Another Pledged Delegate For Obama
Mississippi has recalculated -- Obama's margin of victory is above the 62.5% threshold, and so he adds a delegate and Clinton gets one taken away.
That means that Obama's pledged delegate lead is now at 169.
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March 2008 Archives
March 31, 2008
McPeak Responds To His Critics
Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak (ret.), a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, has responded to his critics.
In 1976, then Col. McPeak published an essay in Foreign Affairs entitled "Israel: Borders and Security," where he argued that it was "territorial return which constitutes Israel's chief bargaining" power, and that Israel ought to cede much of the territory it won in the 1967 war in exchange for Arab world concessions.
The American Spectator's Robert Goldberg wrote that the article was in keeping with McPeak's general " anti-Israel and anti-Jewish" outlook, which included a history of comments blaming the pro-Israel vote in "New York" and "Miami" for tilting US policy away from common sense in the region.
In an brief response just posted on Foreign Affairs's website, McPeak flatly denies that either he or Obama is "anti-Israel."
I am a long-time admirer (and think myself a friend) of Israel. In the early 1970s, I played a key role in getting advanced weaponry released to the Israeli Air Force-- capabilities it later put to active use. During that period, I made many official visits to Israel and established close relationships there. These contacts turned out to be useful during Operation Desert Storm, when, as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, I worked with my Israeli counterparts to help defend Israel from Iraqi Scud missile attacks.I was a vocal opponent of the George W. Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, a strategic blunder made worse by slapdash execution. As we have seen, this star-crossed action took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, breathed new life into a moribund al Qaeda, and enhanced Iranian influence in this critical region-- all outcomes which damaged both the United States and our ally Israel.
It is my view and hope that Israel will have our continued support. I wish it every success. Of course, what Israel regards as success is up to it to decide. But for friends like me, "success" means a secure Israel at peace with neighbors who recognize and respect its existence. Even so, we should maintain our special relationship and help Israel keep its qualitative military edge.
100 Years Of Solitude? McCain And Iraq
It's fair to say that John McCain has said that some measure of U.S. troops might stay in Iraq for as long as 100 years. Or something like that.
It's not fair to say that McCain wants to war to continue for 100 years.
There is a school of thought that holds that the presence of troops contributes to and feeds the instability and so, it may well be fair to link the presence of troops to a perpetual state of war. But that's an argument one has to make and not simply assume into evidence.
When, in Derry, New Hampshire, McCain uttered the phrase "make it 100," he was comparing the U.S. presence in Iraq to the U.S. presence in South Korea.
Clearly, this comparison implies a healthy amount of troops in the region and continued high-level military cooperation and self-defense treaties. That should be enough for Democrats. "100 years" -- even in the correct context -- is just one of those phrases that politicians were invented to exploit.
Watch here.
Instead, Democrats imply that McCain wants to keep US troops in Iraq for 100 years under the same conditions they're fighting right now.
Which is simply not what McCain said. McCain explicitly said that US presence in Iraq long-term would be predicated on the absence of violence and on the establishment of stability in the region.
Now -- Democrats might pursue this avenue. In November of 2007, McCain seemed to reject the Korea model, arguing that the conditions in Iraq were different. He now accepts the analogy.
The Superdelegate Quandary
In most cases, undecided superdelegates are trying to figure out which presidential candidate is best for them in the context of their unique political situation, their district, their down-ballot candidates. The CW is that outside of a few places in the Northeast, Hillary Clinton would weigh down the ticket: that she's too polarizing, that she has too much of a history, that Republican candidates would energize their base by running against her.
There is truth in this, and many superdelegates have pledged their support to Obama for precisely this reason.
But there's another side to the argument.
In this Sunday's New York Times magazine, here's what NRCC chairman Rep. Tom Cole had to say about which candidate he'd prefer his candidates to run against:
"I happen to think Hillary Clinton is a stronger candidate in the end" .... "You couldn’t raise money against Obama right away like you could with Clinton, that’s true, and so maybe by the time you were able to raise money it wouldn’t matter. But he’s ideologically well to the left of Hillary Clinton, for all his rhetorical gifts, and I also think he’s got a national-security deficit. I think she’s a plausible commander in chief, and I don’t think he is. It may not matter. But those two areas are where we would fight the election, and with McCain, I think we contrast with him very well.”
Against Obama, John McCain and the Republicans are going to front national security. They'll run on "who'll keep your safer" -- they'll try to force members in swing congressional districts to own -- or disown -- Obama. There is much more a messaging function in having Obama as the candidate, where Clinton would clearly provide the energizing function.
To this Democrats will respond: the Rove-style national security attacks against Democrats don't work. 2006 proved that.
But there are many Democrats who fear that they _do_ work, which is one reason why Democrats on Capitol Hill are powerless to end the war as rapidly as possible.
Obama provides a clean contrast with McCain on the war, and to the extent that Americans are ready to choose a "side" on Iraq, Obama has the upper hand. But Iraq has not been his trump card in the primary -- indeed, at least about half of Democrats do not believe that Clinton's 2002 vote disqualifies her.
Democrats may be tempted to conflate John McCain's national security arguments with the Bush-Republican national security arguments. Superficially, they sound alike. But McCain has much more standing to make them -- registered voters say this, not me, as does McCain's biography and life.
Obama supporters bristle at the notion that Obama will become as polarizing to Republicans as Clinton is right now. We will see. The net effect of the competitive Democratic Primary may well be that Obama becomes less of a unifying figure and more of a, well, Democrat.
He is certainly capable of enraging critical parts of the Republican coalition, like pro-lifers, who can now raise money off an off-handed comment from this weekend. Speaking about abortion, Obama said he would not want his daughters "punished with a baby." Then he said he would not want his daughters "punished with an STD." (Read the Brody File for the full context).
North Carolina In Obama's Pocket?
Not so, says the Obama campaign.
Reports that the other six Democrats on the congressional delegation are about to endorse BO are unfounded.
New Mexico, Too
An earlier draft of my post below on McCain's general election targets included New Mexico as a state he'll want to flip -- my typo, obviously -- Bush won there in 2004. But New Mexico is a target for McCain -- he's running his first general election ad there, and it brings up two other issues.
1. McCain, as Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs committee, will target the American Indian vote in a way that Republicans haven't.
2. He will also target Latinos.
Subprime Paradox
News that Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams was paid $200,000 to help a New York-based subprime lender revamp its business practices brings up one of the interesting racial cross-currents of the crisis. There was -- still is -- among politicians and activists and some economics a belief that home ownership is the key to building real wealth among African Americans, and companies who made it easier to take out home equity loans were to be lauded for their willingness to reach out to these communities, and not knocked for any attempt to exploit the financial ignorance of poorer black families.
Iran And Iraq, Together
I'm not enough an expert to judge the significance of Iran's having brokered a cease-fire between Shia militias, one of them belonging to the Iraqi government and the other, at least still in theory, controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr. (If Iran played a role in ending the violence, did it also, by dint of its ties to certain militias, help to seed it?)
This reminds me of the propaganda victory of a few months back when Iran's Ahmadinejad was able to tour Baghdad without the enormous security blanket that accompanies much lower-ranking US officials whenever they sneak into the country.
For our politics, does Iran's influence here mean that it recognizes that it has a role to play in stabilizing Iraq? Does it panic the Saudis? Does it panic the Israelis? Does it mean that the surge has given Iran a free hand to gain credibility as the political broker while the US military did the hard work of securing the peace?
Gore Is Very Reluctant To Play Broker
From 60 Minutes:
"We were with you in the San Jose Airport. And a man came over to you and he says 'Who are you supporting, Obama or Hillary? Who are you supporting? Who are you supporting?'" Stahl asked.Gore's response to the man? "Uh ha."
"So, let me ask you. Who are you supporting?" Stahl asked.
"I'm tryin' to stay out of it," Gore replied.
Getting Al Gore to talk about politics these days is hard work. But as a party leader and uncommitted superdelegate, his staying "out of it" isn't easy.
"Are they calling you every minute?" Stahl asked.
"Not every minute," Gore said.
"No? Lotta pressure though, I'll bet," Stahl remarked.
"We unplugged the phones for this interview, so I can't say with authority. But no, everyone -- they both call. And I appreciate that fact," Gore replied.
"And what about the idea of the honest broker who goes to the two candidates and helps push one or the other of them off to the side?" Stahl asked.
"Yeah, kind of a modern Boss Tweed," Gore remarked.
"Except his name would be Al Gore," Stahl said.
"Well, I'm not applying for the job of broker," Gore replied, laughing.
He's not ruling it out, but he says he already has a job, as he puts it, "P.R." agent for the planet.
Gore today launches a $300 million "commercial-scale" campaign called We Can Solve It.
Here's its first television ad:
McCain The Martial Southerner
He was a Navy kid, so he moved around a lot as a child, but if you had to peg him to a particular geographic locale, it would be Meridian, Mississippi:
By all accounts, the McCains of Carroll County were devoted to one another and their traditions; a lively, proud and happy family on the Mississippi Delta. Yet, many McCains left here as young men to pursue careers in what has long been our family's chosen profession -- the United States Armed Forces. My great-grandfather was the sheriff and never left. But his brother, Henry Pinkney McCain, was a major general in the Army, and organized the draft in World War One. Camp McCain in Grenada, Mississippi is named for him. My great uncle, William McCain, was known as "Wild Bill" for his "dynamic" personality -- he was reputed to have ridden his horse onto his future father-in-law's porch to ask him for his daughter's hand. He chased Pancho Villa with General Pershing, was an artillery officer in World War One, and retired a Brigadier General. Both men are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, as are my father and grandfather. We trace my family's martial heritage back to the Revolution. A distant ancestor served on General Washington's staff, and it seems my ancestors fought in most wars in our nation's history. All were soldiers -- both Henry and Bill McCain were West Pointers -- until my grandfather broke family tradition and entered the Naval Academy in 1902. He was succeeded there by my father, then me, and then my son.
After this week, which will include at least three more speeches about McCain's martial history, there may well be some allied grumbling akin to William Kristol's today: biography is not destiny in politics.
True -- and McCain's campaign strategists know this. There will be several other tours over the next few months having nothing to do with where McCain is from but who he will do.
McCain's Two General Election Targets
(What happened to New Mexico? Click here.)
Republicans tasked by John McCain's presidential campaign with planning for his general election strategy have settled on two states John Kerry won in 2004 as their prime turnover targets for 2008.
They are Pennsylvania, which has 21 electoral votes and New Hampshire, which has 4.
The targeters seem to have Barack Obama in mind as their opponent, but the logic holds even if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination.
None of the three states will be easy to flip. Even though Pennsylvania is arguably the weakest large state in the Democratic electoral coalition, party identification is trending their way. In Philadelphia suburbs like Montgomery County, Republicans still control key county commission seats, but Democrats gain with every election. The economy in Pennsylvania is faring better than in the industrial Midwest, and the war is very unpopular. Watch for McCain to target Northwestern counties won by Sen. Bob Casey -- and Reps. Holden, Murtha and Carney. Watch for the Philly suburbs to be ground zero in any Democratic effort to highlight McCain's pro-life credentials.
Pick Up Six
Sen. Amy Klobuchar's endorsement of Barack Obama, along with news that six additional members of the North Carolina's congressional delegation will back Obama before the state's May 6 primary, may well signal the beginning of the open spigot for Obama and his superdelegates.
The campaign does not have a reservoir of privately-committed superdelegates just waiting to burst forth on Obama's behalf; if they had, you -- we - would know about them. Peer pressure, more than anything else, will force superdelegates off the fence.
March 28, 2008
The Daily Five: Just Super
1. Sen. Pat Leahy: "There is no way that Sen. Clinton is going to win enough delegates" and so should quit....he later walks back his comment....but says that "there is no good reason" for Clinton to stay in the race. Clinton team rebuts with angry comments from Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. And Rep. Bruce Braley, an undecided frosh/superdelegate from Iowa, is happy to see the contest continue: "My preference is we let the system play out and we go to Denver. If it hasn't been resolved, then it gets taken care of there."
2. Clinton campaign talking point: In 1992, Bill Clinton didn't wrap up the nominee until June. Tapper truth: well, more like mid-March.
This notion that the 1992 presidential race was not over until June is literally true. But it was truly over about five or six weeks after the New Hampshire primary.
3. Newt Gingrich, on Obama:
Senator Obama gave us a very courageous speech. We owe it to him and to the topic to take it very seriously and respond to the level of eloquence and systematic explanation that he gave us. He asked historic questions, and that is appropriate. And I want to make quite clear, and this may well be a disappointment to the more partisan and the more ideological, my speech today is not an answer to Senator Obama. It is not a refutation. Hopefully, it is the beginning of a genuine dialogue in which people of all backgrounds can come together to have a serious conversation about America’s future.Let me start by talking about the concept of anger, because I do think there’s an authenticity and legitimacy of anger by many groups in America. Senator Obama said in his speech:
That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white coworkers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings. . . . That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition.
I think that that’s right, and I think that it’s important to recognize that anger can be a source of energy to create a better future—in which case it’s a very good thing. But if anger is a self-inflicted wound that limits us, it is a very bad and a very dangerous thing. And we have to be very careful about the role that anger plays in our culture. Tragically, what has happened is that cultural and political leaders have used anger as an excuse to avoid reality, as an excuse to avoid change, as an excuse to avoid accountability, because everything that is wrong is somehow somebody else’s fault.
Watch Gingrich's full speech here.
4. Chelsea Clinton, in Allentown PA:
‘Do I think my mother will be a better president than my father...Well, again, I don’t take anything for granted, but hopefully with Pennsylvania’s help, she will be our next president, and yes, I do think she’ll be a better president.”Responds Hillary Clinton: "I have to talk to her before I answer that question."
5. Chuck Todd on language:
If someone says, "the process isn't hurting the party, let everyone have a say" you know that is code for "I'm still holding out hope for Clinton."But if a supposed uncommitted superdelegate says, "we need to start thinking about what this is doing to our long term chances of defeating John McCain" that is code for, "I am leaning toward Obama but I hope Clinton will simply drop out so I can always claim to her and Bill that I was never against them."
Who Is John McCain?
We know what we know.
But next week, his campaign hopes that you will find out a lot of things you don't know... how the story of this Scots-Irish politician is the story of America.
Monday, McCain talks family history at the Naval Air Station north of Meridian, MS. Tuesday, he'll speak about education and his educational influences in Alexandria, VA. Wednesday is the major speech: he'll talk about service-to-country and partiotism at the Naval Academy and then, later in the day, in the cradle of Navy aviation in Pensacola, Fl. Thursday is Jacksonville, which is actually a very Navy town... he celebrates MLK day on Friday and then wraps up the tour in Prescott, Arizona on the very same spot where Barry Goldwater touched off his 1964 presidential campaign.
A DNC Memo On McCain
So here's the problem: the Democrats are whacking the hell out of each other, spending money they'd like to spend on John McCain, and McCain has acres of room to stretch and mark his territory.
The DNC has labored mightily to fill the breach, with daily e-mails to reporters, conference calls, research hits -- and now a focus group report. The DNC spoke to (presumably undecided) voters in Minnesota and West Virginia. Read the DNC's memo here.
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What I found most interesting, in part because it hasn't yet really come up in the context of the general election:
Women panelists in the focus groups reacted surprisingly strongly to the fact that Senator McCain opposes requirements for health plans to provide contraceptive coverage and favors abstinence-only sex education. Even among women who described themselves as pro-life, those aspects of Senator McCain’s record cast him as someone who is “unrealistic,” “out of touch,” and “stuck in the past.” Many of the women in the groups were resentful when they learned that Senator McCain favors overturning Roe vs. Wade, and were disappointed because they expected him to be more moderate on this issue.
The memo concludes in boldface:
Perhaps the biggest threat to John McCain that emerged from our focus groups is the damage he inflicted on his “independent” image and reputation for “straight talk” by shifting his positions to make them more acceptable to the conservative wing of his party.
How To Count The Popular Vote
The hyperintelligent Jay Cost at RearClearPolitics has produced for us a most helpful spreadsheet computing the various popular vote scenarios.
But this paragraph, is, to me, a very crucial point that both Clinton and Obama campaigns would rather ignore:
We have a large number of unknown factors. For many of them, we have very little idea what values they will ultimately take. What we do know is that small changes in several of them could induce large changes in the vote count. This makes it extremely difficult to be as precise as many commentators have been. We need to be wary of all the uncertainty we face here.
So -- my fairly conservative calculation has Clinton netting about 446,000 votes between now and June 3. Under all scenarios that exclude Florida and Michigan votes -- and count the votes of Washington's primary -- Obama still retains a popular vote lead of not more than 330,000 -- or an advantage of less than one and a half percent.
Under a scenario that includes the Florida and Michigan votes for Clinton, gives Obama all of the uncommitted Michigan votes, estimates the votes for all the caucus states and includes the Washington primary, Clinton wins by about 16,000 votes -- or about a tenth of one percent.
Which scenario is "right?" Under DNC rules, until the credentials committee figures out which delegations to seat, Florida and Michigan do not exist. But the voters in those states certainly do in the existential sense -- and if we're answering the question by figuring out how many Democrats voted for Obama versus how many Democrats voted for Clinton.
Obama supporters will anchor their estimates in the worldview most hospitable to Obama's nomination, and Clinton's supporters will similarly find ways to justify including Florida and Michigan before it is DNC-legal to do so.
The media may be called upon to take a stand -- especially since the superdelegates tend to listen to the media more than other entities -- and the most reasonable answer may well be -- well, it depends on who you talk to.
Are there historical precedents? Well, Democrats like to count every vote. So -- advantage Hillary? But there has to be some tempering factor to account for Obama's name not being on the Michigan ballot. Ok, but then there has to be some tempering factor to account for the fact that Obama's campaign made the decision to stay off the Michigan ballot as least as much because they feared losing the state to Clinton as they wanted to make a statement to Iowans about the integrity of the calendar process. Obama's campaign also made the strategic decision to contest caucuses; the Clinton campaign dumbly decided to avoid them. If they had spent a comparable amount of money and resources in the caucus states, Obama's margin of victory would have been lower and he certainly would have less of a delegate lead.
These are all arguments... all persuasive in their own way... and they don't get me any clearer towards the answering the question about which votes to count and which votes to ignore.
The Atlantic's Boldest: A Correction Column
I haven't disclosed my corrections in a while, and I'm feeling a bit guilty.
For this week:
1. I wrote that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg could be the "brass tacts" enforcer of Barack Obama's vision. But gilded politeness was not what I intended to convey. Indeed, the phrase is "brass tacks."
2. Yesterday, I wrote that McCain adviser Charlie Black was taking a "leave of absence" from his lobbying firm. In fact, Black is resinging.
3. In a piece about Barack Obama and Tony McPeak, I mispelled the name of AIPAC critic
and political scientist John Mearsheimer.
Obama: A Mere "Lecturer?"
So is Barack Obama exaggerating his resume when he says he was a "law professor" at the University of Chicago?
The schools says no.
The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
Casey's Endorsement Of Obama
Sen. Bob Casey's endorsement of Barack Obama is obviously a shock to Sen. Clinton's campaign. (I'd note that Obama has picked up a total of three superdelegates since last week, to Clinton's zero).
Casey is a freshman Senator; his father, former governor Bob Casey Sr., was so popular among white working class Dems that pundits have named an entire class of voters in his honor: the Casey Democrats who live in the inner suburbs of Pennsylvania's cities, who are wary of liberal social views but very sensitive to economic conditions.
Obama begins a six-day bus tour in Pittsburgh today.
Dean: Superdelegates Should Decide By July 1
On CBS's "Early Show" this morning, DNC chairman Howard Dean said that superdelegates ought to decide which candidate to support by July 1.
Dean:
"Well, I think the superdelegates have already been weighing in. I think that there's 800 of them and 450 of them have already said who they're for. I'd like the other 350 to say who they're at some point between now and the first of July so we don't have to take this into the convention.
More:
“Well, I think the candidates have got to understand that they have an obligation to our country to unify. Somebody's going to lose this race with 49.8 percent of the vote. And that person has got to pull their supporters in behind the nominee. That's our obligation, because in the end this is not about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It's about our country. We're not going to have four more years of George W. Bush, which is essentially what McCain is offering us. There's a really big difference between our candidates on these issues. And I don't believe for a moment that at the end of the day, the Democrats are going to vote for somebody who's going to put more right-wingers on the Supreme Court. But we do need to keep in mind that personal attacks now, often do have the seeds of demoralization later on. So I want to make sure this campaign stays on the high ground.”
McCain's First General Election Ad
It's running in New Mexico, statewide.
"John McCain: The American President Americans have been waiting for."
March 27, 2008
The Daily Five: Healing In HD
1. Last night on Fox News, Karl Rove floated his own balloon containing a novel way Barack Obama could end up being the nominee. In June, after all the states have finished voting and assuming he has an earned delegate lead of about 100, he could,say, you know what, let's go ahead and seat those delegations from Florida and Michigan based on their January primaries. Why the hell would he consider this, given that Clinton would close the delegate gap by more than 50 and would pull to near-even -- or even ahead of -- Obama in the popular vote? It would give the undecided superdelegates a reason to vote for Obama. It would show them that he's willing to put the party's interests above his own; it would be a gesture of mangnamity that Hillary Clinton could not match; it would display, at once, confidence and humility; it would give him a way to dominate the post-early-June news cycle.
The Obama campaign declined to comment.
2. Matt Bai:
Here’s a political postulate for you: whether or not a bad moment sticks to the candidate depends on how closely related it is to the core rationale of that candidate or his opponent. In other words, if your gaffe goes directly to the main argument you are trying to make about yourself with the electorate, or if it substantiates the most relevant thing that your rival would have us believe about you, then it has the potential to become a serious problem. If, on the other hand, you do something completely idiotic that is tangential to what voters most hope or fear about you, then you tend to get a pass. So Mr. Kerry’s choice of wording hurt because it played into the main theme that the Republicans had chosen to discredit him—the notion that he wanted to have everything both ways. By contrast, Mr. Bush’s brush with the law had nothing to do with the story he was telling about himself as a competent manager, nor did it underscore the central argument that Democrats were advancing about him (because, really, there wasn’t one).
3. Joe Klein's Gore scenario is just plausible enough to consider. Would Gore want it? His friends and advisers say he's moved beyond politics, but the chance to run for president without (a) weathering a primary campaign, which he did not enjoy and (b) the chance to run with a good possibility of victory might cause him to change his mind. Gore has never said "no" to the idea of running for president in part because he envisioned a scenario where he might want to run. Would Obama backers really be happy if Gore took the top spot? Because Klein raised the question, does Gore now need to say no, never?
4. Barack Obama will air his first ad in Indiana tomorrow. (Check out the leather jacket!)
5. The 700 Club is going high-def! On Monday!
For some reason, that's just cool.
Who Came First? McCain or McCain
Think Progress thought it trapped John McCain in a plagiarism controversy. But McCain may wind up being the victim, here.
“The accusation of plagiarism is fundamentally and irrefutably false. The Senator has used that language as early, and possibly earlier, as 1995," writes campaign senior adviser Mark Salter in an e-mail. They point to a speech McCain gave before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City.
Think Progress now "updates:"
It appears that Ziemer’s speech may have been plagiarized from McCain. According to the McCain campaign, the senator used these lines before Ziemer — in 1995.
Will Obama Raises Taxes?
CNBC's Maria Bartiromo asked him the question today:
Bartiromo: “Why raise taxes at all in an economic slowdown? Isn't that going to put a further strain on people?”
Obama:
“Well, look, there's no doubt that anything I do is going to be premised on what the economic situation is when I take office. I'm going to be sworn in in January, we don't know what the economy's going to look like at that point.”
Democrats Defecting
Gallup and Pew have more data out today about the Democrats most likely to defect to John McCain in the fall.
Fascinating: the two Clinton groups most likely to flip if Obama is the nominee are independents who lean to Democrats and conservative Democrats -- nearly 40% of them would vote for McCain. Also: 30% of men and 30% of Dems with high school diplomas or less. And 29% of Latinos.
The two Obama groups most likely to flip: independents who lean to Democrats and conservative Democrats. But assuming an average defection rate of 28%, as Gallup does, only the Clinton-to-McCain defections are statistically significant.
BTW: African Americans do not seem to desert Obama if Clinton is the nominee. As Gallup notes, though:
The data do not address the issue of motivation or turnout, which could be lower among blacks if Obama is not the nominee, nor do the data address the implications of the precise way in which Clinton might win the nomination. If Clinton were to win by the vote of superdelegates, for example, the blowback from black Obama supporters might be greater than if she were to win by gaining the highest percentage of the popular vote cast in primaries and caucuses.
Clinton Donors Circulate Florida/Michigan Petition
A member of Hillary Clinton's national finance team has started to circulate an online petititon that urges the Democratic National Committee to recognize the delegations from Michigan and Florida or else promise to hold new elections.
The petition, entitled "A Declaration of Fairness," was written by Michael Kempner, a PR exec in New Jersey and a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.
Kempner said that the genesis for the idea came out of a meeting of the campaign's finance committee a few weeks ago but said that the effort is being run independently from the Clinton campaign.
The resolution notes that the undersigners include "many leaders and financial supporters" of the DNC. (There are only 20 undersigners at the moment, so that sentence is probably projective.)
Kempner said he sent the petition to thousands of Democratic donors and activists. In his e-mail to them, he calls Obama's "tactics" in "seeking to disenfranchise more than two million voters in Florida and Michigan" those of "division and deception."
"For whatever reason, the DNC seems to be captive of the Obama campaign," he said in an interview. "The fact is that many, many long-time supporters both financially and non-financially, that have a very different point of view. We very much want to put them on notice."
Kempner said that the petititon's language should not be interpreted by DNC chairman Howard Dean as a threat to withhold donations. But, he said, "We want the chairman to exercise some leadership."
Obama Superdelegate Indicted
To Puerto Ricans, he's known as their governor -- Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. He has a history of friction with the Clinton family, and a few weeks ago, he endorsed Barack Obama.
The indictment, on charges relating to his gubernatorial campaign financing, was expected, but Obama aides hoped it would drop after the June 1 primary. An indicted governor can do little to rally his party behind Obama's candidacy.
Read the DoJ press releasing announcing the indictment after the jump.
Project Economy: The Politics
Today, Democrats, supported by their interest groups, go out of their way to pay tribute to markets but argue that fairness and principle demand regulation and some degree of income redistribution. They use the rhetoric of populism to appeal to voters' sense of fairness. Republicans call Democrats "liberal" and oppose interventionist fiscal policy. Democrats call Republicans heartless; Republicans call Democrats "liberal."
Here's Obama, calling for tighter regulation of the financial markets:
"...the American experiment has worked in large part because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle. Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it."
Here's John McCain's campaign, responding to Obama:
"No amount of rhetoric can hide Senator Obama's clear record of embracing the liberal tax and spend, big government policies that hit hardworking American families at a time when they're most vulnerable, and are certain to move America backward.
Well -- during a recession, raising taxes is usually contraindicated, along with cutting spending. McCain will face enormous pressure from conservatives to keep spending under control, while Obama (or Clinton) would face enormous pressure from liberals to find ways to pay for more government spending. With state governments cutting their own spending, the federal government will face pressure from governors conservative and liberal to fill in the gaps.
Obama and Clinton both criticized McCain for not proposing any specific policies to ameloriate the housing crisis, although McCain's statement today, very carefuly written, includes a suggestion that he is "open" to any and all policies. (McCain's economic team is wary of any federal intervention that would reduce risk-taking, which they see as essential to the credit market's recovery. But what does McCain have to say that those Americans whose homes are worth less than their mortgages?
As George Will has noted, Americans seem to embrace conservative arguments about the economy (rhetorical conservatives) but vote and act as if they were operationally liberal. It's not clear whether the "liberal" tax argument works in presidential races, particularly those occuring during recessions.
Trade is one issue where the polarization within each party is less than the polarization between the two, and McCain plans to make free trade a centerpeice of his economic arguments going forward; he proposed yesterday a free trade agreement with Europe, for example.
McCain faces a challenge in that conservatives seem to identify themselves by and organize around social and cultural (and now, increasingly, security) principles, rather than around a set of economic issues. It's counterintuitive: cutting taxes and reducing spending have always been linchpins of Grover Norquist's leave-us-alone coalition, but when it comes to evaluating candidates (rather than policies or referenda or ballot initiatives), conservatives tend to prefer the categories of morality and social values. I would bet that independent voters, when evaluating conservatives, are more likely to do so on national security than any other single variable.
Bloomberg/Obama
According to an aide, Sen. Obama called Mayor Bloomberg yesterday to ask if he would introduce the speech. Bloomberg said yes.
Project Economy: Obama Calls For More Regulation Of Financial System
Judging by two days worth of meaty economic policy addresses, it seems as if the fault line between liberals and conservatives hasn't really evolved much over the past few decades. It's still a fairly mundane debate between Neoclassical/marginalist/Chicago school economists on one hand and Keynes/Galbraith on the other. (I don't think supply side tax cuts amounts to an economic school.)
Liberals believe that the debate in this country is so narrowly contained between these two poles that the politics always works against them. Certainly, the language is familiar.
Obama today targeted the regulatory policies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He implied that the Clinton administration was complicit in deregulating the economy to such a degree that it laid the groundwork for the subprime mortgage crisis.
"Under Republican and Democratic Administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices," he said. He blamed a "$300 million lobbying effort" for hoodwinking Washington.
Obama was referring to the repeal of the New Deal's Glass Stegal regs on banks by the Graham-Leach-Billey bill of 1999, which allowed financial institutions to merge without updating the regulatory framework.
Obama economics adviser Daniel Tarullo said that Obama opposes a resinstatement of Glass-Stegal but wants the regulatory apparatus to catch up. Obama said that banks ought to be required to increase their liquidity and capital requirements. He did not say by how much.
He laid out six principles he said will guide him as president.
One -- "First, if you can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision."
Two -- better regulation of financial markets at home
Three -- better regulation of worldwide interconnections between markets
Four -- reducing duplicaton among regulatory bodies
Five -- crack down on illegal trading activity
Six -- more monitoring of systemic risks to the financial system.
Douglas Holtz-Eaken, John McCain;s chief policy adviser, said the speech was full of "wonderful words" -- "words you could hear out of a Democrat, words you could hear out of a Republican."
But he said Democrats mischaracterized McCain's response to the crisis as "do-nothing," when McCain, in fact, supported the interventions of the Federal Reserve.
Continue reading "Project Economy: Obama Calls For More Regulation Of Financial System" »
Black Resigns To Join McCain's Campaign
Legendary Washington hand Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain,has resigned from his public affairs / lobbying firm in order to join McCain on the trail full-time.
Black, currently the chairman of BKSH Worldwide (a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller -- Mark Penn's Burson Marsteller), has not worked full-time for a presidential campaign since 1992, when he served as a principle spokesperson for Pres. George W. Bush's re-election efforts.
The resignation takes effect Monday. Black has close ties to virtually every wing of the Republican Party and has been a key link between the campaign and the White House.
(For a closer look at McCain's ties to lobbyists, check Mike Scherer's article in Time.)
Bloomberg On Obama
Very careful:
This is a city of big and small businesses, of entrepreneur and of dreams, of immigrants who come with nothing and give us everything they've got. And of families who are struggling to make ends meet. Our challenge is to build an economy that rewards their hard work and innovation. And I’m glad that senator Obama has chosen to come to our city to speak out on the economy.There will be plenty of opinions on what he has to say, this is New York after all. And I’m not sure that all of us will agree with every idea, myself included. But it is critical that we know exactly where each candidate stands as we make perhaps the most important decision in our lives next November. It is now my pleasure to introduce, and not just because he picked up the check when we had breakfast together last month ... ladies and gentleman from the land of Lincoln, a candidate for president of the United States, Senator Barack Obama
PFIAB Phooey?
Thanks to Harry Shearer, I caught wind of a fairly interesting turn in the Bush Administration's battle to consolidate intelligence oversight in the executive branch.
PFIAB -- the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, called PIAB -- they is plenty of domestic collection these days -- has been fairly drastically reformed and much of its power has been taken away.
The board was set up during the Eisenhower administration and served for two decades as the government’s principle internal reviewer of intelligence collection techniques and analysis.
After the Church commission in the 70s discovered widespread mismanagement of CIA’s covert operations – assassinations, civil rights violations, and otherwise a bunch of scary stuff, President Ford created a separate group – the Intelligence Oversight Board – to investigate, on the president’s order, purported abuses within the intelligence community; its brief include dthe ability to refer crimes it discovered to the attorney general for prosecution.
Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush used PFIAB as a sounding board, reducing its size and staff. Bush, a Director of Central Intelligence in the 70s, was never a fan of the board, and Reagan's staff distrusted its role.
Under President Clinton, its legitimacy as a check on the IC was restored to some degree. He gave PFIAB some oversight ability over the inspectors general of the various intelligence agencies. For our purposes, he integrated IOB within PFIAB; PFIAB became more independent and less advisory. In 1999, at Clinton’s behest , PFIAB investigated security breaches at the Department of Energy and released a rare public version of its final report.
On Feb. 29, the Bush administration unveiled an executive order that reduced PFIAB’s oversight function and transferred some of its authority to the Director of National Intelligence. From a bureaucratic standpoint, this makes sense: forcing the intelligence community’s various arms and entities to report to the DNI has been a priority of the administration, and the presence of an outside investigative function within the executive branch itself might well complicate the DNI’s own internal investigative capacities.
Critics, though, see another move in the administration’s efforts to minimize oversight, transparency, and to consolidate power in the executive office of the president. The EO makes it clear that only the DNI can contact the attorney general independently. What happens if members of the board find abuses? They can only notify the president.
Another change: the EO reduces the frequency of reports that the board sends to the president. And the inspectors general and general counsels of the intelligence agencies no longer will find their work evaluated by the board without presidential permission. It also seems as if the board no longer has the authority to independently ask agencies for their records.
Section 1.2 of the Clinton administration EO reads:
Sec. 1.2. The PFIAB shall assess the quality, quantity, and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis and estimates, and of counterintelligence and other intelligence activities. The PFIAB shall have the authority to review continually the performance of all agencies of the Federal Government that are engaged in the collection, evaluation, or production of intelligence or the execution of intelligence policy. The PFIAB shall further be authorized to assess the adequacy of management, p ersonnel and organization in the intelligence agencies. The heads of departments and agencies of the Federal Government, to the extent permitted by law, shall provide the PFIAB with access to all information that the PFIAB deems necessary to carry out it s responsibilities.
Note the italics.
The revised Bush administration order:
Functions of the PIAB. Consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the PIAB shall have the authority to, as the PIAB determines appropriate, or shall, when directed by the President:
(a) assess the quality, quantity, and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis and estimates, and of counterintelligence and other intelligence activities, assess the adequacy of management, personnel and organization in the intelligence community, and review the performance of all agencies of the Federal Government that are engaged in the collection, evaluation, or production of intelligence or the execution of intelligence policy and report the results of such assessments or reviews:
In other words – PFIAB, under Clinton, was able to determine what it needed. Now, the PIAB, under the Bush administration, will receive direction from the DNI.
Obama: Bloomberg Is "Extraordinary"
Here's the first paragraph from Barack Obama's speech this a.m. in New York:
I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for his extraordinary leadership. At a time when Washington is divided in old ideological battles, he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. Not only has he been a remarkable leader for New York –he has established himself as a major voice in our national debate on issues like renewing our economy, educating our children, and seeking energy independence. Mr. Mayor, I share your determination to bring this country together to finally make progress for the American people.
The First Read gang is all a-buzz at the Obama-Needs-A-Jew-On-The-Ticket-Angle, but I think the best way to look at an Obama-Bloomberg ticket is by noticing their complimentary traits. Obama isn't much of an administrator or a details guy by his own admission, while Bloomberg is so concerned about Your Health and Welfare that he studies intently the ins and outs of congestion pricing and trans-fats. He's a prime minister-type -- although he brings an outsider's sense of efficiency to the bureaucracy. Let Obama be the vision guy; Bloomberg could be the brass-tacks administrator.
Working The Delegates In Texas? (Update)
In Texas, there's this report that Barack Obama's campaign is targeting delegates Hillary Clinton won from the state's precinct caucuses -- and vice versa.
Nearly 90,000 delegates plan to attend the senatorial and county conventions this week; just 10 percent will move on to the state convention, which formally selects the pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Right now, Obama has a net delegate lead from the caucus portion of the Texas contest of seven. As happened in Iowa, his lead could expand -- or contract.
Local reports indicate that Clinton supporters plan to challenge the credentials of some Obama delegates, but the campaign has dropped its formal objection to the way the party has organized the caucuses.
Here's an imponderable: since the caucus delegates represent the will of the voters in those precincts, doesn't any effort to get them to change their minds after the fact amount to .... well, actually, what's the difference between working the county delegates and then working the pledged delegates?
Update: Turns out that the culprit is the Texas Democratic Party. The delegate lists they forwarded to the campaigns contain many errors on them, so Clinton delegates are receiving Obama mail and Obama delegates are recieving Clinton mail. Indeed, it wouldn't make much sense for Obama to remind Clinton delegates when the conventions are.
Bloomberg Introduces Obama
Just caught this entry on New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's schedule:
*9:15 AM Introduces Senator Barack Obama at Speech on the EconomyCooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
The G