April 08, 2008

4/8: Where Do We Go Now?

John Harwood's New York Times article about Hillary Clinton's "tough math" has prompted another round of declarations from liberal bloggers that the Dem race is all but over. However, liberal bloggers disagree about how and when the contest should end. Markos Moulitsas, along with many others, wants the undeclared superdelegates to endorse Barack Obama en masse and "put this thing to bed." Chris Bowers, on the other hand, believes that it's imperative that Clinton supporters "[feel] as though they were allowed to fight until there were no more realistic options remaining," and he recommends that Clinton stay in the race until June. Big Tent Democrat goes even further, arguing that Obama won't be viewed as a legitimate nominee until he accepts "a valid result, preferably through revotes, in Florida and Michigan."

How will this story end? No one knows, but it's clear that the netroots assume Obama will be the victor.

DEM FIELD: Stick A Fork In Her

Harwood's New York Times article about Clinton's "tough math" has prompted liberal bloggers to (once again) assert that the Dem race is essentially over:

• Daily Kos' MissLaura: "The New York Times looks at the delegate math more broadly, and sees what we've known for a while: Hillary Clinton has lost. [...] In two months, she's lost two superdelegates while Obama has gained 69. But two more months is going to turn the math around for her? This thing is over. All that's left is for her to admit that."
• Ezra Klein: "Since February 5th, Barack Obama has gained 69 superdelegates, while Clinton has lost two. And that's continued throughout some big losses and big hits for Obama. Which means it's not only that the math looks increasingly hard for Clinton. It's that the conceivable events that could reverse Obama's momentum aren't substantially impacting elites -- his lead has cemented enough that elite movement has overwhelmingly favored his campaign. Obama could, of course, be caught in bed with a live Arab or a dead Weatherman, but barring that sort of total implosion, it's very, very hard to figure out what could save Clinton's chances."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "It is over...Seriously, enough with the endless Clinton campaign drama. Let's move this along and start the battle with [John] McCain."

DEM FIELD II: What Went Wrong?

Mark Penn's resignation from the position of Clinton's chief strategist has prompted several liberal bloggers to analyze what went wrong with Clinton's campaign:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "In one sense, a candidate should always be judged by their campaign, even in cases where a good deal is delegated. It's a good way of judging their ability to evaluate people, hold people accountable, etc. And in the final analysis the buck stops with them. It's their campaign. [...] The Penn problem went right to the top."
• Atrios: "There are definitely ways that the Clinton campaign has annoyed me, but the 'win Super Tuesday and it's over' strategy really was a pretty good one and it almost worked. Politics is binary and there's big tendency to overstate the genius of the winners and lament the bumbling of the losers. [...] Where they seemingly went wrong was remaining wedded to the momentum strategy even after they had lost the momentum. Whether this was just stupidity or largely due to money issues I don't know, but not competing in a bunch of states let Obama get a bunch of big wins while she had been getting much smaller wins."
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "You can't talk about flaws in Hillary Clinton's campaign without mentioning the collapse in her support among African-American women. Clinton started the campaign very well-regarded in the black community and doing extremely well among black women but eventually lost the vast majority of that support. In retrospect, the collapse of Clinton's black support sometimes feels obvious, but if you'd predicted in advance that white women would back Hillary, black men would back Obama, and they'd both split white men and black women and then Clinton would win because there are many more white women than black men in the electorate I think people would have considered that a reasonable-if-crude assessment of the situation."

DEM FIELD III: The Real Meaning Of Penn's Fall

Conservative bloggers see Penn's exit as further evidence of the Dems' opposition to free trade:

• NRO's Larry Kudlow: "My pal Jerry Bowyer e-mailed me this morning with the following thought on Clinton bigwig Mark Penn: Free trade among Democrats is so completely dead in the water that any Democratic advisor favoring free trade is subject to the death penalty. [...] The union stranglehold over Democrats this election year is really the big news...The message is to raise taxes, end free trade, and promote the union agenda at every turn. That's the official Democratic mantra for 2008."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "Hillary Clinton has jettisoned campaign adviser Mark Penn because it came out that his PR firm was working on behalf of the government of Colombia in support of the pending trade treaty between the U.S. and that country. Clinton is afraid that she might not look as anti-trade as Barack Obama; both candidates are vociferously opposed to the trade deal with Colombia. [...] Running in the Democratic primaries, Clinton and Obama are appealing to the least well-informed, least sophisticated element of America's electorate. Sadly, instead of trying to lead on the issue of free trade, as Bill Clinton once did, to his credit, Hillary and Obama have chosen to pander to their voters' biases."
• Jay Reding: "The Democratic Party has developed a knee-jerk reaction to anything that resembles free trade -- and for a party that claims the 'progressive' mantle that sort of isolationism is a throwback to the days of nativist protectionism."

DEM FIELD IV: You Say You Want A Resolution?

Open Left's Chris Bowers examines the road ahead: "I agree with Markos that the outcome of the nomination campaign is no longer in doubt. [...] However, what is in doubt is when the nomination campaign will end in the mind of the electorate and the media. At what point does it become common wisdom that Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee? [...] Two key elements are needed to end the nomination campaign in a way that brings closure:

• The campaign cannot end after a Clinton victory...On an emotional level, it is far more difficult to accept your favorite candidate withdrawing from the campaign after s/he wins an election than after s/he loses an election. As such, if we want to achieve closure, we cannot expect, or really even ask, for Clinton to drop out of the campaign following a primary state victory. [...]
• The campaign can end when Obama reaches a delegate milestone...The three milestones are 1,627 pledged delegates (which Obama is guaranteed to achieve on or before May 20th), 2,024 total delegates outside of Florida and Michigan (which will allow Obama to dictate the terms of Michigan and Florida, and which Obama is on pace to achieve sometime in early June) or 2,208 delegates (which no one is on pace to achieve until some sort of deal is reached on Florida and Michigan). [...]

Now, given that this is the most hotly contested nomination contest since the 1912 Republican presidential nomination, it is more than likely that both of these conditions need to be met in order to achieve real closure for the party...However, since an Obama win in Pennsylvania is unlikely, since Clinton can still look forward to West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico even if she is swept on May 6th, and since Obama will not reach the first milestone until (probably) May 20th, it actually seems unlikely that we can meet both conditions before June 3rd. Still, if, in the first week of June, Obama can win both South Dakota and Montana (probable), and if he can reach 2,024 by June 7th (again, probable), that might just do the trick. At that point, Clinton could conceivably leave the campaign on Monday, June 9th, with even her closest supporters feeling as though all chances are lost."

Bowers also pushes back against Moulitsas' argument that superdelegates should end the race: "It may not be popular to say this, but not only does it seem likely that Clinton will not drop out before June 3rd, but it also doesn't seem like a good idea for her to do so. Achieving the sort of closure necessary for a healed, unified party for the general election will require Clinton supporters feeling as though they were allowed to fight until there were no more realistic options remaining. I firmly believe that healing and unifying the party will be quicker and easier if the campaign comes to a slow, gradual conclusion rather than a quick knockout on either April 22nd or May 6th, or a massive superdelegate swing sometime later in May."

TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat critiques Bowers' post and repeats his call for revotes in MI and FL: "Chris Bowers joins the Obama supporter chorus -- the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee is a certainty. (I also believe this to be so, but I have a bit more humility than to assume my believing something makes it so.) But like Meteor Blades and Markos before him, Bowers does not make the logical leap -- that since Obama will be the nominee, he must and should start thinking about November and move to unify the Party and to secure his being viewed as the legitimate nominee by the near half of the Democratic Party that supports Hillary Clinton. As I wrote yesterday, the most important thing Obama must do is accept a valid result, preferably through revotes, in Florida and Michigan. Until I read anything from these 'not in doubt' Obama supporters, like Bowers, Kos and MB, urging Obama to act on Florida and Michigan, and to act to unify the Party, it seems to me they are acting as if the contest is actually in doubt."

CLINTON: (Mostly) Vindicated

After criticizing Clinton when it appeared that her OH hospital story was false, liberal bloggers are now acknowledging that Clinton's story contained more truth than previously thought:

• Balloon Juice's John Cole offers a mea culpa: "Looks like Hillary did in fact get a raw deal on the hospital story from the media and from bloggers (me included ). [...] This is not the same as the Tuzla nonsense, and I jumped the gun."
• Daily Kos' Meteor Blades defends Clinton against accusations that she lied: "One can argue that politicians on the campaign trail should be a lot more careful in vetting the stories of real-life people they choose to offer as examples of how their political agenda is in tune with Americans' real needs. Or, that they should just say that somebody told them this story instead of implying that they got the information firsthand. But passing along a possibly mistaken story someone tells in good faith is a far cry from lying."
• Digby: "I suspect this particular 'gotcha' is being done to degrade the argument against universal health care as much as to embarrass Senator Clinton. The Clinton Rules state that if any part of a story is proven true, the entire story is true. The corollary is that if any part of a story about a Republican is proved to be false then the entire story is false. The same concept is at work with health care here. If any detail about bad health care in the US can be shown as false, then notions that our health care system is screwed up are also false."

Big Tent Democrat (again) accuses liberal bloggers of anti-Clinton bias: "The story told to Hillary Clinton by Ohio Deputy Sheriff Brian Holman did not implicate the hospital that decided to inject itself into the story. It told a story, a real story, about our health care crisis. But since some Obama blogs were more intent on demonizing Hillary Clinton than shining light on the health care issue, this important story was buried under an avalanche of Hillary Hate. Shame on them. This is the worst manifestation I have yet seen of the sickness that has infected the Left blogs."

CLINTON II: The VRWC Shows Hillary Some Love

Conservative bloggers are praising Clinton for calling on President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the '08 Olympics:

• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "This strikes me, aside from the argument's merits, as just plain smart politics. It shifts the focus off Penn-gate. It sounds a note simultaneously likely to appeal to those on the Right (who like standing up to dictators) and Left (who want more attention to human rights). She was first of the candidates to speak up on this issue and now looks bolder than her opponents. If this is a sign of the post-Penn Hillary, things may be looking up."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Agreeing with Hillary...It happens every so often. [...] An all out boycott of the Olympics wouldn't be fair to the athletes who worked so hard to get to this point, so let them compete. But were President Bush himself to boycott the games, it would make an important statement on human rights."
• see-dubya: "Hillary wants Bush to boycott the Olympic opening ceremonies? Yeah, stopped clock, twice a day. I find myself in the uncomfortable position of siding with both Hillary and...gasp...[Nancy] Pelosi over W. (Ouch!) But in addition to its repression of Tibetan activists, and its crackdown on dissent in the media (both of which I wrote about here) China is also subsidizing violence in Darfur."

Hot Air's Allahpundit, on the other hand, opposes the boycott: "[This is] a perfect microcosm of Clintonian 'pragmatism,' avoiding the hard option (a total boycott) for a half-hearted symbolic gesture that achieves little beyond cheap antagonism. See also the Clinton administration's response to the embassy bombings. [...] We have our foreign-policy plate full at the moment with jihadists of various stripes and should do what we can in the meantime to avoid problems with China by maintaining decent diplomatic relations. If you disagree, explain why boycotting the opening ceremony is appropriate but not the entire Games. Granted, you'd be killing the dreams of a few hundred American Olympians by going the latter route, but if you're serious about protesting human rights abuses, that's a small price to pay."

OBAMA: Back In The Crosshairs

It appears that conservative bloggers agree with their liberal counterparts that Obama will probably be the Dem nominee, as they are once again targeting the IL senator:

• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Obama has no experience on which to judge him. We must instead look to his judgment. In Obama's judgment, it was just fine to befriend a terrorist leader of the Weather Underground and have Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright as his pastor. Let's also not forget the Communist Harpy he married who only decided she was proud of her country when her husband decided to run for POTUS. This man has a tendency to surround himself with people who loath this country and the only positions on which he is firm are the one's about which he is lying."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Personal attacks, half-truths, flip-flopping and evasions...yeah, we've seen this movie before. When he first appeared on the national scene, Obama seemed like a fundamentally decent fellow, but recent evidence suggests he's not who we thought he was."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "It's overwhelmingly likely that deep-down Obama is a solid leftist. That's how he was raised and educated, and that's where he started on the war, gun control, and a host of other issues. How else, for that matter, could Rev. Wright's black liberation theology have appealed to him?...[As President,] he'll be triangulating with semi-pacifists who, while they may not want to 'damn' America, almost invariably blame it first."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau gently critiques our 4/4 edition and elaborates on her views about Obama's patriotism: "For my own part, I'm not questioning Barack's patriotism -- nothing he has said or done would suggest to me that he himself doesn't love his country (I freely admit that I'm not equipped to discern what he feels in his heart of hearts, and I'm glad to take his word for how he feels about America). What I do question -- and not just about Barack, but about much of the left generally -- is the way they manifest their patriotism. [...] Certainly, everyone has a right to criticize and dissent...gotta love that First Amendment! But I simply dispute the notion that, as a general matter, dissent is necessarily the highest expression of patriotism."

Other conservative bloggers are mocking Obama's attempts to court pro-gun voters in rural PA:

• see-dubya: "What? Obamessiah now sells himself to rural Pennsylvania as the pro-gun candidate? The gall of this man."
• Glenn Reynolds: "Barack Obama, the pro-gun candidate! Hypocrisy is the tribute, yada yada."

MCCAIN: Temper, Temper

The netroots are buzzing about Cliff Schecter's upcoming book, The Real McCain. The Raw Story has obtained an advance copy of the book and posted an attention-grabbing excerpt on its website:

"Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there.' McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you [expletive].' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days."

• Sudbay: "McCain is an ugly guy -- even to his wife."
• Firedoglake's watertiger: "How can John McCain possibly lose in November?...Maybe when he calls his wife a 'c*nt' in public, that's how. [...] Say bye bye to more women voters, John. Who else will you alienate before November?"
• Crooks and Liars' Nicole Belle: "Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you marry someone of means and use her family money to launch your political career, perhaps it's best to not call her the c-word in public. The first time my husband used that word to me would be the last time."
• MyDD's Natasha Chart: "John McCain showed himself during his 1992 Senate campaign to be not an independent maverick, but a dyed-in-the-wool Republican woman-hater, fully in line with his cohorts. [...] Can we survive a guy so sensitive to criticism that he can't even handle a little teasing from the woman who's seen his back hair without viciously unloading on her in front of reporters and senior staff? How's he going to handle negotiations with foreign leaders? Ugh."

After initially linking to the Raw Story excerpt, Matthew Yglesias later expresses regret for promoting a thinly-sourced story: "[This incident] wasn't reported on at the time and of which there's no evidence over the past 16 years outside of Cliff Schecter's book. Cliff's a good guy, and no doubt reporters from Arizona really did tell him this anecdote. But still, if I'm honest with myself about what I would think of this story if it were being told about a politician I admire, I'd say it was mighty thin and the reality is that it's thin as an anti-McCain story too. There is, clearly, ample evidence that McCain has a short fuse and an occasional penchant for inappropriate name-calling, but there's no evidence that this particular incident happened that meets a reasonable journalistic standard."

MCCAIN II: Not Making It Rain

Liberal bloggers are mocking McCain for raising $15M in March, compared with Obama's $40M and Clinton's (alleged) $20M:

• Moulitsas: "It's not just the amount that's pathetic, it's who it's from...$11 million is from people he can no longer hit up again for money. To raise just $4 million via the internet and direct mail means he has next-to-no grassroots support."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "This is rather embarrassing. Again. While the money machine on the Democratic side of the aisle has been able to keep on cooking despite the acrimony between the two campaigns and their supporters seemingly growing, John McCain still hasn't been able to figure out a way to open up the spigot of GOP fundraising -- despite the fact that he is the Republican presidential nominee. [...] McCain couldn't raise in three months what Obama was able to raise just this past month alone (a fundraising month that actually represented a decline of more than a quarter from the previous month)."
• Bowers: "Obama raises more online every month than McCain raises in total. Clinton and Obama combined are raising about twelve times what McCain is raising in small donors. This might be the largest grassroots discrepancy ever seen in a presidential campaign."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Hot Air's Ed Morrissey is impressed by McCain's $15M number: "It may not quite equate to Hillary Clinton's fundraising total and it's not close to Barack Obama's $40 million, but John McCain has begun to quietly work his way into the big leagues. He raised $15 million in March, which would have qualified as a breakout quarter in 2007 for any of the Republicans running for President."

Patrick Ruffini, on the other hand, is decidedly not impressed: "As much as I don't want to sound unhelpful, it's time for a little tough love. If anyone thinks McCain raising $15 million in March is good news -- and crucially, just $4M of it from online and direct mail -- then they're probably part of the problem rather than part of the solution. [...McCain is] relying on the same weakened high-dollar model that fell short for every Republican candidate in the primary, and barely bothering with the untapped potential of the Internet that John McCain first discovered in 2000, and has enabled every candidate who has used it well to exceed expectations."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Come In and Don't Feel Welcome

AmSpec Blog's James Antle responds to Ramesh Ponnuru's Time column about immigration and the GOP:

"It seems to me that the GOP itself is fenced in on the [immigration] issue. The Republicans who are the most welcoming of immigrants also support immigration policies that undermine the cultural and economic assimilation that would make them more likely to vote Republican on a regular basis. The Republicans who support policies that encourage assimilation too frequently sound like they are merely hostile toward immigrants.

It isn't easy to sound pro-immigrant while being pro-immigration control in any serious sense, so perhaps it is unsurprising that few Republicans have succeeded at doing so. Instead the GOP immigration stalemate produces the worst of both possible worlds: being perceived as hostile to immigrant groups without achieving effective enforcement or assimilation. The GOP's McCain-[Tom] Tancredo good cop/bad cop routine essentially says, 'Please come in, but we really don't want you here.'"

LEST WE FORGET: What To Call Your Dull, Trivial, Age-Related Angst

The Hater's Amelie Gillette:

"BestTimeOfMyLife Disease: The particular angst of college students who are constantly told, 'This is the best time of your life,' and who subsequently spend hours drinking to either make it true, or drinking and crying because, if that is true, it's really depressing.

Cusp-iety: Angst felt by people in cusp ages, like 24-year-olds, or 29-year-olds, who are at least a year away from having various official crises, and feeling anxious about their impending age-related anxiety. [...]

Entouragetigo: Curious, overwhelming sense of doubt and fear that single young men in their early 30s feel when their close male friends begin to get married. Can be exacerbated by watching HBO's Entourage."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at April 8, 2008 12:47 PM