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.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
John McCain, in the lion's den
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.
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
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 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.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
The Bill Murray primaries
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.
"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.
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I had further thoughts this morning, during an hour-long discussion on Philadelphia's NPR station. It's archived here.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
My Tsunami Tuesday scorecard
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.
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.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Falsehoods and embarrassments
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
Friday, February 01, 2008
The Democrats' Hollywood comity
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.
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.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Bile and guile with a smile
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Flight of the phoenix
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Bush, the final annotations
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."
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."
Monday, January 28, 2008
Bill's pride and the loss of Camelot
Edward Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama is clearly a major blow to the Clintons - and not just because the senior keeper of the Kennedy flame is tight with the kinds of primary voters that Obama needs most (downscale workers, union members, and Hispanics); and not just because Ted will stump for Obama in key Feb. 5 states (probably California, New Jersey, Hispanic-heavy Arizona, and certainly Massachusetts, which has almost as many delegates as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined).
Indeed, it's uncertain whether Ted's florid face and rhetoric are enough to sway large numbers of voters. Yes, his endorsement of Obama and his rejection of the Clintons are unprecedented (due in part to his distaste for Bill's anti-Obama campaigning); he has traditionally stayed above the fray during Democratic primary seasons. But is he really capable of sprinkling enough Camelot fairy dust to shift the ground game? I wonder.
Nevertheless, this much is surely clear: Ted's nod to Obama represents a major blow to Bill Clinton's pride, to his political and personal self-esteem.
Lest we forget, when Bill first ran for president in 1992, he saw himself as the heir to the Kennedy flame. His campaign even unearthed a photo from 1963, showing young Bill at the White House, during a Boy's Nation event, shaking hands with JFK himself. He wanted the public to see him as a virtual Kennedy, an inspiration to a new generation.
It's all there on page 418 of his hefty memoir, My Life. Bill told the '92 Democratic convention delegates, "Thirty two years ago, another young candidate who wanted to get the country moving again came to the convention..." Recalling that moment in his memoir, he then writes, "I wanted to identify with the spirit of John Kennedy's campaign." And six months later (page 474), shortly before he was sworn into office, he made a pilgrimage to the Kennedy gravesite, where he knelt, "asking for wisdom and strength."
Indeed, Ted Kennedy is repeatedly lionized in the memoir as a brilliant rhetorician, visionary policy wonk, and fabulous playmate:
Bill writes that, as a young man, he was blown away by Ted's funeral farewell to his fallen brother Bobby. The eulogy "was magnificent...closing with words of power and grace I will never forget." (page 123)
Bill lauds Teddy for making "an emotional plea" for universal health care way back in 1978. (page 260)
Bill rhapsodizes about "sailing and swimming," early in his presidency, with Ted and a passel of Kennedys on Martha's Vineyard. Apparently Caroline and Chelsea jumped into the water from a high platform on the yacht, whereupon Ted and Bill tried to goad Hillary into doing the same. But Hillary demurred, "with her usual good sense." (page 540)
Bill fondly recalls that it was Ted who had Bill's back during the '94 battle for health care reform; in fact, when Ted got his Senate committee to pass a reform bill, it was "the first time legislation providing universal coverage had ever even made it out of a full congressional committee." (page 601)
Bill writes that Ted cared deeply about Bill's agenda and performance, that Ted was the only senator "who regularly provided me with a typed 'to do' list." (page 713)
Bill praises Ted's agenda and performance, notably Ted's child health care plan. (page 761)
Bill not only bursts with pride about his Ted ties, he also proudly recalls how John Kennedy Jr. "had come to one of my first New York campaign events in 1991." And after JFK Jr. was killed, Ted "gave another magnificent eulogy."
All told, it must be tough for Bill to suffer these repeated blows to his pride. First he was dubbed the first black president by poet Toni Morrison; now Toni Morrison is backing Obama, and black voters are fleeing from the Clintons in droves. And now even the Kennedy torch was been torn away from him - and entrusted, by orders of its senior steward, to a candidate who is deemed to be the embodiment of a new generation.
Bill has long sought to fuse the Kennedys and the Clintons, to make them synonymous in Democratic politics, but Ted has now severed the link, and made it easier for Obama to argue that Democrats can have the former without the latter. Moreover, some of Ted's remarks today can be read as a rebuke of the Clintons: "(Obama) will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past. He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical. He is a fighter who cares passionately about the causes he believes in, without demonizing those who hold a different view."
This jolt to Clintonian pride may well be enough to induce Bill to dial himself down on the campaign trail, or at least to ponder how he might want to spin this embarrassment in his next memoir. After all, the first one was only 1008 pages.
-------
Meanwhile, let's fact-check one of Bill's remarks in South Carolina, the kind of talk that helped drive Ted into the Obama camp. At the eleventh hour, Bill tried to equate Barack Obama with Jesse Jackson, in an effort to pin the "black candidate" label on Obama and thus minimize his potential appeal. Bill said, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign. And Senator Obama is running a good campaign."
The facts: (1) In '84 and '88, South Carolina held caucuses, which attracted a fraction of the people who showed up on Saturday night. (2) Jackson's rivals didn't campaign in South Carolina, in either year, twice ceding the state to Jackson, who was born there. (3) The '84 caucuses were so insignificant that Jackson "won" by finishing behind "Uncommitted." (4) In '88, he had the state to himself, in caucuses again ignored by the media and political community, and only won 41 percent of the participants.
Which brings us to Hillary's latest defense of her spouse. Asked yesterday to comment on Bill's remarks, she said: "I think everyone who knows Bill knows that he's both a great student of politics and history."
A "great" student of history? Only with the aid of grade inflation.
Indeed, it's uncertain whether Ted's florid face and rhetoric are enough to sway large numbers of voters. Yes, his endorsement of Obama and his rejection of the Clintons are unprecedented (due in part to his distaste for Bill's anti-Obama campaigning); he has traditionally stayed above the fray during Democratic primary seasons. But is he really capable of sprinkling enough Camelot fairy dust to shift the ground game? I wonder.
Nevertheless, this much is surely clear: Ted's nod to Obama represents a major blow to Bill Clinton's pride, to his political and personal self-esteem.
Lest we forget, when Bill first ran for president in 1992, he saw himself as the heir to the Kennedy flame. His campaign even unearthed a photo from 1963, showing young Bill at the White House, during a Boy's Nation event, shaking hands with JFK himself. He wanted the public to see him as a virtual Kennedy, an inspiration to a new generation.
It's all there on page 418 of his hefty memoir, My Life. Bill told the '92 Democratic convention delegates, "Thirty two years ago, another young candidate who wanted to get the country moving again came to the convention..." Recalling that moment in his memoir, he then writes, "I wanted to identify with the spirit of John Kennedy's campaign." And six months later (page 474), shortly before he was sworn into office, he made a pilgrimage to the Kennedy gravesite, where he knelt, "asking for wisdom and strength."
Indeed, Ted Kennedy is repeatedly lionized in the memoir as a brilliant rhetorician, visionary policy wonk, and fabulous playmate:
Bill writes that, as a young man, he was blown away by Ted's funeral farewell to his fallen brother Bobby. The eulogy "was magnificent...closing with words of power and grace I will never forget." (page 123)
Bill lauds Teddy for making "an emotional plea" for universal health care way back in 1978. (page 260)
Bill rhapsodizes about "sailing and swimming," early in his presidency, with Ted and a passel of Kennedys on Martha's Vineyard. Apparently Caroline and Chelsea jumped into the water from a high platform on the yacht, whereupon Ted and Bill tried to goad Hillary into doing the same. But Hillary demurred, "with her usual good sense." (page 540)
Bill fondly recalls that it was Ted who had Bill's back during the '94 battle for health care reform; in fact, when Ted got his Senate committee to pass a reform bill, it was "the first time legislation providing universal coverage had ever even made it out of a full congressional committee." (page 601)
Bill writes that Ted cared deeply about Bill's agenda and performance, that Ted was the only senator "who regularly provided me with a typed 'to do' list." (page 713)
Bill praises Ted's agenda and performance, notably Ted's child health care plan. (page 761)
Bill not only bursts with pride about his Ted ties, he also proudly recalls how John Kennedy Jr. "had come to one of my first New York campaign events in 1991." And after JFK Jr. was killed, Ted "gave another magnificent eulogy."
All told, it must be tough for Bill to suffer these repeated blows to his pride. First he was dubbed the first black president by poet Toni Morrison; now Toni Morrison is backing Obama, and black voters are fleeing from the Clintons in droves. And now even the Kennedy torch was been torn away from him - and entrusted, by orders of its senior steward, to a candidate who is deemed to be the embodiment of a new generation.
Bill has long sought to fuse the Kennedys and the Clintons, to make them synonymous in Democratic politics, but Ted has now severed the link, and made it easier for Obama to argue that Democrats can have the former without the latter. Moreover, some of Ted's remarks today can be read as a rebuke of the Clintons: "(Obama) will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past. He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical. He is a fighter who cares passionately about the causes he believes in, without demonizing those who hold a different view."
This jolt to Clintonian pride may well be enough to induce Bill to dial himself down on the campaign trail, or at least to ponder how he might want to spin this embarrassment in his next memoir. After all, the first one was only 1008 pages.
-------
Meanwhile, let's fact-check one of Bill's remarks in South Carolina, the kind of talk that helped drive Ted into the Obama camp. At the eleventh hour, Bill tried to equate Barack Obama with Jesse Jackson, in an effort to pin the "black candidate" label on Obama and thus minimize his potential appeal. Bill said, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign. And Senator Obama is running a good campaign."
The facts: (1) In '84 and '88, South Carolina held caucuses, which attracted a fraction of the people who showed up on Saturday night. (2) Jackson's rivals didn't campaign in South Carolina, in either year, twice ceding the state to Jackson, who was born there. (3) The '84 caucuses were so insignificant that Jackson "won" by finishing behind "Uncommitted." (4) In '88, he had the state to himself, in caucuses again ignored by the media and political community, and only won 41 percent of the participants.
Which brings us to Hillary's latest defense of her spouse. Asked yesterday to comment on Bill's remarks, she said: "I think everyone who knows Bill knows that he's both a great student of politics and history."
A "great" student of history? Only with the aid of grade inflation.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Obama's Saturday night massacre
The term Saturday night massacre entered the political lexicon during the Watergate scandal, but maybe it now needs to be updated, in the wake of the brutal thrashing that Barack Obama has meted out to the Clintons in South Carolina.
We shall soon see whether Obama can captalize on his success. I am somewhat skeptical that he can. But his performance last night was indeed impressive. Where to begin:
1. This was the first slaughter of the Democratic primary season, a 2-1 victory margin, unless you count Hillary’s performance in the mid-January Michigan beauty contest, where she was the sole name on the ballot.
2. This was the first time that a Democrat (or a Republican, for that matter) has won more than 50 percent of the vote in any of the multi-candidate contests. And it was powered by black voters who abandoned their loyalties to the Clintons in order to deliver a stinging rebuke. (If Hillary wins the nomination, she had better hope that she can woo them back.)
3. Obama attracted more voters (295,000) than the total number of voters who turned out for the South Carolina Democratic primary four years ago (290,000) – a fresh indicator of his ability to stoke enthusiasm. And with respect to the top finishers in the state GOP contest one week ago, Obama garnered more votes than John McCain and Mike Huckabee combined (279,000).
4. Obama won every region of the state, every education level, and every income level. He finished first among married voters, and first among single voters. He was the top choice in the cities, suburbs, and small towns.
5. Obama was the top choice of independents (23 percent of the voters in this open primary were independents), thereby demonstrating, again, that he traffics effectively in the middle of the road – which is where presidential elections are determined. Hillary was the least popular choice, finishing behind John Edwards.
6. South Carolina’s voters rebuked Bill Clinton; clearly, they were not charmed by his descent from president emeritus to junkyard dog. Nearly six in 10 voters said that Bill’s loose lips were an important factor in their decision; of those voters, 48 percent broke for Obama, 37 percent for Hillary. And with respect to the voters who made up their minds during the final three days (when Bill was in especially high dudgeon), nearly half broke for Obama, and only 19 percent went with Hillary.
7. It’s beyond dispute that Obama owes his decisive victory to African-American voters; they comprised 55 percent of the primary electorate, and Obama won 78 percent of their votes. But Obama, pitted against two white candidates, did draw 24 percent of the white vote, and he dueled Hillary to virtual draw among white males. (Some pre-primary polls had suggested that Obama’s share of the white vote would be as low as 10 percent.)
8. Thanks to Obama's drawing power, the Democrats attracted 530,000 voters in South Carolina; last weekend, the Republicans, with a larger field of candidates, drew only 442,000. The enthusiasm gap, noted in previous states, continues.
No wonder the Clintons were so anxious last night to move on. Bill gave a pep talk (and talked and talked, mostly about himself) that barely mentioned South Carolina. He spoke instead about “a big victory for us in Florida in just a couple of days” (referring to the Tuesday night beauty contest, in which no delegates will be awarded, but where the Clintons hope to spin a symbolic win); and, more importantly, he talked up the big-state contests on Feb. 5 “when millions of Americans finally get into the act” (translation: South Carolina was chump change).
And the Clintons are smart to turn the page with all deliberate speed. Democratic voters in New York and New Jersey and California (among others) might not care a whit about what happened in South Carolina. With this accelerated calendar, a 10-day span seems like a lifetime. An ostensibly meaningless Clinton victory in Florida on Tuesday night would afford the spouses an opportunity to frame a new momentum narrative on the eve of Feb. 5. Reports indicate that 400,000 Florida Democrats (taking advantage of the state’s early-voting option) have already cast ballots, which means that the Sunshine State turnout will likely dwarf the South Carolina turnout, and (assuming a Hillary victory) give the Clintons symbolic bragging rights in a big, diverse state.
Moreover, black voters won’t dominate the turnout in New York, New Jersey, and California – the big states that will get the lion’s share of the publicity on Feb. 5. The Clintons and their surrogates have been trying to label Obama as merely the “black candidate” – Bill did it again yesterday, by comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson - and they’ll probably look for ways to spin the South Carolina results as further proof. (They’ll try to be subtle about it, of course, and then they’ll blame the media for reporting it.)
For instance, in California, more Latinos than blacks are expected to vote in the Feb. 5 primary, and the Latino mayor of Los Angeles is working the streets for Hillary. Fairly or not, Latino voters have been traditionally averse to supporting black political candidates. We’ll hear more about this phenomenon in the days ahead. Obama fared poorly among Latino voters in Nevada last week; Latinos were not a factor in South Carolina. It was no accident that Obama, in his victory speech last night, mentioned how he had stood up for his “Latino brothers and sisters” when he was a community organizer in Chicago.
Nor was it an accident last night that a few dozen white supporters were positioned behind Obama as he spoke. His future hinges on whether he can build on his decisive South Carolina victory and sell himself as the candidate of diversity – and whether he can successfully frame this historic contest on his own terms. He argued last night that, rather than being about race versus gender, “it is about the past versus the future.”
In that sense, he is challenging Democratic primary voters, regardless of race or gender, to make an historic decision of their own. In the weeks ahead, they have to decide for themselves whether fealty to the Clintons (and their hardball brand of politics) is still the operative impulse. Tribal loyalties die hard, however, and while many Democrats are clearly afflicted with Clinton fatigue, there is still a sense, among many others, that the hardball tactics now being directed at Obama would stand the party in good stead when redirected this autumn against the Republicans.
-------
UPDATE: Reliable reports are circulating that liberal lion Ted Kennedy will endorse Obama on Monday. If so, that will be the second stinging rebuke of the Clintons in less than 48 hours.
We shall soon see whether Obama can captalize on his success. I am somewhat skeptical that he can. But his performance last night was indeed impressive. Where to begin:
1. This was the first slaughter of the Democratic primary season, a 2-1 victory margin, unless you count Hillary’s performance in the mid-January Michigan beauty contest, where she was the sole name on the ballot.
2. This was the first time that a Democrat (or a Republican, for that matter) has won more than 50 percent of the vote in any of the multi-candidate contests. And it was powered by black voters who abandoned their loyalties to the Clintons in order to deliver a stinging rebuke. (If Hillary wins the nomination, she had better hope that she can woo them back.)
3. Obama attracted more voters (295,000) than the total number of voters who turned out for the South Carolina Democratic primary four years ago (290,000) – a fresh indicator of his ability to stoke enthusiasm. And with respect to the top finishers in the state GOP contest one week ago, Obama garnered more votes than John McCain and Mike Huckabee combined (279,000).
4. Obama won every region of the state, every education level, and every income level. He finished first among married voters, and first among single voters. He was the top choice in the cities, suburbs, and small towns.
5. Obama was the top choice of independents (23 percent of the voters in this open primary were independents), thereby demonstrating, again, that he traffics effectively in the middle of the road – which is where presidential elections are determined. Hillary was the least popular choice, finishing behind John Edwards.
6. South Carolina’s voters rebuked Bill Clinton; clearly, they were not charmed by his descent from president emeritus to junkyard dog. Nearly six in 10 voters said that Bill’s loose lips were an important factor in their decision; of those voters, 48 percent broke for Obama, 37 percent for Hillary. And with respect to the voters who made up their minds during the final three days (when Bill was in especially high dudgeon), nearly half broke for Obama, and only 19 percent went with Hillary.
7. It’s beyond dispute that Obama owes his decisive victory to African-American voters; they comprised 55 percent of the primary electorate, and Obama won 78 percent of their votes. But Obama, pitted against two white candidates, did draw 24 percent of the white vote, and he dueled Hillary to virtual draw among white males. (Some pre-primary polls had suggested that Obama’s share of the white vote would be as low as 10 percent.)
8. Thanks to Obama's drawing power, the Democrats attracted 530,000 voters in South Carolina; last weekend, the Republicans, with a larger field of candidates, drew only 442,000. The enthusiasm gap, noted in previous states, continues.
No wonder the Clintons were so anxious last night to move on. Bill gave a pep talk (and talked and talked, mostly about himself) that barely mentioned South Carolina. He spoke instead about “a big victory for us in Florida in just a couple of days” (referring to the Tuesday night beauty contest, in which no delegates will be awarded, but where the Clintons hope to spin a symbolic win); and, more importantly, he talked up the big-state contests on Feb. 5 “when millions of Americans finally get into the act” (translation: South Carolina was chump change).
And the Clintons are smart to turn the page with all deliberate speed. Democratic voters in New York and New Jersey and California (among others) might not care a whit about what happened in South Carolina. With this accelerated calendar, a 10-day span seems like a lifetime. An ostensibly meaningless Clinton victory in Florida on Tuesday night would afford the spouses an opportunity to frame a new momentum narrative on the eve of Feb. 5. Reports indicate that 400,000 Florida Democrats (taking advantage of the state’s early-voting option) have already cast ballots, which means that the Sunshine State turnout will likely dwarf the South Carolina turnout, and (assuming a Hillary victory) give the Clintons symbolic bragging rights in a big, diverse state.
Moreover, black voters won’t dominate the turnout in New York, New Jersey, and California – the big states that will get the lion’s share of the publicity on Feb. 5. The Clintons and their surrogates have been trying to label Obama as merely the “black candidate” – Bill did it again yesterday, by comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson - and they’ll probably look for ways to spin the South Carolina results as further proof. (They’ll try to be subtle about it, of course, and then they’ll blame the media for reporting it.)
For instance, in California, more Latinos than blacks are expected to vote in the Feb. 5 primary, and the Latino mayor of Los Angeles is working the streets for Hillary. Fairly or not, Latino voters have been traditionally averse to supporting black political candidates. We’ll hear more about this phenomenon in the days ahead. Obama fared poorly among Latino voters in Nevada last week; Latinos were not a factor in South Carolina. It was no accident that Obama, in his victory speech last night, mentioned how he had stood up for his “Latino brothers and sisters” when he was a community organizer in Chicago.
Nor was it an accident last night that a few dozen white supporters were positioned behind Obama as he spoke. His future hinges on whether he can build on his decisive South Carolina victory and sell himself as the candidate of diversity – and whether he can successfully frame this historic contest on his own terms. He argued last night that, rather than being about race versus gender, “it is about the past versus the future.”
In that sense, he is challenging Democratic primary voters, regardless of race or gender, to make an historic decision of their own. In the weeks ahead, they have to decide for themselves whether fealty to the Clintons (and their hardball brand of politics) is still the operative impulse. Tribal loyalties die hard, however, and while many Democrats are clearly afflicted with Clinton fatigue, there is still a sense, among many others, that the hardball tactics now being directed at Obama would stand the party in good stead when redirected this autumn against the Republicans.
-------
UPDATE: Reliable reports are circulating that liberal lion Ted Kennedy will endorse Obama on Monday. If so, that will be the second stinging rebuke of the Clintons in less than 48 hours.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Mitt's triumph, and other trophies
Compared to the Hillary-Obama schoolyard rumble on Monday night, the Republican debate last night was downright sedate. But potentially consequential, nevertheless.
The GOP survivors stayed on their best behavior, for several reasons. The stakes in next Tuesday's Florida primary are enormous; anybody who finishes third or lower is probably toast in the long run. Also, the Florida polls currently show a close race (Mitt Romney and John McCain on top, with Rudy Giuliani in striking distance) and nobody wanted to lash out and risk a voter/viewer backlash. Indeed, Florida's NBC affiliates aired the debate statewide, to a mass audience of prospective Republican voters, many of whom were scrutinizing the candidates for the first time; the candidates, mindful of this, wanted to make a good first impression.
With those factors in mind, let's hand out the trophies.
Best performance in a 90-minute drama: Mitt Romney. He may look like (in David Letterman's words) "the medical expert in a Victoria Principal infomercial," but last night, at least, he accomplished all his aims as a candidate.
First, he outshined all his rivals by speaking articulately and at length about economic issues, flashing his private sector credentials. In terms of solutions, he pushed all the right Republican buttons (and remember, only registered Republicans are allowed to vote in the Florida primary), and, more importantly, he seemed confident and in command (which matter on TV). Second, he repeatedly stressed his anti-Washington "outsider" message. Third, he trumpeted a hawkish message on Iraq, jumping on that GOP-friendly theme before McCain could weigh in. Fourth, he railed against Hillary Clinton before his rivals had a chance to do so. Fifth, he made sure the Republican viewers knew that McCain had originally voted against the Bush tax cuts. And sixth, his rivals didn't gang up on him this time, for the aforementioned reasons. He was able to relax and relate to the Republican viewers on his own terms. He seems well positioned to win Florida, slowing McCain and scrambling the race even further.
Most labored attempts at self-defense: John McCain. He did OK, overall. But at several points in the debate, when he had his back to the wall, he uttered false statements.
First, during a discussion on the economy, host Tim Russert noted that McCain had recently said he was not particulary well versed on economic issues; McCain tried to deny the whole thing, telling Russert, "I don't know where you got that quote from." Well, here's where Russert got the quote from -- The Boston Globe, on Dec. 18. One day earlier, McCain had told a group of reporters that "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."
Second, during a discussion on whether McCain is sufficiently popular with the Republican base (he's not), McCain insisted that, referring to his earlier primary victories, "I won the majority of the Republican vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina." Actually, he did not. Romney bested him in New Hampshire among Republican voters, 35 to 34 percent. Mike Huckabee bested him in South Carolina among Republican voters, 32 to 31 percent. Indeed, McCain won those two contests only because independents and crossover Democrats were allowed to participate; Florida is a closed primary, so we shall see whether he can break through.
Third, McCain insisted again, as he has in other debates, that he voted against the original Bush tax cuts only because the measures did not include tough curbs on spending. In reality, he had opposed such tax cuts when Bush first proposed them during the 2000 campaign - on the grounds that the cuts were aimed at the rich, at the expense of the middle class. At the time, he sounded like a liberal.
Lamest candidate spin: Rudy Giuliani. Speaking of toast, this guy might prove to be Exhibit A. The longer he has camped out in Florida, the lower he sinks in the polls. There has to be a reason why he keeps turning people off, and perhaps The New York Times nailed it this morning, in its New York primary endorsement of McCain over Rudy. The Times editorial calls Rudy "a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man...(whose) arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking." Rudy last night tried to laugh this off as simply the sour grapes of a newspaper that generally opposed his mayoral policies; in Rudy's words, "I think there's a serious ideological difference." Well, The Times editorial page always had serious ideological differences with Ronald Reagan, but it never felt compelled to judge Reagan's character that way.
Most blatant pandering: Mike Huckabee. What was he doing, running for governor of Florida? His idea for fixing the Florida economy, and for improving the Floridian way of life, is to "add two lanes of highway" on I-95, all the way to Miami, to ensure that Floridians get to "their kids' dance recitals or soccer games" in a more timely fashion. The look of astonishment on Romney's face was priceless; thank you, TiVo. Then Huckabee wrapped it all in a populist/protectionist package, urging that those lanes be built with "American steel." (Don't we get a lot of our steel from China these days? Does Huckabee want to bar Chinese steel?)
Slowest softball lobbed down the middle of the plate: John McCain. I know these guys were going easy on each other, but McCain's question to Huckabee was something to behold. McCain brought up Huckabee's idea about scrapping the federal income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. Most economists think that the Huck's sales levy would actually shift the tax burden to the average working stiffs of America (the same people whom Huckabee claims to represent), but McCain didn't touch that. Instead, doing his best impression of a jock sports announcer interviewing a jock, McCain merely asked Huckabee, "How do you account for the resonance this proposal has gotten throughout the nation?" Which makes me wonder, are these guys plotting to be running mates?
And lastly, Best Pun: Mike Huckabee. He always has such a way with words; last night, while pandering to hawkish Republican voters, he even compared the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the hunt for Easter eggs. But I digress. He insisted last night that, under his tax reform plan, there "would be no more underground economy." He said that even prostitutes would be paying taxes - which means, he said, that they would no longer be "working under the table."
Yessir, that's why we all heart Huckabee.
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Programming note: I'll say something on Sunday morning about the Hillary-Obama results in South Carolina, and the Democratic race beyond.
The GOP survivors stayed on their best behavior, for several reasons. The stakes in next Tuesday's Florida primary are enormous; anybody who finishes third or lower is probably toast in the long run. Also, the Florida polls currently show a close race (Mitt Romney and John McCain on top, with Rudy Giuliani in striking distance) and nobody wanted to lash out and risk a voter/viewer backlash. Indeed, Florida's NBC affiliates aired the debate statewide, to a mass audience of prospective Republican voters, many of whom were scrutinizing the candidates for the first time; the candidates, mindful of this, wanted to make a good first impression.
With those factors in mind, let's hand out the trophies.
Best performance in a 90-minute drama: Mitt Romney. He may look like (in David Letterman's words) "the medical expert in a Victoria Principal infomercial," but last night, at least, he accomplished all his aims as a candidate.
First, he outshined all his rivals by speaking articulately and at length about economic issues, flashing his private sector credentials. In terms of solutions, he pushed all the right Republican buttons (and remember, only registered Republicans are allowed to vote in the Florida primary), and, more importantly, he seemed confident and in command (which matter on TV). Second, he repeatedly stressed his anti-Washington "outsider" message. Third, he trumpeted a hawkish message on Iraq, jumping on that GOP-friendly theme before McCain could weigh in. Fourth, he railed against Hillary Clinton before his rivals had a chance to do so. Fifth, he made sure the Republican viewers knew that McCain had originally voted against the Bush tax cuts. And sixth, his rivals didn't gang up on him this time, for the aforementioned reasons. He was able to relax and relate to the Republican viewers on his own terms. He seems well positioned to win Florida, slowing McCain and scrambling the race even further.
Most labored attempts at self-defense: John McCain. He did OK, overall. But at several points in the debate, when he had his back to the wall, he uttered false statements.
First, during a discussion on the economy, host Tim Russert noted that McCain had recently said he was not particulary well versed on economic issues; McCain tried to deny the whole thing, telling Russert, "I don't know where you got that quote from." Well, here's where Russert got the quote from -- The Boston Globe, on Dec. 18. One day earlier, McCain had told a group of reporters that "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."
Second, during a discussion on whether McCain is sufficiently popular with the Republican base (he's not), McCain insisted that, referring to his earlier primary victories, "I won the majority of the Republican vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina." Actually, he did not. Romney bested him in New Hampshire among Republican voters, 35 to 34 percent. Mike Huckabee bested him in South Carolina among Republican voters, 32 to 31 percent. Indeed, McCain won those two contests only because independents and crossover Democrats were allowed to participate; Florida is a closed primary, so we shall see whether he can break through.
Third, McCain insisted again, as he has in other debates, that he voted against the original Bush tax cuts only because the measures did not include tough curbs on spending. In reality, he had opposed such tax cuts when Bush first proposed them during the 2000 campaign - on the grounds that the cuts were aimed at the rich, at the expense of the middle class. At the time, he sounded like a liberal.
Lamest candidate spin: Rudy Giuliani. Speaking of toast, this guy might prove to be Exhibit A. The longer he has camped out in Florida, the lower he sinks in the polls. There has to be a reason why he keeps turning people off, and perhaps The New York Times nailed it this morning, in its New York primary endorsement of McCain over Rudy. The Times editorial calls Rudy "a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man...(whose) arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking." Rudy last night tried to laugh this off as simply the sour grapes of a newspaper that generally opposed his mayoral policies; in Rudy's words, "I think there's a serious ideological difference." Well, The Times editorial page always had serious ideological differences with Ronald Reagan, but it never felt compelled to judge Reagan's character that way.
Most blatant pandering: Mike Huckabee. What was he doing, running for governor of Florida? His idea for fixing the Florida economy, and for improving the Floridian way of life, is to "add two lanes of highway" on I-95, all the way to Miami, to ensure that Floridians get to "their kids' dance recitals or soccer games" in a more timely fashion. The look of astonishment on Romney's face was priceless; thank you, TiVo. Then Huckabee wrapped it all in a populist/protectionist package, urging that those lanes be built with "American steel." (Don't we get a lot of our steel from China these days? Does Huckabee want to bar Chinese steel?)
Slowest softball lobbed down the middle of the plate: John McCain. I know these guys were going easy on each other, but McCain's question to Huckabee was something to behold. McCain brought up Huckabee's idea about scrapping the federal income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. Most economists think that the Huck's sales levy would actually shift the tax burden to the average working stiffs of America (the same people whom Huckabee claims to represent), but McCain didn't touch that. Instead, doing his best impression of a jock sports announcer interviewing a jock, McCain merely asked Huckabee, "How do you account for the resonance this proposal has gotten throughout the nation?" Which makes me wonder, are these guys plotting to be running mates?
And lastly, Best Pun: Mike Huckabee. He always has such a way with words; last night, while pandering to hawkish Republican voters, he even compared the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the hunt for Easter eggs. But I digress. He insisted last night that, under his tax reform plan, there "would be no more underground economy." He said that even prostitutes would be paying taxes - which means, he said, that they would no longer be "working under the table."
Yessir, that's why we all heart Huckabee.
-------
Programming note: I'll say something on Sunday morning about the Hillary-Obama results in South Carolina, and the Democratic race beyond.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The dark art of Clintonian innuendo
An anti-Obama radio ad, launched yesterday in South Carolina, is vivid proof - as if we needed it - that the Clintons are master practitioners of fact-free innuendo.
Granted, the Clintons are hardly the first to spread falsehoods in the pursuit of power (read any history about the election of 1800), and the lie they are currently broadcasting about Barack Obama is hardly on a par with the lies that were employed to entrap us in Iraq (935 lies, to be precise). But this new radio ad is worth examining, if only because it demonstrates, in microcosm, the Clintons' willingness to say and do whatever it takes to win, even if a fellow Democrat is soiled, and the party mood is soured, in the doing.
The ad features an Obama sound bite, a partial sentence of something that he said to a Reno newspaper back on Jan. 14: "The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years." After his voice fades, a snide narrator says to the listener, "Really? Aren't those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we're in today?....Are those the ideas Barack Obama's talking about?" Then the music swells and the narrator says, "Hillary Clinton thinks this election's about replacing disastrous ideas with new ones." (A link to the radio ad is here.)
The ad's message: Obama, by stating that the GOP had been "the party of ideas," was obviously endorsing those ideas.
Factual reality: Obama did not endorse those ideas.
In political war, context is often the first casualty. Here's the context of what Obama said to the Reno paper (the italics are mine): "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path, because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the '60s and the '70s, you know government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating, and I think people just tapped into – he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism, and, and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.
"I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now, where people feels like things as they are going right now aren’t working, that we’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful. And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."
Obama was simply stating that Reagan was in sync with the mood of his era - can any rational human, of whatever ideological persuasion, really argue with that? - just as Kennedy, on the Democratic side, was in sync with the mood of an earlier era. An acknowledgement is hardly an endorsement.
And there's no disputing the fact, as Obama noted, that the Republicans were the party of ideas during the past several decades. For better or worse, at least they had ideas; as countless Democrats have told me, in interviews dating back to the early '90s, the GOP knew what it stood for and the Democrats did not. Washington D.C. is home to a slew of conservative think tanks, all of which crank out policy papers advancing those ideas. Liberals have no such equivalent. Indeed, lest we forget, Bill Clinton's administration even embraced some of those GOP ideas; witness Bill's signing of the congressional GOP's welfare reform measure, in 1996.
(Meanwhile, here is Hillary, praising Ronald Reagan's political skills in Boom!, the new bestselling book by Tom Brokaw: "When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.")
So all the current Clinton umbrage is wholly manufactured. And Obama wasn't endorsing those GOP ideas, anyway. Take a look again at his concluding remarks, in context: "And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.
The Clintons' new radio ad omits the remarks that I have italicized. Of course, if they had provided the full context of what he said, there would have been no radio ad.
But the radio ad is merely the Clintons' latest attempt to perpetuate the illusion that Obama had endorsed GOP ideas. In a debate three nights ago, Hillary brought up the Reno remarks: "(He) has said in the last week that he really liked the Republicans over the last 10 or 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote. This prompted Obama to point out, "I didn't say they were good ideas." To which Hillary said, "Well, you can read the context of it...It certainly came across in the way that it was presented." (Factual reality: In context, Obama's point "came across" as precisely the opposite of what Hillary asserts.)
But, of course, the Clintons started banging away at this long before the debate, in accordance with the hardball credo that a falsehood works best when endlessly repeated. Hence we have Bill Clinton, on the stump last week in Nevada: "Her principle opponent said that, since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas...I'm not making this stuff up, folks."
He was making it up. But if you're wondering why the Clintons would risk sullying themselves by engaging in such a practice, the answer is simple: They do it because it works. People routinely decry negative attacks, but they remember them anyway. And the candidate who denies an unfair charge is stuck playing defense, and defense is for losers.
This is the grist of politics as usual, and it brings to mind the old story about how Lyndon Johnson clawed his way to a Senate seat back in 1948. While systematically tarring his rival, fellow Democrat Coke Stevenson, the young LBJ said it might be a fine idea to spread the rumor that ole Coke was fond of having carnal relations with farm animals. His aides were shocked. Lyndon, they said, you know that's not true. To which LBJ replied, "I know that. I just want to make him to deny it."
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UPDATE: The Clinton campaign decided on Thursday afternoon to pull the aforementioned radio ad. No reasons were given. Care to guess why?
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And speaking of Brokaw's bestselling Boom!, a sprawling '60s retrospective, I wrote a freelance book review here.
Granted, the Clintons are hardly the first to spread falsehoods in the pursuit of power (read any history about the election of 1800), and the lie they are currently broadcasting about Barack Obama is hardly on a par with the lies that were employed to entrap us in Iraq (935 lies, to be precise). But this new radio ad is worth examining, if only because it demonstrates, in microcosm, the Clintons' willingness to say and do whatever it takes to win, even if a fellow Democrat is soiled, and the party mood is soured, in the doing.
The ad features an Obama sound bite, a partial sentence of something that he said to a Reno newspaper back on Jan. 14: "The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years." After his voice fades, a snide narrator says to the listener, "Really? Aren't those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we're in today?....Are those the ideas Barack Obama's talking about?" Then the music swells and the narrator says, "Hillary Clinton thinks this election's about replacing disastrous ideas with new ones." (A link to the radio ad is here.)
The ad's message: Obama, by stating that the GOP had been "the party of ideas," was obviously endorsing those ideas.
Factual reality: Obama did not endorse those ideas.
In political war, context is often the first casualty. Here's the context of what Obama said to the Reno paper (the italics are mine): "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path, because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the '60s and the '70s, you know government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating, and I think people just tapped into – he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism, and, and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.
"I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now, where people feels like things as they are going right now aren’t working, that we’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful. And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."
Obama was simply stating that Reagan was in sync with the mood of his era - can any rational human, of whatever ideological persuasion, really argue with that? - just as Kennedy, on the Democratic side, was in sync with the mood of an earlier era. An acknowledgement is hardly an endorsement.
And there's no disputing the fact, as Obama noted, that the Republicans were the party of ideas during the past several decades. For better or worse, at least they had ideas; as countless Democrats have told me, in interviews dating back to the early '90s, the GOP knew what it stood for and the Democrats did not. Washington D.C. is home to a slew of conservative think tanks, all of which crank out policy papers advancing those ideas. Liberals have no such equivalent. Indeed, lest we forget, Bill Clinton's administration even embraced some of those GOP ideas; witness Bill's signing of the congressional GOP's welfare reform measure, in 1996.
(Meanwhile, here is Hillary, praising Ronald Reagan's political skills in Boom!, the new bestselling book by Tom Brokaw: "When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.")
So all the current Clinton umbrage is wholly manufactured. And Obama wasn't endorsing those GOP ideas, anyway. Take a look again at his concluding remarks, in context: "And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.
The Clintons' new radio ad omits the remarks that I have italicized. Of course, if they had provided the full context of what he said, there would have been no radio ad.
But the radio ad is merely the Clintons' latest attempt to perpetuate the illusion that Obama had endorsed GOP ideas. In a debate three nights ago, Hillary brought up the Reno remarks: "(He) has said in the last week that he really liked the Republicans over the last 10 or 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote. This prompted Obama to point out, "I didn't say they were good ideas." To which Hillary said, "Well, you can read the context of it...It certainly came across in the way that it was presented." (Factual reality: In context, Obama's point "came across" as precisely the opposite of what Hillary asserts.)
But, of course, the Clintons started banging away at this long before the debate, in accordance with the hardball credo that a falsehood works best when endlessly repeated. Hence we have Bill Clinton, on the stump last week in Nevada: "Her principle opponent said that, since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas...I'm not making this stuff up, folks."
He was making it up. But if you're wondering why the Clintons would risk sullying themselves by engaging in such a practice, the answer is simple: They do it because it works. People routinely decry negative attacks, but they remember them anyway. And the candidate who denies an unfair charge is stuck playing defense, and defense is for losers.
This is the grist of politics as usual, and it brings to mind the old story about how Lyndon Johnson clawed his way to a Senate seat back in 1948. While systematically tarring his rival, fellow Democrat Coke Stevenson, the young LBJ said it might be a fine idea to spread the rumor that ole Coke was fond of having carnal relations with farm animals. His aides were shocked. Lyndon, they said, you know that's not true. To which LBJ replied, "I know that. I just want to make him to deny it."
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UPDATE: The Clinton campaign decided on Thursday afternoon to pull the aforementioned radio ad. No reasons were given. Care to guess why?
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And speaking of Brokaw's bestselling Boom!, a sprawling '60s retrospective, I wrote a freelance book review here.
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