Terrifying isn't it, to contemplate Sarah Palin as president? Think about it: no abortions even if you have been raped, drilling in everyone's backyard, creationism being taught alongside evolution, and, with the middle east ready to boil over, Russia and its former satellites ready to explode, and John McCain unable to tell a Sunni from a Shiite, Palin comes forward with...her experience as head of the PTA. Sounds like the Philip Roth book that envisions what would have happened in the US had the Nazis won WW II.
John McCain isn't independent or a maverick but rather desperate, irresponsible, and assinine.
So what might the consumptive nominee of the Republican party been thinking?
Certainly not that he would attract Hillary Clinton supporters with the Palin pick. If any of these folks could now vote for McCain because of Palin then they certainly could have had no idea who or what they were voting for when they cast a ballot for Clinton. No one supporting Clinton or Clinton's ideas could even remotely consider supporting McCain/Palin. Although Palin has been cynically invoking Clinton's name on the campaign trail in a shameless play for Clinton voters, she shares nothing in common with Clinton other than that she has a vagina. In fact, when all is said and done McCain may well have done more than anyone could have conceived to deliver Clinton supporters to Obama.
Could it then have been Palin's experience? Heading up the PTA, acting as mayor of an Inuit village, or even governing Alaska just isn't enough to seriously consider someone for a position but one step removed from the Presidency. John McCain the alleged patriot, the man who supposedly loves this country just made crystal clear that he doesn't give a damn about anything other than getting elected. That he thought choosing Palin was the way to do this also underlines his complete and utter lack of judgement. If there was any question before that McCain was a hairtrigger martinet with nothing but silly putty between his ears, his choice of Palin, who Paul Begala rightly said is several pounds shy of being a lightweight, should put an end to all that.
Americans are a funny lot though and it is certainly possible that enough of them will be swayed by McCain's follies and Palin's frontier libertarianism or buy the goods hocked by the pundits--that McCain has found his maverick groove again, that he has great political instincts, that his choice of Palin is a game changer, and all the other tired bs that the press receives from McCain's staff and promptly publishes, no questions asked.
Here's hoping that in November voters will apply the only the sex education strategy Palin would support as governor of the Moose state (abstinence), and respond to her and the ghastly grandpa's vulgar entreaties with a resounding, no.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Say it Ain't So, Barack: Obama Chooses Joe Biden as his Running Mate
Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his VP is both brave and foolhardy--reminiscent of Custer's last stand in Montana, Napolean at Waterloo, or Britney Spears' marriage to Kevin Federline.
Obama and his drones clearly calculated that Biden's supposed foreign policy experience, acquired primarily in his self-serving blusterings and theatrics as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, outweighed his mantra for change and the need to get white working class voters like those Hillary Clinton ended up getting in the Democratic primary.
Obama's chances have been slim to none from the outset, and his sloughing off his leitmotif of change and brazen run for the center or even center-right on issues such as gun control, privacy/security, offshore drilling, etc., in the general election are indication of just how aware Obama is of his weaknesses.
It then is all the more puzzling why he would choose someone like Biden. Biden has run for President two times now, engendering both times the interest and excitement of watching paint dry on a wall. Also, while Biden may appeal to a few liberals who aren't bothered by his craven opportunism (in typical Biden fashion on the Iraq War he was for this when it was popular, against it when it wasn't), there is no indication that Biden will have any popularity with the kinds of voters in Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Virginia or any of the swing states that Obama needs so desperately to have a chance of winning in November. Sam Nunn or even George Mitchell would have been a far better pick both in terms of experience and pull with these more conservative voters.
Most dangerous, is Obama's slap-in-the-face to Hillary Clinton supporters. He is not doing well with many of these folks it seems and he has now all but written them off. For anyone who was on the fence his choosing of Biden, coupled with Obama's not even seriously considering Clinton as a possible VP, will ensure that many of her supporters do not vote at all or will vote for McCain.
Obama's disrespect of this group is so flagrant, in fact, that it indicates he believes he can win without these voters. For this to be the case, however, he would have to register and then turn out enough new voters to make up for those he has alienated. This is unlikely in the extreme.
Don't get me wrong. I do not have a lot of sympathy for HC. She ran a dumb campaign and when all is said and done, was beaten fair and square. She was clearly the more electible candidate in the general election, though, and Obama's only chance of winning, slim as it was, was ensuring that he could bring her voters back into the fold. Choosing her as VP might not have accomplished this and with her on the ticket may well have brought other problems. That said, he needed to reach out to her, signal that he was seriously considering her, and, most important, do everything in his power to acquire her voters.
That he hasn't done this and, indeed, has signalled that white working class voters are not important to a Democratic victory in the Fall, all but ensures that Democrats will once again go down to a stinging, dumbheaded, and unnecessary defeat.
Obama's calculations in the primary were nearly flawless and he has, despite what many have said, been running a very good general election campaign. His math has gone wildly wrong with his pick of Biden, though, and Democrats are almost certainly going to pay the price in November.
Obama and his drones clearly calculated that Biden's supposed foreign policy experience, acquired primarily in his self-serving blusterings and theatrics as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, outweighed his mantra for change and the need to get white working class voters like those Hillary Clinton ended up getting in the Democratic primary.
Obama's chances have been slim to none from the outset, and his sloughing off his leitmotif of change and brazen run for the center or even center-right on issues such as gun control, privacy/security, offshore drilling, etc., in the general election are indication of just how aware Obama is of his weaknesses.
It then is all the more puzzling why he would choose someone like Biden. Biden has run for President two times now, engendering both times the interest and excitement of watching paint dry on a wall. Also, while Biden may appeal to a few liberals who aren't bothered by his craven opportunism (in typical Biden fashion on the Iraq War he was for this when it was popular, against it when it wasn't), there is no indication that Biden will have any popularity with the kinds of voters in Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Virginia or any of the swing states that Obama needs so desperately to have a chance of winning in November. Sam Nunn or even George Mitchell would have been a far better pick both in terms of experience and pull with these more conservative voters.
Most dangerous, is Obama's slap-in-the-face to Hillary Clinton supporters. He is not doing well with many of these folks it seems and he has now all but written them off. For anyone who was on the fence his choosing of Biden, coupled with Obama's not even seriously considering Clinton as a possible VP, will ensure that many of her supporters do not vote at all or will vote for McCain.
Obama's disrespect of this group is so flagrant, in fact, that it indicates he believes he can win without these voters. For this to be the case, however, he would have to register and then turn out enough new voters to make up for those he has alienated. This is unlikely in the extreme.
Don't get me wrong. I do not have a lot of sympathy for HC. She ran a dumb campaign and when all is said and done, was beaten fair and square. She was clearly the more electible candidate in the general election, though, and Obama's only chance of winning, slim as it was, was ensuring that he could bring her voters back into the fold. Choosing her as VP might not have accomplished this and with her on the ticket may well have brought other problems. That said, he needed to reach out to her, signal that he was seriously considering her, and, most important, do everything in his power to acquire her voters.
That he hasn't done this and, indeed, has signalled that white working class voters are not important to a Democratic victory in the Fall, all but ensures that Democrats will once again go down to a stinging, dumbheaded, and unnecessary defeat.
Obama's calculations in the primary were nearly flawless and he has, despite what many have said, been running a very good general election campaign. His math has gone wildly wrong with his pick of Biden, though, and Democrats are almost certainly going to pay the price in November.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Silent Majority or Sleeping Giant? John McCain’s Potential Secret Weapon
John McCain, the consumptive Republican nominee is making history, too, just like Clinton and Obama. Should the unspeakable come to pass and McCain be elected president, he would, at age 72, be the oldest president to assume office.
So add to the historic 2008 US presidential election and the first black nominee of a major party, and the first woman to seriously compete for a major party’s nomination, McCain’s age, even if it is frequently the subject of quite a bit of mirth from the late night talk show hosts and considered a disadvantage by most politicians and pundits.
McCain obviously is worried about his age, too, frequently trotting out his 94-year-old mother to feature his good bloodlines and his own relative youth. On at least one occasion, he has spoken about the importance of choosing a vice president qualified to assume the presidency, even hinting at the possibility McCain might be a one-term president. And, of course, there are few Democrats who don’t relish the idea of contrasting the slim and youthful Obama with the ghastly complexioned, hoary-headed McCain.
But in reality McCain’s age may not be such a drawback. Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became president and, despite the fact he was probably senile some of the time, served two terms and currently enjoys a major place in the Republican party’s hagiography. Remember when Reagan famously said in a debate with Mondale in the ’84 election that he would not “exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience”? McCain isn’t that clever but he is certain to showcase his years of experience while mercilessly attacking Obama’s lack of the same. And if the Iraq war goes sideways anymore than it has already, security becomes a more prominent issue through new terrorist attacks, or Iran spins out of control, McCain’s experience and even if his age could become an advantage.
And consider this: the US Census Bureau in its latest published report on population projections for the U.S, projected that post-World War II baby boomers in their 50s would increase 12 million from 1996-2006, to about 38 million, a figure that represents more than half of the country’s total population growth over this period (the latest Census Bureau figures from 1995-2006 show an actual increase of a little more than 13 million over this period). See http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/reports.html.
And the 85 and over crowd? According to the report, this group is expected to double in size from 1996-2025, and increase a whopping fivefold by 2050. With figures like these McCain’s mom could run and have a chance.
This is all a little tongue-in-cheek and the explosive growth in especially the 85 and older crowd will occur after McCain’s presidential fate is decided and, despite the increases, there still won't be that many octogenarians. That said, McCain's age isn’t much of a liability. We are aging as a population as the Census Bureau numbers attest and boomers especially will by their sheer numbers, education and all the other things that make boomers boomers, already are expanding our notion of what older people can do. It isn’t for nothing that all of the nightly news programs have advertisements for denture cleaners, adult diapers, drugs for ED and the like. McCain isn't himself a boomer but close enough that especially old voters--boomers born just after the war and those closer to McCain's age--may identify more with McCain than a younger candiate.
And with blacks and women able to pour their hopes and dreams into Obama and Clinton, why shouldn’t the Geritol crowd or the soon-to-be Geritol crowd, too, have someone they can look to?
So if McCain will just stop acting like an old poop—grimacing at the cameras, using terms like “my friends,” over and over again when addressing crowds, and winking lasciviously in the glare of the media lights—he could even be seen as part of the Zeitgeist, embodying the spirit of this rapidly aging time, or at least making a potential liability into something else.
McCain’s got a lot of friends or potential friends, at any rate. All he has to do now is make sure he doesn’t put them to sleep.
So add to the historic 2008 US presidential election and the first black nominee of a major party, and the first woman to seriously compete for a major party’s nomination, McCain’s age, even if it is frequently the subject of quite a bit of mirth from the late night talk show hosts and considered a disadvantage by most politicians and pundits.
McCain obviously is worried about his age, too, frequently trotting out his 94-year-old mother to feature his good bloodlines and his own relative youth. On at least one occasion, he has spoken about the importance of choosing a vice president qualified to assume the presidency, even hinting at the possibility McCain might be a one-term president. And, of course, there are few Democrats who don’t relish the idea of contrasting the slim and youthful Obama with the ghastly complexioned, hoary-headed McCain.
But in reality McCain’s age may not be such a drawback. Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became president and, despite the fact he was probably senile some of the time, served two terms and currently enjoys a major place in the Republican party’s hagiography. Remember when Reagan famously said in a debate with Mondale in the ’84 election that he would not “exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience”? McCain isn’t that clever but he is certain to showcase his years of experience while mercilessly attacking Obama’s lack of the same. And if the Iraq war goes sideways anymore than it has already, security becomes a more prominent issue through new terrorist attacks, or Iran spins out of control, McCain’s experience and even if his age could become an advantage.
And consider this: the US Census Bureau in its latest published report on population projections for the U.S, projected that post-World War II baby boomers in their 50s would increase 12 million from 1996-2006, to about 38 million, a figure that represents more than half of the country’s total population growth over this period (the latest Census Bureau figures from 1995-2006 show an actual increase of a little more than 13 million over this period). See http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/reports.html.
And the 85 and over crowd? According to the report, this group is expected to double in size from 1996-2025, and increase a whopping fivefold by 2050. With figures like these McCain’s mom could run and have a chance.
This is all a little tongue-in-cheek and the explosive growth in especially the 85 and older crowd will occur after McCain’s presidential fate is decided and, despite the increases, there still won't be that many octogenarians. That said, McCain's age isn’t much of a liability. We are aging as a population as the Census Bureau numbers attest and boomers especially will by their sheer numbers, education and all the other things that make boomers boomers, already are expanding our notion of what older people can do. It isn’t for nothing that all of the nightly news programs have advertisements for denture cleaners, adult diapers, drugs for ED and the like. McCain isn't himself a boomer but close enough that especially old voters--boomers born just after the war and those closer to McCain's age--may identify more with McCain than a younger candiate.
And with blacks and women able to pour their hopes and dreams into Obama and Clinton, why shouldn’t the Geritol crowd or the soon-to-be Geritol crowd, too, have someone they can look to?
So if McCain will just stop acting like an old poop—grimacing at the cameras, using terms like “my friends,” over and over again when addressing crowds, and winking lasciviously in the glare of the media lights—he could even be seen as part of the Zeitgeist, embodying the spirit of this rapidly aging time, or at least making a potential liability into something else.
McCain’s got a lot of friends or potential friends, at any rate. All he has to do now is make sure he doesn’t put them to sleep.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Courting Women or Courting Disaster: Obama and the General Election
The Democratic primary contests ended last night with a little bit of a surprise when Hillary Clinton won South Dakota, a state that most people didn’t think she was likely to win. Obama, though, won Montana, as expected, and, more important, became the Democrats' presumptive nominee when about 30 uncommitted superdelegates declared for him after the close of both primaries. This is an exciting time for any Democrat but especially for black voters who helped elect Obama as the first black nominee of any major party in the history of this country.
As exciting and meaningful as this is, it has become patently clear over the last month or so of the campaign that another group of voters has poured their hopes and dreams into Hillary Clinton with the same passion, urgency, and sense of expectation that blacks have done with Obama.
They are women, of course, and especially older women. They’ve made their presence felt throughout the campaign as the largest bloc of voters and many have supported Clinton from the beginning of the campaign. But they have become particularly energized in recent weeks, not only turning out in droves to hear Clinton speak but to vote in states like Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and, last night, South Dakota. The crowds have been huge, raucous, and there has been, late in the campaign, an energy that wasn’t there in the past. Increasingly, women voters also appear to be furious at the perception that Obama, the media, and the Democratic National Committee are conspiring to prevent Clinton from getting the Party’s nomination.
A lot of people, me included, have largely overlooked this phenomenon or at least the extent of women’s passion for Clinton and what it means for the general election, focusing more on a race, working class voters, Keith Olbermann’s hairpiece or something other than gender.
A recent example of Clinton supporters’ passion was on display at last Saturday’s meeting of the Democratic Party’s rules committee that seemed to me, at the time, just kind of curious and even silly.
As the committee heard arguments on seating the Florida and Michigan delegates that the DNC had stripped from each state’s slate as punishment for flouting the DNC’s primary calendar, many of Clinton’s supporters inside the DC hotel where the committee met frequently shouted and tried to interrupt when representatives for Obama argued against seating all delegates at full strength or said anything that did not recognize fully, or “fairly reflect,” in the apportioning of delegates HC’s vote totals in each state. Many others protested outside.
There was, thus, much hue and cry when the rules committee not only gave the “uncommitted” Michigan vote to Obama, who was not on the ballot in state, and, even worse, gave him an additional four delegates that were seemingly conjured out of the thin air of advance polls, eye of newt, and lord knows what else. During the day-long meeting there was at least one scuffle when a woman supporting Clinton pushed an Obama supporter. Others were led from the building when they became particularly loud and disruptive.
As I said, I didn’t give the hullabaloo much thought at the time. But not much later, when my wife, with whom I talk about all kinds of things and probably politics more than anything, became herself so furious at Hillary Clinton’s fate that she threw a plate of pasta across the room, shattering it in a million pieces, I took notice. Like many other women I have spoken with recently, my wife looks at Clinton as someone who had not only had to fight to be taken seriously because of her gender, or is frequently critiqued on her appearance, emotion or just about anything other than her abilities, but as someone who would both symbolically break through the glass ceiling thereby aiding others in getting through it as well. And, with the plate as testament, she, like a lot of other women, feels passionately about Clinton and what she represents, and to an extent that not even I was aware.
In other words, women’s reactions to Clinton’s candidacy are just as strong as many blacks’ feelings for Obama’s and based on similarly deep-seated experiences of discrimination, humiliation, and the knowledge that many avenues in life may be narrowed or closed altogether simply because of one’s race or gender . These two camps, while not at war exactly, have an awful lot vested in this election, aside from the specific political policies and changes each candidate would bring to Washington. They also have lot in common.
Because Obama is for all intents and purposes the nominee now, it is he, though, who will have to deal with the passion of women voters scorned and it is he who will have to make clear how much Democrats have in common, whether they are Clinton or Obama supporters. He certainly seems exactly the man to get people to step out of their own skins some and, indeed, the foundation of his campaign is all about bringing disparate groups together. So where better to start than the Democratic party?
More concretely, Obama simply cannot afford to lose especially those women voters over 40. If he does he will have no chance of winning the election. Because I believe that Obama is keenly aware of this and, more important, very aware of both his strengths and weaknesses with voters in other demographic groups he will have to acquire in the general election, I think he will move very soon to make Hillary Clinton his choice for vice president.
It won’t be a popular move for most Clinton supporters or Obama supporters at first, but just as Obama was way ahead of the curve in assessing both potential voters and the ins and outs of the Democratic primary obstacle course, it will be the right move, and the one most likely to draw together the powerful but fractured constituencies that are so crucial to a Democratic victory in November.
Consider it one of his first tests of the general election.
As exciting and meaningful as this is, it has become patently clear over the last month or so of the campaign that another group of voters has poured their hopes and dreams into Hillary Clinton with the same passion, urgency, and sense of expectation that blacks have done with Obama.
They are women, of course, and especially older women. They’ve made their presence felt throughout the campaign as the largest bloc of voters and many have supported Clinton from the beginning of the campaign. But they have become particularly energized in recent weeks, not only turning out in droves to hear Clinton speak but to vote in states like Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and, last night, South Dakota. The crowds have been huge, raucous, and there has been, late in the campaign, an energy that wasn’t there in the past. Increasingly, women voters also appear to be furious at the perception that Obama, the media, and the Democratic National Committee are conspiring to prevent Clinton from getting the Party’s nomination.
A lot of people, me included, have largely overlooked this phenomenon or at least the extent of women’s passion for Clinton and what it means for the general election, focusing more on a race, working class voters, Keith Olbermann’s hairpiece or something other than gender.
A recent example of Clinton supporters’ passion was on display at last Saturday’s meeting of the Democratic Party’s rules committee that seemed to me, at the time, just kind of curious and even silly.
As the committee heard arguments on seating the Florida and Michigan delegates that the DNC had stripped from each state’s slate as punishment for flouting the DNC’s primary calendar, many of Clinton’s supporters inside the DC hotel where the committee met frequently shouted and tried to interrupt when representatives for Obama argued against seating all delegates at full strength or said anything that did not recognize fully, or “fairly reflect,” in the apportioning of delegates HC’s vote totals in each state. Many others protested outside.
There was, thus, much hue and cry when the rules committee not only gave the “uncommitted” Michigan vote to Obama, who was not on the ballot in state, and, even worse, gave him an additional four delegates that were seemingly conjured out of the thin air of advance polls, eye of newt, and lord knows what else. During the day-long meeting there was at least one scuffle when a woman supporting Clinton pushed an Obama supporter. Others were led from the building when they became particularly loud and disruptive.
As I said, I didn’t give the hullabaloo much thought at the time. But not much later, when my wife, with whom I talk about all kinds of things and probably politics more than anything, became herself so furious at Hillary Clinton’s fate that she threw a plate of pasta across the room, shattering it in a million pieces, I took notice. Like many other women I have spoken with recently, my wife looks at Clinton as someone who had not only had to fight to be taken seriously because of her gender, or is frequently critiqued on her appearance, emotion or just about anything other than her abilities, but as someone who would both symbolically break through the glass ceiling thereby aiding others in getting through it as well. And, with the plate as testament, she, like a lot of other women, feels passionately about Clinton and what she represents, and to an extent that not even I was aware.
In other words, women’s reactions to Clinton’s candidacy are just as strong as many blacks’ feelings for Obama’s and based on similarly deep-seated experiences of discrimination, humiliation, and the knowledge that many avenues in life may be narrowed or closed altogether simply because of one’s race or gender . These two camps, while not at war exactly, have an awful lot vested in this election, aside from the specific political policies and changes each candidate would bring to Washington. They also have lot in common.
Because Obama is for all intents and purposes the nominee now, it is he, though, who will have to deal with the passion of women voters scorned and it is he who will have to make clear how much Democrats have in common, whether they are Clinton or Obama supporters. He certainly seems exactly the man to get people to step out of their own skins some and, indeed, the foundation of his campaign is all about bringing disparate groups together. So where better to start than the Democratic party?
More concretely, Obama simply cannot afford to lose especially those women voters over 40. If he does he will have no chance of winning the election. Because I believe that Obama is keenly aware of this and, more important, very aware of both his strengths and weaknesses with voters in other demographic groups he will have to acquire in the general election, I think he will move very soon to make Hillary Clinton his choice for vice president.
It won’t be a popular move for most Clinton supporters or Obama supporters at first, but just as Obama was way ahead of the curve in assessing both potential voters and the ins and outs of the Democratic primary obstacle course, it will be the right move, and the one most likely to draw together the powerful but fractured constituencies that are so crucial to a Democratic victory in November.
Consider it one of his first tests of the general election.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Democratic Campaign 2008: More on the Rules Committee’s Decisions
On the day of the Democratic rules committee decision to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates I wrote that despite the arbitrary way they dealt with especially Michigan, each candidate got something—Obama an end to the last real obstacles to his nomination and Clinton more support for the argument that she has won nearly all the big states and the swing states, and, thus is more electible in November and, for any superdelegate who may still be listening, a legitimate claim that she is ahead in the popular vote.
I want to look a little closer at Hillary Clinton’s victory, such as it is, and explain what I meant, especially with respect to including Michigan as part of the popular vote.
Leave aside the fact that only Chris Dodd’s name was on the Michigan ballot in addition to Clinton’s and that Clinton ended up with 55 percent of the votes and 40 percent went to “uncommitted.”
Disregard that in awarding 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama (Both these figures must be halved because the rules committee docked them this much as punishment for each state’s ignoring the DNC’s primary calendar),the Democratic witches and warlocks threw into the bubbling cauldron a rough approximation based on Clinton’s vote, advance polls indicating how many votes each candidate would receive, and, more than likely, the eye of a toad in order to conjure the supernatural delegate totals.
Forget that the rules committee’s treatment of Michigan makes a mockery of the notion that every vote should be counted.
Because, despite the fuzzy math and the paranormal tricks, thanks to the rules committee, Clinton can claim victory not only in these states, but legitimately count the popular vote in each, something heretofore thought pretty much inconceivable, given the fact that the DNC itself, with the agreement of both Clinton and Obama, had taken these states off the table.
In a way only Clinton can do, she is slicing and dicing this measure in extraordinary ways though to what end, as she has almost no chance of winning at this point, is unclear. As of Saturday, Clinton was saying with a face made nearly straight by the rules committee’s decisions that day that she was beating Obama in the popular vote although almost no one in the media or anywhere other than the Clinton campaign was saying this.
How did she get there? She included the votes she received in both Florida and Michigan, tossed out several of the caucuses Obama won because no official vote tallies were kept and, despite the rules committee’s awarding him nearly half the delegates in Michigan, gave zero popular votes in Michigan to Obama because, she said, he wasn’t on the ballot. All of which could be considered at once technically correct, ham-handed, duplicitous, and vintage Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s ads in Montana and South Dakota, the final primaries, in this long strange trip, tout the popular vote lead, and her advisor, Howard Ickes, was all over the news on Sunday telling Meet the Press’ Tim Russert and anyone else who would listen that Clinton was ahead in the popular vote.
Clinton’s manipulations and self-serving representations of the popular vote totals is pretty preposterous even by her standards given that she at least tacitly agreed, along with many others, with the DNC’s asinine penalty to strip Florida and Michigan of all delegates when she signed a pledge with the states of Iowa and New Hampshire not to campaign in the upstart states. However, you can’t blame her for doing this any more than you can blame Obama for essentially blackmailing the superdelegates to vote for him and not overturn the will of the people, or that is, anyway, the will of the people as represented by the number of pledged delegates even though the number separating him and Clinton could be around 100 or so when the final primaries come to an end tomorrow. Obama’s argument is given teeth that it wouldn’t otherwise have because so many of his supporters are black and the party cannot risk alienating such a stalwart and important element of its base.
The DNC, its rules committee, and leaders such as DNC Chair, Howard Dean, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, have encouraged these shenanigans. It was bad enough that they only too happily disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan—two states that are crucial to Democrats chances in the general election—or for Pelosi to say, as she and nearly every other Democratic leader has done, that the superdelegates should not overturn the pledged delegates, no matter how thin the margin separating the candidates. But for the DNC to come up with the hare-brained apportionment of delegates in Michigan based on partial votes and the will of the rules committee instead of Michigan primary voters has too many echoes of rigged elections and the nightmarish incompetence in Florida in the 2000 general election.
The DNC has one hell of a lot to answer for this time around but to paraphrase Keith Olbermann of MSNBC who used the phrase to excoriate Hillary Clinton for her RFK assassination comments recently, there is one thing for which we cannot forgive the DNC. We cannot forgive that after this primary election, just like Bush’s infamous victory over Gore in 2000, an awful lot of people will have reason to believe that the 2008 Democratic election process was unfair and that the nominee of the Party, whether Clinton, or as is likely the case, Obama, may be illegitimate.
It just doesn’t get any worse than this when it comes to elections and the result, as it frequently is in such situations, is likely to be as disastrous for Democrats as it was in 2000.
I want to look a little closer at Hillary Clinton’s victory, such as it is, and explain what I meant, especially with respect to including Michigan as part of the popular vote.
Leave aside the fact that only Chris Dodd’s name was on the Michigan ballot in addition to Clinton’s and that Clinton ended up with 55 percent of the votes and 40 percent went to “uncommitted.”
Disregard that in awarding 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama (Both these figures must be halved because the rules committee docked them this much as punishment for each state’s ignoring the DNC’s primary calendar),the Democratic witches and warlocks threw into the bubbling cauldron a rough approximation based on Clinton’s vote, advance polls indicating how many votes each candidate would receive, and, more than likely, the eye of a toad in order to conjure the supernatural delegate totals.
Forget that the rules committee’s treatment of Michigan makes a mockery of the notion that every vote should be counted.
Because, despite the fuzzy math and the paranormal tricks, thanks to the rules committee, Clinton can claim victory not only in these states, but legitimately count the popular vote in each, something heretofore thought pretty much inconceivable, given the fact that the DNC itself, with the agreement of both Clinton and Obama, had taken these states off the table.
In a way only Clinton can do, she is slicing and dicing this measure in extraordinary ways though to what end, as she has almost no chance of winning at this point, is unclear. As of Saturday, Clinton was saying with a face made nearly straight by the rules committee’s decisions that day that she was beating Obama in the popular vote although almost no one in the media or anywhere other than the Clinton campaign was saying this.
How did she get there? She included the votes she received in both Florida and Michigan, tossed out several of the caucuses Obama won because no official vote tallies were kept and, despite the rules committee’s awarding him nearly half the delegates in Michigan, gave zero popular votes in Michigan to Obama because, she said, he wasn’t on the ballot. All of which could be considered at once technically correct, ham-handed, duplicitous, and vintage Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s ads in Montana and South Dakota, the final primaries, in this long strange trip, tout the popular vote lead, and her advisor, Howard Ickes, was all over the news on Sunday telling Meet the Press’ Tim Russert and anyone else who would listen that Clinton was ahead in the popular vote.
Clinton’s manipulations and self-serving representations of the popular vote totals is pretty preposterous even by her standards given that she at least tacitly agreed, along with many others, with the DNC’s asinine penalty to strip Florida and Michigan of all delegates when she signed a pledge with the states of Iowa and New Hampshire not to campaign in the upstart states. However, you can’t blame her for doing this any more than you can blame Obama for essentially blackmailing the superdelegates to vote for him and not overturn the will of the people, or that is, anyway, the will of the people as represented by the number of pledged delegates even though the number separating him and Clinton could be around 100 or so when the final primaries come to an end tomorrow. Obama’s argument is given teeth that it wouldn’t otherwise have because so many of his supporters are black and the party cannot risk alienating such a stalwart and important element of its base.
The DNC, its rules committee, and leaders such as DNC Chair, Howard Dean, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, have encouraged these shenanigans. It was bad enough that they only too happily disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan—two states that are crucial to Democrats chances in the general election—or for Pelosi to say, as she and nearly every other Democratic leader has done, that the superdelegates should not overturn the pledged delegates, no matter how thin the margin separating the candidates. But for the DNC to come up with the hare-brained apportionment of delegates in Michigan based on partial votes and the will of the rules committee instead of Michigan primary voters has too many echoes of rigged elections and the nightmarish incompetence in Florida in the 2000 general election.
The DNC has one hell of a lot to answer for this time around but to paraphrase Keith Olbermann of MSNBC who used the phrase to excoriate Hillary Clinton for her RFK assassination comments recently, there is one thing for which we cannot forgive the DNC. We cannot forgive that after this primary election, just like Bush’s infamous victory over Gore in 2000, an awful lot of people will have reason to believe that the 2008 Democratic election process was unfair and that the nominee of the Party, whether Clinton, or as is likely the case, Obama, may be illegitimate.
It just doesn’t get any worse than this when it comes to elections and the result, as it frequently is in such situations, is likely to be as disastrous for Democrats as it was in 2000.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
What Rules? The Democratic Rules Committee Carve Up Florida and Michigan
Just a few thoughts on today's interminable meeting of the Democratic rules committee which met to decide whether/how to allocate delegates in Florida and Michigan. These are the states, of course, which held primaries earlier than permitted by the Democratic National Committee, and which the latter, in all its wisdom, initially decided to strip of all delegates for the transgression.
The outcome was predetermined. Despite the day-long and frequently inarticulate ramblings of the committee members on all matters under the sun, the outcome seemed pre-ordained. And, indeed, there was a lot of talk before today that the committee would do exactly what it did--seat all the pledged delegates in both states but reduce their vote from 1 to 1/2 and allocate these proportionately based on the vote in Florida, which HRC won 50 percent to 33 percent for Obama. HC thus received 19 more delegates than Obama for Florida (based on a 105 to 67 split in delegates with each divided by half) and an extra 5 pledged delegates (69-59 reduced by 1/2) in Michigan even though she won 55 percent of the vote in the state and Obama was not on the ballot. No matter that both of these solutions, especially the wholly arbitrary allotment of delegates in Michigan, should have everyone shaking his or her head whether a Clinton or Obama supporter. Superdelegates for both states were also restored but each is also to count as 1/2 vote.
Obama and Clinton both got something. Obama basically got the nomination because, barring a challenge by Clinton to the credentials committee, the next circle in Democratic hell, the issue of what to do with the Florida and Michigan voters has been resolved with Obama still firmly in the lead in pledged delegates. When the last of the primaries is over on Tuesday, and with the help of just a few superdelegates, Obama almost certainly will have locked up the nomination. And Clinton? By giving her victories in Florida and Michigan she can add these states to her list of "big" or "swing" states. After the primaries are over on Tuesday, she can probably legitimately say that she won the popular vote, the focus of her campaign for some time now. What it is, exactly, she plans to do with this is anyone's guess.
Howard Ickes, like Harold Wolfson, one of the top strategists and advisors in Hillary Clinton's campaign, is simply repugnant. Like many in the Clinton campaign both advisors ooze arrogance, elitism, and a win-at-all-costs mentality. Not the face, certainly, that you want representing you publically, anyway. Yet, Ickes, who is also a rules committee member, was making Hillary's case to count fully all delegates and, in Michigan, to award them proportionately, based on the 55 percent vote she received and the 40 percent that went to "uncommitted. " Nothing to Obama, in other words, as his name wasn't on the ballot. No big deal, right, that Clinton and company were in full agreement with the DNC's wood-headed decision to disenfranchise voters in Florida and Michigan from the outset and that she herself said that the votes in both states would not count? And to people like CNN's Wolf Blitzer who preface their discussion of Ickes as a "brilliant strategist," I say what's so brilliant about dismissing the caucus states, thinking that the Clinton machine would have it wrapped up after Super Tuesday, and ignoring for much of the campaign smaller campaign doners.
Obama's not putting his name on the ballot in Michigan wasn't an oversight. Pat Buchanan, among others, has said it was "politics 101" for a candidate to make sure that his/her name was on the ballot in Michigan, even though the candidates knew that the delegates would not be seated in the state. He thus gave Clinton an "A" for doing this, for thinking of all contingencies, and an "F" to Obama for being shortsighted. Based on the deadly accurate voting projections for each state the Obama campaign has produced throughout the campaign, Obama's decision to not include his name on the ballot seems like a very calculated one. He would not have won this state had his name been on the ballot and certainly not received nearly half of the delegates as the rules committee ended up awarding him today based on smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, and channeling the spirit of Richard Daley the elder.
The Democratic party is anything but democratic. Despite the quasi-legal proceedings and the appearance of genuine give-and-take, today's proceedings were more akin to a kangeroo court, and, as mentioned, the outcome predetermined. It is simply the latest element in the Democrat's nominating process that throws into relief how inefficient, creaky, and, yes, un-democratic, the process is. If nothing else, let's hope that Howard Dean, the DNC's Chair, is run out of town, the caucuses and superdelegates scrapped, awarding of delegates by divination (Texas, etc.) done away with, and a winner-take all process, similar to the Republicans', at least seriously considered.
The outcome was predetermined. Despite the day-long and frequently inarticulate ramblings of the committee members on all matters under the sun, the outcome seemed pre-ordained. And, indeed, there was a lot of talk before today that the committee would do exactly what it did--seat all the pledged delegates in both states but reduce their vote from 1 to 1/2 and allocate these proportionately based on the vote in Florida, which HRC won 50 percent to 33 percent for Obama. HC thus received 19 more delegates than Obama for Florida (based on a 105 to 67 split in delegates with each divided by half) and an extra 5 pledged delegates (69-59 reduced by 1/2) in Michigan even though she won 55 percent of the vote in the state and Obama was not on the ballot. No matter that both of these solutions, especially the wholly arbitrary allotment of delegates in Michigan, should have everyone shaking his or her head whether a Clinton or Obama supporter. Superdelegates for both states were also restored but each is also to count as 1/2 vote.
Obama and Clinton both got something. Obama basically got the nomination because, barring a challenge by Clinton to the credentials committee, the next circle in Democratic hell, the issue of what to do with the Florida and Michigan voters has been resolved with Obama still firmly in the lead in pledged delegates. When the last of the primaries is over on Tuesday, and with the help of just a few superdelegates, Obama almost certainly will have locked up the nomination. And Clinton? By giving her victories in Florida and Michigan she can add these states to her list of "big" or "swing" states. After the primaries are over on Tuesday, she can probably legitimately say that she won the popular vote, the focus of her campaign for some time now. What it is, exactly, she plans to do with this is anyone's guess.
Howard Ickes, like Harold Wolfson, one of the top strategists and advisors in Hillary Clinton's campaign, is simply repugnant. Like many in the Clinton campaign both advisors ooze arrogance, elitism, and a win-at-all-costs mentality. Not the face, certainly, that you want representing you publically, anyway. Yet, Ickes, who is also a rules committee member, was making Hillary's case to count fully all delegates and, in Michigan, to award them proportionately, based on the 55 percent vote she received and the 40 percent that went to "uncommitted. " Nothing to Obama, in other words, as his name wasn't on the ballot. No big deal, right, that Clinton and company were in full agreement with the DNC's wood-headed decision to disenfranchise voters in Florida and Michigan from the outset and that she herself said that the votes in both states would not count? And to people like CNN's Wolf Blitzer who preface their discussion of Ickes as a "brilliant strategist," I say what's so brilliant about dismissing the caucus states, thinking that the Clinton machine would have it wrapped up after Super Tuesday, and ignoring for much of the campaign smaller campaign doners.
Obama's not putting his name on the ballot in Michigan wasn't an oversight. Pat Buchanan, among others, has said it was "politics 101" for a candidate to make sure that his/her name was on the ballot in Michigan, even though the candidates knew that the delegates would not be seated in the state. He thus gave Clinton an "A" for doing this, for thinking of all contingencies, and an "F" to Obama for being shortsighted. Based on the deadly accurate voting projections for each state the Obama campaign has produced throughout the campaign, Obama's decision to not include his name on the ballot seems like a very calculated one. He would not have won this state had his name been on the ballot and certainly not received nearly half of the delegates as the rules committee ended up awarding him today based on smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, and channeling the spirit of Richard Daley the elder.
The Democratic party is anything but democratic. Despite the quasi-legal proceedings and the appearance of genuine give-and-take, today's proceedings were more akin to a kangeroo court, and, as mentioned, the outcome predetermined. It is simply the latest element in the Democrat's nominating process that throws into relief how inefficient, creaky, and, yes, un-democratic, the process is. If nothing else, let's hope that Howard Dean, the DNC's Chair, is run out of town, the caucuses and superdelegates scrapped, awarding of delegates by divination (Texas, etc.) done away with, and a winner-take all process, similar to the Republicans', at least seriously considered.
Friday, May 30, 2008
News as Commodity: Selling the 2008 Race for the Presidency
Politico’s John Harris recently gave some insight into what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call commercial blogging (How small stories become big news, May 27, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/1004.html).
His point of departure was the recent dustup involving Hillary Clinton’s comments about the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, shortly after his primary victory in California. Clinton cited his assassination in June, along with hubby Bill’s not having wrapped up the Democratic nomination in June, 1992 as reasons for her continuing on at this relative late date in the 2008 primary. In other words, she was saying, the race ain’t over ‘til it’s over and it would be premature for her to leave when so little separates the candidates in terms of pledged delegates and popular vote, especially when neither candidate can be elected based on pledged delegates alone.
Harris said that when the news of Clinton’s words to a South Dakota newspaper editorial board came in, on May 23, he exhorted fellow Politico writer, Jonathan Martin, who was already furiously blogging away to get something about it on the site as soon as possible. His blog, like many other large blogs, wanted to get anything, whether right or wrong, or in or out of context, up on the site because the posting of a potentially controversial post can be a primary driver of traffic to the blog, in general. Or, as Harris himself writes, “The truth about what Clinton said—and any fair-minded appraisal of what she meant—was entirely beside the point.”
In other words, who cares if it is correct, and whether the post amounts to creating news out of something trivial or minor or reporting it? Harris says that in retrospect, Politico’s entry as well as many others on the Internet about the RFK assassination were hype, piffle, and lacked “proportionality.” Clinton’s words, while poorly chosen, were references to events that occurred late in a campaign and, as such, the reference simply to a point in time in which the Party’s nominee was still not decided. You could almost see Harris wringing his hands as he bemoaned the haste to post the dramatic and breathless RFK post and the practice, in general, though to his credit, he at least admitted that he is “unapologetic in our premium on high velocity” and that in this regard “we are not different from nearly all news sites these days.” Still, I would have felt a lot better if he’d simply said this wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, there was no such pronouncement, just a self-serving blog that, in this context, is little better than navel gazing.
The frequently uncritical, unresearched, and shamelessly dramatic blog postings are bad enough but, even worse, is the fact that this also affects, more generally, the television news programs and the print media. The cable network, MSNBC, is a case in point. On May 23, the day of HC’s RFK comment, Keith Olbermann devoted one of his vapid “special commentaries” to the situation in his program, Countdown, accusing the Democratic candidate of implying that Clinton was waiting around for Obama to be assassinated, that she was a racist, and that she was relying on Republican bogeyman, Karl Rove, for many of her campaign tactics. “We have forgiven you for these things,” Olbermann pontificated but for the assassination remark “we cannot forgive you this,” he continued.
While Olbermann, who James Carville once said was about “2 degrees short of self-combustion,” finally did explode in his silly tirade, his behavior was simply a more wacko version of the reportage that was taking place in the blogs and the television news: dramatic, self-righteous, lacking in context, and, most disturbingly, almost certainly a function of not reporting the news and informing people but rather attracting viewer and reader traffic for the sake of advertising dollars. Chris Mathews, Olbermann’s colleague and host of his own program, Hardball, engaged in similar hyperbole, mischaracterizing and losing all sense of proportion. Mathews has continued to devote significant segments of his program to this non-story.
A cursory search of the Internet or a few minutes of channel surfing the cable news networks even today, one week after the fact, reveals the same—lots of hype about a story that doesn’t have any legs or wouldn’t anyway, were it not for the media trying to wring every last dollar out of what would otherwise be a non-event, or, at best, an event worthy of a couple minutes of discussion. More important than any of these, which have little reader/viewership, are the big three television news programs and national newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post. All of these had, as soon as possible, articles or segments devoted to the RFK remarks that distinguished themselves from one another only by the level of breathlessness each exhibited.
So what, if anything, are we to make of such crass and commercial behavior? One thing to take away from this is that a wealth of information, doesn’t necessarily mean better information. With many blogs and television news programs driven primarily to be first or most dramatic, it is just as likely that the information you are reading is, like the RFK remark, much ado about nothing, and may well say less about the candidates or substantive issues than it does about the people reporting it and the organizations for which they work.
It is inevitable that there will continue to be shoddy reporting delivered in an entertainment atmosphere—to spice things up Olbermann, for example, intersperses his rants with dwarf tossing, images of the world’s largest latrine, and the like—as long as blogs, print and television news and anything that can generate ad dollars are bought by large companies and consolidated to the point where they have little or no independence and where there primary motivations are advertising dollars.
The implications of such reporting aren’t trivial, though. One need look no further than the speed and ease with which the media embedded themselves with the Bush administration and helped not only the push to war with Iraq but its prosecution. Or to the uncritical acceptance of the PR flak generals the television news programs hired for their supposedly unbiased analysis of the war in Iraq. In his recently published book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, even Scott McClellan, Bush’s former press secretary for Pete’s sake, calls the press out on the carpet for being weak, uncritical and, almost to a fault, under the sway of the Bush Administration’s dangerous gibberish concerning the war in Iraq, among other things.
So, given this track record you wouldn’t expect the media to act any differently in the 2008 race for the presidency.
And, of course, they do not disappoint, focusing on artificial ups and downs, trivial comments blown into “Bittergates” class warfare, and race baiting instead of the candidates’ positions on the various issues, whether their policies would be feasible, or who would be most electable, based on the demographic information, voting patterns, and other quantitative information available to anyone with the time to look at it. In the world of today’s media it is, unfortunately, completely believable and even expected that the focus is more on Michelle Obama’s comments about being truly proud to be an American for the first time, or Bill Clinton’s remarks comparing Obama’s victory in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s victories there in 1984 and 1988 than George W. Bush’s statement that he fully approved of the various methods of torture, including waterboarding, that the clandestine services have been engaging in under the auspices of Dick Cheney and others when interrogating supposed terrorists.
In the end, with the media’s increasing focus on entertainment and advertising dollars, drama without content, and race to be the first no matter the cost, it’s buyer, reader, and viewer beware.
Just as when you assess the wares of any greed head interested only in how much money they can extract from you.
His point of departure was the recent dustup involving Hillary Clinton’s comments about the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, shortly after his primary victory in California. Clinton cited his assassination in June, along with hubby Bill’s not having wrapped up the Democratic nomination in June, 1992 as reasons for her continuing on at this relative late date in the 2008 primary. In other words, she was saying, the race ain’t over ‘til it’s over and it would be premature for her to leave when so little separates the candidates in terms of pledged delegates and popular vote, especially when neither candidate can be elected based on pledged delegates alone.
Harris said that when the news of Clinton’s words to a South Dakota newspaper editorial board came in, on May 23, he exhorted fellow Politico writer, Jonathan Martin, who was already furiously blogging away to get something about it on the site as soon as possible. His blog, like many other large blogs, wanted to get anything, whether right or wrong, or in or out of context, up on the site because the posting of a potentially controversial post can be a primary driver of traffic to the blog, in general. Or, as Harris himself writes, “The truth about what Clinton said—and any fair-minded appraisal of what she meant—was entirely beside the point.”
In other words, who cares if it is correct, and whether the post amounts to creating news out of something trivial or minor or reporting it? Harris says that in retrospect, Politico’s entry as well as many others on the Internet about the RFK assassination were hype, piffle, and lacked “proportionality.” Clinton’s words, while poorly chosen, were references to events that occurred late in a campaign and, as such, the reference simply to a point in time in which the Party’s nominee was still not decided. You could almost see Harris wringing his hands as he bemoaned the haste to post the dramatic and breathless RFK post and the practice, in general, though to his credit, he at least admitted that he is “unapologetic in our premium on high velocity” and that in this regard “we are not different from nearly all news sites these days.” Still, I would have felt a lot better if he’d simply said this wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, there was no such pronouncement, just a self-serving blog that, in this context, is little better than navel gazing.
The frequently uncritical, unresearched, and shamelessly dramatic blog postings are bad enough but, even worse, is the fact that this also affects, more generally, the television news programs and the print media. The cable network, MSNBC, is a case in point. On May 23, the day of HC’s RFK comment, Keith Olbermann devoted one of his vapid “special commentaries” to the situation in his program, Countdown, accusing the Democratic candidate of implying that Clinton was waiting around for Obama to be assassinated, that she was a racist, and that she was relying on Republican bogeyman, Karl Rove, for many of her campaign tactics. “We have forgiven you for these things,” Olbermann pontificated but for the assassination remark “we cannot forgive you this,” he continued.
While Olbermann, who James Carville once said was about “2 degrees short of self-combustion,” finally did explode in his silly tirade, his behavior was simply a more wacko version of the reportage that was taking place in the blogs and the television news: dramatic, self-righteous, lacking in context, and, most disturbingly, almost certainly a function of not reporting the news and informing people but rather attracting viewer and reader traffic for the sake of advertising dollars. Chris Mathews, Olbermann’s colleague and host of his own program, Hardball, engaged in similar hyperbole, mischaracterizing and losing all sense of proportion. Mathews has continued to devote significant segments of his program to this non-story.
A cursory search of the Internet or a few minutes of channel surfing the cable news networks even today, one week after the fact, reveals the same—lots of hype about a story that doesn’t have any legs or wouldn’t anyway, were it not for the media trying to wring every last dollar out of what would otherwise be a non-event, or, at best, an event worthy of a couple minutes of discussion. More important than any of these, which have little reader/viewership, are the big three television news programs and national newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post. All of these had, as soon as possible, articles or segments devoted to the RFK remarks that distinguished themselves from one another only by the level of breathlessness each exhibited.
So what, if anything, are we to make of such crass and commercial behavior? One thing to take away from this is that a wealth of information, doesn’t necessarily mean better information. With many blogs and television news programs driven primarily to be first or most dramatic, it is just as likely that the information you are reading is, like the RFK remark, much ado about nothing, and may well say less about the candidates or substantive issues than it does about the people reporting it and the organizations for which they work.
It is inevitable that there will continue to be shoddy reporting delivered in an entertainment atmosphere—to spice things up Olbermann, for example, intersperses his rants with dwarf tossing, images of the world’s largest latrine, and the like—as long as blogs, print and television news and anything that can generate ad dollars are bought by large companies and consolidated to the point where they have little or no independence and where there primary motivations are advertising dollars.
The implications of such reporting aren’t trivial, though. One need look no further than the speed and ease with which the media embedded themselves with the Bush administration and helped not only the push to war with Iraq but its prosecution. Or to the uncritical acceptance of the PR flak generals the television news programs hired for their supposedly unbiased analysis of the war in Iraq. In his recently published book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, even Scott McClellan, Bush’s former press secretary for Pete’s sake, calls the press out on the carpet for being weak, uncritical and, almost to a fault, under the sway of the Bush Administration’s dangerous gibberish concerning the war in Iraq, among other things.
So, given this track record you wouldn’t expect the media to act any differently in the 2008 race for the presidency.
And, of course, they do not disappoint, focusing on artificial ups and downs, trivial comments blown into “Bittergates” class warfare, and race baiting instead of the candidates’ positions on the various issues, whether their policies would be feasible, or who would be most electable, based on the demographic information, voting patterns, and other quantitative information available to anyone with the time to look at it. In the world of today’s media it is, unfortunately, completely believable and even expected that the focus is more on Michelle Obama’s comments about being truly proud to be an American for the first time, or Bill Clinton’s remarks comparing Obama’s victory in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s victories there in 1984 and 1988 than George W. Bush’s statement that he fully approved of the various methods of torture, including waterboarding, that the clandestine services have been engaging in under the auspices of Dick Cheney and others when interrogating supposed terrorists.
In the end, with the media’s increasing focus on entertainment and advertising dollars, drama without content, and race to be the first no matter the cost, it’s buyer, reader, and viewer beware.
Just as when you assess the wares of any greed head interested only in how much money they can extract from you.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Whither The Democrats? Obama and The Democratic Special Election Victories
For better or for worse, the Democrats found a winning strategy when Bill Clinton used the Democratic Leadership Council, and issues such as the death penalty and welfare reform, which up to that point pretty much belonged to Republicans, to become the first two-term President since FDR.
Clinton’s legacy will likely be about how he changed the philosophical framework of the Democratic Party, in order to make it viable again, after the fundamental shift in allegiance that occurred after the civil rights and voting rights Acts in the 1960s. As necessary as both of these were in laying the groundwork for equality and justice to black Americans, they had the effect of driving blue dog Democrats into the arms of Republicans. Until Clinton, the Democrats did not have a clue about how to get such voters back from the GOP’s unsavory embrace.
Democratic fortunes, after Bill Clinton (ABC), have been not been so good though and, in fact, congressional Democrats even during Clinton’s tenure took a drubbing so severe when Newt Gingrich and company swept them from office in the 1994 elections, that they have never fully recovered although they currently have small majorities in both the House and the Senate.
The recent victories of Democrats in the three special elections held in Republican districts, though, have Democrats positively giddy at their prospects in the congressional and presidential races in the fall and, likewise, have Republicans wringing their hands in despair.
In order to win these districts, Democrats took a page out of the Clinton book, putting up candidates that were nearly as conservative in most respects as the Republicans they were running against. Most recently, in the election in Mississippi, earlier this month, the Democrat, Travis Childers, was all but indistinguishable from his opponent, Greg Davis, when campaigning against abortion, indicating his adoration of guns, and, in general, giving little reason for Republicans to think he’d do much different than his opponent. It was the same for socially conservative, anti-abortion Dan Cazayoux in his victory in Louisiana over Woody Jenkins, who also won his election in May, and fiscal conservative Bill Foster’s March win over former Speaker of the US House, Dennis Hastert, in Illinois.
Democrats took even more away from these victories, though, because the Republicans poured money into all three elections and used much of it on creating ads attempting to link Obama and House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to the Democratic candidates. Obama’s association with Wright was featured prominently in some of the ads and the association certainly believed by the Republicans to be not only political poison to Obama but to the House candidates as well. Because the Democrats won, and because many believed this to be not only a kind of referendum on Obama, but a measure of how he will fare with more conservative voters in the general election, the victories have taken on great meaning.
Too much meaning, probably. These ads and, more generally, the attempt to link Obama to these conservative Democrats, didn’t work because the candidates were well known to voters and the idea that they shared much in common with Obama was simply not taken seriously. The Democratic candidates themselves certainly did not make either Obama or Pelosi the centerpieces of their campaigns and, indeed, distanced themselves from liberal to moderate Democrats by generally emphasizing their conservative positions on guns, abortion, and taxes.
In fact, Obama actually bucks the trend of the more conservative Democrat that has proven so successful. His association with reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is perceived rightly or wrongly by many as a radical, his fleeting association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and his positions on everything from negotiating with countries like Cuba without any preconditions to questions about where he stands on gun rights, put him, for many, nearer on the political spectrum to George McGovern than Bill Clinton or, to be sure, the conservative congressmen recently elected.
Although this rightward shift of the Party is troubling in many ways (the shift to supporting the death penalty which has pretty much become a litmus test for electability is especially repugnant), it is difficult to argue that it is not a necessary one. The liberal candidates that Democrats have frequently produced after Kennedy have simply been out of step with too many voters.
Not all is lost, however. Despite the shift, Democrats continue to have significant differences with Republicans. If you don’t think the differences are that large, just ask the families of the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq, or the Iraqi families who lost far more lives and had their lives turned up-side-down by a war that was against the wrong enemy, bungled terribly in its prosecution, and to which little or no thought was given to monetary costs or even an exit strategy.
In addition, despite the conservative shift, the Party framework should help ensure that even conservative Democrats will vote with their more moderate colleagues. Many Republicans, for example, were strongly against the new Medicare prescription drug benefit legislation that was passed in 2003 but changed their votes so as to not break ranks with the Party. Democrats, even very conservative ones, will be no different.
Obama is clearly an exception to the moderate-to-conservative trends represented by Bill Clinton and, most recently, the victorious Democrats in the House elections.
And if he is the Party’s nominee, the question will be whether Obama’s charisma and ability to turn out voters will be enough to make his fate an exception to that of previous liberal Democratic nominees.
Clinton’s legacy will likely be about how he changed the philosophical framework of the Democratic Party, in order to make it viable again, after the fundamental shift in allegiance that occurred after the civil rights and voting rights Acts in the 1960s. As necessary as both of these were in laying the groundwork for equality and justice to black Americans, they had the effect of driving blue dog Democrats into the arms of Republicans. Until Clinton, the Democrats did not have a clue about how to get such voters back from the GOP’s unsavory embrace.
Democratic fortunes, after Bill Clinton (ABC), have been not been so good though and, in fact, congressional Democrats even during Clinton’s tenure took a drubbing so severe when Newt Gingrich and company swept them from office in the 1994 elections, that they have never fully recovered although they currently have small majorities in both the House and the Senate.
The recent victories of Democrats in the three special elections held in Republican districts, though, have Democrats positively giddy at their prospects in the congressional and presidential races in the fall and, likewise, have Republicans wringing their hands in despair.
In order to win these districts, Democrats took a page out of the Clinton book, putting up candidates that were nearly as conservative in most respects as the Republicans they were running against. Most recently, in the election in Mississippi, earlier this month, the Democrat, Travis Childers, was all but indistinguishable from his opponent, Greg Davis, when campaigning against abortion, indicating his adoration of guns, and, in general, giving little reason for Republicans to think he’d do much different than his opponent. It was the same for socially conservative, anti-abortion Dan Cazayoux in his victory in Louisiana over Woody Jenkins, who also won his election in May, and fiscal conservative Bill Foster’s March win over former Speaker of the US House, Dennis Hastert, in Illinois.
Democrats took even more away from these victories, though, because the Republicans poured money into all three elections and used much of it on creating ads attempting to link Obama and House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to the Democratic candidates. Obama’s association with Wright was featured prominently in some of the ads and the association certainly believed by the Republicans to be not only political poison to Obama but to the House candidates as well. Because the Democrats won, and because many believed this to be not only a kind of referendum on Obama, but a measure of how he will fare with more conservative voters in the general election, the victories have taken on great meaning.
Too much meaning, probably. These ads and, more generally, the attempt to link Obama to these conservative Democrats, didn’t work because the candidates were well known to voters and the idea that they shared much in common with Obama was simply not taken seriously. The Democratic candidates themselves certainly did not make either Obama or Pelosi the centerpieces of their campaigns and, indeed, distanced themselves from liberal to moderate Democrats by generally emphasizing their conservative positions on guns, abortion, and taxes.
In fact, Obama actually bucks the trend of the more conservative Democrat that has proven so successful. His association with reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is perceived rightly or wrongly by many as a radical, his fleeting association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and his positions on everything from negotiating with countries like Cuba without any preconditions to questions about where he stands on gun rights, put him, for many, nearer on the political spectrum to George McGovern than Bill Clinton or, to be sure, the conservative congressmen recently elected.
Although this rightward shift of the Party is troubling in many ways (the shift to supporting the death penalty which has pretty much become a litmus test for electability is especially repugnant), it is difficult to argue that it is not a necessary one. The liberal candidates that Democrats have frequently produced after Kennedy have simply been out of step with too many voters.
Not all is lost, however. Despite the shift, Democrats continue to have significant differences with Republicans. If you don’t think the differences are that large, just ask the families of the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq, or the Iraqi families who lost far more lives and had their lives turned up-side-down by a war that was against the wrong enemy, bungled terribly in its prosecution, and to which little or no thought was given to monetary costs or even an exit strategy.
In addition, despite the conservative shift, the Party framework should help ensure that even conservative Democrats will vote with their more moderate colleagues. Many Republicans, for example, were strongly against the new Medicare prescription drug benefit legislation that was passed in 2003 but changed their votes so as to not break ranks with the Party. Democrats, even very conservative ones, will be no different.
Obama is clearly an exception to the moderate-to-conservative trends represented by Bill Clinton and, most recently, the victorious Democrats in the House elections.
And if he is the Party’s nominee, the question will be whether Obama’s charisma and ability to turn out voters will be enough to make his fate an exception to that of previous liberal Democratic nominees.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Appalachian Strategy: Jim Webb, The Scots-Irish, and the Road to the White House
Last night, when interviewed by Keith Olbermann, the presumptive Obama press secretary and currently resident at the Obama Channel, Virginia senator, Jim Webb, took the opportunity to shamelessly campaign for the Democrats' second slot. When Olbermann flirted with him about the VP, Webb turned nearly as red as a school girl, and said coquettishly some sweet nothings about Obama before launching into a discussion about how Obama needed to shore up his support of the dobro-playing, Hatfield-and- McCoy-feuding Scots-Irish of Appalachia, heretofore known, I guess, as the white working class.
Webb went on to point out the obvious and state that these are exactly the voters the Democratic nominee will need to work so assiduously to garner and, by the way, Keith, I just happened to write a Wall Street Journal article and a book about these very folks and their desires in 2004. (The article, Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots-Irish Vote, is available at http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id+=110005798. His book is entitled Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America)
I haven’t read the book, but the article couldn’t be more tailored to appealing to Obama if it had been written since Obama’s whuppings in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. In the article, Webb basically argues that the Scots-Irish in states from Tennessee to Ohio and Pennsylvania have been key constituencies for the GOP, as Reagan Democrats, and as overwhelming supporters of the “Current Occupant,” as Garrison Keiller likes to call G.W. Bush. They are the GOP’s “secret weapon,” Webb writes, and as such, Democrats need to figure out what it is they want so they can get their Scots-Irish arse votes to vote for a Democrat, or something like that. And guess, of course, who is the expert on how these people think?
I am sure the book is worth a read even if the National Review called it one of the best political books of 2004.
Webb would be a very good VP choice but, for its worth, and for the reasons I outlined yesterday, HC would be better yet. The two together would be certain to expand turnouts, and HC is showing some real clout with exactly the constituency Webb writes about. The big question, I guess, is whether these voters were voting for her or against Obama, but certainly her perception as a fighter and her near-metamorphosis into a populist, Methodist daughter of the working class, appears to have struck a chord. Webb just can’t match her star power or gravitas (or the spectacle of Bill Clinton running around on the scene).
Bill Clinton notwithstanding, to people like the Boston Herald’s, Mike Barnicle, who also held forth on the Obama Channel last night saying that HC, as VP, would be the wrong choice for Obama because she would undermine his whole shtick (my word) of transformation and change, I can only say this argument doesn’t make a lot of sense, Mike. Hillary Clinton’s gender alone represents big time change for women and men, alike, if you haven’t noticed. If you had said you were concerned that it might be too much for the poor voting public to contemplate both a black and a woman on the same ticket, at least that would have made some sense (in addition to being racist and misogynistic, according to some sensitive types).
It will be interesting to see just what Barnicle (and presumably others who think that HC just isn’t hip enough for Obama) will consider as an acceptable VP candidate, though my guess is that this will look suspiciously like Webb, a white male with a military background, from a southern or swing state, and a timely book about the Scots-Irish.
Webb went on to point out the obvious and state that these are exactly the voters the Democratic nominee will need to work so assiduously to garner and, by the way, Keith, I just happened to write a Wall Street Journal article and a book about these very folks and their desires in 2004. (The article, Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots-Irish Vote, is available at http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id+=110005798. His book is entitled Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America)
I haven’t read the book, but the article couldn’t be more tailored to appealing to Obama if it had been written since Obama’s whuppings in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. In the article, Webb basically argues that the Scots-Irish in states from Tennessee to Ohio and Pennsylvania have been key constituencies for the GOP, as Reagan Democrats, and as overwhelming supporters of the “Current Occupant,” as Garrison Keiller likes to call G.W. Bush. They are the GOP’s “secret weapon,” Webb writes, and as such, Democrats need to figure out what it is they want so they can get their Scots-Irish arse votes to vote for a Democrat, or something like that. And guess, of course, who is the expert on how these people think?
I am sure the book is worth a read even if the National Review called it one of the best political books of 2004.
Webb would be a very good VP choice but, for its worth, and for the reasons I outlined yesterday, HC would be better yet. The two together would be certain to expand turnouts, and HC is showing some real clout with exactly the constituency Webb writes about. The big question, I guess, is whether these voters were voting for her or against Obama, but certainly her perception as a fighter and her near-metamorphosis into a populist, Methodist daughter of the working class, appears to have struck a chord. Webb just can’t match her star power or gravitas (or the spectacle of Bill Clinton running around on the scene).
Bill Clinton notwithstanding, to people like the Boston Herald’s, Mike Barnicle, who also held forth on the Obama Channel last night saying that HC, as VP, would be the wrong choice for Obama because she would undermine his whole shtick (my word) of transformation and change, I can only say this argument doesn’t make a lot of sense, Mike. Hillary Clinton’s gender alone represents big time change for women and men, alike, if you haven’t noticed. If you had said you were concerned that it might be too much for the poor voting public to contemplate both a black and a woman on the same ticket, at least that would have made some sense (in addition to being racist and misogynistic, according to some sensitive types).
It will be interesting to see just what Barnicle (and presumably others who think that HC just isn’t hip enough for Obama) will consider as an acceptable VP candidate, though my guess is that this will look suspiciously like Webb, a white male with a military background, from a southern or swing state, and a timely book about the Scots-Irish.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
General Election 2008: Obama/Clinton vs. McCain/Bush
While I believe it isn’t very likely under any circumstances that Barack Obama will be elected this country’s next president, I think his only real chance to win, should he be the Democratic Party’s nominee, would be if he could get Hillary Clinton to be his second-in-command.
Vice Presidents generally play little or no role in putting a candidate over the top, unless perhaps the VP choice is immensely popular and from a crucial swing state (JFK, LBJ and Texas come to mind when Kennedy won Texas by 46,000 votes and defeated Nixon in 1960 by the slimmest of margins).
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a VP who could help Obama’s chances immensely, across the board. She’s beaten him in nearly all the big states and swing states and did so by appealing to exactly those voters Obama has the most trouble with—white working class voters, Hispanics, and older voters.
Clinton has negatives to be sure, and is hated in some quarters as much or more than her husband (who nonetheless is the first Democrat since FDR to be elected to two terms), but she has a ton of support and has earned a lot of admiration and even new voters (many of these white males, a real problem for her in the past) as she battles Obama to the very end. Although its part bluster and media hype, there is no question that HC has established herself as a candidate that is perceived as tough as nails in addition to being smart and generally somewhere near the center of the Party on most of the issues. As a result, a lot of the support she is now receiving is likely to transfer to the general election, even with Obama at the head of the ticket.
Even if some of the white working class voters she got in places like West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania go over to McCain, as they are sure to do, Clinton is in the best position of any possible VP candidate, including someone like Jim Webb of Virginia, to put all of these key states, with possibly the exception of West Virginia, into play.
Also, although there are those who will say that is ludicrous to not immediately include California and New York in Obama’s column, I am not so sure of this. McCain is just the kind of candidate who can appeal to important constituencies in these states. Hillary Clinton as VP will all but ensure that Jews in New York or Hispanics in California who appear to be skittish of Obama will help deliver both states.
Politicians have very thick skins when it comes to winning, so Obama should have no trouble choosing Clinton if he believes it is more likely to help him beat McCain. His staff have proven thus far to be both pragmatic in finding and targeting constituencies likely to vote for Obama and brilliant in their strategies to maximize votes through caucuses and other twists of the labyrinthine Democratic nominating process, so my guess is they are seriously considering pursuing Clinton as soon as it is appropriate to do so. With Clinton getting as much support and generating as much enthusiasm as Obama, it just doesn’t make sense to let all the air out of this exciting campaign by choosing as his VP candidate some wan, slightly right of center greybeard, as many are suggesting Obama do.
But what about Clinton, would she even take the VP, if offered? There are possible pitfalls if the duo were to be shellacked in November, though any harm from this would adhere much more to Obama than Clinton. Besides, as tone-deaf as Clinton can be at times, she can’t miss the Wagnerian blast of history-in-the-making that would sound should there be an Obama/Clinton ticket.
Even if there is an Obama/Clinton ticket, I’ll still be grousing about electability and fuming at various injustices both real and otherwise. But right now just the thought of Obama choosing Clinton as his running mate and Clinton accepting is making my keyboard chatter with excitement at the prospects.
There isn’t anyone who will help Obama more and no matter who McCain chooses as his VP, he or she will not have the potential to help him in the way Clinton can help Obama.
Besides, isn’t it a McCain/Bush ticket anyway?
Vice Presidents generally play little or no role in putting a candidate over the top, unless perhaps the VP choice is immensely popular and from a crucial swing state (JFK, LBJ and Texas come to mind when Kennedy won Texas by 46,000 votes and defeated Nixon in 1960 by the slimmest of margins).
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a VP who could help Obama’s chances immensely, across the board. She’s beaten him in nearly all the big states and swing states and did so by appealing to exactly those voters Obama has the most trouble with—white working class voters, Hispanics, and older voters.
Clinton has negatives to be sure, and is hated in some quarters as much or more than her husband (who nonetheless is the first Democrat since FDR to be elected to two terms), but she has a ton of support and has earned a lot of admiration and even new voters (many of these white males, a real problem for her in the past) as she battles Obama to the very end. Although its part bluster and media hype, there is no question that HC has established herself as a candidate that is perceived as tough as nails in addition to being smart and generally somewhere near the center of the Party on most of the issues. As a result, a lot of the support she is now receiving is likely to transfer to the general election, even with Obama at the head of the ticket.
Even if some of the white working class voters she got in places like West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania go over to McCain, as they are sure to do, Clinton is in the best position of any possible VP candidate, including someone like Jim Webb of Virginia, to put all of these key states, with possibly the exception of West Virginia, into play.
Also, although there are those who will say that is ludicrous to not immediately include California and New York in Obama’s column, I am not so sure of this. McCain is just the kind of candidate who can appeal to important constituencies in these states. Hillary Clinton as VP will all but ensure that Jews in New York or Hispanics in California who appear to be skittish of Obama will help deliver both states.
Politicians have very thick skins when it comes to winning, so Obama should have no trouble choosing Clinton if he believes it is more likely to help him beat McCain. His staff have proven thus far to be both pragmatic in finding and targeting constituencies likely to vote for Obama and brilliant in their strategies to maximize votes through caucuses and other twists of the labyrinthine Democratic nominating process, so my guess is they are seriously considering pursuing Clinton as soon as it is appropriate to do so. With Clinton getting as much support and generating as much enthusiasm as Obama, it just doesn’t make sense to let all the air out of this exciting campaign by choosing as his VP candidate some wan, slightly right of center greybeard, as many are suggesting Obama do.
But what about Clinton, would she even take the VP, if offered? There are possible pitfalls if the duo were to be shellacked in November, though any harm from this would adhere much more to Obama than Clinton. Besides, as tone-deaf as Clinton can be at times, she can’t miss the Wagnerian blast of history-in-the-making that would sound should there be an Obama/Clinton ticket.
Even if there is an Obama/Clinton ticket, I’ll still be grousing about electability and fuming at various injustices both real and otherwise. But right now just the thought of Obama choosing Clinton as his running mate and Clinton accepting is making my keyboard chatter with excitement at the prospects.
There isn’t anyone who will help Obama more and no matter who McCain chooses as his VP, he or she will not have the potential to help him in the way Clinton can help Obama.
Besides, isn’t it a McCain/Bush ticket anyway?
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Let Them Eat Hamburgers: John McCain's Health Care Plan
Incredible as it may seem, one of John McCain’s economic advisors, Tom Miller, said at a health forum yesterday, that the Democratic candidates were wrong for not making, in their health care plans, Americans with pre-existing health conditions pay more for their premiums. Americans, he said, who should have known better than to “pull up to the McDonald’s two times a day” (http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hbnews-000002878702).
I’m not sure what Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s surrogates, who were also at the forum, said in response to this outrage but whatever it was it couldn’t possibly have been strong enough.
It’s simply astounding that some flak with gold-plated health insurance who likely as not, given McCain’s track record, is a lobbyist for the very private insurance companies that would stand to gain from McCain’s largesse at the expense of sick Americans, would treat sick Americans so dismissively. This is a fine example of the Republicans in action, though, and clear indication that McCain’s health plan, like George Bush’s, consists of doing everything to privatize health care in this country, get money into the pockets of insurers, and cede any responsibility on the part of the government by cynically putting the onus on personal responsibility, Republican code for “you’re on your own, Bub, we got a war in Iraq to fight and it’s costing us trillions.”
And so what if some of these people are clinging to their hamburgers, along with their guns and religion? After eight years of Bush and the prospects of possibly another eight years of someone just like him, the idea of drowning one’s sorrows in a swimming pool of fat and a mountain of donuts is at least as comforting as these other things.
Neither McCain nor his flunky, Miller, know anything about health care as evidenced by the elements of McCain’s so-called plan or Miller’s asinine comments. If they did, and they genuinely wanted to both bring down health care costs and increase Americans’ access to health care they would create, as both Democratic candidates are suggesting, a significantly larger pool of insured Americans that includes even the sickest ones, and prohibit profit-driven companies from charging them higher premiums. This would spread the overall risk, lower premiums by ensuring that sicker Americans don’t get even sicker, and that a smaller percentage of insured does not end up paying all costs for those with pre-existing conditions because such folks can’t afford to pay the premiums.
McCain admits he knows nothing about economics and his ignorance about healthcare is just as expansive. Unfortunately, in the United States, economics and health care cross paths in a big way, with federal spending on health care making up nearly about 21 percent of all federal spending and totaling a whopping $676 billion (2006, OMB figures). That McCain could be so ignorant both issues should disqualify him from serving in the Senate, let alone from competing for the highest office in the land.
If anyone read this blog, now is the time I would call for all red-blooded Americans to send their hamburgers and unpaid health to Messieurs McCain and Miller. And as much as I would like to see this, it is probably more reasonable to send McCain a letter, fax, or phone him at the address/phone listed at the end of this entry expressing your outrage that someone representing him could flippantly reduce this nation’s healthcare problems to a couple of hamburgers. If you do write McCain, tell him that you demand Miller be fired and, most important, that McCain come up with a health care plan that will do more for sick Americans than the companies that would insure them.
As the hamburger episode illustrates, if McCain is elected we can look forward to his administration working to line the pockets of insurers and other private companies, continuing Bush’s sad legacy of dismantling fee-for-service Medicare, and doing everything he can to siphon funding from crucial domestic programs such as health care so that he can squander it in Iraq.
Is there anyone who really believes that this would be best for the country?
Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes. So it will be up to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, to do something Democrats haven’t had a lot of success with in recent elections, and make crystal clear to voters that McCain, Miller, and Republican Party, in general, don’t give a damn about them and whether they can pay the mortgage, have to work two jobs to just get by or, indeed, whether they have a home or not, and that when Americans are in need of health care Republicans are likely to say “let them eat hamburgers.”
Here’s McCain’s address:
The Honorable John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-2235Fax: 202-228-2862
I’m not sure what Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s surrogates, who were also at the forum, said in response to this outrage but whatever it was it couldn’t possibly have been strong enough.
It’s simply astounding that some flak with gold-plated health insurance who likely as not, given McCain’s track record, is a lobbyist for the very private insurance companies that would stand to gain from McCain’s largesse at the expense of sick Americans, would treat sick Americans so dismissively. This is a fine example of the Republicans in action, though, and clear indication that McCain’s health plan, like George Bush’s, consists of doing everything to privatize health care in this country, get money into the pockets of insurers, and cede any responsibility on the part of the government by cynically putting the onus on personal responsibility, Republican code for “you’re on your own, Bub, we got a war in Iraq to fight and it’s costing us trillions.”
And so what if some of these people are clinging to their hamburgers, along with their guns and religion? After eight years of Bush and the prospects of possibly another eight years of someone just like him, the idea of drowning one’s sorrows in a swimming pool of fat and a mountain of donuts is at least as comforting as these other things.
Neither McCain nor his flunky, Miller, know anything about health care as evidenced by the elements of McCain’s so-called plan or Miller’s asinine comments. If they did, and they genuinely wanted to both bring down health care costs and increase Americans’ access to health care they would create, as both Democratic candidates are suggesting, a significantly larger pool of insured Americans that includes even the sickest ones, and prohibit profit-driven companies from charging them higher premiums. This would spread the overall risk, lower premiums by ensuring that sicker Americans don’t get even sicker, and that a smaller percentage of insured does not end up paying all costs for those with pre-existing conditions because such folks can’t afford to pay the premiums.
McCain admits he knows nothing about economics and his ignorance about healthcare is just as expansive. Unfortunately, in the United States, economics and health care cross paths in a big way, with federal spending on health care making up nearly about 21 percent of all federal spending and totaling a whopping $676 billion (2006, OMB figures). That McCain could be so ignorant both issues should disqualify him from serving in the Senate, let alone from competing for the highest office in the land.
If anyone read this blog, now is the time I would call for all red-blooded Americans to send their hamburgers and unpaid health to Messieurs McCain and Miller. And as much as I would like to see this, it is probably more reasonable to send McCain a letter, fax, or phone him at the address/phone listed at the end of this entry expressing your outrage that someone representing him could flippantly reduce this nation’s healthcare problems to a couple of hamburgers. If you do write McCain, tell him that you demand Miller be fired and, most important, that McCain come up with a health care plan that will do more for sick Americans than the companies that would insure them.
As the hamburger episode illustrates, if McCain is elected we can look forward to his administration working to line the pockets of insurers and other private companies, continuing Bush’s sad legacy of dismantling fee-for-service Medicare, and doing everything he can to siphon funding from crucial domestic programs such as health care so that he can squander it in Iraq.
Is there anyone who really believes that this would be best for the country?
Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes. So it will be up to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, to do something Democrats haven’t had a lot of success with in recent elections, and make crystal clear to voters that McCain, Miller, and Republican Party, in general, don’t give a damn about them and whether they can pay the mortgage, have to work two jobs to just get by or, indeed, whether they have a home or not, and that when Americans are in need of health care Republicans are likely to say “let them eat hamburgers.”
Here’s McCain’s address:
The Honorable John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-2235Fax: 202-228-2862
Monday, May 19, 2008
Why Race Matters
Is it racist to discuss race in the 2008 campaign for the presidency? I think this is utter nonsense, but there are many Americans and some in the media who apparently believe this is so.
In articles dealing with race, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman talks about how he “frankly blanches at the race-based” discussions led by many television pundits, even as he writes about race, and Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News indicates that there are voters and journalists alike who think it is inappropriate to discuss polls or other data that attempt to measure racial attitudes of voters and their possible effect on the election. See (http://www.newsweek.com/id/136991 and http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/11/2008-05-11-face_it_democrats_barack_obama)
Perhaps we shouldn’t track either voters’ education and income because it might imply class differences of voters, or discuss the role of religious or geographical affiliation because these, too, might imply a slight of some kind.
Or maybe it does make sense to ignore such things, at least, if you are the same people that are questioning whether it is patriotic to criticize the Iraq war and its conduct or one of the folks that says we should happily cede our rights and freedoms so that we may be protected through the provisions of the cynically named Patriot Act. If the media had not placed its collective man/womanhood in a blind trust after 9-11 and literally “embedded” itself with the Bush administration, and instead looked critically at Bush’s motives and, most important, his evidence for going to war in Iraq, perhaps Democrats and Republicans would not be apologizing for their bone-headed decision to support Bush, burying the thousands of American soldiers killed in Iraq, or puzzling about how we can get out of the morass that is Iraq War.
While there are many in the media who are skittish about talking about race at all, just as nefarious are those who desire to ascribe everything to it.
Remember when many in the media accused Bill Clinton of racism in the wake of the South Carolina primaries when he had the audacity to make a comparison between Obama’s victory in the state and Jesse Jackson’s victories there in 1984 and 1988?
How about the uproar over Michelle Obama’s statement, following her husband’s successes with white voters, that she was for the first time truly proud to be an American, the racial gloss being that she was undoubtably some kind of black nationalist?
And former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s statement that Barack Obama, as a black man, had some advantages that Hillary Clinton did not?
While all of the above can be faulted for not understanding how such statements would play out in the crucible of the 2008 Democratic campaign, it is very difficult to take exception to any of them.
Ironically, by branding all of these as somehow inappropriate, by, in other words, either not looking at the accuracy of the statements but simply taking offense at the fact race is mentioned at all, the media have helped fuel a kind of hypersensitivity to race, ensured that it isn’t possible to think critically about its effects, and, most unforgivably of all, given the focus of their profession, haven’t provided the real story or even considered it as a possibility.
So, what about Bill Clinton’s remarks? Who will deny that an increasing Balkanization of white and black voters has occurred since South Carolina, and that there is a real question about whether Obama can get the white Democrats he will certainly need in the general election?
And while there may be those who still take issue with Ferraro’s assessment that Obama does enjoy some advantages as a black candidate, Obama certainly is relying on black voters not only to vote for him nearly en masse but to prevent superdelegates from voting for Clinton even though neither he nor Clinton will likely achieve the number of pledged delegates necessary to win the nomination. Could Hillary Clinton or any other white candidate so count on the outrage of one group of voters that she or he could make this a crucial part of a strategy to win the nomination?
No different than these are Michelle Obama’s remarks concerning being truly proud for the first time about being an American as they, too, have been mischaracterized and dramatized so much as to be unrecognizable. Her comments, including the hyperbole about being proud for the “first time” to be an American, were understandable given the exhilaration of the moment, the racist past of this country and the unfair and unjust treatment of blacks that frequently continues today. That Obama has made it this far has made more than a few people proud of their country in a way they haven’t felt for some time. There are a lot of people, black, white, and Hispanic, who love their country but aren’t proud of its racist past, that it puts so little stock in providing health care for its citizens, or that it supports the death penalty, one of the only countries in the West who still believes this is appropriate. For some in the media this issue, though, was an opportunity primarily to suggest that Michelle Obama was herself racist.
It may be ugly to measure or assess the campaign based on race, gender, class, age and the other demographic information that candidates and pollsters, alike, are using on a daily basis and even making fundamental to their campaigns. And, if nothing else, this campaign, in which race, gender, and class so clearly are playing a role, as evidenced in advance polls, exit polls, polling by the candidates, and the like, is a measure of how far we are from the color blind society towards which Martin Luther King so brilliantly and courageously helped direct us. No doubt about it.
King knew better than anyone that we were a long, long way from the promised land of equality that he envisioned and that this country would not get there without much heated discussion and probably worse. He also knew, though, that we are never further from this goal then when we do not acknowledge the problem at all. If we were to continue to ignore race, blacks and whites would continue to have separate “but equal” educations, an eyebrow would not be raised at an all-white jury sitting in judgment of a black defendant, and there would be no such thing as reasonable affirmative action measures, to mention just a few things that are bringing us closer to something like the equality any reasonable person desires for all Americans.
Race has played a larger role in the Democratic nomination then it will, ironically, in the general election where, instead, all of the issues that generally haunt liberal candidates, such as security, taxes, guns, perceived lack of patriotism, and the like, will be most important. There will be people who won’t vote for Obama simply because of the color of his skin to be sure but these are the issues, such as they are, on which he will ultimately be judged. The real story, yet to be written, is how Obama got to the general election in the first place. And that story, too, will be sorely lacking if it does not include race.
In the end, race is a pretty big story in the Democratic campaign, as are gender and class, just not in the way most people think, thanks to the convoluted, awkward, and, at times, malicious discussion of race that is a legacy of our past. Democrats, with more than a little help from the media, are on the verge of learning this, and recognizing that the presence of race, like the 800 pound gorilla in the room, has shaped reporting of the campaigns and, indeed, pretty much made meaningful discussion of matters such as the implications of demographic data and electability taboo, mere racist claptrap, even if, ultimately, the issue of electability has less to do with race than other things.
Unlike the Republican Party, whose notion of an appropriate candidate comes in one color, one gender, and pretty much a one-size-fits all philosophy, the Democrats do at least deserve credit for giving us the opportunity to talk, no matter how awkwardly or haltingly, about matters of race.
We aren’t anywhere near getting it right yet, as the 2008 campaign makes painfully clear, but it doesn’t hurt to know this either.
In articles dealing with race, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman talks about how he “frankly blanches at the race-based” discussions led by many television pundits, even as he writes about race, and Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News indicates that there are voters and journalists alike who think it is inappropriate to discuss polls or other data that attempt to measure racial attitudes of voters and their possible effect on the election. See (http://www.newsweek.com/id/136991 and http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/11/2008-05-11-face_it_democrats_barack_obama)
Perhaps we shouldn’t track either voters’ education and income because it might imply class differences of voters, or discuss the role of religious or geographical affiliation because these, too, might imply a slight of some kind.
Or maybe it does make sense to ignore such things, at least, if you are the same people that are questioning whether it is patriotic to criticize the Iraq war and its conduct or one of the folks that says we should happily cede our rights and freedoms so that we may be protected through the provisions of the cynically named Patriot Act. If the media had not placed its collective man/womanhood in a blind trust after 9-11 and literally “embedded” itself with the Bush administration, and instead looked critically at Bush’s motives and, most important, his evidence for going to war in Iraq, perhaps Democrats and Republicans would not be apologizing for their bone-headed decision to support Bush, burying the thousands of American soldiers killed in Iraq, or puzzling about how we can get out of the morass that is Iraq War.
While there are many in the media who are skittish about talking about race at all, just as nefarious are those who desire to ascribe everything to it.
Remember when many in the media accused Bill Clinton of racism in the wake of the South Carolina primaries when he had the audacity to make a comparison between Obama’s victory in the state and Jesse Jackson’s victories there in 1984 and 1988?
How about the uproar over Michelle Obama’s statement, following her husband’s successes with white voters, that she was for the first time truly proud to be an American, the racial gloss being that she was undoubtably some kind of black nationalist?
And former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s statement that Barack Obama, as a black man, had some advantages that Hillary Clinton did not?
While all of the above can be faulted for not understanding how such statements would play out in the crucible of the 2008 Democratic campaign, it is very difficult to take exception to any of them.
Ironically, by branding all of these as somehow inappropriate, by, in other words, either not looking at the accuracy of the statements but simply taking offense at the fact race is mentioned at all, the media have helped fuel a kind of hypersensitivity to race, ensured that it isn’t possible to think critically about its effects, and, most unforgivably of all, given the focus of their profession, haven’t provided the real story or even considered it as a possibility.
So, what about Bill Clinton’s remarks? Who will deny that an increasing Balkanization of white and black voters has occurred since South Carolina, and that there is a real question about whether Obama can get the white Democrats he will certainly need in the general election?
And while there may be those who still take issue with Ferraro’s assessment that Obama does enjoy some advantages as a black candidate, Obama certainly is relying on black voters not only to vote for him nearly en masse but to prevent superdelegates from voting for Clinton even though neither he nor Clinton will likely achieve the number of pledged delegates necessary to win the nomination. Could Hillary Clinton or any other white candidate so count on the outrage of one group of voters that she or he could make this a crucial part of a strategy to win the nomination?
No different than these are Michelle Obama’s remarks concerning being truly proud for the first time about being an American as they, too, have been mischaracterized and dramatized so much as to be unrecognizable. Her comments, including the hyperbole about being proud for the “first time” to be an American, were understandable given the exhilaration of the moment, the racist past of this country and the unfair and unjust treatment of blacks that frequently continues today. That Obama has made it this far has made more than a few people proud of their country in a way they haven’t felt for some time. There are a lot of people, black, white, and Hispanic, who love their country but aren’t proud of its racist past, that it puts so little stock in providing health care for its citizens, or that it supports the death penalty, one of the only countries in the West who still believes this is appropriate. For some in the media this issue, though, was an opportunity primarily to suggest that Michelle Obama was herself racist.
It may be ugly to measure or assess the campaign based on race, gender, class, age and the other demographic information that candidates and pollsters, alike, are using on a daily basis and even making fundamental to their campaigns. And, if nothing else, this campaign, in which race, gender, and class so clearly are playing a role, as evidenced in advance polls, exit polls, polling by the candidates, and the like, is a measure of how far we are from the color blind society towards which Martin Luther King so brilliantly and courageously helped direct us. No doubt about it.
King knew better than anyone that we were a long, long way from the promised land of equality that he envisioned and that this country would not get there without much heated discussion and probably worse. He also knew, though, that we are never further from this goal then when we do not acknowledge the problem at all. If we were to continue to ignore race, blacks and whites would continue to have separate “but equal” educations, an eyebrow would not be raised at an all-white jury sitting in judgment of a black defendant, and there would be no such thing as reasonable affirmative action measures, to mention just a few things that are bringing us closer to something like the equality any reasonable person desires for all Americans.
Race has played a larger role in the Democratic nomination then it will, ironically, in the general election where, instead, all of the issues that generally haunt liberal candidates, such as security, taxes, guns, perceived lack of patriotism, and the like, will be most important. There will be people who won’t vote for Obama simply because of the color of his skin to be sure but these are the issues, such as they are, on which he will ultimately be judged. The real story, yet to be written, is how Obama got to the general election in the first place. And that story, too, will be sorely lacking if it does not include race.
In the end, race is a pretty big story in the Democratic campaign, as are gender and class, just not in the way most people think, thanks to the convoluted, awkward, and, at times, malicious discussion of race that is a legacy of our past. Democrats, with more than a little help from the media, are on the verge of learning this, and recognizing that the presence of race, like the 800 pound gorilla in the room, has shaped reporting of the campaigns and, indeed, pretty much made meaningful discussion of matters such as the implications of demographic data and electability taboo, mere racist claptrap, even if, ultimately, the issue of electability has less to do with race than other things.
Unlike the Republican Party, whose notion of an appropriate candidate comes in one color, one gender, and pretty much a one-size-fits all philosophy, the Democrats do at least deserve credit for giving us the opportunity to talk, no matter how awkwardly or haltingly, about matters of race.
We aren’t anywhere near getting it right yet, as the 2008 campaign makes painfully clear, but it doesn’t hurt to know this either.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Fuzzy Math and the Superdelegates: Clinton, Obama, and the Final Stages of the Democratic Primary
The Obama campaign and its many surrogates in the media are all squawking about the “math” of Democratic nomination and how insoluble it is for Hillary Clinton. Never mind that most of these blockheads wouldn’t know an integer from a fraction, what is most disturbing is that the writers and pundits are going along, yet again, with Obama’s framing of the issue, just as they did when they aped his admonishment that the superdelegates must follow the will of the people (which apparently means who is ahead in pledged delegates and states won). Sound familiar? These are the same folks who gave up any pretense of journalistic integrity when they acted as the Bush Administration’s public relations team for the disastrous and wrong-headed Iraq War.
While all hope is lost with the media which is far too busy gazing at their navels, watching the spittle fly from Chris Mathew’s mouth, and cheering on Keith Olbermann as he shamelessly maneuvers to be Obama’s Press Secretary, perhaps the superdelegates not tainted by the media buffoonery will consider a few things concerning the matter of electability. In this spirit, then, I offer some information that has less to do with hype, viewer ratings, and profit margins than, if not trigonometry exactly, the facts that have emerged over the course of the Democratic campaign.
White Democrats. Is it possible that a Democratic nominee can win the presidency when he has won white Democrats in only three primaries? Obama is certainly on the verge of being the nominee and has won white Democrats in only his home state of Illinois, Vermont, and New Mexico. In the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia Clinton won white Democrats in these states by the ridiculous margins of 70/27, 65/35, and 74/21, respectively. Even in Virginia, a state Obama supporters evoke as proof of his wide appeal, Obama lost white Democrats 56/44, and this was before the Wright fiasco, Bittergate, or the nonsense about William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member.
Independents. If Obama can’t win white Democrats he will need to get a large number of white independent voters, as he did in Virginia with 66 percent to 33 percent for Clinton (remember, he lost white Democrats in the state), in most states to have a chance at winning the general election. Although Obma’s supposed appeal to independents is a primary reason his candidacy was supposed to be bulletproof, his performance with white independents has steadily declined since Virginia. In fact, Hillary Clinton has bested him in this demographic in every primary since Ohio. That means not only has she won the white Democratic vote in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia, she has also won the independent vote in these states. Obama’s campaign has been fond of saying that the more voters get to know him the better he will perform in any given state. As the primary winds to an end the facts suggest otherwise.
Key States. If anyone thinks that the Obama is going to win the caucus states he won in the primary in the general election or that it is possible to “redraw the lines of the electoral college map,” based on what I call Obama’s “Colorado” strategy, I would like some of whatever it is he or she is smoking. Obama has supposedly all but written off West Virginia so thoroughly trounced was he in the state. Does this mean, too, that he will also spend less time in Ohio and Pennsylvania, states which he also lost and which also have a high percentage of working class voters, and focus, instead on states like Utah? If so, he and the Democratic party do this at their own peril. Whatever Obama and his wannabe mouthpiece, Keith Olbermann, might have you believe, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and likely Colorado and New Mexico will, as usual, belong to Republicans. And just as certain, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia—all of which Obama lost--will be states in which the Democratic candidate must do well.
Caucuses. Can anyone say with a straight face that caucus victories in Wyoming, with about 10,000 caucus participants, is any indication of how a candidate will do in the general election. Obama has won every caucus state, nearly all of which are in states that have gone and almost certainly will continue to go to the Republican candidate. Many of the caucuses are in the very states that make up…the Colorado strategy.
These are just a few things the serpentine Democratic nominating process has disgorged for us and, at least in this regard, it hasn’t been complete and total nonsense, nor wholly destructive if the superdelegates fulfill their role in the process by focusing on which of the candidates is most likely to beat the Republican nominee in November.
It is the superdelegates and not the “math,” or at least not the fuzzy math that somehow doesn’t take into account that neither candidate can win based on pledged delegates alone, that will determine who will be the Party’s nominee. And the superdelegates will do this without needing to solve complex equations or, in fact, needing any mathematical skills whatsoever. Ironically, the superdelegates won’t need much brainpower at all, just the cajones to make a decision, based on the information derived over the course of the primaries, to choose the candidate who is most electible instead of, once again, opting to build sandcastles in the air.
While all hope is lost with the media which is far too busy gazing at their navels, watching the spittle fly from Chris Mathew’s mouth, and cheering on Keith Olbermann as he shamelessly maneuvers to be Obama’s Press Secretary, perhaps the superdelegates not tainted by the media buffoonery will consider a few things concerning the matter of electability. In this spirit, then, I offer some information that has less to do with hype, viewer ratings, and profit margins than, if not trigonometry exactly, the facts that have emerged over the course of the Democratic campaign.
White Democrats. Is it possible that a Democratic nominee can win the presidency when he has won white Democrats in only three primaries? Obama is certainly on the verge of being the nominee and has won white Democrats in only his home state of Illinois, Vermont, and New Mexico. In the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia Clinton won white Democrats in these states by the ridiculous margins of 70/27, 65/35, and 74/21, respectively. Even in Virginia, a state Obama supporters evoke as proof of his wide appeal, Obama lost white Democrats 56/44, and this was before the Wright fiasco, Bittergate, or the nonsense about William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member.
Independents. If Obama can’t win white Democrats he will need to get a large number of white independent voters, as he did in Virginia with 66 percent to 33 percent for Clinton (remember, he lost white Democrats in the state), in most states to have a chance at winning the general election. Although Obma’s supposed appeal to independents is a primary reason his candidacy was supposed to be bulletproof, his performance with white independents has steadily declined since Virginia. In fact, Hillary Clinton has bested him in this demographic in every primary since Ohio. That means not only has she won the white Democratic vote in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia, she has also won the independent vote in these states. Obama’s campaign has been fond of saying that the more voters get to know him the better he will perform in any given state. As the primary winds to an end the facts suggest otherwise.
Key States. If anyone thinks that the Obama is going to win the caucus states he won in the primary in the general election or that it is possible to “redraw the lines of the electoral college map,” based on what I call Obama’s “Colorado” strategy, I would like some of whatever it is he or she is smoking. Obama has supposedly all but written off West Virginia so thoroughly trounced was he in the state. Does this mean, too, that he will also spend less time in Ohio and Pennsylvania, states which he also lost and which also have a high percentage of working class voters, and focus, instead on states like Utah? If so, he and the Democratic party do this at their own peril. Whatever Obama and his wannabe mouthpiece, Keith Olbermann, might have you believe, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and likely Colorado and New Mexico will, as usual, belong to Republicans. And just as certain, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia—all of which Obama lost--will be states in which the Democratic candidate must do well.
Caucuses. Can anyone say with a straight face that caucus victories in Wyoming, with about 10,000 caucus participants, is any indication of how a candidate will do in the general election. Obama has won every caucus state, nearly all of which are in states that have gone and almost certainly will continue to go to the Republican candidate. Many of the caucuses are in the very states that make up…the Colorado strategy.
These are just a few things the serpentine Democratic nominating process has disgorged for us and, at least in this regard, it hasn’t been complete and total nonsense, nor wholly destructive if the superdelegates fulfill their role in the process by focusing on which of the candidates is most likely to beat the Republican nominee in November.
It is the superdelegates and not the “math,” or at least not the fuzzy math that somehow doesn’t take into account that neither candidate can win based on pledged delegates alone, that will determine who will be the Party’s nominee. And the superdelegates will do this without needing to solve complex equations or, in fact, needing any mathematical skills whatsoever. Ironically, the superdelegates won’t need much brainpower at all, just the cajones to make a decision, based on the information derived over the course of the primaries, to choose the candidate who is most electible instead of, once again, opting to build sandcastles in the air.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Terra Incognita: Obama and the General Election
Barack Obama and his staff are already gearing up for the general election and what do you think is a main focus of the campaign? According to at least one recent article, winning white Democrats in…Ohio and Pennsylvania! No matter, of course, that the Obama campaign, just as they are currently doing regarding Tuesday’s primary in West Virginia, spent a lot of time and energy on minimizing the importance of these states in the primary and, you guessed it, white working class voters.
As I write, Obama is supposedly getting boots on the ground in these states and setting up his organization to get a group of voters he is all too aware is crucial to his general election chances (see NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11strategy.html?ref=politics).
Other critical aspects of Obama’s general election campaign include making use of the organizational machinery he has used so well in the primaries and especially the caucuses to generate new voters in the demographic groups in which Obama excels—younger voters and blacks.
Bigger turnouts than either Gore or Kerry managed coupled with getting the constituencies Hillary Clinton currently is getting—white working class voters, older voters, and Hispanics—would likely mean victory for the Democrats in November. Unfortunately, Obama cannot count on getting the constituencies Clinton is doing well with. He will get some of these voters, of course, but many will likely go to McCain or perhaps not vote at all. Obama had weeks, for example, between the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries and more money than he knew what to do with to convince white working class Democrats that he was the better candidate. In the end, despite the time and money, he did no better in the state than the February 8 delegate count predictions leaked by his campaign following Super Tuesday.
Astonishingly, given that he nearly has the Party’s nomination in hand, Obama has won the white Democrat vote in only three primaries—his home state of Illinois, Vermont, and New Mexico. Can Obama make up for his weakness with white Democrats by pumping up the volume of new voters? Unlikely, I think. Younger voters make up the smallest percentage of all voters in past elections, so even a significant bump in this group will probably mean little. And black voters? There simply aren’t enough of them to make much of a difference in the states where he will need them to solve the much different electoral college equation in the math of the general election.
Proportional representation; caucuses, where the votes of a relatively few activists are hugely magnified; and the awarding of delegates based on county and precinct turnouts in previous elections, permitted Obama to launch and be successful with a strategy of accretion—winning the caucuses and picking off just enough delegates in the big states to get more overall pledged delegates. All of these Democratic primary structures are meaningless in the general election, though, where each state is winner-take-all. Had this they not played a role in the Democratic primary, and each state awarded all delegates to the victor, Obama would have been sitting on the sidelines a long time ago.
Obama now has before him, or almost has before him, the task of registering and getting out a huge number of new Democratic voters and winning over enough voters from the very Democrats that have shown little tendency to support him. He could accomplish these things, but far more likely is that the unforgiving format of the general election will throw into garish relief Obama’s weakness with the voters in the states where he will have to do especially well.
Obama’s early general election focus on states like Ohio and Pennsylvania belie his campaign’s trumpeting of victories in Idaho and Wyoming and the more fundamental argument that Obama is a candidate who will change the lines of the red/blue state electoral college map as they have been drawn the last several general elections.
Obama is all too aware that he must do well in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and, yes, West Virginia, and with white voters in states like these in order to have a chance at the presidency.
As the superdelegates stand on the verge of making Obama the Democratic Party’s nominee, it isn’t clear how anyone in the party, let alone the superdelegates, the party cognoscenti supposedly, was not aware a long time ago that Obama needed these voters too, and that his inability to get them, makes him a very flawed candidate for the general election.
Unable to win the white Democratic vote in any Democratic primary except for Illinois or Vermont and yet the Party's nominee or soon to be anyway??
It sounds almost too ludicrous to write.
As I write, Obama is supposedly getting boots on the ground in these states and setting up his organization to get a group of voters he is all too aware is crucial to his general election chances (see NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11strategy.html?ref=politics).
Other critical aspects of Obama’s general election campaign include making use of the organizational machinery he has used so well in the primaries and especially the caucuses to generate new voters in the demographic groups in which Obama excels—younger voters and blacks.
Bigger turnouts than either Gore or Kerry managed coupled with getting the constituencies Hillary Clinton currently is getting—white working class voters, older voters, and Hispanics—would likely mean victory for the Democrats in November. Unfortunately, Obama cannot count on getting the constituencies Clinton is doing well with. He will get some of these voters, of course, but many will likely go to McCain or perhaps not vote at all. Obama had weeks, for example, between the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries and more money than he knew what to do with to convince white working class Democrats that he was the better candidate. In the end, despite the time and money, he did no better in the state than the February 8 delegate count predictions leaked by his campaign following Super Tuesday.
Astonishingly, given that he nearly has the Party’s nomination in hand, Obama has won the white Democrat vote in only three primaries—his home state of Illinois, Vermont, and New Mexico. Can Obama make up for his weakness with white Democrats by pumping up the volume of new voters? Unlikely, I think. Younger voters make up the smallest percentage of all voters in past elections, so even a significant bump in this group will probably mean little. And black voters? There simply aren’t enough of them to make much of a difference in the states where he will need them to solve the much different electoral college equation in the math of the general election.
Proportional representation; caucuses, where the votes of a relatively few activists are hugely magnified; and the awarding of delegates based on county and precinct turnouts in previous elections, permitted Obama to launch and be successful with a strategy of accretion—winning the caucuses and picking off just enough delegates in the big states to get more overall pledged delegates. All of these Democratic primary structures are meaningless in the general election, though, where each state is winner-take-all. Had this they not played a role in the Democratic primary, and each state awarded all delegates to the victor, Obama would have been sitting on the sidelines a long time ago.
Obama now has before him, or almost has before him, the task of registering and getting out a huge number of new Democratic voters and winning over enough voters from the very Democrats that have shown little tendency to support him. He could accomplish these things, but far more likely is that the unforgiving format of the general election will throw into garish relief Obama’s weakness with the voters in the states where he will have to do especially well.
Obama’s early general election focus on states like Ohio and Pennsylvania belie his campaign’s trumpeting of victories in Idaho and Wyoming and the more fundamental argument that Obama is a candidate who will change the lines of the red/blue state electoral college map as they have been drawn the last several general elections.
Obama is all too aware that he must do well in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and, yes, West Virginia, and with white voters in states like these in order to have a chance at the presidency.
As the superdelegates stand on the verge of making Obama the Democratic Party’s nominee, it isn’t clear how anyone in the party, let alone the superdelegates, the party cognoscenti supposedly, was not aware a long time ago that Obama needed these voters too, and that his inability to get them, makes him a very flawed candidate for the general election.
Unable to win the white Democratic vote in any Democratic primary except for Illinois or Vermont and yet the Party's nominee or soon to be anyway??
It sounds almost too ludicrous to write.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Hell No, HRC Won’t Go
Should Hillary Clinton pull out of the race after her anemic victory in Indiana and her loss in North Carolina? A lot of people think she should. These are, as you might imagine, generally Obama supporters like Bill “Judas” Richardson and George “I’m Still Reeling from that Beating I Sustained in ’72” McGovern or media embedded Obama campaign operatives such as MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. But even these cretins may have a point.
Although neither Obama or Clinton can win the nomination now without the help of the superdelegates, the likelihood of getting them to support Clinton is not good unless Obama says something extraordinarily idiotic, a la Bittergate, or we find that Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, Midwesterners just like Obama, were close associates of the man who wants the thankless task of running this country.
I wrote near the end of March, with an eye on the Pennsylvania primary in April, that HC should stay in the race at least until after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and NC and reassess her chances at the point.
Well, she didn’t do terribly well in Indiana or North Carolina, but given the deconstruction of Obama that is already in full swing, I am glad I hedged my bets. It’s not so much because I believe Obama will fall on his face before the primaries are over in July, but because I believe that HC is the better candidate and, while she still has any chance at all, should stay in the race. West Virginia and Kentucky are coming up on May 13th and 20th, respectively, and by all measures she should do very well in both. Voters in these states as well as Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, where Obama is expected to do well, deserve to weigh in. Puerto Rico, too, which is the final Democratic contest in this campaign, should have its say, infrequent as this is anytime else for Puerto Ricans.
And speaking of having their voices heard, who knows what kind of shenanigans Clinton may engage in concerning the voters of Florida and Michigan who have been treated so shabbily by the Party Poobah. I wouldn’t mind hearing HC wax righteous about the Democrats disenfranchising the voters from these states that are certain to be crucial in the general election or watching Obama walk the razor’s edge of appearing respectful of such voters while doing everything he can to ensure that their votes will not be counted, at least as they are currently tallied.
More important, though, I want the race to continue because I’ve learned a hell of a lot about the Democratic nominating process. Things I and my drinking buddies would never have known had we not become so embroiled in this process and the 2008 Democratic campaigns in general, and had we continued every evening to watch, instead, Wheel of Fortune and reruns of Three’s Company.
So let the games continue. There is still much free advertising to be had, the bloodletting has not yet reached the ankles, and the Democrats are likely to get their collective populist arse kicked by a decrepit little martinet in November anyway.
So HC, here’s to you, as you put it in your speech before the returns from Indiana were even in, as you follow the “path straight to the White House;” however it is you might come to get there or even if you will soon be comforting yourself with sentiments like a “man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” and “it isn’t about the destination but the journey.”
Vanna, we hardly knew ya.
Although neither Obama or Clinton can win the nomination now without the help of the superdelegates, the likelihood of getting them to support Clinton is not good unless Obama says something extraordinarily idiotic, a la Bittergate, or we find that Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, Midwesterners just like Obama, were close associates of the man who wants the thankless task of running this country.
I wrote near the end of March, with an eye on the Pennsylvania primary in April, that HC should stay in the race at least until after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and NC and reassess her chances at the point.
Well, she didn’t do terribly well in Indiana or North Carolina, but given the deconstruction of Obama that is already in full swing, I am glad I hedged my bets. It’s not so much because I believe Obama will fall on his face before the primaries are over in July, but because I believe that HC is the better candidate and, while she still has any chance at all, should stay in the race. West Virginia and Kentucky are coming up on May 13th and 20th, respectively, and by all measures she should do very well in both. Voters in these states as well as Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, where Obama is expected to do well, deserve to weigh in. Puerto Rico, too, which is the final Democratic contest in this campaign, should have its say, infrequent as this is anytime else for Puerto Ricans.
And speaking of having their voices heard, who knows what kind of shenanigans Clinton may engage in concerning the voters of Florida and Michigan who have been treated so shabbily by the Party Poobah. I wouldn’t mind hearing HC wax righteous about the Democrats disenfranchising the voters from these states that are certain to be crucial in the general election or watching Obama walk the razor’s edge of appearing respectful of such voters while doing everything he can to ensure that their votes will not be counted, at least as they are currently tallied.
More important, though, I want the race to continue because I’ve learned a hell of a lot about the Democratic nominating process. Things I and my drinking buddies would never have known had we not become so embroiled in this process and the 2008 Democratic campaigns in general, and had we continued every evening to watch, instead, Wheel of Fortune and reruns of Three’s Company.
So let the games continue. There is still much free advertising to be had, the bloodletting has not yet reached the ankles, and the Democrats are likely to get their collective populist arse kicked by a decrepit little martinet in November anyway.
So HC, here’s to you, as you put it in your speech before the returns from Indiana were even in, as you follow the “path straight to the White House;” however it is you might come to get there or even if you will soon be comforting yourself with sentiments like a “man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” and “it isn’t about the destination but the journey.”
Vanna, we hardly knew ya.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Electing the Unelectable: A Peculiarly Democratic Malady
The tragically flawed Democratic nominating process rolled on last night as Obama won North Carolina by 14 percentage points and Hillary Clinton eked out a two-point victory in Indiana.
As expected, pundits and politicians, except those backing Clinton, are talking about “impossible delegate math,” Obama’s “stranglehold” on the nomination and other such nonsense. Nonsense, of course, because the race has been about the superdelegates for some time now, neither candidate able to acquire enough pledged delegates to win the nomination without the help of the superdelegates.
Although the math is anything but impossible with the superdelegates, it is unlikely Clinton will be able to convince the superdelegates to vote for her over Obama, fearful as they are alienating black voters.
Because if they need a reason to be convinced as to Clinton’s electability there was no better indication of this then last night.
In both primaries Obama was beaten silly in the category of white Democrats, losing this demographic 64-36 percent in Indiana and 62-37 in North Carolina. In Indiana, white Democrats made up 49 percent of all voters and in NC, 42 percent.
As I have written recently, Obama has performed poorly with white Democrats from beginning, including nearly all the primaries he has won. In fact, Obama has won white Democrats just three times—in his home state of Illinois, Vermont, where he nabbed the latter’s Ben and Jerry, and Bernie Sanders voters who are hardly representative of the rest of the country, and New Mexico, a state he lost.
I don’t know if there are statistics for this, but I can say with certainty that there has never been a Democratic nominee that has won the white Democrat vote in just three primaries.
If Obama’s problem with white Democrats isn’t enough to convince the superdelegates, perhaps the flight of the independent and Republican voters—voters Obama must have in order to win the general election—will do the trick.
Clinton won white independents and white Republicans in both Indiana and NC last night. You know, the folks whose supposed attraction to Obama distinguished his candidacy from other Democrats. The Rush Limbaugh factor at work, you say? If any of these people were voting for Clinton simply to throw the Democrats in chaos, as the hopelessly megalomaniacal Limbaugh claimed, they certainly won’t be voting for either Clinton or Obama in November, no matter who is the Party’s nominee. So much for Rush.
The Democrats are in big trouble right now and are unlikely to extricate themselves from the tortuous nominating process they created, which even after all the ostensibly populist twists and turns (caucuses, proportional representation, awarding delegates in Texas based on shoe size) isn’t nearly as efficient or democratic as the Republican winner take all process. Most astonishingly, the Democratic nominating process fails to leave out of its meandering itinerary, as a stop, let alone its final destination, the goal of electability.
If Democrats were genuinely concerned with electability, even with the rat’s maze of a nominating process they have crafted, they might have avoided being in the dark place they now find themselves: in the center of the labyrinth and on the verge of sending forth another candidate to almost certain defeat. (As if to punctuate the extent of this fiasco, George McGovern, the Democratic candidate so thoroughly trounced by Nixon in 1972, endorsed Obama today, an event as ominous as the ancient mariner’s shooting of the albatross.)
Is there any kind of counseling available for the psychic ills of the Democratic Party, with its misplaced idealism, uncritical thinking, or just plain stupidity? If McCain is elected can Democrats claim temporary insanity? Can they get a do over?
The answer to these questions, of course, is no.
And then we’ll all need a turn on the couch when Grandpa McCain picks a couple or three supreme court justices, completes Bush’s job of privatizing Medicare, and plows ahead with an immoral, impractical, and stupendously expensive war in Iraq.
As expected, pundits and politicians, except those backing Clinton, are talking about “impossible delegate math,” Obama’s “stranglehold” on the nomination and other such nonsense. Nonsense, of course, because the race has been about the superdelegates for some time now, neither candidate able to acquire enough pledged delegates to win the nomination without the help of the superdelegates.
Although the math is anything but impossible with the superdelegates, it is unlikely Clinton will be able to convince the superdelegates to vote for her over Obama, fearful as they are alienating black voters.
Because if they need a reason to be convinced as to Clinton’s electability there was no better indication of this then last night.
In both primaries Obama was beaten silly in the category of white Democrats, losing this demographic 64-36 percent in Indiana and 62-37 in North Carolina. In Indiana, white Democrats made up 49 percent of all voters and in NC, 42 percent.
As I have written recently, Obama has performed poorly with white Democrats from beginning, including nearly all the primaries he has won. In fact, Obama has won white Democrats just three times—in his home state of Illinois, Vermont, where he nabbed the latter’s Ben and Jerry, and Bernie Sanders voters who are hardly representative of the rest of the country, and New Mexico, a state he lost.
I don’t know if there are statistics for this, but I can say with certainty that there has never been a Democratic nominee that has won the white Democrat vote in just three primaries.
If Obama’s problem with white Democrats isn’t enough to convince the superdelegates, perhaps the flight of the independent and Republican voters—voters Obama must have in order to win the general election—will do the trick.
Clinton won white independents and white Republicans in both Indiana and NC last night. You know, the folks whose supposed attraction to Obama distinguished his candidacy from other Democrats. The Rush Limbaugh factor at work, you say? If any of these people were voting for Clinton simply to throw the Democrats in chaos, as the hopelessly megalomaniacal Limbaugh claimed, they certainly won’t be voting for either Clinton or Obama in November, no matter who is the Party’s nominee. So much for Rush.
The Democrats are in big trouble right now and are unlikely to extricate themselves from the tortuous nominating process they created, which even after all the ostensibly populist twists and turns (caucuses, proportional representation, awarding delegates in Texas based on shoe size) isn’t nearly as efficient or democratic as the Republican winner take all process. Most astonishingly, the Democratic nominating process fails to leave out of its meandering itinerary, as a stop, let alone its final destination, the goal of electability.
If Democrats were genuinely concerned with electability, even with the rat’s maze of a nominating process they have crafted, they might have avoided being in the dark place they now find themselves: in the center of the labyrinth and on the verge of sending forth another candidate to almost certain defeat. (As if to punctuate the extent of this fiasco, George McGovern, the Democratic candidate so thoroughly trounced by Nixon in 1972, endorsed Obama today, an event as ominous as the ancient mariner’s shooting of the albatross.)
Is there any kind of counseling available for the psychic ills of the Democratic Party, with its misplaced idealism, uncritical thinking, or just plain stupidity? If McCain is elected can Democrats claim temporary insanity? Can they get a do over?
The answer to these questions, of course, is no.
And then we’ll all need a turn on the couch when Grandpa McCain picks a couple or three supreme court justices, completes Bush’s job of privatizing Medicare, and plows ahead with an immoral, impractical, and stupendously expensive war in Iraq.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Hillary Clinton and her Electability Castor Oil for the Superdelegates
From the outset of the 2008 race for the Democratic nomination in early January to today’s primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Barack Obama has rarely won a majority of white Democrat votes in the primaries. This is not such a big deal perhaps when John Edwards was still in the race and competing for such voters, but noteworthy if you consider that since Edwards dropped out of the race Obama has won only the white Democrat vote in the primary in Illinois, his home state, Vermont, a state so liberal it doesn’t belong in the United States, and New Mexico, a state he lost. Obama’s lack of success with white Democrats includes states such as Maryland and Virginia, which Obama won handily (with 60 and 64 percent of the total vote, respectively).
This should be troubling to Democrats under any circumstances, should Obama be the Party’s nominee, but his performance with white Democrats is especially troubling when coupled with the fact that Obama has needed significant help from independents and even Republicans to win in nearly all of the primary states he has won thus far.
Obama is certain to lose some of these non-Democrat voters in the general election, if he is the Party’s nominee, “naturally.” That is, many independents and Republicans will return to the fold as more is known about him now, he is no longer a novelty, and the Rush Limbaugh factor—where independents and Republicans voted for one or the other of the Democratic candidates because Rush or some other windbag exhorted them to muck up the process—doesn’t play a role.
Obama is also certain to lose some of the independent and Republican voters, “unnaturally,” through the predations of the Wright issue, Bittergate, former Weather Underground member, William Ayers, lack of patriotic appropriate personal jewelry (flag lapel pin) and such stuff.
While it would be wrong to simply transfer current voting patterns from the Democratic primary to the general election whole hog, this confluence of events, demographics, and voting patterns ought to give the superdelegates some pause.
Especially as John McCain, a candidate who seemingly has no other qualities or abilities than to appeal to independents, yellow dog Democrats, and others skittish of Obama because of his bowling skills, former pastor, or the color of his skin, is standing heroically at the ready to welcome these folks who have been flirting with Obama into the welcoming and comforting arms of the Republican party. “My friends,” he will say (over and over again, no doubt), “you needn’t worry about me. At least the racist and whacked out pastor who supports me is white, and is a big fan of NASCAR… “So what if I am surrounded by lobbyists, and have them run my campaign though I profess to abhor their very souls…So what if I don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni, a micro economic from a macro one.” And the real kicker—“We’ll stay in Iraq for a hundred years if necessary, so we won’t have to fight them Sunnis or Shiites or whatever they are in the US of A.”
Very heartening, indeed.
And yet this is very likely where Democrats are headed, though, unless, as unlikely as it is, Hillary Clinton were to win both Indiana and North Carolina tonight or, later down the road should she survive tonight by at least winning Indiana, the superdelegates were to throw their support behind Clinton because she, through her training in Arkansas and her life with Bill, somehow inspires (or at least frightens less) white nabobs more than Obama.
Odd as it sounds—to Obama supporters or most of those in the media anyway—Clinton is more likely to get Obama’s supporters in the general election than the other way around. You may chalk this up to racism, Obama’s inexperience, or the fact that Clinton has done a much better job of positioning herself as the candidate of the center, instead of the left (an old and supremely successful Clinton trick), but the fact is, despite what Obama himself says, Clinton is more likely to get the liberal and black voters Obama is currently getting than he is to get the white working class or retired voters, yellow dog Democrats, and others that are part of the conservative wing of the Democratic party.
And, like it not, these folks are certain to play a crucial role in choosing the next president of the United States.
This should be troubling to Democrats under any circumstances, should Obama be the Party’s nominee, but his performance with white Democrats is especially troubling when coupled with the fact that Obama has needed significant help from independents and even Republicans to win in nearly all of the primary states he has won thus far.
Obama is certain to lose some of these non-Democrat voters in the general election, if he is the Party’s nominee, “naturally.” That is, many independents and Republicans will return to the fold as more is known about him now, he is no longer a novelty, and the Rush Limbaugh factor—where independents and Republicans voted for one or the other of the Democratic candidates because Rush or some other windbag exhorted them to muck up the process—doesn’t play a role.
Obama is also certain to lose some of the independent and Republican voters, “unnaturally,” through the predations of the Wright issue, Bittergate, former Weather Underground member, William Ayers, lack of patriotic appropriate personal jewelry (flag lapel pin) and such stuff.
While it would be wrong to simply transfer current voting patterns from the Democratic primary to the general election whole hog, this confluence of events, demographics, and voting patterns ought to give the superdelegates some pause.
Especially as John McCain, a candidate who seemingly has no other qualities or abilities than to appeal to independents, yellow dog Democrats, and others skittish of Obama because of his bowling skills, former pastor, or the color of his skin, is standing heroically at the ready to welcome these folks who have been flirting with Obama into the welcoming and comforting arms of the Republican party. “My friends,” he will say (over and over again, no doubt), “you needn’t worry about me. At least the racist and whacked out pastor who supports me is white, and is a big fan of NASCAR… “So what if I am surrounded by lobbyists, and have them run my campaign though I profess to abhor their very souls…So what if I don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni, a micro economic from a macro one.” And the real kicker—“We’ll stay in Iraq for a hundred years if necessary, so we won’t have to fight them Sunnis or Shiites or whatever they are in the US of A.”
Very heartening, indeed.
And yet this is very likely where Democrats are headed, though, unless, as unlikely as it is, Hillary Clinton were to win both Indiana and North Carolina tonight or, later down the road should she survive tonight by at least winning Indiana, the superdelegates were to throw their support behind Clinton because she, through her training in Arkansas and her life with Bill, somehow inspires (or at least frightens less) white nabobs more than Obama.
Odd as it sounds—to Obama supporters or most of those in the media anyway—Clinton is more likely to get Obama’s supporters in the general election than the other way around. You may chalk this up to racism, Obama’s inexperience, or the fact that Clinton has done a much better job of positioning herself as the candidate of the center, instead of the left (an old and supremely successful Clinton trick), but the fact is, despite what Obama himself says, Clinton is more likely to get the liberal and black voters Obama is currently getting than he is to get the white working class or retired voters, yellow dog Democrats, and others that are part of the conservative wing of the Democratic party.
And, like it not, these folks are certain to play a crucial role in choosing the next president of the United States.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Barack Obama, the Gasoline Tax Holiday, and Monkey Business
Barack Obama’s recent stance on the so-called gas tax holiday is interesting because in an odd way it’s a measure of how distant he is from achieving what are ostensibly the core goals of his campaign—transforming politics as usual by being honest with voters and making tough instead of politically expedient choices, and making government more accessible and transparent.
Obama is absolutely corrct to call the gas tax holiday supported by Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain and which would remove gas taxes during the upcoming summer months, a “gimmick” and a “shell game.” Most agree that the average American would get something like a “free” half tank of gas. If Clinton and McCain were really interested about doing something about gasoline prices they should work to fundamentally change the price structure and availability of gasoline or, better yet, come up with specifics for alternative energy sources and increased public transportation. Although drivers won’t benefit much by the tax holiday, the government will lose quite a bit of revenue—about 9 billion according to some estimates (Bob Herbert, NY Times, 5-3-2008).
While Obama’s position is refreshing and consistent with what he claims his candidacy is about, his positions on much more important issues such as health care, the economy, and protecting Americans’ privacy, are much more typical of politics as usual.
He claims his health care plan offers universal care and yet he wouldn't require adults, just their children, to carry health care insurance. Most everyone familiar with the notion of providing universal health care recognizes that that a mandate is necessary—to cover all Americans and to ensure that the risk pool is large enough to bring down costs by minimizing the effects of the chronically ill. On the economy and the FISA bill, the latter of which would permit retroactive immunity from lawsuits for telephone and internet companies providing user information to the government, Obama has, respectively, been vague and opaque or not even voted on an issue sure to be controversial.
While there is danger, of course, in Obama speaking the truth—that a robust program of increased taxes and program cuts are necessary to save Social Security and right an economy in recession or to go on record as being against the FISA bill will subverts American’s rights under the guise of protecting them—Obama has established for himself expectations that Hillary Clinton and McCain have not. It isn’t, of course, that Clinton and McCain are not just as vague or even duplicitous on most of these issues, but that their campaigns aren’t fundamentally framed as being about change or the transformation of politics as usual.
Not meeting these expectations, despite such early promise and such skillful oratory, is certainly at least partially responsible for some of the sheen coming off Obama’s campaign recently. In this context, Jeremiah Wright and “Bittergate” are to Obama what Donna Rice and “Monkey Business” were to Gary Hart. In other words, they are not so important in and of themselves but signs of a more profound unease about Hart’s truthfulness, in general, or with Obama, not so much about his truthfulness per se but rather about whether he really does represent something new or whether he is just old wine in a new bottle.
The dissonance between Obama’s soaring and inspirational oratory about change, transparency, reconciliation and the like, and the reality of his campaign, in which he has been just as vague and innocuous on controversial issues as the other candidates, is certainly a problem. His primary problem, however, remains the attributes that always trip up Democratic candidates—the perception that Obama is too liberal, that his patriotism is suspect, that he may be weak on terrorism, the war in Iraq (fill in the blank).
In addition to these weaknesses, which Republicans are already exploiting in congressional races in the several southern states, Obama is, by nearly any standard, woefully inexperienced. Early on in the campaign, when the Iraq war was pretty much front and center, he was able to turn this liability into an asset, winning much applause when he said that George Bush and Clinton have a lot of experience and look where that has got us. True enough, but when push comes to shove, folks who are concerned about security, the war in Iraq, and the other potential horrors that Republicans will have peppered them with throughout the general election, may well think twice before voting for Obama.
Obama’s stance on the gas tax, then, heartening as it is, is small potatoes in comparison to his actions concerning health care, the economy, privacy, and even the war in Iraq (something he has voted to continue to fund since he has been in the US Senate). And it is unlikely that this will change in the final rounds of the race for the Democratic nomination. This is probably the smart, politically savvy thing to do. He remains the odds-on favorite to win the nomination and there are dangers in offering specifics on controversial issues or speaking about the kinds of hard choices that must be made to keep Social Security solvent, or to keep the economy upright.
If Obama continues to be a politician like any other in the general election, though, this, along with the elephants’ portrayal of him as a godless, leftwing, pinko, with less experience than some city councilmen, will spell serious trouble for the Democrats. Obama’s baggage is becoming way too heavy for the Democratic baggage handlers to carry and there is certain to be a lot more before November.
So what happens if the Democrats elect another candidate ripe for a drubbing? Perhaps we can put that free half tank of gas and few extra dollars from the tax rebate to good use and console ourselves for a night in a Motel 6 on the edge of town, with HBO blasting away, and a couple rounds of vibrating massage from the Magic Fingers.
Obama is absolutely corrct to call the gas tax holiday supported by Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain and which would remove gas taxes during the upcoming summer months, a “gimmick” and a “shell game.” Most agree that the average American would get something like a “free” half tank of gas. If Clinton and McCain were really interested about doing something about gasoline prices they should work to fundamentally change the price structure and availability of gasoline or, better yet, come up with specifics for alternative energy sources and increased public transportation. Although drivers won’t benefit much by the tax holiday, the government will lose quite a bit of revenue—about 9 billion according to some estimates (Bob Herbert, NY Times, 5-3-2008).
While Obama’s position is refreshing and consistent with what he claims his candidacy is about, his positions on much more important issues such as health care, the economy, and protecting Americans’ privacy, are much more typical of politics as usual.
He claims his health care plan offers universal care and yet he wouldn't require adults, just their children, to carry health care insurance. Most everyone familiar with the notion of providing universal health care recognizes that that a mandate is necessary—to cover all Americans and to ensure that the risk pool is large enough to bring down costs by minimizing the effects of the chronically ill. On the economy and the FISA bill, the latter of which would permit retroactive immunity from lawsuits for telephone and internet companies providing user information to the government, Obama has, respectively, been vague and opaque or not even voted on an issue sure to be controversial.
While there is danger, of course, in Obama speaking the truth—that a robust program of increased taxes and program cuts are necessary to save Social Security and right an economy in recession or to go on record as being against the FISA bill will subverts American’s rights under the guise of protecting them—Obama has established for himself expectations that Hillary Clinton and McCain have not. It isn’t, of course, that Clinton and McCain are not just as vague or even duplicitous on most of these issues, but that their campaigns aren’t fundamentally framed as being about change or the transformation of politics as usual.
Not meeting these expectations, despite such early promise and such skillful oratory, is certainly at least partially responsible for some of the sheen coming off Obama’s campaign recently. In this context, Jeremiah Wright and “Bittergate” are to Obama what Donna Rice and “Monkey Business” were to Gary Hart. In other words, they are not so important in and of themselves but signs of a more profound unease about Hart’s truthfulness, in general, or with Obama, not so much about his truthfulness per se but rather about whether he really does represent something new or whether he is just old wine in a new bottle.
The dissonance between Obama’s soaring and inspirational oratory about change, transparency, reconciliation and the like, and the reality of his campaign, in which he has been just as vague and innocuous on controversial issues as the other candidates, is certainly a problem. His primary problem, however, remains the attributes that always trip up Democratic candidates—the perception that Obama is too liberal, that his patriotism is suspect, that he may be weak on terrorism, the war in Iraq (fill in the blank).
In addition to these weaknesses, which Republicans are already exploiting in congressional races in the several southern states, Obama is, by nearly any standard, woefully inexperienced. Early on in the campaign, when the Iraq war was pretty much front and center, he was able to turn this liability into an asset, winning much applause when he said that George Bush and Clinton have a lot of experience and look where that has got us. True enough, but when push comes to shove, folks who are concerned about security, the war in Iraq, and the other potential horrors that Republicans will have peppered them with throughout the general election, may well think twice before voting for Obama.
Obama’s stance on the gas tax, then, heartening as it is, is small potatoes in comparison to his actions concerning health care, the economy, privacy, and even the war in Iraq (something he has voted to continue to fund since he has been in the US Senate). And it is unlikely that this will change in the final rounds of the race for the Democratic nomination. This is probably the smart, politically savvy thing to do. He remains the odds-on favorite to win the nomination and there are dangers in offering specifics on controversial issues or speaking about the kinds of hard choices that must be made to keep Social Security solvent, or to keep the economy upright.
If Obama continues to be a politician like any other in the general election, though, this, along with the elephants’ portrayal of him as a godless, leftwing, pinko, with less experience than some city councilmen, will spell serious trouble for the Democrats. Obama’s baggage is becoming way too heavy for the Democratic baggage handlers to carry and there is certain to be a lot more before November.
So what happens if the Democrats elect another candidate ripe for a drubbing? Perhaps we can put that free half tank of gas and few extra dollars from the tax rebate to good use and console ourselves for a night in a Motel 6 on the edge of town, with HBO blasting away, and a couple rounds of vibrating massage from the Magic Fingers.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The More Things Change the More they Stay the Same: Media Shennanigans and the 2008 Democratic Race for the Nomination
I feel like I’ve been roused from a Rip van Winkle-like slumber as I write this latest entry, the first in several weeks.
Unlike Rip, though, I don’t find that much has changed. The same wood-headed pundits jabbering and scribblers scribbling the same inanities and dramatizing and hyping the same quotidian garbage as reality scurries away unfettered and, most disturbing, providing absolutely no insight into what’s going on in an historic Democratic race for the nomination and the presidency.
As I lay snoozing, oblivious to everything around me, it wasn’t that quite a lot didn’t happen. There was “Bittergate,” the renaissance of former Weather Underground bomb maker, William Ayers, Obama’s defeat in PA despite weeks of campaigning and a huge advantage in dollars, and even the reemergence of the right reverend pariah, Jeremiah Wright, the crazy uncle that Obama couldn’t keep locked in the attic. To anyone reading this blog though, indeed anyone capable of reading and listening, and thinking at a level just a bit higher than a jellyfish, none of this should come as any surprise…except, that is, to the media, the so-called fourth estate, who just can’t seem to get anything right these days, so concerned is it with entertainment and profit margins.
What remains the same, then, is not only the weakness of Obama as a candidate but the inability of the media to perform even a basic analysis of the candidates and their electability. Obama’s weaknesses, at least as a candidate in the general election, have been apparent from the very beginning--his liberalism, questions about his patriotism, experience, and why, if he is, in fact, a real American…he can’t bowl worth a damn. This is clearly indicated by his poor performances in the states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, and his difficulties in winning over white working class voters. The Democratic nominee will need to do well in these states and with such voters to have a chance at beating McCain.
Anyway, you’d think that the media had been the ones snoozing with all the astonished chest beating, desk thumping, and horrified looks these schlubs exchange as they purport to be shocked by Obama’s seeming dismissal of working class Pennsylvanians; his association with Wright, who it would appear may be the devil himself; and, worst of all, the fact that Obama doesn’t look comfortable lunching on Wonderbread and baloney sandwiches with the Schlitz and gun-rack crowd. “By god,” they thunder, with eyes as wide as folks who have slept for one hundred years, “Obama sure is aloof” and (here you must whisper and look as if aunt Ella just farted at the funeral) and “elitist.” And concerning Obama's patriotism, he has flirting with treason, they cry, because he won’t wear a flag pin on his lapel like the other lemmings. "Oh, woe is us, what kind of new world is this?"
I’ve written for months that this kind of crap—issues that have to do with the skewed way many Americans view such matters of patriotisim, religion, security, and the like—pretty much make Obama unelectable, if not in the Democratic primary, than almost certainly the general election when he will not have the caucuses or the goofy Democratic nominating process to help him, but will need the helping hand of a few good troglodytes or near troglodytes. But, as usual, the media can’t even get the electability issue right. If there are some questions now about this, it either has to do with the fact that HC has gone after Obama in a way more befitting a Republican, or there is a focus on the events undermining Obama as if they are a kind of terrible misfortune, bad luck, or SOL happenstance. Events, that is, that, astonishingly, have little to do with his liberalism, inexperience, or even judgment.
Of course, each of these events glimpsed by the media through a glass darkly is more a function, really, of a greater fundamental weakness, the things that will doom Obama should he win the Democratic nomination. Liberal—yes; inexperienced—yes; soft on terror, the war, and security (at least in many folks minds)? Yes, yes, and yes. As dumb and shortsighted as is recent discussion of Obama’s bowling, comfort with blue collar workers, and his possible radicalism (association with Wright and Ayers), and as crude as these are they point to the even meaner perception and indeed framing of Obama to come in the general election. The Republicans are already beginning to have a field day with him in North Carolina, releasing ads about Obama’s association with Wright that even John McCain claims to find objectionable. There will soon be more ads questioning everything from his belief in god and his patriotism to his willingness to “do battle with terrorists abroad so we don’t have to do it here,” or whatever it is George W. Bush, soccer moms, and soccer dads like to say. And the Democratic race isn’t even over yet.
So while the media continues to grope blindly at the various parts of the elephant, good luck in waiting for them to piece together the whole. It will be far too late then—probably already is—and we will likely have an unelectable candidate that the media has been swearing for months was the candidate to beat all candidates, a true Republican killer, the kind of candidate that sends Republicans scurrying away in fear and makes them reconsider their party affiliation.
Kind of like the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s spin on it in which the media all too happily acquiesced, even in the puerile belief that we would be greeted with flowers and our “mission accomplished” in weeks instead of years. The media even proudly used the Administration’s term of “embedded” when describing there relationship with the United States forces in Iraq, though“in bed with,” of course would have been much more appropriate, especially with the recent revelations that the media were paying ex-generals and the like to provide expert "analysis" on Iraq which, it turns out, was was actually PR vetted by the Pentagon. Of course by the time the folks in the media finally found their bearings after being enchanted by the likes of Colin Powell, Chalabi, and the and the 4-star PR flak generals, it was too late. Even McCain voiced some criticisms of the war and Bush before many in the media.
For me anyway there is some good news because despite the recent shuteye, I don’t feel like I’ve missed much. The bad news is that we are ever closer to having as our President, John McCain, a tragic continuation of the current President and his policies, something that could have been avoided perhaps if the media were not paid by each flap of the gum, bump in the Nielsen ratings, or bit of spittle flying from Chris Mathews’ mouth but instead rewarded for thinking for a moment or two before blabbering whatever first comes to their febrile minds or performing some analysis or research before putting pen to paper.
This, however, would require looking regularly at presidential campaign history; researching the demographics and voting patterns of the electorate over the last several years; considering how Obama and Clinton are likely to be portrayed and perceived in the general election based on their voting records and past associations; perhaps undertaking a study on in the importance of experience in times when voters are hysterical about their safety and security, and making some connections between these things. This would be a lot to ask, though, in a time when the news must be made palatable with vignettes that would be rejected as too lame by even America’s Funniest Home Videos (just watch Keith Olbermann’s program on MSNBC for a nearly Platonic example of this).
I don’t know about you, but when all is said and done it kind of makes me want to go back to bed.
RIP
Unlike Rip, though, I don’t find that much has changed. The same wood-headed pundits jabbering and scribblers scribbling the same inanities and dramatizing and hyping the same quotidian garbage as reality scurries away unfettered and, most disturbing, providing absolutely no insight into what’s going on in an historic Democratic race for the nomination and the presidency.
As I lay snoozing, oblivious to everything around me, it wasn’t that quite a lot didn’t happen. There was “Bittergate,” the renaissance of former Weather Underground bomb maker, William Ayers, Obama’s defeat in PA despite weeks of campaigning and a huge advantage in dollars, and even the reemergence of the right reverend pariah, Jeremiah Wright, the crazy uncle that Obama couldn’t keep locked in the attic. To anyone reading this blog though, indeed anyone capable of reading and listening, and thinking at a level just a bit higher than a jellyfish, none of this should come as any surprise…except, that is, to the media, the so-called fourth estate, who just can’t seem to get anything right these days, so concerned is it with entertainment and profit margins.
What remains the same, then, is not only the weakness of Obama as a candidate but the inability of the media to perform even a basic analysis of the candidates and their electability. Obama’s weaknesses, at least as a candidate in the general election, have been apparent from the very beginning--his liberalism, questions about his patriotism, experience, and why, if he is, in fact, a real American…he can’t bowl worth a damn. This is clearly indicated by his poor performances in the states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, and his difficulties in winning over white working class voters. The Democratic nominee will need to do well in these states and with such voters to have a chance at beating McCain.
Anyway, you’d think that the media had been the ones snoozing with all the astonished chest beating, desk thumping, and horrified looks these schlubs exchange as they purport to be shocked by Obama’s seeming dismissal of working class Pennsylvanians; his association with Wright, who it would appear may be the devil himself; and, worst of all, the fact that Obama doesn’t look comfortable lunching on Wonderbread and baloney sandwiches with the Schlitz and gun-rack crowd. “By god,” they thunder, with eyes as wide as folks who have slept for one hundred years, “Obama sure is aloof” and (here you must whisper and look as if aunt Ella just farted at the funeral) and “elitist.” And concerning Obama's patriotism, he has flirting with treason, they cry, because he won’t wear a flag pin on his lapel like the other lemmings. "Oh, woe is us, what kind of new world is this?"
I’ve written for months that this kind of crap—issues that have to do with the skewed way many Americans view such matters of patriotisim, religion, security, and the like—pretty much make Obama unelectable, if not in the Democratic primary, than almost certainly the general election when he will not have the caucuses or the goofy Democratic nominating process to help him, but will need the helping hand of a few good troglodytes or near troglodytes. But, as usual, the media can’t even get the electability issue right. If there are some questions now about this, it either has to do with the fact that HC has gone after Obama in a way more befitting a Republican, or there is a focus on the events undermining Obama as if they are a kind of terrible misfortune, bad luck, or SOL happenstance. Events, that is, that, astonishingly, have little to do with his liberalism, inexperience, or even judgment.
Of course, each of these events glimpsed by the media through a glass darkly is more a function, really, of a greater fundamental weakness, the things that will doom Obama should he win the Democratic nomination. Liberal—yes; inexperienced—yes; soft on terror, the war, and security (at least in many folks minds)? Yes, yes, and yes. As dumb and shortsighted as is recent discussion of Obama’s bowling, comfort with blue collar workers, and his possible radicalism (association with Wright and Ayers), and as crude as these are they point to the even meaner perception and indeed framing of Obama to come in the general election. The Republicans are already beginning to have a field day with him in North Carolina, releasing ads about Obama’s association with Wright that even John McCain claims to find objectionable. There will soon be more ads questioning everything from his belief in god and his patriotism to his willingness to “do battle with terrorists abroad so we don’t have to do it here,” or whatever it is George W. Bush, soccer moms, and soccer dads like to say. And the Democratic race isn’t even over yet.
So while the media continues to grope blindly at the various parts of the elephant, good luck in waiting for them to piece together the whole. It will be far too late then—probably already is—and we will likely have an unelectable candidate that the media has been swearing for months was the candidate to beat all candidates, a true Republican killer, the kind of candidate that sends Republicans scurrying away in fear and makes them reconsider their party affiliation.
Kind of like the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s spin on it in which the media all too happily acquiesced, even in the puerile belief that we would be greeted with flowers and our “mission accomplished” in weeks instead of years. The media even proudly used the Administration’s term of “embedded” when describing there relationship with the United States forces in Iraq, though“in bed with,” of course would have been much more appropriate, especially with the recent revelations that the media were paying ex-generals and the like to provide expert "analysis" on Iraq which, it turns out, was was actually PR vetted by the Pentagon. Of course by the time the folks in the media finally found their bearings after being enchanted by the likes of Colin Powell, Chalabi, and the and the 4-star PR flak generals, it was too late. Even McCain voiced some criticisms of the war and Bush before many in the media.
For me anyway there is some good news because despite the recent shuteye, I don’t feel like I’ve missed much. The bad news is that we are ever closer to having as our President, John McCain, a tragic continuation of the current President and his policies, something that could have been avoided perhaps if the media were not paid by each flap of the gum, bump in the Nielsen ratings, or bit of spittle flying from Chris Mathews’ mouth but instead rewarded for thinking for a moment or two before blabbering whatever first comes to their febrile minds or performing some analysis or research before putting pen to paper.
This, however, would require looking regularly at presidential campaign history; researching the demographics and voting patterns of the electorate over the last several years; considering how Obama and Clinton are likely to be portrayed and perceived in the general election based on their voting records and past associations; perhaps undertaking a study on in the importance of experience in times when voters are hysterical about their safety and security, and making some connections between these things. This would be a lot to ask, though, in a time when the news must be made palatable with vignettes that would be rejected as too lame by even America’s Funniest Home Videos (just watch Keith Olbermann’s program on MSNBC for a nearly Platonic example of this).
I don’t know about you, but when all is said and done it kind of makes me want to go back to bed.
RIP
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