May 15, 2008

5/15: Inching Toward A Resolution?

One of the reasons liberal bloggers are excited about John Edwards' surprise endorsement of Barack Obama is that they think it will help bring the Dem primary to "a quick and decisive conclusion". These bloggers believe that if Edwards pushes his delegates toward Obama, then Obama will preserve his delegate lead over Hillary Clinton even if the full FL and MI delegations are seated, thereby giving his victory more legitimacy in the eyes of Clinton supporters. However, it's not clear whether Obama's victory will be viewed as legitimate when both the Clinton camp and pro-Clinton bloggers are asserting that Clinton will finish the race with the popular vote lead.

DEM FIELD: The Netroots Smell Blood

Travis Childers' victory in the MS-01 special election has made liberal bloggers increasingly confident about the Dems' fall prospects:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "This business of Travis Childers winning an extremely Republican district on the heels of two other Democratic special election wins drives home how infuriating the idea of even having an extended 'electability' argument about 'who can win' is at this point. The reality is that given current conditions, either Clinton or Obama is very likely to win. [...] The GOP brand is so terrible that it's dragging candidates down in solid red districts, and [John] McCain is currently doing not-so-hot in polling matchups even though Americans are now inundated in unflattering information about Clinton and Obama while most people have never heard sustained from-the-left criticism of McCain."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "I've been arguing for some time that the Democrats were going to win easily in 2008. [Tuesday's] electoral results add more evidence to the trend. Reread my six signs Democrats are going to romp: Voters are paying attention, they like Democrats, they dislike Republicans, they like Obama, they want change, they associate change with Obama, and they don't like McCain the more they meet him."
• Daily Kos' DemFromCT: "The GOP that has always despised and derided John McCain now turns to him as 'savior'. [...] The real interesting trick will be to see how McCain is going to pretend not to be a Republican while Republicans wrap their arms around McCain in a death hug, not merely pretending to like him but pretending to be him. The more they succeed, the more he fails. The more he succeeds, the more they fail. Of course, the odds are that they'll all fail. The bullshit is just too pungent to pretend it's not there, and it isn't the most effective way to sell authenticity and change to a voting public that has rejected the party standard bearer (George W. Bush) as a miserable failure."
• Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "Republicans aren't losing to Democrats because Democrats are cleverly disguising themselves as Republicans. Republicans are losing to Democrats because people hate Bush, hate the war, hate the economy, can't afford health care, can't afford gas, and hate Bush. In other words, they are thoroughly rejecting all of the Republican positions on key issues. So even though it's obvious to anyone with half a brain, the GOP will not be able to win in November by screaming 'librul librul librul terra terra Wright [cough! black! cough!] Wright.' But they still don't know it."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "This election cycle could be devastating for Republicans up and down the ticket. And, it will be, once we can get to the real work (meaning after the Clinton ego trip ends.)"

In contrast, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong -- a fierce Clinton supporter -- is pessimistic about Obama's chances: "[This] reminds me of the '76 Republican nomination, when [Ronald] Reagan began winning nearly all of the closing states, even though [Gerald] Ford remained with delegate lead at the convention (its ironic how NC also played a large role in that contest). I also don't think that Clinton is interested in the VP position with Obama. 'Yes, yes, yes' seems like a 'yea, yea, yea, whatever, you know which way I have to answer that question'. As [Tuesday] night showed, the national terrain looks vory good for Democrats. The GE is very different, in terms of turnout, but we will most certainly make gains in Congress. In the presidential, I don't know, its still early, but I'm currently pessimistic on our chances."

DEM FIELD II: Thank You, John!

Many liberal bloggers think Edwards' surprise endorsement of Obama could potentially lead to a resolution of the FL/MI situation:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Assuming Edwards pushes his delegates [toward Obama], then Obama will secure not only the current 19 Edwards delegates, but also the 13 prospective Edwards delegates from Florida and all 55 of the uncommitted prospective delegates from Michigan. In other words, Clinton would be shut out of all conceivable delegate options no matter how Michigan and Florida are seated, and Obama will reach the magic number according to all counts on June 3rd at the latest. As much as anything else could at this point, this endorsement really helps bring the nomination campaign to a quick and decisive conclusion."
• The Field's Al Giordano: "Edwards' support of Obama leaves no impediment for the [DNC Rules] Committee to fuse the two candidate's delegate totals [in FL] (67 for Obama, and 13 for Edwards) adding up to 80 for Obama to 105 for Clinton. If the Committee decides to seat the full delegations -- each with one vote -- that's a modest +25 delegate advance for Clinton. [...] As for Michigan: If the January 15 straw poll becomes the source for the math, Clinton would get 73 delegates to 55 for 'uncommitted.' Edwards' backing (along with [Bill] Richardson and [Chris] Dodd) of Obama opens the door to a solution in which all 'uncommitted' delegates can and should be guaranteed to the Obama campaign: a difference of just 18 delegates. [...] The most interesting solution...would be to seat the pledged delegations at 100 percent, but penalize the states by giving their superdelegates .5 votes apiece: they'd still get to go to the convention, but since the party leadership in each state is partly (in Florida) and wholly (in Michigan) responsible for the mess created by their January games of leap-frog, the punishment would go to them, and not to the voters. [...This solution] would take the wind out of the phony 'disenfranchisement' argument, give Clinton a boost of +43 pledged delegates, and even if all the undeclared supers in those states went for Clinton (not likely), with a half-vote that would add up to 23.5 more including those already declared for her from the two states. [...This] would have the effect of ending the confusion, taking the wind out of her sails, and she'd get the bonus prize of a maximum (and probably less than) +66.5, still far short of any equation that could deny Obama, the pledged delegate leader still, the nomination."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "One good thing to come from John Edwards' endorsement of Barack Obama is that there is absolutely no reason at all now to now seat the full Florida and Michigan delegations. Edwards will now throw his delegates to Obama. In Florida that would mean a 105-80 split in favor of Hillary Clinton. In Michigan that would mean a 73-60 split in favor of Clinton. The total gain for Clinton would 33 delegates, down from 48 delegates. Barack Obama needs to take the bull by the horns here, tell Donna Brazile that winning in November matters more than her silly turf wars in the DNC, and regain the high ground in Florida and Michigan."

Meanwhile, Obsidian Wings' publius, who supports Obama, doubts that Edwards' endorsement will sway working-class voters: "I think Edwards' working class support is overrated. The big story of course will be that Edwards shores up Obama's working class street cred at a critical time. Edwards, however, hasn't shown all that much strength among these voters. [...] While the endorsement may not help Obama with actual working class voters, it will help in the realm of media perceptions, which is the only game that matters at this point (sadly). The chattering classes perceive Edwards as having significant working class appeal. Thus, we'll hear over and over this week about how Edwards -- West Virginia aside -- strengthens Obama's working class street cred. This chatter, in turn, will help strengthen the resolve of superdelegates and other party establishment figures who are beginning to coalesce around Obama."

TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt, who supports Clinton, is upset by Edwards' endorsement: "I don't think Edwards' endorsement has anything to do with who would make a better candidate. It's about ending the growing perception that Obama can't win against John McCain because he can't get rural, blue collar, less wealthy and less educated voters. That perception was magnified [Tuesday] with Hillary's win in West Virginia. There's concern it will grow when Hillary wins Kentucky. Since Edwards (and other Democrats) believe Obama will ultimately win the nomination, Edwards is trying to nip that line of thinking in the bud. But, isn't this short-sighted? Shouldn't the focus of Democrats be on which Democratic candidate is better able to beat John McCain in November...? [...] Party unity is one thing and it could have waited three weeks. Winning is important too."

DEM FIELD III: No Respect For Edwards

Conservative bloggers are mocking Edwards for endorsing Obama:

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "What's the answer to being trounced by coal miners? Having a fabulously wealthy son of a mill worker vouch for your blue-collar bona fides, of course. Can't hurt, and it would have been a nice get for Hillary as (weak) evidence of a momentum shift, but is there any other politician whose national profile is as grossly out of proportion to his actual base of support? In ten years, he's won two elections: The 1998 senate race and the 2004 South Carolina primary. He couldn't even deliver North Carolina to [John] Kerry when he was on the ticket. The left adores him for his fight-fight-fightin' nutrootsy rhetoric, but for all his alleged boldness he waited around here until Obama locked up the nomination before daring to announce for him. All this accomplishes, really, is pushing Hillary's West Virginia win off the front pages a few hours earlier and confirming what we already knew, i.e. that party bigwigs are tilting to Obama to try to end the race. And true to Silky's ineffectual form, she's still going to crush the Messiah among those southern, Edwardsian, blue-collar voters in Kentucky next week."
• Michelle Malkin: "One effete, big government liberal embraces another. Yawn."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "The only interesting issue pertaining to this endorsement is why it came so late. I'm hardly in a position to answer with confidence, but I think the answer has to do with gutlessness. In this account, Edwards feared that if he endorsed Obama only to see him routed among low income and rural white voters (the voters the former North Carolina Senator sees as his natural constituency), Edwards would look bad. After last night's version of that rout in West Virginia, Edwards probably figures Obama has hit bottom among this cohort. Thus, the endorsement is embarrassment proof."

Meanwhile, NRO's Victor Davis Hanson argues that Obama would be foolish to pick Edwards as his running mate: "McCain should pray that Obama picks (he won't) John Edwards as VP -- he brings no executive record of experience, and offers less ideological balance; he has a poor record of winning primaries over two failed runs for the Presidency, has never appealed to working-class whites, hurt the Kerry ticket as a mediocre VP candidate, did poorly in past and present debates, and went even harder to the left (in scripted fashion) in the primaries. Moreover, he adds to, rather than ameliorates, the sense of elitism and out-of-touchness that plagues Obama. For all the talk of growing up the son of a mill worker, voters remember 'the haircut' and that gargantuan house with the 'John's room' inner sanctum. I'm afraid all that outweighs the photogenic youthful appearance and occasional glibness."

DEM FIELD IV: Counting The Votes

Bowers is annoyed by the Clinton camp's claim that Clinton is ahead in the popular vote (which is true if one "only counts primary states -- including both Florida and Michigan -- and excludes any votes cast in the party's caucuses"): "For a moral argument about the popular vote -- a.k.a. the will of the nomination campaign electorate -- to carry weight, it needs to be as inclusive as possible in its vote totals. Instead, this vote total pretends that the over 550,000 caucus goers in Washington, Nevada, Maine and Iowa, not to mention the quarter of a million uncommitted voters in Michigan, didn't actually have candidate preferences in the nomination campaign just because those candidate preferences weren't recorded. Excluding those 800,000 participants in the nomination campaign from a popular vote total, especially when exit polls and turnout numbers make close estimates on those preferences quite simple, renders that popular total pointless. [...] When all of the people who attempted to participate in their state's only delegate selection event (or their state's only potential delegate selection event, as is the case in Florida and Michigan) are included, Barack Obama still leads by just under 260,000 votes even after Clinton's 137,500 vote victory in West Virginia. Barring some pretty shocking results in the remaining five contests, Obama will still hold that lead after all the voting is complete on June 3rd."

Armstrong, on the other hand, shares the Clinton camp's view that Obama should receive zero votes from MI: "Clinton wound up winning [WV] by about 147K votes, while winning every single West Virginia county. This makes interesting news on the overall popular vote totals. For all votes cast, this means that Obama leads currently by about 80,000 votes. Its tough to guess what Kentucky will bring, or the other states, but there's little doubt that, even not including the totals from Puerto Rico, that Clinton will lead from all the votes taken in the 50 contests."

Meanwhile, several liberal bloggers are criticizing Clinton's determination to stay in the race:

• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "[Tuesday] night I listened to Hillary Clinton's speech, and I found it both unnerving and impossible to turn away from, in the way that it's hard to stop looking at a mudslide rumbling down a mountain towards an unsuspecting town. There she was, talking about how she was in it to win it, how she was more determined than ever, how she was ready to go head-to-head with John McCain, and I thought: can she possibly believe this? If not, why in God's name is she saying these things? For some reason, what got me the most was hearing her ask for more money. She is, after all, an extremely wealthy woman. And she was asking those people she claims to be fighting for -- the nurse on her second shift, the worker on the line, the waitress on her feet, [etc.] -- to send her some fraction of the little money they have, for nothing. When she knows she can't win. That sort of took my breath away."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis writes an angry letter to Clinton: "Your own campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, told MSNBC [Tuesday] night that you will lose to Obama in overall pledged delegates. So the only way for you to win the nomination is by the superdelegates overruling the will of the people. That will cause a civil war in the Democratic party (I'll be helping to lead it). It will likely cause blacks to leave the party, possibly forever. It will disenfranchise the youth vote. The Netroots will likely declare war on you. [...] Because you're insisting on staying in a race that you've already lost, Obama is forced to spend money and time dealing with you, rather than dealing with John McCain. You are literally helping John McCain in this race. Why does that not make you a traitor to your party?"

OBAMA: Losing His Bearings?

Conservative bloggers are buzzing about an ABC News piece that accuses Obama of falsely asserting that (a.) Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan, and (b.) agricultural specialists deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan:

• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "There is occasionally an improvised quality to Barack Obama's critique of the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He sometimes seems to be making up his critique as he goes along. This improvised quality comes through clearly in the ABC News Political Radar blog report on Barack Obama's appearance earlier this week in Cape Girardeau."
• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "If the likely Democratic nominee for the Presidency of the United States has not yet learned that Afghans don't speak Arabic, then that should be the cause of widespread concern, nyet? Equally of concern is the Pavlovian tendency to attribute any problem in Afghanistan to the fact that we have a presence in Iraq. Don't have enough agricultural specialists? That's because they are in Iraq! Is the Afghan terrain too mountainous? It's because we are in Iraq! Does Kabul not have an attractive enough nightlife? Blame the quagmire in Iraq! If we are not already at that point, we will be soon."
• RedState's Jeff Emanuel: "For a man whose campaign platform includes securing America, and re-establishing her supposedly-degraded standing in the world (in part by promising to unconditionally meet with hostile foreign leaders), Mr. Obama insists on maintaining a troublingly naive, inconsistent, and uninformed view of the world's cultures and of international events."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Obama's rhetoric calls into question whether he has any real knowledge of the issues in either Iraq or Afghanistan in any depth beyond that of the latest MoveOn talking points."

MCCAIN: Making Too Many Promises?

McCain's speech from this morning -- in which he described how his first term as President will go -- is receiving mixed reviews from conservative bloggers:

• Townhall's Matt Lewis loved the speech: "You want change? I'll give you change! This was one of McCain's best speeches. This exactly the message he needs to win in November. This McCain will win in '08."
• Morrissey likes at least one of McCain's ideas: "The speech [is] interesting, especially in charter schools and his plan to appear regularly in front of lawmakers. [...] It's an interesting offer, and one that would play to McCain's strengths. He does best in town-hall formats, speaking extemporaneously, and the constant engagement on the floor of Congress in joint session could do wonders in breaking policy logjams. It certainly has the virtue of novelty, and it could help defuse the bitter partisanship that has afflicted the political class since Watergate."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein has concerns: "This morning, John McCain gives a speech and launches an ad touting what the world would look like after his first term in office. Some commentators have made the argument that given his age, McCain should pledge to only run for a single term, and set very specific goals for his time in office. To me, this seems like an effort to do so implicitly, while avoiding looking like a lame duck by doing so explicitly. I think what he runs the risk of, though, is making so many ambitious promises that he undercuts his image as a straight talker, and makes it harder to portray Barack Obama as a naive dreamer who resides in Fantasyland."

Michelle Malkin hated McCain's speech: "You'll have to forgive me for not getting all worked up about John McCain's BVT (Big Vision Thing) speech this morning in Columbus, Ohio. The fatal flaw lies in McCain's persistent belief, shared by the MSM and Beltway pundits, that partisanship in and of itself is at the root of all our ills. McCain's problem is that he has allied himself, for the unprincipled, empty cause of mindless 'bipartisanship,' with people and causes that move our country in the wrong direction. I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who makes common cause with La Raza/The Race. I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who sneers about profits like Ralph Nader. I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who talks and walks like Al Gore. And as I've said before in response to the annoying McCain platitudes about 'reaching across the aisle' and 'getting things done': When did it become the Republican Party's top priority to 'get things done?' 'Get things done' is mindless liberal code for passing legislation and expanding government. And as McCain's ample legislative record demonstrates, 'reaching across the political aisle' never entails pulling opponents to the right. It always entails selling out the right."

MCCAIN II: No Country For Old Men

Yglesias thinks seniors are predisposed to find McCain's age problematic: "This is an interesting development -- it seems that [MS Sen.] Thad Cochran, 70; [NM Sen.] Pete Domenici, 76; [IA Sen.] Chuck Grassley, 74 all told The Hill that they're too old to be Vice President. They're also, of course, all roughly the same age as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. I think this'll be an interesting issue to keep an eye on. Young people will definitely mock McCain for being old and his age will probably render people below a certain age immune to the cult of personality around him that's impacted a lot of self-loathing boomers in the press. But if anyone develops serious worries about McCain's age per se, it'll probably be his fellow senior citizens. Most folks I'm familiar with in their seventies are, like these GOP Senators, pretty aware of and realistic about their own situation and that of their friends and other peers in ways that might give them doubts about McCain."

The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen is intrigued by Yglesias' argument: "I've heard from some seniors I know that McCain is too old for them, but it never occurred to me that this might actually be a concern among other septuagenarians (and octogenarians, and nonagenarians...). Most of the polling numbers I've seen seem to point to considerably stronger support for McCain among seniors, while Obama is favored heavily by younger voters. But might there be some lingering doubts among those similar in age to McCain? Especially if he keeps having 'senior moments'?"

Bowers, on the other hand, urges Dems not to play "the age card" against McCain: "Age-based attacks on John McCain have much the same potential for backlash as gender-based attacks on Hillary Clinton, and racially based attacks on Barack Obama. Now that McCain's age has become a national punchline, many seniors might back McCain simply because they take offense at that narrative. This is particularly dangerous in a general election campaign when seniors will be the main swing group. Even though the electoral effectiveness of the conservative backlash narratives against liberal elites and the civil rights movement have been seriously diminished by changing demographics, these narratives are still somewhat salient among seniors. Combining these conservative backlash narratives with an additional, age-based backlash could prove problematic for Obama. [...] The only reason McCain is still within striking distance of Obama, instead of being blown out of the water, is because Obama has not locked down older, self-identified Democrats."

MCCAIN III: Shady Investments

Liberal bloggers are accusing McCain of hypocrisy after it was reported that his wife Cindy McCain "sold off at least $2 million she held in funds with investments in Sudan businesses":

• Think Progress' Matt Corley: "In an April 24, 2007 speech on energy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized China for opposing sanctions in Darfur, saying that the reason it refused to do so was because 'China needs Sudan's oil.' Now, in a moment of irony, the AP reports that McCain's wife, Cindy, just 'sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds' whose holdings include companies that do business in Sudan's oil industry."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk: "I guess it's a good thing then that McCain and his wife can take care of all [these] hypocritical things now, so they'll be old news in June and July. [...] Shame on you China, only investing in Sudan for oil. How dare you exploit others suffering for your prurient national interests. You tell 'em Maverick. What kind of monstrous person would continue to invest in such a vile regime? D'OH!"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Tragedy And Scale

The Atlantic's James Fallows comments on the China earthquake:

"The human scale of almost anything in China is predictably shocking. I go to a city I'd never heard of -- say, Zibo -- and learn that it has about as many people as Chicago. I go to a city I have heard of and learn that estimates of its population are accurate only within a couple million. And of course we now have the staggering figures coming out from Sichuan province and its surroundings -- about 900 children trapped in one school, tens of thousands missing in another town, whole villages being swallowed up by landslides. America has never known mass tragedy on this scale -- or even on a pro-rated version of this scale. China has of course known it many times."

LEST WE FORGET: Aren't Libertarians Supposed To Be Consistent?

Radar's Nick Curran (h/t Shawn Macomber):

"Tuesday night, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against a resolution conveying 'condolences and sympathy' to the people in Myanmar affected by deadly Cyclone Nargis. It's not all that surprising of a move for a guy who earned the nickname 'Dr. No' by so frequently refusing to march along with the parade of feel-good legislative acts that often dominates the days of our Congress. (The resolution, it should be noted, doesn't actually do anything for the people suffering in Myanmar.) You see, if you want to earn hollow well wishes from Ron Paul on the House floor, you have to do something a little more special than just get totally wiped out by a massive cyclone and then be left for dead by your own government. Like win a big football game! Here's a quick look at some members of the elite group that has somehow managed to pry an 'aye' from Dr. No in House votes on other do-nothing resolutions considered this year...

• The University of Kansas football team for 'winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl and having the most successful year in program history'
• The New York Giants for 'winning Super Bowl XLII and completing one of the most remarkable post-season runs in professional sports history'
• The Louisiana State University football team for winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series national championship game"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 15, 2008 12:59 PM