May 14, 2008

5/14: Same As It Ever Was

Bloggers are reacting to Hillary Clinton's landslide victory in WV as one would expect. Liberal bloggers who support Barack Obama (by which we mean most liberal bloggers) are downplaying the significance of Clinton's win, arguing that Obama has always had a tough time in the Appalachian region and that the delegate math still favors him. Pro-Clinton bloggers are arguing that Obama has significant electoral weaknesses and that the uncommitted superdelegates should give Clinton the nomination. Conservative bloggers are delighting in Obama's poor showing, which they view as additional evidence that Obama will be a weak general election candidate. But will Obama's weaknesses be enough to deny Dems the White House in a year when GOP House candidates can't seem to win a special election?

DEM FIELD: The Landslide Will Not Bring Him Down

Most liberal bloggers are downplaying the significance of Clinton's WV win:

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "No one expects Obama to be competitive in the state that includes the most hostile anti-Obama combination of demographics in the entire United States. [...] West Virginia (and Kentucky next week) will be ugly for Obama. Expect lots of talk about Obama's 'white' problem, before he goes on to win white Oregon convincingly next week."
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Chuck Todd was just on MSNBC saying that there are 189 pledged delegates left after tonight. For Clinton to overtake Obama, she'd have to win 172 of those delegates or 91%. So congratulations on Hillary's victory tonight, but it doesn't matter. Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "The Clinton plan now appears to be to ride to victory on the backs of WV, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. Quit laughing."

Other bloggers are mocking the Clinton camp's claims that Obama's poor showing in WV suggests that he can't win the general election:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "As the Clinton campaign sagely points out 'no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916' and therefore Obama's primary loss shows that despite his large lead in the polls over John McCain, he can't possible win the election. What's even more interesting is that no Democrat has won the White House without carrying Minnesota since 1912 (it went for Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party) so given that Obama won Minnesota and Clinton won West Virginia, McCain is guaranteed to win the general election unless the eventual nominee can somehow completely replicate the social and political conditions prevailing in pre-WWI America. The outlook, in short, is very grim."
• Open Left's David Sirota: "You may have noticed that everyone on television is repeating Hillary Clinton's line that 'no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia.' I wonder -- why, when Barack Obama won a tough-fought race in the swing state of Missouri, did no one bother to mention that no Democrat has EVER won the White House without winning Missouri? The point here is that stats like this are truly meaningless."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "Clinton declared West Virginia a swing state and said it was she, not Obama, who has performed best in swing states nationwide. [...] The argument is not without flaw. For one thing, Democratic candidates have lost West Virginia's primary, gone on to win the nomination, and then won West Virginia in the general election anyway. [...Furthermore,] I'm not sure if the swing-state argument is the most compelling one for the Clinton team. Even if we designate West Virginia as a swing state (it's a dubious proposition in light of Bush's 13-point victory there four years ago), Obama seems to have just as strong a swing-state case to make, if not more so -- he's won Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin."

DEM FIELD II: What's The Matter With Appalachia?

Several bloggers are discussing Obama's problems in the Appalachian region:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama's problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky. If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not. [...] So what is it about this region? [...] First, some basic demographics. It's widely accepted that Hillary Clinton does better with older voters, less educated voters and white voters. These demographics perfectly match West Virginia -- and, more loosely, the entire Appalachian region."
• The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "The [WV] exit polls reveal what the demographics have long foretold, and what the polls last February predicted, with just a few wrinkles. The race factor seems to have tipped very heavily toward Clinton in West Virginia. In Indiana, 16 percent said race was an important factor for them; in Pennsylvania, 19 percent; in West Virginia, 22 percent. The racial skew to Clinton does soar in West Virginia: 81 percent of race-based voters went for Clinton; in Pennsylvania, it was 55; in Indiana, it was 53 percent. [...] My own sense is that WV voters are conservative and risk-averse and Obama suffered a great deal from unfamiliarity. Race compounded it; and if you listen to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, you're likely to believe that Obama is a Muslim, racist, terrorist communist. I note that John Edwards -- a familiar white man who's not running any more -- got a healthy showing. Okay, West Virginia, we get the message."
• Benen: "How serious were identity-politics considerations [in WV]? John Edwards -- who dropped out of the race in January -- got 7% of the vote. That's quite a few West Virginians who seemed to be saying, 'We don't like the black guy or the woman from New York.'"

DEM FIELD III: Save Us, Superdelegates!

Pro-Clinton bloggers are arguing that Clinton's landslide win shows that Obama has major electoral weaknesses:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "Obama [did] not even break 30 percent, despite being practically anointed with the nomination?!?! Look, this is a partisan blog. Nearly everyone will come around to supporting the nominee here, but if Obama doesn't recognize the serious problem this presents in the world offline, and his supporters as well, I am speechless (which may not be a bad thing considering)."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "The 'presumptive nominee' lost by 40 points in a primary. Has this EVER happened? How could it have happened? What does it mean?"

Pro-Clinton bloggers are also urging the uncommitted superdelegates to support Clinton:

• Taylor Marsh: "It's time for superdelegates to think long and hard about who can win in November. Clinton keeps winning states Democrats need against John McCain. Obama's way to victory in November depends on reinventing the electoral map. It's risky at best."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "Superdelegates were given the responsibility of voting for the nominee who has the best chance of winning the presidency. It's not just a matter of pledged delegates in the individual races. The candidate who can win back the presidency in November is Hillary Clinton. The Superdelegates need to slow down, and the voters of the remaining 5 states need to come out in force."

DEM FIELD IV: Limping Toward The Finish Line?

Conservative bloggers are also delighting in Clinton's WV win, which they believe provides further evidence that Obama is a weak general election candidate:

• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "As I've said before, the fact that voters in a given Democratic primary favor Clinton over Obama doesn't mean that many of them will favor McCain over Obama; nor should we assume that Clinton voters who say they'll vote for McCain will actually follow through. Nonetheless, the margin in the West Virginia primary suggests real resistance to Obama among Democrats in that state. Now, Obama doesn't need to win West Virginia in November any more than he needs to win Kentucky, where he's scheduled to be trounced next week. But there are many Democratic voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania who fit the West Virginia and/or Kentucky profile. Obama may need to do reasonably well with such voters to carry these two crucial states. Democratic superdelegates probably believe the risk that Obama won't do well enough with white rural and working class voters to win in Pennsylvania and Ohio is smaller than the risk that a great many black voters will stay at home if the Democrats nominate Clinton. These superdelegates may be right. But that doesn't mean the risk associated with nominating Obama isn't quite real."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "The sheer magnitude of the Obama loss in West Virginia may be the strongest evidence yet that the working class resistence to Obama is real, and will in fact carry over to the general election. A 10 point loss, a 15 point loss, even a 20 point loss, okay, maybe you can explain that away. But Democrats turning out to deliver a 41 point embarassment to the likely nominee of their own party? That's really hard to for the Obama camp to write off."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "It's worrisome that Hillary Clinton is beating Barack so soundly in West Virginia and Kentucky. Usually, when it becomes clear that one person is pretty certain to be the eventual winner, that person picks up support and electoral momentum because of a 'bandwagon effect' -- most people want to go with a winner. [...] Given all this, it's hard not to wonder: Where's Barack's bandwagon, and what does it mean that he doesn't seem to have one?"
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "West Virginia may not prove that Clinton can come back -- only a séance is likely to do that. But it does demonstrate that the Democratic near-nominee is not the electoral powerhouse he was once thought to be."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Superdelegates ought to be sweating. White working-class voters, and various overlapping demographics -- the elderly, Catholics, Jews -- just aren't warming up to Obama, and they've been the backbone for the party for generations."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "As Hillary sweeps across West Virginia tonight with a massive victory, I have to wonder how many members of the MSM will change the 'Obama wins' narrative, at least only slightly, to recognize that Obama is, in fact, the weaker candidate in a general election match up with John McCain. [...] When the sun sets on this election we might have to realize that the media's efforts to set up Obama as the Democrat nominee has been the greatest gift they've ever given to the GOP."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Put West Virginia in the McCain column. Along with Ohio and Pennsylvania. Barack Obama is far outside the mainstream, and Democrats know it. Yes, GOP candidates are facing tough weather, as the special elections show. But not against hard left candidates, and Senator Obama is hard left."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "No one expected Obama to do well in West Virginia, but I don't recall any nominee having lost every single county in a primary when his nomination was mostly assured. [...] This won't keep Obama from the nomination at this point, but without a doubt he will have to limp to the finish line. He can keep pretending that Hillary doesn't matter and stay focused on McCain, but if Hillary runs the table in the meantime, he's going to look out of touch. That will hardly build confidence in his abilities to fend off a candidate who has come back from the politically dead and from financial bankruptcy to beat a tough Republican field."

DEM FIELD V: Is Hillary Looking Ahead To 2012?

The Huffington Post's Thomas B. Edsall speculates about Clinton's motives: "I suspect, but have no way of knowing, that she is: (1.) Praying for a devastating anti-Obama story -- Jeremiah Wright-Tony Rezko squared -- to surface and turn the Illinois Senator into an unacceptable candidate in the eyes of the media and convention delegates. This is clearly a long-shot, and presumably her aides have no such story in reserve or it would have already seen the light of day. (2.) Convinced, correctly, that after running a lousy campaign she has finally hit her stride as reflected in her solid victories in Texas, Ohio and, on Tuesday, in West Virginia. These victories, in her eyes and in the eyes of many of her aides, demonstrate that Obama is an empty suit weighed down with general election liabilities that are only coming to light at the close of the nomination process. (3.) Psychically unable to accept defeat -- after first believing she was the anointed candidate, and then, after losing her superstar status, clawing her way back into contention in an extraordinary display of grit."

Edsall concludes: "For Hillary, there may be very little downside in staying in the race until the bitter end, or at least until the final delegates are selected on June 4. Under once scenario -- Obama gets the nomination but loses to John McCain -- Clinton could begin her 2012 campaign on November 5, 2008, as a vindicated politician, using the narrative that she was the better candidate. Under the alternative scenario -- Hillary promptly concedes and Obama wins the presidency -- she may well have lost her one shot at the highest office in the land, and the White House and the power, prestige and status that goes with it, will be forever out of her reach -- a intensely painful prospect."

Mother Jones' David Corn agrees with Edsall: "Clinton is setting up the biggest I-told-you-so in recent American political history. Assume Obama is the nominee and imagine that he loses to McCain in the fall. Where would that leave Clinton? She would be able to wag her finger at her party, and she wouldn't even have to say those haughty words. She and her die-hard confederates would be able to note simply and smugly, We did try to warn you. In the following four years, they would remind reporters, party leaders, Democratic voters, and everyone else, over and over, that they had said that Obama was unelectable, that they had said he could not win blue-collar (that is, white) voters. This Clinton chorus would not cease singing this song for a nanosecond. Can't you just see Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe lecturing cable news hosts on this point? Hiding their schadenfreude -- just barely -- they would note that they had won the fundamental argument of 2008: who understands American voters the best? And in this scenario, Hillary Clinton would be well-positioned for 2012."

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis, a fierce Obama supporter, has no more patience for Clinton: "Good God. What is wrong with her? The Clintons and their campaign staff don't give a damn that they are now hurting our electoral chances in the fall against McCain and against the Republicans in Congress. Their campaign isn't happening in some vacuum, and they know it. Our candidates can't fundraise because of her. Obama can't focus on McCain because of her. Obama is wasting money on HER, rather than spending it on McCain, because of her. EMILY's List, and AFSCME, and the American Federation of Teachers and others are wasting their members' money on her now-failed race -- money that they could be spending, should be spending, on other real races, races that haven't already lost. She can't win, the math says she lost the nomination, but she doesn't give a damn. She's going to stay in the race like some spoiled hateful egotistical brat."

DEM FIELD VI: U.N.I.T.Y.

Pro-Clinton bloggers are arguing that Obama should pick Clinton as his running mate, noting that the new USA TODAY/Gallup poll finds that "55% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents also would like Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to choose Clinton as his running mate, although there's notable resistance among his backers":

• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "The first unifying gesture for a man who's run on his ability to unify would be to choose the person who came in a close second for the ticket. It puzzles me to hear people automatically dismiss the idea of Clinton as VP. For one thing, as this poll proves, the pick it would assuage Clinton's extremely passionate army of supporters, who Obama is going to need in the general -- and I'm not just talking for votes. But in addition, a Clinton pick has the added benefit of shoring up Obama's demographic weaknesses (working class whites, latinos, women), his perceived deficiency in the resume department, which, quite frankly, I suspect would cause more people to defect to McCain than Obama's race would, and it would balance out his lofty post-partisan inspirer-in-chief persona with an in the trenches fighter, one who for once would beat the pants off the Republican VP nominee in a debate."
• Big Tent Democrat: "We can see now that Hillary Clinton is clearly the almost required VP choice for Barack Obama should he be the nominee. Will the Obama campaign be stubborn and silly because the Media hates Clinton and apparently some in the Obama circle are childish? I trust David Axelrod, and more importantly, Barack Obama, have more sense than that."

Benen cautions against reading too much into these polling numbers: "I don't doubt that Clinton enjoys an enormous base of support within the party. That should be pretty obvious -- she's won more 15 million Democratic votes at this point. For her most enthusiastic supporters, having Clinton on the ticket, even in the #2 slot, is better than nothing. But I thought I'd take a minute to note that polls about running mates don't mean a whole lot. [...] These VP polls tend to measure name recognition -- and most VP candidates aren't well known to a national audience. Before 2000, I suspect most Republicans were not at all familiar with Dick Cheney, but then they got to know him pretty quickly. The same was true of Joe Lieberman. [...] The point isn't whether Clinton would be a good choice for Obama or not; that's a separate matter. The point is these VP polls don't tell us a whole lot. Obama may very well pick a running mate who isn't nationally known, but I suspect we'd all get to know him or her pretty quickly."

OBAMA: Exercises In Deliberate Misreading

During Obama's interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, the two men had the following exchange:

Goldberg: "Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?"
Obama: "No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable."

GOP Reps. John Boehner and Eric Cantor released a statement accusing Obama of calling Israel "a constant sore":

"It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a 'constant wound,' 'constant sore,' and that it 'infect[s] all of our foreign policy.' These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel."

Ex-Rep. Tom DeLay joined his former GOP colleagues by writing a blog post on Townhall criticizing Obama's remarks: "In an interview with The Atlantic, the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee called Israel a 'constant wound...a constant sore [that] does infect all of our foreign policy.' On one level, this is traffic-stoppingly stupid. What's wrong with this guy? We're told ad nauseum he's the greatest political communicator of his generation, and his idea of a balanced and nuanced position is to compare a threatened ally in a crucial region to a festering, open sore? It's no longer an open question as to whether Senator Obama is ready prime time: he's not. [...] Make sure Senator Obama knows that just because Israel is small and Israelis can't vote for him, that they do have a voice among their allies here in the U.S. Call his office and let him know how offensive these comments were, and ask him to retract his statement."

Goldberg chastised Boehner for misrepresenting Obama's remarks:

"Mr. Boehner, I'm sure, is a terribly busy man, with many burdensome responsibilities, so I have to assume that he simply didn't have time to read the entire Obama interview, or even the entire paragraph, or even a single clause. If he had, of course, he would have seen that Obama was clearly calling the Middle East conflict, and not Israel, a sore. Why, there's no one who would disagree that the Middle East conflict is a 'sore,' is there? I have no doubt that Mr. Boehner will issue a correction to his press release in which he states the obvious, which is that Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me."

Liberal bloggers are also coming to Obama's defense:

• dday: "It's important to recognize that a core part of Republican strategy in 2008, in addition to disenfranchising Democratic voters, is simply lying about their opponent. [...] There's no real slickness to the strategy, or forethought put into it. Birds are gonna fly, fish are gonna swim, and Republicans are gonna lie about the Democrat. Goldberg, a conservative, managed to display some intellectual honesty and point out that Boehner is, in fact, lying. The question is whether or not the rest of the media will follow his lead when some lie like this becomes front and center in the election."
• Yglesias: "Eliding here is the difference between calling Israel, the country, a sore and calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a sore. But I guess Reps. Boehner and Cantor think the conflict is a good thing, that's helpful to Israelis, and makes America's relationships with other Arab political actors easier? [...] At the end of the day, I think Israel and Israelis will be better off with an American president who thinks the conflict is a serious problem that he'll put a relatively high priority on than with a president who intends to pay Israel the false compliment of pretending that the situation is somehow no big deal."
• MA Sen. John Kerry defends Obama in a blog entry on the Huffington Post: "Look, I've been around politics long enough to know that it's a contact sport. Words will be abused. Phrases will be taken out of context. But the latest distortion from the GOP, frankly, shouldn't give us all pause -- it should spring us into action. [...] These statements by Representatives Boehner and Cantor are so bad they rise to the level of a danger to our foreign policy. America's allegiance to Israel has always been bi-partisan and unshakeable. It still is, with either Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton as President. But how can we actually have a debate on foreign policy, if the other side simply makes up statements on which to base phony, contrived outrage?"

OBAMA II: Hamas's Man In Washington?

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers continue to criticize Obama's positions on Israel and the Middle East:

• Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham: "Obama's advisers have since stated that the 'wound' of which he speaks is clearly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not Israel itself. That interpretation is only marginally better for Obama, in my mind, but the tactic is undoubtedly helpful for him. [...] Gaza phonebankers will assume his outreach is posturing and read the very real signals of his associations, staff, and comments as proof that Gaza GOTV should kick into overdrive. A deliberately blank canvas makes a dangerous presidential candidate, and the problem with Obama's pro-Israel stance persists -- it's anything but clear."
• Philip Klein: "Obama has vowed to meet without preconditions, within the first year of his administration, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust, threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and his regime has financed Hamas. So I just don't see why it's such a stretch for me to fear that circumstances would arise under which Obama would find it necessary to meet with Hamas to make progress in peace negotiations. Given his eagerness to meet with the leading state sponsor of terrorism, I just don't see why he'd draw a moral distinction at a democratically elected terrorist group that controls an area of diplomatic importance."
• Mirengoff: "Barack Obama and his legion of supporters in the MSM may not like the fact that Hamas supports his candidacy, or that John McCain and his supporters mention this fact. But it's not difficult to understand why Hamas favors Obama. Consider this statement by Obama regarding Lebanon. [...] The naivety of this statement is staggering. [...] Does he really believe that Hezbollah and its sponsors can be pacified or neutralized by electoral reform, an end to corrupt patronage, and 'fair' distribution of services? [...] No wonder he's Hamas's man."
• RedState's haystack: "Barack Obama promises he will talk to everyone -- friend and foe alike. [...] So, when Obama negotiates in good faith, and strikes a deal with terrorists who wish him into office, and they subsequently go back on their word(s) [which they ALWAYS do], and they keep upping the anty...what will Mr. Hope and Change and Change and Hope DO, exactly? Why, he'll give a speech about Hope and Change of course."

On the left side of the blogosphere, Yglesias denies that Obama has a "Jewish problem": "[Obama] doesn't actually seem to have one when pitted against John McCain. Rather, Jewish Americans like Clinton best, Obama second-best, and McCain least. Keep this in mind next time you read an argument that seems to assume that white working class Clinton supporters would prefer McCain to Obama -- it's perfectly possible for Obama to be someone's second-choice, just as Clinton is the second choice of millions of Obama voters."

MS-01: Tremble, NRCC!

The netroots are thrilled that Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in last night's special election in MS-01, a solidly GOP district. They see this win as further evidence that the GOP brand is in trouble:

• Marshall: "To put this into some broader perspective, the Republicans have lost three straight Republican districts to the Democrats in by-elections this year. [Ex-Rep Dennis] Hastert's district in Illinois, Louisiana 6th, and now Mississippi 1st. Each successively more Republican than the last. In Mississippi 1st, President Bush got 62% of the vote there in 2004."
• Ezra Klein: "It's always hard to draw a line from special elections out to general election, but Democrats are taking seats they have no right to even be contesting. And given how many retirements the GOP has seen this year, and how much voter registration Obama and Clinton have kicked off, well, things don't look so good for the Republicans."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "The magnitude of this loss cannot be overstated. The Republican party is in serious trouble in 2008."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "We are going to win everywhere in November. Landslide city."
• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "[Childers won] an 8-point victory in a solidly Republican district. The GOP even brought in Dick Cheney to campaign and tried to tar Childers as an Obama lover. But nothing worked. Even in Mississippi, they just don't want anything to do with Republicans anymore. It's going to be a ver-r-r-r-y long summer and fall for the GOP leadership."

Liberal bloggers are particularly pleased that the GOP failed in its efforts to damage Childers by linking him to Obama:

• Moulitsas: "Republicans claim they are gleeful over Obama in the fall, that they'll wrap Jeremiah Wright around every Democrat. And they did so, heavily, leading up to today's special election. [...] And it's a district in the Deep South, where scary black people are supposed to be particularly damaging to Democrats. And yet, Democrat Travis Childers won the district by eight points. Imagine that. No matter how much opportunistic Clinton supporters claim that Obama is a problem this November, fact is, the problem has been and remains George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Distractions like Wright and 'bitter' have been, and remain, irrelevant."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "The Republicans tried to make this election about two people: Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And despite running this type of campaign, they lost. While it is true that Childers distanced himself from his party (and implicitly from Obama), the fact is that the Obama/Wright smears simply DID NOT WORK. The Republicans are going to have to get a new game plan, and the establishment media are going to have to get a new meme. Sorry folks."
• Digby: "Ads featuring Reverend Wright aren't working in the deep south. Something's happening."

MS-01 II: I've Got A Bad Feeling About This...

Several conservative bloggers are concerned about Childers' victory in MS-01:

• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "There is no denying it anymore -- if it could even be denied in the run-up to tonight; Republicans have serious problems with the brand identity. Yes, I know that there are six months left until the election but what else needs to occur for the GOP to realize that it has a very serious problem on its hands? There have been any number of indications concerning a Republican image problem and nothing has been done to ameliorate matters. Either Republican leaders get on the ball very quickly, or the GOP is headed for yet another round of epic Congressional losses."
• Mirengoff: "The Republican brand is in such bad shape that the Dems can win virtually anywhere if they nominate a candidate whose position on key issues is, or can be made to seem, close to that of the Republican. Fortunately, the Democrats will not nominate such a candidate for president. And the Republican nominee, whether we feel comfortable about it or not, isn't necessarily seen as intimately associated with the Republican brand. Even so, I think that Republican nominee is running uphill."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Not only is the GOP losing special elections, it's managing to lose elections in districts where its candidates should be winning by 10 points without even campaigning. [...] What you're seeing is the result of the Republican Party's 'leadership,' such as it is, becoming arrogant, complacent, and coming to believe that they're so smart that they don't need to listen to the people who put them in office to begin with."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Silver Lining?

The New Republic's sees an upside to Obama's blowout loss in WV:

"In retrospect, Barack Obama may be lucky he didn't win Indiana last week. Why? Suppose he had -- there would have been immense pressure on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race, which she might have done. Given that around seven percent of West Virginia Democratic primary voters pulled the lever for John Edwards, who dropped out of the race more than three months ago, there's a pretty decent chance Obama would have lost West Virginia, or at the very least would have come up short of 50 percent. And as bad as tonight's results look for him (even though it's yet one more instance of the essentially unchanging demography-is-destiny story in the Democratic race), surely it would have been far worse to lose to Hillary if she had already conceded the race. As it stands now, he'll be able to take his licks in West Virginia and Kentucky without being totally humiliated, then make a victory declaration of sorts after a win in Oregon."

LEST WE FORGET: Intolerable Acts

McSweeney's Mark Amundsen provides a list:

1774:
Boston Port Act
Massachusetts Government Act
Quartering Act
Administration of Justice Act
Quebec Act

2008:

Took the Last Heineken Act
Rushed Out Onto the Sidewalk in Front of Me but Then Walked Real Slow Act
Fired Test Missiles Over Sea of Japan Act
Drove 65 in a 65 Zone Act
Clipped Your Fingernails at Your Desk Act

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 14, 2008 12:59 PM