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Jonathan Chait points out a Media Matters article by Eric Boehlert criticizing news organizations for their "unique push to get a competitive White House hopeful to drop out of the race." Boehlert cites columnists, editorial pages, and our very own Hillary Deathwatch as examples of media unfairly urging Hillary Clinton to bow out.
First off, I second Chait’s confusion about why opinion journalists shouldn’t be "taking it upon themselves to weed the presidential field by demanding one of the remaining candidates simply quit." Here I was, thinking it was the job of opinion journalists to make unreasonable demands—and the job of readers (including candidates) to pay attention or ignore them. Secondly, I’d distinguish between "pushing" Clinton to drop out and arguing that she can’t win. We’ve exhausted who-knows-how-much server space detailing the extremely daunting metrics facing her candidacy without explicitly calling for her to exit the race. Of course, there’s the implication that, facing doom, a rational candidate would surrender. But rationality left the building long ago.
More interesting, though, is the disparity between the views of opinion journalists and everyone else. Today the New York Times slapped a chart on A1 showing that 34 percent of Americans think Hillary Clinton will win the nomination, up from 21 percent a month ago. Meanwhile, only 51 percent of voters now think Obama will win, down from 69 percent. I guess it's not shocking that people think the race is close. It sure looks close. But that’s only if you’re looking at total numbers (say, Obama’s 14.4 million votes to Clinton’s 13.9 million) instead of margins and the number and size of remaining races. Numbers being stubborn things, Clinton can win only if she can convince superdelegates to override the pledged delegate count. (Having the popular vote on her side would help, but that number is already being sullied.) If anything, the media has done Clinton a favor in recent weeks: Judging from the way the Rev. Wright scandal has been covered, you could be forgiven for thinking Obama’s candidacy was about to crash and burn.
Perhaps Boehlert can take solace in recognizing that even if journalists are overstepping their bounds by saying Clinton can't win, at least no one is listening to them.
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Back in January, the New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton, praising her as "brilliant," "capable of both uniting and leading," and "more qualified" to be president than Barack Obama.
At the time, the New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman reported that the Times editorial board had initially favored Obama only to be swung toward Clinton by publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Maybe that’s why reading the paper’s editorial page since then has been like watching a marriage fall apart. The page tries to criticize Obama and Clinton equally, but certain passages give the impression there are regrets:
"As strongly as we back her candidacy, we urge Mrs. Clinton to take the lead in changing the tone of the campaign."—"Primary Choices," Jan. 25, 2008
"The reluctance of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain to reveal more about their finances ill-serves voters and the nominating process of both parties.—"Show Us the Money,” Feb. 15, 2008
"Mrs. Clinton’s camp continues to be responsible for most of the nastiness we’ve seen this primary season, and there were signs that they were drawing the wrong lesson from Tuesday’s vote: that 'red phone' ads and hardball tactics will win the day."—"What We’d Like to Hear," March 6, 2008
"After days of digging at Mr. Obama for saying that working-class voters turn xenophobic or 'cling to guns and religion' because they’re bitter over lost jobs, Mrs. Clinton couldn’t resist a new nasty attack ad. What she has yet to figure out is that she ends up hurting herself—feeding her negative image—by attacking too long and with too much relish."—"Guns and Bitter," April 16, 2008
"It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."—"The Low Road to Victory," April 23, 2008
"We know pandering when we see it. We also know that suspending the gas tax for the summer won’t solve this country’s energy problems or even reduce the price of gas."—"The Gas-Guzzler Gambit," May 1, 2008
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Obama woos a superdelegate away from Clinton, Hillary's own
supporters dislike her gas-tax holiday, and new polls suggest the
Obama-Clinton split is getting deeper but that Democrats are still
likely to win the White House. Clinton dives half a point to 12.1 percent.
Former
DNC chair Joe Andrew sounded a clarion call for superdelegates by
endorsing Barack Obama today. Andrew is an impressive get because he's
the kind of establishment Democrat that Obama could win over only by
brute political and mathematical force. (Not to mention he has two
first names.) In an interview with the Associated Press, Andrew said that Obama wisely rejected the gas-tax holiday and deftly handled the Rev. Wright imbroglio and that it was time to heal the rift in the Democratic Party...
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.
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Ever since Barack Obama got pegged as an elitist, that’s been the running subplot of the campaign. Just look at what the debate over the gas-tax holiday has become.
Hillary Clinton’s plan to temporarily reduce the gas tax by 18.4 cents is, to put it gently, not going over well. Just about every columnist imaginable denounced it. Sam Stein searched far and wide for an expert to defend it but came up empty.
So now the argument is that the plan’s detractors just don’t understand working-class Americans. “Working people appreciate the fact that Senator Clinton understands the incredible economic strain they are facing,” Clinton spokesman Geoff Garin said during a conference call today. “… If you live in the center of the city, it seems like not that big a deal. But in rural areas where a car is center to livelihood, it makes a difference.” The Clinton camp calculates that the plan would save $70. “It may not seem like a lot for some people, but every penny counts,” Garin said. In other words, $70 might not dent your wallet much when you’re already buying a $4 caramel macchiato every day, but when you spend every day on the open road … nevermind, you wouldn’t understand.
Obama has been pushing back hard on the gas-tax holiday. He has called it a “bad idea” and a “gimmick,” citing arguments that oil companies would just raise prices again. The problem is, a thousand economic arguments fail to match the force of one populist pander. (We saw this when both candidates said they want to scrap or “renegotiate” NAFTA. Same goes for their sudden love of ethanol when they set foot in Iowa.) Obama can’t just refute Clinton’s policy; he needs to refute her populism, too.
Maybe that’s why he reassured the Today Show hosts that “both Michelle and I grew up in much less privileged circumstances than either of my two potential opponents.” Next time, he should mention driving to school uphill both ways.
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On today’s “state of the race” conference call, a reporter asked about an exchange between Hillary Clinton and Bill O’Reilly on yesterday’s show in which Clinton uttered the words, “Rich people—God bless us.”
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson denied that’s what she said: “She said ‘God blessed us.’ B-L-E-S-S-E-D.”
That may be what she meant. But it’s definitely not what she said. I just watched the video again with headphones and cranked the volume way up. Not a trace of plosive after the sibilant.
Here’s the full context, as described by the Huffington Post:
[O’Reilly said,] “I'm not middle class, I'm a rich guy.” Clinton responded (in an awkward moment), “Rich people, God bless us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue until the next generation.”
This is not controversial. People know Clinton is rich. It's common for Christians to believe that wealthy people are blessed by God. And the phrase "God bless us" used in this context doesn't mean she's demanding that God smile upon the rich; it's clearly a lead-in to her point that wealthy people don't need all their money. Don’t get me wrong—it will make a great clip for the next MoveOn.org ad. But in context, it's a reasonable statement.
So why lie about it?
Updated Friday, May 2, 2:27 p.m.: AOL News' Tommy Christopher, who asked the question during the conference call, has the full exchange with Wolfson.
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This morning, Joe Andrew was Wikitaged. On a conference call, the former DNC chair and superdelegate announced his switch from Clinton to Obama but said he was worried about a smear campaign against him after some people fiddled with his Wikipedia page.
Naturally, we wondered what exactly these Wikiteurs were saying about him. Here’s a quick timeline from the page’s history:
At 5:57 this morning, someone added the information that
During the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination battle [Andrew] was on [sic] of the first to endorse Senator Hillary Clinton, on May 1, 2008, however, he decided to switch his allegiance to Senator Barack Obama. He becomes one of a growing number of former Clinton officials or appointees to switch to Barack Obama.
Later, at 11:20, the entire entry disappeared, to be replaced with
Joe Andrew (born March 1, 1960) is a stupid faggot, and an Obama zombie.
It took less than a minute for another user, "NawlinWiki," to revert the page to its old version. But two hours later, some added this bit:
He will be remembered when the party is unable to retake the White House. He will be remembered as a traitor to his friends and the party.
Six minutes later, it was gone. But soon the pro-Obama forces (or, really, one user going by the creative handle “209.250.12.106”) started to rally, posting at the bottom of the page:
HILLARY IS A LIAR, BEWARE THE CLINTON'S [sic] WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING!
A minute later, the same user copied and pasted this phrase a few hundred times.
Just after noon, the page was locked: "Editing of this article by new or unregistered users is currently disabled."
Hardly the craziest online political battle, but, still—don't Phil Singer and Bill Burton have anything better to do with their time?
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Crackpot theories abound in this news cycle, but one of ours—that Rev. Wright’s resurgence may end up helping Obama—could actually have some truth to it.
Just today, former DNC Chairman Joe Andrew switched his allegiance from Clinton to Obama. The main reason, he says, is that dragging the race out hurts the party. But he has other reasons, too:
“He has shown such mettle under fire,” Andrew said. “The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party.”
If superdelegates were looking for an opportunity to swing to Clinton, the return of Wright should have been just that. But the trickle still favors Obama. Since Pennsylvania, Obama has won 11 supers to Clinton’s six. Since Ohio and Texas, the numbers are 35 and 14, respectively. Clinton’s ever-shrinking superdelegate lead is now 20.
Wright has obviously hurt Obama overall. But he has also given Obama the opportunity to prove that he can weather disaster—twice, and in two different ways. Now it’s harder to argue, as Clinton has, that Obama hasn’t been “vetted.” Not that the “vetting” has revealed anything whatsoever about what kind of president Obama would be. But that’s not the point. The point is he has survived controversy, which, for better or worse, is as important to becoming president these days as compelling policy ideas.
Granted, Andrew’s rationale for endorsing Obama is just one guy’s take. And it clearly wasn’t the deciding factor in his decision to switch. But it does suggest that Wrightgate has a silver lining in the eyes of superdelegates.