March 18, 2008

3/18: Drawing A Line In The Sand

Last week we observed that the increasingly contentious Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton battle was dividing the liberal blogosphere into pro-Obama and pro-Clinton blogs. This trend appears to be continuing, with a group of pro-Clinton bloggers launching a boycott of the popular liberal blog Daily Kos (which is currently dominated by Obama supporters). Pro-Clinton diarist Alegre announced that she would stop posting on Daily Kos in order to protest "the abuse and anger" directed at her by Obama supporters, and she urged other Clinton supporters to do the same. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas initially dismissed the boycott, saying "It's a big Internet, so I hope they find what they're looking for."

Yesterday, Moulitsas responded more fully to the boycott, writing a lengthy post entitled "The Clinton civil war" in which he explained his opposition to Clinton. We think Moulitsas' post is noteworthy for several reasons. It details the various ways in which Moulitsas sees Clinton as failing to live up to his "guiding principles." But, he also says that his primary reason for opposing Clinton is that "the only path to victory for Clinton is via coup by super delegate," which would "sunder the party in civil war."

This represents a notable shift in tone for Moulitsas. Just two weeks ago, he praised Clinton after her OH and TX victories and declared, "I'm cool with her continuing on. I certainly won't be calling for her to quit." But now it appears that Moulitsas sees Clinton's decision to continue fighting until the convention as dangerous to the party's prospects in November.

DEM FIELD: Civil War?

Pro-Clinton diarist Alegre explains her proposed "writers strike": "I've been posting at DailyKos for nearly 4 years now and started writing diaries in support of Hillary Clinton back in June of last year. Over the past few months I've noticed that things have become progressively more abusive toward my candidate and her supporters. [...] I've decided to go on 'strike' and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution. [...] I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate -- a good and fine DEMOCRAT -- is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page."

When ABC's Jake Tapper asked him about the strike, Moulitsas replied: "First, these people should read up on the definition of 'strike.' What they're doing is a 'boycott.' But whatever they call it, I think it's great. It's a big Internet, so I hope they find what they're looking for."

• Later, Moulitsas writes a lengthy post explaining his (and his blog's) opposition to HRC: "Clinton fails the test of [most of] the guiding principles of this site, and of my first book, Crashing the Gate. Clinton isn't just a member of the DLC, she's in their leadership. Obama, by the way, repudiated the organization three times (it's a great story, which I tell in my forthcoming book). Clinton hasn't just rejected a 50-state strategy, she has openly attacked it. [...] Clinton didn't just vote for the Iraq war and refuse to apologize for it, she voted to give Bush the same authority on Iran. And if we want to talk about which [candidate] is the most grassroots-oriented, it's no contest. We've seen it in the caucuses, we've seen it in the netroots, and we saw it in the Iowa county convention this Saturday. The party's activists are busting their butts for Obama, while Clinton's campaign is counting on low-information Democratic voters selecting Clinton based on little more than name ID."
• Moulitsas continues: "But I could deal with all of that, really, if Clinton was headed toward victory. [...] But she's not, and that's the rub...The only path to victory for Clinton is via coup by super delegate. [...] Yet a coup by super delegate would sunder the party in civil war. Clinton knows this, it's her only path to victory, and she doesn't care. She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power. If the situations were reversed, and Obama was lagging in the delegates, popular vote, states won, money raised, and every other reasonable measure, then I'd feel the same way about Obama. (I pulled the plug early on [Howard] Dean in 2004.) But that's not the case. It is Clinton, with no reasonable chance of victory, who is fomenting civil war in order to overturn the will of the Democratic electorate. As such, as far as I'm concerned, she doesn't deserve 'fairness' on this site. All sexist attacks will be dealt with -- those will never be acceptable. But otherwise, Clinton has set an inevitably divisive course and must be dealt with appropriately."
• Moulitsas concludes by drawing a line in the sand: "People like me have two choices -- look the other way while Clinton attempts to ignite her civil war, or fight back now, before we cross that dangerous line. Honestly, it wasn't a difficult choice. And it's clear, looking at where the super delegates, most bloggers, and people like [Keith] Olbermann are lining up, that the mainstream of the progressive movement is making the same choice. And the more super delegates see what is happening, and what Clinton has in store, the more imperative it is that they line up behind Obama and put an end to it before it's too late."

AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay agrees with Moulitsas: "The traditional media is playing up the Obama-Clinton battle. And, the Clinton campaign is playing along with them. Reporters and pundits know the reality -- Hillary can't win -- but it's good for ratings to keep this battle going. [...] Hillary won't win the nomination without some machination -- Markos calls it a coup, and he's right -- that will result in a Democratic Party civil war. And, that seems fine by her."

The Field's Al Giordano also criticizes the Daily Kos boycott: "[Daily Kos] has been defined as a meeting ground not for every Democrat, but for the kind that wants to change the party to be more grassroots oriented, adhere to a 50-state strategy, stop the war in Iraq, and blunt the influence of lobbyists, PACs and the neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). [...] Given that candidate Clinton is a member of the DLC, voted to authorize the war, accepts federal lobbyist and PAC money, clearly thinks that a lot (if not most) states 'don't matter,' and epitomizes a 1990s style top-down form of doing politics, it's no surprise that for all of 2007 Clinton never exceeded 11 percent support in the monthly Daily Kos users straw poll."

DEM FIELD II: The State Of Flor-igan

Liberal bloggers are discussing the news that FL will not hold a revote:

• TPM's Greg Sargent thinks this is a blow to HRC's chances: "It's all but certain that whatever solution does eventually emerge won't seat the delegation in its current breakdown. So this is rough news for Hillary."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt, who supports HRC, wants FL's delegates seated based on the 1/29 results: "More than 1.7 million [FL] Democrats already voted and they chose Hillary. They want their vote to count. And it should. The DNC is the culprit here. They need to retract the penalty and award and seat the delegates in accordance with the January 29 vote."
• Daily Kos' Devilstower blames the FL GOP for creating this situation: "[Gov.] Charlie Crist and the Florida legislators who voted to move Florida's primary ahead of schedule took a long shot gamble, putting their constituents' votes on the line when both political parties had already warned of the consequences. But Crist and Co. thought they'd get more media cash and influence by being at the front of the pack, when the irony is that they would have had much more effect if the vote in Florida had come later. Oh yeah, and the votes would count. But they rolled the dice and lost, costing their voters a say in the nominating process. Now Crist and the rest will be pointing their fingers at the DNC, claiming it's the mean old rules that are at fault."

Meanwhile, several bloggers are criticizing Obama for not agreeing to a revote in MI:

• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "Today, we discover that Obama is blocking the MI revote plan and Clinton has embraced revotes in FL and MI. [...] Pols are pols, and if their situations were reversed, I feel confident their positions would be reversed on revotes for Michigan and Florida. But there is no doubt that revotes favor the Democratic Party and its chances in November. And that is what I care about. Not to mention the principle of enfranchising the voters of Florida and Michigan. Not a small thing either."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers thinks Obama would benefit from a revote in MI: "I really don't understand why the Obama campaign is dragging its feet on the Michigan revote deal. [...] Just about the only way Obama can lose the nomination at this point is if there is no revote in Michigan. Even with Florida included, at this point Obama leads by 99 delegates with less than 1,000 delegates remaining, thereby requiring Clinton to win the remaining delegates by about 10%. Basically, once a revote in Michigan is announced, Obama becomes the clear and overwhelming favorite to win the nomination. However, without a Michigan revote, we are guaranteed to head to a brokered convention, since no one will be able to reach 2,208 without Michigan."

OBAMA: Cuz Everyone Loves A Scandal

In the hours leading up to Obama's major speech about "the larger issue of race in this campaign", liberal bloggers continued to discuss the Jeremiah Wright flap. Many bloggers are accusing the media of stoking the controversy:

• Ezra Klein: "Does anyone believe that Barack Obama shares Jeremiah Wright's political views? Do folks think Obama believes AIDS a biological weapon made by the American government to harm Africans? That Obama is a great fan of [Louis] Farrakhan? [...] So far as I can tell, no one really thinks Obama agrees with Wright. They just know that Wright's comments are going to be politically troublesome for Obama. And so they're covering them as if they're a huge problem for Obama. But there's a disconnect there. Such views are supposed to be troublesome because they signal that Obama agrees with them. But if no one believes that Obama agrees with them, then they're just the views of some dude who knows Obama, and talks to him about spirituality. The controversy rests on everyone's ability to treat it as something no one seems to believe it is."
• The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins: "[Obama]'s made the fatal mistake of assuming that his 'words' and his 'explanations' and the 'character' he's demonstrated through a lifetime of 'actions' is sufficient in assuaging the concerns of voters. But he forgot about the need to satisfy the media. And clearly his previous denunciations of Reverend Wright's remarks have not been sufficient. And if you can't satisfy the media, can you really satisfy the voters, who the media will say aren't satisfied? Probably not."
• Firedoglake's Scarecrow: "If you wondered how the nation's mainstream media would ensure that racism and religious militarism influence the next election, just watch MSNBC and ABC stage endless faintings about 'Obama's pastor problem.' [...] It does not seem to have occurred to the white DC pundit class that blacks have every right to be angry at America -- and that condemning them for this anger is racist."

Meanwhile, The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum has questions about the controversy: "What's struck me the oddest about the whole thing has been the timing. Why now? Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ have been on the radar screen for months, discussed on blogs, listservs, talk radio, and Fox News. So why did it suddenly become a national media storm now? It probably isn't the result of campaign oppo stuff, since that would have been a lot more effective and helpful a couple of months ago. And the sermons themselves date back years, so it's not as if the material just recently became available. So what triggered it? [...] And why didn't Obama have a more vigorous defense ready when it did hit? It's not as if he didn't know Wright was an issue just waiting to explode in his face."

OBAMA II: Wright Or Wrong?

Some liberal bloggers disagree about whether or not Wright's comments are offensive:

Bowers does not find Wright offensive: "I am not offended by Jeremiah Wright. In fact, Wright is actually one of the reasons I have always liked Obama. And no, that is not because I am religious (I'm not) or that I actually liked the comments that have caused a controversy about Wright (I don't). Instead, Obama's upbringing, including the church he attends, provides him with a perspective on a large segment of America that is rarely represented either in popular American culture or in the executive branches of state and federal governments. [...] Personally, I think it would be a big step forward to finally have a President who does understand those parts of the country, which might in turn lead to the future generations in those neighborhoods being a lot less angry at America."

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong, on the other hand, finds Wright's comments "toxic" and thinks Obama needs to throw the pastor under the bus: "I don't think the way that [Obama]'s pitched the speech he's going to give [today], as talking about 'the larger issue of race in this campaign' will suffice to put away the issue of Wright. [...] The dismissal and repudiation of Wright must be addressed, and in a way so complete that there is no doubt that 20 years of a close relationship does not mean a thing. If Obama wants to keep Wright as part of his life, and try and convince that it's a net positive, he's going to pay a deep price. [...] The only way out of this is for Obama to have completely disavowed and distanced himself from Wright -- a long time ago. Now, he's stuck with it as part of his negative brand. The core of his message, of leading us to a post-racial America and his having good judgment skills, is all thrashed."

Armstrong concludes that Obama's presidential prospects are dropping fast: "The partisan knives among the Republicans are out and won't go away. [...] [Obama's] negatives are already nearing the same level as Clinton. Obama has never had to face a general election test. He has subscribed to a post-partisan worldview in a world that is through and through caught in an extremely partisan time. Those whom believe in him the most don't see it yet, but there's a lot crashing down around Obama right now."

OBAMA III: No Way Out

Conservative bloggers also discussed the Wright controversy:

NRO's Jim Geraghty: "[Obama's] speech is an inherent acknowledgment that the initial response -- essentially arguing that Obama never heard Wright say any of the truly jaw-dropping comments -- is no longer operable. In this speech, he's going to have to answer, how do the teachings of a divisive figure like Jeremiah Wright generate a man who claims to want unity like Barack Obama? Is Obama's warm, inclusive, optimistic rhetoric a false face to hide...what? Anger? Resentment? Paranoia?"

Michelle Malkin: "We know how his wife and his pastor feel about America. It's finally dawned on Barack Obama that they have been undermining his glow of HopeNChange."

RedState's Jeff Emanuel: "Barack HopeChangeHopeEmptyWordsAndNowLies Obama's current situation is one of his own making. In trying to be all things to all (leftist) people, he has painted himself into a corner like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. In an attempt to escape the stigma of his rumored-to-be-Muslim childhood, and his distasteful middle name, and in an attempt to promote his Authentic Blackness to the community whose support he needed to get elected to office in Chicago, Obama played up his membership in Jeremiah Wright's church as much as he possibly could. [...] Now, that lie is coming back to bite the wannabe Messiah in the backside. It's too bad, really; if BarackObama had decided to attend a real Christian church, instead of a racist, bigoted, politics-and-profanity-from-the-pulpit sewer of a 'church,' he might have learned the most valuable lesson of all: man's fallibility."

Meanwhile, Slate's Mickey Kaus offers Obama some advice: "In his Big Race Speech today, I hope Obama remembers the lesson of his breakthrough 2004 convention keynote address, which is a) say something conservative and anti-PC sounding; b) say it strongly and c) say it early. After that, you'll have the doubters on your side and you can more or less be as doctrinaire-left as you want. [...] There are plenty of potential Souljahs still around: Race preferences. Out-of-wedlock births. Three strike laws! But most of all the victim mentality that tells African Americans (in the fashion of Rev. Wright's most infamous sermons) that the important forces shaping their lives are the evil actions of others, of other races."

OBAMA IV: Is He Toast?

Several conservative bloggers continue to argue that Obama's candidacy is doomed:

• NRO's John Derbyshire: "I repeat: Obama's toast. He may yet get the Democratic nomination, but tens of millions of Americans who are neither (a) black nor (b) guilty white liberals are simply appalled that Obama would revere a guy like Jeremiah Wright for 20 years, whatever the particularities of which services he did and didn't attend. It defies belief that Obama knew this man for all that time, intimately enough to have him supervise at the Obama wedding and the children's baptisms, yet did not know that Wright is a white-hating, America-hating crank. [...] I don't even think [Al] Gore can pick Obama as a running mate now."
• NRO's Lisa Schiffren: "[Derbyshire's] right: Obama is toast. There is no coming back from this either. If he repudiates his affiliation to Wright's church he is sure to suffer with his African-American base, who will see him as too willing to listen to white critics. If he defends it, whites who felt comfortable with him, in part because he wasn't throwing anger and guilt at them, will leave. [...] Of course Hillary is the obvious beneficiary of his fall, and she may yet pull out the nomination. No matter. The numbers of voters who have sworn to pollsters that they would not vote for her no matter what, has hovered slightly above 50 percent forever. And, there will be a lot of angry Obama voters who won't show up for her. So, with full knowlege that anything could change and this could look like a ridiculous prediction, right this minute it's [John] McCain's to lose."
• NRO's Mark Steyn: "Some of the pronouncements in these parts as to the toastedness of Barack may prove a wee bit premature. [...] But, as things stand, Obama is damaged. [...] Jeremiah Wright is not most Americans' idea of a pastor, and the longer he's in the spotlight the more he distances Obama from the electorate. Accepting (as everyone assures us) that the candidate himself is not an Afrocentric liberation theologist who believes every crackpot conspiracy of the last 70 years, every other explanation as to why Barack Obama spent two decades in the company of a profane race-baiter leaves the Senator looking either weak or weird. If he can wriggle out of this tonight, he's some kind of genius."

OBAMA V: Kristolized

Liberal bloggers are hammering New York Times columnist Bill Kristol for falsely asserting in his 3/17 op-ed that Obama attended a sermon in which Rev. Jeremiah Wright made controversial statements about the "United States of White America." In fact, Obama was travelling to Miami on the day that Wright gave this sermon.

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "I'm shocked. Who would have imagined that a substantial factual error would work its way into Bill Kristol's latest Obama-bashing column? It's almost as if Kristol's a hatchet-man rather than a real journalist."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "I'm curious, since when do New York Times writers rely on Newsmax as a reliable source? How is it that NYT editors thought an inaccurate hit-job on a ridiculous website should serve as the basis for falsely accusing a presidential candidate of 'deceit'?"
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "[Kristol] leveled a serious charge against Obama without checking the evidence. Doesn't the Times now fire reporters who make stuff up?"
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Cripes, Bill, unlike the garbage you peddled while cheerleading for the Iraq war, this lie turned around and bit you in the ass immediately. And for future reference, the only source worse than Newsmax is the Weekly Standard. You should keep that in mind while penning your screeds."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Political Bracketology

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff sees similarities between the NCAA tournament and the presidential nomination process:

"If your team is set to play the winner of, say, a 7 vs. 10 game, you ordinarily start out rooting for the number 10 team to pull an upset. But if the 10 team builds a double-digit lead, you often find yourself fearing that squad and pulling for the higher seeded team. But if the number 7 teams comes back, you regret not getting to play the lower seed after all.

Many Republicans have viewed the Democratic race in a similar way. When Obama seemed to be running the table on Clinton, some Republicans began rooting for Hillary to come back on the theory that Obama would be too tough to beat. Now that Obama is in trouble, many Republicans are starting to think he's the one we'd like McCain to run against.

In politics, as in sports tournaments, you don't get to play the loser. But maybe the Republicans will get the next best thing. Suppose Obama continues to lose his appeal to the point that he becomes an easier opponent than Clinton (not probable, but certainly possible). But suppose (as seems almost certain) he nonetheless has won more delegates than Clinton in primaries and caucuses, and the Democrats are simply too afraid to deny him the nomination under these circumstances (quite possible). For McCain that would be like playing a bracket winner that's lost its star player."

LEST WE FORGET: Area Man Can Tell Commercial Will Be For Corona

From The Onion:

"BISBEE, AZ -- Local man James Fitzner, 42, was able to successfully predict within seven seconds that a recent 30-second TV commercial was advertising Corona, despite having never seen the ad in his life. 'I knew right away because it was really silent and the camera started zooming out a little bit and they never show the beach at first -- they try to trick you,' said the media-savvy Fitzner, who in the past has been able to identify ads for MasterCard and Red Bull before the product was mentioned. 'Then, as soon as I heard the sound of waves in the background, I just said to myself, "Corona."' Fitzner's son David, 16, said that after the beer bottle appeared on screen, his father turned to him and winked."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at March 18, 2008 12:53 PM