January 17, 2008

1/17: Where Did Our Love Go?

When Hillary Clinton took a beating in the liberal blogosphere this past weekend, we found ourselves wondering whether the netroots were beginning to favor Barack Obama in what is increasingly looking like a two-person race. But in the past 24 hours, normalcy was restored. Obama's comparison of himself and Ronald Reagan infuriated netroots bloggers such as Matt Stoller, who already had doubts about Obama's progressivism and who dislike his statements about reaching out to independents and Republicans. Obama's words, and the strong backlash they provoked in the liberal blogosphere, provide a perfect example of the utter disharmony between Obama's message of unity and the netroots' message of unabashed partisanship. Should Obama win the Dem nomination, he will have a lot of work to do in repairing his relationship with the netroots.

DEM FIELD: Where It Stands Today

Open Left's Chris Bowers thinks NV is going to be pivotal: "Clinton's leads in Florida and nationally mean that she moves very, very close to the nomination if she wins in Nevada. Obama is only down by about 9-10% nationally, which means that winning in both Nevada and South Carolina will make for a very close campaign on Super Tuesday. [John] Edwards needs a Nevada win in order to achieve a breakthrough. As such, Nevada now seems to be just as important as Iowa and New Hampshire were earlier in the month."

MyDD's Jonathan Singer is surprised by a new Strategic Vision poll showing Obama gaining on HRC in FL: "Though I'm still under the impression that Clinton has an edge in Florida, if Obama can muster together a win in South Carolina, and perhaps also a win in a couple days in Nevada, leading up to the contest in Florida, there's a real chance that he would be able to win the primary there (even if it does not immediately yield delegates). In such an instance, the nearly national primary a week later would presumably be that much more in play. However if polling overestimates Obama's support in Florida -- or at least underestimates Clinton's base of support in the state, as it seemed to do in New Hampshire -- and Obama fails to meet (perhaps) excessively high expectations in the state, momentum might be going in the wrong direction for him (even if only moderately so) heading into super duper Tuesday."

OBAMA: Digging Himself Deeper

During an interview with officials from the Reno Gazette-Journal, Obama expressed his view that 2008 is a watershed year in American politics, just like 1980:

"I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was: we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

TPM's Greg Sargent analyzes Obama's argument: "This is interesting -- Obama is turning up the volume of his argument with what he terms Clinton style 'incremental' change, arguing that Ronald Reagan fundamentally changed the direction of America in a way Bill Clinton didn't...Some will find Obama's words about Reagan overly kind...Obama is also making an argument about the readiness of the electorate for change, comparing today's desire for a new direction with the electorate's mood in 1980. In this context, Obama is presenting himself as a potentially transformational figure in opposition to Hillary [Clinton], who, Obama has been arguing, is unequipped to tap into the public's mood due to her coming of age in the sixties and her involvement in the political battles of the 1990s. Juxtaposing Reagan and Bill Clinton in this way, however, decidedly takes his argument to a whole new level."

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein: "Which elections does Obama see as analogous to 2008? And with which presidents does he share personal similarities? That would be John Kennedy in 1960 (hardly surprising) and Ronald Reagan in 1980 (more daring). But not, it should be noted, Bill Clinton in 1992."

As Sargent predicted, leading netroots bloggers strongly disputed Obama's description of Reagan:

Open Left's Matt Stoller: "There are many reason progressives should admire Ronald Reagan, politically speaking. He realigned the country around his vision, he brought into power a new movement that created conservative change, and he was an extremely skilled politician. But that is not why Obama admires Reagan. Obama admires Reagan because he agrees with Reagan's basic frame that the 1960s and 1970s were full of 'excesses' and that government had grown large and unaccountable. Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement...if you think, as Obama does, that Reagan's rise to power was premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, then you don't understand the conservative movement. Reagan tapped into greed and fear and tribalism, and those are powerful forces. Ignoring that isn't going to make them go away."

Many of Obama's supporters at Open Left defended their candidate in the comments following Stoller's post:

BooMan: "I'm no fan of Reagan, but, Matt, you're taking this ridiculously far. You're discounting the opinion of by far the greater half of America that remembers Reagan as a flawed but affable leader that had more successes than failures. Those people may be ignoring or ignorant of a lot of history, but their impressions don't count for nothing. Reagan did bring optimism, he did rebuild American morale (at least for the middle and up classes), and he did in some sense represent his times and the electorate of his times. You can't just rewrite history and turn the man into nothing more than an ogre. Yes, he was an ogre. But he was more than that."

Mimikatz: "Reagan was a disaster in many ways, particularly for the lower middle class and poor, minorities etc. However, he was immensely popular, something many Liberals simply cannot accept, nor can they accept that many people were turned off by the excesses of the counter culture (which was way more fun for those of us who were in it) and by what they perceived as Liberals' pampering the undeserving. Trying to understand why that was, irrespective of how he feels about Reagan's policies, shows that Obama has a sense of what it takes to bring people onto your side so that you can make a transformation in another direction. Jimmy Carter had many good policies, but couldn't mobilize people behind them...He bummed people out. Reagan did have the qualities Obama cites. But that doesn't mean that Obama approves of his policies or his ideology. He just sees him as a skilled communicator that one can learn from."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias also defends Obama: "Barack Obama tosses off a vague comparison between himself and Ronald Regan and Matt Stoller gets really pissed. I don't really get it. Obama is pretty unambiguously claiming that much as Reagan was a friendly, popular face of a much more conservative governing agenda than the country had seen before, he thinks he can be the friendly, popular face of a much more liberal governing agenda than the country has seen before. Obama thinks -- as do a lot of people -- that the country may be primed for big change in 2008 the way it was in 1980 and that he's the kind of person who can sell the country on that sort of big change. He may be wrong, either in his assessment of the times or in his assessment of himself, but those are exactly the sort of claims you want to see a leader make on behalf of itself."

However, most prominent liberal bloggers agree with Stoller:

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "No, Ronald Reagan didn't appeal to people's optimism, he appealed to their petty, small minded bigotry and selfishness. Jimmy Carter told people to tighten their energy belts and act for the good of the country; Ronald Reagan told them they could guzzle gas with impunity and do whatever the hell they wanted. He kicked off his 1980 campaign talking about 'state's rights' in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- the site of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964's Freedom Summer...There's enough hagiography of Reagan on the right, I don't think Democrats really need to go there."

Digby: "I get that Obama is signaling that he sees this election as a game changing election like 1980. And he may very well be right about that. I hope so. But it's disconcerting to hear him casually recount these Republican arguments without a clear disclaimer, as if it's a matter of fact not opinion. People may have believed in 1980 that the 'excesses' of the 1960's and the 1970's were the cause of all their problems and that government had 'grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating' but that doesn't make it true. Republican propaganda conveniently offered up all kinds of scapegoats for the fact that the US was reeling from Vietnam, Watergate, a terrible oil shock --- and a lousy economy as a result of all those things. An awful lot of the 'excesses' Reagan spoke of in carefully coded speech had to do with civil rights and more urgently at the time, integration, specifically busing, which was one of the hot buttons that drove the 'Reagan Democrats' outside the south to the Republicans."

Talk Left's Big Tent Democrat: "Obama simply misunderstands how Reagan achieved that transformational change -- to the detriment of the country I must add -- he ran a partisan, ideological divisive campaign that excoriated Democratic values and trumpeted GOP values. He also race baited. Obama is running a post-partisan, nonideological campaign that is bereft of defenses of Democratic values and ideas. He is running an anti-Reagan campaign. His argument is simply ahistorical. It is precisely BECAUSE he refuses to try and make this a transformational campaign, a campaign to fight for Dem values, to persuade the country that the Dems are right, that his campaign is a promise unfulfilled. In short, Obama STILL does not get it."

In a later post, Stoller summarizes his view of Reagan: "Reagan was a psychotic man who nearly blew up the world and used paranoia and fear to change our culture and government in horrible ways. He also wasn't particularly popular, though as a politician, he's worth admiring for his raw political skill. Conservative ideology is based on greed and fear. There's no such thing as a good conservative leader, period. It is a fundamentally bankrupt, corrupt, and fraudulent ideology, and there is nothing laudable about people like Reagan who tap into the worst of America."

GOP FIELD: Wide Open Like This Year's BCS

Campaign Standard's Richelieu sets the expectations for SC: "SC will narrow the field; pity the poor candidate who finishes third there and winds up in the political electric chair. If [John] McCain drops to third, he'll be labeled president of New Hampshire, but little else. If [Mitt] Romney finishes third, his impressive Michigan win will be tossed off as a home-state fluke and he'll be labeled a northeasterner who cannot sell in the South. If [Mike] Huckabee finishes third in a state tailor made for him, any chance he has of actually winning the nomination will over."

Richelieu also sets the expectations for FL: "The Florida race will be about the top two finishers in SC racing to Tampa Bay to finish the fight, with the wounded third place finisher limping behind them. Like second tier super-heroes, each candidate has a special power that could be helpful in Florida but is not enough on its own to guarantee success. Romney has money; he can afford Florida's vital but expensive television markets. Huckabee has communication skills and a nature appeal to Florida's many social values voters. McCain has veterans, a bump in the latest polling and the close friendship of Florida governor Charlie Crist. Then there is Rudy Giuliani, lying in wait in Florida where he has attempted to a build a fortress in a state he has called must-win for his campaign...South Carolina will narrow things -- and Florida may well finish them."

Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "It has been a really bizarre primary season. We have five candidates in contention. Three of them, Huckabee, McCain, and Giuliani, aren't well liked by conservatives. Then there's Mitt Romney, who is considered to be more conservative than the other three candidates, but probably can't win a general election. Last but not least, the most conservative guy in the batch, a guy who has done very well in the debates, who is probably the only candidate in the group who could excite conservatives in 2008, is running in 4th place in South Carolina, the state that's supposed to carry conservatives on its back."

NRO's Byron York issues a warning to conservatives: "Between now and the Florida primary on January 29, we might see a major shift in the Republican race: the campaign could slip completely out of the realm of national-security conservatives. National security pretty much dominated the debates leading up to primary season, but now, if Romney's success in Michigan prompts more and more candidate attention to economic issues, the campaign will take on a new, decidedly post-war-on-terror feel. And if that happens, it will probably go in directions that few conservatives are happy with. When candidates start talking about easing voters' pain, there's no telling what they will promise -- Romney's $20 billion check to the auto industry might be just the beginning."

ROMNEY: Should He Start Saying "Y'all"?

AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin thinks Romney might have trouble in SC: "[Romney's] constituency is squeezed and perhaps nonexistent in the South. Huckabee and [Fred] Thompson have the social conservatives and McCain the military and moderates. There are just not enough people left over for him. Now if Thompson or Huckabee drop out his prospects may change but otherwise it is hard to see how he would do any better in other southern states including ones on the February 5 calendar (Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas). I don't think a Republican can win the nomination let alone the presidency without the South. But again, the stars may realign if others drop out or fade."

Campaign Standard's Matthew Continetti agrees: "It's anyone's guess as to who will win in South Carolina, but Romney does face an interesting challenge. He was able to make strong gut appeals to Michigan Republicans on the basis of his personal history in the state, his 'optimism,' and his business acumen. The appeals worked, and Romney won. The question facing Romney is how he can make the same connection with voters in South Carolina and Florida. My guess is his organization pulls him to a win in Nevada, like it did in Wyoming. But in a southern primary state where he hasn't yet made an impact, and where McCain and Huckabee each have advantages with certain constituencies (veterans and values voters, respectively), what's Romney's argument? This press release suggests he will try to continue to ride the economic issue to victory. We'll find out Saturday whether or not it works."

MCCAIN: The Free Ride Is Over

NRO's Rich Lowry: "I've pointed out/complained that McCain had been getting almost a free ride from his rivals with the exception of Romney. But talk radio, led by Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh, really stepped into the breach. McCain's record has been taking a battering and it now might be beginning to tell. We'll know more when we see how he fares among conservatives in South Carolina."

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt takes McCain to task for the following statement, which the AZ senator made during a blogger conference call:

"As far as ANWR is concerned, I don't want to drill in the Grand Canyon, and I don't want to drill in the Everglades. This is one of the most pristine and beautiful parts of the world."

Hewitt: "So every Republican who supports exploration in ANWR is the same as a despoiler of the Everglades and the Grand Canyon? Now you know why so many Republicans refuse to support the McCain candidacy. It isn't enough for the Arizona maverick to be an environmentalist, he has to condemn all Republicans, Independents and Democrats who disagree with him on the need to explore ANWR as enemies of the most beautiful places in America."

Michelle Malkin is disgusted by a picture of McCain campaigning with Lindsay Graham in SC: "Shamnesty birds of a feather flock together. In case you needed to be reminded of the arrogant, debate-suppressing, open-borders pandering, grass-roots-trashing shenanigans of the Shamnesty Brothers, here are John McCain and his best friend from South Carolina on the campaign trail today. Sear it into your memories."

Like Malkin, John Hawkins is not a fan of McCain: "If John McCain is the Republican Party's nominee, we will essentially have two Democrats running for the presidency."

Nevertheless, Hawkins thinks McCain has a good shot at the nomination: "If McCain loses SC and Nevada, his momentum may be stopped for good since the conservative press is finally turning their attention to him. On the other hand, victories in those states would help him a great deal and if Rudy loses Florida and drops out, it would help McCain immensely because they draw from the same pool of moderate voters...Additionally, the mainstream media is pushing hard for McCain and at the moment, McCain is putting up far better head-to-head numbers against the Democrats than any of the other Republican candidates. That's a big advantage for him and it gives him a little bit of an edge over the rest of the field."

NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru thinks McCain would be a strong general election candidate: "A lot of McCain's critics have been arguing that he won't motivate the base and thus can't win in November. Whether he can win over enough conservatives to win the primaries is an open question. But I think he would be in pretty good shape in the fall. No question, some conservatives would sit out the election. But the senator has very high favorability ratings among Republicans. And I think it is safer for him to dissent on a great many issues that conservatives care a little bit about than on a few about which they care intensely. With the great exception of immigration, McCain's heterodoxies are not issues that conservatives tend to vote on. They're not going to leave a Republican nominee over global warming or campaign-finance reform. The question then becomes how many conservatives would stay home out of disgust at his position on immigration. I haven't seen any data that make me think the answer to that question is 'a lot of them.'"

AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein isn't so sure: "[Ponnuru]'s probably right, but at the same time, I'm not sure that it would take a lot of conservatives to abandon the party on immigration in order to cause problems for the GOP candidate. The question is not only how many, but where such disgruntled conservatives are located...if even a small percentage of immigration hawks in Western swing states such as New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado defect to a third party or stay home, it could be enough to change the outcome of a close election, as Nader's showing in Florida did in 2000."

Meanwhile, Romney supporter Sen. Jim DeMint issues a statement in response to Sen. Tom Coburn's endorsement of McCain:

"Illegal immigration and tax relief may not be big issues in Oklahoma, but they are here. Thankfully the people of South Carolina will decide for themselves who will stop illegal immigration and rebuild our economy."

RedState's AcademicElephant: "This is getting to be something of a game of inside-the-senate baseball, but the Coburn-DeMint split is a pretty strong indicator to me that we're still far from a 'consensus' candidate."

HUCKABEE: He's Not Fooling Michelle

Michelle Malkin still doesn't trust Huckabee when it comes to illegal immigration: "He's an open borders drag queen, and he's piling on the make-up and jewels again to disguise his pro-illegal immigration record in time for the South Carolina primary. The Washington Times reports that he has signed a NumbersUSA pledge to oppose any new shamnesty measures and reduce illegal immigration through attrition. I don't believe Mike Huckabee...Past actions speak louder than election-year words."

Meanwhile, NRO's Jim Geraghty wonders if Huckabee is just a regional candidate: "Why did Mike Huckabee get only 16 percent in Michigan?...I realize Michigan isn't tailor-made for Huckabee, but it's got some evangelicals, plenty of gun owners and hunters, plenty of homeschoolers...this wasn't exactly arid territory for Huck the way New Hampshire was. And he finished pretty much where he did in the Granite State. Now, Huckabee's still sitting in good shape in South Carolina, and he's spent more time there. But I think the question he faces -- and that all of the candidates face, at this point -- is can he win outside his own comfort zone? Can a Southerner place pretty well in a northern state? Can a guy from the Northeast like Romney or Giuliani win someplace out west or in the south? (Romney winning a modestly-contested Wyoming is nice but not quite a dramatic example.) Do these guys, who have been able to pitch themselves as just right for the hotly-contested state du jour, have the ability to win on a broad basis on Super Duper Tuesday?"

GIULIANI: How's His Strategy Looking?

Townhall's Matt Lewis thinks Giuliani is in good shape: "I've been a critic of Rudy's strategy, but the truth is, he really is well-positioned to win a large number of states -- especially if he wins Florida."

John Hawkins agrees that FL is do or die for Giuliani: "Is Rudy done? No. In fact, if he does win Florida, you could see his national numbers surge again and he could conceivably make his whole strategy work exactly as he planned it out. After all, the conservative press has been mercilessly flogging Huckabee for a month and McCain for about a week. So, since Rudy is the middle-of-the-road candidate who has managed to escape criticism, he may benefit from that. However, Florida is a must win state for Rudy. He has bombed in all the previous states and has bet his entire campaign on winning Florida. Given that he has put so much on the line in that state and that his national numbers have dropped so much, Florida is a victory-or-death state for Rudy's campaign."

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat: "Yes, Rudy still has an outside chance in Florida, and yes, so long as he has a chance there he has a chance at the nomination, and yes, the divisions in the field are part of what's keeping him alive. But he isn't ahead in Florida, despite having campaigned exclusively there for weeks, and in every single state where any non-Rudy candidate has campaigned in any significant way, his support hasn't just fallen off, it's absolutely cratered. Until he demonstrates the ability to break this pattern, and poll above ten percent in a race that's actually contested, his chances at the nomination have to be judged slimmer than any of the three men who've actually won one of those gold medals Mitt Romney's always talking about."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Analyzing McCain's Base

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait has a theory:

"One seeming paradox of the Republican race is that voters who most strongly oppose the war in Iraq have been voting for the candidate, John McCain, who's most strongly identified with supporting it. Lots of commentators find this anamolous. [...]

But I don't think it's strange at all. McCain attracts Democrats, Independents, and Republicans with weak partisan attachments. Those are the voters least likely to support the war. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, attracts orthodox partisan Republicans, who also happen to support the war.

Now, is it strange that so many people would be voting on the basis of partisanship rather than the war, which is a huge issue? Not really. I think many voters' position on the war -- certainly most Republican voters -- is a function of their partisanship. They support the war because they support George W. Bush. So of course they're voting on the basis of partisan attachment rather than war policy."

LEST WE FORGET: It's Good To Be In South Carolina

The New Republic's Eve Fairbanks reports:

"Already tired of Hardee's, I stopped to grab lunch today at the Rosewood Market Organic Restaurant in Columbia. Crunchy yuppies are the same everywhere on earth: The Drew's All Natural dressing, the Newman's Own products, the lavender soap, the bulk quinoa. The one difference showed up on the store's magazine rack. There was Outside, Yoga Journal, all the standard fare, including Psychology Today, whose cover featured a pseudo -- 'naked' couple -- with nipples and everything else scandalous cleverly covered up, of course, along the lines of Britney's pose for Bazaar. But even so, on every issue in the store, somebody had lovingly stuck yellow post-it notes over the woman's bust and crotch."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 17, 2008 12:51 PM