March 03, 2008

3/3: Great Expectations

The general consensus in the liberal blogosphere is that Hillary Clinton is likely to win OH, while she and Barack Obama are essentially deadlocked in TX. With growing signs pointing to HRC's determination to stay in the race until PA's primary on 4/22, several bloggers are already looking past tomorrow's primaries. If HRC wins OH and TX by solid margins, will John Edwards endorse her? Will the focus of the race (once again) turn to superdelegates? Will FL & MI redo their primaries? Unless Obama manages to score a knock-out blow tomorrow, this speculation will probably only increase in the coming days. John McCain, meanwhile, must be loving it -- particularly as the Clinton camp starts turning the conversation toward national security.

DEM FIELD: The Final Countdown

Open Left's Chris Bowers makes some TX & OH predictions: "[TX] is a real nailbiter. I think Obama will pull it out, because there are more indications that early voting favors him than Clinton, and because he tends to outperform polling more often than Clinton. However, both candidates still clearly have a shot to win the primary portion of the Texas nominating contest, which could be the difference to Clinton staying in the campaign after Tuesday, and Obama becoming the presumptive nominee. [...] I expect Clinton to win Ohio by 3-5%, which puts a lot of pressure on Texas to decide whether the nomination campaign moves forward or not."

MyDD's Jonathan Singer agrees that TX is a nailbiter: "Obama's lead of a point -- or perhaps even two or three -- in Texas is illusory at this juncture. Certainly it's true that Obama has been coming on extremely strongly in the state, and that the unique rules seem to give him an advantage (both because of the allocation of delegates across state Senate districts and because of caucus held immediately after the primary). Nevertheless, this contest could still go in either direction."

Daily Kos' DHinMI thinks polls might underestimate Obama's support: "An analysis of the poll results using the data at Pollster.com shows that Clinton has generally performed consistent with the public polls, while Obama has consistently performed much better than the average of the public polls. [...] If the pattern seen in these figures continues on Tuesday, Obama will win Texas and possibly Ohio as well."

CLINTON: What's Her Endgame?

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis thinks HRC should quit the race if she fails to significantly cut into Obama's delegate lead: "If [HRC] doesn't win 65% of the delegates in both Ohio and Texas, it's actually over for her -- the math says she simply can't win the nomination without that margin of victory. [...] This race is getting far too bitter. I see it in our own readers -- it went from friendly competition to a death match about 4 weeks ago. If Hillary doesn't get her 65% of delegates in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, she needs to accept that she lost, and quit the race. If she doesn't, then I suspect the negative attacks that are going to be making news next week won't be Hillary's at all. They're going to be from the rest of the party demanding that she concede."

TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat sets more attainable benchmarks for HRC: "My own view is that if Clinton does not win both Ohio and Texas, she SHOULD drop out but I also think she has every right to continue. And if she wins both, calls for her to drop out will look ludicrous and fearful."

Atrios: "While the notion of this thing continuing until Pennsylvania so that I can actually vote has some appeal, I'm really not sure I can stand another 7 weeks of this. Having said that, this election season doesn't exist for my amusement so campaigns are of course perfectly entitled to stay in the thing as long as they want."

MyDD's Todd Beeton anticipates re-votes in FL & MI: "If Hillary Clinton wins Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, there is no doubt this primary will continue, likely at least into late April when Pennsylvania votes. And if that happens, while it's been off the radar screen a bit, we should expect a return to a discussion of what happens to Michigan and Florida, because, let's face it, Hillary Clinton needs those delegates to close the pledged delegate gap with Barack Obama. [...] What Clinton should hope happens, both because she needs an infusion of pledged delegates sooner rather than later and because she needs a nomination victory to be a clean unambiguous win, is that Michigan and Florida are allowed to redo their primary following a period of campaigning by both candidates. This would appear the fairest scenario and, while it poses logistical problems to be sure, it's certainly a scenario that neither side would appear to have a viable argument against."

Ezra Klein: "It's very hard to imagine the superdelegates going against a candidate leading by 100 delegates. Very, very hard. Indeed, the most influential among them -- John Lewis, Bill Richardson, Brian Schweitzer -- are already laying the groundwork to support whichever candidate is ahead in delegates. I'm having trouble figuring out the scenario by which Clinton still wins this thing."

CLINTON II: Scaring You Into Voting For...McCain?

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks HRC's ominous new TV ad, which implies that Obama isn't ready to be Commander in Chief, was designed to help McCain: "My conspiracy-theory analysis: The Clinton campaign did not release that ad for the sake of Clinton 2008. It is to defeat Obama, for sure. But not now. Hillary knows she's going down. They issued that ad because they want McCain to win. She thinks she can be a star in the Senate, leader of the Democratic party when he loses. So the commercial is her gift to John McCain. She's got her eye on 2012."

NRO's Lisa Schiffren agrees: "I agree that Hillary's commander in chief ads will ultimately serve as a gift to the McCain campaign. Indeed, because they are so true, many of her criticisms of his lack of substance will redound to McCain's benefit in November -- even if they did nothing for her."

Glenn Reynolds links to Lopez's post and wonders: "Are the Clintons capable of such breathtaking cynicism and selfishness?"

Meanwhile, AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein makes an observation: "On an ongoing Clinton campaign conference call, chief strategist Mark Penn just said: 'If Senator Obama can't seem to be commander in chief against Senator Clinton, how could he possibly expect to be seen as someone who could win the commander in chief argument against John McCain?' That sounds to me like an accidental confession by the Clinton camp that McCain is the far more credible commander in chief."

AmSpec Blog's James Antle isn't surprised: "Hillary Clinton has been launching attacks on Barack Obama that will make it harder for him to win the experience argument if he is the nominee. Why shouldn't she undercut herself too?"

OBAMA: Dean 2.0?

The Nation's Ari Berman thinks Obama is the heir to Howard Dean's 50-state strategy: "In contrast to Clinton's campaign, Obama's -- with its hundreds of thousands of small donors, Internet buzz and red-state appeal -- reflects to a great extent the realization of Dean's ideals. Dean's argument for how to rebuild and expand the party base for the long term found its perfect short-term exponent in Obama, whose appeal to independents and liberal Republicans and talk of 'unity' is planting Democratic roots in unfamiliar places. 'The Obama for President campaign is what all of us hoped Dean for President would become,' says Steve McMahon, a former top Dean strategist who's stayed neutral in '08. 'Obama is Dean 2.0, dramatically updated to reflect the emergence of the grassroots.'"

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas agrees with Berman: "It's amazing that when Jerome [Armstrong] and I wrote Crashing the Gate, with its uncompromising promotion of the 50-state strategy, the notion was still considered incredibly controversial. Now, it's accepted CW in most quarters. [...] As the Republican Party becomes increasingly a regional party, locked out of entire swaths of the nation, the Democrats are headed in the opposite direction. We have a likely nominee that has a demonstrated commitment to furthering the pioneering work by Howard Dean in 2004 and beyond. There was a battle over the soul of this party -- between those who would hoard power in DC, and those who would spread it around the entire country, empowering individuals to work toward a progressive national majority. The good guys won, in no small part because of Dean."

Big Tent Democrat disagrees: "This Ari Berman article is a hoot...I have written about Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy and I think Berman and others do not understand it. But that is a debate we can have. But it offends me that people like Joe Trippi argue that Barack Obama is a natural extension of Fighting Democrats like Howard Dean and Paul Wellstone. Excuse me, I saw Howard Dean in 2003. I admired what he did to give Democrats their fighting spirit back. Barack Obama has no resemblance to the Howard Dean that helped make me proud to be a member of the Democratic Party."

OBAMA II: Bipartisanship, My A**

Several conservative bloggers are discussing the latest column by The Washington Post's David Ignatius, entitled, "Obama: A Thin Record For a Bridge Builder":

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Ignatius argues that Obama has done little more than grab the low-hanging fruit of bipartisanship while avoiding all the risks. [...] I argued this yesterday. Of the three candidates left standing in this cycle, John McCain has the clearest record of bipartisanship and of pressing for change in Washington politics. Granted, that hasn't made many in his party very happy with him, but McCain has had the courage to take those risks. [...] Obama's record shows him to be a doctrinaire Democrat, and one from the farther reaches of the Left. His voting record on the rest of the issues -- thin as it is -- shows no indication that he will govern from the center."

RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "Ignatius, of course, is no tool of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. And all he is discussing are the facts that are and should be available to anyone with any interest whatsoever in looking at Obama's record...Obama likes to glide past this inconvenient truth by claiming that his critics simply want him to stay in Washington so that they can 'boil the hope out of him.' It's a nice line but it really shouldn't cover up matters. The fact is that Obama's record of accomplishment is inversely proportional to the intensity of his political ambitions."

On the left side of the blogosphere, The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias mocks Ignatius' column: "The best thing about David Ignatius' hit on Barack Obama is that amidst his lengthy whine that Obama hasn't done enough to 'anger any of the party's interest groups' he doesn't offer any examples of group-angering action that he wishes Obama would take. After all, once you reach a certain lofty peak of beltwayishness, you're above petty demands to think about policy. Rather, your role is to castigate interest groups, especially liberal ones, as the bane of all existence. After all, where do these people get off forming groups to advocate for their interests? Maybe Obama should have become a global warming denialist? Advocated that we intensify legal discrimination against gays and lesbians? Steps like those sure would have socked it to the interest groups!"

MCCAIN: When Endorsements Bite Back

Liberal bloggers continue to savage McCain for his "proud" acceptance of Rev. John Hagee's endorsement:

Salon's Glenn Greenwald: "John McCain has put his arms around one of the most radical and vile extremists in America. He has praised him, shared a stage with him, sought out his endorsement and expressed 'honor' at receiving it, and has denounced not a word of anything he said."

AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Notice the pattern: An outrageous, racist, hateful charge is made by a McCain ally. McCain disavows the claim and says he didn't even know the offender. We find out McCain is lying. The media continue to fawn over McCain and maintain he would never be mean or negative. That's the pattern for now. It's going to change."

Daily Kos' BarbinMD wants the media to ask McCain if he shares Hagee's more controversial views:

"If [the media] are done deciding whether or not Barack Obama's rejection and denouncement of Louis Farrakhan was enough, perhaps they could ask John McCain for some clarification. Their questions could go something like this:

• Senator McCain, do you believe that there is a clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews?


• Senator McCain, regarding Hurricane Katrina, do you believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that?


• Senator McCain, do you believe that the only difference between a woman with PMS and a terrorist is that you can negotiate with a terrorist?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Iraq And The Mac

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat summarizes McCain's challenge:

"Basically, McCain isn't going to win this election without 1) making the race turn on foreign policy to a greater extent than it looks like it will right now, and 2) persuading a large chunk of the American public that his instincts about Iraq might be better than theirs. If he can't pull this twofer off, he doesn't have a chance."

LEST WE FORGET: Ad Campaign Appeals To Young, Hip, Influenced-By-Ad-Campaigns Demographic

From The Onion:

"NEW YORK -- According to new market research, a multimillion dollar broadcast, radio, print, billboard, and online viral campaign launched Monday by the Axiom Marketing Agency tested 'off the charts' among its target market of hip, urban 18- to 34-year-olds who base their actions and opinions entirely on the suggestions of ad campaigns. 'This is exactly the type of customer we're looking to reach,' said the campaign's chief strategist Ben Jacobs, 28. 'It's showing tremendous impact on the cool, media-savvy rebels who distrust authority, prize alternative culture, think outside of the mainstream, and are willing to base their actions entirely on advertising images presented to them on TV. How dope is that?' The campaign, which advertises a new, youth-oriented version of Raisinets called Raisin d'Etre, is expected to make an impressive showing at the upcoming Counterculture Ad Fair sponsored by Procter and Gamble and held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at March 3, 2008 12:58 PM