June 09, 2008

6/9: And Then There Were Two...

It is ironic that Hillary Clinton received some of her best coverage from liberal bloggers on the day that she bowed out of the race. Clinton's 6/7 concession speech earned effusive praise from nearly every liberal blogger, including many of the NY senator's critics. The netroots were angered by Clinton's defiant "non-concession speech" last Tuesday, and many approached her Saturday speech with some trepidation. But they were surprised and impressed by Clinton's remarks and felt that her endorsement of Barack Obama came across as heartfelt and genuine.

As the Clinton lovefest proceeded in the lefty blogosphere, conservative bloggers were only too happy to remind their liberal counterparts that the RNC has already begun using Clinton's words against Obama...

CLINTON: Bravo, Hillary!

Clinton's concession speech received plaudits from nearly every liberal blogger, including many of her detractors:

• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "[This was] a gracious and what had to be a very difficult speech to give."
• Ezra Klein: "[This is] what unity sounds like. [A] beautiful speech by Hillary Clinton endorsing Barack Obama."
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "I think this is very good stuff and certainly explains better than I could why her supporters ought to line up behind Obama. Genuinely moving, and excellent overall -- really a total home run."
• Mark Kleiman: "I was reasonably confident that Hillary Clinton would do the right thing. But I couldn't have bet that she would do it so well. Today's speech seemed to be drawn from a different pile than all the speeches she gave during the campaign. Line-by-line, it was beautifully written and admirably delivered. But more than that, it traced out an argument, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And most of all, the delivery felt relaxed, cheerful, and unforced."
• Firedoglake's David Neiwert: "It was a marvelous and heartfelt speech, very skillfully and adroitly delivered. [...] I particularly liked the line about how she may not have finally shattered that final glass ceiling, but there were now 'about 18 million cracks' in it. That truly is the case."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "The speech [was] good. It was touching, and she said what she needed to say -- even though it was doubtless an extremely difficult thing to do. Hilzoy and others have spoken eloquently about the historic nature of Obama's victory. But it's important to remember the truly historic nature of her campaign as well. It's hard not to feel sad for her today."
• TPM's Greg Sargent: "Hillary struck an extraordinarily difficult balancing act with real grace and eloquence. On the one hand, she needed to signal that she has built a movement of her own and to reinforce the idea that she is the undisputed leader of American women -- both as a genuine point of pride and as proof of her undiminishing influence. Hence the repeated references to the 18 million votes she earned. Yet she needed to do this while signaling unequivocally to her supporters that all the energy and passion she's unleashed now has to be channeled towards delivering the prize she and her supporters coveted with such intensity to someone who has been her bitter rival for nearly 18 months. And she pulled it off. Really an extraordinary performance."

CLINTON II: Hillary Feels The Love

Pro-Clinton bloggers also lavished praise on the NY senator:

• The Huffington Post's Hilary Rosen: "Hillary Clinton gave the speech of her life today and as she endorsed her primary opponent, she cemented her place in history. As importantly, she also shone a path for herself as a national leader for years to come. [...] What is clear, is that she couldn't have given the speech she gave today on Tuesday night. Today, her voice was strong, her mind was certain and her back was straight. She wanted us to know she would be an unequivocal supporter for Obama."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "I know many people were upset Hillary didn't do this on Tuesday. One of the reasons I wasn't concerned about it was that I thought her concession and endorsement of Barack Obama, when it finally did come as I trusted it would, deserved to be a standalone historic moment, just as Barack's declaration of victory on Tuesday was. She certainly delivered on that today."
• Taylor Marsh: "[This was] the best speech of Senator Hillary Clinton's political career. [...] Hillary Clinton did what she needed today and then some. No reservations. No pauses. Complete commitment. Hillary is a better candidate today and all I can do is dream about tomorrow. I stand by her today, tomorrow, anywhere, any time, any year. Today and tomorrow that requires me to do everything I can to defeat John McCain, and make sure Barack Obama is elected president in November. That's exactly what I intend to do."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "While a dream was realized when the Democratic Party nominated an African American as our Presidential candidate, a dream was thwarted also, that of a woman nominee. Hillary Clinton honored BOTH moments in this speech. It was one of the best speeches I have ever seen."

CLINTON III: Conservatives Express Their Thanks

Now that Clinton has endorsed Obama, conservative bloggers are reminding Dems that the RNC will use Clinton's past attacks on Obama in their upcoming TV ads:

• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Hillary Clinton will do her best to walk back her rhetoric over the last six months when she officially endorses Barack Obama for the nomination and general election. [...] That will require a lot of work, especially given all of the blasts she has leveled against the nominee for the past four months. [...] She has a lot of explaining to do as to why she thinks Obama has more qualifications to be commander-in-chief other than 'a speech he gave in 2002', and where he acquired those credentials in the few short months since she made that accusation. Hillary has to also explain how Obama stopped 'dangerously oversimplifying' foreign policy in a time of war. [...] The problem for Hillary is that these statements stick because they have a great deal of truth in them. The RNC has a library of these comments ready for ads in the fall. Every time she hits the road for Obama, the Republicans will remind voters of Hillary's real opinions of Barack Obama. She'll either have to say she was lying then or come up with ridiculous rationales to pretend that Obama has overcome these gaping liabilities."
• AmSpec Blog's Robert Stacy McCain: "As Barack Obama finishes his long twilight struggle against Hillary Clinton, he finds the vaunted Republican 'attack machine' waiting to chew him into pulp. The RNC rolls out MeetBarackObama.com, including such categories as 'Democrats vs Obama', with videos like this. [...] This very much has echoes of 1972, when George McGovern emerged victorious from the Democratic primaries with the 'Acid, Amnesty and Abortion' placard hanging around his neck -- because his Democratic rivals had put it there."
• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "Barack Obama may have lots and lots of reasons to dislike Hillary Clinton at the end of all of this. She has done everything within her power to prevent Democrats from being able to come together earlier and united their party against John McCain."

OBAMA: Barry, You're Out Of Your Element

Conservative bloggers continue to criticize Obama's foreign policy views:

• Power Line's Scott Johnson accuses Obama of being inconsistent in his statements about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard: "Obama hammered Hillary Clinton for her vote in favor of the [Kyl-Lieberman] amendment. [...] On Wednesday before AIPAC, however, the time had come for Obama to support the designation of the IRG as a terrorist organization, eight months after the Senate voted on the subject and after the conclusion of the primary season the evening before. What does Barack Obama really think? Was his opposition to Kyl-Lieberman an elaborate pose exploiting the fears of left-wing Democrats against Clinton on the flimsiest of pretexts? Did his speech to AIPAC expressing support for the formal designation of the IRG as a terrorist entity express his real view? In retrospect, one can see the deliberation and calculation that Obama has devoted to the issue without being able to deduce his real view, if he has one."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "How could someone so well-meaning, allegedly so worldly and so expert in foreign policy manage to insult and upset so many foreign powers before he even gets to the Democratic convention? Well, Obama's errors, whether they stem from domestic pandering (e.g. NAFTA and Colombia free trade) or inconsistency (e.g. Iran, Jerusalem), suggest that there is more to foreign policy than living overseas as a child. And has Obama bothered to talk to some of our allies in the region about his plan to immediately (or is it gradually now?) withdrawal U.S. troops from Iraq? I thought we were supposed to consult more with our allies."

OBAMA VEEPSTAKES: Does Hillary Even Want To Be Obama's VP?

Big Tent Democrat argues that an Obama/Clinton ticket is necessary to unify the party: "I'd like to interrupt this Unity Day message with a small reminder to the Barack Obama campaign and the Democratic Party -- unless he picks Hillary Clinton as his running mate -- the day he announces his Vice Presidential candidate will be a day of disunity. [...] Obama is in a tight race with John McCain and needs a unified Democratic Party and if he is set on NOT picking Hillary Clinton as his VP, I hope he has a plan for re-unifying the Party the day after he insists on NOT unifying, indeed, in dividing the Party by not choosing Hillary Clinton as his VP."

Several liberal bloggers disagreed with Big Tent Democrat, arguing that it isn't even clear that Clinton wants to be Obama's running mate:

• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "BTD has been banging this particular drum for a long time, and I happen to think he's wrong about it. The party will unite just fine around any reasonable VP choice as long as Hillary supports the ticket and rallies her fans to the Obama campaign -- and I think she will. But I have a different question: what makes anyone think that Hillary wants to be Obama's VP? I just don't see it. On a social level, it's hard to picture someone of Hillary's age, experience, and temperament being willing to play second fiddle to a young guy like Obama. On a political level, she has more clout in the Senate than she would as vice president. On a personal level, Obama and Clinton (and their respective teams) just don't seem to like each other much."
• Yglesias: "I think Kevin Drum raises the right issue about this, namely the near-total lack of evidence that Hillary Clinton (as opposed to some number of her retainers) has any interest in the vice presidency. It's certainly true that if Clinton has a strong desire to be vice president, she arguably has it within her power to make a 'I'm on the ticket or there's no unity' play. But if she doesn't want to be VP, then how disgruntled can her supporters really be about that?"
• Ezra Klein: "Like Kevin, I've never quite understood why Hillary Clinton would want the vice presidency. First, the job, as he argues, has serious shortcomings, and there's every reason to imagine she'll be more powerful as the best known Senator in America. But second, by all accounts, she's certain Obama will lose the election, and it's never a good idea to be associated with a losing ticket. Conversely, if she goes back to the Senate, works hard for Obama, and he loses, she can easily assume a de facto role as leader of the Democratic opposition to John McCain, which would set her up more naturally for a run in 2012, if indeed that's what she wants."

Meanwhile, MyDD's Natasha Chart responds to pro-Clinton bloggers (such as Jeralyn Merritt) who argue it would be an unforgivable insult if Obama chose any woman besides Clinton to be his running mate: "I just don't understand that line of reasoning...Is it insulting to John Edwards if Obama picks another White man? Would it insult Bill Richardson if Obama picked another Hispanic? It seems to me that the feminist position would hold that there's more than one woman in this country qualified to be president, and if Obama's pick happens to be female and seems like a good candidate, why shouldn't I be glad of that? I think it'd be worse if he wasn't even going to consider a woman besides Clinton, who isn't sure to want the spot. With as many female politicians as we do have in our party, why shouldn't it seem perfectly normal for some of their names to come up in consideration for top jobs? [...] Considering the number of women in leadership in her campaign, Clinton doesn't seem like someone who'd pull the ladder up after herself."

MCCAIN: More McSame

Liberal bloggers are criticizing McCain after one of his surrogates, SC Sen. Lindsey Graham, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that McCain's tax and health care policies were an extension of George W. Bush's policies:

Stephanopoulos: Let me bring Senator Graham back in on this because you brought up two. You said the tax policy and the health care policy were essentially, Senator Graham, John McCain is calling for an extension or maybe enhancement of the Bush policies.
Graham: Yeah, absolutely.

• Think Progress' Ben: "McCain's speech last week represented a feeble attempt to distance himself from Bush, something his top surrogate acknowledges is futile. [...] The simple fact is that Graham is right. McCain is proposing massive tax cuts that primarily benefit higher-income households, ignore other priorities and drive up the national debt by trillions. And McCain's health care policy would raise costs and abandon the uninsured. That sure sounds like an 'extension' and 'enhancement' of Bush's policies."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "John McCain and his campaign have been working diligently to reject any suggestion that he'd offer another Bush term if elected. Given this, I'm surprised his campaign surrogates haven't been prepped with better responses to questions like these. [...] As a rule, Republicans are supposed to disagree with the Democrats' central criticism of the GOP presidential candidate. But if Graham, [MO Rep. Roy] Blunt, & Co. want to tell national television audiences that we're right, I couldn't be more pleased.""
• Oliver Willis: "I find it astonishing that John McCain thinks that we should just follow along with President Bush's economic policies. But I guess when you're the candidate of same-old same-old you shouldn't expect much. [...] As John McCain said: That's not change we can believe in...my friends."

In a related post, publius argues that linking McCain to Bush is a smart strategy for Obama: "Whatever the merits of the Bush III strategy may be, the McCain team clearly feels like it's damaging them. Otherwise, they wouldn't be pushing back so hard on it. Thus, as the general election goes on, McCain is increasingly going to feel the need to play up his maverick side. Of course, all candidates move to the center in the general. But McCain will feel more urgency about it than, say, Bush did. And each time he does so, it will rankle an already-rankled base. And let's be honest -- it's hard to imagine the base knocking on doors this fall to get him elected as it is, much less after several months of hearing him run away from Bush."

MCCAIN II: Adventures In Branding

Liberal bloggers are accusing the McCain campaign of shamelessly changing its message:

• Daily Kos' georgia10: "The transformation from 'primary season' McCain to 'general election' has been remarkable. Gone is the austere black-and-white website and scrubbed is the text that McCain wants to send more troops into Iraq. The not-so-subtle slogan 'the American president Americans have been waiting for' has been tossed aside, and sing-songs about bombing Iran are a distant memory. Welcome the new, general election McCain. His website is now bursting with color, and has an all-too-familiar logo on it. His slogan, riffing off of Obama's, is now 'a leader we can believe in.' His speech on Tuesday? It was all about 'change.' In fact, McCain mentioned 'change' twice as many times as Obama did in his victory speech on Tuesday. [...] But no matter how clever the McCain camp thinks it is by camouflaging itself in Obama's mantle of change and pragmatism, no amount of spankin' new marketing or rebranding can change the candidate himself. No amount of reinvention can alleviate McCain's YouTube Problem, or erase the fact that McCain has voted with President Bush almost 100% of the time over the last two years."
• MyDD's J Ro: "John McCain has had three months to run unopposed and so far, he hasn't been making a convincing case to the American people that he has an overarching idea of where America should be going. I've been watching McCain's campaign closely over the last few months, and the multiple and often competing 'visions' he has been laying out don't coalesce into anything that makes sense. [...] McCain has no coherent vision and seems to be running on his checkered Senate voting record and his war-hero persona. As Holly Bailey and Jon Meacham at Newsweek point out, he is beginning to primarily define himself by what he is not (Bush, Obama), a sure-fire losing strategy. Americans -- who by and large care about their country but don't have the inclination to understand every nuance of policy of character -- tend to elect candidates with a coherent message because they feel secure that whatever a candidate's policies are, they will fit into the message they are preaching."
• Balloon Juice's Tim F.: "It's undeniable at this point -- the McCain campaign is freaking out. In the last week, John McCain revamped his website to look almost exactly like Barack Obama's. McCain's new slogan ('A leader we can believe in') is an obvious retread of the slogan that Obama has been using for most of the campaign ('Change we can believe in'). McCain's painfully bad Louisiana speech spent most of its brimstone angrily denying the criticism that he's running for Bush's third term. The McCain camp is so worried by that line of attack that they had the candidate repeat it verbatim, a major mistake in terms of messaging. [...] McCain's advisors know full well that the GOP brand is trash. [...] Consequently, instead of the two party race that everyone expected we're going to get a Democrat and a guy pretending to be a Democrat in a desperate way that's kind of pathetic."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Joe-ology

TPM reader CG speculates about Sen. Joe Lieberman's motives:

"Lieberman is in a very delicate political position. His value to Republicans, and his popularity with them, is that he is a Democrat who criticizes Democrats mercilessly. If he were to become a Republican he would quickly become just another RINO (Republican in Name Only) Senator from New England. His policy positions are, except for his intense support of any military action in the middle east, pretty middle of the road for New England and thus are well to the left of the Republican party. He would be just another Jim Jeffords or Lincoln Chafee -- and they both felt very uncomfortable in the Bush era Republican Party. And this is why he has continued to caucus with the Democrats. But this has meant that Joe has had to walk a tightrope -- he criticizes the Democrats enough to keep his popularity up with the Republicans, but doesn't go so far as to have the Democrats dump him from the caucus. He's played the thin 51-49 majority for all it is worth.

His recent actions, however, may indicate that Joe realizes he can't walk this tightrope forever. His popularity in CT is down near Bush territory, and with the Democrats likely to have a larger majority in the Senate come November, his leverage will be gone. My guess is that he realizes this is his last term in the Senate, and his last year with any leverage, so he's placing an all-or-nothing bet on a McCain victory. Joe is angling for either the VP slot or a high position in the McCain cabinet."

LEST WE FORGET: Conservatism & Heavy Metal

Townhall's Matt Lewis draws an interesting analogy:

"What does heavy-metal music and the conservative movement have in common? Surprisingly, more than you may think. At least, that's what a buddy of mine argues. Here's his theory: In the early and mid 80's both conservatism -- and heavy-metal -- were on the up-swing. But heavy-metal's mainstream popularity turned out to be a double-edged sword. Once the few elite bands started making big money, there was a 'signing frenzy,' where every 19-year-old with a good voice and cool hair moved to LA and instantly got a record deal. This, of course, led to the music basically sucking. [...]

As my buddy says: 'It went from G-N-R and Motley to Poison and Winger. Of course it was gonna die!'

...To which I added my political spin: 'Yeah, we went from Barry Goldwater to Larry Craig. Of course it was going to die...' [...]

Sadly, it looks like we are essentially where heavy-metal was in 1992 -- and we are Warrant -- while Obama is Nirvana (no religious pun intended). Let's just hope McCain can be Metallica or Van Halen -- and survive -- even without the zeitgeist."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at June 9, 2008 01:07 PM