Discourse.net

Coleman Conceeds

“Breaking News 4:05 PM ET: Norm Coleman Concedes to Al Franken in Senate Race” — NYT.

Inauguration WebCam

If you haven't finished your grading yet (nya-nya), you can while away the hours with this webcam that the Washington Post has pointed at the site of the inauguration.

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Latest will.i.am Video

will.i.am, It’s A New Day:

But not quite ringtone material.

Change

South Florida Daily Blog: Ch- ch- ch- Changes links to 2 political junkies which has this great graphic:

Just Deserts

Please sign the petition at Joe Lieberman Must GO.

Richly deserved.

The Day After the Day After

Is it just me, or does it seem that everyone -- co-workers, the radio, the print media -- is still taking a quiet mental victory lap?

Snapshot

Only 43 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the United States has elected a black man as President.

As is often the case for a trail-blazer, he had to be twice as good as the other candidate for the job.

Progressive candidates also won a number of important victories around the country — they did not sweep the table, and did particularly poorly in South Florida, but won enough nationwide to claim a substantial mandate nonetheless.

I would take even more pleasure from all this were it not tempered by the enshrinement in law of a different bigotry: although not all the votes are counted it seems that Amendment 2 passed in Florida, with more than 62% of the vote (60% was required); similarly, California’s Proposition 8 seems to have passed narrowly also. Enshrining discrimination in state constitutions is not what makes a country great.

We will come to regret these votes, and to see them as the same sort of stain as we now know Jim Crow to have been. The only question is when.

VOTE! (Preferably for Obama)

If you are a US citizen 18 years old or more and have not yet voted you really should do so.

I hope that this is the most important election in a generation; I fear that may have been 2004.

Barack Obama was not my first choice in the primaries, but he has run a truly admirable campaign on multiple levels, and he has earned your vote the hard way.

The most admirable aspect of Obama’s campaign has been its organization, both internally and externally. A disciplined staff, a clear and consistent message (right down to the typography and iconography). Smart use of both old and new media. Restrained and modulated use of an incredible gift for oratory. Mass organization of volunteers all over — all over — this country.

The next most admirable aspect of the campaign has been what it has shown us about the candidate: thoughtful, disciplined, decent, very intelligent, and politically canny. What he lacks in experience he makes up for in book smarts, street smarts, and a worldview that this a product of a cosmopolitan, multi-racial experience blended with close study of issues.

On balance, this canniness is an asset in a President. Those who lacked it — Carter comes to mind — were soon roadkill. But the canniness comes at a price, and that price is seen in the third most admirable aspect of the campaign, and that is its policies. Make no mistake: Obama’s policies are much more likely to improve the lot of the average American than McCain’s continuation of trickle-up economics. Obama’s health plan will protect millions more people. Obama’s commitment to technologically enhanced openness in government seems deep and sincere. I hope he will close Guantanamo; I’m certain he will end US state-authorized torture.

But…the health care plan has holes. They’re canny holes — they allowed Senator Obama to describe the plan in terms that made it seems nonthreatening to those looking for something to be threatened by. And that may in fact be only way to pass something large. I’m prepared to believe that. Less easy to swallow was the ducking on FISA. Again, the politics are clear; but here the price is essential principle. And I’m still waiting to see some “clean coal”. Again, canny. But at a price. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The least savory aspect of the Obama campaign was its embrace of the role of money in politics (there’s that canny again). On the one hand, the money came from people, not PACs. But on the other, the incredible sums raised and spent seem all too likely to open the door wider to future corruption of the process by the relentless demands of fund-raising.

In this campaign, Obama has managed to connote JFK, FDR, Reagan and Lincoln (and maybe Constantine I, too), sometimes all at once. Heady company indeed. Each great, each with real flaws.

Senator McCain, in contrast, has embraced his inner Atwater, and run a campaign that is most kindly described as reckless if not desperate, and more cruelly if accurately described as irresponsible and ugly. It has lurched from theme to theme, and few of them have made much sense. Ready, shoot, aim is not a good method for a President. And the McCain’s campaign inability to execute on either simple matters or major ones (Sarah Palin) suggests that whatever the value of his various experiences it does not translate well into management, and that indeed the Senator is more maverick than statesman, more gimmick than leader. The decision to focus on innuendo and character assassination rather than substance may have made tactical sense, but it served the nation poorly. McCain ran a campaign without honor and with little substance. And when there was substance, it wasn’t detailed, wasn’t convincing, sometimes wasn’t coherent (especially as regards the economy). McCain’s one clear policy — foreign policy belligerence — is appropriate neither to times nor to our diminished capabilities. The signs point to only one conclusion: for whatever reason, be it age, the corruption of ambition, or the real man exposed at last, as a President John McCain would be as bad as George Bush and in some ways worse.

This country has been mis-governed hideously for the last eight years, and erratically for many years before that. The task of reform is too great for any one man. It requires a leader who can attract a strong team, give it its head, and can lead — yes, that sometimes mean persuade — a nation.

The choice in this election could not be clearer, the stakes have rarely been higher, and the conclusion (even if you don’t buy the hype) could not be clearer.

To succeed, the new President will need a Congress that is not in the grip of obstructionists bent on destroying him and exterminating any progressive opening that he might represent. So don’t forget the rest of the ticket, please, either.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

[post time adjusted]

Evil Flier Being Handed Out at Coral Gables Polling Location

I have a lot to say about my experiences Friday and Saturday at the Coral Gables Library polling location. I spent many hours handing out Taddeo literature and answering voters’ questions about her stands on the issues. And just before seven p.m. on Friday I joined the end of the long line in order to vote.

Much (but not all) of both experiences were good, and in the end, after a couple of scares, I think I did get to vote.

But I’d like to start by putting up a copy of a particularly disgusting leaflet that someone else was handing out. I never got a look at him, but many voters told me how horrified they were by this. (My reaction was to laugh very loud, and to encourage others to do the same.)

I’m copying just as it looked — it appeared to be a photocopy literally copied crooked on a 8.5 × 5.5 sheet of paper.

You can click on the picture for a bigger copy.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

What to Look for on Tuesday

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right, What A McCain Win Looks Like…

…there are some states that truly do appear to be “must-wins” for McCain. In each and every one of the 624 victory scenarios that the simulation found for him this afternoon, McCain won Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana and Montana. He also picked up Ohio in 621 out of the 624 simulations, and North Carolina in 622 out of 624. If McCain drops any of those states, it’s pretty much over.

Florida. Necessary but not sufficient for McCain.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

The Right Wing Unhinged

People who begin with the premise that the Democrats must be wrong find inexplicable the electorate’s apparent embrace of the Democratic message on healthcare, the economy, the war(s), social security, and energy security.

Comes now one “Dr. William D. Horton” (with an assist from Dr. Rush Limbaugh) to explain this seeming contradiction between what they take to be the natural order and the consensual reality we seem to inhabit.

Can you guess what they say explains Barack Obama’s national appeal?

No, it’s not the substance — that’s ruled out by hypothesis. It’s….wait for it…..hypnosis.

Yes, in this demented worldview, the US of A is being subjected to nearly diabolical mind control as the soothing slow voice of Barack Obama gently eases the viewing public to surrender its reason and its freedom via the application of neurolinguistic programming. It’s so controlling, so clever, so soothing, that it’s JUST LIKE HITLER. (As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up. The video being circulated by these guys culminates with footage of Hitler and jackboots.) The only way to survive is DON’T LISTEN TO HIM.

I know all this because I’m on some weird mailing list I didn’t ask to be on in which something called “special guests” writes me all the time and offers me guests, one loonier than the next, for the talk show I don’t happen to have. But today’s email promoting Dr. Will B. Horton (wasn’t he a character in Kudzu?) must surely take the cake.

Links to a nutty article and crazier video for those strong of stomach.

Less than a week to go. Expect even more stuff to crawl up out of the woodwork.

The Miami-Dade Ballot

Thanks to some quality time with my Sample Ballot I think I’ve figured out how to vote. Although I’m a little shaky on the County Property Appraiser race…

President:

We have twelve sets of candidates on the Florida ballot for President/Vice-President. I’ve actually heard of half of the Presidential candidates: McCain, Obama, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Alan Keyes and Ralph Nader. I’ve only heard of two of the veep candidates, however: Binden and Palin. And if you needed any further reason to vote for Obama, surely Palin is that reason. Obama

Congress

We are graced with three strong Democratic candidates for Congress, all running against Bush rubber stamps who vote for the Iraq war, against health insurance for poor children. My Representative wanted 50% privatization of Social Security, a policy that would have horribly impoverished this community. I’m voting for Annette Taddeo (FL-18); she’d be a wonderful Representative. In FL-21 the candidate is Raul Martinez; in FL-25 it’s Joe Garcia.

State Senator and State Representative

Not all the races are contested – but this time in addition to uncontested Republicans in State Rep District 102 and 117, there’s an uncontested Democrat in 106. While I’m glad to see a little balance for a change, none of this is terribly good for democracy. I don’t have strong opinions in the other races, which tend to go by party line.

County Clerk

Harvey Ruvin unquestionably deserves re-election.

Judicial Retention Elections

Vote YES on all of them I don’t believe in the inevitable retention of incumbent judges, but I do think the current crop all deserve a vote in favor of retention. Some of them emphatically so.

Contested Judicial Election

There is one contested judicial election, for the 11th Circuit, a race between Asst. Public Defender Yvonne Colodny (FSU ‘98) and former Asst. State Attorney Stephen T. Millan (Northeastern ‘90). The Herald endorsed Colodny, whose record and endorsements are encouraging. On paper Millan looks credible too, but if I had any doubts some of the names endorsing Millan on his web site put me off him.

Property Appraiser

This is the first time this has been an elected office. I was against making this an elective office when the charter amendment was on the ballot in January, but the majority thought differently. The race has proceeded completely under the radar. The Herald has done an appalling job covering this race (and the state rep races too, by and large).

The Democratic party has endorsed both Eddie Lewis and Gwen Margolis. The Miami Herald endorsed Pedro Garcia and Gwen Margolis. Eye on Miami, the best local politics blog, argues (weakly) for Gwen Margolis. But I’m no great fan of hers. So I’m conflicted.

If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held before the end of the year on a date that would be set by the County Commission.

State Constitutional Amendments (numbers are not consecutive as some were taken off the ballot)

YES on 1 (removes discriminatory language from state constitution, material long ago declared unconstitutional)

NO on 2 (would introduce homophobic language into state constitution in guise of ‘marriage protection’)

YES on 3 (allows legislature to give tax breaks to hurricane protection and renewable energy)

YES on 4 (allows legislature to give tax breaks to land not developed in hopes of increasing conservation; this will be badly abused since beneficiaries don’t have to commit to long-term conservation, but even so)

YES on 6 (tax breaks for working waterfront property)…but I could see an argument against.

• Every time the legislature promises us that it won’t reduce education funding to compensate for new revenue, it goes back on its word. I’ve had enough Lucy and the football, thank you very much
• Sales tax is regressive, I’d prefer a progressive tax.
• Will increase disparities between counties.

County Charter Amendments

• Question 1 NO. Q1 would transfer the powers, duties and responsibilities of the county manager to the county mayor. This changes charter wording to acknowledge voters’ approval of a strong mayor. Where the charter now says ”the county manager shall” the word ”mayor” is substituted. The Herald recommends “yes”. I’m voting “NO” because I think having the manager strong and the mayor not as strong makes accountability a little more likely in that the Commission has more of a say. Not that I have high hopes in either case.

• Question 2 YES. Q2 would raise commission salaries according to a state formula based on population. It would prohibit commissioners from having outside employment. Annual salaries would increase to about $92,000 from $6,000. The Charter Review Task Force recommended the pay hike, but included term limits as a counter-balance. The Commission took the pay raise but rejected the term limits. As a result, the Herald recommends a “no” vote. I’m voting YES, on the theory that in the long run higher salaries make corruption a little less likely. I know people who feel strongly that the pay raises should be held back until the Commission votes for term limits, and I understand that argument.

• Question 3 YES. Q3 would allow candidates for the commission or county mayor to qualify for office either by submitting a petition signed by a specified number of registered voters or paying a $300 filing fee. This adds the petition method to the charter. The Herald and I agree on YES.

• Questions 4&5 YES. Q 4 & 5 would alter the initiative-petition process by having the county clerk approve petitions instead of the commission. As it is, the commission can refuse a petition not to its liking; the clerk will be more neutral. Question 4 also requires the commission to hold a public hearing on the petition once it’s approved. Question 5 deals strictly with the clerk’s approval. The Herald and I agree on YES.

• Question 6 - NO. Q6 would require that all but five Miami-Dade cities use the county’s fire-rescue service. Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Coral Gables and Key Biscayne could keep their fire departments, while everyone else would have no choice. The argument for is that it prevents cherrypicking by richer areas, leaving a patchwork of poor areas to the County. The argument against is that its not fair to grandfather the bigger cities and discriminate against the smaller/newer ones. On balance, I agree with the Herald on NO but understand why someone might disagree.

Papers Say Florida Trending Obama

The Times looks backwards in While McCain Looked Away, Florida Shifted, and says ground game and advertising blitz are making the difference.

Early data show Democrats lining up more frequently for early voting than Republicans, balancing out the GOP’s absentee-ballot advantage.

Meanwhile, long lines continue at the polls.

Early voting Data

Latest data: More Democrats voting early than in 2004; more Democrats voting than Republicans — except in Florida.

This is What History Feels Like

Ben Smith has some really cool early voting stories:

• The history argument
• Early voting

Get your hankie ready.

Early Voting Takes Determination

Colleagues who have voted early at the Coral Gables library report long lines, and long wait times.

To help students, faculty, and staff take advantage of early voting, the University will be providing free shuttle service to the Coral Gables library election site starting today. Shuttles from Stanford Circle on the Coral Gables campus will be running today, Thursday, October 23 and tomorrow, Friday, October 24 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; next Monday, October 27 through Friday, October 31 from 12 to 6 p.m.; and Saturday, November 1 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Here’s a snapshot of the table.

Simple Logic

Pat Buchanan says Colin Powell endorsed Obama because he’s black (via Crooks and Liars).

Does this mean that Buchanan — and tens of thousands of other Irish-Americans, not to mention other hyphens — endorsed McCain because he’s white?

Intrade Market Manipulation?

CQ Politics | Trader Drove Up Price of McCain “Stock” in Online Market

An internal investigation by the popular online market Intrade has revealed that an investor has been attempting to artificially boost the prediction that Sen. John McCain will become president.

Over the past several weeks, the investor has pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into one of Intrade’s predictive markets for the presidential election, the company said, resulting in great financial losses through a strategy that belies any financial motive.

Intrade is somewhat thinly traded in dollar terms, making this sort of manipulation possible. Even so, apparently it was expensive — tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of dollars in opportunity costs (relative to buying similar contracts on other exchanges, or even on Intrade), not to mention losses. But many news organizations look to the headline candidate matchup as a meaningful statistic, making this particular contract the one you would wish to manipulate if you were trying to send false signals to observers.

Most Effective Commercial of the Year?

This commercial for Tom Udall (NM Senate candidate) has to be near the top of the ‘best’ list for this cycle.

But I think it’s beat by this anti-Palin commercial called Choice?

Please feel free to nominate other contenders in the comments.

Paranoia Strikes Deep in the Heartland (Countdown Edition)

The Booman Tribune points to this Al Jazeera news report finding hate and fear in Ohio.

Gonna be a rough (almost) three weeks…

Your Daily Gloom

Bruce Schneier, New Chip-and-Pin Scam in the UK:

The readers were hacked when they were were built, “either during the manufacturing process at a factory in China, or shortly after they came off the production line.” It’s being called a “supply chain hack.”

Sophisticated stuff, and yet another demonstration that these all-computer security systems are full of risks.

BTW, what’s it worth to rig an election?

Pop Culture

It’s good when your side’s views infiltrate pop culture. Here’s a snippet from this week’s “Screen Gems” column in the Miami Herald.

Coming this week on TV and at the movies, Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod (10 p.m. Tuesday, Discovery) — I know, I know, who cares about some dog race in Alaska? Until Sarah Palin is vice president, and then the dog-racing police will come to your house and if you don’t know the right answers they’ll stick a cattle prod up your … Oh, sorry, I was channeling Keith Olbermann there for a second. Never mind, he’s gone now.

Obama's Field Game Lauded

Stories with good news like 538.com’s On the Road: St. Louis County, Missouri make me nervous.

Still, imagine what they do to the McCain campaign.

Early Voting Begins this Week

In many states, early voting begins this week or next. Meanwhile, Homer Simpson tries to vote for Obama. You have been warned.

(Thanks to MW)

Send it to Five Friends

Don’t vote (or, if you must, do)

Fill in a voter registration form online.

Phone Atone

New Year’s wishes, candidate style, forwarded by my mother.

Phone Atone

More On Obama Yard Signs

They’re so popular, people steal them. Or something.

The Wall St. Journal reports on a sign-monitoring scheme: An Obama yard sign is being watched by dozens of viewers on Web in an effort to stop it from being stolen.

(thanks to df)

National Shortage of Pro-Obama Yard Signs

A few McCain yard signs have sprung up in the neighborhood, so I though I would retaliate. But it’s not so simple.

Either the Obama people are having supply problems, or an awful lot of people were impressed with the Senator’s performance in last night’s debate.

Here’s a closer look at the key part:

It’s especially impressive in that it seems you have to pay for them — in past campaigns down here they’ve been giving the signs away.

New Email Making the Rounds

So far this election, my parents have been great bellwethers: if they forward me an email it either is viral, or goes viral in no time.

So here’s today’s:

I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..

• If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”
• Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, it’s a quintessential American story.
• If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
• Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
• Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
• Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.
• If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.
• If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7, 000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.
• If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
• If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.
• If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
• If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.
• If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
• If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Does Palin Meet the GW Bush Standard?

In What Books on America Has Sarah Palin Read?, Steve Clemons of ‘The Washington Note’ pulls off the amazing feat of taking George Bush seriously as a political intellectual — and then asks if Sarah Palin makes (even) that grade.

It’s a view of Bush I’m not prepared to embrace, but the questions he asks about Palin do seem like things one might like to know.

Only In America

Jewish Daily Forward, Michelle Obama Has a Rabbi in Her Family

Which reminds me of the old, old joke of the little old Jewish lady in NY city trying to cross Broadway, only to find a police barricade.

“Why,” she asked the cop standing there, “can’t I cross the street?”

“It’s because of the parade,” he replied.

“The parade? What parade?”

“The Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin is coming to visit Hizzoner, and they’re doing a parade to welcome him,” he said patiently.

“The Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin?” [*]

“Yes.”

(long pause)

“Only in America.”

Much Ado About ... What?

The item to which Andrew Sullivan links in Here We Go is slashdotted, so I don’t know what this is all about, but other people seem to be seriously tantalized. Here’s all Sullivan said,

Todd Palin’s former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

Myself, I’d rather people were talking about how the more war, less jobs candidate has tried to become Richard Nixon, and run as a candidate of peace and prosperity. Or maybe how weird it is for McCain to try to run away from the same George Bush he (literally) embraced and voted with 90-95% of the time for each of the past four years.

Update: Thanks to the helpful Coralize function, I’ve got what seems to be the docket to which Sullivan linked, reproduced in full below. What’s all the fuss about? In any case, the motion seems to have been denied, so I guess we’ll know…

Update2 (9/6): Thanks to reader mcg, whose comment points us to The Smoking Gun, in which the motion to seal seems to be about protecting phone numbers and addresses from the prying eyes of a hoard of reporters.

It seems to me that while the court was surely right in denying the full sealer request, there ought to be a mechanism that would allow a party to request redaction of phone numbers, and perhaps even addresses, in these sorts of circumstances.

09/03/2008 Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); Case Motion #3 0.00 0.00

09/03/2008 Motion for Expedited Consideration of: Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Case Motion #2 0.00 0.00

05/19/2008 Notice to Employer Re: Children’s Medical Insurance Deborah Marie Richter (Co-Petitioner); 0.00 0.00

05/19/2008 Cust/Spprt/Visit Modified. Case Closed. (no motion link) 0.00 0.00

05/19/2008 Order Granting Stipulation Case Motion #1: Standard Motion 0.00 0.00

04/03/2008 Stipulated Agreement for Child Support and Parenting Agreement Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Case Motion #1 0.00 0.00

04/03/2008 Case Reopened 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Child Support Order 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Decree of Dissolution Granted 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Shared Custody Child Support Calculation 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Amendment of Agreement 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Hearing Result: Hearing Held The following event: Dissolution Hearing w/Children scheduled for

09/18/2007 at 3:20 pm has been resulted as follows: Result: Hearing Held Judge: Zwink, David L Location: Palmer Courthouse 0.00 0.00

08/14/2007 Civil Deficiency Memo mailed re: agreement re retirement benefits and last quarterly statements of same; specifics of shared custody agreement. 0.00 0.00

08/14/2007 Hearing Set Event: Dissolution Hearing w/Children Date: 09/18/2007 Time: 3:20 pm Judge: Zwink, David L Location: Palmer Courthouse Result: Hearing Held 0.00 0.00

08/02/2007 Affidavit/Scheduling of Hearing Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Certificate of Completion of Viewing “Listen to the Children” Video Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); Deborah Marie Richter (Co-Petitioner); 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Information Sheet 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 VS401 Certificate of Absolute Divorce or Dissolution 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Proposed Child Support Order Submitted Prior to Hearing 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Petition for Dissolution of Marriage (With Children) Receipt: 268635 Date: 07/24/2007 150.00 0.00

Five Local GOP Officeholders Support Democratic Congressional Candidate

FL-21: Republicans for Raul --Elected Republicans backing Democrat in South Florida Congressional race. (That's Raul Martinez.)

I've Seen This Movie Before

Watching the Palin speech last night, I kept thinking of this:

And I bet I’m not the only one.

Then again, Tracy Flick won her election.

A Propos de Rien

Just in case you were wondering, here’s the GOP rule on filling vacancies in nominations.

RULE NO. 9
Filling Vacancies in Nominations

(a) The Republican National Committee is hereby authorized and empowered to fill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise of the Republican candidate for President of the United States or the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, as nominated by the national convention, or the Republican National Committee may reconvene the national convention for the purpose of filling any such vacancies.

(b) In voting under this rule, the Republican National Committee members representing any state shall be entitled to cast the same number of votes as said state was entitled to cast at the national convention.

© In the event that the members of the Republican National Committee from any state shall not be in agreement in the casting of votes hereunder, the votes of such state shall be divided equally, including fractional votes among the members of the Republican National Committee present or voting by proxy.

(d) No candidate shall be chosen to fill any such vacancy except upon receiving a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the election.

Who's a Celebrity Now?

I think only celebrities make the cover of US magazine, don’t you?

Top Ten Palin One-Liners

Add your own!

1. A fresh new face for the same old failures
2. She’s no Hillary Clinton
3. Most people know the staff at the local Starbucks better than McCain knows Palin.
4. Two words: Thomas Eagleton
5. John McCain has proven that he’s not a maverick, he’s erratic
6. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?
7. McGimmick
8. “Either Sarah Palin has talents and skills we were not aware of”, or “John McCain fell down and hit his head” — Alaska State Representative Mike Doogan (D)
9. McCain’s known her for fewer months than he has houses
10. If elected vice president, Palin would appear to have the least amount of experience in federal office or as a governor since John W. Kern, Democrat William Jennings Bryan’s 1908 running mate.

Douglas Kmiec on Why Obama is the Candidate of Catholic Values

With everything going on (not least watching Gustav bear down on New Orleans), I forget to link to this extraordinarily thoughtful set of written replies to questions by Douglas W. Kmiec which appeared in the New York Times yesterday: Beliefs - For Ex-G.O.P. Official, Obama Is Candidate of Catholic Values.

Prof. Kmiec holds a chair at Pepperdine. I wonder what his Dean, a guy by the name of Kenneth Starr, makes of his reasoning.

MoveOn Does Palin

MoveOn.org Political Action: Democracy in Action has lots to say, including these bullet points:

• She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage.¹
  
• Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.²
  
• She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. ³
  
• Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.⁴
  
• She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.⁵
  
• She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.⁶
  

Sources:

1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.naral.org/elections/election-pr/pr08292008_palin.html

3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/350730/sarah_palin_buchananite

4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html

5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/palin-buys-climate-denial_b_122428.html

6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://yubanet.com/opinions/Sierra-Club-McCain-VP-Pick-Completes-Shift-to-Bush-Energy-Policy.php

"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.lcv.org/newsroom/press-releases/choice-of-palin-promises-failed-energy-policies-of-the-past.html

"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3987891.ece

Funny Bit of Palin Interview

Boztopia, links to a funny Palin quote, “What exactly is it the VP does every day?”.

In context, it’s not as bad as it could be, but I could see it in commercials out of context, over and over and over…

The Speech

In case you missed history: Barack Obama at the 2008 DNC,

The Real Election Begins Today

Hope is hard work.

More Subliminal GOP Advertising?

The Raw Story, McCain ad questioned as word ‘HANG’ appears over image of Barack Obama.

Hard to believe they’re that evil. Also hard to believe that anyone would miss this in a political ad given the care with which every second is scrutinized.

Calling Dr. Freud

Nedra Pickler is probably the most biased anti-Democratic reporter (as opposed to in the tank editor) at the AP. But sometimes the truth will out:

Obama veep announcement expected in coming days:

For his part, Republican rival John McCain is seriously considering naming his running mate between the end of the Democratic convention Aug. 28 and the Sept. 1 start of the GOP convention in hopes of stunting any uptick in polls for Obama. McCain has at least three large rallies planned in top battlegrounds Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, before the Republican gathering in St. Paul, Minn.

His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.

Full Text of 'Unfit for Publication'

“A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”

I always thought Mark Twain said that, but apparently it was “Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), a celebrated English fundamentalist Baptist preacher”.

Whoever said it, that’s the problem Obama is having with a scurrilous book written by one of the Swiftboaters. If you care about the truth, you can download the full text of Unfit for Publication.

Please Not Evan Bayh

Rumors abound that the Obama campaign is leaning to Evan Bayh as a veep choice.

Bayh was a cheerleader for the war. He’s not his dad. In fact, he’s not much.

Bayh is better than Dan Quail Quayle, but at this moment I’m having trouble coming up with another compliment. He makes Joe Biden look really good.

If we must have a Senator, how about Chris Dodd? He emerged from the campaign without much if anything in the way of delegates, but he ran a good clean fight and retired from the field with honor not just intact, but enhanced.

Obmama's New Tack

This new Obama ad, Book strikes me as a largely welcome messaging departure in several ways.

First, it’s an attack ad — but on substance. And it’s not a rebuttal ad, either.

Second, it alludes (dog whistle anyone?) to the Responsible Plan to End the War, without of course actually endorsing it.

Third, and least delightfully, although probably wise tactically, it offers what may become a campaign mantra if it catches on “the middle class first” (i.e. before those rich lobbyist and GOP beneficiaries of Haliburton largess). I preferred Edwards’s focus on the poorest among us, but this is how you win elections.

Be One of the First Millions...

Brilliant bit of PR by the Obama campaign: Be the First to Know:

Sign up today to be the first to know:

http://my.barackobama.com/vp

You will receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision, or you can text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone.

Obama's Olympic Ad

Barack Obama’s “Hands” Ad, showing during the Olympics:

Compare this uplifting ad with the cranky one one from the other side.

I Was Part of the Sample for this Poll

The Public Policy Polling (PPP) has released the results of the robopoll that I blogged about taking the other day (see Wasserman Schultz Must Support Taddeo).

Here’s how TheBuzz summarizes the results,

“The Democrats crossing over to support McCain are disproportionately older white females, an indication that Hillary Clinton’s base may not be completely behind Obama in the Sunshine State.

“Obama has slipped with Hispanic voters in the last month, leading among them just 48-45 after holding a 51-37 advantage in PPP’s previous Florida poll. The numbers show an unusual gender gap, with McCain leading by 11 points among women while trailing by 5 points with men. Last month’s results similarly showed Obama doing eight points better with men than women, a trend PPP has not seen in any of its other state by state polling. Obama has a large lead among young voters, McCain has a big one with senior citizens, and the candidates are virtually tied with those in between.”

Also some weird U.S. Senate match-ups against Mel Martinez (Bob Graham beating Martinez by 20 pionts and Debbie Wasserman Schultz basically tied).

Latest Obama Ad: "The Original Maverick?"

Obama’s New Ad “Original”

Is this the best they can do? It’s not going to stand out much in the clutter of TV ads.

Amazingly ho-hum presentation given how damning the facts are.

Which Ad is More Effective?

Which ad is more effective? This McCain ad trying to link Obama to sleazy and brainless bimbettes (oh, and taxes and dependence on foreign oil) …

…or this anti-McCain ad from the independent ProgessiveAccountability.org (which probably won’t get as much attention), in which McCain and Brittany turn out to have the same view of George Bush?

Incidentally, it may not be irrelevant to note that McCain hired the very guy who did the racially tinged commercial against Harold Ford (details here).

Some VeepStake Numbers -- And a Word of Caution

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: VP Contenders by the Numbers has some interesting and plausible hard data about possible veeps for both parties.

Firstly, I took the average of all approve/disapprove and favorable/unfavorable polls I could find on these candidates in 2008. Only the most recent survey from any given polling firm was used. Where no polls were available in 2008, I used the most recent one I could find.

Then, I compared this approval average to the partisan ID advantage (or disadvantage) of that candidate’s party in 2004 exit polling. Subtracting the approval average from the partisan ID index gives us what I call the candidate’s power rating. Essentially, this is the extent to which the candidate is able to defy gravity and run ahead of the political demographics of their state.

At the top of the Democratic pack, on this ranking, are Kathleen Sebelius, Evan Bayh, and Brian Schweitzer. The latter two have the advantage of being white guys. And Evan Bayh has been much talked about of late.

I can see why a campaign would think he was an appealing choice. While not bringing quite as much to the table as Sebelius, he also may be seen to have lower risks — no ovaries.

Even so, I personally very much hope that Obama doesn’t pick Bayh. It’s not just that he’s a poor speaker who deserverdly cratered early in the Presidential primaries. It’s that he’s such a weak Senator: What has he ever accomplished? What has he ever even tried to accomplish?

And let’s not forget that he was a cheerleader for the war in Iraq.

Don’t be fooled by the family name — this is not your father’s Bayh.

And there’s too much chance his Senate seat could go to the GOP in a special election.

I could see the Obama people picking Bayh — on the numbers he’s a strong choice. But here the numbers mislead.

Veepstakes: I'll Guess Sebelius

For the longest time, I’ve suspected that Obama’s top choice for Vice-President was Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

There is no perfect choice. This one is as good as most of them, and better than many.

Why Sebelius? Looking at at it from Team Obama’s point of view, there are a number of things they might want to have in a veep, and there are also some showstoppers. Please note that what follows is more my attempt to imagine what Team Obama is thinking rather to to give my own views:

Let’s start with the nakedly political considerations.

• Someone who could carry a key state is always valuable. As the nation gets less and less Balkanized, there are fewer and fewer such people. Arguably none exist this year, at least as regards large states; the possibility that Virginia, which like Texas and a few others still has greater-than-average sense of itself as a state, might be subject to such blandishments is undoubtedly why Tim Kaine’s name gets mooted about.
• There are some areas where a veep might be used to plug what others claim are holes in the Obama resume.
  • Military/national security. Since this was likely McCain’s strength, I thought that Team Obama might think Wesley Clark was the perfect veep (General, popular in the heartland, was part of the Clinton wing). But given that Obama didn’t back Clark when the GOP took their knives to him, I think we have to assume he’s not on the menu.
  • Executive experience — Obama has never run a large organization. Senators are not usually smart enough to see this as a problem, but this is a smart Senator.
  Notably absent from this list are the areas where I think Team Obama will believe, rightly, that it does not need help:
  • Foreign policy — Obama, with a worldview shaped by living abroad and not having his head stuck in the sand for the last two decades, has a clearly worked out vision of what he wants his foreign policy to be like. He doesn’t need another wheel here. And there are no votes in it anyway. Not to mention that the success of his most recent trip will have put paid to any thoughts of a deficit in this department.
  • Legislative experience — Every Senator thinks he understands the Congress. It’s highly unlikely that Obama will feel it a priority to have a deputy to make nice to Senators. Better to leave any such friends in place.
• Perhaps more importantly, a veep pick can serve as reassurance to constituencies that are not yet sure if they are comfortable with Obama. But it’s important to have a hard-edged understanding of who those groups are. Polls show that women and Hispanics, for example, are well on the way to coming home to the Democratic party. The group most likely to need this sort of reassurance are what one might only slightly euphemistically call tribal whites. These groups are not racists — Obama isn’t going to get the racist vote, which is why South Carolina is out reach — but they don’t as yet feel they know Obama, and a black man will have to work hard to make the sale. McCain looks familiar and (maybe) safe. Obama isn’t as safe. Is he scary?

Then there are what one might call the personal considerations.

• Veeps traditionally are the attack dogs. Ability to fill that role is a plus. Interestingly, however, almost none of the names mooted by the Obama people are particularly strong in this department.
• There has to be some sort of personal chemistry, or at least rapport. No snakes in the grass.
• The veep must not be someone (or married to someone) who might upstage the candidate.
• I’m guessing here, but I imagine that just as Team Obama has been admirably leak-proof and lacking in (visible) drama, so too will there be a strong preference for a candidate with a lower-key personal style. Candidate must know how to keep his/her mouth shut.

Pluses of Sebelius

• Sebelius offers Obama something that no other candidate does: a chance to remind voters over and over again of his Kansas roots. For those voters who may, consciously or not, be concerned about Obama’s half blackness, Kansas is the trope for his half whiteness.
• Plus, she’s made serious inroads into the Kansas GOP, inducing her now-Lieutenant Governor to switch parties. This fits the bi-partisan narrative that the beltway pundits so claim to love, and the post-partisan narrative that Obama sometimes slides into.
• Sebelius has a genuinely strong record as a governor, removing a huge deficit, and making things work.
• She was an early (enough) Obama endorser.
• Reportedly, she’s nice. (Can she attack? I don’t know.)
• Sebelius doesn’t offend many key Democratic constituencies or single-issue groups. Although she is Catholic and opposed to abortion, she is also opposed to criminalizing it. She’s pro-environment, not a great fan of gun control, opposes capital punishment. Her worst issue from the point of view of the base may be GLBT rights: although she opposed a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, she supported a state law banning it. Obama’s position in the issue is probably strong enough to reduce the negative effect of this position. No gay rights single-issue voter will defect to McCain, and few will stay home or close their checkbooks.

Minuses of Sebelius, in increasing order of severity:

• From a small, hard to carry, state.
• Doesn’t tick the national security box, but at least there’s the executive experience box, and anyway more and more this looks like a paycheck election.
• May anger the Clintons to have to support another woman. But they’ll probably suck it up for the good of the nation.
• Is she really ready to be President?
• Will her femaleness overwhelm her whiteness from the point of view of (mostly white) voters who, while not so racist as to be unreachable, are nonetheless not instinctively comfortable with the idea of voting for a black man as President? In other words, are these voters any less sexist than they are tribal?

Finally, I think the fact that we are hearing so much about other names actually supports the Sebelius theory. Those are a combination of distractions to heighten the surprise factor and get bigger headlines, plus a savvy implementation of the traditional tactic of giving important party members their moment in the sun.

I’m a law professor, not a pundit. I just thought it might be fun to make a guess publicly. Let the other guesses (and brickbats) fly!

The Question Is, How Catching Is It?

This funny Obama commercial is by MoveOn. The question is, is this thing catching, or are we immune?

Free Obama Buttons Via Move On

Get Your Free Button

They will ask for a phone number, email, and a shipping address, so I imagine this might have some junk mail/e-mail consequences unless you opt-out. Move On’s full privacy policy is here.

Matt Stoller Talks Sense About Obama's Fundraising

Open Left:: Obama Blows Out the Pundits with a 50M Quarter. I especially like this part:

At any rate, the whining from DC pundits about how the left was undermining Obama’s chances at winning was absolutely wrong. His small dollar donor army wants him in that White House, and they are going to pay to put him there. While it’s often impossible for consultants in DC to keep multiple thoughts in their head, it is possible for most of us normal bluggers and blug readers to get that we don’t like his vote on FISA but we want him to win the White House desperately anyway.

Posted from the back of the room in the Open Left caucus at Netroot Nations.

Note: Darcy Burner is in the room and got a big, big round of applause.

Update: Joe Garcia dropped by - and got a very warm round of applause too. Matt Stoller asked him how the energy issue is playing in FL-25. Joe said, first, Bush always sets up the issue as a Hobbsean choice - only bad options: they’ve set up a crisis and forced you to make a crisis decision. … Why haven’t home energy bills gone up as fast as gas prices? Because of long-range planning. … Why hasn’t the department of Energy done planning? … Bush has been stripping alternative energy from energy bills… They [create a crisis] to give oil companies even more leases. … We have to explore alternatives … wind, coal, solar, including nuclear …

With the price of oil at this level, all those alternative energies are viable…

Running for Office, XKCD Style

XKCD is a great online comic strip.

This guy from Kansas has appropriated the XKCD style to power his campaign for State Representative. It’s cute. See Running for Office: It’s Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner.

I wonder if XKCD approves?

Local Democrats Winning the Funds Race

Joe Garcia isn’t the only local Democrat who had a good fundraising quarter.

And Mario Diaz-Balart isn’t the only local Republican who had a very bad quarter. It’s striking just how poorly the incumbents’ fundraising is going. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retains a huge advantage from the $1.8 million she had stockpiled before the campaign began — but it’s amazing how her funding seems to be drying up. The others also have a serious cash cushion. But the gap is shrinking…

As the Herald puts it, Miami GOP congressional incumbents outraised again.

District 18
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - R
Net Contributions for the quarter: $281,087
Net Contributions for election cycle: $1,119,122
Cash on hand: $1,893,392

Annette Taddeo - D
Net Contributions for the quarter: $324,829*
Net Contributions for election cycle: $289,286
Cash on hand*: $457,105
*Ms. Taddeo has loaned her campaign $350,000 to date, including $170,000 this quarter.

District 21
Lincoln Diaz-Balart - R
Net Contributions for the quarter: $324,215
Net Contributions for election cycle: $1,158,451
Cash on hand: $1,755,490

Raul Martinez - D
Net Contributions for the quarter: $600,529
Net Contributions for election cycle: $1,217,195
Cash on hand: $1,079,068

District 25
Mario Diaz-Balart - R
Net Contributions for the quarter: $234,320
Net Contributions for election cycle: $746,985
Cash on hand: $1,044,586

Joe Garcia - D
Net Contributions for the quarter: $492,749
Net Contributions for election cycle: $824,196
Cash on hand: $700,983

I predict Taddeo’s next quarter will be substantially better than this one, as her name recognition in the district grows, and as she continues to rack up national endorsements.

Miami Wakes Up to Political Normality (This is Good for Democrats)

David Rieff has a long piece in tomorrow’s NYT magazine about Cuban-American politics in Miami, provocatively titled, Will Little Havana Go Blue?.

The main conclusions track what those of us who live here see around us: Cuban-American politics are being changed by a generational shift (a rising generation that is American first and treats its hyphen much they way other ethnic groups do), and a political differences between recent immigrants and the revanchists who have been here 40-50 years. The recent escapees are much less willing to support policies that prevent them sending money to relatives left behind, and which limit their ability to visit their families still trapped in Cuba.

The result is a breakage of the monolithic support for the GOP and for its candidates. Particularly hurt are the Diaz-Balart brothers, who suffer from poor constituent services and a failure to bring home the kind of bacon that their storied predecessors — Claude Pepper, Dante Fascell — did.

Although Rieff doesn’t address this directly, it turns out that Joe Garcia’s vicious mockery of the Diaz-Balarts as a “one trick pony” may be right on the mark.

Rieff’s piece contains another bit of wisdom. Miami’s shift to normal politics away from unthinking equation of the GOP as the natural home for Cuban-Americans does not mean automatic victory for Democrats.

The lesson for local campaigners is obvious: Cuban-Americans being up for grabs means that they will need to be addressed in the same way as other swing constituencies: with appeals on the issues they care about (housing, jobs, health, social security, as well as Cuba) and — and this is probably key — turnout will rule. The community is no longer monolithic. Just like with many other communities that means whoever gets out their voters will win.

It’s going to be a turnout election down here.

By Their Logos You Shall Know Them?

Where’s My Jetpack?: Candidate Logo Comparison psychoanalyzes the Presidential candidates’ logos.

I suppose that in this age of branding there might be something to it, odd as the idea seems.

(Thanks to la Bartow for the the link.)

La Disparition

This is a cute idea: Barack Obama Bumper Stickers! — a different one, the site promises, for each of the 50 states.

Only, the actual list of states is missing Florida:

States So Far:AL, AK AZ, CA, KS, LA, MO, NE, NV, NH, NM, OH, OK, SD, TX, VA, WA, WI.

States To Go: AR, CO, CT, DE, GL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MT, ND, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT, WV, WY.

PoliticsTV Looks Back on Recent Political Videos

Politics TV has a July 4 Special: 2008’s Best Campaign Web Videos So Far -Pt 2

They put it online, so I guess we don’t need to wait until Friday to see it.

My vote for funniest is still the Gravel moment of zen.

But I suspect “yes we can” will go down in history as the best video of the campaign.

A Provocation

Since I am vacationing at an undisclosed location, here’s a provocation to keep you going:

Scholars and Rogues, If he were a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, Richard M. Nixon would be more progressive than either the Republican or Democratic nominees.

Discuss.

For extra credit, consider the implications of this interview with Sen. Feingold.

Dumbest and Clumsiest TV/Video Ad Ever By an Incumbent Senator?

Is this Norm Coleman (R-MN) ad, Al Franken Green Screen Conspiracy?, the worst produced and most stupid TV/video advertisement ever paid for by an incumbent Senator?

If it isn’t the stupidest and worst, then I shudder to think what is. (Note: there may be something stupider out there, but the production values have to be better.)

Until the closing credits I was sure this was an independent effort from someone’s laptop.

(For the back story to which this ad may be a lame response, see Minnesota Campaign Report: Coleman campaign green-screening the spouse?.)

Picture Update

It looks as if all our questions about yesterday’s Telling Campaign Picture are answered in this Yahoo! News story, Play of the Day: Clinton’s rise and shine surprise, which is illustrated with a photo of what appears to be the same woman pictured in the New York Times yesterday,

Doris Smith went downtown early Monday to see about getting tickets to Barack Obama’s rally. Advance seats were sold out, she said, and the only option was to stand in line for up two hours or more and hope for the best.

Disappointed, she decided instead to go for breakfast — and walked right into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign stop.

“Oh, I didn’t want to do this,” Smith said, embarrassed, wearing an Obama T-shirt as Clinton walked into the restaurant. “I didn’t know she was going to be here.”

At Tudor’s Biscuit World, you can get just about anything on a biscuit. The Thundering Herd is a biscuit sandwich with sausage, egg and potatoes. The Peppi comes with pepperoni and cheese. Try the fried apple on a biscuit, the regulars said.

Clinton, however, passed up the biscuit counter. She signed autographs and posed for pictures with the mostly older clientele who gathered for a late Monday morning breakfast.

Smith, who lives in nearby Institute, said she liked Clinton but prefers Obama.

“We’ve got to get the Republicans out of there,” she said.

As Clinton left the building, Smith stepped up to shake her hand. She told the candidate that getting a Democrat in office was her priority.

“It’s been too long since we have,” Clinton agreed, touching Smith’s shoulder gently, and smiling.

So there you have it: pure coincidence.

Telling Campaign Picture

The New York Times has a story on HRC’s continuing all-out campaign, Clinton Running Hard as West Virginia Votes, which it illustrates with one of the (unintentionally?) funniest campaign pictures of the season:

Have a good look at the table behind Senator Clinton. Click the image for a bigger picture if you need one.

I’d love to know the back story here. Is this an accident? Does the Obama campaign have people in Obama gear who follow the candidate around to get in the shot? Did the photographer notice?

Whatever the facts, it’s sort of a metaphor for the troubles of the Clinton campaign.

MoveOn Picks a Winning Video

MoveOn has picked the Winner of its ‘Obama in 30 Seconds’ video contest.

Great Ad by Joe Garcia

This is really good. Will it work?

YouTube - Diaz-Balart a One-Trick Pony

Is there a Spanish version?

Obama's Latest Ad -- A Step Off the High Road

I think there are aspects of this ad, Obama’s latest, which are fair, and one at least that verges on a cheap shot. “Guide” TV Ad.

I suppose this will please those who worry he’s ‘too nice’.

This Week's Hot T-Shirt

Bitter? Version 1, Version 2.

A Voice from the Field

Siva Vaidhyanathan writes, SIVACRACY.NET: Why Clinton should quit:

I just got back from a few days in Central Pennsylvania. I went there excited that this fervent and energetic contest between two leading lights of the Democratic Party was energizing people in all corners of the country. …

Now I have changed my mind. I want Sen. Clinton to quit running for president and get back to the project of helping New York.

In recent weeks she has disappointed me deeply.

What I did not know — what I could not have known had I not spent some time in Pennsylvania — was just how low, nasty, and unethical the Clinton campaign has become. I worked in and covered enough campaigns in big states to know that you can’t really tell what a campaign is up to from the speeches, television ads, and debates. You have to follow the direct mail, push polls, and the radio — especially the radio.

In Pennsylvania last week radio was full of ads for both candidates. It was as if all other forms of commerce were suspended.

The Obama ads I heard were optimistic and uplifting. They treat listeners and voters with respect. They treat the party and country with dignity.

The Clinton ads were mean, demeaning, and full of lies. The contrast was stark.

'I Want Barack'

Because it’s time for another video: Jay Jay French and Friends - I Want Barack

How to Choose Between Obama and Clinton

Historically, the taller candidate has won the Presidency far more often than the shorter one. (See Comparative table of heights of United States presidential candidates for the data.)

The modern exceptions to this rule are GW Bush, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon — and they were all bad Presidents.

Barack Obama: 6’ 1½” (1.87m)

John McCain: 5’ 7” (1.7m)

Hilary Clinton: 5’ 6” (1.68m)

It follows, therefore, that the Democrats should nominate Obama, or something terrible will happen.

When Stock Footage Bites Back

Hillary’s “3 A.M. ad” Girl Doesn’t Approve of that Message

Richardson Endorses Obama

Haven’t seen a link to it yet, but Bill Richardson is endorsing Obama for President.

Full text below.

During the last year, I have shared with you my vision and hopes for this nation as we look to repair the damage of the last seven years. And you have shared your support, your ideas and your encouragement to my campaign. We have been through a lot together and that is why I wanted to tell you that, after careful and thoughtful deliberation, I have made a decision to endorse Barack Obama for President.

We are blessed to have two great American leaders and great Democrats running for President. My affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall. The 1990’s were a decade of peace and prosperity because of the competent and enlightened leadership of the Clinton administration, but it is now time for a new generation of leadership to lead America forward. Barack Obama will be a historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad.

Earlier this week, Senator Barack Obama gave an historic speech. that addressed the issue of race with the eloquence, sincerity, and optimism we have come to expect of him. He inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility. He asked us to rise above our racially divided past, and to seize the opportunity to carry forward the work of many patriots of all races, who struggled and died to bring us together.

As a Hispanic, I was particularly touched by his words. I have been troubled by the demonization of immigrants—specifically Hispanics— by too many in this country. Hate crimes against Hispanics are rising as a direct result and now, in tough economic times, people look for scapegoats and I fear that people will continue to exploit our racial differences—and place blame on others not like them . We all know the real culprit — the disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration!

Senator Obama has started a discussion in this country long overdue and rejects the politics of pitting race against race. He understands clearly that only by bringing people together, only by bridging our differences can we all succeed together as Americans.

His words are those of a courageous, thoughtful and inspiring leader, who understands that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And, after nearly eight years of George W. Bush, we desperately need such a leader.

To reverse the disastrous policies of the last seven years, rebuild our economy, address the housing and mortgage crisis, bring our troops home from Iraq and restore America’s international standing, we need a President who can bring us together as a nation so we can confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad.

During the past year, I got to know Senator Obama as we campaigned against each other for the Presidency, and I felt a kinship with him because we both grew up between words, in a sense, living both abroad and here in America. In part because of these experiences, Barack and I share a deep sense of our nation’s special responsibilities in the world.

So, once again, thank you for all you have done for me and my campaign. I wanted to make sure you understood my reasons for my endorsement of Senator Obama. I know that you, no matter what your choice, will do so with the best interests of this nation, in your heart.

Sincerely,

Bill Richardson

The Speech: RFK or Adlai Stevenson?

As is so often the case Glenn Greenwald says it right when he describes this speech as a test of “Obama’s faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public”.

I’ll only add this: whether this is Obama’s breakthrough moment, as it deserves to be, or his Adlai Stevenson moment depends on two things: first, whether the gatekeepers of old media, few if any of whom are friendly to Democrats, allow his rich and complex statements anywhere near a voter. I’m pretty dubious about that. The first news report I read was from AP. By Notorious Nedra Pickler. And it missed all the points, by some combination of malice, haste, and stupidity. On the other hand, the considered reactions of both the Washington Post and the New York Times are fair while not fawning. But it is still TV, broadcast and cable, and radio that reaches the largest audience. And on radio, one still can expect only the very worst.

The second chance comes from the Internet, which allows the candidate to bypass the filter. But will anyone outside the choir come to hear the preacher?

Video of Obama's "More Perfect Union" Speech

YouTube - Obama Speech: ‘A More Perfect Union’

Only Words?

Senator Obama gave an impressive speech today on race relations (and the Wright affair), and much much more, entitled “A More Perfect Union”.

I’ve put the full text below. I’ll put a link up to video when I find one.

“A More Perfect Union”
Constitution Center
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Latest Obama Inspirational Video

will.i.am does it again for Obama.

Lots of Spanish for the Texas vote. Note that this isn’t apparently an official campaign video, just a very effective one. (But are there declining returns to scale?)

Jack Nicholson Video For Hilary Clinton

Jack Nicholson has done a video for Hillary Clinton. (“Jack and Hill”)

At madisonian.net, they have some good questions about it, Jack Approved But Did Everyone Else?.

Hussein, An All-American Name

Juan Cole takes us on a tour of Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes.

Not that this will stop the nonsense.

Secret Service Tightens Obama Security

OK, this is more like it: Security tight at Obama rally in Fort Worth. But it does make you wonder about the earlier claims that all was well with transparently inadequate security.

Previous items:

• NY Times on Obama’s Security: Clueless or Coy?
• Secret Service Says Low Security is All Part of the Plan
• Look, We Worry About This Stuff

(thanks to D. for the link)

NY Times on Obama's Security: Clueless or Coy?

The New York Times’s Jeff Zeleny has a long article about people worrying about Barack Obama’s safety, In Painful Past, Hushed Worry About Obama.

In the past few days, a major Dallas-area paper ran a two inconclusive stories about the level of security at Obama’s Dallas rally. These stories were supplemented by a number of blog posts all over the place, many of which include eyewitness accounts of recent Obama rallies elsewhere which also seemed to have a level of security that was at best uneven. Given all that, you might expect that when the Times does a major article on fears for Obama’s security, something would be said about what happened in Dallas at the Obama rally.

You would be wrong.

Here’s all that the NYT has to say on the subject of Dallas security:

Here in Dallas, those memories were raised in conversation after conversation with several of the 17,000 people who came to see Mr. Obama at a rally last week.

“Right around the corner is the John Kennedy Memorial; everyone all around me was talking about it,” said Imogene Covin, a Democratic activist from Dallas. “In the back of my mind, it’s a possibility that something might happen because he’s something to gawk at right now. But you know why I think he will be safe? He has a broad range of people behind him.”

In fact, as readers of this blog or many others, or of the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, know “here in Dallas,” there was a lot more than “memories raised in conversation” — there were allegations by the local cops of bad security judgment. And the Secret Service’s response while not totally implausible, hasn’t been totally convincing either.

Should we expect better from the Times?

I suppose it’s possible the NYT is being coy as a result of a request from the Secret Service not to discuss operational details, but if that were the case you would think that they could tell us so. I can’t help but wonder if they just didn’t know about the controversy, or if this is another example of an article going into the hopper several days before its printed and being dated by the time it sees daylight.

I’ve written to Mr. Zeleny to ask, but don’t really expect an answer.

Related posts:

• Secret Service Says Low Security is All Part of the Plan
• Look, We Worry About This Stuff

Secret Service Says Low Security is All Part of the Plan

Star-Telegram.com: | 02/22/2008 | Secret Service defends security at Obama rally in Dallas: The U.S. Secret Service on Friday defended its handling of security during a massive rally in downtown Dallas for Barack Obama, saying there was no "lapse" in its "comprehensive and layered security plan," which called for some people to be checked for weapons, while others were not.

...

Nick Shapiro, a spokesman for Obama in Texas, said the campaign would have no comment on whether there was a security breech in Dallas. Shapiro referred questions to the Secret Service.

"There were no security lapses at that venue," said Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington. He added there was "no deviation" from the "comprehensive and layered" security plan, implemented in "very close cooperation with our law enforcement partners."

Zahren rebutted suggestions by several Dallas police officers at the rally who thought the Secret Service ordered a halt to the time-consuming weapons check because long lines were moving slowly, and many seats remained empty as time neared for Obama to appear.

"It was never a part of the plan at this particular venue to have each and every person in the crowd pass through the Magnetometer," said Zahren, referring to the device used to detect metal in clothing and bags.

Personally, I don't consider this an adequate explanation. Although I put the original item, Look, We Worry About This Stuff, in my "tinfoil" category, I'm promoting it now to regular politics.

Gravel Loves Chomsky

Another, far weirder, Gravel video.

Did he really say that Ralph Nader helped Al Gore? And did he really say he’d want Noam Chomsky as one of his closest advisers?

And did he really say he’s going to be on the ballot in November (maybe with Nader) on what can only be understood as a third-party ticket?

Noam Chomsky??? As a Presidential adviser? Seriously weird.

On the other hand, as entertainment goes you do approach a Gravel video with the fear that he could do or say anything.

Viva Obama Video

Living in Miami, how could I resist sharing a video called VIVA OBAMA?

More at amigosdeobama.com.

Clinton Competence Report

A major reason to support Sen. Clinton over Sen. Obama, at least in my book, has been the suggestion that she brings with her a management team tested by time, one much more ready to hit the ground running if they take office.

Competence, as the last seven years — not to mention the Carter administration! — have taught us, is no small thing.

But the Clinton competence aura has taken a big hit in the campaign. First there was the devastating Joshua Green article in the Atlantic, Inside the Clinton Shake-Up.

Now comes this corroborative account of Team Clinton haplessness when it comes to the Texas primaries, Burnt Orange Report::: Senator Clinton Campaign Worried by Texas Primary System.

It does make you wonder.

YouTubers For Obama

Barow Wow Wow, Go Obama! (Politics of Hope Mix)

There’s also a less jolly alternate version they call the “politics as usual mix”; I don’t like it as much.

The GOP Slogan: "No, You Can't"

Equal time for the GOP: NO, YOU CAN’T — NO, SE PUEDE.

McCain -- What's Fair Criticism?

The Smirking Chimp, Puffing up John McCain, POW, has some rough stuff about McCain.

I think this part is not only fair criticism, but gets at the heart of one of the main reasons I can’t trust the guy and get steamed every time I hear about his ‘Straight Talk’:

McCain’s tragic flaw: He knows the right thing. He often sets out to do the right thing. But he doesn’t follow through. We saw McCain’s weak character in 2000, when the Bush campaign defeated him in the crucial South Carolina primary by smearing his family. Placing his presidential ambitions first, he swallowed his pride, set aside his honor, and campaigned for Bush against Al Gore. It came up again in 2005, when McCain used his POW experience as a POW to convince Congress to pass, and Bush to sign, a law outlawing torture of detainees at Guantanamo and other camps. But when Bush issued one of his infamous “signing statements” giving himself the right to continue torturing-in effect, negating McCain’s law-he remained silent, sucking up to Bush again.

Ditto McCain’s off-again on-again kowtows to the theocratic right wing. Or yesterday’s cowardly eleventh-hour failure to vote on the stimulus package even though McCain was in DC.

But the main thrust of the Smirking Chimp article is that McCain is to be blamed for cracking after days of very vigorous torture that he suffered as a POW and/or for not correcting people who say he didn’t. I don’t buy that.

Muppets Endorse Edwards!

Funny video — Muppets for President — but isn’t it a stealth Edwards endorsement?

I jest; everyone likes Kermit, so that’s the endorsement.

(spotted via la Bartow)

Barack Obama, Ida Merriam, and the Power to Inspire

The thing that sets Barack Obama apart from Hilary Clinton is his ability to inspire with words. For many, Hilary Clinton inspires just by being; so too for other does Obama. (And then there’s the people who are inspired by both…) But Sen. Obama gives a quantum better speech. I know that I’ve suggested before that speechifying isn’t the first thing I look for in a candidate, but it does matter and not just in the obvious ways.

To explain what I mean, I need to tell you about Ida Merriam. Ida Merriam was one of the many idealistic young people who responded to FDR’s call to come to Washington and help make the government better, joining the Social Security Administration (SSA) at its founding. Like many others drawn to DC by FDR, she stayed on, although both her tenure and her achievements at the SSA’s Office of Research and Statistics were exceptional. She was still going strong when she retired in 1972.

Mrs. Merriam brought a clear vision of the importance of research to sound policy development. Cogent analysis, clear writing and impeccable accuracy are the hallmark of her own work and set the standard for others. Research on public programs, in her view, belongs in the public domain and the role of government research is to put it there in clear and understandable form. Under her direction ORS publications grew beyond the monthly Social Security Bulletin, to include special reports and brief R&S Notes that were issued quickly to respond to policymakers’ questions.

The Social Security Bulletin brought a broad view of the role of social insurance in the nation’s social and economic fabric. Mrs. Merriam personally established the social welfare expenditure series that tracks national spending for such purposes as education, health care, social and vocational services and income security through social insurance and social assistance. In that series, social insurance is not only Social Security, but other public programs —unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and public employees retirement systems—as well as private group efforts to protect individuals against the economic vicissitudes of life—such as short-term sickness and disability benefits, private group life and disability insurance and private pensions. Trends in each of these systems were brought together in the social welfare expenditure series. The health care component of the series set the framework for the national health expenditure series that is now used to project future national health spending.

…

In the 1960s, under Mrs. Merriam’s leadership, ORS catapulted into the forefront of social policy analysis. New concerns about the poor and civil rights for minorities, a building debate on health insurance for the elderly, extension of disability insurance to workers under age 50 and enactment of early retirement benefits for men all posed new research challenges.

Longstanding scholarly interest in defining and measuring “low-income” took a major step forward when ORS published what was to become the official poverty thresholds for comparing the economic status of families of different sizes. For the first time, statisticians could count the number of poor children, elderly and other adults.

…

Dorothy Rice, who directed and conducted many of the health insurance studies recalls, “Throughout her career as a public servant, Mrs. Merriam earned a well-deserved reputation as an administrator with scientific objectivity, outstanding social policy expertise, and unquestioned integrity. She was one of those public servants who viewed government service as a noble calling, a medium through which she could and did make a positive and lasting impact on the social well-being of the populace.

People like Mrs. Merriam not only made FDR’s New Deal possible, they made it last.

JFK’s call to public service (“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”) produced a similar, if maybe smaller, wave of people who staffed the bureaucracy and helped the lumbering beast be more responsible and responsive. It was notable that his next four successors were not as successful at attracting deep talent to staff their administrations; each had their stars and their workhorses, but not in the same quantity.

I suppose in some way one could say that Ronald Reagan also energized a generation of people to come to DC and take jobs in the bowels of the government, although in this case the idealistic charge was to destroy the beast from the inside, an inheritance that has been coming to its fruiting in the current, less inspiring and more nakedly corrupt, administration. It’s notable that one quiet Republican achievement has been to work hard to undermine the legacy left by Ida Merriam and her equally unsung opposite numbers in other agencies by ruining the government’s ability to collect (not to mention to share!) good data. Without decent time series data, future governments will find it that much hard to build a case for social policies.

Mrs. Merriam — as I always called her — lived in our neighborhood in Washington DC, and used to walk by our house from time to time. She’s always symbolized to me how political inspiration could shape lives in ways lasting a generation or more. Thanks in no small part to her work, and that of others like her, the SSA was known as the most efficient and well-run federal government department. And she was a very nice lady, too.

The power to inspire is the power to mobilize not just masses to turn out for rallies, not just voters to turn out to polls, but also to get people to make (and re-make) institutions. And as Jean Monnet (a sexist but wise Frenchman) said, “Nothing is possible without men, nothing is lasting without institutions.”

The ability to give a great speech is a tool of statecraft. It can open doors, make possibilities. The power to inspire is the power to direct at a distance, to harness human energy while reducing the need for political command-and-control.

The ability to give a great speech also can be a tool of nation-(re)building. It depends, of course, on what you say.

But if you and your country are lucky, the next Ida Merriam is listening.

[Note: An earlier draft of this essay accidentally briefly appeared on the site.]

Let the GOP Food Fight Begin

The week before Super Tuesday should see the GOP dumping its opposition research on McCain. (And there’s so much to mine.)

This anti-McCain ad is in one way quite brilliant:

The Republican base ought to hate this. But in another way it’s quite insidious. If McCain survives this sort of onslaught, it may make him more electable by making him seem less conservative.

Is that a bug or a feature?

(FWIW I think that McCain’s real weakness is character. One gets the feeling that too many people who know him personally think that he’s a wacko; and too often he talks like a warmonger.)

Edwards Pulls Out

It’s soon to be official: after his weak showing in Florida, John Edwards is pulling out of the race.

I guess that means I’m an Obama supporter now. Not that I couldn’t support Clinton, but I have enough doubt about the people she surrounds herself with and attracts — DLCers for example — that Obama seems a better bet.

I also think Obama will have an advantage in foreign relations, as he’ll be perceived as more of a clean slate than someone named Clinton. He’s been an opponent of the Iraq war from the start, and still has a better, clearer position than Clinton on ending the war and removing US troops from Iraq (even though Edwards’s position was better still). He’s better on telecoms issues too.

That said, on domestic issues there’s also much to like on paper about the Clinton candidacy as compared to Obama’s especially on health care. How much of that would survive contact with lobbyists and Republicans is the question.

Whoever it was who said that Obama is running as (Bill) Clinton and (Sen.) Clinton is running as Gore got it mostly right. I didn’t want either as my first choice; even if I get my third choice it is sure to be much better than the remaining alternatives.

And I hope Edwards becomes Attorney General. That would be something.

Election Returns

McCain wins over Romney, Rudy! crashes, Huckabee is reduced to “other”.

Look for Rudy! to endorse McCain tomorrow. The chance of a brokered convention just went down — but the intra-party dirt will really start to fly now.

Clinton crushed Obama but gets no delegates.

Both Amendment 1 (cutting property taxes) and Initiative 3 (more slot machines) passed. Sigh.

Will anyone remember this prediction a year from now?

A study done by Coral Gables-based Washington Economics Group for the pro-slots organization Yes for a Greater Miami-Dade said more than 6,400 jobs could be created by the machines in their first year of operation. The study projects $26 million in tax revenues will go to the county and the cities of Miami and Miami Gardens in the first year.

I doubt they’ll see that kind of money, although I’ll not bet against gamblers’ addictions, but I know there’s no way they’ll see a net increase in jobs anywhere near that size (they may displace a few, though).

Take the Train

It seems that if you take the train you might hear stuff: Open Left:: An Interesting Train Ride.

One interesting aspect of this story is that it probably never occurred to the main protagonist, a paleoconservative former US Senator, that any of the regular folks hearing him would have access to the sort of megaphone that blogging can give you.

And after all, if they were DC journalists, odds are good that they’re housebroken and would never write about it without permission.

Why Republicans Will Lose The Presidency In 2008

YouTube - Why Republicans Will Lose The Presidency In 2008

Well, that and the economy.

Jar Jar Kucinich et al

Not written by a nine year old (cf.): best of craigslist : Star Wars Guide to the Candidates.

Rangel Remains the Establishment Man

Anyone who read machine-pol-and-proud-of-it Rep. Charles B. Rangel’s autobiography (see Charlie Rangel’s “And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since”) would have predicted that Rangel Remains in Clinton’s Camp in Her Battle With Obama.

Huckabee Demonstrates His Brand of Moral Leadership

Demonstrating his brand of moral leadership, former Gov. Mike Huckabee showed how he believes a Bible-inspired Presidential aspirant should take a stand against long-time symbols of racism such as the flying of the Confederate flag on state property:

Huckabee Says Let SC Decide on Flag — Pressed later on whether he finds the flag offensive, Huckabee refused to give an opinion.

”It’s really not something that is an issue for the president of the United States; that’s an issue South Carolina would deal with,” Huckabee said at a news conference in Columbia, S.C.”

Even if one believes — as one well might — that federalism concerns make this a state issue as a legal matter, that doesn’t absolve national figures from offering moral leadership. Or from showing their true colors.

Squirrelly Politicians

Maybe I read too many blogs, but when I saw News That Stays News at Unqualified Offerings reporting,

Dr. Eric Weisman, a behavioral neurologist who practices in rural western Kentucky, reported in the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet that he has treated 11 people for Creutzfeldt-Jakob in four years, and all had eaten squirrel brains at some time.

… it triggered an instant association: I immediately thought of a recent Talking Points Memo item pointing to this video in which former Gov. Huckabee explained that while in college he used to use a popcorn popper to cook squirrels:

…only to find as I kept reading that The Poor Man thought of the connection first.

Al Franken's Fourth Grade Teacher Endorses Him

I love this campaign commercial by Al Franken, who’s running for Senate from Minnesota. It features his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Molin:

Leader/Manager/Worker: An Analysis of Democratic Candidates' Speaking Styles

Here’s an interesting analysis of the three leading Democrats’ speaking styles: Group News Blog: Declaration - Request - Promise::Lead - Lobby - Legislate. It’s a long post, but here’s a taste of the key part:

Executive = Declarations: bring forth, generate something new, lead.
Manager = Requests: please do x by time y with condition of satisfaction.
Worker = Promises: deliver competent performance in a domain, over and over.

And never the twain shall meet.

Let’s walk it back to our Presidential candidates.

One speaks in declarations, inspires, leads.
The second requests you elect him to fix problems, lobbies for a change so he can fix the system.
The third talks of her competence and experience, promises she will do what she’s always done, and has the policy plans and papers to prove it.

Leader. Manager. Worker.

Obama is breaking out now because he speaks the language of a leader.

Obama’s vision is true right now.

Watch him at the 100 Club Dinner in New Hampshire.

He’s not making promises, even when the words coming out of his mouth are a promise. ALL of everything he’s saying is a declaration, a future which is true now because he speaks it.

Edwards, he argues, uses the language of a manager: I can fix things, but only if you elect me. So it’s a request, rather than a declaration. Clinton users the language of a worker, promising competence and skill. But these are promises while Obama says it it and makes it so.

I’m not sure if I’m convinced, but it’s interesting.

The Republican Debates According to a 9-Year Old

According to a Daily Kos diarist, this is a genuine 9-year old’s rendition of yesterday’s Republican debate. Apparently, it was too hard for the poor kid to keep track of the names, so he recorded the participants as “Sarge, Wrinkles, Bunny Ears, Oily, Beagle Eyes and Carrot Face.”

Read it and see if you can guess which is which…

Is Obama This Generation's JFK?

Is Obama this generation’s JFK?

Or is he our Gene McCarthy?

The talk of “change” both generational and otherwise, of unity, the youth candidate angle, the ability to inspire, the number of more-right-wing-than-you-might-imagine political positions, can be spun any number of ways.

History doesn’t have to repeat itself, but it has a habit of doing so. And the JFK story — whatever you make of his politics — ends in tragedy.

techPresident's Favorite Videos of 2007: The Candidates

Here’s another good top-10 list: techPresident’s Favorite Videos of 2007: The Candidates.

I agree with seven of these as top-quality, although the actual rankings seem a bit random. I wouldn’t have made #1 the top choice or necessarily included it at all. Not that it’s a bad video, but is it really top-10 material, much less #1? And what’s with #9? (And #8 is a good clip, but it’s not a campaign video at all.)

As for my top choice, I might have put Bill Richardson’s ad as #1—certainly in the top 3. It’s much better than the candidate, who looks worse the more you see of him.

The Internet Is a Giant 'Topping' Exercise

When I took Theater Studies 100 as a college freshman, one of the exercises we did was a “topping” exercise. You had to tell a story, and somewhere in it you had to show that something was even MORE than you first realized (the fish was big, really big, really really really big — I mean BIG, humongously big, elephantinely big, giant big, Tokyo-stomping-monster big…it was so big I couldn’t finish it).

Well, it just struck me that the Internet is a giant topping exercise. Whenever you find a weird video (or whatever), there’s always a weirder one. This one stars Mike Gravel, so it has a head start, but it makes the most of it.

(spotted via Scholars & Rogues)

Then again, one of the many points of the topping exercise was that you often make a point stronger by being quieter. Does that work on the Internet?

Friday Fun: Let's Daydream About the GOP Convention

Booman Tribune is having some fun daydreaming about the GOP convention:

If John McCain does not emerge as the Republican nominee, there’s a good likelihood that the GOP is going to be in for a long, strange ride. Let’s walk though this.

…

[If there is] a Huckabee win in Iowa, then Romney will likely prevail in the Granite State. We could easily see McCain, Thompson, and Duncan Hunter drop out after New Hampshire or South Carolina. We could see Giuliani drop out after Florida. And we’ll be left with Huckabee, Romney, and Ron Paul. And Ron Paul will have enough money to compete everywhere on Super Duper Tuesday, while Huckabee will not, and Romney will have to spend his own fortune.

Even in this scenario, I do not expect Ron Paul to win the nomination, or even any states (although he could win a couple). But he could easily rack up a fifth of the available delegates in a three-way race. Imagine the Republican convention if Ron Paul has the third biggest block of delegates.

Let’s go even further here. Assuming that Romney’s delegates are more Mormon than his overall universe of support and that Huckabee’s delegates are more Southern Baptist than his overall universe of support, and that Ron Paul’s delegates are…well…the most enthusiastic and dedicated of Ron Paul’s supporters…the Minneapolis conventions is going to be a assembly of the cultural fringe.

Just imagine the platform fights!

I Like It

John Edwards’s holiday ad has a bit of a sting to it:

I like it. But then I’m probably biased: although I think there are several Democrats who’d make a good President, I think that on the issues I’m probably most in agreement with Edwards. I just wish I had more faith in the quality of his organization — who you come into power with has proved to matter almost as much as who you are. (From that point of view, Obama may have a small edge; Clinton has the most carefully tuned machine — but is it tuned to the right pitch?)

I used to say that I had a lot of trouble swallowing Edwards’s views on trade. I’m still dubious of his protectionist instincts, but I think that the trade deals — especially some of the bilaterals — we’ve entered into in the past few years are on balance not good for us or for our counter parties. They seem designed to lock in certain ideas of industrial structure, labor relations, and other (anti)social policies in order to put them outside the reach of democratic processes. So while I may not agree with Edwards’s philosophy here, many of his specific criticisms seem more on target now than they did four years ago.

More Weird Ron Paul Videos

Ron Paul videos really are different. This one, Ron Paul Girl - Register Now, was apparently produced a couple of months ago, but it really is one of the odder videos of the year. And there’s many more by the “Ron Paul Girl”.

Huckabee!

Dear Republicans,

Oh, please nominate Huckabee, please. I’m sure this video is only the beginning.

Yrs &tc.

Update (12/15): Opinions differ.

What Do the GOP Candidates Think of Bush

This seems to be promote-Dan-day or something, but be sure to see the great questions at
Rating Bush, on a scale of 1 to 10:

Republican candidates avoid talking about President Bush, for obvious reasons. But journalists should press them to say what they think of Bush’s legacy, which elements of his presidency they would emulate, and which they would reject.

And then he has a little list…

More Campaign Ad Parodies

Two more ad parodies:

Kinda funny: Rudy Giuliani Ad Parody: For The Ladies and not so funny: Hillary’s Open Letter To Obama.

But other people seem to like them more than I do.

Romney's Orwellian View of Freedom

I used to say that I could see Romney as the least bad of the Republican candidates. Surely no principles was better than bad ones?

I may have to reconsider. On the one matter where one has to assume he is least likely to lie to us, the place of religion in public life, former Gov. Romney has some very strange views, such as: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”

The clearest statement I’ve seen of the problem may be slacktivist, Mitt vs. atheists, martyrs,

Let’s deal with the latter assertion first: “religion requires freedom.” There are far too many counter-examples for this to be true. Think of China, where the government denies religious freedom to millions of Christians and Falun Gong adherents and Tibetan Buddhists. Yet despite this lack of freedom, despite this active oppression — and, in a way, in response to this oppression — these faiths are all thriving. ….

“Freedom requires religion,” Romney said. Had he said, “Freedom requires religious freedom,” then I would agree, absolutely. Try to imagine if you can a society in which people were denied this most intimate of freedoms, the freedom of conscience, yet remained in all other respects free. Such a thing is impossible. This is part of the genius of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Take away any one of those freedoms and you take away the others as well. Each of those freedoms requires the others.

But Romney did not say that freedom requires religious freedom. He said, “Freedom requires religion.” And that’s a contradictory statement — a very different, and very frightening, thing.

If freedom requires religion, then the a-religious and irreligious, the non-religious and un-religious are the enemies of freedom. Romney believes, in other words, that atheism is incompatible with freedom. Whatever it is he means by “religious liberty,” he does not believe it can safely be applied to atheists.

Don’t get me wrong: I have no problem at all with devout candidates. I respect people who want to actualize their faith — just as long as in their public life they put the First Amendment first, and don’t try any back-door establishment of religion. Thus, I respect, but disagree with, people who say abortion is murder and wish to change the law to protect what they see as unborn people. I also disagree pretty strongly with people who want use state power to enforce their versions of morality, but I often do understand where they are coming from — even though I think that many of these efforts have serious constitutional difficulties and wish they were much more sensitive to these issues.

I don’t respect people who want to create special programs whose real purpose is to funnel money to churches (although I don’t mind at all having churches compete on a level playing field for federal funds so long as they observe the rules that apply to all recipients of federal money).

But I also respect (and would rather vote for) people whose faith — be it religious or secular — leaves more scope for individual choice and autonomy on most questions of morality.

Mitt Romney’s position that atheists are or should be second-class citizens hearkens back to an old American idea, mostly abandoned in the Enlightenment period, that the irreligious were fundamentally untrustworthy because without a fear of Hell they could not be trusted to keep their oaths.

It’s deeply depressing to consider that a major GOP candidate who is 200 years behind the times may still seem modern when part of a field that seems anxious to compete on who is more for torture of more detainees, and who has the cruelest plan for deporting and deterring undocumented workers.

Oh, wait. He’s campaigning as just as much a troglodyte as most of the others. Romney thinks we should double the size of the Guantanamo prison camp. I suppose that since Romney thinks Muslims are unfit for top government jobs this shouldn’t be totally surprising.

Race to the bottom. Dragging us down with it.

Strangest Obama Video

I understand that the Obama campaign is worried about the GOP whispering campaign that his name is really “Osama” and/or that he’s a closet Muslim, but is a video making people think he is a Hindu really going to help matters?

Found via: e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics » Barack Obama Bollywood Video Editing Software = Genius

And yes, I am kidding.

Something New About Mitt and Mormonism

One of the few genuinely interesting and original things I’ve read in the torrent of words pouring out about Gov. Romney’s promise to give a speech about the so-called Mormonism issue, is Nate Oman’s Thoughts from the Anvil: Mitt, Mormonism, and American Religious Politics. Go read it.

Unlike Oman, I sure don’t have anything interesting to say. Personally, the man’s religion is not an issue for me. (The lying and apparent plasticity of principles on the other hand….) The timing seems very tactical, a response to dropping poll numbers. It’s a speech I think Romney would rather not give, since many GOP primary voters don’t believe in the separation of church and state at all — they want the state to enforce morality and subsidize their faith based activities and perhaps even their established churches. The general election voter, on the other hand, is a more diverse and discerning breed, and not so willing to have protectors of the faith, thought police, mullahs, or whatever, patrolling the virtual and actual streets. But you knew all that.

Giuliani Campaign Ad Parody

Click here if you can’t see the video.

Kudos (Again) to Sen. Dodd

via techPresident: Dodd Breaks the Frame, Asks YouTube Question of GOPers

Finally, a presidential candidate has seized the opportunity presented by the CNN/YouTube debates … it looks like the creative minds at Chris Dodd’s campaign—which has already distinguished itself with a string of web innovations—were paying attention. A few days ago, they posted this question from Senator Dodd for this Wednesday’s Republican CNN/YouTube event:

Direct link to video.

Giuliani's Campaign Theme

TPMtv: I’m Rudy Giuliani and I Approve This Message:

Ron Paul's TV Ads Mirror His Prospects

Ron Paul, the anarcho-libertarian running for President as a Republican, has two TV ads running in New Hampshire. One of them is really stilted and awful:

But the other ad isn’t bad:

Given that Ron Paul’s supporters raised over $3 million for him yesterday — apparently without much help from the campaign — it looks like he’ll be able to buy some serious air time in New Hampshire.

Quirky, ultra-right-wing anti-state and anti-tax New Hampshire one of the few states where Rep. Paul might actually do quite well. Let’s hear it for a brokered Republican convention!

Is There an ABC Candidate?

For the past week or two I’ve been musing about writing something about why John Edwards’s organizational imperfections were going to keep him — despite his good ideas and good speeches — from winning the race to be the “ABC” candidate, that is the person around whom all the “anyone but Clinton” factions would coalesce. My hypothesis was that things were getting to the point where, even though stately, boring, Senator Dodd had somehow turned into a fire-breather, the timing of early primaries and the need for serious campaign cash, all meant that Senator Barack Obama had become the only realistic contender for the ABC title. And even for him, time was running short.

Seems like the folks in the Obama camp were thinking something similar. But their reaction to that tactical observation has been so incredibly, well, stupid, that you have to wonder if there will even be an ABC candidate at all. Among the silly things were Obama’s speech in which he promised to attack Senator Clinton, rather than actually doing much of it, and the inept ‘gospel tour’ of South Carolina.

Could it be, however, that these are not errors of execution, but the inevitable results of a fundamental strategic error on Obama’s part? That’s the surprisingly convincing argument of the observant Chris Bowers in his provocatively titled Obama Campaign Post-Mortem.

So here’s my question, if Obama isn’t going to be the ABC candidate, is there anyone who can grab the mantle and make this a horse race, or is it over already?

Debasement of Discourse

Must not let this go without notice.

Via Crooks and Liars, Peronist Rudy Giuliani exposes his moral relativism about torture: it’s ok when we do it.

At a town-hall meeting in Iowa last night, Rudy Giuliani did his best impression of a crazy person.

After noting that Giuliani ally Michael Mukasey, the Attorney General nominee, “fudged” his answer on waterboarding, a local woman asked if a presudebt can order waterboarding, even though it’s torture.

Mr. Giuliani responded: “Okay. First of all, I don’t believe the attorney general designate in any way was unclear on torture. I think Democrats said that; I don’t think he was.”

Ms. Gustitus said: “He said he didn’t know if waterboarding is torture.”

Mr. Giuliani said: “Well, I’m not sure it is either. I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.

I don’t know if he’s crazy, but he’s certainly dangerous: Rudy ♥ Torture.

Previous related post: Giuliani’s irrational hatred of ferrets.

Blowing It

When candidates asked about an important issue find themselves unwilling or unable to give a shorter and clearer answer than Joe Biden, they have a problem.

Both Senators Clinton and Obama have a problem this week.

Senator Dodd has drawn a line in the sand and promised to filibuster any bill that gives retroactive immunity to telecoms companies who conspired with government agents to spy on us illegally. (Leave aside the question of whether the sloppy language also retrospectively immunizes illegal black bag jobs.)

Asked if he would support Dodd’s filibuster, Joe Biden, a notoriously long-winded speaker, gave the following extended answer, which I quote in full:

Yes.

Compare that to Clinton and Obama’s game playing, per Glenn Greenwald.

Update: Sen. Obama has come up with a clear statement:

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

Digging for the Details in Sen. Clinton's Health Care Plan

Ian Welsh at The Agonist has the best questions I’ve seen about HilaryCare 2.0.

They’re at Questioning the Hillary Health Care Plan.

I will say this: I think Ezra Klein is exactly right: if we get any sort of national health care plan of any value out of the next administration, whoever is running it, a good chunk of the credit belongs to the man who forced people to talk about it in a meaningful, detailed way: John Edwards.

Rudy Sees Red

MoveOn seems to have got Rudy Guliani’s goat. And all it took was the truth.

Best Giuliani Takedown Video

The REAL Rudy: Command Center video — probably the best Rudy Giuliani takedown video ever.

Pretty Picture

Can’t say I think it will happen, but it would be great if it did. (The other way round would be quite interesting too, although it’s a little harder to see Edwards agreeing to it.)

John Edwards's Passionate Speech

John Edwards gave a barn-burner of speech in Hanover, New Hampshire.

I’ve posted the full text below.

Edwards is currently my favorite of the Democratic candidates, although I am by no means suggesting that there are not others that would be fine too. Nor am I claiming I agree with 100% of what he says — I’m more conservative on trade, less willing to demonize corporate profits (while agreeing that corporate political behavior is often not in the common interest); I’m more liberal on gay marriage. Overall, though, he seems like the major candidate most passionate about poverty, health care, and ending the war (although Obama, to give him his due, was right about this long before Edwards).

Unfortunately, I am not as impressed by the John Edwards campaign organization as I would need to be to feel optimistic about his chances of winning the nomination given that he’s running third in fund-raising. Clinton has a machine. Obama has a press and (slightly diminished?) public vibe. Edwards has passion. And a platform. But passion (not to mention a platform) won’t make up for money unless you have a really good organization. And while they’re a lot better than they were six months ago, and have some great instincts (e.g. their web presence, and unleashing Elizabeth Edwards), it’s going to take both luck and still-better command of the fundamentals of campaigning to make it happen.

I believe Edwards is sincere and passionate when he says this:

A few weeks, ago I met a man named James Lowe in Wise, Virginia. James spent the first fifty years of his life without a voice — literally without a voice — because he didn’t have health care. All he needed was a simple operation to fix a cleft palate. That a man in the richest country in the world could go unable to speak for 50 years because he couldn’t pay for a $3,000 operation is something that should outrage every American. We are better than that. America is better that that.

It’s a stark reminder of our broken political system that leaves millions of Americans without a voice in their government — a government that is supposed to work for them.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. And we can change it together.

One can hope.

Hanover, New Hampshire
August 23, 2007

This election is unlike any we have faced before. The stakes are higher. And the challenges we face as a nation are greater than at any time in memory.

We as a nation must choose whether to do what America has always done in times like these — change direction and move boldly into the future for the sake of our children, if not for ourselves, or wander in the same stale direction we have traveled in our recent past.

The choice we must make is as important as it is clear.

It is a choice between looking back and looking forward.

A choice between the way we’ve always done it and the way we could do it if we dared.

A choice between corporate power and the power of democracy.

Between a corrupt and corroded system and a government that works for us again.

It is caution versus courage. Old versus new. Calculation versus principle.

It is the establishment elites versus the American people.

It is a choice between the failed compromises of the past and the bright possibilities of our future. Between resigning ourselves to Two Americas or fighting for the One America we all believe in.

As always, at these moments, the choice we make is not for us, but for our children and our great country. And this time, like no other time, the consequences for our children are truly profound.

Will we halt global warming, protect our environment and humanity from the cataclysmic consequences of inaction and leave our children a livable world rich in the resources that were left to us?

Will we prevail against terrorism by stopping those who would harm us and winning over the minds of those who have yet to take sides so that instead of an ever more dangerous and war-torn world, our children live in a nation that is safe, strong and once again viewed throughout the world as a truly moral leader?

Will corporate greed be all we value as we move further into the global economy, or will we put workers and families first, so that all jobs pay fair wages, every American has health care and corporate profits work for democracy and not the other way around?

Will we face our future as individuals, each of us asking, “What’s in it for me?” Or will we return to the central value that makes our nation great? That we are all in this together and each of has a responsibility to the common good.

The choices we make will determine not just the quality of life our children will inherit, but the fate of the world we leave behind.

To succeed for our children where we have too often failed for ourselves, we must choose a new course. Those wedded to the policies of the 70s, 80s, or 90s are wedded to the past — ideas and policies that are tired, shop worn and obsolete. We will find no answers there.

But small thinking and outdated answers aren’t the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia. The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn’t. It’s not just that the answers of the past aren’t up to the job today, it’s that the system that produced them was corrupt — and still is. It’s controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it’s perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don’t stand a chance.

Real change starts with being honest — the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It’s rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it’s rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They’ll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are — not for the country, but for themselves.

Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected. They make easy promises to voters instead of challenging them to take responsibility for our country. And then they compromise even those promises to keep the lobbyists happy and the contributions coming.

Instead of serving the people and the nation, too many play the parlor game of Washington — trading favors and campaign money, influencing votes and compromising legislation. It’s a game that never ends, but every American knows — it’s time to end the game.

And it’s time for the Democratic Party — the party of the people — to end it.

The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other.

The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.

It’s time to end the game. It’s time to tell the big corporations and the lobbyists who have been running things for too long that their time is over. It’s time to challenge politicians to put the American people’s interests ahead of their own calculated political interests, to look the lobbyists in the eye and just say no.

And it’s time for the American people to take responsibility for our government — for in our democracy it is truly ours. If we have come to mistrust and question it, it is because we were not vigilant against the forces that have taken it from us. That their game has played on for so long is the fault of each of us — ending the game and returning government of the people to the people is the responsibility of all of us.

But cleaning up Washington isn’t enough. If we are going to meet the challenges we face and prevail over them, two principles must guide us — yes, we must end the Washington game, but we must also think as big as the challenges we face. Our ideas must be bold enough to succeed and our government must be free to enact them without compromising principle or sacrificing results.

One without the other isn’t good enough. All the big ideas in the world won’t make a difference if they have to go through this broken system that remains controlled by big business and their lobbyists. And if we fix the system, but aren’t honest with the American people about the scope of our challenges and what’s required of each of us to meet them, then we’ll be left with the baby steps and incremental measures that are Washington’s poor excuse for progress.

As Bobby Kennedy said, “If we fail to dare, if we do not try, the next generation will harvest the fruit of our indifference; a world we did not want, a world we did not choose, but a world we could have made better by caring more for the results of our labors.”

But if we do both — if we have the courage to offer real change and the determination to change Washington — then we will be build the One America we dream of, where every man, woman and child is blessed with the same, great opportunity and held to the same, just rules.

For more than 20 years, Democrats have talked about universal health care. And for more than 20 years, we’ve gotten nowhere, because lobbyists for the big insurance companies, drug companies and HMOs spent millions to block real reform. Instead, they’ve grudgingly allowed incremental measures that do nothing but tinker around the edges — or worse, they’ve hijacked reform to improve their own bottom line. So today, more Americans go without health care than ever before. Instead of prescription drug reform that brought down the cost of drugs, the lobbyists for the big drug companies got us a prescription drug bill that boosts drug company profits but doesn’t cut patient costs.

I have a bold plan to finally guarantee true universal health care for every single American and cut health care costs for everyone. My plan will require everyone — business, government and individuals — to contribute something to reach universal coverage. And I am honest about the cost: $90 to $120 billion a year, and I’ll pay for it by repealing the Bush tax cuts for families above $200,000. If we end the game in Washington, we can finally have a health care system that treats the health of all our people with equal worth.

Dependence on foreign oil is smothering our economy and choking our environment. Everybody knows it — politicians from both parties have been calling for energy independence for 30 years. So what did the oilmen in the White House do? They handed the keys to the corridors of government over to the lobbyists for the big oil companies and let them literally write the energy bill. Now, gas prices are through the roof, carbon emissions are unchecked, and global warming is likely getting worse.

When I am president, we will cap greenhouse gas pollution and ratchet it down every year. We will avoid mistakes like nuclear power and liquid coal. We will invest in clean renewable energies generated in America and create a new era in efficient cars, made by union members here at home.

And look at our economic policies — from top to bottom, they’re a twisted reflection of American values. Instead of expanding opportunity for all and preventing special privileges for any, they hoard opportunity and protect special privileges for the very few at the very top.

Trade policy is all about corporate profits for big multinationals and not at all about lifting workers’ wages or creating American jobs. The tax code provides breaks for hedge fund managers — amazingly, even Democrats backed down from asking them to pay their fair share when Wall Street lobbyists put the pressure on. By the time a decade of corporate opposition to a minimal increase in the minimum wage is overcome, even its own supporters admit that the increase isn’t enough — so another decade of corporate opposition begins anew, and workers lose again.

It’s time we put our economy back in line with our values. Let’s restore fairness to our tax code by insisting on a simple principle — nobody in the middle class should pay higher taxes on the money they make from hard work than the wealthiest pay on the money they make from their investments. Let’s restore opportunity and responsibility to our trade policy by requiring that every new trade deal puts workers and wages first. Let’s reward work by strengthening unions, raising the minimum wage, cutting taxes on working families and with a national commitment to end poverty within a generation.

And let’s support our troops and end this war in Iraq. We should immediately withdraw 40-50,000 combat troops immediately and have the rest out in about a year. And when President Bush refuses to act, Congress should use its funding power to force him to act.

None of this will be easy, but all of it is possible.

I know. I’ve been doing it my entire life.

I am the son of Wallace and Bobbie Edwards. My father had to borrow $50 to bring me and my mother home from the hospital. I am here today because, like all the people my father worked with in the mill, my parents got up every day believing in the promise of America, and they worked hard — no matter what obstacles were thrown against them — to give me the chance for a better life.

That’s the promise at the heart of the American Dream. What matters to our generation is of little consequence — in America what has always mattered most is the consequences for our children and their children after them. And no amount of power or money gives anyone the right to break that promise with our future.

I have stood with ordinary Americans at the most difficult times in their lives, when all the power of corporate America was arrayed against them. I have walked into courtrooms alone to face an army of corporate lawyers with all the money in the world. I have walked off the Senate elevator and been besieged by an army of corporate lobbyists. And I have beaten them over and over again.

But let me tell you one thing I have learned from my experience — you cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power — you have to take it from them.

We cannot triangulate our way to real change. We cannot compromise our way to real change. But we can lead to real change. And we can start today.

Nearly ten years ago, I made the decision that I would never take a dime from a Washington lobbyist — I wasn’t going to work for them, and I didn’t want their money.

Because in the courtroom, when you present your case to the jury, you can offer facts and evidence, you can argue your heart out — and I have — but the one thing you can’t do, is pay the jury. We call that a bribe. But in Washington when an oil lobbyist gives money to office holders to influence our energy policy, they call it politics. That’s exactly what’s wrong with this system.

Money flies like lightning between corporations, lobbyists, and politicians. We need full public financing to reform the system once and for all. But we don’t need to wait to reform our party. Two weeks ago, I called on all Democrats to reject contributions from federal lobbyists. To tell them — we know that you give money to influence politicians on behalf of your corporate clients. Well, we’re not going to take it anymore. Your money’s no good here.

I repeat that challenge today. Let’s show America exactly whose side we’re on. We can reform our party and truly be the party of the people. And we can expose for all time who the Republicans in Washington are really working for.

There are 60 lobbyists in Washington for every member of Congress. The big corporations don’t need another president that looks out for them — they’ve got all the power they need. I want to be the people’s president.

A few weeks, ago I met a man named James Lowe in Wise, Virginia. James spent the first fifty years of his life without a voice — literally without a voice — because he didn’t have health care. All he needed was a simple operation to fix a cleft palate. That a man in the richest country in the world could go unable to speak for 50 years because he couldn’t pay for a $3,000 operation is something that should outrage every American. We are better than that. America is better that that.

It’s a stark reminder of our broken political system that leaves millions of Americans without a voice in their government — a government that is supposed to work for them.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. And we can change it together.

We must think big and end the game.

It’s not about being ready to grab the reigns of establishment Washington and stand on the side of corporate elites. If it is, there are plenty who will do a better job than me at protecting the status quo, and preserving the policies and politics of the past.

It’s about being ready to lift our country up, reform our party, and remake our government in line with the values of our people. It’s about real change and a new vision that meets the challenges of the future and inspires the American people to work together for the common good.

We’re all angry at what George Bush has done to our country. But with courage and conviction, with an unblinking eye on the future we believe in and an unbending knee on the road to get there, not only can we undo the damage, we can transform the world. No matter what life has thrown at us, Elizabeth and I have always chosen to be optimistic about the future — and determined to make a difference as we strive toward it everyday.

I carry the promise of America in my heart, where my parents placed it. Because of them, I believe in people, hard work and the American Dream. I believe the future belongs to us if we only dare to seize it. And I believe to seize it, we must blaze a new path, firmly grounded in the values that first made America great. We must cast aside the established ways of Washington and replace them with the timeless values of the American people. We must end the game controlled by a privileged few and restore the promise that America owes to us all.

On that new path lies One America, where possibility is unbound and opportunity is the birthright of every American. Where the voices of the people are heard again in the halls of government, and government heeds their call. One America, where every individual takes responsibility for our common good, and the chance to reach one’s God-given potential is every individual’s common right.

I am the son of Wallace and Bobbie Edwards.

And I believe in the promise of America.

A Promise Likely to Be Broken

It sounds like a great idea. But there’s a little problem.

Richardson vows Cabinet preview: Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson said he would give voters a preview of his Cabinet before they pick the next president.

“I would announce my Cabinet before the election. If I’m the nominee, I would tell you who my team would be,” the New Mexico governor told a Service Employees International Union conference at Dartmouth College in Hanover.

“It would have independents, Republicans and Democrats. Don’t worry, I won’t overdo the Republicans,” Richardson said, drawing laughter. “It would be taken from America, not from the Beltway.”

Forget for a minute that Richardson isn’t going to be the nominee. Even if he were, this is one promise that he’s going to have to break. As I explained in Why Kerry Will NOT Appoint a ‘Shadow Cabinet’, there’s a legal obstacle: 18 USC § 599.

Whoever, being a candidate, directly or indirectly promises or pledges the appointment, or the use of his influence or support for the appointment of any person to any public or private position or employment, for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

It ought to be legal for Presidential candidates to outline who will be in their cabinet, but with law on the books, it’s just too risky — Richardson won’t do it, nor will anyone else. And the fact that he and his team don’t do their homework before making promises like this is one more reason among many why Richardson, a man of intelligence, achievement, demographic and geographic balance, nonetheless shouldn’t be the Democratic nominee — or even the Veep.

(He would, however, make a great special envoy to those foreign leaders we Don’t Talk To.)

Snarky, Yes -- But How Is It Wrong?

Jim Henley knows how to upset me. In It Takes a Pillage he asks one of tough questions about Hillary Clinton (the other one would be about K Street, I think).

Go visit: it’s not long, and I’ll wait.

Now, what’s the answer?

Democratic Debate Videos

Good questions, on the whole, from the public. See the videos, question by question.

Another Great Romney Moment

Notorious dog-owner Mitt Romney has advice for people who — remembering 9/11 — think it’s wrong for him to compare US Senators to Osama Bin Laden (or, if you prefer, for him to fail to condemn those of his supporters who glory in the comparison): “Lighten Up”.

I'd Really Rather Hear About Her Healthcare Plan

Much that is rancid about the state of mainstream American journalism is exemplified by this article in today’s Washington Post, Hillary Clinton’s Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory, which begins,

There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

It’s enough to make you shrill.

R. Milhous Giuliani

R. Milhous Giuliani — that’s how Michael Gerson characterizes the current GOP front-runner, and I think he nails it on substantive, stylistic, and not least emotional grounds.

As president, Nixon was a talented man without an ideological compass, mainly concerned with the accumulation of power. … And, as with Nixon, Giuliani’s combativeness, on occasion, blurs into pettiness.

Richard Milhous Giuliani. Just trips off the tongue…

Media Notices McCain Won't Be President

The one thing that Howard Kurtz is good for is memorializing the conventional wisdom. Today he administers last rites to the McCain campaign in light of his cash crisis followed by the defections of several senior figures from the campaign.

You heard it here back in March. (See also McCain’s madness.)

This Email is Making the Rounds

1) Fred Thompson knocked up his high school girlfriend out of wedlock. They got married and subsequently divorced before Thompson married his current wife, 24 years his junior.
source 1 and source 2.

2) Rudy Giuliani’s first wife (of three) was his second cousin (Regina Peruggi). They were married for 14 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani

3) Ron Paul has more cash on hand for his campaign than John McCain.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/07/ron-paul-tops-m.html.

4) Rudy Giuliani has been married more times (3 times) than Mitt Romney has gone hunting (2 times).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani
http://democrats.org/a/2007/04/more_money_same.php

5) Fred Thompson once worked as a lobbyist for the pro-choice National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Not terribly shocking given that, to varying degrees, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and even John McCain have all offered pro-choice commentary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/us/politics/07thompson.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/10/114157/044

6) Rudy Giuliani is the cross-dressingest public servant since J. Edgar Hoover.
http://www.myspace.com/rudyinadress

7) According to their Wikipedia pages, Fred Thompson (2), Rudy Giuliani (3), John McCain (2), and Newt Gingrich (3) combine to average 2.5 marriages each.

Sounding Presidential

Old news to many, I suppose, but yesterday Presidential candidate John Edwards gave a remarkably good speech — I mean remarkably good — on military power, foreign affairs, Iraq, and the ‘war on terror’.

I was going to try to quote the good bits, but there are a lot of good bits, so I’ll just suggest you go read it: John Edwards for President-Remarks As Prepared For Delivery At The Council on Foreign Relations.

John Edwards to Organize War Protest Memorial Day Weekend

Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards is starting a new effort to “support the troops and end the war” and he’s registered a very long domain name to organize it: supportthetroopsendthewar.com: Support the troops. End the war. Take action May 26th, 27th, 28th.

Take Action May 26th, 27th, 28th

As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice.

As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong.

As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can - by ending this war and bringing them home.

This Memorial Day weekend, we will all take responsibility for the country we love and the men and women who protect it. We will volunteer, we will pray, and we will speak out. Each of us has a responsibility to act, a duty to our troops and to each other. Support the troops. End the war.

The site invites people to sign up for demonstrations and other activities in their neighborhoods.

I heard about this because for reasons never explained to me I was invited onto a very brief one-way conference call in which Edwards announced the initiative. He didn’t talk long, but he said all the right things: that the movement to end the war was more important than a political campaign, that the point of the event was to support the troops by bringing them home.

“We’re going to reclaim patriotism.”

…

“The best way to serve our troops is to end this war.”

Edwards also has a YouTube promo for the event.

Now I feel bad that I’m going to be at a conference in Bologna over Memorial Day weekend. So I won’t be demonstrating in Miami. But I do agree that the time has come to be visible, and I’m going to have to find other ways to do that.

A Romney Moment?

Perennial Presidential candidate George Romney’s defining moment, however unfairly, was when he said in 1967 he’d been “brainwashed” about the Vietnam War. It followed the sometime Michigan Governor around for the rest of his long and endlessly diminishing political life.

In France, for instance, I’m told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past.

I don’t care if he’s tripping, or getting his information from watching French sex comedies, but surely this level of ignorance about Europe ought to disqualify someone from serious consideration for national office?

Or, is it really the case that in the modern GOP this sort of ignorance about Europe — especially France — almost serves as a platform?

Obama MySpace Update

Micha Sifry is all over the Obama/MySpace story. Latest update is at techPresident — Obama’s MySpace Mess: Enter the Shovel Brigade.

'Rudy is Nuts' Story Gaining Traction

Vanity Fair does Crazy for Rudy.

No, that is wrong: virtually every Full Rudy veteran expects the implosion to happen any second. It’s in some bizarro parallel reality that the Rudy campaign achieves verisimilitude and even—strange, too, when you consider the cronies and hacks who surround him—appears, at times, adept.

It’s a Catch-22 kind of nuttiness. What with all his personal issues—the children; the women; the former wives; Kerik and the Mob; his history of interminable, bitter, asinine hissy fits; the look in his eye; and, now, Judi!, his current, prospective, not-ready-for-prime-time First Lady—he’d have to be nuts to think he could successfully run for president. But nutty people don’t run for president—certainly they don’t get far if they do.

…

And, speaking of banana republics, there was Rudy’s extra-legal plan to set aside the 2001 mayoral election (after his term limit had been reached, so he couldn’t run again) and, by legislative acclamation (thwarted only at the last minute), extend his term.

Still, say what you want, Rudy’s fearlessness or kookiness does break through the political clutter and leave a powerful impression—that may be the biggest part of the political job.

The wives: if Rudy’s marital history isn’t crazy, it’s surely way over the line of middle-class domestic political norms. You can’t marry your second cousin (Regina Peruggi, now president of Kingsborough Community College) and, on top of that, annul the deal, as though this were the 18th century. You can’t, in a public snit, break up with your wife in a news conference (provoking that wife, Donna Hanover, to call a counter–news conference where she suggested he was a public liar and adulterer). You can’t carry on, as we used to say, in front of everybody, not without some major contrition—not if you want a political future.

Or can you?

The bit about the Mayoral election is why I think the man is a dangerous figure, one without the fundamental small-d democratic DNA we desperately need in our leaders. Romney, Hagel, even Huckabee would be far less likely to do something really really weird to us.

Of course, that’s not what the media are going to focus on. Nor the keeping his mistress on the city payroll (Wolfowitz, anyone?). No, they’re getting all worked up about that story about Rudy and the Ferret.

I Like Being Inspired by Presidential Candidates

What Richard Robert said: John Edwards sure can give a very inspiring speech.

Plus, I would really enjoy voting for a candidate who says stuff like, “On my first day in office, you have my word that Guantanamo will be closed”.

Have any other candidates taken that pledge?

The Alaskan and the Hot Tub

One more reason that Mike Gravel Won’t Be President.

Like you needed another reason?

How to Attack Mitt Romney

Attacks on Mitt Romney based on his religious beliefs make me very uncomfortable because even the most measured versions seem somehow wrong and, yes, unAmerican. (Concerns about his views on separation of church and state might be acceptable. Issues of creed, no thanks.)

On the other hand, attacks on Mitt Romney based on the way he markets himself to supporters, on Romeny’s two-faced approach to basic moral issues, and on his opportunistic and implausible self reinvention as a campaigning strategy, all seem … necessary.

Fascism Domesticated

If only, if only, this Glenn Greenwald column were an April Fools. But Your modern-day Republican Party is all too real.

It seems that leading GOP Presidential candidates mostly don’t have any problem with the idea that the President has the power to imprison American citizens without any opportunity for review of any kind.

Constitutional rights? Those are for sissies.

Family Values

Jim Morin has a great cartoon.

Click for a large version

McCain Implosion Continues (III)

Looks like McCain has lost John Stewart’s vote. And don’t miss the Freudian slip.

At this rate, I’m prepared for Joe Lieberman to change parties and to sweep the early Republican primaries. After all, he supports the war, loves Bush, isn’t a Mormon, and has only been married twice.

McClain Implosion -- Further Evidence

The Carpetbagger Report, Why John McCain will never win the Republican presidential nomination:

Which leads us to the second problem — he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to think anymore. McCain is so embarrassingly desperate, he’s utterly lost when it comes to basic questions like these. It’s almost certainly what he was doing with those 12 seconds of silence, thinking over what James Dobson might do if he acknowledged that condoms can play a role in stopping the spread of HIV, and what the media might do if they find a dozen examples of him supporting broader public access to publicly-financed contraception.

So the poor, sad man says nothing. McCain can’t tell the truth, he can’t share his opinions, and he can’t remember what he thought before he sold out. It’s so genuinely pathetic, I almost feel sorry for the guy.

And why is this evidence that McCain is going to lose? Because he’s going to have to deal with a year of these questions, and he has no idea how to answer them.

And to think I used to worry he’d run on a third-party ticket with Lieberman!

(Previous post.)

McCain Implosion Continues

OK, here’s my first political prediction of the 2008 season. Kinda tame, but you have to start somewhere: stick a fork in McCain, he’s done.

For an explanation of only part of the reason, see Jonathan Chiat, McCain goes over to the dark side.

The Right Wing's New Bete Noire

It seems that the right wing of the GOP has a new bête noire named Rudy McRomney.

More on Rudy Giuliani

Someone has made a very nice video about what Rudy Giuliani was saying before he decided to run for President. I gather he says somewhat different things now.

What’s interesting is that some parts of the GOP are so afraid they are going to get hammered in the general election, they may be prepared to overlook all this. But only some.

Random Fact

Rudy Giuliani hates ferrets, and ferret-owners too. (Click for a link to the amazing audio clip.)

McCain's Forked-Tongue Express Rolls On

Jesus’ General has the graphic that tells all:

“But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”

A man with no principles, or merely very changeable ones?

Updates: (1) Changed his view on Ethanol subsidies too (a big issue in Iowa…), but at least here he has a plausible excuse — higher gas prices. (2) And maybe the pander / lie was in 1999, given his consistent voting record against reproductive freedom?

Double Standards

The guy who started the whole flap about how Edwards should fire his blogger-staffers for things they had written before joining the campaign turns out to have a rather elastic approach to serious prior misdeeds by his own employeesBush-Cheney ‘04 campaign employees..

Inflamatory Rhetoric Watch

I’ve been watching the Edwards blogger flap (Edwards Learns Campaign Blogs Can Cut 2 Ways) with great interest, but haven’t blogged it because I had nothing interesting to say.

It seems the Edwards staff hired to hard-charging feminist bloggers to help the campaign (which has a big blog operation of its own), but didn’t vet them as well as it should have. As bloggers sometimes do, they’d each said a bunch of dumb stuff. There were not only rude words but intemperate opinions.

Edwards himself had no role in the hiring and had never even met them — the campaign staff is already that big? — until the flap was well under way. At that point he found himself caught between the right-wing spin machine which was seeking scalps, and a very strong push from his early supporters and from the liberal side of the blogging community which wanted him to condemn this piece of what they somewhat mistakenly called Swift Boating (it was somewhat mistaken because while exaggerated, the charges against the bloggers had some more truth at their core than did the Swift Boat smears of Kerry). At least one of the new staffers had quit her job and moved hundred of miles to join the campaign, so any firing had a real human cost.

Edwards waited 36 hours before deciding, apparently so he could meet the people before making a decision — which could be spun as slow, unprepared, and indecisive, or as a resolute and patient commitment to doing the right thing on his own time.

And in the end, Edwards did something right: condemning the sins, but not the sinners.

You could say this is a sign that the blogs are flexing their muscles. Or that Edwards caved in to the left wing. Or that the right wing’s Mighty Wurlitzer (where smears start on the fringe and work their way into the mainstream) is losing its power to mesmerize Democrats. Or that Edwards is a thoughtful guy who wanted to look the two staff people in the eye, and hear them out personally, before trashing their lives and possibly careers.

But here’s why I mention it now: I couldn’t help but wonder, what if it were me? Not that I have any plans or desires to leave academe, but suppose someone were mad enough to appoint me to the modern equivalent of the Board of Tea Experts (now defunct). What, I wonder, is the most incendiary thing that I’ve blogged (or published elsewhere) that could be quoted in or out of context to make me look bad (fairly or unfairly)?

Someone Should Graph This

The Carpetbagger Report, We are now up to a whopping 17 John McCain Flip-Flops.

Kidding aside, while I do worry that the long campaign season will encourage the tendency of the press to pile on minor gaffes, it’s also entertaining to speculate just how high the McCain flip-flop index can go. I wonder what Las Vegas or Ladbrooks would give for over/under predictions?

Two Related Political Items

Two items with a connection.

First, my Congressional Representative, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, endorsed McCain for President.

Second, McCain today embarrassed himself (or, if you prefer, further sullied the remaining shreds of his good name) at the confirmation hearing of Gen George Casey to be Army Chief of Staff. McCain’s, by buying into the BushCo line that although The Decider™ made all the decisions, it was the evil vizier, Gen. Casey, who is responsible for the debacle in Iraq.

McCain isn’t going to be President. I don’t even think he’ll be the nominee, although I’m less sure of that. I am sure that they’ll be nothing of him left by the time he gets the nomination, and that he’ll have depleted his greatest asset—the press’s infatuation.

Welcome, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, to the sinking ship.

McCain Gets the YouTube Treatment

I’ve predicted before that John McCain will be undone by YouTube. And now it begins:

Can we call it the Double Talk Express now?

But Consider the Source

This is so nutty that it makes sense, even if was invented at Comedy Central: Absurd Prediction (not?).

Incidentally, I really had no idea what category to file this under. Does anyone even care about categories?

Framing McCain

People are already trying to frame McCain.

While he earned this one, I think the things that will destroy him — despite impressive fundraising and on-the-ground troops in the early primary states — are McCain’s record, and McCain’s complete flip-flop on everything that matters.

Elizabeth Edwards On Blogging and Commenting

Micah Sifry writes about Elizabeth Edwards, Online and For Real at Personal Democracy Forum. In it she discusses her blogging and her commenting on other people's online postings.

Like everything else I've ever read about her, it makes Elizabeth Edwards look good.

And no, this is not going to turn into the Edwards-for-President blog, at least not yet. He's certainly one of my top two or three candidates at present, but the season is young, and the candidates have not yet staked out positions on some key issues I'd need to hear about before being able to commit. Especially Iraq.

OZ on the Potomac

This Flash animation by Walt Handelsman, No place like home, is pretty funny.

Well, That Was Quick (Bayh's Out)

Only a few days after announcing he was running for President, and after a period of universal derision, Sen. Bayh has dropped out.

Good riddance. Can we get rid of Biden next?

Get Ready to Say Bayh Bayh

David Sirota trashes the Evan Bayh campaign.

It's a fun read, but I still think that Joe Biden makes Evan Bayh look good. Which is awful lucky for Bayh.

Update: Bonus trashing.

McCain Flip-Flop Watch

The Carpetbagger Report notes McCain's flourishing flip-flop list. This weekend, McCain added Roe v. Wade to the list of issues on which he's done an about-turn.

It really is a little sad to watch someone of at least occasional integrity totally disintegrate into a pandering puddle due to his desparation for the Presidency. I presume the strategy is to run right for the primaries and then try to loop back. But I think the brand will be pretty tarnished by then. Indeed, it is already, although mass media are still clining to the St. McCain narrative.

Actually, that's good for the Democrats: better if the scales fall from the media's eyes when more people are paying attention.

Meanwhile, it's interesting to see just how out of touch with modern realities the increasingly aging McCain seems to be. Pre-YouTube it might have been possible to campaign out of both sides of one's mouth, but that approach is in the dustbin of history now.

A Fun Fact

In 2008 there are 33 Senators up for election: 21 are Republicans, 12 are Democrats.

Dems:

Jack Reed (D-RI)
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Joe Biden (D-DE)
John Rockefeller (D-WV)

Republicans:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Wayne Allart (R-CO)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Norm Coleman (R-MN)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Larry Craid (R-ID)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)
Pete Domenici (R-NM)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
James Inhofe (R-OK)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Ted Stevens (R-AK)
John Sunun (R-NH)
John Warner (R-VA)

Warner is going to retire, and be replaced by former governor Mark Warner (D-Va)

Stevens may be vulnerable. Dole should be. Who else?

Wes Clark Steps Up in the Invisible Primary

There are two elections going on simultaneously in the Connecticut Senate race. There's Lamont v. Lieberman of course, but there's also the first round in the invisible primary for the 2008 presidential election. The invisible primary is the one where would-be candidates compete for the love, energy and money of party activists who they hope will propel their candidacy forward before the rest of the world really starts to notice.

Wes Clark took a big step forward in that primary today by making this effective ad for Lamont:

Few of the other possible candidates have done much beyond a token appearance, and almost none have done any Lieberman-bashing, even though he refused to respect the result of the party primary. Wes Clark shows here not only that he's tough, but that he's a party player. The activists will like that.

Warner Won't Run For President

Source: Warner Won't Run for White House . Assuming this is (a) true and (b) isn't due to some ticking time bomb in his IM records, former Governor Warner would jump to the top of the short list for "ideal veep" for most likely candidates, putting him in a statistical tie with Senator Barack Obama. Both have big fan clubs, lack relevant experience (although in quite different ways), and have been studiously vague on major issues of the day (Warner more than Obama).

Update: The Washington Post points out some other possibilities:

Or it could allow him to seek Virginia Republican John Warner's U.S. Senate seat if Warner retires in 2008.

The ex-governor could also run for his old job again. Virginia law does not allow sitting governors to run for reelection, but does allow them to seek the office again after a four-year hiatus. Warner, who left office with record approval ratings, has expressed repeatedly that he might want the job back someday.

National Journal Adopts Edwards as ABC Candidate

You heard it here first, but the venerable and influential National Journal just anointed John Edwards as the Other Dem Front-Runner.

Edwards as the ABC Candidate

I'm delighted to report that the growing conventional wisdom has former Senator John Edwards as the "ABC" (Anyone But Clinton) candidate for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. Edwards, along with Gen. Wesley Clark, is one of my two favorite likely Democratic presidential candidates. Senator Clinton has already raised about $20 million for her campaign, and has a surrounded herself with experienced campaign staff, making her seem like the candidate to beat for the nomination.

Edwards is a huge beneficiary of changes to the Democratic party's primary schedule, which has front-loaded caucuses in states where he should do well. But as far as I know, he's lagged badly in the money-raising department ever since former Va. governor Warner and Sen. Feingold starting gaining traction. Although I like a lot (but not all) of what Feingold says, I don't think he has a chance of winning a national election. Warner has nice demographics -- but has yet to demonstrate that he stands for anything much. Certainly the people attracted to his campaign so far are in it on the "he can win" theory, not because of any issue they can point to. If the guy has taken an interesting stand on a controversial national issue (as opposed to local Virginia issues), I sure haven't heard about it, nor has anyone I know.

By contrast, Edwards is just impressive -- someone running a campaign of optimism rather than either cautious triangulation or fear and demonization.

The way these races usually work, the media gravitates to a narrative in which there's a front runner, an insurgent, and the "others". Clinton gets to be front-runner for now because she probably has raised more money than everyone else put together. Given that Edwards was being squeezed a little by the profusion of other candidates, getting noticed now as the likely/possible ABC candidate is on balance a good thing, although there's an awful lot of time before the election, which creates the risk of a "he peaked too early" narrative developing in six, twelve or even eighteen months.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Mark Schmidt does a post perfectly describing why all the leading likely GOP presidential candidates (with the mysterious absence of Tancredo) have big problems just getting through the GOP primaries, much less appealing to the whole electorate.

It being only a matter of time before someone links this reasoning to the likely candidacy of Hilary Clinton and tags the collective as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" I figured I'd just get ahead of the curve.

Interim VeepStakes

L.A. Times Editorial Calls for Cheney's Ouster: A Los Angeles Times editorial Sunday called for a "far more audacious" makeover of President Bush's administration, saying he should send Vice President Cheney into early retirement.

Let me start by saying that I don't think President Cheney will allow this to happen.

But, just for the fun of it, let's suppose that we wake up one day and for whatever reason we find ourselves de-Veeped. That raises two questions:

• Who would Bush be most likely to appoint?
• Who of the people Bush might conceivably appoint would be most politically destructive for the Democrats?

The media is already having a field day with the first question, and thinks the answer is Dr. Rice. But since I think that even if she were to become the Veep, I don't think she'd run for President (or would be that hard to beat if she did), I don't think that she is the answer to the second question.

The Democrats' worst fear has to be the appointment of a viable Presidential candidate into the heir apparent role. Not only does this person get tons of free media and get to look more Presidential, but a new veep would get a leg up in the otherwise internecine primary fights.

So I think the answer to the second question is probably John McCain. It's just conceivable Bush would pick him (they seem to have made some sort of deal in 2004). He would benefit the most from being anointed as the heir apparent, as it would allow him to drop his self-destructive run to the right. And a McCain who isn't destroying himself, and doesn't have to take full part in the rough-and-tumble of a primary (with the chances to lose one's cool) would be a formidable candidate in 2008.

(I do note the Machiavellian argument that says Dr. Rice is the answer to the second question too, because that would ensure that Senator Clinton would become the Democratic nominee. I don't quite buy it, but it worries me.)

Good Slogan. Quixotic Campaign.

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel is running for President. Sounds hoplessly quixotic, but "Gravel Rocks" will be a nice campaign button.

McCain: Lashing Out or High-Stakes Poker?

I read about the McCain-Obama dust up with a degree of incredulity, because it seems to me that one of the things that Sen. McCain can least afford is anything that will feed the whispers that, well, he's not quite right, a little bit, you know, unstable. And this intemperate letter is so un-Senatorial in its lack of courtesy as to be enough to fuel an entire muttering, not just whispering, campaign.

Talking Points Memo does a valiant job of trying to find a rational motive for what seems otherwise to be a fit of childish pique:

the key here to note is what's behind this dust-up. Obama is a rising star among the Democrats. Republicans want to lay a backstory for feature criticisms and character attacks against him. So, for instance, if Obama is the vice presidential candidate in 2008, they want to have a history of attacks on him banked, ones that allege he's a liar, or too partisan, or untrustworthy, whatever. It doesn't even really matter. What matters is that there already be an established history of them. Point being, that in early 2008, they want to be able to simply refer back to Obama's 'character issue', the questions about his honesty, etc. rather than have to make the case on its merits.

So which is it: McCain the whiny baby, or McCain the unprincipled Machiavellian conniver?

Grading the Democratic Presidental Hopefuls

Via Kos, we get the list below of would-be Democratic Presidential candidates -- those serious enough to have formed a PAC or some sort of committee to serve as a proto-campaign. To which I have taken the liberty of adding my totally subjective grades and random comments. My grades are an arbitrary amalgam of my agreement with policy positions, my utterly subjective assessment of the person's character (in those cases where I have views), slightly modified by my view as to electability -- which usually I don't weigh heavily long before the primaries; electability gets made in substantial part by how you run for the nomination.

Of course, these grades are just for the earliest grading period. Plenty of time remains to rack up class participation and extra credit points! (Not to mention, lots of tests ahead in future marking periods.)

Bayh  C. It could have been much, much higher but for last week's vote on the modified Graham amendment [added: by which I mean the "Bingaman Amendment"; by voting against it,] Bayh voted in favor of removing meaningful access to courts for Guantanamo detainees. Not a profile in courage. While this is fresh in memory, I can't go above a C, and even that...

Biden  F. He must be joking. (Earlier post: Biden His Time)

Clark  A-. On the whole, I like him on the issues. He ran a lousy ground campaign last time, with lots of amateur campaigning mistakes. But has shown a very impressive ability to learn from his mistakes, and is doing almost everything right this time around. (I was especially impressed by this account of Clark campaigning in the South.) And Clark is in a better position than most of the candidates on the Iraq issue. As one of the outside-the-beltway candidates has as good a chance as anyone to become the "ABC" (Anyone But Clinton) candidate.

H. Clinton  C+. I like her, mostly, as a Senator. I don't like her as a Presidential candidate, both because she polarizes unhelpfully and because I just have my doubts about her.

I do know many people who love the Hillary machine, love the idea of a woman President, love the size of the money pile being piled up, or love the idea of getting Bill Clinton near the Oval Office. It may be unfair, but I still remember Senator Clinton as the person who trusted Ira Magaziner in the health care debacle. This tends to show the sort of poor judgment of people that we can't afford in a President (although, to be fair, Ira bamboozled a lot of smart people...). Sen. Clinton remains a supporter of the Iraq war, and has generally decided to present a hawkish persona. She gets points for running a smart campaign in NY state and for being a good constituency Senator. She loses points for hanging with all the same tired Democratic establishment figures and for not supporting Howard Dean but instead trying to find someone, anyone, to prevent him from becoming the head of the Democratic Party; not only was Dean perfect for the job, but it meant that he wouldn't be running for President, which I think was on balance a good thing.

Likely to be one of the leading candidates in the primaries, barring some weird cratering. Right now that seems unfortunate. (Perhaps something will come along to change my mind?)

Edwards  A-. Edwards ran a great campaign in the primaries, and has been through the cauldron of a general election. I've never met him, but everyone I know who has was between impressed and awed. And his wife sounds even better. He ran a good campaign in 2004, he says most of the right things (I could stand a bit more free trade). Two minuses: paucity of government experience, and currently out of the loop. One big recent plus: this op-ed. Tactically, Edwards faces a problem of being squeezed on all sides: by Kerry, holding some of the old gang; by Clark and Warner, trying for the ABC crown; and by Feingold on the left (although that might help keep Edwards from being defined as 'too' left wing).

Feingold  B+. Seems like basically a good guy, but less electable than some others. Remains to be seen if his style will play nationally. (I also have some small policy differences...) If he doesn't catch fire, he might be a good veep for an outside-the-beltway conservative.

Kerry  D. He didn't run such a great campaign in 2004 -- was too cautious -- although that might not be such a bad thing in a President. Ok, the grade is unfair, given that he should be President now, having gotten more votes than the other guy, [Swift Boat, mumble, mumble] but the fact is that the country is tired of him and I'm tired of all those droning emails he keeps sending me.

Richardson (currently staffing up for his 2006 reelection).  Incomplete. Right now seems like veep material at most.

Vilsack  C+. Who? (Just kidding. I think.) As Governor of Iowa can claim both outside-the-beltway status and also the pole position in the caucuses. Or maybe we can just concede them to him and get on to more serious primary contests? Vilsack is the Chair of the DLC, which I used to think was a great credential, but nowadays view with much greater suspicion given that organization's fairly lousy track record in the Bush years.

Warner  B-. Warner obviously got a boost from the recent Democratic win in Virginia. Currently the hardest to grade because as governor, AFAIK, he has not had to take meaty positions on most national issues; the ones I've read are mostly platitudinous. Another strong contender, perhaps, for the ABC title if he defines himself better. A natural veep for lots of candidates.

Biden His Time

Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) is running for President.

Here's what I'd like to know. Is there anyone reading this who believes, or has even ever met anyone who believes, that Biden ought to be President? (And it's hard to see what ticket he enhances as Vice-President, otherwise a perhaps more attainable goal.)

More McCain Bashing

Matt Stoler has a pair of interesting posts on John McCain. Since they dovetail pretty well with why I like some things about McCain but think he shouldn't be President, ever, I recommend them : MyDD :: 'Reform Republicans' - The McCain Scam and BOP News: Coming Back to the Blogosphere.

Further Proof that Jeb! is Smart -- and Dangerous

I've been saying for some time that if Jeb Bush is smart he'll want the VP nomination in 2008 -- not the Presidential nomination. The GOP presidential nomination in 2008 will be a poisoned chalice (unless the Dems do something suicidal like nominate Sen. Clinton, and maybe even then if voters see the Senator as a stalking horse for the ex-President). I figure that Jeb! (as he likes to be known) is too smart to want the role of sacrificial lamb. Plus if anyone would inherit all the tar of the current administration it's surely a relative. No, the nomination is for someone else.

But the Vice Presidential nomination is perfect: If the ticket wins, you are heir apparent. If the ticket loses you are not blamed, and are on the inside track for 2012. More importantly, by being the Veep nominee, Jeb! prevents any rival from having that pole position in 2012. It's a no-lose proposition.

And it looks like Jeb! gets it: In State: An interview with an upbeat governor he doesn't rule it out:

The only thing I have said is I'm not running for the United States Senate, I'm not running for president."

Pressed about whether he'd be as clear in ruling out a vice presidential run, the governor demurred: "That's a nuance. . . . I just told you what I said."

'Clark is like JFK, Edwards is like FDR'

Over at The Blogging of the President, Stirling Newberry explains, better than I could, why Wesley Clark and John Edwards seem far and away the most attractive candidates for the 2008 presidential election. Have a look at Clark is like JFK, Edwards is like FDR.