In Defense of Sour Grapes

Perhaps Hillary is right -- Obama's not ready to be president.  Perhaps being elected three times as an Illinois state senator and once as a U.S. senator doesn't qualify him as sufficiently seasoned to assume the role of commander-in-chief.  Maybe Clinton's two terms as an elected official and her years as first lady trump his four terms and years as a community organizer and make her, hands down, the wiser choice.  Sure, she voted for the Iraq War resolution.  Yes, she did lobby hard in support of NAFTA (although you wouldn't know it by listening to her campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania) back in the days when she was refusing to bake cookies, opting instead to gain that magic elixir,  experience, at the coattails of her husband.  And granted, her handling of the White House Travel Office scrum exhibited the same imperious hand as did her slamming of the door marked, "Keep Out" behind her as she and her team proceeded to botch their first crack at health care.  Most recently, her pursuit of the presidency has been marked by fits and starts, a seemingly endless hunt for her elusive "voice," and blatant mismanagement of her finances, forcing her to lend the campaign money earned god knows how (we're still waiting to see her and Bill's 1040 -- anytime now would be good).

But maybe all of these experiences d0 add up to a wisdom superior to that of the 46-year old Illinois upstart and his three years time spent in Washington.  Maybe it really is how many years you spend, not how you spend them.  Empirical evidence to the contrary along the lines of Lincoln (two years in the US House), FDR (three years as governor of NY), Theodore Roosevelt (two years as governor of NY and six months as McKinley's V.P.), Wilson (two years in the US House), Eisenhower (no elected experience),  James Monroe (no elected experience) and Hoover (no elected experience) might argue otherwise, but okay.  If the experts say so.  Experience is vital. 

Go ahead, HRC and McCain.  Have at it.  May the more experienced head prevail.

Unhappily, not winning the nomination this year might be the best thing that ever happens to Obama.  Seriously.  Have you looked around lately?  

This war is going nowhere fast and the economy is going south even faster.  The claim that we will end our occupation of Iraq in 2009 is a broken campaign promise waiting to happen.  While McCain's vision of an extended stay is unpopular amongst all but the most pugnacious, it's probably the most realistic reading of how the situation will play out.  And, as a cherry atop our martial sundae, we're gearing up for yet another wild, wild, mid-east stare-down, this time  with Iran.  Every ship and jet we move into the Persian Gulf makes some level of shooting war more likely.  

Back home, Alan Greenspan predicts the most dire financial straits in sixty years lie ahead.  People are loathe to admit the homes they over-borrowed to acquire are worth less than they paid for them so the housing market will be predictably slow to stabilize.  As the price of oil goes up, the value of the dollar goes down.  The Fed bailed out Bear Stearns by orchestrating JP Morgan Chase's takeover and by underwriting $30 billion worth of Bear's sub-prime, mortgage-backed bonds.  (That's on our dime, by the way).  Do we believe this was an isolated incident?  Hardly.  Lehman Brothers and UBS are two more investment banks with huge sub-prime exposure.  The Fed can't afford to let them fail, either.  Perception is everything on the Street and if any of these giants fail they could spark a run on banks and create a domino effect.  The economy grew by just 0.6% last quarter, it's worst performance since 2002.  That six-tenths of a point margin of growth is going to allow the administration to avoid using the dreaded term "recession" next month, as it is defined by two consecutive quarters of declining GDP, but it's coming, as sure as our $300 dollar stimulus checks are going to make everything  all right.  

This is about as bad a hand as an incoming president can be dealt.  It has taken seven long years of hard work for Bush and his cohorts to achieve this level of dysfunction.  You can sense that the pressure is off now that the end is in sight.  They can relax.  Their work here is done.  Bush is doing the soft-shoe shuffle on the back porch for the press corps and crooning sophomoric country ditties bemoaning the unfair legacies of Harriet, Brownie and Scooter.  Cheney has emerged from his cave and weighed in on the country's condemnation of the administration's prosecution of the Iraq War with the brilliantly concise, "So?"  Such chutzpah.  Their contempt for the public is truly breathtaking.  

It's almost impossible to foresee the next president prospering against these odds.  Why not let Hillary, or better yet, McCain, reap the rewards of the Bush clan's work?  Obama could spend a few more years in the Senate polishing his bipartisan credentials reaching across the aisle to pass progressive legislation with the help of the clear Democratic majority.  Or, if Clinton promises to play nice, he could accept the number two slot on the ticket, thereby giving the oh-so-sensitive and skittish electorate four to eight more years to ameliorate their fears of a black man with a strange name in the White House.  He would be perfectly positioned for a run in 2012 or even 2016, at the ripe old age of fifty-four, while Clinton absorbed the inevitable pounding that Bush's folly must engender.  

There's just something ironic about waiting all these years for a qualified, transformative, electable, minority candidate and, upon being presented with Barack Obama, realizing that this is the ultimate no-win situation.  So, although it smacks of heresy to his loyal following, perhaps it's worthwhile to consider the flip side here.  Obama's got another thirty years of public service ahead of him.  Is it in his best interests to spend the next four in hell?   

Lethal Neocon Propaganda

It's a pipe dream to entertain the notion of an Iraq free of U.S. forces anytime in the foreseeable future. 

 I'm not going to repeat the popular progressive misrepresentation of John McCain's quote that we could stay in Iraq for a thousand or a million years as far as he was concerned.  Any analysis free of political agenda makes it pretty clear that he was referring to a presence along the lines of our long-term deployments in Japan or South Korea.  To claim that he was implying that the current situation could continue into the next millennium is disingenuous.  However, he is firmly in the military solution camp and supports a muscular presence until the killing stops.  Until the killing stops.  As Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, that might be awhile.

Clinton and Obama both seem intent upon ending the war and pulling out all combat troops within a year.  They would begin drawing down between one and two brigades a month, leaving a nebulous, unspecified number of support troops to, "strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests."  This pace is faster than most field officers in Iraq deem prudent and they feel it would leave us without enough force to deal with the situation on the ground.

The Democratic candidates' plans are fiction.  Sound-bite strategies to pave the way to the White House along the campaign trail.  At best, they should be taken as optimistic suggestions, much like Hillary's "universal" health care plan.  Even she admits that the health care battle will be fierce and that's why it's necessary to start with the absolute goal of universal coverage.  It's like any act of barter -- you start as low (or as high) as possible and give up as little ground as you can.  

That's how one needs to look at the two proposals for leaving Iraq.  Start with a year and then see how long it will really take.  Eric Rosenbach, executive director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School, predicts, "Four years, optimistically, and more like seven or eight years" until Iraq is self-sufficient.  West Point professor Brian Fishman warns, "...when you talk about some kind of end for American troops, it's certainly in terms of years."  Anyone who takes specific campaign promises to heart, well, either they haven't been paying much attention over the years or they have a serious case of heartburn.

So, I'm willing to grant that the complexities of Iraq make our leaving within the next couple of years unlikely, even impossible.  That being said, is there any goddamn way to get McCain and Bush and the rest of his neocon stooges to quit labeling a measured drawdown of American men and women as a "hasty retreat?"  They've latched onto that tired phrase like a Nebraska housewife clutching her handbag in Times Square.

A hasty retreat is what the French beat in the face of the Germans' offensive from the Somme in June of 1940.  It's the option you chose in high school through your girlfriend's bedroom window when you heard her father coming up the stairs. 

Today marks the completion of the fifth full year of the Iraq War.  That's 1,827 days, counting leap years.  3,990 American troops have been killed, 29,395 wounded.  60,000 troops have completed their service commitments but been forbidden to leave the military until their units return.  8,000 Iraqi military and police killed.  89,000 Iraqi civilian casualties.  4.5 million Iraqi refugees.  $5-7 trillion in estimated costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

THERE IS NOTHING HASTY ABOUT THIS!  This is an agonizingly slow, protracted death of a thousand cuts.  We are spending $12 billion dollars each month on this war.  Two Americans die each day.  EACH DAY!  

Do you think their families would consider this a hasty action?  Best case scenario, let's say HRC or Obama gets elected and, against the advice of the hawks at the table, ends our Iraqi involvement by 2011.  Do you think the families, friends and loved ones of the troops killed between now and then would consider this a hasty retreat?  I don't either.

Look, you want to make a case for a continued presence in Iraq, then do so.  But deliberately stigmatizing any and all reasoned plans to escape the clutches of an unreasoned and unreasonable war as a "hasty retreat" is unconscionable.  It disrespects those who have already died in this game of chicken Bush initiated and it disrespects the thousands who will die in the years ahead.  

From MLK to Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton is a gifted politician.  Watching her give a press conference like the one she held today in Philadelphia, one cannot help but be struck by her mastery of policy and the facility with which she moves between subjects.  She was absolutely fluent on both the troop surge in Iraq and the decisions the Fed has made over the past couple of days to stabilize the faltering economy.  In short, she's a big-time wonk.  I have few doubts that her grasp of the issues and extraordinary intellect would serve her well were she to sit in the Oval Office.

But then there's Barack Obama.  The speech he gave this morning on race in America illustrated clearly the difference between what he brings to the table and what both Clinton and McCain have to offer.  Now, unlike Geraldine Ferraro, I do not think that being a black man gives you a leg up on the competition when running for the presidency of the United States.  It does, however, legitimize your positions and feelings expressed when discussing the history and current status of racial divide and intolerance in America.  It just does.  If you want to discover how AIDS affects a community, go talk to a gay man or a drug addict who uses needles.  If you want to get to the bottom of the effects of racial oppression, you're probably best served by starting in the black community in this country.

Obama made the most important speech today this nation has heard since Martin Luther King's words, "I Have a Dream," thundered across the mall as he spoke to the March on Washington from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.  King said:

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations.  Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells.  Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.  You have been the veterans of creative suffering.  Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.  Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.  It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the meaning of its creed:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident:  that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."

That speech, as much as any single event, emboldened President John Kennedy's civil rights position and allowed Lyndon Johnson to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after Kennedy was assassinated.  It gave a voice to America's hopes and fears and laid bare the fields of oppression sown by state-sponsored segregation and racism.  As white Americans, we could no longer credibly view blacks as them.  They were us.

It was a landmark moment.  But old prejudices and fears die hard, as the Rev. Wright controversy reminds us.  This country still has much work to do.  It is still a nation of rich vs. poor and the haves choose not to live amongst the have-nots.  Most of the haves are white.  Most of the have-nots, are not.  It's denial to pretend that the disparities in this country do not create animosities between those who eat well and live comfortably and those for whom each day is a struggle.  Often we are happy to engage in that pretense, but it doesn't make it any more true.

We have an opportunity to take a huge step here.  In his speech, Obama said:

"...in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'  This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.  This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem.  The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy.  Not this time."

And he said:

"This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag."

And then he said:

"I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.  This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.  And today, whenever I find myself doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation -- the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election."

Barack Obama is another, the next, landmark moment.  It is so rare, perhaps to the point of being generationally unique, to encounter a figure who can bridge the divides that traverse this country, be they racial, economic or religious.  Who can speak to all Americans without playing on mistrust and ignorance.  A Farrakhan or Wright often fall short and end up speaking only to their base.  King was the master and his legacy is supported by his towering achievements.  We would not be where we are today without his leadership.  

But it is Obama now who is speaking to those "sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners."  It is Obama who is inviting us to take a seat at the "table of brotherhood."  Obama is the dream of which Martin Luther King was speaking.  He's multi-colored, multi-cultural, non-ideological.  He's the perfect conduit through which we can open a national dialogue and perhaps come together as a result.

These moments don't come often.  This would be the second of my lifetime.  The speech that Obama gave today transcended politics.  It would have been easy for him to renounce categorically the Rev. Wright and all of his provocative statements.  It would have been the politically correct move.  The right move to help him get elected.  But that's not why Obama is doing this.  He's bigger than that.  It's what separates him from Hillary Clinton.  She is a political machine and her mind can crunch electoral odds and the political outcomes of comparative policy positions with the best of them.  But Obama's mind works with a creative brilliance that makes accessible to him an extra dimension.  It allows him to take a potential depth charge like Rev. Wright's sermons and transform it into an opportunity to move this country forward.  He's not willing to play politics-as-usual with an issue so crucial to our future as a nation.  If falling short in his quest for the presidency is the price he has to pay for not choosing the politically expedient road here, so be it.   I believe it's a sacrifice he's willing to make.  The stakes are that high.

Obama Can't Afford To Be Wright

Barack Hussein Obama has a God problem.  And it's not the one I've written about before, wherein ignorant and incurious Americans -- many of whose votes he's going to need to win the Democratic nomination and general election -- believe he's an unpatriotic Muslim, in large part because of his middle name.  For the sake of argument, let's assume he can overcome that inane storyline over the next few weeks and months and convince the overwhelming majority of the voting public that he is a good Christian and loyal American.  

I'm sure it's exasperating.  It's like trying to convince strangers that you love your mother.  Of course you love her.  She's your mother.  Yeah, but prove it.  You see?  It's tougher than it looks.  However, he's a very smart guy and a gifted communicator -- he might pull it off.  

However, this little tempest that's brewing with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor as well as spiritual advisor of twenty years, could turn ugly fast.  Here are some highlights from a sermon Wright gave in 2006, noted in a Wall Street Journal editorial today written by Ronald Kessler and included in the McCain campaign's packets of news clips it distributes to the press:

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began.  "Racism is alive and well.  Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.  No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse (Jackson) and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."  

Mr. Wright thundered on:  "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put (Nelson) Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there.  We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means . . . "

". . . We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . ."

Three years earlier he sallied forth with,

"the government gives them (black Americans) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.'  No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people.  God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.  God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Never mind that most of what he says is true -- that's irrelevant to the matter.  What is germane is that it's difficult to see how a black candidate, whom some percentage of the public already suspects is Muslim, can win over the hearts and minds of the conservative Democrats and swing Republicans he will need, guided, in part, by a spiritual sherpa who seems to be channeling Malcom X, circa 1964:

"We are Africans, and we happen to be in America.  We are not Americans.  We are a people who formerly were Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America.  Our forefathers weren't Pilgrims.  We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us.  We were brought here against our will;  we were not brought here to be made citizens.  We were not brought here to enjoy the constitutional gifts that they speak so beautifully about today.  Because we weren't brought here to be made citizens -- today, now that we've become awakened to some degree, and we begin to ask for those things which they say are supposedly for all Americans, they look upon us with a hostility and unfriendliness."

Malcom spoke those words forty-four years ago and they still resonate today.  But if he had lived, and had preached them last month in a church in Chicago, a church where Obama was a long-time member, they would not have helped Obama's cause.  Anymore than Wright's powerful and moving words are helping him.  For one thing, they call to mind Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's quasi-endorsement of Obama, a gift he's still trying to return unopened.  There are just too many people happy to jump at the chance to make the specious connection between Obama and Wright's position and, in no time, Pennsylvania voters will be pretty sure that Obama said, "God damn the United States of America," sometime, somewhere back there in a Chicago speech or maybe when he was giving a sermon.  Or something.   

It's a fine line Obama has to walk between telling the truth and telling America what it wants to hear.  Faith and hope are powerful concepts and may yet prove capable of bridging the yawning chasms of race and class and faith that divide this country.  They may prove capable.  But Wright's sermons, if Obama remains unable to separate himself from them, just might sink his candidacy.  It's an open question whether America is ready for a black president.  It's a sure thing they're not ready for an angry black president.

I realize that Obama isn't angry, and he isn't Rev. Wright, and that he has denounced those sermons.  That he has compared Wright to, "an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with."  That's fine.  That's reasonable.  But it may not be enough.  Not for the people whose vote still hangs in the balance.  It's a shame he has to court those votes.  He must feel like Groucho Marx, not caring, "to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."  But the reality is that he needs those swing votes and, to get them, he must get out in front of this mess. 

 There's an absolutely brilliant piece over at TPM by one of its readers, The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve.  It lays out the differences between Obama/Wright and the Clintons/Ferraro.  Which is helpful, as far as it goes.  

But a more accurate comparison is to be made with John McCain and Pastor John Hagee.  Both Wright and Hagee are religious leaders.  Neither speaks for the campaigns.  Both have made extremely incendiary comments about various Americans.  And both have been denounced without being totally rejected by the candidates. 

McCain has taken plenty of flak for parsing his renunciation of Hagee's endorsement.  Given the similarities in the circumstances, isn't it fair to hold Obama to the same standard?  Granted, there is a degree of difference between the two preachers' messages.  That degree being truth.  In Wright's defense, racism is alive and well, we do ignore the Palestinians and we do act supreme.  On the flip side (Hagee's), a good case can be made for the Catholic Church not being "the whore of Babylon," that Hurricane Katrina was not God's judgement upon New Orleans sinners, and that all Muslims do not have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews.

But this isn't about truth, it's about perception.  Obama is running as a unifier.  He can't afford to be put next to Wright's words, pitting blacks against whites, and expect to brush them off as the ravings of an old coot.  Sometimes the truth will set you free.  But sometimes it will wedge you in between a rock and a hard place, too. 

 

Clinton Fatigue

Somebody needs to drop a butterfly net over Geraldine Ferraro's head.  She's gone 'round the bend.  As a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton, does she really think her off-the-reservation rants that Obama is leading the race for Democratic nominee basically because he's a black man are actually helping her candidate?  Does the Clinton campaign?  One wonders, based on their refusal to disassociate themselves from her in much the same way that John McCain continues to stand by his man, the Reverend John Hagee.

This is a perfect example of what makes HRC so problematic for many Democrats.  She is running a campaign that is too clever by half, much like the Clintons' two terms in the White House often proved to be.  Hillary and her staff profess disappointment in the divisive comments made by high-level surrogates and supporters but refuse to cut ties with the transgressors.  In other words, she gets the negative campaign benefit of the offending remark, the public relations benefit of crying foul, and the political benefit of retaining the support of the individual responsible for the attack.  Basically, she's Claude Rains in "Casablanca," pocketing his roulette winnings as he closes down Rick's Cafe upon "discovering" gambling on the premises.    

Ferraro is merely the most recent example.  In January, BET founder and Clinton supporter Robert Johnson referred to the drug use Obama has written about in his past, claiming that the Clintons were involved in black issues,

"...when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood -- and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book."

When the eventual and inevitable apology came forth, Johnson further insulted our collective intelligence by releasing the following (through the Clinton campaign):

"My comments today were referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else.  Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect."

What a crock.  Clinton spokesman Jay Carson, when given the opportunity to denounce and reject this fairy tale, endorsed Johnson's explanation, saying, "That's not what he was talking about."  Carson further responded that Clinton, "has made (it) crystal clear to supporters and staff alike that no one should engage in negative personal campaining."

To be fair, the Clinton campaign does take action when the fish are smaller.  New Hampshire campaign co-chair Bill Shaheen was asked to step down after he said,"

"the Republicans are not going to give up without a fight...and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use."

The campaign's reaction was that the comments "were not authorized by the campaign in any way."  Hillary personally apologized to Obama, assuring him that this campaign had no place for negative personal statements.

Then there was the county coordinator in Iowa who forwarded an email stating that Obama was a Muslim.  They got right on top of that -- the volunteer resigned.  Patty Solis Doyle (perhaps reading from the same memo that was later recycled by Hillary in New Hampshire) proclaimed, "There is no place in our campaign for this kind of politics."

What she really meant was, there's no place in our campaign for these kinds of statements coming from the rank and file.  When it's a Bob Johnson, or a Geraldine Ferraro, or even a Bill Clinton making comments that are baiting at best and flat-out racist at worst, we'll turn the other cheek and you should too.

In counter-point, senior Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power called HRC, "a monster," in a Monday interview with a European newspaper and her resignation was accepted by Thursday.  It's called taking responsibility.

I'm not suggesting that Obama is getting unfairly raked over the coals in this campaign.  He gets more than his share of doting press.  (Maybe not John McCain levels but then, he doesn't throw personal BBQ's for the boys on the bus, either).  This is, after all, the biggest of leagues and they're fighting for the largest of prizes.  Bill suggesting that South Carolina is a state in which African Americans do well is not exactly Joe McCarthy smearing loyal Americans as Communists or Karl Rove swiftboating John Kerry.  The gloves are off in the battle for the Democratic nomination and Obama will have to show that he is tough enough to mix it up with the old-school politicians who are not about to go gently into the night.  If he can do so, he will emerge a stronger candidate, better qualified for the full-scale war that lies ahead.

But it doesn't change the fact that the Clintons' act is growing old.  Pandering to their base with the politics of fear, saying one thing today and the opposite tomorrow, calling for change while employing the same old tactics they've decried when they were used against them -- these are classic Clinton strategies.  In 1996, Dick Morris called it triangulation, and it worked.  Today it looks more like old-fashioned manipulation.  We'll see how it turns out.  

In any case, I do think Ms. Ferraro should be led back to her seat and given something to keep her busy.  She's not helping anybody.

Are The Dems Broke(ered)?

Two things are clear after watching the results from the Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont primaries last night.  

First and foremost, the only thing of which I'm absolutely certain is that I have no idea how this is going to end, and I wouldn't turn my back on anyone who says they do.  CNN has Obama with 1321 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1186.  MSNBC scores it Obama-1307, HRC-1175.  And AP's calculations show Obama with a 125 delegate lead, 1275 to 1150.  I mean, these organizations have reporters, pundits, researchers, interns.  They've got the internet.  They've got Chuck Todd, for chrissakes, and they can't agree on a number.  Agree?  They can't even come close.  Given the variables in play -- the Clintons' inexorable refusal to to lose, the whims of the super delegates, Obama's reluctance to enter the fray, HRC's decision to go dirty, the closeness of the contest, the nature of the states she has won vs. those he has, the Michigan and Florida balls still waiting to drop -- it seems improbable that this doesn't carry forward to the convention in Denver.

Second, it's at least as easy to see this ending badly for the Democrats as it is to picture Obama or Clinton raising a hand in oath on the steps of the Capitol next January 20th.  Fractious conventions don't bode well for the party doing the arguing.  1952 was the last truly brokered Democratic Convention.  Adlai Stevenson defeated Estes Kefauver, Avril Harriman and Richard Russell in three rounds of voting.  Stevenson went on to lose to Eisenhower in the general.  As the Real Clear Politics article I  linked to points out: 

Both the Democrats (1952) and the Republicans (1948) lost after their last multi-ballot conventions.  Similarly the GOP lost presidential elections in 1912 and 1940 after bitter convention fights, while Democrats lost after multi-ballot conventions in 1920 and 1924.  More recently, the 1968 debacle in Chicago, featuring riots outside the convention hall and near riots inside, showed just how difficult it is for a badly divided party to win.

What may take place this summer won't technically be a brokered convention.  The party slapped a coat of whitewash over that seedy image of fat, old, white guys sitting around in back rooms, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey as they trade political favors back and forth like so many baseball cards.  Now they're called super delegates and they are distinguished party elders, looking out for the good of the Democratic cause.  Make no mistake about it, though, it would be a veritable auction to see who could sell their vote to whichever side offered the most pork.

Kathy Gill, at About.com, wrote an excellent summary of the path the Democrats have taken to arrive at whichever circle of hell they currently inhabit.  Super delegates were created, in theory, to nudge the nomination towards the candidate with the best chance of winning the general election.  To take it out of the hands of the unwashed masses, so to speak, and let more sophisticated heads prevail.

It's ironic, isn't it, that it was the Democrats who were so unhappy with their constituents' preferences, the likes of McGovern, Mondale and Carter, that they devised a way to make the process less democratic?  

Like it or not, this is the game as the Democrats have designed it.  It appears increasingly probable that neither Obama nor HRC will arrive in Denver with the required number of delegates to claim the nomination.  They will need the backing of the super delegates to reach the magical 2025.  The arguments for how a super delegate should cast his super vote are old hat by now.  Obama backers insist he must echo the wishes of his constituents and Clinton fans think he would be better advised to vote his "conscience" and back whichever candidate would best serve the party going forward.  

Both sides act like this matter is up for debate.  It's not.  Super delegates, also referred to as unpledged delegates, are clearly free to cast their support to whomever they choose.  The only incentive to mirror their constituents' votes is that what goes around, comes around.  Most of them will presumably have to answer to those voters the next time they run for office.  And, being politicians, it stands to reason that most of them will find that argument persuasive.

But, I say, if you're going to have the damned toys, you might as well play with them.  What's the point of reserving a hotel room for the guy if he's just rubber-stamping the people's will?  Either get rid of them and select the nominee on the basis of the way the people voted or use them as they were designed, as DNC member Elaine Kamarck called, "a sort of safety valve," to protect us from ourselves.  

It might all be moot, anyway.  A few more months of Hillary driving up Obama's negatives (along, ironically, with her own) and it won't matter which Democrat emerges in August.    

I know.  It's crazy.  The process is akin to turning the wheel of the RV over to your four-year-old as it barrels down I-95 and going in back to lie down and take a quick nap.  But this is what Democrats do.  Hey, if you enjoy the lockstep, become a Republican.  

Obama's Next Move

Obama backers' biggest fear was crystalized last night on 60 Minutes.  Steve Kroft sat down with a handful of Ohio Democrats to discuss the election.  One of the guests was Kenny S., a middle-aged man who was losing his job at the NewPage paper plant which was closing by year's-end.  Kenny is straight out of central casting in the roll of  Average Joe, Middle America.  He was forthright, likeable and self-reliant.  He asked for no sympathy in the face of his impending unemployment and loss of the health insurance that enabled him to care for his MS-stricken wife.  In short, a stand-up guy, a true Democrat.

When asked who he was voting for, he replied that he was leaning towards Obama but. . . 

Kenny:  "There's a couple issues with him I'm not too clear on.  I'm hearin' he doesn't even know the national anthem.  He wouldn't use the Holy Bible.  He's got his own beliefs, with the Muslim beliefs . . . couple issues that bothers me at heart."

Kroft:  "You know that's not true."

Kenny:  "No.  I'm just . . . this is what I've been told."

It's a fifteen-second clip that will have the Karl Roves and Mary Matalins choking back giggles of ecstasy as they try to maintain a straight face for the cameras.  The perfect illustration of how good they have gotten at their nebulous smear campaigns.  

My natural inclination is always to dismiss these attacks.  They're ridiculous and beneath response.  Who in their right mind would question the patriotism of a man who has dedicated his life to making America a country where all of her citizens have the opportunity to realize their dreams?  What could be more patriotic than that?  I was likewise inclined to dismiss the 2004 attacks against the war records of John Kerry and, perhaps most absurdly, Georgia's Max Cleland.  How did that work out again? 

Evidently, there are people out there, lots of them, who listen to this garbage.  They believe.  And, even when they don't necessarily believe (Kenny didn't seem 100% comfortable stating his concerns to a national audience), they have doubts.  And those doubts fester and mutate under the intense pressure of increasingly negative attacks until they wake up one morning firmly convinced that Obama is a Muslim racist whose wife is a traitor.  

Much of the coverage today-- on television, in newspapers, across blogs -- is focused on these smear campaigns.  It would be wonderful to be able to ignore the attacks, treat them with the lack of respect they deserve.  Unfortunately, Kenny shows us why that's not possible.  If the accusations and innuendos are just left unanswered, the right wing has won.  Many of the voters who still have reservations about a candidate (Obama in this case but it could be any candidate in any election) will give in to their inner fears and believe the worst the politics of hate and fear can conjure up.

Obama needs to hit this hard, with the most effective means at his disposal.  To date, he has responded to each new slur immediately and reasonably.  But counter-punching isn't enough.  He needs to take the fight to the slanderers and libelers on the biggest stage he can command.  Tomorrow night, when he addresses another of his packed halls on national TV after the votes have been counted, he should share with the country his personal definitions of patriotism and Christianity and how his life has embodied those ideals.  He shouldn't be vindictive towards his attackers.  The optimistic, above-the-fray tone of his campaign has been spot-on to this point and he must continue with it.  His belief in the transformative power of hope is his greatest advantage over both HRC and John McCain.  He needs to sit with his speechwriters and create another masterpiece, like he gave us after Iowa and again after South Carolina.  

His speech in Houston after winning Wisconsin was fine, but it bogged down a bit in the details, almost as if he was proving to his critics that his campaign was just as much about policy as it was about poetry.  It was fine for the faithful but I'm not sure it inspired many conversions.

Obama's strength is oratory.  He is uniquely able to connect with people of all races, faiths and political affiliations through the power of his words.  There are lots of Kenny's out there, teetering on the fence.  Obama, you need to write them a poem.  Read it to them tomorrow night.  They'll be listening.   

Do The Right Thing

As it becomes ever more evident that Barack  Obama will be able to continue raising almost unlimited cash so long as there's a world wide web, John McCain has a bone to pick with the presumptive Democratic nominee.  Inconvenient as it may be to Obama's big picture plans, McCain is reminding him of the agreement the two of them made last year (detailed here by Kenneth P. Vogel at Politico.com) to accept public financing, thereby limiting each candidate to $85 million in funding for the general election campaign.  At the time, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to the Illinois upstart.  He was just another face in a crowded room (albeit a room filled with old, white faces so it's not like he didn't stand out).  Who could have predicted his embarrassment of riches?  Now, to limit his funding to a paltry $85 million seems absurd, given his remarkable abilities to persuade folks to pony up for his cause on a monthly basis, $25 at a time.

Trouble is, McCain has a point.

These guys are both running as reformers:  McCain cruises around the country in the Straight Talk Express, pissing off evangelicals, right-wing talk radio hosts and fat-cat lobbyists while Obama promises to ride into Washington and change the mindset of the city itself by getting Democrats, Republicans and Independents to sit together and compromise like reasonable men, thereby further promoting the image of Camelot and its mythical Round Table that was first invoked by the Bobby Kennedy comparisons.

And, as a reformer, one of Obama's hole cards has  always been campaign finance.  He lists it front and center on the Ethics page of his website:

"Obama introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and is the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) tough bill to reform the presidential public financing system."

The whole point of the Feingold legislation is to reduce the influence of private money and provide candidates with enough public funding to run an effective campaign without having to become full-time telemarketers.  The Washington Post quoted Obama last February:

"Congress concluded some thirty years ago that the public funding alternative . . . would serve core purposes in the public interest:  limiting the escalation of campaign spending and the associated pressures on candidates to raise, at the expense of time devoted to public dialogue, ever vaster sums of money."

He has promoted campaign reform, he has voted for campaign reform and he has written campaign reform.  Most importantly, he has campaigned on campaign reform.  Now, if he wants to maintain his integrity as an agent of change from George Bush's blatant mendacity and Bill Clinton's parsing of the truth, he must stand by his pledge.

Besides, money, while obviously important, may not be the magic bullet this time around.  McCain's most effective marketing is the continuous barrage of shameless character assassination and innuendo that the GOP and party faithful heap upon Obama.  They're like mental patients in the asylum slinging fecal matter against the walls to see what sticks:  from declaring Barack Hussein Obama a closet Muslim who took his oath of office on the Koran, to accusing him of refusing to pledge allegiance in a patriotic enough fashion, to claiming he was educated in an Indonesian madrassah.   McCain doesn't pay a dime for this crap.  It's out there, all the time, and he can pick and choose which of the most outrageous of the charges to disassociate himself from on those rare occasions when he is asked about them.  He has pledged to run a positive, issues-based campaign, so we can only assume that his legitimate, paid advertising will steer clear of these insults to the electorate's intelligence.  Unfortunately, hobbled by the truth, he would be reduced to trying to defeat Obama on a platform of Bush tax cuts and the Hundred Years Surge.  I don't think even he believes that will work.  So I'm guessing the slander will continue.

And as for Obama, the mainstream press may as well be a branch of his campaign.  Have you watched Hardball lately?  It's like a 60-minute Barack infomercial.  I don't know what Hillary did to piss off Chris Matthews but, whatever it was, it wasn't worth it.  Ditto for Countdown with Keith Olbermann.  If they're this biased for Obama against a Democrat, I can hardly wait to see what they have in store for McCain in the general election.

The point is, both of them are getting much of what they need for free, anyway.  There's so much media coverage now that political advertising doesn't carry anywhere near the weight it did when the financing laws were written.  Seriously, when's the last time you actually paid attention to a campaign commercial on television?

My question is, why not fight McCain even up, Barack?  You've got the momentum, the message, a tanking economy, an endless war.  Your organization on a state-by-state basis is the envy of all of your opponents.  You're younger, more eloquent and you're not a Republican following George Bush.  Plus, you're capable of beginning a sentence without the words, "My friends."  These are huge advantages.  

And most crucially, it's the right thing to do.  It's what got you to this point.  As you're fond of pointing out, "No one said this would be easy."  The high road can be a lonely place but it's where you need to be.

 

Enough Already

God, I'm tired.  I just finished watching the Clinton/Obama slogfest from Cleveland and I'm not sure I can climb out of this chair and make it to bed.  

I don't remember the last time I endured such an enervating performance from both parties involved.  Have you ever watched an NBA game in the doldrums of January between two lousy teams, the visiting team playing their fourth game in five nights and the home team just back that morning from a nine-game, west coast swing?  It was like that.  Fumbled exchanges, wild shots missing their marks, no ability to freelance or improvise.  

Everything that was said had been said before, but better.  Both candidates looked like they'd rather be just about anywhere but Cleveland State University in a snow storm.  Neither one appeared to give much of a damn about how they came off.  If this debate was a movie, it was The Godfather: Part III.  

Hillary was a mess.  The expression on her face whenever the camera showed her listening to Obama or the moderators was one of glum resignation.  It's the way I looked when my dentist told me I needed an emergency root canal.  Her shrill complaint against Williams and Russert (and, I can only assume, Campbell Brown, Natalie Morales, Wolf Blitzer and anyone else who's directed a question her way throughout these debates) for calling on her first would have struck the most politically tone deaf note of the night if not for her pre-packaged jab at Obama and whether he should be offered a pillow.  You would think she would have learned her lesson in Texas when her embarrassing Xerox "zinger" clunked resoundingly onto the stage floor.  She even managed to negate her only substantive advantage -- the fact that her health care plan is marginally less delusional than Obama's -- by refusing to let the subject go when it was time to move on, continually interrupting to inject one last mewling scrap of minutia.  By debate's end I was reminded of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, hanging on to Sugar Ray Robinson after absorbing a punishing beating, mumbling, "You never knocked me down, Ray.  You never knocked me down."  

Obama's performance was only marginally better.  He seemed lethargic, content to sit back and parry the futile thrusts of his exhausted opponent.  Obama is at his best when he is in oratorical full flight.  When his words are meant to inspire the better instincts in all of us.  When he is setting the agenda.  These debates don't play to his strengths.  Sometimes, when his reaction to a Clinton attack is meant to be measured and deliberative, he comes across as smug, even condescending.  He once again missed opportunities to tie in the cost of the Iraq war with the free-falling economy here at home.  Perhaps he's saving that ammo for McCain.  He wasn't able to put to rest questions about his pledge last year to take public financing in the general election.  It's an interesting box he's constructed for himself on this one -- we'll have to wait and see how he extricates himself.  Hard to picture him voluntarily ceding the advantage his spectacular fundraising machine gives him.  He is, however, running a campaign based on ideals and accountability, right?  

Basically, not much changed as a result of this debate.  If I had to guess what the biggest blow of the night was, I'd say it was Russert's steamrolling of HRC on her NAFTA flip-flop.  He hit her with a flurry that underlined in no uncertain terms how she championed the trade agreement until it became a political albatross around her neck.  I'll bet that's what Ohio voters took away from what has otherwise become an exercise in picking over the barren carcass of this campaign in search of fresh ideas or stimulating arguments.

This thing is over.  Actually, it's been over for awhile now.  The exact moment it ended was immediately after the Wisconsin primary, when Hillary was giving her non-concession speech to a modest gathering of disappointed supporters in Youngstown, Ohio and all of the networks cut away from that lead balloon to show Obama raising the roof in front of 20,000 raucous fans down in Houston, Texas.  You can fool most of the people practically all of the time but when the guys sitting in the corner offices at the networks decide you're no longer relevant, well, that pain in your neck is from the big fork that's sticking out of it.

Clinton won't drop out this week.  If she was capable of that, she wouldn't be Hillary Clinton.  She's still polling okay in Ohio, she likes her chances in Pennsylvania, she and Bill are holding the chits of a bunch of undeclared super delegates and the Florida/Michigan fiasco is yet to be settled.  That all adds up to continuing the fight at least through Ohio.  

But make no mistake about it:  Hillary's campaign is well into its endgame now.  She'll be fine, by the way.  It's even money her next job title will be Senate Majority Leader.  Assuming she doesn't burn too many bridges between now and the Democratic National Convention.

Run, Ralph, Run

Ralph Nader made his quadrennial visit to NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday to deliver the news flash that he's . . . running . . . for . . . president . . . as . . . a . . . third . . . party . . . candidate.  Again.

The responses of HRC and Obama were predictable and can be reviewed in the New York Times article here.  In a nutshell, Obama made the always popular "he's not putting food on the voters' tables" argument while Clinton found the decision "really unfortunate."  Back in 2004, then-DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe termed that year's Nader announcement, "very unfortunate," so it's good to see that Hillary is still taking her cues from the democratic party's (and Clinton machine's) biggest rainmaker.  

If I'm Senator Clinton, Nader's announcement isn't, "really unfortunate."  Maybe it's "interesting."  At worst, "curious."  What's "really unfortunate" is that her campaign, helmed by the evidently distracted Patty Solis Doyle, squandered a twenty-plus point lead and burned through more than $105 million by Super Tuesday with little to show for it beyond access to the VIP lounge at the local Dunkin' Donuts.  She's never going to see her name across from Nader's on a ballot.  Obama's getting ready to drop the hammer in Texas and I wouldn't bet against him in Ohio.  At which point it's, as they say on The West Wing, "Game over."

But the national teeth-gnashing that the Dems engage in each time Ralph Nader sits down with Tim Russert has grown tiresome.  Yes, his previous campaigns hurt the Democratic nominee more than the Republican candidate.  Obviously, he attracted potential Democratic votes in Florida and Ohio, votes that would no doubt have gone to Gore and Kerry and perhaps have wrested the final decisions away from Jeb Bush and Rehnquist and Diebold and Triad Systems.  If the complaint is voiced as a statement, I respond, "So what?"  If it is framed as a question, I answer,  "Too bad."

If you truly believe that the system in its present construct is broken, and that we need new, outside-Washington blood to effect real change from top to bottom, then there is no rational argument you can make that Ralph shouldn't be allowed to run.  

Both Obama and HRC stump passionately against the influence of corporate lobbyists and the need for campaign finance reform.  But you could add together their respective years spent actually combating big money interests and then cube that number and you wouldn't equal the years Nader has spent fighting and winning against corporate fat cats. 

The mainstream candidates are happy to talk about environmental problems and solutions but neither has the nature-friendly bona fides of Nader, who ran in 2000 and 2004 as the candidate of the Green Party.  His career has been built upon the fight for clean air, clean water, safe food and  environmental standards.  

Ralph Nader is not going to play spoiler in the general election.  The 2.7% he won in '04 was down from the 3.0% he garnered in '00.  He will do worse in '08.  But his is a voice that it does us good to hear every four years.  Because deep down, buried under the cynicism and hypocrisy of our two party system, we know he's right.  And if all we have to do is listen to him make a couple of speeches, maybe read an op-ed or two in the Times, well, that's a small price to pay for acknowledging what we're doing to our consciences when we step into the voting booth.

Worst case scenario, Nader's candidacy drops Obama's margin of victory over McCain in November back down to single digits.