The Political Record - By Yasser O. Navarrete

The Evitable Inevitable - Part II

2011-11-13T14:26:00.000-05:00

Four years ago, we were in the midst of a two-person race to clench the Democratic nomination. At that point I called Hillary Clinton, the "Evitable Inevitable." I thought that there was just no way that she would lose the nomination, that she was the establishment candidate--but still was surprised by the real grassroots campaign that Sen. Obama had undertaken, and how salient it had grown. We all know what happened next.

Now we're in the midst of an 8-person race--9 if you include Gary Johnson--for the Republican nomination. And my, what a slate of characters they are. Mitt Romney is now the evitable inevitable. But the thing is that people just don't like Romney. And it's not a new thing either. Four years ago when he first went at it, he was disliked by the rest of the Republican contenders; all of them coalesced around the fact of how much they disliked Romney. They found him phony, condescending, and just an all around irritating person. They don't like him now either. But he has to be the one to run against Obama, I just can't picture any of these other candidates amassing the structure necessary to run a general election. This is amateur hour for all except Romney.

Except that one of the pervasive story-lines that have emerged is that Romney's hit a ceiling of support. He's constantly tapped out at around a quarter of support in the polls from Republican primary voters, and that's on a good day. Sometimes he's tapped out at a fifth or less of support. This nomination process has consistently been derided as the Anyone-But-Romney Primary. First Bachmann was up, then Perry, then Cain; Gingrich and Paul have gained traction and have come within an earshot of the top spot, indeed the only two that haven't had frontrunner status at some point, or getting to that status, are the reasonably sane one, Jon Hunstman, and the reasonably crazy one, Rick Santorum. People just don't like Romney.

And that being said, Romney is the luckiest Republican politician today. He has to win the nomination, he just has to. I bet he looks around the debate stage and sees what he's up against, and just gives thanks under his breath for his undeserved good luck. He's running against two who've said that God wants them to run for President--Bachmann and Cain--so you know, God had to be wrong on at least one occasion, or they just misinterpreted the message. It was probably the latter. Bachmann's lack of knowledge when it comes to domestic and foreign policy is both disturbing and shocking, her fanaticism makes her worldview narrow and dangerous. Cain is in a position that even he probably wonders how he got there; all he wanted to do was sell books and go on a speaking tour, and now he's had sexual allegations brought up against him, and, channeling his internal Captain Renault, he's shocked, shocked, that they would ever surface. He's running against another Texas governor, Rick Perry, who makes George W. Bush look like a Rhodes Scholar, and who can't even remember his own platform or what he's campaigning for. Oops. He's running against a former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, whose 15 minutes of fame was up 15 years ago, and by considering himself the intellectual heavyweight of the Republican Party really just shows how lightweight the intellect of the Republican Party is today. He's running against a Texas Congressman, Ron Paul, who, let's be honest, lives in his own little world, and where he might be right when it comes to a couple of things--much to the chagrin of the Republican Party--but he's never going to get the nomination. Remember when he brought up Reagan and how Reagan raised taxes? That's a no-no. He's running against Huntsman who, no amount of mainstream coverage has been enough to raise his polling from the anemic 1% that he's stuck at. And then there's Santorum. I'll channel my own Jon Stewart: just Google "Santorum."

The Republican primary voters, along with the Tea Party, are responsible for this lineup. There's no serious opposition to the President because the Republican Party has become extremist by nature, and now can't do much to come back to the reasonable middle. And the Republican debate audience hasn't helped. By my count, they've booed a gay active-duty solider (this from the Party that prides itself on supporting the military), cheered executions, showed agreement with the idea of uninsured patients dying, applauded after Cain said that unemployed people are unemployed because of their own fault, applauded after Cain sort-of contested the claims of sexual harassment against him, and last night applauded torture. Maybe here on out, there should be Republican debates without an audience--do we really need a laugh track just to make this meme of Republican debates as sitcoms complete?

And for all of the above, the luckiest politician in America has to be Barack Obama. He looks around and he sees 9% unemployment, disillusionment within his base, relatively stagnant economic growth and there's no way that he'd clinch re-election in a relatively normal election with those statistics...but he then sees this feeble-minded Republican presidential contenders, along with congressional approval hovering around 9%, due mostly in part to the Republican overreach of the 112th Congress. He's probably thinking of how he'll be redecorating the Oval for his second term.

Occupations in the Age of Hypocrisy

2011-10-08T17:38:00.001-04:00

The word 'occupation' has such a negative connotation. It conjures up an image of Agincourt, Nanjing, Normandy. It's the act of taking forced possession or control of a certain place, more likely than not, to the chagrin of those who were already there. It is amidst this setting that thousands have descended on a park in lower Manhattan with the purpose to "Occupy Wall Street."

They're cast as being the perennial malcontents--those who are mad as hell and who aren't going to take it anymore. They've been derided by Republican congressmen and presidential candidates as people who hate freedom. In other parts of the Fox News-Limbaugh-Wall Street Journal machine, they're painted as being spoiled rich kids who are protesting for the hell of protesting without knowing exactly what it is they're protesting about, or what it is they're protesting against. Bill O'Reilly last night said that they're being bank-rolled by George Soros, Move On, and unions. That's interesting. Their mere presence is being dismissed as a sideshow executive produced by the Democratic Party, and their grievances ignored.

Let's take a quick look at the recent past and at the birth of the Tea Party. Many of its adherents were people unemployed or underemployed who saw that the banks were being bailed out, but not them. These were people who lost it all or were on the verge of losing it all, and they saw that those on Wall Street who were also on the verge of losing it all, were rescued, not once but twice. There was simmering anger and hatred at the banks and at the government that came to their rescue. And those in Corporate America saw this as an opportunity. They highjacked the movement, bankrolling a number of groups to drive the myth that the reason for their hurt was "Obamacare," and that the reason that they don't have a job is because of government regulations. See Koch, David H. and Charles G. The New Yorker this week had an article on another "titan of industry" who's bank-rolling extreme-right candidates and holding extreme-right positions in North Carolina, while hiding behind Mickey Mouse think-tanks that he's built, and buying influence in what's left of the education system that his groups have been helping to destroy--all the while claiming his groups merit tax-exempt status. The abhorrent Citizens United decision ignored a century of jurisprudence and stare decisis, allowing for an unregulated and worrisome flow of money into politics. Today more than ever the candidate with the most money backing them is inevitably the most likely to win.

And back to the bailouts. There's a poignant scene in "Too Big to Fail" by the Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin where Bernanke is fretting about whether or not the massive government rescue undertaken to save the economic system of this country--and indeed the world--will propel the banks to loosen up the credit markets, allowing for small businesses and others to continue to borrow, and you know, little things, like make payroll. Hank Paulson staring blindly outside his window, says something along the lines of they will, they have to.

They didn't. These banks gambled with the economic security of this country, after successfully financing three decades worth of deregulation. They've treated the Federal Reserve as their private piggy-bank, and the Fed, because acting otherwise would risk the Republic, had no choice but to comply with their desires. These Wall Street corporations risked big and lost big. And instead of taking the losses, they asked for a rescue. And they got it. They had to. Moral Hazard went out the window.

But what about the millions of homeowners who can't afford their homes--you can't rescue them, say the banks, because of Moral Hazard. But what about the millions of Americans who live in abject poverty and despair--it's their fault that they're not wealthy, says Herman Cain. But what about those without health insurance, would you let them die--yeah, screamed the crowd at the Republican Presidential Debate.

And when mere months after the bailouts, the news broke that the financial industry was still handing out massive bonuses, they all came out on Fox News and in editorial after editorial in the Wall Street Journal saying that the bonuses are in their employees' contracts, and that you can't break contracts. When public-sector unions were under siege from municipal governments--in most cases now run by so-called "businessmen"--they all came out on Fox News and in editorial after editorial in the Wall Street Journal saying that you had to break the contracts, that the free-ride that teachers, cops, and firefighters enjoyed for so long has ended.

We live in the Age of Hypocrisy.

We rescue the financial industry from what would have been a catastrophic loss to both them and us, and instead of saying 'thank you, we won't do this again,' they're back to their old habits, fighting Dodd-Frank and its measly regulations which would prevent them from jeopardizing the Republic once again. We bailed them out and gave them money and they've used that money to lobby Congress and bank-roll "free-market" organizations. They road-blocked Elizabeth Warren from being nominated to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and now are planning on filibustering any nominee. Their Republican advocates keep saying that regulations are to blame for no jobs. No, not exactly. It's the trillions of dollars that corporations are sitting on and their tying up the credit markets preventing small businesses to borrow and flourish. They've noticed that they're doing pretty well again.

They hide behind their screams of 'redistribution of wealth' and 'socialism'--their default scare tactics. They want us to ignore that the only redistribution of wealth taking place in this country is from the poor to the rich. Those well-off are terrified to death on only the mere threat of returning to Clinton-era tax rates--one of them comparing the president to Hitler because of this, and Warren Buffett now becoming persona-non-grata. These same corporations who cry about moral hazard, are dependent on millions of dollars in government subsidies and tax loopholes--the really hurt-some welfare state that exists in this country is corporate welfare. And it's not just Republicans; Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) is backed by the oil industry, and is one of the Democratic votes against ending oil subsidies. Never mind their record profits. In Britain, the top tax rate is now 50%--this in a Tory Government. The Economist last week had an article in which it stated that the tax rate doesn't worry the wealthy in Britain as much as any possibility of closing any tax loopholes, because now they'll be expected to actually pay for things that they've gotten away with since Thatcher.

And to add insult to injury, Bank of America unveiled its latest gouging plan last week in which it stated that it will start charging its "customers" $5 a month just for the privilege of using their debit card. They claim that's due to government regulations, but in fact, studies have shown that they'll be making a $2 Billion a year profit on this scheme, much more than they were making before, when their former gouging plan was to charge merchants 44 cents per transaction in fees, for something, which as Joe Nocera in the Times called, mere pennies.

This is what those protesting on Wall Street are mad about. The banks and corporations keep winning and everyone else keep losing. They keep living paycheck to paycheck if they have a paycheck at all, they still don't have health care, they're burdened by student loans which they can't repay, and are still stuck in a tragedy of debt from which they can't escape. They're mad that the government isn't listening to them, but those on Wall Street have the government on speed-dial.

Will the Occupy Wall Street movement succeed? I hope so. But it's too early to say. They have to stop the honest-to-God freak shows of them dressing up like zombies, or flashing passers-by. This country still hates hippies. They need to come out dressed in their normal day-to-day clothing, and talk about the real economic grievances that they have. The We Are the 99% Tumbler is a good model. Like Carville said, it's the economy, stupid. And it's their economy. They need to stress their pocket-books, how they struggle to make rent, pay for utilities, and have to decide whether to buy medicine or food.

What should they be calling for immediately? They need to ask Congress to pass the Jobs Bill. It's not perfect, but it's the best we have so far. The Jobs Bill is a bail-out, but at least the one's being bailed out now are them. They need to march on Congress to pass the Jobs Bill and they need to Occupy Wall Street and tell those corporations who caused this whole big mess to begin with to stop financing opposition to the Jobs Bill. What else should they be calling for? The Bush Tax Cuts to expire and a return to Clinton-era tax rates, which, if I'm not mistaken occurred in pretty good economic times. They need to call for these tax rates and end corporate subsidies and corporate welfare. Make no mistake, this is a time for sacrifice, and everyone is going to have to sacrifice something. Some government programs will be cut, they're going to have to be, but they should also be protesting against cutting fundamental programs that target areas such as health and education.

The Occupy Wall Street movement can succeed. It's getting Too Big to Fail. But the freak shows and the side shows need to end. They need a cohesive message. Where the Tea Party had as theirs being opposition to "Obamacare," they need to have as theirs being the passage of the Jobs Bill and calling for more equitable tax rates.

That's a start.

Dreams of Obama

2011-07-31T19:51:00.000-04:00

Grover Norquist, the high priest of Republican taxation ideology, famously stated that his goal was to ensure that a Democrat elected president can not govern as a Democrat.

Norquist, and his group, Americans for Tax Reform, have bullied and cornered Republican politicians for decades into signing an insidious pledge, and today he's led the vanguard to ensure that no revenues--okay, let's call it by its real name, tax increases--are part of any deal to cut our $14 Trillion debt.

For the first-time ever, Republican politicians have attached spending cuts to raising our debt ceiling. The debt ceiling vote had always been taken for granted, and treated as a matter of congressional housekeeping and good governance.

But then the American people--or rather the 41.3% of eligible voters who turned out--in the 2010 midterm election did an unsavory thing. Which brings us to where we are today.

The Republican Party, emboldened by their die-hard, know-nothing Tea Party-infused freshmen, who like to call themselves the "young guns," are holding hostage the full faith and credit of the Republic. To illustrate the point, this week, they showed a clip from Ben Affleck's film, "The Town." In it, Affleck's character tells his cohort that they're going to hurt some people. His cohort only asks whose car they're taking. After viewing the clip, Rep. Allen West jumped and said that he'll drive the car. Among the people being hurt: seniors on Medicare and Social Security, the poor on Medicaid, and students on Pell Grants and government-backed loans. In short, the middle class and the working poor. Once again, the powerless take the brunt of the cuts and suffer the consequences, while the powerful, keep their corporate-jet loopholes, subsidies to Big Oil and Big Agriculture, and continue to enjoy the lowest tax rates since the Truman Administration.

Where is the justice in that? Right, in this case, did not make might.

The president was elected on a wave of voter discontent with Washington, and on the promise of change. The president has been unfairly attacked for the legislation he championed to try to get--to use his favorite metaphor--the economy out of a ditch. The president was side-lined first by the Supreme Court which changed a century of jurisprudence concerning campaign-finance, and by a determined minority who has been uncompromising in its governance. The president has been painted as a socialist, and a foreigner--not one of us. He's been decried as some sort of a Manchurian candidate, planted to destroy America as we know it, and that only the Tea-Party backed candidates, the "real" Americans, can take America back.

When in reality the president is a moderate Republican, in all but name.

The president has governed slightly right-of-center. His health-care reform was born in the offices out of the conservative-Heritage Foundation in the 1990's, and is first-cousin to Romney's Massachusetts' health-care program. The president has out-Republican'd the Republicans on foreign policy, escalating the war in Afghanistan, continuing to operate Gitmo, and finally killing Bin Laden. If there's one place where I still lean right-of-center is in foreign policy, and am thankful that the president has continued to operate as a more competent and efficient third-Bush Administration. The president caved to the Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts, one of the real culprits as to why the debt is at the level it is, and has taken no meaningful steps to order the Justice Department to prosecute those who, through their criminal activity, almost brought down the American economy in the Fall of 2008. Today, the president has once again been defeated by the Republicans, where they got cuts equal to any increase in the debt ceiling, no revenues being part of the compromise, triggers that need to be implemented before the debt ceiling is increased past the 2012 elections, and absolutely no meaningful concessions from the Republicans on pretty much anything. Normally, negotiations in DC are a give-and-take, something-for-something. Now it's something-for-nothing. The negotiations were not what to give up in order to achieve a reasonable compromise, but rather how to get the extreme-wing of the GOP to raise the debt ceiling at all. It's like negotiating with the mob: nice economy you have here, it'd be a shame if something happened to it.

We dreamt that Barack Obama would come to the White House and change politics as usual. That this incredibly intelligent and competent man whose sense of social justice, ethics, and morality, would allow a more civilized government, one that cares for the prosperity and well-being of all its citizens, to take hold. But the president has been too much of the aloof professor, too much of the adult in the room. Jon Stewart continuously says that the president acts as if he's disappointed in us, that we're the ones who have let him down. The president needs to be more of a fighter and confront the Republicans. He needs to get down into the trenches. Republicans are instinctively great at politics and lousy at governing. The president's ground game ain't working. He'll take the deal because it's too late and we're running against the clock--now he'll have to get the left to sign-off on the deal; luckily they're reasonable and responsible and they'll whine and sermonize but do what's right at the end. And he needs to start preparing for the FY '12 budget. And that's it. The president's legislative agenda for this term is over. A do-nothing Congress, in this case, is going to be a good thing.

He needs to start campaigning. Next year's election will be a classic economy election. The Republicans have made sure that the economy will still be on life support, as their cuts will do nothing to enable growth and joblessness will remain around 9-10%. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, has said in the past that his political goal is to ensure that Barack Obama is a one-term president. And they won't care if the economy is down in the dumps if it would assure that result. So he's going to need to fight back and push hard. He needs to call them out on their votes and on who their supporters are. He needs to profile every district and take the message down block-to-block as to how GOP policy would hurt the poor and the middle class. It's going to have to be more than a 50-state strategy, but a strategy centered in every congressional district. Only then can we hope that enough Democrats get elected on the president's coat-tails to take back the House and create a filibuster-proof, super-majority in the Senate.

Every four years, they always say that this presidential election is an important one. 2012's really will be.

The Internals

2011-06-15T22:39:00.002-04:00

A conspicuous component of American politics is poll results. It is what everyone refers to as the "horse-race": who's up, who's down, what's important? Polls themselves are important. They take the general pulse of the American people, and they have the power to change the political narrative—what is the media going to concentrate on? Most polls, sadly, only give the big numbers, concentrating on the president's job approval rating, the leader in a matchup, or the all-important wrong-direction, right-direction numbers. A lot of politicians, 43 most famously, often say that they don't govern based on the polls. I sort of agree with that. Many times the American people don't have all the facts, all the information needed, to form a substantive opinion on most anything. But politicians look at polls. They live and die by them.

One of my favorite things to do when polls are released is to look at the internals. The internals are comprised of the more in-depth questions asked in polls, where the respondents are given different statements to see where they stand on them. The internals also provide information such as the demographic make-up of the respondents. Poll internals are much more important to me than the big numbers. (And yes, one takes into consideration the margin-of-error, the way the statements were written, etc.) And one of my favorite polls is the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, which is done almost monthly. I've gone through the 31 pages of the poll. Here are my observations:

1,000 Respondents, 3.1% margin of error, 200 reached by cell phone: Pretty standard sampling. There's been some evidence to suggest that there's somewhat of an under-poll count for people reach by cell phones, especially when a cell phone is all they have—they tend to be younger, slightly more educated, slightly more affluent than the general population: they tend to vote Democrat. The undercount has suggested in the past that numbers for Democrats or Liberal causes might be 1-3% higher (yes, within the margin of error, so I guess it's fine.)
48% Male, 52% Female, most respondents between 30-59, more senior respondents than the young: Seniors are more likely to answer the phone and stick with the interview which lasts awhile. Demographics change. Sometimes the seniors are voting Democratic, sometimes Republicans. I believe that seniors in the last two cycles have trended Republican. Women slightly vote more Democratic than Republican.
88% Not Hispanic, 11% Hispanic, 75% White, 11% Black: Almost mirroring the demographics of the nation as a whole.

And here are the questions:

Right Track: 29%, Wrong Track: 62%: Pretty bad wrong track numbers. The economy isn't helping. A full 12 points higher from last month after the "Osama Bump." But these numbers mirror what the numbers were in April. Getting Bin Laden temporarily made Americans feel that the country was on the right track.
Obama: 49% Approve, 46% Disapprove: Not terrible. Again the numbers went back to what they were in April. After Bin Laden's death, Obama got a 3 point bump. It's now back. But these are his best numbers since January.
Obama's Economic Handling: 41% Approve, 54% Disapprove: His approval number actually improved from last month, but the disapproval remains high. Again though, his economic numbers are better than they were in May. Gas prices coming down may be causing these. But they're still dismal numbers. The Republicans are going to run on the economy next year. Politically speaking, it's in their best interest for the economy to still be in the toilet. Maybe that's why they're causing so much uncertainty with the debt ceiling, etc…?
O's Foreign Policy Handling: 50% Approve, 44% Disapprove: Back to what they were in April. Again Obama got a temporary OBL bump last month. Most are okay with O's handling of Libya and believe the U.S. should remain engaged. (Side note: It's amazing how fast the bump evaporated.) Good enough numbers for foreign policy.
O's handling of Afghanistan: 54% Approve, 39% Disapprove: Since OBL, best numbers for O in over a year on Afghanistan. Also most people agree with O's timeline for withdrawal as opposed to removing them all now. Half think that OBL's death has little or no effect on terrorism.
Congress: 18% Approve, 74% Disapprove: Their numbers are the worst they've been in fifteen months. The debt ceiling debate isn't helping for them. And I think there's also buyer's remorse.
Feelings:
- O's: 49% Overall Positive, 37% Overall Negative.
- Democrats: 38% Overall Positive, 39% Overall Negative.
- Republicans: 30% Overall Positive, 44% Overall Negative.
  - Looks like the Republicans are in trouble…goes back to them over-reaching since the Mid-Terms.
- Tea Party: 28% Overall Positive, 41% Overall Negative.
  - Less positive, less negative than the GOP. Interesting.
- Mitt Romney: 27% Overall Positive, 26% Overall Negative: Even as front-runner still has name recognition problem. But the people who know him don't feel positive about him.
- Tim Pawlenty: 14% Overall Positive, 15% Overall Negative: No one knows who he is.
- Newt Gingrich: 16% Overall Positive, 48% Overall Negative: Higher negatives than either political party. What's he still doing in the race? No one likes him.
- Jon Huntsman: 7% Overall Positive, 9% Overall Negative. No one knows who he is either. And actually, he's not that bad.
- Palin: 24% Overall Positive, 54% Overall Negative: Woah! High Negatives. I really wish she gets the nomination. There's no way to turn those negatives around.
- Takeaway: O has higher positives than either party, the tea party, and Republican candidates or maybe candidates (Christie, Ryan, Palin).
51% Gov't should do more, 46% Gov't doing too many things: I guess the small-government message that the Republicans are playing isn't synching. People want a more activist gov't to create jobs, turn the economy around, etc.
45% Obama, 40% Generic Republican: Obama beats a generic Republican in 2012. Same numbers all year.
44% Republican-Controlled, 44% Democrat-Controlled: Evenly split on who should control congress next year. (Only 1 in 10 has good confidence in congress, 40% no confidence at all.
Republican House: 13% Brought Right Change, 23% Brought Wrong Change, 60% Brought No Change: An image of a do-noting Congress. 10 points higher on brought wrong change though.
Republicans in order: Palin, who's not in the race is second. And Cain in third? The only other who pulled out double-digit? Perry and Paul aren't even in the race. It's extremely fluid.
- 45-45 Satisfied Dissatisfied with the Republican Field: At this point during the last campaign, 73% were satisfied with the field.
- Romney 30
- Palin 14
- Cain 12
- Perry 8
- Paul 7
- Gingrich 6
- Pawlenty 4
- Santorum 4
- Bachmann 3
- Huntsman 1
Head to Head:
- Obama 49 Romney 43
- Obama 50 Pawlenty 37
Positions:
- 54% more likely to vote for a candidate who imposes requirements to curb greenhouse gases: Oddly enough, this was the position with the most positive salience. I had no idea this was such a big deal.
- 47% more likely to vote for a candidate who supports repealing the health care law,
- 47% more likely to vote for a candidate who favors allowing undocumented immigrants who are in the country to stay here if they pay a fine, learn English, and get "to the back of the line,"
- 44% more likely to vote for someone who voted for the health care law. Interesting that there's only a 3-point difference from repealing the law.
More Internals:
- Romney has a Romneycare issue but it's not as big as the current narrative states: 50% don't care, 35% take less favorable view once they learn about it.
- Slightly more believe that the Republican Party is more influenced by special interests and lobbyists than the Democratic Party. When the question asks if they're equally influenced, most say both are equally influenced.
- Same percentages of people say the economy will get better as well as worse (1/3). The rest say it'll stay about the same. Around 50% say their personal finances have stayed about the same.
- Stimulus: Most people believe it didn't do anything to help the economy.
- More people blame Bush than Obama for the economy, still. Most (62%) believe Obama inherited this problem.
- 63% are more worried about keeping the deficit down, while 31% say that more should be done for boosting the economy, rather than the deficit. More people also believe that cutting federal spending helps rather than hurts the economy.
- More people (44%) believe that we're headed into another recession.
- Biggest Personal Economic Indicators: Increase in gas prices, increase in food prices, decrease in home values, increase in unemployment rates, increase in number of home foreclosures.
- 28% say debt ceiling should be raised, 39% say it shouldn't. When told of the consequences of not raising it, 46% say it should be raised. (42% still won't raise it even when told.)
- Most people think Medicare is fine the way it is. More people say Ryan's changes to it are a bad idea. So much for Ryan's plan.

No Blog Post Today

2011-06-08T15:06:00.001-04:00

Will post on Sunday as I'm out of town.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:N Herndon St,Arlington,United States

Leave No Reality Star Behind

2011-06-05T22:59:00.001-04:00

TOBY: I was a telemarketer for about a week. I can't remember what we were selling, but you worked off a script. "Hi. Good evening. My name is..." And "Toby Ziegler" was okay for New York, but once I got into the other time zones, I needed a name. I wasn't gonna bother anybody.

BARTLET: Toby, if you have something to say, please say it.

TOBY: Ritchie's good for all time zones.

BARTLET: My family signed the Declaration of Independence. You think I've got an ethnicity problem?

TOBY: Well, the line isn't between light skin and dark skin.

BARTLET: Yeah?

TOBY: It's between educated and masculine... or Eastern Academic Elite and Plain-Spoken.

BARTLET: It's always been like that.

TOBY: Yeah, but a funny thing happened when the White House got demystified. The impression was left that anybody could do it.

"The Two Bartlets" The West Wing.

There's something to be said when two of the leading Republican "potentials" for next year's race are reality show stars. Life, sadly, is again imitating art. Luckily one has bowed out after he was the target of public ridicule, but the other is still driving up the Eastern seaboard of the United States in her mystery machine—even Palin's own mother thinks the bus is a bit much.

Palin is the ultimate political telemarketer. She's trying to be good for all time zones. That explains why she wears a giant crucifix on Sunday at a biker rally in DC, and a Star of David on Wednesday during her time in New York City. That she panders should come to no surprise to anyone. That she's incredibly ignorant of, you know, facts, history, geography, etc., should also come as no surprise. On Thursday, Sarah Palin gave America her version of Paul Revere's ride. According to her, Paul Revere warned the British—not the colonists. And what was Paul Revere's supposed warning to the Brits: that we had guns and bells and that they weren't going to take that away from us— both the guns and the bells, I guess?

When confronted with you know, history, Palin blamed it all on the "gotcha" media. In an interview today on Fox News, even after having a couple of days—enough, one would guess to check out Wikipedia—to get it right, she still managed to get it wrong. And not only did she manage to get it wrong again, but she also had the chutzpah to say that she was right after all. What's even more amazing about this are the multitude of right-wing blogs and Palin apologists who have gone on the internet, re-written history, and said that Palin's version of Revere's ride is essentially correct.

Palin isn't the only Republican potential who probably failed remedial American history in school. Congresswoman Bachmann thought that the founders ended slavery—never mind the Civil War. Herman Cain, in the middle of lecturing Americams to brush up on the Constitution, decided to add a couple of things to it that aren't there—never mind the Declaration of Independence. But I mean, it's not just American history that these people get wrong. It's also the present. And while Romney seems to be the serious adult in this contest for the presidency, apparently he needs to take a class on U.S.-Latin American Relations.

And it's not just those Republicans running for the presidency who need to take a class or two, but it's also those Republicans in Congress today who are legislating on important matters for our country. Apparently, they need to be taught what the debt ceiling is, and don't believe that Geithner has sold them on how important it is. It's amazing that they have to be "sold" on something that they should already have at least a rudimentary grasp of.

It's painfully obvious that not everyone "could do it." Not everyone can be president. But the GOP field today looks like the ultimate, bad episode of "Celebrity Apprentice," with Trump yearning to tell the president "you're fired!" The lights and music would come on and the winner gets four years of public housing at taxpayer's expense and use of a jumbo jet. The problem would be that once the sideshow ends and the public gets tired of it, it doesn't get cancelled at the end of the season. We'll have to live with it for four long, horrible years.

The Joke’s On Them

2011-06-01T23:01:00.002-04:00

"Wall Street is in on the joke," said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Someone forgot to tell Wall Street that because the Dow plummeted 280 points today due to depressing reports on jobs, manufacturing, and auto sales.

I guess then that the joke is on them.

Since the arrival of the Obama Administration, the Chamber of Commerce, one of the key sponsors of the Republican Party, has argued that many of the President's economic policies have created uncertainty in the markets preventing the economy from recovering. They said that during TARP II, the debate over the Bush tax cuts, and the near-miss concerning this year's budget. We were an hour and a half away a couple of months ago from not passing an FY11 budget for the federal government because we were debating $38 Billion in cuts. Looking back on it, those were the good old days. The Speaker, Rep. Ryan, and congressional Republicans met with the President this morning over the big one: the debt ceiling. Some on the Right are calling for trillions in cuts—yes, trillions not billions—and have threatened to derail any vote on the debt ceiling unless those cuts are made.

Talk about uncertainty.

So the House yesterday—in that joke that Josten was referring to—voted, symbolically of course, on the debt ceiling. How did they come down? 318 House members voted against raising it: 236 Republicans and 82 good-for-nothing Democrats. Again the headline: the U.S. House of Representatives actually voted not to raise the debt ceiling. (Never mind that we surpassed it a couple of weeks ago, and the only reason that we're still afloat is because Treasure has taken extraordinary measures giving us until August 2^nd to increase the debt ceiling.) They told Wall Street not to fret, that it's pure symbolism, and that it was done in order to show the president that they're ready to pull the trigger if necessary. It's nice that the work of the American people is being done as if it were a high-stakes game of chicken with the president, all the while assuring their donors that it doesn't mean anything. But it does. And the Democrats are as much to blame for the political games as are the Republicans. When it was obvious that the vote was going to come down this way, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer released Democrats to vote with the Republicans so that they won't be subjected to attack ads in next year's elections. Republicans know that the Ryan Budget backfired on them, and they're going to keep the debt ceiling vote as their trump card to show the American people that they are the adults, that they're the ones who are serious about the debt. The problem is that they aren't.

The debt ceiling has to be raised. The White House has stated that failure to raise the debt ceiling would be Armageddon-like. Every serious person, every real Adult, knows that throwing temper-tantrums won't fix the hole that we're in. But both sides are playing politics. And yes, the Republicans are playing it worse than the Democrats. Like always. What happens if you don't raise the debt limit? Jamie Dimon, Chairman of JP Morgan Chase remarked: "Every single company with treasuries, every insurance fund, every—every requirement that—it will start snowballing. Automatic, you don't pay your debt, there will be default by ratings agencies. All short-term financing will disappear." Dimon added, "We are praying." It would be a catastrophic economic event with crippling effects on world markets and our own recovery. Not raising the debt limit is just unimaginable. The U.S. government cannot default on its debts.

Not raising the ceiling has real consequences. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The economic crisis of 2008 will seem as a walk in the park compared to not raising the debt ceiling. A managing director at JP Morgan Chase, in a letter to Secretary Geithner, laid out the consequences:

Foreign investors will dump bonds leading to a worsening housing crisis as Fannie and Freddie would be in even greater peril.
Downgrading our credit rating would lead to an increase in Treasury rates making borrowing even more difficult than what it is now. There'd be a drop in lending and a contraction in credit, meaning the key sectors of our economy would come to a near halt.
There'd be a run on the banks—which was luckily averted when Lehman failed—wreaking havoc on the liquidity of funds, which would force the government to initiate another capital-infusion plan such as the one done in 2008.

This is the nightmare scenario. Call your congressman—and tell them what an idiot (s)he is.

***

I'll be posting every Sunday and Wednesday—sort of like Dowd and Friedman?

The End of Reason

2011-05-29T19:43:00.001-04:00

A week after the devastating tornado destroyed much of Joplin, Missouri, taking the lives of 139 Americans, some Republicans in Congress are going to play tough with Emergency Disaster Relief provided by the government. Actually, scratch that, according to the new model, these disasters don't merit the term, "emergency." In an effort to bring the deficit under control, which is all that Republicans think about nowadays (that, and defeating Obama), any funding for emergencies such as those which afflicted Joplin would have to be off-set by cuts elsewhere in the budget. The House passed a measure approving $1 Billion in disaster relief—far short of what this tragedy will ultimately cost—and in its stead, cut funding from energy initiatives.

We need to save money. A $14 Trillion deficit is surely nothing to scoff at. Yet, our almost ten-year commitment in Afghanistan passes under the guise of emergency spending, adding another $1 Trillion to our deficit. It sort of reminds me of all of those despotic regimes around the world who have held on to power by invoking emergency laws that have lasted for decades.

Let's play tough with those who have suffered from real, honest-to-God emergencies, by only setting aside $ 1 Billion, but let's go out of our way to ensure that the oil companies, with their record profits keep their $20 Billion in subsidies untouched. As ConocoPhillips—which made $198 Billion in revenue last year and is the 13^th U.S. corporate producer of air pollution—put it, ending their subsidies are Un-American. And here I was thinking that corporations, such as ConocoPhillips even, thrive with no government interference—at least that's the story they're peddling—and that they hate handouts. Handouts, you see, are Un-American. Except when it's for them.

We've entered the Age of the End of Reason. And not just reason, but decency, civility, and compassion. Apparently the "Compassionate Conservative" label left the Republican Party the same day that President George W. Bush left the White House.

Interestingly enough, it's almost like how our projected budget surpluses left the country the same day that President George W. Bush entered the White House. The Bush tax cuts, for example, added $2 Trillion to our deficit by providing tax cuts that mainly benefited those at the upper income brackets. President Bush also passed an un-paid for $1 Trillion prescription drug plan in his second term. The same Republicans who today contest every single appropriation—you know, Medicaid, healthcare for the poor and disabled, Pell Grants, etc.—were the ones who signed up and voted for all of those spending programs which evaporated our surplus, and along with their efforts for market deregulation, led to our near economic collapse in 2008.

Republicans, though, are great at changing the "narrative." They change the conversation and lay the blame elsewhere, but not with them. They claim that any dissent from their positions are Un-American: exactly what ConocoPhillips would say.

Hello, Again

2010-12-04T19:07:00.001-05:00

It happened rather suddenly.

From one day to the next I went Republican to Democrat. I used to assuage the personal effects that my conversion had on me by continuously repeating to myself—in my head of course—that I didn’t leave the party that the party left me. The reality is that I did leave the party, lock, stock and barrel. I went from being giddy with joy that Daschle lost his seat as Democratic leader to, a couple of years later, being relieved that Reid kept his as Democratic leader. I went from believing in the mantra of Rove’s “permanent” Republican majority, to supporting the mantra of “change we can believe in.” For some of my friends, it was quite uncharacteristic. Overnight I was called a liberal, a socialist, a communist. I now do proudly accept the liberal label.

And yet, I really don’t know if it happened as suddenly as I would like to think it did. It might have been some sort of subconscious linear development that eventually led me to leave the political party that I had grown up with, to accept that I was now joining the party that I always thought of as being the enemy. The party that I always thought hated America. I look back upon my nascent political growth and how ridiculous I was. Just a kid in middle school, but I knew I hated Bill Clinton and thought that he should’ve been impeached. I remember hearing Bush talk about restoring honor, dignity, and respect to the Oval Office, and how excited I was that there was going to be a Republican restoration—indeed a Bush family restoration. And, as silly as it may sound, at the same time that the 2000 election was beginning to get underway, The West Wing premiered on NBC. It was a parallel universe; in the era of Bush Republicanism, it offered a glimpse of what the country might look like in a Bartlet Democratic pseudo-reality. It was eerie. I think that is the moment that for the first time I began to hear the other side, and thought to myself, “You know, maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not that bad.”

And then, when the unthinkable happened on September 11^th, I was glad that George W. Bush was president. I was proud when he yelled from Ground Zero that the “rest of the world will hear all of us soon.” I was glad that a Republican was in the Oval Office, one who would unleash an assault upon terrorism that would make the world shake. You were either with us or against us. And I supported the rhetoric. In fact, that’s one trait that I have retained. There is no room for nuance or discussion in this. You are either with us or against us. You support, finance, or harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist. And Bush was intent on ridding the world of Al Qaeda. But in Tora Bora, Bin Laden escaped. Almost ten years later and no word of that coward. I remember I was so disappointed a couple of years ago, when Bush declared from the podium of the White House’s briefing room, that it didn’t matter that we haven’t captured Bin Laden, that he was irrelevant. This criminal was never brought to justice. And all because we diverted our resources from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda to Iraq and Saddam. I was disappointed.

In the 2004 campaign, I still supported Bush. I used to quip that Kerry had a defeatist attitude. And I supported Bush because we did not yet know that Iraq was going to catastrophically delve into civil war, we did not yet know that capturing Bin Laden would take a back seat to whatever the Neocons thought was in their best interest at the time. In their best interest, not in the country’s best interest. And I winced when unscrupulous attacks against certain groups were made in order to motivate the Republican base to come out to vote. I reconciled these attacks by reassuring myself that the ends do justify the means, that all is fair in politics, that the majority of the electorate is motivated by their own salient issues, and if these result in voter turnout, then the administration can successfully conduct foreign policy and defeat terrorism. We were reminded over and over again that with Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld, that the grown-ups were in charge.

And Bush won and the war got worst. The curse of the second term. And 2005 wasn’t going so well for the president and Republicans in general. And in 2006, the Republican political machine went into crisis mode in order to try to maintain Republican control. And again, they used tactics that we saw in 2004, and in 2000. Campaigns have always been dirty, but the last couple of them—this last one especially—have hit new lows. Frank Rich asked if Hispanics are the new Gays? He stated that the same tactics that were used to attack gays in the 2004 campaign was now being used to attack Hispanics. Rich didn’t blame Bush personally, but said that his lack of leadership had allowed the Republican Party to plunge into becoming the party of intolerance. I knew that the campaign was getting ugly, but I still held on to the belief that the ends justify the means, that yes, there were maybe some fringes of the party that were anti-Hispanic, but that we needed that fringe, to combat terrorism, to maintain American hegemony.

By 2008, I was growing tired of defending the Republican Party to myself, especially, their tactics. Obama was talking about a post-partisan America where we didn’t have Red States or Blue States, but that we were one America. I always thought we should have an America Party. And I was inspired by Obama talking about Change and a new way to do politics. There was nothing wrong with being a moderate, that we had to strive, as a nation to be united, moderate, tolerant—that these had always been the best traits of America and in Americans. And yet, I was inspired, but still on the fence: Was this guy really ready to lead? I liked McCain—his personal history, his moderate positions. I remember, and was ashamed, of how the machine had attacked him in 2000, he a bona fide war hero. And then he chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate. To put that woman a heartbeat away from the presidency…what was he thinking? I blame McCain for introducing Palin to America. That is a great disservice that he has done.

In 2008, I did something I never thought was possible. I voted for a democrat to be president of the United States. I voted for Obama.

***

I have always liked politics because for me it was a spectator sport. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s leading and by how much? I used to just eat up poll numbers and track the internals. I thought it was just so fascinating. And I guess I further liked the Republicans because they were winners. And who doesn’t like winners? They know how to play the game of politics. They know how to mobilize people to come out to vote.

They just don’t know how to govern.

In college, one of my professors went around the class and asked each student which political issue, above all others, they really cared for? Everyone said something: the war, terrorism, Social Security, the environment, the economy, gay marriage, abortion rights, etc. When it came to me I didn’t know what to answer. Internally I knew that I really didn’t care about any of those issues that strongly. I cared about winning in politics. I said I cared about the war as a cop out.

I have now, rather obviously, come to realize that issues matter. That policy is important. That in this time of troubles, tough decisions need to be made to ensure the continuing greatness of America. It is not hyperbole to state that today’s debates are nothing short of a debate about the direction of our country, the continuation of our hegemony, of our very nature and our survival. Policies matter. Governing matters.

And governing is more important than winning.

***

In yet another re-incarnation of this blog, I’ll try to wonk out a bit more. I’ll try to unite both policy and the politics of, together. They’re both inter-related. I never paid attention to positions, but it’s about time I take them, and will write them down here, at least for myself.

A friend told me that this blog should be called, “You know what really pisses me off?” And lately, a lot of the things that are going on have been pissing me off. I guess then, I sort of understand where the tea party’s rage comes from. But then again, the tea party really pisses me off.

These are difficult times, not unprecedented though. America has always found a way to lift itself up, to get to work, to lead. That’s the American way.

The Last Week-Part I

2008-08-19T20:10:00.006-04:00

This is it.

The last week of, what Warren G. Harding used to call, "normalcy." Next week the Democrats convene in Denver, and it's much too early to see if Obama can withstand a Clinton assault for the nomination. Then the Republicans gather in the Twin Cities, and, if rumours as reported by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News are true, Republicans might appoint a registered Democrat as Vice President. More on that later. But the four-day prime time love-fests are fastly approaching, then the symbolic start of the General Election, Labor Day, less than two weeks away...then the debates, then the inevitable "October Surprise"...then the Big Day. And that's the 2008 Election.

So yeah, it's a good time to finally post something.

The Democrats, tonight.

***

Obama has promised that his supporters will be the first to hear who the running-mate will be. These supporters signed up to receive a text message from the campaign with the Grand Announcement. Big money is that it'll be Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware. Change and More of the Same. When it comes to how Washington works, it's a marriage of an Amateur with an Expert. But there's pretty much no where else Obama can look. Gone are the days when the decision of who'll be #2 rested on Electoral Math and who can deliver what. (See: Kennedy-Johnson, 1960.) Now, Conventional Wisdom holds that it's who can make-up for the nominee's short-comings. McCain has hit Obama on inexperience, on not being ready to lead, on being an amateur...Obama needs to balance it out. Tim Kaine of Virginia has only been in office for three years. Evan Bayh of Indiana is a safe-choice but someone that leaves the voters with a feeling of "so-what?"

Biden brings Foreign Policy experience, his son's about to leave to Iraq...but is that what matters? Iraq's getting better. Foreign Policy isn't going to be at the top of concerns for this year's General Election. Does Obama need to remind people that he lacks the Foreign Policy know-how? Appointing Biden will be much like Bush appointing Cheney in 2000. It's the whole, I'm-not-good-on-foreign-policy-so-I'll-give-it-off-to-someone-who-is. I don't think this is a smart move by the Obama campaign. Obama successfully already hit Hillary every time she said he's not ready, that he's too inexperienced; his response was that experience means nothing without intelligence. He's right. Experience, in the guise of Cheney-Rumsfeld-Clinton, got us into Iraq. Obama needs as Vice-President someone who follows the "Change" mold. That's the message of his campaign. He needs someone that no one has seen coming, but that when he announces who it'll be, it'll hit everyone as the obvious choice. The announcement could come as early as tomorrow, and I don't think it'll be Biden. But I've been wrong before. So stay tuned.

But while the decision of who'll be #2 is surely at the top of Obama's list right now, he can't help but ask "Will they do it?" Rumours have been circulating that Clinton is ready to mount a coup on the floor of the Democratic Convention in Denver. I'll tell you what, it'll make for great TV.

But will she do it? I don't think so. I mean, I wouldn't put anything past the Clintons, but this is somewhat unthinkable. However, Drudge has been fueling the flames by putting out reports about how half of the Democratic congressional delegation at the Convention will vote for Hillary during roll-call, and today, it even made the news that Hillary supporter, Sen. Diane Feinstein of California won't be attending the convention due to an injury--seemingly good news for Obama. This is the story-line before the Convention. Will Hillary do it? Will she launch a coup, a revolution on the Floor to prevent the Coronation of Barack Hussein Obama? I don't think so.

So it's a big week for Obama. The veep stakes are about to end with a final decision, and the Convention is about to begin. He'll return on Saturday to Springfield, Illinois where he first announced that he was running for President back in January (February?) of last year. He'll be joined this time by his vice presidential running-mate. And Rev. Wright, like that first time, will be at a secret, undisclosed location.

Things aren't looking that bad for Obama. He'll get the post-convention bounce that all the nominees get immediately after the convention ends--the question will be how big?

***

The Electoral College:

If the election were held today (taking in the numbers from state-by-state polls):

Obama: 264, McCain: 180; Too-Close-To-Call: 94
Strong Leaners: Obama: 214; McCain 120
Lean: Obama: 50; McCain: 58

Obama's well within striking distance of 270. When the pageantry of the veep decisions and the conventions end, strategy for both camps begin. It's all about getting to 270, everyone knows that. National polls don't matter. It's local. All politics is local. It's getting the toss-up states to go for you by even the leanest of margins. And Obama is much closer to 270 than McCain is.

And those toss-ups: Florida, Virgina, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, and surprisingly, Alaska.

My predictions...and God knows I'm bad with Math:

Virginia: McCain 13 EV
Ohio: Obama 20 EV
Missouri: Obama 11 EV
Montana: McCain 3EV
North Dakota: McCain 3EV
Colorado: Obama 9EV
Nevada: McCain 5EV
Alaska: McCain 3EV
Florida:.....I think it's gonna be McCain 27 EV

So...

Obama's: 264 + my predictions: 304 Electoral Votes.

McCain's: 180 + my predictions: 234 Electoral Votes.

And that's why Obama is smiling all the time...

New Post

2008-08-17T23:09:00.001-04:00

...Coming Soon.

Wrong Again

2008-05-07T00:27:00.002-04:00

Well we've all been wrong this year. Surprises everywhere. No one ever expected how thrilling, fun, unexpected this primary campaign season has turned out to be.

I don't think the General Election can ever compare to the Primary Election Season of 2008.

And the Conventional Wisdom has been wrong from the beginning until the end.

And I'll admit it, I've been wrong many times this season. IT just goes to show that no one knows what's really going on. No matter how many metrics, or trends, or narratives are created, at the end, the American Voter will decide how the season unfolds.

So I guess I was wrong with propelling Obama to quit. He's on the verge. No one ever saw Indiana being so tight for Clinton...As of post-time, the difference is only 20,000 votes.

It's too close to call...

Why Obama Should Quit

2008-04-30T21:39:00.002-04:00

DALLAS--

In American political lore we're enamored by the possibility of the underdog defeating the establishment.

I think that's because America still sees itself as the ultimate underdog in the world. But we're the underdog that wins. We're noble and good, and we're faced with a world full of evil tyrants who cause pain, agony, despair. And we'll use our military for humanitarian needs and nation-building when necessary and we'll raise money and donate, and provide food and medicine, and still wave the flag of America and all that it represents. Don't you forget it, no matter what, we're still the United States of America—the last best chance the world has.

It takes a special kind of person to lead the United States of America. We want Saints not Sinners. We want Angels not Demons.

And that's why in some corners we wanted Barack Obama. He seemed so unlike anything we've ever had. He is so unlike anything we've ever had. The press fell in love with him. New voters all across America fell in love and packed stadiums nationwide, from the metropolitan coastal cities to cities in the heartland which still believed in a place called hope. He was it. He brought people from across the political spectrum and promised them that "Yes, we can." That yes, we can bring about change; that yes, there was a better way. And people believed him. They still do. I still do.

But then we saw Rev. Wright who came out of his self-imposed exile this weekend and brought his controversy back to the front of the political fore. Jeremiah Wright was a reminder of the unfounded fears that some Americans have about Barack Obama. They see him as something alien, they think he's a Muslim, there's a church that put on its sign "Obama-Osama: Are They Brothers?" Americans fear what they do not know. And it didn't help that Obama is seen as unpatriotic. Making a point causes him to lose political traction. Why won't he just wear the flag lapel? And why did Michelle Obama say that for the first time ever she's proud of her country and that America in 2008 is a mean country? These are things you do not say when your husband is running for President of the United States. Not wearing the flag lapel is something that you do not do if you're running for President of the United States.

But he seemed to overcome it all. In fact, in today's NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, Obama still leads Clinton nationwide 46-43% (one must take into account that there was an oversample of Black voters in this poll).But he hasn't won in a while. Yes, he still leads among delegates, among the popular vote and among most states won. But he lost in Pennsylvania and he lost badly. Indiana, neighboring his home state of Illinois, is now in play and Hillary seems to be a contender there. North Carolina down the road may follow South Carolina and give Obama a win. In a previous post I wrote that Hillary should quit not because she was losing but because she was going to gain traction and momentum and win. She has. There's going to be no stopping Hillary now, no matter what. It's too close. This reflects what I wrote in another previous post reflecting on why he can't put her away, and all those factors remain. The Clinton Political War Machine is a force to be reckoned with. Obama still seems too much of a lightweight, too much of an amateur to go against the Clintonistas.

And Obama isn't gaining in the demographics that he needs to win. His sub-constituency coalition is falling apart. He's not targeting the right voters. In South Carolina he was winning among White Men. In union-strong Pennsylvania he lost them. Lately, he's only winning among Blacks, and among the more educated Democratic primary voters. Hillary's winning everything else.

It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that the frontrunner quit. A frontrunner hasn't faced an internal challenge this strong and this heated for the nomination in a while. Hillary believes that this is rightfully hers. She believed that she worked too hard, waited so long and poured so much money and heart and tears (oh the tears!) into this that it's not fair that it's being taken away from her. She's going to stay in this. Dean can't make her get out no matter how much he's telling the super-delegates to have this wrapped up by mid-June. Hillary's expanding, there's no question about it, and she's out to swift-boat Obama before the Republicans get to him. Say what you want about Republicans but we're great at winning elections. Hillary and Bill always knew this and they've always tried to be Republicanesque in how they conduct a viable electoral strategy. Hillary went on O'Reilly tonight for God's sake…

Obama's inability to put her away casts doubt in his ability to win a general election campaign against John McCain this November. McCain gets independents, the Republicans are going to come out for him, and he may even get a substantial Democrat vote. And this is the reason why Obama should quit. Give it to Hillary. McCain-Clinton. Nothing will bring out Republicans in droves to vote for McCain than to have a Clinton on the ballot. They'll come out strong. And in every head-to-head matchup McCain beats Clinton. McCain ties Obama. McCain beats Clinton is the operative event though. It's in Obama's best interest to win the nomination clean and easily. He already fought for this one. Giving this to Hillary makes him noble, makes him a saint, makes him an angel, makes him a gentleman. He showed deference and the party is never going to forget that. He brought the Democratic Party together again. To say nothing of the possibility that McCain might not run for re-election because of his age in 2012. Obama's still a young man. He can wait. The Democratic Party, historically, never forgives its losers. It's not the era of Adlai Stevenson anymore where he kept running over-and-over again. The Democrats give you one chance and you're out. Give Hillary this one. Give it to her and she'll be out and retreat into the hallow chambers of the United States Senate and the Clinton name will become nothing more than an afterthought. Give Obama 4 years to rebuild, regroup, and re-inspire. He'll be stronger in 4 years, he'll be ready. He won't be making amateur mistakes and he'll be the leader that we all expect him to be, that we all know he can be.

So Sen. Obama give it to Sen. Clinton. Her new narrative is the one in which she states ad nauseum that she's the only one that can defeat Sen. McCain. Show America that she's wrong. Show America that ultimately, she's not a winner, but a loser. Show the Democrats how their inability to decide cost them yet another election. Be gracious. Be ready for your turn.

The Long Campaign Continues

2008-03-30T20:29:00.002-04:00

It's been nearly a month since I last wrote, and at the end, nothing has changed.

Yes, we've had the revelation that Sen. Obama's spiritual guide, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright apparently asks God to damn America.

And yes, we've had Sen. Clinton's Bosnia fairytale (as Times columnist Frank Rich dubs it)—you know the one where she swears she (and Sinbad and Sheryl Crow) was under sniper-fire while visiting troops in Bosnia during her tenure as first lady. While this had been debunked months ago, the former first lady and former presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency continued to spew such fibs. It took the CBS Evening News to go back to the pool video and show that Sen. Clinton indeed had a safe landing. She arrived in Bosnia with Chelsea. That CBS Evening News clip was promulgated by Drudge linking to the YouTube video of it. It got more views than Wright's fiery sermons.

It fit the narrative: Clinton's a liar. And isn't that a narrative that fits so well with that family that we're all too familiar with? It's her "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." It harkens back to the narrative that the Bush campaign pinged on Vice-President Gore back in 2000: Al Gore swore he invented the internet.

And everyone's talking about Bosnia and the Clinton campaign is saying that she misspoke and that it's all due to sleep deprivation…this coming from the candidate who said that she's the most prepared to answer that red phone at, yes, 3 in the morning.

And everyone's forgotten about Wright and about the watershed speech that Obama delivered concerning race. That speech, one of the greatest political speeches in a generation, will be only remembered by simple sound bites: "I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas" and "I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

That's what happens when you schedule an important and long overdue speech on race in America, in the morning. Rookie mistake.

March wasn't a good month for either Democratic Candidate or the Democratic Party itself. It was full of gaffes and indecision.

***

But where do we go from here?

Clinton has said that she's not going to pull-out. Obviously. She's said that she was going to wait until the people have spoken. Yes, how noble of her. She was going to wait for Pennsylvania…and Puerto Rico to vote. June 3^rd is the last election. DNC Chairman Howard Dean wants this rapped up by July 1^st. But…Clinton spoke to the Washington Post today and said that she wasn't going to rest until Michigan and Florida are counted (where was she when the DNC disenfranchised millions of voters last fall?) and that if it had to come to it, well, that's what the Credentials Committee at the Convention is for. The Credentials Committee! She's going to see this through the very end and take the Democratic National Convention in Denver hostage. She will not give up. She will not surrender. Even if they count Florida and Michigan and even if she wins Pennsylvania, which she's likely to do, it doesn't add up. The delegate count just doesn't add up. It's not going to put her over the top. It's not going to change anything. She'll make the argument that she wins the big states and that she's won more recently—this even though today's revelation that because of the Texas "prima-caucus," Obama actually won there.

And that's the big problem. Bill Maher on Friday's show asked what the big deal was for Clinton to stay in and to allow the process to naturally unfold—to let the voters decide, to make every vote count. The process never unfolds naturally. No one likes a split convention. A couple of years ago I wrote an essay in which I compared the 1968 presidential election to every presidential we've had since. This paragraph is pertinent as to why the Democrats need a nominee by Convention time:

In the battle between perception and reality, it is also important to note the changes and evolutions in nominating conventions. Where 1952 was seen as the first televised convention, 1968 was the first dramatic one. Image-makers not only had to deal with a candidate's image, but also, with the image of the convention itself. Whereas in 1968 at Miami Beach, the Republicans presented a convention of unity and order, the convention at Chicago was anything but. Theodore White stated that "At Chicago, for the first time, the most delicate process of American politics was ruptured by violence, the selection of Presidents stained with blood." Americans were appalled at what was occurring on the streets in Chicago, and what was occurring inside the convention hall. Those watching Walter Cronkite's coverage on the CBS Television Network saw a young Dan Rather being punched on the floor of the Convention Hall and taken down by Convention security, "Cronkite then delivered one of those sound bites that get aired again and again for years to come: 'I think we've got a bunch of thugs in there, Dan'." Then and there, the Democrats' hope for a victory in 1968 ended. The Convention was in such a state of chaos that President Johnson—officially leader of the Democratic Party—did not attend the convention. In 1980, coupled with the important and salient background events which were occurring, there was discontent inside Madison Square Garden where the Democratic National Convention was held, after the sitting President, Jimmy Carter, was challenged by Sen. Edward Kennedy for the presidency, and at the end, we saw the famous image captured by television cameras which displayed the delicate waltz which took place by which Carter and Kennedy never shook hands on the convention stage. This event was seized by the pundits on television and re-played over-and-over again as a sign of disunity in the party. In 1992, it was the Republican's turn to seem extreme and not united. At the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, what was supposed to be a rousing night for Ronald Reagan's last speech at the Convention was split, with Reagan's speech being pushed to 11:00 p.m. and Pat Buchanan taking the 10:00 p.m. primetime hour. This push to a 10:00 p.m. slot made by the networks, especially NBC, cost Bush and his convention the image that they wanted to portray. NBC's executive producer, Bill Wheatley recalls that, "On two separate instances we saw them hold the convention waiting for us to come on the air…We were still in our opening when they introduced [Quayle]. There was this tremendous roar, and Tom [Brokaw] just picked it up." The one that really hurt Bush was Buchanan's speech which "after its opening applause lines for the nominee, went on to summon not only Buchanan's own following but the entire Republican Party to a 'religious war' against gays, inner-city toughs and the likes of Hillary Clinton." That same year at Madison Square Garden, the 1992 Democratic National Convention was perfectly orchestrated, went off without any serious gaffes, and was up-lifting and optimistic. The Republicans came back in 2000 and at Philadelphia, gave key-note speech slots to the likes of Colin Powell, John McCain, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., and Condoleezza Rice. This created the image of a new, moderate Republican Party going along the theme of "Compassionate Conservatism" which Bush wanted to create. On the other hand, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, there were undercurrents which pointed towards disunity in the party, when Bill Clinton was pushed to a Monday night speech, and then ignored for the rest of the convention. This went in line with the Gore Campaign wanting to distance themselves from Clinton for the General Election, and which many consider might have hurt Gore in his quest for the presidency.

Now I'm not saying that the Democratic Convention in Denver in 2008 will be just like the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. I don't expect violence but I do expect political blood being spilt if Hillary Rodham Clinton takes this to the Credentials Committee and more so, if the Super-Delegates go contrary to whom the pledged Delegates chose. It would be a nomination stolen. If the Super-Delegates indeed overturn the voice of the people, if they overturn the people's choice, then what we will have will be the disenfranchisement anew of Democrats and a party uncontrollable. They'll be yelling bloody murder in the streets of Denver. They denied the first viable Black man the nomination for president of the United States. Obama's leading in the delegate count, most states won, and most votes cast. The Super-Delegates will have no choice but to re-affirm the pledged delegates, which then calls into question the reasoning for the Super-Delegates: if it's just to rubber-stamp and to be redundant…what's the point of their existence?

If Democrat's can't run their own convention, can't control their own people, what gives the American people the confidence that they can run a country?

And I echo David Brooks' belief (another Times columnist) who says that the reason that Hillary Clinton needs to get out is not because she's weak, but because she's strong. And yes, it's a little nonsequitor. Put aside the fact that in today's Gallup tracking poll Obama's lead over Clinton is now at 10-points, with her winning Pennsylvania and a handful of others, she'll continue to make the case that there's momentum for her now, that people want her in it, and that she'll be there for the people. There won't be any stopping her. She'll think that she's it, that she can turn this ship around, that she can salvage this ship who hit the iceberg long ago. It's delusional. She'll take this to the Convention and the whole world will watch what a split convention is. Can you just picture it? There might be walk-outs! Supporters of the losing candidate leaving the hall and the image replayed ad-nauseum on TV for everyone to see. Juxtapose that with McCain's convention. It'll be neat. It'll be orderly. It'll be just like the 2000 Republican love-fest in Philadelphia.

This was supposed to be the year of the Democratic Restoration. The economy is going south, the war has hit the 4,000^th American casualty, and the sitting Republican president remains unpopular. This was supposed to be the year of the Democratic Restoration.

It's amazing but the Democrats found a way to blow it again.

624787

2008-03-30T19:29:00.003-04:00

John McCain has released his first General Election campaign ad, and wow, it's something else.

He looks poised, ready, and presidential. And more than that, it introduces a number that we're all going to become too familiar with as the General Election campaign begins--once the Democrats of course settle their mess. That number: 624787.

He Can’t Put Her Away

2008-03-05T20:23:00.001-05:00

She's alive.

Hillary Rodham Clinton declares that momentum is now with her. She arrived in Washington this morning at 3am (it's always 3am) and three hours later she was preparing to undergo the "Full Ginsburg"—so-called when former Lewinsky attorney William Ginsburg showed up on all 5 Sunday-morning shows a decade ago. In the morning she declared that Obama's momentum had ended, that people were now taking a strong and hard look at both candidates and decided that she was the best choice. David Gregory on Today asked Sen. Obama, "Why are the voters reluctant to vote for you?"

It's turned.

Why can't he put her away? Why can't the knight slay the dragon? He's had his chance. He could've done it after Iowa, He could've done it after South Carolina, and he was expected to do it last night.

The media is setting expectations. They're dying to pounce on Clinton. They've been smelling blood for eight weeks now and are trying to rid themselves of Clinton. After SNL picked this up upon its return to the airwaves it became political narrative. Clinton used it at the MSNBC debate last week and another SNL opener this weekend re-affirmed that image. She didn't cry this time. But she did play the role of victim. She kept on pushing the story line that the media was too negative, that it was too bullying. On his campaign plane en route back home to Chicago, Obama acknowledged this saying that media portrayals of Hillary hurt him and help her. The base loves the victim of crass bullying. Obama said that she won vis-à-vis the "kitchen sink" strategy—throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him. And she did.

Clinton won last night on national security. Those who were late-deciders went over to Clinton's camp when it came time to vote. The only narrative that was really effective was the narrative of national security, yes, the 3am call. She won using a Republican tactic. It goes to show that security is, at the end, a factor in voting—even in the Democratic base. If Hillary won on national security, then in a face-to-face general, McCain will beat Hillary on national security.

General Election: There's no way that Hillary wins Texas; McCain will take that one. Ohio will be tricky. Hillary will win Ohio running against NAFTA and promising for economic change. McCain will face difficulty defending NAFTA and globalization in Ohio.

But going back to the basics: Why can't Obama take her out? Is it that Hillary really really really wants to win? Is it that from now on they'll throw everything at him to see what sticks? It's her tenacity. It's the fact that nevermind his many campaign faux pas, she is married to the best political strategist in the Democratic Party.

Obama's impotence in taking Clinton out casts questions as to his viability and whether or not he could mount a successful General Election campaign against Sen. McCain. These questions arise even though in General Election matchups, he performs better against McCain than Clinton does—McCain beats Clinton handily in both the electoral college map projection (I can't wait till we start talking about the map) and in national poll numbers. Obama gives McCain a run for his money.

But while the Democrats are fighting, McCain is having lunch with President Bush at the White House. It's a three-way race for November, and McCain now has the Republican National Committee and its powerful political apparatus as a branch office of John McCain 2008. His campaign now has an influx of at least $30 Million from the RNC while Clinton and Obama continue spending money competing against each other, drying up their respective donor bases and putting them at a general monetary disadvantage for the fall campaign.

I received this mass mailing email from John McCain this afternoon:

As we come to the end of our party's primary contest, we begin what will certainly be a spirited and hard-fought campaign against the Democratic nominee. In November, Americans will have a clear choice to make. And I intend to fight as hard as I can to make it very clear that I am the candidate with the experience and leadership to serve as our commander in chief from day one. (Emphasis his.)

From Day One. This is the same argument that Hillary makes against Obama. The more successful she is at making this argument, the more at a disadvantage Obama will be in a General matchup against McCain. Hillary and Obama seem to be oblivious to the fact that the grand prize in their eyes should be to wrestle the White House away from a Republican. They're more preoccupied on wrestling the White House away from one another.

This from Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe this afternoon, coming from out of all places, Facebook:

The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead. They failed. It's clear, though, that Senator Clinton wants to continue an increasingly desperate, increasingly negative -- and increasingly expensive -- campaign to tear us down.…The chatter among pundits may have gotten better for the Clinton campaign after last night, but by failing to cut into our lead, the math -- and their chances of winning -- got considerably worse. Today, we still have a lead of more than 150 delegates, and there are only 611 pledged delegates left to win in the upcoming contests. (Emphasis mine.)

The argument is that it's all about the math. Obama needs fewer delegates to clinch the nomination than she does. It's as simple as that. How do we get there though? Is it going to be a drawn-out struggle for supremacy? Will we go all the way to Puerto Rico in June until the Democrats have a nominee?

Howard Dean showed up on Hardball yesterday claiming that the DNC is ready to have every vote counted, every delegate allotted for. Today Michigan and Florida, the states sans delegates whose voices were muted by the DNC were given a second chance: You can run another primary or another caucus to select your delegates…but it's going to cost you. (In Florida, such a cost would be around $8 Million.)

The math is what's going to stop her. Or rather, I should choose my words more carefully: it's what conventional wisdom now states should stop her. This from the AP's Ron Fournier:

Obama began Tuesday with an 11-race winning streak and a lead in the delegate chase in The Associated Press count, 1,386-1,276. His margin was larger, 1,187-1,035 among pledged delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses.

Clinton has little chance of closing the gap because Democrats allocate most of their delegates proportionally; meaning the loser of a close contest earns nearly as many delegates as the winner. Even as she declared victory in Ohio, Clinton knew that Tuesday's results were unlikely to draw her much closer to Obama.

It doesn't get any better for Clinton after Tuesday. Just for kicks, pencil the New York senator in for landslide victories in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky plus narrow victories in Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, Montana and South Dakota scenarios that give her a hefty benefit of the doubt and then some. And what happens?

She still trails Obama.

She trails Obama.

The Democrats were supposed to win this one. An unpopular Republican President in the White House was the God-sent for the Democratic Restoration. They were supposed to win it. The American people say that they're tired of the war, that the country is headed in the wrong direction, that the economy is taking a slump, that they want something new in the White House…and yet, the Clinton-Obama feud has produced one clear winner: John McCain. People are voting on security. People recognize that they cannot leave Iraq. Clinton tells people that Obama's message of Hope is nothing more than empty words and emptier promises. Clinton's continuation in the race shows that Obama, now matter how hard he struggles can not defeat the establishment. The Politicos always win. Again, Americans in poll after poll want change. In poll after poll say that they are not happy with the way Congress is doing its job. Yet they'll vote for their incumbent representatives and retain the composition of Congress. Americans say that they want a Democratic President in the White House and not a Republican one. And yet, in poll after poll, John McCain beats both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The only difference is by what degree.

We are a schizophrenic people.

Junior Super Tuesday 1

2008-03-04T19:27:00.003-05:00

Talking Points:

Hillary will live to fight another day: She's likely to win her first primary in almost a month tonight in Ohio; Texas and Rhode Island are incredibly close
Obama, I predict will likely win Texas and Rhode Island, however by a slim margin
Obama: It's all about the delegates. They'll make the argument that no matter how close their popular margin is, Obama's delegates make any Clinton effort extremely ineffective
Texas: Clinton is winning among Hispanics, Women, and those who made up their minds late in the effort
NAFTA becoming a big issue with the Obama campaign getting hurt by having his economic advisors apparently talking to Canadian officials trying to calm them down on any possible NAFTA modifications: Those who are against NAFTA are going for Clinton (Can you still believe we're talking about this 14 years later)
McCain will clinch the nomination tonight; soon the McCain Campaign will take charge of the RNC and use their campaign apparatus
Huckabee will most likely drop out as the week progresses

In the words of Brit Hume: "This is kind of fun..."

It's 3am

2008-03-01T12:08:00.005-05:00

If you look at the videos released two days ago by the Clinton and Obama campaigns, then one would think that world crises only occur at 3am.

The Clinton Campaign started it. They're playing the national security card against Obama now. Make no mistake about it, this is a manifestation of the level of desperation within the Clinton High Command. With the base, this is where Clinton comes off as weak, not Obama. I'm not sure if the Clinton Campaign knows that yet. But it is her vote for authorizing military action in Iraq that doomed her candidacy.

Hillary didn't follow Bill's Laws of Politics:

Hillary's using fear. It's as simple as that. At this week's debate she just came out and said that Obama was going to bomb Pakistan. To which he obviously mentioned that no, that that's not what he in fact said. Hillary's using fear.

The first time I saw the Clinton ad I thought it was a McCain ad. I don't know if it's wise strategy. This week the Clinton campaign hit Obama with the now infamous Obama "Dressed" Photo.

Throwing everything that there is to throw at Obama only makes him more resilient for the General Election campaign. He'll become the Teflon man: Nothing sticks.

Tuesday brings Texas and Ohio to the fore. Texas is going to be a squeaker of an election. Polls that I trust have Obama up anywhere from 2-4 points up. He'll be allocated more delegates disregarding how slim is lead is since most of his strengths fall in areas where more delegates are allocated. Clinton's holding on to Ohio. A couple of week ago, Bill Clinton and James Carville said that if Hillary doesn't win either Texas or Ohio that it's all over. This week Bill came out saying that Hillary was going to win Ohio. They're extending her campaign. Unless Obama pulls off a massive upset, Hillary will see this through Pennsylvania, Vermont, etc., at least through April.

The Democratic Party needs a nominee. General Election campaigns, at this point, nowadays, should be in full swing. It's not Labor Day anymore. It's Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day should be the cutoff as to when the nominees have been chosen. This isn't 1968. Forty years ago this month, Johnson announced that he will not seek nor would he accept his party's nomination for president. Forty years ago this month, Bobby Kennedy announced that he was going to run for president. Fourteen months ago, Barack Obama announced that he was going to run for president. Running for president is now a marathon, not a sprint.

The Democratic Primary has gone on for so long now that McCain is actually taking a break this weekend at his home in Arizona. He'll be taking a lot more breaks if this continues to draw out. Who will tell Hillary it's over? Who will tell Hillary it's time to stop?

It's time to get to the maps. It's time to begin thinking General. It's time to think about Red and Blue states, and sub-constituency politics, and all that good stuff. It's time to begin the race.

And there's one thing that I'm certain about. In 2009 it will be 3am and a phone will ring in the White House. It's not going to be Hillary Clinton who picks it up.

Another will.i.am video

2008-03-01T12:02:00.002-05:00

This is another pro-Obama video released by will.i.am, once again featuring prominent celebrities.

What's striking about this one is the number of Latino celebrities in the video. Jessica Alba, George Lopez, Kate del Castillo, etc. Released before tuesday's prima-caucus in Texas, the obvious subtle message in the video is that Latinos would be better off with Obama:

The End of the Honeymoon

2008-02-21T11:25:00.003-05:00

I want to talk about John McCain.

I've wanted to talk about John McCain for awhile now. Too much press coverage on the Obama-Clinton epic struggle is leaving the Republican frontrunner with little to do, nothing to say, and becoming increasingly irrelevant as his campaign gets pushed back to the third, or fourth, package on the network newscasts.

It's bad timing. Horribly bad. Even last week when he swept through the Potomac Primaries, there he was, following another of Obama's uplifting speeches, with a cast right out of Century Village behind him, and talking about an ever-lasting war and smiling at the wrong times. Obama talks about hope. McCain talks about battle. He's a Debbie Downer.

And who can escape the media drama this Tuesday when Obama, tired of Hillary not admitting defeat, not conceding, and not congratulating him for his tenth-in-a-row victory, cut her off as she was making another primetime campaign stump speech and went on a 45-minute barnburner in Houston. All the networks cut away from Clinton mid-sentence and went to Obama as he still was giving his "thank yous." Hume on Fox had his microphone live and one can hear him screaming to his production crew to "Go" to Obama now. To borrow a phrase from the current Vice-President: the Clinton campaign is in its last throes. Veteran AP Political Writer, Ron Fournier, in the AP wire story which appeared on many newspapers around the country said that it was "panic-button time" in the Clinton Campaign. That explains the "War of Words" this week between both camps and whether or not Obama borrowed phrases from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Then it doesn't help when Michelle Obama goes off saying that she's proud of her country for the first time. It hasn't been a good week for Obama.

But I want to talk about John McCain. Just when it seemed that he was going to go into semi-retirement, to catch his breath, maybe go on a short-vacation, the New York Times splashed a front-page story in today's edition, posting the story online last night at around 7:45pm. Apparently, The Times had been sitting on this story for a couple of months now, at least since December. The appearance is that The Times waited until McCain's frontrunner status was clearly established before they came out to produce this story. In it, The Times suggest that McCain's crusade on ethics and campaign-finance reform is not but a charade. That McCain has failed to practice what he has preached. In addition to that, the article insinuates that there might have been a romantic relationship between McCain and a lobbyist—so much so that during his 2000 presidential race, aides tried to keep her away from the Senator. The Washington Post's version of this led with the confrontation between the aides and the female lobbyist, Vicki Iseman.

Today McCain surrogates defended his actions on the network morning shows. Bob Bennett called it a "non-story" on Today. On Early, McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis called it "the worst kind of tabloid journalism." At around 9:00am ET, McCain held a presser denouncing the story and any wrongdoing. Cindy McCain, who's had a more visible role in the campaign this week—what with her subtle attack on Michelle Obama's "pride"—said that "he would never do anything to not only disappoint our family, but disappoint the people of America."

The silver lining in this of course is that for the first time in a long while, McCain led the network morning newscasts, he'll probably lead tonight on the network evening newscasts and without a doubt, he'll be the top story on all the cable newsers. On Drudge, he's been the top headline for almost 16-hours now. Rush goes live on the East Coast in an hour, and he'll probably start off with this.

This gives McCain plenty of ammunition. One thing that the Conservative wing of the Republican Party absolutely abhors is The New York Times. Even though this paper previously endorsed John McCain for president, he can now come out and once again accuse The Times of displaying a liberal slant in its coverage and an incredible bias. The Times will be mentioned almost as much as John McCain today—this wouldn't happen if say, it was ABC News that broke this story. It'll be interesting to see if Rush joins the attack on The Times and somehow defend McCain today—the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

As of this post time, Huckabee hasn't come out to publicly mention anything; he'll wait to see how this plays out.

So what is this? I think it's a non-story. If this is the best that The Times has then I think that it either A) Isn't trying hard enough or B) Doesn't have much to begin with. Ethics? Are you kidding me? McCain hasn't even made ethics central to his run this time around. It's all national security all the time. This is an article that would've derailed his candidacy in 2000 which was D.O.A. anyway since the Republican establishment was hovering around Texas Gov. George W. Bush. This article is eight years too late. At the end of the day, McCain can come out winning if he's able to spin this as an unfair attack, another example of the media practicing the "politics of personal destruction." And once again—Ethics? Just imagine if Hillary pulls a miracle and she's the nominee, then the media will really have something to run with; with Billary the question will be, Where do we start?

She Wants To Debate

2008-02-14T21:18:00.002-05:00

Sen. Clinton now wants to debate. Before when she was the front-runner, she wanted to keep them to a minimum. Sen. Obama doesn't want to debate. He'll probably win this one and they'll cut back on the number of debates, even though there's one scheduled on MSNBC next week.

Sen. Clinton believes that she performs well in Debates, with Sen. Obama, under-performing due to the heightened expectations that he receives in a debate-setting. (When compared to his speeches, he can't put out a great line in every sentence he utters in the midst of wonky details which comprise such a debate.) Sen. Clinton also believes that the ABC News debate the weekend before New Hampshire helped put her over-the-top. Maybe more debates can re-capture that magic, and make her a contender once again.

Here are the ads that went up in Wisconsin concerning the debates. The first is Sen. Clinton's followed by Sen. Obama's rebuttal.

Clinton: The Enemies List

2008-02-13T19:25:00.002-05:00

In an AP story by Fournier, he lists the different segments of the Democratic Party who may have a bone to pick with the Clintons, and now see a way out vis-à-vis Barack Obama's ascendancy. These are people that won't think twice about abandoning the Clinton Ship as it sinks—and they'll let it sink without remorse:

Labor leaders still angry that Bill Clinton championed the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his centrist agenda.
Social activists who lobbied unsuccessfully to get him to veto welfare reform legislation, a talking point for his 1996 re-election campaign.
Some served in Congress when the Clintons dismissed their advice on health care reform in 1993. Some called her a bully at the time.
DNC members who saw the party committee weakened under the Clintons and watched President Bush use the White House to build up the Republican National Committee.
Senators who had to defend Clinton for lying to the country about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Allies of former Vice President Al Gore who still believe the Lewinsky scandal cost him the presidency in 2000.
House members (or former House members) who still blame Clinton for Republicans seizing control of the House in 1994.
Donors who paid for the Clintons' campaigns and his presidential library.
Folks who owe the Clintons a favor but still feel betrayed or taken for granted. Could that be why Bill Richardson, a former U.N. secretary and energy secretary in the Clinton administration, refused to endorse her even after an angry call from the former president? "What," Bill Clinton reportedly asked Richardson, "isn't two Cabinet posts enough?"

Potomac Primary 2

2008-02-12T21:00:00.001-05:00

McCain wins Virginia amidst a heavy Evangelical turn-out propelling Huckabee competitiveness. Also, Obama beats Clinton in Virginia among Hispanics, 55-45.

Potomac Primary

2008-02-12T20:15:00.001-05:00

Obama Big in Virginia and DC, Maryland also trending Obama; McCain Faces Huckabee Strength

Substantial victories which may repeat weekend Obama sweep. Intriguing exit poll data suggesting Obama is increasing support.

Internals:
In Virginia

Ekes out Clinton on Economy, 60-40
Splits Whites (Clinton 51, Obama 48)
Takes women, 58-42. Women are key natural constituency for Clinton
Wins among college grads and non-college grads
Took 60% of votes of those who earn less than $50K a year
Took 60% of votes of those who live with at least 1 Union member in Household

DC big for Obama too. Maryland is expected to come in for Obama according to exit poll trends, yet results will have to wait until 9:30pm due to poll closing extension.

GOP: Virginia and D.C. too close to call, slim lead as of post time for McCain. While it is mathematically improbable for Huckabee to overcome McCain in delegate count, the conservative electorate in the Republican Party is giving McCain a run for his money and trying to prevent inevitability for McCain. That being said, McCain may still come out tonight a lot closer to clinching the nomination.

Results continue to come in…

Not So Super Anymore

2008-02-10T21:50:00.001-05:00

Apparently Hillary Clinton keeps a picture that she took with Barack Obama and his family inside her Senate office. She sees her rival whenever she goes to work. I'm sure that sometimes, when she sees his smiling gaze with his picture-perfect family, she can't help but think to herself, "How did you pull this off?"

She was it. Presidential campaigns are about the farce of a race and the reality of a coronation. She was the heir to the Democratic throne, the inevitable nominee; it was she who would be the agent which would bring about the Clinton restoration.

But something happened in December. The young, charismatic, inexperienced novice from Illinois, the son of a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, was causing a stir. Iowans—those semi-mythical citizens who've been delegated the responsibility of choosing an early leader, an early winner—opened up their hearts and listened to his message, and de-humanized him. Barack Obama is no longer a candidate but a movement.

He won in Iowa showing that a Black man could win in a white state. And that opened up the floodgates. The press, long messenger-boys for the Clintons, saw an opening and took it. They wrote her obituary and killed her candidacy. They said that Barack was unstoppable. They said that Barack was inevitable. They said that Hillary would be humiliated in New Hampshire…and then she cried.

And New Hampshire made her the second-coming of the "Comeback Kid." (The first "Comeback Kid" actually placed second in 1992.) And everyone again fell back in line. Obama was done.

But it didn't happen that way. She wins Nevada. He wins South Carolina. But Bill Clinton says that Jesse Jackson also won there. And now there's a split. She's not winning everything she's supposed to, he's winning things he's not. So they put her on a plane to accept an award that's made up ad hoc: The winner of the Florida Democratic Primary.

And Super Tuesday was supposed to be Super indeed. For the Republicans it was. John McCain defeated Mitt Romney but created the ascendancy of Mike Huckabee to prevent, however futile, the inevitability of a McCain nomination. For the Democrats it wasn't a Super night for either. It was a tie. Only 50,000 votes out of the approximately 15 million cast separated the two. And when it comes to the delegates, we have no winner. It's February and the race is too-close-to-call.

So on the morning after the night in which nothing happened, news broke that she had lent her campaign $5 million. Obama's campaign countered with the fact that they had raised almost as much in the 24-hours since Super Stalemate. And then the reasons for the media leak became clear. The Clinton ship wasn't sinking. It had not hit an iceberg, it was a tactical move created by the Clinton campaign to get her rank-and-file donor base to come out and salvage an effort that didn't need saving. At the end it was nothing more than a cheap political trick to fundraise millions of dollars, almost double the amount of the original loan, in a short time-span. She's the girl who cried wolf.

So the tie continues. Obama swept the primaries this weekend and is expected to perform strongly in the Potomac Primary this month. This will be Obama's month. But the delegate count remains razor-thin.

So thin in fact that both campaigns are using surrogates to make sure that the so-called "Super Delegates"—elected officials, party members—stay in line. Clinton is using Bill and Chelsea (prompting a reporter from MSNBC to state that the Clinton campaign has "pimped" her out; the reporter is now indefinitely suspended).

And the question will finally be will these Super Delegates go against the voice of the people, even though none exists? Democrats are tied. It is a house divided. Further division won't bode well once the nominee finally gets selected in Denver this summer after the acrimony witnessed this winter and spring.

Now both are trying to play this tired game of lowering expectations. Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, a Latina was replaced with Maggie Williams, a Black woman. Clinton is saying that Obama is the frontrunner; Obama is saying that Clinton is. They do this so that when inevitably one of them wins, they'll be able to say that against the odds they did so, making their quest that much nobler, that much more extraordinary.

Obama is becoming the establishment. I guess it's about time he did. He now has a real, honest-to-God chance in taking this.

All elections are about change. It's as simple as that. Clinton could never overcome that she is more-of-the-same. The tactics that she's used are straight out of negative political playbooks. She tried to defeat her nemesis but she hasn't been able to. And this doesn't happen to a front-runner. Now Obama's leading in delegates and leading in money. But she'll stay in until the end. Peggy Noonan asked if she could lose with grace? I don't see Howard Dean being strong enough to push her to the curb. I see her fighting this until the very end, until the very last casualty, until the very last blood has been spilt. She might really lose this, and the sudden defeat of a Clinton was something that no one could have predicted.

A message of hope and "yes we can" beat out a message of thirty-five years of experience. As Obama likes to bring up—the wrong kind of experience. And it's ironic that Obama is winning this running as Clinton in '92.

The super-delegates have to give this to Obama. It's seemingly the end of the Clinton effort. He's even making the sage argument of electability now. The Republican playbook, the worst-kept secret in Washington, has been filled page-by-page with ways to defeat Hillary. Now it has to be re-written with Obama.

Tuesday showed us that there was no evident winner, but there is a loser, and that loser is Hillary Clinton. She's losing her stranglehold on what was once thought of as a fait accompli. She's losing her grip on something that she thought was rightfully hers.

If It's Saturday...

2008-02-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

Obama wins: Lousiana, Nebraska and Washington.

A sweep for Barack Obama, making this the lede in tomorrow morning's Sunday papers.

For the Republicans:

Huckabee wins the GOP caucus in Kansas, GOP primaries in Louisiana and Washington too close to call, with Huckabee leading in Louisiana and McCain in Washington...

Developing...

Update (10:36am ET): Mike Huckabee beats John McCain in Louisiana in a squeaker, 43-42% or by a margin of 2,056 votes; John McCain prevents a Huckabee sweep by winning in Washington, where Ron Paul had a strong showing.

Weekend Videos

2008-02-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

The following videos are from Slate Magazine, one of my favorite websites:

The first, is entitled "Obama Promises Change. Who hasn't?"

Goes to show that the only thing constant is change itself...

This second video, entitled, "Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick," compares the 2008 Democratic race to the 1999 Reese Witherspoon-Matthew Broderick "Election" movie:

Romney's Out

2008-02-07T12:36:00.000-05:00

MITT ROMNEY DROPS OUT OF RACE...

Mitt Romney has seen the numbers, he's not going to pull any delegates to overcome McCain, and he's not willing to push more money towards his campaign.

Sources: Romney "lives to fight for another day..." He's positioning himself for another stab at it in four or eight years.

Romney to announce at CPAC publicly.

Huckabee remains where he'll do strong in other southern primaries, but McCain is now positioned to gather delegates.

Mike Huckabee might follow suit, and suspend his campaign soon, so that the McCain effort can begin forming an offensive against Obama or Clinton.

John McCain will be crowned in St. Paul come August.

Update (1:04ET): Romney at CPAC: "Soon, the face of liberalism in America will have a new name. Whether it is Barack or Hillary... I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror. If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror... This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose... If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country."

The Post Game Show: Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T23:09:00.001-05:00

It's somewhat difficult to thoroughly describe all the moving parts right now. Who's winning? Who's losing? Who's about done? What actually happened last night?

***

The Republicans:

The Republican race is beginning to take on a narrative of inevitability for John McCain. NBC News projects that Sen. McCain has gathered 720 delegates, needing just 471 more delegates before he gets crowned in St. Paul this summer. Govs. Romney and Huckabee trail by a wide margin (256-194). John McCain, who's guerilla campaign in 2000 proved futile against the Bush machine now finds himself, eight years later, as the establishment candidate, the bona fide front-runner, the nominee presumptive of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. He is it. No matter the attacks that he's received from right-wing talk radio, especially Rush Limbaugh, the party will coalesce around the McCain candidacy on the assumption that he is indeed the most electable. McCain is sending out olive branches to the different sects which comprise the Republican Party.

Tomorrow, he'll make an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C., where he has never been a popular figure and has failed to attend the conference in recent years. There, McCain will take on the "Son of Reagan" attributes that he has cloaked around himself since his candidacy began. He'll make the argument that once again, he is a Conservative candidate in the race. Among Conservatives actually, exit polls suggest that McCain is not faring that badly. Among Evangelicals it becomes a different story. Evangelicals are the most loyal voting bloc in the Republican Party and what has prevented Romney from picking up any votes has been Huckabee's candidacy. It is telling that last night, McCain won in states that a Republican will find difficult, if not impossible, to win come November. He picked up New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, and California; while Huckabee did well in the Solid South, winning in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia. Romney prevented humiliation by winning in Massachusetts where McCain had placed a last stand in an effort to strike a death blow to the Romney effort. Romney also did well in traditional Republican states such as Montana, North Dakota, and Utah (where he has a natural constituency).

John McCain is going to have to convince voters that he is one of them. At CPAC, he's going to roll out with a video showing him with Ronald Reagan, his campaign has deployed surrogates (see Dole, Bob) to trump up his Conservative credentials.

Huckabee had a great night last night. It's been the conventional wisdom that Huckabee would be a strong candidate for the Vice-Presidency—a possibility which grew with Huckabee's electoral victories on Super Tuesday. He showed that he's not a one-hit wonder, and that there are many Republican voters that are indeed attracted to his candidacy. Today Huckabee did the morning news shows making the point that while the mainstream media had written him off and made the Republican narrative a two-man race, that it was, and until now, remains a three-man race. Huckabee says that he's not done yet, but he'll pick up and end this in another month. He'll stay in just to show the establishment, and McCain himself, that he is indeed potent and viable.

Romney was supposed to be in meetings today with his staff engaging in "frank" discussions as to where his campaign goes from here. Romney sees the writing on the wall, and he's restrained himself in further attacking McCain. Romney will pull out before the Convention, since he does not want to be a spoiler of inevitability, and he's thinking about the future, four years down the line, eight years down the line, when the party becomes grateful for how he handled himself during this campaign and may indeed favor him for the nomination in the future.

This was always supposed to happen. The Republican Party is the party of order, organization, and hierarchy. The Republicans always crown an heir-apparent and create a standard-bearer. There's no chaos in the Republican Party. There's whose-turn-is-it-now. Over the last election cycles, it's been this way. This is the party that nominates George W. Bush. This is the party that nominates Bob Dole.

In fact, the last two times that there's been chaos at Republican Party conventions were because of Ronald Reagan. The first-time in 1976, the closest we've come to a floor-fight in recent years, occurred because Reagan was viable enough to mount an effort against the sitting president, Gerald Ford, for the nomination. At the end Ford won the nomination but lost the General Election against Jimmy Carter. In 1980, there were some moments of late-night drama when rumors hit the floor that Reagan was in talks with Ford to offer Ford the Vice-Presidency. The negotiations broke apart when no one could figure out exactly how Ford's vice presidency would practically work since he was a former president of the United States. Many spoke of co-presidencies (see Clinton, William J. and Hillary), and at the end, Reagan gave the vice presidency to George H.W. Bush who would create the linear path to the presidency for George W. Bush.

***

The Democrats:

I guess the biggest surprise from last night was Clinton's margin of victory in California. Once again, the "Shock Poll" that was splashed on Drudge all day was wrong. It was New Hampshire all over again. At the end of the day, Clinton won by 10 (52-42), with help from strong Hispanic support, a majority of women voters, and lower-than-expected African-American turnout. Obama won thirteen states, Clinton won 9. She won the big Democratic states, and Obama did well in traditional "Red" states.

The thing about the Democrats…they're tied.

Depending on which delegate projections you believe (I'm sticking with NBC's), it's thisclose. Some projections have Clinton +79. Others are not attempting to project whether the Super Delegates who pledged support will stick by the candidate in the future. Be it as it may, when it comes to delegates—and a Democrat needs 2,025 to win—it's a tie. Super Tuesday did not decide anything. It's made the race tighter, and it will make it longer. Next week the so-called "Potomac Primary" will take place, and many believe that Clinton and Obama will once again split the votes and the delegates there.

The Democrats have two candidates that resonate with their base this time. Nationwide, close to 14 million Democrats voted last night. Clinton won the popular vote by around 53,000 votes—or less than ½ of 1%. It's that close.

Howard Dean has already stated that if by May there's no clear front-runner, no clear winner—which there isn't at this point—that he'll try to step in and broker a deal in order to avoid a floor-fight at the Convention in Denver.

Chris Matthews tried to get his panel to declare who's the front-runner in the Democratic race. No one gave a clear answer. The front-runner is Barack Obama. What he pulled off last night was an astonishing feat. In states where just a couple of months ago he was 20 points, 30 points behind, he was able to narrow the margin, and indeed won some of them.

His biggest win was to ensure that Hillary Clinton is not the inevitable candidate anymore. New Hampshire made Hillary the second incarnation of the "Comeback Kid" but will the future prognostications hold? Conventional Wisdom holds that if Super Tuesday would've been next week and not last night, Obama might have indeed won big in California and in other states where he was making important gains. The momentum's with Obama. He is the knight, and his mission, his journey, as Maureen Dowd wrote today, is "to slay the dragon." And the Dragon can be slain. And the death blow will come not by a sword, but by a wallet.

Obama is about to raise another $30 Million this month. Previously he raised $32 Million in January. Since last night, he's raised $4 Million. His donors haven't been exhausted like Clinton's. Clinton has probably the best fund-raiser in the Democratic Party in the person of Terry McAuliffe, and he can't fundraise anymore. Clinton's donor rolls have been exhausted because most have given the allowable limit. It was shocking when Drudge had a red-colored alert all day today shouting to the world that Clinton had lent herself, err her campaign, $5 Million. That coupled with the news that some of her staffers are now working pro bono—going without pay for this month—suggests a campaign in crisis. Hillary Clinton, the once inevitable candidate, the long-time front-runner, has a cash flow problem. This doesn't happen to a front-runner. And we already had one Lazarus in this campaign.

Super Tuesday Results 5

2008-02-06T00:43:00.001-05:00

CLINTON, MCCAIN WIN CALIFORNIA

The big results came in almost simultaneously around 12:15am.

Clinton: Held onto lead in California, lower-than-expected African-American turnout, Clinton keeps Hispanics without much erosion. An important factor that might have been a key to her success was early-voting: Many people voted before Obama took off as of late with his momentum, adding credence to the conventional wisdom that if Super Tuesday would have been held one week later, Obama might have fared better in California. Clinton's lead in California is indeed quite substantial. Women made up 55% of California Democratic voters, 57% voted for Clinton. 65% of Hispanics voted for Clinton. As the delegates come in, we'll have a clearer picture as to where this race stands, but I believe it's not completely over for Obama.

McCain: Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement might have been the key to putting McCain over the top. Among Republican voters many approved of Gov. Schwarzenegger and among those who approved of him, they went for McCain. More exit polling data to be posted as they become available.

Today, Wednesday, Romney will have "frank discussions" with his staff as to where he goes from here.

The narrative will be on full display later this morning as the spinning continues when Today, Good Morning America, and The Early Show go live on the East Coast.

Update (12:57am ET): NBC News predicts that the Delegate count for Democrats as of right now has Obama +4, 841-837.

Update (8:25am ET): RCP's delegate counts with the overnight numbers coming in have Clinton leading Obama in the Delegates count, 897-822, which has Hillary +75.

Update (8:43am ET): Tim Russert went on the Today show, saying that NBC's projections hold that Obama captured 840 delegates last night, to Clinton's 830. The Obama Campaign believes that they won 845 delegates to Clinton's 836, as shown on a spreadsheet which they released. They also state that in terms of total delegates number, Obama has 908 pledged delegates to Clinton's 884.

Note: RCP is using projections gather from the Associated Press, Washington Post, CBS News and RCP's own numbers. At this point, however, with how NBC and the Obama campaigns have successfully analyzed the race (the Obama campaign was the first to accurately state that they had indeed won more delegates in Nevada), I trust that the NBC News and Obama numbers give us higher confidence in their prognostication. DrudgeReport also believes this as he has made "Election Shock: Obama passes Clinton in Delegate Count" as its top headline.

Super Tuesday Results 4

2008-02-05T23:38:00.001-05:00

At the end of the day, it's about the delegates. The widget that I have on the right side-bar denotes the official delegate count as assigned by official election results, according to the NBC News Politics Desk.

Obama and McCain are still awaiting the results coming out of California, which might take awhile to come in. More than a million voters voted with absentee ballots and they need to be counted and can indeed sway the campaign. We may not have substantial numbers until early tomorrow morning.

That being said, McCain is pulling far ahead of Romney in delegate count, and Huckabee might even have more delegates than Romney when all is said and done. If this happens, Huckabee, who until tonight was a one-hit wonder (Iowa) might indeed become viable again and be the "Conservative" alternative to McCain. Depending on what happens in California, McCain may not have this completely locked. Again, it's all California. As of right now (11:33ET), with 6% of precincts reporting, McCain leads Romney by 100,000 votes in California. Romney might indeed not pursue this to the end, positioning himself for another presidential run. He's not that popular within the establishment and he doesn't want to ruin his chances to become the standard-bearer of the party in the future. We might have a Republican nominee by the end of the week, even as early as tomorrow.

The Obama campaign says that their internal Delegate number shows Obama leading 606-534. Conventional wisdom holds than neither candidate on the Democratic side pulls away from a with a substantial delegate margin after tonight, therefore the nominee may indeed take some time to decide, with a small possibility that we'll once again witness an honest-to-God Convention floor fight when the Democrats meet in Denver come late August.

Update (11:45ET): Obama: "Our Time Has Come..."

Super Tuesday Results 3

2008-02-05T22:36:00.001-05:00

Trends (as of 10:30ET):

Obama has won 8 states, Clinton 6
- Obama campaign said to be "over-performing" in some states which can help when the delegate count is accurately assigned
- Hillary wins Massachusetts which puts into question how potent the Kennedy endorsement really was
- Early worry in the Clinton camp since it took some time to call Tennessee—a couple of months ago Tennessee was solidly Clinton
McCain has won six states, Huckabee three states, Romney two states
- McCain is performing strongly in traditional states which would be considered solid "blue" in the General election
  - Picks up states that were once considered to be Giuliani gains
- Romney retains Massachusetts where McCain had stopped to campaign in an effort to humiliate Romney
- Huckabee strong in the south…suggestions arise that he'll become a viable candidate for Veep
Exit Poll snapshots:
- Economy is the most important issue for both Democrats and Republicans (45-47).
  - Democrats after economy: War (29), Healthcare (18)
  - Republicans after economy: Illegal Immigration (22), Iraq (20)
  - 44% of Republicans believe the economy is good, 8% of Democrats agree
- Democrats are looking for change over experience, and Obama 72% believe Obama can bring change. 25% believe that of Clinton
- More Democrats believe Clinton would make a better Commander in Chief, but Obama would unite the country
- Demographics:
  - Obama gaining among women and whites, almost splitting and at times beating Clinton in the White Male vote; Clinton leading among Hispanics
  - McCain leads among Moderates, Romney among Conservatives
  - Evangelicals: Almost split evenly among the three Republicans

The "Big Enchilada," California, polls close in half an hour as of this posting.

Super Tuesday Results 2

2008-02-05T19:20:00.001-05:00

OBAMA WINS GEORGIA

Just after 7:00 ET when the polls in Georgia closed, the networks went ahead and projected Barack Obama the winner in Georgia. Significance: Called early thus exit polls must show strong Obama trending. This was one of the keys to look for as Super Tuesday began, if Obama would've had some problem here, then it would not bode well for his nationwide effort. Obviously that has not come to pass.

For the Republicans, it is a tight three-way race for first.

Update (10:42ET): Huckabee wins Georgia.

Super Tuesday Television Media Coverage

2008-02-05T19:13:00.001-05:00

Super Tuesday coverage may parallel Election Night coverage on the networks:

ABC NEWS: Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos anchor from 8:00pm ET – 1:00am ET, or later…
NBC NEWS: Brian Williams anchors, with analysis from Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw and NBC News Correspondents from 10:00pm ET – 11:00pm ET
MSNBC: Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, joined by Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, Joe Scarborough and others anchor from 6:00pm ET – 2:00am ET
CBS NEWS: Katie Couric, joined by Bob Schieffer and Jeff Greenfield, anchor from 9:00pm ET – 11:00pm ET
CNN: Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Lou Dobbs, Campbell Brown, Larry King and CNN Correspondents anchor from 6:00pm ET – 2:00am ET
FOX NEWS: Brit Hume, Sheppard Smith, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Bill O'Reilly and Fox News Correspondents anchor from 6:00pm ET – 2:00am ET

First Super Tuesday Results...

2008-02-05T14:20:00.000-05:00

West Virginia: Huckabee wins Caucus...

As The Page is reporting, there are rumors of a deal between McCain and Huckabee to stop Romney from capturing W. Virginia where he was ahead by 8 votes at the party convention for the delegates. This lends credence to the notion that there might be a McCain-Huckabee ticket come fall, if McCain is indeed the presumptive nominee after tonight.

Huckabee now adds 18 delegates, further making tonight an uphill battle for Romney.

More to come...

Update (3:57 ET): Romney Campaign responds to deal: "Sadly, Senator McCain cut a Washington backroom deal in a way that once again underscores his legacy of working against Republicans."

Update (11:06 ET): Huckabee confirms on MSNBC in an interview with Chris Matthews, saying that there was no deal with the McCain campaign in West Virginia, as was announced by the Romney campaign. Huckabee: "John McCain and I actually believe that politics can be conducted in a civil, gentlemanly way...I know that this may be a shock to the Romney campaign."

Super Tuesday Update

2008-02-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

Romney and McCain launch the first shots on Super Tuesday, hijacking the morning news cycle:

Romney went on Fox this morning, after Bob Dole publicly chided Rush Limbaugh yesterday when Dole sent him a letter telling him to stop his public attacks on McCain. Following Romney's statements, McCain has repeatedly called on Romney to apologize. Romney landed in California where Drudge is reporting a new daily tracking shock poll which has him up by 7 there. The same poll has Obama up by 13, yesterday by 6.

Romney also released this web-only ad as he's trying to jump on the bandwagon that Conservatives in the party started trying to derail the McCain inevitability:

The Democrats are being fairly quiet this morning, Barack Obama will be in Chicago, Clinton in New York.

Look at Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri and New Jersey as they close before 9:00 ET. If Georgia goes big for Obama it's going to be a good night for him. McCain is also trying to embarass Romney in Massachusetts and pick up New Jersey. Missouri is going to be tight, between Clinton and Obama, Obama having the endorsement of popular freshman Senator Claire McCaskill.

The Pre-Game Post: Super Tuesday

2008-02-04T14:06:00.001-05:00

I've noticed that in every non-incumbent presidential election there's always a political party which the media favors covering. From the elections that I've witnessed first-hand the party which receives the most media coverage wins. It comes back to the most rudimentary of voting theories: Name I.D. (recognition) is the number one factor which determines electability. In 2000, there was more media attention with the Republicans and the Bush-McCain battle. This year, the media attention lies squarely with the Democrats and the Clinton-Obama battle. Among them, Barack Obama is getting the most media attention. Second to him: Bill Clinton.

***

Tomorrow California votes. Channeling Rather and Nixon, California is the Big Enchilada with 441 delegates. It is not a winner-take all state, so most likely Hillary Clinton and Obama will split the vote. Yet, there's nothing like a person being declared the "winner" of California. As of this morning, there's a statistical tie out there, with Clinton being up, on average (taking into account the latest polls) by .06, while Obama is up by 1 in two polls, and by 6 in the Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Carville said that if Clinton doesn't take California, she'll have an uphill battle as the road to the Convention continues. Clinton is counting on support from the major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Obama is banking on support from more suburban voters in eastern California. Clinton is also relying on Hispanic turnout to propel her over the top tomorrow. This Hispanic turnout was instrumental in Clinton's "win" over Obama in Nevada—there's something about 10,500 voters with a margin of only 582 votes separating Clinton and Obama that doesn't wreak of a win for Clinton (even though Bush won the presidency in Florida by 537). Clinton pollster Sergio Bendixen received blogosphere fame earlier this year when, in an interview with The New Yorker stated that "The Hispanic voter—and I want to say this very carefully—has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." Talk about descriptive voting…This might all change tomorrow in California if Obama wins, and especially if he makes substantial in-roads among Hispanic voters. Obama's falling behind Clinton in capturing the Hispanic vote because of name identification. Hispanic voters know the Clinton family, know the Clinton brand. They know Hillary and Bill and they know they're Democrats just like them. Hispanics haven't been introduced to the phenomenon that is Barack Obama. But he's trying to introduce himself, and if he can capture a good percentage of the Hispanic vote, HRC's playbook for California might just become moot. Obama captured an important endorsement just ahead of Super Tuesday: La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper.

California's going to be big and if the numbers in the Reuters poll holds then it's going to be a good night for the Obama effort. Maria Shriver, California's first lady, has joined her cousin Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Obama. (Her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed McCain.) Obama's playing offense against Hillary with Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, and Shriver all in California campaigning for him.

The Democrats also debated last week and it was a venerable love-fest. The acrimony present at the Republican debate—more below—was missing. There was also talk about a "Dream Team" combination. The Democrats had to come back from the brink. After the State of the Union and the supposed "snub"—Obama not shaking Clinton's hand—everything has mellowed out. Leading up to that, and the uncontrollable Bill Clinton spouting his mouth at every opportunity he could, they were both en route to self-destruction and a fragmented convention. If history teaches us anything, it is that the voter's—or at least those that actually tune-in to watch convention coverage, now relegated to one hour a night, three out of the four nights on the broadcast channels—do not like a fragmented convention. It's good that Bill has been reined in. That's no way for a former president of the United States to be behaving.

***

On the Republican side, all signs pointed to the possibility that the party would unite itself around McCain. He's even planning a weekend trip to Europe. His top advisor is planning a vacation. McCain is the most electable, beating both Clinton and Obama—narrowly. Clinton and Obama beat any other Republican running for president.

Apparently the Republican leadership however didn't get the memo. Today's Washington Post is splashing with a front-page story on McCain and most specifically, his temper. This was the top headline on Drudge for many hours in the morning.

McCain has the ability to seal the deal tomorrow night. If he takes California, which all signs point to yes and a number of other states, all he really needs is to be up by at least 100 delegates over Romney. The question will then become as to when Romney is going to call it quits. He has money and he has some of the establishment falling behind him. To say nothing of the fact of Rush Limbaugh who still controls a powerful soapbox is railing against McCain almost on a daily basis. It's also as if he never got the memo that McCain is about to become the standard-bearer of the Republican Party.

***

Super Tuesday is a dress rehearsal for the networks. ABC is going on all-night coverage. CBS is going to do two hours in primetime, and NBC is going to do one, with continuing coverage on MSNBC. The network anchors are in place from their customized election-central sets in New York. The print and on-air, and yes the blogging correspondents are all deployed with their respective campaigns. And this election cycle has shown us that we're all wrong. I was reading some posts I wrote earlier on this blog in which I contended that no matter what happened, Hillary Clinton was unstoppable that she was going to win everything and win big. And that didn't come to fruition.

When Clinton lost in Iowa, all eyes turned to impending death in New Hampshire. The media took her teary-eyed episode the day before as signs that she knew it was all over. Bill was attacking the Obama campaign as being nothing more than a fairy-tale. Today with polls showing Clinton losing her lead in California, there's another semi-tearful episode to report.

But the media wrote the Clinton Campaign obituary after Iowa. She resurrected after New Hampshire, and then became a favorite after meaningless wins in Nevada and Florida, and many still believe that she is inevitable. Even though a great number do not want to see a restoration to another scandal-prone, polarized Clinton White House. Once again, Gore Vidal's belief that we live in the United States of Amnesia harkens truth. It'll be a return to all that we ran away from when we voted for Bush. It'll be a return to the drama, to a state of civil war in Washington. Another do-nothing Administration and another do-nothing Congress. No one really expects Bill Clinton to stay out of policy-making deliberations. A Bill Clinton with nothing to do in the White House is a scary thought. Scary in the sense that he'll run his mouth like he's doing now, causing more harm than good. As Ambassador to the World, he'll do pretty well, since he is almost universally liked outside of America, but there's obviously no chance that he'll stay out of America. Two Clintons in the White House: a shivering thought indeed.

The question is can Obama take it? Even though McCain is the only Republican that beats both Clinton and Obama, he beats Obama narrowly. There are a lot of what-ifs. What if the base isn't as motivated to come out and vote for McCain if he's running against Obama? Who's going to be McCain's running mate? A lot of murmurings surround the question with the belief that it's going to be Huckabee, that that's the only reason why he's remained in the race. By Huckabee staying in, he's siphoning votes off of Romney's potential in-roads. Huckabee joins the ticket and the base will have someone to come out and vote for. There was some press two weeks ago talking about how Romney is not popular with the other contenders. Life as High School. Assuming that it's going to be McCain versus Clinton, it is safe to assume that the base will come out strong for McCain on Election Day. The only thought that scares the base more than one Clinton in the White House is two of them. With Clinton on the top of the ticket, McCain will have more flexibility in choosing a running mate who is more centrist and moderate.

Tomorrow night's going to be big. McCain can become the standard bearer of the Republican Party going forward, and Obama may become the heir to Camelot, ending the, what was once thought of inevitable, Clinton ascendancy.

McCain and Obama: Change versus more of the same. Stay tuned.

Obama Videos

2008-02-04T08:05:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama's campaign bought local tv airtime in 24 states during the Super Bowl last night. My homestate of Florida was not one of them since our primary already occurred. Local TV airtime is cheaper than national airtime. This is the 30-second spot which aired:

The following is also a 4:30 music video hitting the web. The producer is will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas and features an array of pop culture stars, including Scarlett Johansson, Kate Walsh and others. Obama's "Yes We Can" speech as art:

Not off to a good start...

2008-02-03T11:01:00.000-05:00

Much like "The Daily Nightly," the blog for the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, I'm going to take you the reader behind the scenes...

There probably won't be a post today because of the Super Bowl, etc., and other "personal" events that I've committed myself to, e.g., a Super Bowl party...

But Post-Game--by "Game" I mean Super Tuesday--analysis forthcoming this week.

I'll also see how many words I'll actually be jotting down. 2,000 a week seem somewhat excessive. Eventually I'll make a decision on whether I should post once a week, like Frank Rich, or do two 800-words essay twice a week.

Today notwithstanding, I'm also removing time-limits. 11am ET on Sundays restricts me since many times, news-worthy interviews are conducted on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, or This Week which should be posted. The only thing I could promise right now is that posts will come at anytime Sundays and Wednesdays...

Thanks for checking in...

Editor's Note

2008-01-31T18:24:00.001-05:00

While recognizing the fact that I have not updated this site as much as I would have liked to in the past, I have come to the decision that I will drive myself to post twice weekly.

In order to do so, and in order to re-create the "real world" environment of opinion columnists, I will set deadlines for myself. There will be posts on these two days:

*Sundays by 11am ET: A 1,500-word essay.
*Wednesdays by 11am ET: A 500 word essay.

(In the interest of full-disclosure, I chose these days to mirror the current New York Times columnist rotation: Dowd, Friedman, and Rich all write on Sundays and Wednesdays.)

Now that the presidential race has solidified around a two-person race on each side, and that Super Tuesday, the closest we have to a national primary being less than a week away, I believe that this is the right time to make these changes in order to make this site more relevant and informative...rather than just my occasional ramblings.

I look forward to your readership, and to any and all comments and critiques that you might have.

Best regards,

Yasser O. Navarrete

The Audacity of Change

2007-12-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

I’ve seen this show before.

A person is anointed and crowned. The Leader of the Free World is Chosen. It always happens this way. No matter what. New Hampshire did not make Bill Clinton the “Comeback Kid.” George W. Bush was never The Outsider. John Kerry was never going to be the President.

No matter the parlor games that are played inside the Beltway or in a studio or newsroom in Midtown Manhattan, people always know who is going to win, who will be president. Without a doubt, in 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush was not going to be re-elected to the presidency. Bill Clinton saw his meteoritic rise from the 1988 Democratic Convention where he was the keynote speaker to the 1992 Democratic Convention where he accepted his party’s nomination for president. He was unstoppable. He was never down and out. No scandal would stick. He was Teflon. He was Bulletproof. And he was going to dispose of Bob Dole in 1996 without breaking a sweat and speaking about building the bridge towards the 21st century. But people wanted others to believe that we had a real honest to God race out there. We didn’t.

In 2000, after eight years in exile, the Republicans crowned the heir apparent, the Governor of Texas, the son of the defeated ex-president. And no matter the insurgency that McCain would mount in New Hampshire, everyone knew that George W. Bush was going to be his party’s nominee. And going into election night, everyone knew that he was going to win, no matter how close the polls said the race was. During the post-election meltdown, everyone knew that no matter what the courts deliberated, they would always rule in his favor. Brokaw said on election night “George W. Bush is the president-elect.” And nothing was going to change that.

The same thing happens to those who don’t win the big prize. In September 2003, Time Magazine ran an article exulting Gov. Dean’s lead in Iowa. The Republicans kept on spinning knowing full well that there was no way in Hell that he was going to win this one. John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts was dying a merciless death in the wheat fields. The Democrats were waiting for Gore to come back and challenge the presidential pretender. In January Dean howled and Kerry triumphed. And that was it, the end of the primary. The Bush camp dumped an immediate Ad War against Kerry framing him in the eyes of the voters: flip-flopping Liberal New England elite who married into money. And there was no doubt that no matter what, George W. Bush would accomplish the one thing that had eluded his father: re-election.

I’ve seen this show before.

***

The good old days never were.

The floor fights at the conventions never transpired. Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek nor would accept his party’s nomination for president. A month before the sitting president was defeated in New Hampshire by Sen. McCarthy who was running on an anti-war campaign. With Johnson out the establishment gave it to Humphrey, the sitting vice-president. Humphrey battled McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. History of course has a way of being cyclical. With Kennedy’s assassination in June, the stage was set for Humphrey’s coronation amidst the police riot in Chicago, in one of the most nauseating episodes in American political history. There was no doubt that Humphrey was going to win even though we didn’t wish for that. We wanted Bobby. We wanted what was taken away from us. He would bring us together. He would give us the audacity of change. Ted White and Kennedy myth-creator Arthur Schlesinger Jr., always argued that Bobby would’ve won it in Chicago and that the protests and Daly-terrorism would never have happened. The politics though would’ve given it to the establishment. Humphrey had the delegates and McCarthy was never going to quit. Kennedy would never have won a majority to break the stalemate, and the delegates would propel Humphrey to the top. When Bobby died in Los Angeles, Humphrey already had 150 more delegate votes than Bobby, and 300 more than McCarthy. Bobby wasn’t going to be president, assassins’ bullet or not.

In Miami Beach the Republican Party was coming around to the idea that the Southern Strategy would guarantee victory—Bill Clinton remains the only Democratic president re-elected since the implementation of the Southern Strategy. And there was a faux split that was being presented but was never actually there. The Liberal wing of the Republican Party headed by a Governor of New York and a Mayor of New York City—both running for president—battled California’s favorite sons, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, for the direction of the party. This was a victory for the conscience of the Conservative. And no matter what happened Nixon was going to win. And he was going to win the presidency.

There’s no point anymore in thinking about counter-factuals. Even when we try to romanticize the what-ifs, the possibility of changes in history, we come back to the facts. Nothing was going to change it.

The good old days never were.

***

We now have the courage to pursue the audacity of change.

And that’s the real reason why this presidential race is so fluid. Take me for example, by this time in every presidential election cycle I already know who the winner is going to be. At this time during the 1992 campaign I wasn’t yet interested in politics, but by this time in 1996, I knew that Clinton was going to win re-election. Even though there have only been three presidential elections that I have followed and have correctly prognosticated who has won—this track record of mine is going strong now for a dozen years. And I’m at a loss right now. I just don’t know. Something tells me that Giuliani is going to emerge past Huckabee and Romney and confront the Clinton war-machine and win. Something tells me that this is what is supposed to happen and that it indeed will. The re-run in my head tells me that this is it, that it is indeed, déjà vu all over again.

This same show tells me that no matter how many Stadiums Oprah and Barack fill, the HRC Campaign will take it all and take it big. Don’t pay attention to the polls in Iowa, Hillary will win there. She’ll take New Hampshire strong and South Carolina and it’s on to Super Tuesday and she’ll win there. No matter what. Obama would make a good veep, but she’ll give it to Richardson. And it’ll be Clinton-Richardson (who were the not-ready-for-primetime players in the 90’s) against Giuliani-Huckabee.

On Sunday night when I attended the Univision debate held at UM I thought that for sure I was going to come out of there knowing who had won. I don’t know if anyone did. Ron Paul’s honesty and apathy towards pandering is refreshing. Huckabee spoke well. Giuliani and Romney didn’t do anything to take it out of the ballpark and McCain spoke truthfully and with his hand on his heart, but no one listened and no one will ever let him in.

A War Election? A Change Election?

I guess we’re coming to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter who the president is. That no matter what they’ll follow the same long-term strategic goals and conduct business as usual. We placed our faith in the Bush Administration as being the first MBA Presidency. We placed our faith in this team as the self-anointed “Dream Team” of American Foreign Policy: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice. They were the grown-ups compared to Clinton’s kids who were running around the White House without knowing what to do next. And the Grown-Ups let us down. Those kids from the Clinton White House have come of age and are now the self-anointed Dream Team of politicos and policy-wonks. But I don’t think they’ve learned much since their first tour of duty during the 1990’s. At the end no one has the experience. No one has the courage to be a leader. It’s business as usual in America, and we lose sight of our dreams and aspirations in return for economic and social comfort. And no matter which party controls the White House after next year’s election, we may be a little better off than we are now…or we may not…this is the future status-quo.

But it needn’t be a fait accompli. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Barack Hussein Obama became president of the United States? People from all over the world would see that the United States of America is not represented by another Old White Man. So what if he’s not experienced? So what if he hasn’t fulfilled his sentence in Washington? This man is our Bobby:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. (Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention.)

He’s young, he’s charismatic. And we project what we want to see in us onto him. He is our tabula rasa. He’s Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in one. He’s change. He’s unlike anything we’ve ever had before. He’s presidential. He’s ready.

As a Republican, I support Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president.

As a Republican, I will most probably support Rudy Giuliani, the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States.

“All life is a preparation for something that probably will never happen.”

Unless we have the courage to pursue the audacity of change.

The Evitable Inevitable

2007-11-05T09:15:00.000-05:00

This past week's Saturday Night Live's opening captures the political drama that unfolded following last Tuesday's debate in Philadelphia. (What MSNBC dubbed, "The Battle of Philadelphia.") For the first time in an otherwise sophisticated, rapid-fire, disciplined campaign, the front-runner fumbled. Amidst the on-slaught from her rivals, and the tough questioning from the moderators--NBC's Brian Williams and Tim Russert--Hillary Clinton had the worst performance of her primary campaign. Her campaign staff knew it. The morning after the debate, on a conference call, a staff member said that Tim Russert "should be shot," shortly thereafter taking it quickly back.

Hillary Clinton is the evitable inevitable. Just when we all thought that this was business as usual, that Hillary was going to storm through her primaries and be the de facto nominee by February, things quickly changed. Obama, Edwards, and even Dodd knew that it's either stop her now, or she'll be unstoppable. And they piled on her. The Clinton campaign released a video last Wednesday entitled the "Politics of Piling On," in which they try to portray Clinton as being unnecessarily picked on by the rest of her Democratic rivals. The message that they were trying to convey was that amidst the on-slaught from her rivals, she remained cool, that she stood her ground. The subtle message that did come through was as simple of this: the mean old white guys are picking on the only girl. The day after the debate she visited Wellesley, her Alma Mater, and said that her time at Wellesley prepared her to be able to be the only viable female presidential candidate. That Wellesley prepared her to break through the ultimate glass ceiling.

This is now Hillary Woman, hear her roar. Her campaign has seen the demographics and the polling data, and like George Wil mentioned yesterday, they're ready to tap into an extremely populated group of voters that can, if carefully nourished and played, be what the Evangelicals were for the Republicans. These are Hillary's foot soldiers. And these are women. For the first time ever, there are as many single women voters as there are married women voters. Single women are the treasure drove of the Democratic Party. They vote close to 60% Democrat and they're a huge portion of the electorate. They actually come out to vote. And while Hillary thought that the way to win was to act testosterone-strong, Thatcherite even, following Tuesday's performance, she's going back to her feminist roots. Will it work? I don't think so. She can't have it both ways. Will these women actually vote for Hillary? It's a possibility. But as Sen. Dodd mentioned, a Pew poll that came out stated that no matter what, close to 50% of the electorate will NOT vote for Hillary Clinton.

Signs that this new strategy isn't working can be seen in today's Politico where a report states that she's backing off this notion of being picked on by men, following a split in the Feminist camp of the Democratic party. The Politico, by the way has some of the best reporting out there on the debate, with key quotes. Roger Simon, their editor, summed it up quite nicely: "We now know something that we did not know before: When Hillary Clinton has a bad night, she really has a bad night." And it was just a great night for Obama and Edwards. We'll see how it plays out in Iowa, where Hillary--not running a national primary like Giuliani--must win to prove her inevitablity which translates to voters as electability. In Iowa, Clinton is leading Obama and Edwards, 29-27-20. Obama and Clinton are statistically tied due to being within the margin of error. And Edwards is looking to come back from behind and he'll be taking big shots at Hillary: “Who is honest? Who is sincere? Who has integrity? Not Hillary." Edwards has been doing this the strongest for a couple of months, even deploying his wife to go after her. Obama, trying to be Eugene McCarthy has taken on a more adversarial role too...even though HRC hit him back with it saying that he's now practicing what he preached against when he announced his candidacy. This is the problem with coming off as being holier-than-thou from the onset of the campaign.

In college I wrote a paper entitled, "1968: The Inaguration of Modern Presidential Elections." There I argued the following: "In many ways, the Election of 1968 is the permanent campaign. In Presidential Election Politics consciously or sub-consciously, we keep re-living 1968, in the sense that from it we received the inauguration of strategies and outcomes which have shaped how presidential elections are run and won. In 1968 we saw important background issues that became salient political concerns which influenced the outcome of that presidential election. While background issues are not enough to overwhelmingly dictate an outcome, when coupled with new political strategies and tactics, along with media influences which changed the way that campaigns were covered, 1968 has created a template by which presidential campaigns are made viable." And looking back at 1968, which was an amazing year in terms of Presidential Politics, I could've made the point that George Wil made yesterday--even the personalities are the same. Barack Obama as Eugene McCarthy/Bobby Kennedy. Hillary Clinton as Hubert Humphrey. And Humphrey won the Democratic Primary. And Rudy Giuliani as Richard Nixon. And Nixon won the Presidential Election. I'm thinking of elaborating on that essay, and really explore how we still remain in 1968.

Today's quick political updates:

Edwards is going to keep up his attack on Clinton today in Iowa, going after her double-talk: "Votes like a Hawk in Washington, Talks like a Dove in Iowa and New Hampshire."

Hillary Clinton is going to increase air time in Iowa as she's playing defense now against the Obama and Edwards campaigns. I think she's about to begin to circle the wagons in preparation for the Caucus. She needs to emerge fairly unscathed.

Fred Thompson was on Meet the Press yesterday, and can I say that I was fairly impressed. This lackadaisical, ill-informed, narrative that the media has been running with concerning Thompson's campaign should have been dispelled by his appearance yesterday on the Church of Russert. He handled every question quite well, and seemed ready, eager and prepared.

Giuliani: Mixed results. Today there are reports that he's picking up momentum in New Hampshire and South Carolina. In South Carolina, Giuliani is now in a statistical tie with fellow front-runners Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. Remember that Giuliani was going to lose the first primaries and he was banking on Tsunami Tuesday which is 92 days away. But with some in-roads that he's been making, he's assuming a clear position to be the leader in the early primaries. In Iowa and New Hampshire he's pouring in $5 Million dollars for direct-mail outreach and radio ads. I don't know if it'll work in Iowa though where if current tracking holds, Huckabee will come in 2nd place in Iowa after Romney. Rudy needs a close third, or a tie for second. In New Hampshire, he's right behind Romney. But like I said, they're still going after Florida and Tsunami Tuesday. Picking up on the mixed results for Rudy, today's Washington Post has an article on the fluidity of the Republican Nomination. Republicans have always been the most disciplined when it comes to presidential nominees. Some even said that the party used to "Crown" the nominee, that there always was an Heir-apparent. In national polls among Republicans, Giuliani is leading with 33% of the vote. By comparison, Hillary Clinton is leading the Democrats in national polls garnering 49% of the Democratic vote.
If the election was held today: Clinton 50 - Giuliani 46; Clinton 52 - McCain 43; Clinton 56 - Thompson 40; Clinton 57 - Romney 39. This all may change when the new polls are taken this week, and when we can finally see how inevitable is HRC.

The Primary Election Campaign Season - The Democrats

2007-09-16T22:00:00.000-04:00

We live in the 24-hour news cycle. When I first had this post in mind, Osama Bin Laden (HVT 1) had just released another videotape. The Democrats met in Miami and debated for a Spanish-speaking audience. Before his debate appearance, Barack Obama was the guest at a star-studded event out in LaLa Land, with the Queen of All Media, Oprah Winfrey presiding. General David Petraeus was about to release his report, and along with Ambassador Ryan Crocker, about to brief Congress. The long-awaited September Report.

But my, if you blink you miss it. And I blinked. A week later we're dealing with the aftermath of the president's address to the nation, of Moveon.org's ad in The Times, and the Democrats still virtually impotent on stopping the war.

***

Let's go back in time. OBL released a videotape last week and the punditry revolved around, obviously, whom this helps and hurts. It helps the Democrats, they said, because the American people would ask, Why after six years and two wars, is Osama Bin Laden still at large? On the other side of the argument, some thought that it helped the Republicans, since one could always bring out the "terror" card--as crass a political tool there is--and remind the American people (or American voters since that's all that the parties care about) that OBL is still at large, that Al-Qaeda is still plotting, and if we leave Iraq, Al-Qaeda will find a new worldwide headquarters to operate out of. This in a nutshell are the arguments that both parties have posited. All in all though, this is once again, the 24-hour news cycle. It played over the weekend into the sixth anniversary, and then quickly forgotten. This isn't the tape that Osama Bin Laden released last we saw him before the 2004 Election, which contrary to his aim, helped the president at the end cruise towards re-election. And he's not helping out the Democrats that much this time either. His rhetoric, some observers say, is straight out of the Democratic Party's talking point. And of course, the tangents he went out on, and taking his beard on a "Just-For-Men" ride, drew ridicule towards the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He spoke about global warming, and the Democrats' inability to end the war. He talked about the looming mortgage crisis, and a became a pundit in world affairs. Bob Baer wrote an article in Time questioning Bin Laden's relevance, and at the end concluded that OBL "would be better off staying put in his cave and keeping his mouth shut."

Meanwhile in Miami, the Democrats met at the University of Miami's Bank United Center--site of the first presidential debate in 2004. There, in a debate sponsored by Univision, the Democrats tried to go beyond the war in Iraq and Immigration, but also talked about health care, education, economy, etc, and other issues to an extremely friendly crowd. The love fest ended when the moderators, Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, asked Sens. Clinton, Obama, and Dodd, why they voted to build a 12-foot wall alongside the U.S.-Mexican border. This drew some jeers from the crowd, and the trio responded that while they support broad immigrant rights, they also believe border security is a must. This gave an opening to the only Latino running for president, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who gave one of his two token quotes of the night: "If you're going to build a 12-foot wall, you know what's going to happen," he said. "A lot of 13-foot ladders." (The other quote given by Richardon was an attack on Univision itself: "I'm disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country -- for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish, is unfortunate. In other words, Univision is promoting English-only in this debate.") Aside from that, the debate was pretty much standard and went along as expected. Univision did call out the Republicans at the end, and pointed out that John McCain had been the only Republican to RSVP for the event. Speaking of M.I.A. candidates, Joe Biden didn't bother showing up at the debate, saying that he had a scheduling conflict--even though he was originally supposed to be present at the event. Segway this into the first question posed by Salinas to the candidates: Are you taking a political risk by appearing at a Spanish-network debate? All said No. And how much they loved Hispanics. And putting all political calculations aside, they were right. The people who were going to be upset about such an event taking place were probably not going to vote for the Democrats either way. The same can not be true of Republicans, and the blowback they may face if they indeed participate in such a debate. At the same time, Republicans are going to need to figure out finally that they'll need Hispanics to win elections. Demographics are going that way, and what Hispanics see as a habitual demonization of Hispanics by the Republican Party is going to backfire--never mind that McCain and Bush take more Hispanic-friendly positions than many Democrats. Bush partly won his presidential elections because of Hispanic votes, garnering the most Hispanic votes for any Republican Presidential Candidate ever. Rudy Giuliani is going to lose quite a number of votes from more Mainstream Hispanics, he's been campaigning on an Anti-New York City stand (partly because many Republicans accuse the mayor of allowing NYC of being a "sanctuary city), appearances in Hialeah notwithstanding. And that's the problem with many of the candidates on both sides. The primaries, as always is a two-step dance: go to your base, and then return to the center for the General Election. The problem today is that the base is so far out there now, that returning to the center for the General Election campaign will be a hard-fought movement for the candidates. All in all though, the debate was very good for the Democrats. They've got their message out there to the fastest growing electoral group in the country--and growing faster still with Voter Registration drives propelled in part by a lack of Immigration reform in this congress. To say nothing of the argument that Univision put out there this past week stating that it is the most-watched television network in the country, beating CBS, ABC, FOX, and NBC, among viewers 18-34 . Of course, once again, demographics need to come into account. Univision's viewers are notoriously young, when compared to the Big Four English-speaking networks. The median age for Hispanics in America is 27. Univision is going to be a potent political force next year more than any other. The Wall Street Journal has taken note of this, and has already begun a campaign of including Univision among the other paragons of the Liberal Media, claiming Univision is biased and "features some of the most unbalanced political news coverage on television."

***

This week in the war at home...

Gen. David Petraeus issued his long-awaited report to Congress, something that the punditry had looked forward to all summer, and at the end, the gist of it was...wait six more months.

This wasn't good for the Democrats. OBL was right--the Democrat's can't and won't stop the war. And the American people agree with this...and are mad. Due to ignorance and apathy of the political system, many Americans believed that voting in the Democrats during the Mid-Terms was going to put an immediate end to the war. Obviously that wasn't going to happen. The Democrat's won't stop the war and won't cut off funding. The President went prime time on Thursday and announced "Return on Success" as the new slogan. The punditry went against him, and consider himself living more and more in Bush world. With him being the only inhabitant of it. But he doesn't care. He announced a troop withdrawal, even though it was supposed to happen either way, and launched on another tirade on why we're in Iraq and why we need to stay there until success...whatever that is.

And the Democrats had another bad week. You know next year's election is the Democrats to lose. So much so that Newt Gingrich recently said that the chances are 80-20 that the Democrats are going to win the presidential election. Albeit that may just be him playing the game of raising expectations. But the Democrats, it seems are going out of their way to lose. This may be a little early, but you know, it's not their fault. Say what you want about Rove and White House's political operation, but they've put the Democrats in a position that there's no win-win for the candidates on Iraq. This has increased the battle between Clinton and Obama, with Obama attacking Clinton for being for the war in the beginning, and Clinton attacking Obama for doing nothing to end the war once he got there, in fact he's voted for funding and against any deadlines. The Clinton Camp has remarked that it's easy for Obama to state that he's always been against the war, but now that he's in a leading position, he's doing nothing for the sake of political expediency; they sarcastically say that's a real "profile in courage." The war between both camps has deepened so much that there's a fight over campaign staff, with Obama personnel being "warned that if Hillary wins the nomination their disloyalty will be remembered."

After Bush's must-not-see-TV moment on Thursday night, Edwards bought 2 minutes of airtime on MSNBC calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. The piece was supposed to come immediately after Bush's but due to punditry, and MSNBC having to make time for Matthews and Olbermann and Williams and Russert, the speech didn't air until 9:50 Eastern, almost 30 minutes after Bush said "God Bless America." Edwards tried his very best to look presidential and dare I say it...he sort of did?

The big blunder that the Democrats allowed to happen this week was MoveOn.Org, yeah they're back. They put out a full-page ad in The Times calling General David Petraeus, General "Betray Us." This sort of attack on a military man was uncalled for. Even Frank Rich said that this was a dumb move to have allowed happen. The only winner here was MoveOn, who's going to see their email distribution lists grow.

And the only big loser here, again, was Hillary Clinton. This set up a scenario where Rudy Giuliani came out swinging hard and denouncing Clinton for not denouncing the ad. This is setting up the sort of campaign that we'll see next year, if indeed Clinton and Giuliani become their respective party's nominees for president.

***

Let's do some quick Democrat strategy and horse-race...

In national polls, Clinton is clearly establishing her role as presumptive nominee status, as she's beating Obama, 43-24 in averages. Edwards eight points behind Obama, and Richardson polling at around 3.

Let's do the primaries. Again Clinton is leading everywhere except fighting hard in Iowa, where Edwards' populist message is really resonating and Edwards is only 2 points behind Clinton, 26-24, with Obama close at 21. Clinton's going to win the New Hampshire primary, where she's beating Obama 36-19, with Edwards coming in at third with 15. In South Carolina, again Clinton beating Obama, 35-23, with next-door-neighbor Edwards coming in at third with 14. In Florida and California Clinton's up by 20; in Michigan she's up by fifteen.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the presumptive Democrat nominee for President of the United States.

Obama, even though he's doing splendidly well raising money--and as I said before, has Oprah's blessings and backing--needs to have a better showing in South Carolina, and needs to beat Edwards in Iowa for his candidacy to still be alive. If Edwards wins Iowa, this starts shaking up the race for the front runner, since Edwards, straight off an Iowa win can come in and be the comeback kid in New Hampshire.

But Clinton's going to do well, she's running a heck of a campaign, and has the brightest people on her staff--to say nothing of the fact that she's married to the smartest Democratic strategist alive.

And that's why more and more we're moving away from the Primary Election Campaign Season and already thinking in General Election terms. The Gen.'s March Progress Report will come at a time where we'll know who'll be the nominees, and if all goes according to plan, it will be Hillary sweeping the primaries, and Giuliani, while stuck in a more fluid environment, mounting a national primary strategy to capture the nomination.

And that's why The Times' Maureen Dowd, a.k.a. The Cobra, wrote today that Rudy's "the only man in the field tough enough to slap around a woman."

Past Thoughts on September 11th

2007-09-11T21:23:00.001-04:00

In a previous online life, I kept a Live Journal (handle: livefrom). Commemorating today's sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001, I post entries I wrote to commemorate the second, fourth, and fifth anniversaries of that day. They are in reverse chronological order.

***

"9/12" Written: September 12, 2006

Five years ago we all woke up to a different world. A world reshaped by unspeakable horror and death, a world sickened with the cruel manifestation of terror.

We hugged and cried and came together. And we thought about what we had witnessed the previous day. There were no words. The World Trade Center, symbols of American economic might, were no more. The Pentagon, headquarters of the most powerful military to ever walk the face of this earth, was attacked, and part of it destroyed.

Thousands of innocents were ruthlessly murdered.

The streets of Heaven were too crowded with Angels that night.

And a terrorist organization engaged in an Act of War with the United States.

Always remember that: They attacked us first.

What is the aim of terrorism? It is not to murder, to kill. Even though they will willingly accept if not welcome collateral deaths. The aim of terrorism is to strike terror. It's as simple as that. The aim of terrorism is to develop psychological terror and a state of continued fear in citizens. It is at the end a political tool. Terror and fear in the citizenry will lead to questioning the strengths of government institutions. These institutions are the components of a democratic government. Sans institutions, we see the devolution of the state into one of anarchy and chaos. Once again, institutions are the backbone. Losing faith—questioning the ability of government to keep you safe, questioning the ability of government to function—will give terrorism a victory.

Terrorism lives off of terror. In order to defeat terrorism, you need to defeat terror and fear.

Many commentators accuse the Administration of not asking Americans to sacrifice for this war. We got tax cuts and told to live life as if nothing had happened. Indeed there was a subtle sacrifice asked: returning to normal to show terrorism that we will not live in terror, that we will not live in fear. Of course, that was impossible. But we had to show strength, if not, at least the perception of it. Yes, we can't carry our hair gels on airplanes anymore, but you know what, we still fly. Yes, we're warned about visiting corners of the earth where being an American can cause personal harm, but you know what, we still go. We do these things because we are not afraid. And we watch our American Idol, and we take note of what Paris Hilton is doing, and we worry about Natalie Holloway. And we return to a degree of normality.

We live in what Gore Vidal calls, the United States of Amnesia. And while many consider it a bad thing I don't. It is in the very essence of America, in our very composition, the fact that we have the ability to move on. Move on and look towards the future.

In the United States of Amnesia, we engrain whatever popular culture is prevalent and run with it. In the United States of Amnesia we follow trends and fads and stick to them until black is the new white. In the United States of Amnesia we bicker and fight between groups—be them your friends, or political parties—but we know that all is well, that at the end, we're still civil and we still talk to each other. A disagreement among friends is nothing bad. In the United States of Amnesia we worry about making end's meet and about the latest feud at our jobs, and about whether or not our kids are receiving the best education possible and the best health care possible. Citizens of the United States of Amnesia have enough personal problems and worries, and it's difficult to look beyond the micro-anxieties to focus on the macro-anxieties.

Countries, much like people, undergo existential anxieties of meaninglessness at times. What is our purpose? Why are we doing what we do? And in a healthy democracy we elect people to worry and to have anxieties for the country itself. We rely on institutions to function as they should. We rely on people who man those institutions to do the best they can for the country and its citizens. So not all is lost. Citizens of the U.S.A. may have a lot of personal problems, but the problems facing the nation are always accounted for, and taken care of.

We elect our Presidents on the grounds that they'll take care of everything. That foreign policy is under wraps. We elect them because we would like to almost hear them say, "Hey, you know that situation in the Middle East, you know about what's going on in that country that you can't find on a map? Don't worry about it; I'm taking care of business." And we want to believe them, because we want to continue living the lives that we live. There's too many things that are going on in the world, and in our democracy, we can't expect everyone to have an informed opinion on say, favored trade nation status with China, or on arms disarmament accords. It just won't happen. And that's not a bad thing. An informed citizenry is the backbone of a vibrant democracy. But that's the ideal never the reality.

So what do we get from all of this. That by believing that we have returned to a state of normality, that by acting it, and showing it to friend and foe alike, we start believing that we have returned to normal. Perception is more powerful than reality. Irreality is more important than reality. At the end, what we have to do is feign faith. We feign faith in our government and our institutions. We know it's not the best, we know it's plagued with problems, but we continue to believe in it. Believing is key.

And that's a way to defeat terror.

We feign faith. That doesn't mean that we lose the ability to question our government. Discourse is essential in democracy. But we need to have confidence in our government. At the end, Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal, while we all have our disagreements, we all have the same goal, making this country better. And we inch towards that goal everyday, little by little. That's America.

***

We lost faith in Iraq. Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of intervention in Iraq. We have lost close to 2,000 American soldiers, and yes, thousands of innocent Iraqis have died—not only at the hands of the insurgency, but also at the hands of American soldiers. And we have to live with it.

Many don't know why we're in Iraq. It is a fact that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11. No one disputes that.

But it's a war on Terrorism. And Saddam Hussein was an advocate of terror.

Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 but Saddam Hussein did have ties with Al-Qaeda.

Please follow this. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 but Saddam Hussein did have ties with Al-Qaeda. They're not the same things. They're two distinct components, two different matters.

And while there was an intelligence failure, everyone from CIA on up to Saddam Hussein believed that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, the casus belli that the Administration gave was that Saddam Hussein posed a danger to the United States. Indeed given the chance, Hussein would've jumped on developing weapons program and endanger the U.S. and our interests in the region. Make no mistake about it: the world is a much safer place without Saddam Hussein in power.

And make no mistake about it. Saddam Hussein was a backer of terrorism. For years he gave sanctuary to terrorists, such as Abu Nidal, who was the mastermind of over 100 operations between the 1970's into the 90's. Such operations included wounding the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain, triggering the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, three airline hijackings, one airline bombing, attacking a tourist cruise ship, and numerous car bombs. And Saddam Hussein gave Abu Nidal sanctuary from 1999 when he was kicked out of Libya to 2002, when Saddam Hussein feared his growing prominence and ordered him killed. Before that, he lived in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood, in a villa owned by the Mukhabarat—the Iraqi Secret Police.

American Intelligence can't confirm nor deny the report picked up by Czech intelligence that Mohammed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers, met with Abu Amin, an Iraqi intelligence agent.

Some will also say that Saddam Hussein hated Al-Qaeda. That too is true. But remember, relations between these people are always love-hate. At the end they all need each other. And that doesn't negate the fact that Hussein would support Al-Qaeda in its attacks on America.

Hussein was a danger. And now he's no more because he's imprisoned in an Iraqi jail, awaiting judgment from the very same people from which he pillaged basic human rights.

But the conduct of the war. The Powell doctrine of overwhelming force wasn't followed, but rather the strategy was of deploying a relatively light 130,000-strong expeditionary force. There was something that occurred in the conduct of the war which turned the public against it. The public could not accept American soldiers dying in a desert.

The political atmosphere was such that it became popular to call for a complete withdrawal of American soldiers. No one likes war. FDR, before launching World War II, in one of his fireside chats uttered with strong force, words that should always resonate in the mind of an American president before he deploys American soldiers into battle: "I hate War." I think at the very end we all do. This president has said so himself.

But they're necessary. And like President Bush said last night, we are in a state of war. A war against terror, a war, like Bush said, for the very survival of civilization.

Almost one hundred years ago, the pragmatist thinker, Randolph Bourne wrote an influential essay entitled, The Experimental Life. In it he stressed that while many have their lives somewhat pre-ordained, and that there's this template, this roadmap that these people follow, it is not pragmatic to live this way. Rather he calls for living the experimental life. In short, it's adapting to the changing circumstances, to the changing environments, and learning from mistakes. That nothing's set in stone, and that you have to be able to quickly adapt and change. As an example, he wrote of a General who has his armies lined up in a certain closed formation, and sending them marching directly head-on to the enemy. The enemy knowing that this specific General is fond of this formation launches a guerilla campaign to attack the formation by the sides. Therefore if the General doesn't adapt to the new guerilla-style war, he will surely lose the war—even if his army is stronger and superior.

That is what is occurring today in Iraq. We need to adapt and change. This army wasn't ready for the insurgency campaign, for the urban desert warfare that is transpiring in Iraq. They weren't ready for IED's, and weren't ready to battle the enemy unseen.

That doesn't mean that we can't change. We still have time. We need to adapt. But we can't give up.

Iraq is the central front on the war on Terrorism. Terrorists have gone to Iraq to do battle with the United States and we must fight back. If we lose Iraq, we lose everything.

Why do we fight? That question was asked to Sen. John McCain. His response: "Because it's the right thing to do."

History does indeed repeat itself. And the Domino theory is back. We let Iraq fall, what does that say to Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan who is building up the country after years of ruthless rule from the Taliban? Women can now walk freely through Afghanistan and attend schools. That was never possible under Taliban rule. But if we lose Iraq, it'll embolden the Taliban to come back. If we lose Iraq, what does that say to Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan who gets death threats everyday for supporting us, and has his own intelligence apparatus undermining him? If we lose Iraq, what does that say to the Al-Saud house in Saudi Arabia, who, for better or worse, are our allies in the War on Terror? The coalition against terror crumbles.

Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization. And yes, they did cause unspeakable mayhem on September 11th. But also remember, at its most basic, they're the gang that can't shoot straight. It took them years to finally succeed, albeit when they did in fact succeed, they did so with gusto. But they're a third-rate organization. And we can not allow them to win. And they win every time we are in fear of them. Yes they pose a threat, but don't let them scare you. Let them instill in you determination. One needs to be determined to fight them and finish them off.

Osama Bin Laden has said that, "All that we have to do, is to send two mujahedeen to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al-Qaeda, in order to make the Generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses."

Now he's not a nuisance, like John Kerry said, and he's certainly not irrelevant. But we shouldn't allow him to make us live in terror, in fear. That's when they win.

***

Thomas Friedman has written of the juxtaposition between 11/9 and 9/11. On 11/9/1989, the Berlin Wall came down. On 9/11/2001, the World Trade Center came down. One brought about a renewed sense of hope. The other brought about a renewed sense of horror.

We need to return to the world of 11/9 and we do this by being hopeful again.

President Clinton: "I still believe in a place called Hope."

We need to export Hope again. The United States has always done a great job at exporting Hope. Without Hope, life wouldn't be worth living.

We export Hope by negating fear. We export Hope by helping others around the world.

The U.S. today remains the shining City on a Hill as President Reagan called it. We need the United States to return to be the Beacon of Light in a world full of shadows.

And that's how you win this war. It's ideological. And it's hope over fear. Liberty over repression. Freedom over tyranny.

And when we're able to get to this point, we'll make sure that the deaths of all who died on 9/11, and in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, wouldn't have been in vain.

Without hope there is no freedom.

Joy cometh in the morning, scripture tells us.

I'm Yasser Navarrete

"On September 11" Written: September 11, 2005

September 11, 2001. A date unlike any other in the long course of American history.

In the midst of a Tragedy in America we remember another American Tragedy.

The events were surreal. We were watching it on television and we couldn't believe it. The World Trade Center attacked and fell and then it was no more. The Pentagon—the headquarters of the most powerful military ever to walk the face of this earth—attacked. US military personnel dead. Another high jacked airplane still in the air. The White House evacuated. The Vice-President taken to a secure bunker. The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate both taken to secured locations outside Washington D.C., with the sole purpose of maintaining continuity of government. The President of the United States aboard Air Force One, Air Force One under an F-16 Fighter Jet Military Escort. And thousands of people walking across the bridge trying to get out of Lower Manhattan with soot on their faces and tears in their eyes.

And then, on that same day, someone took the picture above. Three firefighters propping up the American flag. The famous scene harkens to that military victory in Iwo Jima. Endurance provided that victory on September 11th.

Four years down the road a lot has changed. You know I just took a few seconds to think about the previous sentence: Four years down the road a lot has changed. I'm not sure that that's entirely true. While life does go on, and while we once again have a sense of normalcy, in most of our mind's we still fear the day when we turn on the television and we witness another devastating attack on America. It's not a question of If, but rather of When? But nothing has changed. The MTV Generation continues to watch the VMA's and the who-shot-who soap opera surrounding it; they continue to watch Cribs and Room Raiders and continue to take their cultural cues from convicted felons. There's an unreal reality that my generation has succumbed to.

But then it's not just my generation. It's everyone. Civics has become a subject that no one cares about. History has become a subject that no one learned about. Politics has become a subject that no one thinks about. And that has created an ignorant people, oblivious to their surroundings.

As a student of history, what's even more amazing is the lack of sacrifice. The American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the First World War, the Second World War, all required magnificent sacrifices for the cause, from food rationing to over-production. We don't have that now. The closest we do is gas at $3.00 a gallon. But that's not really a sacrifice. Everyone thinks it is but it isn't. We once again live in Dewey's era of Conspicuous Consumption. And those that are making the sacrifices are those my age, dying. Then again it's hypocritical. I'm not making any sacrifices either. Maybe that's why I've felt so badly lately and donated a substantial amount of money. One that I never thought I ever would. And maybe my lack of sacrifice is made up for the fact of acknowledging what is taking place. Knowing what is taking place. If 90% of Life is just showing up, then I showed up. I showed up to the table of knowledge, awareness and discussion. I'm not out there reading Teen People.

There were memorial services across the nation this morning.

"You're still our hero, please keep watching over us," Elizabeth Ahearn said to her brother, fire lieutenant Brian Ahearn.

"Donald, there's not a day that goes by that we don't think about you," a sobbing Suzanne Gavagan Mascitis said to her brother, Donald Richard Gavagan, Jr., a 35-year-old bond trading firm employee.

"Kenny, your legacy of teacher, mentor, leader and coach did not die with you four years ago, but rather found new life and will live on forever," said Marie Cox, to her brother, Kenneth Phelan, a firefighter and father of four.

The Personification of Victims.

And yet I return to a topic I've written about many times on this Journal. About the Firefighters and the Police who ran into the Towers to try to save people. They ran into the Fire. Ran into the Fire. The Streets of Heaven are too crowded with Angels. And they were ordinary men and women, ordinary fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Ordinary people with extraordinary wills. Ordinary people that became American Heroes. And these are the times for American Heroes. And we do remember their sacrifice and their suffering. Along with those who have died in far-off wars. That's the least that we, who haven't sacrificed enough, must do. Remember and honor those who have sacrificed it all.

I'm Yasser Navarrete

"September 11" Written: September 11, 2003

This is Today, Thursday, September 11th, 2003...yet one will never forget Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. It's been two years since that horrendous day, but it seems as if the events occurred just yesterday.

Over the last two years, many people have died. 2,800 in the World Trade Center complex alone. 250+ American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many people have been left alone, yet found a place. The people who have died did not have to: they were someone's mother, and someone's father, someone's son and someone's daughter.

Yet, Osama Bin Laden just issued a tape calling for an increase in Jihad, and more attacks to come.

Yet, Saddam Hussein and his Weapons of Mass Destruction - which we know exist because we gave it to him in the 80's - are AWOL.

Yet, America moves ahead. Not with fear, but with courage. We are aware, and no longer oblivious. We want to go back to normal. But there is no "normal" anymore. We've been a reactive society since our founding, and for the first time we want to become proactive. We want to save lives, and end terror. We want peace, not war... and we'll have peace even if we have to go to war for it.

But regardless, two years ago, many people lost somebody when their time wasn't up. Memories are all they have now. And a future is rooted in the hope that they may see each other again.

To the Brave Firefighters of the city of New York who went inside the buildings when everyone else was going out...

To the Port Authority and NYPD officers who perished while trying to provide calm...

To the innocent men, women, and children who thought that September 11, 2001 was just going to be like any other day...

Your death was not in vain and never forgotten. Your memory lives on. You were a testament to the greatness of America.

And now we await the third anniversary of the attacks. In the last one we went through a war, now through another... What will happen next?

IN MEMORIAM

***

Soon: The Primary Election Campaign Season—The Democrats

September 11th

2007-09-11T08:46:00.000-04:00

Another Tuesday morning in September.

2974.

The Primary Election Campaign Season--The Republicans

2007-09-10T09:36:00.000-04:00

It used to be that Labor Day signified the beginning of the General Election Campaign season. Of the election year.

Now, with Presidential Politics beginning earlier, and with this president being more and more a lame-duck everyday, Labor Day 2007 launches the Primary Election Campaign Season.

And as a sign of how much of a lame-duck the president is, apparently, he doesn't plan on being in the country much next year, as his replacements are vying for his job.

But it's starting to look like a campaign...

Fred Thompson gave his anti-climactic announcement that he's in on "The Tonight Show," while his opponents were debating in New Hampshire. The Honeymoon that the media gave him just three or four months ago is over. Indeed, what the media giveth, the media taketh away. Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan opined in the Wall Street Journal that his entering the race and using Jay Leno's stage was "rude" and she begged to ask the question: "Who are you? And the reason you're running for president would be...?" Others have already characterized him as lazy and detach. On George Stephanopoulos' show George Wil, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson were piling on him non-stop. What took you so long? And why did you even show up? And then again, these allusions to him being the "Next Reagan." By the time the media's done with him he'll be the Anti-Reagan. On Saturday the Washingon Post put out a column listing Thompson's insider bona-fides. Apparently he's more of a Washington Insider than Hillary Clinton, and the plethora of senators running in both parties. And he's lazy. The pundits can't stress that enough. Thompson trying retail politics is not a nice thing to see. And there's this feeling that he doesn't really want it. Ronald Reagan, before running successfully in 1980 ran in 1976, and before that was a chief executive as Governor of California. It seems to many that Thompson is doing it just to fill in a void.

I could just see a Lloyd Bentsen moment occuring in a Republican Debate with one of the candidates turning to Thompson and telling him: "Senator, I served with Dutch Reagan. I knew Dutch Reagan. Dutch Reagan was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Dutch Reagan!" And that'll be the end of him.

Going back to what the media giveth, the media taketh away: a month ago, they were declaring McCain's candidacy on life-support. Yesterday, David Broder wrote an article in the Washington Post entitled, "McCain Finds His Footing." And he ends the column with juxtaposing how well McCain does at Retail Politics. Remember he beat Dubya in New Hampshire in 2000. And Broder advises Thompson to pick up a thing or do from McCain. This type of media mention, which of course was then regurgitated on the Sunday talkies, can propel McCain to be the anti-Thompson. And with Thompson currently in second place, McCain can quickly push ahead, especially if he ends strong in New Hampshire.

In National Polls, Romney has lost some traction and McCain and Romney are currently in a statistical dead heat for third place. If Thompson falters, which is likely, we'll see the Battle for New Hampshire play out between Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. Here Romney has a 12 point lead over Giuliani, and Giuliani, a 5 point lead over McCain, but this can all change soon, and all change fast. Especially when we get back from Iowa where Romney is clearly in the lead there. I believe that Giuliani and McCain will quickly change their modus operandi and switch over to NH since Iowa is lost, and they'll probably leave Thompson to battle Romney there, since he plays better in the Mid-West than he does in the Northeast. Appearances on "Law and Order" notwithstanding...

In an interesting sidenote. The Florida GOP Primary has Giuliani leading, with Thompson ten points behind, and once again Romney and McCain tied for third.

No wonder Romney was the first to disavow any connections with the shoe-tapper...

Soon: The Democrats.

On Politics and History...Part II

2007-09-07T11:49:00.000-04:00

Part II of II...

Why is History important?

Because it tells us where we’ve been, and it provides a glimpse of where we’re going.
At the end of the day, I’m extremely optimistic. Putting aside the logical rationality inherent in a historian’s work, we’re still moving forward. Progress is being achieved. This is the historical continuum of humankind. This is the march of time.

History allows us to become detached of irrational emotion, and look at the grander scheme of things. Irrational emotionality hurts us as a civilization. A thorough understanding of history encapsulates us from that nuisance.

The nature of the historical beast is of course, that it takes time for history to be concurred upon. For a paradigm to be established, much consensus first needs to take place. At the same time, paradigm shifts, in a somewhat Kuhnian intuition do exist. That’s why revisionism is omnipresent. And that’s why history is fluid. Winston Churchill said that “History is written by the victors,” and he’s right about that. Myth sometimes becomes history.

There’s also much disagreement on how to think about History. A linear construct of history follows our logical quest for cause-and-effect. Cyclical constructs of history, while important, sometimes take on moralist overtones. The Renaissance and Enlightenment historians looked down upon the Dark Ages, and saw themselves as New Rome. In some quarters, American historians today see themselves as the New Britain, etc. Such group think may be dangerous in trying to understand nuances and significant interpretations in a historical study.

Nevertheless, I do believe that history is teleological. In this I agree with Hegel. Hegel believed that the end-result was “civilization,” I believe it is more like liberal democracy.

***

This brings us to the present. I believe that historians will consider Bush not the worst president in history, but not the greatest either. He’ll be alright. People are too passionate, and their views too myopic. When you look at where America is today—it’s not in that bad of a shape. We haven’t been attacked since September 11th; our democracy and our republic remains strong, naysayers aside; our economy is relatively strong, in terms of growth and record low unemployment. And for better or worse, we’re remaking the world in our image. This is hegemony. But the remake takes time. It always has.

We went into Iraq in March 2003, it is September 2007, and people are expecting liberal democracy and the respect of human rights and freedoms to be ubiquitous in that country. Such an accelerated transformation has never taken place. History, progress, our teleological end takes time.

The Magna Carta was signed by King John in 1215. From then on, it took almost half a millennia for the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to bring about the nascent modern English parliamentary democracy. Never since then has a British monarch commanded Absolute Power. Another two hundred years, during the reign of Queen Victoria, for the monarchy to become more symbolic than political, this achieved through a series of reforms in the Commons, which curbed the power of the monarch and the House of Lord. Almost another hundred until the end of empire. Which leads us to today, and the British Monarch, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith (Dei Gratia Britanniarum Regnorumque Suorum Ceterorum Regina, Consortionis Populorum Princeps, Fidei Defensor), delivers a State Opening of Parliament that’s written by her Prime Minister—even though it’s still Her Majesty’s Government. This took almost 800 years.

Even America took awhile. Not until the third president of the United States ushered in Jeffersonian Democracy that the electorate was expanded. Before then, it was only the elite white male landowners whom controlled the electoral process. Even Jeffersonian Democracy was somewhat undemocratic, since during that time, a one-party system was entrenched in America. In the latter half of the 1820’s (fifty years since Independence, forty since the Bill of Rights), did Jacksonian Democracy take hold. A two-party system grew, electorate was expanded to include all white male adults, and more elected officers were commissioned. Of course, another forty before slaves were freed and technically given suffrage rights (even though because of the tragedy of Jim Crow, it took one hundred years for the promise to come to fruition). Not until 1920 did women get the right to vote. And all of that being said, there is still widespread chronic disenfranchisement in the political system. And of course, we might still not succeed, and still fall, like the Romans. In my gut, as I said before, I believe that this is all teleological. But who knows. It just might not be.

***

In short, there’s been crimes and injustices committed against certain groups throughout history. There have been events that have taken centuries to unfold before a dream becomes a reality. There’s many x factors in play when it comes to the conduct and study of history. And it takes an informed citizenry to take all these factors into play. At the end of the day, one must decide whether history is linear or cyclical, teleological or not.

And learning about the history of not only your country, but also your world, can you form a fuller, more colorful picture of progress, of the old human struggle and its fruits together.

And that’s moving forward in it of itself.

On Politics and History...Part I

2007-08-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

It’s not that important. But it is.

A couple of weeks ago, in the wee hours of the morning, my friends and I were at a diner. The conversation turned inevitably to politics and history. One of my friends said there were fifty-two states. Her defense was that it was way too late and she wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe. She’s clearly bright but such an offense struck me to my core. Another of my friends asked, Why is knowing who the sixth president of the United States is, important? He argues it isn’t. I tend to agree. But it doesn’t hurt either.

Year after year the United States ranks below other western, industrialized nations when it comes to the quality of education that its citizens possess. The social studies field, obviously comprising History and Politics, suffers. Americans are known for not wanting to know. That’s one of the biggest qualms that Europeans and indeed the rest of the world have about us. They see us as a people happily oblivious. This is a country where only one out of four people actually have a passport. Where bilingualism, and God-forbid, multilingualism, is not ubiquitously embraced, but in some sectors, frowned upon and warily accepted. And as the Miss Teen USA pageant posited last week: a recent study concludes that only one in five Americans can located the United States of America on a map. The list continues. This is who we are, the majority of us. And this is why we’re in the state that we’re in.

It’s important to know. To accept things is dangerous; dangerous not only to us, but indeed to our world. We traverse through great peril day-in and day-out by not knowing.

Today, we begin with politics…

This is hegemony. More than any other civilization in the History of the World, more than at any other time in the march of progress, the United States of America is the most perfect example of hegemony. Some scholars write of post-hegemony (as if the sun has already set…), while others decry it and see it as nothing more than neo-Imperialism. Imperialism, for obvious reasons, always gets a bad rap. But let us not forget that the paragon of imperialism, the British Empire, through much of the last three hundred years did much more to spread liberal democracy throughout the world than any other form of government before, or even since. Hegemony is a lot more than military might. And hegemony, if used properly, is not a tool for bullish behaviour or arrogance—something that candidate Bush in 2000 warned the voters about. Hegemony exports ideas. We export our ideas of liberal democracy as much as we export a Big Mac or Titanic. Nary a place in the world exists where people do not know the symbolism inherent in the American flag, the magnificence of the Statue of Liberty. This is what America stands for and this is what we fight for. No matter how difficult a situation Iraq has become, in trying to come about to a viable, political solution, and indeed, how difficult the conduct of foreign policy has become, we’re still in a position where we can exert our influence, and indeed, our prestige.

And what is wrong with that? Francis Fukuyama at Johns Hopkins University wrote an influential piece almost fifteen years ago entitled, “The End of History.” In it, he argued that modernization, and the march of progress has inevitably led to the presence of Liberal Democracy, and that this, at its essence, is the goal of humanity. That we finally made it. In the shadow of the end of the Cold War and the dismemberment of the USSR, this thesis seemed to sum up the exhilarating, exciting time that we were in. At Harvard, Sam Huntington wrote of a “Clash of Civilizations.” The name is self-explanatory, and in our post 9/11 world, Huntington’s thesis got exulted, Fukuyama’s was sent into the dustbin of history—pun intended.

It’s time to rehabilitate Fukuyama’s thesis. Obviously, it is not the end of History, but that still does not negate the fact that the historical continuum of humanity itself is to achieve modernity, and practice Liberal Democracy. And that may still happen.

And we’ll achieve this with politics. Politics is all around us. Politics happens every day. It is the most basic form of human interaction. You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.

We elect leaders. We elect our representatives on the world stage. The dirty little secret is that no matter what, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, our leaders all want the same end result—make America better, stronger, more secure. But we disagree in how. We live in a country where more people vote for an American Idol than for the American President. We live in a country of political apathy, ignorance, and disassociation. Where our citizens are unimpressed with and suspicious of the system. This is not the Republic that our founders envisioned. Focus groups and the politicizing of words are now in full force to reach out to a target audience. Big government is seen as something evil, when it should be not. I guess this goes back to our legacy of Jeffersonian Democracy. But the world is too complex, too sophisticated, to still be practicing such naïve, and plain paradigms when talking about how our democratic republic should be governed. Indeed we live in the Two Americas. And in a nation of plurality, no one wins. There’s something to be said about the wisdom of crowds. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. And we need as citizens to become more politically knowledgeable, more politically sophisticated to be able to undertake, solve and answer the great questions and problems of our times.

Politics is important because the leaders we elect to carry our mission, and indeed to carry out or promise, have to measure up. And they’re not measuring up because we’re not measuring up. And we’re not measuring up because we don’t care. It’s all cyclical. Politics is important because we elect people because of how they look instead of because of what they say. We have gut feelings. And most of the time, they’re wrong. Michael Deaver, who recently passed away, gave us this legacy. No matter how dire the nightly news tried to portray America in the 80’s, the images that they would use was the president on a ranch or in the midst of a sea of flags. Deaver was fond of saying that in the battle between the sight and the sound, the sight always wins.

But the sound should win. What we’re creating is an America that’s living today in a duality. An America in Myth and History.

The myth is something that has existed in a state of secula seclorum. It’s always been the case. In practice, the America in History is something that has existed in a more ad hoc composure. We like to think of politics as something civil but it isn’t. Indeed, the good old days never were. There’s always backroom compromising, and backstabbing in American politics. It is a zero sum game. And that’s what turns many Americans off.

But they shouldn’t be turned off. Politics is neither clean nor civil. It’s ruthless. It’s all about winning. And it’s all about fighting for what you believe in. It’s always about advocating. And guess what, the people have the tools to win in the process.

The legislative process enhances responsiveness to the public because the legislative process itself is intrinsically related to elections. It’s obvious that the dominant goal for legislators is reelection. There are also well known access points which citizens utilize to influence governmental decisions, in the form of influencing the individual legislator’s decisions, the agenda, and the policy outcomes. Challengers themselves know that the way to win an election is by undermining the incumbent’s support, thereby, with the help of the media, challengers raise issues that will indeed stir inattentive publics, removing a degree of ignorance and apathy by making prominent issues salient.

There is no reason by which inattentive publics will remain so perpetually. Inattentive publics can become attentive publics, through the arrival of an instigator, many times in the form of a challenger to the incumbent. Challengers are successful when they are able to undermine the support that the incumbent has. Challengers do this by showing that the incumbent is out of touch with district sentiments, in the form of exploiting roll-call votes or the pattern of the incumbent’s voting. By bringing these votes to the fore, especially key votes—such as votes on Judicial nominees or on supporting or opposing military action—inattentive publics may at least lose a degree of ignorance and become informed of what it is exactly that their legislator is voting for. Another instigator is the media, where print and television media may release damaging exposés of a legislator’s votes and behavior. See Sen. Craig (R-Idaho). Stemming ignorance is also made possible by engaging in sub-constituency politics, where appealing to groups becomes efficient, and issue intensity manifests itself into votes, money, and volunteers. Displacing ignorance also becomes pivotal in removing apathy. Interest is then created by presenting salient issues which resonate with a once-apathetic public. Salient issues are those which affect the public greatly. For example, the high price of gasoline last year has forced congressional leadership, in the persons of former Speaker Hastert and former Leader Frist, to call for an investigation to probe gas prices. These leaders are aware that this issue has the potential to activate inattentive publics, who were once apathetic to the price of gas, and are now feeling the burden of this price on their wallets. A latent issue became salient, the ignorant and apathetic—inattentive—became informed and interested—attentive.

We can cause change but we don’t. We can make things better but we don’t. We could become more attentive but we don’t. With cynicism and naïveté aside, citizens do still control their legislators to a great degree and legislators in turn have to be responsive to their constituents, if only as much for pragmatic political gains and results. But we don’t take advantage of this.

It’s important to be politically sophisticated. Political sophistication can also lead to a greater understanding of foreign policy and international relations. And when one becomes politically sophisticated in other systems and regions of the world, then one can form a better opinion, a better understanding of what the course of action of the hegemonic power should be.

We the people, control the government. It is not business. It is not the elite. At the end of the day, political history has shown that no matter how much money is poured into elections or into candidates, without the votes of the people, no one will get elected. The old joke goes that politics is the art of getting money from the rich, and votes from the poor, and promising to protect one side from the other. Admittedly, there are a lot of smoke-and-mirrors involved. And I could see why. But the end result still exists…make America better.

And we can do this one voter at a time.

Soon: Why is History Important?

The You Tube Election

2007-06-17T21:47:00.000-04:00

Now everyone can be a campaign media advisor.

With a high-speed Internet connection, some awesome editing software, and innate creativity, anyone can now make their mark on this campaign cycle by jumping on the YouTube bandwagon.

The big Internet-related story this week was the YouTube video: "I Got a Crush...On Obama." Where, as the Washington Post reports, a "leggy and curvy Obama girl," states her, well...crush on Obama.

A couple of months ago, the big YouTube political video was the metamorphosis of Apple's famous 1984 ad introducing the Mac, into an anti-Hillary video, using one of the Hillary-as-Establishment, and anti-establishment themes that are going around. This attack is mainly orchestrated by the liberal wing of the Democratic Primary, even though, as my previous post finds, Hillary is leading the liberal wing of the Democratic Primary, according to polls.

The campaigns don't know how receptive to be to these new, free, media created for them. While some might help them among YouTube and other Internet aficionados, it hasn't been made clear just how many people this will turn out for them. They don't want a rehash of Howard Dean's early Internet propelling that took place in the summer of 2004, to see it fizzle out by Iowa and being written about in a post-mortem attitude by New Hampshire. Also, when these ads go too far--which inevitably will be the case--campaigns won't want to be associated with them. Remember the Swift Votes ads and the Bush campaign moving away from them--while placidly condoning them--in 2004. Campaigns won't want to be struggling with "independent contractors" for the message. They want to control the message.

But until one can figure out what effect, if any, these ads will have on the campaigns, at least they're pretty fun to watch.

Sinking

2007-06-17T20:52:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago, the NBC NEWS/WALL STREET JOURNAL poll was released.

On the night that the poll was released, the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams' lede was "Angry America." What an apt statement about a mad country.

According to the results, 70% of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction with only 1 in 5 Americans believing that the country is heading in the right direction. The record high for "wrong track" number was 71% hit in July 1992, when the president's father was campaigning against then Gov. Clinton.

66% of Americans disapprove of the the job George W. Bush is doing as president. With only 29% of Americans approving, this is a new record low for George W. Bush.

Congress isn't faring that well either. 23% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, with 64% disapproving. The record low in this poll for Congressional approval was 15% held in April 1992. The Democrats kept the House in the 1992 election, but of course lost it an election cycle later.

Looking ahead to 2008: Clinton has increased her lead over Obama, with Clinton actually gaining traction following the debates and Obama losing some of it because of the debates. Inside the GOP: Giuliani's lead is much more fluid, with him also losing from the debates, and Thompson--who hasn't officially declared, and of course, hasn't participated in the debates--now #2 in the race. In a head-to-head, Clinton beats Giuliani (48-43), with the numbers reversing from three months ago(47-42), and Obama beats Thompson (50-31).

But what's going on here?

The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also released earlier this week has fascinating internals.

In the GOP, Thompson's surge can be seen coming directly from the Religious Right, with Giuliani holding slightly because of Independents. And while Giuliani got into a religious controversy a la John Kerry a couple of weeks ago, after Thompson, he is the RR's candidate of choice.

With the Democrats, Clinton is building a perfect trifecta, bringing in Independents, Moderate and the Liberal Democrats all together to propel her to the top. (Another interesting part of the poll is that Gore is #3 following Obama.) Clinton's mastery shows how she has the best politics people of the Democratic Party working in her camp. More liberal democrats are going for Clinton over Obama and Edwards, even though, arguably, she is the most hawkish of the bunch.

And now the issues: Republican primary voters are putting national security over social issues for 2008. Among RPV's 48% say that whether or not a candidate is for/against abortion is not a factor in their deciding whom to vote for president.

And here's the two big ones: Among all primary voters, 94% believe that Iraq is an important issue that will affect the way they vote, and 81% say Immigration is an important issue that will affect the way they vote.

(Breakdown: Republicans are more interested than Democrats and Independents about the Iraq issue: 97, 94, 91; the same is true of Immigration: 88, 78, 79.)

But really, what's going on?

Is Iraq that important of an issue? Sure it polls well. But really? I think that the majority of the people whom get contacted by these pollsters volunteer Iraq as the reason of why they're so unhappy with presidential/congressional job handling. But I don't think that that's the reason. I hold onto the theory that Americans are like a movie audience. And the reason that they don't like what's going on in Iraq is because it's been going on ad nauseum. Nothing's really changed, and they want this movie to finally end. The amount of reasoned, informed discussion of the situation in Iraq is minuscule at best. Rather Iraq is what ties the American people's dissatisfaction into one nicely, defined package. The amount of American families that are being directly affected by Iraq--in terms of loved one's there, etc--is an infinitesimal proportion of the population. But it is what the American people hear day in day out about the situation in Iraq that makes them so against the war. Conventional wisdom holds that Congressional approval is so low because the American people elected the Democrats in thinking that they were going to pull the plug on the war. And that didn't happen. And no informed person thought it was going to happen either. Reality hits. Anger foments. And disapproval ensues.

Same thing with immigration. Polls contradict each other. A majority of Americans are for granting some sort of permanent status to the illegal immigrants already here, knowing that deportation isn't realistic, yet they are against the Immigration Bill. They're against the bill, but doing nothing--which is the other alternative--creates a silent amnesty by maintaining the system in a perpetual, broken-down, status-quo.

And that's the problem. The American people are indecisive. Congress and the President in turn become indecisive because they don't know what the American people want. And, its surely been the case that at times, what the American people want isn't what's right for the country. Leadership is needed. People who know what's right for America should be standing up and persuading Americans to do what's right.

But nothing is happening. Not in Washington. Not in Iraq.

And the sinking numbers will continue.

Speaking of sinking, another thing that apparently is: The Jefferson Memorial.

The Disapproval of George W. Bush

2007-05-09T10:41:00.000-04:00

Time Magazine started it.

They gave him the ultimate dis last week when they didn't name him one out of the one hundred most influential people in the world.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Timberlake, Tyra Banks, Shonda Rhimes and Condoleeza Rice made it. But not Dubya.

I bet he didn't lose much sleep over it though.

By Monday evening he was having dinner with the Queen. White-tie and tailcoats. Monday afternoon he issued one of his famous Bushism. Sort of implied that the Queen was over 200 years old. Then he looked at her and winked. "She gave me a look," he said, "that only a mother could give a child."

The President of the United States, like it or not, is arguably the most influentional person in the world.

Just last week, he vetoed the Democratic Iraqi Spending Bill, and now everyone is playing tag to see who's going to be the first one to blink, the first one to compromise. He continues to preside over two wars. But most importantly, he continues to be the president. Decisions he makes everyday are influential. Justin and Tyra's decisions, not so much.

But the House of Bush came crashing down when Newsweek released numbers showing his approval rating at a dismal 28%. One in three approve. 71% believe that the nation is heading in the wrong direction.

This is the curse of the second terms.

Presidential Historians always speak of second term curses. Nixon and Watergate. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Clinton and Lewinksy. Even Jefferson had some of that. His second term was stagnant as opposed to his Grand First with the purchase of the Lousiana territory.

And this is Bush's course. His soaring unpopularity. His mismanaged war. Public perceptions of apathy and incompetence surrounding this White House have been ingrained.

And now he ties Carter with the low approval ratings. Even Nixon had better. And he was about to get impeached and resigned.

But while Carter had hostages in Tehran, Bush has hostages in Baghdad. American soldiers held captive by the ideologies of intolerance, hate, and violence. American soldiers being prisons of war in a civil war.

Nothing is changing on the ground. The Al-Maliki government should fall. And the surge, without real measurable effects in place by this fall, even the Republicans will leave the president.

And then he'll be the man without a party.

GOP and Obama

2007-05-06T02:29:00.000-04:00

For some reason, and I know it's early on...

I may be one of them: Republicans defect to the Obama camp...

AND an interesting quote from the above-referenced article having to do with a previous post of mine:

For his optimism about the future, Obama has been dubbed the “black Ronald Reagan”.

News Closer to Home...

2007-05-04T18:04:00.000-04:00

Florida, Florida, Florida!

Alike California, the Florida Legislature has moved its primary election date to January 29, 2008.

So we're finally in the mix of things. It'll be the third primary state to hold an election after the perennial Iowa and New Hampshire (and after Nevada for the Democrats). Meaning it'll probably be the first state where a more diverse electorate will have a hand in choosing the nominees for each party. It also means that it'll be a bigger Ad Buy for Florida, and we'll be seeing the candidates on our airwaves months earlier than accustomed.

And with California holding their primary less than a week later, another electorate, Hispanics, may indeed if GOTV efforts are successful, play an increased role in choosing the nominees.

Son of Reagan

2007-05-04T14:17:00.000-04:00

They mentioned his name in homage twenty times. There were ten of them. You do the math.

Ronald Wilson Reagan really did something to this country. He really did something to the Republican Party. Republicans have made him a deity. And standing there with SAM (Special Air Mission) 27000 facing them throughout the debate, one couldn't but escape that they all lived in his shadow. That they all wanted to be the son of Reagan.

SAM 27000, better known by its call-sign Air Force One, carried Richard Nixon from Washington to California when he resigned the presidency in 1974. It served Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush (41). It was the plane that carried Reagan from Washington to Berlin where he implored Chairman Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" And there it was, inside the hanger where the debate took place. The ten of them knew that they were in the presence of history.

And there's no better way to succeed in the Republican Party today than to look to the past, and to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Everyone knows this. Stanley Greenberg, who used to spent his time in the 1990's serving as President Clinton's pollster wrote, The Two Americas, and in it, he clearly laid out the advantages to being the Son of Reagan. He argued--and I believe he is clearly prescient and brilliant--that Republicans must not fight the notion of "Two Americas," (in this sense taking another meaning from Edwards' worn-out stump speech) but rather embrace the Two Americas. We live in a divided nation. And all one party needs to do to win the presidency is to get the plurality. The Republican party is a party built on coalitions, but one thing that unites most all sectors, the economic conservatives and the social conservatives and the hawks, etc. is Ronald Reagan. Continuing with the metaphor that was used to death yesterday, he was the Republican Party's modern day messiah.

To be the son of Reagan means that you believe in Big Issues and a Sense of Purpose (see our current president). To be the son of Reagan means that you place an importance on the issue of faith and protecting religious practices. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in tax cuts and entrepreneurship and in business-led prosperity. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in a strong military and America's commitment to freedom.

And boy, they were all the sons of Reagan's last night.

Coverage today even took the position of who looked like Reagan the most. Alessandra Stanley bestowed that honor on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, saying he had:

...the tan, the Brylcreem hair, the straight white teeth and a voice so smooth and friendly it sounds as if he makes his living doing voice-overs for car
commercials. After the debate, Mr. Romney was the first to bolt across the stage
to shake hands with Nancy Reagan.

At the same time I found it interesting that as much as everyone was thinking about Reagan, no one was thinking about Bush being the anti-Reagan in a sense. It's a weird fate for Bush. During the 2000 campaign pundits all said that he was more the son of Reagan than the son of Bush. Today with his approval rates sinking and he's seen as more and more out of step with America, I figure Bush is Carter. And it's 1980 all over again. The big thing about 1980 of course was the sense of malaise. Nothing was going right. And from the west Reagan came promising that it would be "morning again in America." John McCain tried hitting that scene when he kept on talking about optimism. So did Gov. Romney. But while they respected President Bush last night, they did that with a grain of salt. Sen. McCain is walking a tight-rope. He's one of the president's staunchest supporter on the war in Congress. So much so that the fictional character Denny Crane on ABC's Boston Legal surmised that "McCain speaks Bush now." And that that might hurt in the election.

It was a little scary, the debate, I'll admit. All of them, when asked if Roe v. Wade being overturned would be a good thing for America were in the affirmative. Sen. Sam Brownback (who's not going anywhere) said "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom." And on it went. Romney and Giuliani were a little more tepid in their responses. Giuliani's response: "I'd be OK." To which he was asked to elaborate on what he meant, and what he said he meant went along the lines of this being a Federalist government, and that it's up to the courts to decide and he'd go along with whatever decision the courts would make. This coming from the man who while mayor of New York City supported public funding for Abortions. This point illuminates how difficult it is for the social moderates and liberals in the Republican party to capture the base.

Another scary moment came when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Brownback, and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (all three not going anywhere either), raised their hands saying that they don't believe in Evolution.

Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani were the only candidates who, with Nancy Reagan sitting in the front row, said that they would support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Something which Nancy Reagan advocates for, and something that drew this president's veto for the first time in office. (The other veto came this week when he returned to congress the Democratic War Spending Bill.)

On the issue of immigration, McCain also drew fire from his fellow presidential aspirants. It's popular in some parts of the Republican Party to refer to the comprehensive immigration bill which the President and Sen. McCain support as the "Kennedy McCain" or "McCain Kennedy" bill. Standing up there with Tancredo, the staunchest anti-illegal immigrants crusader in the presidential candidate field sure drew the ire of McCain. One of my favorite parts came up when they asked McCain if he'd be comfortable if Tancredo headed the immigration service. McCain's response: "In a word, no."

It was a pretty standard debate. No fireworks. No quotes that will be repeated for a couple more news cycles. Except probably, McCain's promise to "follow Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell." But it was a nice starter for the Republicans.

I'll leave you with this: It's been said that you'd have to be crazy to run for president. Apparently, Vanity Fair believes that Rudy Giuliani really is.

The Inaugural Entry

2007-05-03T11:27:00.000-04:00

Returning to blogs (formerly "livefrom" on LiveJournal), and aware of the number of political blogs which inhabit this virtual world, I've decided to foray into political journalism vis-à-vis this, yet another, political blog.

On the cable news shows, you see so-called pundits giving their words of wisdom Ad nauseum. It seems as if there's no more originality of thought. Political reporting is miniscule at best. What is published in the morning in the New York Times or the Washington Post is regurgitated throughout the day on the cable news channels, and analysis given by the hosts and guests are tantamout to nothing more than verbatim musings heard somewhere else or read somewhere else.

So I'll do the same exact thing. I'll try not to, but that's the way that American politics functions. It's all about the narrative that the press creates and runs with. It's all about the conventional wisdom. To be unconventional is to be controversial. To be conventional is to be respected. And while I'll do my writing not from inside the Beltway, or from a Midtown Manhattan office, I'll deliver analysis and current political narratives as they unfold and develop.

One narrative that is on the verge of becoming cliché: How early it is for the presidential campaign season to be in full swing. 8 Democrats and 10 Republicans. More or less three front-runners from each party. 18 people in America running to be president of the United States. 19 if Fred Thompson decides to come in.

In considering all of this, I've decided to begin this blog on the date of the first Republican Presidential Debate which will take place in the apotheosis of Republican devotion: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Valley, California.

I'll watch and subsequently blog. Attentively listening to the CW that arises and the narratives that'll hit the political pages of the major newspapers in America.

Till then, welcome to the Political Record.