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July 10th, 2008
02:20 pm - Local boy makes good
I haven't visited any part of Italy where when where we are from ("Chicago") that did not prompt a mention of Al Capone from the native.
Last week we were in Sicily when the "where are from" question came up.
The answer prompted an animated discussion amongst the natives (in Italian, of course). I was able to discern that Al Capone was under discussion and confirmed that, yes, Al Capone was a famous resident of Chicago, and, yes, he did hail from Sicily and he had a colorful career exploring the limits of US legal system. The natives weren't too clear on where Chicago is, but they did know of Al.
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12:00 pm - Bomb Iran, Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Bomb Iran
Excuse me, I was just doing my John McCain impression.
So Seymour Hersh came out with another investigation of the coming attack on Iran. Terry Gross devoted a whole hour to interviewing Hersh about his New Yorker piece.
I have a hard time with Hersh. There are not many, maybe even no other, investigative journalists that have a record like his: Pulitzer Prize for breaking the My Lai massacre, KAL 007, Israeli nukes, Project Jennifer, doing a lot of the initial reporting on Abu Ghraib (but not all), to name a few scoops.
Lately Hersh has made US saber rattling against Iran his beat.
Hersh's scoop this time was that Congressional and Senate leaders had green lighted Presidential Finding authorizing spending up to 400 million dollars to destabilize Iran and allowed US operatives to use deadly force on the ground in Iran in capturing "high-value targets" and remove them to Iraq for detention and interrogation.
For Hersh, it all looks a lot like the march to war against Iraq, another attempt to hoodwink the U.S. into another disastrous war. But is it?
There a lot of different ways to look at the inauguration of clandestine campaign against Iran:
- It is angling for a casus belli.
- It is just business as usual in the War on Terror and they are just going after The Bad Guys.
- It is trying to turn up the pressure on Iran to back off its support of Iraqi insurgents.
- It is trying to turn up the pressure on Iran to negotiate on the nuclear impasse.
- It is trying to obtain information on Iran's nuke program.
- All of the above more or less.
But Hersh has not really nailed down what the Bushies are trying to do. While the "lethal force" clauses of the finding, Cheney cranking out lists of Iranian "high value targets" are juicy, from a journalistic point of view, they aren't the same as figuring out what Bush and Cheney are after.
While Hersh got wind of the finding and some of contents, he didn't dig up much on what the actual operations are, much less what objectives they are meant to achieve.
Hersh buries not one, but two leads in the article.
The first lead is that the Presidential finding is just another end run around Congressional oversight. The finding and approval process applies only to skulduggery involving the CIA but not to skulduggery carried out by the military, so the White House argues. The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is immune from Congress looking over its shoulder since Bush is the Commander in Chief.
The cloak and dagger ops in Iran are a joint CIA and DOD (and who knows what other agency) operation. So the $400 million budget presumably doesn't fund the whole campaign. And nobody, including Hersh, has any clear idea what the JSOC operatives are getting up to either.
The second lead is that the Bushies gave the heave-ho to yet another uppity senior military officer.
This time it was Admiral William Fallon, former head of Central Command, the military area responsible for that fun-filled part of the world including Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Fallon had the temerity to ask questions about what kind of JSOC operations where being carried under his command and tangled with the Prince of Darkness, Dick Cheney. Fallon lost and got the consolation prize of early retirement.
Has there ever been an Administration so actively hostile to its senior military? How many general officers have they shunted off into obscurity for not following the party line? Bush has done outdone Truman sacking MacArthur several times over.
Hersh has always got himself in trouble with his public statement and his writing. Hersh's article is measured and meaty. His performance on Fresh Air was alarmist. Hersh drops the qualifications and specifics when speaking. When I listen to Hersh, I have a mental image of Jason Robards in "All the President's Men" saying "It feels thin." Hersh needs a verbal editor.
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June 13th, 2008
05:56 pm - And another thing...
I seen with my very own eyes a billboard advertising "family night" at the lo cal Hooters franchise in Teaneck, New Jersey. "Kids under 8 eat free!"
So many questions, so few answers.
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05:23 pm - Boogle du jour
One US Marine is drummed out of the Corps and a second is disciplined for throwing a puppy off a cliff while on patrol in Iraq.
The marines real crime was filming the incident and then letting it out into wild where it ultimately made its way to YouTube.
It would be interesting to know how many US military personnel have been expelled or disciplined for killing Iraqi civilians for comparison.
Of course the animal rights advocates once again astound:
In a statement, the Humane Society of the United States applauded the Marine Corps' decision to punish those involved.
"The bad actors in this case have been dealt with by the Marine Corps, which rightly recognizes that harming animals is unacceptable conduct," said Dale Bartlett, the group's deputy manager for animal cruelty issues. "Now, the Department of Defense and the Congress must step up protection from cruelty for all animals under the law governing military conduct."
Call me an anthropocentric bigot, but I would rather see human rights take priority over animal rights. The US should step up protection from cruelty to humans in Iraq and adhere to national and international law governing military conduct and the puppies will take care of themselves.
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May 16th, 2008
08:58 am - Clive Stafford Smith and the power of governments
I went to see Clive Stafford Smith speak last night. Once a anti-death penalty lawyer and campaigner, founder of Reprieve, over the last few years he has taken on the issues of torture, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons and the detainees of the War on Terror.
Smith is a gadfly, in both the best sense and worst sense of the word. He is glib and entertaining and practiced in his arguments but I was disappointed at points, especially he spoke on the death penalty in the US.
He took the usual European cheap shot of pretending the US has some homogeneous judicial system instead of a patchwork of local, state and federal law. This is a familiar conceit of Europeans and has the added bonus of making Americans look benighted and backwards. If I condemned the European Court of Justice for a miscarriage of justice in Greece, Europeans can still fall back on their nationalities ("it is regrettable, but that is not how we do things in Britain|Germany|France...") or plead the weakness EU and its lack of a constitution but they would not acknowledge an analogous situation exists in the US.
As an American (as Smith is as well), I am not going to defend the justice system of Texas or Mississippi while holding up Massachusetts as an example of enlightened judicial practice without acknowledging the varying quality of state legal systems.
I had a brief discussion on the death penalty in the US with Smith afterwards. His take on abolishing the death penalty in the US is that the Supremes can (and should) do it with a stroke of their collective pens.
The obvious counterargument to this solution is that is exactly what the Supremes did in the 70s and it didn't stick. He acknowledged that the death penalty has a certain level of political support but he countered that the US judiciary and specifically the Supremes should just override the political sentiment and ban the death penalty. This is where Smith shows the limitations of his understanding of American politics.
This week John McCain gave a major speech on his judicial philosophy to pass the usual Republican litmus test. McCain toed the line and vowed to appoint "strict constructionists" to the federal bench.
The "strict constructionist" code covers a wide variety of pet Republican causes from abortion to affirmative action to privacy. It shows the Republicans still think that it is a live political issue in spite of the fact that Republican Presidents since Reagan have been making that promise and have appointed a majority of the sitting Supreme Court and federal judges. The Republicans stuck the soft-on-crime, activist-judge-appointing labels on the Democrats and have been profiting from them ever since.
By my lights abolishing the death penalty by judicial fiat is not the way to go. Judicial intervention won't necessarily last and it still takes a major political commitment by one party to push it through.
So any way you cut it, with elected prosecutors and judges, the death penalty is always a political issue in the US. Why not bite the bullet and put the emphasis on the electoral arena rather than the courtroom when fighting the death penalty?
I oppose the death penalty but the arguments for the abolishing it are aren't political gold.
The death penalty is immoral. I buy into this one but that doesn't mean there are not plenty of Old Testament fundamentalists out there who are for killing them all and letting God sort them out. It pushes the debate into the sphere of religion and morals (at least as far as Americans will allow that morality can exist outside of religion, which is not far at all) and makes it contest of piety. It is hard to build a political consensus on that ground.
The death penalty is inhumane. Hanging, firing squad, lethal injection, gassing and electrocution are all barbaric, but this argument falls down when you find a painless, practical and effective means of execution.
Michael Portillo went looking for exactly this and found it: hypoxia. It is practical; it just takes a tank of carbon dioxide and a mask. It is painless; the victims experience euphoria before death. And it is 100% lethal. So if states were to about this method of execution, it would close off the "cruel and unusual" avenue of legal argument.
The state cannot redress any mistake in the judicial process after the death penalty has been applied. For me this is the most persuasive argument against the death penalty. It feels the most democratic: the state bears a responsibility to its citizens to administer justice. But it is a rational argument without a lot of emotive punch.
The death penalty is unfairly administered and falls exclusively on the poor and minorities. Persuasive to me but the problem with this argument is it an argument for judicial reform and not necessarily against the death penalty. It is easily possible to see the death penalty being applied in a more perfect judicial system.
The death penalty distorts the judicial system into pursuing the maximum penalty in all cases. Again this is a persuasive argument for me but it is another argument for judicial reform and it is just isn't political dynamite.
Smith advocated making Europe (I suppose 'Europe' in the sense of the 'European Union' to be specific) the champion of human rights and rule of law as opposed to the way the US has so conspicuously failed to live up to those ideals. It is a noble aspiration but it is doomed to the same kinds of failures and inconsistencies that the US commits in the tug of war between states and the federal government.
Smith seems to look at the EU with the kind of hopes many Europeans had for it in the 90's. Does he really believe that the European Court of Justice will have the same kind of clout the Supreme Court has? Does he really believe that there is such a consensus of European opinion. The Europeans are having an even more difficult time than Americans did in writing a constitution and ultimately will end up with a confederation what will have far more latitude for hypocrisy and inconsistency than exists in the US.
On the legal ramifications of the War on Terror, Smith can't be gainsayed, however much my knee might have wanted to jerk. Once again I was angered by the ticking time bombs (political, legal, foreign policy) Bush has bequeathed his successor. If he wasn't such a screwup and we didn't have that pesky 22nd amendment, it would almost be worth keeping him in office so he would have to deal with the messes he created.
He threw out a number of intriguing factoids that I am going to look into:
- The US holds 27,000 foreign detainees in military custody at various sites around the world. I suppose the majority of those are Iraqis detained and held in Iraq but I am curious about the exact breakdowns of who and where.
- With the shutting of the secret prisons in Eastern Europe, the US has been sending to Iraq detainees captured elsewhere.
- The US has outfitted a number of prison ships for holding detainees. Given the US Navy's seakeeping ability, who need to worry about those troublesome territorial entanglements?
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May 7th, 2008
09:39 am - Split decision
North Carolina goes big for Obama.
Indiana barely goes for Clinton.
The Obama-Clinton slugfest reminds me of the Civil War. The mathematics of the contest were clear early on and victories won and lost did not alter the end result.
Since Super Tuesday Clinton's campaign has suffered from the same kind of cruel numbers. Behind in the popular vote, behind in the states won and behind in pledged delegates and ahead only in superdelegates, the only way for her to win was to continue to keep fighting up to and into the convention.
But Clinton's superdelegates have been slipping away and more uncommitted superdelegates have been announcing for Obama. Her lead in superdelegates has dwindled to about a dozen.
Clinton's logic for continuing the fight is now threadbare, not that it ever had a lot threads to cover its bareness. The superdelegates aren't going to bestow the nomination on her. The split IN/NC decision is probably enough of a victory for Obama to give superdelegates to continue marching to Obama as Sharpsburg was enough of a victory for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
While the continuing Reverend Wright flap has damaged Obama in some constituencies, it hasn't been fatal to Obama. There is some evidence that it hurt Clinton, her percentage of African American votes plummeted in NC and IN.
But Clinton has never admitted defeat or even publicly acknowledged the long odds against her. Until now, according to the New York Times:
[Clinton] made glancing reference to the difficult path ahead and Mr. Obama’s numerical and financial advantages entering the final month of the primary season. Just three minutes into her victory speech, she implored the several hundred supporters gathered at a theater here to go to her Web site and contribute money.
“Tonight once again I need your help to continue our journey,” she said. The crowd responded with a chant of “Yes she can!”
Her remarks were a combination of combativeness and of a wistfulness that had not been heard in her voice in recent weeks. Throughout them, Chelsea Clinton kept up a smile, and at one point Bill Clinton wiped away a tear.
...
“It’s so close, and I think that says a lot about how excited and passionate our supporters are,” she said. “But I can assure you, as I’ve said on many occasions, no matter what happens I will work for the nominee of the Democratic Party.”
This is classic exit strategy.
Assure the supporters that the fight will continue, praise their commitment but append a small footnote acknowledging that maybe someone else will get the nod. Clinton can say that while she didn't win, she built a solid core of support that she can rally and so deserves some respect from Obama and the party.
There other signs that the end is near for Clinton.
There is uncertainty whether she will campaign in West Virginia. A campaign determined to fight it out would have a full schedule worked up already but only one event for Clinton is on the calendar there.
And then there is the money. It is a bad sign when you are making a victory speech and having to implore your supporters to dig deeper in the wallets to keep the campaign going.
You know, this has always been your campaign, and this is your victory, because your support has meant the difference between winning and losing. And we can only keep winning if we're able to keep competing against an opponent who does outspend us massively.
So I hope you will go to HillaryClinton.com and support our campaign.
Pennsylvania drained a lot of money from Clinton's campaign and she also spent heavily in North Carolina in the hopes of pulling off an upset victory. Insiders are saying the campaign is near broke and a narrow win in Indiana and a big defeat in North Carolina won't make the money roll in.
Tueday just wasn't a good day for Clinton.
Clinton made two big mistakes, first in believing that she had a shot at winning North Carolina and second in misplaying the expectations game. She hinted at winning in NC and got trounced. She said she would win in IN, something that implies a 5 - 10% margin of victory and the polling numbers to back it up, not the less than 2% win she got. Conceding NC and being coy about IN would have given her a lot for cover for staying in.
Will the fight drag on into West Virginia? Will it go on through Oregon and Kentucky?
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April 8th, 2008
03:50 pm - Inappropriate advertisement du jour
From WYFF news:
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March 31st, 2008
04:51 pm - Care and feeding
Hanna had her 8th birthday this weekend and we celebrated it with a party.
Instead of going the usual birthday activity party (in past years: bowling party, pottery painting party, flower arranging party), this year Hanna wanted to have a "disco" party followed by a sleep over. We thought it was a welcome change from finding an activity and making all the arrangements. How difficult could it be to host a sleep over for five 7 to 8 year old girls?
Arranging the disco did take some effort. Hanna really, really wanted flashing lights and thundering bass. Thundering bass was no problem: I hauled the stereo down to the basement playroom.
Flashing lights were a little more difficult. We checked into renting disco lights but they were expensive and would have required drilling holes in the ceiling or renting complicated rigs to hang them (the lights, that is). We borrowed a couple of disco balls from other families. Between the colored light bulbs we picked up at the lo cal hardware store, the borrowed disco lights, the blinky Christmas lights and the party decorations, Hanna pronounced the disco provisions acceptable.
Disco music was also difficult. My musical tastes do not run to disco, so picking out dance music was somewhat problematic but Hanna approved of over two hours of music that I turned into a playlist and downloaded into the iPod so they could spin their own tunes.
Hanna's selections were quite eclectic: some Moby, some New Order, some Parliment, some James Brown, some Hillary Duff (from her sister's collection) but also Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", Cheap Trick's "California Man" and Springsteen's "Thunder Road" and a couple of selections from The Pretenders.
So all the preparations were laid for Saturday night. Tessa baked the birthday bake. We planned a spaghetti dinner with a variety of different sauces for different palettes.
The first hitch came when we noticed that we were changing to summer time that night. I didn't think it was a major problem. Sure the kids would lose an hour of sleep overnight but how late could the girls stay up?
The kids arrived and pick up times taking into account the time change were arranged with the depositing parents. The girls retired to the basement disco and the parents retired to the living room to be at hand in case parental intervention was needed. Little intervention was called for, mostly calls for help operating the stereo. The fascination of turning dials and pushing buttons was attractive and the limits of volume and the subwoofer were tested and passed.
The spaghetti dinner satisfied all tastes. Big sister's birthday cake was a success, in spite of the parents putting those trick candles that can't be blown out on the cake. The candles were taken from the birthday candle cache and were unlabeled. We were surprised as Hanna when they kept relighting.
The birthday dinner was followed by some TV viewing. After much debate, the girls settled on "Flushed Away."
At about 10:00pm, we decided to get the girls ready for bed. The basement playroom/disco has a couple of futons. Between the futons and foam mattresses, we had enough to comfortably sleep the girls. We got them in their beds at about 10:30pm.
We didn't expect the girls to fall asleep right away and they didn't. We retired to bed at about 11:00 when things were quieting down in the basement.
Between 11:00 and 12:00 there were requests for drinks of water.
At 12:30 I had to break up a Monopoly Junior game.
Some time after 1:00 there was a raid on the cookie drawer in the kitchen. We slept through this but the sugar-induced noise awoke us shortly afterward.
It was time for Plan B.
Recognizing that the chances of four 8 year olds falling asleep all by themselves were slim to none, we transferred them all upstairs to the guest bedroom and Hanna's room. This meant that there were two groups of two girls instead of one group of four to keep themselves up. Raveled sleeves of care were being knitted up some time after 2:00am, actually 3:00am with the time change.
I managed to drag myself out of bed for the usual Sunday morning distance run. The run was brisk. The day before had been warm but the clear skies overnight had allowed the temperature to drop and there was frost on the ground. The night before I had figured that shorts, long sleeved tee shirt and vest would be sufficient. They weren't and the only remedy was to make the running brisk as well. I didn't meet many people on the roads and trails and I admired the new snow on the Jura and the sun climbing over the Alps more or less alone.
I returned to find all children and wife at the breakfast table. The kids were happy, as was Wiweka, and the morning run had restored my good humor. So we all pronounced the birthday celebration a success.
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March 20th, 2008
01:27 pm - The Race and Race
The flap about Jeremiah Wright has been hurt Obama over the last couple of weeks. For a candidate that is still making himself know nationally and has fought to not be pigeonholed as the "black" candidate, the images are a media disaster. If they had surfaced before Iowa or after New Hampshire, they would have been fatal to Obama's campaign. In this campaign of attrition, they could still bestow the mystical momentum on Clinton.
As much as Clinton disparages eloquence, no amount of rational argument can dispel the doubts about Obama's candidacy. It's a job for eloquence. And by any measure, Obama's speech was genuinely eloquent. More than that, it showed understanding of both sides of the racial divide without forsaking his identity. It was masterful.
Even better, the speech provided a narrative for the media reporting in the coming weeks. "Narrative" is an overworked word in political campaigns these days but following Texas and Ohio, reporters have been at a loss for one. Clinton's claims of momentum and comeback didn't ring quite true, especially since Texas and Ohio did not alter the delegate mathematics. Obama couldn't turn media momentum into enough votes to win. So what is the narrative? The real story, a grinding campaign all the to the convention, is not very appealing.
The Speech gives reporters a chance to write a story about hope and opportunity and triumph over circumstances. It's too soon to tell if it will rate with Kennedy's "I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic" speech but I suspect (and hope) it will.
But will The Speech play in Pennsylvania? It is a lot easier to write about narratives (which is why I am doing it) than to write about nuts and bolts politics.
Ohio wasn't won by speeches and Pennsylvania won't be either. It will be won on the ground, by precinct captains and organization and GOTV drives. The real narrative is who has the ground game in Pennsylvania. But that is a lot tougher story for a reporter to write.
Meanwhile, Clinton continues to go down the low road. According to the NYT:
Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama’s association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election.
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March 14th, 2008
09:38 am - The F Bomb
You would think that living in a land of Francophones you would not see or hear a lot of English vulgarities. I see them all the time.
Here's a picture that ran on the front page of the lo cal paper:
I don't think they would have a run a picture showing "Nique les profs!"
I was watching lo cal hockey on TV two nights ago. They were interviewing one of the players from the Geneva pro hockey team and he was wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with "Fucking Fondue." I spent some time trying to parse the meaning of it.
Both of our girls belong to a gymnastics club. They also take dance lessons. Both have regular recitals or exhibitions to show that their parents' money is not going to waste. Rap music is often used to accompany the activities. It is strange to watch a bunch a cute seven and eight years going through a gymnastics routine to a rap song liberally sprinkled with expletives and usually, as rap frequently is, on a subject that is entirely inappropriate.
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March 12th, 2008
12:21 pm - On Spin
I reread "Me First" blog and I'm not happy with it. It didn't convey how pissed off I am with Clinton's tactics over the last few weeks.
The Clinton campaign has resorted to trash talk: the VP chatter, the 3 am phone call, the attacks on Obama's 'inexperience,' the claims of momentum. I'd like to believe that the trash talk does not work but a close reading of the exit polls in Ohio and Texas seems to show it did, so the Clintons will be stick with it.
Unfortunately, the inexperience attacks have worked. Obama has to respond effectively. Those 'inexperience' arguments can easily be turned around on Clinton and supplemented with counter-charges about judgment.
I happen to think that Obama has run a better campaign, not in the media spin sense, but being better organized on ground, better prepared for a long campaign and has more or less matched his public message to it. Clinton, however, has relentlessly played the expectations game and spun each demographic twist but her campaign has made some fundamental misjudgements. They were surprised by Iowa, they miscalculated South Carolina and they thought Super Tuesday would be the end. All the Clinton spin feels like "hey batter, batter, batter" chatter rather electoral fundamentals.
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09:59 am - Web Spin
Clinton ouch: CNN runs a picture of Clinton and Eliot Spitzer over the Spitzer prostitution scandal and describes Spitzer as a "Clinton supporter" in the synopsis.
Obama ouch: The New York Times buries the story of Obama's victory in Mississippi as a footnote to a political analysis article on "Democrats Fight Over Defining ‘Winner’" I know that Mississippi was expected to be an Obama gimme but sheesh.
Obama ouch: CNN gives Obama's victory in Mississippi top billing but paints it as a racially polarized victory.
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08:54 am - Me first
Hoyden About Town pointed to an interesting commentary on the Clinton-Obama slugfest. Among other things it said:
Oh, and about that. For all the talk about mathematical impossibilities and whatnot, Clinton would not still be in it if there weren't an outside chance she could win it. Between superdelegates, Florida and Michigan, and primaries yet to be held, there remain perfectly legal -- albeit implausible and arguably unsavory -- scenarios in which she could get the nomination. And from the looks of things, she's going to exhaust every one of those legal options before she gives up, so you know... get used to it. You don't have to like it, but calling for her to play nice and bow out is pretty much wasting your breath.
Why Clinton’s Not (Necessarily) Crazy
For me, the Clintonian me-first attitude is exactly what pisses me off about the Clintons (both Bill and Hillary). Their ability to put their own political fortunes ahead of the party has cost the party dearly over the years and that has had huge consequences for the nation.
I don't mean The Party in some kind of Stalinist Communist Party sense. The Democrat Party as a body is not endowed with some kind of mystical wisdom but the White House, House and Senate do matter. One political figure can't control all three. Screwing over the party and losing the House and Senate will make Presidency ineffectual.
Let's review the downsides of a knock down, drag out fight for the nomination:
- McCain gets a free ride until August. He gets to consolidate his party support (aka pandering) outside the media spotlight.
- McCain gets a primer on how to run against the Democratic nominee.
- The fight will leave the nominee badly positioned for the general election.
- The fight becomes so embittered that the Clintonites or the Obamatics decide to sit out the general election.
On the other hand, McCain is gasping for media oxygen right now. And he has not been able to pick up on any big stumbles by Clinton or Obama, neither has made any (apparently).
Clinton's 'kitchen sink' negative campaign has made Obama a better candidate. Obama's fundraising prowess has sharpened Clinton's fundraising skills. Both are better candidates for the general election.
The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are small. It's is difficult to portray the contest as a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party. At least on domestic issues, both candidates seem much more in sync with the country than McCain. It will be the Republicans who will be doing the repositioning for the general election, not the Democrats.
The last possibility is the real danger. The only way McCain can win is if Democratic voters stay home.
Both Clinton and Obama have to think how to bow out gracefully. Since Obama has the better claim to the nomination - having the lead in the popular vote, pledged delegates and states won - the pressure is more on Clinton with some justification.
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March 5th, 2008
11:22 am - More prognostication
The next historical parallel that pundits will draw is to 1980 when Ted Kennedy dragged his fight against Carter all the way to the convention and how it cost Carter the general election.
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10:08 am - The Empire Strikes Back
One the perks of amateur punditry is never admitting a misjudgement but I'll own up to mine: Clinton did pull off a big win in Ohio and a narrow win in Texas in spite of my seasoned judgement.
Whether she will get more delegates out of it than Obama is unclear. Texas has a weird two headed primary/caucus setup this time out that makes it difficult to predict who will net the most delegates.
Depending on whose numbers you believe, Clinton won 37 more pledged delegates, narrowing Obama's lead to around 86 delegates. These numbers from the AP's delegate tallies which include superdelegates.
The conventional wisdom has been that Hillary needed big (+20 point) wins in both Texas and Ohio, hold onto her superdelegates and win a committee fight to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations to win the nomination in the convention. Tuesday's results haven't substantially changed that picture, though Clinton didn't get the kind of margins she supposedly needed, Ohio and Texas didn't derail her plan. Clinton has adjusted her spin and now vows to campaign on to Pennsylvania on April 22.
There is also no immediate reason for Clinton to drop out. After weathering a financial crisis around Super Tuesday, Clinton has significant money rolling in now. Obama is still trouncing her in the money game, but Clinton is still raising serious money. And there aren't very many contests from here on out, so it is safe to say that both Clinton and Obama can campaign hard.
Time is running out. Wyoming (a caucus state) and Mississippi (a primary state) come before Pennsylvania. Mississippi is an Obama gimme and Wyoming may fall to Obama's caucus prowess. After Pennsylvania come Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and Montana. Clinton probably has a good shot at Indiana and West Virginia. Obama will take NC and OR. Kentucky could be a toss up. But that puts us all the way into June.
After Super Tuesday Howard Dean threatened to force an end to the horse race if threatened to drag into April and that is exactly what it looks like it will do. Dean can't officially do this of course but there are other ways to force Clinton or Obama out. If superdelegates start lining up behind Clinton or Obama, it would effectively decide the race. It is not an ideal way to finish it off but it is better than allowing McCain to have a free ride all the way to the convention.
So instead of looking for a battle over the states, look for a battle of endorsements. Big name Democrats will start weighing in and superdelegates will start publicly lining up. It's a shame for the race to be decided on whose rolodex is better but that's what it may come down to.
Obama has been buoyed by endorsements lately; Chris Dodd and John Lewis most prominently. I expect that Obama has John Edwards and Al Gore on speed dial and he may be rethinking offering Edwards the AG post in exchange for Edwards blessing. A lot of party hacks will be impressed by Obama's ground game and will want his GOTV machine in November. Clinton has not shown the same strength and there are plenty of party hacks who don't think she can win in November.
How much clout do the Clintons still have? Can Bill twist enough arms and cajole the party to fall in behind Hillary? I would say no but I've been wrong before.
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March 3rd, 2008
01:54 pm - Prognostication
Obama wins Texas by more than 10.
Obama wins Obama by less than 5.
Obama wins Vermont by more than 20.
Clinton wins Rhode Island.
I didn't keep up with the race much last week hiding out in the Swiss Alps. I had no Internet access and didn't buy the IHT but I did watch some CNN, BBC and Sky.
I did see enough to be disappointed in Clinton. She seems to be determined to go out on a low.
The pundits have interpreted Clinton's turn to the negative as her following the tried and true political strategy for candidate down in the polls. Going negative for the trailing candidate is received political wisdom but I always heard it with a caveat "but only if your negatives are below a certain level, say below 25%" and "only if you are in a close race."
Going negative does drive up the opponent's negatives, but it also drives up the attacker's negatives. The other received political wisdom I have always heard is that if your negatives reach toxic levels, say above 45%, you are unelectable.
Going negative can close a lead in the polls but only if it is a few points. Clinton hasn't had a close race since Super Tuesday.
Clinton has always flirted with toxic levels of negatives even among Democratic voters. So it is puzzling that Clinton would go negative at this late date and particularly after her unfortunate experience in South Carolina.
So we have two Democratic candidates with trivial policy differences, one with a better selling experience message, the other with a more potent change message. For Hillary to go negative now seems like political suicide. Not only is it unlikely to win her the kind of margins she needs in Texas and Ohio, it will probably drive away the Democratic establishment who are getting increasingly impatient for an anointed candidate that start the race against McCain.
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01:28 pm - COLLEGE! Daze
I just discovered that David Brooks (Class of 1983) and I (Class of 1984) were classmates at the University of Chicago.
I was listening to the weekly Shields/Brooks The News Hour podcast and Brooks recounted how William F. Buckley gave him his break into punditry after he wrote a parody biography of Buckley in the Chicago Maroon.
I remember Buckley's visit to the UofC and I remember the Maroon parody but I have no recollection of Brooks. The classes were pretty small back then - just a few hundred - so the odds were high that we would have crossed paths at some point.
Dang, I could have been dining out on college anecdotes all these years but I am drawing a blank.
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February 23rd, 2008
11:16 am - GONE SKIIN'
Play nice.
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February 22nd, 2008
01:09 pm - McCain got no pull?
The FEC dealt McCain another blow yesterday when warned him that he would not be allowed to automatically withdraw from federal funding of his primary campaign. There is a overall $54 million spending cap on campaigns receiving federal matching funds. McCain has spent $49 million so far. He'll have make $5 million last between here and the convention.
The FEC Chairman David M. Mason informed McCain that the commission could not let him out of his federal matching application because the FEC board lacked a quorum and because there were questions about $1 million loan that McCain received.
It seems like the kind of problem that could easily be solved by McCain making a phone call or two, the first to Bush to rein in the FCC and maybe a couple of others to plead party unity and raise specter of Dole's funding problems in 1992.
It is difficult to make out what kind of conservative David M. Mason is from his CV. He worked for John Warner (for moderate Republican cred) but then he worked for Trent Lott. He's from Virginia which could mean anything. And then there is line:
He is active in political and community affairs in northern Virginia and in the home education movement nationally. He and his wife reside in Lovettsville, Virginia with their ten children.
Northern Virginia, active in the home education movement and 10 children = right wing home schooling Christian loon
That explains it.
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11:57 am - McCain swings and the NYT misses?
What a journalist train wreck. The NYT gets wind of a rumor of an affair between McCain and a lobbyist, assigns four veteran reporters, spends months investigating the rumors, sits on the story for months and then rushes it into print when The New Republic runs a story on the story. Fun ensues.
After reading the NYT piece and the followups, the TNR story on the story and listening to various comments by McCain aides, I can't figure out what the NYT was trying to do. Was it a straightforward tabloid hit, politician has extramarital affair story? Or was it an exposè of McCain's ties to lobbyists and their influence on his legislation? The NYT article tries to cover both angles and fails.
The NYT uncovers almost nothing on the lobbying angle, no evidence of a link between Ms. Iseman's clients and McCain's legislative record and no evidence that Iseman unduly influenced McCain. Instead the NYT rehashes McCain's Keating 5 involvement and lights a few squibs about McCain hiring staffers that were products of the gummamint/lobbying revolving door. Ho hum.
The NYT didn't dish much dirt on the Iseman/McCain relationship either. Instead it aired a lot of concerns staffers had about the propriety of the relationship. But it was all old gossip, dating from 1999 - 2000. Why is it relevant now? If McCain had been one of the right wing Christian moralist family values kind of guys it would be marginally more relevant.
What surprised me about the story was the lack of loyalty of McCain staffers. To get that kind of dirt from inside the office argues that McCain doesn't command a lot of respect from his hired help. Was it because the staffer's figured that McCain doesn't have a chance at the White House and no cushy administration jobs are in their future? Much of the original reporting was done when McCain's campaign was melting down before Iowa. Or was it because McCain's office was not a happy place? The story owes a lot to John Weaver who has had a contentious relationship with McCain.
McCain seems to be responding to the story as a sex scandal with Cindy prominently standing by her man. But that only addresses half the allegations and does nothing to allay the lobbying allegations. If it plays out as a sex scandal it will run its course quickly. If it play as a special interest scandal, it could do some real damage to McCain.
If McCain can take any solace from the flap, it has rallied conservatives to defend him. Conservatives hate the NYT more than they hate McCain but probably only by a little.
Obama is probably breathing a little sigh of relief as well. What was shaping up to be spat between McCain and Obama has been sidelined for probably a week. That leaves Obama having to fend off attacks from just Clinton.
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