April 23, 2008

4/23: The Song Remains The Same

The netroots weren't surprised by Hillary Clinton's victory in PA, as most of them predicted it, but many were disappointed nonetheless. Most liberal bloggers believe that Clinton has no reasonable shot at the nomination, and some are urging the undeclared superdelegates to announce their endorsements now in order to prevent the race from going to the convention. Chris Bowers calls the protracted Dem primary "a bad dream we can't wake up from" and worries that it "might cost us a tremendous chance to win a big trifecta in November."

Clinton's online supporters, on the other hand, are urging Dem leaders to wait and see if Clinton can overcome Barack Obama's lead in the popular vote. Obama's supporters are pushing back against this argument by claiming that (a.) you can't change the rules in the middle of the game, and (b.) the popular vote isn't a legitimate measuring stick anyway.

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are rejoicing at the continued chaos on the Dem side. Many are buzzing about what they perceive to be Obama's significant vulnerabilities. Others are excitedly discussing the "worried" Dem superdelegates and urging them to think hard before nominating Obama. Markos Moulitsas would probably dismiss this "advice" as concern trolling, and perhaps he would be right to do so. Nevertheless, it is clear that conservatives are feeling increasingly confident about John McCain's chances against either Dem.

DEM FIELD: Right Back Where We Started From

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "I'd say the real story is that this leaves us basically where we were. It was a decisive win for Hillary but that was the expectation. Going into tonight I think the dividing line was about 8 points. Closer than that and the story would have been that Obama didn't win but closed the margin (which is how it looked early in the evening). A bigger margin than that and the story would be that Hillary got her big victory. So the 10 point spread is close to the dividing line but on Hillary's side of it."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "A landslide win by Hillary Clinton (as predicted by initial polls in March) might have fundamentally reshaped the race. A narrow win by Hillary Clinton (as predicted by early exit polls released last night) would have made it difficult for Clinton to continue. So, what happens? She wins by 9.4% -- a number Clinton supporters round up to call it a double-digit win, and Obama supporters round down for the opposite reason. Clinton's victory was decisive and impressive, but the margin fits nicely into that middle ground. It's big enough to give Clinton a boost, but not big enough to change the overall dynamics of the race. It's big enough to keep the campaign going for quite a while, but not big enough to compel uncommitted superdelegates to get off the fence. In other words, after six weeks of campaigning in the Keystone State, and about $40 million of investment, the Democratic Party is largely where it was a month ago."
• Open Left's Bowers: "Once again, the most annoying result appears to be the actual result. This feels like a bad dream we can't wake up from, and a terrible run of bad luck that might cost us a tremendous chance to win a big trifecta in November."
• The New Republic's Noam Scheiber: "[Clinton] only marginally improved her chances of winning the nomination, and they weren't high to begin with. [...] The bottom line is that Hillary needs an Obama meltdown to have a real path to the nomination. After all the uproar about Jeremiah Wright and bittergate, that didn't come close to happening [last night]. What did happen was that all the people who think the extended nomination fight is killing party got a lot more depressed."

Open Left's Matt Stoller tries to cheer up his fellow liberal bloggers: "Democrats are going to be fine. The most significant result of the night is in Mississippi's 1st district, not Pennsylvania...In MS-01, Democrats forced a run-off...and this is an R+10 district. [...] The public hates Republicans, and larger macro factors are at play. Don't get distracted by noise. It's fun to bite your nails and fret about how Democrats are tearing themselves apart, which of course I heard plenty of on the various cable shows. But whatever. Obama's probably going to take the nomination as Clinton doesn't have enough to win, and her annoyed supporters will move to Obama after she endorses him. And then macro factors, the economy and Iraq, and McCain's general insanity and old crazy man persona is going to hurt him badly. No one likes Republicans, even in R+10 districts."

DEM FIELD II: Overstaying Her Welcome

• Moulitsas: "[Clinton]'s lost this election. She is desperate. Her website forwards to her donation page, which would be sad and tragic if she wasn't hell bent on bringing her party down. We've got two weeks left in this contest. North Carolina and Indiana will finish this thing off."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "There's still no path to the nomination for Hillary, just a path to destruction. Can someone ask Hillary Clinton how she intends to secure the nomination? And, have her explain it in real terms -- without spin, without obfuscation, without making up new rules and without pretending that she always wanted Michigan and Florida to count. Hillary can't tell you how she wins it. She can't because there is no way she can win the nomination."
• The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: "[Clinton]'s not going to quit any time soon. After all, if Senator McCain wins in November, 2012 is her's to lose. [...] As I said on the Mike O'Meara Show today, she's in it to win it -- in 2012."
• Daily Kos' Hunter: "Listening to Clinton campaign surrogates on television, before the PA votes ever started to trickle in, was truly painful. [...] It is not enough for Obama to simply be winning the nomination according to the rules laid out in advance: no, he must win the 'right' way, according to the Clinton campaign and surrogates, or it doesn't count. He has to win the 'right' states. And he has to win primaries, not caucuses. And he has to 'close the deal', shutting Clinton out of remaining wins entirely, or it proves something ominous (the fact that Clinton has not been able to 'close the deal' against him, and is instead trailing him badly and irreparably, barring superdelegate do-over, somehow does not count against her own merits.) And he not only has to win the 'popular vote', but he has to win that, too, the right way, which is to say by counting only certain states and not counting others. [...] And all of this somehow proves that Clinton is a better candidate against McCain than Obama is, even though the polls to date have consistently shown Obama is a better candidate against McCain than Clinton is."

Meanwhile, Tom Hayden decries the Clinton camp's tactics: "It is abundantly clear that the Clintons, working with Fox News and manipulating old Clinton staffers like George Stephanopoulos, are trying, at least unconsciously, to so damage Barack Obama that he will be perceived as 'unelectable' to Democratic super-delegates. It is also clear that the campaign of defamation against Obama has resulted in higher negative ratings for Hillary Clinton. She therefore is threatening the Democratic Party's chances for the White House whether or not she is the nominee. [...] If Clinton doesn't immediately cease her path of destruction, millions of young voters and black voters may not send checks, may not knock on doors, and may not even vote for her if she becomes the nominee. That's not a threat, that's the reality she is creating."

DEM FIELD III: Time To Get Off The Fence, Supersdelegates

Several liberal bloggers don't think Clinton has a reasonable chance of winning the nomination and want the undeclared superdelegates to make their decisions now:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "I have to say that I'm getting really tired of this. All the superdelegates should just say who they're voting for and bring this to the end. If they want to back Hillary Clinton despite Obama's majority in elected delegates, they should say so. Or if they want Barack Obama to be the nominee, they should say so. The idea that in two weeks we'll have another inconclusive primary, then another, then another, then another and then the superdelegates make up their mind is inane -- everyone else who follows politics can decide."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "I certainly share Matt Yglesias's frustration regarding the annoyingly-reluctant superdelegates. Frankly, I think the superdelegates have all picked their horse already. They're just waiting for the appropriate political 'cover' -- and PA voters didn't provide it tonight. If these people were inclined to support Clinton, they would have hopped on the bandwagon a long time ago. So they're just waiting for the slam dunk plus foul to jump in and endorse Obama. [...] Maybe it's time to focus some of the pressure currently directed at Clinton toward the superdelegates themselves. Enough already."
• dday: "I'm with Matt Yglesias -- this kind of has to end. There really isn't a whole lot more information that superdelegates are going to get. There's a saturation level that has been reached. We know the strengths and weaknesses of these candidates. We know what demographics they win against one another and what demos they lose. About half the Democrats in the country like Clinton and about half like Obama. She's from the Northeast and he's from the Midwest, and they get a tilt in their favor in each of those regions. He can't knock her out because she's really good at campaigning, and she was swamped by him early because he's really good at campaigning. The level of competition is far higher here than it will be in the fall against John McCain, actually. So the superdelegates can make their choice. They could make it today."

DEM FIELD IV: It's The Popular Vote, Stupid!

Pro-Clinton bloggers are portraying the popular vote count, not the pledged delegate count, as the key metric for superdelegates:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "The Clinton campaign needs to talk more about the popular vote. They have been taking a bigger picture view, and arguing about the GE and electability, but they need to bring it down a few notches of process, and put Obama on the defensive. The ~215K margin of victory by Clinton provides them with enough votes to take the popular vote lead, counting Florida and Michigan. It's a two-fer in that sense, providing a winning metric and making Obama say that FL & MI voters don't count. And with that, change the delegate number needed from 2025 to 2209."
• Taylor Marsh: "Obama is keeping Florida and Michigan from being counted [because] he can't afford to have the popular vote count in those states. [...] Clinton's popular vote is rising. Now we're waiting for the margins and how big her victory will be in Pennsylvania. This will matter to Clinton, but more importantly, to superdelegates."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "The superdelegates are going to be doing some serious thinking about electability. Paticularly when they consider the popular vote. They can consider Florida and Michigan in the popular vote even if the DNC doesn't. You can't disenfranchise MI and FL and expect to carry those states in November. This race is far from over."

DEM FIELD V: You Can't Change The Rules In The Middle Of The Game!

Daily Kos' PocketNines, an Obama supporter, pushes back against the popular vote argument:

• "Point Number 1: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no candidate would ever go to Iowa or New Hampshire. They'd spend all their time in big urban areas all over the country from the outset of the campaign, racking up raw numbers. [...] Concrete Example: Barack Obama would not have spent only a day and a half in California before the Feb 5 primary. He would have never gone to Idaho. Duh."
• Point Number 2: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no state in its right mind would ever hold a caucus, instantly disenfranchising itself. Concrete example: Minnesota-Missouri. Minnesota gets credit for 214K votes, and Missouri gets 822K votes, but they each get 72 delegates. Is Missouri's voice 4 times more important than Minnesota's?
• Point Number 3: The arbitrary distinction between who gets to vote in these primaries is nothing like the general election, where everyone registered gets to vote. In the primaries, sometimes it's just Dems, sometimes Dems and Indies, sometimes anyone. Concrete example: Texas gets a million more votes than similar overall population New York (2.8M to 1.8M), even though New York is far more Democratic, simply due to this arbitrary restriction on who can vote (NY = closed, Texas = open)."

Yglesias also doesn't consider the popular vote a legitimate measuring stick: "Suppose Hillary Clinton...manages to pull ahead of Obama in the popular vote total. I still don't see how that could possibly secure her the nomination as long as the national polling looks anything like this. The superdelegates are obviously free to take into consideration whatever they like, but I assume that anyone contemplating bucking the elected delegate totals is going to be more interested in the current opinion of his or her constituents than in months-old vote totals -- a huge share of HRC's votes came from wins on Super Tuesday before Obama's big surge in the national polls."

DEM FIELD VI: Pass The Popcorn!

Conservative bloggers continue to enjoy the protracted Dem primary:

• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "Superdelegates are likely worried and wonder whether either one of the two remaining candidates might be too damaged to lead the Democratic party on to November. And party elders responsible for uniting the Democrats in anticipation of November -- Howard Dean, I'm looking at you! -- must be beside themselves with fury and terror. Meanwhile, thanks to Republicans, the stock in popcorn will likely go through the roof. With primaries in Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky coming up, the stage may very well be set for a few more Clinton wins. This will at least go through June 3rd and the chances have increased significantly that Democrats will go to their convention deadlocked. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in Denver. They will be uttering curse words in hotel suites that have not even been invented yet."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Democrats have discovered an ugly truth: neither of the two candidates left will unite the party, and for good reason. They're both lousy candidates. People like Obama more on a personal level, but both carry significant negatives now, and both candidates have contributed to them. Hillary Clinton's Tuzla Dash will guarantee her defeat in November, and if not, Bill Clinton apparently will. Hillary now gets less of the African-American vote than Republicans -- only 8% in Pennsylvania. Obama can't even buy a victory despite having more money than Croesus, and he has lost every big state the Democrats need to win in November. [...] Obama's supposed inevitability should have swept him into victory at this late stage. If he can't swing undecided Democrats, he won't win independents or centrist Republicans in November against John McCain."

Conservative bloggers are also delighted that Clinton is "softening Obama up for McCain":

• NRO's Rich Lowry: "If Hillary can't win the nomination -- and it's clearly very, very hard for her -- she's basically a stalking horse for McCain. She's preparing the demographic ground for McCain, by getting white working-class Democrats used to (if you will) not voting for Obama. And she's softening Obama up for McCain, prodding at and exposing her fellow Democrats' weaknesses."
• NRO's Mark Steyn: "Rich, Hill's been a stalking horse for McCain for some time now. That's why every anti-Obama ad she makes -- the 3am-in-the-White-House thing, the 'Who's got what it takes?' Osamarama -- turns into a pro-McCain ad. She's become the equivalent of those extras the Oscar producers hire to sit in the stars' seats during rehearsal."

DEM FIELD VII: Tottering At The Edge Of The Abyss?

Conservatives are delighting at what they perceive to be Obama's enormous weaknesses, and many are talking up Clinton's chances:

• NRO's Victor Davis Hanson: "The Democrats are tottering at the edge of the abyss. They are about to nominate someone who cannot win, despite vastly out-spending his opponent, any of the key large states -- CA, NJ, NY, OH, PENN, TX, etc. -- that will determine the fall election. And yet not to nominate him will cause the sort of implosion they saw in 1968 or the sort of mess we saw in November 2000."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "The Democrats currently have as their front-runner a man who couldn't win seven of [the ten most populous states]. A man who couldn't win two of the three reliably Blue states. A man who won none of the four that are generally considered to be battleground states this year. But hey: he won Idaho and Wyoming, right? Best. Primary. Ever."
• RedState's Soren Dayton: "Barack Obama had 6 weeks to demonstrate that he could improve his connection with the Democratic base over the Ohio results. He outspent Hillary Clinton 3-1. And he didn't move the dial one inch. Not one inch. In fact, in a number of cases, he actually lost ground. [...] Condescension loses votes, and Obama is losing votes. That's stuff that the Democratic super-delegates need to think about."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "Hillary is no spoiler; she is very much in the race, I think, and is right to stay in to the end, even if that means the convention. With all of the new information that keeps coming to light about Wright, [Tony] Rezko, [Bill] Ayers and [Bernadine] Dohrn, I'm sure many superdelegates are worried about what the voters may learn about Obama himself, as well as his associates. Notwithstanding the constant reports of superdelegates announcing for one candidate or the other, the fact is that at the convention, they can vote for whomever they want. So I think the race is far from over."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "The good people of Pennsylvania may have realized, as last week's debate and the 'bitter' comments have highlighted, that there is much that the country has yet to learn about Barack Obama -- and they may be reluctant to take a gamble on an aloof candidate about whom so much remains unknown...especially when what's coming to light raises some legitimate and troubling questions."

RedState's Dan McLaughlin still thinks Obama -- albeit a weakened Obama -- will win the nomination: "I still think there's no way [Clinton] can get the superdelegates to give her the nomination; even if were to up and decide en masse that Obama is by far the weaker general election candidate (a point that remains fiercely debatable), he represents three factions of the party (African-American voters, hard-left anti-war activists, and young people with little or no prior voting history) who are most likely to react poorly to the perception that their candidate won at the polls but was sold out in a back room deal. And at that point, the long-term damage to the party from backing Hillary will outweigh considerations of who could win this one. That said, the Democrats do have to worry that to the extent that momentum is at all discernible in this race, their likely nominee has essentially negative momentum. [...] Obama can probably still run out the clock, but he's going to end with the worst run-up to the convention since Gerald Ford in 1976. And the real finish line, of course, is in November."

AmSpec Blog's James Antle agrees: "Even after last night, Clinton cannot win the nomination under any scenario in which she does not herself invite general election defeat. If they go all the way to the convention, the Democrats will be throwing away some of their biggest advantages over McCain. If they take the nomination away from the winner of the popular vote and pledged delegates, they will be throwing away some of their most enthusiastic and loyal voters. Obama is a very risky candidate. If it were earlier in the process, that would be a powerful argument for Clinton. But at this point, the biggest risk for the Democrats is not defining McCain while their cash and organizational advantages are at their greatest, and spending the next few weeks defining each other instead."

OBAMA: Either You're With Us Or You're With The Terrorists, Obama

Conservative bloggers continue to discuss Obama's connections with ex-Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn:

• Hinderaker: "When Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer decided to retire in 1995, she hand-picked local left-winger Barack Obama as her successor. In order to introduce Obama to influential liberals in the district, she held a function at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. This was, really, the beginning of Obama's political career, and it linked him forever with Ayers and Dohrn, with whom, as his campaign has acknowledged, he continues to have a friendly relationship. [...] Barack Obama has declined to repudiate or distance himself from his neighbors, supporters and friends, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. There is a certain consistency of perspective among Obama's friends and mentors, which can be summed up in Jeremiah Wright's memorable phrase: 'God damn America.'"
• Morrissey: "Barack Obama tried to shrug off the radical past of his associate on the Woods Foundation board as having ended when Obama was eight, but now it looks more like the 80s. [...] Only 14 years after these murders, Barack Obama went to the house of the apparent accomplice in these robberies and murders and asked for her support in his first political campaign. He sat on panels with Ayers in Chicago discussing politics and worked with him on the Woods Foundation board. This isn't just some neighbor with whom he accidentally crossed paths; the Obamas sought out Ayers and Dohrn and maintained political ties with them at least through 2002."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "The problem for Obama isn't that his ties to Ayers are so close (that we know of so far). Ayers hosted a party that was, effectively, the first fundraiser for Obama. They served on the Woods Foundation board together, and he spoke on some panels. That's not as close a relationship as with, say, his mentor Jeremiah Wright, but it's a lot closer than most Americans will ever come to a person who set bombs in public buildings. But what is really revealing about this mess for Obama is that when asked about it, the candidate reacted with a mix of surprise and indignation...He clearly felt that George Stephanopoulos asking about this was completely out of bounds. That no one in their right mind could possibly be concerned, disgruntled, or disapproving of associating with someone like William Ayers."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "We know what Dohrn and Ayers were thinking about the U.S. in 2007. We know that they know Obama well, and have 'vetted' him. And we know they supported him from 1995 forward."

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has created a "handy-dandy guide" to illustrate "which terrorists support which Democrat." Malkin writes: "Democratic Presidential Candidates: They love America; they're just friends with terrorists. Honest. All those bombers meant nothing to me, baby. Now come here and give us a little vote."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is Hillary Uniting Americans?

Townhall's Matt Lewis thinks so:

"There is no doubt this contest is hurtful to the Democratic Party. [...] But I think that this is actually helping bring Republicans and Democrats together. Let me give you three examples...

1.) I personally find myself respecting Hillary more than ever in the past. My guess is, other conservatives feel the same way. Sure, she may be a socialist, but she is at least tough and doesn't give up. [...]

2.) Just as I may have a new-found respect for Hillary, Obama supporters are finally seeing the real Bill Clinton. Yes -- he's slimy. That's what we've been telling you guys for decades now!

3.) A close friend of mine (who also happens to be a liberal) is now a frequent [Townhall.com] reader. Why? She's supporting Hillary, and for the first time ever, she and I see eye to eye on things like the liberal media. She has always viewed herself as a liberal, but now she is seeing first-hand just how quixotic and dangerous the Obama supporters are."

LEST WE FORGET: Botanists Vow Not To Discuss Botany During After-Work Drinks

From The Onion:

"AMHERST, MA -- After years of promising not to discuss work after hours but always failing, botanists at Hampshire College's Agricultural Studies Farm Center told reporters yesterday they have finally made a pledge to ban any and all talk of plants during drinks this Friday. 'We always say we're going to leave it at the lab, but when you get a group of us botanists together, the subject of how mycology falls under the umbrella of ethnobotany is bound to come up,' said Dr. Cynthia Devlin [...]. 'But this time we mean it. The first person to even think about bringing up petioles or lateral buds is out.' According to Devlin, the group's efforts to separate phytopathology and pleasure will be greatly aided by the decision to move their weekly get-together to Marty's Bar & Grille from the Rainforest Café."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at April 23, 2008 12:54 PM