted to the offense, ticking off a litany of Romney’s alleged failings as governor of Massachusetts. And Romney, in response, took the bait. He said, "OK, I got a little work to do here," and launched into a lengthy rebuttal that only served to keep him stuck on defense. The quality of his rebuttal was beside the point; what mattered was that, again, he was kept busy trying to explain himself, and that’s not where a candidate wants to be.

McCain the rabbit-puncher. Every once in awhile, without provocation, and simply because he seemed to enjoy it, McCain gave Romney a whack to the kidneys. During a civil disquisition about the experiences that qualify a candidate for the White House, McCain said of Romney’s business background, "He’s a fine man. And I think he managed companies. And he bought and he sold and sometimes people lost their jobs. That’s the nature of that business."

And again, Romney let it go. All told, if this guy can’t find a way to keep his footing, and take the fight to McCain in the scant time remaining before Feb. 5, then he probably deserves to lose.

Flight of the phoenix

2008-01-30T00:19:00.000-05:00

John McCain, the phoenix of American politics, is now marching with confidence toward the GOP nomination. Barring an unforeseen reversal during the next seven days, he seems well positioned to cement his top-dog status when 20 more states weigh in, from coast to coast, on Feb. 5.

The stars appear to be aligning in accordance with his most fervent wishes:

1. By winning the Florida primary last night, he demonstrated broad support among mainstream GOP voters - under state party rules, only registered Republicans were allowed to vote – and that was critical, because his previous primary victories were powered by independents and crossover Democrats. And he can also brag that he finished on top in the first big state on the primary calendar – and a swing state in the November election.

2. In victory, he can now reasonably argue that he’s more than a one-trick pony. National security is his pet issue, yet the voters favored him by five percentage points over Mitt Romney despite the fact that they cited the economy (not McCain’s strong point) as the overriding issue.

3. Mike Huckabee, the evangelical candidate, helped McCain greatly last night by pulling tens of thousands of evangelical Floridians away from Romney. Absent Huckabee’s presence in the race, many evangelicals (40 percent of the primary electorate) probably would have gravitated toward their backup choice, Romney. And Huckabee plans to stay in the race, trolling for votes and delegates in many of the Feb. 5 states, thereby threatening again to dampen Romney’s vote tallies – and making it easier for McCain to prevail.

4. Rudy "Noun-Verb-9/11" Giuliani bade farewell last night – thereby demonstrating, as many of us had foreseen 10 weeks ago, that his idea to skip all the early primaries and camp out in Florida bordered on the delusional. (He spent in excess of $50 million on his White House quest...and won exactly one delegate. Rudy's candidacy brings to mind that movie scene in The Fugitive, when a derailed train plummets in flames down an embankment.) And this too is good for McCain. Rudy will endorse McCain today, and many of the national-security conservatives who were hoping to vote for Rudy can easily slide over to the like-minded McCain – further buoying McCain’s bullish prospects in Feb. 5 states such as New York, New Jersey, and California.

But McCain is not home free; as the fine print of the Florida exit poll makes clear, he still hasn’t won over the diehard voters on the right. Romney beat him by 10 points among those voters who described themselves as conservative (62 percent of the primary electorate); conversely, McCain was heavily favored by the 28 percent of Republican voters who said they were moderate, the 11 percent who said they were liberal. He was also the strong favorite of those who said they rarely or never attend church, but he was spurned by the devout.

Meanwhile, he was the first choice of those voters who said they’re dissatisfied with President Bush (33 percent of the primary electorate), but the second choice of those who are happy with Bush. He was also the second choice of those who want to
ban abortions, and the second choice of those who want to deport all illegal immigrants. (Regarding the latter item: Hispanics comprised 12 percent of the GOP turnout, and they voted overwhelmingly for McCain. This was the guy who supposedly had no chance to get the GOP nomination, because of his support for giving illegals a path to citizenship. Last night, Republican Hispanics gave him a big boost toward that nomination. He would regard that as poetic justice.)

In other words, the conservative GOP base is not sold on him yet. One question in the days ahead is whether, and to what extent, the base is willing to embrace the guy, its past litany of grievances notwithstanding. This assumes that they have a viable alternative. Mitt Romney can stay in the game, but, in order to do so, he will need to spend more of his kids’ inheritance; to demonstrate that he has an authentic core and is therefore more than just a pandering weathervane; and to somehow convince evangelicals that a vote for Huckabee is a wasted vote, tantamount to a vote for McCain. (When the three survivors will debate on CNN tonight, it will be instructive to see whether Romney tries to marginalize Huckabee.)

Fortunately for Romney, he has the personal bucks for major TV ad buys coast to coast over the next week, while the relatively cash-strapped McCain will be out there scrounging for free media coverage. But McCain excels at the latter, and it’s worth noting that Romney’s saturation of the Florida airwaves – he ran 4475 ads; McCain, a mere 470 – didn’t give him sufficient bang for the buck. As any admaker will tell you, it can be tough to sell a product that consumers don’t want.

So, in a sense, it’s all down to Romney. As he scans the landscape today, he sees McCain poised to sweep the Feb. 5 northeastern states and probably California (where Gov. Schwarzenegger is McCain-friendly). He sees Huckabee still on the trail, working the Feb. 5 southern states (Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas), garnering votes that he badly needs. Where does Romney plant his flag and win (finally, for the first time) a fully contested primary? Will the McCain-haters - including members of the party's corporate establishment - buck him up anyway, and urge him onward? And remember, most of the big contests are "winner take all," which means that you get zilch delegates if you don't finish first.

For now, Romney insists he'll tough it out and try to gather all the McCain-averse voters beneath his banner. On Fox News early this morning, he said: "This has come down to a two-person race. That with Mayor Giuliani out and with Mike Huckabee having done so poorly here in Florida, that the options are me or John McCain, and that will bring a lot of conservatives together, if I'm successful in that effort. And I think in that case, there's a ceiling as to how many votes Senator McCain will get, that's the hope."

Let’s see how long Romney is willing to dip into his deep pockets. Because if he doesn’t, this race is essentially over, and the last man standing will have completed his improbable rise from the political grave.

-------

UPDATE, on the Democratic side:

The headless chicken has toppled over.

John Edwards is pulling out today. I wrote his political obituary a week ago, so there's no need here to revisit the reasons for his demise. The big question now is where his voters are most likely to land.

The common assumption is that his departure will help Barack Obama, since it would appear that he and Obama had been splitting the anti-Hillary vote. But perhaps that's too facile.

Edwards was drawing much of his support from white working-class/blue-collar voters - the same cohort that is strong for Hillary Clinton. One can argue that these voters would never embrace Hillary (since they were drawn to Edwards because of his anti-corporate populism, whereas they probably view Hillary as a corporate establishment Democrat), but voters make choices for all kinds of reasons, and some Edwards supporters might simply view Hillary as tougher and more seasoned than Obama. Some might also be more comfortable breaking the gender barrier than the race barrier. And with respect to a key Democratic issue, Edwards' universal health care plan more closely resembles Hillary's plan than Obama's.

Tellingly, the exit polls in last night's meaningless Florida Democratic primary indicated that Edwards' voters would be equally "satisfied" with either Hillary or Obama as the nominee. On the other hand, perhaps many fans will take their cues from Edwards, who will undoubtedly endorse one of the finalists.

All we can say for certain at the moment is that the CNN Democratic debate tomorrow night - the first one-on-one meeting of Hillary and Obama - could be more riveting than the Super Bowl.

Bush, the final annotations

2008-01-29T07:28:00.000-05:00

The good news is that George W. Bush has finally delivered the last State of the Union speech of his ruinous presidency. The bad news is that I am compelled to annotate it.

Don't feel obliged to stick around. You know the drill. He offered his usual string of fact-challenged assertions, spoke anew about his old delusions, evaded all mention of several critical national ills for which he bears considerable responsibility, and, all told, generally exasperated the landslide majority of Americans who view January 20, 2009 as Liberation Day.

Let's back up the TiVo and pause at random moments, with the president talking in italics:

Let us show (our fellow Americans) that Republicans and Democrats can compete for votes and cooperate for results at the same time.

That's his requisite call for bipartisanship, just like last year ("the wisdom of working together") and the year before ("a spirit of goodwill and respect"), but it's always meaningless. Last night, fresh from his paean to cooperation, he quickly demanded that the Democrats make permanent his tax cuts for the rich; that the Democrats pass his bill on domestic electronic surveillance, or risk being accused (by him) of endagering the lives of fellow Americans; and that the Congress sit quietly and again allow him to conduct the Iraq war, and to entangle America in a long-term alliance with Iraq, as he sees fit, despite the strong polling evidence that two-thirds of the American people reject his lead and view the war as a mistake.

Wages are up, but so are prices for food and gas. Exports are rising, but the housing market has declined. At kitchen tables across our country, there is a concern about our economic future. In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth.

Wages are "up," but he left out the part about how income inequality has widened during his reign, at a rate not seen since the pre-Depression era. As for gasoline - the average price for a gallon jumped from $1.39 in January 2000 to $3.07 in January 2007 - we can thank Bush for some of that. The Iraq war, lest we forget, was supposed to pay for itself, thanks to Iraq's oil revenues, and increased production was supposed to help give us low prices here at home. But the war not only curtailed Iraq oil production, it roiled the entire Middle East region, sowing instability and hampering oil investment. And note Bush's line about how Americans be can confident "in the long run" - an open-ended contrivance that promises light at the end of the tunnel.

We have other work to do on taxes. Unless the Congress acts, most of the tax relief we have delivered over the past seven years will be taken away.

His idea of tax relief was to skew the windfall toward the most affluent citizens, at the expense of most Americans. According to economists, Americans with incomes exceeding $1 million have enjoyed tax relief 30 times greater than the average working stiff. And that was just the '01 Bush tax cut. The inequalities were greater in the '03 tax cut, and these are what Bush wants Congess to make permanent.

Just as we trust Americans with their own money, we need to earn their trust by spending their tax dollars wisely....American families have to balance their budgets; so should their government.

The Republican Congress and this Republican president jacked up spending to levels not previously seen since Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. When the GOP ran Congress, before the party was thrown out of power in 2006, Bush never once vetoed a spending bill. Indeed, John McCain's line on the campaign trail is that, because of all the big spending, his party has lost its way. But now that the Democrats run Congress, Bush is suddenly talking a different game, and trusting in the public's amnesia.

The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks, special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute without discussion or debate. Last year I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote....If these items are truly worth funding, the Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.

Same hypocrisy as above. I seem to recall, just last year, that Bush signed off on roughly 580 earmarks (at a price tag of $15 billion) in an appropriations package. The goodies included $24 million for something called the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program and $9 million for something called the Points of Light Foundation, a project started by his dad. More generally, earmarks exploded during the Republican era, and Bush never uttered a peep. Here's an excerpt from congressional testimony two years ago: "In 1994, when the Congress was taken over by Republicans, there were 4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills. Last year there were 15,000. It's disgraceful, this process." The speaker was McCain.

Our objective in the coming year (in Iraq) is to sustain and build on the gains we made in 2007, while transitioning to the next phase of our strategy. American troops are shifting from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces and, eventually, to a protective overwatch mission.

There it is, a new Bush buzz phrase - "protective overwatch mission." Apparently that's the lame duck's gift to his successor, an open-ended, long-term American presence in Iraq, the terms of which he intends to negotiate with the fragile regime, with no oversight or signoffs from Congress.

Progress in the provinces must be matched by progress in Baghdad. We’re seeing some encouraging signs. The national government is sharing oil revenues with the provinces. The parliament recently passed both a pension law and de-Ba’athification reform. They’re now debating a provincial powers law. The Iraqis still have a distance to travel...

One year ago, the Iraqi government was supposed to meet 18 benchmarks, as measurements of progress. One year later, notwithstanding the U.S. military escalation, it has accomplished only three. As for Bush's reference to "de-Ba'athification reform" (allowing former Ba'athist party members to return to government work, as a sign of national reconciliation), he not surprisingly failed to mention certain salient facts. The law was passed on a day when the parliament barely achieved a quorum, meaning that less than a third of the members voted for it; and many former Ba'athists believe that the complicated language will wind up expelling even more of them from government. Just last week, a senior Iraqi official told Newsweek that the law was "a big mess, perhaps worse than if we had done nothing." And lastly, in his State of the Union speech one year ago, Bush declared, "Americans will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced." This year? Not a single word about holding the Iraqi government accountable.

...one Army Brigade Combat team and one Marine Expeditionary Unit have already come home and will not be replaced. In the coming months, four additional brigades and two Marine battalions will follow suit. Taken together, this means more than 20,000 of our troops are coming home.

That still leaves 10,000 more troops in Iraq than before his "surge." And he conveniently omitted the fact that he has been under pressure - from his own military - to pull at least some troops out of Iraq, due to the strains he has placed on the armed forces. As Army Chief of Staff General George Casey recently testified, "the current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply," and earlier this month he said that "the surge has sucked all the flexibility out of the system....the Army is out of balance."

America is leading the fight against global poverty...

That would be a more admirable pursuit if Bush was also leading the fight against domestic poverty. But apparently not. The number of Americans living below the poverty line has increased by 5.3 million since Bush took office.

America is a force for hope in the world because we are a compassionate people...

Bush has wrecked our reputation in the world. A recent report by the bipartisan Commission on Smart Power, sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, concludes: "America's image and influence are in decline. America may be less well regarded today than at any time in our history." And according to polls conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, a majority of people in 10 of 15 surveyed nations now say they don't trust America to act responsibly.

Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources.

I cite that line not because of its topic, but because of his passing reference to China. Regarding the entirety of his speech, this was his sole reference to China - which is quite regrettable, considering China's key role in our economic woes. But it's understandable that Bush would not want to discuss that role, since it would expose, once again, his failings. Thanks to his economic decision-making (deep tax cuts, expensive new spending, and a war of choice costing roughly $10 billion a month), the national debt has grown considerably, and we're now increasingly dependent on other nations to finance that debt. We're particularly in hock to China, which reportedly now holds IOUs worth roughly $1 trillion. It goes without saying that if a Democratic president had weakened America in this fashion, the Republican message machine would be in overdrive.

...the state of our union will remain strong.

Mike Huckabee gets the last word. Asked last night whether the state of our union is strong, the Republican candidate replied: "I think it's in trouble. To say anything less than that would be dishonest."