January 30, 2008
1/30: Irreconcilable Differences?
To say that many conservative bloggers are upset about John McCain's FL victory would be an understatement. Mark Steyn called McCain's victory "a big win for illegal-immigration amnesty, remorseless socialization of health care, and big-government solutions to global warming." Michelle Malkin described McCain as "openly and historically hostile to the Republican base" and suggested that she may not support him if he becomes the GOP nominee. Patrick Ruffini described McCain's nomination as a "demoralizing prospect" that would represent "retreating and simply becoming more like the left."
That said, a significant number of conservative bloggers are defending McCain, emphasizing the AZ senator's strong record on national defense and the importance of electing a Republican president. While many conservative bloggers will likely rally behind Mitt Romney during the six days before Feb. 5, we think that most of them will ultimately support McCain if he becomes the nominee, particularly if McCain makes a real attempt to repair his relationship with the base. A good start would be to attend this year's Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 7-9, as Ed Morrissey has recommended.
MCCAIN: Lightning Rod
Malkin: "The declaration that [McCain] is the 'conservative leader who can unite the party' is yet another smack in the face to those who have watched him reach out and slap conservatives time and again -- and then run to the warm, gooey embrace of the liberal media. Is it too much to ask to nominate a Republican candidate who is not as openly and historically hostile to the Republican base as CNN and (McCain's endorsers at) The New York Times are?...Conservatives have core concerns about McCain's trustworthiness, adherence to conservative ideology, and commitment to sovereignty that can't easily be brushed off with glib answers about being the 'straight talk' candidate...At the moment, I'm with Rush [Limbaugh]: 'I can see possibly not supporting a Republican nominee.'"
NRO's Michael Graham: "It is over. Finished. In November, we'll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate vs. to take on Hillary Clinton -- perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy. And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism. You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it. Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party. And on that note, I'm off to climb into a bottle of Bushmill's. It's going to be a LONG nine months."
Ruffini: "Despite the outcome in Florida, Republicans across the nation should spend the next week thinking long and hard about the demoralizing prospect of a McCain nomination. There has been a fair amount of discussion of flip-flopping in this race. Well, McCain has changed a few of his positions too. He changed away from conservatism. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was a solidly credentialed member of the Reagan-Goldwater coalition who was right in line with the people of Arizona. In the late 1990s, when he saw that he could get better press for his dark horse Presidential aspirations as a 'maverick,' he changed. McCain could fairly point out that he stood on 'principle.' But it is equally fair to point out that those principles aren't ours."
RedState's haystack still plans to vote for McCain if he is the GOP nominee: "As a Conservative first, and a Republican if it suits me...I accept that I must support whomever is NOT a Democrat in November. While it may appear to be John McCain, in the end...all that will matter is that I vote for one who is NOT a Democrat. I get it. There's always 2012...and until then, LOCAL elections will mean EVERYTHING. In the mean time...Rome burns..."
Not every conservative blogger was distraught over McCain's victory, however:
AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein urges conservative bloggers to tone down their attacks on McCain: "Some conservatives will simply never be able to support McCain, and I understand that. But I would urge those who support the war and consider the threat of Islamic terrorism to be the greatest challenge of our time, to consider the big picture, recognize that McCain does deserve some credit for the courage and perseverence he's shown, and at least temper some of the hostility."
Power Line's John Hinderaker doesn't think nominating McCain would be a disaster: "Paul [Mirengoff] wrote a long time ago about the 'stature gap' between the Republican Presidential candidates and the Democrats. I think we're seeing that, in the eyes of most Americans, the real stature gap is between McCain and the rest of the field. Americans generally choose the person, not his policies. That's frustrating to many of us, but history suggests that it's usually wise."
RedState's Erick Erickson: "Tonight was not a failure of conservatism, but a triumph of military voters who have made their home in the Republican Party because we are the party of a strong national defense. In both South Carolina and Florida, they won it for McCain. In the grand coalition of the GOP, we've talked about social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. We've all ignored the military voters, except John McCain. And he won them big. His message resonated. And the man still has an +80% conservative rating. I shed no tears."
NRO's Jim Geraghty agrees with Erickson: "McCain had the strongest credentials on national security in the field, and that's still the driving issue in Republican primaries -- not by a wide margin, but by enough. Romney could offer as many national security proposals as he wanted -- double Guantanamo, etc. -- but in the end, his biography didn't offer enough opportunities to say, 'this guy knows how to fight in a dangerous world.' Running the first post-9/11 Olympics was nice, metaphorically flipping the bird to the Iranians when they wanted a state police escort -- all of this is nice, but none of this competes with a man who begins his campaign video with North Vietnamese propaganda footage of the candidate tersely giving his name to an interrogator."
To no one's surprise, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan is pleased by McCain's win: "A McCain nomination means one thing for sure. The era of legal, authorized torture in America is coming to a close. This is a critical moment. And it is more than fitting that a man who endured torture at the hands of America's enemies should now be picked to restore American honor after the disgrace of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld."
Commentary's Jennifer Rubin offers an explanation for McCain's success: "It may simply be that the Republican electorate (or at least enough of it to select a nominee) may not be as ideologically pure as the conservative pundits might prefer. Perhaps many Republican voters really do think global warming should be addressed. It could be that lots of Republican voters like tax cuts but want them accompanied by good old-fashioned budget cuts. It may be that when they're not in the throes of an impassioned immigration debate, many Republican voters wouldn't mind eventually legalizing millions of immigrants, so long as the border is sealed first. And frankly, G.O.P. primary voters simply may find Mr. McCain's heretical support for campaign finance reform a lot less significant than personal character traits like honesty, courage and persistence."
Right Wing News' John Hawkins thinks the GOP will be experiencing "agony" over the next few months: "The howls of anguish are understandably going to be loud and long amongst conservatives and I expect at least a few weeks of venting, outrage, and raw fury mixed with largely ignored pleas for Republican party unity before the decision making really starts. At that point some conservatives will enthusiastically support McCain because he's the Republican nominee, many others will reluctantly, sullenly support McCain because they at least think he's better than a Democrat, and more than a few conservatives will decide to sit the election out."
Townhall's Matt Lewis also makes a prediction:
"My guess is that tonight's victory for McCain will lead to two opposite results...
1. Many conservatives who have hesitated to support McCain will now (all of a sudden) decide to endorse him. Some big-money Republicans who have been hedging their bets will now start writing checks to McCain. This is vitally important for McCain.
2. Many conservatives who have long-hated McCain will actually increase their attacks on him. Look for outside groups to begin running anti-McCain ads. Look for many prominent talk show hosts to put on the full-court press and promise that McCain's election will lead to Armageddon, or something...
Ultimately, it is now up to John McCain to find a way to extend an olive branch to movement conservatives who, over the years, have had legitimate reasons to be suspicious of him."
MCCAIN II: The View From The Left
Liberal bloggers have long considered McCain the GOP's most formidable general election candidate and were rooting for Romney to win FL. However, now that McCain appears to be in a very strong position, liberal bloggers are trying to look on the bright side:
Open Left's Chris Bowers:
"With his victory in Florida tonight, it is very, very hard to see a way that McCain does not win the Republican nomination for President now. I had been cheering for Romney, largely because McCain is tied with Clinton and Obama, while right now Romney loses to Obama by 17.0%, and Clinton by 12.4%...However, there are many reasons to believe that while Romney would have been an easier Republican opponent, the difference between him and McCain was nowhere near the 12-17% mark in current polls. In truth, the difference between McCain and Romnry is more like 5-7%, at best, and here is why:
- Romney is still a relative unknown: While John McCain's name ID is 100%, Mitt Romney's is much lower. Between 4-10% of Romney polling deficit on McCain is derived entirely from being lesser known. [...]
- Conservative media elites will thrash McCain. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk with thrash McCain for months on end, encouraging conservatives to either sit at home or support a third-party. [...]
- Money. McCain will simply be unable to raise as much money as Romney could raise, mainly owing to their differences in personal fortune. [...]
- McCain only has Iraq. McCain simply cannot engage in a substantive debate on anything except Iraq...When people get a whiff of McCain's hawk stances on Iraq, they will crumble. When they realize he can't debate things like the mortgage crisis (which, btw, Clinton is actually very, very good on, both in terms of policy and rhetoric), they will crumble further. A Republican running on foreign policy right now is a doomed campaign.
- McCain is soft. McCain's upward 'surge' in favorables is only two months old, and largely a result of him emerging as the hero, Republican frontrunner...his numbers have dropped and risen thirty points in either direction in just one year. That means the public has an extremely soft and vague view of McCain, something that will disappear during a general election. [...]
- Beating McCain is better than beating Romney: If McCain becomes the nominee, it is only because Republicans think he can win, not because they actually like him. As such, as long as we can pull it off, defeating McCain is actually preferable to defeating Romney. If we beat McCain, then not only did we beat Republicans, but we beat Republicans who sold out in order to try and beat us. Crushing a patsy placeholder like Romney is one thing, but crushing Republicans and conservatives who hated their nominee, but chose him because they thought he could win, is way, way, better. [...]
TPM's Josh Marshall: "There are some small saving graces. First is the mini-GOP civil war as the right-wing establishment elites go after McCain with attack ads like this one being rolled out now by David Bossie's Citizens United. Then there's the spate of seizures from folks like Rush Limbaugh as they either go insane or try to eat their words and cozy up to McCain. Then we'll have McCain trying to suck up to the Rush types. So it's not all a loss."
The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum finds McCain less "offensive" than his GOP rivals: "I realize that this is going to sound painfully patronizing, but seriously, I want to congratulate the rank-and-file voters of the Republican Party for their performance so far. Obviously I'm not planning to vote for any of the Republican candidates myself, but some are worse than others: [Rudy] Giuliani is a creepy one-note screwball; [Mike] Huckabee is ignorant and proud of it; [Fred] Thompson was a coma-inducing joke; and [Tom] Tancredo, [Duncan] Hunter, and [Ron] Paul were just vanity candidates. The two who are left, McCain and Romney, are by far the least offensive of the whole field. So: congratulations GOP. Considering what you had to work with, not a bad effort."
ROMNEY: Conservatives Turn Their Lonely Eyes To You...
NRO's Mark Steyn thinks Romney is in deep trouble: "This is a tough night for the Romney campaign. Fred's withdrawal should have benefited them more than McCain. If Huck stays in, there's no prospect of southern victories for Mitt on Super Tuesday. And, if Huck and/or Rudy pull out, their votes on balance are likely to break for McCain."
John Hawkins agrees: "McCain's victory last night combined with the announcement that Rudy is going to drop out and endorse him is really, really bad news for Romney. McCain already had a lead in the national polls and several of the big Super Tuesday states...McCain is going to be difficult to stop at this point, even with talk radio and the blogosphere bombing him non-stop from now until Super Tuesday."
Matt Lewis considers Romney's options: "There's no doubt that Mitt Romney's large personal fortune -- combined with the fact that some conservatives will never embrace John McCain -- means that Mitt Romney could afford to stay in the race long after Tsunami Tuesday. But two questions come to mind...(1.) Would this shrewd business man, who has already spent well-over 20 million dollars of his own money, continue spending money on what could be a losing cause? Smart businessmen don't throw away money. (2.) Would Mitt Romney want to be blamed for a Republican loss in the General Election? Fair or not, if he prolongs the race too long, that's what some people would say..."
Long-time Romney supporter Hugh Hewitt finds the silver lining: "The combination of his win in Florida and Rudy's expected endorsement make John McCain the front-runner, but not the nominee. The exit polls that show Romney winning by significant margins among conservative and very conservative voters set up next Tuesday's races as the moment when the GOP will chose to stop the Arizona maverick or concede that it is his turn. The shadow of the '96 [Bob] Dole campaign will fall on McCain now, and the prospect of an Obama-McCain fall campaign will be the key consideration for Huckabee voters over the next seven days. Huck's voters are conservative or very conservative, and if they stay with Huck because they like him better than Romney, they hand the nomination to McCain. If an ABM Treaty emerges -- anybody but McCain -- the smoke will clear a week from now on a delegate hunt that will continue through the Pennsylvania primary in late April, seven contests in May, and the June 3rd elections in New Mexico and South Dakota."
Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey explains how Romney can win: "Romney has a better national organization and more resources to run in 21 states simultaneously. He can negate some of the momentum and make this a delegate chase, and could very possibly come out of next week with a delegate lead. It won't be easy, especially since the McCain win in Florida will only bolster McCain's lead in the coastal states. If the race really does come down to McCain and Romney, then Romney could also benefit from conservative disaffection with McCain. In the GOP, there exists a very real resistance to McCain, and that could find itself focusing on Romney as the anti-McCain. It's not the most positive phenomenon, but Romney may find it essential for a national victory."
Campaign Standard's William Kristol thinks Romney needs to act quickly: "What could change the situation? It's hard to believe paid advertising across 22 states (even if Romney's willing to splurge) could fundamentally change the dynamic. There could always be some sort of scandal, revelation, or gaffe, or course -- though that would be far more likely if there were a new, suddenly-emerged frontrunner, than with the most veteran and best-known candidate in the field. So the most likely game-changer, if there were to be one, would be tonight's debate. It's likely to be Romney's last direct shot at McCain. If Romney were to land a really telling blow, it could shape the narrative for the rest of this week. If not, if this debate follows the course of almost all its predecessors and has no decisive moment, then all attention turns to Clinton-Obama, and McCain should have a pretty clear path."
Meanwhile, long-time Giuliani supporter Patrick Ruffini endorses Romney: "With Mayor Giuliani now all but out of the race, I have no qualms about supporting his fellow chief executive Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination...Mitt Romney is a better candidate than he lets on. His business acumen has hardly been explored in this campaign, at least not early enough. He is, as they say in Boston, wicked smart. Of all the candidates running, it is hardest to see the colossal managerial failures of Katrina happening under his watch. His plan wasn't perfect, but I like the fact that he's a Republican who's tackled the health care issue. He can communicate about matters of war and peace, and his instincts are sound. He could position himself as a clean break on the economy. Attributes he had to soft sell in the primary campaign would provide attractive contrasts to Hillary Clinton in a general election. And in Presidential elections, Governors beat Senators. Romney is our last chance of getting that historically winning combination."
GIULIANI: What Goes Up Must Come Down
Matt Lewis explains Giuliani's collapse: "Rudy could have campaigned hard -- and done reasonably well -- in states like New Hampshire and Michigan. Granted, he may not have won either state, but he would have been relevant and respectable. The trick would have been to campaign hard in those states in order to keep his name and face in front of the public eye -- while simultaneously letting it be known that he was planning on winning in Florida and on Super Tuesday. Granted, it would have taken some finesse to pull off -- but it could have been done. But Rudy's team was afraid that if he tried hard but lost, he would shatter the facade of his own inevitability. So he sought to avoid losing by not fully competing...In this regard, he was cursed by his early front-runner status. He conducted his campaign very much like a football team who has a big lead, starts to play conservative, and ends up losing."
NRO's Rich Lowry thinks Giuliani helped McCain: "McCain was very lucky in the candidate he had to compete with for the same pool of voters. Rudy pulled out of the early states, leaving them to McCain. Rudy's descent in NH tracked McCain's resurgence there almost exactly. By the time it came to the crucial state of Florida, Rudy faded as well, handing crucial voters to McCain. The Arizona senator was always the main threat to Rudy, but Rudy never engaged him -- as if he respected him too much to fight him (by the end, Rudy may have been protecting his reputation in what he knew would be his soon-to-be post-presidential candidate career). Then, another benefit to McCain: Rudy changed the big Northeastern Feb. 5 states to winner-take-all, likely handing huge numbers of delegates to McCain. Why shouldn't Rudy endorse McCain? It'd be his final favor."
CLINTON: In It To Win It (And Spin It)
Liberal bloggers disagree about whether HRC's FL spin was effective:
Josh Marshall doesn't think HRC will get much of a bounce from her FL "victory": "The big question tonight was how the press would play Hillary Clinton's 'win' in Florida, or how successfully she could spin the result to count as a landslide victory on a par with Obama's big win in South Carolina...Just in terms of managing the news cycle I think what the Clinton folks would have been looking for are two things -- big pictures of Hillary smiling, preferably above the fold, thus suggesting victory and some mention of her margin. But I don't see either anywhere. Perhaps the print front pages will play this differently. But on balance I suspect they didn't get as much juice out of this as they wanted or expected."
TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat disagrees with Marshall: "First, Hillary Clinton was on television last night. Barack Obama was not. Hillary Clinton got to have her stump speech covered then did interviews where she got to restate the rationale of her campaign. She changed the subject from South Carolina and the Kennedys and got the story to be about her. Second, the hostility of the Media towards her was again manifested in petty ways. This always has a backlash favorable to the Clintons. Josh [Marshall] is a Big Media blogger so he seems blinded to this. And indeed, he is very hostile to the Clintons now so, in a way, he is part of that effect...The bottom line is this -- the headlines about the Democratic race were changed last night. No South Carolina. No Ted Kennedy. No Jesse Jackson. Heck, no Bill Clinton. And that was the most important goal for the Clinton campaign last night. The Clinton campaign's Florida gambit worked."
The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias is not impressed by HRC's win: "As expected, the Florida non-primary goes to Hillary Clinton. I congratulate her on her prize of zero delegates. Good luck to HRC with her lame spin."
Ezra Klein: "Hillary Clinton easily wins a fake primary with no delegates, pretends otherwise."
AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "The Democratic race doesn't matter, or count. Florida lost its delegates to the Democratic convention for violating DNC rules about when it could hold its primary. All the candidates agreed not to campaign in Florida as a result, but now Hillary is trying to get the delegates reinstated because she's winning. Imagine if she succeeds and those delegates are enough to push her over the top. Florida would again steal the election. And I suspect all hell would break loose."
Meanwhile, Daily Kos' DHinMI sees ominous signs for HRC: "Only Hillary Clinton did any events in the state, and she didn't run an actual campaign operation like she has in the contested states...That 50% of voters came out to vote for candidates who refused to campaign in their state and say the state's delegates should not be sat at the convention, and that a majority of the voters under 64 voted for someone other than Clinton are statistics that probably don't give the Clinton campaign a ton of confidence going in to Super Tuesday."
In contrast, MyDD's Todd Beeton thinks the Clinton campaign "outplayed" Obama's campaign: "This morning the Obama campaign held a conference call with David Plouffe and John Kerry to push back against the Clinton campaign's insistence that Florida should count. Their frame of Clinton's Florida gambit of traveling to Florida to celebrate her expected win as though it's an election that counts in any technical way, is to accuse her of politics as usual...I have to agree with WaPo's Gene Robinson who offered a reality check when he suggested that what essentially happened is that the Clinton campaign outplayed the Obama campaign on this one. In other words, it's just smart politics to try to mitigate the 2 really bad news days she's had...The holier than thou attitude the Obama campaign is pushing, and the media is buying, is getting a little sickening."
CLINTON II: A Surge Of Applause
Several liberal bloggers are annoyed that HRC stood and applauded after President George W. Bush boasted about the success of the Iraq troop surge during his State of the Union address. As The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports:
"Clinton and Obama's divergent views on the troop surge in Iraq, however, were plainly visible.When Bush proclaimed, 'Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt,' Clinton sprang to her feet in applause but Obama remained firmly seated. The president's line divided most of the Democratic audience, with nearly half standing to applaud and the other half sitting in stony silence."
Matthew Yglesias, who's been one of the liberal blogosphere's leading critics of HRC's foreign policy views, says simply: "And there you have it."
Mark Kleiman, who also prefers Obama to HRC, says sarcastically: "Tell me again that Obama and Clinton now have the same position on the war in Iraq. I didn't hear you clearly the first time."
Chris Bowers is unhappy with HRC's behavior:
"The most consistent criticism of Obama online has focused upon his rhetorical posture in relation to Republicans and conservatives: conciliatory language of unity, the use of right wing talking points on health care and social security, positing left-wing DFH strawmen (70's style, anti-military love-in was my favorite), triangulation that blames ideologues and partisans on both sides for polarization, etc. However, here is an instance where the roles are starkly reversed, as Hillary Clinton literally stands up and applauds George W. Bush for his troop surge, while Obama remains seated.
There are not many ways to interpret Clinton's remarks except as applause for the escalation she ostensibly opposed. Even if she was applauding 'the troops,' that would imply that the Democrats who did not stand up were somehow against the troops, which is the most vicious right-wing talking point of all. This is should also be a stark reminder of the difference between Clinton and Obama on supporting and not regretting / opposing the war in the first place, on Clinton's general hawkishness, on ending the causes of wars like Iraq, and even on the continued presence of a residual American military presence in Iraq. If Clinton applauds the escalation, then why should I have any confidence that she will keep only a small residual presence in Iraq? This is a terrible move by Clinton, one that makes me feel as though more than five years have passed since the AUMF and nothing has changed, and that she is portraying her foreign policy views dishonestly during the campaign.
I think there are very clear differences between Obama and Clinton on this nexus of policy, rhetorical, and administrative issues. In the final analysis, it is why I definitely prefer Obama to Clinton in this campaign."
Open Left's Matt Stoller: "I'm sort of leaning towards Obama at this point, considering that Clinton actually applauded at Bush's discussion of the surge in Iraq. Bleh. It's as if the last candidate who opens their mouth sends me running towards their opponent (way to go John Edwards media strategy!). I'm thoroughly aggravated by the village's embrace of Obama, or more accurately the savaging of the Clinton's for both gender and class reasons, but this can no longer overcome her positioning on Iraq and it does overcome his slightly more conservative positioning on health care and the economy."
Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "A reduction in violence to 2003 levels was not the goal of the surge. Political reconciliation was. BushCo doesn't need our help in rewriting history. And we sure as hell shouldn't be applauding a failed policy that has taken the lives of 937 more Americans and who knows how many Iraqis just so Bush could pass the buck to the next President."
Kevin Drum, who's generally been an Obama skeptic, doesn't think HRC's applause makes her more hawkish than Obama: "Yes, Obama opposed the war, and he opposed it for good reasons. He deserves a lot of credit for that. At the same time, taking a position when you're watching from the sidelines is a lot different from taking a position when you're in office and have to pay attention to the political winds more closely. So how has Obama done on that score? Let's be honest: since he entered the Senate, Obama has hardly been a leader of the antiwar caucus. In fact, his opposition to the war has been pretty muted and his voting record has been nearly identical to Hillary Clinton's...I don't mean this as a huge criticism of Obama. Electoral realities are electoral realities. But it does lead me to be generally unimpressed with cost-free symbolism like declining to clap for the surge. The real question is, what will he do once he's in office and he has to make good on his symbolism? Based on his track record over the past couple of years, my guess is that his real-world policy on Iraq would be about the same as Hillary's."
Meanwhile, several liberal bloggers see Alan Dershowitz's and Paul Berman's endorsements of HRC as additional evidence of the NY senator's hawkishness:
The Nation's Ari Berman: "Dershowitz has devoted his life in recent years to discrediting the careers and reputations of critics of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, slavishly defending Israel against any and all comers, no matter the validity of their point. Berman (no relation) was the intellectual architect behind the liberal hawks case for war in Iraq, which he described as a 'Lincolnian war, a war for the liberation of others'...These are the types of endorsements one wishes the candidate would decline. Unless, of course, she agrees with them."
Yglesias: "Paul 'al-Qaeda is totalitarian so we should fight it by invading Iraq' Berman wants Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. So does Alan 'everyone who disagrees with me is an anti-Semite' Dershowitz. And of course she's already secured the support of Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon."
EDWARDS: And Then There Were Two...
Liberal bloggers are discussing Edwards' upcoming withdrawal from the race:
Matthew Yglesias: "It took me a long time to warm to John Edwards, and by the time I did it was almost over. But I think it was his presence in the race and his campaign that really set the tone for the whole thing, and he deserves an enormous amount of credit for any good things that may come in the next administration."
TAPPED's Dana Goldstein: "His departure is a sad moment, not least because Edwards' policies on health care, inequality, education, and so much more have framed this race, setting the progressive standard for his better-funded, media darling competitors. Hillary Clinton began her run imagining Edwards as her chief rival, and therein lay so much of his power: He alone had the ability, early in the primary, to define what it meant to challenge Clinton from the left."
Matt Stoller: "Edwards did have some effect on this race. He pushed and prodded a bit and injected some economic populism into the election, and he was helpful in a variety of fights we undertook, such as the Fox News fight and the FISA dispute. While he did run slightly to the left of the other candidates, my sense is that his presence as a progressive champion was overstated because he could never convincingly explain why he had shifted from his track record as a fairly moderate Senator to a harder edged candidate. That said, I'm glad he was in this, he did some good, and I hope he lands a spot in the next administration somewhere."
Ezra Klein praises Edwards' online supporters: "No other candidate came close to having the whip-smart, searingly eloquent, ferociously committed online advocates that Edwards amassed...If you are too judge a man by his friends, you should judge a candidate by his backers, and in that measure, Edwards was truly fortunate."
Meanwhile, Stoller thinks Edwards' exit helps HRC: "I think this is bad for Obama, but I guess we'll see where his vote goes. Edwards is more likely to endorse Obama than Clinton, so of course there's that."
Open Left's Paul Rosenberg agrees: "Dropping out now, just a week before Super-Duper Tuesday strikes me as really strange...It undercuts any possibility of playing a powerbroker role. It undercuts all the organizing that's gone into those states. And it hands a clear advantage to Clinton, in the estimates that Chris [Bowers] has been doing...So the only sense that I can make out of it, is that it is a deliberate gift to Clinton, with Edwards thinking it is more effective not to endorse her explicitly -- which doesn't say a lot for his sense of his own influence over his own supporters."
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Luck Of The Irish
The Atlantic's Ross Douthat:
"Much of what's happened to make McCain the presumptive nominee has been luck, pure and simple. He was lucky, to begin with, that George W. Bush lacked an heir apparent -- no Jeb [Bush], no Condi [Rice], no Dick Cheney -- who could unite the movement establishment against him. He was lucky that Mitt Romney was a Mormon. He was lucky that Fred Thompson, a candidate who might have succeeded in rallying both social and economic conservatives against his various heresies, was out-campaigned by Mike Huckabee, whose appeal was ultimately too sectarian to make him a threat. He was lucky that Rudy Giuliani ran an inutterably lousy campaign. (More on this anon.) He was lucky that Mike Huckabee won Iowa; lucky that the media basically treated that win as a McCain victory (though obviously his skill in cultivating the press made a big difference, in that case and many others); lucky, as David Freddoso suggests, that Huckabee decided to campaign in New Hampshire and (taking my foolish advice) Michigan instead of going straight to South Carolina; lucky that Giuliani decided not to campaign in New Hampshire after Christmas; and lucky, finally, that Fred Thompson decided to go all in against Huckabee in South Carolina, thus delivering McCain the Palmetto State and with it Florida. And he was lucky, above all, that his strongest challenger was a guy that almost nobody liked -- not the media, not his fellow candidates, and not enough of the voters, in the end. [...]
Now if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, then we'll know that Providence wants McCain in the White House."
LEST WE FORGET: Congress To Raise Alpacas To Aid Struggling Economy
"Members of Congress assured Americans that they have a definitive plan for reviving the slumping economy when they unveiled on Monday a bold new fiscal stimulus package that calls for the purchase of a pair of alpacas.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the proposal, which is expected to solve the sub-prime mortgage crisis, boost consumer confidence, and pump much-needed liquid capital into the market, will be put into motion as soon as the first issue of Alpaca World magazine arrives and Congress has a chance to go through the catalog and select the perfect mating pair.
'We're confident that breeding alpacas will jump-start the economy and lift this nation out of debt once we get the start-up money,' said McConnell, who insists the exotic livestock require very little maintenance and are of a gentler temperament than their cousin the llama. 'All you need is a fertile male and a female in heat, and nature takes it course. Before you know it, the money is rolling in and there's alpacas everywhere.'"
Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 30, 2008 12:55 PM
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