May 12, 2008

5/12: No End To Hostilities

Most liberal bloggers -- including many who support Hillary Clinton -- expect that Barack Obama will be the Dem nominee. However, Clinton's netroots supporters don't appear ready to unite behind Obama. Pro-Clinton bloggers are pointing to Clinton's likely blowout win in WV as further evidence of Obama's weaknesses among working-class whites, noting that every successful Dem candidate since Woodrow Wilson has won WV. In a sign of the simmering tensions in the liberal blogosphere, MyDD's Todd Beeton even felt the need to urge his Clinton-supporting readers not to defect to John McCain if Obama wins the Dem nod. It's clearly going to take a long time for the hostility between Clinton's and Obama's online supporters to subside -- a fact that is not lost on conservative bloggers.

DEM FIELD: Unity Is Overrated

Most liberal bloggers are opposed to an Obama/Clinton ticket:

• Ezra Klein: "You don't want a toxic working relationship between the president and the vice-president. Imagine President Obama, with VP Hillary Clinton and shadow-VP Bill Clinton, wants to pursue a legislative strategy that the Clintons think is a bad idea. How will they feel when Obama ignores their 8 years of White House experience and goes his own way? Will they be able to keep their sprawling universe of well-connected confidantes from leaking tales of their displeasure to the press? Will they want to? What happens when the first Time magazine cover comes out with Obama staring down the Clintons, and the tagline is, 'Who's Really Running the Country?' It's such an obvious story that it can be predicted, with almost perfect certainty, right now. Will he sideline them? Will it sow seeds of mistrust?"
• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "[I'm] pretty unenthusiastic about an Obama/Clinton 'dream ticket.' [...] A strong vice president is one thing, but if you choose Hillary as a running mate you get the whole Clinton family in the bargain, and having Bill Clinton as a de facto part of the White House staff just smells like big trouble. That aside, the bigger issue is that picking Hillary would be a sign of weakness from Obama, and a completely unnecessary one. Obama certainly ought to reach out to Hillary once the primaries are over, but he can win in November on his own, and there are plenty of good, solid VP choices out there that would nonetheless make it crystal clear that an Obama White House would be an Obama White House."
• TAPPED's Te-Ping Chen: "A dual ticket not only detracts from Obama's positives, it adds on Clinton's negatives to boot. Early opposition to the war, turning over a new leaf in foreign policy? Not when your vice-president voted for the former, and has since casually threatened 'obliterate' a major Middle Eastern country with aplomb. Hitch on a squarely Washington insider, and suddenly the Obama campaign's key tagline -- 'change' -- starts to sound weirdly akimbo. (Somehow, Changexperience just doesn't have that ring.) [...] In 1992, the last time a Clinton ran for the White House, Bill bucked conventional wisdom to reject a candidate who would 'balance' him, and instead picked a fresher candidate that helped define the generational metaphor of his campaign. This time around, Obama would be wise to do the same."
• Scott Lemieux: "First, by far the biggest impact of vice presidents on the ticket is the potential to bring a swing home state into the fold, which Clinton doesn't offer. Second, if the idea is to shore up Obama's 'foreign policy cred' you want someone with military experience but who opposed the war (such as [VA Sen. Jim] Webb or [Gen. Wes] Clark); Clinton of course is the opposite. Third, the media. It's hard to know what to do about the media's grossly unfair treatment of Clinton; if I was convinced that she would make the best president I wouldn't let it dissuade me. But when picking a running mate, surely this has to be considered a great deal more important. Fourth, partly because of the unfair treatment she receives from the media, she has much higher negatives than you would prefer in a VP candidate. Finally...I should note that the fact that Clinton appeals more to lower-class whites and older voters 1)compared to Obama and (this is the important step for those of you who don't understand why it's illogical to make inferences about the general from primary results) 2)among people who vote in Democratic primaries hardly means that she is the optimal choice to appeal to these voters compared to other possibilities."

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong -- who's a strong Clinton supporter -- supports an Obama/Clinton ticket: "The best VP tickets are those that unite the party, or otherwise bring on new constituencies. Its rare that a VP adds any regional strength, as people vote for the President, top of the ticket, no matter where they reside. [Gerald] Ford would have been strongest choosing [Ronald] Reagan in '76. [Jimmy] Carter had have been strongest choosing [Ted] Kennedy in '80. Reagan was the strongest having chosen [George H.W.] Bush in '80. One party united, and the other stayed divided. [...] There's also the opening for McCain, if Obama shuns Clinton, that McCain chooses a woman for a running mate. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is too old and AK Gov [Sarah] Palin is too young; but I could imagine Kay Hutchinson running with McCain, very effectively. [...] The hatred of Clinton runs deep among the Obama supporters, but by August, I think it will have settled some, and unless Obama gets much stronger as a candidate on his own, he'll need Clinton more than ever. In the recent LA Times poll, Clinton crushes both Obama and McCain over whom is best on economic issue. In regards to the economy, there's no better brand than the name Clinton in US politics. Its three months away, and things can change, but thats the only ticket that makes sense right now."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Hot Air's Allahpundit argues that Obama would be foolish to pick Clinton as his running mate: "If Obama's even moderately sane he'd rather take his chances with losing in November with someone else on the ticket than winning and having to endure Lady Macbeth plotting against him from inside the White House for the next four years."

DEM FIELD II: All Over But The Shouting

Atrios thinks the primary race is all but over: "Obama's won. There's no nomination path for [Clinton] which doesn't involve rewriting the rules in a way which would never be seen as legitimate, or a massive shift in superdelegates which would likewise be problematic, and even those paths range from unlikely to impossible. I don't think Clinton has to drop out. She can continue to campaign through to the last contest if she wants (she doesn't need my permission to do so), though hopefully this article is correct and the, uh, emphasis of the campaign shifts away from Obama's supposed lack of appeal to real Americans."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis questions Clinton's motives for staying in the race: "She's not stupid, she knows she lost the nomination. So then what is she doing? Trying to suck up to MI and FL for the next election in 2012? Trying to hurt Obama out of revenge? Trying to become Obama's VP? Trying to assuage her ego by finishing up all the primaries, to hell with how much damage she does the party? I suspect it's all of the above, plus staying on deck in case Obama gets hit by a meteor."

In a separate post, Aravosis unloads on Clinton: "Hillary and her husband are now out to destroy our nominee. Your could argue that it kind of made sense when Hillary still had a chance (her kitchen-sink tactics were nasty, to be sure, they appeared to have crossed a line, but at least there was a logic to it when Hillary had a chance). Now that the race is over and Hillary has lost, her ongoing attempts to hurt Obama, to smear him, to make rural voters hate him, to convince America that a black man can't and shouldn't be president, make her little better than the Republicans she hated during the 1990s."

Meanwhile, Beeton, a Clinton supporter, urges his readers to support Obama over McCain: "I understand that many supporters of Hillary Clinton have grave reservations about Barack Obama as president and honestly, it would be nice if people on both sides of the candidate divide would respect and acknowledge this fact rather than dismissing it with knee-jerk accusations of racism or 'troll!' It's a reality. Now, if you are one of those currently considering voting for John McCain yet have been fighting fiercely for Hillary Clinton in the primary, listen up. You are welcome here...But...don't expect to have a forum to argue in favor a John McCain presidency. This blog has always been open about its rasion d'etre: electing Democrats, and John McCain is no Democrat as his positions on choice (he's against), war (he's for) and healthcare (he believes the market should handle it, cuz that's worked out so well so far!) make clear. So, you are welcome here; pro-McCain diaries are not. [...] To Hillary supporters considering defecting to McCain, I say, vote for John McCain if you will, but know that doing so is voting against the very agenda you've been fighting so hard to advance and against the very candidate you've been fighting for to win the Democratic nomination."

DEM FIELD III: On To West Virginnie!

Pro-Clinton bloggers are buzzing about Clinton's likely blowout win in WV:

• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "CNN just flashed a poll showing Hillary ahead with 66% of the vote. It said a big W. VA win will show that 'a lot of Democrats aren't ready to get on Obama's bandwagon.' CNN says W.Va. used to be solidly Democratic until 2000 when George Bush took it. Social issues are big there. Guns are even bigger. The LA Times also says W. Va could spell trouble for Obama in November."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "In terms of the GE, Obama appears to have no chance in West Virginia while Clinton could likely win it. [...] It seems clear that all the talk of Obama's 50 state strategy was just that, empty talk. His electoral map will look to the West."
• In a separate post, Big Tent Democrat writes: "Did you know that Democratic Presidential candidates carried West Virginia in every recent election except the last 2?"
• Meanwhile, Armstrong chastises those who suggest that racism will play a role in tomorrow's vote: "I'd humbly suggest, to all the Obama supporters that join us here on this blog, that if you can't stand the heat of the West Virginia primary, you stay out of the kitchen. While I'm at it, I also suggest that you refrain from accusations against West Virginians as being racist, or you'll join the other 6 previous users here, whose offensive comments were deleted on Friday, and that were themselves banned from the site. [...] In WV, Clinton is blowing Obama away in numbers that she has not been seen since Super Tuesday. And while Obama supporters have claimed that the her voters will move over to support Obama in the GE, this poll doesn't quite show that happening in WV. [...] If your knee-jerk answer is that they are racist -- are you really saying something that you think Obama and his campaign can't say, or are you saying it because of anger and frustration? Racism is ignorance, but unfounded accusations of racism are just as low on the scum-radar."

Atrios is annoyed by the Clinton supporters' arguments: "One thing I'm looking forwarded to is not being bombarded by transparently stupid arguments about how performance in a state primary has some meaningful mapping to performance in the general election. The latest is the Clinton campaign suggesting that West Virginia is an important 'test' because Democrats since Wilson have only become president if they've manged to win there. I assume that's true, but that's about winning that state's electoral college votes in the general election and not about getting primary voters to vote for you. And as Mark Penn helpfully reminds me, Jimmy Carter did not win the West Virginia primary. I imagine over the past month or so people in the Clinton campaign have been marveling at their ability to manipulate the freak show, to introduce stupid narratives and bogus arguments into our discourse. And they have been amazingly good at it. I'd even admire it if they actually managed to, you know, win the elections instead of just making our discourse stupider."

The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen responds to Armstrong's post: "Armstrong's point is well taken. Unfounded accusations of racism are obviously wrong, and it's especially awkward in the context of two Democratic primaries. There's considerable anecdotal evidence that racial animus is driving voters in Kentucky and West Virginia away from Obama, but anecdotes are not data. My only follow up would be this: what else can explain Obama's 40-point deficits in West Virginia and Kentucky? The states are lacking in some of Obama's most reliable constituencies, but so are states like Nebraska, North Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska, but Obama won each of those contests easily. What's more, looking at county data, some of Obama's worst performing counties just happen to be throughout Appalachia. Unfounded accusations of racism have no place in the political debate. But if regional attitudes on race aren't keeping Obama's numbers down in Kentucky and West Virginia, what is? Given Obama's otherwise-strong position, what else explains why he's about to get trounced?"

On the right side of the blogosphere, RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh mocks Armstrong's post: "Despite all of the talk that Obama's nomination is now inevitable and that with said inevitability will come newfound party unity, seething anger and resentment continues to define the mood of Clinton supporters. This is, perhaps, somewhat understandable; at the beginning of the nomination contest, I don't imagine that people like Armstrong really ever thought that Obama would be able to wrest the nomination away from Clinton when they consulted the stars. Nevertheless, one would have thought that the various pro-Clinton factions in the netroots would have begun to reconcile themselves to an Obama nomination and then line up to support him against John McCain and the Republicans. Well, perhaps eventually, they will. But for now, there remains seething anger and resentment and since it is almost the middle of May already, one could easily see the resentment continuing through the summer -- especially if Hillary Clinton decides to push through the rest of the primary schedule and goes to the Democratic National Convention without having fallen on her sword."

DEM FIELD IV: Who's More Popular?

Armstrong asserts that Clinton will lead in the popular vote lead once FL and MI are resolved: "As we roll on in the next remaining contests, we expect a split. Clinton winning WV, KY, and PR; Obama winning OR, MT & SD. MI & FL will be settled, and Clinton will lead in the popular vote."

Other liberal bloggers disagree:

• MyDD's Transplanted Texan: "There are three things wrong with this argument. First of all, it assumes that not a single person in all of Michigan supports Obama. Real Clear Politics has Obama up by about 846,801 without those two states and up 113,498 with them, but that latter figure does not give Obama any of Michigan's 'uncommitted' vote. If you're determined to count every vote, you certainly can't ignore a full 200,000 voters. Second, the results of those two states are in no way reflective of this campaign. If my memory is correct, Indiana is the only state where both candidates have aggressively campaigned and Clinton's lead has not narrowed (or disappeared altogether). This pattern would no doubt have held in MI and FL, where no campaigning took place and Obama's name recognition had not yet taken off. A true reflection of those state's sentiments would certainly lean towards Clinton, but probably by a narrower margin. And third, even if you assume [John] Edwards did as well as Obama and award him only half MI's uncommitted vote, he still picks up 119,084 votes and leads Clinton by well over 250,000. Do we really think that WV and KY will net her that many votes?"
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Any popular vote count that does not allocate the Michigan uncommitted is invalid, because it is based on the rather absurd notion that the over 238,000 Michiganders who selected the 'uncommitted' choice weren't actually supporting any candidate. In truth, several campaigns existed that pushed Obama and Edwards supporters to choose uncommitted, as even the Clinton campaign has argued on numerous occasions. [...] It is now virtually guaranteed that Obama will win a narrow plurality of the popular vote / participation in the Democratic nomination campaign. Neither candidate will have won a majority, but the 'will of the electorate' will still have been served by the outcome. That is a very good thing, since I know that I would not have been the only person extremely uncomfortable with nominating a candidate who did not receive the most popular support in the process."

OBAMA: Denouncing And Rejecting Hamas

Conservative bloggers are buzzing about the Obama camp's decision to sever ties with adviser Robert Malley after it was revealed that Malley had been in regular talks with Hamas:

• Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham: "An adviser gets canned for hangin' with Hamas. [...] I'm sure this has nothing to do with Obama's actual policies or feelings about Hamas, of course."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "As Ed Lasky notes, in the past the Obama campaign has attempted to downplay Malley's role, stating that he is 'one of hundreds of people who have sent in advice to the campaign.' However, media sources like the Washington Post and Newsweek have refused to buy this claim, placing Malley on relatively short lists of Obama foreign policy advisers. It's now clear that the Obama campaign was being disingenuous. After all, you can't sack someone who is merely sending you emails."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "First Hamas praised Barack Obama. Then Barack Obama's campaign said how flattered it was. Then Obama had to toss an advisor once it became public that the guy was working with Hamas. In light of all the undesirables Obama is associated with and the undesirables who support Obama, I've added this one to the RedState Store."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "It's fine and well for Obama to say in a general election setting that Hamas is a terrorist organization, but John McCain's central point is correct: Hamas endorsed Obama. It is worth considering why. Is it because he favors direct, presidential talks with Hamas' sponsor Iran? Or because Hamas sees him as lacking resoluteness or as excessively sympathetic to the Palestinian cause? And it's not as if Hamas is an isolated case of fringe groups and individuals favoring Obama."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty has more questions for the Obama camp: "(1.) Did Malley ever met with top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef, the guy who praised Obama on American airwaves? (2.) Did Yousef and Hamas praise Obama as a result of that meeting with Malley? If so, what was the topic of that meeting, and were any policy changes promised, suggested, or hinted?"
• RedState's Soren Dayton: "I am not arguing that Obama will work with the Iranians or their agents, Hamas and Hezbollah. But when President Obama enters office on a promise to withdraw from Iraq, Iran advancing directly and through its proxies in the region, and a new President who is understood as uniquely open to a Palestinian perspective, how will that be viewed in the region? Who will have won?"
• NRO's Mark Hemingway: "Hate Israel? Yes, We Can."

MCCAIN: More Lobbyist Baggage

Liberal bloggers are criticizing McCain for appointing Doug Goodyear, a lobbyist whose firm once represented the military junta that runs Myanmar, to manage the '08 GOP convention (NOTE: Goodyear resigned on Saturday "so as not to become a distraction" for McCain).

• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Comedy. The man who will run the convention to name John McCain as the Republican nominee to carry out George Bush's third term, is a lobbyist who once defended an oppressive military regime by calling George Bush a liar. It's at times like this that you realize how difficult it is to be a straight talking maverick."
• Firedoglake's David Neiwert: "It turns out that Condoleeza Rice isn't the only prominent Republican with hands stained from their dealings with the murderous and wretched military junta that rules Myanmar. So, it turns out, is the man chosen by John McCain to run the Republican National Convention."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "McCain's pretty tight with a lot of lobbyists, isn't he?"
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "Once the [Michael] Isikoff article was published, it was only a matter of hours before Goodyear had left the campaign. After all, at a time when the Burmese junta is preventing much-needed aid from reaching those devastated by the recent cyclone in the country, having a man who lobbied on behalf of that rightfully maligned dictatorship run a party convention just doesn't look good. But apparently, it's alright in the eyes of McCain to keep one of the junta's lobbyists on board of his campaign committee, as Marc Ambinder points out this evening. [...] Now having read the reporting of both Isikoff and Ambinder, I'm close to speechless. The sheer hubris of John McCain in believing a) that it's alright to have his campaign almost entirely run by lobbyists; b) that it's alright to continue to employ a lobbyist for the Burmese junta as a regional campaign manager; and c) that he shouldn't be questioned about things like this, just blows me away. I don't know what more I can say now than just wow."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Let Them Eat Arugula

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait analyzes Clinton's newfound "conservative populism":

"Historically, the conservative populist's social divide ran along racial and ethnic lines. In recent years, overt racism has all but disappeared from mainstream political life, and even racial hot button appeals like the 1988 Willie Horton ad have grown rare. What remains is a residue of nostalgia about small towns -- whose residents are said to have stronger values and work harder than other Americans, and who also happen to be overwhelmingly white. In 2004, after John Kerry declared that some entertainers supporting him represented 'the heart and soul of America,' George W. Bush embarked upon a national tour of small- and mid-sized cities, where he would say, 'I believe the heart and soul of America is found in places like Duluth, Minnesota,' or other such places.

Likewise, Bill Clinton recently declared, 'The people in small towns in rural America, who do the work for America, and represent the backbone and the values of this country, they are the people that are carrying her through in this nomination.' The corollary -- that strong values and hard work is in shorter supply among ethnically heterogeneous urban residents -- is left unstated. Hillary Clinton's statement about 'hard-working Americans, white Americans' simply made explicit a theme that conservative populists usually keep implicit."

LEST WE FORGET: Defiant Clinton Voters Will Stick It To The Media

Wonkette's Sara K. Smith mocks the Clinton camp's planned "protest vote" in WV:

"Despite the fact that he now leads the Democratic nomination race by every conceivable metric, Barack Obama will not be the candidate running against John McCain. Legions of Clinton die-hards will turn out in West Virginia tomorrow to stick it to MSNBC, Robert Reich, non-hard-working white people, and other members of the sexist cabal who want Hillary to throw in the towel before she has humiliated herself in all 50 states (plus Guam, Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Tatooine).

At a campaign stop in West Virginia, Bill Clinton told supporters that 'if 600,000 people show up [to vote for Hillary on Tuesday], and you say, "We want a president," then you will see the earth move.' That's right, America! Your next president will be determined by 600,000 West Virginians, who will all vote for Ron Paul."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 12, 2008 12:42 PM