I was on a radio show earlier this year with Ed Morrissey of Hot Air during the period when it had begun to look obvious that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee. We were pondering the question of who in the Democratic party had the “guns” to go hang the bell on the cat of the Hillary Clinton Campaign. “But who,” Ed asked, “is going to make that long walk down the hall to tell Hillary it’s over?” We both admitted that it didn’t look like any candidates came to mind who could pull it off.
Well, at least according to The Scotsman, some candidates have been found to take on that daunting task.
Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that [Clinton] must now bow out of the primary race.
Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.
“They’re in discussions,” a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. “Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence.”
There is certainly room to debate whether or not those two have the aforementioned guns to actually push Hillary out of the race, but the Scotsman makes a compelling case. Should Senator Clinton not listen to their counsel in private, they may not have to force her. They would only need to convey the message that they could convincingly push enough of the uncommitted super delegates into Obama’s column to seal the deal. (He currently needs only 33% of the remaining “open” super delegates to reach the magic number.) That might be enough incentive to prompt Clinton to gracefully bow out while it still might look like it was her idea, rather than giving the public appearance that she had been shoved aside. It could also keep some life in the hope of the so called “dream ticket” with her in the VP slot.
“But wait,” I can hear you saying. “Didn’t Obama just say something really stupid about bitter people? Might that not be putting Clinton right back in the race?”
A really funny guy once said, “Sex and golf are the only two things you can enjoy even if you’re not good at them.” In the case of Senator Obama, you might want to add “politics” to that list. The “bitter” comment was a notable gaffe to be sure, and worthy of examination and debate. Indeed, among his opponents, no sooner had the virtual ink dried on an article at the Huffington Post detailing the remarks than Power Line was asking, “Is Obama’s Campaign Over?”
The reality, of course, as we have seen repeatedly this year, is that Obama’s campaign has been “over” multiple times. It was “over” when news of his friendship with Tony Rezko came to public attention. It was “over” when videos of his former pastor making controversial remarks showed up on Youtube. And it was “over” every time he failed to win the primary in a particular state, or even failed to win by enough. But each and every time, following a brief dip, the poll numbers would settle out and drift back up to pretty much where they were before. While the expiration date for Senator Obama’s free pass from the media has clearly come and gone, the pass which the public is willing to give him looks to be a season ticket. It is more than likely that his growing army of supporters will look at those comments, give a collective shrug, and say, “Yeah, so? Lots of people are bitter about the way things are going. What’s your point?” And then they will continue to pick up those phones when the pollsters call and register their support for the Illinois Wunderkind of politics.
We’re nine days out from the Pennsylvania primary. The last round of polls show Hillary Clinton’s lead there evaporating like fog over the Delaware River. (Now down to three points according to one source.) Once the dust settles out from that (and possibly two more races) it may indeed be time for Gore and Carter to make that long walk down the hall. The Clintons have probably been at this game long enough to know they will need to answer the door when the elder statesmen knock.
Just when you think this election season can’t get any stranger, well, it does.
Two news publications are floating the idea of former Vice President, former 2000 Presidential candidate, and Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore could become the compromise Democratic nominee.
Joe Klein explains why this doesn’t seem so outlandish:
Let’s say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let’s also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they’d have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.
If neither Mr Obama nor Mrs Clinton has the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and if both appear unable to beat Mr McCain, under one scenario a group of about 100 party elders - the “super-delegates” - could sit out the first ballot in Denver, preventing either candidate winning outright, and then offer Mr Gore the nomination for the good of the party.
Tim Mahoney, a Democrat congressman from Florida, said last week: “If it goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket.” This suggests the party would accept a Gore-Clinton or a Gore-Obama pairing.
I have to think that Gore still wants the Presidency, after the mess of 2000. But while some Dems see this as a good idea, I have to wonder how such a thing would play out. In 2000, Gore could have ran on the successess of the Clinton years: an economy that was booming, and government that had a surplus. And yet, he ran away from the Clinton legacy and…well we know how it ended.
To me, that doesn’t show someone who could run against McCain. Of course, I am probably biased being a Republican and a McCain supporter, but unless Gore can run a better campaign than he did in 2000, I just don’t see how he will be able to pull it off.
Like I said, this election year is surely interesting.
March 29th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Conservative columnist Robert Novak has an item that suggests Senator Hillary Clinton could have problems if the emerging conventional wisdom is correct and she goes for the Democratic nomination in 2012 should Senator Barack Obama be the nominee and lose:
Al Gore, despite the lowest political pro file, is talked about among prominent Democrats as their leading candidate for 2012 if they fail this year.
The Democratic consensus is that there will be no second chance for Sen. Hillary Clinton. She is blamed for wounding Sen. Barack Obama so severely that he might fail in November.
Gore has kept out of the 2008 Democratic presidential contest, in contrast to his embarrassing 2004 endorsement of front-runner Howard Dean just before Dean flamed out. Since then, Gore’s prestige in Democratic ranks has soared while winning the Nobel Peace Prize and Hollywood’s Academy Award. He will be 64 in 2012.
That makes a great deal of sense. I haven’t been able to quite figure out how it stands to reason that if Obama gets the nomination, and a lot of the material and charges used by the Clinton campaign are used to defeat Obama, AND if Clinton voters stay home in enough numbers for Obama to lose, Clinton is automatically in line to get the nomination in 2012. If she gets it, the process will likely be as unpretty as what we’re seeing in the primaries.
There IS a precedent on the GOP side: Ronald Reagan’s challenge of President Gerald Ford is considered by some to have contributed to Ford’s defeat 1976 and Reagan came back four years later to capture the nomination. But Reagan was a “movement” candidate. Clinton is more a “machine” candidate.
Additionally, a large chunk of the emerging current press coverage with its conventional wisdom focuses on (a) a belief that Clinton can’t win and should drop out (Obama has noted she has a right to stay in the race and Clinton now insists she will fight all the way to the convention) and (b) many reports that the Clinton campaign has a specific strategy to raise Obama’s negatives so he is unelectable by convention time.
Couple that with persistent comments from the Clintons praising GOP likely nominee Senator John McCain — Bill Clinton has now made yet another one – and it’s clear the Reagan-Ford battle was an entirely different animal.
When Reagan challenged Ford, there was no huge clamor for him to drop out on the grounds that his case was perceived as useless and it was never reported that his campaign strategy was to raise Ford’s negatives so Ford was un-reelectable,
In other words: as Novak notes, it is highly likely that this is indeed Hillary Clinton’s last real chance. She could still win in 2012 but she will face a party peppered with a lot of new enemies in it that she did not have at the start of Campaign 2008 — when it began in earnest in 2007.
I had been trying to get up with Ed Rendell for days for his reaction to the report by a blue-ribbon panel that found the Philadelphia Police Department had poor leadership, was soft on bad cops and well behind the times in how its officers were deployed and the equipment they were given. In other words, business as usual.
The mayor, despite his considerable accomplishments, had never screwed up the courage to confront the perennial but politically sensitive mess at the Roundhouse, the police headquarters. He was ducking my phone calls so I went to his public appointment calendar and found that he was speaking at a luncheon meeting of a business group at a Center City hotel.
I staked out the hotel lobby and there came the mayor, as usual a good half hour late and as usual without a security escort. As he stepped into an elevator I slipped in behind him. The doors closed and I pounced.
In typical Rendell fashion, he first refused to address the report. But with some gentle prodding as the elevator zipped upwards, he acknowledged that there were indeed big problems and, after we stepped out onto the top floor, he positively warmed to the subject and spoke to me at some length.
It was classic “Fast Eddie” Rendell, an eminently likable man who through two terms as Philadelphia district attorney, then two terms as mayor and now in his second term as Pennsylvania governor with time out to be Democratic National Committee chairman during the 2000 presidential election, has made a habit of speaking uncomfortable truths, as well as saying the right thing at the wrong time — a rare trait for a consummate politician.
The voluble 64-year-old Rendell is at the top of his game and will be very much in the news as the point man in Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the run up to the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, a contest that she must win by a substantial margin as she falls further behind Barack Obama in the delegate and superdelegate count.
It is a job for which the arm twister and deal maker is especially well suited, but he is bound to give the Clinton campaign chest pains.
February 26th, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
Today’s Republican Party (as opposed to the Big Tent GOP of the Goldwater-Rockefeller era) has welcomed blacks with open arms — as long as they use the back door on their way to the kitchen or maid’s quarters — and has been only somewhat less unfriendly to women.
So the possibility that John McCain will be facing an African-American or a woman in the November election is scaring the bejeebers out of party bigs, who have launched a secret operation to try to determine how far they can go in attacking either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
Before I go any further, please note that this is not a satire like my Saga of the Cedars. And pause to consider the extraordinary fact that one of the two major political parties in America has become so extreme that it has to take steps to try to immunize itself against what it sees as inevitable charges of racism or sexism.
And marvel that the secret operation is not meant to sensitize the party faithful, let alone draw in black and woman voters, but to gauge how to best attack Obama or Clinton.
Jack Kemp, the 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee, is one of the few prominent Republicans to speak out about the GOP’s raving intolerance.
Kemp tells The Politico that:
“You can’t run against Barack Obama the way you could run against Bill Clinton, Al Gore or John Kerry.
“Being an African American at the top of the ticket, if he makes it, is such a great statement about the country. Obviously you have to be sensitive to issues that affect urban America. . . . You have to be careful.”
More here. And here for a sneak peek at what the Republican attacks might be like if it’s Obama.
* * * * *
I’ll be discussing this post with Jazz Shaw and the Lady Logician on Midstream Radio this afternoon from 1:30-2 p.m. Eastern Time. Click here to listen and participate.
February 12th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Here’s another Guest film Review by Dan Schneider, who has this heavily-visited website and whose reviews for TMV have been highly popular.
DVD Review Of An Inconvenient Truth
Let me state, up front, I have never been a fan of former Vice President Al Gore. He was a right of center Democrat who worked in an administration whose environmental record was considered, by most ecological groups, worse than the two Republican administrations that preceded his, and held that office at a time when the earliest stages of global warming, which he now decries, were first becoming known.
As the second most visible politician in the country, did he sound the alarums then? Well, no. He wrote a book or two, but did nothing of any real consequence with the power he had. However, his Johnny Come lately status as an environmentalist, which led to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as an Oscar for the 94 minute 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has nothing to do why it’s a bad film. That’s due solely to the film’s director Davis Guggenheim, most noted as a network television director.
Of course, if one Googles the film at such sites like Amazon or IMDB, there will be plenty of negative reviews of the film. Almost all of them will be unveiled ad hominem against Gore or simply blatant pro-global warming propaganda.
I did not find a single negative review based solely on the film’s art. On the other hand, many of the film’s staunchest defenders praise the film solely because they are pro-green. Even the Chicago Sun-Times’ venerable film critic, Roger Ebert, seems to feel that bending down on two knees is not enough praise for the Buddha Gore, writing:
I want to write this review so every reader will begin it and finish it. I am a liberal, but I do not intend this as a review reflecting any kind of politics. It reflects the truth as I understand it, and it represents, I believe, agreement among the world’s experts….He provides statistics: The 10 warmest years in history were in the last 14 years. Last year South America experienced its first hurricane. Japan and the Pacific are setting records for typhoons. Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back over the Gulf, picked up strength from unusually warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5. There are changes in the Gulf Stream and the jet stream. Cores of polar ice show that carbon dioxide is much, much higher than ever before in a quarter of a million years. It was once thought that such things went in cycles. Gore stands in front of a graph showing the ups and downs of carbon dioxide over the centuries. Yes, there is a cyclical pattern. Then, in recent years, the graph turns up and keeps going up, higher and higher, off the chart….In England, Sir James Lovelock, the scientist who proposed the Gaia hypothesis (that the planet functions like a living organism), has published a new book saying that in 100 years mankind will be reduced to “a few breeding couples at the Poles.” Gore thinks “that’s too pessimistic….In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to….Am I acting as an advocate in this review? Yes, I am. I believe that to be “impartial” and “balanced” on global warming means one must take a position like Gore’s. There is no other view that can be defended….What is the look? It’s the look of no fear….
To say that there is not a critical (in any sense of the term) thing in the whole review, is manifest. But, even though I did not want to quote as much of the review as I did, this needs to be known.
As bad and uncritical as Ebert’s review is, the film is manifold worse in hagiographizing St. Al.
And that is its chief flaw, artistically.
Whereas Michael Moore sticks his ugly mug into his agitprop films every three minutes or so, I don’t think that there’s a single three minute span in this agitprop film that we do not see Gore, up close, and too close, so that his every pore is seen, that his nostrils are not heaving with passion. Read the rest of this entry »
This Guest Interview by Bill Steigerwald, columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is with former George Bush speechwriter David Frum, who argues that conservatives must change their message and adapt if they want to win elections.
David Frum: Conservatives Can Make A Comeback
by Bill Steigerwald
Conservatism has lost much of its appeal to young and independent voters. The Republican Party is on the ropes. The White House and Congress increasingly look like they’ll be controlled by Democrats for a long time. In “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again” (Doubleday), David Frum, the American Enterprise Institute scholar and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, says if conservatives and Republicans want to recover their power they must change their message and adapt to new political realities. The National Review Online columnist says conservatism’s red-meat issues — low taxes, gun rights and promises to restore traditional values — don’t cut it anymore. I reached Frum on Wednesday at his hotel room in Toronto.
Q: What’s the 60-second synopsis of what your book is about?
A: The Republican Party, which was so dominant in American politics from about 1970 to about 1995, has been running out of gas for the past decade. It’s not just Iraq, and it’s not just George Bush. We’ve got deeper problems of exhaustion of our message and we must renew that message. I am trying in “Comeback” to offer specific ideas based on the needs of the country for renewal
Q: Why did you write this book and who is it for?
A: I wrote the book because of my own concern that the conservative movement that I had grown up in was in so much danger. I wrote it for anyone who would care to read it, but I mostly wrote it for my fellow conservatives and fellow Republicans, to make them feel the seriousness of the problem; second, to offer some conclusions; and third, even if people don’t like the particular solutions I offer, to show them how we ought to be thinking about politics — how we need to have an approach based on empiricism and reality and less on the way we wish things were than on accepting things as they are.
Q: How do you define your conservatism and is it fundamentally at odds with Goldwater or Reagan conservatism?
A: I don’t go in for these factional subdivisions. I don’t like to say I’m this kind of conservative or that kind of conservative. I’m somebody who believes in markets, who believes in rule of law, who believes in less government and I’m certainly a strong believer in America’s mission in the world. That’s where I tend to come from. What I’m struck with by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, each of them was an innovator. One of the questions you get asked a lot is “What would Ronald Reagan do if he were alive today?” I can’t really answer that question. I do know this: He would not do what he did in 1980, because he was an innovator. Great politicians are like artists. They are sensitive to their times. They absorb what’s in the air. They sense the needs of the country at a particular moment.
For example, one of the great concerns that America felt in the late 1970s … it wasn’t just that government was failing in the late 1970s. All of the institutions in American life were failing. The car companies were failing. You couldn’t put up a beautiful building anymore. Nothing seemed to work. People were unhappy that government wasn’t working, but in a funny way they weren’t shocked, because nothing worked.
Today, 2008, almost all the institutions of American life work brilliantly. You want to send a package — the package goes. You walk into a new building – it’s gorgeous. You take delivery of your new car – it works. So the fact that government doesn’t work is a much more specific problem. That’s why events like Katrina were so terribly damaging. We are in an era where Americans have great confidence in their society in a way that they didn’t in Ronald Reagan’s time, but they are just disappointed again and again by their government – and Republicans have been in charge of that government for a long time. So when they are disappointed in their government, they are disappointed in Republicans.
Q: You essentially are saying the conservatives or Republicans have to adapt to a changed America. How so?
A: Let me give you one example: We know that how you vote when you are in your 20s casts a shadow that affects how you vote for the rest of your life. The people who turned 20 between 1985 and 1990 are the most Republican cohort in the entire electorate; these are the Reagan voters. They saw Reagan, they saw his politics work, and they’ve been rewarding him ever since. The people who turned 20 between 2000 and 2005 are the most anti-Republican group in the entire electorate – more anti-Republican than the “Watergate babies,” more anti-Republican than the G.I. Bill Generation, the people who turned 20 after World War II. This is a big problem. One reason they are so anti-Republican is that we neglect the environmental issue, which is very important to them.
Another way the country has changed is that in Ronald Reagan’s time immigration was a challenge and a difficulty, but it was not an overwhelming problem in a way that it has since 1980 become an overwhelming problem. We’re looking at a situation where since 2000 about 8 or 9 million people have entered the United States, at least half of them illegally. These immigrants are of very low skill. They are not catching up to the incomes of the native born. When they are legal they are net beneficiaries of the tax system, they are not net contributors. This is a problem that was once at the margins of politics and it’s come to the center.
Q: For instance, environmentalism, what does conservatism or Republicans – are you more worried about the Republican Party of conservatism?
Behind the rise and fall of the opinion polls and the trickle of primary and caucus results is the reality of who will pick next President of the United States.
At the Democratic Convention in late August, there will be over 850 super-delegates–governors, members of Congress and the Democratic National Committee, present and former Senate and House leaders as well as former presidents and vice presidents (Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale get a vote).
Even before Super Tuesday, more than one-third of the 2025 delegates needed to nominate have been chosen and are quietly lining up behind Hillary Clinton (at the latest estimate, 181), Barack Obama (80), John Edwards (29) and Dennis Kucinich (2, including himself). More than half, 479, are uncommitted. You can see the list here.
Often the simplest explanation really is the best.
A translated article , “White House can do Little about the Environment“, in the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, written by an interviewer of Gore, asserts that Gore is not running in 2008 for the right reason:
… the last time that Gore bivouacked in the White House, he was not able to make any progress against earth warming. During the eight years that the Clinton-Gore administration was in power, it introduced not a single important piece of legislation against climate change. The administration signed the Kyoto protocol, but only after they weakened it with crippling loopholes. Thereafter, the administration decided not to exert any effort toward having the treaty ratified by the Senate.
In our conversation, Gore admitted to these shortcomings.
The interviewer’s conclusion?
The lesson that Gore seems to have learned from his defeats in the White House is that in order to bring about real reforms, it is not sufficient to be president, especially if powerful interests are against you. The only way to defeat such opposition is to once again pave the way for the build-up of such an all-encompassing wave of public pressure that every elected politician will feel compelled to take action, even if Exxon-Mobil and their friends are disappointed.
January 14th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
With Iowa and New Hampshire behind us, and with the primary season now revving up, and with the major players all over the talk-show circuit and the 24/7 news cycle, I seem to have reached a point of detachment and uncertainty. I supported Edwards, whom I have liked a great deal since the ‘04 primaries (though I was a Kerry supporter), then didn’t, then did again. I came back to his side just recently, late last year, but without much enthusiasm. He was, it seemed to me, the best of the bunch, and hence the best option for Democrats, and, well, I wanted someone for whom to root.
Let me make one thing clear, again. I will support the Democratic nominee for president. And, generally, I have thought that the three leading candidates — Clinton, Obama, and Edwards — are all fine options. Each one could turn out to be a great president, and certainly each one would be better than any Republican alternative.
In this regard, my current detachment helps. No matter who it is, I haven’t expended enough emotional energy to be too bothered by it. I was for Edwards in Iowa, I wanted Clinton to beat Obama in New Hamphshire, and now… well, I’m not so sure. It won’t be Edwards, who is now languishing far back, but I can live with either Clinton or Obama. I think. Those two, and their camps and surrogates, are going after each other aggressively — that was clear yesterday on Meet the Press and elsewhere — as are their supporters, but I think it’s important for Democrats, as it it for me personally, not to let the heat of the current race overcome the larger goal of eventually getting the winner elected. I understand that political contests like this one can turn not just passionate but vindictive, but, ultimately, a clearer perspective is in order. I’m still not sure whether I want Clinton or Obama to win. All I am sure about is that I want us to emerge from all this without lingering animosity. We need to be united once we move on to the general election campaign.
January 8th, 2008 by BRIJ KHINDARIA, International Columnist
Climate change has slipped off the radar of both Democrats and Republicans as they enter the Primaries and election year 2008. Al Gore’s tirade against Bush may have delighted delegates at last December’s Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia, but had little concrete impact on the politics of the US elections.
How we treat Mother Earth, on whose health all of us depend for survival and progress, seems to mean little to Presidential hopefuls. They continue to fight for votes mainly on other platforms such as jobs, the economy, immigration and health care.
This is like burying the head in sand. The issues are not moral but strictly business. The costs of health and absenteeism, which are already very high, will explode uncontrollably through ill-health caused by the unclean use of hydrocarbon fuels and reckless environmental pollution by industrial manufacturing, energy, transport and mining companies.
These cost-raising impacts for American business come against a backdrop of competition from low cost giants like China and India, not to mention the emerging economies of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. Read the rest of this entry »
Was Al Gore taking a cheap shot when he criticized his own nation as the primary obstruction to progress on climate change? According to this op-ed article from the Nederlands Dagblad, ‘The proceedings at Bali were taken hostage by Europe’s antagonism toward the U.S., enabling Al Gore to score in an open goal.’
By Jan van Benthem
Translated By Meta Mertens
December 17, 2007
The Netherlands - Nederlands Dagblad - Original Article (Dutch)
At the Climate Conference in Bali, the two Nobel Peace Prize winners stood on opposite sides. Al Gore opted to discuss the obvious truth: The U.S. is blocking every solution, so go ahead without America until a little over a year goes by and there is a more judicious U.S. president WATCH .
Thundering applause was the response. And the behavior of the U.S. over the following days as Washington torpedoed global limits on greenhouse gasses appeared to prove him right. Disappointed, the first delegates packed their suitcases for home on Saturday.
Fortunately, there were a sufficient number of people present who had listened to Gore’s Nobel Prize co-winners, the U.N. Climate Panel. Chairperson Rajendra Pachauri didn’t pin everything on an agreement concerning percentages. More important, he said, was to come to an agreement about where to begin. The percentages will be part of the two-years of talks leading to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, where a successor to the Kyoto Protocols must be agreed to.
Earlier, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that an agreement on numbers wasn’t realistic at this stage. When some, particularly the E.U., decided to do so anyway, the proceedings at Bali were taken hostage by its antagonism toward the U.S., enabling Al Gore to score in an open goal.
But in spite of the picture drawn by the outside world, it wasn’t just America acting as an obstacle. Japan and Canada share the same point of view as the United States, while at this moment, neither China - which is the largest polluter - nor rapidly-growing India - will accept greenhouse emission limits. And neither has the U.S. rejected all restrictions. Even while the Bali conference was taking place, the U.S. Senate approved a law that was earlier accepted by President Bush, which obligates the American automobile industry to build cars that are forty percent more fuel efficient - the first law of this kind in more than thirty years.
December 19th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Here’s a special original 2008 presidential campaign poetic commentary by TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet.
In this very odd caucus and primary season, we may soon have a folksy small state governor selected by the Republicans, and as this poem (in the style of “Casey At The Bat”) suggests, perhaps even a Democratic nominee picked at a convention where the winner is not known in advance…
A Donkey At The Bat
By Michael Silverstein
It looked to be a shoe-in for the Clintons and their team
They had the key endorsements and a well financed machine
The White House, in their thinking, was their just desert, their right
But when Obama came on strong they knew they’d have to fight.
“We’ll know the party’s candidate with the coming of first snows”
That was the word we all long heard from all the party pros
But after early contest votes, with early counting done
Two front runners now led the field instead of just the one.
Behind these two contenders was a bunched up second tier
They’d try to get their points across but no one cared to hear
In years past this discouraged crew would just throw in the towel
But this time they just did the math and stuck around to howl.
The leading pair still garnered the most delegate support
But not enough to nominate, on that they came up short
So Biden, Edwards, Richardson continued to debate
And even Al Gore saw a chance and started losing weight.
Oh, somewhere there are Democrats who still know how to win
And somewhere blue state heroes rise above the food fight din
They might appear this summer, but more likely what we’ll see
Is just a donkey’s version of reality TV.
Is it possible that Al Gore has gone too far by equating the threat of global warming to Adolph Hitler? According to this op-ed article from Austria’s Die Presse, ‘What the world does not need are stupid comparisons like the one Al Gore employed equating the earth’s warming with Adolph Hitler, or heroically signed international agreements that aren’t the least respected.’
By Michael Prüller
Translated By Julian Jacob
December 15, 2007
Austria - Die Presse - Original Article (German)
Pathos reigns in Bali. But to make really significant progress at the Copenhagen [climate] conference in 2009, a bit more sobriety is recommended.
Sometimes one wonders why that professional climate saver - who with great emotion was again celebrated in Bali - is the guarantor of meaningful climate policies. What the world does not need are stupid comparisons like the one Al Gore employed equating the earth’s warming with Adolph Hitler, or heroically signed international agreements that aren’t the least respected.
Most urgent now is not some global-rescue euphoria, but a realistic agreement among the six largest carbon dioxide emitters: The USA, China, the E.U., Russia, India and Japan. And a good look at Kyoto could be useful: it was a treaty that major polluters could sign with ease, because they weren’t committed to any reductions (such as China and India), or by some who could take it lightly (such as Russia, which will only reach critical CO2 levels in the years to come). The attitude of the United States was more honest - and one must remember that it wasn’t only George Bush - but a united senate under Clinton and Gore (!) that rejected the agreement - refusing to agree to such a non-binding commitment.
December 17th, 2007 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
Having been rather critical of Hillary Clinton, I find myself feeling a tad sorry for her these days because she can’t seem to say or do anything without getting dinged. Trouble is, her wounds are mostly self inflicted.
Mrs. Clinton has campaigned like an incumbent, which turns out to have been a not-wise strategy. She has presented herself as a woman of steely resolve who is nevertheless a warm and fuzzy cookie baker, which also turns out to have been a not-wise strategy. This is because she can’t be both in the eyes of most voters, as well as the group that counts the most – a hyperventilating news media that covers her dings large and small like they all are pratfalls.
The media proclaimed one-time front-runner and prohibitive favorite now faces possible defeat in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, and is in trouble in Nevada and South Carolina, as well. Yes, she still has double-digit leads in national polls, but she and the media had anticipated the four early state contests to be coronations on her fast track to the nomination and the White House.
What the heck happened?
* Mrs. Clinton made the classic mistake of choosing her advisers more for their loyalty than their ability. Look no further than the Bush White House for a textbook example of the perils of surrounding one’s self with people who are going to tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear.
* The decision that Mrs. Clinton would run like she was an incumbent seems especially shortsighted because it failed to take into account that the electorate is thirsty for change. Barack Obama’s campaign relentlessly cranks out the message that he will bring change to Washington while Mrs. Clinton keeps telling us how experienced she is. Translation: There will be more competent leadership but not necessarily big change.
* Cynicism, including playing polarizing politics, is the coin of Mrs. Clinton’s realm. The clumsy effort of her now former New Hampshire co-campaign chairman to bring up not only Obama’s self-confessed teenage drug use but whether he peddled the stuff was a cynical ploy. The incident followed two instances in which volunteer campaign aides forwarded e-mails that falsely claimed Obama was a Muslim and possibly was intent on destroying the U.S., and an embarrassing campaign statement asserting that he was so consumed with ambition that he had written an essay in kindergarten titled “I Want to Become President.”
* After months of campaigning, I still can’t tell where Mrs. Clinton stands on the issues that matter most to me. These include Iraq, torture and immigration reform. This is in part because of the huge media bandwidth to which we’re exposed, but it also has to do with her notorious and ongoing vacillations.
* Bill Clinton is one of Mrs. Clinton’s greatest strengths – and weaknesses. He was absolutely the most adept politician that I saw on the stump in the eight presidential campaigns that I covered. Had Al Gore not kept him at arm’s length in 2000, he probably would be finishing his second term. That noted, it is surprising that as the Mister stumps for the Missus he sometimes seems to be talking more about himself than her. And you can be sure that he won’t alienate his black base by going hard after Obama.
* Mrs. Clinton also seems to be getting the little stuff wrong. At the most recent debate, she chirped about enlisting the American people in the way her fifth-grade teacher had in using the manned space flight program as an inspiration to study math and science. The problem is that Mrs. Clinton was in fifth grade several years before there was any such program.
Maybe Mrs. Clinton forgot that she was in fifth grade when the Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik. It’s not a make or break issue, but does help further cement the impression that she and her advisers thought the campaign was going to be more of a cakewalk than a slugfest. Which helps explain why that coronation is on hold for the foreseeable future.
Will a Republican presidential victory in 2008 do permanent damage to America’s ties to Europe? According to this op-ed article from Financial Times Deutschland columnist Thomas Klau, ‘A Democratic President or a woman President would be seen as a symbol of change. But if a Republican wins the U.S. election of 2008, the long-term Atlantic rift will be insurmountable.’
By Thomas Klau
Translated by Julian Jacob
December 13, 2007
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
A Democratic President or a woman President would be seen as a symbol of change. But if a Republican wins the U.S. election of 2008, the long-term Atlantic rift will be insurmountable.
In their annual report on global security last week, the U.S. intelligence services averted the threat of air strikes on Iran - for now. So we non-Americans can now breathe a sigh of relief and focus on the drama that residents of the global village are offered every four years.
In three weeks, the citizens of Iowa will signal the opening shot of a U.S. presidential election year that could make cultural history. With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democrats have fielded two candidates that stand for much more than just new policies at the White House.
There is currently a fashion among political analysts to warn of excessive expectations on this side of the Atlantic, and to recall that even a Democratic President could disappoint hopes for a Europeanized-U.S. policy. Of course, American policy is rooted in a continuum.
But those who look only at roots easily miss the forest. A President Hillary Clinton - and even more so - a President Barack Obama, would be perceived beyond U.S. borders as a new beginning with which Americans could reconnect to the progressive momentum of earlier decades. That alone would have an impact on whoever holds the office.
Some experts say that after the debacle of the Bush years, a period of introspection lies ahead – especially if a Democrat replaces Bush. But the comments and inclinations of the party’s most prominent candidates are in a different language.
SAVIOURS OF AMERICAN PRESTIGE
Hillary Clinton has a burning interest in foreign policy, and Barack Obama sees the world from the perspective of his youth in Indonesia and Hawaii - which is less nationally-influenced than other American politicians. Anyone who listens to them comes to the conclusion that besides taking active leadership of America, both would seek a more active role in the world, for example in formulating a new global climate protection policy. Actively working to restore America’s global prestige and U.S. leadership in general is a central theme in the election campaigns of both politicians. They can count on the support of a large portion of their electorate, as polls among Democratic supporters consistently show.
But it’s not impossible that in three weeks, Iowan voters will bury the hopes of Clinton and Obama under a crushing pre-election defeat. Competing with the two media stars is the third Democratic favorite, John Edwards, who appears to many of his supporters as the only safe choice. The doubt that Americans will actually elect a woman or an African-American as their 44th President remains a factor in the electoral calculus. One must assume that when in doubt, Republicans will try anything to awaken resentment in the White men of the American republic - against the reign of a woman or the son of an African.
America knows that 2008 will test and set new limits on its own capacity for social change. But Americans may not realize that this election also tests future relations with Europe. In the debates and their explanations of intent, Democrats find Europeans more worthy of confidence and even cross party lines to show it; while the discussions of Republicans - with their dual focus on religion and the threat of terrorism - act to contrast them, making them seem like strangers with whom one is no longer related.
Is the United States missing a chance to redeem its global reputation by obstructing a climate deal at a U.N. conference in Bali? Along with Al Gore, the editorial board of Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Gazette certainly thinks so.
“Of course, Bush was bought and paid for by the time he was elected President in 2000 … when it comes to the Bush Administration, the word ‘moral’ is one that doesn’t exist in its vocabulary.”
EDITORIAL
December 14, 2007
Saudi Arabia - The Saudi Gazzette - Home Page (English)
The United States has the world’s largest economy, the world’s mightiest military and the world’s largest media machine. It is also the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And now, it’s the world’s greatest impediment to reaching agreements on stemming the increasingly frightening decline of the world’s environment.
Reports coming out of the U.N. climate conference in Bali are disturbing, to say the least WATCH . Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, fresh from his visit to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize for his work on the environment, stated categorically in a speech delivered to delegates that, “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali WATCH .”
And the European Union is threatening to pull out of U.S.- sponsored climate change talks unless the Bush Administration agrees to specific emissions targets, something it currently refuses to do. Such targets, the Bush minions say, would necessarily limit the scope of future talks and, incidentally, wreak havoc on the U.S. economy.
Of course, Bush was bought and paid for by the time he was elected President in 2000, and the secret meeting his Vice President, Dick Cheney, held with U.S. energy moguls at the start of the Bush presidency was further proof that profits - not the health of the planet - are the main focus of this administration.
The Bush Administration has been clueless on virtually every issue the country and the wider world have faced over the past seven years. From Iraq to stem cell research to health care to the environment, George Bush has shown the sensitivity and insight that only a person who has lived his life in affluent isolation could. In other words, he has the capacity for neither.
The problem here is that personal wealth will do little to save anyone from what could be a true environmental disaster lurking just around the corner.
December 10th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Former Vice President Al Gore accepted his Nobel Prize today. Here are excerpts from his speech, as carried by the AP:
Excerpts from former Vice President Al Gore’s acceptance speech Monday for the Nobel Peace Prize he shared with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken — if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.
Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”
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We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency — a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst — though not all — of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.
However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.
___
In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half-million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Read the rest of this entry »
October 24th, 2007 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
(Note: I apologize for the link-heavy opening paragraph, but I’ve done a good deal of writing about the climate crisis over at my place, and these links will take you directly to some of those posts.)
I haven’t blogged about the climate crisis in some time, except to comment on Al Gore’s Nobel win — as J. Kingston Pierce and J. Thomas Duffy did, too — but it’s been in the news, of course, along with yet more, and more massive, natural disasters, and the news seems to keep getting worse and worse. There has been Bush’s substantial negligence on the political side, including his “victory” at June’s G8 summit in Germany, with the U.S. proving yet again to be a malevolent hegemon, proposing a hollow framework for dealing with the crisis that will do nothing of the kind, preferring short-term self-interest, along with the shameful avoidance of reality, to the long-term well-being of the planet and its inhabitants, human and otherwise.
The capacity of the world’s oceans and land to absorb carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industrial activity is diminishing, raising the possibility that global warming will happen more rapidly and will be more dramatic than is currently anticipated, a new research paper says.
The paper, by an international team of scientists and published yesterday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says nature’s reduced ability to remove carbon dioxide that humans are adding to the atmosphere, along with surging world economic growth, explain why atmospheric concentrations of the gas rose in the 2000-2006 period at the most rapid seven-year pace since modern record keeping began in 1959.
“All of these changes characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger-than-expected and sooner-than-expected climate forcing,” the paper concludes.
Carbon dioxide concentrations are at the highest level in the past 650,000 years, and probably the past 20 million years, according to the paper.
About half of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activity is later absorbed by water in the ocean and plants on land, a process that has led scientists to dub them “sinks.” This natural process has blunted the full impact of greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity on the world climate.
The failure of the oceans and land to absorb as much carbon dioxide as they once did is being attributed to global warming, and is raising the worrisome possibility that this could lead to a cycle of weather destabilization that could cause the pace of warming to accelerate, according to one of the study authors.
The deniers, and there are still many of them, and they continue to be highly influential, particularly in the U.S., where a denier sits in the Oval Office, will argue that this is all somewhat abstract and theoretical, based on projections, a possibility, cyclical, if anything, hardly certain, little cause for concern. And yet it is the totality of the evidence, the ever-expanding evidence, that matters in this respect, and the totality of the evidence presents an astonishingly clear picture of where we are now and where we are heading in a future that is getting closer and closer. We are not talking about generations down the road, maybe, we are talking about this generation, within decades, if not sooner, likely sooner. We are talking about a steady increase in global temperatures, but also about droughts, storms, flooding, enormous (human-enhanced) natural disasters, potentially millions dead and many millions more displaced. Yes, we are talking about genocide and chaos. Read the rest of this entry »
