March 27, 2008

3/27: The Rising

The blogosphere is abuzz over the new Gallup poll showing that 28% of Hillary Clinton supporters would vote for John McCain over Barack Obama, whereas 19% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Clinton. Conservative bloggers are delighted by this poll and see it as additional evidence that McCain is benefiting from the lengthy and increasingly contentious Dem primary. Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, are worried that voters' feelings are hardening and that it's going to be difficult to unite the party behind the eventual nominee. While Clinton certainly has her vocal defenders among the netroots, the criticism of Clinton in the liberal blogosphere is growing louder, as are the calls for superdelegates to end the race.

We are continually amazed by the shift in the netroots' feelings toward Obama. Just five months ago, at the height of the Donnie McClurkin controversy, it appeared that Obama's relationship with the netroots had been permanently severed. The influential liberal blogger Chris Bowers wrote a scathing "Obama Campaign Post-Mortem" in which he declared that "losing the netroots has been the downfall of Barack Obama's campaign." Yesterday, Bowers endorsed Obama and added him to the Blue Majority page on Act Blue (a fundraising project organized by Daily Kos, OpenLeft, and the Swing State Project). The surge in Obama's netroots support has been remarkable, and it's something that we never expected -- at least not while there was still a primary going on.

DEM FIELD: Holding A Grudge

Liberal bloggers are concerned about a new Gallup poll showing that 28% of Clinton supporters would vote for McCain over Obama, whereas 19% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Clinton:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Whoever wins those numbers will flatten out considerably. But starting from such high numbers is a big, big problem."
• Ezra Klein: "If you want evidence that the Democratic primary is becoming cancerous for the party, look no further than today's Gallup poll [...] To be sure, this poll takes place in an odd context: These voters are exposed to a constant drumbeat exposing the ruthlessness of Clinton/naivete and reverse-racism of Obama. They're hearing nothing about John McCain's staggeringly regressive tax cuts, his plans for a 100-year war in Iraq, [etc...] These numbers will change no matter who captures the nomination. The only question is how long the Democrat will have to push out that message. If the campaign goes till August, that's two months of general election campaigning -- which is next to nothing."
• TPM's Greg Sargent: "You hear lots more media attention being paid to the idea that Obama's supporters would bolt to McCain than to the possibility that Hillary's would. It's worth keeping in mind that you can't take it for granted, as some pundits seem to, that Hillary backers will all support Obama. On the other hand, one problem with this poll is it doesn't account for how Hillary might win. If Obama won the pledged delegate count and popular vote, and the super dels put Hillary over the top, you could easily see the number of Obama supporters not willing to back Hillary spiking."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk urges calm: "Don't panic...There is no reason to think once this very competitive and now unduly nasty nomination campaign ends the winner will not be able to patch things up."

Pro-Clinton bloggers blame Obama's campaign and Obama's supporters for driving Clinton voters toward McCain:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "Seeing something like this...you would think that Obama supporters, and his campaign, confident as they are that it's 90% sewed up and in the bag, that they'd stop to think a bit about not alienating the Clinton voters that they'd need to win over McCain, wouldn't you? [...] I'll vote for the Democrat against McCain, [but] this will have to get resolved in a manner that both sides feel is legitimate if the hardcore supporters of the other candidate are to be expected to help out in November."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "Too many in the Obama campaign, Obama supporters and Obama-supporting blogs believe that their demonization of Hillary Clinton has had no ill effects on Barack Obama's image among the half of the Democratic Party that supports Hillary Clinton. They are wrong. At this point, without the active and sincere support by Hillary Clinton of his potential Presidential run against John McCain, Obama has no chance in November. [...] I believe a Unity Ticket is the only way to achieve this."
• In a separate post, Big Tent Democrat blames Obama and his supporters for "the negativity of the campaign": "The dirtiest politics practiced in this campaign was Barack Obama's blocking of the Michigan and Florida revotes. There is nothing uglier in politics, nothing dirtier, than blocking voters' chances to vote. The stain on Barack Obama for this will not wash away with me. [...] The Clinton campaign realizes that no matter what they do, they will be declared evil. They realize that no matter what Obama does, he will be declared a saint. In such an environment, both the Clinton campaign and the Obama campaign will feel no restraint to their behavior. The Media and some of the Left blogs have created this climate."

DEM FIELD II: Delicious!

Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, are delighted by the Gallup poll:

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Awesome. [Let's assume] those numbers will decline by at least three-quarters after a bruising general campaign, but even so, seven percent of Hillary's base voting GOP would be a tasty treat on Election Day."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "John McCain must be pleased by the existence of a potential wedge against his likely foe."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Recall this next time you hear about 'Obamacans', or how Obama has a better chance of unifying the Democratic Party than Hillary."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "The Gallup is noteworthy on two levels. Clearly, it shows that the Democratic nomination battle is taking a toll on party unity. But what may be even more interesting is that contrary to the popular belief that a Clinton nomination would split the party more, in this poll, it is an Obama nomination that triggers more defections. I suppose, alternatively, that this can be viewed as Obama supporters being more willing to put what's best for the party above their personal bitterness. These numbers would likely drop once the heated primary campaign is over and the Democrats start attacking McCain as running for President [George W.] Bush's third term. But still, it's a bad sign for Dems."

CLINTON: Yes, Nancy, That's A Threat

Liberal bloggers are angry that top Clinton donors sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which they "chastis[ed] her for publicly saying that the super-delegates should support the winner of the pledged delegate count" and explicitly mentioned their past support of the DCCC:

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Certain people still think they can bully politicians by waving their checkbooks in their faces. [...] One side is looking to build a consensus and win on the strength of voters, the other side is looking to divide and harm the party. It's easy to see which is which."
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "I have to say that I doubt threatening Nancy Pelosi to take their toys and go home if she doesn't urge superdelegates to do what they want is really the smartest way for Hillary Clinton supporters to try to win this election. It sort of re-enforces the case that the Clintons and their close allies are selfish people willing and ready to destroy the party in order to maintain control over it."
• Josh Marshall paraphrases what he perceives to be the donors' message to Pelosi: "You want the money or not?"
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "This isn't just about superdelegates. Clinton's donors are directing Pelosi to go public and endorse Hillary's comments from a few days ago, when Hillary said that the elected delegates, the ones YOU voted for already, don't have to support Obama even though YOU voted for him. In their world, those delegates can just vote for Hillary anyway. That's what this letter is about. It's about extorting Pelosi to hand Hillary the election by stealing Obama's delegates."

Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, are delighted by this latest development in the contentious Dem primary:

• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "Not content with the current state of internecine (it's just such a good word) warfare currently going on in the Democratic Party between the Clintonites and the Obamaniacs, various Clintonites have decided that Nancy Pelosi deserves a talking to. [...] In related news, Republicans are debating what is the best brand of popcorn to pop and munch on while this spectacle unfolds."
• Allahpundit: "Awesome: Hillary donors threaten to cut off DCCC if Pelosi doesn't shut up about pledged delegates. [...] Now all we have to do is sit and wait for the letter from the Obama donors threatening to cut the party off if they don't follow the pledged delegates. Exit question: Let's say [Clinton] does, somehow, win the nomination. How many bridges will this sort of hardball crap have burned in the aftermath? Note the numbers, please."

CLINTON II: The Thrill Is Gone

Liberal bloggers continue to slam Clinton:

• The Huffington Post's Ari Emanuel questions Clinton's veracity: "The real experience Hillary Clinton gained during her years in the White House has finally been revealed: she learned, just like her husband, how to manipulate words to cover up her lies. Just as Bill [Clinton] used 'It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is' in front of the grand jury to mask his lies about Monica Lewinsky, Hillary is now using 'sleep deprivation' and 'misspoke' and 'it proves I'm human' to soft sell her hyperbolic tale of ducking sniper fire in Bosnia. [...] Do we really want to subject ourselves to this verbal abuse for the next four years?"
• Daily Kos' DHinMI questions Clinton's electability: "For anyone who was sentient in 2000, [Clinton's] exaggerations and fabrications should evoke memories of Al Gore fending off the 'flip flop' charges and looking silly as he was accused of plenty of silly comments he never made, like claiming to have discovered Love Canal or having invented the internet. Unlike Gore, who in a few individual instances made ill-advised comments that then got blown out of proportion, Clinton has made the questionable claims numerous times. [...] If the serial exaggeration accusation sticks to her, it will further solidify the emerging media narrative that the only major question left in the Democratic contest is when Hillary Clinton will concede that she has lost and that Barack Obama will be our presidential nominee."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller questions Clinton's political orientation: "[Clinton subscribes to] the TV model of politics. The characteristic of a TV politician is that they assume that (a) the electorate has no memory, (b) short-term image is everything, (c) liberal politics get you destroyed, and (d) the audience can't talk back. That's why Clinton lied about Bosnia, wouldn't admit it, stabbed [Jeremiah] Wright in the back, won't go back on her obviously stupid war vote, and appears completely overwhelmed by the criticisms she's getting from the non-advocacy group liberal audience on the internet."

Other liberal bloggers are arguing Clinton has no reasonable shot at the nomination and should get out of the race:

• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "The superdelegates have every right to vote any way they want. But I can't see them deciding to give the nomination to a candidate who isn't ahead either in pledged delegates or in the popular vote absent some genuine disaster befalling the Obama campaign. Provoking that disaster is, therefore, Clinton's only remaining winning strategy. [...] If the party leadership won't stage an intervention and try to get her to withdraw, that's just one more reason to conclude that we need new leadership."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "Let's put it this way: when Hillary Clinton is sitting alongside Richard Mellon Scaife and on the same day her campaign is distributing an article from the American Spectator, you know there's a problem. [...] The 'Tonya Harding option' is probably doing more harm than good."

CLINTON III: An Honesty Gap?

Conservative bloggers continue to criticize Clinton over her false statements about her '96 trip to Bosnia, which they see as additional evidence of Clinton's "mendacity":

• Allahpundit: "The beauty of the Tuzla story lies not in catching [Clinton] in a shameless lie but in the fact that it opens up everything else she's ever said to re-examination. [...] Just as the human brain can only handle nine-digit phone numbers, so too America's collective imagination can only juggle five or six egregious Hillary fabrications at a time. Right now, offhand, I can recall the Edmund Hillary lie, the Yankees/Cubs vacillation, the 'I almost joined the Marines' tall tale, the bogus southern accent, and of course Tuzla. But beyond that? Total blank. How much mendacity has spilled over the sides of the gallon-jug that is my mind and into oblivion? You've overwhelmed us, Hillary."
• Townhall's Amanda Carpenter: "Aside from the 'I never had sexual relations with that woman' lie, how many can you think of? These are the ones I'm thinking about this morning: Hillary's lie about the Bosnia trip; Hillary's lie she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary; Hillary's lie she was always against NAFTA; Bill's lie that he was always opposed to the Iraq war; Hillary's lie that President [George W.] Bush 'misused' her Senate vote to go to war; Hillary's lie that she opposes drivers licenses for illegal aliens..."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Like her Sir Edmund Hillary fable, Hillary's statements about sniper fire in Bosnia are lies that aren't even politically 'necessary'...They're just something she's said because it's expedient -- they sound good at the time or she perceives them as bringing her some momentary advantage. In a sense, they're 'optional' lies. That's what's so unsettling about them. Someone who resorts to 'optional' lies is someone who really doesn't mind lying at all and does it without a second thought -- a disturbing trait in a would-be president."

OBAMA: Bloggers Used To Diss Me, Now They Write Letters 'Cause They Miss Me

Influential liberal blogger Chris Bowers endorses Obama and adds him to the Blue Majority page on Act Blue:

"Ever since the Blue Majority page was launched nearly one year ago, we at Blue Majority knew that we would add the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to the page. [...] Barack Obama has become the presumptive Democratic nominee, and it is time to start supporting him.

Importantly, my rationale for endorsing Barack Obama goes beyond his status as the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination. As a progressive, there are two key ideological markers that I believe make Barack Obama a better choice than Hillary Clinton: the Iraq war and the DLC. First, Barack Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start, and rejected the neoconservative principle of pre-emptive warfare as one of his main reasons for opposing the war. Being able to identify the invasion of Iraq as a colossal mistake makes Barack Obama far more qualified to lead our country than candidates who both were, and still are, unable to recognize why the war was such a bad idea. [...Second,] while Hillary Clinton is a member of the DLC's leadership, Barack Obama has repeated refuses to be associated with the group. [...]

It is for all of these reasons that I am happy and proud to endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States. I gave my first donation to his campaign today, and I urge you to do the same."

Moulitsas adds: "So today the Blue Majority sites (dKos, Swing State Project, and Open Left) added Barack Obama to our ActBlue fundraising page. All three sites held votes of their readership. Daily Kos passed the super-majority threshold a few weeks ago, SSP and Open Left did it yesterday. It's clear our communities have become heavily pro-Obama, especially as Clinton's only path to victory is via coup by super delegate and civil war, and she doesn't give a damn."

Obama hasn't won over every prominent netroots blogger, however. Moulitsas' friend and co-author, Jerome Armstrong, believes that Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright has damaged not just Obama's own candidacy but the Dem party as a whole. Armstrong argues that a recent Rasmussen poll of MO reveals "fall-out from Wright, not against just Obama, but also Clinton, and most likely against the Democratic Party in general. It's branding of Democrats Obama, and Clinton, as anti-American. [...] In a month, a 1 point McCain lead over Clinton is now 9, and a lead of 2 by McCain over Obama has become 15 percent...If McCain already has MO locked up by April, we are in deep trouble. Nevertheless, I don't think that Obama has been hurt much by Wright in the nomination contest, for a number of reasons. He's already branded himself strongly with most Democrats paying attention, and there's seems too much emotional investment on both sides, for even something as radical as this revelation, to shake up that dynamic much, but the GE match-up is another matter."

Meanwhile, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan has been one of Obama's most vocal supporters in the blogosphere, but he may support McCain in the general election: "I am still open to supporting McCain this fall, primarily because of character and decency. [...] This election, I feel, is less and less about ideology. It is more and more about conscience and judgment."

OBAMA II: No, Marc, Obama Does Have A Jewish Problem

Conservative bloggers are criticizing The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder for asserting that "there is no evidence that Barack Obama has a 'Jewish' problem":

• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "Barack Obama has no imperfection or shortcoming that can't be glossed over by liberal pundits. The latest gloss: he has no Jewish problem and all this 'guilt by association' is terribly imprecise and unfair. [...] Will American Jews stick by a Democratic candidate who surrounds himself with the type of advisors Obama has, who feels unable to reject his pastor even after vile anti-Semitic remarks become known...and whose foreign policy embraces the notion of meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? [...] But everything is fine, perfectly fine, say the liberal media Obamaphiles."
• Mirengoff: "Ambinder's reasoning is questionable. He compares Obama's association with [Tony] McPeak to John McCain's association with John Hagee, an anti-Catholic. But McPeak is Obama's campaign co-chair and one of his go-to guys on national security issues. Hagee has no such status in the McCain campaign. [...Furthermore,] McPeak is just the tip of the iceberg. It consists not only of Jeremiah Wright, but also of a string of policy advisers and ex-advisers (Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Zgibniew Brzezinski, and now McPeak) who are known to view Israel negatively and in some cases are unhappy with with American Jews who support Israel. It's this pattern of associations -- a spiritual adviser, a former employee with strong ties and access to Obama (Power), and several advisers -- that is problematic for Obama."
• The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb: "[Ambinder's point is] fair enough. But there comes a point when one looks at the people Obama has surrounded himself with and begins to wonder. On Israel, Obama has no real track record, so voters can judge him only by his words and the words of those who advise him. Will Gen. McPeak, whose 'odious' statements on Israel have drawn condemnation from supporters and foes alike, have Obama's ear on such issues? We don't really know. But if their association is insignificant in degree and quality, why doesn't Obama toss him overboard?"
• Philip Klein: "Obama has given supporters of Israel have every reason to fear he would be the most hostile president toward Israel since Jimmy Carter."

MCCAIN: So The FEC Won't Let Me Be...

A group of liberal bloggers recently filed a complaint with the FEC, charging McCain with violations of campaign finance law:

"By his own admission, John McCain is breaking the law. His latest spending report has him $4 million over the limit he imposed on himself when he accepted public financing. We're not about to let this stand, so on Tuesday we filed an FEC complaint against the McCain campaign [...] Now we're set for a second larger delivery, on behalf of the thousands of Americans who won't stand by while John McCain breaks the law."

These bloggers are now urging their readers to join the effort by signing the petition:

• Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith: "The hypocrisy of the so-called 'maverick' violating a law which he championed because it suits his purposes this time around is horrifying. Even worse is the relative silence of the press on this, given the rank hypocrisy of violations of McCain's 'signature' issue and all. Does it get to be your signature issue if you are blatantly violating it in an in-your-face maneuver after being warned not to by the head of the FEC? I think not."
• Moulitsas: "Jane Hamsher filed a complaint with the FEC charging John McCain with violations of campaign finance law for spending beyond limits imposed by his decision to take public financing. McCain has claimed he is backing off that decision, and justifies it with the fact that he never received any of that public money. However, the law clearly states that he is bound by those limits if he uses the promise of those funds in order to secure campaign loans -- something he absolutely did."
• Digby: "John McCain is a fugitive from justice. He spoke at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council as a man on the lam. With every passing day, every fill-up of diesel for the Straight Talk Express, every sandwich, every long-distance phone call to a lobbyist friend, he is further breaking the campaign finance laws. He has overspent federal limits while remaining in the public system for the primaries. And the netroots is doing something about it."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Return Of The '70s

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat compares contemporary cinema to '70s cinema:

"I do think that our neo-Seventies moment has produced movies and (especially) television shows that rival the best work done in that decade -- not only highbrow work like The Wire and The Sopranos, Zodiac and No Country For Old Men, but thrillers like the Bourne films (the first two, especially) and B-movies like 28 Days Later. (I think Danny Boyle's zombie film is a vast improvement on the work of George Romero, in fact, though that's a minority opinion.) But it's certainly true that the more explicitly politically-infused material is considerably weaker this time around, often to the point of embarrassment."

LEST WE FORGET: Awww

McSweeney's Kathy Salerno lists "Titles of Love Songs I Would Write for People Like Me":

"A Friend Again, Naturally"

"Hopelessly Inexperienced Sexually"

"Mind Boyfriend's Back"

"Wishing, Hoping, Checking Your MySpace Relationship Status"

"Never Gonna Ask You Out, Never Gonna Make My Move"

"Give Me Just a Little More Time (By Then You'll Surely Be Dating Someone Else)"

"Are You That Anybody?"

"Let's Give Them Something to Prove I'm Straight"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at March 27, 2008 12:47 PM