6/3: Sending Mixed Signals

The political blogosphere is abuzz over the mixed signals emanating from Hillary Clinton's camp regarding her intentions. While several journalists reported yesterday that the Clinton camp was shedding staff and inviting top donors to her speech in NY, aides denied that Clinton plans to concede tonight. Consequently, liberal bloggers are divided in their views -- some expect Clinton to concede and endorse Barack Obama this week, while others are convinced that Clinton will stay in the race until the convention. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers continue to aggressively rebut Clinton's claim that she leads Obama in the popular vote. Liberal bloggers don't appear worried that superdelegates will find Clinton's claim persuasive; rather, they're concerned that Clinton's supporters will view Obama as an illegitimate nominee if they think he received fewer votes than Clinton.

DEM FIELD: The End Is Nigh

Many liberal bloggers are speculating about Clinton's plans:

• The Huffington Post's Tom Edsall: "Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama. Obama and Clinton spoke Sunday night and agreed that their staffs should begin negotiations over post-primary activities, according to reliable sources. In addition to seeking Obama's help in raising money to pay off some $20 million-plus in debts, Clinton is known to want Obama to assist black officials who endorsed her and who are now taking constituent heat, including, in some cases, primary challenges from pro-Obama politicians."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Sure looks like it is over. Really, it is not that surprising. It makes perfect sense for Clinton to want to campaign everywhere and wait for the RBC decision, both because the campaign was still relatively close and to honor her supporters in all fifty states. Also, the nomination campaign has been a positive for Democrats wherever it has gone. However, it has also always been extremely difficult to figure out what Clinton would do after June 3rd. Other than Michigan and Florida, she hasn't visited a non-primary swing state since February, and after June 3rd there will be no more primary states left. Further, unless her fundraising would dramatically turn around, her mounting debts would make it impossible to start a general election campaign at this point, too. So, hopefully we are coming to the desired end of the campaign either tomorrow night, or on Wednesday. [...] It has been a helluva ride, but it seems that we are finally moving on to the general election."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "A lot of tea leaf reading today, but have to say, the convergence of several clues certainly seems to be pointing to a Clinton exit sooner rather than later. [...] It sounds to me as though [tonight] will be more last hurrah than concession but it's sure sounding as though we're in for a concession of some sort this week. I know it will be bittersweet for many here (in fact, more bitter than sweet) but think of what a historic moment her endorsement of Barack Obama will be, certainly a dramatic end to such a dramatic and historic campaign."
• Daily Kos' DHinMI: "Might we FINALLY be at the end? [...] Maybe, maybe we will finally all be able to focus exclusively on beating [John] McCain and racking up the huge Congressional majorities we want so President Obama will be able to get us out of Iraq, pass a national health care plan, fix the damage of eight years of misrule by Bush, and steer our country in a new direction that ameliorates poverty and inequality, expands opportunity, brings about a safer world, and creates an environmentally sustainable future."

Atrios doesn't understand why Clinton has stayed in the race for so long: "I do admit I've long been a bit confused by why Hillary Clinton stayed in the race. To be clear, while I had a problem with directions the campaign went I had no issue with her simply remaining in the race. But I never really saw a good reason for it. Maybe there is one. Maybe we'll find out what it was!"

DEM FIELD II: Are You Kidding? Hillary's Not Going Anywhere

Other liberal bloggers don't think Clinton plans to concede anytime soon, noting that both she and her campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe have recently raised the possibility of targeting Obama's superdelegates:

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "I have a theory about what's going to happen this week. Hillary will announce, perhaps as early as Tuesday night, or Wednesday, that she's 'suspending' her campaign for the nomination. She will not 'concede' the race, and she will probably not endorse Obama either. She will announce that she is suspending her campaign, and the media will buy this as 'Hillary has conceded,' when she will have done nothing of the sort. By suspending, she leaves open the possibility that she will jump back in at any time before the August convention, and she will leave open the possibility that she will still try to poach Obama's superdelegates between now and the convention. [...] 'Obama doesn't need 2,118 delegates to be our nominee,' Hillary will likely argue. 'Obama needs 2,118 delegates on Thursday, August 28, 2008 when he officially becomes the nominee. How many delegates he has before that data is irrelevant since superdelegates can change their minds up until that date.' So she'll effectively keep running until the end of August."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen also thinks it's possible that Clinton plans to stay in the race: "While Obama will very soon have enough commitments from superdelegates to give him the nomination, they won't literally be able to vote for him until the convention in late August. So Obama may very well cross the 2,118 finish line this week, and think he's the nominee, only to have Clinton possibly say, 'I want to fight to change those superdelegates' minds. Their commitments aren't votes, so Obama's victory remains speculative.' [...] I'm not saying this will happen, only that Clinton and her campaign chairman hinted that it is an option on their minds."

Meanwhile, Jonathan Zasloff thinks Clinton is certain to stay in the race if she wins SD by 26 points, as the latest ARG poll predicts: "Am I the only one who has suffered chillls down the spine after reading the latest ARG poll out of South Dakota? You know, the one that says Clinton 60, Obama 34? This is an outlier with other polls, which have shown slim Obama leads. And ARG has not had a good record this campaign. But this poll is by far the most recent. So here's a prediction: if Hillary wins South Dakota with anything like those numbers tomorrow, all the talk about her wrapping up her campaign now will be the electronic equivalent of yesterday's fishwrap."

On the right side of the blogosphere, AmSpec Blog's Robert Stacy McCain is convinced that Clinton plans to stay in the race: "My money says Hillary will (a) trim her campaign staff down to a trusted handful; (b) make some conciliatory noises; and (c) keep up the behind-the-scenes intrigue all the way to Denver. A true concession would be for Hillary to release her delegates from their pledges on the first ballot and call for a unanimous vote for Obama. Hillary won't do that; she'll insist on at least a show-of-strength vote on the first ballot, meanwhile hoping for some surprise development that will send the superdelegates crawling back to her."

DEM FIELD III: It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Pro-Clinton bloggers are also denying that Clinton plans to concede tonight:

• Taylor Marsh: "I find it very curious, if not hopeful, that people actually think Hillary is dropping out [tonight]. Obviously, it's the talking point Obama supporters want and are pushing. Trouble is it's not true. Clinton's speech [tonight] will be a celebration of what she's done in this race, which is to finish it with more of the popular vote than any Democratic candidate in U.S. history. She's finishing strong, while Barack Obama is limping to the end. [...] Someone needs to get to 2118. That hasn't happened yet. Until it does this thing isn't over. Oh, and guess what, superdelegates can have a come to Jesus, what are we about to do, Hillary is the strongest candidate so how can we nominate the guy who's losing contests and polling below her against John McCain moment. No superdelegate endorsement is set in stone."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "After the last contest, people need to give Hillary some space and time to make her case to the superdelegates. They can decide or change their mind any time up until the convention. Maybe she'll rally a large number behind her. It's a few days more, and calls for her to end the race in the name of party unity are both premature and insulting. As to all the reports about staff layoffs and schedules, keep in mind the states all will have voted tomorrow. There are no more states to go to. There is is no reason for either candidate to maintain the state advance teams used for the primaries. Whoever gets the nomination will put a general election team in place. This is the closest presidential primary the Democrats have ever had. Let it play out. It's not over until Hillary says it's over or until August."

Meanwhile, Merritt urges her readers to lobby the superdelegates on behalf of Clinton: "Here's the link to Lobby Superdelegates. Pick your state, tell them you are a constituent and make your case for your favorite candidate. Superdelegates can make up their minds or change their minds anytime up until the convention. So long as Hillary stays in the race, there is no victor. As of tonight and tomorrow, this is a two person race. Obama leads in pledged delegates, but doesn't have the magic number. Hillary leads in the popular vote. More people have voted for her than Obama. With neither candidate winning both the pledged delegate total and the popular vote, the question is, who is more electable in November and who can better lead our country? Don't be shy, this may be your last chance."

CLINTON: Popular Vote Madness

Liberal bloggers continue to critique Clinton's popular vote argument:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias notes that Obama currently leads Clinton in national polls: "Given that the popular vote has no official standing, for an unofficial assessment of how Democratic voters feel about things it is instructive to look at the national polling. Here things are pretty close, but Obama's held a decisive lead for a long time. Roughly speaking, it seems to be the case that some of the states that voted for Clinton on February 5 now prefer Obama. So the person who wins the nomination by delegates will also be the person who most Democrats prefer. And that's as it should be. No doubt, had things gone different earlier in the campaign with Clinton moving out to a decisive lead in delegates, the polling would have coalesced around her, too. But that's what happened, and as things stand now there's a clear majority for Obama."
• Open Left's tremayne agrees with Yglesias: "First...I don't think Clinton has a legitimate claim to more popular support than Obama. And even if she had more popular support in January (when the non-competitive and partially-attended [contests] were conducted in MI/FL) it doesn't mean she has more support now. For example, the latest Gallup numbers show Obama with a large lead over Clinton in national support. And when it comes to popular support, isn't June support more important that January support when it comes to picking the best candidate for November?"
• Ezra Klein: "It's a little peculiar to even have to say this, but the Democratic presidential nomination is decided by delegates, not the popular vote. There's a good argument to be made that it should be decided by the popular vote, but for now, it isn't. And so both candidates pursued strategies meant to attain the necessary number of delegates. If the 'votes' in the non-election in Michigan and the no-campaign election in Florida were going to matter, the two candidates would have campaigned in both places. If the popular vote was the key, the Obama camp would have ignored small state caucuses and spent that money running up their totals in larger states like Illinois. [...] At the end of the day, you have to judge the game based on the rules set down at the beginning. [...] The Clinton campaign is trying to change the game. But that's something you do before the season starts. Not 30 seconds before the final buzzer."

In a separate post, Klein asserts that Obama is winning the popular vote anyway: "If you run the popular vote numbers such that you include Florida, include Puerto Rico, include caucus states, and exclude Michigan (where no one campaigned and only Clinton was on the ballot), Obama is way ahead. If you bend common sense to the degree that you count Michigan, and count uncommitteds for Obama, Obama remains ahead by 46,000 votes. And tonight, he's likely to pick up even more votes. Clinton's last hope was for high turnout in Puerto Rico, but as Bloomberg says, that didn't happen. So this isn't about who won the popular vote. Obama did."

Open Left's Chris Bowers agrees: "Early this morning, I wrote that Clinton currently leads in the popular vote by 19,899 votes. This figure is based upon the bottom line in the current Real Clear Politics count, minus 64,504 uncommited votes in Michigan that, according to exit polls, came from people who indicated they would have supported either John Edwards or Bill Richardson, had those candidates been on the ballot. However, I now realize that those totals were incorrect. This is because, in Michigan, 27,694 votes were not counted because they wrote in a candidate. When, in accordance with exit polls, 72.9167% of those votes are allocated to Obama, that puts another 20,194 votes in his column. According to the broadest possible definition of one-person, one-vote, this gives Obama an almost comically narrow lead of 357 votes heading into tomorrow's primaries."

CLINTON II: Bill's Baggage

Several liberal bloggers are arguing that Todd Purdum's lurid profile of Bill Clinton in the latest issue of Vanity Fair shows that the ex-President's baggage would have hurt his wife's candidacy had she won the nomination:

• Kathy G.: "It's hard not to come away from the article without a profound sense of relief: with Hillary's loss, the Democrats have clearly dodged a bullet. Back when Edwards dropped out and I was debating with myself whether I should support Clinton or Obama, one of my pro-Clinton arguments to myself was that, well, we know her. And we know Bill. We've already heard the worst, so there won't be any new scandals. Whereas, with Obama, there could be some unpleasant surprises. But obviously I was wrong about that. It's not the womanizing -- America knows Bill Clinton screws around, and America has shown, time and time again, that it don't give a flying fuck. No, what's troubling is that Bill's post-presidential associates and business dealings have got sleaze and conflicts of interest up the wazoo. If Hillary were the nominee, that's all we'd be hearing about. I think this article all but sinks any chances Hillary had of becoming Obama's running mate."
• Yglesias: "It's hard for me to tell how much of the sleazy behavior that Purdum hints at here is actually true. Based on the record, it wouldn't at all be unlike Clinton for some of it to be true. And based on the record, it wouldn't at all be unlike the press to run with some of it even if it isn't true. But either way, the point is that if there really is such a thing as the candidate with no new skeletons to be chewed over by the right-wing (and I'm skeptical there is) Hillary Clinton isn't it, any more than Barack Obama is."
• BooMan: "Former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myer's husband has a long and brutal piece in this month's Vanity Fair about the post-presidential life of Bill Clinton. The most explosive part of it is that it alleges that Bill Clinton carried on an affair with Walter Mondale's daughter while he was president. It also reveals that Monica Lewinsky suspected as much, which I did not know. [...] There's a lot more in this article that makes one wonder what kind of bullet we may have dodged by not nominating Hillary Clinton. A lot more."

NRO's Jim Geraghty: "I guess if you have dirt on the Clintons, you might as well use it now. No point in otherwise giving juicy details on the marriage of the junior senator from New York. [...] A story on her husband's possible additional infidelities, appearing 48 hours before her campaign probably comes to an end, feels a little like kicking Hillary when she's down."

OBAMA: See? The Public Agrees With Him!

Liberal bloggers are excited about a new Gallup poll showing that "large majorities of Democrats and independents, and even half of Republicans, believe the president of the United States should meet with the leaders of countries that are considered enemies of the United States":

• Oliver Willis: "Once again, the people stand with Barack."
• Moulitsas: "It's been illuminating seeing the Beltway get heart palpitations over Obama's vows to meet and negotiate with our nation's enemies. The foreign policy elite have shuddered. The Beltway media tried to turn Obama's initial words to this effect into a gaffe. Hillary responded by threatening to nuke Iran, thus proving her bona fides on this front. And John McCain and his dead-ender Republican Party is trying to make a campaign issue out of it. So what do the American people think? [...] Gasp! Can it be that the Beltway elite and the media and the Republicans are out of touch with the sentiments of regular Americans? Yup. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last time either."
• Atrios: "While our elite media often like to pretend they're just passive conduits of information, their coverage incorporates the standard assumptions and conventional wisdom of George Bush's Washington and they spin stories accordingly. So when Barack Obama says crazy things like maybe it's important to engage in diplomacy even with leaders we don't like they act like his head just spun around, Exorcist style. The reality is that most of us are above the age of 5 and understand the necessity and desirability of such things."
• Yglesias: "There's precious little evidence that public opinion is demanding a neo-imperial foreign policy for the United States. [...] While it took a certain amount of courage for Barack Obama to stand up to the crusted-over notion that the United States should set itself up as too damn important to conduct high-level talks with regional adversaries, there's not some genuine avalanche of public opinion on the other side of this issue. What you have instead is a political and media system that's very vulnerable to hype, fearmongering, hysteria, etc. But calm political leadership that doesn't panic at the first sign of conservative self-confidence about the politics of warmongering has a real chance to win these fights."

OBAMA II: The Next Carter/McGovern/Dukakis?

With Obama on the precipice of the Democratic nomination, several conservative bloggers are comparing him to previous failed Dem nominees:

• NRO's William J. Bennett: "The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of George McGovern, albeit without McGovern's military and political record. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far-left candidate in the tradition of Michael Dukakis, albeit without Dukakis's executive experience as governor. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of John Kerry, albeit without Kerry's record of years of service in the Senate. The Democratic party is about to nominate an unvetted candidate in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, albeit without Jimmy Carter's religious integrity as he spoke about it in 1976. Questions about all these attributes (from foreign policy expertise to executive experience to senatorial experience to judgment about foreign leaders to the instructors he has had in his cultural values) surround Barack Obama. And the Democratic party has chosen him."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "Obama is the most left-wing candidate the Democrats have nominated since George McGovern. If Obama wins the presidency, it is fair to say that it will be Jimmy Carter's second term. I think it is more accurate to postulate, however, that it will be George McGovern's first term. Even so, the Democratic Party has moved left since McGovern's defeat, and Obama is a product of the Democratic Party's post-McGovern left."

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt predicts that Obama will lose to McCain: "Obama has won the nomination by running as a hard left, anti-victory tax raiser with a circle of radical advisors, mentors and friends. He will lose the general because he really is a hard-left, anti-victory tax raiser with a circle of radical advisors, mentors and friends."

MCCAIN: His New Blogger Hire Is Drawing Fire

Liberal bloggers are criticizing the McCain camp's decision to hire Michael Goldfarb, a blogger for The Weekly Standard, as its deputy communications director:

Yglesias: "I was walking earlier today thinking to myself, 'you know, say what you will about John McCain, but he'll almost certainly be a better President than George W. Bush so we have something to look forward to no matter what happens in America.' Then I thought to myself that to write that up, you'd need to include the all-important to-be-sure sentence. Specifically, something like 'if, that is, he manages to avoid any catastrophic new wars that lead to massive bloodshed.' Then you read something about how Michael Goldfarb is leaving The Weekly Standard's blog to go join the McCain campaign, and you recall that that's a giant to-be-sure. Some folks take comfort in the fact that up until 1998-99 or so McCain had reasonably reasonable views about foreign policy, but he's been way out in crazy-land for years now and all indications are that his administration will be staffed by neocons too fanatical or dim-witted to have served in the Bush administration and been discredited."

Salon's Glenn Greenwald notes that Goldfarb recently wrote the following:

"[The Constitutional framers] sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war."

• Greenwald: "The very idea that the Founders -- whose principal concern was how to avoid consolidated power in any one person -- sought to vest 'near dictatorial power' in the President is too perverse for words. But that's been the core 'principle' driving the destructive radicalism of the last seven years, and it's an extremist view that is obviously welcomed at the highest levels of the McCain campaign. [...] Somehow, McCain continues to be depicted in the media as a 'moderate' and the like despite the enthusiastic support of our nation's most crazed and unprincipled warmongers. But even more revealing is that McCain is now staffing his communications apparatus at the highest levels by reaching into Bill Kristol's The Weekly Standard -- one of the most deceptive propaganda organs of the Bush years."
• Crooks and Liars' SilentPatriot: "Can someone in the press please ask McCain whether or not he agrees with his new Deputy Communications Director when he says that the President has 'near dictatorial powers'? Please? [...] After eight years of a President who literally believes in this -- and, indeed, proves it on a near daily basis -- shouldn't it be newsworthy that his Republican successor is, at least, surrounding himself with people who thinks it's a good idea?"

Greenwald also notes that Goldfarb recently wrote the following:

"The Times indicts the Bush administration for exposing terrorists captured abroad to 'head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.' Boo hoo."

• Greenwald: "McCain is a deeply principled opponent of torture and waterboarding which is why his new communications official's view of objections to those techniques is 'Boo hoo.'"
• The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "The Republican nominee has hired a bone fide torture enthusiast."

MCCAIN II: The One-Term Pledge

Several conservative bloggers are discussing Mark Ambinder's report that McCain almost took a "one-term" pledge when he formally announced his presidential candidacy last year:

• RedState's Ben Domenech likes the idea: "The benefits are many: it shows McCain as accepting his Churchill-like status on the right (we need you for this war, and when that's done, you can retire), it earns him respect once again as a politician unlike any other (imagine the interviews -- the MSM gags on their spoons), it makes it more likely that angry pro-Hillary Democrats would consider voting for him (four years of McCain or eight of Barack? They can take four years of McCain), and it cements the idea that McCain views this as service, not personal advancement. It also has the added benefit, for conservatives, of setting up a far more clearcut primary battle for 2012. I have no idea of any response that Obama can make that would seem good in response to an announcement like this from McCain."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit doesn't understand why Mark Salter, McCain's chief speechwriter, confirmed the rumor: "The fact that millions of voters are now going to hear that [McCain] wouldn't go through with [this one-term pledge] will leave the impression that he's not so different or selfless after all. He made the right decision for the reasons Ambinder gives, particularly given that he'll be facing a deep blue Congress that would have every incentive to gridlock him if they knew he was on the clock, and admittedly it's not like Obama's in a position to taunt him on this, but why on earth would the campaign confirm it? I don't get it."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Demography Is Destiny

Patrick Ruffini writes:

"One of the real stories of this primary has been how limited polling has been as a tool, and how Democratic electorates in state after state have defaulted to demographics. [...] Now that we are approaching a perfect 50-state electoral breakdown of Clinton-Obama -- marred only by the presence of small-state caucuses -- we see that the results are totally internally coherent based on demographics. In fact, I'm prepared to argue that we would have gotten almost the same margin in each state in a national primary held February 5th. Because the candidates themselves polarized the electorate demographically, momentum and events (and polls) made little difference."

Ezra Klein is saddened by this trend:

"Indeed, the absence of a momentum effect, a la [John] Kerry, has been starling. Ohio didn't care what [Virginia] did, New Hampshire had no interest in Iowa, and North Carolina was unmoved by Pennsylvania. In this race, demography really has been destiny, and that doesn't strike me as an encouraging conclusion."

LEST WE FORGET: When You Gonna Drop Magnum On Us, Buddy?

From Lynn Hirschberg's New York Times Magazine cover story about Tyra Banks (h/t Amelie Gillette):

"Tyra Banks has 275 smiles. Like a star athlete who has perfected a jump shot or a curveball, Banks has studied, honed and mastered the smile. In her arsenal are the 'surprise smile,' the 'angry but still smiling' smile, the 'flirting with boyfriend' smile and the 'commercial' smile, which, like the rest of Tyra's smiles, was designed and perfected when Banks, who is now 34, began modeling at 15.

'Smiles come naturally to me, but I started thinking of them as an art form at my command,' Banks told me. 'I studied all the time. I looked at magazines, I'd practice in front of the mirror and I'd ask photographers about the best angles. I can now pull out a smile at will.'"