July 19, 2007

7/19: No Passing On Left

Barack Obama clearly has his share of support from the netroots, but it is becoming increasingly clear that he neither shares their view of what it takes to win in our modern political climate, nor wishes to address their concerns in any way. If the netroots stand for anything, it is a strong belief that the best way to protect progressive values is through a fiercely partisan Dem Party. Obama's message of 'hope' and a 'new politics' runs counter to this founding principle. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is under no illusions about the partisan nature of Washington, and her GOP battle scars make her credible on the issue.

Perhaps more importantly, Clinton has been far more adept at reaching out too a skeptic constituency, as her quick defense of Daily Kos from Bill O'Reilly attacks shows. By contrast, Obama's online moves have been at times ham handed and dismissive at others. AS Obama begins to ramp his rhetoric against "the left," one has to wonder where he thinks he is going to find the Dem primary votes to over take HRC.

DEM FIELD: Already More Interactive Than The YouTube/CNN Debate

The Nation's Ari Melber and Drum Major Institute exec. dir. Andrea Batista Schlesinger challenge the netroots to help get involved with WH '08 by submitting questions to the "all-volunteer advisory committee of bloggers, grassroots activists and a few former presidential candidates" that will be advising the YearlyKos presidential forum moderators Matt Bai of the New York Times, Joan McCarter of Daily Kos, and NYU prof. Jeffrey Feldman. Melber and Schlesinger identify three areas they would like to see addressed at the 8/4 forum, including "Corporate Power" "Governing Philosophy" and "Alternative Foreign Policy Doctrine."

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong has already submitted a question he'd like to see asked:

In 2004, the media consultants of John Kerry campaign made millions and millions of dollars, mostly from pocketing up to 15% commissions based upon the volume of advertising dollars placed over television. This compares with the retainer model of compensation for media consultants, done by the Bush campaign and 90% of all product advertising today. Will your campaign payments to your media consultants be based on the commission model or will you instead be paying them by retainer fees?

CLINTON: Blessed Is The Peace Maker

Hillary Clinton aides successfully capitalized on Bill O'Reilly's growing feud with Daily Kos over Jet Blue's sponsorship of the 8/2-5 Yearly Kos convention. Clinton Internet Director Peter Daou posted com. dir. Howard Wolfson's statement at Daily Kos, including: "Blogs are the 21st Century version of the public square. Sen. Clinton does not agree with everything said on Daily Kos, but isolating a few comments as a way to smear a blog frequented by hundreds of thousands of people a day is wrong." Wolfson goes on to hit O'Reilly for providing Michael Savage, David Horowitz, and Ann Coulter a forum for their "extreme views." Positive netroots reactions include:

• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "This statement strikes exactly the right tone. ... I might not use the word "detente" to describe this move, because there hasn't exactly been a war raging between the Clinton campaign and the netroots as of late. But it is a fairly shrewd political move by the campaign, one that, however superficial, could nonetheless engender some positive feelings towards Clinton within those attending the convention."
• TPM Cafe's Greg Sargent: "By way of context, it's worth noting that Camp Hillary is going to great lengths to repair relations with the liberal blogosphere, rolling out Joe Wilson on the liberal blogs, agreeing to appear at YearlyKos, etc., etc. Now comes Wolfson's defense of Kos, which is certainly not the sort of thing your typical Beltway consultant would ordinarily recommend."
• TAPPED's Ezra Klein: "It's a real measure of the netroots' influence that the Clinton campaign is willing to get blasted by O'Reilly in order to rack up some points with the peoples of the internets."

Also related to the story, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis notes that Jet Blue CEO David Barger maxed out to Mitt Romney.

DODD: Me Too

After a Bill O'Reilly producer contacted the Chris Dodd for comment an a follow-up segment on O'Reilly's Jet Blue/Yearly Kos attack, Dodd aide Tim Tagaris posts Dodd com. dir. Hari Sevugan's response to O'Reilly at Daily Kos: "Senator Dodd is proud to participate in the Yearly Kos conference and engage in a free exchange of ideas with this important community. Senator Dodd himself is member of the DailyKos community, having participated in a vigorous exchange of bold ideas prior to the New Hampshire debate in June. At a time when the stakes could not be greater for the nation, we should applaud civic participation, not try to demonize it.

EDWARDS: Is Elizabeth Fatigue Setting In?

Whether it's her Salon interview, recent Planned Parenthood appearances, or latest campaign ads, Elizabeth Edwards is not hitting the home runs she normally does in netroots circles. Recent reactions include:

• The Huffington Post's Joan Garry on the Salon interview: "First off, I like her, I really really like her. ... But I must confess that this morning I find myself questioning her. ... Can a man be a more effective advocate for women than a woman? Can a white person be a more effective advocate for African Americans than an African American? Can a straight person be a more effective advocate for gay and lesbian people than a gay person?"
• Matthew Yglesias on Edwards new ad: ""I've been blessed for the last thirty years to be married to the most optimistic person that I've known," just doesn't seem like the kind of compliment a person would offer her husband. This has been a slightly weird tic of Edwards' going back to the 2004 campaign, telling us how optimistic he is instead of projecting optimism. Which strikes me as odd, since Edwards is actually really good at projecting optimism."
• TAPPED's Sam Boyd on Elizabeth's Planned Parenthood appearance: "They all had slightly different approaches to reproductive rights issues, but basically they agreed. Obama, as usual, had fewer specifics and Hillary talked about health care less, but the idea that John Edwards, who didn't even show up to the event, is somehow uniquely placed to be a women's advocate is ridiculous. Elizabeth Edwards is saying stuff she should know isn't true. I expected more."

EDWARDS II: Not The Next Reagan

TAPPED's J. Goodrich summarizes Marc Ambinder's explanation for why John Edwards $400 haircut story isn't playing as much as Mitt Romney's $300 makeup story: "Only the poor can run for the president of the United States on the platform of fighting poverty." More Goodrich: "If only the poor can fight for the poor, well, the poor are doomed."

Also at TAPPED, Garance Franke-Ruta recounts conversations she had with union members at the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees presidential forum and tries to explain why Edwards is not catching on among those demographics he is seeking to champion: "Part of it is clearly a function of demographic and cultural affinities, in that today's union movement is increasingly organizing female and minority workers -- the precise people who polls show cleaving to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and who apparently aren't separating their identities as union workers from all the other facets of their being. ... Think of it as an impulse roughly the inverse of the one that gave rise to the Reagan Democrats. In the early 1980s, union members were drawn by cultural affinities to the conservative Reagan, even as union leaders opposed him. Today, the minority women who clean unionized hotels or sew garments may be similarly drawn by the promise of a credible female or minority candidate, even as union leaders back the more explicitly pro-union Edwards."

In more positive Edwards blogging, MyDD's Todd Beeton highlights Edwards recent answer to Chris Matthews question, "How do you get back to being the party of regular folk?" Edwards responded: "My party and the Democratic party that I believe in stands up for ordinary people, stands up for the little guy, stands up for people who don't have health insurance, who live in poverty and who don't go to fundraisers." Beeton then quotes from an earlier Edwards speech: "If my party can't be the party of the poor, the elderly, the disenfranchised, why else do we exist?" Beeton comments: "I'm glad he's getting back to this. As I've written before, the candidates are running for the Democratic nomination, they have a unique platform from which to help define the party."

Turning to education, TAPPED's Dana Goldstein likes Edwards three point plan to address school desegregation (1. Give bonuses to schools in affluent communities enrolling low-income students; 2. Create magnet schools dedicated to economic integration by doubling current federal magnet schools funding to $200 million a year; 3. Create a million housing vouchers over five years to help low-income families move to better neighborhoods). Goldstein blogs: "I like these proposals because they hit directly (though incrementally) at the major reason why the schools poor kids go to are so bad: They are funded by the much lower property taxes of poor neighborhoods and cities."

OBAMA: Uh Oh, Here Comes The 'L' Word ...

TAPPED's Dana Goldstein follows up her 7/17 reporting of Barack Obama's Planned Parenthood meeting noting that PP described Obama as a 'moderate democrat' while he was in the IL senate. She also reminds readers that TAPPED's Garance Franke-Ruta earlier wrote that Obama "has not been willing to stake out strong opinions in" the arena of reproductive rights.

Also tracking the more moderate tendencies of Obama supporters, Big Tent Democrat highlights a MyDD commenters pro-Obama case ("In the future, more and more people are poised to get sick of the terms Republican and Democrat, as they quickly becoming synonymous with bickering and corruption. It seems the good Senator sees this coming. And he is right, by the way") and responds: "Let's be honest, the above highlighted comment is precisely what one Joe Lieberman said a number of times last night. To him, the fight to end the Iraq Debacle is partisan bickering."

BTC continued his Obama critique at Talk Left this time quoting Obama himself from his 7/18 speech in Anacostia: "But there were also some ineffective programs that were defended anyway, as well as an inability of some on the left to acknowledge that the problems of absent fathers or persistent crime were indeed problems that needed to be addressed." BTD responds: "Can't we all just get along? There is an essential dishonesty in Obama's approach. HE acts as if there is only the need to find common ground because Republicans really DO care about poverty and the common man and the Common Good. ... Obama may have an approach that works for an activist, but it simply is inexcusable for someone who wants to be the standardbearer for a political party. A standard bearer for a political party argues why his or her party has the right ideas to combat the problems we face."

MyDD's Todd Beeton seconded BTD's concerns: "I have little to add to Big Tent Democrat's critique, which deals with one of my major misgivings about Obama. Even if Obama were to win the presidency using such a strategy, he would do so by running down the Democratic brand. ... I attended a house party for Obama several weeks ago. Talking with some of the Obama supporters and leaners there, it was clear to me that they were drawn to this post-partisan rhetoric. ... One of the Obama field organizers even said to the group that we tried it Dean's way, sounding angry, and that doesn't work and isn't appealing to people. We need to set a different tone to bring people together."

GIULIANI: We Knew Nixon, And If Anyone's Nixon, It's Your Ex-Boss

Conservatives are advising Pres. Bush's ex-speech writer Michael Gerson to take a closer look at his former boss before labeling others the next Richard Nixon. Reactions include:

• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "My first reaction was arguably snide: "Gerson, you worked for the president who added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare (the biggest expansion of an entitlement program in a decade), punted on affirmative action, created a new federal department in DHS and at the very least had a sloppy Attorney General and at worst tried to politicize U.S. Attorneys, and we're supposed to believe Giuliani is Nixon?"
• The Corner's John Podhoretz: "Gerson warns that Nixon was a man without an ideological compass. That is true. But it is not true of Rudy Giuliani, who not only has one but used it in navigating the liberal waters of New York City. It is true that Rudy's ideological compass does not point in the same direction as Gerson's on socially conservative matters. ... And in this regard, any voter who decides he cannot in good conscience support or vote for Giuliani because of his views on abortion and stem-cell research is making a principled decision."
• The Corner's Andrew Stuttaford: "Michael Gerson writes that Richard Nixon's presidency could 'hardly be called a conservative success story.' Fair comment, I suppose, but I wonder if Gerson considers that the presidency of George W. Bush has been 'a conservative success story.'"
• Race 4 '08s Gary Matthew Miller: "Gerson's historic parallels are wanting in many important respects. ... In many respects, Nixonomics could have been lifted from the public policy prescriptions of today's Democratic Party. His wage and price controls were disastrous and contravened market mechanisms much like today's proposed "windfall profits" taxes would do. ... By contrast, Giuliani has been the first presidential candidate since Steve Forbes (who backs the Mayor) to clearly and consistently articulate the imperative of low taxes for economic growth and capital creation."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "although Gerson may not appreciate it, Giuliani's positions on social issues have been largely consistent. He has not significantly trimmed his major positions in order to ease the transition from local candidate to aspiring leader of the national Republican party. A talented opportunist might have done so. ... Similarly, Giuliani's positions on economic issues seem both constant and conservative. That's the view of the Club for Growth, which is quite attentive to these matters. I wouldn't expect Rudy to impose whatever the modern counterpart of Nixon's wage and price controls is.

ROMNEY: On Needle Threaders

NRO's Jim Geraghty shares the takes of his "Romney guy" on the GOP field:

• On Fred Thompson: "Thompson's having the same bumps in the road that Romney had in January but he's having it in July."
• On John McCain: "You can't start going up until you stop going down, and for McCain that hasn't happened yet."
• On Rudy Giuliani: "I can't quite figure out what they're doing over there, unless they thought the whole narrative was going to be burn rate. Now they can go brag about how little they've spent, but they're just now starting to staff up in some states ... I know he has his list of twelve, but when you listen to him speak, the only two things he sounds like he really wants to do is turning everything into CompStat and winning the war on terror."
• On primary strategies: "Everybody's trying to do something that's never been done before. Romney is trying to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, and nobody has done that who wasn't an incumbent. Rudy's try to win the nomination by everything else except Iowa and New Hampshire. Thompson? Who knows, he may not even get in in time to really compete in those organization-heavy states. Who knows what his targeting scheme is? Maybe he thinks his process begins in South Carolina. Everybody's trying to thread the needle in a way it hasn't been done before."

F. THOMPSON: Ho-Hum

Conservatives are yawning, again, over the latest revelations on Fred Thompson's lobbying career, this time from the New York Times. Non-reactions include:

• Captain's Quarters: "So it appears that Barnes was the lobbyist, and Fred consulted ... occasionally. I don't think Fred intended to live on $5,000 every 14 months, and Barnes would be the obvious choice for lobbying at any rate. As one of the commenters on this post wrote, this story is a nothingburger."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "[T]he files confirm that Thompson did a de minimis amount of work for the abortion rights group in 1991 and 1992. Nothing in the records contradicts Thompson's statements that 1) he has no recollection of working on behalf of this group, and 2) he is quite sure that he did not lobby John Sununu on its behalf."
• More Hinderaker: "What's interesting, I think, is that the news outlets that are pushing this story are not conservative. They seem to think that the story will somehow discredit Thompson among conservatives, presumably because conservatives are too dumb to understand how law firms and the legal process work. The appropriate response from the right would be, I think, a yawn. So far, that's what we've seen."
• Outside the Beltway's James Joyner: "Today's story, then, is not a big scoop; it merely closes the loop on the story."
• AmSpec Blog's David Hogber: "Given the withering scrutiny Romney has endured for his flip-flopping, you'd think the Thompson camp would be extra careful on these things. Even successful campaigns have a few mishaps. But this will (and should) raise questions as to whether Thompson is ready for prime time."

Also talking Thompson, RCP Blog's Blake Dvorak identifies some reasons why Thompson should announce now (including: "The tease factor. The media will play the game for a while, like any good courtship, but there is a limit. With the pro-choice stories, the Nixon stuff, and egregious attacks on his wife, Thompson can't allow the media to define him before he has a chance to define himself. With Congress out, August is a rough time for the Washington press corps. Best not test their patience."), and some reasons he should announce later ("The Aug. 5 Des Moines, Iowa, Debate ... it's in Thompson's best interest now to miss this debate. Rudy Giuliani was off his game in the first GOP debate and it hurt him for weeks. Any bump Thompson might get in the polls from an announcement could be erased by a poor performance a week later. Besides, every commenter of every GOP debate so far has talked about the "Thompson Shadow" looming over the stage. The best part about a shadow is that it can't screw up a question.")

IRAQ: Is Colbert Ever Off Message?

The netroots seem less than sure Sen. Maj. Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) 7/18 slumber party came off as best it could have. Open Left's Matt Stoller blogs: "The internal communication channels, both from the Senate-side and the coalition-side, didn't seem to be particularly effective from my vantage point. I didn't know what was happening until the last minute, why it was happening, and how to be a good piece of the message. ... When I came home, I turned on Colbert, and he was dead-on, so some of the messaging worked out. That's my very limited perspective, of course."

Looking forward, Talk Left's Big Tent Democrat warns: "Let me be frank -the events of the last days on the Levin-Reed Amendment was about pressuring Godot Republicans to break with Bush's Iraq Debacle. ... These Republicans will never break with Bush's Iraq Debacle. Some believe that September will be the moment, after General Petraeus speaks. This is delusion. What do folks think Petraeus is going to say? Petraeus will STIFFEN Republican resolve, not weaken it."

IRAQ II: ... Speaking Of Petraeus

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt hosted General Petraeus on his radio show 7/18, and highlights the following from Petraeus to his blog:

[A]s you know, we try to avoid body counting, but inevitably, obviously, it is something we keep track of, because we're trying to have some sense of the damage we are doing to al Qaeda-Iraq, its affiliates, other Sunni insurgent groups, and also certainly to the Shia militia extremist elements. And the answer to that in a general sense is that they are losing many, many hundreds of their, of these different elements each month, certainly since the onset of the surge.

No friend of Hewitt's or the surge, Andrew Sullivan responds: "If I were eager to maintain a semblance of military independence from the agenda of extremist, Republican partisans, I wouldn't go on the Hugh Hewitt show, would you? And yet Petraeus has done just that. I think such a decision to cater to one party's propaganda outlet renders Petraeus' military independence moot. ... Petraeus is either willing to be used by the Republican propaganda machine or he is part of the Republican propaganda machine. I'm beginning to suspect the latter."

More sympathetic to Petraeus' cause, AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein comments: "While Andrew Sullivan is a bit hyperbolic in his reaction to David Petraeus appearing on the Hugh Hewitt show, I do believe that it would be better if Petraeus maintained an image of a non-partisan commander capable of rendering unbiased judgments on the situation in Iraq. For those of us who support giving the surge a chance to work, one of the few remaining arguments that is potentially politically viable is that we should give Petraeus the time he asks for. Anything that helps Democrats portray him as a partisan general will make it easier for them to undermine his credibility, and thus harder for Republicans to make the case for the surge."

IRAQ III: Another Role For Hayden Christensen?

Invoking memories of New Republic fabulist Stephen Glass, many conservatives are questioning the authenticity of recent New Republicreports on US troop misconduct in Iraq. Those making the case against TNR's pseudonymous Scott Thomas include: The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, Townhall's Dean Barnett, Power Line's Scott Johnson, The Corner's

John Podhorertz

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Let The Good Times Roll

Forbes' Digital Rules picks up on reports "the global economy from 2003 to 2007 has grown about 5% a year" and comments: "It is a quarter bigger than it was five years ago--about $15 trillion a year bigger. That's equivalent to adding a new North America to the global economy. Each year. Wow. ... Somebody tell the candidates running for U.S. president. Global growth is great for humanity--a billion people have departed poverty over the last 15 years."

LEST WE FORGET: How Many Neocons Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb?

Inspired by the LA Timesheadline "Pull Out Proposal Lacking a Plan B" Andrew Sullivan solicits his readers favorite neocon jokes and starts with his own: "Why do you never want to date a neocon? Because they always say they're going to pull out and they never do." Other entries can be found here, here, and here.

Posted by Conn Carroll at July 19, 2007 12:48 PM