Sat Jun 7, 11:40 PM Pacific
Now let's not get carried away here...
TPM's Greg Sargent writes (emphasis added):
It needs to be said that Hillary struck an extraordinarily difficult balancing act with real grace and eloquence. On the one hand, she needed to signal that she has built a movement of her own and to reinforce the idea that she is the undisputed leader of American women -- both as a genuine point of pride and as proof of her undiminishing influence. Hence the repeated references to the 18 million votes she earned.
Here's a couple of interesting stats breaking down the vote in primary states, presented, as they say, without editorial comment:
- Among all women in primary states: HRC 53%, BHO 45%
- Among white women in primary states: HRC 61%, BHO 35%
- Among non-white women in primary stats: HRC 37%, BHO 63%
Obama actually won the female vote in 14 primaries. He only won the white female vote three times, however. About two-thirds of female primary voters were white.
(I computed these statistics using exit poll data from MSNBC.com and turnout data from state elections offices. The numbers do not include caucus states which would shift the numbers favorably towards Obama, but no data exists. They also do not include Michigan or Puerto Rico.)
Sat Jun 7, 5:57 PM Pacific
John Bush McCain can't keep his story straight
NYT on Wednesday:
McCain Distances Himself From Bush and Jabs Obama
KENNER, La. Senator John McCain marked the unofficial beginning of the general election with a speech here Tuesday in which he sought to distance himself from President Bush and to argue that he has stronger credentials as an independent agent of change than his all-but-certain Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama...."You will hear from my opponent's campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that Iâm running for President Bush's third term," he said, trying to pre-empt one of the central Democratic strategies of tying Mr. McCain to the unpopular president.
USA Today on Friday (h/t Jonathan Martin):
McCain says he won't run from Bush in campaign
FORT LAUDERDALE - Republican John McCain said he won't try to "separate" himself from a weakened President Bush or his unpopular handling of the war in Iraq to try to win the general election against Barack Obama, who has made opposition to the war a focus of the Democratic campaign.
..."I'm not trying to separate myself," he said.
M'kay...here's a little bit of straight talk, my friends: in 2007, John Bush McCain supported Bush's position on 95% of his Senate votes. So far in 2008, he's supported Bush's position 100% of the time.
Here's his problem: he knows he can't get elected if he's seen as too close to George W. Bush (he'll lose independents), but he also can't get elected if he distances himself from Bush (he'll lose his base). The result: John Bush McCain can't keep his story straight. And boy is it fun to watch.
Sat Jun 7, 3:15 PM Pacific
"Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course"
Everyone who supported Hillary Clinton during the primary ought to watch this clip from Barack Obama's speech in St. Paul, Minnesota on Tuesday night. In it, Barack not only thanks Hillary for the good things she brought to the campaign trail, but perhaps just importantly, the crowd responds warmly.
If Barack can praise Hillary as he does in this clip, and if Hillary can praise Barack as she did today in DC, surely we can all come together to win this election in November. Please send it to friends of yours who might be on the fence.
As Barack says, this is not about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton: this is about America, and the stakes are too high to risk four more years of George W. Bush's policies.
Also, if you're so moved, Barack has now set up a page on his site for people to express their thanks to Hillary Clinton for what she did today. (h/t: georgia10)
Sat Jun 7, 2:56 PM Pacific
When all else fails, just make stuff up
Barack Obama, Wednesday before AIPAC:
Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.
On Thursday, to CNN:
Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations.
The WaPo editorial page, today:
Mr. Obama was so forceful in backing the military, economic and territorial interests of the Jewish state that he later had to offer a clarification, pointing out that his endorsement of an "undivided" Jerusalem did not mean he ruled out Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the final status of the city.
In addition to being oddly incongruous with the rest of their editorial, the WaPo's wording reflected a concerted effort to portray these statements as examples of Obama being squishy on Israel. But this is a phony line of attack. As Jake Tapper points out, there's nothing new here. When the American Jewish Committee asked Obama about his views on Jerusalem, he said it should not be divided:
Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided.
He also it was ultimately up to the parties to determine:
The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement. We should support the parties as they negotiate these difficult issues, but they will have to reach agreements that they can live with. ... But these details are for the parties to decide.
Same. Exact. Thing.
:: ::
One closing thought here. I'm Jewish, and even though my general views towards Israel are probably slightly to the left of most American Jews, I'm pretty close to the mainstream. Like the overwhelming majority of American Jews, I will vote for Barack Obama in November.
The frustrating thing for me is that when the media talks about the political implications of American policy towards Israel, generally speaking only Jewish voters are discussed. Keep in mind that even though John Kerry won 80% of the Jewish vote in Florida in 2004, Bush won the state solidly.
Yet despite receiving almost no support from Jews, Bush had a far more conservative policy towards Israel and the Middle East than did Kerry. Why? In short, to the extent that they are political, Bush's views towards Israel and the Middle East are driven by the Republican Party's Christian evangelical base, most of whom derive their
passionate support for Israel from Biblical prophecy. From a 2006 Pew Survey:
Seven-in-ten white evangelicals (69%) believe God gave Israel to the Jewish people and a solid majority (59%) believes that Israel is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy views rejected by majorities of the rest of the public, including most mainline Protestants and Catholics. Significantly, those who believe that God gave Israel to the Jews and that the state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy are much more likely than others to sympathize with Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians.
Keep in mind that only 3% of American voters are Jewish, whereas about one-quarter are Christian evangelicals. Moreover, keep in mind that Bush won an astonishing 78% of evangelicals in 2004, compared to 74% of the Jews who voted for Kerry.
So even though the media loves to portray right-wing Jews like Joe Lieberman as the ultimate power brokers on American policy towards Israel, guys like John Hagee and Rod Parsley have far more power.
Sat Jun 7, 1:10 PM Pacific
A bad week for John Bush McCain
Love her or hate her, one thing that Hillary Clinton can do better than most is turn on a dime, and by most accounts, she not only turned on a dime today, but she did it well.
This is especially brutal news for John McCain, because his only shot at winning the presidency was to face a divided Democratic Party. The WaPo pretty well sums up John McCain's problem:
On the issues, it is unclear how McCain would appeal to Clinton's female or working-class voters. McCain's record is not much like Clinton's, as the Republican repeatedly pointed out during his primary battles. He opposes government-run health care, supports continuing the war in Iraq, wants to extend President Bush's tax cuts and is a committed foe of abortion rights.
His position on the war, in particular, puts him at odds with Clinton on what is a top issue for many Democrats. For months, McCain mocked Clinton's desire to withdraw troops from Iraq.
So a week that began with Barack Obama completely upstaging McCain's lime-green disaster ends with supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama coming back together after a brutal primary. According to Rasmussen, more Democrats now say they will vote for Obama in the fall than at any point all year.
That's a bad week for John Bush McCain. A very bad week.
Sat Jun 7, 12:05 PM Pacific
"The agency's case hinges on 18 documents"
Remember this, from early December last year?
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.
Then, late last month, this:
Atomic Monitor Signals Concern Over Iran’s Work
PARIS — The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an unusually blunt and detailed report, said Monday that Iran’s suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained “a matter of serious concern” and that Iran continued to owe the agency “substantial explanations.”
That seemed surprising -- the IAEA report suggested more concern about Iran and nuclear weapons than the NIE released just six months earlier. So what was the basis of the IAEA report?
Part of the agency’s case hinges on 18 documents listed in the report and presented to Iran that, according to Western intelligence agencies, indicate the Iranians have ventured into explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design — activities that could be associated with constructing nuclear weapons.
Where do these 18 documents, which are apparently central to the latest round of tensions with Iran, come from? The NYT article cited above does not say, but according to this Christian Science Monitor article, the documents mostly come from...the US.
At issue in Vienna is the meaning of 18 documents that point to secret weaponization work, which the IAEA calls "alleged studies." Most were provided by US intelligence but were only shown, not given, to the IAEA and to Iran, which dismisses them as fakes.
Those studies "remain a matter of serious concern," and Iran "has not yet agreed to implement all the transparency measures required to clarify this cluster of allegations," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the agency's 35-member board of governors when they convened on Monday.But Mr. ElBaradei also indirectly rapped the US, noting that the IAEA "was unfortunately not authorized to provide copies [of the documents] to Iran," which he said "would clearly help the Agency in its investigations." The IAEA, he added, "has not seen indications of the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies."
I'm no expert at all on Iran -- I follow the issue far less closely than I probably should. But given our history with of supplying forged documents to the IAEA, I'm pretty skeptical about these 18 documents.
Sat Jun 7, 10:33 AM Pacific
So I just woke up out here on the west coast
I haven't turned on the teevee or checked any web pages yet. And the question is...did Hillary Clinton endorse Barack Obama?
Update: Just flipped on MSNBC. Phew! She did. Heh.
Here's a video excerpt:
Sat Jun 7, 1:32 AM Pacific
A well-made anti-Obama web video (that's based on a lie)
Don't worry -- by pimping this video (h/t Jonathan Martin), I'm not endorsing it's contents. Rather, I'm linking to it as an example of an effective anti-Obama web video. It's called "Obama on your shoulder" and the basic premise of the video is that Barack Obama is a puritanical liberal elitist who wants to tell you how to live your life.
It's not like I'm freaking out about this or anything, though. For starters, the premise of the video comes from a statement made by Obama, but taken way out of context. In the video, Obama says: "We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times."
Sounds pretty bad (a presidential candidate telling us we cannot eat as much as we want?), but when you see the full context, you realize that his point was that we need to invest in alternative energy technology, especially since the rest of the world is growing rapidly and won't slow down just because we tell them to. Here's what Obama actually said:
If we lead by example, then we can actually export and license technologies that have been invented here to help them deal with their growth pains. But keep in mind, you're right, we can't tell them don't grow. We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership.
It's no surprise that a right-wing attack is based on a false premise, and in a normal year, it's veracity wouldn't have an impact on its effectiveness. In 2008, however, I think it's going to be harder for the Republican attack machine.
First, we've seen these lies before, and now, unlike in 2004, a huge army of Obama supporters, linked together though social networking, blogs, and other electronic means, are committed to fighting back against GOP lies. Second, Obama has (and will have) a huge cash advantage over John McCain, allowing him to both define himself and respond to lies without relying on the media.
These attacks work best on people with little or no exposure to Barack, but thanks to his volunteer army and money, there won't be that many people who fall into that category. And given Barack's commitment to fighting back fast and fierce against these lies, we're about as well-positioned as we could be for the kinds of attacks in this video.
That's a good thing, because make no mistake, they are coming our way -- and fast.
Fri Jun 6, 11:11 PM Pacific
Press corps flips out over private Obama-Clinton meeting
Apparently, the Obama campaign's traveling press corps is plenty peeved that they weren't invited to last night's Obama-Clinton meeting. In fact, according to CNN, they feel like they were hijacked. In short, what happened is that just before taking off -- after the plane was taxiing towards the runway -- reporters were told that Obama was not on the plane.
In 2003, the press corps raved about Bush's secret trip to Baghdad
They had never really been told that he was on the plane, though the pilot did announce that everyone was on board, without naming names. The press corps, perhaps reasonably, assumed that meant Obama. From the pilot's perspective, all it meant was that everyone who was traveling was on board. Anyway, they plane took off, and Obama went to Chicago later in the night after having his private meeting.
Now, I can understand the press corps' frustration, but on both the ABC and NBC broadcasts, the fact that they felt they had been lied to was a central feature of each story. It's a perfect example of media navel gazing. Do they really think that in the 90 seconds or so that they have to explain the meeting that they should spend 20 or 30 seconds whining about not having been invited? No one ever forced them onto the plane, after all.
Whatever the merits of their position, their decision to make it an important feature of the story illustrates their pettiness more than anything else.
Update: There's a hilarious diary on this over at kos. My favorite part: CNN is actually selling t-shirts blaring: "Obama's dodge miffs press corps."
Fri Jun 6, 8:00 PM Pacific
The mystery of John Bush McCain's bottled hot water
Since Tuesday night, all of America has been asking: what the heck was John Bush McCain talking about when he exhorted our nation to "deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies"?
After discovering that John Bush McCain has his own brand of bottled hot water, I'm starting to wonder: maybe it's all a corrupt scheme to win a big government contract for his wife's beverage distribution business?
And aside the problem of getting scalded, how the heck is an infant supposed to drink out of this thing anyway?
If you've got no idea what this is all about, you can watch the six second long video of McCain saying that "we should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies" here.
Fri Jun 6, 6:09 PM Pacific
What a girl wants?
I love MSNBC -- especially Countdown -- but during a discussion about Hillary Clinton's political future on this evening's broadcast, I wasn't happy to see this:
It's just not acceptable to call Hillary Clinton a "girl," even if the headline writer was just trying to be cute. This should be especially obvious after the campaign that we've just gone through.
This doesn't validate the divisive attacks on Obama by people like Geraldine Ferraro, nor does it excuse the Clinton campaign's polarizing racial and cultural tactics.
Still, no matter how much I value MSNBC relative to other MSM outlets, this was a pretty clear example of sexism in action, and it's something they ought to make sure doesn't happen again.
Fri Jun 6, 4:48 PM Pacific
John Bush McCain Calls Himself a Fool In New Ad
So John Bush McCain has a new TV ad out talking about how much he hates war. It's an obvious attempt to soften the political damage from his hardline support for the Iraq War, and I took the liberty of mashing it up with some of his past statements.
As you can see, it turns out that he's calling himself a fool. But we already knew that, didn't we?
Fri Jun 6, 2:28 PM Pacific
The six second video clip that mystified a nation
John Bush McCain's proclamation that "we should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies" is raising eyebrows across the country and throughout the world.
The video clip of McCain's curious remark is flooding the viral video charts, scalding everything in its path, already becoming 11th most viewed clip on the YouTube with 129,644 views -- and counting. Apparently, people everywhere, want to know: WTF, McCain? WTF?
Politico's Ben Smith calls it the "Perils of YouTube" and notes that McCain seems to have extemporaneously added the word "hot," which was not in his prepared remarks. That would tend to contradict Gawker's theory that McCain meant to say "we should be able to deliver sterilized boiled water to dehydrated babies."
What can you do to help get to the bottom of the mystery? Well, watch the clip. Send it to a friend. And always remember: When it comes to delivering bottled hot water to dehydrated babies, America deserves the truth.
Fri Jun 6, 1:38 PM Pacific
The long GOP history of smearing their opponent's wives
It's a quadrennial tradition. Take 1988, for example:
The Republicans took another sideswipe at Dukakis' patriotism last week when Idaho Senator Steve Symms told a radio interviewer that Kitty Dukakis had been photographed "burning an American flag while she was an antiwar demonstrator during the '60s." The rumor is totally unsubstantiated, but that has not stopped zealots from spreading it. Replied Mrs. Dukakis: "It's untrue, unfounded, and there is no picture." Said Dukakis, in obvious frustration and fractured syntax: "I find oneself in the position of denying nonexistent facts."
No such photograph ever materialized -- because it never existed. Robert A. George has more.
Fri Jun 6, 12:17 PM Pacific
Tom DeLay is a Klansman
And he hates America. Unless he proves me wrong, that is.
How else do you respond this?
Fri Jun 6, 12:11 PM Pacific
It matters what question you ask
CNN is having some fun pushing the veepmare scenario. I'm not at all surprised that a slight majority of Democrats say Obama should pick Hillary as VP...in fact, it's striking that the Democratic party is so divided on the question. Can you think of any Presidential candidate having picked a VP who almost half the party was opposed to?
Why didn't CNN ask this question: "Should Barack Obama choose his vice presidential candidate based on polls taken by media outlets desperate for a story, or should he make a decision based who would be the best running mate and partner in governing?"
Fri Jun 6, 11:19 AM Pacific
Feinstein pushing fake popular vote meme...or not?
Yesterday in DC, Dianne Feinstein hosted a sit-down session between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
After the meeting, Feinstein who has in the past pushed Obama to select Clinton as veep, seemed to push the false claim that Clinton had won the "popular vote."
People, particularly in this case because Hillary represents a very large bloc of voters — the largest ever for anybody that has come in No. 2, and has the popular vote.
That was the quote in The New York Times, and The Hill also quoted Feinstein the same way. But USA Today had a different quote:
Hillary Clinton represents a very large bloc of voters — the largest ever for anybody who's ever come in No. 2 in the popular vote.
Either way, by even talking about the popular vote argument, Feinstein is using a dishonest, misleading metric -- as I've said many times, you can't simply add together the results of different contests in different states run under different rules. Doing so unfairly penalizes states with caucuses or closed primaries.
So even if Feinstein recognizes that Clinton didn't win the popular vote, by using that fake metric she's reopening a wound from the nomination process when we should be trying to heal.
Fri Jun 6, 3:35 AM Pacific
More green screen with McCain, beat the b**** edition
Here's my second attempt at using the green screen effect, this one a bit more ambitious than my first. It's video of John Bush McCain prattling on about how Hillary didn't get enough respect during the campaign overlayed on top of video of a supporter of his calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch." Of course, he didn't say anything to defend her -- he just laughed.
That John McCain -- he sure is a laugh-a-minute!
(h/t to TPM's Veracifier for the source video)
Fri Jun 6, 12:42 AM Pacific
NBC snafu
I posted some videos earlier from MSNBC.com; for some reason, they didn't work in the vodpod like they normally do. I'm posting them in this post for those of you who tried to get them to work. They are pretty cool -- one is about a 95-year-old man's dream finally coming true, and the other is about Barack pursuing Hillary Clinton's voters in Appalachia.
Fri Jun 6, 12:08 AM Pacific
It's not just bottled hot water for dehydrated babies...
A blast from the past...it's John Bush McCain vs. the Microphone.
Also, you may have noticed that I have once again made some changes to the blog layout. (You may have to refresh your cache to get everything working, just press the control key and the F5 key at the same time.)
The changes are cosmetic with the exception of the reintroduction of ads above the fold, which I'm going to test again for a little bit. With this layout I think the ad is a little bit less obnoxious than it was before. One thing I'm curious about is whether anybody follows the links in the "things I should have blogged" section on the right hand sidebar -- if you do, I'd love to know, or if you have any other thoughts or comments. Thanks!
Thu Jun 5, 9:33 PM Pacific
How can we look the other way?
Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a new report detailing how the Bush Administration misled our nation into war with Iraq. According to The New York Times, the report "concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the committee's chairman, said the report showed that the president and vice president made a case that was "fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises." If Rockefeller's statement is true, then Bush and Cheney must be punished.
At a minimum, Congress should begin a formal inquiry. This isn't about politics. If we were lied into war -- and I say if because until there is legal proceeding of some sort, the matter will be up for debate -- then the one thing we cannot do is nothing, because if we do nothing, it will just happen again.
Thu Jun 5, 5:53 PM Pacific
Green screen effects with John Bush McCain, rough cut
I've never done green screen effects before, so this isn't the most inspired thing in the world, but it's a proof of concept for an idea suggested by a commenter (RandyH, I believe).
What do you think? So what video or images would you run in the background? This could end up being a lot of fun.
In other video related news, today the 3 millionth video was played from my YouTube channel. (Self-promoting edit: Since March 28, I've had 2.1 million videos played -- twice as many as John McCain's YouTube channel in the same span.) Thanks to everybody whose watched the videos, and shared them with friends!
Thu Jun 5, 3:52 PM Pacific
No, this headline isn't from an Obama press release
McCain misrepresents Obama's stand on naming Revolutionary Guard as terrorists.
John McCain is attacking Barack Obama's opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which (among other things) called for labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. McCain claims that Obama's opposition means that he also opposed calling the IRGC terrorists. We find otherwise.
The above comes from FactCheck.org, a non-partisan, non-profit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Thu Jun 5, 2:50 PM Pacific
My longshot pick for VP: Gov. Christine Gregoire
Although my top preference for VP is still John Edwards, I think Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire ought to be thrown into the mix of names being discussed.
On a political level, Obama wouldn't pick Gregoire to deliver Washington state -- Washington will go blue in November no matter who he picks. Rather, the obvious political objective would be demographic, to cement Obama's strength with voters who want to see a woman on the ticket. (As a bonus, she's Catholic, and she's 61, which might put her on the old side for 2016, but is a perfect compliment to Obama in 2008.)
Gregoire was a popular three-term Attorney General before being elected Governor in 2004. Politically, the biggest knock against her is that her 2004 race was far closer than it should have been, though I think the problem had more to do with her campaign than her as a candidate. As a vice presidential candidate, she'd have the benefit of the Obama operation, which would be unlikely to make the same types of mistakes she made in her 2004 campaign.
Gregoire is running for re-election now (she's up by 11 points in the latest poll that I've looked at), so Democrats in the state would have to scramble to find another candidate to take her place -- perhaps Ron Sims (for whom I used to work) would give it another shot.
I should note as a disclaimer that although I now live in Las Vegas, I've worked in Washington state politics and have lived in Seattle for most of my life. My dad was an AAG while Gregoire was AG, though he didn't work in her office. I've only met her a couple of times, and she certainly wouldn't remember me, but both times I was very impressed with her intelligence, poise, and leadership qualities -- she wouldn't just satisfy demographic criteria -- she'd also be an excellent vice president
What are your thoughts about Gregoire? Other names? (And are you rooting for Romney as hard as I am?)
Thu Jun 5, 1:01 PM Pacific
kos on December 5, 2006
kos is entitled to some bragging rights:
...There's one thing that could put a skid on Obama's fast rise -- an Al Gore entrance into the race. Other than that, I don't see a way anyone stops him.
Again, we don't know what the final field will look like, so things can dramatically change. But an entrance into the race would make Obama the prohibitive favorite. If politics is about seizing opportunities, it would seem a no-brainer for him to enter the race now.
What's more, Obama would then be tough to beat in the general. He would very well be the favorite in that race, even against a McCain, and would probably be a net positive for Democrats running down the ballot. So it wouldn't be a terrible thing by any means.
Not bad.
Thu Jun 5, 12:45 PM Pacific
A presidential debate without journalists
There's been a fair bit of a back and forth about whether or not Barack Obama should agree to McCain's town hall proposal. Obviously, he won't agree to McCain's specific proposal, which would begin next week, and I think that 60 minutes is too short.
But on the larger question of whether or not the format is a good one for Obama, I think it is clearly an advantageous one -- not so much because of the contrast with McCain (I actually think the format is good for McCain as well), but because it takes the press out of the equation.
Think back to the Philadelphia debate. If that had been a town hall, without heavily partisan voters, none of the questions raised by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos would have come up. In theory, you'd like to think that the media would actually be able to ask valuable questions, but those two demonstrated that we can't trust the media. And I think it's pretty clear that Obama is far more likely than McCain to be the target of similarly scurillous questioning in future debates.
So while the details need to get worked out, and while McCain will feel more comfortable in the format than in a debate, I say go for it -- get past the media filter as much as possible. Ironically, the best chance we have for a meaningful, issues-driven debate is to bypass journalists.
Update: icebergslim makes an important point -- Obama has no obligation to neutralize his financial advantage over McCain. There's no need to do these town hall events before the conventions. Perhaps the way to go would be doing 4 or 5 of them after the conventions, and then doing away with the debates entirely.
Thu Jun 5, 4:46 AM Pacific
The Opportunity
It still really hasn't hit me that Barack Obama has actually won the Democratic nomination. That's sort of odd in a way, because it has seemed so clear to me for so long (since the Potomac Primary four months ago, at least) that he was going to win.
And now he's actually won, and Hillary Clinton, however grudgingly, has accepted it. I guess her performance on Tuesday night took away somewhat from the euphoria of the moment. I was pretty pissed off at her for bigfooting all over such a special evening, but now that a little bit of time has passed, I'm no longer pissed.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any excuse for the way she handled the night, but in the long run, I think we're better off that she did what she did because by crossing so far over the line, she actually pushed many of her supporters away; in her effort to divide, she may actually have sped up the process of unifying the party. It would be a fitting epitaph for her campaign. (In another fitting piece of symbolism, she wore what appeared to be an all black pantsuit today.)
So even though she may have made Tuesday a bit less pleasant than it could have been, at least she effectively killed her chance at getting the VP nod, or at least gave Obama a great excuse for not picking her, since I think her chances were already nil. It would have been different if she had stunned the political world last night and conceded the nomination and promised to fight her heart out for Barack. But now, nobody will blame Barack for skipping over her, at least nobody other than people like Bob Johnson and Lanny Davis. (Great line about Bob Johnson via Jake Tapper: "What, Geraldine Ferraro wasn't available?")
The other thing that distracted me a bit on Tuesday night (albeit in a good way) was the World's Worst Speech by John McCain. Some people might try and spin at at having set a low bar for McCain's rhetorical abilities...but nobody would have ever intentionally given such a pathetic performance, especially not one that reinforced every negative stereotype about your campaign.
But McCain's lame speech also got me a fired up, because for the first time in my life, the Democratic Party could win a massive landslide victory in the fall if things play out right -- and if it happens, it won't be a landslide for some DLC-branded politician, it will be a landslide for Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that is far closer to the grassroots than it has ever been in my lifetime.
In a broader historical context, probably the most remarkable thing about Barack's nomination is that he is likely to become the first African American president of the United States of America. On a personal level though, I hardly even noticed that on Tuesday; I don't mean to minimize his accomplishment, but when I look at Barack Obama (not in the visual sense, but the broader sense), I don't see someone who is running to be the first black president; I see someone who could be the first president since JFK and LBJ or perhaps FDR to bring about enduring change.
The Clinton years were good years for America, but the Clinton presidency was ephemeral; as effective as he was in the moment, virtually nothing significant from Bill Clinton's administration persisted under George Bush.
Obama, on the other hand, seems to recognize that this moment in America's history is one of those moments where we can actually achieve something fundamental, like the New Deal, like the civil rights movement. There's so much to be done: domestically, health care, education, growing gap between the super-rich and everybody else; and internationally, repairing Bush's mismanagement of the American empire and addressing global environmental threats.
There was a time that was very skeptical of Obama, but as I've watched him campaign, and as I've seen him make political decisions, my respect has grown, tremendously. He's the first presidential candidate I've seen who, while being a masterful politician, doesn't accept the "rules" of how you are supposed to do things. The gas tax debate in Indiana was a perfect example; the typically expedient thing would have been to hedge on the issue, denying Hillary Clinton a line of attack. Instead, he decided to fight, to turn it around. To use the Obama-Jujitsu. It's a thing of beauty. He seemed to relish it, too, and I think many of us fed off of that enthusiasm. And if it weren't for those dang McCaniacs, he would have won Indiana. But no matter, he won the nomination.
Anyway, I'm running on a little bit here, but the thing I intended to say when I started writing this is that the thing that makes me feel best about Barack Obama's victory is that for the first time that I can remember, a candidate that I really believe in and am willing to fight for has won the Democratic Party's nomination. I liked John Kerry, and I think he's grown tremendously since the campaign, but for me, 2004 was more about being against Bush than anything else. In 2000, Gore didn't excite me; I voted for him of course, but my political energies went towards a Senate campaign in Washington state, where my former boss at a software company was challenging Republican incumbent Slade Gorton. (After a recount, we won, which was a sweet victory, I had been press secretary for Ron Sims, who lost to Gorton six years earlier.) In 1992, I voted for Jerry Brown in the primaries after supporting Tom Harkin initially; in 1988 I supported Jesse Jackson (though I was just 15, so I didn't pay that much attention). Before that, I was too young, though I still remember Reagan's landslide victory in 1984.
So now I'm 35 years old and there's a candidate who I believe might actually be able to change this country for the better. His name is Barack Obama, and who knows, I could wrong, but I sure as hell want to give him -- and us -- every opportunity to succeed, and like you, I'm ready to fight like hell, because opportunities like this don't come around every day. We've got a chance, and we're going to take it, and do the very best we can. And with a little bit of faith, and a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work, we might actually finally get something done.
Wed Jun 4, 11:39 PM Pacific
A bottle of hot water for every baby?
The short 6 second video clip of John Bush McCain mysteriously urging America to prepare itself to "deliver bottled hot water for dehydrated babies" is starting to make the rounds. If you're a digg user, please help give it a digg:
(Note: The above digg link is for the video itself.)
The question we want to see answered is this: WTF did he mean? (Probably he just inserted the word hot out of nowhere -- nobody gives babies anything hot, at least not unless they are trying to scaled them.) Hopefully an entrepid reporter will have the opportunity to ask the good senator.
Wed Jun 4, 9:49 PM Pacific
Lou Dobbs lies about wearing a flag pin as he attacks Obama
This evening, Lou Dobbs attacked Barack Obama as a flag pin flip-flopper, proudly claiming that he wears one. But on the CNN website (pictured below), Dobbs' "glam" shot does not include a flag pin (and if it had, the pin probably would've been from China).
Lou Dobbs...another idiot busted by YouTube and the internet.
Wed Jun 4, 7:26 PM Pacific
Mashup: What John Bush McCain meant to say last night
From McCain's unprepared remarks, June 3, 2008.
Wed Jun 4, 5:10 PM Pacific
And HRC will endorse Obama, too
Not only will she drop out, but she'll endorse Obama. And it's her supporters that pushed her out, according to NBC's Andrea Mitchell. Moreover, according to Howard Fineman, the veep-mare is not going to happen. Update: According to Clinton's campaign, the event will take place on Saturday:
Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, DC to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend.
Wed Jun 4, 5:02 PM Pacific
"Bottled hot water to dehydrated babies"?
Does anybody have any idea what McCain was talking about when he said that we should be able to "deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies"? The context was Hurricane Katrina. Is there something unique about hot water?
5:59PM: Update, according to his web site:
ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain delivered the following remarks as prepared for delivery tonight in New Orleans, LA:
And the relevant line:
We should be able to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies.
So assuming that when the campaign says he "delivered...remarks as prepared" they actually mean 'this is what he was supposed to say', then McCain somehow inserted "hot" in there for no good reason. Who knows, maybe he was feeling hot in the pants?
Wed Jun 4, 3:43 PM Pacific
Clinton will concede Friday
I have no idea why she wants to wait until Friday, but it's better than August. And it's no surprise that the network of George Stephanopoulos broke the story.
Clinton Will Drop Out of Presidential Race
Barack Obama Captures Nomination After Intense Democratic FightIt's over.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will drop out of the presidential race on Friday, ending her historic bid for the White House and ceding the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, ABC News has learned.
CNN confirms it as well. Fundraising must not have gone so well last night. Ben Smith writes:
The Clinton drama has competed for attention, one last time, with the scope and meaning of Obama's win. Now, it's Obama's party, and he will finally have the spotlight to himself.
Wed Jun 4, 1:23 PM Pacific
Poor old John Bush McCain: Gonna' get clobbered
From a McCain press conference earlier today:
Q: One thing [Obama] said was that he proposed disinvestment [from Iran] a year ago and you didn’t agree with it and so he’s wondering why you didn’t. And also he says he wanted to meet with Iranian leaders but he said there would preconditions, they would be carefully controlled meetings, and democracy could be used to leverage to force Iranian. Can you respond to those things?
JSM: Sure, I’ve never favored investment.
Q: It was disinvestment sir.
JSM: Look, I - we should never invest - well let me just say it’s very clear my record on whether we should in any way support terrorist organizations...
Q: And are you familiar with his disinvestment bill?
JSM: No, I am not familiar with it at all. I do not know if it passed the senate or had any hearing or anything else.
Just for the record, Obama's legislation (which Joe Lieberman co-sponsored) is being held up in the Senate right now by Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama -- but it passed the House by a 408-6 margin.
Seems like something McCain should have known. Then again, you say Sunni, I say Shiite, and McCain says Shunnite.
3:59PM Pacific - Update with video (after the jump):
:: ::
Update, Thursday, 4:19PM -- U. Penn.'s non-partisan, non-profit FactCheck.org debunks one of McCain's claims from the press conference:
McCain misrepresents Obama's stand on naming Revolutionary Guard as terrorists.
John McCain is attacking Barack Obama's opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which (among other things) called for labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. McCain claims that Obama's opposition means that he also opposed calling the IRGC terrorists. We find otherwise.
Wed Jun 4, 1:02 PM Pacific
Challenge Number One
Barack Obama has now selected three people to head up his search for a vice presidential candidate -- Caroline Kennedy, Eric Holder, and Jim Johnson. At the same time, Hillary Clinton partisan Bob Johnson has begun to publicly lobby for her inclusion on the ticket -- apparently with her support.
So that makes Barack Obama's first challenge figuring out how to unify the party while at the same time saying now to this disastrous idea. There are so many reasons I could choose from to make the case why Hillary would be a diastrous VP, but the easiest one is this: Bob Johnson.
Meanwhile a commenter reminded me about this video of John McCain laughing as one his supporters referred to Hillary Clinton as the B-word. Anyone who votes for McCain because they think Barack Obama is a sexist needs to see that video. (And they need their heads examined.)
Wed Jun 4, 5:42 AM Pacific
John Bush McCain vs. Himself: Lime Green Speech Mashup
Worst. Speech. Evar.
Wed Jun 4, 4:41 AM Pacific
Barack Obama vs. John Bush McCain Victory Speech Mashup
Barack Obama is going to clean John McCain's clock:
This one is a little bit light on the John McCain content because..well, because Barack's speech was so damn good yesterday. But you get a little taste of the difference...Barack's like a fresh hot pizza from the best pizza place in New York...and John McCain is the cardboard box it was delivered in.
Wed Jun 4, 3:49 AM Pacific
YouTube changes
Just a fair warning -- this post has nothing to do with politics or the 2008 presidential campaign. Instead, it's a mini-rant against YouTube. Apparently, last night, they changed the way their players appear in video windows. The way things used to work, when you had a smaller player (like the ones in the sidebar), all the elements on the player would scale down.
Now, not only don't those elements scale down, but the YouTube watermark doesn't scale either, so on the small players it ends up covering a large chunk of the video window. Moreover, I think the watermark is a bit more opaque than it used to be.
All in all, it's definitely not a step forward and I can't figure out why YouTube is doing it. Maybe it's time to start exploring other video services? The problem though is that YouTube has the biggest audience. Perhaps I'll just have to start cross-posting videos over there. I wish I understood what they were up to.
Tue Jun 3, 11:16 PM Pacific
Just imagine Inauguration Day
Tue Jun 3, 11:05 PM Pacific
Obama hits magic number of 2,210 delegates also
According to an on-air report by Chuck Todd, if Michigan and Florida were seated at full strength, Barack Obama would have more than 2,210 delegates after today's superdelegate flood. What this means is that even if Hillary Clinton pushed the battle to the credentials committee and somehow managed to win, Barack Obama would still win the Democratic nomination.
Tue Jun 3, 11:02 PM Pacific
Clinton surrogate Lanny Davis admits it's over
Clinton surrogate Lanny Davis admits to David Gergen that it's over, saying: "Of course, he has a majority of the delegates and it's over." It's a pretty funny concession for Davis to make, especially considering that Hillary Clinton claims that have a complete lock her "18 million" supporters. If she can't keep someone like Lanny Davis in line, how's she going to keep Tom and Barbara in Santa Fe, New Mexico from realizing it's over?
Tue Jun 3, 9:02 PM Pacific
Barack Obama's Victory
I just had a thought: for all of Hillary Clinton's braggadocio about having 18 million committed supporters, does anybody really believe that if there were a national primary held today, she would win more votes than Barack Obama? There isn't a single piece of evidence that suggests she would. (Unless, of course, McCain supporters were allowed to vote.) And in fact, voters states that she won in February, like California and New Jersey, now support Barack Obama. She knows this; it's a fact.
But this isn't about her -- it's about Barack Obama, and he is the nominee of the Democratic Party. The media will continue to sputter forth about Hillary Clinton, but numbers are numbers, and facts are facts, and he's got both on his side. He's the nominee, his victory was historic, and it can't be taken away from him.
My uncle just wrote me a message saying that for Barack, winning over Hillary Clinton's supporters will be a test of his leadership, and that if he is the leader we think he is, he will be successful. I think my uncle has got it absolutely right, and like him, I think Barack will rise to the occasion. And in November, he's going to clean John McCain's clock, and that's the most important thing of all.
Tue Jun 3, 7:18 PM Pacific
This is the moment
If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
-- Barack Obama, June 3, 2008
:: ::
This might be a bit cheesey, but it was a cool moment at the beginning of Barack's speech.
Barack showed so much more grace and class than I ever could have -- and I think the crowd did too. I'm so glad that they applauded when he talked about Hillary Clinton, because we need her supporters.
:: ::
Also, as the polls closed, another 26.5 superdelegates endorsed Barack. He's got the nomination 100% locked down.
Tue Jun 3, 7:00 PM Pacific
Hillary Clinton gives a victory speech -- after losing
If I had any respect for Hillary Clinton going into tonight, after watching her speech, it is now gone.
She is now running for a nomination that she has lost. She cannot win it. The game is over.
She is, however, clearly willing to put John McCain in the White House if she doesn't get her way. Now, I don't think she has the power to do that, but she seems to think that she does, and she thinks that is a legitimate negotiating tactic.
The most pathetic part of the speech was her appeal for fundraising dollars. Because of her own mismanagement, her campaign is millions in debt. She's wealthy -- she can afford it. But yet she asks her constituency, which she says is struggling to get by, to help her pay off her own debts.
Absolutely no class -- and completely self-absorbed.
I can't wait for Barack to get on stage. He is the antidote to all this nonsense.
Tue Jun 3, 6:04 PM Pacific
Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee
MSNBC makes the call, interrupting a John McCain speech:
And CNN follows suit:
Tue Jun 3, 5:46 PM Pacific
Howard Fineman: Clinton not interested in VP
Howard Fineman is suggesting on MSNBC that the whole VP thing is a charade, and that Clinton merely wants to be offered the VP slot, but will not accept it. According to Fineman, she also does not want any other woman to be given the VP slot so that she can preserve her role as the top woman in politics. I'm not sure I believe Fineman's assertion on this point: Nancy Pelosi is already the most powerful woman in politics, and that isn't going to change anytime soon.
If Fineman's report is accurate, it's actually a good thing, no matter what it might say about Clinton's self-absorption; it means she knows it's done, and is just looking to save face. I think that Obama should help her save face, if only because he will need her supporters this fall.
Meanwhile, John Bush McCain is now droning on and on and on and on. This general election is going to be sweet.
Tue Jun 3, 5:29 PM Pacific
VPs by the numbers
With all the talk about VP possibilities, I couldn't resist taking a look at the SurveyUSA VP pairings polls. They've tested the same 4 candidates for Obama and the same 4 candidates for McCain in 16 states. The following table includes all the states except for Alabama (I'll update the numbers soon to include that).
Each line here represents how each of the 8 VP candidate pairings does on average against the opponents four pairings.
Without any further editorial comment, I will also note that the Obama-Edwards ticket leads the McCain-Huckabee ticket on average by 8.2%, 49%-41%.
The states surveyed are: NY, KY, MA, MO, IA, OR, MN, NE, WI, KS, OH, VA, CA, PA, and NM. I'll add in the Alabama results soon.
Tue Jun 3, 3:54 PM Pacific
January 20, 2009
Simply incredible. You fired up? Ready to go?
Tue Jun 3, 1:49 PM Pacific
And then there was one
A few days after this picture was taken in late September, the Washington Post released a poll showing Hillary Clinton with the support of 53% of Democrats, Barack Obama with 20%, and John Edwards with 13%.
And now, eight months later, he's won the nomination. Incredible.
:: Delegate updates ::
5:32PM Pacific: The Obama camp says Barack is 8 delegates away. MSNBC reports the number is 11. DCW has it at 10. Given that Barack will get at least 11 pledged delegates from Montana and South Dakota, the AP story will be confirmed: tonight, Barack will clinch it.
Tue Jun 3, 1:26 PM Pacific
We interrupt this programming to bring you...
...more narcissism than is healthy for any one individual to handle. It comes via MSNBC, which offers confirmation that Hillary Clinton is open to being Barack Obama's vice president. But is she really that interested in the job? Or is this merely her self-absorbed way of conceding?
I guess the first point is that whether or not HRC is actually interested in being VP, this is definitely her way of conceding. Note that implicit in the notion that she wants to be VP is the idea that she accepts that Barack Obama has won, and that she will support him. Now, I defy you to come up with a more self-absorbed and self-important way of conceding a campaign, but I suspect that Barack will nonetheless consider Clinton on his short-list, at least publicly. Doing so is a way of embracing her concession without antagonizing Hillary's supporters.
But I can't imagine that he'll actually select her. We could all spend an eternity listing the reasons for that, but I'll be brief, because I've decided that I will be in a good mood today -- because today is a day to celebrate Barack Obama and his victory. But I can't restrain myself completely from offering these two simple reasons why Barack won't, and shouldn't, pick her.
First, you can't control Bill Clinton, and you can't pick a VP whose spouse you can't control. Yesterday, for example, Bill ripped Barack, accusing him of having engineered Father Pfleger's rant against Hillary and of "driving her supporters further and further away." Second, no one thinks he wants to pick Hillary Clinton, and if he does so under pressure he will look weak. One of the memes that the Clinton campaign has pushed against Barack is that he's not tough enough to be president. Caving to their pressure would support that meme -- so they've pretty much forced Barack's hand.
Anyway, that's enough about that. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Tue Jun 3, 12:05 PM Pacific
Chuck Todd: Obama on track to lock it up tonight
Unlike AP, cable news shows have no interest in calling the race early; they want our eyeballs glued to the set until Barack Obama takes that stage tonight. But in this interview Chuck Todd makes it clear: Barack is well-positioned to get what he needs to go over the top tonight. The money quote starts around 1:45 into the clip.
In his report, Chuck talks about 9 of superdelegates (there are more) who will endorse Barack as soon as voting concludes.
Tue Jun 3, 10:54 AM Pacific
AP tally: Obama clinches Democratic nomination
AP's report is now updated with more detail (3:00PM Pacific):
WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation's first black president. A defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton maneuvered for the vice presidential spot on his fall ticket.
...Obama sealed his nomination based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and delegates' public declarations as well as support from 22 delegates and "superdelegates" who privately confirmed their intentions to The Associated Press. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination at the convention in Denver this summer.
Update - 11:05AM: A number of superdelegates won't come out until after the campaign is over. So far today, Barack has picked up at least 6.5. MSNBC reports that he is 29 away; DCW has him at 32.5 away. AP's report is includes a tally of supers who have not publicly revealed their preference but will do so tonight.
Update - 11:11AM: Here's an example of a super that will endorse when the polls close: St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. And here's an example of three more: MT Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester.
Update - 11:25AM: Chuck Todd says: (1) Obama is getting what he needs to go over the top tonight. He says it's now 5 in Montana and another 4 that he knows of who will come out when the polls close. (2) He says the Clinton campaign doesn't want to concede, thereby hurting turnout, because they want to score a meaningless touchdown in South Dakota.
Update - 11:26AM: I'm debating whether to bite my tongue about extraordinary selfishness displayed by point #2 in the 11:25 update. 11:27AM: Chuck does some more HRC for VP talk. NO!
Update - 11:38AM: I've removed the delegate count widget from the sidebar -- things are happening so fast that it is out-of-date. DCW's current tally has Obama 30.5 delegates away. 11:42AM: MSNBC has it at 28.5.
Tue Jun 3, 3:38 AM Pacific
John Bush McCain can tell you all about sexism
More than anything, John Bush McCain wants to face a divided Democratic Party in November. That's why he has recently gone out of his way to praise Hillary Clinton, telling an audience yesterday that she "has inspired generations of American women to believe that they can reach the highest office in this nation."
Clearly, McCain is trying to take advantage of the allegations that Barack Obama has run a sexist campaign made by Geraldine Ferraro and others.
There's something ironic about John McCain's strategy, however, because ten years ago, when Bill Clinton was still president, McCain told one of the most offensive and sexist jokes I can ever remember a major politician telling. Speaking at a large Republican fundraiser, McCain said:
Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.
What kind of man would ever make such a cruel joke about a teenage girl? (Remember, Chelsea was seventeen at the time.) Why focus on her appearance? (And not that it makes a difference, but McCain couldn't have been more wrong -- Chelsea was and is quite beautiful.) Just as bad, John McCain singled out Janet Reno simply because she was an older single woman with a short hair cut.
After telling the joke, spoke with Maureen Dowd in his attempt to do damage control:
"This is the bad boy," he said in a phone interview. "It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I could give you a whole bunch of excuses, but there are no excuses. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?"
...It is downright weird that Senator McCain would be the one to break the taboo against cheap shots at the lovely and self-possessed Chelsea. He said he thought he'd heard the joke on Jay Leno. But Mr. Leno, not one to shrink from the tasteless, protests: "I've never, ever done a Chelsea joke nor would I. Political humor is like the Mafia -- everything's open game as long as you don't go after the families."
McCain was lucky; most reporters decided not print the actual words of his joke. If they had, his political career almost certainly would have taken a different course. But they didn't, and now he's running for president of the United States, trying to fan the flames of sexism to divide the Democratic electorate.
How ironic.
Mon Jun 2, 7:27 PM Pacific
Next stop, November
Tuesday evening, Barack Obama will declare victory, having achieved the magic number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. When he does, there will be no turning back, even if Hillary Clinton vows to fight until August. She just don't have the votes, either on the convention floor or at the credentials committee, to challenge Barack's victory. It will be over.
Our new goal will be winning in November, and we're going to need all the support we can get, and a huge chunk of that will come from Clinton supporters. Certainly, Hillary Clinton can play a huge role in uniting the party, but so to can we. That doesn't mean we need to turn the other cheek if Clinton or her campaign attacks Barack, but as far as her supporters go, our main objective should be to welcome them aboard.
So let's celebrate our victory, but remember that we are about to start playing a whole new game. We don't have anything to fear from the Clintons any more. John McCain and the Republican attack machine are our new opponents, and the next time someone votes for Barack Obama, it won't be for the Democratic nomination.
It will be for President of the United States of America.
Mon Jun 2, 4:58 PM Pacific
We're almost there
Things are moving way to fast on the numbers for me to keep up with them -- thankfully the good folks at DemConWatch have developed a widget so that I don't have to.
As I write this post, Barack needs a total of 39.5 more delegates. Tomorrow he will get a minimum of 16 out of SD and MT. That means he'll need just 23.5 more to hit the magic number. (You can up the number by 1 if you want to take into account Donna Edwards' upcoming election to the House.)
So how does Barack get those remaining 23.5 delegates? Per Chuck Todd's report, the biggest chunk will come from the 18 House members who will endorse Obama tomorrow, leaving him needing just 5.5 delegates.
He'll close that final gap from the undeclared pool, which includes 12.5 undeclared Edwards delegates, DNC members, and other superdelegates like Christine Pelosi and Donna Brazile. (Senators and party leaders have indicated they'll stand on the sidelines, which is fine by me so long as Barack gets the number he needs.)
Mon Jun 2, 3:50 PM Pacific
All the tea leaves you need
There's a ton of speculation about whether or not Barack will get 2,118 or 2,117 (pending Donna Edwards' election) tomorrow night. My own view is that he will. I can't prove that or anything -- it's just a strong hunch. (Update: kos is also optimistic, citing Chuck Todd who says up to 18 of the 34 undeclared House superdelegates will endorse Barack tomorrow.)
And as I mentioned earlier today, I think all the tea leaves you need were in full view on Saturday when the RBC voted to reinstate Michigan at half-strength with a 69-59 delegate split. The Clinton campaign was royally displeased with that decision -- but of their 13 supporters on the RBC, 5 voted for it, and 8 voted against it.
That vote really tells you all you need to know about what superdelegates are going to be doing: if she couldn't hold her 13 SDs together on a procedural issue, there's no way she'll be able to hold them together on a vote for the nomination itself.
Update 2-Even more tea leaves from Marc Ambinder (via Andrew Romano):
Clinton Campaign staffers and former campaign staffers are being urged by the Clinton campaign's finance department to turn in their outstanding expense receipts by the end of the week. That's a sign, to them, that the campaign wants to get its affairs in order soon. If Clinton were staying in the race, there'd be no real reason to collect these receipts now; she'd still be raising and spending money from the same primary campaign account. The campaign is in arrears to the tune of about $11 million.
Mon Jun 2, 3:45 PM Pacific
Poker and politics
I can't pass up this chance to write a post about poker...ABC has a story up about Jim Moran's son going a little crazy while playing online poker:
Jim Moran had the nuts the whole time.
Not the longtime Democratic congressman from Virginia, Rep. Jim Moran -- but his 39-year-old son, Jim Jr., a Washington, D.C. area regional manager for Dominos Pizza and online poker aficionado.
How do you know Moran had the nuts? His pal posted a YouTube video of him screaming, "I had the nuts the whole time!" (In this case, "the nuts" are a pair of queens. The term is used in poker to refer to an unbeatable hand.)
Moran Jr.'s YouTube moment is thanks to his childhood friend, Bruce Ryan, who posted the clip as a publicity stunt to attract attention -- and hopefully funding -- for his planned documentary on poker. Ryan, a real estate agent and aspiring filmmaker, previously worked on a documentary on adult kickball that did not receive wide exposure.
Not to get too poker geeky, but Moran, who is described by his buddy (the guy who did a documentary on adult kickball) as a "genius"...didn't have "the nuts" the whole time. (The article also doesn't quite describe "the nuts" correctly -- the term means the best hand at the moment, if you have an unbeatable hand, you might say you have "the mortal nuts" or "the stone-cold nuts.")
Anyway, the younger Moran started out with two queens (QQ), which is the 3rd best starting hand in hold'em. An excellent hand, but not the nuts (that would be AA). On the flop (the second round), Moran did have the nuts -- the board was QJ4. His 3 queens was the best possible hand at the moment, though it was beatable.
On the turn (the third round), the board was QJ46. His three queens were still the best. But on the river (the last round), a 6 fell -- and the final board was QJ246. Although it's extremely unlikely that that his opponent would have held 35,35 was in fact the nuts, good for a 6-high straight.
On another note, I'm not a fan of the way Moran played his hand. I like the check-call on the flop, but his check-raise on the turn was tiny -- I think there was T1,200 in the pot and his raise was just 300. I don't really get the point of making a raise that small. Either your opponent has a decent draw, in which case you need to raise more, or your opponent has a decent hand, in which case he'll call more, or your opponent has no hand at all, in which case even a tiny raise will lead to a fold. Then Moran's river bet was also pretty small. My own approach would have been to make bigger bets, but then again, I'm an aggressive player, and I'll make bigger bets even when I'm bluffing.
Most importantly though, Moran's performance was incredibly annoying, just like the clowns who disrespect the game of poker by screaming during live action play.
Mon Jun 2, 1:57 PM Pacific
Bill Clinton Hints Campaign Coming to a Close
Via ABC, Bill Clinton on the trail in Milbank, SD:
I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, 'til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president.
Time to commence tea leaf reading...
Mon Jun 2, 1:28 PM Pacific
Feeling thirsty?
I'm just getting back to the computer and up to speed on the day's goings on. Sound like Barack Obama has picked up 3.5 superdelegate votes to Clinton's 2 superdelegate votes. Ironically, of the 3 supers from Michigan and Florida who have endorsed today...all have gone to Barack.
In the meantime, allow me to share this funny photograph I came across yesterday:
Yummy.
I've actually seen a bottle of water from the same company...it was called, I think, Picari Sweat, or something like. Pet Sweat is a far cooler name though.(From kellyhyde's Flickr photostream.)
Mon Jun 2, 3:44 AM Pacific
Why this won't go to the convention
Donna Brazile on the Rules and Bylaws Committee's Michigan vote on Saturday:
The Clinton campaign went in with 13 declared superdelegates. Obama had nine. He walked away yesterday, if you look at the final vote, with 19 people taking his position.
Chuck Todd made a similar point, noting the fact that Don Fowler -- a former DNC Chair and a supporter of Hillary Clinton -- had supported the compromise position on Michigan along with four other Clinton supporters. The message from Fowler, Todd said, was "Guys, it's over."
The point is that Hillary Clinton can reserve every right she wants, but she has absolutely no chance of winning in either the credentials committee or on the floor on Denver.
A lot of Clinton supporters have voiced their outrage at Obama for what happened on Saturday. But before they do they should consider:
- The Clinton campaign itself supported the Florida compromise.
- Among Clinton supporters on the RBC, 5 supported the compromise and 8 opposed it.
The RBC decision on Saturday wasn't just Obama supporters -- it was the entire party, including Clinton supporters. If Clinton wants to fight it at credentials, she can go right ahead. But as the vote at the RBC shows, she'd also lose the vote at credentials -- by an even wider margin.
Clinton can bluff all she want, but on Tuesday, when Barack Obama takes the stage in St. Paul, Minnesota having achieved the magic number -- and thereby having secured the Democratic nomination -- it will all be over. After that point, there will be no turning back.
The Democratic Party will have its nominee.
Mon Jun 2, 3:08 AM Pacific
Hibernation?
Clinton camp converging on New York Tuesday, and shedding staff
Members of Hillary Clinton's advance staff received calls and emails this evening from headquarters summoning them to New York City Tuesday night, and telling them their roles on the campaign are ending, two Clinton staffers tell my colleague Amie Parnes.
The advance staffers -- most of them now in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana -- are being given the options of going to New York for a final day Tuesday, or going home, the aides said. The move is a sign that the campaign is beginning to shed -- at least -- some of its staff. The advance staff is responsible for arranging the candidate's events around the country.
As much as I'd like to read this this as news that Hillary will concede on Tuesday night, I'd caution against making that assumption, especially given her comments today about the popular vote and flipping superdelegates. More likely, she's just trimming her staff down to the bare essentials; given her mountain of debt, there's no way that she can keep on running a fully staffed presidential campaign.
Sun Jun 1, 9:19 PM Pacific
FYI
I just added a chart substantiating my assertions on the popular vote to my post on Hillary Clinton's new popular vote caveat. It's a useful tool for debunking Clinton's dishonest claim, but please remember: even though Barack is leading the so-called "popular vote", it's still an entirely bogus metric.
Sun Jun 1, 7:44 PM Pacific
Clinton's dishonest popular vote claim has a new caveat
Hillary Clinton's "primary" qualifier
Hillary Clinton claims to have won the so-called popular vote, but if you pay close attention to her words she is now using a critical qualifier: "in presidential primaries."
Many people won't notice Clinton's caveat, but the meaning of her carefully chosen words could not be more clear: her definition of "popular vote" now includes only primary states. In the past, she excluded four caucus states that did not report vote totals: Iowa, Maine, Nevada, and Washington. Now she's excluding all of them.
By excluding caucus states, Clinton is dismissing the preferences of voters in fourteen states, home to more than 56 million Americans and nearly one in five voters. And by Clinton's new rules, they might as well have never voted.
As she might say, how can you win in November if you don't count one-fifth of the Electoral College?
For Hillary Clinton, this has nothing principle. It's a simple math problem: the only way she can claim any sort of "popular vote" victory is by refusing to count all the votes.
The fact is that Barack Obama wins the so-called "popular vote" if you count every vote in every contest with delegates at stake (whether or not you include the Texas caucuses, which some say would be double-counting). Moreover, if you expand the vote total to include all contests, whether or not they had any bearing on the selection of delegates (Michigan, including votes cast for Hillary Clinton and by supporters of Barack Obama, and the unsanctioned contests in Nebraska, Washington, and Idaho), Obama still leads.
The only scenarios under which Barack Obama trails are ones in which Clinton arbitrarily excludes caucuses and refuses to recognize that a substantial share of Michigan's uncommitted and write-in voters were Barack Obama supporters, a fact which is universally recognized outside of Clinton-land.
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Despite Barack Obama's popular vote lead, these statistics are wildly misleading; you simply can't add together the results of so many different contests, each run under a different set of rules, and expect the sum total to express any true sense of the popular will. You need a common denominator to make sure every state has a fair say. That's why we have pledged delegates.
Those who persist in advancing this idea of a "national popular vote" are, in my view, pushing a fundamentally dishonest concept. But now Hillary Clinton has taken the dishonesty to an entirely new level -- even if you reject my underlying premise.
Hillary Clinton is certainly entitled to dispute my view on the relevance of the popular vote. She is not, however, entitled to a different set of facts; if she insists on the "popular vote" metric, she should be congratulating Barack Obama for his victory.
The fact that she is claiming the victory for herself, and that she is choosing her words so carefully, using the word "primary" to exclude one-fifth of Americans, speaks clearly to the deliberate nature of her deceptive claim.
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Update at 9:09PM: Here are the actual vote totals to support the assertions I made in this post. The methodology is explained in the chart itself. For reasons I stated in the article, none of these are good measures of the overall popular will. I think the most accurate one is probably the "Sanctioned, excluding Texas caucuses line." It's also important to note that at least 362,000 of Clinton's votes (and about 121,000 of Obama's) were cast by McCainiacs -- McCain supporters with no intention of voting Democratic in the fall.
Sun Jun 1, 2:53 PM Pacific
Are the Devil Rays better than the NY Giants?
Last year, Tampa Bay won 66 games. Meanwhile, the New York Giants won 13. Does that mean the Devil Rays are a better team? Sure, they were playing different sports, but isn't winning the name of the game? And didn't Tampa win 4 times as many games as the Giants?
Shouldn't Tampa be getting the Lombardi trophy?
Sun Jun 1, 1:55 PM Pacific
Barack on Tuesday: "This is the end of the primary season"
From an AP report:
"We are getting very close to the number, the new number, now that Michigan and Florida have been added," he told reporters traveling with him.
"We are getting close to the number that will give us the nomination. And if we've hit that number on Tuesday night we will announce that — and I think even if we don't, this is the end of the primary season," he said. Thus the in-your face decision to hold Tuesday night's primary season wrap-up rally at the Xcel Energy Center, site of the GOP convention beginning Sept. 1.
"I think it's very important for us to pivot and focus on the clear contrast that will exist between Democrats and Republicans in this election," Obama said.
Sun Jun 1, 1:42 PM Pacific
False alarm Coming to a close?
Hillary's spending Monday night in New York City, a suggestion that she'll be having election night in her home state Tuesday.
Typically, when national candidates suspend their campaigns, they do it from their home state. Developing….
Update - Ben Smith updates his post:
Or maybe not: She's spending Tuesday night in Washington.
Sun Jun 1, 12:57 PM Pacific
The Other National Popular Vote Myth
As I argue below, it's a mistake to argue the national popular vote on the basis of numbers, or how to count it; the concept itself is flawed.
At the same time, I know that my position on this is a minority position and most people will choose to focus on the numbers.
Given that, it's worth nothing that heading into today, Barack Obama's lead over Hillary Clinton in the so-called popular vote was 276,408 in contests that were used to select delegates. (This is according to RealClearPolitics.)
Assuming that CNN"s estimate of turnout in Puerto Rico is accurate (they say 425,000 is the upper end of turnout), then there is no chance that Hillary Clinton will overtake Barack Obama in the so-called popular vote category.
So even by Clinton's own flawed metric, she fails. But again, this isn't the real reason that her argument is wrong. The real reason is that each nominating contests in each state has different rules and procedures; adding them all together makes as much sense as saying that the Seattle Mariners with 22 wins have already had a better season than the New England Patriots with 18.
Sun Jun 1, 12:36 PM Pacific
The National Popular Vote Myth
Now that Hillary Clinton has won Puerto Rico by a reportedly large margin, her campaign is going claim a popular vote victory. In fact, tomorrow she'll begin airing a new television ad in Montana and South Dakota making exactly that claim.
There's been much dispute about whether or not her claim is true -- did she include this state or exclude that one. That's the wrong way to argue this issue. It's a trap.
The real point is that there is no such thing as the national popular vote in the Democratic presidential primary. Sure, you can add together votes for each candidate in each contest, but that's like saying the Seattle Mariners (21 wins) have already had a better year that the New England Patriots from last year (18 wins).
The most important principle to remember is that the Democratic nomination process empowers each state to choose its own method for selecting delegates to the national convention based on its own needs (subject of course to DNC approval). That's a good thing. Each state is different. State parties should have control over their nomination methods.
The problem is that since each state party adopts its own method, if you add together the results of each contest without taking those differences into account, then some states will have far more power on a per capita basis than other states.
The convention delegate system takes those differences into account. Each state receives a certain number of pledged delegates, based on population. As a result, even if two states with the same population have totally different nomination systems, one state won't get disproportionate influence over the other. For example, if we used simple vote totals, Missouri would have four times as much power as Minnesota, even though they are both the same size.
Obviously, Hillary Clinton's claim to lead the so-called popular vote (however she defines it) is designed to support an argument that she has more legitimacy than Barack Obama. Her argument fails on the merits, though it will no doubt persuade many people who don't realize just how misleading her case is.
This is something that the Obama campaign needs to push back against: it will be the centerpiece of Hillary Clinton's argument, and simply saying that "we choose by delegates" is insuficient. The fact is that Clinton's argument effectively would diminish the power of a majority of states in determinig the nomination.
Far from "evening the playing failed," Hillary Clinton's false popular vote standard would be a huge power grab, designed to give disproportionate power to states where she does well -- at the expense of states where her political opposition does well.
Sun Jun 1, 11:59 AM Pacific
John McCain's visit to Walter Reed Hospital
These are a weird pair of reports. First, from Mark Halperin:
McCain Takes Saturday Trip to Walter Reed
Arizonan visits fabled military medical facility for several hours. Aides to the candidate declined to elaborate, saying it was the visit was “personal in nature.” McCain in the past has gone there to visit wounded soldiers.
Then Jonathan Martin:
John McCain yesterday paid a quiet visit to Walter Reed, the Army's giant medical center in Washington, D.C., a campaign aide confirms. The aide declined to comment on the nature of the visit, saying it was "personal in nature." Walter Reed is where thousands of wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have gone to receive treatment, and presumably the candidate met with such veterans. McCain is spending the weekend in the Washington area with no public schedule.
It's strange that McCain's aides wouldn't explain why he had gone there. It's worth noting that in the past, McCain has received medical treatment at Bethesda Naval Hospital, not Walter Reed.