May 01, 2008

5/1: Is The Tide Turning?

Hillary Clinton's improved performance in head-to-head match-ups with John McCain -- coupled with yesterday's NC poll showing her leading Barack Obama 44-42% -- has pro-Clinton bloggers buzzing about the NY senator's momentum. Conservative bloggers are also excited about Clinton's growing strength in the polls (and, correspondingly, Obama's growing weakness). They continue to hammer Obama over his relationship with Jeremiah Wright, while eagerly waiting to see how much the Wright controversy has damaged Obama in NC and IN. While some righty bloggers have reached the point where they no longer consider Clinton the weaker (and hence more desirable) nominee, Rush Limbaugh continues to urge his listeners to vote for Clinton in the upcoming primaries. Perhaps Limbaugh's goal is to simply ensure that the Dem primary lasts as long as possible, rather than to specifically help Clinton secure the nomination.

Meanwhile, most liberal bloggers are concentrating their fire on McCain, slamming him for his domestic policy proposals and his support of the Iraq War. They are also criticizing Clinton for her support of the gas tax holiday, which they consider an awful idea and a shameless pander. As we observed yesterday, Clinton's shot at winning the Dem nod no longer looks as unlikely as it once did, but her shot at winning over the netroots looks more remote than ever.

DEM FIELD: Hillary Rising?

Pro-Clinton bloggers are excited about what they perceive to be real momentum for Clinton:

• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "With six days until next Tuesday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Hillary Clinton seems to have translated her win in Pennsylvania into a real shift in momentum, a somewhat surprising turn of events considering this race has been largely momentum-proof. It began with a shift in the media narrative following her win from 'what is she still doing in this thing?' to 'why can't Obama seal the deal?' and continued with what seemed like 4 uninterrupted days of Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright's sabotage tour, which went unanswered until Tuesday. It was perfect storm for Clinton who has seen a boost in several metrics. [...] It's true, of course, that every other time Clinton has exhibited any sign of momentum it's been fleeting and Obama has been able to shift it back, but this looks and feels different."
• Taylor Marsh: "'Clinton Exuding Confidence' is the attitude around Clinton, who has closed the margin in North Carolina from double digits, is tied with Obama in Indiana (according to CNN), is on message, while Obama's pastor disaster has him off message, and on the defensive. Not where you want to be so close to a primary day that could be a tipping point for either candidate."

Open Left's Chris Bowers, an Obama supporter, worries that Clinton is "outworking" Obama: "While Obama is heavily outspending Clinton on paid media, the Clinton campaign is holding far more events on the ground. The differences in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina are particularly stark, with Clinton holding 181 campaign events in those three states, compared to 80 events for Obama. And the gap appears to keep getting larger. [...] Stats like these make me wonder if Obama's massive activist corps seems to be working harder than Obama. As an Obama supporter, I have to say that I am not in the least bit happy with these numbers. If he wants to put Clinton away, the campaign needs to start holding a lot more events in upcoming primary states."

Meanwhile, TPM's Eric Kleefeld notes that the latest InsiderAdvantage poll of NC shows Clinton taking a 44-42% lead over Obama: "[This] is the first one yet to actually show Hillary Clinton ahead in the crucial primary, demonstrating just how badly the latest controversies have hurt Barack Obama."

DEM FIELD II: Go, Hillary, Go!

Conservative bloggers are also buzzing about Clinton's momentum (and the InsiderAdvantage NC poll in particular):

• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "North Carolina was supposed to be a firewall state for Obama -- the place where he blows out Clinton, regains his mojo, puts the popular vote further out of reach, restores some or all of the delegate margin he lost in Pennsylvania, and shifts the narrative back to Clinton being virtually mathmatically eliminated. But if he were to lose Indiana and win North Carolina just narrowly, it would really cement doubts about his canidacy. And if somehow he manages to lose in both states, he could actually see ths nomination slip away."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "If InsiderAdvantage's numbers are right, we may be witnessing a huge shift in what was supposed to be Obama's safe state on Tuesday. [...] I'm looking for a reason to be skeptical of this poll, and I'm not seeing it. Good sample size, likely voters...15 percent of the sample is unaffiliated voters. [...] Further evidence Team Obama worries about Wright fallout: Barack Obama is appearing on Meet the Press this weekend."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "If Obama cannot hold North Carolina, it will likely have superdelegates questioning whether the damage has gone too deep for recovery. [...] A loss in North Carolina will give Hillary an opportunity to run the table straight through to the convention, with perhaps only Oregon lining up against her. It will also underscore her argument that Obama peaked too early and has lost momentum and support, and that superdelegates should go with the hot hand. Hillary could even make an argument that a decent showing among black voters in North Carolina could indicate that their critical bloc will not bolt the Democratic Party if Obama loses the nomination at the convention."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "In the head-to-head national RealClearPolitics.com averages Barack Obama's lead over Hillary Clinton is shrinking fast. (And many of these polls surveyed voters in significant part before the latest Wright eruption.) [...] The Times lets on that 'some party leaders and superdelegates said the Wright controversy has given them pause, raising questions about Mr. Obama's electability in the general election next fall.' Imagine that. Superdelegates are precisely the type of people (elected official, professional poll watchers, scared of their constituents) who are the most likely to 'pause' ( which may be Times-speak for 'break out in a cold sweat') when they see a political firestorm and don't know if all the shoes have dropped."

Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau urges GOPers to "be careful what they wish for": "In my view, it's not to the GOP's advantage for Barack to lose the nomination now. All that would mean is a race against Hillary 'The Energizer Bunny' Clinton -- and the certainty that Barack would be back on the scene four or eight years from now, with Jeremiah Wright far, far back in the rear view mirror and with a legislative record designed specifically to enhance his chances at the presidency. If Hillary loses this race, she may well try again, but not with much chance of success. Not only has she alienated a substantial portion of her party by her treatment of Barack, but the Democrat party loves new faces. That's a tendency that Barack could overcome, but not Hillary, given the endemic 'Clinton fatigue' that exists already."

Rush Limbaugh evidently doesn't share Liebau's concerns, as he has lifted his brief "operational pause" in Operation Chaos (h/t Scott Johnson):

"The operational pause in Operation Chaos was due strictly to the Obama press conference yesterday while we awaited what I knew was going to happen, media reaction, because we had to determine what course of action we would order next given the media reaction to Obama yesterday. And I can just tell you, the operational pause is now lifted. Operation Chaos is back at full speed, and we have no change in direction, orders from headquarters remain exactly what they are: You are to go out and sustain the Democrat primary season by virtue of voting for Hillary Clinton. Nothing has changed, ladies and gentlemen, nothing whatsoever."

CLINTON: What Happened To "Solutions, Not Speeches"?

Liberal bloggers are slamming Clinton for her support of a federal gas tax holiday, which they consider a terrible idea and a shameless pander:

• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "While the rhetoric being pushed by the Clinton and McCain campaigns working together in tandem to attack Obama may sound sensible on the surface -- who doesn't want a little relief on the price they pay for gas (even if the savings won't completely go to the American driver because lowering the price of gasoline will lead to increased demand which will lead to increased prices; the actual price decrease might only come out to be half of 18.4 cent-per-gallon tax, at best, were the holiday put in place) -- the overwhelming weight of the evidence suggests that this is simply bad policy through and through. [...] The American people aren't dumb. They understand that this policy proposal is basically a stunt -- something that the Clinton campaign has all but admitted -- that won't do anything to solve the underlying problems facing America's energy supply in the long run and won't really do much even in the short run, either."
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "By getting on board the [gas tax] holiday bandwagon, John McCain mostly reenforces one's impression of him as someone who doesn't have real ideas, principles, interest in, etc. domestic policy issues. I think that, by contrast, Hillary Clinton is managing to undermine the perception -- something she'd embedded in even a lot of people who aren't hugely sympathetic to her campaign -- that she's the candidate of substance, the earnest policy wonk type who really knows how to fix America's problems. It's a reminder that Bill Clinton, who certainly stands out among presidents for his wonkishness and interest in policy detail, also wound up gravitating toward a political strategy that leaned heavily on what you might call 'policy gimmicks' rather than a serious effort to grapple with national problems."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "What's troubling about the Great Gas Tax Pander is not so much the pander itself, but the larger more general concerns it raises about Clinton (who, of course, remains infinitely superior to McCain). First, it shows that Clinton is more likely to use arguments that explicitly rely on voter ignorance. She knows that this policy stinks, but she is assuming that low-information voters won't know the difference. [...] Second, and more troublingly, the pander provides further evidence of Clinton's instincts to run from progressive positions in the face of political pressure from the right. Like Bill [Clinton] before her, she is very quick to adopt conservative, nationalist positions at the expense of sound policy in these circumstances (e.g., gas tax, 'obliterate Iran,' Iraq, Kyl-Lieberman, etc.). I can think of two explanations for this behavior. One, she's not very liberal. Two, her guiding political philosophy is to avoid looking too liberal. Either way, not good."

Bloggers are also emphasizing how few economic experts think the gas tax holiday is a good idea:

• The Huffington Post's Sam Stein: "Expert support for [the] gas tax holiday appears nonexistent. [...] I emailed Howard Wolfson, Clinton's spokesperson, asking him to put me in touch with an economic or environmental analyst who favored his boss' plan. He never wrote back. So I took the task upon myself. I would call experts from all sides of the ideological aisle to get a sense of where the debate stood. In the end, every single analyst I surveyed judged the gas tax holiday proposal to be, roughly speaking, a silly, superfluous, or outright pandering idea."
• Daily Kos' SusanG: "[This] Reuters article cites [George W.] Bush's former chariman of the Council of Economics advisors, economics professors, think tank wonks and Paul Krugman, all agreeing that the [gas tax holiday] proposal sucks eggs. When you have Krugman and former Bush officials agreeing on something, it must truly be bad."

OBAMA: He Ain't Out Of The Woods Yet

Conservative bloggers continue to criticize Obama over his relationship with Rev. Wright:

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt has some questions for Wright: "Did Pastor Wright discuss Louis Farrakhan with Obama before during or after they both attended the Million Man March? Were they together during that trip. Did Senator Obama indicated unease with or criticism of Farrakhan? How often did you see Obama at Trinity on Sunday over the past twenty years? Any particular dates you can recall with certainty? Do you have your sermons from those days on which you are certain Obama was present? Did you appear at non-church events together? Did you ever discuss William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Tony Rezko?"
• RedState's Dan McLaughlin: "I don't think Obama's fatally wounded yet, but the problem is that all this stuff taken together forms a coherent and very unpleasant narrative -- Obama's statements and close associations are all entirely consistent with a man who never heard a bad thing about America that he felt it necessary to disagree with. I just don't think there's anywhere near a majority of Americans who could picture themselves being friends with Bill Ayers, or nodding along in church with the kind of stuff Rev. Wright peddles. And that's going to make people very uncomfortable with Obama, which is not at all the place he was two months ago."
• NRO's Roger Clegg thinks Obama failed to "put [his] American identity ahead of [his] ethnic identity": "The Left likes to talk about an American 'mosaic,' but most Americans still believe in E pluribus unum. For African Americans, in particular, there is an understandable pull toward ethnic identity, but it is wrong to put that ahead of patriotism and one's identity as an American. Certainly, one cannot do so if one expects to be elected president. The fact that Obama was reluctant to distance himself from Wright because they shared the same ethnic background is thus no mitigating factor at all: Rather, it aggravates people's concern that, ultimately, Obama may be less committed to our common enterprise than our president must be, because he was willing to tolerate divisive, anti-American talk simply because the speaker was from 'his' 'community'."
• Liebau: "As I have written before, I don't think that Barack shares in any way Wright's racist and hate-mongering views (although I'm less sure about his wife, Michelle [Obama]). He's a huge lefty, but not a hater. The episode gives me misgivings about Barack nonetheless; it's a warning sign that he'd even be willing to tolerate those views (just as he was able to tolerate Ayers/Dorn). It's a sign of a life lived too much amid the radical chic in the faculty lounge -- which, in turn, is poor preparation for dealing with someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Several conservative bloggers are arguing that Obama only repudiated Wright because he was angry that Wright was hurting his candidacy, not because he disagreed with Wright's views:

• Power Line's Johnson: "On March 18, Obama explicitly rejected the opportunity to denounce Wright as the 'crank or demagogue' he so tranparently is. He was like the grandmother who loved him unconditionally. He could not be disowned. On April 29, Obama had second thoughts. He had reconsidered. He had changed his mind. Obama could be disowned. Why? [...] In Obama's eyes, the most serious wrongdoing in Wright's statements is their disrespect of Obama."
• Ann Althouse: "It took him a long time to get mad. But it looks like a very personal kind of mad. It's not so much that Wright's ideas were anti-American and his politics were extremist and left-wing. Obama had to have known that from a 20-year association with the man (unless he only had the association for appearances and political advancement and never really cared what Wright thought). Obama got mad, it seems, because he could see that Wright meant to hurt him and was getting fired up moving for the kill."

MCCAIN: Where's The Beef?

Several liberal bloggers are discussing what they perceive to be the absence of serious policy proposals from McCain. Tyler Cowen started the discussion when he critiqued McCain's health care plan and remarked:

"Trade aside, so far I've yet to see many actual policy proposals from the McCain camp. Mostly I've seen attempts to signal that they won't do anything too offensive to the party's right wing. Very few of these trial balloons seem to be ideas that McCain had expressed much previous loyalty to. I don't even think we should be analyzing these statements as policy proposals. We should be wondering why the Republican Party has given up on the idea of policy proposals."

• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum responds: "Isn't the answer pretty obvious? At this point, Republicans just don't have many policies to offer that people like. Healthcare? The GOP basically wants to make it less secure. Jobs? Um, free trade, anyone? Taxes? That's always a crowd pleaser, but the only taxes left to cut are those aimed at corporations and the rich. Housing? The free market will take care of things. The war? Iraq forever! So that leaves trivia like gas tax holidays and culture war attacks on Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. The more they talk about anything else, the less popular they get. So tell me: outside of the usual cultural warhorse issues (which McCain isn't very good at exploiting anyway), can you name a single major area of public concern today in which the Republican position is also popular with the public? Anybody?"
• Firedoglake's Blue Texan has a similar view: "100-Years McCain and the GOP know they can't win on the war. They can't win on the economy. They can't win on health care. Their agenda sucks ass. And they know it. So they're going to do exactly what they did in '04 (Faggityfaghomogays) and '06 (Brownillegalwetbackmexicans). This time it's Wrightscaryangrynegro. It's all they've got."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen offers his perspective: "First, it seems McCain, like most of the Republican Party, doesn't have much of a policy agenda to speak of, so detailed white papers are out of the question. When your platform is more or less limited to 'Keep Doing What Bush Has Been Doing,' there's no real need for 35-page briefing books. [...] Second, McCain is probably convinced that he can get away with a total lack of policy specifics. The media assumes he's a credible, knowledgeable candidate, by virtue of having served in Congress for more than a quarter-century. (Obama, with less experience, isn't given the benefit of the doubt, so he faces more pressure to be more specific.) [...] Third, details are risky. The more specifics a candidate offers, the greater the likelihood that the proposal will draw scrutiny. [...] And fourth, I get the sense that there's a gap in expectations. Democrats care about how policies work; Republicans care about how policies feel. It's like Republicans are the Stephen Colbert Party, quite certain there are more nerve endings in their gut than in their brain."
• Ezra Klein: "McCain's domestic policy ideas are so half-baked, and so DOA to Congress, that it's very hard to conceive of them as actual policy papers rather than targeted campaign documents. I don't really believe, for instance, that McCain honestly thinks he can convince Congress to blow a multi-trillion dollar hole in the deficit, nor that he honestly thinks he's going to get a Democratic Senate to slash Medicare and Social Security in order to fund more tax cuts. This, I think, accounts for some of the soft coverage McCain's proposals have received in the press. They're bad, sure, but no one really thinks he's going to try and carry them out. They're just rhetoric. But it's not for us in the press to decide what is and isn't a real policy proposal. These are the ideas the McCain camp is offering to the general electorate. They need to be taken seriously and examined in detail."

MCCAIN II: Looks Like We Hit A Nerve!

Liberal bloggers continue to defend the DNC's anti-McCain ad, which criticizes the GOP candidate for advocating a 100-year troop presence in Iraq:

• Moulitsas: "[The ad] essentially features the 71-year-old John McCain saying that staying in Iraq for 100 years would be 'fine with me', shows some Iraq combat scenes, then replays McCain's quote. This has got the RNC apoplectic, threatening television stations with lawsuits if they run the ad. It's all sort of weird, they claim that it's 'out of context' and whatnot, but the context is quite clear. McCain has no problem staying in Iraq for 100 years. So what's the GOP's beef? McCain's quote is edited in the ad. Without the edit, his answer would be: 'Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me.' Problem is, Americans are being injured, harmed, wounded, and killed, and there's no end in sight. So given that McCain has no plan to end the violence (the 'surge' hasn't accomplished that, with April seeing a rise in American casualties), and given that he has no exit strategy, and given that Republicans consider any withdrawal 'surrender', fact is, we're stuck in Iraq until McCain is 171 years old unless we elect a president that will bring our troops home. And that's fine with him."
• Moulitsas continues: "If McCain truly thinks the ad is unfair, he can then answer the question, 'how long do our troops need to keep dying in Iraq before you would pull them out?' No magic pony answers. The violence isn't going away. So given that reality, how long will our troops have to stay in Iraq given the never-ending violence? If McCain answers that question directly, then this DNC ad will be instantly obsolete. As it is, despite the RNC's bluster, the ad is perfectly in context. Brilliantly so, in fact."
• MyDD's Josh Orton: "The RNC and other reluctant McCain-defenders desperately want to spin McCain's Iraq policy away from the reality -- John McCain sees no problem staying in Iraq. Their defense? McCain thinks the situation will be like our long-term presence in Korea, where there's little worry of casualties. But this spin perfectly distills the problem with a continuation of Bush policy -- John McCain can't seem to grasp the impact of our occupation, and how the situation in Iraq differs from American presence in other places around the world. We're smack in the middle of a civil war there, and John McCain refuses to accept the reality."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "You may have heard about the TV ad that has the Republicans flipping out. It's an ad that shows John McCain saying he's fine with us staying in Iraq another 100 years. (In fact, McCain said it was okay if we stayed in Iraq for 10,000 years). Anyway, the Republican National Committee is demanding, simply demanding, that TV stations not air the ad because they say it's not true. Of course, it is true, it just hurts. Kind of sucks that the Republicans' own in-house propaganda network [FOX News] has said the ad is okay. This makes it impossible for other networks to say the ad isn't fair to the Republicans, now that it has FOX's seal of approval."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "McCain is obviously in very serious trouble with this 100 years in Iraq comment."
• Yglesias: "Is it really unfair to attribute a desire for an indefinite military presence in Iraq to John McCain just because he kept emphasizing his desire for an indefinite military presence in Iraq before deciding it was politically inconvenient to be attacked for it?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Feeling Slighted

Stoller complains that the Obama camp doesn't care about the liberal blogosphere:

"Obama has...explicitly said he does not read blogs, and this filters down throughout his campaign. [...] So I take him at his word. Internet liberals -- bloggers, blog readers, Moveon members, etc -- are just not a priority for Obama or the campaign. That's been obvious for a long time, when both Josh Marshall and Markos [Moulitsas] discussed how little outreach and responsiveness there was coming from Obama's shop. [...] It doesn't matter what I say or do, it doesn't matter what kinds of comments we put up, what Josh Marshall says, it only matters what Obama and a few key staffers say and think. And they don't care what we think, they have other channels they care about, including a whole network of grassroots organizers. Their attitude is probably along the lines of 'well we won without them, they all think they know better than we do, let them run a race for once'. That's fine, that's their choice. They've made it, there's not much any of us can do. Just know that their logistical operations are remarkable, their campaign structure is phenomenal, and we're not a part of it."

LEST WE FORGET: Lesbians Sue Lesbians Over The Use Of The Word "Lesbian"

AP's Nicholas Paphitis:

"A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women. [...]

Three islanders from Lesbos -- home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women -- have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.

'My sister can't say she is a Lesbian,' said Dimitris Lambrou. 'Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,' he said."

Aravosis: "Litigious Lesbians are the worst kind."

NRO's Mark Steyn: "Lawyers in Gay, Michigan will be watching the case with interest."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 1, 2008 12:38 PM