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.
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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.
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…
HuffPo goes on offense against McCain
Published February 23, 2008 Election Oh Eight Leave a CommentTags: Election Oh Eight
Check out this development from Huffington. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a more complete understanding of McCain’s history in the Senate. It’s not a smear campaign if it’s true. Voters deserve to know one way or the other.
There are many reasons to like Ralph Nader, 74. He has spent a lifetime advocating for consumer rights and fighting corporate excess. He established Public Citizen in Washington, DC to promote an agenda of protecting consumers from unfair predatory business practices and making the case for social and economic justice on an international level. He has been unrelenting in his insistence that business leaders must be held to a higher standard in our society. He fought the automobile industry with vim and enthusiasm, and won a lawsuit against GM for their overzealous and illegal surveillance of his activities. And he used the spotlight to argue forcefully for a broader and more open multi-party democracy.
What you will not find on any list of Nader’s likable qualities is his stubborn, short-sighted and pointless bids for the presidency. Far from helping his cause, he has mobilized the American mainstream to think of greens as a sanctimonious band of trust-fund liberals who neither understand nor much care for the everyday needs of working people. On top of that, his baffling ambition for high office – funded by Republicans – resulted in the election of George W. Bush in 2000.
Nader is probably going to run for president again. If he does, he will likely garner even fewer votes than he did in 2004, when most Democrats with green leanings learned their lesson from 2000 (though it wasn’t enough). But the case against his bid, in an election that could again come down to a few thousand votes in Ohio, Florida or Virginia, remains overwhelmingly strong.
He will sound the alarm again, saying the two political parties are two sides of the same coin. That couldn’t be further from the truth this year, but he may just fool enough people to put another Republican in the Oval Office.
Update: Nader is in for his 5th attempt at the White House
When Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid began to lose in earnest after Super Tuesday and her rival, Barack Obama, started to build a small lead among pledged delegates, the dynamic of animosity between the two shifted. He began to talk like a president and chose to focus his criticisms on John McCain, most notably his willingness to stay in Iraq for a hundred years. She in turn hurled small insults that landed at Obama’s feet, and he, smiling like a champion, walked away unscathed. She came across as panicked, and eager to get in front of him waving her arms and pleading with voters to “get real.” Support wasn’t so much slipping away from her as it was swelling behind him. It was a symbolic turning point.
Her supporters saw Obama as less a viable presidential candidate and more a stupid passing fad. She was the hard-working girl who dressed right and followed the rules, and she was getting upstaged by the easy-going new kid who everyone wanted to be friends with. And he was threatening to spoil the whole damn show. Even the principal and teachers had started to get sucked in – some even switched their allegiances. But it wasn’t his to take. She deserved it more. It was unfair.
To Hillary’s followers, “Obama-mania” echoed “Beatlemania:” a swooning crowd of political teenagers with a major crush, getting excited because the tunes he sang were easy and appealed to our whimsy, and sometimes screaming so loudly they couldn’t even hear the music. He made people feel good. But politics was about more than four chords repeated in slightly different order: it was about complex interludes and mature cantatas and sublime overtures. He was Paul McCartney, smiling and waving and playing a couple of pretty notes on the guitar. She was Brahms, forceful and precise. She was original. He may not have stolen the race outright, but he didn’t win on his merit or hard-core political street creds. He won on his electability.
But rules are funny things in politics, and they made Clinton’s plea to “get real” about this election seem like a weird attempt to dissuade voters from falling for some electoral hat trick. Get real? Isn’t the reality of politics – and one of its core struggles – that winning is what matters most? Being right, working hard, remembering names, accomplishing policy objectives: these are all very nice, but they all follow something more important: winning. Bill Clinton wrote the book on this reality, and his 1992 campaign showed a ferocity absent among Democratic candidates for president since President Johnson, who bullied himself into every elected office he held. Obama pressed this point in the CNN debate on February 21, calling into question her insinuation that his supporters were somehow “delusional.”
The reality is that she arrived late to the theme party of change. And when she did arrive, the guests were already mingling around the host, a tall, lanky and handsome fellow with a quick wit and easy smile. He didn’t out-spend her or out-work her. Her campaign was smart, if at times cumbersome, and she appealed to voters in a way that, under any other circumstances, would have wrapped up the nomination quickly. No, he out-charmed her, and no grand strategy could have prevented that. Her supporters are right: it’s not really fair. But it doesn’t matter now, because it’s over.
Change we can Xerox?
Published February 22, 2008 Election Oh Eight Leave a CommentTags: Election Oh Eight
Analysis - February 21, 2008
Barack Obama’s response in the CNN Debate in Austin to a question about plagiarism was clear and on point. He said, “This is where we start getting into silly season in politics, and I think people start getting discouraged about it.” In response, Hillary Clinton accused Obama of proposing not change you can believe in but “change you can Xerox.”
This was an odd comment, and a little surprising coming from Clinton. From a strategic standpoint, attacking Obama for being unoriginal is a bit of a non-starter. For one, he’s patently bright. He has written two decent books, has a pretty wonkish understanding of policy issues and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Second, calling him on a technicality – not citing his sources – sounds like the smart girl in high school getting upset that her rival didn’t follow every rule. Obama is still a whiz-kid, whether he references correctly or not. And in this case, he admitted his mistake.
But this is part of a larger problem for Clinton. She needs to win big in Texas and Ohio in order to even stay in this race – probably by over 60%. A new poll puts the two dead even in Texas. While she knows she needs to go on the offensive in order to stay alive, she also needs to find a way to get at him that voters perceive to be fair. The problem is that attacking the nice guy makes the attacker look weak, not strong.
She now faces several mediocre options. She can stay on the offensive and hope that John McCain’s mini-scandal over whiffs of infidelity with a lobbyist ends by Monday. She can continue to emphasize her hard-core economic and job growth plan to counter the massive shift of union support toward Obama. And she can keep cozying up to the white working class suburban folks in the hope that they will perceive Obama as the candidate of the rich. But what she is unlikely to accomplish, in all of this, is a big turnaround.
Clearly Obama has captured the best hopes and energies of the Democratic Party. He has also converted many disillusioned Republicans who want to be on the right side of history, for once. His fundraising efforts remain unrivaled and his supporters are amped. He has run an incredible campaign on the strength of his character, his intelligence and his charisma. Where Obama’s campaign is about moving on, Clinton’s campaign is more about moving back – to 2000, when Bush got the job in a judicial decision many people to this day consider wrong.
The Democrats have apparently chosen a winner.
After seven years of intense – and intensifying – disappointment with President Bush, it’s hard not to wonder if two years from now, when President Obama is delivering some eloquent call to action to confront our challenges with courage and faith, we won’t miss our President’s brutal cowboy jingoism. From CNN:
“The purpose of this is not to add military bases,” Bush said. “I know there’s rumors in Ghana — ‘all Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here.’ That’s baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that’s bull.”
On second thought, no, we won’t miss him. This isn’t funny. The only thing more awkward than remembering he’s still our president is the nervous, hope-killing feeling we get when we peer into our souls and wonder how he possibly could have been elected to a second term.
It’s a little late for a legacy in Africa. All that’s left for our flatlining president is to go quietly into the night.
