Sabin wrote:I talked to my elderly Jewish relatives about who they would vote for. They have voted Republican only once or twice in this 80+ years and they said they would vote for McCain over Obama because "they didn't know about him." Meaning whether or not he would be good for the state of Israel. They cited Jimmy Carter as a President who was bad for Israel, casually forgetting the landmark peace agreements that he initiated. If enough Jews are similarly short on memory and casual in allying themselves with a country they don't live in, I fully expect Barack Obama to lose Florida. New York looks good, and California and Illinois are locks but Barack Obama needs Florida and there are enough old Jews there who only care about the security of the State of Israel who will vote for McCain, forgoing any future domestic policies in this country in lieu of a terrifying future where Obama takes office and is somehow "bad" for Israel. At this point, a loaf of white bread and a jar of mayo would be good for Israel. I'm embarassed.
Will they change their minds if Bloomberg is Obama's running mate?
What if the preponderance of "old" people everywhere vote for McCain and Obama's pasionate young supporters become worn out, tired and stay home in the general election?
What if the large numbers of independants and crossover Republicans who have voted for Obama in the primaries are only voting for him to keep Hillary from getting the nomination and vote Republican in the national election after all?
OscarGuy wrote:Bill Clinton was for/against those things. Let's not immediately assume Hillary is there with him.
And besides, Obama says he's against gay marriage as much as Hillary is, so really throwing the gay card in there is a touch misleading.
Hillary can't have it both ways, saying she was there when a "good" thing is discussed (like the economy) and pleading distance for all the lousy crap her husband did (eg, NAFTA).
The other day Obama was speaking before a predominantly black crowd in Beaufort, Texas and told them that homophobia is anti-Christian. He was met with stony silence.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
I talked to my elderly Jewish relatives about who they would vote for. They have voted Republican only once or twice in this 80+ years and they said they would vote for McCain over Obama because "they didn't know about him." Meaning whether or not he would be good for the state of Israel. They cited Jimmy Carter as a President who was bad for Israel, casually forgetting the landmark peace agreements that he initiated. If enough Jews are similarly short on memory and casual in allying themselves with a country they don't live in, I fully expect Barack Obama to lose Florida. New York looks good, and California and Illinois are locks but Barack Obama needs Florida and there are enough old Jews there who only care about the security of the State of Israel who will vote for McCain, forgoing any future domestic policies in this country in lieu of a terrifying future where Obama takes office and is somehow "bad" for Israel. At this point, a loaf of white bread and a jar of mayo would be good for Israel. I'm embarassed.
It's a puzzle to me why ANY gay person (non self-loathing anyway) would support the Clintons given that Bill approved "Don't Ask Don't Tell", signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, and said in 2004 that John Kerry should come out strongly against gay marriage (before and after he lost). I guess the gays calling Obama an empty suit also included his promise to repeal the homophobic D.O.M.A. as part of his "nothingness."
Gay Clinton Backers Defect to Obama, Eroding Her Base
by
Kim Chipman
Feb. 29 (Bloomberg)
Hillary Clinton cemented years of goodwill with gays in 2000, when she walked in New York's Pride Parade.
``Having the first lady march was enormously powerful,'' said Representative Barney Frank, one of two openly gay members of Congress, both of whom are backing Clinton. ``I've never seen such a strong emotional outpouring.''
Now some gay voters, who have been among Clinton's most stalwart supporters and helped her defeat Barack Obama in Democratic presidential primaries earlier this month, may be drifting toward the Illinois senator, according to political activists and campaign officials.
``Clinton probably is still a little bit ahead of Obama among leadership in the community,'' said Steve Elmendorf, a Clinton supporter and lobbyist with ties to the gay and lesbian communities. ``They have a longer and deeper relationship with her than Obama, but he has a good record,'' said Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid.
``Obama has presented more detailed position papers on gay and lesbian issues than Clinton,'' said David Mixner, 61, a writer and activist who helped longtime friend Bill Clinton win over the gay and lesbian vote during the 1992 presidential race and who supported both of Hillary Clinton's successful Senate races in New York.
`The Young Reformer'
This time, Mixner is backing Obama. The Clintons have become ``a machine, and Obama's the young reformer,'' said Mixner, who joined Obama's campaign after initially supporting former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, 54, who dropped out of the Democratic race last month.
Musician Melissa Etheridge, who came out as a lesbian in 1993 at President Bill Clinton's Triangle Ball, the first ever inaugural event for gay men and lesbians, said earlier this month that she is backing Obama.
Hollywood mogul David Geffen, a one-time supporter of Bill Clinton, also is backing Obama. The openly gay Geffen, co-founder of the DreamWorks SKG movie studio, held a $1.3 million fundraiser for Obama last year.
Star Backers
Clinton backers include professional tennis player Billie Jean King; Eileen Chaiken, producer and creator of the ``L Word,'' a Showtime television series about lesbians; and Bruce Cohen, producer of movies including Oscar-winning ``American Beauty.''
Clinton's support among gay voters helped her hold her own against Obama, 46, in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests. In California, the most populous state, 63 percent of people identifying themselves as a gay man or lesbian voted for Clinton, according to exit polls. In New York, she drew gay support of 59 percent.
Since then, Clinton has lost 11 consecutive contests to Obama, who according to exit polls has cut into her base of support among single women, Latinos and blue-collar workers. To keep her candidacy afloat, she needs victories March 4 in Texas - - and particularly in the large gay communities in Houston and Dallas -- and Ohio, which has the sixth-largest gay and lesbian population in the U.S.
Supporting Civil Unions
Both Clinton, 60, and Obama oppose same-sex marriages while supporting civil unions. A major difference between the candidates is that Obama supports full repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, a law signed by Bill Clinton -- under pressure from a Republican-dominated Congress -- that prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages and permits states to do the same. Hillary Clinton wants to roll back only part of the law.
``That's a big deal,'' said Eric Stern, who joined Obama's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender policy-advisory group after heading former candidate Edwards's gay steering committee. More than half of the members of that 49-member group are now backing Obama, Stern said.
While many gay and lesbian voters remain loyal Clinton supporters, Mixner said, others remain angry over her previous support of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Some also still tie her to the military's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy instituted during her husband's presidency, which reversed a campaign pledge he made to allow gays to serve openly.
A Sin
Obama, meanwhile, prompted anger from gay-rights activists when he invited gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who has called homosexuality a sin, to perform at a fundraiser last October. Obama later denounced McClurkin's views.
Tobias Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who heads Obama's national gay- policy committee, said inviting McClurkin was ``a mistake, but nothing more complicated than a mistake, and one that Obama responded to.''
On the eve of last month's Martin Luther King Day, Obama called on blacks to begin examining attitudes toward gays and lesbians. ``If we are honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community hasn't always been true to King's vision of a beloved community,'' he said Jan. 20 at King's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Mixner said he probably would have endorsed Obama anyway, ``but that speech made it easier.'' At a Beaumont, Texas, town- hall meeting yesterday, Obama said he has heard people in the black community and churches ``saying things that I don't think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian.''
Showdown States
Both campaigns are targeting gay voters in the showdown Texas and Ohio primaries. In Texas, Clinton support still runs strong, said Jesse Garcia, 36, head of the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, the national gay and lesbian organization's biggest chapter in the state and the third-largest in the country.
``There's a real allegiance to Hillary,'' said Garcia, whose group endorsed Clinton last week.
In Ohio, meanwhile, Clinton's campaign formally launched a statewide committee this week to spearhead get-out-the-vote efforts in gay areas of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.
Obama has countered with full-page advertisements in gay publications in Texas and Ohio. The message is being heard, said Patrick King, 44, a private nurse from Houston who cared for the late Lloyd Bentsen, the former senator and Bill Clinton's first Treasury secretary.
``I was with Hillary until I heard Obama speak on TV about a month ago,'' King said. ``I thought, `Wow, this guy is really sincere.'''
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
THE NATION
February 28, 2008 (March 17, 2008 issue)
Obama, Being Called a Muslim Is Not a Smear
Naomi Klein
Hillary Clinton denied leaking the photo of Barack Obama wearing a turban, but her campaign manager says that even if she had, it would be no big deal. "Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely."
Sure she did. And George W. Bush put on a fetching Chamato poncho in Santiago, while Paul Wolfowitz burned up YouTube with his antimalarial African dance routines when he was World Bank prez. The obvious difference is this: when white politicians go ethnic, they just look funny. When a black presidential contender does it, he looks foreign. And when the ethnic apparel in question is vaguely reminiscent of the clothing worn by Iraqi and Afghan fighters (at least to many Fox viewers, who think any headdress other than a baseball cap is a declaration of war on America), the image is downright frightening.
The turban "scandal" is all part of what is being referred to as "the Muslim smear." It includes everything from exaggerated enunciations of Obama's middle name to the online whisper campaign that Obama attended a fundamentalist madrassa in Indonesia (a lie), was sworn in on a Koran (another lie) and if elected would attach RadioShack speakers to the White House to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer (I made that one up).
So far, Obama's campaign has responded with aggressive corrections that tout his Christian faith, attack the attackers and channel a cooperative witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee. "Barack has never been a Muslim or practiced any other faith besides Christianity," states one fact sheet. "I'm not and never have been of the Muslim faith," Obama told a Christian News reporter.
Of course Obama must correct the record, but he doesn't have to stop there. What is disturbing about the campaign's response is that it leaves unchallenged the disgraceful and racist premise behind the entire "Muslim smear": that being Muslim is de facto a source of shame. Obama's supporters often say they are being "Swiftboated," casually accepting the idea that being accused of Muslimhood is tantamount to being accused of treason.
Substitute another faith or ethnicity, and you'd expect a very different response. Consider a report from the archives of this magazine. Thirteen years ago, Daniel Singer, The Nation's late, much-missed Europe correspondent, went to Poland to cover a hotly contested presidential election. He reported that the race had descended into an ugly debate over whether one of the candidates, Aleksander Kwasniewski, was a closet Jew. The press claimed his mother had been buried in a Jewish cemetery (she was still alive), and a popular TV show aired a skit featuring the Christian candidate dressed as a Hasidic Jew. "What perturbed me," Singer wryly observed, "was that Kwasniewski's lawyers threatened to sue for slander rather than press for an indictment under the law condemning racist propaganda."
We should expect no less of the Obama campaign. When asked during the Ohio debate about Louis Farrakhan's support for his candidacy, Obama did not hesitate to call Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments "unacceptable and reprehensible." When the turban photo flap came up in the same debate, he used the occasion to say nothing at all.
Farrakhan's infamous comments about Jews took place twenty-four years ago. The orgy of hate that is "the Muslim smear" is unfolding in real time, and it promises to greatly intensify in a general election. These attacks do not simply "smear Barack's Christian faith," as John Kerry claimed in a campaign mailing. They are an attack on all Muslims, some of whom actually do exercise their rights to cover their heads and send their kids to religious school. Thousands even have the very common name Hussein. All are watching their culture used as a crude bludgeon against Obama, while the candidate who is the symbol of racial harmony fails to defend them. This at a time when US Muslims are bearing the brunt of the Bush Administration's assaults on civil liberties, including dragnet wiretapping, and are facing a documented spike in hate crimes.
Occasionally, though not nearly enough, Obama says that Muslims are "deserving of respect and dignity." What he has never done is what Singer called for in Poland: denounce the attacks themselves as racist propaganda, in this case against Muslims.
The core of Obama's candidacy is that he alone--who lived in Indonesia as a boy and has an African grandmother--can "repair the world" after the Bush wrecking ball. That repair job begins with the 1.4 billion Muslims around the world, many of whom are convinced that the United States has been waging a war against their faith. This perception is based on facts, among them the fact that Muslim civilians are not counted among the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan; that Islam has been desecrated in US-run prisons; that voting for an Islamic party resulted in collective punishment in Gaza. It is also fueled by the rise of a virulent strain of Islamophobia in Europe and North America.
As the most visible target of this rising racism, Obama has the power to be more than its victim. He can use the attacks to begin the very process of global repair that is the most seductive promise of his campaign. The next time he's asked about his alleged Muslimness, Obama can respond not just by clarifying the facts but by turning the tables. He can state clearly that while a liaison with a pharmaceutical lobbyist may be worthy of scandalized exposure, being a Muslim is not. Changing the terms of the debate this way is not only morally just but tactically smart--it's the one response that could defuse these hateful attacks. The best part is this: unlike ending the Iraq War and closing Guantánamo, standing up to Islamophobia doesn't need to wait until after the election. Obama can use his campaign to start now. Let the repairing begin. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/klein
NEW YORK TIMES
February 26, 2008
Poll Shows Obama Is Seen as More Likely to Beat McCain
By ROBIN TONER
WASHINGTON — In the past two months, Senator Barack Obama has built a commanding coalition among Democratic voters, with especially strong support among men, and is now viewed by most Democrats as the candidate best able to defeat Senator John McCain, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
After 40 Democratic primaries and caucuses, capped by a winning streak in 11 contests over the last two weeks, Mr. Obama has made substantial gains across most major demographic groups in the Democratic Party, including men and women, liberals and moderates, higher- and lower-income voters, and those with and without college degrees.
But there are signs of vulnerability for Mr. Obama in this national poll: While he has a strong lead among Democratic voters on his ability to unite and inspire the country, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is still viewed by more Democrats as better prepared for the job of president. And while he has made progress among women, he still faces a striking gender gap: Mr. Obama is backed by two-thirds of the Democratic men and 45 percent of the women. White women remain a Clinton stronghold.
When all voters are asked to look ahead to the general election, Mr. McCain, the likely Republican nominee, is seen as better prepared for the presidency, better able to handle an international crisis and more equipped to serve as commander in chief than either of the Democratic candidates. The poll provides a snapshot of Mr. Obama’s strength after this first, frenzied round of primaries and caucuses, which knocked seven of the nine Democratic candidates out of the race. For the first time in a New York Times/CBS News Poll, he moved ahead of Mrs. Clinton nationally, with 54 percent of Democratic primary voters saying they wanted to see him nominated, while 38 percent preferred Mrs. Clinton. A new USA Today/Gallup Poll released Monday showed a similar result, 51 percent for Mr. Obama to 39 percent for Mrs. Clinton.
These national polls are not predictive of the Democratic candidates’ standings in individual states, notably Ohio and Texas, which hold the next big-delegate primaries on March 4. Most recent polls there show a neck-and-neck race in Texas, with Mrs. Clinton having a lead in Ohio; her campaign advisers say that if she prevails next Tuesday the race will begin anew.
But the NYT/CBS News poll shows that Mr. Obama’s coalition — originally derided by critics as confined to upper-income reformers, young people and African-Americans — has broadened widely. In December, for example, he had the support of 26 percent of the male Democratic primary voters; in the latest poll, that figure had climbed to 67 percent.
“He’s from Illinois and I’m from Illinois and he reminds me of Abraham Lincoln,” said Dylan Jones, 53, a laborer from Oxford, N.C., who was interviewed in a follow-up to the poll. “I can see him out there splitting rails. I don’t have anything against Hillary Clinton, so I guess it’s because he’s new blood.”
Similarly, Mr. Obama’s support among those with household incomes under $50,000 rose to 48 percent from 35 percent since December. His support among moderates rose to 59 percent from 28 percent. In contrast, Mrs. Clinton’s strength among Democratic men dropped to 28 percent from 42 percent in December; her support among voters in households making under $50,000 held stable.
Even among women, Mr. Obama made strides — he had the support of 19 percent of white women in December, and 40 percent in the most recent poll. White women, however, remain Mrs. Clinton’s most loyal base of support — 51 percent backed the senator from New York, statistically unchanged from the 48 percent who backed her in December.
“I like them both,” said Ann Powers, 63, a coordinator for special-education programs in Fort Dodge, Iowa. “I just think he is too inexperienced and she’s dealt with more in the last 20 years.” Billie Stimoff, a 72-year-old retiree from Kodak, Tenn., said, “It’s time to see what a woman can do because men sure have made a mess of things.”
The national telephone poll was conducted Feb. 20-24 with 1,115 registered voters, including 427 Democratic primary voters and 327 Republican primary voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for all voters, plus or minus five percentage points for Democratic voters and plus or minus five percentage points for Republican voters.
The poll showed Republicans settling in with their likely nominee. Eight in ten said they would be satisfied if Mr. McCain wins their party’s nomination, although just 3 in 10 said they would be very satisfied. Nearly 9 in 10 said he was prepared for the presidency and more than 8 in 10 said they had confidence in his ability to deal with an international crisis, while a remarkable 96 percent said he would likely make an effective commander in chief.
But misgivings remain among those who describe themselves as conservative Republicans, with a majority of those voters saying his positions on the issues are not conservative enough.
On the Democratic side, primary voters indicated they saw few substantive differences between their candidates on issues like the war in Iraq and health care. Most Democratic voters have confidence in both candidates to handle the economy, the war in Iraq and an international crisis. And large numbers think it is likely that either candidate would make an effective commander-in-chief.
Mr. Obama’s advantages are more apparent on other measures. Nearly 6 in 10 say he has the best chance of beating Mr. McCain, double the numbers who believed Mrs. Clinton was more electable. He is also viewed by more Democratic voters as someone who can bring about “real change” in the way things are done in Washington and is willing to compromise with Republicans “the right amount” to get things done.
Democratic voters are also more likely to say Mr. Obama cares a lot about them, inspires them and can unite the country. Sixty-three percent of Democratic voters said he cares a lot about them, while fewer than half think Mrs. Clinton does. Nearly seven in 10 say he inspires them about the future of the country; 54 percent say Mrs. Clinton does. Three-quarters say he would be able to unite the country as president; 53 percent say Mrs. Clinton would.
Mrs. Clinton also has her strengths: Her supporters are, in general, more committed; nearly 8 in 10 of Mrs. Clinton’s backers say they strongly favor her, while 6 in ten of Mr. Obama’s supporters strongly favor him. Only 18 percent of her supporters back her with reservations; about a third of Mr. Obama’s supporters said they had reservations about him.
Democratic women are also more likely to say that the news media have been harder on Mrs. Clinton than on other candidates: 56 percent felt that way, compared with 39 percent of the Democratic men. Both men and women were more likely to think the media have been harder on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.
Not surprisingly, Democratic primary voters have an opinion on the appropriate role of the 795 super-delegates who could decide this year’s election; more than half said that these uncommitted delegates should vote for the candidate who received the most votes in the primaries and caucuses. http://www.nytimes.com/2008....=slogin
Well, this guy thinks that the NY Times story about the lobbyists is just the tip of the iceberg and more damaging details are about to surface.
If that is indeed true then perhaps the republican establishment will have no qualms to ask McCain to step aside. After all, he wasn't their first choice to begin with.
It's pretty clear that, barring accident, Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. My own opinion is that his Republican opponent will NOT be John McCain so I am not handicapping the general yet. But it looks clear that we Democrats will nominate Obama which is pretty remarkable for all the obvious reasons.
MSNBC's Jonathan Alter says that Obama's success comes because Clinton ran "the worst" campaign in recent memory.
I totally disagree. Obama's triumph is not the result of her failure but of something else. It is that Barack Obama is one of the great natural politicians in our history. People just like him. The only way he might have been beaten would have been if the Clinton juggernaut prevented Democratic voters from even seeing the guy. But that was not going to happen.
Once voters saw him, they liked him.
This has been true of a rare few Presidential candidates in our history: the Roosevelt boys, JFK, Ike, Reagan, Bill Clinton and some others (not many).
Their appeal is often not recognized until they become President and remain popular no matter how many mistakes they make. They are liked. They are forgiven. No matter what, they make people feel good.
In none of the cases I mentioned (except Reagan's, in my opinion) was their likability not accompanied by a strong grasp of both the issues and real vision. They were not just likable. They were leaders.
Obama is in that category. He makes us feel good. He's cool. And he is clearly the candidate with the most experience, intelligence, and vision.
He had to win the Democratic nomination, not because Clinton is bad but because he is so appealing. He's a once-in-a-lifetime candidate.
Hillary might echo what Bing Crosby said when he first heard Frank Sinatra. "A voice like that," he said, "comes along once in a lifetime. Why, in God's name, did it have to be mine?"
I think these are really good points by Zunes and Rich (and others). Even if you don't think she was a war-mongerer for voting to authorize the war in Iraq, it certainly doesn't speak well to her touted "experience" (and is she really counting eight years as FIRST LADY??) that she made this disastrous decision when a few others either had the conscience -- or did enough research to conclude -- that a vote against it was wiser. Zunes goes through in detail what this says about her "experience", her world view, her tactics etc., and now Frank Rich also points out the damage this did to what was supposed to be her strongest selling point.
NEW YORK TIMES
February 24, 2008
The Audacity of Hopelessness
by Frank Rich
When people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.
It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise - the priceless value of “experience” - was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination - “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November - she was routed by an insurgency.
The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.
That’s why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn. Like his prototype, Mr. Penn is bigger on loyalty and arrogance than strategic brilliance. But he’s actually not even all that loyal. Mr. Penn, whose operation has billed several million dollars in fees to the Clinton campaign so far, has never given up his day job as chief executive of the public relations behemoth Burson-Marsteller. His top client there, Microsoft, is simultaneously engaged in a demanding campaign of its own to acquire Yahoo.
Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.
But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.
The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.
In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall - the March 4 contests - she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.
This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.
Given that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offer marginally different policy prescriptions - laid out in voluminous detail by both, by the way, on their Web sites - it’s not clear what her added-value message is. The “experience” mantra has been compromised not only by her failure on the signal issue of Iraq but also by the deadening lingua franca of her particular experience, Washingtonese. No matter what the problem, she keeps rolling out another commission to solve it: a commission for infrastructure, a Financial Product Safety Commission, a Corporate Subsidy Commission, a Katrina/Rita Commission and, to deal with drought, a water summit.
As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and - talk about bizarre - against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.
Bill Clinton knocked states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because “they disproportionately favor upper-income voters” who “don’t really need a president but feel like they need a change.” After the Potomac primary wipeout, Mr. Penn declared that Mr. Obama hadn’t won in “any of the significant states” outside of his home state of Illinois. This might come as news to Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Iowa, among the other insignificant sites of Obama victories. The blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has hilariously labeled this Penn spin the “insult 40 states” strategy.
The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists’ union, derided Obama supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies.” Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters.
If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama’s “plagiarism.” And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall.
The other persistent gripe among some Clinton supporters is that a hard-working older woman has been unjustly usurped by a cool young guy intrinsically favored by a sexist culture. Slate posted a devilish video mash-up of the classic 1999 movie “Election”: Mrs. Clinton is reduced to a stand-in for Tracy Flick, the diligent candidate for high school president played by Reese Witherspoon, and Mr. Obama is implicitly cast as the mindless jock who upsets her by dint of his sheer, unearned popularity.
There is undoubtedly some truth to this, however demeaning it may be to both candidates, but in reality, the more consequential ur-text for the Clinton 2008 campaign may be another Hollywood classic, the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy “Pat and Mike” of 1952. In that movie, the proto-feminist Hepburn plays a professional athlete who loses a tennis or golf championship every time her self-regarding fiancé turns up in the crowd, pulling her focus and undermining her confidence with his grandstanding presence.
In the 2008 real-life remake of “Pat and Mike,” it’s not the fiancé, of course, but the husband who has sabotaged the heroine.The single biggest factor in Hillary Clinton’s collapse is less sexism in general than one man in particular - the man who began the campaign as her biggest political asset. The moment Bill Clinton started trash-talking about Mr. Obama and raising the specter of a co-presidency, even to the point of giving his own televised speech ahead of his wife’s on the night she lost South Carolina, her candidacy started spiraling downward.
What’s next? Despite Mrs. Clinton’s valedictory tone at Thursday’s debate, there remains the fear in some quarters that whether through sleights of hand involving superdelegates or bogus delegates from Michigan or Florida, the Clintons might yet game or even steal the nomination. I’m starting to wonder. An operation that has waged political war as incompetently as the Bush administration waged war in Iraq is unlikely to suddenly become smart enough to pull off that duplicitous a “victory.” Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts in January alone, this campaign simply may not have the cash on hand to mount a surge. http://www.nytimes.com/2008....=slogin
kaytodd wrote:If Obama loses to McCain (very likely McCain beats either Hillary or Obama),
Actually, the latest national poll shows McCain beating Clinton by 12 points, but Obama beating McCain by 7 points (yay!) Now of course a lot can and will change between now and the election, but it's clear as of now, Obama is the smarter choice if Democrats want to win the Presidency.
The nightmare for the Democrats is Hillary winning by a narrow margin in all 3 states. She then decides to spin this as a sign that she now has momentum and does a full court press for Florida and Michigan and superdelegates. Hillary and Obama will tear each other down trying to woo superdelegates. As it stands now, video of Hillary saying that Obama is unfit to be president will be featured on McCain ads this fall.
If Hillary does not win in a landslide in both Texas and Ohio she should drop out. If she does not her future as a leader in the Democratic party could be in danger. That will be sad for the Dems. She has the potential to be a respected and influential leader of her party. But she also has the potential to be looked upon as petty, selfish and overly ambitious. And the fact that she would be doing nothing wrong or even in violation of party rules will not change that perception.
All very true. This article -- which mentions the latest poll -- supports your good points, kaytodd.
COMMONDREAMS.ORG
Saturday, February 23, 2008
How Much Damage Will Clinton Do Before She Folds?
by Paul Rogat Loeb
In the wake of ten straight losses, Clinton’s going to need some miracles to win, and Mike Huckabee’s already ahead of her in line for divine intervention. But the question is how much damage she’ll do to Obama and the Democratic chances before she quits.
If the fight goes to the convention, we know the answer: Unless she totally routs Obama in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, her sole remaining path to the nomination depends on convincing the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, and convincing the credentials committee to honor the problematic Michigan and Florida elections. So she’ll have to practically destroy the party to save it, or more accurately to save herself. Assuming a possible breaking sex scandal doesn’t bring down McCain, he already beats Clinton by 12 points in the latest poll, while Obama defeats him by 7. If the young voters, independents, and African Americans who Obama’s enlisted in droves stay home in November because they feel they’ve been betrayed, Clinton’s chances would be slim to none.
But she still can do real damage to Obama with her negative attacks in the remaining primaries, particularly in swing states like Ohio. Recent match-ups show Obama a solid victor in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and Oregon, and dead even in Ohio, while Clinton goes down to defeat in all of them. But depending on how negative she gets and how long the primary battle continues, she could cost the Democrats the election by forcing Obama to spend his time responding to an endless succession of petty attacks, and by giving the Republicans ready-made talking points, like Hillary’s comment that only “one of us is ready to be commander in chief.”
The potential damage is magnified if you count Clinton’s surrogates. At the Youngstown, Ohio rally following Clinton’s Wisconsin defeat, International Association of Machinists President Tom Buffenbarger called Obama supporters “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies.” That’s despicable rhetoric, echoing the worst Limbaugh/Fox myths about limousine liberals, while it dismisses the majority of union members who just backed Obama in the Wisconsin and Virginia primaries, or the members of unions like SEIU, The Teamsters, and the United Food and Commercial Workers, who just endorsed him. It also happens to totally steal its language from the sleazy “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading” anti-Howard Dean ads of the right-wing Club For Growth, that helped give us the disastrous candidacy of John Kerry.
If repeated enough, though, those myths have the potential to stick. Clinton supporters have just created a new “527″ political committee, which while technically independent and issue-oriented, is explicitly designed to allow Hillary supporters to evade the standard $2300 donation limits. The group aims to get contributions of $100,000 or more from as many as 100 Hillary donors, so they can pour $10 million in ads into the next round of critical races. Whether or not this is legal, and that’s arguable, no other candidate has done anything remotely similar in this election. And since the ads have no checks of accountability, they’ll be as nasty as their backers decide.
Between Clinton’s actions and those of her surrogates, they might just stigmatize Obama so much that some of her supporters stay home in November, instead of voting for him. They’ll also encourage Republicans and independents who’ve been crossing over to support Obama do the same, or even vote for McCain despite his embrace of Bush’s disastrous policies. I think Obama will still win, so long as his supporters do everything possible to make that happen. But Hillary’s attacks will plant the seeds of doubts. And these will diminish the magnitude of Obama’s likely victory just enough to make far harder for him to pass the major changes we need.
Clinton’s attacks could also make a difference in down-ticket races. Right now, Obama mobilizes huge new constituencies that could elect a wave of new Democratic Senators, Congressional representatives, governors and legislators. But if Clinton manages to damage his appeal sufficiently, he will become far less of an asset even if he still wins. Plus the longer she remains in the race, the more he has to spend money responding to petty attack ads like one in Wisconsin where she accused him of avoiding debates, although he’d already participated in 18 and had two more coming up. It also means, as Tom Edsdall has pointed out, that the Democratic National Committee risks getting so starved of cash because it’s all getting diverted to the nomination fights, that the DNC can’t develop the critical grassroots infrastructure to implement its 50-state strategy.
Hillary may give up if she fares poorly in Ohio and Texas. Bill intimated recently that she had to win both or she was likely done. But she’s talked of fighting all the way to the convention, as have her key strategists, so it’s at least possible that she could keep the race in limbo until less than 10 weeks before the November election, making it far harder for Obama to focus on defeating McCain.
One solution, ironically, could come from the superdelegates. They were established originally as a conservative force in the Democratic Party, a bulwark against grassroots insurgencies like McGovern. In 1984, they actually handed the nomination to Walter Mondale, for his disastrous candidacy, despite Gary Hart’s lead in elected delegates. But they also have an ostensible mandate to consider the Party’s greater good, and if they acted in this fashion, they could play a key constructive role.
Suppose a critical mass of superdelegates did what 400,000 petition-signers just asked them to do in a MoveOn/Democracy for America ad that ran in USA Today-and pledged to honor the will of the voters? Suppose they announced in advance that they’d support whichever candidate had more elected delegates going into the late August convention? Suppose they also came up with a joint solution to the Michigan and Florida mess, where these states lost their delegates by violating a Democratic Party agreement on when states could hold their primaries? It would be a travesty to validate their sham elections given that the candidates couldn’t even campaign in Florida, that Obama and Edwards had pulled their names from Michigan ballot, and that Clinton herself told New Hampshire Public Radio that her staying on the Michigan ballot was irrelevant because Michigan’s vote “is not going to count for anything.”
But what if the superdelegates acted now, to make clear that they will not validate those two elections as they stand, and that they’ll encourage their colleagues on the Credentials Committee to do the same? As an alternative, they could urge those two states to do what the DNC has already suggested, and rerun their elections as caucuses. Yes, this would cost some money and effort, but if the experience of the states that have held them is any guide, it would also offer a major chance for the party to mobilize and engage new supporters, and it would bring participants together in a way that reminded them of the values they shared in common. If the two state parties, both dominated by Clinton supporters, still refused to go along, the superdelegates could also offer the alternative of simply seating Clinton-Obama delegates 50-50, to make it a dead wash. But they need to make clear that Clinton won’t be able to pull out a last-minute victory by gaming the rules.
Facing a relatively united bloc of precisely those superdelegates that Clinton still hopes to win, I suspect she’d be far more likely to quit, and do far less damage while still in the race. Key party elders like Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi are already working to ensure a convention process that pulls the Party together, rather than splitting it apart. They and others might play an additional role by speaking out against destructive negative campaigning (whether by Clinton or her surrogates), and making clear that if this goes too far, she will lose their support.
Were Hillary running less of a scorched-earth campaign, it could continue onto the convention without major damage. But she’s pursued this approach from the moment Obama emerged as a serious challenger, and seems only to be reaffirming it more in recent weeks. That means that if Democrats really want to avoid a divisive fight, they’d do well to unite around Obama now. He just got the endorsement of the 6-million member Change to Win Coalition (and individual member unions like SEIU, the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE/HERE, and the Teamsters). The United Steel Workers, a national social justice leader, initially endorsed John Edwards, and will make a decision at their next board meeting. It’s time for the other major industrial unions and progressive organizations to commit too, or to reconsider their earlier support for Clinton.
That’s also true of prominent individuals, like Edwards, who I originally supported. It’s now well overdue for him to encourage his supporters to back the legitimate inheritor of his quest for change. Maybe Clinton will still make an improbable comeback, but the longer she keeps campaigning, the more attacks and divisiveness we’ll see. The more party leaders speak out to prevent this from happening, the less risk that she’ll create lasting damage in her desperation to hold onto a prize that’s now almost certainly slipped away.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time.
