George Washington University political scientist John Sides believes the mainstream media hand wringing about whether Obama will unify the Democrats is without merit.
Sides argues the exit polls are unreliable predictors of Democrats’ ultimate behavior in November. And, he offers some research to support his contention. First, analyzing the American National Election Study data from the University of Michigan, which has conducted polls since 1952, he shows increasing Democratic unity over the past decade in presidential voting behavior. "The party loyalty of Democrats has been increasing over time and has essentially hovered at 90% since 1992," Sides writes (And Republicans are similarly loyal to the Republican nominee.) So if history is any guide, 90% of Democrats should come around and support Obama by November--irrespective of their attitudes today.
Second, Sides also presents data from the Annenberg National Election Study that tracked the percent of Democrats saying they would vote for Al Gore between December 1999 and November 2000. It supports Sides’ contention that as the campaign progresses, voters’ preconceived notions get reinforced, and both parties "come home" to their respective nominee. Gore’s numbers among Democrats improved from 78% to 87% during the course of the campaign.
I agree with Sides and expect that when Senator Clinton drops out, Obama will get a bump in the polls. The wild card in the equation, however, is John McCain’s traditionally better-than-expected performance among Democrats. That’s the big mitigating factor. Democrats will no doubt rally around Obama in the months ahead, but I wonder if McCain’s cross-party appeal (compared to other more recent GOP presidential nominees) will attenuate the Illinois Senator’s party unity numbers somewhat below historical levels.
Democratic Primary Update - Game Still Over
Rasmussen's Daily Tracking Poll shows Barack Obama opening up an eight point lead over the Lioness of Tuzla. Six days ago, Hillary led by three. For those of you who flunked remedial math or happen to be Philadelphia Eagle fans, that's an 11 point swing in less than a week.
The cause? One of the candidates is looking like a winner, and the other is looking like a loser. And Democrats will always back the proverbial strong horse.
Paranthetically, Rasmussen has also signaled an end to the proceedings, writing, "At the moment, Senator Clinton's team is busily trying to convince Superdelegates and pundits that she is more electable than Barack Obama. For reasons discussed in a separate article, it doesn't matter. Even if every single Superdelegate was convinced that the former First Lady is somewhat more electable than Obama, that is not enough of a reason to deny him the nomination.
"With this in mind, Rasmussen Reports will soon end our daily tracking of the Democratic race and focus exclusively on the general election competition between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama."
The Grey Lady Whines
In an editorial today, the New York Times bashes the Republican candidate who received her endorsement some four months ago:
So far, Senator John McCain is shaping up as Bush the Sequel — neverending war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles, courts packed with right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas.
The issue of the lapel flag pin is a good illustration. Obama's explanation for its absence -- that it had become a "substitute" for "true patriotism" in the aftermath of 9/11 -- is perfectly rational. For a professor at the University of Chicago. Members of the knowledge class generally find his stand against sartorial symbolism to be subtle, even courageous. Most Americans, I'm willing to bet, will find it incomprehensible after 20 additional explanations, which are bound to be required. A president is expected to be a patriotic symbol himself, not the arbiter of patriotic symbols. He is supposed to be the face-painted superfan at every home game; to wear red, white and blue boxers on special marital occasions; to get misty-eyed during the most obscure patriotic hymns.
A Bill Clinton Moment of Zen
To help you better enjoy the Fall of the House of the Clinton, I present to you the above footage of Bill Clinton angrily quarreling with a voter at a sparsely attended West Virginia forum yesterday. Behold the righteous anger! Enjoy!
By the way, for those of you wondering why the Clintons fight so determinedly for the nomination and at such a detriment to their party, I have to ask - Did you miss the 1990's? These are the people who invented triangulation. They thought nothing of distorting and destroying their political foes. Ask Ken Starr. Or the guys who had the misfortune of working in the White House Travel Office when Hillary Clinton wanted to install her own people.
As you've probably detected from some of my earlier writings, I'm not exactly swooning over Obama. But hear me now - I refuse to allow my concerns over a potential Obama Administration to diminish the undiluted pleasure I'm fully entitled to while I watch the House of Clinton finally crumble!
Obama and Hamas, Continued
Deftly pivoting on a dime, the Obama campaign has emphatically declared the irrelevancy of the Hamas endorsement. But it was not ever thus. Let's enter the way-back machine and journey all the way back to April when Hamas let its preference be known:
When asked about the endorsement, Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, was flattered that Hamas compared his candidate to JFK: “We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it's flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps.”
And yet suddenly it's dirty pool to mention this endorsement, one that initially flattered the Obama campaign? Actually, Axelrod's initial reaction highlights something I pointed out a couple of weeks ago – Obama loves to be loved, and that leads him to some strange places. We truly have entered some odd ground when a presidential campaign welcomes kind words from an Iranian terror proxy.
The affair hints at the biggest concern many serious voters will have about an Obama campaign. Too often when it comes to foreign affairs, Obama’s instincts head in precisely the wrong direction. In his stirring speech on Tuesday, Obama chided the Bush administration, saying, "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did."
Forget the fact that the implied FDR-Hitler summit never actually happened nor was it ever contemplated. Instead focus on FDR's truly vigorous pre-war diplomacy with Imperial Japan. This Obama proclaimed "wisdom" got us Pearl Harbor.
Talking to Iran in itself would not be bad. But assuming that we have a good faith partner in such a dialogue would be not only obtuse, but dangerous. So then the next question becomes, Would Obama make such an assumption and govern as a latter-day Jimmy Carter? Carter has never met a dictator or potentate that he didn't think he could move by his unique combination of sanctimony and self-regard. The potentates and dictators have also uniformly charmed the former president. Perhaps Obama would be cut from the same cloth.
Of course, Obama could assuage such concerns by making an announcement that an Obama administration, like a McCain administration, would be Hamas’ worst nightmare. Such a statement would also be a quaint tip of the hat to a bygone era when politics ended at the water's edge. But such vulgar saber-rattling would sound uncomfortably Bush-like. Besides, if Obama made such a statement, there would be people somewhere who wouldn't love him. Would he be willing to pay such a high price?
More importantly, is Obama capable of making such a hard-headed determination that America actually has enemies in this world who are intractable? If the answer to that is yes, we have seen no signs of it in the campaign to date. Obama seems very comfortable with the left wing notion that America's international disputes began with George W. Bush and thus will end with Bush's departure from office.
Very important exit question: Do you think our enemies are trembling at the prospect of dealing with the blood-and-iron troika of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama?
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Witch Way to the Loony Bin?
Somebody sent me this in an email and I didn't think it could be true. Then I followed the link to the Code Pink website and I was still dubious because the page looks like a mock-up, and it's so nutty...I still didn't think it could be true. But now Fox confirms, Code Pink is engaging in witchcraft at the Marine Corps recruiting station in Berkeley in another attempt to...drive the Marines into an ocean of peace?
Witches, Crones, Sirens come to the MRS today to cast spells, weave magic, invoke the foremothers, share wisdom, lead rituals to banish war and violence and to bring peace to the MRS, to protect our youth from the powerful spells of pro-war forces, to lead the men of the marine recruiting station off into the oceans of peace! Some witches, crones and sirens are willing to risk arrest, others are not. We call on all crones, witches and sirens to come to the MRS, to bring your energy, your wisdom, your fierce determination to end war now and bring peace to our world.
These people are bonkers, but you have to remember, each one of them is somebody's wife, or sister, or mother. Mental illness is a serious problem, and you just hope that this election will, at some point, get back to "real" issues like providing affordable mental health care for wealthy Bay Area liberals.
On Losing One's Bearings
Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked McCain about Hamas's endorsement of Barack Obama. Stewart gave McCain an opportunity to distance himself from an earlier statement that the endorsement made it "very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States." McCain passed, because, it does seem pretty clear. Hamas endorsed Obama, and without a word of protest from the Obama campaign. So Obama responds today:
“This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing,” Obama told Blitzer, when asked his thoughts about McCain’s comments that the terrorist organization Hamas wants Obama to be president. “Because John McCain always says ‘I am not going to run that kind of politics,’ and to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate, particularly because my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his.
“I’ve said it’s a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don’t need name calling in this debate.”
In the same breath as he says McCain is name calling, he effectively calls McCain a senile old coot. Mark Salter put out a statement blasting Obama over the rank hypocrisy of his attack.
Of course what's really absurd is Obama's insistence that his policy towards Hamas is no different than McCain's. This might be true if Obama wasn't in such a rush to play pattycake with Iran, which provides the funding and training that sustain Hamas, and which, like Hamas, denies Israel's right to exist. And in case Obama forgot what Hamas's benefactors in Tehran think of Israel, Ahmadinejad offered these words today on the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary:
"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as having said.
"Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."
Obama will meet with Ahmadinejad and demonstrate that open hostility to Israel's very existence is no kind of obstacle to friendly relations with the United States, just as he demonstrated at his church that open hostility to Israel's existence was no kind of obstacle to his attendance on Sunday mornings. So is it any wonder that Hamas wants Obama to be president?
Al Qaeda in Iraq's Leader Captured?
Unconfirmed reports from Iraq indicate the Iraqi Army may have captured Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who was hand picked by Ayman al Zawahiri to succeed Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Al Masri has reportedly been captured in the northern city of Mosul, where al Qaeda is attempting to regroup after taking a beating from U.S. and Iraqi forces during the height of the surge in 2007. Reports state that he has been transferred to U.S. custody to confirm his identity.
Al Masri's capture would serve as a political and military victory for both the United States and Iraq. The capture of the leader of the terror group not only demonstrates a measure of progress, but his knowledge of al Qaeda's organization both inside and outside Iraq will prove useful in efforts to dismantle the terror group. But a word of caution: Iraqi security forces have made similar claims in the past only to be discredited days later. If it's true, the U.S. military will soon confirm the capture.
Mama McCain
It's called Johnny's Mom, and it will run on "select DirecTV channels including ABC Family, A&E, Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Oxygen and TLC." Notice anything interesting about those channels? They do seem to reflect the targeting of a certain older, female demographic, i.e. the core supporters of one Hillary Rodham Clinton. It's still early, but McCain is already on offense trying to pry away Democratic voters while Obama faces tough primaries in WV, KY, and PR, before he even has the chance to try and put back together a divided Democratic party. Faint praise for McCain's position: things could be worse.
A reader adds: "I know that those networks seem like they are aiming for 40ish-year-old women, I know that I LOVE those networks and so do many of my friends! Maybe McCain will woo the 18-25 female crowd!"
"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."
Can you imagine if a Republican said that? But I guess we've all come to accept the ugly race identity politics of the Democratic primary battle.
On Mother's Day, we honor the grace, wisdom, and strength of our mothers, and we celebrate the special bonds shared between mothers and their children.
Every child blessed with a mother's love has been given one of life's great gifts. On this Mother's Day, we recognize the extraordinary contributions America's mothers make to their children, their families, and our country.
The Senate Appropriations Committee postponed its scheduled Thursday markup of this year’s war supplemental spending bill, after the House delayed floor consideration of the legislation until next week...
Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff, says the Pentagon needs the funding bill completed by Memorial Day:
"We need [the supplemental appropriations bill] very badly before the Memorial Day recess. We stop paying soldiers on the 15th of June and we have precious little flexibility with respect to that," Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview at his Pentagon office last week. "Clearly that creates incredible constraints and difficulties for us."
Without the extra funding, Mullen said, the Defense Department would be forced to delay contract awards and withhold other spending to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. "It makes it extremely difficult to execute the day-to-day business of the Pentagon without knowing the money is coming," he said.
The only reason this legislation has not yet passed is that Congressional Democrats refuse to allow a stand-alone funding bill to come to the floor, where it would likely be supported by all Republicans and a handful of Democrats. Instead, Pelosi and Reid insist that the legislation be supported by a broad swath of Democrats -- a policy they decried when it was practiced by Republicans. Instead, they again choose to play politics with the safety of our troops. It's become clear that for Democrats in Congress, they simply can't help themselves.
Obama, Clinton Take Superdelegate Fight to DC
Obama and Clinton are back in Washington after the primaries this week, and they're taking their superdelegate fight to the halls of Congress. Senator Clinton is meeting with Members of Congress, all of whom are also superdelegates, to plead her case. However, things don't seem to be going all that well for her:
The tide turned against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Capitol Hill Wednesday, as even some of her supporters said she should consider ending her White House bid.
Some uncommitted Democratic superdelegates refused to meet with the beleaguered candidate when her campaign approached them in the hope of wooing them. Reps. Brad Miller (N.C.) and Lincoln Davis (Tenn.) said they were invited to meet Clinton but declined to attend.
Obama generated quite a buzz on the House floor after a morning meeting with moderate and conservative House Democrats. His fate, like Clinton’s, now seems certain to be determined by Democratic superdelegates, including many House members who have yet to declare their allegiance...
But Rep. Grace F. Napolitano , D-Calif., a staunch Clinton supporter, was decidedly cool to the unusual presence of a senator on the House floor. “I have a question in my mind whether it’s kosher, whether it’s ethical. I don’t think he should be doing this on the House floor. This is the first time I remember him being on our floor,” she said.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings , D-Md., offered a far different interpretation. “This shows you the kind of hands-on presidency we’ll see from Barack Obama ,” Cummings said.
Obama certainly seems to be in the driver's seat at this point, and it sounds like he's hammering home his advantage. It's hard to imagine that a little hard ball will come back to hurt him; assuming he wins the nomination, no one will remember the bruised feelings of a few Clinton supporters. And it's probably not a bad idea for Members of Congress to get a direct appeal from the man who's the bettor's favorite to be the next president.
Iran Accuses U.S., Britain of Terrorist Attack in Mosque
Today's Iran's intelligence chief accused the U.S. and the Britain of sponsoring the bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in April. "The blast ... was caused by a bombing by a terrorist group with links to Western countries, especially Britain and America,” said Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran’s Intelligence Minister.
The bombing, which killed 14 Iranians and wounded more than 100, occurred as a cleric was "delivering his weekly speech against extremist Wahabi beliefs and the outlawed Bahai faith," according to the pro-government Fars News Agency. Last month, however, Iran denied the explosion was the result of a bombing. The deputy interior minister said at the time that the explosion was "the result of an incident." Officials said that ammunition that was recently on display in the mosque spontaneously exploded.
So what caused the Iranians to change their story? The accusations came just as a British court ruled that Britain’s designation of the People’s Mujahadeen Organization, or MEK, as a terrorist group was inappropriate, and the MEK should be removed from the list. The MEK has provided the U.S. and Britain with valuable and accurate intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program as well as Iran’s terror activities inside Iraq. The U.S. State Department still lists MEK as a terrorist organization, but members of the U.S. Congress and other government officials also seek to have MEK removed from the terrorist watch list.
Our Long Regional Nightmare is Over - Forward to 37-1!
The Boston Globe reports that the New England Patriots's “Spygate” scandal has likely reached its end:
Former Patriots employee Matt Walsh certified in writing that he will turn over eight stolen videotapes to the NFL that show the signals of opposing teams, but the smoking gun that some believed Walsh might provide - a tape of the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 - is not included.
As part of Walsh's certification, he signed off that all videotapes and documents in his possession - from 2000-02 - have been handed over to the NFL, eliminating the possibility he has a tape of the walkthrough.
This Walsh guy seems quite the piece of work. An embittered former team employee who's currently an assistant golf pro in Hawaii, he just had to get in on the fun of attacking the team that had fired him. The rumors of the walkthrough taping came out two days before this year's Super Bowl. Many embittered Patriot fans partly blame the distraction for the Patriots' defeat, although more balanced fans know the insane, blind luck of Eli Manning is much more the culprit. For what it's worth, Walsh and his advisors are completely baffled as to where the rumors of him having a tape of the Rams' pre-Super Bowl walkthrough came from.
The nettlesome thing about the walkthrough tape scandal is that it never made any sense. Let's assume for a second that Walsh had such a tape. In order to find the Patriots culpable of anything, you would also have to assume that the team authorized him to make the tape, but then allowed him to keep the tape as a sort of personal souvenir. Of course, unlike a game ball or something, this particular souvenir would have the potential to ruin Bill Belichick's career. Bill Belichick is many things (e.g., a great football coach, a genius in crafting a modern sports organization, a kind humanitarian and a darn handsome man), but he is no fool. In short, if Walsh actually had a tape of the walkthrough in his possession in Hawaii six years after he filmed it, his possession of the tape alone would be prima facie evidence that he was a rogue employee acting on his own.
As you know, I only use Latin when I'm angry. The Patriots have suffered enough for their illegal taping practices, which other teams around the league will say with a wink and nod that everyone else engaged in also. The Patriots deserved the punishment they received for continuing the practice into the 2007 season when the commissioner declared it must end. But considering the ongoing witch-hunt that culminated with three months of attention devoted to a publicity starved assistant golf pro, the Patriots have every right to bring to the 2008 season an extra measure of intensity and hostility.
And that's bad news for the rest of the league. Besides, 37-1 has a nice ring to it.
Democrats to Outlaw 'Unconscionably Excessive' Gas Prices
Senate Democrats have debuted their plan for addressing the high price of gasoline. Hold on to your hats:
Democrats unveiled a plan that sets up an Energy Independence and Security Trust Fund to be financed by a repeal of $17 billion in oil and gas industry tax incentives and a 25 percent windfall profits tax on the five biggest oil companies. The trust fund would finance renewable energy development, energy efficiency technology and consumer price protection, according to a summary of the plan...
Democrats are proposing an anti-price-gouging plan that gives the president the authority to declare an energy shortage emergency and makes it a crime to set "unconscionably excessive" prices. They are also pitching again a plan to allow the United States to sue the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for manipulating prices... [The plan] would prevent traders of U.S. crude oil from routing transactions through offshore markets to evade speculative limits and installs reporting requirements. It also requires the Commodity Futures Trading Commission "to set a substantial increase in the margin requirement for all oil futures trade, contracts or transactions," according to the summary.
The best that Democrats can come up with are tax increases on oil companies (which they promise won't get passed along to the consumer), a lawsuit against OPEC for price fixing (which must have the Saudis quaking in their boots), and a law against 'unconscionably excessive' gas prices.
Wouldn't you have liked to be the proverbial fly on the wall when they drafted that last provision? To outlaw 'excessive' prices might have been too drastic -- so they narrow it down to unconscionably excessive prices. And since 'unconscionable' is in the eye of the beholder, the phrase is largely meaningless.
The fact is that gasoline is a commodity governed by laws of supply and demand. Even Jay Leno is on to the fact that Democrats have been blocking new supply for decades, and now consumers are paying the price. If drivers start to make the connection between Democratic intransigence on new supply and the high price today, Democrats will be the ones paying for it at the polls.
Despite voting for Democrats in every White House race since 1984, Wisconsin is always competitive for both parties. For example, it went for Kerry over Bush in 2004 by a razor-thin 50%-49% margin. So there is no doubt the Badger state will be high on the target lists of both the McCain and Obama teams again this year. That’s why I found this Rasmussen poll released yesterday interesting and encouraging for the McCain camp.
Here are a couple of the highlights from the crosstabs:
McCain leads Obama overall by a slim 47%-43% margin (the same, by the way, as his margin against Senator Clinton).
The Arizona senator leads among men 55%-38%, but trails among women 36%-50%.
Not surprisingly, McCain trails badly with younger voters, 36%-50%, but he holds an 11-point lead (55%-44%) among those in the next older cohort, 30-39. He also does well with all voters over 50 years old.
McCain does better among his base voters, capturing 88% of the Republicans, while Obama only garners 78% of the Democrats.
Obama trails McCain among married voters by 12 points and those with children at home by 20 points.
One trouble spot for McCain in Wisconsin: he trails among those who say "the economy" is the most important issue 41%-53%. On a brighter note, he crushes Obama 91%-9% among those who say “national security” is the most important issue.
Finally, outside the presidential contest, 59% of Wisconsin voters say they oppose raising the capital gains tax (only 20% support boosting it). I wonder how many people in the state know that an Obama presidency along with a Democratic Congress guarantees they’ll pay more to Uncle Sam--leaving them with less for Brats and Leinenkugels at the Packers games.
Ambinder: "The usual caveat: just because the argument isn't dismissable doesn't mean that it's valid....I feel compelled to include this caveat because so many readers seem to be confused whenever they're presented with an argument against Obama that isn't automatically and immediately rebutted or dismissed out of hand."
McCain Does the Daily Show, Part II
This is the second half of McCain appearance on the Daily Show last night (Dean covers the first half below). The appearance went off pretty well, as Dean says, and it must infuriate Stewart's lefty fans that he seems to hold the Senator in such high regard. Stewart also proposed an alternative version of the dream ticket: McCain-Clinton.
My only gripe with the interview: On the one hand, Stewart attacks McCain for taking the Hamas endorsement of Obama at face value. On the other hand, Stewart thinks Bush is 'al Qaeda's Rev. Wright,' i.e. a tool they use to fire up their base. You can't have it both ways--either you care what terrorists think or you don't. McCain clearly doesn't, but like he says, this ain't beanbag, and the Hamas endorsement was as much a missed opportunity for Obama as it was fodder for McCain. As to whether Bush is a recruiting tool for terrorists--who cares? Al Qaeda was recruiting before Bush was in office and they will continue to do so after he's gone. The important thing is that we keep killing those recruits. Eventually, one side will give up. And if Obama wins in November, we know which side that will be.
McCain Does The Daily Show
John McCain did the Daily Show last night, and acquitted himself quite well. While performing decently in such venues has become an important part of our distended presidential selection process, it's not the be-all-and-end-all. If it were, we could just be done with everything and appoint Mike Huckabee Supreme Leader for Life.
Over at Hot Air, Allah noted that Stewart went easy on McCain and commented, “To my continued surprise, Perino, Tony Snow, and now even the GOP nominee were treated to 10 minutes of schmoozing with only one or two glancing blows mixed in.” There's a simple reason for this phenomenon, and it ties in with the whole Democrats-appearing-on Fox controversy of last week.
If you’re running a radio or TV show and invite a guest on, you have to be civil or that guest and like-minded guests will never return to your show. So even if being a courteous host isn't in your nature, you still bend over backwards to be nice when someone with differing views winds up on your set.
I can only think of one incident where a host really went after someone he differed with. That was when my friend and mentor, radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt (who I regularly guest-host for), interviewed Tom Tancredo, and suggested that the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill should in fact be known as McCain/Kennedy/Tancredo because Tancredo's ruinous and inflexible actions had brought McCain/Kennedy into being. Tancredo didn't much care for that suggestion, and the conversation got a bit heated. Some time after the interview, Tancredo vowed to avoid the Hewitt Show for the rest of the campaign. In case you’re wondering, the Hewitt Show survived in spite of a dire case of Tancredo deprivation.
Still, the lesson to be learned from a broadcasting perspective is that if you don't bend over backwards to be nice to people you oppose, it will be one and done - they won't come back for a second appearance if they deem the first one unsatisfactory. You may have noticed that when Bill O’Reilly has a major public personality as a guest with whom he has serious philosophical disagreements, he turns into a big pussycat whether the celeb in question is Ben Affleck, Rosie O’Donnell or Hillary Clinton. Other big named potential guests (even one that rhymes with Shmobama) could look at the experience of such predecessors and conclude that they would get a fair shot in the No Spin Zone.
That's what made the controversy over the Democrats appearing on Fox News so idiotic. Brit Hume may or may not be a conservative, but the relevant fact is that he's a fair newsman. I'm quite certain that Hume has never done anything that triggered outrage from the left like George Stephanopoulos’s conduct of the last Clinton/Obama debate did. Chris Wallace also plays it straight, and a Howard Dean-type knows that he can appear on Fox News Sunday and get a fair shot.
To get back to where we started, John Stewart obviously enjoys chatting with relevant newsmakers. Personally, I think it enriches his show (although I think the Colbert Report remains much funnier). If Stewart started giving his conservative guests rough treatment or sought to embarrass them, they would stop appearing.
Again, McCain did well last night. He should go back as often as Stewart will have him.
The primary has created a deep fissure in Democratic ranks: blue collar, less affluent, less educated voters versus the white wine crowd of academics and upscale professionals (along with blacks and young people). Mr. Obama runs behind Mrs. Clinton's numbers when matched against Mr. McCain in key industrial battleground states. Less than half of Mrs. Clinton's backers in Indiana and North Carolina say they would support Mr. Obama if he were the nominee. In the most recent Fox News poll, two-and-a-half times as many Democrats break for Mr. McCain (15%) as Republicans defect to Mrs. Clinton (6%) and nearly twice as many Democrats support Mr. McCain (22%) as Republicans back Mr. Obama (13%). These "McCainocrat" defections could hurt badly.
Lots of bad news in there for McCain as well. Rove is still predicting a big bounce for Obama when he finally seals the deal, and obviously a lot of these Democrats will come home over the course of the general election, but there are likely to be more than a few bumps in the road between now and then. McCain is getting a lot of grief for his performance in recent primaries--losing more than 20 percent of Republican primary voters to a combination of Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, and, in Indiana, Mitt Romney. But now that Obama is, in the eyes of the media at least, the presumptive nominee, it will be extremely embarrassing if he loses states (West Virginia, Kentucky, and possibly Puerto Rico) by margins of 20 percent or more to an already defeated Hillary Clinton.
Imagine what the media would say about McCain if he lost a primary state at this point.
I Declined Admission to Space Camp
Gov. Bobby Jindal is a rock-star, and it’s no wonder he’s generated a lot of VP buzz. If he graced the GOP ticket, it would be a coup for McCain. I do have one, albeit minor reservation about Jindal. It was sparked when a friend emailed me his congressional bio a few years back, an archived version of which is available here:
Bobby is a native of Louisiana, born in Baton Rouge. He is a graduate of the Louisiana Public School System, Brown University (with a 4.0 Grade Point Average) and Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, having turned down admissions to medical and law schools at both Harvard and Yale.
I’m willing to overlook the fact a young congressman felt compelled to include his college GPA on his official website. What I object to is the last clause. I feel a bio should only make note of honors and distinctions one accepts. Since Jindal declined to attend medical or law school at Harvard and Yale, he shouldn’t mention it. And Jindal isn’t the only Rhodes Scholar guilty of this sin. Consider former New Republic editor Peter Beinart’s bio: "Beinart graduated from Yale University, winning both Rhodes and Marshall (declined) scholarships for graduate study at Oxford University." That "declined" would be heartbreaking if it weren’t so annoying.
Surely Jindal has grown as a person since becoming governor--his new bio does not mention his GPA from Brown, though it continues to note that he declined admission to Harvard and Yale some 15 years ago. So my advice for Jindal (not that he’s listening) is that his underachieving peers are plenty impressed by what he’s actually accomplished and he doesn't need to tell us what he could have done, if he'd wanted to. Be a little modest, or at least appear that way. McCain might have a huge personality, but that’s one lesson I’d guess he could teach Jindal.
Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
As for the left, the researchers found "inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals" because "they lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light." Which is why many school children aren’t allowed to play musical chairs (somebody always loses), terrorists can’t be spied on (violation of privacy), and publishing funny pictures of Mohammed is prohibited (someone’s feelings might get hurt).
Speaking for myself, I’ve never justified inequalities any more than I’ve justified picnics getting rained out. And if I do "explain away" inequalities, it would be this way: Life ain’t perfect, some guys have all the luck, and never underestimate the power of a good-looking woman.
Bad Moon Rising?
We’ll always have May 2, or El Dos de Mayo as I like to think of it. On that day, John McCain led presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama by a healthy six point margin in the Rasmussen Tracking Poll, 48-42. Today, a mere six days later, Obama leads McCain 46-44.
What could account for such a turnabout? In the month leading up to May 2, Obama looked weak and indecisive. He also looked like a loser – which he literally was, being stuck in the process of losing a bunch of primaries in a row.
But on Tuesday night, Obama looked like a winner. And America loves its winners. What's more, in his hour of triumph, Obama regained some of his previously missing mojo by delivering one of his more stirring speeches of the campaign.
For McCain supporters, the news only gets worse. If he's of a mind to do so, Obama can avoid speaking off the cuff in public (which he's not very good at) until the debates in the fall. In the meantime, he can limit himself to the set performance pieces at which he so excels. If Obama uses the next several months wisely, he could become fixed in the public's mind as a transformational figure who glides above politics as usual.
Looking like a winner does wonders for a politician's fortunes. In case you're keeping score at home, here's a chance to add another benefit to the Democrats' lengthy and fierce primary season. John McCain hasn't won anything of consequence since before Spring Training. Obama registered his decisive victories at a much later and therefore far more relevant date.
Can someone please remind me again how the Democrats' long primary season would lead to their ruin?
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Bush to Push for Colombia, Panama, Korea Trade Agreements
The president made clear today in his comments before the Organization of American States that he will continue to press ahead for Congressional consideration and passage of outstanding trade deals:
Yesterday I met with the President of Panama. I assured him our efforts to get the Panamanian trade bill passed will be just as vociferous and vigorous as our efforts to get the Colombia trade bill passed. Congress must understand they have a chance to spread prosperity in our neighborhood; they have a chance to support friends in our neighborhood. And there's no better way to express that friendship than to support the Colombia free trade agreement, the Panamanian free trade agreement, and while they're at it, to send a clear message around the world that the South Korean free trade agreement is good for the U.S. economy as well.
Each of these trade deals is good for the U.S. economy -- reducing barriers to our exports and giving consumers more choices and better prices when they make purchases. That's reason enough to continue to press ahead for passage.
Beyond that however, it's good politics. As things now stand, the Democratic leadership in Congress will never give the president a fair shot to win passage of these accords. Their preference is effectively to kill the deals by never allowing them to see the light of day. That being the case, the president has an incentive to force the question on Congress in each instance, and make the Congressional leadership take responsibility for inaction.
As the election approaches, we'll see if Democrats in Congress really are content to insult Panama and Korea, as well as Colombia.
Republicans Aren't Voting "Against" John McCain
Drudge posts that 23 percent of voters in Indiana and 27 percent of voters in North Carolina voted for a candidate other than John McCain in the Republican primaries. Thus Mark Levin concludes that "McCain still has not united the GOP behind him in these primaries."
Now, McCain may need to do more to turn out the Republican base, but the returns from these Republican primaries don't appear to mean much. During the 2000 Republican race, McCain endorsed Bush on May 9. On June 6, 22 percent of voters in the South Dakota didn't vote for Bush, as did 17 percent of voters in New Mexico and 16 percent in New Jersey.
I bet that most of those Alan Keyes voters went on to vote for Bush, just as most Huckabackers and a decent number of Ron Paul supporters will go on to vote for McCain. My hunch is that these voters don't cast their ballots for the presumptive nominee because they want to send a message.
A friend emailed me back in February to confess he felt dirty voting for Mike Huckabee in the Virginia primary. This friend is a strong supporter of the Iraq war and said he actually preferred McCain over Huckabee, but he was also wary of McCain's moderation on judges, abortion, immigration, etc. He wrote: "I just want to send McCain a message, so he knows where his bread is buttered."
Grading the Pollsters: Survey USA loses, Zogby Wins?
With the proliferation of public and private polling this election season, one needs a scorecard to keep them all straight -- both in terms of predictions and accountability. Last night’s big winner in terms of accuracy -- at least in North Carolina -- was Zogby. He predicted a 14% Obama win in the Tar Heel state, which turned out to be right on target. His polls also nailed the Pennsylvania race. Zogby was a little off in Indiana. He was one of only a few pollsters to predict a narrow Obama win. And while Clinton did end up winning in the Hoosier state, the margin was much narrower (and closer to the Zogby numbers) than many pre-election polls predicted.
American University political scientist Brian Schaffner posts this interesting chart that evaluates the accuracy of many public polls in yesterday’s two primaries. Turns out Survey USA was the big loser, according to Schaffner. They predicted a Clinton blow out in Indiana and only a 5% Obama win in North Carolina. Schaffner’s chart shows how final predictions from pollsters ARG, PPP, and Insider Advantage worked out in both states.
And as he reminds us, all of the pollsters need a dose of humility and perspective.
"Of course, lest any pollster get a big head, these pollsters have been in the opposite positions (Zogby as the big loser and Survey USA as the big winner) in earlier primaries this year."
A self-described Republican asked McCain about his well-documented temper, prompting the AZ senator to quip: "How dare you ask that question? Get that microphone away from him." But McCain said more seriously that he's often angry about governmental failures.
"I will confess to you, my friend, that I get angry," McCain began. "I get angry when I saw a guy named Abramoff that ripped off Native Americans for millions and millions and millions of dollars, and people ended up - including him - in federal prison. I get angry when I see 233 million of your tax dollars going to an island, to a bridge to an island with 50 people on it. And that's your dollars.
"I get angry when I see corruption to the point where we have former members of Congress residing in federal prison, and you know something? The American people are angry, too, and they're not going to take it anymore, and that's why they want change. And they're mad, and they've lost their temper."
Without having the video to review, it sounds like McCain handled himself quite well at this public session. He seems to have the right attitude when asked about his temper -- which is good, because Democrats clearly intend to provoke him as much as they can.
After that, McCain uses phrases that sound similar to much of Barack Obama's 'bitter' speech. Importantly, McCain is never patronizing about the attitude of American voters -- unlike Obama. And while he's nominally discussing Congressional corruption, it sounds like he's speaking more broadly than that about the anger and disappointment many Americans feel toward Washington.
Given the negative feelings among American voters about the economy, the war, and the inability of Washington to accomplish anything important, it's critical for McCain to demonstrate that he understands their feelings. Moments like this will help.
Fighting Dirty in New Jersey
Home to the likes of Bob Torricelli, Jim McGreevey, the Sopranos, and a cast of thousands of other lawbreakers, New Jersey will never be seen as a 'Garden State.' But even for New Jersey, this must constitute scraping the bottom of the barrel -- at least among Democrats.
Incumbent Senator Frank Lautenberg has launched a campaign site designed to link his primary opponent -- Congressman Rob Andrews -- to President Bush. The site: Bushandrews.com. This is the sort of material Lautenberg is using:
What will Democrats do when they don't have George Bush to kick around anymore?
Justice Jeremiah Wright?
David Axelrod responded to McCain's speech on judges yesterday:
Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.
Search Obama's website for "social justice" and you get seven results. Of those, only two reference Obama's own words. The first comes in a speech delivered on June 28, 2006:
More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.
So Obama wants judges who apply their religious beliefs to interpreting the law? He is saying that religion is how people understand social justice, and he wants judges to stand up for social justice, QED, he wants judges who bring their religious beliefs into the courtroom. Which brings us to the second mention of social justice on BHO's website--a post titled "My Faith and My Church" that ran on the Huffington Post just prior to Obama's major speech in Philadelphia on race (you remember the one, "I could no more disown..."):
It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.
So the Rev. Wright preaches social justice and Obama would appoint a Supreme Court justice who would "stand up" for the same principles. Why not just appoint Rev. Wright to the Supreme Court then?
Chicks Get Lit
Remember how women wanted to smash those glass ceilings? Well, it looks like they’re the ones getting smashed:
Men set the bar, but women are catching up - there's been a big increase in drinking and alcohol dependence as American gals have become freer to do what guys have always done, a new study reveals....
Dr. Richard Grucza, an epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine and the study's author, said women born in the 1940s, '50s and '60s enjoyed many changes in the cultural environment.
"Women entered the work force, were more likely to go to college, were less hampered by gender stereotypes, and had more purchasing power," he said.
"They were freer to engage in a range of behaviors . . . and these behaviors probably would have included excessive drinking and alcohol problems."
Sure, it’s terrific that women have made great strides in the last few decades. There’s nothing like powerful female CEOs, politicians and civic leaders to give little girls big dreams. But I wonder if women really "enjoyed" stumbling home pie-eyed before waking up with a raging hangover just like the guys. Too, it would be interesting to see if those "range of behaviors" to which Dr. Grucza referred were fueled by booze – and wound up with the women enjoying an STD or unplanned pregnancy. While I’m no sociologist, I bet those rates were way lower before the 1960s, when women could have made a legitimate claim to standing on a higher moral plane than men, if only because they weren’t getting plastered.
That’s one unexpected side effect of the feminist movement: men and women can all behave badly together. No doubt Gloria Steinem is drinking a toast to equality.
The general consensus seems to be that last night's results settled the Democratic nomination fight. But I'm not exactly sure why that is.
For months now--since South Carolina--it has been pretty obvious which states Obama would win and which Clinton would carry. It seemed clear all along that Obama would win North Carolina comfortably and that Clinton would take Indiana by a close margin. And that's what happened yesterday. So why all the talk about how the race is finished now? Look: If you believed that the nomination fight was signed, sealed, and delivered before yesterday, that's a perfectly reasonable position and the results only confirm your theory. After all, because of the way Democrats apportion delegates, the pledged delegate lead has been out of Clinton's reach since early February--something everyone watching the campaign has long understood. But if you thought that Clinton had a small, but viable, chance to sway superdelegates at the convention by making the case of a popular vote victory, then I'm not sure how last night changed anything. And look where we go from here:
Next week is West Virginia, which Jay Cost suspects Clinton could win by 20 or 30 or even 40 points. The week after that we have Oregon, which should be a narrow Obama win, and Kentucky, which should be another sizable Clinton victory. And then, looming on June 1, is the Puerto Rico primary. No one really knows what to expect, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that Clinton could roll up another very big victory there, given her past performance with Latino voters and the large number of Puerto Rican constituents she has in New York. Also, Puerto Rico might have a surprisingly large turnout.
In other words, it's not clear how yesterday changes anything. The candidates performed roughly to expectations and the next three weeks are going to be a gauntlet for Obama as he gets clobbered in one place after another--all while being touted as "The Nominee." What has been Clinton's gambit since February--her attempt to be leading at least two of the popular vote counts by the time of the convention--will finally be given the chance to mature as she has a string of contests with very favorable demographics. It seems to me that there's no reason for her to quit now and every reason for her to stay in the race. And that this gambit has as much chance of succeeding today as it did on Monday.
Maybe I'm missing something?
Daily Blog Buzz: Are We Done Yet?
After losing to Obama in North Carolina and barely winning Indiana (as of now, anyways), Hillary is nearly finished.
As I write this, Drudge is already calling Obama "The Nominee." The Fix's Chris Cillizza explains, "A substantial margin by Obama in the Tarheel State and--at best--a VERY narrow Clinton win in Indiana could be just the sign that donors, superdelegates and party leaders need to begin the process of bringing the nomination fight to an end." Marc Ambinder adds that she "needed to find a way to give superdelegates their 'Holy Moly' moment, and she failed. Absent an extraordinary intervening event, the question for Hillary Clinton now is how she ends the race."
Bloggers across the spectrum agree that it's only a matter of time before Hillary exits the race. On the right, Michelle Malkin says, "She gave it her all, found her voice, lost her voice, smiled through her lies, lied through her cries, schemed, clawed, and cackled. But alas, it was not enough." Richelieu simply calls her "Toast." And at Hot Air, Allahpundit concludes that "she has nothing left to commend her to the supers except an electabilty argument unsupported by a single key metric or even circumstantial evidence that Pastorgate has done Obama grievous damage at the polls. Are they going to take the nomination from the first serious black candidate for president without any compelling data to hang their decision on? Not a chance. It’s over."
The left is much the same. Kyle Moore at Comments from Left Field proclaims, "Final analysis of the primaries that have transpired last night: Obama won the nomination, again (I am of the mind that he won it back at the end of February, and for all intents and purposes, thanks to the math, he did)." And TNR's Jason Zengerle concludes, "I don't think this speech was supposed to be Hillary's valedictory, but, despite her best efforts, it sure felt that way."
Still, some bloggers, like Hugh Hewitt, think that Hillary should fight to the death. Jules Crittenden thinks she will and says, "The only way she dies soon is if the superdelegates organize themselves to club her." But as John Podhoretz noted last night, "Hillary Clinton will come under the most withering personal assault of her career should she fail to drop out of the race tomorrow. It will be far worse than the Republican 'attack machine' because it is going to come from her fellow party members, her peers, and even a great many of her supposed friends." Is this the fall of the house of Clinton at last? And more importantly, can we be finished with the Democratic primary now, please?
Does Obama Get Stuck With the Bill?
Following the Kentucky, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico primaries, which Hillary seems poised to win, and the Oregon, South Dakota and Montana primaries, which will likely go heavily for Obama, it is expected that Hillary will suspend campaigning at a minimum, or perhaps even withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Even those who are deep inside the Hillary camp are starting to acknowledge the inevitable, although they continue to advance the argument that the party is committing suicide by turning its back on Her Majesty in favor of Obama. A Clinton adviser told the Washington Post today that the situation was increasingly becoming one in which “she cannot be nominated and he can't get elected.”
The deal-breaker in this scenario is that Hillary’s withdrawal from the race will be contingent upon the Obama campaign being willing to pic
