Archive for February, 2008
Check out this trip and write to bikeforobama@gmail.com to join! April 4 – April 6, 2008.
It is sometimes difficult not to get giggly when campaigns come out with stuff like this. Ten points for imagination, and at least it’s not another negative attack.
There was a combative tone in the Democratic debate tonight in Cleveland. Hillary Clinton got quietly booed when she went after the debate moderators for always getting questioned first – but failed to explain exactly why this is a disadvantage.
Brian Williams asked Clinton a question about whether Obama is qualified to be commander in chief. She replied that he didn’t have any responsibility when he voted against Iraq War, so it was somehow easy. He responded that he was in the middle of a senate campaign when he made that speech. He says she on the other hand “facilitated and enabled this individual” – George Bush – to make all the terrible choices she has criticized since she began running for president.
Leaving aside Obama’s poise and Hillary’s combative posture during the debate, this came out a tie. Hillary could have run away with the nomination if it weren’t for Harold Ickes and Mark Penn – these people who have no loyalty to the campaign – only to their poll-tested analysis. A tie will not likely be enough for her.
One week to go.
This is a good get for Obama – another party elder comes out in favor of his call for change. Not huge, but a solid gain.
Look for endorsements to cascade from party leaders if Obama takes either Ohio or Texas, especially if Hillary doesn’t concede.
Analysis
The idea that the Democratic Party have rules that intentionally undermine the voters is baffling on its face. Consider this: the Republican Party, which is in general more autocratic and organized than the Democrats, elect their leaders more democratically. They don’t have ugly squabbles over arcane, ill-advised and above all elitist rules. They have votes, and from those votes, they have winners. Simple.
Geraldine Ferrarro, the 72-year old Clinton supporter and former vice-presidential candidate, argues in the New York Times that “the superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow. They were, and are, expected to determine what is best for our party and best for the country.” But we did not elect these people to vote themselves into new and improved positions of power. We elected them to determine and enact public policies that are in line with the best interests of our party and country, and stand a good chance of gaining the support of the voting public – which includes Republicans and independents.
Sure, we elected them to lead, but if we take Ferraro’s advice, they will lead us into total chaos at the convention in Denver. If they do that – if they overrule the will of Democratic voters – John McCain might as well throw an early victory party and start drafting his inauguration speech.
According to Politico, “The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate…”
Polling? Focus Groups? This may not be such a bad idea considering Sen. McCain’s history of straight talk racial faux pas. The “all they want to trade is burkas,” “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live,” and unfortunate “tar baby” incidents come to mind. Beyond his own gaffes, the man McCain initially hired to run his presidential campaign, Terry Nelson was responsible for the racist ad attacking African-American candidate Harold Ford Jr. during his closely contested Senate run in 2006.
As the RNC clearly realizes, a “maccaca” moment would sink the McCain Campaign – and rightly so. We can only hope that straight talking McCain can avoid this kind of rhetoric and allow Obama to beat him by running a superior campaign, offering better policies, and gaining the trust of the American people. More importantly, this would deprive the talk-radio wing of the republican party the pleasure of blaming the “PC police” for electing our first black president.
From overt allegations of plagiarism to this: a weird insinuation that Barack Obama is a… Muslim warlord? Prince of darkness? Or worse: a US SENATOR dressing in local garb for a photo op. Sinister, indeed. It’s really unfortunate that she would do this – and a sad day for the Democratic Party.
Robert Novak ponders who will tell Hillary it’s over. Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi are probably the only viable options to deliver the bad news, and they’re going to wait at least until Texas and Ohio vote. If they wait until Pennsylvania, they will have stripped over a month of campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, Barack Obama.
Jonathan Alter at Newsweek writes there’s no reasonable path to the nomination for Hillary Clinton, and that she should drop out before Texas and Ohio. But he also points out the obvious: she won’t.
Obama has had to defend himself against allegations that he is unpatriotic. It is not surprising that at some point the national debate would be cheapened to this: calling a man who is running for president unpatriotic. These little quirks and tics of patriotism – putting your hand on your heart when you recite the national anthem, wearing a flag lapel pin, wanting to pass an amendment abridging the freedom of speech so we don’t ever see the symbol of our unity on fire – are flawed reflections of one’s love for country. They are signs not of strength and unity but of repitition. What matters most are deeds, as they are the only indicator of one’s commitment to our national community. And by all accounts, Obama’s actions speak louder than Clinton’s vitriolic words.
For anyone who thought Hillary Clinton would go quietly back to New York, her recent below-the-belt attacks on Obama have shown otherwise. The question now is: will she continue after Texas and Ohio? What if she loses Texas? Does she redouble her efforts? Lend her campaign more money? Only time will tell…
Barack Obama’s campaign has by all accounts been adept at selling their ideas to voters. In a sentence: after eight years of Bush, this country needs a president who can inspire citizens to believe in our democracy again. It is an ephemeral argument, and would undoubtedly be a flimsy one if it weren’t true that the country’s morale is as low as it has been in recent memory. John McCain’s main political rejoinder will echo Hillary Clinton’s: that we live in a dangerous world, and what’s needed is not a boost of inspiration but a sharpening of our defenses and a readjustment of our national priorities. Hope is easy, he will say; leading takes guts and determination. Leading takes experience.
The strongest argument against the experience argument goes something like this:
[President] Bush’s national security advisers were arguably the most experienced in modern times. But their performance was often very poor. That was partly… because they overlaid the post-9/11 challenges on a Cold War template about the uses of military power.
A more general argument is that the costs of ideological fervor in foreign policy tend to outweigh the benefits of experience. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are experienced at committing our country to ill-advised military adventures, and little else. Shouldn’t we prefer a rookie with good judgment, as we did with John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, over an old hand with a long history of being wrong?
CNN is reporting that Cuba’s National Assembly has named Raul Castro their new President – as expected.
