Newshoggers.com

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. 

Campaign Finance, Small Donors and Republicans

By Fester:

Mark Ambinger is passing along this tidbit from a major campaign finance reformer that has me scratching my head:

On the panel, Wertheimer, who called himself a "genetic optimist," said he is confident that the new Congress will pass, and the new president will sign, a major overhaul of the public financing system for presidential campaigns, a key feature of which is a four-to-one match of small dollar contributions.

I'm trying to figure out why Republicans would agree to that change from an institutional point of view.  Even if, or espescially if they suffer the losses that US News and World Report reports that some insiders are worried about:

Some GOP insiders now predict that the Republicans will lose at least five seats in the Senate and 15 to 20 in the House, and it could get worse if gasoline prices continue to soar and the public remains in a disgruntled mood [h/t Atrios]

The remaining Republicans in this scenario are survivors from safe seats.  Furthermore the cycle of politics and seats at risk will look better for 2010 as it is a midterm where the opposition party typically picks up a few seats, and in 2012 when the GOP faces the freshmen of the class of 2006 and sees the House shift to slightly friendlier seats due to redistricting.  The Republicans who would be left are candidates who can win in very hostile environments under the current rule set.

Changing the current rule set to give a 4:1 match significantly disadvantages current Republican office holders while advantaging current Democratic officeholders.  The Democrats have successfully built a massive small donor based financing system in the past five years.  Under the current rule set Democrats can compete with Republicans by a combination of big money and a growing small money component. This rule change would swamp Republican fundraising instead of merely matching and barely beating it.  It would also allow Democrats the option of refusing some funds and become more ideologically coherent and aligned with popular interests instead of their funders interests. 

This same argument could have been written in2002 when McCain-Feingold banned national party soft money donations.  In fact it was written that McCain-Feingold was the Democratic Party Suicide Bill.  However six years later there is a Democratic majority (of what value is another issue) in both chambers of Congress, and the Democratic presidential nominee is the favorite to win the White House.  McCain-Feingold did not have a signiffcant negative impact on the Democratic Party's long run chancess.

However the Democratic Party of 2002 and the Democratic Party of 2008 are two very different creatures in its sources of support, hot button issues, activist influence and strategic direction.  And itis at this point of conflict that I have to question why Republican officials would vote for this rule change. 

The McCain-Feingold rule changes increased the power of activists, and small donors as aggregated small donors could now compete on the same playing field as large, instititutional donors.  Small donors have far less influence per person but as a unit, they can and have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to change the direction of the party by rejiggering the incentive structure through funding good candidates, funding primaries and backing up vulnerable incumbents.  This has worked as liberal activists are fairly close to median political positions.  However Republican incumbents have a good reason to fear their activists as they tend to be further from the median voters and issues positions. 

The activists with a proven ability to raise small donor money for the Republicans are the Paulites and the Christian conservatives.  When either group is the face of the Republican candidate in a barely competitive district, the  Republican probability of a win significantly decreases.  Even more importantly from an institutional power perspective is that these groups are the grunts of the Republican coalition and not its elite.  However being able to magnify their proportional influence by a factor of three or four would massively disrupt the party's power structure.  This is a fight that incumbent Republicans and their supporters don't want to wage as they have seen the costly rearguard that the Democratic establishment has been fighting against the bloggers and small donors for the past five years. 

I just don't see why Republican incumbents will vote for this bill, or allow it to pass without a filibuster vote as it is a direct inter-party threat, and more importantly, a massive intra-party institutional threat to their power. 

 

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.

Value of Safe Seat Primaries?

By Fester:

Two years ago, in April 2006, I projected a Democratic House caucus in which I that it would be an effective governing majority.  This week's losses on FISA capitulation and the ineffectiveness of following up on Scott McClellan testimony concerning the highly probable systemic obstruction of justice in the Plame case reinforce that basic point.  I had laid out a decision checklist on backing aggressive primary challengers for 2008 in order to seek better Democrats or at the very least more pliable from a progressive angle Democrats.  I think the three major primary challengers to Democratic incumbents that netroots activists funded met my criteria.  However these challengers have not appreciably changed the incentive structure for Democratic Congresscritters and I am curious if one element of my decision matrix is wrong:

Does the incumbent come from a safe district with a high Democratic PVI advantage?

I am questioning the value of restricting the challenge list to safe seat Democrats.  Chris Bowers has the revised and expanded Bush Dog list of Democrats who voted for FISA immunity, amnesia and repeal of significant elements of the Church reforms as well as voting to fund Iraq with no strings attached.  These Democrats come from districts that range from R+18 to D+17.  The traditional techniques would be focused on the highly Democratic districts on the theory that  losing any seat would be unacceptable and areas such as Prince George County, Maryland will not elect a Republican no matter what.  This system gives a pass to swing and tough seat Democrats.   Unfortunately that is enough seats to allow for very bad laws to go through while our intelligence is insulted.  It has not worked in changing the incentive structure of tough votes. 

In 2006 we did not know if the Democratic House leadership would run the House under the majority of the majority system or the majority of the whole system.  Majority of the whole greatly favors conservative Democrats as they can credibly threaten to defect on any deal and create a second option with the Republican caucus.  We have seen this conservative governing coalition dominate the Iraq war debate.  Giving conservative Democrats from tough seats a pass enables Republican favored policies to pass the House.  We need to rethink this.

High Republican PVI districts that are represented by Democrats, especially newer Democrats who do not have long standing relationships to the area require a Democratic incumbent to line all of their ducks in a row and hope the GOP is locally screwed if they are to be re-elected.  This means the liberals within the representative's winning coalition must be willing to work their tails off for a candidate who will routinely screw them over at the local and national level.   

If we assume that all office holders base their votes on some calculus of personal principal/policy preferences and political calculation, liberal/progressive netroots activists can change the formulation of the political calculation so that soft principal votes become more calculation votes in order to maintain the liberal wing of the electoral coalition. 

Assuming Democrats pick up double digit House seats this fall to improve the cushion, the threat of losing one to five R+10 or worse seats because of liberal opposition may be a worthwhile trade-off.  As a defensive action, electing and enabling conservative Democrats was a necessary first step but it is an insufficient step to changing the political calculus and trends within American politics.  It is time to find better leaders either through new candidates supported by new nodes of power, or by changing the existing political power matrix.  And challenging conservative Democrats in conservative seats from the left will force change even at, or more truthfully, because of the highly probable net loss of seats that this type of action would force. 

Dems fail on more than FISA

By Libby

With all the attention focused on FISA in the last couple of days, there's a couple of other matters of some import that received short shrift. For one the testimony of Scott McLellan before the House Judiciary Committee. Emptywheel was there and came home underwhelmed. See the post for the quotes but her summation says it all.

Well there you have it--confirmation of two things we've known all along. Rove is a liar, and Cheney an oil-hungry war-monger. At least we accomplished that much.

And I didn't see much about the rubberstamping of the next round of Iraq funding. Here's the list of those who voted no in the House. You might want to respond appropriately.

My guy is on the list so I'll be sending him a thank you note. I feel lucky that I ended up in one of few, if not only districts in NC with a decent House Rep since I made the move here by necessity more than choice. I wish I could say the same for my useless Senators.

I don't remember where I got these links but probably from Avedon who is celebrating her 23rd wedding anniversary with the fabulous Mr. Sideshow. I'm sure I speak for my fellow Newshoggers in wishing them both a hearty congratulations and wishes for just as many more to come, and then some.

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.

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).   

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.

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.

Today Is Unity Pony Day (Updated)

By Cernig

Hopefuly, the unity pony is on its way even as I type. Live feeds here (CNN), here (MSNBC), or here (CSPAN).

Which also makes it an ideal bad-news dumpday, as the major outlets won't be paying attention. I'll be turning over rocks in search of some "news less travelled" today and leave others to offer punditry on Clinton's speech.

Update: The pony has landed!

"The way to continue our fight now to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States," she said in a speech before cheering supporters packed into the ornate National Building Museum, not far from the White House she longed to govern from.

"Today as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary campaign he has won. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him and I ask of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me," the New York senator said in her 28-minute address.

With that and 13 other mentions of his name, Clinton placed herself solidly behind her Senate colleague from Illinois, a political sensation and the first black to secure a presidential nomination.

For Clinton and her supporters, it was a poignant moment, the end of an extraordinary run that began with an air of inevitability and certain victory. About 18 million people voted for her; it was the closest a woman has come to capturing a nomination.

"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before," she said.

Indeed, her speech repeatedly returned to the milestone her candidacy represented for women. She also acknowledged the unprecedented success of Obama's candidacy.

"Children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States," she said.

Let's not take anything away from Hillary in that respect - she didn't manage to make the final step, but she is right - that final American glass ceiling is full of cracks.

(We Brits, of course, can feel a bit smug - the final glass ceiling for women there shattered a few decades ago. Pity it was done by someone who turned out to be one of the worst, most devisive leaders in recent British history...our Dubya, if you will.)

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.... 

 

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 disgusted as Sully:

The speech tonight was a remarkable one for a candidate who has lost the nomination, though not remarkable for a Clinton. It was an assertion that she had won the nomination and a refusal to concede anything to her opponent. Classless, graceless, shameless, relentless. Pure Clinton.

But he wasn't finished with quote of the day:

Her narcissism requires that she deprive her opponent of a night, or a second, of gratification or attention. And she has now won, in her Bush-like version of reality, 18 million votes. Her invitation for her supporters to email their suggestions to her website is pure theater, a way of keeping herself in the spotlight and maneuvering her delegates to demand a second spot on the ticket. The way she is now doing this - by an implicit threat, backed by McCain, to claim that Obama is an illegitimate nominee if she does not get her way - is designed to humiliate the nominee sufficiently to wound him enough to lose the election.

Either way, she is clearly intent on getting Obama defeated this fall if she is not offered the vice-presidency. And if she gets the veep nod, the way she has gotten it will allow her to argue that a November loss was not her loss. It was his. And she will run again in 2012.

It's not and shouldn't work.  She could have gotten a cabinet position or even Senate Majority Leader but after tonight she deserves zip.  Obama will win in November without her so nothing for Hillary and Bill but a failed legacy.  Perhaps there is some land available near Crawford.

Bonus Quote

The bonus quote comes from Bill at On My Mind

All of this is business as usual in Clintonland. She is going out with power plays, dictating terms under which she is willing to play her role in reuniting the party. “I have my loyal voters,” she is saying, in effect, “and if you want them back in November here’s what you have to do for me, because this is still about me.”

Shocker! Clinton doesn't concede yet...

That's the news, as if you needed to be told. I almost thought she'd act for unity rather than just talk about it - which shows I'm the eternal optimist. This kind of stuff is the reason I disappointed my uncles and didn't go into politics...I just can't stomach the "say or do anything to win" sh*t, especially when it's aimed at a supposed ally in the same party and the person doing it can't win anyway.

There's no point in my blogging anything further tonight - it'll be lost in the noise - which is a pity because I picked up some interesting non-primary stories today. I'll write the posts tomorrow. Tonight, I'm off to read a book and forget politics with people like Hillary in it exists.

Regards, Cernig

Are we there yet...

By Fester:

I'm just about ready for this primary season to be done.  I finally put the increasingly childish calvinball fundraising e-mails from HillaryClinton.com into my spam filter as junk and I am hoping that the massive cache of stockpiled superdelegates that Obama reputedly has in his vest pocket actually exists as they have been rumored to have existed since at least before Texas on March 4. 

BJ and I have been talking about whether or not this primary process has been good for the Democrats as we have both been worried about the probability or possibility of Hillary Clinton taking the Sampson Option of destroying the party to destroy her primary opponent.  Given the flood of rumors that are coming out, combined with the neutral to positive campaign messaging she has employed since any plausible path of winning ended with Indiana being a draw and North Carolina being an Obama blow-out, the Sampson Option looks like it will have been averted, especially if Wesley Clark is offered either the VP or SecState slot as a visible peace gesture between multiple Democratic factions. 

Overall I think this primary season has been a significant net positive as voter registration, GOTV organization, message sharpening and sucking up all of the available media oxygen has been real and positive for Democrats.  The significant negative is that John McCain is entering June with minimal counter-definition work having been done against him.  However given the generic issue and political environment, this is a flaw but not a fatal flaw in my opinion as I believe that as Obama consolidates his support among Democrats in the national polls, he should begin to open up a significant lead in the national vote share and projected electoral vote shares.

Looking forward to the next contested Democratic primary cycle, hopefully in 2016, I agree with Publius at Obsidian Wings that several significant reforms need to be undertaken including rationalization of the calendar, increased superdelegate transparency or the elimination of most/all superdelegates, and reducing the value of jurisdictions that do not have any electoral votes.  This process has been a net positive while being a massive stress test on the Democratic Party.  There are significant but non-fatal flaws that will need to be addressed in the near future.  But finally, it seems like things are over. 

Where do we go from here?

By Libby

Like BJ, I didn't care about the Rules hearing today either, as much I'm concerned about the fallout. Marc Ambinder is reporting that it's over, the delegations have been seated and Clinton gained 24 delegates. I don't even want to begin to speculate on what it all means, but judging from the initial reactions I'm seeing, I have a bad feeling that they won't be delivering my unity pony tonight.

We Wait and We Wonder

By BJ Bjornson

I'm not watching the RBC hearings, both because I have other, more important things to do, and because the ultimate decision they reach really isn't the important point. What's important is whether or not the Hillary campaign accepts the decision. As I put it a few weeks ago:

The results don’t change, but given how voraciously many of Hillary’s supporters have taken up the fate of these two rule-breaking states, it makes sense for the party and the campaigns to come up with a solution to put the issue to rest and to allow the healing to begin. This is why the 31st may be the most important date remaining. If the Clinton camp refuses to accept any and all compromises and takes this issue to the convention, a good number of her supporters will stay with her and we’re back to the Samson Option.

I was probably overly generous in my thinking that Hillary would be willing to fade away quietly and start helping the Democratic party move forward towards defeating McCain in November, but we're now at crunch time, and the next few days will show us Hillary's true colours. Publius at Obsidian Wings has roughly the same take on the matter.

The truly truly critical event tomorrow is the Clinton campaign’s reaction to the rules committee’s decision. It could very well cost Obama the election — or win it for him.

I’m not saying anything that Josh Marshall and Hilzoy haven’t essentially already said, but it’s a point worth emphasizing. In the days ahead, the Clintons have the power either to unite the party going into the fall, or to leave a lasting, poisonous, and potentially-fatal schism. At this point, it’s not clear what path they’ll choose.

. . .

But this latter assumption — inevitable party unity — is up in the air these days. There’s a lot of bad blood. And what’s really "baddening" that blood for Clinton supporters is the idea that she’s being cheated out of the nomination.

And that’s where Clinton herself comes in. Her supporters will follow her lead. If she acknowledges that her defeat was legitimate (regardless of how much she actually campaigns), then I think the party will unite. If, by contrast, she spends the next few days (or god forbid, months) alleging that it was illegitimate, then that reaction will leave lasting damage. Not just among pro-Clinton bloggers, but among her core supporters, particularly older liberal women.

No idea at this point whether or not Hillary's supporters will actually follow her lead, but certainly a whole lot more of them will come around with her making the case that the decision was a legitimate one. It is clear that if she keeps the legitimacy pot on full boil for much longer, her supporters will continue to hate and blame Obama for her loss and guarantee a President McCain in November out of spite.

And if you don't think Hillary will take the brunt of the blame for a Democratic loss under those circumstances, check around on how popular the name Nader is in Democratic circles these days. The narrower the defeat, the more bitterly they will turn on anyone they can blame for robbing them of a few precious votes.

I also think her choice will have a significant impact on her political future. Last week, the Washington Post wrote a story regarding Hillary's options after her Presidential race was over. She's still a very junior Senator, and it's likely that a lot of her colleagues have found their way onto the Clinton's "enemies list". It's not that she couldn't make a very successful career in that position, but she'd have to willing to work her way up the ladder over a considerable number of years rather than have something like the majority leader position handed to her. Somehow that seems unlikely.

One of the other big options was the New York governorship, but her campaign remarks have left her in possible trouble there. Accepting a compromise on Michigan and Florida, and through that acknowledging the legitimacy of Obama's victory, may be the choice of enlightened self-interest.

So, we wait and we wonder. Will we soon see the end of the exhausting primary season and the beginning of the real fight? Or are we in for several more months of kneecapping?

Real Talk

By Cernig

From James Joyner:

It’s not inconceivable that the November elections return the White House to Democratic hands, increase the party’s House majority, and even provides a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate. But it’s a lead pipe cinch that they’ll screw it up, became the corrupt, power-at-all-costs goons that they now accuse their opponents of being, and piss off enough of the country that they’ll be thrown out on their butts. Not because they’re bad people who hate America but because that’s what people in power do.

Yup. A Dem White House and Hill will be better than a Republican one - but let's not kid ourselves that it will be that much better. I've said before that I think the Bush Years screwed conservativism up so much that they're going to have a decade in the wilderness - somewhat akin to the UK's conservatives during Blair's reign - before the Dems become as James describes above and the Repubs find a Cameron to lead them back to electability. But that the cycle will eventually turn again isn't worth betting against.

The beginning of the end

By Libby

Well, the last major contests are over and it seems apparent that failing a major swing by the superdelegates, Obama won the nomination. Of course Hillary is not conceding and Obama is not claiming victory outright. I think that's the right way to handle it. There's still a lot of passion out there for Clinton's candidacy and at this point I don't see any point in Hillary dropping out. It's so close to the end and it's great for democracy that every state gets some attention. But for the love of the Goddess, if Hillary wants to make speeches about every vote counting, then excluding caucus states and uncommited votes in MI when the campaign calculates its status is just a little contradictory.

Speaking of speeches, I was in bed before dark last night, but only half dozing so I caught Hillary's victory speech in Kentucky. This line made me laugh out loud.

And it’s often been said, as Kentucky goes, so goes the nation.

Maybe it's just my dry sense of humor but if I had a nickel for every time I heard somebody say that, I'd have -- a nickel.

But I really don't want to bash Hillary. I may not agree with her tactics but I believe in going down fighting for what you believe in and on that level you have to admire her for not giving up. On the other hand, I can't think of single thing to admire about MoDo. I see she's posted some self-absorbed dreck about the campaign today. Fortunately, thanks to Molly, who has made translating MoDodoisms her life's work, I didn't have to read it and neither do you.

Good Job Ohio Dems

By Fester:

Ohio Democrats are sending a real and differentiating signal that should reflect strongly on them when compared to Ohio Republicans.  Ohio Democrats recognize a massive ethics/impropriety situation and are doing something about it by drawing up articles of impeachment against the Democratic state Attorney General:

                House Democrats filed articles of impeachment this morning against Attorney General Marc Dann, charging him with nine counts relating to a sexual harassment scandal that has led to widespread calls for him to resign.

The articles, sponsored by 42 of 45 House Democrats, contend that Dann warrants impeachment for "misconduct in office rising to the level of malfeasance, neglect, nonfeasance, gross neglect of duty, improper exercise of authority and gross immorality."

A pattern is emerging at the state level.  State Democrats are looking at impropriety, corruption and scandals and not trying to defend it.  We saw this with Eliot Spitzer, we saw it in North Carolina and we are seeing this in Ohio.  As I wrote in regards to North Carolina these actions are strong contrasting actions, good politics and good policy:

This is good government, good sense and good politics as almost everyone involved can point out a concrete action that they took against self-dealing.  It also serves as a deterrent to anyone who is interested in self-dealing.  Good job North Carolina, and I wish Congress would take similiar actions against multiple members (from each party) as that would help restore some public trust in the institution.

Keep this up and credibility on good governance will increase and voter cynicism will decrease thus blurring strategies will be less effective.

Pennylsvania political rumblings

By Fester:

In the past few days, I've been listening to a couple of interesting grape vines which may have been aided by a bottle of excellent Merlot and the grapes are talking about outside group mobilization and targeting efforts by non-coordinating with campaign actors.  And it is sounding very interesting.

One liberal leaning group is looking to expand the probable Democratic voter pool by approximately 7% to 8% between May 1 and the general election.  This is on top of the current expansion of approximately the same size that the Obama and Clinton campaigns drove in during the primary campaign.  The plan is to flush the cities and find every last eligible but not registered potential voter. 

Another group is looking to add another 3% to the Dem voter pool by targeting younger and single women.  They are also primarily looking to flush the urban areas. 

Both groups, and several others are hurting for political talent.  Right now they are being staffed up by survivors of the Edwards campaign and independent non-coordinated groups' institutional organizing capacity.  Dislodging either Clinton or Obama staffers or volunteer supporters from locally developed networks has been tough at this time as there is a good deal of buy-in and faith that both campaigns will need their respective talents come July.  I think that the talent drought will not have significant impact if it is resolved in the next month or so.  After that, we could see SW Pa 2008 look like SW PA for Kerry --- a disorganized fiasco when the national campaign parachuted in without a clue. 

The other worry that I have is that I have not heard too much about expanding outreach and mobilization efforts outside of the Democratic base areas.  I think the external groups can increase the Dem voter pool by roughly 10% to 12% and the total voter pool by 6% to 7% but under what I am hearing, the voter pools will not significantly increase coattails. 

18 Point Swings

By Fester:   

Wow an 18 point swing in MS-1 from 2004's Presidential result to last night's special election result.  The Democratic candidate, Travis Childers trounced his generic Republican opponent by 8 points in a district that should favor a generic Republican by roughly 10 points.  Yes, I know that this is a special election where both parties were able to pore massive sums of money into it, and candidates were free to be as good or as bad as they personally could be, but something is going on here. 

At first we had an anomaly in IL-14 where a Democrat (Ed Fallon) picked up a R+6 seat against an incompetent opponent, and then we had a curiosity as a couple of months later in LA-6, Democratic candidate Cazavoux (sic) beat a weak opponent in a R+7 district.  Now we have a trend as an R+10 district flipped despite the Republican candidate actually being relatively competent. 

So what does this mean?

The Republicans need a new advertising and branding strategy as their kitchen sink attempts to tie Childers to Obama failed and failed miserably.  Childers actually increased his margin from the open, non-partisan primary.  He also increased the net Democratic margin from that primary.  Massive voter turnout means that someone's GOTV operation is running smoothly and is finding a very receptive audience that wants to go out and engage at the non-Presidential level.  And this I think could have the most significant long run impact on partisan composition as the Democratic primary campaigns energized a lot of occasional or new voters and they are still coming out to vote once the circus left town. 

Finally, this increases the resource demands on the NRCC as more and more GOP incumbents are looking at their R+5 or R+7 seats and are getting worried.  However the NRCC has very little cash on hand and due to the incentive of covering one own's ass first, vulnerable GOP congresscritters will not want to either transfer their current campaign funds to the NRCC or fundraise from their lists for the NRCC.  Time to enjoy a reality based incentive conflict!

Rendell as Obama's VP does not make sense

By Fester

Now that the primary season finally appears to be winding down and exhausted political junkies like myself can take a breather before the pre-convention definition and registration battles begin, the talk is shifting to what arrangements can be made for Hillary Clinton to drop out gracefully.  The Vice Presidential slot is an attractive and valuable piece of trade bait for the Obama campaign to dangle as it is an enforceable agreement by the losing campaign. So what does he do with it?

He could go and use it to reward a supporter who complements his abilities, but for the sake of this post, let us assume that the VP slot is in active consideration as a trading chip.  I don't think offering the slot to Senator Clinton makes a whole lot of sense as the offer would be awkward as hell, and when I was talking with Jeff the Election Geek recently, he noted it would be a diminution of her power base.  There is more value to be a powerful Senator with an independent fund raising base than to be a VP to a President who is not beholden to her power structure.  This makes a significant amount of sense.

So working with the assumption that the VP chip could go to a Clinton supporter, the next tier of supporters include several Senators, notably Evan Bayh of Indiana and a couple of governors, including Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania.  The logic here would be that a Clintonite VP candidate would be a signal to high information voters and high value Clinton leaning surrogates that they would receive significant attention in an Obama administration.  At the same time, the Clintonite running mate would be useful in shoring up Appalachia for Obama. 

Governor Rendell would definitely qualify as a credible signal to Clinton supporting institutions and high information voters.  He served as a senior member of the Clinton era DNC and is comfortable in traditional machine politics.   However I do not see Governor Rendell being particularly valuable for the second role of appealing to Appalachia.

The first problem is  geographic.  Rendell's power base in Pennsylvania has always been Philadelphia and he comes across as a big city, big machine guy.  In Pennsylvania that can work and work well as Philadelphia and its inner ring suburbs can swamp the rest of the state when assisted by Pittsburgh voting the same way.  However during both of his campaigns for the governorship, he underperformed in the low population parts of the central section of the state compared to his urban performance.  This is not surprising given that the central portion of the state is the GOP base, but it shows his limited general election value proposition.

Secondly, Pennsylvania should be relatively secure for Obama once the ground game gets moving and McCain is defined as unacceptable.  Democrats in the state have a massive and growing voter registration advantage and a vastly improved ground game.  The traditional machine in SW PA was pushed and pushed hard by the combination of the parallel local progressive shadow machine and the Obama campaign.  All three groups benefited from the competition. 

Finally, Gov. Rendell has indicated multiple times that he is not interested in the position and that it really flatlines his career as the VP.  He is still young enough after he leaves the governorship in 2010 to have significant influence and maybe another serious run at another office.  However if was to be VP he would be 73 on Inauguration Day 2017.  Age is a career killer for Democratic presidential primary voters as they have responded best to young, charismatic candidates (Obama & Bill Clinton).  He would not be a viable or  valuable successor and thus any potential second term Obama presidency would have significantly less political leverage for internal party battles. 

She may be clearing her throat . . .

By BJ

. . . but she won't be singing just yet.

While Hillary’s chances of winning the nomination are rapidly dwindling away, and her financial situation remains precarious, and her last hope supporters, ie – the superdelegates, are beginning to melt away and call for her withdrawal, I very much doubt she’ll withdraw.

For one, a quick look at the primary calendar will show you something I noticed back in March when trying to determine when the game might be put away. The Indiana/North Carolina dual primaries looked like a good ender candidate until I looked a bit further down the road and saw that next Tuesday is West Virginia, and the week after has Kentucky and Oregon. WV and KY are solid locks for Hillary, and you can be sure she’ll spin them as though they’re as game-changing momentum-wise as Obama’s Iowa and South Carolina victories were back in the Stone Age when this whole primary season feels like it began.

After that, it’s only a couple of weeks before the last three contests are done. If Hillary picks up Puerto Rico, she can even carry on claiming that Obama lost five of the last nine contests and therefore can’t be trusted with the nomination, and how Obama can’t win with a coalition of “blacks and eggheads”, plus continual harping about Michigan and Florida.

It remains to be seen how much the media will take her arguments seriously from here on out, (and like it or not, it is the media that gets to decide if her candidacy is still viable or not.), but so long as there is some razor-thin chance that something terrible happens to Obama, Hillary will be there to take on the mantle of the nominee.

The only part that worries me is something that Howard Dean said a couple of weeks ago.

I’m not the most important person in terms of bringing the party together. The most important person is the person who doesn’t win the nomination. Because I can remember when I lost to John Kerry, I had to go out and convince my supporters, it took me about 3 months, that they needed to support Sen. Kerry. I endorsed him, I campaigned for him, I went to all the college campuses and that’s what the person who doesn’t win this with 49% of the delegate is going to have to do keep the party together.

A unified Democratic Party blows the GOP out of the water in November, a divided party will at least make the presidential race a close one. I want to see the Democrats put this part of the race behind them and get down to the business of re-unifying the party for the real task, which John Cole put nicely:

Whatever. She threw everything she had at him. He weathered the storm. Consider him vetted. Consider Rev. Wright kicked in the junk. Consider me relieved. Now, can we get to the very serious business of dismantling the GOP? I have a very serious axe to grind, and it is deeply, deeply personal for me. There are a bunch of frauds, crooks, and phonies with whom I have a serious grudge that I want to settle. You see, I still have my “Peace Through Strength” button from when I campaigned for Reagan. I believed in limited government, I believed in a strong national defense, I believed in fiscal restraint and balanced budgets and I believed in personal integrity and individual liberty and personal freedom.

I am pissed. I want the frothing nutters, the fraudulent hucksters, the race-baiters, the anti-science frauds, the anti-intellectuals, the gay-bashers, the big-money cheats, the torture fetishists, the religious nuts, the tax and spenders, the xenophobes, and the phonies to pay. I want payback. I want the people who ruined my former party relegated to permanent minority status. I know I am a newly minted Democrat, and, as such, it is ballsy for me to start telling you what I want from the party, but this is my website and you are just going to have to deal with my opinion.

. . .

If Barack Obama was not your your preferred candidate, I am sorry that person did not win, but it is time to remember that the target is John McCain and the Bush/Cheney way of doing things. If you can not accept that and help move us forward, please at least get out of the way.

Obama's the nominee, but it will take Hillary actively working for him rather than against him to ensure that the GOP spends their requisite time in the wilderness, and I just hope she and her supporters realize that sooner than later.

The "Gas-Tax Holiday" as Science Debate

By BJ

Building on what Fester, (who apparently needs to invest in a DVR), wrote this morning, Hillary’s rather shameless embrace of the anti-intellectual “truthiness” meme on the gas-tax issue has opened herself up to a whole new line of attack based on how closely she’s following the strategy we’ve seen from the Bush administration these last seven years, something folks like Steve Benen and Robert Reich have highlighted.

We all know that Hillary would be far better than Bush, but given that Bush is the worst US President in modern history, that’s not too high a bar to set. In any case, I wanted to highlight this post by science writer Thomas Levenson on the further implications of Hillary’s attack on intellectuals.

. . . The other, broader implication is that we actually just held the long hoped for science debate — and the winner is clear.

I’m going to blog this week on what John McCain’s publicly announced budget plans mean for science (nothing good, and actually worse than that) . . . He lost the science debate long ago

But what of Hilary? Up until recently, she hadn’t been doing too badly.

. . .

But now, what she said at the Indiana interview this morning changes the game. She said, in effect, if the smart boys and girls don’t agree with her, then to hell with them.

That is, of course, precisely the anti-rational madness that has dominated the George Bush years. It is inimical to science or a scientific world view. If we are to pick and choose the facts we like, it is a very short step, quickly taken, to making them up. And that way lies an ever more rapid collapse of the American republic.

. . .

Barack Obama is no perfect paragon — the vaccine stuff is a relatively minor demonstration that he can pander too, soothing a passionate pressure group despite overwhelming expert advice. He is, after all, a politician, a very good, a very compelling one. I’m willing to bet that he’ll find times when the inherent uncertainty in science gives him useful cover for the lesser but more popular choice.

But on the gas tax holiday he has been exemplary. He recognized the flaws in the idea — from the fact that it won’t work, to the realization that even if it did work precisely as designed it’s still the wrong policy to pursue if you take the issues of energy independence and global warming seriously.

. . .

We may not have had our science debate in any formal sense — but on the gas tax issue, our candidates have managed to perform a reasonable simulation of one. And as I said at the beginning, there is one clear winner.

So as not to throw Hillary completely overboard, Steve Benen does offer a way for her to redeem herself at the bottom of his post.

The irony is, Clinton is at her best, her most impressive, and most inspiring when she’s showing off the depth of her knowledge. Policy Wonk Clinton is absolutely amazing — she knows details and policy minutiae better than almost anyone on the national stage. Policy Wonk Clinton loves studies, evidence, and reason. Policy Wonk Clinton is a bit like Al Gore, only with better political instincts and shrewder campaign skills. She’s the type of candidate I can really get excited about.

Policy Wonk Clinton, however, has left the building, and has been replaced with Shameless Pandering Clinton, who sounds like Bush while promoting John McCain’s gas-tax ideas.

The sooner we can get the real Clinton back, the better.

Or, if you prefer, a bit more direct advice from John Cole:

I am now going to offer some unsolicited advice to the smartest woman in America and her joke of a campaign- stop trying to out-Republican the Republicans. They are better at it than you are, as they are actually Republicans.

Unfortunately, I don't think the silly season ever ends.

The Truthiness of Experts

By Fester:

I usually don't/can't stay up to watch the Colbert Report as I start to get grumpy at work if I don't get enough sleep these days.  However I will make an exception tonight as I see the Hillary Clinton truthiness tour continue with her endorsement of the Colbert gut call methodology of policy analysis.

Could she name a single economist who agrees with her support for the gas tax holiday?

Hillary sidestepped the question, and tried to use the complete dearth of expert support for the idea to her advantage, pointing to it as proof that she's on the side of ordinary folks against "elite opinion" -- a phrase she used twice.

"I think we've been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion behind policies that haven't worked well for hard working Americans," she said.

A bit later she added: "It's really odd to me that arguing to give relief to a vast majority of Americans creates this incredible pushback...Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that don't benefit" the vast majority of the American people.

An ordinary voter begged to differ, however. Stephanopoulos turned the mike over to a woman who said she supported Obama and said she makes less than $25,000 a year.

Besides there being a vast social and influence chasm between political/media elites and actual experts, this is a truthiness moment.  The gas tax holiday is a good policy because it feels good (or at least polls that way) while those biased facts and empirical elasticity models don't feel good. 

This is an interesting piece of trying to frame Obama as part of the bad decision making of the past seven years.  I think it will be unsuccessful as Obama just has to call "Iraq War vote" and leave it at that as the counterweight to Clinton's frame as fighter for the 'common-sense' underdog. 

Ohhh--- silly season, when will it be over

And the race goes on...

By Libby

Standing before a backdrop emblazoned with the repeating slogan, Solutions For A Strong Military, Hillary spoke to a crowd of about 1000 in Jacksonville, NC, several hundred of which were high school students. Accounts conflict, but a couple of the kids got arrested prior to the event for either wearing or waving around Obama tshirts. The commenters section depressingly was supporting the school for quashing their First Amendment rights, but that's no surprise in today's zero tolerance environment. Then they wonder why kids have no respect for authority anymore...

Anyway, I watched about ten minutes of the video and it was a pretty good speech outside of her taunting Obama over doing yet another debate. I really wish she would stop flogging that dead horse. Her reasoning was that there are regional issues of concern to debate, but isn't that really a job for the gubernatorial candidates and why does she need a debate to tell the people what her solutions are to the problems? Why not just tell them while she's standing there already? It strikes me as a losing argument.

Otherwise though she was doing a pretty good job of highlighting her own differences with Republicans and dissing Bush more than Obama. If she keeps up that tenor in her speeches and Obama also follows suit, I won't mind as much if they keep this primary going through June. What the hell, we've come this far, might as well let every state have their moment of relevancy now.

Nominate me! Nominate me!

by Stacie

As I read Lanny Davis' Top 10 Reasons Why The Process The Democrats Use Is Insufficient Because Hillary Can't Win It (h/t Cole, see below), I thought exactly what I always think when a candidate, campaign, or party goes entirely off the deep end with the burning, burning stupid. I thought: Nominate Me!

So here's my Top 10 List of Undisputed Facts Showing Barack Obama's Weakness Against Me In The Primary Race.

10. He's beaten me in exactly zero head-to-head matchups so far this year.
9. My delegates are prettier.
8. White people don't like him. Haven't you heard? He's black.
7. I have truly amazing hair. Barack, though not balding as far as I can tell, has very little of the stuff. Not sure about body hair, though I'm proud to say that what little I have is also awesome.
6. No one's ever accused me of giving "whoop-de-doo speeches." That would hurt my feelings.
5. No Rezco scandal here. Like I could get a guy like that return my phone calls.
4. Barack Obama said that some small town Americans are bitter, and to prove this is false, the Clinton campaign now insists that those same people will never forgive such a use of language and wouldn't vote for the speaker. Dude, I think small-town Americans are frigging rock stars who never do anything out of bitterness or wrong-headedness. I'm just in a city because I like to make money, but I certainly don't think rural folks with their limited opportunities are bitter. That's just silly.
3. Just because he's like 1600 delegates ahead of me doesn't mean I can't pull it out.
2. I met a su