May 12, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 33
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Roll Call has the story:
The Clinton campaign, arguing that the New York Senator is the more electable candidate nationally against the presumptive GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), pointed out to reporters Friday morning that she has beaten Obama in 16 of 20 House districts that went for President Bush in the 2004 presidential race but are now held by a freshman Democratic Member.
“That is a dramatic difference in how Sen. Clinton runs in these key, battleground districts,” Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said at an event sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. “As a former executive director of the DCCC, I would feel more comfortable with somebody who runs stronger in the kind of competitive districts Democrats will be competing in Congressionally in 2008.”
This contention was bolstered in an open letter to superdelegates that was signed by 16 House Democrats, including freshman Reps. Michael Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand and John Hall, all of New York; freshman Rep. Joe Sestak (Pa.); and Reps. Ike Skelton (Mo.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.).
“Hillary has won rural and suburban districts which we as Democrats musts carry to maintain our edge in Congress,” these Members wrote the May 8 letter, which was publicized on Friday.
Sixteen Freshmen Democrats sent a letter to the superdelegates right after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries -- by which time it was pretty apparent that they were campaigning against the eventual nominee. On the one hand, you could argue that by waiting until after those primaries failed to 'change the game,' they risked nothing. On the other hand, why alienate Obama at this point -- unless you really were worried that he would be far worse for your re-election chances than Clinton?
This brings full circle the conventional wisdom on Barack Obama's ability to help down-ballot candidates. In the very districts that are most marginal -- most at risk -- Democrats would rather run with Hillary Clinton heading the ticket than Obama. And don't forget that Democrats have been dreading for years the prospect of running with Clinton.
A lot has changed in the last few months.
Polls consistently show that the American people have a greater appetite for expanded, activist government than they have in recent memory. A key for the election will be for McCain to demonstrate that apart from being too naive to protect the nation from terrorist threats, Obama will also implement a domestic agenda far beyond what the American people will approve. With most analysts now taking it as a given that Democrats will control both the House and Senate, McCain can now attack the liberal powers in Congress as well:
"You'll see expansions in health care," [Barney] Frank said. "I think you'll see an increase in the rights to join unions. You'll see increased regulation. You're going to see the updated [Securities and Exchange Commission], the updated [National Labor Relations Board], an updated Medicare.... We'll get back to the business of building affordable housing. I think you'll see substantial activity."
This at a conference that featured praise for "Scandinavian-style socialism" and calls for "cuts in military spending." McCain is probably too lucky to hope that leading Democrats will be as foolish as Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) in giving the game away:
"All we're doing is going into the basket and saying, 'Damn, what did they do in '32, what did they do in '34, what did they do in '36,' and we're pulling them out, dusting them off, giving them a paint job, correcting the fenders a bit, and we're using them," Kanjorski said. "To get us through the horrendous problems we may have over the next several years, we've got to make these old programs work, and we've got to be as inventive as hell."
There's no way the American people will vote in 2008 for a recreation of the New Deal agenda, framed as such. But at heart, that's what Democrats are promising. Republicans will need to press Obama about whether he will stop the extreme liberals in Congress from completely rolling back the clock to the 1930s, if he's elected president.
Hezbollah does seem to have the upper hand in Lebanon at the moment, and while David Kenner reports that, "Now more than ever, the Sunni, Druze and Christian communities are firmly aligned on the side of the central government," that may not be worth much if they are only united in getting steamrolled by Hezbollah.
But here's a hypothetical. Let's assume that Hezbollah prevails in their Lebanese power grab and manages to seize the reins of government. Hezbollah is a terrorist group, and it denies Israel's right to exist, but if it controlled the Lebanese government...would Obama have a sit down with Nasrallah? Just before Samantha Power got canned for calling Hillary a monster, she gave an interview explaining Obama's rules of diplomacy:
Obama would engage with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. He would sit down with North Korea and Syria. Is there anyone he wouldn't talk to? "Not among elected heads of state. He won't talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas."
Even though she says "elected heads of state," she doesn't really mean elected--he would meet with Kim Jong-Il and Assad, and I don't think even the Obama folks are claiming that Ahmadinejad is a legitimately elected head of state. Granted, the campaign has been as vague as possible on this ever since Obama declared he would meet with any dictator who would sit down with him, but it seems like the key requirement is running a country with internationally recognized borders--you do that, you get your invitation to the Obama summit. So again, the question: if Hezbollah manages a complete takeover of Lebanon, would Obama meet with Nasrallah? There's no obvious reason why not, though it would be great if someone actually pushed Obama for an answer.
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.
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.
Aaaah - were it only so.
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!
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?
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!"
Hillary speaks:
"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.
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.
Meanwhile, Obama is cornering his colleagues on the floor of the House:
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.
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.
Update: Carter Wood reminds us of the negative effects of windfall profit taxes.
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.
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.
Karl Rove has another piece in the Journal today:
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.
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.
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?
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."
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."
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?
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?
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?
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 pick up all of her campaign’s debt. Figures vary as to how many millions of her own she has vested in her own campaign, but it goes beyond the original $5 million she originally invested in her nomination bid this past February (reports indicate she loaned herself another $6.4 million over the past month). The Clintons have a track record of always wanting to do everything with other peoples’ money, and it seems highly unlikely that Hillary would agree to withdraw from the race without being made whole first.
One question that appears not to have been asked is how Hillary was able to run through such a massive campaign war chest in such a short period of time and then reach the point where she had to “lend” her campaign funds in order to keep operations running. This plus numerous stories about infighting and general dysfunctionality (plus the exodus of some key personnel who decided they'd had enough) of her campaign do not speak well for her abilities to function as the nation’s chief executive – the ability to answer the White House phone at 3:00 AM aside.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the fight for the Democratic nomination effectively came to an end last night. Barack Obama has won. My suggestion for grieving conservatives? Deal with it.
I've been saying all along that the long primary fight was the best thing that could have happened to the Democrats. The process revealed Obama’s weaknesses, and he had to address them. Were it not for the long and competitive Democratic race, Jeremiah Wright would have become a household name around Columbus Day (which is a legal holiday in Massachusetts and a paid day off for state workers) instead of St. Patrick's Day (which is also a legal holiday in Massachusetts and another paid day off for state workers, although it's called Evacuation Day). Obama's dithering on the Wright stuff might well have ruined his general election chances if he had won New Hampshire like he was supposed to.
To get one last shot in at Obama just for old time’s sake, obviously he needs his hand forced before taking action. He gladly let the Reverend Wright thing hang over his head for over a year until circumstances forced him to take action, and even then his action was an ostentatious attempt to change the topic by beginning a national conversation on race. How’s the nation's race-relations chatfest going, anyway? I’ve been too busy following the NBA post-season and American Idol to keep tabs on it.
Obama's natural reluctance to act seems like a not-so-wonderful characteristic for a wartime president. The flip side for anxious Republicans is that I don't see in Obama the transformative figure that his supporters behold. He may speak in sweeping terms, but he moves in baby-steps. Actually, standing still seems to be his default preference.
As for the political implications of Obama’s triumph, there's a dark lining there as well for the overjoyed Obama-philes among us. For reaction to last night's events, I turned to my one-stop clearinghouse for state-of-the-art Obama swooning, Andrew Sullivan's blog. Flush with the thrill of victory, Andrew wrote, "Wright is a grenade that will fizzle. The right will try other gambits - the Ayers crap and if that doesn't work, look for them to take aim at Obama's wife. But Obama's survival - or rather the voters' refusal to make this election about the Freak Show - suggests that Newt is right. This will not work this year.”
The biggest threat that the Obama campaign faces on a tactical level is its (and its followers’) proclivity for hubris. Once again, at the risk of stating the obvious, while Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination fight, the nation's moderates and swing voters have yet to make their voices heard. Inferring from a narrow victory in the Democratic race that the issues that were only almost-fatal there will be non-factors in the general election doesn't make any sense. There may be reasons why moderates and swing voters won't care about William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama's strange anger at America, but last night's results aren’t relevant to a serious analysis of the matter.
The worst thing that could have happened to Obama this week was that memorable CNN clip where CNN anchor John Roberts kicked off an interview with Obama by pronouncing that CNN would become a “Wright Free Zone.” Obama smiled, again showing his stark preference for inaction over action. In fact, Obama would be much better off handling potentially damaging matters on his own terms, and friendly interviewers like Roberts could help the process. Even if Obama decides to ignore his liabilities, his opponents are unlikely to also ignore them.
I know many conservatives are disappointed by last night's results. Perhaps a brief walk down Clinton Memory Lane would remind them that they should not lament the Fall of the House of Clinton. Indeed, instead of fretting this morning about an Obama ascendancy, conservatives should take a bit of pleasure in the fact that we won't have the Clintons to kick us around anymore.
It’s all but officially Obama vs. McCain. Game on.
You can view the CNN Indiana initial exit polls here. A couple interesting notes from the preliminary numbers. First, Clinton does very well among the late deciders (again) -- winning between 55%-60% of those who made up their minds either today or in the last few days. Second, huge racial divide. These numbers show Obama getting 93% of the African-American vote. Third, like in other states, Clinton wins the lower income and non-college educated, while Obama captures the college educated, higher income vote. Based on these preliminary numbers a 52%-48% or 51%-49% Clinton win looks like a pretty good bet in Indiana.
The public polls over the last several days show lots of variation in today’s two primary states. As Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com points out, the North Carolina numbers find Obama leading anywhere between 4%-14%. The Indiana polls demonstrate even more variation. They find Obama leading by 2% (technically it’s a statistical tie) to losing by 12%. Lots of room for scenario building around those results.
The most recent Indiana numbers reported by Zogby (a statistical tie) are the most provocative, suggesting a late surge by Obama in the Hoosier state. On one hand these results look like outliers compared to some of the other earlier polls showing a larg Clinton lead in that state. On the other, this poll is one of the latest out of the field and could be measuring a late-Obama surge. Keep in mind Zogby nailed the Pennsylvania numbers very accurately.
Late deciders are also critical in predicting the final outcome, particularly in Indiana, where the race appears to have tightened. But Hillary Clinton has done better than Obama with those deciding in the last few days in recent primaries. Blumenthal has a good piece on the subject of how pollsters deal with undecided voters here.
Bottom line: Pre-election polls include "undecided" voters--elections do not. One of the tricks of the trade in polling is how hard you "push" those who don’t initially reveal a preference to pick a candidate. Survey organizations use different methods and those tactics can shape their final numbers. I’ll be on the lookout for the exit polls later tonight and post something when they become available.
John McCain has recently launched the Spanish-language version of the campaign site (here). There's not a ton of Spanish-language content -- apart from his biography and testimonials from four Spanish-speaking Florida Republicans. I thought I'd provide a quick look at what those commentators have to say.
The most notable testimonial is from Senator Mel Martinez, who leads off by citing an issue that has caused angst for some conservatives -- immigration reform:
When I really got to know the character of John McCain -- the personality of this man -- was when we worked side by side to try to improve the immigration laws of this nation. At that time, I know that he risked the presidency, but he always thought it was better to take a risk with his personal politics. And it was better to help the Latin population of this nation, and at the same time to help this nation.
He understands the situation of the immigrant in this nation. He has a very big heart, and he understands the necessity, but at the same time he understands that we need to have laws and we need to observe them. So he defied the normal political convention, and he risked all to create an immigration law in this nation that would be fair for the nation and for those who are here out of status.
Lincoln Diaz Balart is the only one of the other three who mentions immigration reform, and it comes in the middle of his comments. He says of McCain: 'he's used his political capital on very difficult problems, including immigration reform which would help so many Hispanics.'
Apart from those mentions of immigration, the four testimonials hit repeatedly on McCain's willingness to work with Democrats and Republicans, his commitment to the Hispanic people, his readiness to be president from day one, his understanding of the dangers of people like Castro and Hugo Chavez, and his commitment to close relations with Latin America. Three of the four specifically mention his commitment to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. High gas prices also warrant repeated mentions, with several of the testimonials talking about his support for lower taxes -- especially on gas.
Continue reading "McCain Debuts Spanish Language Campaign Site" »
If the Will.i.am videos were counterproductive and creepy, this is mainly just counterproductive.
HuffPo's Mayhill Fowler made an interesting observation from the trail in North Carolina yesterday: "He has to find a way out of the circle of devotion." If he doesn't, it's going to be raining McCain come November.
North Carolina reports some demographic statistics on its early voting results, and American University political scientist Brain Schaffner has posted several short and interesting breakdowns over the past week, including the latest numbers from this weekend. Read his latest analysis here.
A few notable points. Almost 400,000 North Carolinians (398,635) had voted as of this past Saturday in the Democratic primary. That means about 13% of registered voters in the state already have cast their ballots. By way of comparison, John Kerry received about 1.5 million total votes in the general election in 2004. It looks like the 2008 primary could generate somewhere between 1.5-2 million votes by the time the polls close tomorrow. If that number is correct, Schaffner notes, 20%-25% of voters already have cast their ballots.
Of those who have already voted, 61% are women and 39% are men. Also, 57% of the early voters are white and 40% are black. The racial breakdown is significant because most pollsters assume about 30% of Democratic primary voters will be black. If the percent at the end of the day is closer to 40%--given the margins Obama runs up among African American voters--that’s very good news for the Illinois Senator and suggests a larger margin of victory than predicted by most polls. When the exit polls come out tomorrow night, watch for that number. If the black vote ends up being closer to 40%, the pre-election polls might be underestimating his performance.
Schaffner’s back of the envelope analysis points to an Obama win. He breaks it down this way:
If we assume that Obama wins 85% of the African-American vote, just 30% of white women and 40% of white men and then we split the remaining 6% of the early voters (those in the "other" category) evenly between Obama and Clinton, then Obama is currently leading Clinton among early voters by a margin of 56-44%. In terms of raw numbers, that would give Obama a lead of somewhere close to 50k votes. And this estimate is probably slightly on the conservative side since Obama could very well win 90% or more of the black vote and could do a bit better among white men and women (indeed, reader "x curmudgeon" notes that surveys show early voters going 63-31% in favor of Obama).
McClatchy reports:
In Indiana, ahead of Tuesday's primary, Obama supporters can go to a campaign web page devoted to the state, type in their ZIP codes and locate the closest pro-Obama group, such as Bloomington for Obama, or Central Indiana for Obama....
The networks ultimately created legions of contributors....
One highly successful strategy, he said, entails inviting supporters to match contributions from first-time donors — a process that ends with the two donors emailing each other about how and why they got involved in the campaign.
In December 2003, the New York Times magazine ran a piece on the Howard Dean phenomenon. The piece opened with the story of Clay Johnson, a 26-year-old whose girlfriend had recently dumped him. Johnson laid "on the floor in a fetal position and remained there for days, occasionally sipping from an old carton of orange juice," but Howard Dean finally gave him "a reason to get up off the floor."
So too with Obama, it seems that some of his supporters are looking to fill a void in their lives that goes far beyond politics. Sharing conversion stories via email is just plain creepy, but maybe for those malcontents who don't cling to religion, accepting Obama as their political lord and savior is enough to get them off the floor. Prozac would probably help, too, or Scientology.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton may be raising money hand over fist, but Howard Dean seems to be unable to get people to donate to the Democratic National Committee:
According to the latest Federal Election Commission reports filed through the end of March, the RNC had $31 million in cash on hand, while the DNC had only $5.3 million. The RNC has raised $36.5 million this year, while the DNC has raised $17.7 million.
The story was equally grim in 2007, when the RNC raised a total of $83 million to the DNC’s $50 million.
“The general election has started; we should be raising $15 million a month,” said one senior DNC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The committee is raising less than $6 million each month.
This isn't a disaster for the Democrats because the presidential candidates are raising money like it's going out of style. The Democratic House and Senate committees have significantly outraised their Republican counterparts, as well. It could become a problem however, if the donors to the loser in the Democratic nominating race are angry enough to sit the rest of the race out. It could also be a major problem if the presidential race at some point starts to be perceived as strongly favoring McCain. In that case, corporate donations would likely shift dramatically to the Republicans, in an attempt to curry favor with the winner before it's too late. It could significantly harm the Democrats if the built-in cash advantage that they're dealing with suddenly flipped against them in the last few months.
Apart from that, the lack of DNC cash only demonstrates the ineffectiveness of Howard Dean. The cash is practically falling off the trees for Democrats this year, and Howard Dean can't even get a sniff.
Your diligent Cardinal got plenty of email from the Faithful regarding the correct name for the freedom loving citizens of Guam. It's "Guamanian." Though I still prefer the hipper "Guammie."
On the topic of citizen monikers, I am reminded of when the noble phrase "Michigander" for the good people of the Wolverine State was butchered in the name of political correctness and replaced with the far lamer but non gender offending "Michiganian." Although Guamanian in certainly unoffensive.
Prediction: Obama comes closers than expected in Indiana, losing narrowly. He wins North Carolina. Grind on Clinton to end campaign begins and as predicted here before, she drops out in next two weeks.
On Meet The Press yesterday, Obama was asked about a report that he apologized to Rev. Wright for not letting Wright perform the invocation at Obama's presidential announcement ceremony.
Obama replied: "Well, what happened was is that, you know, I was sorry that he felt, that he felt hurt by that decision. And, you know, that is--that may be a fault of mine that I own up to, which is, is that I'm concerned about how other people feel, particularly somebody who I've known for quite some time."
Remember how Obama mocked John Edwards after Edwards said his greatest weakness is that "I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me"? The candidates had been asked to state their greatest weaknesses during a January 15 debate, and Obama said he was disorganized. At a campaign stop a couple days later, he riffed:
"Because I'm like, an ordinary person, I thought that they meant what's your biggest weakness?" Mr. Obama said. "So I said, 'Well, I don't handle paper that well. You know, my desk is a mess. I need somebody to help me file and stuff all the time.' So the other two they say uh, they say well my biggest weakness is 'I'm just too passionate about helping poor people. I am just too impatient to bring about change in America."
As the room erupts in laughter, he continues: "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. I could have said, 'Well you know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'"
Now that was funny. Too bad Obama has decided to become just another conventional politician whose "fault" is that he feels your pain.
Hyperventilated spin often creates a alternative reality that is both specious and still formidable. The hubbub over the Louisiana special election is a perfect example. The NRCC tries the usual -- and seldom very effective -- tactic of trying to tie the formidable local Democrat candidate to a more liberal national Democrat, in this case Barack Obama. The Clinton spin machine grabs onto this, desperate as they are for any ammunition in their Dump The Sure Loser Obama offensive. The GOP candidate then loses, because this is a lousy GOP year and the local Democrat was conservative enough (pro-gun and anti-abortion) to slide by in this southern district. Now the Obama campaign can declare that attacks on Obama actually backfire and elect Democrat Congressional candidates in Republican districts. We need Obama in the general election!
In other words, no matter what the outcome of the Louisiana election, both sides were ready to solemnly declare that wet streets cause rain. It is all ridiculous since neither Obama nor Clinton had much to do with the outcome. But through the funhouse mirror of superdelegate spin this result will help Obama a bit, just as a GOP win would have buttressed Clinton.
Which brings us to the 7 vote victory in Guam for Obama, proof that the canny Guamian swing voters clearly prefer change to experience. So Obama is surging to a comeback after the Wright fiasco. Or wait, I've got a urgent mass email here from the Clinton High Command. Clinton's narrow defeat in Guam -- and by the way there are serious questions about voting irregularities and women being denied to the right to vote in Guam, just like their sisters in Florida and Michigan by the male dominated Obama machine and its Chicago trained henchmen -- shows a growing Obama weakness. For a white female candidate to come so close in heavily ethnic Guam shows a tremendous level of strength. A New Day is here!
(Particularly when you consider that the Obama forces outspent the Clinton campaign in free Pineapple giveaways by nearly 6 to 1!)
Now on to Indiana, and -- thank God -- some delegates.
P.S. -- Wonk Alert. What the Hell is a Guam citizen called? Guamian? Guamite? I'd propose Guammie. But email the answer to me care of the Weekly Standard.
Does Michelle Obama understand that part of Barack's (limited) appeal is that he does not seem to be an angry person? Does she recognize that part of her husband's strategy to win is to goad his opponent into showing that he is angry? It isn't clear:
Michelle Obama lifted the lid on the irritation felt by the leading Democrat candidate for the White House at the way anti-American outbursts by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have dogged his campaign...
Her husband was thinking "I can't let my ego, my anger, my frustration get in the way of the ultimate goal," she said.
"Barack has been characterised as many things that have nothing to do with who he is..."
A senior Democrat strategist privy to Obama's campaign said: "He's sick of the battle against Clinton. He wants to get stuck into McCain. His people have had to remind him that this thing isn't over yet and he needs to focus and put her away."
Up until now, the press has focused exclusively on John McCain when considering whether the three leading contenders had the temperament required to be president. The one thing that no one in the media has questioned (but which Jim Geraghty presciently commented on) is whether Obama might himself be an angry person at heart. Now Michelle Obama has opened a window to a side of Barack Obama that we haven't really seen -- and it's not pretty.
Be sure to read Don Surber's thoughts as well.
Via Instapundit
Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin noted this Michelle Obama gem from the Obamas’ appearance on The Today Show this week:
The fundamental changes that he has made in just 15 months in the way people see themselves, the way people see their futures, the way young people are looking at their possibilities, the way we're talking about politics, even though we slip sometimes and we still get pulled down into the old ways of playing the political game — changes have happened. And it makes every challenge, every frustration, worth it.
As Rubin notes, "Even for the Obamas, the arrogance is quite striking." Nevertheless, just this once, I’m going to take a swig of the Kool-Aid: I can’t wait until golf season when Barack Obama will personally shave three strokes off my handicap!
Exit thought: Do the Obamas really believe their own self-aggrandizing hype? How you answer that question probably corresponds with how concerned you are over the prospect of an Obama administration. If Obama truly believes that just his magnificent presence would by itself have a dramatic transformative effect on the world, then an Obama presidency would make us nostalgic for the good old days of the Carter administration. If, on the other hand, it’s all just a shtick sort of like his "outrage" over Jeremiah Wright, then Obama's merely a disingenuous politician, and we've survived lots of those.
It’s not surprising that the Democratic primary campaign lacks sharp differences on policy issues. After all, Barack Obama a | | | |
