How the NSA Controversy Could Make Partisanship Even Worse

At first, the story about the NSA's massive domestic surveillance program was actually working in President Obama's favor. A Pew poll showed that most Americans approved of the program, yet it continued to be the big Washington story -- meaning half-baked White House nontroversies like Benghazi or the IRS scandal had been knocked off the front page. The President was able make what would normally have been some controversial moves, mostly under the radar, as the media's attention was fixed on one shiny bauble. For the most part, Republicans -- who would normally have dived on any whiff of scandal -- took the administration's side on the issue. Despite the landmark nature of the revelations, it looked like it was going to be clear sailing.

But then a second poll came out -- this one showing Americans not supportive of PRISM. Then Gallup had similar findings. Now Reuters/Ipsos has a different take, nearly as problematic for the administration:

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2008 All Over Again

Last night, I wrote that I hate year-end lists. I knew this would somehow come back to bite me, but in my defense, I don't give myself a lot of space to explain myself in the roundups. What I meant was the typical news media lists, which almost always consist of pop culture fluff bound to be completely forgotten as early as the very next year. The other kind of list is the Roster of the Fallen. I hate these, too. Yes, it's sad that we lost people like Studs Terkel and Paul Newman, but their memories are polluted when we pretend that Paul Weyrich was a wonderful and loving lamb of God and that Charlton Heston was anything other than an actor with his emotional meter pegged at "histrionic" and his volume cranked up to eleven.

That said, here's my year end list of things during the presidential campaign that are actually noteworthy. Besides, it's pretty short. As year-end lists go, this one isn't much work for the reader.





Worst presidential candidate
A man so bad that you probably forgot he ran -- if you even knew he ran. No, I'm not talking about some third party lunatic, but a major party candidate. A former Governor of a fairly consequential state. I'm talking about Wisconsin's Tommy Thompson -- not to be confused with sleepy actor Fred Thompson.

Thompson put all his chips on Iowa, hoping to win that contest and launch himself to national prominence. But, as a former Bush administration official (Thompson headed Health and Human Services), Tommy already had one strike against him. Those strikes started piling up fast. First, in a speech to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Thompson congratulated Jews on being good at making money; "I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that. I enjoy that."

According to that report, "The remark caused some murmurs and disbelief in the room, according to some who were present." He ended his speech, someone talked to him, and he returned to the podium to apologize. He did it poorly.

"I just want to clarify something because I didn't in any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," he said. "What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion and the Jewish people. You have been outstanding businesspeople and I compliment you for that and if anybody took what I said wrong, I apologize. I may have mischaracterized it. You are very successful. I applaud you for that."

Congrats on being Jewish stereotypes! That's just awesome...

Thompson further blundered when he answered in a debate that, yes, he it would be fine for an employer to fire someone for being gay. As governor, Thompson had signed a first-in-the-nation anti-discrimination law that included gays. He later retracted the answer and blamed it on "a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom."

In the end, not a single person voted for Thompson. He dropped out after a poor showing in the Iowa straw poll and never even made it to the caucuses.

Runner up: Alan "I'll draft myself to run" Keyes.


Worst political ad
"Obama wants to teach sex ed to kindergarden students." This McCain ad mischaracterized a vote for a common sense, anti-predator bill that would require schools teach the difference between "good touching" and "bad touching" to kids and tell kids who to report pedophiles to. The McCain ad included this quote; "Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family."

It was an awful, awful lie. Awful because, as TIME's Joe Klein put it, "[McCain] is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics." But double-awful because it's a bad lie -- why on Earth would anyone want to teach sex ed to kindergardners? Just to be evil, I guess. Otherwise, what the hell would be the point? All in all, this sucked on many different levels -- including its eventual ineffectiveness. Only gullible morons believed it.

Runner up: Barack Obama wants babies to be hit by trains.


Biggest political surprise
Sarah Palin. No one guessed that McCain would select the Mayor of Santa's Village to become his running mate. She re-energized the Republican base, but quickly was exposed as an intellectual lightweight, a political opportunist, and a complete demagogue. McCain got a quick bounce in the polls after the selection -- at one point leading Obama slightly -- but it all went to hell when McCain's response to the economic crisis was to run around like a chicken with his head cut off, while Palin toured the country trying to convince everyone that Barack Obama was a terrorist.

Despite her popularity among Republican diehards -- Pat Buchanan, for example, has an almost literal hardon for her -- she quickly alienated everyone but the conspiracy theorists and racists she attracted. Some on the right believe she's the best hope for the glorious rebirth of the GOP and lefties everywhere can be thankful for that.

Runner up: Obama chooses Clinton as Secretary of State. Seriously, you would've never guessed that just months earlier.


Biggest relief
George W. Bush will really go away soon.

Seriously, do I have to explain this one?

Runner up: Dick Cheney will really go away soon.


Dead president of the year
Ronald Reagan. During the Republican primaries, candidates went to ridiculous lengths to out-Reagan each other -- going so far as staging one of the debates at Reagan's grave.

This turned out to be a bad idea when the market crash could be traced back to the philosophy of deregulation and Ronald Reagan became the only president to die twice; first as a man, then as an economic theory.

Runner(s) up (tie): Kennedy, Lincoln.


That's it. There are many more of these I could write, but it's hard to boil these down to just blurbs and neither of us wants to sit here all day. So long, 2008. It'll be hard to miss you.

-Wisco

Where Does Clinton Go From Here?

There are a lot of mixed messages out there about the future of the Clinton campaign. The dominant assessment is that this thing is over. In fact, Taegan Goddard helpfully collects six quotes from the punditry in a post titled, "It's Basically Over," at Political Wire.

Walter Shapiro writes at Salon, "Tuesday night was likely Clinton's last major window of opportunity in this race -- and despite her game face and spirited spin, she undoubtedly knows that it all but slammed on her fingers."

Huffington Post's Thomas Edsall says, "In the universe of political clichés, she is on life support, her oxygen choked off, her knees buckling, unable to stanch the bleeding, down for an eight count, on the ropes, praying for the bell to ring, desperate to get her wind back."

On MSNBC, Tim Russert told Keith Olbermann, "We now know who the democratic nominee is going to be and no one is going to dispute it."

Well, no one other than Clinton, anyway. She says she'll go on. But it's unlikely that she still sees a nomination as a realistic possibility. To go back to Goddard, he asks the question, What Does Hillary Want?

Despite most analysts declaring the Democratic presidential race "basically over," Sen. Barack Obama moves into a very uncomfortable phase of his campaign. He's essentially locked up the nomination but his main rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, is still in the race.

It reminds me of 1984 and 1988 when Jesse Jackson kept his White House bids alive all the way until the Democratic conventions. The question everyone asked all summer long was, "What does Jesse want?" He couldn't win, but he held enough power to be a voice at the table.

Goddard comes up with three possibilities -- Help retiring her campaign debt, a major policy win (dictating a plank for the party's platform), or input on the VP pick. Few seem to believe that the "dream ticket" of Obama/Clinton is anything other than a dream and Goddard seems to agree. His picks for a VP Clinton would like are "Sen. Evan Bayh or Gen. Wesley Clark." Of those two, I'd be extremely happy with Clark.

"It also means it won't be Bill Richardson," he says. Cool with me. I think Richardson would be wasted in that position anyway -- he's much more qualified to be Secretary of State, which is a more consequential position than understudy for the president.

You'll notice that one possibility of "what Hillary wants" Goddard didn't consider was seating Florida's and Michigan's delegations. There's a reason for that -- they wouldn't make any damned difference now. MSNBC's Domenico Montanaro ran the numbers and the sums weren't good for Hillary.

...if Florida and Michigan were seated as is and Obama got the uncommitted delegates in Michigan, Clinton would net an additional 32 delegates from Florida and 18 from Michigan -- for a total net of 50. So add those numbers into the current pledged delegate count and Obama still would lead in the pledged delegate count by more than 100, approximately 110 in fact. So let's use 110 as the baseline. For Clinton to overtake him in the pledged delegate lead using THEIR math on Florida and Michigan, she'd need to win 75% of all remaining delegates. That's an impossible task...

I think at this point Clinton knows she's out, but she knows she has leverage. She may have known that for some time. The most common belief is that she's looking to retire her debt, but that may be because of reports that she'd loaned her campaign millions -- they were all over the place yesterday.

Whatever it is that she wants, she should start talking about it now. There's no reason to think she has to limit her wishes to one thing. "[A] prompt withdrawal from the contest for the Democratic nomination offers Sen. Hillary Clinton the prospect of major rewards," writes Tom Edsall. And those "major rewards" are many.

In addition to having the Obama campaign pay off her debt (something he could easily afford -- McCain's still lagging in fundraising), Edsall says "the odds of her winning a top leadership spot in the Senate would improve dramatically if she gracefully conceded now."

While Clinton currently has her eye focused on only one thing, the presidential nomination, if she loses -- as appears increasingly likely -- her stature in the Senate will depend, in part, on whether she is ultimately seen as helping or hurting Obama's chances in November.

With an expanded Senate majority an almost sure bet for November, Clinton would find herself in a position to do a lot of good for her own causes if she were able to exert more leadership. But this is only true if there's a Democrat in the Oval Office. And there may be a way to do that, while remaining in the race and retiring her debt herself through fundraising -- by joining Obama in doubleteaming McCain.

"Clinton's status in the Democratic party will be enhanced if she finds a timely and honorable way to become a strong supporter of an Obama-led ticket in the general election," says Brookings scholar Tom Mann. "She can do that by remaining in the race but directing all of her campaign rhetoric against John McCain or by suspending her campaign immediately."

For herself, Clinton seems to have answered the question of "What Hillary wants." She's just not sharing that info. Lawrence O'Donnell reported a conversation he had with an unnamed "senior campaign official and Clinton confidante," who tried like hell to avoid telling him that Hillary was going to drop out -- and failed.

"He could not bring himself to say the words 'Hillary will drop out by June 15,' but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, 'So, Hillary will drop out by June 15,' and he kept saying, 'We will have a nominee by June 15.' He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is," O'Donnell writes. "Everything about our conversation implied that he had already had this reality-based discussion with Hillary."

Whatever the future holds for Team Hillary, it's clear the dream has died. But Clinton still has gas in the bus -- the campaign is still functioning, if hobbled by debt and impossibility. Where the bus is going is the question. There are a lot of options left for Clinton, many of them good, but the White House is not among them.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Democrat; primary; Obama; McCain; Indiana; North Carolina; Hillary Clinton can still get a lot out of this campaign, just not the White House

A Checkmate Move for Obama

It wasn't the best night for Hillary Clinton. In North Carolina, Barack Obama ate her lunch. In Indiana, she pulled out such a slim victory that the delegate count is likely to be a near tie. Team Clinton is saying "a win is a win," except it's not. Clinton's impossible quest for the Democratic nomination just got a little more impossible. Between the two states, Obama has widened his lead. Last night was a clear loss for Hillary.

It may be that money is what finally kills the Clinton campaign. They've been stiffing businesses on their bills and Clinton turned her Indiana victory speech into a pitch for cash. The Associated Press tells us, "Putting her money troubles into clearer focus, Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that she lent her campaign $6.4 million over the past month. Earlier this year, she gave her campaign $5 million."

"This has always been your campaign and this is your victory, because your support has meant the difference between winning and losing," Clinton said. "We can only keep winning if we’re able to keep competing against an opponent who does outspend us."

NBC's Mike Memoli reports, "She then asked supporters to visit her Web site, where visitors are greeted now with a message on the front page that asks supporters to donate $5."



For his part, Barack Obama used his North Carolina victory speech to take a swipe at Hillary's "big state" argument. And it was pretty much the first thing out of his mouth.

"I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton on her victory in the state of Indiana," Obama said. "And I want to thank the people of North Carolina for giving us a victory in a big state, a swing state, and a state where we will compete to win if I am the Democratic nominee for president of the United States." Had he been Homer Simpson, Barack Obama would've added, "In your face, Hillary!" It really was a clear slap at her argument.

I've been running a scenario in my head for a few days now and I think it might be a good idea. What I think Obama should do now is start acting as if he's already won the nomination. Clinton is a distraction at this point -- she'll need to win every remaining state by about 90% to overtake him in the popular vote. That's not going to happen.

So, what Obama needs to do is create a distraction of his own. It may seem a little arrogant, but he should put out a press release or leak a story that he's going to choose a running mate "in the next few weeks." It's an unusual move, but there's no law or rule that says you have to officially be the presumptive nominee to choose a VP candidate. At least, none that I can find.

What this would do is create an entirely new narrative for the media. Speculation over who Obama might choose would become a big story -- especially among the punditry, whose bread and butter is speculation. Whether or not it's a good idea to choose a running mate this far out would also become a story. In the meantime, Hillary becomes page three news.

It would also exacerbate Clinton's already evident fundraising troubles. If Obama looks like the nominee, donors would be less likely to waste their dollars on what looks like a lost cause.

Of course, "the next few weeks" is so open-ended that it's basically a statement of current fact. He wouldn't have to choose anyone any time soon -- he'd just state the obvious and lead the media down a different narrative arc. He's going to choose a running mate and he's going to do it "in the next few weeks," so why not come out and say it?

On the other hand, my scenario has downsides. As I've already pointed out, it'd seem pretty arrogant and plenty of people would point that out. It also doesn't feel real honest -- despite the fact that it'd be absolutely true -- and that's not the kind of campaign Obama's running. But something has to pound those final nails in Hillary's coffin and I can't think of anything that would do it so decisively. Many pundits are already casting the race as being between Obama and McCain, so a big chunk of the media is already there.

This would also be playing on Clinton's level. She's been playing the media like a harp. If you think back to earlier races, you see a pattern of manipulating expectations. Al Giordano played it out yesterday and nailed the way the primaries went. Unfortunately, it's too long to quote here (a quote that big would basically be theft), but there's nothing stopping you from going and reading it. I can sum it up, though.

First, the Clinton campaign leaks insane poll numbers to Drudge showing a huge victory for Obama. Those numbers get spread around on blogs until they're picked up by the media. Team Hillary has succeeded in setting expectations low. Drudge leaks some raw exit polling -- which, of course, is just as inaccurate -- that shows Obama kicking ass. Then, when the real numbers come in, everyone says Hillary did better than expected. This is how she spins losses into wins.

If Clinton's going to play the media like this, then so should Obama. If Hillary won't accept reality and leave the race, then Obama should kick her out. And I can't think of anything that would do that as well as casting her as an also-ran and choosing a running mate. As arrogant as that may seem, I'm pretty damned sure it would work.

Of course, he may not have to take things that far. There are noises that this thing is over.

Talking Points Memo:

We might just be on the verge of a big super-delegate break for Barack Obama, in the wake of his good showing last night. If so, that could bring this contest to a close fairly quickly.

George Stephanopoulos reported this morning that the Obama camp will be rolling out super-delegate endorsements "three, four, five at a time -- and this nomination will be locked up."

So the SDs may be ending this themselves very soon. But if that's not enough, if Hillary Clinton really is planning on taking this to the convention, then there's one way to put her behind Obama for good and all...

Make the running mate announcement, Barack. That'll end this.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; primaries; Democrat; North Carolina; Indiana; If Obama wants to put Hillary Clinton behind him, he should talk about a running mate and take over the media

Dead Campaign Walkin'

The end has begun. Tracking the dwindling odds that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic party nominee is "HIllary Deathwatch," at Slate. In the tradition of the Gonzo-Meter, which tracked the likelihood that disgraced then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would resign, Hillary Deathwatch promises to show Clinton's slow slide into primary defeat. The first post thursday wastes no time getting to the point.

Hillary Clinton is as good as dead. This became the consensus over the past week, when the media awoke en masse to the dual reality that 1) Clinton can't close the pledged-delegate gap and 2) Obama has her beat in the popular vote. But the Clinton campaign shows no signs of slowing -- she said herself she's prepared to compete for at least three more months. So the question now is not just "How dead is she?" but "When will she realize it?"

That first post put Clinton's chances at "a generous 12 percent," noting that "a Clinton campaign official gave her one-in-10 odds." By friday, thursday had become Clinton's halcyon days. Slate now puts her chances at 10.3%. This came after a few high profile Democrats came out and called on her to quit the race. Apparently, everyone but Team Clinton sees the danger of her becoming Hillary Rodham Nader, splitting the party and throwing away its chances in '08.

Already, polls show that a significant percentage of the voters of each camp would rather vote for McCain than the opponent in their own party. There's a word for the people who are actually sincere about this -- dumbasses. McCain would stay in a Iraq for a bazillion years and appoint right wing nuts ala Alito, Thomas, and Scalia to the Supreme Court. His economic policies are almost identical to Bush's. In fact, just about all of his policies are identical to Bush's. He would be Bush's third term. Sane people should be ready to vote for a cinderblock over John McCain. Neither a Clinton backer nor a Obama backer should vote for McCain out of pique.

Of course, there's a certain amount of petulance to those who say they'd commit party treason. The claim pegs my BS meters. Sure, some of these people actually are dumbasses, but I'd bet that most of them are just electoral bullies, trying to scare other voters into supporting their candidate. For these poll respondents, the claim is blackmail and an empty threat. I doubt it'll work.

Still, there is the danger that are enough of the truly dumbass to make a difference. And, if that's true, it's a sure bet that the candidate they'll screw will be Obama. Not only is it nearly impossible for Clinton to get the nomination at this point, but it's Clinton's voters who are most likely to jump ship. Gallup tells us:

A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination. This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters, more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.

As I said, Hillary Rodham Nader. The candidate who's supporters are most likely to throw away the next four years is the candidate most likely to lose. And that candidate is busy trying (and, thankfully, failing) to gain more supporters. This is beyond tenacity, this is brainlessness. It doesn't help things any when both Hillary and Bill actually praise McCain. Luckily, polls show this is costing her nationally.

To tell the truth, if I were Clinton's position, I'd probably still be in. Superdelegates aside, the majority of pledged delegates is 1,627. Obama has 1,415.5, Clinton has 1,253.5. If superdelegates didn't exist, there would be no definitive winner as of yet. But Clinton's in the position held by Mike Huckabee in the GOP process -- not eliminated, but with no chance of winning.

So, if I were in Clinton's position -- without a definitive loss, but not in a position to win -- I'd do something crazy like run against John Freakin' McCain. There's this place called "reality" and, no matter how much you think it sucks, you have to live there. In the twelve stages of grief, Team Clinton doesn't seem to be able to move on from denial -- although her claim that pledged delegates aren't really pledged suggests she's on the verge of the bargaining stage.

Hillary keeps saying that she's going all the way to the convention, but I have my doubts. Even candidates who have no hope from the gitgo always insist they're definitely going to win. It's just what you say. "We're going to quit soon," isn't a message anyone is going to send to their supporters. But my guess, based on nothing at all but common sense, tells me that Clinton will drop out when one of two things happen; 1) Obama hits that magic number of 1,627 pledged delegates, or 2) enough superdelegates come out for Obama to make a Clinton win impossible.

Until that happens, Clinton should lay off all this crap about how wonderful John Freakin' McCain is -- she sounds like Joe Lieberman. The winning Democratic strategy is to run against Bush. The winning message is that John McCain is George W. Bush. And Clinton's current message is extremely shortsighted -- if he's such a wonderful candidate now, how are you going to convince everyone he sucks in the 89.7% unlikely event that you wind up running against him? Clinton would be faced with a little bit of a consistency problem.

If Slate is right and Hillary's campaign is dying, she should make damned sure that the illness it's dying of isn't contagious. So far, prophylaxis doesn't seem to be a priority for her. Nor does the future of her campaign, her party, or her nation. Her dying candidacy is focused on only the moment, only on that next heartbeat. The dream is dead, but the candidacy lives on, without any future.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Democrat; Primary; Barack Obama; John McCain; Hillary Clinton, electoral zombie

OK, Now What?

Last night was a big night for Hillary Clinton. She won Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island. It started out good for Obama, with Vermont extending his winning streak to twelve in a row. Where there was a good chance that Clinton would would be thinking seriously about dropping out yesterday, there is apparently no chance of that now. But breaking Obama's winning streak is not winning in itself and Clinton still trails in the delegate count.

In other words, she's still losing. Obama has -- according to the New York Times -- 1,311.5 (?) total delegates, while Clinton has 1,211, including superdelegates. Clinton also suffers from Texas's incredibly stupid primary/caucus system. Where 2/3 of the delegates were assigned by the primary, a caucus that same night went to Obama. Since the vote was so close in the primary, Obama may take the majority of delegates. Like I say, it's an incredibly stupid system. I think it was designed by someone with a railroad spike in their head. As far as I can tell, no delegates have been officially assigned from that win.

Even with her string of wins last night, the math doesn't look very good for the Clintonistas.

Jonathan Alter, Newsweek (written before returns came in yesterday):

Hillary Clinton may be poised for a big night tonight, with wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Clinton aides say this will be the beginning of her comeback against Barack Obama. There's only one problem with this analysis: they can't count.

I'm no good at math either, but with the help of Slate’s Delegate Calculator I've scoped out the rest of the primaries, and even if you assume huge Hillary wins from here on out, the numbers don't look good for Clinton. In order to show how deep a hole she's in, I've given her the benefit of the doubt every week for the rest of the primaries.

In this statistical experiment, Alter gives her better numbers than she got in some contests. Clinton takes Ohio 55-45 (actual was 54-44), Rhode Island 55-45 (actual; 58-40), Texas 53-47 (actual; 51-47), and ties Vermont (actually Obama win; 60-38). Alter then goes on to give her Wyoming, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon... Well, everything. Clinton does not lose a single contest and all her wins are substantial. What are the results of winning every damned state there is left to win, complete with seating the delegates in Florida and Michigan?

So at the end of regulation, Hillary's the nominee, right? Actually, this much-too-generous scenario (which doesn't even account for Texas's weird "pri-caucus" system, which favors Obama in delegate selection) still leaves the pledged-delegate score at 1,634 for Obama to 1,576 for Clinton. That's a 58-delegate lead.

"So no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February," Alter writes. "Hillary would then have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people."

Perhaps, in this scenario that I can't help but call the Jonathan-Alternate Universe (sorry), she can manage to do this. The question is should she?

Democrats still have a bad taste in their mouth from 2000. Even if you believe that Bush won fair and square, no one disputes the fact that he lost the popular vote. Person by person, more people voted for Gore. Bush's first term was democracy denied, as the electoral college (never mind the Supreme Court) gave him the White House. Even if we ignore the election irregularities, even if we ignore the Supreme Court, even if we assume that a bunch of people in Miami meant to vote for Pat Buchanan and the butterfly ballots were clear and easy to use, Bush won on what can only be called a technicality and the will of the people was reversed.

If the Democratic nomination is given by the superdelegates to Clinton, despite the fact that Obama won the primaries, then many Democrats -- the majority, in fact -- will once again be left with a bad taste in their mouth. And all those new voters, those new Democrats that Obama has been bringing to the party, will get the message that the Democrats don't give a damn about them or their work. That the party is democratic in name only and that, if the establishment doesn't like their nominee, that nomination will be overturned. That everything they've done, all the organizing and new voter registration and phone banks were a sham -- no matter how hard you work and no matter how well your candidate does, they'll throw your ass out on the street if the establishment doesn't agree. The message will be that primaries didn't count for crap and neither did your vote. The message will be, "Thanks kid, now get the hell out."

And that helps the party and the nation how? Hillary may have won a few races last night, but not enough to make her frontrunner or even enough to make a future nomination possible. At least, not if we give a damn about the will of the people and democracy.

For the record, I don't see the superdelegate vote going contrary to the popular vote. Not only hasn't that been the history of this thing so far, but it's a pretty sure bet that their constituents won't like it. There's also the "coattails" factor to consider -- who's more likely to bring in the voters needed to widen majorities in the House and Senate, the people's nominee or the superdelegates'? You want those new Democrats to come back in November.

Clinton's continued campaign is a loser. She won't be the nominee and she isn't helping the party anymore. I don't know if she feels entitled to the nomination or what, but there really isn't any reason for her to continue. The battle last night was won, but the war was lost weeks ago.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Democrat; Barack Obama; primary; Hillary Clinton won Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, but how is she supposed to win the nomination?

Aiding the Enemy

Woo-hoo! It's Super Tuesday! In fact, this tuesday is more than just Super -- it's Super Duper Tuesday! Whee!

Even with 22 states up for grabs, neither of the Democratic candidates are likely to deliver the knockout punch tonight and claim the nomination. Both candidates are likely to claim gains and promise supporters to carry on the fight.

Republicans, however, are likely to wake up tomorrow with a candidate. And, if that happens, the candidate will be John McCain. If the dems are smart, they'll turn this into a disadvantage for McCain, with each competing for the title of "Candidate Who Believes John Sucks the Most." The latest polling I could find shows McCain losing to either Democrat at this point, but knocking him back a couple two, three points can't hurt any. Better safe than sorry.

The problem with John McCain is that the rightest of the right hates him. I can't figure it out. Given a choice between John McCain and Mitt Romney, they seem to prefer Mittens by a wide margin -- despite the fact that Romney's history is much more liberal than McCain's. Go figure.

"[If McCain gets the nomination,] it's going to destroy the Republican Party, it's going to change it forever, be the end of it," Rush Limbaugh recently told his audience. "A lot of people aren't going to vote." Looking at the turnout in the primaries, a lot of Republicans aren't going to vote anyway. In the eyes of the average conservative, it seems safe to say that the candidates are viewed as different and unique brands of suck.

One thing that's been killing McCain with the right wing talk crowd has been the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. I think it's probably more of a case of having his name forever attached to Russ Feingold's than any real problem with that law. If we go look at the cosponsors of the bill, we find that some heroes of the right signed on -- Fred Thompson, Zell Miller, and Joe Lieberman. Voting for the bill were also Richard Lugar, Pete Domenici, Arlen Specter, and Ted Stevens.

Clearly, there are a lot of stealth liberals on the right.

The fact of the matter is that, right at this moment, John McCain is their best hope to gain the White House. The latest poll I saw, from CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, shows that either Romney or McCain are losers, but that Romney is the bigger loser. In a head to head match-up between McCain and Obama, Obama wins 52% to 44%. Against Clinton, McCain loses 47% to 50% (dems concerned with electability, pay attention to those numbers).

On the other hand, Romney gets his ass handed to him in either race. He loses to Obama 36% to 59% and to Clinton 41% to 56%. If the GOP wants to lose, then Mittens Romney is their man. Kind of makes you wish he were doing better in his quest to buy the White House.

Right now, we're hearing a lot of people say that a vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain. There are two problems with this. One, it's complete BS -- a vote for Huckabee is a vote for Huckabee. There isn't some mechanism that automatically gives peoples' votes to Romney. Two, it doesn't make any damned difference. Gallup shows McCain 45%, Romney 25%, and Huckabee 17% nationally. Do the math. If every single Huckabee voter switches to Romney, it's still not enough. And that's nearly impossible. In order for Romney to be put over the top, he'd also have to get all the Ron Paul voters (4%, which is impossible) or a good share of the undecideds who poll at 9%.

In other words, Mitt Romney is doomed electorally, as much as I might wish otherwise. It was Giuliani that I'd hoped the GOP would nominate, but I'd settle for the ridiculous Mittens Romney. At this point, I'm feeling pretty confident of a dem win, but a landslide would be nice.

And, to go back to my hope for a dem strategy of two against McCain, the right wing talkers have already laid the groundwork. In order to get a talking head job on the right, I think you might take some sort of test to prove you're not a deep thinker. For example, in a blatantly empty threat, Ann Coulter promised to campaign for Clinton if McCain is nominated. According to the report, when Hillary was asked about this, she "responded with a laugh and a cough." As much as she might want to convince everyone she's tremendously influential, Coulter's not. If she were, Duncan Hunter -- who she'd originally endorsed -- would be a front runner now. Ann Coulter's endorsement had absolutely zero impact on this race.

But the right wing punditocracy as a whole just may. The attacks on McCain have been unrelenting. And stupid. The demand for ideological purity has actually put a phony like Mitt Romney above a conservative senator with a long and distinguished career. In a triumph of knee-jerk reactionary fervor over reason, they'd rather have a candidate who can't possibly be elected than one who actually has a slim chance.

Right wing radio nut Melanie Morgan has helpfully collected a few quotes from fellow shallow thinkers in the yack industry. "... I have to say that I fear a McCain candidacy. He would be an exceedingly poor choice as the Republican nominee for president," says Mark Levin.

"He is an expert at filibustering and he is an expert at crooked talk. He talks a smooth game about how, of course, he supports our immigration laws but at the same time John McCain's embrace of his immigration advisor Juan Hernandez is giving conservatives heartburn. Hernandez had served as a Mexican cabinet official under Vicente Fox where he worked diligently to do nothing but undermine sovereignty and our laws," complains Michelle Malkin.

"Republicans who vote for McCain are trying to be cute, like the Democrats were four years ago by voting for the ‘pragmatic’ candidate, Vietnam vet John Kerry," says the aforementioned Coulter. "This will turn out to be precisely as clever a gambit as nominating Kerry was, the brilliance of which was revealed on Election Day 2004."

Once McCain gets the nom, are these people going to pull a 180 and start saying that John McCain's Reagan, Lincoln, and Jesus all rolled into one? If so, who would believe them now?

Another possibility is that they'll become pragmatic and say, "OK folks, he's what we're stuck with now. We need to support him against [insert dem candidate here]." In which case, half-hearted support is as good as no support or even opposition.

The third is Coulter's threat -- actually backing the dem candidate. I don't see this happening and, even if it does, I don't think it'd make a difference either way. Most people would see it as a stunt. But the fact remains that these righties have trained their fans to hate John McCain. If the Democratic candidates start making anti-McCain arguments in favor of their own prospects, those right wing voters will be open to those arguments.

If Limbaugh and Morgan and Coulter wake up after election day to a new Democratic president-elect, they won't have to ask themselves, "How did this happen?"

They'll have those smoking holes in their shoes to remind them.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; primary; Super Tuesday; Republican; John McCain; Mitt Romney; Mike Huckabee; Ron Paul; Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama; Ann Coulter; Rush Limbaugh; Melanie Morgan; Michelle Malkin; media; Will right wing talk do Democrats a big favor?

Dealing From the Bottom of the Deck

Obama and Clinton tie for delegates in Florida. 0 for Obama, 0 for Clinton.
--Email sent by the Obama campaign to news organizations yesterday

I picked that quote up from Chris Cillizza's Washington Post blog, The Fix, published last night. In that post, Cillizza wondered what this means for Clinton.

Of course, the networks have declared Clinton the winner, and she is scheduled to make a stop in the state shortly to thank her supporters.

So, does her win mean anything? Will it give her a boost -- even a slight one -- heading into Feb. 5?

You could really give one of two answers, but the truth is probably a combination of both. Florida had been stripped of its delegates as a punishment for pushing their primary up before Super Tuesday, so in that sense, Hillary's win is meaningless.

But Camp Clinton really needs a win. She hasn't definitively won a real contest yet. New Hampshire was a tie and Nevada was actually a loss -- at least, in terms of delegates. In terms of morale building and keeping donors on board, she can claim the win and break it down as a real world test in the broadly diverse state of Florida. Hell, that's what I'd do.

On the other hand, candidates were barred from campaigning there. Which means no ads, no personal appearances, no making their cases to the people of the Sunshine State. The results in Florida can also be spun as a leftover from Hillary's high poll numbers prior to the real world tests of the other primaries and caucuses. Florida can easily be seen as being frozen in time.

Actually, there's a third, darker answer. One that's making dem insiders very unhappy and one that suggests that a desperate Hillary Clinton is willing to compete on an unlevel playing field. That she wants to change the rules in the middle of the game and change the otherwise meaningless "beauty contests" of Michigan and Florida into delegate-earning wins.

Clinton flew in to celebrate the results and, after the obligatory thanks to voters, got right down to it.

HillaryClinton.com [emphasis mine]:

I could not come here to ask in person for your votes, but I am here to thank you for your votes today. This has been a record turnout because Floridians wanted their voices to be heard on the great issues that affect our country and the world. I am thrilled to have had this vote of confidence that you have given me today, and I promise you I will do everything I can to make sure not only are Florida's Democratic delegates seated, but Florida is in the winning column for the Democrats in 2008.

That's right, she wants to take a moral victory and turn it into an actual victory.

Look, I think Florida and Michigan are getting a raw deal, too. Both states have proven more important to Democrats than any of the previous primary states. It may be time to look at assigning primary dates based on which states were the most contested in the last elections -- purple states first, red and blue states last. This way, the contested states would have more say in the final nominee than states that aren't as likely to be competitive. But that's another post and that's not the case now.

The case now is that all the candidates signed a pledge not to compete in these states. For Hillary to take advantage of that to try to get these delegates seated at the convention is grossly unfair. John Nichols writes in The Capital Times, "Hillary Clinton has decided to rewrite the rules of the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination."

Like other candidates, she pledged not to campaign in Florida after the state jumped ahead on the schedule of caucuses and primaries set by the Democratic National Committee. She had to make that pledge if she hoped to compete in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses and the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary, as Iowa and New Hampshire zealously guard their starting status on the political calendar.

But Iowa and New Hampshire are history, and after a landslide loss in South Carolina on Saturday, Clinton needs a win.

Add to this that the Kennedy clan has come out for Obama -- practically saying he's JFK reincarnated -- and Clinton is in a tight spot. And this tight spot has caused her to turn to what can only be described as political bottom-feeding. In another Nichols' piece for The Nation, we're told an instructive story about the Michigan primary:

A remarkable 40 percent of Michiganders who participated in the primary voted for nobody, marking the "Uncommitted" option on their ballots. Another 4 percent backed Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who brought his anti-war, anti-corporate campaign to Michigan and made some inroads among Muslim voters in the Detroit area and liberals in Washtenaw County -- where he was taking almost 10 percent.

Clinton was the only leading candidate on the Michigan ballot and she only pulled 55% of the vote -- a fairly close second went to "uncommitted." There's no way, with that massive advantage she had, that you could say the final tally was representative of Michigander sentiments. Yet Clinton wants Michigan delegates seated as well.

Clinton claims that she's speaking up for these disenfranchised primary voters. But here's an interesting thought experiment; do you really believe that Hillary would be pushing to have them seated at the convention if she didn't actually win those primaries? Answer that honestly and I'm pretty sure your answer will be "no." Clinton's concern is less about these disenfranchised voters and more about Hillary Clinton. This strikes me as a little more than short-sighted. If Hillary gets the nom, her win will leave a bad taste in a lot of peoples' mouths. Nichols' TCT piece is as almost-angry as I've ever seen the normally level-headed midwesterner write (it's titled "Clinton embraces Florida, insults Wisconsin").

...it's really nothing more than the latest political gambit from a Clinton campaign that is developing a reputation for playing fast and loose with the rules. If she wins big in the Sunshine State and then succeeds in qualifying delegations from Michigan and Florida for the convention, the senator will get the bulk of the close to 350 delegates from the two states. That's more than what Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina combined will send to the convention.

No wonder Hillary Clinton is laughing all the way to the Florida primary.

This is using the other candidates' honesty against them. These people agreed to abide by the pledge -- they may not have liked it, but Edwards and Obama gave their word.

And so did Hillary Clinton. Edwards is out now, but Obama is still in -- and is the candidate with a full head of steam, at this point. Hillary justifies her embrace of Florida voters by twisting the facts to make it seem as if Obama had broken his promise and campaigned in Florida. Her website reads, "This result comes after Senator Obama ran TV commercials that reached Florida homes and after the enormous publicity he received for South Carolina and for the Ted Kennedy endorsement."

They may have "reached Florida homes," but they were broadcast in SC for S. Carolinians. They would've reached very few Floridian homes and Clinton's ads would've done the same -- neither can be blamed for not controlling the way the electromagnetic spectrum works in the universe. Blame that on the Intelligent Designer the flatearthers believe in.

As I say, this sort of thing is going to leave a bad taste in a lot of peoples' mouths. And a lot of those people are backing Obama. If she wins the nomination, they'll likely vote for her, but won't be shy about opposing the causes of President H. Clinton. She'll start off with an unfriendly relationship with the voters she'll later need to lobby for her. That seems like a really bad idea, resulting in what could be a Pyrrhic victory.

In the battle for the White House, we should be careful that we don't lose the war. A Democratic president who doesn't have the trust of Democrats could find herself viewed as an impediment, not an asset. People who vote for the lesser of two evils aren't likely to forget that they chose an evil.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; primary; 2008; Democrat; Michigan; Florida; Obama; Hillary Clinton unlevels the playing field