August 15, 2006

8/15: The Revolution Will Be YouTubed

John Dickerson devoted an entire Slate item to the role anti-Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) YouTube clips played in delivering a Dem primary victory to cable exec Ned Lamont (D-CT). The Blogometer believes Dickerson overstates his case more than a little bit, but here we are less than a week later and already YouTube is making news again. How damning the clip of Sen. George Allen (R-VA) using the moniker "Macaca" probably depends on your opinion of Allen before viewing it. For those less partisan however, the clip does fit into a purposefully developed story line of Allen's insensitivity to racial matters. Just like with Lieberman, a video like this can't sink Allen alone, but it is now forever out there on the web ready to rile the base up or dissuade potential swing voters.

Not Larry Sabato began torturing the Blogometer 8/13 with a "MAJOR SENATE RACE SHAKEUP" header and teaser reading "George Allen steps in it. Video coming soon." By deadline 8/14 the details of the incident were still a mystery. Finally, late 8/14 Not Larry Sabato linked to video of Allen from a campaign rally in southwest VA where Allen "welcomed" an ex-Navy Sec. James Webb (D-VA) volunteer taping the event saying: "This fellow over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is ... let's give a welcome to Macaca here."

Matt Stoller at MyDD summed up lefty reaction to the story: "George Allen, I'm glad you're finally out of the closet as a racist. It must have been really hard to restrain yourself for all these years." Wonkette quipped: "George Allen! He's edgy! Like Chris Rock, or John Rocker!"

Ryan Lizza at TNR explains: "Not only is macaque apparently a French slur used to describe North Africans, Allen would have good reason to know it is. His mother is French Tunisian (yeah, that's in North Africa), and Allen speaks French." Lizza then looks at possible fallout: "A politician without Allen's record might get the benefit of the doubt since these are arguably ambiguous statements. (Did Allen just mean the real America, as opposed to Hollywood? Was he calling Sidarth a monkey or just playing on the word mohawk, the nickname Allen's campaign uses for Sidarth?) But given Allen's history, he won't get the benefit of the doubt. And he shouldn't." Teacherken at Raising Kaine has similar thoughts: "The story may be a one-day or two-day wonder, but because it fits a meme that was already out there about Allen -- which he had tried to counteract by cosponsoring the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and appearing with Congressman John Lewis - the story also might have 'legs.'"

Reaction on the right was mixed. Allen definitely had his defenders but no one was buying Team Allen's original story that Allen was saying "mohawk." James Joyner at Outside the Beltway writes: "Allen's explanation is hard to swallow: "Asked what macaca means, Allen said: "I don't know what it means." He said the word sounds similar to "mohawk," a term that his campaign staff had nicknamed Sidarth because of his haircut. Sidarth said his hairstyle is a mullet, tight on top, long in the back." So, Allen didn't know the name and decided to make one up on the spot that reminded him, but presumably nobody in the audience, of "mohawk"? That's just absurd. Especially since, Jane Hamsher (who knows something about racial slander) points out, Sidarth's haircut doesn't at all resemble a mohawk.

But Joyner, like many on the right, wasn't buying the MSM story line either: "Now, isn't it interesting that WaPo doesn't capitalize "Macaca"? After all, Allen's clearly using it as a name, not a descriptor. If Allen had said "Mohawk" rather than "Macaca," it'd still be capitalized in that context. Putting it in lower case, though, makes it seem more as if it was being used as a slur."

Also at Outside the BeltwayGreg Tinti thinks Allen's intellect is getting too much credit: "For someone that is typically derided as, er, not that worldly, Sen. George Allen is sure being given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his knowledge of really obscure ethnic slurs. ... Macaca, according to The Washington Post, "is considered a racial slur against African immigrants" in some "European cultures" according to "several Web sites that track ethnic slurs." In other words, it is a slur but we had to be told it is slur by the people that track all the slurs from around the world. ... But it seems to me that Allen called Sidarth "Macaca" because he had no idea what his real name was.

John McIntyre at RCP Blog also doubts the Webb volunteer was singled out for his skin color: "Watch the video for yourself. It is pretty clear, at least to me, that Allen is good naturedly ribbing a guy who is following him around and harassing him. The reason for him being singled out is not because the Webb volunteer, is non-white, but rather because the guy is following Allen around, unwanted, trying to catch him on film in an embarrassing incident."

Not all on the right were convinced Allen was innocent. Under a header "Allen Under Fire...and Rightly So" Too Conservative writes: "I am pretty disappointed in Senator George Allen right now." Too Conservative later passes on a readers thoughts: "As someone who is Indian, Republican, a huge Davis supporter, and (formerly) a casual Allen supporter, I am a little bit upset at Senator Allen and let me explain why. ... He appears to be singling out this person in front of a crowd that is presumably mostly white and he thinks that this is going to somehow score him political points. Now, if Senator Allen were making fun of the guy cause he was a Webb staffer, that would be different. But he goes above and beyond that. In other words, it's the tone, spirit, and context of the situation that has me upset.

DarkSyde at DailyKos asks, "I know there are millions of brave, decent conservatives. ... But good grief, when did the Republican Party become infested with what sound like so many loud, whining cowardly pundits?" DarkSyde goes on to explain: "Here's a message for both our home grown Neoconservative, bloggy, gutless wonders and the Jihadi nutcases overseas: I grew up in the cold-war, my parents went through WW2 for crying out loud. We are not paralyzed with fear over Osama. Despite your best efforts, I'm not obsessed with terrorism. Sheesh, I barely even think about it. I face bigger statistical risks, in every way, every day, and on every scale, just driving across a set of railroad tracks and down the interstate smoking a cigarette in the rain, and I don't worry much about that either."

Right Wing News claimed the post was evidence of Dem weakness on terror: "You know why I love this? Because it's honest. Here's a liberal saying what Howard Dean, Ned Lamont, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats really think. This allows people to take a very clear, open eyed look at what conservatives and liberals really believe.

• -- Conservatives believe we must do whatever it takes to stop another 9/11 from occurring on our soil. -- Liberals, like Darksyde, don't think that's the case.
• -- Conservatives believe WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists is a serious threat. -- Liberals, like Darksyde, do not.
• -- Conservatives think the British terrorism plot, that would have featured numerous planes being blown up in mid air, would have been a major disaster had it happened. -- Liberals, like Darksyde, do not.

RWN continues: "Boiled down to it's simplest level, conservatives believe terrorism is a serious threat and spend a lot of time thinking about how to combat it. Liberals like Darksyde, "barely even think about," terrorism and consider preventing terrorist attacks to be a low priority."

DarkSyde later responds: "Yay! I got linked quoted on one right-wing chicken-[excrement] site already. Redstate is whining that we must join them under the bed. How do these wimps make it through the day without a jug of Xanax? Who will be the next yellow-elephant to complain that we're not sharing in their abject cowardice enough? I'm taking bets."

Meanwhile AMERICAblog promotes a new DSCC video "Feel Safer" on GOP security failures: "Rove wants national security to be the issue this year. Looks like it will be, but the Dems. are doing it on their terms in 2006. And those terms include draping Iraq around the necks of every Republican. That's the GOP's greatest fear this year."

Greg Pollowitz at National Review Online responds: "This new video from the DSCC lists all the ways George Bush has made America less safe. Not enough money for law enforcement to not enough money for container inspection to too many illegal immigrants. It's an ad designed to scare the electorate into voting for Democrats. But Ted Kennedy, in this Hartford Courant op-ed, cautions against the Republican use of fear "to cling to power." Democrats: We're actually for scaring voters before we were against it.

Finally, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) takes to The Huffington Post to demand the administration stop the Iraq war like they stopped the war in Lebanon: "Sixty percent of Americans oppose the war in Iraq. The latest polling of Iraqis indicate that 80 percent want the U.S. to leave and a majority believes that Iraq will be more stable without the presence of U.S. troops. Many intelligence reports indicate that the war in Iraq has radicalized more European Muslims and strengthened terrorist recruitment efforts throughout the world. And yet given these facts, the Bush Administration refuses to consider a policy aimed at a timely and responsible disengagement of our military from Iraq. Instead they insist on staying a course with no end in site."

Murtha continues: "Compare this against the backdrop of the war in Lebanon. The United States and virtually all other members of the United Nations Security Council continue to push for an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The lead taken by the United States to end the violence and to stop the loss of innocent lives has been applauded. The Bush Administration is moving with speed and deliberation to end the one war, but not the other. Those who speak of ending the war in Lebanon, to stop the loss of more lives, are seen as skillful diplomats. Yet those who dare speak about ending the war in Iraq are labeled by Bush's henchmen as unpatriotic defeatists. The American public opposes the war in Iraq. The Iraqi population opposes an open ended occupation of their country. The International community opposes the war the Iraq. So, why the dichotomy of the two wars?"

John Nichols at The Nation Blog argues "anti-war challenger Ned Lamont's Connecticut Democratic primary win over pro-war incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman Tuesday was a clear victory for the activist wing of the Democratic Party that -- if liberal Internet blogs are to be believed -- sees Feingold as perhaps its most attractive contender for the party's presidential nomination in 2008." Nichols also reports: "On the morning after the Connecticut results came in, Feingold notes, a former staffer told him, "Hey, if you were looking for an excuse to not run for president, Russ, you didn't get it last night."

Matthew Yglesias at TAPPED thinks Nichols reasoning "is missing a whole bunch of steps." Yglesias notes: "Realistically, Hillary Clinton is no Joe Lieberman in terms of political profile, even though I agree that their views on Iraq are less different at the end of the day than Clinton would like us to think. But that brings us to the larger point, Lieberman lost by a pretty narrow margin at the end of the day. ... What's more, the dynamics of the Connecticut primary were very different from a presidential one. Had Lieberman agreed to respect the outcome of the primary, the general election would have been a blowout win for whoever won the Democratic nomination. That took the dread "electability" off the table as an issue. The 2008 primary won't be like that. And Feingold is close to the opposite (being from Wisconsin is okay; being a twice-divorced non-practicing Jewish senator is terrible) of the person I would come up with as a messenger for Feingold's message."

Ezra Klein at TAPPED notes that An Inconvenient Truth is resting comfortably atop the New York Times Bestseller List, but doubts "that customers are buying a coffee table tome on global warming rather than a little piece of Gore-mania." Klein concludes: "while a bestseller does not make a presidential campaign, it's got to be one more siren song tempting the ambitions of the former contender."

On the right, Steven Foley at RedState picks up on a USA Today article titled: "Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe." Foley writes: "Here's a tip Mr. Gore; if you're going to tell us what to do you have to make these changes before someone calls you out! This is just one more in a long laundry list of examples of the hypocrisy coming from the left. Not to say we on the right don't have our share of hypocrites but in comparison the left takes the cake. The reason for the lopsided numbers is simple, conservative live by the same set of ideals they advocate for others. The liberals want the people to do as they say and not as they do!

Righty traffic leader Instapundit is conducting a straw poll of his readers. Currently ex-NY mayor Rudy Giuliani is the clear winner.

Candidate				%		Votes
George Allen		12%		561
Bill Frist		1%		44
Newt Gingrich	19%		917
Rudy Giuliani	47%		2,262
John McCain		9%		449
Mitt Romney		12%		588
total							4,821 

McCAIN: Baseless?

Right Wing News wants no part of Michael Barone's McCain\Lieberman ticket: "What could be a worse idea than taking the guy who represents most of what's wrong with the Republican Party and putting him together with a liberal Democrat\Independent so that they can be the standard bearers for the GOP? We keep seeing some Republicans demand that the GOP move to the middle. Yet, who's the most beloved Republican President of the last 50 years? Ronald Reagan, a guy who was 4 or 5 steps to George Bush's right. ... So, why do people think that RINOs on the national ticket are the answer? Because they, incorrectly, believe that moderate candidates can draw in more independents and Democrats without paying a serious price with the base."

Instapundit reader Brian Erst handicaps the GOP field after seeing the straw poll above: "I've always thought the faithful Instapundit reader was first and foremost a security voter, not a Republican, and they are definitely going to break for Giuliani. Wonks and geeks make up a big chunk of the rest, so they (like me) went for Gingrich, the geekiest wonk out there. Neither will probably survive the real Republican primary though. Giuliani is too liberal for primary voters, and Gingrich is (brilliantly) damaged goods. That leaves the real fight - McCain/Allen/Romney. McCain can easily win the main election, and is the second-place finisher in the last Republican primaries (Repubs tend to promote the runner-up to the head of the next ticket), so he's the prohibitive favorite. George Allen can make watching wallpaper dry seem like the mosh pit at a late-80s Pantera concert, but has a good organization. Romney is the best pure politician out there - if McCain stumbles, Romney will be turned into the Ronald Reagan of Latter-Day Saints."

Progressive Christy Hardin Smith at firedoglake was none too happy to hear from reader TeddySanFran that NARAL intended to stick with its Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) endorsement over cable exec. Ned Lamont (D) so she called NARAL HQ to confirm: "And I was told, yes indeed, they are continuing to endorse Joe Lieberman, loser of the Democratic primary. You, too, can contact NARAL if you would like, and ask why it is that they continue to endorse Joe Lieberman, whether they plan on ever contacting the Lamont campaign to even speak with a fully pro-choice candidate, instead of a pseudo-pro-choice-but-voting-for-Alito-cloture-short-ride-kinda-guy like Lieberman, and just what they are thinking with this myopic decision-making in general."

The official Lamont Blog promised 8/14 that the Lamont campaign "will not be outspent in the genereal election. The Lamont Blog also announced that John Edwards (D) will be the first WH '08er to campaign for Lamont. Edwards will appear with Lamont and Mayor John Destefano (D) 8/17 in New Haven, CT.

Meanwhile, Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe reports businessman Jack Orchulli pledges to spend at least $1.5 mil if Alan Schlesinger is pushed off the ballot. Apparently the pledge is time sensitive. Orchulli: "If Schlesinger doesn't step down within two weeks, it'll be too late."

Ivy J. Sellers at Right Angle Blog looks at an Exprss blog item from CenterBlue.org pulling for Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and comments: "With liberal blogs such as this one eagerly rooting him on, it's high time the GOP showed Chafee the door."

Also at Right Angle, Matt Lewis argues CT SEN should not be confused with RI SEN: "Obviously, both races have drawn national attention. Both Chafee and Lieberman are sitting U.S. Senators from New England. Both are also philosophically outside the mainstream of their party orthodoxy."

Lewis continues: "And then, there are the differences. Joe Lieberman is convivial. Chafee is not. Lieberman is closer to his party's ideology than is Chafee. And on the challenger side, there are differences, too; Laffey is a Mayor while Lamont is a millionaire businessman. ... But perhaps most importantly, the hot-button issue of the Iraq war will likely not play as significant a role in determining the outcome of the Chafee/Laffey race. If you believe Lamont's victory was about Iraq, then there probably is no need for Chafee to worry. But if you believe that Lamont's victory was about more than Iraq -- that it was about "change" -- that it was about being ideologically pure -- or that it was simply an anti-incumbent thing -- then maybe there is room to worry."

Right Wing News reports from a conference call with Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) introducing "Rightroots endorsed candidate Mike McGavick" (R) to conservative bloggers: "We discussed fund raising a bit because McGavick has been lagging behind Cantwell, who has raised nearly 16 million dollars so far while McGavick has raised less than 5 million. The good news is that Cantwell has already spent more than half of that money and she only has a 4 point lead. Moreover, McGavick is going to put 2 million dollars of his own money into the campaign to make sure she doesn't leave him in the dust in the home stretch. ... McGavick talked about a variety of issues, but what he said about the war on terrorism was really spot-on."

Paul Glastris at The Washington Monthly "obtained an internal scorecard showing which House Democrats have been the most diligent at dialing for dollars on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee." Glastris reports: "The DCCC sets fundraising goals for each member based on committee assignment and whether the member stands to become a committee or subcommittee chair should the Democrats win the majority. Each member is then expected to contribute to the team in three ways: by paying "dues" directly to the DCCC (which the committee then spends on TV ads in competitive districts); by holding fundraisers that benefit the DCCC; and by directly giving to or raising money for Democratic challengers through a program called "Red to Blue."

Glastris names his winners and losers: "As you can see, there are some real heroes, like Reps. Mike Thompson (D-Ca) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla), who have raised millions for their fellow Dems. And there are serious laggards, like Reps. Pete Stark (D-Ca) and Jim Moran (D-Va), who have not only raised little or nothing for others but haven't even paid their own dues.

Chris Bowers at MyDD links to a Roll Call article on the growing strength of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and writes: "This is another sign of how power in the Democratic Party is shifting. The Blue Dogs and the New Democrats are both losing members in the House, but progressive are gaining. Back in June of 2005, these is exactly the sort of steps that I argued needed to be taken in order to help bring more progressive depth for higher office in the Senate, Governorships, and the Presidency. Instead of complaining about the lack of progressive in the party, we needed to work to bring more progressives into the party, and into higher levels of the party. After all, that is what the New Dems did back in the 1980's and 1990's, and that is why their candidate dominate the potential Presidential field for 2008. However, these new trends are very encouraging. We have a national progressive movement building outside of DC, but it seems quite clear that we have one building inside DC as well. Rock on."

Furthering the progressive ascendancy DavidNYC at Swing State Project announced the final round of nominations for MyDD/DailyKos/Swing State Project Netroots Candidates list. David explains who can be nominated: "It's a list of strong - but not quite top-tier - candidates who either already have broad support in the netroots or who ought to have such support. Our goal, in other words, is to identify campaigns where our ability to impact the race will be greatest. We don't want to pile on after the big boys - we want to get the ball rolling so that the big boys will come in and pile on after us."

CNN Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts is heading into a blogswarm over his 8/11 question to Hotline senior editor John Mercurio: "How does this factor into the Lieberman/Lamont contest? And might some argue, as some have, that Lamont is the al Qaeda candidate?" Think Progress has video of the exchange here.

AMERICAblog calls Roberts question "despicable" and Media Matters' David Brock has an open letter to CNN President Jonathan Klein asking: "Will CNN be issuing a retraction? Will Mr. Roberts be offering Mr. Lamont an on-air apology? Will some disciplinary action be taken against Mr. Roberts?"

Meanwhile Arianna Huffington dissembles CNN's claim that "some people" are calling Lamont "tha Al Qaeda candidate." Her Huffington Post item reads: "Indeed, an exhaustive Lexis Nexis search confirms that no one has called Lamont "the Al Qaeda candidate." Except for Chuck Roberts. In fact, you know what you find if you Google "Al Qaeda candidate"? A lot of references to John Kerry being smeared by the RNC and its cronies during the 2004 election. Clearly, Lamont as is the latest rendition of an old G.O.P. tune. When will the mainstream media finally start holding elected officials and fellow journalists accountable for fraudulent words the way they rightly held Hajj, Reuters, and others accountable for fraudulent images? And how about starting by holding Chuck Roberts accountable?"

Spurred by a Kausfiles observation on CT SEN late polling and actual results, Mystery Pollster revisits the "Incumbent Rule" which posits that the majority of undecided will almost always break for a challenger over an incumbent. MP writes:

In September 2004, MyDD's Chris Bowers persuaded Panagakis to share his database and updated it with polls conducted from 1992 to early 2004. Bowers took the process a step further, calculating the average split of the undecided vote over all the elections. He noticed something obviously important in retrospect. The incumbent rule seemed to be weakening (although he had little data from 1996): 80% of the undecided vote broke to challengers in the poll Panagakis collected between 1976 and 1988, but only 60% went to the challenger in the polls Bowers gathered between 1992 and the summer of 2004. And challengers did worst of all in the polls in 2002 and the spring/summer of 2004 (42% to the incumbent, 58% to the challenger).

The more important question is why undecided voters have stopped breaking toward challengers in the final week of the campaign. There are many theories.

• One possibility is that post 9/11 politics makes voters more reluctant to take a chance on challengers.
• There is also the alternative theory Barone articulated in his column last week: The left is noisy, assertive, in your face, quick to declare its passionate support. Voters on the right and in the center may be quieter but then stubbornly resist the instruction of the mainstream media and show up on Election Day and vote Republican, as they did in 2004, or for Lieberman, as some apparently did this week.
• Or could this change reflect a change in the nature of campaigning? Negative television ads were a rarity in the 1970s, but have grown increasingly commonplace in the years since. Has the willingness of incumbents to "go negative" limited the ability of challengers to make the race a referendum on the incumbent and shifted the attention of late breaking voters to the alleged shortcomings of the challengers?

LEST WE FORGET: We Were All Young Once

The Blogometer has no joke here. But whether you love or hate Jon Stewart this (10 years at least) old clip of Stewart singing with Elmo ought to bring a smile to your face.

Posted by Conn Carroll at August 15, 2006 12:05 PM