From the "Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are, Anyways?" file, former Clinton supporter and donor Charles Pluckhahn (no, I don't know either) writes a guest op-ed in today's Seattle Times. Among the highlights:
"When combined with your rejection of Obama's qualifications to be commander in chief, and your husband's disrespect for Obama's effort, I see an ugly undercurrent...
"Woe betide the politician, and especially the Democratic politician, who makes a racist appeal, no matter how artfully they think they've constructed it.
"Sen. Clinton, you still have time to salvage your dignity and your reputation. Geraldine Ferraro's resignation from her fundraising role is a start, but it's only a start. You should fully apologize to Sen. Obama for the stream of insults that has come from your campaign, and then you should step aside. If you do that, then I'll know my money and my time were well spent."
The sheer entitlement amazes me. I respond at length (note how I crib from my own brief portfolio):
Sen. Obama's campaign has shown a dark and ugly undercurrent of its own in the way in which it misrepresents race-neutral and factually accurate statements from the Clinton press shop, surrogate and principal spokespeople, and from Sen. Clinton herself. A few examples:
- Pres. Clinton's characterization of Sen. Obama's stance on the Iraq war as a "fairy tale". Pres. Clinton used the phrase by way of pointing out that while Sen. Obama stood against the impending war in 2002, he shut up about it when he got his Senate seat and refused to take any meaningful leadership to end the war or to prevent it's further funding. He refused to state how he would have voted were he to have been in the Senate at the time the AUMF was passed, and declares his stance on the war to be identical to Pres. Bush's. Further, it's demonstrable that at every turn in the war, he has demonstrated the exact wrong kind of judgment --against it when the surge begins working, neutral or silent when it's going poorly. And then, he turned around and voted for increased funding! As an aside, this is the type of disingenuousness and duplicity that, for some reason, is credited almost solely to Sen. Clinton, who refuses to issue post-hoc justifications for her vote every time the war effort takes a turn. Somehow, this completely accurate (and race-neutral) statement was twisted to mean that Sen. Obama's candidacy (the unstated portion of that sentence being "...as a black man") is a fairy tale.
- When Bill Shaheen said that the Republicans would make an issue of of Sen. Obama's admitted used of cocaine, he got thrown off the campaign and stripped of his unpaid, ceremonial duties. Mark Penn brought it up again (or, rather, was forced to bring it up) in an interview and was roundly attacked for using Sen. Obama's name and the word "cocaine" in the same sentence. Flash forward--Erick Erickson, who writes for redstate.com, refers to Sen. Obama as a "'self-admitted former cokehead'."
It's only going to get worse from here.
Yes, Ms. Ferraro's comments were ill-advised. But were they untrue? Can we dispute that the elephant in the room that is Sen. Obama's ethnic heritage has benefited him immensely in that the issue is untouchable to almost everybody, and that those who dare to bring it up--especially if they're affiliated with Sen. Clinton's campaign--suffer for it? Mr. Pluckhahn calls for measures beyond Ms. Ferraro's resignation. I'm curious as to what he had in mind, beyond public humiliation.
And while we're holding candidates to strict account for every stupid word uttered by a supporter, let's call for the heads of Jeremiah Wright, Samantha Powers, Austan Goolsbee, Louis Farrakhan (in a big way), and Michele Obama herself, who apparently couldn't allow herself to feel a single twinge of pride in her country until her husband's star began to rise.
The audacity of hope!
Briefly (ha, ha), I also want to address Mr. Pluckhahn's calls for Hillary to step aside. Without going too deeply into it, and with most things being mostly equal, why is it incumbent upon Sen. Clinton to abandon the race? Her supporters are no less dedicated, no less passionate, and, arguably, represent a more sizable and dedicated portion of the Democratic party's base. And let's not forget that Michigan and Florida will be in play some how, soon, and that they're unlikely to abandon their support in terms of popular vote or delegate count. Frankly, I find it insulting that Mr. Pluckhahn presumes that the millions of Democrats who've cast their support behind Sen. Clinton would take that in stride. Even the phrase you use, "...deny him the nomination", smacks of the kind of entitlement that, until recently, was falsely attributed to Sen. Clinton and her supporters.
Also, Mr. Pluckhahn, what makes you think that Pennsylvania is in the bag for Obama?
It's clear to me, as a voter, that it is not Sen. Clinton's campaign that is playing the race card. The amount of distortion coming from the Obama press shop whenever a Clinton supporter dares to speak publicly is astounding and disturbing. It indicates that Sen. Obama is not practicing a new kind of politics, and that he's not above using the issue of race as a wedge to differentiate himself from Sen. Clinton. That, I feel, is the ultimate betrayal of the Obama candidacy--that it sell hope and change to its supporters while wallowing happily in the muck that lies just below. I'd like to remind Mr. Pluckhahn that identity politics is a two-way street, and because one side practices it better than the other is no reason to abandon the candidate who, until just recently, you were convinced would make the better President. The only thing more disappointing than Barack Obama's empty promises is the ease and comfort with which people flock to them.
No catharsis. I'm still the angry blogger.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Some mid-morning bullshit
Watch as I continue to cherry-pick news stories that confirm my opinions and preconceptions!
Politico's John Fortier writes:
"The rural and blue-collar voters of Ohio are likely to be more important swing voters than those Obama courts. Obama appeals to independents, but to young, educated and upscale independents. Picture the guy consulting on his MacBook Air in Starbucks, not the cable guy. Take California, for example, which Clinton won but where Obama won independents by more than 20 points. A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the state’s independent voters were younger and more educated, and favored Democrats over Republicans by 13 points. These independents are Obama voters, but most would likely vote for any Democrat in a general election.
Calderone makes a funny, Keith Olbermann loves Hillary.
One more thing. While we're still all ruffled over Geraldine Ferraro's ill-advised, if arguable, statements on the nature of Barack Obama's candidacy and it's success, vis a vis race, Kathleen Parker writes in RCP:
"There are lots of reasons for Obama's success that have nothing to do with race. But there's also this: You can't separate race from who Obama is. He is the biracial man. Although he self-identifies as African-American, it is precisely his dual race -- and his own personal work toward identity integration and transcendence -- that allows him to speak effectively of racial reconciliation and national unity in ways that a white male, or another black male for that matter, could not."
Welcome to the land of the double standard. I work in politics, so I'm used to it. However, as I wrote, perhaps in vain, to the stridently prObama editor of somethingawful, the concept of the race card is a two lane street:
"...You don't preach at Dr. King's church and then turn around and say you're a post-racial candidate. You can't have it both ways. Well, I guess you can, if you're Barack.
[His campaign] has gone out of his way to characterize fairly innocuous statements by Clinton surrogates and supporters as racially tinged when they were making race-neutral statements of fact. Take, as one of several examples, Pres. Clinton's characterization of Barack's stance on the Iraq war as a "fairy tale". Pres. Clinton used the phrase by way of pointing out that while Sen. Obama stood against the impending war in 2002, he shut up about it when he got his Senate seat (as an aside--this is the type of disingenuousness and duplicity that, for some reason, is credited almost solely to Sen. Clinton, who voted for the AUMF and won't apologize for it, like a wheedling, finger-in-the-wind scumbag). And then, he turned around and voted for increased funding! Somehow, this completely accurate (and race-neutral) statement was twisted to mean that Sen. Obama's candidacy (the unstated portion of that sentence being "...as a black man") is a fairy tale. That's total bullshit.
And how about when Bill Shaheen said that the republicans would make an issue of of Sen. Obama's admitted used of cocaine? He got thrown off the campaign, stripped of his unpaid, ceremonial duties. Mark Penn brings it up again in an interview and is widely castigated by pundits. Read today's "headlines": Erick Erickson, who writes for redstate.com, refers to Barack as a "self-admitted former cokehead"."
It's only going to get worse from here. And I wrote that over two weeks ago.
Of course, Ms. Ferarro's statements were fairly unambiguous. She was pointing to the beneficial effects of politically correct speechifying with regards to Sen. Obama's candidacy. Perhaps factually accurate (arguably), but certainly not race neutral. But, I find it interesting that no one affiliated with the Clinton campaign is allowed to even mention the issue. Race seems to be the elephant in the room.
Politico's John Fortier writes:
"The rural and blue-collar voters of Ohio are likely to be more important swing voters than those Obama courts. Obama appeals to independents, but to young, educated and upscale independents. Picture the guy consulting on his MacBook Air in Starbucks, not the cable guy. Take California, for example, which Clinton won but where Obama won independents by more than 20 points. A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the state’s independent voters were younger and more educated, and favored Democrats over Republicans by 13 points. These independents are Obama voters, but most would likely vote for any Democrat in a general election.
On the other hand, rural and blue-collar voters are more up for grabs. Whether you call them Reagan Democrats, Perot voters, NASCAR dads or security moms, they are not completely at home with either party. In some instances, economic populism might incline them to vote for Democrats, while traditional morals, patriotism or distrust of government can pull them into the Republican camp. Most importantly, these voters are concentrated in key Midwestern battleground states."
Fortier points out that Obama has pulled impressive support among blue collar voters in Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota. This is true. However, it's important to note that union households and blue collar voters sans union make up less of those electorates than they do in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. And, at the risk of jinxing whatever ticket emerges from the Democratic Fracas of 2008, the states Obama won (excepting, perhaps, Iowa) are reliably blue. The Democratic nominee can more or less count on winning Minnesota and Wisconsin, at any rate, and their best bets lie with the candidate that pulls in overwhelming blue collar support in the battlegrounds of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Calderone makes a funny, Keith Olbermann loves Hillary.
One more thing. While we're still all ruffled over Geraldine Ferraro's ill-advised, if arguable, statements on the nature of Barack Obama's candidacy and it's success, vis a vis race, Kathleen Parker writes in RCP:
"There are lots of reasons for Obama's success that have nothing to do with race. But there's also this: You can't separate race from who Obama is. He is the biracial man. Although he self-identifies as African-American, it is precisely his dual race -- and his own personal work toward identity integration and transcendence -- that allows him to speak effectively of racial reconciliation and national unity in ways that a white male, or another black male for that matter, could not."
Welcome to the land of the double standard. I work in politics, so I'm used to it. However, as I wrote, perhaps in vain, to the stridently prObama editor of somethingawful, the concept of the race card is a two lane street:
"...You don't preach at Dr. King's church and then turn around and say you're a post-racial candidate. You can't have it both ways. Well, I guess you can, if you're Barack.
[His campaign] has gone out of his way to characterize fairly innocuous statements by Clinton surrogates and supporters as racially tinged when they were making race-neutral statements of fact. Take, as one of several examples, Pres. Clinton's characterization of Barack's stance on the Iraq war as a "fairy tale". Pres. Clinton used the phrase by way of pointing out that while Sen. Obama stood against the impending war in 2002, he shut up about it when he got his Senate seat (as an aside--this is the type of disingenuousness and duplicity that, for some reason, is credited almost solely to Sen. Clinton, who voted for the AUMF and won't apologize for it, like a wheedling, finger-in-the-wind scumbag). And then, he turned around and voted for increased funding! Somehow, this completely accurate (and race-neutral) statement was twisted to mean that Sen. Obama's candidacy (the unstated portion of that sentence being "...as a black man") is a fairy tale. That's total bullshit.
And how about when Bill Shaheen said that the republicans would make an issue of of Sen. Obama's admitted used of cocaine? He got thrown off the campaign, stripped of his unpaid, ceremonial duties. Mark Penn brings it up again in an interview and is widely castigated by pundits. Read today's "headlines": Erick Erickson, who writes for redstate.com, refers to Barack as a "self-admitted former cokehead"."
It's only going to get worse from here. And I wrote that over two weeks ago.
Of course, Ms. Ferarro's statements were fairly unambiguous. She was pointing to the beneficial effects of politically correct speechifying with regards to Sen. Obama's candidacy. Perhaps factually accurate (arguably), but certainly not race neutral. But, I find it interesting that no one affiliated with the Clinton campaign is allowed to even mention the issue. Race seems to be the elephant in the room.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
A few thoughts on Superdelegates
Jumping right into things...
Today's RCP blog finds Peter Brown dismissing the historic nature of Sen. Clinton's candidacy, arguing that when the time comes, our fearless super-delegates will refuse to stand in the way of Barack Obama's people-powered money train:
"...there is one good reason why they might not try, even if she is able to string together a series of primary and caucus victories: Call it liberal guilt, or call it fear of reprisal from the party's powerful black base."
Wrong on a couple of levels. Not only does it suggest that African Americans are such irrational voters as to eschew the polls should Sen. Obama's candidacy come undone; it also presupposes that the superdelegates and party activists are willing to throw Union households and working women under the bus in favor of Sen. Obama's supporters. I reply, at length:
- Peter assumes that the "superdelegates", as we're calling them, won't perform the first and most important function of the superdelegate title--that is, to act as a corrective to the (usually) well-intentioned runaway train that is democratic politics. Barack Obama's campaign is somehow managing to sell the notion that Idaho's handful of registered Democrats (to name one of several examples) will somehow manage to turn the entire state blue in November. This is not only false, but dangerous, and it counts for Wyoming, Mississippi, North Dakota, and a host of other states as well. It indicates that Barack Obama's strengths lie in turning out party activists in states that don't tend blue in General elections. He's coasting towards the nom at the expense of the actual election. To whit, I misrepresent Matt Bai in today's New York Times:
"You can already discern the outlines of the argument that Clinton will make to the superdelegates: The contest is basically a draw, and now it’s time to choose the candidate who can be elected. Sure, Barack’s won all those little states like North Dakota and Idaho, but what does that really get you? I’m the candidate who has won all the big states, and that’s what matters in November (emphasis is Bai's--ed.). In fact, Clinton has already declared that Democrats will never carry states like Idaho and Alaska, which sided with Obama an argument that has to rankle Howard Dean, the party chairman, who has been pouring money into rural states as part of his “50-state strategy” for expanding the electoral map."
Now, superdelegates aren't stupid. They recognize things like this, and I'd wager that a fair amount of them won't go as their districts go, but will rather side with Hillary Clinton given her strength among the Democratic base--working men and women, seniors, and Union households. She's turning out the states required to win the general election. This is not to suggest that Obama will not, as the presumptive/potential democratic nominee, carry these states. However, in not choosing the candidate that carried these states by margins such as she has, you run the risk of siding with a candidate that the above constituencies do not prefer, leading to a greater risk of them staying home. This leads to my second, related point:
- Peter assumes that the superdelegates will be reluctant to derail the historic (potential) candidacy of Barack Obama, given the strong position of African Americans in Democratic politics. What of Hillary Clinton's historic candidacy, and the overwhelming numbers of women who wish to see a female president? And, I shouldn't have to remind you, women as an interest group and voting bloc comprise a greater number, if not a greater percentage, of the Democratic electorate than does the African American community. This is not to suggest one will vanish if the other's interests (as we're so blithely defining them) are perceived to have been given priority this fall. They'll most likely fall into line. However, if we're predicating the argument upon the concept of historic candidacies and the wishes of certain numbers of the Democratic party, I'd argue that it would be wiser to take into account the largest and most consistently Democratic of voting blocs--women.
- Finally, Mr. Brown relies on delegate math to guarantee that Hillary won't get the nomination. This is a wrongheaded assumption mostly because it denies Obama the nomination, as well. The choice will depend on the superdelegates, whatever their reasoning. But moreover, it will rely on Michigan and Florida. Those states will not be denied their delegations, no matter what Chairman Dean has to say. It would be a crucial mistake for the DNC to essentially disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters, especially given the increased importance of Florida and Michigan's reliably Blue vote in general elections.
In other news:
FLORIDA IS MAD
I don't know what this means
WOOF!
Today's RCP blog finds Peter Brown dismissing the historic nature of Sen. Clinton's candidacy, arguing that when the time comes, our fearless super-delegates will refuse to stand in the way of Barack Obama's people-powered money train:
"...there is one good reason why they might not try, even if she is able to string together a series of primary and caucus victories: Call it liberal guilt, or call it fear of reprisal from the party's powerful black base."
Wrong on a couple of levels. Not only does it suggest that African Americans are such irrational voters as to eschew the polls should Sen. Obama's candidacy come undone; it also presupposes that the superdelegates and party activists are willing to throw Union households and working women under the bus in favor of Sen. Obama's supporters. I reply, at length:
- Peter assumes that the "superdelegates", as we're calling them, won't perform the first and most important function of the superdelegate title--that is, to act as a corrective to the (usually) well-intentioned runaway train that is democratic politics. Barack Obama's campaign is somehow managing to sell the notion that Idaho's handful of registered Democrats (to name one of several examples) will somehow manage to turn the entire state blue in November. This is not only false, but dangerous, and it counts for Wyoming, Mississippi, North Dakota, and a host of other states as well. It indicates that Barack Obama's strengths lie in turning out party activists in states that don't tend blue in General elections. He's coasting towards the nom at the expense of the actual election. To whit, I misrepresent Matt Bai in today's New York Times:
"You can already discern the outlines of the argument that Clinton will make to the superdelegates: The contest is basically a draw, and now it’s time to choose the candidate who can be elected. Sure, Barack’s won all those little states like North Dakota and Idaho, but what does that really get you? I’m the candidate who has won all the big states, and that’s what matters in November (emphasis is Bai's--ed.). In fact, Clinton has already declared that Democrats will never carry states like Idaho and Alaska, which sided with Obama an argument that has to rankle Howard Dean, the party chairman, who has been pouring money into rural states as part of his “50-state strategy” for expanding the electoral map."
Now, superdelegates aren't stupid. They recognize things like this, and I'd wager that a fair amount of them won't go as their districts go, but will rather side with Hillary Clinton given her strength among the Democratic base--working men and women, seniors, and Union households. She's turning out the states required to win the general election. This is not to suggest that Obama will not, as the presumptive/potential democratic nominee, carry these states. However, in not choosing the candidate that carried these states by margins such as she has, you run the risk of siding with a candidate that the above constituencies do not prefer, leading to a greater risk of them staying home. This leads to my second, related point:
- Peter assumes that the superdelegates will be reluctant to derail the historic (potential) candidacy of Barack Obama, given the strong position of African Americans in Democratic politics. What of Hillary Clinton's historic candidacy, and the overwhelming numbers of women who wish to see a female president? And, I shouldn't have to remind you, women as an interest group and voting bloc comprise a greater number, if not a greater percentage, of the Democratic electorate than does the African American community. This is not to suggest one will vanish if the other's interests (as we're so blithely defining them) are perceived to have been given priority this fall. They'll most likely fall into line. However, if we're predicating the argument upon the concept of historic candidacies and the wishes of certain numbers of the Democratic party, I'd argue that it would be wiser to take into account the largest and most consistently Democratic of voting blocs--women.
- Finally, Mr. Brown relies on delegate math to guarantee that Hillary won't get the nomination. This is a wrongheaded assumption mostly because it denies Obama the nomination, as well. The choice will depend on the superdelegates, whatever their reasoning. But moreover, it will rely on Michigan and Florida. Those states will not be denied their delegations, no matter what Chairman Dean has to say. It would be a crucial mistake for the DNC to essentially disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters, especially given the increased importance of Florida and Michigan's reliably Blue vote in general elections.
In other news:
FLORIDA IS MAD
I don't know what this means
WOOF!
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