Is Obama Ready?

A popular topic of conversation this year has been whether America is ready for Barack Obama as our next president.  It began as a philosophical debate amongst political junkies but, as his campaign gained momentum, it quickly became the subject du jour at water coolers and bus stops around the country.  Every amateur pundit has an opinion on whether Obama is truly a post-racial candidate, if voters tell the truth in exit polls, and if Alabama, Pennsylvania has evolved far enough to step into the booth and cast a vote for a black man.  These are all fair questions and perfectly germane to the contest at hand.  

But I'm not sure they are the most important question.  What we really need to know is, is Barack Obama ready to be President of the United States?  More specifically, is he ready to do what it takes to be elected president?

He has much of the process down pat.  His campaign speeches are marvelous flights of oratory, reducing students and disaffected independents to a weak-kneed euphoria as they queue up to add their name to his mailing list, thereby making themselves available for thrice-weekly requests for online campaign donations.  His website is state-of-the-art, pleasing to the eye and easily navigable;  a Mac to Hillary's PC.  It has grown into the biggest cash cow political fund-raising has ever seen.  He moves through crowds with the easy grace of an athlete, making eye contact, reaching out, shaking hands -- connecting.  His wife is now on point after a bit of a rough start.  She's not a natural politician and it shows, but she has learned on the job and is now a definite asset out on the trail.  

These are all crucial to a successful campaign.  But they're all above-the-fray kinds of achievements.  Obama brought the big brain and charisma with him when he entered the race.  With Axelrod supplying the message and Plouffe the strategy, his macro-success could, on some level, be predicted.  He is, after all, a singularly talented political animal.

But one begins to wonder if he is really willing to roll his sleeves up and get dirty.  To do the things necessary to get people on the upper-east side of Manhattan and Jupiter, Florida and Muncie, Indiana and South-Central Los Angeles and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico to all vote for the same candidate.  Being smart and principled isn't enough.  Having a vision of ending the divisive politics we've become accustomed to isn't enough.  Energizing an entire generation of new voters won't get it done either.

No, voters demand more.  They want their backs scratched.  They want their palms greased.  A little pander goes a long way.  Clinton understands it.  So does McCain.  The vacation from gasoline taxes they're promoting is a farce.  When all is said and done, it will have saved the average consumer a half tank of gas over the summer, while costing the highway trust fund about $9 billion and the construction industry some 300,000 jobs.  

Doesn't matter.  It's about telling the people in front of you what they want to hear, then hopping on a plane and flying somewhere else to tell those people the something different that they want to hear.  Workers in Texas feel differently about NAFTA than unemployed workers in Ohio.  That's not a problem for Hillary.  Maverick Candidate John McCain is against torture and the Bush tax cuts.  Until he becomes Nominee John McCain and needs his party's right wing.  Then he favors making the Bush cuts permanent and exempting the CIA from the Army's Field Manual guidelines for the questioning of detainees.  Not a problem.

It's not just a question of policies.  Obama seems uncomfortable acting as someone he's not.  He comes across as elitist to some because he refuses to dumb down his game.  He's naturally eloquent, he's dragging around an Ivy League education, he's written two best-sellers and he's a United States senator.  Clinton has the same resume -- well, the eloquence might be a stretch -- but she's perfectly willing to play the part of good ol' boy across small-town America.  She's out there eatin' the corn dogs, drinkin' the whiskey and promising them that good times are right around the corner.  Have you seen Obama's face when he's offered yet another chocolate donut at some factory in Pennsylvania?  His expression reminds me of the look on George Bush's face  every time he gets stuck entertaining some indigenous African tribe and they invite him to join them in their ancient fertility dance.  I'll bet Obama hasn't eaten a chocolate donut since he quit smoking dope back in college.  You watch him scrimmaging with the University of North Carolina basketball team and it looks like he could run full-court for an hour.  Hillary, on the other hand, appears to have added about thirty pounds to the seat of her pants.  (I'm no fashion bug but somebody needs to tell her, less with the pink and orange pantsuits, more with something in a slimming black.  Maybe a nice Anne Taylor jacket and skirt.)  

Why Americans have come to require a president they'd feel comfortable having a beer with is beyond me.  Or one that can pick up a 7-10 split down at the local bowling alley.  It wasn't always this way.  FDR was born into one of the richest families in New York, grew up riding, shooting and playing polo and lived in luxury while attending Harvard.  JFK grew up in mansions along the Hudson River and Hyannisport, attended The Choate School and sailed on the SS Normandie to study at the London School of Economics.  No one seemed to hold their upbringings against them.  Me, I like a president with a sense of style.  And smart.  Really smart.  The more books he's read and tests he's aced, the better.  As Jon Stewart puts it, "the job you're applying for, if it goes well?  They might carve your head into a mountain!"

Look, I don't want to sound elitist and out-of-touch and patronizing.  But expecting a presidential candidate to be able to blend in at a tractor pull is f*@king stupid.  No regular guy or gal is wired to run for president.  Do you think Billy Bob, Jr. would be comfortable hosting a state dinner for the Sarkozy's?  Then why should the next president have to fit in at the 4-H club?  

Obama is struggling in the red states because, as much as anything else, he is different.  Not just different from Reagan democrats, but different from most presidential politicians.  He's young.  He's black.  He's basically liberal but seems non-partisan by nature.  He's unwilling to deny who he is and where he came from.  It's one of the reasons he has had such difficulty divorcing himself from Jeremiah Wright.  Trinity United and Wright obviously played a major role in molding the man Obama is today and he has been loath to cast them aside.  His former pastor had to take his show on the road, attacking Obama before the national press as just another hypocritical politician before Obama said, "enough."  And even then, although his anger and disappointment were palpable at his press conference, his basic decency and capacity for forgiveness remained evident.  He still would not say the break was irrevocable.  Just that the relationship had changed.  He did not denounce the man, finally, but his propositions, his statements.  He left open the possibility, somewhere down the line, of reconciliation.

He's a complex man.  America doesn't appreciate complexity in their presidential campaigns.  We want our candidate to pull up a stool, grab a beer and say, "Hey, buddy, I'm just like you.  Tell me your problems and I'll fix them."  

Well, Obama's not just like us.  He could pretend that he is, but it wouldn't make it so.  He's different.  That's why I'm voting for him.

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.

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.