Campaigns like people go through life phases, and nothing can be more distressing to a candidate and his/her supporters as when journalists start reporting a political death rattle. That now seems to be the stage of the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
You can hear the characterizations in the reports of TV news journalists and read references to it in some news reports. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that Senator Clinton knows the race is over. But it now seems like that narrative in a campaign’s cycle has kicked in, given a report in the New York Times:
On the day Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed by the governor of North Carolina, a supporter gave her a three-foot-long balloon replica of herself, complete with blond hair, black pantsuit and wide pink smile, which Mrs. Clinton promptly took on her plane and laughingly showed off to reporters.
On Thursday, little more than two weeks later, the doll lay on the sofa by her seat on the plane, shriveled and deflated.
With her candidacy running out of time — and perhaps air — the Clinton campaign has taken on a distinctly subdued mood.
Mrs. Clinton found herself largely ignored on Friday while a battle raged between Senator Barack Obama on one hand and Senator John McCain and President Bush on the other.
This has been a week of agony and ecstasy for the Clintons - and she could face the same kind of week again. Read the rest of this entry »
Over at the American Street, Kevin Hayden is endorsing Oregon state House Speaker Jeff Merkley in the Democrats’ efforts to unseat Gordon Smith, the sole remaining Republican Senator on the west coast.
Merkley is currently the Speaker of the House in the state lege, so he carries the tag as the insider. Yet when I lived in East Portland, from 2001-04, he was my state legislator and I found him to be responsive, solid on every issue near and dear to my heart, approachable, communicative, and friendly. The only knock I heard anyone ever say was that he was such a straight arrow that some found that a bit boring.
He has, however, proven effective. So I just couldn’t see how anyone else could do a better job as a rep, other than championing some way left pipe dream, like legalizing marijuana or turning Oregon into Ecotopia. He’s not a Kucinich but he’s not far from a Wellstone.
Earlier this year, Merkley was trailing in a hard fought primary race against Steve Novick, but has since pulled up to a 31 - 27 lead in the latest polls. Gordon Smith’s popularity has been dropping of late, with his approval ratings falling below 50% in state wide polling. Over at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza keeps The Line, where he lists Smith’s seat as one of the ten most likely to change hands this fall. (Though it should be noted that Cillizza has some doubts about a Merkley victory in this Tuesday’s primary and still thinks Novick could pull off an upset.)
Merkley’s fortunes may be assisted by a national trend of damage to the Republican brand, in addition to the local politics of Oregon. If you would like to learn more about the candidate, you can listen to a replay of an interview I conducted with Speaker Merkley last month. After Tuesday’s primary, the Oregon Senate race should begin to firm up considerably and we’ll be able to get a feel for where it’s heading over the summer.
I have snoozed through all of the vice president talk — as in who should be the running mates for Barack Obama and John McCain — because it’s much too early to get serious about that stuff. But then I had an epiphany, at least as far as the presumptive Democratic nominee is concerned:
Charles Timothy “Chuck” Hagel.
Inviting the retiring Nebraska Republican onto the ticket works every which way but one.
He is the consummate straight talker, a hero from the same war as McCain but share’s Obama’s views on same, ditto on civil liberties and immigration reform and a host of other issues, has beaucoup foreign policy experience and balances the ticket with his prairie populist Nebraska roots.
The one downside?
Hagel likes to wear costumes to work on Halloween, typically masquerading as colleagues (like Joe Biden in the photo above), and how could we live with a veep like that after Cheney and Gore?
When Senator Barack Obama responded to President George Bush and presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Senator John McCain’s suggestion that he would indulge in the “appeasement” of terrorists, it underscored several lessons — and several key changes — in the political, national and media landscapes.
For one thing, the incident revealed Obama’s quick-response style where he turned a defense into media-friendly offense — and is indicative of many Democrats’ determination to not be defined anymore by Republicans on national security issues.
TV talk shows, newscasts and many blogs have been having a field day with the White House’s shifting explanations of what Bush really meant. But there have been enough news reports now to solidify the fact that the remarks were indeed aimed at Obama. And it wasn’t just a Bush oversight that he swiped at the Democratic frontrunner while international news cameras whirred during his address in Israel.
First, it showed that despite the fact that Bush is winding up his second term and battling charges of lameduck-ism, he still an unmatched ability to drive the political dialogue in this country.
Make no mistake: This was a pre-planned strategy by the Bush campaign to re-inject foreign policy into the presidential campaign in a way that many Republicans believe will ultimately be beneficial to McCain. Deride Bush — and his strategic team — if you will, but remember that Team Bush managed to get their man elected president and then reelected in the face of growing concerns about the war in Iraq and declining popularity numbers. Bush’s political judgment since 2004 has proved somewhat suspect, but to dismiss his ability to understand and effectively analyze the political landscape could be a mistake on the part of Democrats.
That’s why it was so fascinating today to watch cable casts, listen to talk radio shows and read comments in blogs where the most lockstep Republican defenders of Mr. Bush insisted Obama and the Democrats were being paranoid. White House officials gave reporters various explanations of about to whom Bush was “really” referering, latest being that he was really referring to Jimmy Carter.
But you can now read Cillizza and any number of seasoned reporters covering this mini-firestorm and they’re not running the spin but calling it as it is. And bluntly.
The second lesson of the Knesset Kerfuffle is that the Democratic presidential nomination race is over. Amid all of the “he said, he said” between Obama and McCain/Bush, the one figure that has been almost entirely absent is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Can you imagine that happening even three months ago?
We’ve written about that since this story broke. It was instructive because (a) a day after former Senator John Edwards endorsed Obama and nearly wiped Clinton’s huge West Virginia win off the media’s stories-to-cover list, Bush made his comments aimed at Obama, (b)Clinton was out of this debate, (c)coverage of this news cycle shoved Clinton out of news coverage almost completely yesterday and today (except for her statement condemning Bush’s comments).
The third, and most important lesson, is that Obama is ready and willing to fight Republicans over foreign policy and national security concerns.
Bush’s remarks at the Knesset provided Obama with an interesting conundrum. Refuse to rise to the bait or engage full force in an attempt to begin to address concerns — voiced privately by some Democratic strategists — that the Illinois senator may not be able to win a general election that is framed as a referendum on which party can keep America safe.
Obama, to our mind, took the smarter course by not simply answering the inherent critique offered by the president but also pivoting to try and make McCain answerable for the foreign policy pursued by the United States over the last eight years.
Obama turned the proverbial lemon (being attacked by Bush and being put on the defensive and having to answer) into lemonade (going after Bush by rattling off specific criticisms, using humor and sarcasm and tethering McCain tightly to Bush one after McCain made a major speech in which the Arizona Senator tried to inch himself away from the most unpopular President in modern polling history).
But the biggest change is in the approach of Obama and the Democrats themselves.
As Cillizza notes, the Democrats usually would try not to aggressively challenge the Republicans on national security issues. They’d respond and quickly try to move onto domestic issues, such as health care, environment, the courts….figuring those were the party’s strength.
Rather than battle the GOP with the Republican’s choice of weapons, they tried to use other ones. But it turned out to be trying to counter a shotgun with a nail file.
Then there came the change, as Cillizza notes:
The 2004 election may well have signaled a sea change in that strategy, as Bush effectively turned the election into a referendum on the threat of terrorism and the importance of national security as Democrats were unable to mount an effective response.
In 2006, the Democrats began to engage the Republicans on what the GOP felt was its own national security turf even more…and saw results. Polls began to show that many Americans did not whoppingly trust the Republicans more than the Democrats.
One of the signs of political savvy is learning from mistakes and adapting. The Democrats seem to have started to adapt in recent years — and if Obama’s response in this controversy is any indication the rules and responses in the game have changed. Cillizza again:
It marks a remarkable change in tactics that speaks to just how much the political landscape has shifted since 2004. McCain and Republicans are certain to work to frame the national security/foreign policy debate in their favor, but Obama’s initial response is a sign that they may have to adjust their tactics in the runup to the November election.
What’s changed are several factors, which can’t be applied to the most lockstep Bush administration supporters, but to many Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.
Simple spin won’t do anymore. Spin is a lot more to be countered by a press singed by duly reporting official Bush administration statements over the years and in some cases being accused of doing more stenography than journalism. The Bush administration now has a massive — and profusely documented — credibility gap. McCain has enjoyed much credibility but if Bush keeps roping him in, McCain will begin to morph into Bush Lite among more voters than just progressive Democrats, who never liked him to begin with.
2008 ain’t 2006 which wasn’t 2004 which wasn’t 2000 in terms of the mega-quick response time of the Internet, the growth and popularity of cable news talk shows, talk radio, and a mainstream news media that is trying to respond quicker and more decisively to breaking news stories in order to compete with the new media. Many newspapers now have excellent political weblogs.
So the Democrats are responding faster, they have a presumptive candidate who turned a trap into media and political gain, and the Democrats will find more rapid coverage from the new media and also be dealing with a mainstream media that has been burned by Bush and the Republicans over the past few years.
Obama may be no John Kennedy, but in this instance he proved he was no Michael Dukakis or John Kerry.
And Democratic leaders’ super-quick responses falling in line behind him also suggested that the Democrats of 2008 are….so far at least (and the campaign is still young)…not the Democrats of 2004.
Cartoon by Huffaker, Cagle Cartoons
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
What might it mean for various campaigns, and the Mainstream Media since John McCain and other candidates are reaching out to bloggers?… inviting bloggers to ply the candidates with questions, in sort of what might be called numerous ‘executive phone-news conferences’?
I think we’ll see it as a leap in growth and strength of ‘the new media’s many-armed presence, as well as– for now anyway– ‘a fishing in other rivers approach,’ to see which blogs /bloggers are ‘keepers’ that will further the campaign, and which are either too small, or too irritable, or don’t taste good.
The throwback bloggers will be sorted from the keeper bloggers, no doubt.
Yet, for a blogger to be invited in now, but then possibly dis-invited later, may set up more opprobrium against a campaign and candidate than they would like. We’ll have to see.
Giving bloggers more access to candidates and campaign people can be good for big media and their pressure to bring ‘new’ news every minute of the day and night. Bloggers and MSM are symbiotic.
They need each other and they feed off one another. Without one, the other would die. I think in the best ways, the MSM and bloggers nourish each other in terms of enabling delivery of real and gutsy news and views to the public in ever more fresh ways… each one acts as a renewing force for the other.
McCain’s campaign pledges to keep everything genuine and transparent by inviting bloggers of all persuasions to the inner sanctum phone calls with their candidate. We shall all see how that works out too.
Here’s Ann Althouse, from back in Feb 2008, having some poignant things to say about McCain’s blogger-phone calls back then… including her sharpened ears about who might be on McCain’s mind for VP.
…I wonder if he has watched “Night of the Living Dead.” Someone could make a YouTube video, in the style of “Mystery Science Theater,” and do a John McCain voiceover to a zombie movie….
MORE: Let’s get to some serious stuff now. McCain resisted efforts to push him to reveal anything about his VP selection, but I noticed that — on other questions — he brought up the name… read here
Roger L. Simon at Pajamas Media writes a refreshing truth-teller piece about his second blogger-McCain phone call taken on the run…
..McCain got to discourse at length and, as many have written, the man is forthcoming with his opinions in a refreshingly direct manner for a politician. Despite the mythos about his temper, I think one of the most laudable things about McCain is that people who disagree with him do not seem to threaten him. He relishes the rough and tumble of political discussion—not that this call featured a whole lot of that….
….On the foreign policy front, we all know where he stands. He called himself Hamas’ worst nightmare—“It’s very clear who Hamas wants to be President, as well as Danny Ortega…”—and pointed out that Iran was up to yet more mischief today.
What most impressed me though is that McCain seems to genuinely… read more here
And here from Michelle Malkin, is her take today on the McCain phone calls with select bloggers. She would like McCain’s people to invite her too. That’s understandable. My bet is they will call her in very soon.
McCain reaches out to blogs…on the left;
The McCain campaign holds weekly blogger conference calls with its candidate. There are many questions I know you’d like asked, but I’ve never been able to ask them because I haven’t been one of the privileged few conservative bloggers allowed into the McCain sanctum to ask those questions for you.
Yesterday, I learned that several far left-wing blogs were invited to participate in The Maverick’s blogger conference call session (it’s part of that Big Vision Thing). I e-mailed McCain’s New Media guy, Patrick Hynes, asking if I could participate in the next blogger conference call.
After all, McCain said yesterday he’ll “listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse” and “will set a new standard for transparency and accountability” and “will work with anyone, of either party, to make this country safe, prosperous and proud.”
If he’s willing to take questions from hostile liberal bloggers, why not take some from conservative bloggers who represent substantial readerships with dissenting views on how best to make this country “safe, prosperous, and proud?”
I’ll keep you updated.
Miss Malkin’s blog is here
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
It’s worth putting up the last half of the Washington Times article referenced in my previous post. McCain’s choice of bloggers is intense and interesting. Many of the bloggers are hard workers who have given over a significant part of their lives to feeding the maw. No small thing. For sure, it’s never been for the pay.
And, AHEM, Senator McCain, The Moderate Voice would like to be invited to be in on your blogger phone calls too. Feel free to contact us. Joe Gandelman is our Editor in Chief. For that matter, we’re interested in being in on any candidate’s blogger phone call/ news inquires. And we also have a number of thoughtful and passionate male and female bloggers here. (End of ‘Squeaky Wheel Appeal’ for now.)
And, here below, from Stephen Dinan’s writing at the Washington Times:
“The plan is to take the work we’ve already built on with conservative bloggers and to open up a dialogue with non-conservative bloggers and even nonpolitical bloggers,” said Patrick Hynes, Mr. McCain’s point man for blog outreach.
“We hope to be the most accessible and transparent campaign in history, to take advantage of what we think is one of the campaign’s strongest assets, which is Senator McCain himself, and frankly to empower voters who are also bloggers to get the answers they need to decide who to vote for.”
A call last week focused on Mr. McCain’s health care plans. Top McCain advisers talked with health-care-specific bloggers and sites that cater to mothers, a demographic that the campaign figured would be interested in health care issues. The campaign also deployed adviser Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, to talk with major health site WebMD’s reporter.
Democrats have had success with online fundraising, but conservative and liberal bloggers said Mr. McCain’s outreach to them puts the Republican presidential nominee far ahead of his Democratic counterparts in getting out information.
David All, a blogger who also runs Slatecard.com, a site that channels online contributions to Republican candidates, said reaching bloggers is not about mass communication, but about reaching opinion leaders who are likely to help shape others’ opinions. By taking that beyond the political and into the policy areas, Mr. McCain is tapping a wide-open market.
“They are the experts in understanding health care policy, and they are the ones who will get beyond the first two bullet points of a health care debate,” Mr. All said. “Everyone who’s reading the health care blogs, the first sentence they’re going to see is something to the effect of, look, I don’t agree with everything in this plan, but I just got off the phone with John McCain, and now here are my more-informed thoughts on the plan.”
Those who follow blogging said the McCain campaign will have to pick and choose whom to invite to conference calls, arguing that some sites won’t treat Mr. McCain fairly.
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
this, from the Washington Times regarding John McCain inviting bloggers who normally would not be considered ‘political’ and also non-conservative bloggers (presumably from the far left? Can that be it?) to ‘tell the real story’ about him and his campaign.
Also, I just caught on Fox News, that several female conservative bloggers were tapped by Senator McCain also.
Not sure about ‘the war’ mentioned below.
Stay tuned.
McCain widens dialogue on blogs
By Stephen Dinan
May 16, 2008
Sen. John McCain answers questions from reporters today on his bus prior to visiting the St. Albans Gun and Archery store in Charleston, W.Va. Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign is trying to tap a new audience of potential voters by taking his campaign message straight to liberal and nonpolitical issues-based blogs, which reach millions of readers but don’t often delve into conservative politics.
The strategy was in full swing yesterday when Mr. McCain invited non-conservative bloggers to join his regular blogger conference call, just hours after he delivered a major speech previewing his war strategy and other priorities for a first presidential term.
It already has started a war among liberal bloggers over how to react to Mr. McCain’s overture.
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Ron Paul, one of the most interesting and unique of the men who ran for the Republican nomination, well… He’s not giving up.
He and his considerable group of supporters have already rented space for their assembly near the site of the Republican Convention in St Paul Minn.
Paul doesnt support John McCain; thinks McCain’s ideas are far different than his.
Says he has a lot of ‘numbers’ in terms of voters
Doesnt think he’ll be interested in campaigning with Bob Barr, who is running to gain the nomination on the Libertarian ticket.
Some people think Ron Paul– and Hillary Clinton– are demented for not dropping out of a race that some insist they cannot win, and that are in effect, over already.
However from the point of view of our country being is such serious straights, it’s just my two cents worth, but if I had to choose who to be in my lifeboat trying to not go down with the current ship of state, I don’t think I’d want sister and brother sailors who gave up because it seemed the odds were not good, or because they thought the lifeboat cost too much money to man, or because landfall had not yet been sighted…
I’d want the brothers and sisters who are stalwart, never give up kinds of people… considering not the odds only, but what great moment is at stake. “Never, never, never”… you know, like that other ‘demented’ guy Winston Churchill said.
This interesting article by Marcus Baram who writes for ABC news, on what has become what I’d call ‘a mosh pit’ of candidates …
Asked during an appearance on “The Daily Show” last week which of the two Democratic nominees he preferred to run against in the general election, McCain quipped, “Ron Paul.”
I enjoy Andrew Sullivan’s writing and he’s been gracious enough on occasion to link to what I write. But this post may cause him to denounce and reject me.
Andrew seems convinced that Hillary will do anything in the pursuit of power, and said pursuit is practically all that drives her.
Maybe he’s right. But I think there’s something more powerful than power that drives her, and that is her concern about her long-term image; her legacy.
I’m starting to believe image/legacy may be more important than power to her, because — after her ill-advised, ill-structured comments on working-class white folk — she has seemed to recently (and dramatically) dial down the divisive rhetoric that defined her campaign on the Appalachian trail.
Whereas before, she was all-too-quick to jump on the McCain-bashing-Obama bandwagon, she’s now jumping to Obama’s defense. Granted, her most recent defense was against Bush, not McCain, and it was a rather generic defense at that — but it remains a stark contrast to her prior behavior.
Net: Say what you want about Sen. Clinton, but she’s not entirely blind to reality. She sees the writing on the wall. And whether it’s for self-preservation or party-preservation, I think she is clearly, intentionally taking the initial steps in the required healing and re-alignment process — the first, tentative strides that will enable Obama and other party leaders to give her a plum assignment, post election, whether or not Obama wins.
And no, I don’t think said plum assignment will be the VP slot. But it might be as chair of a key Senate Committee — like Appropriations — which wouldn’t even require an Obama win in November. Or if he does take the White House, perhaps a key cabinet position, like Secretary of State.
Is that a power-grabbing move? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s just an exhausted person worried about how history will eventually write its book on her. Fact is, if she continues down this more-gracious path without reversal, I — at least — will be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on her motivation.
No, President Bush wasn’t attacking Barack Obama in his hugely inappropriate smack down before the Israeli Knesset yesterday in which he criticized a certain politician who would appease America’s enemies by speaking to “terrorists and radicals,” White House officials said on the record today while telling reporters off the record that Obama is of course who was being targeted.
Two hundred forty nine days and counting.
Obama fired back in a speech in South Dakota today:
“After eight years, I did not think I could be surprised by anything George Bush says, but I was wrong. That’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that has divided our country and has alienated us from the world. That’s why we need change in Washington.”
Two hundred forty nine days and counting.
Meanwhile, John McCain picked up on the theme of the man with the 27 percent job approval rating and tag teamed his presumptive rival in the fall campaign by asserting that Obama would appease Hamas, although in the past he himself has suggested that the U.S. should talk to the terrorist group.
Two hundred forty nine days and counting.
Obama also laid into McCain, pointing out that he had given a speech yesterday calling for civility and bipartisanship but then embraced Bush’s attacks.
Democratic Senator Barack Obama has responded to President George Bush and presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain — calling Bush’s suggestion that he favored “appeasement” of terrorists “appalling” and blasting McCain’s agreement with Bush on the issue.
He called the attacks “dishonest and divisive” and accused McCain of “hypocrisy” for going after him despite having advocated talking to foes himself. He also cited various Republicans bigwigs and policymakers who also advocate dialogue. Here is his speech, via TPM:
Barack Obama struck back hard at President Bush and John McCain Friday, accusing them of hypocrisy and of distorting his position on dialogue with nations hostile to the United States, telling a South Dakota crowd that “I’m running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush’s course.”
“I want to be perfectly clear with George Bush and John McCain, and with the people of South Dakota,” he said at a Watertown campaign stop. “If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I’m happy to have any time, any place and that is debate I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.”
In his comments before the Israeli Knesset Thursday, Bush seemed to equate the Illinois senator’s foreign policy views with those of Nazi appeasers in the years before World War II, though he did not mention any names. Obama strongly criticized the president for the remarks Friday, calling them “the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world.”
Read it all.
Democrats should be heartened by Obama’s response. He shows here that he can not only respond quickly, but eloquently and with some humor as well. He used Bush’s comments to further tether McCain to Bush and use it as an argument for a change not only in policies but in the tone and seriousness of discussion of issues.
UPDATE: The Los Angeles’ Times Top of the Ticket blog has an interesting take on it — and “update” comments from McCain indicating that the presumptive GOP nominee is indeed saying “me, too” to Bush’s comments.
Signaling he’s not about to let the “appeasement” issue die, Barack Obama moments ago scored President Bush and John McCain on foreign policy. Speaking at a forum on agricultural issues in Watertown, S.D., Obama slammed the Republicans for contending that he was willing to negotiate with terrorists.
McCain is once again squarely aligning himself with Bush:
McCain’s spokesman, responds. “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned. These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama. Sen. Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Sen. Obama talk about with such a man? It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Sen. Obama understands that, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.”
So we all know that Cindy McCain is loaded. She’s an heir to the Anheuser Busch fortune and has millions upon millions. I love how the McCains & Clinton’s have 10-100X the millions that Obama has and he’s the elitists. Whatever.
Because Cindy has so much money, I can understand that she doesn’t know exactly all of her investments, but she should have gone over them with her husband’s campaign people when he decided to run for President or at least when he got the nomination. After the way the Clinton’s investments and Obama’s tax returns were made media meat, she can’t say she didn’t expect it. Whether its fair or not is not the issue. It was coming and she should have known.
So either she looked and didn’t care or didn’t care to look. Because it wasn’t until an AP Reporter pointed out to her that she has holdings in the Sudan that she decided to sell them off. Cindy McCain Sells Sudan-Related Investments - The Huffington Post. This while her husband has been a critic of the violence there and has advocated for international financial sanctions against Sudan. Cindy’s funds were worth more than $2 million; not a lot to her, but enough to be noticed by the press and to matter to people very concerned about the issue and hypocrisy of candidates.
Cindy has been much of a non-issue to me in this campaign, but now I call SUSPECT and want to know why she is still refusing to release her tax records. Why is she better than Michelle Obama & Bill Clinton? What else might one find?
In the first category, Jonathan Martin catches McCain and Obama walking the line, threading the needle, choosing their words carefully with respect to yesterday’s California Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. I look forward to the day when this matter is resolved and is no longer an issue that’s of relevance to any campaign. (And yes, I’m pro civil marriage.)
In the second category, Ben Smith catches Obama discouraging a powerful 527. I find that a very good sign and a strong proof point to add to the scorecard on the Senator’s commitment to a “new kind of politics.”
It isn’t even Christmas yet, and President George Bush has already given Democratic Presidential front-runner Senator Barack Obama a wonderful Christmas gift.
As we noted in yesterday’s posts, when President Bush used a setting in Israel — the kind of foreign-soil setting Republicans long said should never be used by American politicians for political denunciations of other American politicians — to basically accuse Senator Barack Obama of wanting to appease terrorists, it was the most thoughtful gift Bush could have given him. The White House originally contended it was all in Obama’s mind that Bush was referring to him, but by the end of the day it was clear officials made a point of telling reporters they were not denying that if the shoe fits…
The problem was: Bush had thrown out a similar shoe about Democrats on Tuesday to CNN, so all the talk from Bush defenders that it was Democratic paranoia or posturing didn’t make sense — except to a can of Jolly Green Giant string beans sitting on a shelf at a supermarket.
When President Bush — thousands of miles away in Israel — decided to fire his thinly veiled shot at Obama yesterday, it was a giant gift to the Illinois senator and his campaign. Why? One, it essentially kept Clinton on the sidelines just two days after her big West Virginia victory. Two, Obama’s opponent was no longer Clinton or McCain, but the man with the 27% job-approval rating. And three, it rallied Democrats to Obama’s side.
Bush HAS proven that he is a “uniter not a divider” — in terms of Democratic party unity…
Even neutral Dems, like Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel and Harry Reid, quickly leapt to Obama’s defense. Some Democrats might be deeply divided right now. Pro-choice women are angry at NARAL’s endorsement of Obama; Clinton supporters are upset that Obama is looking like the eventual nominee; and some African Americans are unhappy with the Clintons. But what’s the best way to unify them all? Give them an excuse to turn their attention to Bush.
The good thing about it for Democrats — and the bad thing about it for John McCain who sees the media oxygen sucked out from his breathing space — is that the story is FAR from over yet:
And this will all play out another day — and will likely extend into the weekend — as Obama will respond this afternoon to Bush at his rally with Tom Daschle in South Dakota, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports. Obama will react to both what he considers Bush’s politicization of foreign policy and the substance of Bush’s attack.
A recent poll showed that McCain is hurt more by being seen as an extension of Bush than Obama is hurt due to his association with his imflammatory-talking former pastor. If Obama is seen as battling and being demonized by the most unpopular President in American history — a President who acts as if he is President of a political faction rather than of all Americans — it won’t help McCain.
Question: Has Bush become to John McCain what Bill Clinton became in South Carolina to the Hillary Clinton campaign?
If so, McCain could have as much trouble controlling Bush’s comments as Hillary has in controlling Bill’s…
Stay tuned for Obama’s heavily-covered “thank you” to Mr. Bush later in the day………..
UPDATE: Be sure to read Dick Poleman’s MUST READ HERE about how Bush sandbagged McCain’s speech yesterday and could be an ongoing problem (as noted in our post above). Polman details the LARGE number of Republican policymakers and GOP figures who have also suggested opening a dialogue with Iran,
He also notes what we’ve noted: the White House later confirmed that Bush’s comments were aimed at Obama without using Obama’s actual name.
FOOTNOTE: There is indeed a difference between appeasement and dialogue. If you haven’t already, watch Chris Matthews HERE.
NPR last night spoke with Kevin Merida about his piece in the Washington Post on racist incidents on the campaign trail. This is some of what was said:
Mr. JEAN MORRIS(ph): Don’t want Obama in there. I don’t like his background. They’re putting the man in because of his race, and I don’t - I’m not ready for that.
Ms. JOETTA KUHN(ph): Mr. Obama doesn’t have much of a chance here because they will not vote for a black man in West Virginia, and they can’t stand the thoughts of a black man telling a white man what to do.
Mr. THOMAS COLDWELL(ph): Whether he is a Muslim, I guess he’s - I guess it’s just with everything that’s going on in the Middle East, it’s a little scary being unknown.
Mr. MORRIS KING(ph): You know I didn’t vote for no colored. […]
NORRIS: … with all the coverage of the campaign, these stories really have not been talked about. This - your story was somewhat surprising to many readers because we haven’t heard these stories, these kinds of things.
Mr. MERIDA: Well, I think in part that’s because there has been so much euphoria and excitement around Obama’s candidacy. I think also the nature of campaign coverage, it centers on events, rallies, really you have to kind of just be on the ground and, you know, hanging out at the bar at Applebee’s in small towns, going places where you’re not doing anything but just listening to people. But it really it was lying in plain sight.
Whew!
A good and important story. It’s about time that it be told!
I think it is fairly well understood and accepted by now — though I’m not sure how much we are remembering it in the heat of this election season — that those Civil Rights fighters who brought about the end of Jim Crow were helped along in their struggles by bringing the raw, brutal, barbarous injustice of that era into the living rooms of all Americans.
The Obama campaign has been all about hope. One thing it has not been about is addressing our fears. Well, we’ve got some very real fears. Isn’t it time we face up to them?
When California’s Supreme Court decision nixed a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage the question immediately raised by some talk show radio hosts was: will this be back now as a big campaign 2008 wedge issue?
The likely answer: back…yes…….but not quite..because voters have a few teenie-weenie other things on their minds this year. The Associated Press has come to the same conclusion:
[NOTE: An earlier version of this story had this link attributed to the New York Times. That was an error, due to a reference from a Times story on the ruling that was cut in favor of using the more recent AP piece. We regret the error.]
Yesterday’s California Supreme Court decision striking down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage reintroduces a hot-button social issue into the presidential campaign.
Republicans used same-sex marriage to great political effect in 2004, putting proposed bans on the ballot in Ohio and other states to get conservatives to the polls. But now it will have to compete for attention with the economy, the Iraq war, and other issues.
Indeed, there were already rumblings yesterday reflected in some news reports and on some talk shows of some thinking of trying to put a new measure on the ballot and of a court challenge to the California ruling.
But the dynamics are different this year:
And impact of the gay marriage issue could be muted, not just because neither the Democratic front-runner, Barack Obama, nor the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, support gay marriage, but because McCain’s opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage - on federalist grounds - makes it more difficult for the right to get a lot of traction out of it.
Still, the issue is likely to come up in some races (or be raised by the so-called “independent” groups that make commercials to support or negatively define candidates). And you can already see how even this clear-cut California court ruling can be spun.
“California Court Strips Children of Right to Mother and Father,” declares the headline of Cybercast News Service’s hot-button-pushing article which declares “the court does not recognize that children have any right whatsoever to a mother and a father. In the decision, the California court sees children primarily through the eyes of same-sex couples who want to secure custody and control of children. The court makes emphatically clear that it deems this to be a right of same-sex couples that is equal to–and identical to–the right of married mothers and fathers to adopt or conceive and raise their own children.”
Spin is spin is spin…
So will it become another wedge issue used against the Democrats as hot buttons are pushed and voters cast their votes on this issue? Read the rest of this entry »
In what can only be described as a stunning turn of events, the House yesterday took up a proposal to provide another round of funding for the war in Iraq to the tune of more than one hundred billion dollars. This wasn’t unusual. The shocking part was that more than 100 House Republicans voted “present” and the bill failed. Of course, as Matt Stoller points out, it will not truly affect war funding in the end.
This war is going to end because it is politically unsustainable. The Senate is going to add the funding back in and the House will make sure the money goes to the war, but recognize how big a deal this is. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are going to utterly collapse this fall, and Democrats will have a mandate to end the war. It’s something Obama has promised to do, and now the political logic there is undeniable.
One aspect of the GOP refusal to back the funding was the addition, by Democrats, of additional money to fund additional benefits for veterans, among other things. However, going on record with a “present” vote still lists you as having not supported funding for the war effort.
2008 is an election year for every member of the House of Representatives, and this vote leads one to wonder if the GOP hasn’t read the writing on the wall. The Iraq war is unpopular with a solid and growing majority of Americans according to every poll available. Perhaps, as November draws closer, some of the House Republicans want to get themselves on record as not funding further engagement in Iraq.
Of course, in terms of altering the outcome, will this be a case of too little, too late? One thing is for sure. John McCain, championing our continuing engagement in Iraq as part of his presidential platform, may begin to feel a bit lonely this morning.
EDIT: A paragraph was dropped out from my original draft and was added back in.
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
The Republicans seem at present, to be burning bridges between themselves regarding Senator McCain’s candidacy, while the Democrats seem to be beginning at least to talk about building bridges.
But to build a bridge isnt enough. Leaders can destroy their own groups by not having enough genuine earthy experience on the ground, by not being able to bring bold but effective solutions to longstanding problems, and by failing to have an accurate arial view of the ‘big picture.’ A leader needs all. In some semblance of balance.
Maybe that’s why the word “bridge” has at least three meanings, all of them visionary:
–to bridge: to connect one side to the other, one person to another, one group to another, to bond.
–a bridge: a structure that gives passage through or over that which was impossible or treacherous to pass over or through before.
– the bridge: the elevated platform on a ship from which the captain surveys the entire waters and weather ahead and directs which way best to go.
____________
CODA
This is a picture of a huge and beautiful bridge on a new road connecting Paris and Barcelona. It is the highest bridge in the world for now. It is said the engineers made the cambre of the bridge’s roadbed curved to a certain degree …to keep drivers from ‘veering’ or becoming dizzy …as many humans are wont to do when holding high office, I mean, driving on an elevated road… or as when some people experience slight vertigo too, when they stand on a pier with moving water below.
In what could prove to be a damaging moment for the McCain campaign, Former Clinton Administration State Department spokesman James Rubin has written an op-ed highlighting an interview he conducted with McCain a few years ago for Sky News in the UK. In the interview, conducted shortly after Hamas’ victory in Palestinian elections, the following exchange occurred:
[Rubin] asked: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”
McCain answered: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”
There are a couple of striking things about this revelation.
1) McCain’s charge today that Barack Obama’s willingness to meet with foreign dictators is a sign of naivete and unfitness for office looks like pure hypocrisy. Ironically enough, Barack Obama has actually drawn the line at Hamas, refusing to go along with Jimmy Carter. Obama will only meet with Hamas after they renounce terrorism and their commitment to the destruction of Israel. McCain now has egg on his face for supporting negotiations in the past that he now opposes.
It isn’t like the situation between Hamas and Israel is substantively different now than two years ago either. Hamas is just as dangerous to Israel now as then. The only difference seems to be that John McCain thought he could skewer Barack Obama for his support for diplomacy. It looks like McCain skewered himself.
2) Another striking aspect of McCain’s comments is his seeming rationalization for Hamas’ election. McCain sympathizes with the Hamas voter, it seems, citing the Palestinians’ desperation for prosperity and security that Fatah could not deliver. Well, Fatah may not have been able to deliver it, but that doesn’t mean Hamas was the answer.
If the McCain of 2008 had answered James Rubin’s question he would have said, “No, we will not treat Hamas diplomatically the way we did Palestinian governments of the past. Hamas is a terrorist organization and until they renounce terrorism and recognize Israel we have nothing to negotiate with them.”
Instead, McCain cited the “new reality in the Middle East,” and the need to “deal with [Hamas] one way or another.” And the context of the interview clearly suggests that McCain did not mean dealing with Hamas through force.
It seems the only new reality John McCain faces is his own hypocrisy.
