April 2008 Archives

You can read about the polls, the ads, the closing arguments, and the speculation elsewhere today. I think most of that will be answers to trivia questions sooner than later. Not that there's anything wrong with political trivia.

I wanted to talk about my impressions of where we are in the campaign so far and how we got here. I can't say so much about where we go from here because, well, crystal balls turn to broken glass so easily.

Emotion beats Logic
It's been said that there are two kinds of candidates: those that want to run the government and those that want to lead the nation. The former relies on technical descriptions of how they'll succeed; the latter relies on inspirational messages that describe the way to success. And while everyone likes to say they read the policy papers and they like to say they use Ben Franklin's list of pro's and con's when making an informed decision, even old Ben knew this fundamental thing about human nature: emotion moves people more than facts ever will. Facts and issues are important; but only insofar as they invoke a positive (or negative) emotion about a candidate or their party.

Future beats Past
I was intrigued by McCain's response to Elizabeth Edwards' when she pointed out McCain's "inconsistent" views on government health care by saying that McCain had been on government health care his entire life. McCain shot back (paraphrasing): "Not while I was in that prison camp, I wasn't." I repeated the line to Miss Julie who actually teared up briefly thinking about it. I was taken aback, but then I realized that the core of McCain's campaign is...McCain. Or rather his personal narrative -- his triumph over severe adversity for so many years. (Of course, his campaign narrative pretty much ends with him emerging miraculously from the Hanoi Hilton. But it still packs quite a punch).

That said, Hillary Clinton will not have an easy time dealing with McCain's narrative. The best she's been able to come up with so far is to say (paraphrasing): "Senator McCain has crossed the Commander in Chief threshold and so have I."

"Me, too" is not exactly a winning message.

On the other hand, Barack Obama's narrative packs as much of a punch as McCain's -- and for a lot more people. How so? The median age of voters in 2008 is 44. This means there are far more voters for whom the Vietnam War is a dim memory (at most). To them, McCain is like a character out of the history books already. His best days are behind him -- which is why McCain's campaign narrative usually ends with him emerging miraculously from the Hanoi Hilton. So McCain's narrative is about the past.

Obama's narrative is about the future -- a future where American hegemony is faltering, where global competion from India and China is ramping up, where we find ourselves living in a world where our friends are divided and our enemies, united -- against us. Obama represents a fundamental American approach to this reality: "Yes, we can." Yes we can rise to the occasion, yes we can meet the challenge, yes we can do it. He is saying that we are moving into an unknown future but we can persevere just as our forebears did under similarly difficult circumstances.

It is a forward thinking message, not one that tries to build a bridge to the past. Bob Dole, another old man with an inspirational message rooted in the past, tried to cross the backwards-bridge to electoral victory and and failed. He was defeated by Bill Clinton who said, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow."

P.S. Hillary's problem is that, ironically, her narrative is also backward-looking: "Party like it's 1999." And, because of that, I'll be surprised if she wins the nomination, let alone the election.

Hope beats Fear
Democrats usually discount the role of emotion in moving voters, saying they didn't want to "be like Rove" or they don't want to be "a kool-aid drinking Obamatron" or some such nonsense. What Dems have a hard time "getting" is that hope is also an emotion. And it is one that comes with a built-in advantage. After all, it was one of our best and most successful candidates once said, "If one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you hope." Gosh, even Ronald Reagan understood that, which is one reason so many Democrats voted for him.

Summary
I have no idea what comes next in the campaign and neither does anyone else. But I like our chances.

by shep

Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist, Geoff Garin actually said on Meet the Press that, ”[t]here’s an analogy with what happened in November 2000.”

Yes there is and Hillary Clinton is on the wrong side of that analogy. It’s the one where the candidate with fewer votes insisted on contesting the race long past when he should have conceded to the winning candidate. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in 2008 is the year 2000 general election’s George W. Bush.

But Hillary’s got no backstop, no ace in the hole. There’s no conservative majority of the Supreme Court to give Hillary Clinton the office she hasn’t won on her own merits. She stands only to divide and trash the Democratic Party, again, to the nation’s peril.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

by shep

TPM reports that “John McCain's campaign has sent out a fundraising e-mail warning recipients that Hamas is rooting for Barack Obama.”:

"Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," the e-mail says. "Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, 'We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America.'"

So, apparently, the only people left who don’t want Obama to win the election are Republicans…and Hillary Clinton supporters. Or is that now a distinction without a difference?.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

by shep

"Asked whether his background as a political operative had resulted in too much of a focus on electability and on the candidates' handling of media ‘scandals,’ [George] Stephanopoulos said:

‘You can't help but be shaped by your experience,' but he added: 'I don't think it's unique to me. This is a conversation that Democrats and some Republicans are having every single day. It's not only, who will be the best president, but who has the best chance of winning.’"

A naturalist goes into the forest one day because of his concern about the health and future of the ecosystem. He comes upon a deer in a clearing, which doesn’t immediately run away, so he pulls out a gun and shoots it dead. Asked why the man killed the deer he replied, “I was worried about whether it would survive.”

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

by shep

So now that liberal bloggers, not-so-liberal bloggers, columnists, media critics and everyman commenters have all agreed that last night’s Democratic Debate, moderated by the anchors of both ABC news and This Week, was an unqualified trainwreck of public discourse, rivaled only by January’s Democratic debate, moderated by the anchors of NBC News and Meet the Press, what is a sentient, concerned citizen to do?

Semi-sentient Republican gasbags who, by now, shouldn’t be allowed to be near pens or keyboards, say we can’t even complain about having our political discourse rendered into nonsensical irrelevancy:

"We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.”

And really, what good would it do? Rational, intelligent non-partisans have been complaining for years about the Russerts, Mathewses and Stephanopoli, to no avail. Grand, Exalted Corporate Pooh-bas have determined that these empty-headed poufs deserve to be paid millions of dollars for their predictable inanity. And since all four network news programs, the two major cable news networks and all of the Sunday gasbag roundtable programs comprise the same unrelenting horror show of out-of-touch, self-important pinheads, how will they be proved wrong since the viewers have nowhere else to go?

I don’t have any answers to these questions, I just know that our Fourth Estate is hopelessly trashed and that everything must go.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

Condi Rice is being touted as a credible pick for John McCain's VP.

But I think it might be a better idea (for her own sake) to resign and get a really good lawyer. And not travel abroad any time soon.

Watch the video and then sign the petition at Condi Must Go!

Screw the bowling thing: Obama's got game.

Bryant Gumbel, of HBO's Real Sports, interviews Barack Obama on how basketball has impacted his life. Includes footage of Obama in a pickup game with some servicemen (and one amazingly muscular woman) at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Obama's team wins with the Senator getting 5 points, 4 assists, 2 turnovers, a block and a steal.

by shep

Let it be recorded that on April 15, 2008, Comedy Central’s Daily Show spent more time on the recently revealed fact that the Vice President of the United States and all of the top cabinet officials of the Bush Administration repeatedly met in secret, in the White House, and conspired to break federal and international law to specify how unconvicted detainees of the United States would be tortured by US government agents, than all of the three major broadcast network news organizations combined, since the story broke four days ago.

Now I understand that one of the jobs of the Court Jester, during Medieval times, was to reveal the criticisms of the day to the King’s Court which could never be spoken by its sycophants. But, in the 21st Century democracy that is the world’s sole superpower, has its once-vaunted network television press completely and shamelessly abdicated its role to inform the public of what serves the public interest to cable comedy faux news shows? The answer is, apparently, yes. Well done, Brian Williams, Charles Gibson and (this says it all, really) Katie Couric. You are a miserable failure to your country.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

I recently found this video produced by the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau. It came with this message -- pass it along!

Hello all.

Hope all is well on your end. We're hoping to crack consciousness on YouTube as part of our ongoing efforts to promote the New Orleans renaissance. Tourism is fundamental to NOLA, encompassing pretty much everything we're about - from cultural preservation to necessary economics - responsible for about 35% of the city's operating budget and over 100,000 jobs. Tourism is at about 80% of pre-Katrina levels right now.

All is splendid right now with Festival Season in full swing, cool, breezy days, and azaleas, sweet olive, Japanese magnolia and jasmine painting the city with an explosion of color and scents. But summer's coming and things slow down a bit. We want to fully leverage the great spring activities to generate momentum through the year. Appreciate you forwarding this link along to one person. More is icing.

Don't forget to allow us to return the favor. We're good like that.

Thanks!

Pass it along! And gitcha' ass down ta New Orleans -- there's nothin like it, baby!

I was talking to a friend this morning about the difference between the two parties when I said that one party believes in one-dollar-one-vote; the other believes in one-person-one-vote. His response was "Get real. They're both the party of money."

In reality, it goes way beyond that.

Case in point: have you ever contemplated just how much money the US government spends on private contractors? The numbers are astronomical -- and getting bigger all the time. Business is, as they say, good. Very good.

It's clear to me that the Republicans are on the cutting edge of this: their business plan, their dream if you will, is to cut taxes to zero and send home all the government employees. Then borrow the money necessary (from China and Saudi Arabia) to hire the private contractors who will provide the "appropriate" government functions. These corporations will be answerable, of course, to their shareholders who will get guidance from the annual report and the amount of profit that the corporation is able to produce.

Don't laugh: we're closer to that than most people think. It's already how we provide health care to (most of) our citizens, if by "care" you mean paying ever-escaling premiums for a shrinking base of coverage. After all, no company can stay in business unless it makes a profit, right? And the best way to make more profits is to increase revenue and cut expenses. You don't have to be an "elitist" to know that.

Pretty soon, Social Security will become privatized, too. Don't give your money to the government! That's a Ponzi scheme. Invest it in the stock market -- I hear Bear Sterns is offering a pretty good return on your investment.

National security? Blackwater is the coming paradigm for that. Do you realize how many private contractors are packing heat in Baghdad?

All this fuss and bother about the "unitary executive?" Nonsense. The US government is merely recognizing reality: that there is a "better way" of running things. The corporate way. One dollar one vote.

The Ownership Society: One dollar one vote. Or more precisely, one share one vote. Better yet: ten thousand shares ten thousand votes.

The worst part, of course, is that the US Constitution is a meaningless piece of paper at that point. How -- and whether or not -- you vote has become a trivia question for nostalgia buffs.

No wonder the majority of people don't vote. No wonder the majority of people think there is no difference between the candidates. No wonder people don't think anyone cares about them.

But -- god knows -- people are not bitter. And real people don't think they are.

Only brie-eating, latte-sipping, volvo-driving, white wine drinking, anti-corporate communist elitist liberals would make the mistake of thinking -- or saying -- that.

First of all, Clinton and McCain know Obama's right -- and so does everyone else, including the pampered poodles of the press.

That said, we have a choice: we can continue (god help us) to obsess on which candidates are "elite" and which ones aren't; and while we do, the dollar continues to tank, the war goes on, and we continue to borrow a billion dollars a day to buy imported oil. Or we can blow off this meaningless crap and pull together and try to fix what's really wrong with this country.

If you think that's impossible, or (worse yet) improbable, then you're bitter and cynical.

Present company excluded of course. [insert smiley face here]

by shep

So ABC News breaks the story on April 11, 2008: ”It's revealed yesterday that the top officials in our Government, with the knowledge and approval of the President of the United States, planned, down to the detail, how the U.S. would illegally torture detainees.”

And their lead story on April 12, 2008 is: the out-of-context sentence by Barack Obama:”So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

(For anyone who isn’t a partisan asshole or obsequies establishment mouthpiece, the quote in its entirety): “But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

So where does the breaking news that President George W. Bush approved as his Vice President, Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Secretary of State, Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft sat around in the White House and directed the violation of federal and international law in directing the specific, serial torture techniques to be used on un-convicted US detainees appear? Nowhere. That information was disappeared, just as the detainees were in US/CIA government hands.

[Cross-posted At Dispassionate Liberal]

So Hillary Clinton and John McCain attack Obama for saying folks are angry and bitter in Pennsylvania. But Obama's response was spot-on:

“...[F]or 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens.

And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you.

[Applause]

And so people end up -- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.

So I made this statement-- so, here’s what rich. Senator Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’

“Out of touch? Out of touch? [Laughter, applause] I mean, John McCain—it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch?

[Applause]

Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch?

[Applause]

No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed-up.

[Standing O]

They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America. [Cheering]”

He's right. Not only that -- he called it the way he saw it, speaking from the heart. And/But he'll pay a price for saying it. But there it is.

Elizabeth Edwards has gotten a lot of notice recently for her high-profile writing on the topic of health care mandates; the press short-hands it as "Elizabeth backs Hillary's plan" or some such. I don't know if there's an endorsement in the cards (I doubt it, but who knows?).

I will say this: I just don't like health care mandates. Yes, mandates work with car insurance but people get tickets and have their license taken away if they are scofflaws. I don't know of a similar set of penalties that could or would work for health care. Besides, maybe it just is what it is: people love cars more than they love...people. I dunno.

Anyway, I'm skeptical of mandates. I don't think it'll work and I think the so-called subsidies for those who can't afford the premiums won't nearly be enough. Massachusetts' subsidy fund is massively in the red -- and that's with only 7% compliance with the mandates. That's not good.

Then there's the whole problem of insurance versus care. As Michael Moore correctly points out, just because you're insured doesn't mean you get the care you need -- not from a for-profit insurance company anyway.

Eugene says it best, at the end of a great analysis of Edwards' plan:

If Elizabeth can reconfigure her thinking on health care, and come to see ... that we need to guarantee affordable access to health care to everyone - then she will be on the right path. And it won't be a path that involves mandated insurance.

What do you think?

by shep

John McCain’s 100 (or 10,000 or a million) years comments (and now an attempt at damage control by the GOP noise machine) are generating quite a bit of buzz, for good reason. They expose several candidacy-breaking problems for McCain.

First, it makes him look like the warmonger he appears to be in his heart. Coupled with his pre-9/11 agitation to invade Iraq, along with the likes of Joe Lieberman, Bill Kristol and the rest of neoconservative cabal, and his now well-telegraphed desire to attack Iran, it seems as though a president McCain won’t be satisfied unless he is attempting to conquer every Middle East country that pisses him off. Given the desiccated state of The War Powers Act and wild expansion of executive power under George Bush, there’s no reason to believe that he couldn’t send the entire region up in flames, cutting off the flow of ME oil and sending the world into economic and social collapse.

Second, his attempt to control the damage by suggesting that he means an indefinite US military occupation without any US casualties, creates new and troubling questions: 1) when will the clock start on this 100 years of peaceful Middle East occupation (In other words, how much longer does he intend to police the simmering civil war in Iraq, losing soldiers and mortgaging our future to the Chinese - he also claims to intend to cut more taxes?), 2) if he doesn’t have an answer to that question, why should anyone accept the premise that we will achieve a peaceful presence there at all and 3) by comparing future Iraq to American troop presence in Germany, Japan or North Korea, he demonstrates a deep, fundamental misunderstanding of history, military history and geopolitics that destroys his argument that his experience qualifies him above the other candidates. He has literally lived long yet still learned nothing.

Third, the one thing we must do to defuse the continuing global damage to American prestige and the jihadists ability to recruit thousands more terrorists dedicated to killing Americans is the exact opposite of McCain’s “100 year” statements, namely, announce that the official policy of the United States is the complete, unilateral and unconditional withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq. Until that becomes official US policy, it will be presumed by practically everyone that the US lied to the world and intended all along to permanently occupy Iraq for oil and Israel, just as many have suspected.

None of these things change the basic facts on the ground and, for that matter, little we can do will change them for the good because we do not control the situation. But what we say does matter and, in the long run, the stated plan to leave Iraq along with the beginning steps of that operation will put the matter squarely in the hands of Iraqis and their neighbors. They have even more at stake in securing some peaceful resolution for the disaster we have created as we withdraw but little motivation to do so as long as we can keep a lid on their conflict with US lives, even as they suck us dry to the tune of billions of dollars a month. As long as US leaders claim that our intention is to stay there virtually forever, Iraq will continue to claim our blood, our treasure, our moral standing and our future.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

It's incidents like this that make the New Hampshire primary worth the price of admission every four years. On January 3, 2008, John McCain (flanked by Joe Lieberman) waded into a quagmire that now threatens to bring his candidacy to defeat.

Audience member: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years --

McCain: Maybe a hundred. We've been in South Korea, we've been in Japan for sixty years, we've been in S. Korea for fifty years or so. That would be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed...

Since then, Sen. Obama has said, time and again, that McCain supports a 100 year war in Iraq. [Note: Obama was being charitable -- at one point McCain actually said " 'a thousand years' or 'a million years,' as far as he was concerned"].

McCain has responded, time and again, saying he would only stay 100 years in a Korea/Japanese style occupation, e.g., as long as US servicemen were not being killed. Of course, he later repudiated that comparison -- then took it up again. But I digress...

McCain, Iraq, 100 years -- as long as there are no casualties, no wounded, no KIA. It begs the question: if US servicemen continue to be killed in Iraq, the 100 years will be pushed back ... but for how long? In other words, when does this 100 year occupation begin?

Much to his credit, beefy first baseman Chris Matthews actually asks this question about 5:20 into the following video (transcript below):

Chris Matthews: "John McCain says we will stay there 100 years without getting shot at. When does that commence?"

Pete Hegseth, Exec. Dir. Vets for Freedom: "That's if we have an Iraqi government that can do the vast majority of the fighting out front."

Matthews: "Well, when does this 100 years begin?"

Hegseth: "It's already begun. And 100 years -- that statement is misconstrued over and over and over again."

Matthews: "No, that's not what he said...He said 100 [years] without casualties. I'm just wondering when we start not getting casualties."

[Hegseth bows his head and snickers.]

Matthews: "That's not funny."

Hegseth: "No, it's not. But it's not talking about leaving without any casualties."

Matthews: "He said no casualties, no wounded, no KIA."

McCain is caught in a losing proposition -- and he knows it. No matter how often McCain claims Obama is distorting what he said, it doesn't matter. In fact, the longer he fights back the worse it gets (ironic, no?)

By fighting back, McCain simply continues to strengthen the bond between three words that may eventually destroy his candidacy: McCain, Iraq, 100 years.

Look for Gen. Petraeus to annoint Iran as the enemy of Iraq's political reconciliation today when he testifies before Congress.

Is Iran really helping Sadr (translation: "the bad guys") and hurting the US and its proxy Maliki? In a word, no. The reality isn't hard to grasp:

• The truth is that the Maliki government and its allied Shiite faction, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI, formerly known as SCIRI), are much closer to Iran than the Sadrists are.
• Maliki's campaign against Sadr isn't a noble crusade by the good Iraqi government against the bad Iranian-backed Sadrists, but a battle waged by a weak Shiite leader backed by one militia, ISCI's Badr Corps, against another, stronger Shiite leader, Sadr, with his own militia, the Mahdi Army.
• Not only that, the "good" militia, the Badr Corps, was created in Iran by Iran's Revolutionary Guard -- the same organization whose Quds Force the United States notoriously declared to be a "terrorist organization" last year.
• The maraschino cherry on this sundae of absurdity: It was the head of that Quds Force, an Iranian general, who bailed out Maliki after Maliki's assault on Basra ignominiously failed, forcing him to send officials to Iran to broker a truce.

Strategically, the surge has failed; it's been 15 months and we're still trapped between warring factions with no exit strategy in sight. Meanwhile, our army is being ground down and we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars to produce a fundamentalist Islamic state in Iraq. No wonder 80% of Americans think this country is on the wrong track.

Lawrence O'Donnell is the next best thing we have to Aaron Sorkin writing for The West Wing. In the following excerpt of a longer piece, Four Days in Denver from New York magazine, O'Donnell imagines what the scene would be like when the party elders approach Barack Obama to join a unity ticket with Hillary Clinton -- as VP.

CUT TO:
Obama suite. Dean and the leadership are meeting with Barack and Michelle Obama.

Barack: But I have the lead in delegates, the lead in—
Reid: We know. We just think a unity ticket is the only way we can—
Michelle: Why should the guy in the lead take the VP slot?
Reid: We—
Barack: Because you already asked Hillary to take VP and she said no?

Dean: We haven’t exactly asked her that yet, but if we could tell her you’re ready to accept the vice-presidential nomination …
Barack: No.
Reid: Barack, if this goes to a second ballot, all hell could break loose.
Barack: No.
Dean (pointing to Gore on Larry King): You know Gore’s gonna make a move if we get to a second ballot. You really think you can hang on to all your delegates then?
Barack shoots a worried look at Gore on TV.
Joe Biden: You ran a strong campaign, amazing campaign, but it wasn’t strong enough to win you the nomination. I’m sure most of your delegates love you, but conventions are about picking winners. And if we get to a second ballot and all the delegates are free to vote for whoever is looking like a winner (points to Gore), that guy’s gonna pick off delegates from both sides and you and Hillary might end up fighting for the VP slot on a Gore ticket.

Now Michelle looks worried. Barack and Michelle have already talked about this. They thought they had made a decision, but this is the real decision point, and Michelle’s supportive nod to Barack says that it’s all up to him.

Barack: Michelle and I need the room for a minute.

Everyone scurries out of the room. The entire leadership of the Democratic Party waits in the hotel hallway as the Obamas discuss the choice: Go for broke or settle for VP. Settle? What first-term senator has ever had the choice of settling for VP? What black American has ever had the choice of settling for VP?

Michelle: I don’t have to be First Lady.
Barack: Tell me something I don’t know.
Michelle: Second Lady could be fun.
Barack (smiles): We get a big house, a big plane, plenty of time to help the kids with their homework.
Michelle (seriously): And another chance to run for president. (beat) Your call.
Barack: Flip a coin?

CUT TO:
Hotel hallway. Barack opens the door to the suite, looks at Dean and the rest of the leadership anxiously waiting in the hallway.

Barack: Gore comes after my delegates, (beat) he’s gonna have to fight me for them.

You have GOT to read the whole thing...

After listening to Karl Rove suggest that Barack Obama wasn't a real American because he didn't wear a flag pin and after watching John McCain's ad "The American President that Americans have been waiting for," I wondered aloud:

Can Obama fashion a counter-narrative that neutralizes the idiocy of a flag-pin campaign? Time will tell, and/but if he can't do it, no other Democrat can either.

Turns out that he can do it, of course. Is there a candidate better than Obama at this sort of thing?

Here's Obama speaking in Butte, Montana at a Democratic Party dinner:

...We know that from now until November, the status quo will fight back with the same old politics that seeks to divide us by race and region; gender and party; the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon; the kind that speaks to our fears instead of our hopes.

We can choose to listen to all this. We can allow it to distract us from talking about jobs, or health care, or Iraq for yet another year and another election. Or this time, we can choose to end it.

I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection. Because through revolution and slavery; war and depression; great battles for civil rights and women’s rights and worker’s rights, generations of Americans have shown their love of country by struggling and sacrificing and risking their lives to bring us that much closer to our founding promise. And as long as I live, I will never forget that I am only standing here because they did.

This is a country where my grandfather signed up to defend after Pearl Harbor and my grandmother sacrificed on a bomber assembly line – a country that thanked this small-town Kansas couple with a college education and a chance to raise my mother in a home of their own.

It’s a country where the letters and prayers of my father were answered – a young Kenyan who wanted nothing more than the chance to study in a magical place called America.

It’s a country where the improbable love of my parents was actually possible; where my mother could raise me without much money but still send me to the best schools in the nation; a country where I’ve seen hope triumph in neighborhoods that were devastated by joblessness and poverty; where I’ve seen ordinary Americans find justice in a courtroom; where I’ve seen progress made for working families who need leaders who are willing to stand up and fight for them.

That is the country I love. That is the promise of America. And in this election, if we can shed our cynicism and our doubts and our fears; if we remember that we rise or fall as one people, and that we can meet any challenge that comes our way if we meet it together, then I believe that this generation will do its part to perfect our union and keep our promise alive in the twenty-first century. Good night, God Bless, and as they say here in Butte, “tap ‘er light.”

As for his parting words, here's what I found about the phrase, "tap 'er light:"

In the early twentieth century, Butte, Montana, was one of the preeminent mining centers in the nation. Of all the specialized mine workers, the blasters who placed dynamite charges to extend the mine drift had the most dangerous work. Whether on or off the job, they often parted from one another with the words, “Tap ‘er light, pard.” Their words referred to the need for blasters to take special care in tamping down a charge. A carelessly laid charge could detonate prematurely with fatal results. Predictably, blasters tended to be a cautious, savvy group both underground and at the bargaining table...Be cautious, know what you’re getting into, get the training you’ll need, get paid fully for your efforts, and take your time.

I looked for a video of Rev. King's last speech, given on the night (April 3, 1968) before he was murdered. You've seen it perhaps; it still moves me deeply every time I watch it.

The following clip includes the end of that speech. But it has another set of excerpts of Rev. King relating to his views on war. Many people forget today that he was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam war. And in these days when the words of another black pastor have shocked people, you might do well to recall similar words from Dr. King, spoken on more than one occasion. And trust me: reading it on the page is nothing compared to watching him deliver the words:

"...[D]on't let anyone make you think that God chose America as his divine Messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgement and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, "You are too arrogant! If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power. And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I am God."

UPDATE: The next night, Bobby Kennedy, who was campaigning in Indianapolis in advance of the Indiana primary, gave a speech. By all accounts, he gave it nearly extemporaneously, having composed it in the few minutes after he heard that King had been killed. This audio recording captured Kennedy's words that night in Indianapolis.

And here's some video of the speech:

"In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

"For those of you who are black...you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

"We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

"Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

"For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust...against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling.

"I had a member of my family killed...

"But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: 'In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

"So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King...but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke."

What he said that evening is carved on the walls of a fountain near his grave at Arlington National Cemetary.

Michael Barone resuscitates the Jefferson-Jackson divide in the Democratic party and calls it the Academic-Jacksonian divide. He then uses it to explain the respective appeals of Obama and Clinton. His article has a lot of other stuff in it -- a not so illuminating (translation: eye-glazing) analysis of all the Democratic primaries and caucuses to date. Skip that part. Josh Marshall has a better analysis and it's on video (see below).

Barone's analysis is, well, flawed. First of all, he lost me right from the git-go with this:

I was struck by the narrow geographic base of Barack Obama's candidacy. In state after state, he has carried only a few counties—though, to be sure, in many cases counties with large populations.

So shit Sherlock. His perspective reminds me of those stupid red-blue maps that Republicans were posting after the 2004 election where they red and blue counties on a map. Of course, nearly the entire map was red with a few specks of blue. This was supposed to show that Republicans were overwhelmingly dominant in the election. But that's just silly: one huge county in Wyoming has two people in it who vote for Bush and so you color that huge swath of territory red. Another small county in Michigan goes overwhelmingly for Kerry and you get -- a tiny speck of blue on the map, even though the population is 1000 time bigger than the Wyoming county.

But then you knew that, right? You knew that the Democrats generally did better in the urban areas and the Republicans generally did better in the rural and exurban areas. The suburbs are a toss-up.

The other thing about the academic-Jacksonian microtrend is that it presents a false choice: that you are either for academic pursuits or you are a fierce patriot. I don't know about you, but I hear a dog-whistle: You are either a fighter or an appeaser. Sorry, that's crap.

History shows us that if you choose war (as opposed to having it thrust upon you) you're implicitly admitting failure: you've failed to find a way out. And the further you go in, the harder it is to come out.

So, I wouldn't be so quick to elevate warmaking into some noble pursuit, some permutation of patriotism. Just because you come from a long line of soldiers doesn't make you a patriot or qualify you to become president.

No, I like Josh Marshall's analysis much better. Marshall, one of the blogosphere's best and brightest observers, has an excellent rundown of the role of race in Obama's primary victories -- specifically how (and why) he does really well in states with either no black population (e.g., Iowa) or a very high black population (e.g., Louisiana). The in-between states like Ohio, not so much.

Marshall presents a couple of analyses that look at the data and come to a couple of seemingly different conclusions, although maybe the analyses have more in common that it might at first appear.

I know the idea of poring over data makes your eyes glaze over, but it is a video and he makes it pretty easy to digest. I strongly suggest you check it out.

I'm continually amazed at the number of people who really hate Obama who say stuff like this:

...[W]hile it's important for whites to understand the racial experience of minorities, it's equally important for minorities to understand the impact that their violent outbursts have on white society, case in point, the L.A. Riots.

Yes. Well.

Let's stipulate that there's a history of "violent outbursts" on both sides, if you catch my drift. Do really you need me to list them out?

Both actions are real, have deadly consequences and need to be addressed in order for all groups to move forward.

Come on, people. Be honest. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you read Obama's speech. What do you think he was saying in it? And really, now: who's better suited to lead the nation on this than he is?

I was intrigued by Condi Rice's comments on this recently. It didn't get a lot of play except as a context for Lou Dobbs referring to her as a "cotton picker:"

"Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that."

"That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today," she said.

Here's the thing: if you're young or old, if you're married or not, if you have any kids or not, try to imagine this:

One of your children is born with a serious birth defect. How could you sleep at night knowing that your baby wasn't right, that your baby was in pain? Wouldn't you do everything you could to fix her and help her get better?

Now I realize that some white people generally believe we talk about this way too much and some blacks generally believe we don't talk about it enough. But come on: we're dealing with a birth defect. I'd rather err on the side of being too attentive to the problem than the opposite.

Wouldn't you?

Whatever you believe, Condi gets it right: this country was born with a crucial flaw and we "continue to see some of the effects of that." That defect must be corrected. No way to gloss over it. Not if we want to move forward as a nation into the future. And I believe that Obama is uniquely suited to provide that leadership -- by example, if nothing else.

From the inestimable Mark Adams:

I've seen you say on more than one occasion that voting with your heart over your head is not necessarily a bad thing. While I agree it's reality, I think people would feel insulted when confronted with their actions. They don't want to believe that about themselves. They think it's a bad thing. Isn't it really a bad thing?

Well, that depends.

Some people don't even acknowledge it. Others do, and don't care. Yet others think it's bad. But, as you know, I said it isn't bad or good. It just is what it is.

No use trying to fight it. And (here's where it gets contentious) no use in trying to "win on the issues." The issues only matter in that they trigger an emotional response in the voter -- either for, or against, a candidate/party.

Republicans get this -- and win. Democrats don't get it -- and lose. Yes, I'm simplifying, but not by much.

I really believe that is at the core of Hillary's failure and Obama's success. Hillary, belatedly, understands this now -- and that is why she's now telling everyone who will listen that "Obama cannot win." What she leaves out is the "why:" he's black. Does that make her a racist? No. Hillary (and Bill) are simply dropping the fear bomb: the fear that a black candidate cannot win. Not this year. Not against McCain.

Republicans, OTOH, will drop the fear bomb for a different reason: to trigger a fear in their base that Obama represents the abrupt end of white supremacy.

Whatever it is, it is an acknowledgement that fear moves voters. Of course, they'll rationalize all sorts of reasons for moving after the emotion moves them.

Whatever it is, he just rubs some people the the wrong way. There's just something about him. They just can't put their finger on it...the Harvard education, the community organizing. Or maybe he's yet another man who wants to cut in line ahead of Hillary. They can't stand it -- he's too hip by half, too sexy for his shirt. He's wine vs. beer, he's doesn't even look American. And that Kenyan grandmother!

And the flag pin! And the pledge of allegiance!

Deep down it probably chaps their asses, his refusal to go all H. Rap Brown, no matter how much people goad him. Deep down underneath they just believe he's got a freak flag that he's hiding. And Michelle Obama? Don't get them started!

This explains the explosive reaction to the Rev. Wright videos: people now had a peg to hang their feelings on. And Obama's subsequent comment about his white grandmother -- more of the same. Finally! They knew he was no good.

Again -- I'm simplyfing, but not much.

by shep

From the Detroit News…

The co-founder and former CEO of the liberal-progressive Democracy Radio and husband of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow was caught in February by a Troy police sting aimed at catching prostitutes, according to a police report.

Thomas L. Athans was stopped Feb. 26 by undercover officers investigating a possible prostitution ring in a room at the Residence Inn near Big Beaver and Interstate 75.

I sure hope that township was getting a piece of the action.

H/T: TPM

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

If you doubt the truth of my headline, consider the simple flag pin and what it symbolizes. You might as well consider it now -- otherwise you'll just have to consider it later as we're going to be bludgeoned with it between now and November.

Here's the thing: if Dems ignore the potency of symbols like this, if Dems cannot neutralize this with an equally potent counter-narrative, then the Dems could lose the election in November.

Doubt it? Just remember the words of Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat who learned his lesson the hard way:

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai E Stevenson 'Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!' Stevenson called back 'That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!' [Note: He lost, for a second consecutive time, in November of that year.]

Time and again the science shows that people will invent reasons to justify the emotional response -- think "flag pin" -- that moves them to choose one candidate and/or reject the other.

Emotion first, rationalization second. And, I might add, not that there's anything wrong or right about it. It simply is what it is. It's been this way for the entire span of recorded history. And as we become more and more saturated by 24/7 "news" channels and Internet blogs, YouTube, what have you, the effect becomes more pronounced, not less.

If you love Eddie Izzard like I do, you already know what he says. It's 70% how you look, 20% how you sound, 10% what you say.

What this means is that modern politics is just TV with the sound turned off. Are you wearing a flag pin? Good. Not wearing it? Bad. Hand not over your heart during the pledge of allegiance? Very, very bad. All the rest is detail.

Unfair? Sure. Real? You better believe it. Republicans "get" this; they have to -- their policies suck so they can't win via policy -- and the fact is, no one can or does. As for the Democrats, I believe Obama "gets" it, but Hillary doesn't (and yet, Bill does). Can Obama fashion a counter-narrative that neutralizes the idiocy of a flag-pin campaign? Time will tell, and/but if he can't do it, no other Democrat can either.

by shep

”Bowling is a game in which players attempt to score points by…knock[ing] down objects...”

I hope that most people outside CNN and MSNBC and Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews, etc., etc., have finally learned what the game is actually all about. It’s our only chance to spare ourselves of falling constantly in their gutter.

UPDATE: Jon Stewart, as usual, nails it: "By the way, the crowd watching Obama doesn't know who he is; they can't believe there's a black guy in a suit bowling in Altoona."

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

by shep

Some people think Michael Mukasey was lying when he stated publicly, “We've got three thousand people who went to work that day and didn't come home to show for… a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went.”

But Michael Mukasey is the Attorney General of the United States, the highest law enforcement officer of the country. He’s also an ex-federal judge who knows that under contemporaneous federal law the Bush Administration could have wiretapped that call and learned where it went and, possibly, thwarted the 9/11 attacks.

Could it possibly be that anyone, even a Republican, would lie about such a thing just to hide the illegal conduct of George Bush, Dick Cheney and AT&T? Any way you slice it, what would you call such traitors to their oaths of office and duty to the public? Oops, I guess I just did.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

So who wins Pennsylvania? Or more importantly, HOW do you win Pennsylvania? What will it take to win over those voters who, as one Dem consultant put it, "live in hopeless lands?" And I mean winning in the April primary as well as in November.

You might follow the path that so many Democrats have followed in the past...

...and run your campaign on policy details. Conventional wisdom has it that workers in Pennsylvania (and Ohio and elsewhere) need to know how they're going to pay next months' rent. They need to know how to put groceries on the table this week if they've lost their jobs. They need to know how to deal with that latest salary cut. They need to know how to going to pay those medical bills when the credit card is maxed out. The conventional wisdom is that they want to know exactly how any politician is going to help them.

• How you plan to stop foreclosures?


• How you plan to improve public health?


• How you plan to bring tax relief to workers?


• ...and so forth.

In other words, CW says that you must provide a menu of programs with prices clearly marked.

But that doesn't make sense to me and here's why...

If there is anything these voters are, it's cynical. Time and again they've been promised things that didn't materialize. And after a while, they don't believe anything they hear. So how can it be that they'll believe it this time? How can it be that this time they can take it to the bank -- and that you're the one to make it happen?

Let's be blunt...

It didn't happen in 2002; it didn't happen in 2004; and it didn't happen in 2006 (think "Congressional stalemate"). And, regardless of who wins the Dem nomination this time around, the Republicans are counting on Pennsylvanians (and those in the other 49 states) to NOT vote their pocketbooks this time around either.

Here's why they might be right...

Look at who the Republicans are running: a jaunty maverick, a studly pragmatist who brags about his ignorance of economics, who presents himself as a warrior-king who would lead us into one hundred years of battle. And he's in a dead heat with the party of the pocketbook. Do battleground-state voters really want to know about where next month's rent is coming from or could it be that want to ride to the sound of the guns and follow a war hero onto a foreign field of battle?

Oh, you can say that this time, for sure, the Republicans' mojo is gone. This time, for sure, the Dems can get people to vote their pocketbooks. Or this time, for sure, the war will be the issue that provides the Dems the issue they need to take back the White House.

But here's a question you better ask yourself...

Is it possible that voters are even remotely more excited by warrior than by bureaucrat? I think you already know the answer to that question.

Here's the more important question:

How do you fight an opponent like this? Do you do it by trying to be more like him -- by pushing yourself over the Commander in Chief threshold while ticking off your menu of programs and beating him on "the issues?" Is it possible to be all things to all people? And are these really the only choices?

The answer to this question is crucial.

It might be the key that unlocks the front door of the White House. After all, Pennsylvania went for Kerry by a narrow 51%-49% in the last election and many surveys show the state in a dead heat today regardless of who the Dem nominee is.

So how it is that people who are hurting so bad could still make a close election out of it time and again? Or, to paraphrase Thomas Frank, "what's the matter with Pennsylvania?" The answer: nothing is wrong with Pennsylvania (or Kansas or Ohio for that matter). Voters there are like voters anywhere -- they size up a candidate first, then they decide if they can believe anything they say about their programs.

If you're a Republican...

...if you're a big believer in The Ownership Society (or the You're-On-Your-Own Society), if you are all for privatizing profits and nationalizing risk, how you look and how you sound are the most important thing. Because, to be blunt, the majority of voters simply do not want what you're selling. If they did, you wouldn't call it something else. Think I'm wrong? I've got three words for you: "Clear Skies Initiative." The End.

If you're a Democrat...

...if you're a big believer in campaigning using policy detail, then you don't have a lot of room for error. Fact is, only a small part of what you're selling ever stands a chance of surviving the campaign, let alone the very first session of the legislature -- if you get elected. Hence the cynicism about government -- and politicians (especially ones like you). So you, too, have to rely on something other than policy detail.

So what do you do?

On one hand, you've got the Pennsylvania voter who's dying out there but on the other hand you're running neck and neck with a party that doesn't give a goddam about your pocketbook -- all they want is your vote and they'll do anything to get it. Specifically, they'll scare the crap out of you.

It's the one thing that moves voters most effectively:

Fear. It moves voters. Every time. For example, fear of death. Studies have shown that when people are reminded of their own mortality, they will choose the most conservative course of action every time. No surprise there: wouldn't you act that way? "Be careful! One false move and we're all dead." Doesn't it seem plausible that the guy who can point this out -- effectively -- is going to hold the upper hand every time? Better yet -- if he's someone who has cheated death in the past.

So what we get from Republicans is endless talk about islamofascism and jihadism. Suitcase nukes. The caliphate stretching from Spain to the Philippines. And an opponent named Iraq Barack Hussein Osama Obama. OK, sorry. That was uncalled for. I reject those who suggest that my worthy opponent is not an American, not a Christian, not a patriot. He is a fine American. As far as we know. Um, what were we talking about? Your pocketbook? Oh yes. Right. Of course. Bottom line: Republicans don't win with programs and policies -- and neither will Democrats.

Here's how you win Pennsylvania -- or any state...

Instead of talking about running the government, talk about leading the nation. Appeal to the one thing that trumps policy: emotion. Does this mean you have to use hate and fear? You could, but you don't have to. Does this mean you invoke feel-good notions of hope? Not if you believe that Pennsylvania is a "hopeless land."

Here's how to use emotion against an opponent -- and a party -- that is already using it quite effectively:

You do it by invoking pride. You begin by telling a story about how our -- your and my -- forebears struggled against similar (or worse) odds and prevailed. And you cast your opponent in the role of the villain in that not-so-faraway time. You include your voters as part of a much larger family who once fought against outside forces that sought to tear them down (and apart from each other).

You tell them that they come from a long line of brave and resourceful people -- and they, too, are brave and resourceful people. You lead them into action, against a similar foe today. You level with them: yes, it's difficult. Yes, the odds are long. The foe is tough. But you tell them that if they stick together, if they fight for each other, together, they can prevail. Their ancestors did it; and now it's their turn. This is their -- our -- time. A future generation will look back at us -- what will we show them? What will they learn from us?

Together we -- all of us -- can prevail. The people who founded this country understood that. That's why the first flag had these three words on it: Join or Die.

For the more educated among them, those who knew a little bit of Latin, they put it another way: E Pluribus Unum: One from Many.

Today we might say it a bit differently: We're all in this thing together. However you want to say it, it is in our DNA. We gather strength from -- and for -- each other. And together, as our forebears did, we can change the world.

THAT'S how you win Pennsylvania -- and that's how you lead the nation.