Newshoggers.com

Testing Your Ideology

By BJ

Via TMV, I came across this site called The Political Compass for testing one's political leanings across both the economic and social axes. Definitely one of the better sites I've seen of this type. My own scores are:

Economic Left/Right: -1.79
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.71

Bouncing around some of the other pages on the site, I found that the Canadian political party closest to my own views would be the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which is kind of a chuckle. The placement of the US Presidential candidates aren't much of a surprise, but does explain why a lot of lefties are having some problems with Obama these days.

Anyway, take the test, and post your results if you're of mind to. I admit to being curious.

Flipping the Exurbs

By Fester:

I spent a good chunk of yesterday meeting with some relatives and driving through the Washington D.C. exurbs.  And this is an area that is in trouble beneath the veneer of new construction, fresh paint and large neon-signs.  It is also an area that has historically voted Republican for economic grounds as it is an extraordinarily anti-urban and local educational arbitrage environment.  This is a Republican base area. 

Yet it is an area that is looking to flip because the pain is too high. 

We drove through my hosts' subdivision and it was massive but incomplete.  Almost one thousand houses at price points from the mid 200Ks in the New Urbanist portion of the 'village' to million dollar large single family detached houses with three and four car garages are in this project.  All of these houses were built in the past five years, and everyone had been on the HELOC treadmill of drawing out equity to finance current consumption.  However the project lies incomplete as the developers' financing for the next round failed.  The Home Owners Association can not afford a second pool, so there is a massive muddy hole in the ground where construction has stopped.  Seventy houses were foreclosed in the past year.  Many more are somewhere in the foreclosure process.  All of these homes have decreased in value from both the general market drop and the local negative externality of having an empty house nearby. 

The pain is widespread and real, and the second order impacts will be as large or larger than the first order impacts as the entire local/basic economy was structured on new construction with high costs that could only be justified by an increasing population with increasing incomes.  That population is not coming as the next wave of houses will not be built for another decade.  The franchises are high end franchises that are only viable once their consumer bases have taken care of their fixed costs, their quasi-fixed discretionary costs (braces for the kids, swimming lessons etc) and their core discretionary spending is satisfied.  The franchises are based on capturing the truly disposable income of the area.  The combination of fifty mile commutes in a $4.11/gallon environment, and job uncertainty has dramatically decreased local unattached disposable income.

The decline of the minor local business community and the concurrent decline in housing values will devalue the local educational arbitage of having a 'superior' sclhool district just a little bit further out.  This will be an escalating and viscious cycle.

When I had lunch with my relatives who are base Republican voters (white, middle age, self-identifying as Christian), they brought up politics and asked if I was working for any candidate this cycle as they know I had done that work in the past.  They asked how Democrats and liberals saw the primary process and what I thought about Obama and Clinton and then one announced their vote for Obama, a first time Democratic primary voter in over a decade because the pain had been too bad, and something different was needed.

I can see a lot of people coming to that conclusion in the exurbs.  Something different is needed to resolve their problems and the superstructure in which those macro problems reside.  I don't think Obama is that solution they are seeking, but in the short term, this need for something different could swing the exurbs from a dominant Republican territory with attendant massive margins that somewhat offset the urban advantages Democrats enjoy into mildly Republican districts that are insufficient to offset the waves coming out of the cities.  People are in pain, or they see enough of their social networks in pain to want to try something different.  And it is that tropism that could provide for a blowout this fall. 

Problems with simple data

By Fester:

Brad Delong is looking at the expected increase in short term unemployment rates due to the passage of an additional three months of unemployment extension and forces himself to chuckle at the fact that President Bush signed a good piece of policy with severe negative political repercussions for John McCain:

The rule of thumb, IIRC, is that the average duration of an unemployment spell increases by 1/4 of the increase in the duration of unemployment benefits. Thus a 13-week increase in unemployment insurance duration should increase the average unemployment spell by 3 weeks. With current mean unemployment spell duration at 17 weeks, and with roughly 2/3 of the unemployed eligible for UI, this would produce a 3/17 * 2/3 * 5.5% = 0.6% increase in the measured unemployment rate.

It seems to me likely that--whatever happens to the economy--George W. Bush has just produced four bad unemployment-rate headlines on the Saturdays August 2, September 6, and October 4. This cannot be news that John McCain is happy to hear.

I think the unemployment benefit extension is excellent policy on multiple grounds.  First, it massively reduces stress for unemployed workers and their households.  Finding a job that replaces most of an individual's lost wages is tough right now, so extra time is valuable.  Secondly, this policy provides significant reassurance to the vast majority of people who currently have jobs but fear that they could lose their jobs.  Increasing the contingent safety net of unemployment benefits allows people to breathe slightly easier when they make a discretionary purchase that they otherwise would not have made.  Finally as a stimulus measure, unemployment benefits are targeted to people who are cash flow constrained and are very likely to spend the additional income.  This produces a very high multiplier effect which stands in contrast to the low multiplier, untargetted impacts of general rebate checks.  This is good policy.

It will have its impact in encouraging people to find a better job rather than any job.  This will increase the unemployment rate.  It also illustrates the problems of tracking a single number to describe the whole picture.  A more comprehensive and accurate look at the US labor market would look at the unemployment rate, the workforce participation rate, the number of discouraged workers, and changes in hours worked and total compensation.  This more thorough look will show a summer labor market that will continue to slacken as governments begin to cut back, manufacturers down shift as inventory is too high, and energy is poised to consume 10% of GDP.  However it will not be quite as bad as the simple headline statement of the unemployment rate will imply. 

One step forward two steps back

By Ron Beasley

I'm not really surprised that Obama is not  the agent of change he tried to convince us he was during the nomination process.  The corporate media would not have let him past the starting line if he was.  Steve Soto looks at Obama and asks a very good question - Where's The Change:

Over the weekend, two major newspapers came to roughly the same conclusion about Barack Obama’s behavior since he vanquished Hillary Clinton as a new kind of change candidate: he’s moving to the center, or beyond. Both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post took a look at Obama’s recent comments on last week’s Supreme Court decisions, his FISA flip-flop, his NAFTA-won’t-be-changed flip-flop, and concluded that rather than being a “change we can believe in” candidate, he is redefining himself as a safe centrist candidate.

Matt Stoller did an outstanding job Saturday pointing out that despite the rhetoric, Obama isn’t really an outsider running as a change candidate progressive, but rather as a front person for Beltway Democrats from K Street. I’ll go a step further: there are two major camps in the party, the Clinton wing and the anti-Clintons. Neither camp is progressive, and Obama is simply the salesman for the anti-Clinton, Daschle status quo. Yet he has taken over the party, leaving progressivism dead in the water.

Steve concludes with this:

I suspect that after another month of Obama’s jettisoning of anything looking like progressive change, there will be more and more people like me whose vote for him this November is really just a vote against Bush's third term.

I'm not sure I'm even ready to go that far.  In the comments section of Steve's post I wrote:

Maybe a third Bush term is what it will take. I may just sit this one out even if it means McCain wins.

In reality I may consider voting for Bob Barr.  I disagree with the Libertarians on many issues but on what I consider the two most important issues they and Bob Barr are the only ones who get it right.  The first of the issues is the occupation of Iraq but even more important is the erosion of civil liberties and the slide into a totalitarian state.  If we continue to move in the direction of a Soviet style police state the other issues won't really matter and Obama has given me no reason to trust him on this issue and I never did trust Hillary.

Bob Barr understands the politics of the two party system.  He has been asked by Republicans to not run and he had this to say:

"What they say is, 'It's not that we disagree with what you're doing, Barr. It's not that we don't understand. We do understand, and we actually agree with what you're saying, but we don't want to vote against a Republican because that might help the Democrat,' " Barr said of the talks he has had with those who want him to quit.

"It's all about partisan politics. It's not about substance. It's not about principles, which is what I and the Libertarian Party stand for. It's all about partisan politics. That's what has to change and that's one of the reasons I'm running."

That applies equally to both parties and I for one am not going to play that game anymore.  The Democratic nominee will have to prove to me he will be different than the Republican.  Obama is moving in the wrong direction.

More On McCain's War Record

By Ron Beasley

"Who started this rumor that [John McCain] was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?" ~Gore Vidal

McCain gets a pass because is supposedly “a hero.” I’ve never been sure why he is a hero. He graduated 4th or 5th from the bottom of his class. He wrecked three of his own aircraft (if I remember correctly) and he was captured in Viet Nam. Unless I missed the part where he jumped on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow servicemen, I don’t know where the hero part comes in. ~ John Cole

This is a follow up to Cernig's post below.  It just goes to show how broken our system is that it's OK to Swift Boat a real war hero, John Kerry, but it's not OK to ask legitimate questions about John McCain's military record.  The corporate media was at best enablers and more likely supporters of the effort to lie about Kerry's record but become indignant when anyone even asks questions about St John's war record.  I have already asked a few questions myself on these virtual pages a few days ago. 

I am a Vietnam era veteran I a knew some heros.  They were not fighter pilots who dropped bombs on people they couldn't see from several thousand feet. They were the points on long range patrols, they were men like Chuck Hagel who spent a year wading through rice paddies and jungles, they were the men like John Kerry on the swift boats in the delta and in the air it was the helicopter pilots who put their lives on the line everyday to get soldiers in and out of the fight.

As Jeff Klein reminds us   we deserve to see McCains military record if he wants to be Commander In Chief.

Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.

Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path.

If John McCain was not the son and grandson of admirals who would have not had the opportunity to get shot down. 

And yes Wes Clark was right

"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," Clark said.

In fact spending five years in a cage is bound to mess up your head and maybe should disqualify him.

Can we trade him for Joe?

By Libby

One of the more curious phenomena of this election are the party defections on both sides of the fence. The Democratic defectors get most of the attention, but the GOP defectors are much more interesting.

June 27 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Chuck Hagel declined to endorse his party's likely presidential nominee, John McCain, and said he would consider serving as secretary of defense in a Barack Obama administration.

Hagel, who last year considered a White House run as an independent, said he would remain a registered Republican: ``I don't know forever, but right now I'm not considering changing my registration.'' [...]

Hagel said his disagreement with the Bush administration and his view that the Republican Party ``has veered and shifted, and come loose of its moorings'' don't mean he has given up on the party.

The ``Republican Party is bigger than George Bush or Dick Cheney,'' Hagel said. ``I'm an Eisenhower Republican and the party today is not an Eisenhower Republican Party. Will it come back? I don't know.''

I guess this one doesn't quite count as a defection yet, but I would gladly give the GOP Joe Lieberman in trade for Chuck. Hagel is a much better Democrat than Lieberman ever was, or could hope to be. Heck, there's been times during Iraq debates I almost forgot that Hagel wasn't one of us.

Presidential Politics

By Ron Beasley

The American People are not happy.  While we progressives my be increasingly upset with the Democrats and Obama over issues like FISA and the occupation things are even worse on the Republican side - they have George W. Bush to deal with.  According to the latest LA Times/Bloomberg Poll Bush has a record 23% approval rating and in fact only receives approval from 59% of the ever dwindling Republican voters.  And we also have this from the LA Times:

Both Nader -- a consumer advocate who was the Green Party candidate in 2000 and an independent candidate in 2004 -- and former Rep. Barr (R-Ga.) appear to siphon more votes from McCain than from Obama. When Nader and Barr are added to the ballot, they draw most of their support from independent voters who said they would otherwise vote for the Republican.

That's right - Nader is taking more votes from McCain than from Obama.  And Bush is out campaigning for McCain which can't help him much since 75% of Americans blame Bush for the bad economy.

Robert Novak has an interesting column on the Conservatives who are supporting Obama or the Obamacons.

What is an "Obamacon?" The phrase surfaced in January to describe British conservatives entranced by Barack Obama. On March 13 the American Spectator broadened the term to cover all "conservative supporters" of the Democratic presidential candidate. Their ranks, though growing, feature few famous people. But looming on the horizon are two big potential Obamacons: Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel.

Neither Powell, first-term secretary of state for George W. Bush, nor Hagel, retiring after two terms as a U.S. senator from Nebraska, has endorsed Obama. Hagel probably never will. Powell probably will enter Obama's camp at a time of his own choosing. The best bet is that neither of the two, both of whom supported President Bush in 2000 and 2004, will back John McCain in 2008.

Powell, Hagel and lesser-known Obamacons harbor no animosity toward McCain. Nor do they show much affection for the rigidly liberal Obama. The Obamacon syndrome is based on hostility to Bush and his administration and on revulsion over today's Republican Party. The danger for McCain is that desire for a therapeutic electoral bloodbath could get out of control.

We have been hearing for a couple of years now that many Republicans felt that the party must be the victim of an electoral blood bath so the purging and rebuilding can begin.  I wish them the best of luck.

Red Guy In A Blue State

By Ron Beasley

Here in Oregon we have Republican Senator Gordon Smith.  Now most of the time Smith is a wingnut - he voted with Bush and the Republicans 98% of the time.  But every six years he attempts a temporary color change.  This election cycle is no different.  After the Democrat's win in 2006 he suddenly found that he opposed the occupation of Iraq after supporting it for four years.  He is John McCain's campaign manager in Oregon.  A couple of weeks ago he started running an ad with to Democrats who said they support him and one of those is a black state legislator.  Ben Smith reports that he is now trying to associate himself with Obama.

A fairly stunning new ad from Oregon's Republican senator Gordon Smith leaves little doubt as to which way the wind is blowing there.

In the ad, Smith, running hard away from Bush, associates himself at length and explicitly with Obama.

"Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment?" the female narrator asks. "Barack Obama."

The ad shows Obama's face and an image of his website.

"I approve working together across party lines and this ad," Smith closes.

Obama is having no part of it however:

Barack Obama has a long record of bipartisan accomplishment and we appreciate that it is respected by his Democratic and Republican colleagues in the Senate. But in this race, Oregonians should know that Barack Obama supports Jeff Merkley for Senate. Merkley will help Obama bring about the fundamental change we need in Washington.

Jeff Merkley will have a tough time beating Smith even this year.  Very conservative Smith is a political slim ball with a lot of money and the support of Oregon's largest Newspaper which is constantly trying to pass him off as a moderate.  If you have any spare change Merkley would be a good investment.

More on Smith and Iraq can be found here and his history of dirty politics and history with The Oregonian here.

Were You Surprised?

By Cernig

Were you surprised that The Fools On The Hill (D) utterly capitulated on the FISA eavesdropping bill and allowed provisions that gave the Attorney General totalitarian power over any lawsuits?

Were you surprised that Obama was AWOL on an issue and vote that is central to his PR message that change in the Beltway establishment's way of doing things and has also repeatedly backed candidates who enshine that Beltway process?

Were you surprised that, despite change being needed in American foreign policy cicles perhaps more than in any other area of government, Obama set up a national security committee staffed entirely by grey-headed VSPs who largely backed Bush interventionism at first?

Are you surpised that neither McCain nor Obama have stuck to their earlier promises on campaign financing?

You shouldn't have been. It's been clear from word one that "Change you can believe in" is a stump-speech ploy lifted directly from Tony Blair's original hugely successful 1997 election campaign. It's far more like Change you can Xerox.

And yet, still, an Obama presidency is to be vastly preferred over a McCain one. Obama may well be just another political hack, breaking promises and working to consolidate power in the hands of the beltway elite of politicians and lobbyists - but McCain is like Obama on steroids in that respect and like Cheney's wet dream on interventionist and belligerent contact with the world beyond American shores.

I'd like to see Obama win, but I'm not wearing blinkers.

War Hero?

By Ron Beasley

The logic of those who claim suicide bombers who kill people are cowards but those who drop bombs on people from several thousand feet are heros has always escaped me.  That brings us to John McCain. Sully quotes Gore Vidal:

"Who started this rumor that [John McCain] was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?"

John Cole chimes in:

McCain gets a pass because is supposedly “a hero.” I’ve never been sure why he is a hero. He graduated 4th or 5th from the bottom of his class. He wrecked three of his own aircraft (if I remember correctly) and he was captured in Viet Nam. Unless I missed the part where he jumped on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow servicemen, I don’t know where the hero part comes in.

John McCain claims he knows war.  He certainly knows about the prisoner of war part but what about the rest?  Chuck Hagel knows war from his time wading through rice paddies and jungles and seeing the soldiers around him wounded and killed.  And yes, in spite of what the swift boaters may say John Kerry knows war.  And Bob Dole is a hero who knows war.  But can you really see war from 10,000 feet?

  But what about his military career?    Over at the Huffington Post Jeffrey Klein gives us some information on McCain's Naval record.  For starters it looks like McCain would never have seen the inside of a cock pit if he hadn't been the son and grandson of admirals.

Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.

Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path.

As Klein points out only 17 pages of McCain's 636 page Naval record has been released.  Since he wants to be Commander in Chief should the American people be able to see the rest?

No Take-Backs on the Soul-Selling

By BJ

John McCain once had the most powerful brand in American politics.

He was often called the country's most popular politician and widely admired for his independent streak. It wasn't too many years ago that "maverick" was the cliche of choice in describing him.

But that term didn't even make the list this year when voters were asked by the Pew Research Center to sum up McCain in a single word. "Old" got the most mentions, followed by "honest," "experienced," "patriot," "conservative" and a dozen more. The words "independent," "change" or "reformer" weren't among them.

Voters have notoriously short memories, but it could be argued that McCain cheapened his own brand.

No shit. Turns out that the constant shilling for Bush has actually had an effect, something I wasn't entirely certain would happen with the media continuously uttering the "maverick" theme. Still disappointing to see "honest" up there, of course, but I'm willing to bet that will change as people see more stuff like this.

I guess you really can't fool the people all of the time.

Zombie Bush will live forever

By Fester:

Paul Krugman in his column today notes that the Bush administration tax cuts and squanderous fiscal policy has produced a political poison pill that greatly reduces future option space:

I realized that the tax cuts enacted by the Bush administration are, in effect, a fiscal poison pill aimed at future administrations. True, the tax cuts won’t prevent a change in management — the Constitution sees to that. But they will make it hard for the next president to change the country’s direction.... Anyway, back to my main theme: looking at the tax proposals of the two presidential candidates, it’s remarkable and disheartening to see how effective President Bush’s fiscal poison pill has been in restricting the terms of debate.

And why be shocked at this realization. It is the same pattern of behavior that is driving the negoatiations for the Status of Forces agreement in Iraq --- lock the next admininstration into Bush's prefered course of action by creating institutional inertia behind a horrendous policy set.

And why be shocked at the SOFA --- it is the same pattern of behavior that we have seen with the changing criteria of Republican judges since the Reagan Era --- find reaonably pliant and pliable young judges without a whole lot of paper trail but the right right wing credentials and seat them on the court for thirty to forty years.

All of these steps are attempts to create gatekeepers and to charge economic, political and military rents even after the policy's support has collapsed. And it is a pattern of behavior that is to be expected.

The relevant question is how to deal with these rent seeking opportunities? I have little faith in the Democratic Congress to stand for its prerogatives by insisting that the SOFA as a full fledged security guarantee is and should be voted upon as a treaty in the Senate. I have little faith in the Congress in standing for the Constitution as Glenn Greenwald so ably demonstrates today.

I have little faith that these poison pills will be spat out and crushed in time's dust.

Clueless and Out of Touch

By Ron Beasley

E.J.Dionne writes today about a Democratic Tide on The Rise

At the moment, Barack Obama is winning a smaller share of Democrats than John Kerry did on Election Day four years ago. Yet Obama is beating John McCain by six points in the latest Gallup Poll. How can this be?

For all the talk this year about bipartisanship, a sharp shift in partisan loyalties toward the Democrats, visible in a series of polls this week, could prove the defining fact in November.

In a report released yesterday, Gallup found that where McCain was winning 85 percent of self-identified Republicans, Obama was winning only 78 percent of Democrats.

Yet Obama led McCain 48 percent to 42 percent in the survey, which was conducted June 5-10. Obama enjoyed a seven-point advantage among independents, but Gallup noted that even when independents were excluded, Obama still had a five-point lead because Democrats now outnumber Republicans 37 to 28 percent. When independents were asked their partisan leanings, the Democratic advantage reached 13 points.

To find out why this might be we have to go no further than Dionne's own paper and an Op-Ed by uber neocon Charles Krauthammer,  who suggests that McCain should make the election about the occupation of Iraq.  Krauthammer demonstrates that he is out of touch with the American People and the situation in Iraq.  He has a list of talking points he used to prove how much better things are in Iraq.

1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi Army and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias.

2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki's direction confronted them and prevailed in every town -- Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah -- from Basra to Baghdad.

Of course there are a number of problems here.  Number one, the Iraqi army that drove out the Mahdi Army is itself made up of Iranian-backed militias, the Badr Brigade/Organization.  He also fails to note that the Iraqi army was losing until both the British and Americans added air and artillery support.

3. Without any American ground forces, the Iraqi army entered and occupied Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold.

The key here is " Without any American ground forces".  Without US air support the Iraqi army could not ave been successful.

5. The Iraqi parliament enacted a de-Baathification law, a major Democratic benchmark for political reconciliation.

Of course the new de-Baathification law made things even worse for the Sunnis and made unification even less likely.

Krauthammers's advice to McCain:

It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq war the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war.

But McCain's case is simple. Is not Obama's central mantra that this election is about the future, not the past? It is about 2009, not 2002. Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he'll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success.

But this proves just how clueless Krauthammer is:

· As for the Shiite extremists, the Mahdi Army is isolated and at its weakest point in years.

· Its sponsor, Iran, has suffered major setbacks, not just in Basra, but in Iraqi public opinion, which has rallied to the Maliki government and against Iranian interference through its Sadrist proxy.

He simply doesn't recognize that the al-Malaki government is itself an Iranian proxy and would be preferable over Sadr to the Iranians.  In fact as Ned Parker reported in the LAT prominent members of al-Malaki's own Dawa party are ready to tell the US to leave.

BAGHDAD -- Officials in Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's ruling coalition are questioning whether Iraq needs a U.S. military presence even as the two countries press forward with high-pressure negotiations to determine how long American forces will remain.

Some officials in Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party and his larger Shiite United Iraqi Alliance bloc, which has cooperated with the U.S., have spoken in favor of imposing severe restrictions on U.S. forces after the United Nations mandate authorizing their presence expires at the end of the year.

[....]

United Iraqi Alliance lawmaker Sami Askari, who is considered a member of Maliki's inner circle, said the changes in opinions in many cases are gradual.

"There is the camp who still believe that we need the Americans to stay and the other camp that says we don't need them anymore," Askari said. "You can't draw a line, even within the Dawa Party, even within" the alliance, he said.

Shiite officials like Askari have warned there is no way any Iraqi politician could back the current U.S. security agreement proposals.

"If I'm from the group that believes in the need for the Americans to stay, and then they face me with such a draft, then I'll say, look, I'd rather go with the others," Askari said.

Go ahead St John - make it about the occupation!

Update

Apparently even al-Malaki has decided that his puppet masters in Teheran have shorter strings than his puppet masters in DC.

Iraq says talks with U.S. on pact deadlocked

AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday talks with the United States on a long-term security pact were at a stalemate because of U.S. demands that encroached on Iraq's sovereignty.

Also Laney in comments makes a good point:

What is really going on here is that Krauthammer continues to do what he has always done -- dishing out whatever propaganda line he thinks will keep America fighting wars in the interests of Israel.

We have noted here before that the only definition of winning in Iraq seems to be not having to leave.  That may be all about the oil but I suspect it is equally all about having a large US force in the region for Israel's benifit.

McCain, Hallucinations and Allegheny County

By Fester:

Watching the John McCain strategy briefing for victory is painful.  It sounds like a senior class project where the student has a predetermined result in mind and is trying to be agile enough to get the right arguments into place even if they don't make sense.  The one thing that lept out at me was the following map from Ohio and Pennsylvania ( about 8:13 in).  I have modified the map a little bit by adding a couple of geographic pointers:

In 2000, Allegheny County was about 6% more Democratic than the nation as a whole, and in 2004, Allegheny County was about 9% more Democratic than the nation as a whole.  And yet this map is projecting that it will flip to McCain, or at least it is implicitly arguing that due to the color schema.  This is not the only type of flip that the McCain camp is projecting.  Erie County is about 4% more Democratic than the nation as a whole, and it is projected to flip.  Beaver and Washington counties were even splits.  The only SW Pa county that went overwhelmingly for Bush and has a significant population was Westmoreland.  Allegheny County floods out the region due to its population and mobilization rates.  A lot of trees and coal mines are in the probable McCain counties, but not a lot of voters.

Ouch, this is just a painful distortion of reality that the McCain campaign wants to persuade its supporters that they can see an effective ten point swing in their favor compared to Bush in Allegheny County.  Their best hope is keeping the margin close but that is an unlikely hope.  Sad....   

Reclaiming narrative

By Fester:

James Joyner has an interesting recap of the changes that Defense Secratary Gates is imposing upon the Air Force; namely he wants the Air Force to focus on its actual mission and not on the expensive, fun and operationally less important fighter bomber things that its culture venerates and values.  The new Chief of Staff is a transport/logistics/special ops guy and the new AF Secretary is a logistics guy.  Neither of them flew fighters which is a significant break from the past.  And these are good moves on both an operational level and a budgetary level.  However I have to disagree with James' hope for Gate's future career in a potential Obama administration:

Unfortunately, time’s running out on Gates, unless he’s kept on by the next administration.

The problem is optics.  A functioning and healthy democracy needs multiple parties that are seen as credible on defense policy.  The liberals and Democrats ceded defense thinking and policy to conservatives and Republicans for most of my life and implicitly accepted the framing that Democrats can not and should not be trusted on national defense policy.  Bill Clinton reinforced this frame by bringing in Republican Bill Cohen as his SecDef in his second term. 

The Republican defense policy bench is split between the crazies, nationalists, neocons, pragmatists and realists.  Gates belongs to the combined pragamatist/realist faction.  This is a good thing and he has done good work.  And if McCain was to win the general election, I hope that Gates would be the SecDef.

However the Repbulican foreign and defense policy establishment is bundled with the Republican Party and the colossal screw-ups of Iraq and the failures in Afghanistan.  Obama selecting Gates as SecDef implicitly concedes that even with these expensive and unpopular failures, Republicans are still superior to Democrats on national security issues.    And that is not acceptable.  I have no problem with Obama creating a cabinet with Republicans in it; but those Republicans should stay in second and third tier departments or on special assignments such as nuclear non-proliferation work if possible, but not at one of the three premier posts (AG, SecState, SecDef).   

Predictable Consequences

By Fester:

My wife and I are expecting our first child at some point near Christmas and one of things that I look forward to with some trepidation is teaching our little egoist about cause and effect and an action based intepretation of intent.  Just wanting to be nice to someone does not matter if you steal their toys; they will (rightly) think you are mean and can not share.  But that is a couple of years off.

But I was thinking about this analogy when I saw the London Times lede about President Bush's concern for his historical legacy:

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”

Maybe he should have thought about the probable consequences to his reputation before engaging in a war of choice built on lies, deception and bullshit... 

Maybe he should have thought about the probable consequences about playing to the Id of his base...

Maybe he should have thought about the probable consequences when he based his entire re-election campaign on being willing to saber rattle.....

Tough shit --- you earned this reputation and I hope it headlines your obituary some day. 

Obama really is the Magical Unity Pony!

By BJ

Because magic is about the only explanation I could come up with for this when I read it. John Cole, today:

Should we set up an ActBlue account to try to offset some of the debt, or will that not go to retiring the debt? Does anyone know? If it does, maybe if we start an ActBlue account, perhaps others will follow. It certainly seems like Clinton has been acting in very good faith, and we should as well. If anyone can definitively state that money donated today will pay down her debt, I will set one up ASAP.

I can’t believe I am contemplating fund-raising for the Clinton campaign.

You can't believe it? I'm still trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for the folks at work for why my chin was dragging on the floor all afternoon!

I mean, this is the guy who, when "bittergate" broke, ran a not inconsiderable number of posts with some variation of "F--K Hillary" in the title!

This is the guy who said things like:

I will say this one more time. All the times over the past few years when the Republicans would repeat their mantra that the “Democrats are worse,” they were not talking about the Democrats, they were talking about the Clinton family.

And they were probably right.

And

As a personal aside, I found that the self-immolation of the most narcissistic campaign ever washes down really fucking well with a Pinot Noir. Fuck off and good riddance.

And

Obama is giving mad praise to Hillary. Good thing he is the nominee and not me, because I would wave a giant foam middle finger and then moon her.

That last all of a week ago, as part of an entire category he created for the purpose: I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign.

Now, Cernig pointed me to a site where they'll exchange old Clinton signs for new Obama ones, which is a nice little gesture, and part of what I see as numerous attempts to reach out to Clinton supporters to help unify the party behind Obama, a decidedly large task. As Will Durst puts it:

Unifying Democrats is like trying to herd a clew of worms over a chicken wire walkway onto an electric waffle iron. Like nailing lime Jell- O with carrot shreds to a tree. Reconstituting the original ingredients of a bouillabaisse. Unburning a bridge.

What Cole is suggesting here goes far beyond that, though. He's not suggesting ways to reach out to Hillary's supporters, he's actually looking to help out Hillary herself, the main source of much of the anger and rage he and others have spewed across the intertubes these last few months, myself included. (Seriously. Looking through the buildasign site above, I saw "wooden stakes" under accessories and my first thought was, "For Clinton?" I've apparently some ways to go before I'm over the primaries.)

Given recent history, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Cole has come under some fire from his comments section, (My personal favourite so far, "Are you trying to cure your CDS by taking part in some new drug experiment?"), though not nearly as bad as I might have thought. While more than a few have less than sympathetic comments regarding Clinton, the biggest stumbling block seems to be the possibility that Mark Penn might benefit, a sentiment I can't disagree with. For the rest, Cole had this to say:

. . . a lot of you have laughed when I pointed to pro-Hillary bloggers and noted that they have a lot of work to do walking their bloggers back from the cliff. Apparently that is a two-way street. I don’t like a lot of the stunts Camp Clinton pulled in the primary (and I hate Mark Penn), but it is over. She is on the right side now. If helping her pay off her campaign debt quickly gets her out there stumping for Obama every day, I will be the first one to chuck in 50 bucks. Paying down her debt now is not a validation of her campaign tactics- the loss invalidated them.

Something for you to think about when you lash out- you look to Clinton supporters much like the weirdos in the Taylor Marsh comment section look to us.

Nothing less than the truth, and it is going to take a fair bit more time before many of these people remember that they're on the same side again. I think this sort of gesture should help considerably.

A 50-State Presidential Election?

By BJ

As the focus shifts to the general election campaign and the strategies being laid out, the Obama camp in particular is looking to vastly expand the map of battleground states.

Senator Barack Obama’s general election plan calls for broadening the electoral map by challenging Senator John McCain in typically Republican states — from North Carolina to Missouri to Montana — as Mr. Obama seeks to take advantage of voter turnout operations built in nearly 50 states in the long Democratic nomination battle, aides said.

“Nearly 50” thanks to the FUBAR of Florida and Michigan, where they will have to play catch-up. For all of the hoopla centered on seating the delegates, it is this fact that is most likely to do harm to the Democrats in those two states come November.

On Monday, Mr. Obama will travel to North Carolina — a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 32 years — to start a two-week tour of speeches, town hall forums and other appearances intended to highlight differences with Mr. McCain on the economy. From there, he heads to Missouri, which last voted for a Democrat in 1996. His first campaign swing after securing the Democratic presidential nomination last week was to Virginia, which last voted Democratic in 1964.

. . .

While the lengthy, contentious Democratic primary fight against Mrs. Clinton exposed vulnerabilities in Mr. Obama that the Republicans will no doubt seek to exploit, it also allowed him to build a nearly nationwide network of volunteers and professional organizers. While early assertions by presidential campaigns that they intend to expand the playing field are often little more than feints intended to force opponents to spend time and money defending states that they should have locked up, Mr. Obama’s fund-raising success gives his campaign more flexibility than most to play in more places.

Mr. Obama’s aides said some states where they intend to campaign — like Georgia, Missouri, Montana and North Carolina — might ultimately be too red to turn blue. But the result of making an effort there could force Mr. McCain to spend money or send him to campaign in what should be safe ground, rather than using those resources in states like Ohio.

Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, said that the primary contest had left the campaign with strong get-out-the-vote operations in Republican states that were small enough that better-than-usual turnout could make a difference in the general election. Among those he pointed to was Alaska, which last voted for a Democrat in 1964.

“Do we have to win any of those to get to 270?” Mr. Plouffe said, referring to the number of electoral votes needed to win the election. “No. Do we have reason to think we can be competitive there? Yes. Do we have organizations in those states to be competitive? Yes. This is where the primary was really helpful to us now.”

Mr. Plouffe also pointed to Oregon and Washington, states that have traditionally been competitive and where Mr. Obama defeated Mrs. Clinton, as places the campaign could have significant advantages .

Still, the Republican Party has a history of out-hustling and out-organizing the Democratic Party in national elections. The question is whether the more organically grown game plans that carried Mr. Obama to victory in Democratic primaries and caucuses can match the well-oiled organizations Republicans have put together.

To some extent, this is a carry-over of the strategy that allowed Obama to defeat Clinton in the primaries. The math is different in the general though, where coming close in a state doesn’t offer any proportional advantage. Despite that, there are advantages to running such a broad-based campaign, and Matt Yglesias noted one of the major ones.

Bush talked in 2000 about the problems of poor minority children in school not so much because he thought he was going to get huge numbers of black people to vote for him, but to signal to voters everywhere that he was “a different kind of Republican,” caring, etc. Even if Obama doesn’t have any realistic prospect of winning North Carolina or Montana he certainly wants to win in places like Minnesota and Virginia and parts of Minnesota are like Montana, parts of Virginia are like North Carolina and an image as a broad-minded person who campaigns everywhere can be helpful. After all, Obama’s eruption onto the national stage was a critique of the red/blue politics of cultural division, so it’s good to dramatize that by running a nationwide campaign.

Beyond that, the more places you campaign the more places you’re in a position to take advantage of unexpected good fortune. If for some reason McCain commits some kind of horrible gaffe that alienates the people of the big empty square states, it’s good to have laid the groundwork to take advantage of that. Or maybe Bob Barr will catch fire in the Deep South. In a narrowcast campaign, you need to guess in advance how things will unfold over the next several months and that’s just difficult to do. If you have the cash to run a wide-focus campaign, then you can simply try to respond competently to events as they unfold however they unfold.

The other major advantage of a broad-based national campaign is that such a focus should give a boost to many of the down-ticket Dems fighting for House and Senate seats. As Fester noted a little while ago, both the Republican brand, and even more so their ideas, are in the toilet, and that means the Democrats are poised for some major pick-ups.

It is this kind of strategic thinking that I’ve always liked about the Obama-Dean style of organization. Of course, that only works if Obama wins, in which case he and Dean are organizational geniuses. If they lose, they’ll be pilloried for wasting resources in states they couldn’t win.

At the Presidential level, so long as the focus is one just McCain and Obama, the likelihood of a blow-out is slim, but if the campaign turns into a national referendum on the policies of the Republicans over the last eight years, we may yet see a serious pummeling.

Racism In America

By Ron Beasley

Paul Krugman writes today:

Fervent supporters of Barack Obama like to say that putting him in the White House would transform America. With all due respect to the candidate, that gets it backward. Mr. Obama is an impressive speaker who has run a brilliant campaign — but if he wins in November, it will be because our country has already been transformed.

Mr. Obama’s nomination wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago. It’s possible today only because racial division, which has driven U.S. politics rightward for more than four decades, has lost much of its sting.

I have seen this happen in my lifetime.  When I graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon in 1964 the city was still segregated.  The blacks lived in North and Northeast Portland.  My west side high school had virtually no black students.  A few years later I had moved from the city and was raising a family and working in the suburbs.  I was working next to and sometimes for the blacks I had not seen when I was growing up.  It went even deeper out there in the burbs - I had black neighbors and my son's best friend was black.  Krugman claims the transition that took place in the US was the result of a lowering urban crime rate.  I think that simplifies that issue.  I think the most important reason is that the races got to know each other and came to realize we weren't that different. 

Krugman is correct - this is bad news for what now passes as the conservative movement.  Through Lee Attwater and Karl Rove the Republican Party converted bigotry into political success.   But racism is not dead in America.  Obama will probably not carry Appalachia.  There are still people who will vote against a black man even if he better represents their interests.

This brings us to Larry Johnson and his hate filled band at No Quarter.  Hillary has thrown her support to Obama and even Taylor Marsh and other Clinton supporters have said they will do the same.  But not Johnson and the rest of the crew at No Quarter.  Someone asked the other day: "can we call them racists yet?" about the No Quarter crew.  Good question!

Update

Via John Cole - Even Laura Bush has more integrity than Larry Johnson.

Michelle Obama has a new defender from those who say she isn’t patriotic enough — First Lady Laura Bush. In an interview with ABC News, Bush said that Obama’s February remark that she was proud of the United States “for the first time in my adult life” was misconstrued.

“I think she probably meant ‘I’m more proud.’ That’s what she really meant,” Bush said from Afghanistan.

“You have to be really careful in what you say because everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued,” she said.

Signs of the Unity "Bounce" Begin

By BJ

Gallup's Daily tracking poll puts Obama 2 points ahead of McCain, 46% to 44%, which is statistically insignificant. The significant point comes when you read the analysis:

Within the current five-day rolling average, Obama has exceeded McCain by a fair margin in each of the last three individual nights of Gallup polling, all conducted since Hillary Clinton announced she would be ending her bid for the Democratic nomination. It appears that her exit decision had the immediate effect of releasing some of her supporters to back Obama in the general election. If this continues in interviews conducted Sunday, Obama should have a clear lead over McCain in Monday's release.

I figure it will take at least a couple of weeks to see how many of the Hillary supporters who were saying they'd support McCain if Hillary didn't win actually meant it. It is a safe bet that some of them did, but it is nice to see that at least some of those are starting to rally around the Democratic nominee.

Mr. Invisible

By BJ

John Cole noted yesterday that the most invisible person this election cycle so far seems to have been John McCain:

For all Hillary’s talk about invisible voters, it really seems like there is one person who is actually invisible this election cycle- John McCain. I have had the news on since 7 am, and I honestly do not think I have heard his name so much as mentioned. it is as if the race in the fall is a fight between Obama and Clinton. Still.

And when he is mentioned in the press, it is not flattering. Either it is his flip-flopping on wiretapping, concerns about his inability to be competitive with Obama in fund-raising, or stories like this about his disastrous speech:

As one of the commenters noted, "As a political strategy for McCain, invisible is good", and it would appear as though Matt Stearns at McClathchy agrees:

But the intense media focus on Obama and Clinton may have worked to McCain's advantage, Ornstein said.

"He had the great luxury of not only time, but of flying below the radar, so he could send discordant, contradictory messages and not have them immediately thrown back in his face," Ornstein said.

That meant that some missteps may not have mattered much outside Washington's chattering class and some ever-angry bloggers.

For example, McCain's first speech on the housing crisis, in which he said that the federal government had little role to play, was such a dud that he essentially offered a do-over a few weeks later, calling for more federal action.

In Iraq, McCain repeatedly said that Shiite-led Iran was training Sunni al Qaida; a traveling friend, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat from Connecticut, had to whisper a correction in McCain's ear. That undercut McCain's claim to superior international experience.

The campaign was beset for days over a controversy about lobbyists advising it. That narrative was especially dangerous for McCain, given his efforts to present himself as a reformer. Infuriating the McCain camp, media coverage all but ignored the fact that Obama also benefits from the advice of corporate lobbyists.

McCain also was forced to renounce endorsements from two prominent evangelical pastors, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, whose inflammatory comments on Islam and other issues proved offensive.

Then, in a week when McCain had hoped to focus on the environment and his distinction from Bush on that increasingly popular issue, he felt forced instead to embrace Bush when the president gave a speech in Israel that implicitly compared Obama to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who declared "peace in our time" after he met with Adolf Hitler.

That last example is a telling one because it was the first hint of what an united front for the Democrats could do. The appeasement angle has been the go-to weapon for the Republicans since 9/11 to shoot down Democratic candidates. This time, Obama fired back, and the rest of the party, including Hillary, lined up with him in pushing back. The result was a Democratic victory on the foreign policy debate, something I think we'll see more of in more policy areas as the debate turns to a one-on-one between Obama and McCain.

Of course, how long it will take for the media to get over the Clinton-Obama speculations, including; How sincere will Hillary's endorsement be? How what will Obama have to do to get those Clinton supporters vowing to vote McCain? Does Hillary want the VP slot and will Obama give it to her? Will that satisfy Hillary's supporters? And so on, and so on.

In the meantime, the GOP and its supporters will be pumping out massive piles of excrement to throw at the Obamas, which McCain will eventually get around to condemning parts of so he can maintain the illusion of being a fair and clean campaigner.

It should be interesting to see if McCain can keep from tripping himself up with the spotlight finally starting to shift towards him, but it will be a long five months, regardless.

Mexican Standoff?

By BJ

Because I simply can't resist mucking around with the topic a bit more.

During the private negotiations between Obama and Clinton, which do you think was the more significant bargaining chip:

1. Clinton being less than helpful with Obama's general election campaign? or

2. Obama being less than helpful with Clinton's $30 million campaign debt?

And I am a bad person for thinking that such a mutual blackmail/self-interest scheme would actually take place?

Feeling the audacity of hope

By Libby

It's a funny thing. When they excised that tumor, it seems it also rid me of a great despair that I thought I'd never overcome. I got the stitches out this morning and the pathology is back. I don't have cancer. I feel like a new person, or perhaps I should say the old person I was before Bush took office. I feel like I regained my zen and the future looks brighter than it has in seven long years, not just for me but for our country.

Hecate catches the first whiff of a sea change in the political atmosphere with this quote.

"We're going to try to reach out to all her supporters and tell them that we want to unify the party," Obama told reporters. He recounted his comments to the St. Paul group: "I understood that they were as inspired by her candidacy as some of my supporters are inspired by mine. They're not alone in drawing inspiration from her campaign. My own daughters now take the possibility of a woman being president for granted."

More at the link, including a really nice photogragh.

I believe as time goes on, most everyone will realize that both candidates contributed to an incredible change in the way the public relates to politics and in that sense everybody wins. I'm optimistic that the new interest in engaging in the process will outlast the instant election for generations to come. At this moment in time, it feels like a whole lot more than just a fool's hope.

Headlines, politics and self-inflicted wounds

By Fester:

Here are some of the headlines and ledesI have seen in the past few days:

Unemployment rate jumps to 5.5% in May

Forex - Dollar slides as more Americans lose jobs

US Jobs Fall For Fifth Consecutive Month

New claims for unemployment benefits have risen steadily,

Continuing claims fell by 16,000 in the week ended May 24, dropping to 3.09 million.

But the four-week average of continuing claims rose to 3.08 million, up 15,250.

The four-week average is at its highest level since March 2004.

A year ago, continuing claims numbered 2.52 million.

"A majority of Americans say they are worse off financially than a year ago, marking the first time in Gallup's 32-year history of asking the question that more than half of Americans give this pessimistic assessment."

I could go on for a while and pull up headlines and quotes concerning home equity destruction, tightening credit, low to no savings rates, higher gas, food and medical prices, but at some point this is overkill.  The story is simple --- most people are feeling pinched and economically insecure.  Costs are increasing at the same time uncertainty (which is expensive) also increases while the safety nets are very thin and not too reliable.  This would be a great time for Democrats to do something that has a high short term multiplier effect, is cost effective, and targets people who need temporary assistance while assuring others that the safety net is there for them.  This action would be to extend unemployment benefits for up to 13 weeks in most states, and potentially 26 weeks in the worst off states.  Simple, straightforward, and it should be a non-controversial policy to anyone in the party.

And what is the last headline I saw on:

Extension of Benefits For Jobless Is at Risk

House Democrats are likely to drop a 13-week extension of unemployment insurance benefits from a major spending package that includes continued funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

The bill would provide $165 billion to fund the two wars into the next presidency, along with billions of dollars more for domestic programs.

The unemployment insurance provision is one of several measures likely to be cut in an effort to win the support of the Blue Dogs and to increase the opposition to a veto that President Bush has threatened over several aspects of the bill

Let Bush veto the bill.  The politics and optics play out great for Democrats --- appease the get out of Iraq in a reasonable timeframe DFHs who make up 60%+ of the American electorate and most of the Democratic core electorate, point of the veto of the GI Bill expansion, and note that John McCain supports Bush.  This is a three-fer.  And then resubmit the same damn bill next week.  Hardball is not a bad thing when it can create a clear and distinct contrast. 

But no... the Blue Dogs are willing to fund an unpopular war but not take care of their constiuents... sometimes we deserve to fail miserably because of ourselves.... 

 

The World Prefers Obama

By Cernig

If the rest of the world had a vote in which flavor of American foreign policy they were to see in the next four years, the majority would definitely back Obama.

For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States at a time when the nation's image abroad has been seriously damaged.

From hundreds of supporters crowded around televisions in rural Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland, to jubilant Britons writing "WE DID IT!" on the Brits for Barack discussion board on Facebook, people celebrated what they called an important racial and generational milestone for the United States.

"This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila Patel, 62, a widow encountered on the streets of New Delhi. "A black president of the U.S. will mean that there will be more American tolerance for people around the world who are different."

The primary race generated unprecedented interest outside the United States, much of it a reflection of a desire for change from the policies of President Bush, who surveys show is deeply unpopular around the globe. At the same time, many people abroad seemed impressed -- sometimes even shocked -- by the wide-open nature of U.S. democracy, and the history-making race between a woman and a black man.

"The primaries showed that the U.S. is actually the nation we had believed it to be, a place that is open-minded enough to have a woman or an African American as its president," said Minoru Morita, a Tokyo political analyst.

While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has admirers, especially from her days as first lady, interviews on four continents suggested that Obama is the candidate who has most captured the world's imagination.

"Obama is the exciting image of what we always hoped America was," said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a British foreign policy institute. "We have immensely enjoyed the ride and can't wait for the next phase."

China is worried an Obama White House would be less likely to offshore manufacturing jobs, less likely to watch cheap Chinese imports undercut US-made items and less likely to keep spending like a proflagate, drunken sailor so that China can pick up America's debt as leverage. All of which might seem like good reasons to not give the Chinese what they want. Israel is worried that Obama will be less likely to toe their own militantly hard line in the Middle East - and the Palestinians are just as sceptical that he won't buck AIPAC. The latter seem to have good cause for their worries, as Obama's been getting steadily more hawkish over Iran. (Just not hawkish enough for the crazies who make common cause with Armageddon afficionados.)

Which means there will be the usual mutterings and innuendo from the American hard Right that Americans don't have to, indeed shouldn't, care what the rest of the world thinks. Except Israel, of course. It's the very worst kind of Divine Mandate, American Hegemony mental "isolationism" - one that says the US can act in the world without consideration of blowback, whistling past the graveyard in a manner that is inherently damaging to the American national interest. We've had almost eight years of that mindset.

And make no mistake, the rest of the world will draw up contingency plans in case we have another four years of McSame inflicted upon us. For some, that will involve military build-ups or the use of energy resources to curb that neoconservative belief in the ability of the US to play "bad cop" all the time without consequence. For others, it would mean further drift from old alliances. The idea that America is "bigger, biggest, best" and so can ignore the wishes of all the other kids on the block should pass into history.

Obama has his faults - he's no messiah, and I suspect far more of a clever marketer than an actual agent of change (a la Tony Blair) - but on this issue alone he places himself head and shoulders (literally) above John McCain. Both the world and America need an American "good cop". One that listens, one that asks questions before it shoots.

Problems with prediction markets

By Fester:

I have some significant issues with political prediction markets in that they are good aggregators of conventional wisdom among a small, illiquid, and thinly trading sector of actors.  They are a useful tool, a one-stop aggregator of opinion, but they are not infallible and they are not fully efficient.  They should be a complement to polling, demographic and issue analysis and other political analytical techniques. 

For instance, the AP called Obama clinched the nomination early yesterday afternoon.  Delegate counters had projected that even in worse case scenario situations --- double digit losses for Obama in both Montana and South Dakota, he would pick up a sufficient number of pledged delegates to push him over the top once they were added to the new superdelegate committments he was getting.  And these projections were occurring early yesterday or on Monday.  No one was saying anything new as we knew this was a highly likely scenario since at least March 5 when Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island ended up as a net delegate wash for Clinton. 

And yet, as Matt Yglesias notes, the Intrade prediction market still was giving someone other than Obama a more than 5% probability of being the nominee.  Given his age & health, death or disability is a very low probability event so the mechanism would most likely be a political mechanism of several hundred Democratic superdelegates flipping in the next eight weeks.  I think that is amazingly unlikely.  I think 5% is an order of magnitude too high to describe that probability. 

An efficient market would arbitage that problem away, but these markets are too thin and unsophisticated to do that. 

End of the Beginning

By BJ Bjornson

Today, Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee for President. Hillary is . . . taking a deep breath before any decisions are made.

She wasn't exactly conciliatory, but in my opinion not entirely flame-worthy. (An opinion my co-bloggers apparently don't agree with.) I commented somewhere that tonight's speech was going to leave people grumbling. I certainly wasn't wrong there.

Early Tuesday, Mark Halperin wrote about a number of things both candidates were underestimating. For Obama, the number one thing was this:

The intensely loyal feelings many of Clinton’s supporters have about her – and the intensely negative feelings they have about him.

I don't know if Obama truly underestimates this, but I'm pretty sure many of his supporters do. For the most part, I don't think many of them can even understand it. Over the last few months, I have taken frequent strolls through the comments section of Talkleft, Corrente, and a few other clearly pro-Clinton blogs. There, even more than in the posts themselves, I see an alternate reality that I simply don't recognize from what I've seen and experienced over the last six months.

And from this post, I know I'm not alone, but that there may be more to the story than I can understand.

For the life of me ,I simply cannot see this rampant, bludgeoning sexism that Ferraro and her ilk keep spewing about. Sexist incidents, yes. Sexist columnists and sexist commentators and some idiot with a shirt - yes. But some kind of wholesale, bloodthirsty sexist take down of Clinton? No. One condoned, snickeringly, by Obama and his crew? No, no, no. (And I won't even address Ferraro's laughable charge that white working-class folks can't relate to Obama and his wife because of their education but somehow can relate to Bill and Hillary, who apparently attended community college on 4-H scholarships. As far as I know.) And so, not seeing it, my inclination is to brush the dirt off my shoulders and say to Ferraro and all those other Angry White Women out there: Get a frickin' grip.

What stops me is only this: Too often I have stood in that painful place where all around you people (white people, mostly, in my case) insist that your interpretation of your own experience is incorrect. You're too sensitive, you're overreacting, yeah, that's what I said, but it's not what I meant, you just don't understand. I know as well as anyone that just because a huge and particular swath of humanity does not "see" something doesn't mean it does not exist. As Tim Wise points out, in this point-by-point essay on white denial, even in the early 1960s—a time at which America still operated under homegrown apartheid—most white Americans insisted racism did not exist or was not a major factor in the lives of black folks. Gallup polls show that nearly two-thirds claimed to believe blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities, while 85 percent said black children had just as good a chance as white children to get a good education.

The power of human beings to block out what they do not wish to see is astonishing.

I can't argue with that. So while I don't see or understand much of the narrative expressed by the die-hard Clinton supporters, I don't discount the power such a narrative has. It won't be easy to bring them back into the fold precisely because the narrative they've experienced is often diametrically opposed to the narrative Obama's supporters have.

For all that, I'm agreeing with BooMan:

I'm willing to be reconciled, but I am not willing to stop fighting until I see a white flag and an acknowledgment that Barack Obama won this contest fair and square and according to the rules. When I see Hillary Clinton stand up and admit that she lost and that Obama's victory is 100% legitimate, then I will stop fighting back. I hope to see it soon. And then, I hope, the Clinton supporters in the Blogosphere will stop peddling in hate and unsubstantiated innuendo. We all understand hardball tactics, even if we don't always respect them. But this contest is coming to a close. And anyone that keeps up the fight against Obama after today is working for McCain. And that includes Hillary Clinton.

And fellow Canuck Prole puts it far blunter.

The important thing right now though, is that Obama has won, and while it has been a bruising campaign, how and why he won bodes well for the fall.

Looking back, he won first and foremost because he knows how to look ahead. Neil Sinhababu pointed it out about his Iraq speech in 2002. It wasn't just that he came down on the right side of the Iraq debate when it was politically unpopular to do so, it's that he clearly foresaw the major problems with it. It was this foresight, along with Clinton's refusal to acknowledge her poor judgement on the issue, that gave Obama the opening he needed to topple her in the first place.

From there, it was Obama who had the right plan to win, by knowing and using the party delegate rules to ensure he would come out on top. Again it was foresight, combined with extensive planning, that allowed him to succeed.

And of course, there was his ability to inspire and get his message across, and to damp down controversies when they reared their heads. Great speeches form politicians these days are rare. For Obama, they're almost the norm. From tonight's examples, it looks like that skill will hold him in good stead for the contest against McCain. Head-to-head, Obama does quite well.

Of course, Hillary is already giving the McCain campaign a hand. It should prove interesting to see how she walks this kind of stuff back, if she ever does.

Quote Of The Day

By Ron Beasley

Our own Cernig was disgusted but not as disgu