Math and Pedestals
So today I receive a follow-up mass email from the Obama campaign, purportedly written by Senator O himself. It started as follows:
I want to add some more news to David’s note about the state of the race.
As you know, we’ve won 27 of 41 contests and have maintained our commanding lead among pledged delegates.
But today I want to share another staggering number: supporters like you donated more than $55 million to this campaign in the month of February.
OK. Great. I knew that already. So I read on:
… more important than the total is how we did it — more than 90% of donations were $100 or less, and more than 385,000 new donors in February pushed us past our goal of more than 1,000,000 people owning a piece of this campaign.
Impressive. Congrats are definitely in order. Then, this:
… unlike Senator Clinton and Senator McCain, we have never taken money from lobbyists or PACs.
Whoa. Wait minute. Slow down there, Barack. People in glass houses and all that. I can’t speak to the ban on PAC money, but the ban on “lobbyists” depends entirely on how narrowly you define “lobbyists.” I think all of those industries and companies identified here by McQ are going to attempt to “lobby” you for something, at some point. And in that sense, they may not reside officially on K street, but they are in fact lobbyists.
Please understand: I’m not trying to be overly critical. The Obama campaign’s ability to raise a lot of money in small amounts from diverse sources is to be commended and applauded; it’s precisely how campaigns should be mounted and maintained in my opinion. Hell, I’d like to see a law that no campaign could take more than $100 from any given source. But that’s not the point. The point is that a post-partisan/unity candidate needs to be a little more discreet about how he employs partisan/divisive claims. Especially when those claims are less than accurate.
As Andrew Sullivan suggested earlier today, it’s time for Obama to get down off the pedestal, and re-focus on the core promise of a new approach, in deed as well as words, which has served him so well to date and made him so appealing to so many of us, from all corners of America. Obama set the higher standard, and now, like McCain, he should be held to it.
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16 Responses to “Math and Pedestals”
[...] [H]ard|OCP – hardocp.com wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMath and Pedestals March 6th, 2008 by PETE ABEL So today I receive a follow-up mass email from the Obama campaign, purportedly written by Senator O himself. It started as follows: I want to add some more news to David’s note about the state of the race. As you know, we’ve won 27 of 41 contests and have maintained our commanding lead among pledged delegates. But today I want to share another staggering number: supporters like you donated more than $55 million to this campaign in the month [...]
[...] Redstate | Conservative News and Community wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMath and Pedestals March 6th, 2008 by PETE ABEL So today I receive a follow-up mass email from the Obama campaign, purportedly written by Senator O himself. It started as follows: I want to add some more news to David’s note about the state of the race. As you know, we’ve won 27 of 41 contests and have maintained our commanding lead among pledged delegates. But today I want to share another staggering number: supporters like you donated more than $55 million to this campaign in the month [...]
The reporting of how much the campaigns have raised is the opportunity I've waited for to interject on the matter of the Florida and Michigan primaries and the delegates from those two states, which cannot be seated at the Democratic convention (the issue of note here) and half of which cannot be seated at the GOP convention (which I doubt will merit much interest).
The states of Florida and Michigan are willing to consider holding new elections (in today's dumbed-down English, referred to in the news as “do-over” elections), but behaving as typical parasites, they want someone else to pay for or to help pay for the elections rather than paying for them on their own, as they should. The DNC, which has no moral or legal or any other form of obligation to the states to provide any money, says it won't provide any.
Another obvious source of money is the vast sum donated to the Clinton and Obama campaigns, and so I conceived of an obvious solution to this problem, which is to have the Clinton and Obama campaigns jointly fund them (at least the Democratic primaries; there's no need to involve the GOP primaries and to involve McCain, as he has attained thability to be nominated already).
In fact, I'm surprised this wasn't thought of already by either Clinton or Obama, because whoever would be the first candidate to have made the suggestion and most importantly, to have announced the offer to contribute his or her share would have gained a psychological advantage over the other candidate in these two states and in the subsequent new elections.
(Another solution is to raise the money privately from residents of Florida and Michigan, or from whoever else wishes to donate. There is no valid claim to any federal government funds for these second elections, not federal matching funds for the candidates' contributions, nor any other money from the federal government, nor for any kind of federal tax deduction for spending money on them.)
I am concerned that Obama is hypocritical about this. And unnecessarily so. Since he can raise so much from small donors perhaps it would be wise and shrewd to return the money from lobbyists and PAC. Once he announced doing this he would get the money back from small donors in a few days while burnishing his integrity.
Well, well, so Obama turns out to be a mere politician.
This is exactly what I feared. The mantle of sainthood his supporters have given him comes at a high price. The merest smudge can be amplified into a huge blot when seen on a background of pure white.
Perhaps it's time to realize that the 'perfect person' does not exist. We choose the best of the lot, and for many reasons, I still think Obama is the best of the lot.
But I'm apalled by the fanaticism of many of his supporters. On one level, they represent his greatest risk.
On the whole, having set high standards, Obama is now obliged to live by them, or suffer political damage.
I consider this far below scandal level. I consider ti a warning of what is to come.
[...] Redstate | Conservative News and Community wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMath and Pedestals March 6th, 2008 by PETE ABEL So today I receive a follow-up mass email from the Obama campaign, purportedly written by Senator O himself. It started as follows: I want to add some more news to David’s note about the state of the race. As you know, we’ve won 27 of 41 contests and have maintained our commanding lead among pledged delegates. But today I want to share another staggering number: supporters like you donated more than $55 million to this campaign in the month [...]
I'm with domajot here. This isn't a scandal, but a warning. I'm disappointed in Obama that he would do this.
DLS: that's a great idea. Only Hillary can lose here, so Obama has everything to gain by making the suggestion.
I say that only Hillary can lose because: if the elections are uh…. “do-overs”… (I love that phrase, DLS, somehow it seems appropriate for what's going on and how endless this process seems to have become…. and now we have “do-overs” to add to our endless excitement….). Back to what I was saying.. a “do-over”' allows Obama to pick up delegates in MI (he wasn't on the ballot the first time around) and potentially more delegates in FL (though he could lose some, but Hillary got a pretty good amount so she doesn't want anything to happen to her lead from the first election). If Obama makes the proposal and Hillary turns it down, that Obama can be seen as one trying to reach a compromise and Hillary will be viewed as the stubborn one.
Just a note- including the FL and MI delegations would move the goal posts of the delegate count. Currently one of the candidates needs 2,025 delegates to win, based on 4,048 total delegates. Including FL and MI would bring the total delegate count higher and the number of delegates a candidate needs would move higher.
If you want to use the term “do-over,” go ahead. I'm just a crusty Scrooge about it.
Note what you said, “If Obama makes the proposal and Hillary turns it down, that Obama can be seen as one trying to reach a compromise and Hillary will be viewed as the stubborn one.” [as well as being hypocritical with her re-reversal]
Yes, this is the psychological issue. Whoever takes the initiative is the Good One and whoever responds by resisting is a Bad One.
The ironic thing is something I read in one of the many articles about this issue. That is, the reason the states acted illegitimately and went early against the rules was to boost their clout. We can understand that; it's what leapfrogging is all about. But now that they may hold more elections, much later, and have more clout than they ever conceived.
I'm willing to bet that eventually something will be done in favor of these two states. There's too much to lose here. How about holding a special lottery in both states, with not only some cash prizes but even special prizes like trips to the Dem convention as a member of the delegation of that state, yes, to participate as one of the regular delegates (or several, depending on how many prizes would be awarded)? (I'm assuming all the superdelegates are named already and so any winner wouldn't be a superdelegate instead.) In fact, it sounds a little seamy but if they wanted to involve large contributors, let the largest or some of the largest be in the delegation. And of course another thing I read was corporate sponsorship of new elections as a method of private finance. Why not the Tropicana Florida Election (the example I heard of) or the Chrysler-Ford-General Motors-UAW Michigan Election?
(For that matter, why don't the news and cable networks help finance new elections and maybe a debate as part of the price extracted, given that they are feasting on the elections as more “raw meat” than any conservative activists?)
I agree Obama's anti-lobby money is too unqualified. The truth is that he receives far less lobbyist money than Clinton or McCain. The substantive issue is that he doesn't owe as many favors to big contributers as does McCain or Clinton. He isn't perfect. But he's better than most on this score.
Elrod, Domajot, others — you're right. It's not a scandal. Sorry if I gave that impression; not my intent. What I would like to see is candidates either live up to their rhetoric or cool their rhetoric — that goes for McCain, Obama, and everyone else.
No Pete, it is a “scandal” in a way. My primary concern is that I really like Obama's vision and policies. Really like. I think they are transformational.
However, his public persona seems to be getting further and further away from the reasons why I like him. At this point, I don't think he has actually changed much in how he would govern, but I fear an extreme backlash if he is elected and he turns out to be much different than most people's view of him. I doubt most supporters have read the driving vision behind his policies (in fact, I think he goes out of his way to downplay it because it would not be popular amongst core Democrats) and will feel snookered. Stuff like this doesn't help.
Mikkel — thanks for the comment. And what is the “driving vision behind his policies”? Are you referring to one of his two books?
I tend to agree with MIKKel.
Backlash is the great risk for Obama, but not only among core Democrats.
So many of the cross-overs based their decision on idealism that every misstep (real or perceived) stands a good chance of being magnified out of porportion.
On the other hand, every candidate faces the same risk. Hillary can't possibly deliver all the goodies she is promissing blue collar and low pay workers. What will they say if their lot doesn't moticeably improve?
There is a rocky road ahead for all of us, IMO, and one election can't possibly smooth it all out.
Pete, I don't know because I haven't read his books…although people that I've talked to that have love them.
I mean the general gist of what his drives his policies and the people around him.
Stuff like this.
and this (I'm sure she has just resigned from the campaign, not the actual position).
The fact that he supported corn ethanol, which is horrendous, but now says that he supports subsidies only for cellulose ethanol which is much much better.
Basically, from reading a great deal about his positions and how he reaches them, it is very obvious that he is interested in listening to experts with a wide range of views and that are extremely science and history driven. I've often complained that the main problem is not partisanship, because that implies that someone that is centrist is OK, where centrist just means a grab bag of support. The primary problem to me is that politics does not have enough scientific rationalism (basic, translational and social) to actually critique whether policies are working or not. I think that Obama is the best I've seen about combining our best understanding of what works, with the inspirational message to have people fight for it.
I fear that many people think he is a radical that will quickly change everything, but he's not. He is one of the most deliberate and skeptical politicians I've read.