9/13: Guess Who's Coming To Lunch?

Bloggers! At least if you're ex-Pres. Clinton, they did 9/12. A virtual 'who's who' of the progressive blogging community subwayed, trained, and flew to Harlem for a two-hour lunch with Bill and Peter Daou, Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) blog outreach director. Could there possibly be a more telling sign that bloggers are a true force in the Dem Party?

Lefty bloggers were ecstatic over Sen. Lincoln Chafee's (R) victory over Cranston mayor Steve Laffey (R). Under the header "Lincoln Chafee's Criticism of Bush Foreign Policy -- Including John Bolton -- Gets Boost" Steve Clemons at The Huffington Post writes: "This Chafee victory is also a potential sign that Republicans who "look like Bush" are in trouble -- and that Republicans who are pragmatists and not ideologues may be on the comeback."

M.J. Rosenberg at TPM Cafe is "smiling tonight" since "the most outspoken advocate of Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Senate and the only Republican to vote against authorizing the Iraq war (only 22 Senators TOTAL opposed it)" won. Rosenberg sees a pattern: "Connecticut Democrats choose the anti-Iraq war challenger, Ned Lamont, and Rhode Island Republicans choose the anti Iraq war incumbent, Lincoln Chafee. I like the pattern. The two most strenuously fought Senate primaries are won by anti-Iraq war candidates."

Righties were incensed:

• Conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt: "This is a very unfortunate development, and rewards an almost cosmic incoherence on the part of Chafee. I remain firmly of the opinion that the defeat of Chafee is in the best interests of the GOP, and understand the false comparisons with the Lamont-Lieberman race that will follow. Simply put: Lincoln Chafee did not vote for the invasion of Iraq, for the re-election of President Bush, or for the confirmation of Justice Alito."
• Robert Bluey at Right Angle Blog: "Republican incumbents are struggling in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Montana and other states. However, Sen. Liddy Dole (R-NC) chose to devote the NRSC's resources to Rhode Island -- a race that Chafee might not even win. In the meantime, Dole managed to alienate conservatives across the country by supporting a liberal Republican -- leaving the NRSC well behind the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in fundraising."
• EZOnTheEyez at RedState: "Lincoln Chafee is an idiot and an absolute embarrassment to the party. He is everything that Democrats accuse Republicans of being but most are not - stupid, silver spoon fed trust fund babies who only got where they are in life because of daddy's money."

Under the header "Republicans On the March to Stop Bush!" Kausfiles notes that the candidate who ran strongest against Pres. Bush's "amnesty" immigration bill won 9/12: "It looks as if immigration hard-liner Randy Graf has defeated National Republican Congressional Committee favorite Steve Huffman in the Republican primary for Arizona's Eighth District."

Matt Stoller at MyDD passes along the latest Rep. Al Wynn (D) and atty Donna Edwards (D) (tied at 48% with 75% reporting) and comments: "Ok, here's what I understand is going on right now. Basically the provisional ballots, all of which are from Montgomery County, will not be counted until next week. Montgomery County is where Donna Edwards has her base, so that's a very good thing. Voting problems, mostly due to the poor quality of the Diebold systems, were extensive. I'm trying to get information from the legal team of the Edwards campaign to lock this down."

Power Line's John Hinderaker announces: "Keith Ellison (also known by aliases that include Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison and Keith Ellison-Muhammad) won the Minnesota 5th District Democratic primary today." Hugh Hewitt adds: "I didn't think it was possible, but now the Democratic Party has nominated the extremist cut-and-run, anti-war lefty Ned Lamont in Connecticut, and the even more radical Ellison in Minnesota. ... "Any story tomorrow that fails to note basic facts about Ellison is an indictment of the MSM. ... The MSM has thrown in with the Democrats in this cycle, and there is zero chance of old media producing anything remotely like a thorough review of Ellison's past and his written and spoken words."

Pres. Bill Clinton sat down with leaders of the lefty blogging community in his Harlem offices 9/12 and TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt noted those in attendance: Jane Hamsher and Christy Hardin Smith from Firedoglake, Atrios, McJoan from Daily Kos, John Aravosis and Joe from AmericaBlog, Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers from MyDD, Bill Scherer from Liberal Oasis, Dave from SeeingtheForest, Steve from The Carpetbagger Report, Jessica from Feministing, Barbara from Mahablog, Attending by phone: John Amato from Crooks and Liars

Merritt's first posted photo from the event features Clinton and Daou, seated directly to his left. Merritt ran down the menu (southern chicken, fresh salad, baked sweet potato fries, sauteed spinach, corn, cornbread, and a cherry cake-like dessert) and adds: "Criminal defense lawyers take note: He's far better on our issues than we thought while he was president, from mandatory minimums, to drug courts to restoring the right to vote to former offenders. I'm totally impressed."

John in DC (aka John Aravosis) at AMERICAblog has many more photos and comments: "My impressions? He looks a little older than I expected, though befitting someone who was president for eight years (and he was first elected 14 years ago). He's got beautiful blue eyes (this isn't something I normally notice, but in his case I did, and he does, and I suspect he uses it to good effect). The man is smart as hell. He knows a lot about everything, and he gets it, he gets politics, he gets people, he understands what's going on and knows how to get things done. ... But on a more practical side, as I said at the beginning, these kind of meet-and-greets are what make politics work when it works - the importance of the personal cannot be overstated. We get more done working together than working separately, and that's one of the main messages we delivered."

Chris Bowers at MyDD also has a post up: "This was an amazing day for me. I felt a tremendous swelling of patriotic pride and love for America when I attended this meeting. Here I was, with a group of my friends and colleagues, meeting with one of our nation's Presidents because our small, do-it-yourself political operation had drawn his attention. I mean, this is largely work I have completed and a movement to which I have contributed from the bedroom of my apartment in West Philly. Somehow, in only a few years, this resulted in meeting with a former President of the United States."

The Corner's Rich Lowry and Kate O'Beirne shared excerpts of "an on-the-record session with a handful of journalists in the Oval Office this morning" with Pres. Bush:

• On Bin Laden: "Bush emphasized the importance of intelligence. Perhaps with those critics on his mind who argue that we took our eye off the ball by not committing the troops necessary to find the terror leader, Bush said,"100,000 troops there in Pakistan is not the answer, it's someone saying 'Guess what?' [i.e. `I know here he is'] and then the kinetic action begins."
• On Troop Levels: "Asked if generals might be inhibited in asking for more troops because it might be such a politically unwelcome request, Bush used a dismissive expletive for the notion. He expressed his conviction that his generals know he has what it takes-briefly showing his fluidity in Spanish-to get them the troops they need even if the politics isn't favorable."
• On Iran: "Asked whether it is the policy of the U.S. government to seek a regime change in Iran and Syria, he answered mostly on Iran. He said of Iran, "in order to solve this problem, it's very important for the U.S. to try all diplomatic means." He said people ask him what's the difference between Iran and Iraq. The answer he said is that "we tried all diplomatic means in Iraq."
• On Interrogation Policy: "Asked about the interrogation controversy, he said legislation should outline "clearly what is acceptable and provide liability protection so interrogators will feel protected going forward." He was emphatic that people should understand that "as long as the War Crimes Act hangs over their heads, they [interrogators] will not take the steps necessary to protect" Americans."
• On Elections: "He explained, "I'm not going to convince Democrats to vote for Republicans, there might be some Independents I can convince, but the key will be whether Republicans understand the stakes." He said, "I've got the message and we can see if I can make [it through another] election cycle articulating the difference" between the two parties. He believes that the candidates themselves have to be "steadfast regarding what they thought was right in the beginning."
• On Government Spending: "President Bush touts his Administration's "very aggressive approach on non-security discretionary spending." He pointed out that the deficit as a percent of GDP is down and explained that it's "the job of the President to negotiate the size of the pie," but if the President is to affect how its slices are divvied up he has to have the line item veto. He said that Washington has to tackle the unfunded liabilities in major entitlement programs because they "affect people's lives."

The blogosphere (minus the netroots portion that doesn't acknowledge Dem infighting stories) took notice of Hotline On Call's (go team!) post detailing a truce between the DNC's Howard Dean and the DCCC's Rahm Emanuel. Most highlighted this portion of the story: "Sources outside the party said that some Dean advisers wanted to include a "good behavior" clause that would increase the amount of money given to House races if Emanuel refrained from publicly or privately denigrating the DNC."

TNR's Michael Crowley commented: "The idea "never made it past the drawing board," apparently. But it's sort of hilarious that anyone even suggested it." Greg Pollowitz at National Review Online joked: "A good behavior clause? Is this the Democratic Party or an episode of SuperNanny?"

Andrew Sullivan notes growing conservative willingness to take it on chin this fall pointing to a Washington Monthlyforum featuring "Jeffrey Hart, Christopher Buckley, Bruce Bartlett, William Niskanen, Bruce Fein and Richard Viguerie" all hoping for "the Republicans lose this November. For the sake of conservatism and the country." At National Review Online Kathryn Jean Lopez notes that National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru has an op-ed in the New York Times making a similar argument. Outside the Beltway's James Joyner has a lengthy post reviewing each of the Washington Monthly essayists including this response to Buckley's piece: "All fair criticisms and, indeed, all things I've criticized along with a substantial chunk of the conservative commentariat. Corruption and abuse of power for personal or political ends is shameful. Does Buckley really believe, though, that these would end were the Democrats in charge?"

Kim Priestap at Wizbang links to Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard's (R) columns at Townhall "about the virtues of tax cuts for a strong economy." The post also has video of Bouchard's latest television ad featuring his daughter complaining about what a killjoy her "common sense conservative" father is on her dating life.

Instapundit has a lengthy audio up of an interview with ex-Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker (R). Topics include: "Iraq, the war on terror, the Second Amendment, immigration, and more. Plus, questions about earmarks and pork!"

GregP at DailyKos has video and a written account of Sen. George Allen's (R) "Ethnic Community Rally" at Thomas Edison High School 9/9: "From watching people arriving, it was clear than at least half were white. Of the rest a couple bus loads of people from Asian-American church groups made up the largest contingent. The number of African Americans probably did break into the two digits, but just barely. ... The George Washington University College Republicans didn't let good 'ol George Allen down though -- a large contingent of 'ringers' from GWU showed up, almost all white, and provided the cheering crowd which gave Allen such a roaring send off."

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo links to Allen's photo gallery from the event and writes: "I guess 'ethnic rally' was better than 'brown people outreach' and that probably would have been better than 'macaca day'." DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas adds: "I see ... white people cheering Allen. Maybe they're Italian or Polish? That would still be 'ethnic,' right?"

New Allen supporting blog The A-Team announces "Senior African-American Democratic State Senator" Benjamin Lambert endorsed Allen 9/12 due to Allen's support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Ex-Navy sec. James Webb (D) Netroots Coordinator Lowell Feld at Raising Kaine responds with a release from Virginia State University: "George Allen's budget plan in 1995 cut nearly 10% of the budget of Norfolk State University and Virginia State University, Virginia's two historically black colleges, according to an article in the Virginian Pilot entitled "Budget hits 2 black colleges hard."

Finally, Extreme Mortman points out that the Washington Post and the Roanoke Times can't agree on the definition of macaca. The Posteditorializes that the meaning of macaca "was never really defined" while the Roanoke Timesclaims macaca "is considered a racial slur in some language." EM reader Riley, Not O'Reilly adds: "Not to mention Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary which never had it defined as a slur until at least three days AFTER the comments were made. Can you say ex post facto boys and girls?"

Atrios looks at this Think Progress story on Rep. Jane Harman's (D-CA) criticism of VP Cheney's appearance on Meet the Press and comments: "One reason to mount primary challenges is to get incumbents to get more serious about their jobs. Since Jane Harman faced a serious primary challenger she has been much improved."

House Maj. Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took to RedState 9/12 to announce: "This week, the House of Representatives will vote on earmark reforms ... First we'll vote on bipartisan legislation championed in the House by Reps. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Tom Davis (R-VA) that would increase transparency by establishing a public database to track federal grants and contracts. Then we'll vote on a proposal authored by Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) that would change House rules to reform the earmarking process itself."

Robert Bluey at Right Angle Blog writes: "As I noted earlier tonight, Boehner's actions represent an important moment for reforming the process of earmarks. But he can't do it alone, especially with entrenched appropriators wanting to maintain the status quo. That's why, no matter if you're on the left or right, this is a cause we should all rally around. With a vote scheduled for Thursday, time is short."

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas notes that typical Dem oppo research starts off with a charge like "Candidate X voted against children!" and "then lists seemingly random roll call votes (really, an alphabet soup of numbers and letters) that supposedly support the charge. Markos then uses (as Rich Lowry would put it ) "a dismissive expletive" to describe his impression of the tactic. Markos goes on:

But, in lots of ways, this is symbolic of the way Democrats have run elections -- with a untiring effort to appeal to voter's brains rather than with emotional appeals. ... Republicans are masters of building the "narrative". They don't throw these kinds of numbers at voters and expect to move them their direction. They build a narrative based on their (positive) values and their opponent's (negative) ones.

So in 2004, Bush's entire campaign was essentially 1) Bush will defend America, and 2) Kerry is a flip flopper. In 2000, it was 1) Bush is a compassionate bipartisan conservative, and 2) Gore exaggerates. That's it. Everything else is slotted into that narrative. ... The key is to find that negative value, and base the entire campaign to define the opponent around it. Then, every single issue that arises can be neatly slotted into that value, reinforcing it in the media and the voters' mind.

This year, we have well-defined narratives in the Virginia, Connecticut, and Montana races. In Virginia, Sen. Felix Macaca Allen has a history of racism, and much of it has come out. The images and words showing that pattern are far more powerful than a long list of Senate votes, and hits voters viscerally, effectively.

NewsBusters has video of Tucker Carlson's 9/12 Dancing With the Stars performance. At the Corner Kathryn Jean Lopez guesses: "He may win Miss Congeniality."