ReidBlog

Losing it

2008-05-09T08:01:00.004-04:00

Is Hillary Clinton losing her bearings, or just her mind?

The junior Senator from New York's racial gaffe with USA Today is reverberating around the media world this morning, and the inimitable Peggy Noonan fires a fine opening salvo:

... The Democratic Party can't celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender.

Here's the first place an outsider could see the tensions that have taken hold: on CNN Tuesday night, in the famous Brazile-Begala smackdown. Paul Begala wore the smile of the 1990s, the one in which there is no connection between the shape of the mouth and what the mouth says. All is mask. Donna Brazile was having none of it.

Mr. Begala more or less accused the Obama people of not caring about white voters: "[If] there's a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn't need or want white working-class people and Latinos, well, count me out." And: "We cannot win with eggheads and African Americans." That, he said, was the old, losing, Dukakis coalition.

"Paul, baby," Ms. Brazile, who is undeclared, began her response, "we need to not divide and polarize the Democratic Party. . . . So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I know . . . how Democrats win, and to simply suggest that Hillary's coalition is better than Obama's, Obama's is better than Hillary's -- no. We have a big party, Paul." And: "Just don't divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary's camp because I'm black, and I can't stand in Obama's camp because I'm female. Because I'm both. . . . Don't start with me, baby." Finally: "It's our party, Paul. Don't say my party. It's our party. Because it's time that we bring the party back together, Paul."

In case you didn't get what was behind that exchange, Mrs. Clinton spent this week making it clear. In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? "Even Richard Nixon didn't say white," an Obama supporter said, "even with the Southern strategy."

If John McCain said, "I got the white vote, baby!" his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.

To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical "the black guy can't win but the white girl can" is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.

"She has unleashed the gates of hell," a longtime party leader told me. "She's saying, 'He's not one of us.'"

She is trying to take Obama down in a new way, but also within a new context. In the past he was just the competitor. She could say, "All's fair." But now he's the competitor who is going to be the nominee of his party. And she is still trying to do him in. And the party is watching. ...

Meanwhile, Peggy's home paper gleefuly ruminates on the impending Clinton-Democratic Party divorce:

Like all divorces after lengthy unions, this one is painful and has had its moments of reconciliation, but after Tuesday a split looks inevitable. The long co-dependency is over.

Truth be told, this was always a marriage more of convenience than love. The party's progressives never did like Bill Clinton's New Democrat ways, but after Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis they needed his epic political gifts to win back the White House. They hated him for their loss of Congress in 1994, but they tolerated Dick Morris and welfare reform to keep the presidency in 1996. ...

Then a bunch of drivel trying to justify the Starr investigations, Monica, blah blah blah... continuing:

Slowly but surely, these Prisoners of Bill and Hill are now walking away, urging Mrs. Clinton to leave the race. Chuck Schumer damns her with faint support by saying any decision is up to her. Columnists from the New York Times, which endorsed her when she looked inevitable, now demand that she exit so as not to help John McCain. With Mr. Obama to ride, they no longer need the Arkansas interlopers.

If the Clintons play to their historic form, they will ignore all this for as long as they can. They will fight on, hoping that something else turns up about Mr. Obama before the convention. Or they'll try to play the Michigan and Florida cards. Or they'll unleash Harold Ickes on the superdelegates and suggest that if Mr. Obama loses in November she'll be back in 2012 and her revenge will be, well, Clintonian.

The difference between now and the 1990s, however, is that this time the Clinton foes aren't the "vast right-wing conspiracy." This time the conspirators are fellow Democrats. It took 10 years, but you might say Democrats have finally voted to impeach.

Not quite, Journalistas. Don't lick your chops THAT much. We Dems who have fallen out of love with the Clintons haven't suddenly seen the light on Whitewater. That, dears, was the dumbest, most useless waste of investigative effort and taxpayer money in history (not counting Iraq.) What we dislike about the Clintons is what we used to like about them, however: their never-say-die tenacity, and willingness to do just about anything to win, even if that means reviving the party's racist past. On that, there has indeed been a turnaround.

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Hillary Clinton: White people love me!

2008-05-08T18:03:00.002-04:00

If George Stephanopoulos is right, and Camp Hillary is looking to force her on Barack Obama as his runningmate, the following comments should be classified "most unhelpful"...

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Clinton's blunt remarks about race came a day after primaries in Indiana and North Carolina dealt symbolic and mathematical blows to her White House ambitions.

So it's the white vote, huh? Want the audio to go with it?

I think it's called "losing ugly..."

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Hillary's endgame

2008-05-08T14:05:00.002-04:00

With the handwriting all over the wall, Hillary Clinton must be in a mental whirlwind today. Publicly, she's still in the race, but to paraphrase Keith Olbermann last night, the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse has happened; the war is over. The skirmishes that follow are just the messy aftermath. So how (and more importantly when) will Hillary bow out?

ABC tapped its inside source, supposed journalist and former Clinton staffer George "All Ayers and Flag Pins" Stephanopoulos, who was quizzed by his Get Barack tag team partner, Charlie "People Used to Have Respect for Me" Gibson...

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: There are various exit strategies right now. Number one would be, go out on a win. So, stay in until West Virginia, where Sen. Clinton is likely the winner, and Kentucky on May 20, and after that, bow out. Two, negotiate for the imposition of Michigan and Florida, to get those delegations seated, declare victory on that, and get out. But the big one, Charlie — and this is what some people close to the Clintons are talking about: Is there a way to negotiate a settlement with Barack Obama to have Sen. Clinton on the ticket?

CHARLES GIBSON: And what do they think?

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: It's hard to know. I mean, first of all, would Sen. Obama go for it? Can he get over the bitterness of this campaign? Can he be convinced that it's the strongest ticket? Third, of course, would Sen. Clinton take it? I think if it was offered in the right way, yes.

Make that, "Hell Yes." But I rather doubt she'll be tapped. First off, Barack Obama is running his entire race on "changing the nature of politics," and nothing says "old politics" like the Clintons, who have run a scorched earth campaign more reminiscent of Nixon in 1960 or something out of Lee Atwater's wet dreams than anything that could be called "the new politics." In fact, Hillary has made a point of saying that there is no new politics, and that Barack must learn to play the old game.

Second, the bitterness between these two, and between their staffs may or may not be insurmountable, but their working styles likely are. A veep candidate Hillary would probably want to serve as Obama's attack dog, along with the former president, but Barack isn't having that, and wouldn't want that kind of thing inside his campaign. Also, there's a major question about whether or not he could trust her. Third, Barack's team seems confident that they can win over most of her supporters, without her. At best, Hillary might be able to get one of her close associates, say, Wes Clark, on Obama's short list.

Still, Stephanopoulos is pushing the story that Camp Hillary is raising the issue with the Obama team.

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Congress watch: the G.I. Bill

2008-05-07T22:36:00.002-04:00

Congress faces a crucial vote on a new G.I. Bill tomorrow. From an IAVA press release today:

On Thursday, May 8, the House of Representatives will vote on a World War II-style GI Bill for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the nation's first and largest nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, strongly endorses this critical legislation. It was originally introduced in Congress by some of the Senate's own combat veterans, including Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE). The bill has the extraordinary bipartisan support of more than 330 Senators and Representatives and the endorsement of every major Veterans Service Organization from IAVA to the American Legion to Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). The GI Bill is being voted on as an amendment to the war supplemental spending plan.

"Congress has a historic choice to make tomorrow. Lawmakers will go on record regarding whether they support our nation's newest generation of veterans," said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The momentum for a 21st Century GI Bill has been incredible. The widespread support among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle proves that caring for our nation's veterans is not a partisan issue. Tomorrow, we urge every member of Congress to vote ‘yes' on GI Bill funding and show unanimous support for our troops."

The GI Bill being voted on tomorrow would substantially increase the educational benefits available to servicemembers who have served since September 11th, 2001. The bill would cover the cost of tuition up to the most expensive in-state public school and provide a living and book stipend, so that new veterans can focus on their educations and their readjustment to civilian life. It would also offer a more equitable benefit to National Guardsmen and Reservists than what is currently available. Furthermore, because the legislation is linked to the cost of higher education, it would keep its value over time.

"In addition to providing veterans with a brighter future, a 21st Century GI Bill would stimulate our nation's economy and serve as a tremendous boon to military recruitment," said Rieckhoff. "Passing a new GI Bill is simply the right thing to do."

The Senate version is the one NOT being supported by U.S. Navy veteran John McCain.

Let's see what the House does.

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Newt's handy-dandy disaster management plan

2008-05-07T16:14:00.004-04:00

Newt Gingrich, not the most moral guy in the world, but certainly one of the smarter tacticians on the right, issued his weekly "Winning the Future" newsletter to conservatives on Tuesday. What he had to say to his side is instructive for the fall. (Cliffs Notes version: OH GOD, WE'RE GOING DOWN'! MAN THE LIFEBOATS! HEEEEEEELP!!!!)

Ahem. First, on Congressional seats:

The Republican loss in the special election for Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District last Saturday should be a sharp wake up call for Republicans: Either Congressional Republicans are going to chart a bold course of real change or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.

The facts are clear and compelling.

Saturday's loss was in a district that President Bush carried by 19 percentage points in 2004 and that the Republicans have held since 1975.

This defeat follows on the loss of Speaker Hastert's seat in Illinois. That seat had been held by a Republican for 76 years with the single exception of the 1974 Watergate election when the Democrats held it for one term. That same seat had been carried by President Bush 55-44% in 2004.

These two special elections validate a national polling pattern that is bad news for Republicans. According to a New York Times/CBS Poll, Americans disapprove of the President's job performance by 63 to 28 (and he has been below 40% job approval since December 2006, the longest such period for any president in the history of polling).

A separate New York Times/CBS Poll shows that a full 81 percent of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track.

The current generic ballot for Congress according to the NY Times/CBS poll is 50 to 32 in favor of the Democrats. That is an 18-point margin, reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.

Next, on why John McCain's current durability in the polls should be no comfort to Republicans for the fall:

Senator McCain is currently running ahead of the Republican congressional ballot by about 16 percentage points. But there are two reasons that this extraordinary personal achievement should not comfort congressional Republicans.

First, McCain's lead is a sign of the gap between the McCain brand of independence and the GOP brand. No regular Republican would be tying or slightly beating the Democratic candidates in this atmosphere. It is a sign of how much McCain is a non-traditional Republican that he is sustaining his personal popularity despite his party's collapse.

Second, there is a grave danger for the McCain campaign that if the generic ballot stays at only 32 % for the GOP it will ultimately outweigh McCain's personal appeal and drag his candidacy into defeat.

And third, on whether the GOP can win with an all-Wright, all the time strategy in November:

The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.

This model has already been tested with disastrous results.

In 2006, there were six incumbent Republican Senators who had plenty of money, the advantage of incumbency, and traditionally successful consultants.

But the voters in all six states had adopted a simple position: "Not you." No matter what the GOP Senators attacked their opponents with, the voters shrugged off the attacks and returned to, "Not you." ...

Gingrich's conclusion:

A February Washington Post poll shows that Republicans have lost the advantage to the Democrats on which party can handle an issue better -- on every single topic.

Americans now believe that Democrats can handle the deficit better (52 to 31), taxes better (48 to 40) and even terrorism better (44 to 37).

This is a catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans built up over three generations on the deficit, two generations on taxes, and two generations on national security.

Newt wants House Republicans to call an emergency "members-only conference" at which they should propose an immediate schedule of votes on "real change" issues -- sort of a 2008 version of his 1994 "Contract with America." Newt's 9-point plan will sound familiar to McCain watchers. It includes:

A summertime repeal of the federal gas tax, paid for by radical cuts in discretionary (read non-Social Security, non-Medicare) spending. In other words, kill all the local projects that inject cash and jobs into the Districts of these House members, and then ask those same members to go home, sans "the bacon" and ask for votes based on a gas tax cut that nets their constituents $30 bucks for the entire summer ... did I say Newt was one of the smarter ones...?
Putting the oil headed for the Stratetic Petroleum Reserve onto the open market, which Netw claims would lower gas prices 5 to 6 cents a gallon. Unfortuately, it would also deplete America's emergency reserves of ... petroleum ... and did I mention gas has gone up about three times Newt's proposed savings in the last month?
Announcing a one-year moratorium on earmarks (See bacon notes on #1...)
This one is weird, unless you understand "conservatives": Neutering the Census Bureau and turning their function over to "Internet savvy" private companies. So-called conservatives have never believed in demography, because it allows Democrats to figure out who's being discriminated against on the basis of race. The Census also turns up inconvenient numbers, like estimates of the growing number of Hispanics, which could hurt efforts to sell a borderless North American free trade blob to white, rural Americans.
Implement a "space-based, GPS-style air traffic control system." Call it Reagan's Star Wars fantasy meets private enterprise. Here, Newt appears to want to take advantage of the Reagan-era plan to weaponize space by twisting that program to what probably was its ultimate goal anyway: making some big, Republican-leaning corporation even richer than they are today. Meanwhile, the safety of air travel will be subordinated to the profit motive, and oversight? Who needs it!
Declare that English is the "official language of government." Throwing a biscuit to the Lou Dobbs crowd, which has soured on the GOP. Maybe if they do this, they'll forget about that border fence... Meanwhile, the already blanched GOP loses whatever brown voters they might have had out West. So much for putting California in play.
"Protect the workers right to a secret ballot." This one's about pure union-busting, another GOP technique to wrestle away Democratic voters without actually offering attractive policies.
and finally, "remind Americans that judges matter." Sounds vague, but Newt wants the House to begin trying to ram through Bush's right wing judges, and mount a national scare campaign to convince unhappy right wingers that the "activists on the bench" are coming to their trailers to give their daughters abortions and take their guns, which is clearly a much more pressing matter than that job they can't find, those outrageous gas prices or the foreclosure notice in the mailbox.

That's Newt's plan. So now you know what to expect John McCain to be squawking about for the next few weeks, my friends ... and I'm sure he and Lieberman will endorse whatever the House guys come up with.

What's interesting about Newt's prescriptions is how absolutely devoid they are of the Bush formula that worked, if barely, in 2000 (compassionate conservatism, phony appeals to religious voters on gay rights, abortion and the like...) or the 2004 Bush model of scaring the bejeezus out of everyone with constant threats from "terr'rists." Instead, Newt's plan is to push corporate gimmies and the much-belittled gas tax holiday, along with schemes to twist the demographic calculus and gin up fears of "Spanish spoken here" signs popping up at City Hall. It's an interesting strategy. Let's see if the House puppies bite.

Death toll in Burma could reach 100,000

2008-05-07T15:02:00.001-04:00

Chilling new numbers following that killer cyclone.

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Israel's invisible Arabs

2008-05-07T14:59:00.000-04:00

The International Herald Tribune does a story you wouldn't see in the U.S.; a wrenching piece on the plight of Israeli Arabs, dispossessed of their land and villages, prohibited from settling on captured lands that remain undeveloped, waiting for Jewish owners who might emigrate to the country someday, and yet remaining in Israel because they have no place else to go, and no confidence in what might someday emerge as the new Palestinian state next door. Here's a clip:

... One recent warm afternoon, Jamal Abdulhadi Mahameed drove past kibbutz fields of wheat and watermelon, up a dirt road surrounded by pine trees and cactus, and climbed the worn remains of a set of stairs, declaring in the open air: "This was my house. This is where I was born."

He said what he most wanted now, at age 69, was to leave the crowded town next door, come back to this piece of uncultivated land with the pomegranate bushes planted by his father and work it, as generations have before him. He has gone to court to get it.

Mahameed is no revolutionary and, by nearly any measure, a solid and successful citizen. His children include a doctor, two lawyers and an engineer. Yet, as an Arab, his quest for a return to his land challenges longstanding Israeli policy.

"We are prohibited from using our own land," Mahameed said as he stood in the former village of Lajoun, now a mix of overgrown scrub and pine trees surrounded by the fields of Kibbutz Megiddo. "They want to keep it available for Jews. My daughter makes no distinction between Jewish and Arab patients. Why should the state treat me differently?"

The answer has to do with the very essence of Zionism - the movement of Jewish rebirth and control over the land where Jewish statehood first flourished 2,000 years ago.

"Land is presence," remarked Clinton Bailey, an Israeli scholar who has focused on Bedouin culture. "If you want to be present here you have to have land. The country is not that big. What you cede to Arabs can no longer be used for Jews who may still want to come. Israel is here as a haven for them." ...

Discrimination against Arab citizens, both inside Israel and in the occupied territories, which Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have variously described as Israeli Apartheid, is one of Israel's dirty little secrets, one that's much better known in Europe than the U.S. In many ways, Palestinians inside Israel are that country's African-Americans, pre-1970...

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Feinstein to Hil: show me your plan

2008-05-07T14:45:00.005-04:00

The creeping signs of a superdelegate crack-up for Hillary Clinton are in the air. One of her most prominent supporters, Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, is asking the Clinton campaign to explain just how they think they can still win the nomination...

“I, as you know, have great fondness and great respect for Sen. Clinton and I’m very loyal to her,” Feinstein said. “Having said that, I’d like to talk with her and [get] her view on the rest of the race and what the strategy is.”

Clinton, who eked out a win in Indiana Tuesday night but lost big to front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in North Carolina, has not responded to Feinstein’s phone call, the California senator said.

“I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party,” Feinstein said. “I think we need to prevent that as much as we can.”

Tuesday night’s results are widely viewed as a blow to Clinton’s hopes after she failed to deliver a “game-changing” performance. Instead, Obama extended his leads among delegates and popular votes.

Feinstein stressed that Clinton is not an “also-run candidate,” but added that there is a question “as to whether she can get the delegates that she needs. I’d like to see what the strategy is and then we can talk further.”

The article quotes several other Senators and makes it clear that the abundance of caution continues among the supers, but slowly but surely, they seem to be trying to get Mrs. Clinton to glimpse the writing on the wall.

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What are the superdelegates waiting for?

2008-05-07T11:25:00.003-04:00

The undeclared Democratic superdelegates are either overly cautious, or really terrified of the Clintons. What additional information do they need after last night (really, since February,) to make a decision on who to support? Do they really intend to wait until the last contest in Puerto Rico, which mathematically cannot change the result? Makes you wonder, if the situation were reversed, and Hillary Clinton held an unsurmountable delegate and popular vote lead, if the supers would remain on the sidelines for so long. Team Obama is working on pushing them toward the inevitable conclusion. His memo to the supers today reads in part:

At some point – we would argue that time is now – this ceases to be a theoretical exercise about how superdelegates view electability. The reality of the preferences in the last several weeks offer a clear guide of how strongly superdelegates feel Senator Obama will perform in November, both in building a winning campaign for the presidency as well as providing the best electoral climate across the country for all Democratic candidates.

It is important to note that Senator Obama leads Senator Clinton in superdelegate endorsements among Governors, United States Senators and members of the House of Representatives. These elected officials all have a keen sense for who our strongest nominee will be in November.

It is only among D.N.C. members where Senator Clinton holds a lead, which has been rapidly dwindling.

In other words, get on with it, people.

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The Democratic math: November

2008-05-07T11:23:00.003-04:00

My latest South Florida Times column (with the caveat that it was written before yesterday's primary.)

And here's the column from my face-off opponent, Barbara Howard.

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Hillary's Never Never land 2: The Six Million Dollar Woman

2008-05-07T11:02:00.003-04:00

The New York Post's Charles Hurt says it all: Hillary Clinton is toast.

Her old friend Dick Morris is trying to talk her down off the ledge...

But Hillary Clinton is pressing on. Her team held a conference call with reporters this morning in which they continued to pound away at the theme that Barack Obama is not electable ... except against her... Hil barely edged out Barack in Indiana, a state she should have won by 10 points. And despite the fact that she loaned her campaign another $6 million last month, just to stay in the game, Hil apparently will continue to press donors and super delegates for support. She's even added West Virginia stops to her schedule, not that it matters anymore.

I think Team Clinton will continue to give the appearance of running a vigorous campaign, but she will soon run out of cash, and the media will run out of interest. Perhaps she's playing for a spot on the ticket, and if that's the case, she should think twice about attacking the presumptive nominee.

I say let Hillary continue to run, so long as she's not hurting her party's candidate. Her run keeps her supporters from hurting themselves or others, and it allows the Dems to stretch out their campaign operations to the full 50 states (well, 48.)

But make no mistake, Mrs. Clinton, this race is over.

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Live by the sword...

2008-05-07T00:28:00.004-04:00

One more thing...

If Hillary Clinton winds up losing Indiana tonight (or this morning) -- which could very well happen with much of Gary, Indiana still to come in and a margin of around 20,000 -- the irony for her and her husband will be that the deciding margin will be black voters in that city, and in Lake County. Bill Clinton made his national reputation by making black voters fall in love with him. As his wife's chief surrogate during this campaign, he led her in a renunciation of the black vote that was so thorough, so definitive, and so grotesque, it was stunning, not least of which to black America. Now, as their campaign draws to a close, it appears that it will be the black vote that ultimately did Hillary in. Payback really is a bitch.

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It's over

2008-05-06T23:20:00.004-04:00

200,000 votes still out in Indiana, and Chuck Todd says it's mostly in Lake County, which is heavily African-American and heavily pro-Obama. Barack needs more than 60 percent of the vote to take the state from Hillary ...

That said...

West Virginia, Oregon and the like don't matter. Actually, neither does Indiana, to be blunt about it. Hillary Clinton's campaign is done. It's all over but the dragging out of the room and the kicking and the screaming...

Tomorrow, Hillary will be making some tough decisions. She's deep in debt, she's out of gas on pledged delegates, and even if the party did count Michigan and Florida, she can't win. Lisa Caputo, Hillary's spokeswoman on MSNBC tonight sounded like a neutral analyst, not a Clintonite. This thing is done (face it, Rachel Maddow.) It would be political suicide for Hillary to keep attacking Barack. She'll try to win concessions on the outstanding states, and piddle her way to the convention. What other choice does she have?

Going forward, Barack can essentially tune Hillary out, though he made it clear tonight that he will immediately begin a raprochment with her supporters. He can and should focus on John McCain.

The question of a joint ticket has been raised again, but in all honesty, Hillary may not be the asset to Obama that she seems to be today. There are as many reasons to reject her as there are to take her on board. Barack might do just as well to pick a white guy from the West (and seal Colorado and Nevada, forgetting Florida this time.)

Another question will be what to do with Bill Clinton at the convention. As a former president, and the only two-term Democratic president in modern memory, he has to be given a slot. But now that he has traded in his immense popularity with Black voters for extreme Bubbary, and a singular appeal to white voters who, how to say, aren't keen on electing a black guy, what does he say? Can he and Hillary turn in a performance that undoes the damage they have done during the campaign? And don't you have to put them both on in prime time?

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Hillary's Never Never land

2008-05-06T22:50:00.006-04:00

Did Hillary Clinton and I watch the same returns tonight? Probably not, given that her camp has probably banned MSNBC (except for HRC-friendly "Scarborough Country,") in favor of her newfound friends at Fox News. Fox (and CBS) have definitively called Indiana for Hillary, though her lead is down to less than 40,000 votes with 200,000 or so outstanding. NBC/MSNBC remains the loan holdout, but if their instincts turn out to be right, Hillary might regret opening her surreal speech tonight with "we broke the tie," and "now it's full steam ahead, on to the White House!"

Not the speech I was expecting. Not that I thought she'd concede. Never that. But tonight was perhaps Hillary's last best chance to leave Democratic voters not already in her camp with a positive impression of her. She should have reached for inspiration, not politics. She should have gone for grace notes, not excuse-making ("we were out-spent five to one") and snidery (referring to Barack as "my opponent" instead of using his name.) Even her supporters' borrowed chant of "yes she will" sounds stilted (as does the chant "Hillary! Hillary!" next to the higher plane rhetoric of Obama's "yes WE can!" I don't think the speeches even come close to comparing. And while I'm biased, I used to be a Clintonista, and I know a good -- and a bad -- speech when I hear one.

Hil, this was a sucky speech.

Update: the pundits on MSNBC are focusing on the second half of HRC's speech, which they're describing as conciliatory. I suppose so, but I think the first part was such a misfire, it probably negated it. Her followers remain as angry as ever. I'm struck by just how angry they are, judging by their comments on posts like this one...

I think one big loser tonight is Evan Bayh, who may yet deliver Indiana, but Russert is hearing that it could be by 1,800 votes.

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No joy in Hillaryville

2008-05-06T21:47:00.005-04:00

One of the reasons I love politics is that it is one of the few things in this modern life that has the genuine possibility to surprise. Tonight, that happened. Barack Obama appears to be headed for a blowout (15 points or so) in North Carolina; not unexpected given the fact that he has led by as many as 20 points in recent weeks. But Hillary Clinton's forecast parallel victory (10 points or so) in Indiana not only has not materialized, that race is now too close to call. It's down to 39,000 votes, with some 300,000 votes or more still outstanding, many of them in Obama territory in the northern part of the state, according to Chuck Todd at MSNBC.

Barack's victory speech tonight was a back to his core strength barn burner. (Note to my friend, Newton: you called it. Barack has gone back on message.) It was as inspiring a speech as I can imagine, hitting all the themes he needed: magnanimity for Hillary and her supporters, unity within the party and the country, a campaign, not about him, ("an imperfect messenger,") but about "you." He took a needed swipe at the media and the politics of distraction, and he said he "trusts the American people" to rise above it all, focusing instead on bettering the "country he loves." This was Barack's most substantive speech, even if it lacked detail, because it improved upon his previous loftiness by making him a man who cares about real people, in Indiana, in Iowa, in Pennsylvania, and in North Carolina. Even the gas tax issue, one on which I was critical of Barack's campaign for not hitting Hillary harder, Barack (and the much maligned "economists,")appear http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifto have won the day. Even in Indiana.

Hillary Clinton may wake up tomorrow having lost Indiana. Even if she squeaks through, she will have one hell of a time explaining what she's still doing in the race, other than mounting a vain attempt to take down the certain Democratic nominee.

This primary is effectively over, folks. (Sorry, Rush. I guess your listeners aren't as dumb as them seem...) Welcome to the general election.

What a night.

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Barack wins NC, Indiana still counting

2008-05-06T19:31:00.004-04:00

No surprises in North Cahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrolina, which MSNBC (and the other nets) have just called for Barack. At this point, Barack is guaranteed at least a split, and because NC has more delegates on offer, the results in Indy just became less important. That said, exit polls suggest that HRC is pulling 60 percent of white women, 72 percent of voters 65 and older, and just 8 percent of the black vote. Barack is winning every age group under 65, according to Russert and Company. The nets have been reporting all day that turnout in both states is shattering records.

On the "old politics" front, Barack was reduced to downing Pabst at a NC bar today. Can the beat-up jeanhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs jacket be far behind? Maybe he should start smoking again! And basketball ... lots and lots of basketball...

Still watching Indiana.

Update: Exit polls suggest Obama will get at least 36% of the white vote. Take that, Pat Buchanan. Essentially, the race is down to age and to a slightly lesser extent: gender. Barack, however, is getting more women, percentage-wise, than white voters. Bottom line: old-line Democrats who haven't caught up with the multiculturalism thing: Clinton. Modern Americans who don't commonly use the word "coloreds": Obama.

Game over.

View the NC exit polls here, and the Indiana exits here.

In NC, it appears Barack has won a majority of men, women, churchgoers, voters with and without college degrees, high school graduates, all income levels except $50-75K, and voters who cared most about the economy. He carried conservatives, got 35% of the white vote and 56% of voters who said the candidate "caring about people" was most important (take that, Chris Matthews.) Hillary won gun owners, Republicans, white Democrats and Independents, by one point (46%-45%) because she carried white Independents. (BTW Rush, GOPers represented just 5% of the turnout in NC, and don't fool yourself into thinking most of them were your "Operation Chaos" lemmings.) Worse, 50 percent in NC said she is not trustworthy. Only 40 percent said she is, while 72% called Obama trustworthy.

In Indiana, Hillary barely edged Barack among men and even women (he got 47% according to exit polls.) The candidates split church attendees, though Hillary carried both Catholics and Protestants by about two-thirds margins. The Rev. Wright issue was very important to just 28% of Indiana voters, it turns out (sorry, MSNBC) and Hillary got 73% of those voters. Hillary's downscale voters returned to the fold in Indiana, but not overwhelmingly. She scored in the high 50s with these folks. Obama got the college educated crowd, which is significant for him, because turnout on the numerous campuses in Indiana is said to have been heavy.

We're waiting for the call, which I would expect to be for Hillary, thought not by double digits.

Most important of all, I think, just 15% and 17% of voters in the two primaries said they would prefer John McCain in the fall if their candidate didn't win.
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The radio ad Barack Obama is not running

2008-05-06T19:21:00.003-04:00

It's time once again, to play "If I had a 527." This time, the subject is the phony gas tax holiday, for which Hillary Clinton has climbed aboard the "straight talk express" for a ride to fantasyland. She's even throwing the idea of consulting experts -- I think they're called economists -- under the bus in the service of her ambition. So what should Team Obama do? Maybe run a radio ad like this...

As I said in the Youtube notes, the old politics sucks, but sometimes, you've got to do what you've got to do. Barack should be tying Hillary Clinton to John McCain in every speech and every ad, in order to consolidate core Democrats. He should hit her squarely in the jaw on the gas tax, on the basis of it costing jobs, and he should belittle it -- directly, and without the high-minded rhetoric, the better to reach downscale voters.

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How John Edwards blew his chance at destiny

2008-05-06T07:52:00.003-04:00

Back in January, when he dropped out of the presidential race after failing to win or place in any of the first four contests, John Edwards had a great deal of political capital to spend. He could have thrown his weight behind either of the two front-runners at any time; before "Tsunami Tuesday," before "secondarily Super Tuesday," February 19th, before the big Texas, Ohio or Pennsylvania primaries ... any of those times would have given Edwards major ink. But then, of course, the ink would have run dry, his time in the spotlight would have faded, and he'd be "John Edwards Who?" before you know it.

By holding out until later in the game, Edwards preserved his mystique, and his viability as a possible running mate for the eventual winner.

Not anymore. John Edwards' chance to be a player in the presidential race of 2008 is draining out little by little, as North Carolina voters go to the polls today. You can almost hear the sound of destiny riding off into the sunset.

See, had Edwards, who was born in South Carolina but represented North Carolina in the Senate for one term, come out and endorsed either Barack or Hillary before this week, he would have provided valuable atmospherics to Hillary as a winner, or Barack as a guy white guys with a drawl can hang with, which would have been helpful in Indiana, too. Edwards still has a national constituency, particularly among left wing Democrats, and had he endorsed, he might at least have made Barack's vice presidential short list, or the short list for "poverty czar" in a HRC administration. Not that he would have ultimately made the cut, but making the list would have stretched his 15 minutes a few minutes more.

Instead, Edwards is just an observer of the NC and Indiana primaries, like everybody else.

Perhaps he's holding out to try to be a player at the convention. But with just 19 delegates (which, who knows, could be decisive at this point I guess) and the fact that he failed to carry either of his home states in 2004 as John Kerry's running mate, and the fact that in reality, his political power in North Carolina is about bupkis, about the only real card Edwards and his wife Elizabeth had to play was the endorsement card. Even if they had split their endorsement -- John for Barack, Elizabeth for Hillary -- they would have preserved their news value going into the June cycle. And even with his liabilities (short time in the Senate, rich lawyer with puffy hair persona,) Edwards was a decent choice, at least for the short list, particularly since he has had the experience running as wing man in a national campaign (I used to call Barack-Edwards "the Miami Vice ticket," only with Crockett and Tubbs reversed.)

But now, all that's left are Edwards' faults, and his failure to play his strongest hand when it really counted. And sorry, guys, the People Magazine thing ain't gonna keep you interesting.

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The ad Barack Obama is not running in Indiana

2008-05-05T20:37:00.005-04:00

I admire Barack Obama's desire to run a "different kind of campaign." Unfortunately, he and Hillary Clinton are playing by two sets of rules. (By the way, it's official: Bill Clinton has traded in his magic with Black voters for a new magic, with white, rural voters. He's THEIR Big Bill, now...)

Back to HRC and Barack. With her latest hypocrisies on trade, decrying the loss of jobs at an Indiana company called Magnaquench that her husband's trade policies helped to turn into yet another outsourcing wonder, you'd think the Obama campaign would fire off an ad or two. Well if they have, I haven't heard about it. And so far, there are no pro-Obama 527s in the water. Well what if there was? Or what if Hillary Clinton became the nominee, and the inevitable Republican 527s had a go at her on the trade issue. The result might be something like this:

The big day in Indiana and NC is tomorrow, and as usual, the polls tell us nothing.

What I'll be reading tomorrow: The Indianapolis Star.

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Operation anti-chaos

2008-05-05T16:19:00.003-04:00

Having worked in media since 1998, I have to tell you I haven't seen a concerted effort at a media takedown like the one heaped on Barack Obama by the Washington press corps and cable news talking heads since the Clinton impeachment fiasco. (Howard Kurtz tries to explain why the press corps turned on Obama in his WaPo column. The Cliffs Notes version: "Saturday Night Live." Pretty pathetic.) But over the weekend, a kindly blogger at the Huffpo and a writer at the New York Times had the decency to show us the numbers. Blogs Al Giiordano:

I turn on the TV, read the political columnists (and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too) and all I hear is a bunch of white folk prattling on about their favorite narrative: "Obama's losing white voters!"

They've swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven't an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): "But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that's Hillary Clinton!" That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot. One of the major successes of Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos is that it has got all the right-wing pundits and reporters marching lockstep behind the effort to give Clinton enough oxygen to keep slashing away at Senator Obama, who remains the prohibitive likely Democratic nominee.

And when Clinton wins state primaries that, because of demographics, she was always going to win - last week, Pennsylvania and next week, Indiana - they then wave that event up like a blood-soaked flag as proof of their narrative: See? See? We told you so! White people won't vote for Obama!

But do the numbers bear that out? Apparently not. From a New York Times op-ed by Charles Blow:

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.

On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).

While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways.

And he's got charts. Natch.

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D.C. Madam's 'suicide notes' released

2008-05-05T15:52:00.002-04:00

... and awfully quickly too. My question: do people really talk like this?

"I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come to regard as this 'modern day lynching,'" Palfrey wrote. Local Florida police released the notes to the media Monday morning. Palfrey said she did not want to face leaving prison as a "penniless and very much alone woman."

"6-8 years?" Sounds awfully legalistic to me, but then, I'm feeling conspiratorial today. That's supposedly in the note Palfrey left to her mom, in which she also asks to use the "little surprise in the BOA (Bank of America?) account" for "final arrangements and various account settlements." there was a second note, addressed to Palfrey's younger sister, Bobbie, in which she references a lack of any other "exit strategy." Again, I'd want to know if this is the way Palfrey normally spoke. And sorry but if I'm the family, I'm having that handwriting analyzed.

One question that continues to plague me in this case: if her sentencing wasn't scheduled until July, why take herself out in May?

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How useless is George W. Bush...

2008-05-05T15:18:00.002-04:00

When his unpopularity runs so deep, he has to send his wife out to do the press conference on the U.S. humanitarian response to the 10,000 or more storm deaths in Myanmar. And by the way, it was bugging me to no end to hear Laura adopting her husband's preference of repeatedly calling the country Burma, rather than Myanmar, until I looked up the context and noted that her usage is apparently a political swipe at the country's ruling junta. Laura, being the brighter spouse, most likely knows what she's doing and why. (I suppose sticking "Burma" in the junta's faces is the Bushian substitute for actually confronting that government, or the Chinese over Tibet, for that matter...)

All of that said, Laura did about 1,000 percent better at the presser than her rather pitiful husband ever has in front of the press.

CNN just pointed out the important fact that in order to get aid to Burma/Myanmar, the Bush administration will have to get around its own sanctions against that country, which the libertarian CATO Institute lambasted this way:

The U.S. policy of imposing unilateral trade and investment sanctions against Burma has proven to be a failure on all fronts. By forcing U.S. firms to disengage from Burma, that policy has harmed American economic interests and done nothing to improve the living conditions or human rights of the people of Burma.

Sanctions have denied Burmese citizens the benefits of increased investment by American multinational companies--investment that brings technoloygy, better working conditions, and Western ideas.

State and local sanctions against Burma have compounded the problem caused by federal sanctions and raised troubling constitutional questions.

Unilateral sanctions have alienated our allies in the region and strengthened the hand of China but achieved none of the stated foreign policy aims. If Washington had allowed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to take the lead in setting policy toward Burma, the United States could have enjoyed a "win-win" situation--better relations with our allies and more influence over the regime in Rangoon.

As an alternative to the failed policy of sanctions, the United States should allow U.S. companies to freely trade with and investment in Burma. A pro-business approach to engagement would more effectively promote political, civil, and economic freedom around the world. Congress should enact legislation requiring a full accounting of the cost of sanctions and explicit justification on national security grounds before they can be imposed.

Ah yes, let the corporations in. That'll fix it for the Burmese little guy...

Lord, is there a conservative out there with a a conscience?

Barack rebounds in CBS/NYT poll

2008-05-05T10:56:00.002-04:00

He holds a solid lead over John McCain, and beats HRC in the new CBS/NYT poll. Meanwhile, the Times tries to make a story of the 25 percent of voters who say their opinions are impacted by the ubiquitous Rev. Wright. Note to Times: 100 minus 25 is Seventy Five...|

Courting the latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, European gun owning set

2008-05-05T10:37:00.003-04:00

The latest dispatch from Hillary Clinton: Woman of the People! Apparently, Hillary's newfound support for gun owners' rights is of a certain, snobby, snooty, I don't pump my own gas, dahling, variety, as Ben Smith of the Politico reports:

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s mailing attacking Sen. Barack Obama’s record on guns appears to include a striking visual gaffe: The image of the gun pictured on the face of the mailing is reversed, making it a nonexistent left-handed model of the Mauser 66 rifle.

To make matters worse, a prominent gun dealer said, it’s an expensive German gun with customized features that make it clearly European.

“The gun in the photo does not exist,” said Val Forgett III, president of Navy Arms in Martinsburg, W.Va. Forgett's company was Mauser’s agent in the United States when the gun was released, and it sold Mauser guns here again in the 1990s. “The bolt is facing to the left side of the receiver, making it a left-handed bolt action rifle, indicating whoever constructed and approved the mailer did not recognize the image has been reversed.”

Forgett said the error would be obvious to sportsmen.

“I find it laughable on its face,” he said. “It’s like a picture of Babe Ruth hitting right-handed.”

... The Mauser 66, released in 1966 and no longer manufactured, is a high-end hunting rifle that found military use as a sniper rifle. In Clinton’s mailing, it’s pictured with a double-set trigger, a customization that’s popular in Europe but “almost unheard of in the United States,” Forgett said.

“It’s a $2,200 German import — it’s hardly typical of what the average workingman in Indiana uses,” he said.

That, and the image looks like Camp Clinton is vicariously shooting Barack Obama in the head...

Obama wins by 7 points in Guam

2008-05-04T10:35:00.003-04:00

About 4,500 people voted, and seven more chose Barack. I think that means that in Hillary math, Guam doesn't count. And for those scratching there heads and asking, where the hell is Guam (comments section of the Jeff-Jax story)? I refer you to the Guam visitor's bureau, and this handy-dandy map.

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