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I’m generally skeptical about suggestions that this general election will be more civil than most. Just look what happened to the Democratic race, which back in 2007 felt like an ice cream social compared with the GOP race. But there are signs of hope.
Today, the North Carolina Republican Party unveiled a new ad criticizing two gubernatorial candidates for endorsing Barack Obama, who, thanks to his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is “just too extreme for North Carolina.” (Watch it here.) But before they even announced it, John McCain had sent a letter to the state GOP chair asking the party not to air it: “The television advertisement you are planning to air degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats. In the strongest terms, I implore you to not run this advertisement.”
It didn’t work. Despite pleas from both McCain and the RNC, the state party will still run the ad.
But the fact that McCain tried matters. One of the strongest of Hillary Clinton’s dwindling set of arguments is that Obama will be vulnerable to GOP attacks in the general election. Between Wright and “bitter” and the flag pin, he has already given them enough fodder for three elections’ worth of attack ads. So if McCain has decided not to make an issue of Wright, that’s a big deal. Presumably that means other, equally tenuous lines of attack would also be off limits, too.
Now keep in mind that McCain is no innocent when it comes to exploiting gaffes. He’s on the record calling Obama’s “bitter” comment “elitist.” (Although many would argue those comments are fair game.) And it’s possible McCain realizes he doesn’t have to exploit something like Wright—that the damage is done.
But if you’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, this could bode well for future campaign civility. Remember that McCain’s 2000 presidential bid suffered after rumors circulated that he had fathered an illegitimate black daughter.
Obama doesn’t seem quite ready to let McCain off the hook, though: “I assume that if John McCain thinks that it's an inappropriate ad that he can get them to pull it down since he's their nominee and standard bearer,” he said today. My guess: Take this series of events (attack, umbrage, apology, attack), put it on replay, and you’ve got yourself a general election.
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Tonight on Larry King Live: Bill Richardson. James Carville. The political showdown to end all political showdowns. A traitor versus a former compatriot. Benedict Arnold versus George Washington. Brutus versus Caesar. Anakin versus Obi-Wan. It all comes down to tonight.
Who will triumph? If the winner is judged by follicles, Richardson has the edge. These days, he's got more hair on his face than Carville has on his entire body. But never underestimate the man from the Beast of the Bayou. He's got Mary Matalin as a tag-team partner. Richardson better watch his back.
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So much for being broke.
The Clinton campaign is claiming they’re on course to raise $10 million in the wake of her Pennsylvania win. That’s a money bomb even Ron Paul would admire. According to the campaign, they’ve received money from more than 60,000 donors, of whom about 50,000 are new donors.
Of course, the Obama camp takes this as a challenge. They responded with an e-mail to supporters citing Clinton’s fundraising: “We can't afford to let that go unanswered.” The way this usually works is the Clinton campaign touts some big number, only to be eclipsed by the Obama machine a day later.
But $10 million is a lot to eclipse. That’s already half of what Clinton raised in March. It also erases her debt, which in early March was creeping past $9 million. (As Obama spokesman David Plouffe quipped on a call today, “I guess they can now begin to pay off some of their vendors.”) It puts her on her feet to compete with the inevitable Obama media blitz in Indiana.
And most important, it shows that people haven’t given up on her. They really think she can win. In Pennslyvania exit polls, 43 percent of voters said they believe Clinton will win. (Even some Obama voters think so, according to the polls.) If superdelegates are looking for an excuse to dally some more, this could be it.
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The Clinton campaign has always had its own way of doing things. When Clinton realized she couldn’t win the pledged-delegate count, it became about the popular vote. When that gap widened, it became about “big states.” Now it’s back to being about the popular vote—only the Clinton campaign isn’t counting like the rest of us. As predicted, they’re including Florida and Michigan.
There are so many problems with this, it’s hard to know where to begin.
First, the obvious: Florida and Michigan don’t count. If you’re talking about the overall tally, Obama still leads by about 500,000 votes. If you include Florida and Michigan, though, Clinton is ahead by 120,000. Nevermind that neither candidate campaigned in Florida (Clinton will tell you that Obama violated this agreement by airing an ad on CNN ad that appeared across the country, including Florida) and that Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan. That’s why none of the networks—not NBC, not ABC, not CNN—are including those states in their popular-vote tallies without caveats.
Next, there’s the Clinton camp’s duplicity when it comes to reporting these numbers. ABC’s Jake Tapper reports this morning that Clinton’s Fact Hub twisted an ABC report on the popular vote. ABC News’ Rick Klein had written, "By one (rightly disputed) metric -- the popular vote, including Florida and Michigan -- Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama. But without the rogue states, Obama is still up by 500,000 -- and if you can find another objective measurement by which she’s in the lead, let us know.” Based on that report, the Fact Hub claimed that “ABC News reported this morning that ‘Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama’ in the popular vote.” That Tapper bothered to report the misrepresentation makes it pretty clear that the Clinton camp is going to get resistance on this one. If they want to twist the numbers, they’ll have to do it without the media’s help.
Lastly, there’s the fundamental problem with the popular vote: It’s wrong. As we’ve pointed out before, the popular-vote tally includes only the roughest estimates of caucus turnout, since many caucus states only report delegates, not individuals. Moreover, because caucus turnout is low relative to primaries, the popular vote ends up underestimating the candidates’ popularity in those states. So whoever does better in caucuses—in this case, Obama—ends up getting underrepresented. (You could argue that this is divine retribution for Obama’s skewed performance in caucuses, but hey, that’s the system the states chose—and the candidates agreed to.) So the “popular vote”—an authoritative-sounding phrase—is really just a shoddy estimate that underrepresents Obama’s caucus performance and therefore favors Clinton.
That’s not to say Clinton’s magical popular-vote math won’t sway a few superdelegates. No doubt it will. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said last month that he would reconsider his support for Clinton if Obama won the popular vote. If he’s looking for an excuse to stick with Clinton, this could be it. But most supers are likely to be extremely squeamish about disregarding the pledged-delegate count. Since the creation of superdelegates in 1984, no presidential candidate has won the Democratic nomination without winning pledged delegates, and no superdelegate wants to facilitate a historical first like that when it means potentially undermining the first black president. On the other hand, if that’s true, you wonder why they’re waiting so long to decide.
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The New York Times editorial page posted its post-Pennsylvania reaction last night, the gist of which suggests they may be regretting their previous endorsement of Hillary Clinton. They don’t quite urge her to drop out, but they do chide her for the campaign’s “negativity, for which she is mostly responsible.”
The timing on this feels odd. The consensus of late seems to be that both camps have been equally responsible for the campaign’s negative tone. The Times makes sure to note that “Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign,” but it pins the majority of the blame on Clinton. For them, the final straw (or maybe just the most recent) was Clinton’s last-minute ad invoking 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden coupled with her promise to “obliterate” Iran should they attack Israel.
There’s obviously no way to quantify negativity of ads or statements. And it gets even messier when they start attacking each other for attacking each other. Eventually the umbrage and counter-attacks and recriminations build to such a frenzy that you forget who threw the first punch. Given this, it’s easy to fall back on a “pox on both your houses” blanket condemnation. The fact that the Times didn’t do this—rather, they went out of their way to single out Clinton—suggests they’re trying to walk back their original endorsement.
Makes you wonder if they’re implicitly suggesting that Clinton’s superdelegates do the same.
Update 1:34 p.m.: I neglected to mention that the Times almost endorsed Obama.
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On a conference call this morning, Obama strategist David Plouffe rejects a Washington Post report that Obama will go supernegative over the coming weeks. From the Post:
In the two weeks leading up to the Indiana primary, a Democratic strategist familiar with the Obama campaign said aides are likely to turn to the controversies of Bill Clinton's White House years -- Hillary Clinton's trading cattle futures, Whitewater and possibly impeachment.
"Everyone knows the history of the Clintons," the strategist said.
In the piece, Plouffe seems to leave the door open to such attacks in the future. On the call, however, he closed the door: “We’re not going to do that. We’ve not talked about those issues in the campaign and won’t.”
It wouldn't be the first time the campaign hit Clinton while claiming they didn't. (See Obama feigning innocence on Tuzla in last week's debate.) But after an answer like that, it would be tough for Plouffe to walk this one back.
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On Monday, we predicted
Clinton's margin of victory in Pennsylvania: "Clinton will win by eight
points—just high enough for her to stick around, just low enough for
Obama supporters to claim she's done." As it turns out, we were off; it
was more like 10 points. But our conclusion still stands: Clinton now
has an excuse to drag her delegate-hemorrhaging candidacy around for a
few more weeks. But despite the gloomy prospects, we're hiking her
chances of winning the nomination up 0.8 points to 10.7 percent.
Why
the raise? Two words: popular vote. As we and everyone who can read
knows, Clinton has no shot of closing Obama's pledged-delegate lead.
Her candidacy therefore depends on convincing superdelegates to vote
for her despite that lead. But vague claims of "electability"
aren't enough. She needs numbers on her side, and the popular vote is
her last shot at beating Obama by a legitimate metric. With
Pennsylvania under her belt—the primary netted her a little more than
200,000 votes—Clinton now trails Obama by about 500,000, according to RealClearPolitics. And that's before
the spin. If you count Florida's and Michigan's votes, which she no
doubt will, Obama's popular-vote lead shrinks to about 100,000. Whether
or not she closes that gap, she's close enough to argue that they're
tied.
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.