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Feinstein's SneakPlus--Today's Obama Gaffe-to-Ignore

By Mickey Kaus
Updated Monday, May 19, 2008, at 1:54 PM ET

Mutnemom in Action: RCP's chart shows Hillary closing in Oregon, of all places. ... Backfill: See Faughnan--"Is her mutnemom kicking into overdrive now that even Senator Obama seems to be tossing dirt onto her grave?" ... [Thanks to reader P.F.] 10:32 P.M.

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The Possibilities of Push-Off Politics: 1) David Frum argues Republican Congressional candidates should treat the presidential election as "already lost" and campaign "on a message to balance the crazy left-wing things a President Obama is sure to try." 2) Jennifer Rubin argues the Republican presidential candidate should treat the Congress as already lost and campaign on a message to moderate the things a lopsidedly Democratic legislature is sure to try.

It's hard to see how both these strategies could plausibly be successful, assuming polls on the week before election day offer an accurate picture of whether the GOP has a chance to control either branch of government. At the moment, Rubin's strategy looks closer to reality--McCain has a shot at the presidency, so writing him off doesn't resonate. But even the Republicans in Congress think the Republicans in Congress are doomed.

Would Rubin's proposed McCain strategy of running against the looming Congressional Democratic majority make it impossible for him to "triangulate" by dissing Congressional Republicans? Not really--presumably he could do both, contrasting himself with the conservative GOP caucus and with the Pelosi Democrats.

What about "reverse triangulation" (noitalugnairt!)--the possibility that a party's Congressional delegation could get closer to the center than its presidential candidate? That seems impossible for the Republicans. It's not impossible for the Democrats. If Obama fails to pivot to the center (as Frum, at least, predicts) Rahm Emmanuel's House candidates could easily position themselves as moderate checks on a very liberal prospective President, no? ... 1:15 A.M.

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Strange piece on the huge, attractively Apollonian Ford Flex in Automobile, in which the editors get driven around but don't say much about the actual car. ("Sadly, the dog ate our notes.") Is that because the Flex, er, sucked? Maybe Ford's PR department restricted what the editors could say and do, envisioning a benign pre-rollout teaser. But if the car's any good, that approach backfired by raising doubts. ... P.S.: When is the last time a Ford interior was criticized for being "luxuriously upscale"? Ford should have that problem. ... 12:26 P.M.

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Note that, Dick Morris, in his cynical advice to McCain, advocates that he appeal to Dems and independents by moving to the center--but not on McCain's signature issue of "comprehensive immigration reform" (which Morris has supported). Indeed, Morris thinks McCain should:

Attack Obama for favoring federally subsidized health insurance for illegal immigrants.

Says something about the vaunted popular appeal of immigration semi-amnesty, no? It's not like welfare reform--a popular initiative policy elites resisted for decades. If it happens, which it might, it will be because political, policy and business elites (plus ethnic lobbies) manage to finesse it through Congress despite unenthusiastic popular sentiment. ... 12:05 P.M.

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

Today's Obama Gaffe to Ignore: No point covering this, Mr. Halperin, sir. Move right along. Obama's our nominee. We're stuck with him. Here he explains his impending loss in Kentucky:

"What it says is that I'm not very well known in that part of the country," Obama said. "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle." [E.A.]

Cling Alert! ... As emailer "S" notes: 1) "Last time I checked, Illinois was more 'nearby' Kentucky than Arkansas. Heck, they even touch." 2) "[I]sn't there something a tad condescending in his reference to "some of those states in the middle"? ...

P.S.: Obama also said that Kentucky Democrats are fools who let themselves get pumped full of false rumors by Fox News, or words to that effect. But he'll rally them in the fall! ...

Note to Sen. Obama: Please stop explaining! ... 6:43 P.M. link

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"Forget 'Comprehensive.' Just Give Us the Amnesty!"--Senate Version-- Senator Dianne Feinstein's quickie last minute amnesty sneak play--tacking a 5-year amnesty for 1.5 million agricultural workers onto the Iraq supplemental--has been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. ... Full Senate vote expected next week. ...

Note that this isn't what I've called a "semi-amnesty." It's not that "semi". What illegal ag workers have to do to get the 5-year legalization appears to be minimal--no learning English, or paying back taxes, etc. Just a $250 "fine." ... I don't know whether there is a serious threat of Feinstein's bill passing, or if she's just trying to show big farmers and Hispanic groups that she's trying. Or to see if the other side's machine guns are still working. ... Best to assume it's a serious threat. ... Bush would surely sign the bill if it passes. ... Other than that, comments on the House's earlier sneak play apply to the Senate's version.:

a) Bad for McCain, right? Just when he's papered over his split with the right on immigration, this would reopen the wound. Maybe that's the Dems point. ...

b) Bad for Rahm Emanuel's swing-district Democratic first-termers who campaigned on tough-on-illegal-immigration platforms, no? If it ever comes to a vote, will they reveal to their electorates that it was all just a pose? ...

c) But not an unclever strategy, if you are a pro-legalization Congressperson and want to strike while Hispandering Season is at its height. ...

d) Presumably McCain is now honor bound to oppose this, having pledged to push legalization only after "widespread consensus that our borders are secure." (If he sticks to his word, it might actually wind up helping him in November, you'd think.)

e) Can you pass a big bill like this in a presidential election year? Well, welfare reform passed in 1996. The key difference? Welfare reform was overwhelming popular, virtually across the board. The fight was largely over who could claim credit for it. Congressmen weren't worried that someone might run an ad accusing them of making welfare recipients go to work.

f) Is this a tacit admission by the legalization caucus that a semi-amnesty might not be as easy to pass in the next president's first two years than you might think (given that all three contenders are formally pro-legalization). ...

g) Or is this an expression of fear that local get-tough enforcement measures, in states like Oklahoma and Arizona, might already be having a surprising effect (at encouraging emigration

P.S.: Is there a clearer way to signal to potential new illegals, now in Mexico and Central America, that they should come on over--because if they make it across the border and work for a couple of years, their employers will have the lobbying muscle to get them legalized? ... Note also that the House version of the quickie last-minute amnesty was designed to hitch a ride on Rep. Shuler's popular border security bill (the SAVE Act). There's no such immigration-related locomotive for Feinstein's bill...

P.P.S.: Feinstein's website features a pathetically unimpressive trio of ag horror stories, including the now-familiar Bush appointee who stopped growing tomatoes in order to plant corn, and Steve Scaroni:

Steve Scaroni couldn't find enough workers to work at his lettuce processing plant in California. So he moved the plant to Guanajuato, Mexico to get the labor force that he needed. He now has 2,000 acres in Mexico and 500 employees. He exports to the United States about 2 million pounds of lettuce a week.

Is it crazy to ask why the Scaroni horror story is horrifying? We still get the lettuce. Mexican workers still get the jobs (which, according to Feinstein, were jobs Americans weren't willing to do anyway). Mexico builds its economy, and we don't have to create a group of disenfranchised second-class residents. Nor do we open the borders to workers who can then compete, not just in ag jobs but in all sorts of other jobs that unskilled, hard-pressed Americans will do.

Seems like a sensible deal. If this is really an "emergency situation" requiring a last-minute sneak addition to a must-pass Iraq war bill, you'd think Feinstein would be able to come up with more gripping examples. Some crops rotting, maybe? Wilting a little around the edges? Losing their traditional succulence? Have the Farm Bureau put an intern on it. ...

More: From Malkin, Askew. ... 5:48 P.M. link

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Friday, May 16, 2008

Slopposition Research: Tom Bevan's pragmatic single-factor explanation for Hillary's loss seems inarguable. She was Wright too late! But of course, then you have to explain why she didn't get the Wright videos out into the MSM earlier. Was her campaign staff so cocooned they didn't read Jodi Kantor's NYT story? (How about Kantor's second story?) Were they so PC they thought they'd be attacked if they used Wright? Were they so PC they didn't see what was wrong with Wright? Did they think the MSM was so tanked for Obama that they'd bury the story? Were they so arrogant they thought they didn't need to use it, or only realized the trouble they were in until it was too late (which would suggest that Hillary didn't learn one lesson of her disastrous 1994 Hillary's health care campaign). ... As Bevan notes, it's not like they didn't go negative on Obama and get grief for it. They just went negative with embarrassingly trivial and ineffective ammo--most famously, Obama's kindergarten essay. ... It's almost as if Chris Lehane was secretly calling the shots! ...

P.S.: This is not hindsight! ... 5:16 P.M.

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Sliattaoc! If McCain should win the presidency, isn't he likely to have reverse coattails? THe voters seem near-desperate to throw out the Republicans. If they vote for McCain in the end, it will almost certainly be simply because they have too many doubts about Obama. But they'll feel guilty about that, and will make sure to vote Democratic at the Congressional level in an attempt to compensate and satisfy the pent-up anti-GOP demand (which will be even more pent-up if a Republican succeeds President Bush). ... It's a theory, anyway. ... P.S.: And that's before you even factor in the likelihood that McCain will be running half-against the Congressional Republicans throughout the campaign. ... P.P.S.: Note that McCain's age also works for him in this resepct. Voters can console themselves with the thought that he won't seek a second term--so they won't be delaying the Democrats' return to the White House for all that long. ... 2:15 A.M. link

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Anita Busch, the journalist allegedly threatened by Anthony Pellicano, wants the L.A. Times to investigate "every story that Chuck Philips has written about the Pellicano case." ... 1:17 A.M.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

HuffPo Off Message: Rachel Sklar comes dangerously close to Fisking the NYT's book-length Pentagon Message Machine scoop. ... 11:20 P.M.

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"I disliked Obama almost instantly": Cinque Henderson outlines a plausible Paranoid Revisionist view of Obama. Henderson may not be bitter, but he sure is crabby and contrarian -which makes for good bloggin'. And he doesn't waste your time. He's the black Marty Peretz! Sign him up. ... 10:37 P.M.

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The Ticket? I Don't Think So! From Thursday's NYT, via Drudge:

Mr. Edwards has carefully played down his aspirations for an administration role. In an interview in January, he said he would not accept a vice-presidential spot or Cabinet position. "No, absolutely not," he said, shaking his head emphatically when asked.

But privately, he told aides that he would consider the role of vice president, and favored the position of attorney general, which would appeal to his experience of decades spent in courtrooms as a trial lawyer in North Carolina; and his desire to follow in the footsteps of Robert F. Kennedy, one of his heroes.

Not long after Mr. Edwards dropped out of the race, John C. Moylan, a close friend and adviser who ran his South Carolina campaign, said Mr. Edwards he would consider a Cabinet spot. "You don't run for president unless you want to work in the administration," Mr. Moylan said.

Edwards won't be Obama's VP pick. Why? 1) Hey, why not double down on inexperience? 2) If he vets, the vetters haven't called me. ... See also. ... 9:38 P.M.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

What "change" may mean: Dave Weigel of Reason describes the confident union push for "card check" legislation in the next Democratic administration. This is a much more significant issue than the manufactured debate over a gas tax holiday (sorry, Jon!). It's a permanent structural change in the economy. With "card check," unions wouldn't have to win the right to represent workers in a regular secret ballot election. They'd merely have to collect cards from a majority of workers. ...

You can be against "card check" for all the various process reasons we normally favor secret ballot elections--privacy, freedom from intimidation--and still favor greater unionization of the American work force. That would not be my position! It seems to me that a) a tight 90s-style labor market and b) direct government provision of benefits (e.g. health care, OSHA) accomplishes what we want traditional unions to accomplish, but on a broader basis and without encouraging a sclerotic, adversarial bureaucracy that gets in the way of the productive organization of work. ... And here's an example: Ford has developed a seemingly efficient new manufacturing system at its Camacari factory in Brazil, where employees of the company's suppliers work side by side with regular Ford workers assembling cars. But there is a problem transferring the new system to the U.S.:

Ford sources said it is the sort of plant the company wants in the United States, were it not for the United Auto Workers, which has historically opposed such extensive supplier integration on the factory floor. ...[snip]

As in the United States, [Brazilian] assembly workers make more than those employed by suppliers, and the union is eager to ensure that work reserved for the higher paid Ford employees is not being done by lower wage supplier staff.

Labor expert Harley Shaiken of the University of California, Berkeley, said similar concerns are one reason why the Camaçari model is unlikely to be duplicated in the United States. He said the UAW has relaxed work rules at many Ford factories to allow workers to do more than one job, and has even allowed experiments with limited supplier integration.

But he said the UAW is concerned that giving too much on these fronts will just allow the companies to speed up production and transfer more and more work to lower-paid supplier employees.

"Clearly, what is going on in Brazil is pushing that envelope," he said. "I would never say never, but it would be a hard sell."

Even if the union would eventually negotiate a compromise, a firm that doesn't have to negotiate a compromise over every innovation is likely to beat a firm that does, no? And for the same reason a blogger with zero editors should beat a blogger with six editors: Fewer meetings! ... The Wagner Act is not designed for an era of continuous change and improvement. ...

P.S.: Alter and I have a rambling debate on this issue here. ... [via Newsalert] 1:15 P.M.

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Get-Up-And-Get-A-Beer Line of the Day: The Hill asked various Senators whether they would consider an offer to be vice-president. One answer stuck out:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho): "I would say, "No, Hillary."

I think he meant that he's more likely to be tapped at this point by the Democrats than Republicans. But there are so many other possible meanings. Let's get up and get a beer and think about them! ... P.S.: And if he's joking that only a Democrat would pick him, why isn't it "No, Barack"? ... 12:27 P.M.

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

From Mark Halperin's Page summarizing the Sunday chat shows:

Clinton campaign chair McAuliffe, who some consider the greatest chairman in the history of the Democratic Party, said the race isn't over and laid out Clinton's path to the nomination ... [E.A.]

Halperin may have been saying that ironically. But not ironically enough! ... Under Terry McAuliffe's chairmanship, Dems failed to take the White House. They lost House seats in the 2002 and 2004 elections. They lost Senate seats in the 2002 and 2004 elections. As party spokesman, McAuliffe lent a slimy money-focused veneer to the Democratic brand. The party didn't win until Howard Dean took over. ... If McAuliffe's not the sort of Washington insider Obama would banish, it's hard to know who is. ... 9:08 P.M.

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kf Mother's Day Special--Vito Finito? You mean your political career is destroyed just because you father a love child? ... Does that punishment only apply to family-values Republicans? Or does it apply to everyone? ... Does you-know-who know this? (He keeps thrusting his personality into the vortex!) ... Update: Rep. Fossella seems to be about to follow one of the key rules from James Boyd's famous "Ritual of Wiggle"--

At the moment of deepest personal disgrace, announce for reelection.**

**--That's from memory. I can't find a copy of Boyd's 1970 Washington Monthly article. ...

Update: Alert reader J.S. asks: "Don't you think there's a major difference between a pol who admits he sired a love child and one who denies it?" I think J.S. believes this distinction cuts against Edwards. But you could read it another way! ... 7:55 P.M.

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Friday, May 9, 2008

Don't Read This, Maureen: Obama buys his suits "off the rack" ... at ... um ... Burberry. 6:09 P.M. link

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Newsweek's Jon Alter accuses me of being a mindlessly contrarian crypto-conservative. I accuse him of being an Obama tankster. A good time is had by all. ... P.S.: Alter also calls Hillary's gas tax holiday "the worst pander ever in modern politics." I think he's lost historical perspective. ... 10:55 A.M.

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Thursday, May 8, 2008

Update--Did McCain Refuse to Vote for Bush in 2000? The number of people excitable McCain aide Mark Salter is having to call liars and otherwise slander is growing at an alarming rate. It's up to 4 now. (Arianna, Brad Whitford, Richard Schiff and the LAT's anonymous diner). ... Of course, when Salter says that McCain

"voted for George Bush; I know it for dead certitude."

that doesn't rule out the possibility that McCain merely said he didn't vote for Bush in order to suck up to a group of prominent Hollywood liberals. ... P.S.: Unless Salter was in the voting booth with McCain, he doesn't "know ...for dead certitude" what his boss did. He has no choice but to deny the charge--but his sneering Lehane-like invective, which he obviously thinks is brilliant ("I know neither actor, but I assume they were acting.") isn't helping him sound more credible. ... P.P.S.: At least, for McCain's sake, this same Salter isn't also one of the key aides who denied the NYT's Vicki Iseman story. ... Oh, wait. ... 3:46 A.M. link

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Let the record show that Tuesday's Dem results are almost completely explicable by reference to:

1) Mutnemom: Hillary has won when she's been losing and on the verge of elimination. But after Pennsylvania, she seemed to be surging. The CW became that she could win big in Indiana and come close in N.C. She had the opposite of mutnemom--actual momentum. That's a killer! Voters were forced to contemplate her actualy becoming President (instead of worrying about Obama as President). ... [So how did you go wrong?--ed Speculating that Hillary had "Permanent Mutnemom" despite her CW surge.]

2) The Feiler Faster Thesis: Rev. Wright reappeared on BIll Moyers' show on April 25, eleven days before the primaries. He spoke at the National Press Club April 28, eight days before the primary. Obama cut him loose the next day, but still fell in the polls. Would he have time to recover in the mere 7 days before the vote? Rev. Wright may have thought no. And in 1988 or 1992 the answer might have been no, as voters gradually found out about the pastor controversy and weighed Obama's reaction. But information is comfortably processed more quickly these days! There was plenty of time for Obama to fall and rise again, just as there was time in 2000 for McCain to recover from the damage of the South Carolina primary and win in Michigan three days later. If Wright wanted to screw Obama, he should have waited a week before delivering his speech. ... (Maybe Osama will make the same mistake if he tries another pre-election video release.) ...

P.S.: Note the implication of the Feiler Faster Thesis for what Obama now has to worry about--not that he won't have enough time before the general election to reposition himself or negatively "define" his opponent, but that there's so much time we'll get tired of him, he'll lose his freshness (and maybe stop embodying "change"). By the same token, voters who are now put off by him will have plenty of time to start finding him comfortingly familiar. ...

[Thanks to alert reader J.D.] 10:12 P.M. link

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Hail, Columbia, Hail Mary: John Ellis sees"one last chance" for Clinton. ... 7:34 P.M.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Hillary's campaign sends out a message to supporters:

So Hillary's victory in Indiana – fought out against the backdrop of an ailing economy – is all the more incredible. We started out behind in both the public and internal polls.

For example, our March 13 poll showed Hillary trailing by 8 points, while our latest poll gave Hillary a 5 point lead.

Huh? What do Hillary's internal polls mean at this point? We have actual results now, and she doesn't have a 5 point lead. ... 9:53 P.M.

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LAT finds a witness who contradicts excitable McCain aide Mark Salter's "totally false" charge. ... 9:24 A.M.

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Obama may win/steal Indiana. Only Wolf Blitzer could make this not exciting! Where is Pat Caddell when you need him? ... P.S.: Isn't it almost better for Obama if he loses Indiana by a few hundred votes? The nomination campaign is almost certainly over anyway, yet if he loses Indiana he won't have to contend with lingering charges of vote-counting mischief. ... P.P.S.: OK, CNN eventually had a reasonably dramatic momentary dispute between the mayors of Hammond and Gary, with the pro-Clinton Hammond mayor openly suggesting possible impropriety. ... 9:02 P.M. link

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Blogger DWA:

Why don't the networks tell us who "won" according to the exit polls? The polls have closed, so they can't affect the results?

Good question. It's mildly infuriating how the networks--even on the Web-- pompously present all the various permutations of the exit poll data except the permutation you are most interested in: the result. After the polls have closed, why not be transparent and release the overall horse-race numbers--especially since those numbers have almost certainly shaped their coverage? Is it because the nets want to avoid being embarrassed when their bottom line exit poll estimates turn out to be wrong? Does CNN think viewers are so pathetically passive and needy that they will sit there happily as Bill Schneider and Soledad O'Brien spoonfeed them third-order tidbits on how white working class independents and male suburban Catholics broke down? If you're watching CNN, you're into politics enough to understand that early exit numbers can be off for legitimate reasons. ... P.S.: Mark Blumenthal gives a somehwat unsatisfying statesmanlike response to DWA. [See his 9:32 P.M. entry]... 8:45 P.M.

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A note on NBC's attempt to disprove the Limbaugh Effect with exit poll data: Why do we assume that mischievous dittohead Republicans will make the effort to vote in the primary of a party they don't even believe in, but that then these same people won't lie to exit pollsters (i.e., about which Democratic candidate would do better against McCain, or even about which candidate they voted for)? ... See also. ... 7:56 P.M.

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The rehabilitation of John Zogby would be a heavy price to pay for transcending America's historic racial divide: Kf remains skeptical of early exit polls showing a double-digit Obama win in North Carolina. Remember that some very early exits had him actually winning in Pennsylvania. ... P.S.: Mark Blumenthal is liveblogging the shifting exit polls. ... 4:55 P.M.

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Johnny Sack on 'card check': Mike Murphy's ad (which is running on MSNBC) seems effective. 2:56 P.M.

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That was fast: CNN's politicalticker on McCain's recent appearance --

The Arizona senator also seemed to move past his usual "secure the borders first" mantra in favor of calling for, as he put it, "comprehensive immigration reform." ...[snip]

"Unless we enact comprehensive immigration reform I don't think you can take it piecemeal," he explained Monday, answering a question about providing visas for skilled workers.

"In other words," he said, "because as soon you and I start to talk about the highly skilled workers, our agricultural interest people are going to say, 'Look we need ag workers, too.' And then somebody's going say, 'We need the DREAM Act,' and then somebody's going to say, 'We've got to enforce our border.'"

Throughout the Republican primary battle last fall, McCain faced relentless questions about his support for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, the 2007 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to remain in the United States if they faced certain penalties. Opponents labeled it "amnesty."

Since clinching the nomination, McCain has largely avoided speaking about wide-ranging immigration reform, arguing primarily that the government needs to focus on securing the border with Mexico before taking on other measures.

On Monday, he lobbied for a broader approach that includes a temporary guest worker program and tamper-proof ID cards.

"We get in this kind of a circular firing squad on immigration reform in the Congress of the United States," McCain said, "and the lesson I learned from it is we've got to have comprehensive immigration reform."

McCain's "secure the borders first" position was always a transparent deception designed to get him through the Republican primaries. I just didn't expect him to drop it before the Republican convention. Won't there be at least a mini-rebellion? Or is that what McCain wants? ... [via KLo]

P.S.: Wasn't this supposed to be Reassure Conservatives Day for McCain? Why should they believe his insincere promises on judges when he's already backsliding on his insincere promises on immigration? ... Watch McCain's judge speech. Does he seem like he believes a word he's saying? ... 2:23 P.M. link

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Why not predict? Clinton by 8 in Indiana. Obama by 3 or less in N.C. ... Update: Hmm. ... 5/7 Update: kf calls both results correctly! ... Other than that I completely missed it. ... 3:05 A.M. link

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Monday, May 5, 2008

"Obama by double digits" in N.C.: Predicted by a blogger using a sophisticated model that ignores ... what's been happening in the campaign. Like Rev. Wright. I predict this person is wrong! ... Update: He was right. ... [via Insta] 9:27 P.M.

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McCain didn't vote for Bush in 2000? Did he vote for Gore then?** (Rush--you want to continue with Operation Chaos?) ... After saving this nugget for 8 years, shouldn't Arianna have dropped it at the beginning of her book tour? ... Of course, the anecdote makes a point opposite from the one Arianna wants to make. Her argument is that McCain is now a doctrinaire right-winger. Isn't it much more likely that his current GOP orthodoxy is mainly an appearance? What he told Arianna in 2000 would be the reality. [That assumes he'll act on the reality and not the appearance--ed. True. The reality is already taking over.] ...

Update: McCain camp denies. Excitable aide Mark Salter calls Huffington "a flake, and a poser, and an attention seeking diva." Arianna posts a useful compendium of righteous McCain falsehoods. This is getting good. Certainly good for Arianna. ...

**--Correction: Item originally, erroneously had Kerry instead of Gore as the 2000 Dem candidate. I am living in my own "psychic reality." Watch out for the snipers. ... But hey, maybe McCain voted for Kerry too! 3:06 P.M.

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We Build Excitement: The Insider Advantage non-robo poll has Hillary within striking distance in North Carolina and Obama within striking distance in Indiana. ... A perversely self-cancelling double-upset? (Or, if you correct for the Bradley Effect, are these polls just grim for Obama?) ... More: Marc Ambinder on the seemingly unlikely black/white Clinton/Obama breakdowns that would be required for a Clinton North Carolina win. ... 1:54 P.M.

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The New York Times has now completed the bogus cocooning poll exercise anticipated in this space last week. To repeat: If 21 percent of Democrats are willing to say Rev. Wright has made them "less favorable" to Obama, and 15 percent say the controversy has made them "less likely" to support Obama, that doesn't mean

In Poll, Obama Survives Furor, but Fall Is the Test [the NYT hed]

It means Obama Badly Damaged by Furor, May Not Make It to Fall. ... Obama can't really afford to lose 10% of Democrats to the Wright controversy. ... P.S.: USA Today does not make the NYT's mistake. ... [via RCP] ... P.P.S.: The NYT poll is of only 283 Democrats. Mighty thin. USA Today surveyed 516. ... Has Pinch Sulzberger's visionary leadership so depleted the Times' resources that it can't even afford to take a decent-sized poll? If so, should the paper still run this now-iffy self-generated news on the front page? ... 1:23 P.M.

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Nut Graf! Psychologist Ellen Ladowsky elaborates on her Hillary Bosnia Fantasy Theory at HuffPo. I recommend navigating swiftly to paragraph #20, where she's buried the nut grafs:

There are two possibilities: Hillary may be a pathological liar. Or, more persuasive to me, Hillary believed what she was saying and her description of her Bosnia trip was a true representation of her psychic reality and not external reality. In her internal world, Hillary may feel as though she's always being shot at by sniper fire and that she's heroically managed to stay alive.

This theory makes sense of Hillary's recklessness. It didn't feel reckless to Hillary to repeat this lie over and over again, and she paid no heed to those who contradicted her, because in her mind, she was telling the truth. Only when confronted with undeniable evidence of external reality -- actual footage from her Bosnia trip - did she admit (possibly to herself as well as the public) that her version of events was not true.

It also explains Hillary's reaction when exposed. She was angry because she was forced to abandon her psychic reality for external reality. For her, this was tantamount to giving up the truth in exchange for mere facts. .... [snip]

While most of her explanations have made no sense, when Hillary told Leno that she'd had "a lapse", she was right on. She'd had an actual lapse in mental functioning. [E.A.]

To me, Hillary's Bosnia exaggeration doesn't seem that bizarre--just a particularly egregious and risky version of the sort of resume-brighteners even candidates who served in the military sometimes tell. I'd be tempted to dismiss Ladowsky's argument if it didn't resonate with other bits of data in Hillary's biography: a) Her marriage! Did she stay wedded to a notorious philanderer by insulating herself within a "psychic reality"--a reality only disrupted by "undeniable evidence" in the form of Monica Lewinsky's dress? I remember during the early days of the Lewinsky scandal when Hillary's aides said she didn't read the papers. That would be one way to stay in a comfortable "psychic" cocoon. Another way would be to surround yourself with ultraloyal aides. (Hello, Sid!); b) Her refusal to face the legislative failure of her health care plan in 1994 until it was too late; and c) Her failure to take the Obama threat to her candidacy seriously enough (including, maybe soon, a refusal to admit that it's too late for her to win the nomination). ... 2:27 A.M. link

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Sunday, May 4, 2008

The Eight Belles Metaphor is so obvious that everyone is embarrassed to use it, figuring that everyone else is already using it--a thought born embalmed as a cliche, already tiresome from anticipated over-expression before being sincerely expressed in the first place. [The thought that it's a cliche is also already a cliche, no?--ed Faster! ... I'll never get out ahead of this, will I?] ... 11:57 A.M.

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It seems like only ten years ago that policy hustler Robert Reich was confusing marginal tax rates with effective tax rates in an attempt to fool his readers into thinking the tax burden on the rich had gotten lighter than it actually had. He's still doing it, apparently. ... [via Insta]1:04 A.M.

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Saturday, May 3, 2008

What if it was all a dream? (And if so, what does the dream mean?) Ellen Ladowsky and Rob Long interpret Hillary's Bosnia fantasy. ... Hint: In the end they cancelled her party! ... 4:54 P.M.

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Hillary Clinton has done best in this campaign when she's been on the ropes--the phenomenon everybody (OK, nobody) in the press calls Mutnemom, or reverse momentum. Recently, however, Clinton's been gaining in polls while Obama's been declining. You'd think that would hurt her in North Carolina and Indiana as voters focus more intently on the actual prospect of a Hillary presidency and less intently on Obama's flaws. But maybe, thanks to Hillary's seemingly hopeless elected-delegate position, she's achieved a kind of Permanent Mutnemom status, in which (happily for her) no number of primary wins can alter the perception that she's still on the ropes. ... 4:23 P.M. link

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Jon Keller revisits Obama wrang-wrang Deval Patrick--the pioneering African-American governor of Massachusetts who now has a 56% disapproval rating. What's the difference between Obama and Patrick? They were both relatively inexperienced. They were both advised by David Axelrod. They both ran on race-transcending "hope." A veteran GOP political analyst recently described to me what he considered the key analytic distinction:

Deval Patrick is an idiot. Obama is not an idiot.

OK! In that case .... 12:36 P.M.

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Friday, May 2, 2008

"Minister's Comments Hold Little Sway in Indianapolis Enclave": On the one hand there's the New York Times report:

[N]o one interviewed here said that Mr. Wright had affected how they or anyone they knew would vote.

On the other hand, there are the actual polls, showing Obama tanking. Who you gonna believe? ... P.S.: A staple of cocooning journalism is the quickie poll showing that "Voters Say They Aren't Troubled by X," with X being an issue the polltakers don't want voters to be troubled by. Typically, these stories 1) ignore the tendency of voters to lie to pollsters, especially when it comes to admitting they might be influenced by thoughts of the sort that they suspect polltakers don't approve of; and 2) even if everyone's telling the truth, if only 10% of voters say they will vote against a candidate because of X--while fully 90% of the voters say they are untroubled--that means the candidate has been badly damaged by X. In most races a candidate can't afford to lose 10% of the vote on a single issue. ... In today's story, of course, the Times strikes a blow for transparency and cost-efficiency, dispensing with the expensive, scientific-sounding claptrap of polling and cutting right to the soothing BS, interviewing a handful of upscale Indianapolis shoppers who duly deny they would be influenced by the Wright flap (but who knows what those "less cosmopolitan" Hoosiers down South will do). ... 10:40 A.M. link

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Thursday, May 1, 2008

Sid, Busted: If Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal wants to email around Manhattan Institute articles attacking William Ayers' education theories, that's OK with me. Peter Dreier's post is almost a parody of netrootsy Obamanoia--if you're going to ask voters to tolerate Obama associating with Ayers, don't trash Blumenthal for daring to read Fred Siegel. (Or for influencing Charles Krauthammer--"an arch conservative.") Webbische kopf! Sometimes even arch conservatives have things to say. ... Still, voters should know about Blumenthal's under-the-radar emailing because a) it's sometimes very effective (if not nearly as effective these days as Dreier, or arch conservative Sid enemies, pretend); b) it threatens to create a reality-distorting echo chamber (a point Dreier makes) and c) if we elect Hillary, we're going to get Sid as part of the package. ... P.S.: From the piece: "One of Blumenthal's associates scoffs at the notion that there's anything vaguely conspiratorial about these emails." Sid, conspiratorial? ... P.P.S.: Surprising name on Blumenthal's recipient list? Reza Aslan. Otherwise, it's people you'd expect. ... Backfill: Back in February, Blumenthal wrote (to Newhouse's Jonathan Tilove) that his emails were "not intended for you, or any other reporter." I count at least 5 reporters and 6 other more thumbsuckerish political journalists, plus three public-intellectual academic types, on the list Dreier gives. ... 2:30 P.M. link

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Bob Wright's apocalypse is bigger than mine. ... 10:46 A.M.

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Amy Holmes, eerily prescient? ... [via I.V.D.] 12:27 A.M.

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

HuffPo asks where John Edwards is, given the looming primary in his state. Turns out he's at Disney World. ... Kausfiles asks where Rielle Hunter is! ... Perhaps there is some connection between Hunter and Edwards' avoidance of the North Carolina spotlight. ... Update: Instapundit suggests this is one too many references to Rielle Hunter in a short period of time. He's right. But I don't think John Edwards is going away--he's talked about as a potential cabinet secretary or even Supreme Court justice. Which means Hunter isn't going away. ... Also, Edwards' power to extract any promises in connection with such jobs would seem to be at a peak this week, given the value of his endorsement in his home state. And his decision not to endorse (so far) is a bit mysterious, no? ... 5:26 P.M.

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I'll be interviewing Michael Kinsley about his new book, "Please Don't Remain Calm," at a Town Hall Los Angeles event on the UCLA campus tomorrow, Wednesday 4/30, at 7:30. Details here. ... 3:41 P.M.

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Monday, April 28, 2008

Hope! McCain will have trouble beating the Obama who showed up on Fox News Sunday, giving a highly effective interview to Chris Wallace. It included this bait for Hillary:

I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

Obama cited not just "merit pay" but also "experimenting with charter schools," which he said has gotten him "in trouble with the teachers union." Maybe he didn't "add more substance to his unity schtick," but after his dreary Pennsylvania performance just restating the old substance offers relief. Harbinger of Pivot? ... P.S.: It would be a huge help in combatting the "arrogance" meme, however, if Obama would stop citing the world-historical greatness of his own speeches as if he were his own personal Chris Matthews. For example, he mentions

at the Democratic convention, giving what I would say was about as patriotic a speech about what America means to me and what this country's about as any speech that we've heard in a long time.

Eek. How about fake humility, Senator? Americans will probably settle for fake humility rather than real humility at this point. It doesn't look as if they will have a choice. ... 2:19 A.M.

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Sunday, April 27, 2008

There were Santa Ana gusts today, which tend to make one stupid. I'd leave town but can't tell if they're already dissipating--when I throw grass in the air it goes all over. I need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. ... 11:34 P.M.

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We Ignored the Rielle Hunter Scandal and All We Got Was This Lousy Op-Ed! Elizabeth Edwards has a bushelful of chutzpah chastising the mainstream campaign press for its "shallow news coverage" after the mainstream campaign press cut her and her husband** a huge break on one of the great shallow stories of 2008--the mysterious Edwards Campaign Love Child (see link for claim of an Edwards aide that he is the father of the child, and various other denials).. ...

P.S.: The E.C.L.C. must have been born by now, no? Tips gratefully accepted. ...

P.P.S.: What was so exciting about Joe Biden's health plan (which Mrs. Edwards thinks we should all have been told more about)? Couldn't she have spared a paragraph in her double-length op-ed to explain its unique, cruelly-ignored genius? It doesn't look so exciting to me. She could have steered me right. ... Or, like the MSM, was she worried about boring her readers to death, preferring to talk about process issues? ...

P.P.P.S.: Mrs. Edwards also complains that in 1954 the Army McCarthy hearings were televised, "but by only one network." Wasn't one enough?

***--She describes him as "a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife." When does chutzpah become heedless Gary-Hart like taunting? ... 10:06 P.M. link

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Ping!--Obama's Cattle Futures: If Hillary had this kind of smarmily conflicted relationship with a benefactor/constituent, it would be a big deal, no? [But all he did was write a letter--he didn't actually help his former employer get the grant--ed No, an aide did that! See last two grafs] ... Maybe not Killerspin, but at least ModeratelydisilusioningSpin. ... [Tks. to reader W] 9:35 P.M.

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Self-Denial Arms Race: So Obama thinks Rev. Wright is a "legitimate political issue" but McCain thinks making an issue of Wright is "unacceptable"? This is getting confusing.... Update--Gotcha! McCain comes to his senses and notes "Obama himself says it's a legitimate political issue." So will McCain, having received his moral guidance from Obama, now apologize to those North Carolina Republicans for self-righteously preening at their expense? ... 1:24 P.M.

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Friday, April 25, 2008

What exactly is so terrible about that North Carolina GOP ad?** Sure it's a double bank shot--X has endorsed Y who is associated with Z--but it seems like a legitimate double bank shot. Obama wrote a best-selling book casting favorable light on himself for being drawn to Rev Wright--and quoting the sermon that did it for him, a sermon that involved denouncing "white folks' greed." Did he really not know Wright was saying other inflammatory things from the pulpit? ... Hard to say it's unfair to link Obama with Wright. And it's not unfair to link North Carolina Dems with the candidate they endorse. That's true whether or not the ad is a stunt. ... The same ad using, say, William Ayers--whose relationship with Obama is more tangential--wouldn't seem legit to me.** ... Is Howard Dean's real problem with the ad that it's, you know, devastating? ... P.S.: I'd say North Carolina GOP chairwoman Linda Daves, who has the sort of non-FM voice you don't hear on NPR too often, rather gets the better of All Things Considered's Melissa Block in this argument. ...[Via Page]

Update: Obama's still boasting in campaign literature about how the "white folks' greed" sermon helped him find his faith, Ben Smith reports. Live by Wright, die by Wright, no? ...

**--McCain, for his own positioning and righteous preening reasons, is making a big issue of the less legitimate target (Ayers) while condemning the North Carolinians for making an issue of Wright. ... 1:07 A.M.

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The scales finally fall from Bob Wright's eyes. ... 12:39 A.M.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Barack's Secret Weapon: All the talk about whether Obama can win the general election may miss the point, as far as Democratic superdelegates are concerned. They aren't necessarily thinking about that big picture, at least not all the time. Alert and experienced emailer K explains, hypothetically channeling a prominent superdelegate:

You have to look at this through the eyes of Dem super delegates. Take Joe Biden as an example. When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, Joe was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Two years later, after HRC's hare-brained health care zeppelin crashed to earth and Bill had earned the enmity of roughly everyone, Joe Biden was in the minority. ...[snip]

What Joe sees is a repeat of 1994 if Hillary is the nominee and wins the election in 2008. He gets to be treated like dirt by the Clinton Administration for 2 years and then he gets to be in the minority for God knows how long. So the truth about the super Ds is that they would rather lose with Barack than win with HRC, because they KNOW that if they lose with Barack, their pal John McCain is president and they get the royal treatment for two years..AND they pick up yet more seats in 2010, thus insuring they remain Chairman of whatever committee it is that they chair.

This is the dirty little secret of the Super Ds!

I think K may go a bit far when he says superdelegates "want Barack because they know he will lose to McCain!" But if you look at their personal and institutional interests, they certainly may have little reason to stick their necks out and overturn the judgment of primary voters and caucusers by denying Barack. And the more they are convinced that Obama is likely to lose, the less motivated they may be to defy that "pledged delegate" verdict. ... 12:56 A.M. link

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Hispanic Caucus members denounce Dem Congressional leaders as "spineless" for failing to move on "comprehensive immigration reform." Spineless? Why would they need spine? I thought we'd been told that illegal-immigrant-legalization was a surefire political winner for the Dems. ... 3:38 P.M.

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Bob Wright makes his most insane argument yet! ... 12:21 P.M.

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Styling by Pixar: They've turned the formerly elegant Infiniti FX into a cartoon. ...Update: Emailer--"Wonder what its voice sounds like?" ... 11:24 A.M.

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

If Hillary Clinton is so convinced she can win, but she desperately needs money, can't she and her husband just write her campaign a check for, say, $20 million? $109 million - $20 million still leaves $89 million, no? ... Then she'd be on solid ground asking others to sacrifice for her candidacy as well. ... [Thanks to alert reader R] ... Update: Yglesias and his commenters on the case. This meme is headed to the MSM! ... 10:00 P.M.

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How Crappy Were the Exit Polls? Pretty crappy! They certainly didn't capture the 10 point Clinton win. [Looks like 9.2 to me--ed Print the legend!] According to National Review, the early exits even had Obama up by five. Maybe nobody believed that--but the exits still distorted the narrative of election night. The theme of the first New York Times story seemed to be

Mrs. Clinton faces major challenges going forward ...

The cable nets, primed by the exits, also spent the initial evening hours asking whether Hillary could or would go on--as opposed to why Obama had suffered an embarrassing drubbing that revealed real weaknesses. .... P.S.: Always trust content from kausfiles! ... P.P.S.: Brendan Loy has more on the crappy exits. ... P.P.P.S.: If the exit polls are this unreliable for press' result-predicting purposes, why aren't they also unreliable for all the scholarly purposes they are supposedly put to? Garbage is garbage, no? ... Update: John Tabin says not to worry, pollsters can "clean up the exit poll data by weighting it to the actual vote." But it will still be garbage if the problem is that more conservative voters didn't want to talk to the kid in the hoodie with the clipboard! Ask President Kerry. .. Roger L. Simon says I've misunderstood the purpose of exit polls. .. 9:19 P.M. link

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Brendan Loy and Mark Blumenthal are pouring cold water over early exit poll results, noting Obama usually does much better in the early exits than when the actual votes are counted. ... 3:41 P.M.

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Headlines for Free: "Who's Bitter Now?" 1:44 P.M.

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Chris Matthews has backed off his earlier prediction of a double-digit Clinton Pennsylvania win, saying "things have changed"--leaving all the more potential pundit glory for the less cautious! ... P.S.: Matthews declared 8 to be the margin of victory Hillary must achieve to have the election count as a victory ("based upon on all the expectations").

Eight points. I think eight points is the over/under. If she gets a victory of less than 8 I think she's going to have a hard time arguing that she should stay in this race. .... [S]he can't call it a victory winning five or six or seven up here. She's got to get at least an 8.

I wish I could report that he said it with a winning, ironic appreciation for its absurd arrogance. ... Update: John Ellis is betting the over. ... 1:40 A.M.

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Monday, April 21, 2008

Joe Conason, distinguished chronicler of George H.W. Bush's alleged marital infidelity, joins other Democrats in decrying ABC's

revolting descent into tabloid journalism

and

excessive emphasis on tangential "character" issues

P.S.: Last time I wrote about Conason's 1992 foray into "sheet sniffing" (his phrase) he chastised me for relying on contemporary press accounts of his Bush/sex article rather than reading the full original in the defunct magazine Spy. I finally located a copy of Spy stored several stories beneath the surface of the Earth in the vaults of UCLA's Southern Regional Library Facility. Conason's article turned out to be not as sleazy as the press accounts had led me to expect. It was much sleazier! ("In addition to following up the women on the list, SPY's own investigation succeeded in finding a woman who apparently had an affair with Bush while he was running for President in 1980. ... As for Mrs. X herself, when SPY reached her to ask whether she indeed told friends aout the affair ..." etc. ) ... [Note to Conason: All emails are on the record.] 3:40 P.M.

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He's still out there: The Deseret News snags an interview with "the entire media's designated 'man on the street' for all articles ever written." Good get!

Greg Packer, 44, of Huntington, N.Y., traveled to Washington earlier last week for the Mass at the new Nationals Stadium and was on Fifth Avenue Saturday. ...

"The homilies bring me out and the togetherness of everybody," Packer said. "It was really beautiful. It was worth going to Washington, but this is home. I feel like he is coming over to visit me."

3:14 P.M.

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O.K., one of us is wrong. 2:31 P.M.

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

Help! I'm A Snob Like Obama! Greg Mitchell ridicules Bill Kristol for insinuating that Barack Obama was a Marxist for saying that residents of economically depressed small towns "cling to guns or religion ... as a way to explain their [economic] frustrations." But of course it was a Marxist thing to say, wasn't it? If Democrats had delivered on the economy, Obama suggests, all those GOP cultural "wedge" issues would lose traction. This idea--that the economy trumps culture--isn't new. It's "materialism." The economic "base," Marxists would argue, determines the cultural "superstructure." If the economy changes (i.e. if small town Pennsylvanians get well-paying jobs) then the superstructure will change (Pennsylvanians will feel less intensely about their religion).

Actually this isn't simply Marxism--it's what, when I was in college at least, was called Vulgar Marxism. More sophisticated Marxists hypothesized various ways the cultural "superstructure" could interact with the economy or take on a life of its own. Less supple Marxists (Engels, if I remember) hew to the crude base/superstructure idea--with feudalism you get feudal beliefs, which give way to bourgeois beliefs once capitalism takes over.

I've sniped at Obama for the condescension implicit in his argument that Pennsylvanians will stop their 'clinging' once Democrats like him start delivering jobs from Washington. But this condescension is inherent in any Vulgar Marxist explanation, isn't it? European peasants thought they were loyal to divine monarchs in a well-ordered hierarchical universe. Comes the industrial revolution and they look like fools. "All that is sacred ...

The problem for me is that I'm a Vulgar Marxist too. I've always believed that people need to eat, and want to get ahead and prosper. If you give them an avenue that lets them do that, they aren't going to let their religion, their music, their sexual habits, their families or their educational system stand in their way for long. The two most obvious contemporary applications of this economic determinism are 1) China (when the Chinese have a capitalist economy they won't be able to have a Communist government, Vulgar Marxists would say) and 2) the Muslim world (if Islam needs a Reformation in order to prosper in a global market, then Islam will eventually get a Reformation). I agree with both of those propositions.

Does that mean I'm condescending too? It's hard to avoid the charge. If a Chinese Communist Party Official somehow came to me and declared that, no, China would out-compete the West while maintaining Mao-era control over free inquiry, I'd think 'You poor deluded fool. Just wait.' I support Western policies of bringing China into the global marketplace in large part because I think that means Chinese Communism will collapse even if the Chinese Communists don't realize it. Same with fundamentalist Muslims--e.g. Pakistan, when prosperous, will no longer be such a breeding ground of jihadist fanatics. They'll be too busy making money to blow up the world. My attitude toward Pakistan is roughly parallel to Obama's attitude toward rural Pennsylvanians: if the economy really delivered for them, they'd stop clinging to their God. And their guns.

I'm especially appalled by the possibility that I'm as much of a snob as Obama because I've made a big deal about social equality--how treating people as equals, rather than redistributing income, is the essential goal of liberal politics. Condescension, needless to say, is not treating people like equals. (Obama himself seemed to be quite aware of the problem, in his 2004 Charlie Rose interview, when trotting out his "What's the Matter With Kansas" homilies:

"If we don't have plausible answers on the economic front, and we appear to be condescending towards those traditions that are giving their lives some stability, then they're gonning to opt for at least that party that seems to be speaking to the things that are giving--that still provide them some solace." [E.A.]

Of course, he sounded a bit condescending when saying that. .....

Seeking a way out of the Condescension Conundrum, I asked my friend Robert Wright, another Vulgar Marxist, for guidance. He wasn't much help! What he said was ... well, you can see what he said here.

Is there an answer? I'm not sure. I suppose the short response is that you worry about condescending to Muslims when you are running for office in a Muslim country, you worry about condescending to Pennsylvanians when you are running in Pennsylvania. But it's not really an answer; 1) Nobody likes to be condescended to, and nobody's likely to be convinced when they feel belittled; and 2) in my view of the world, at least, condescension--social inequality--is a grave political sin in itself whenever it's practiced.

Some other obvious potential ways out come to mind, though they make me sound like a tenth grade civics teacher (or Andrew Sullivan):

1) Always entertain the possibility that you might be wrong and those whose "superstructural" behavior you are explaining are right. Call it the "Marxism of Doubt"! The left ignored this rule when it declared opposition to welfare one of those "scapegoating" behaviors that would thankfully disappear when Democrats delivered good jobs and good wages. In fact, opposition to welfare was fairly constant through good times and bad--perhaps because the opponents of welfare were right (as I think they were). In any case, they won.

Obama ignores this rule when he dismisses opposition to affirmative action and trade and illegal immigration as similar "scapegoating" behavior. Mighty convenient to say that the doomed "superstructure" happens to include all the beliefs you disagree with.

2) Don't pick fights unnecessarily: Do Democrats have to scorn people who cling to God, whatever the reason? No. Do they have to scorn people who cling to guns? Maybe, if Democrats really think they have to believe in gun control to be Democrats. But in fact they've caved on gun control--deciding, in essence, it's not a core position. Maybe they'll soon decide that race-based preferences and legalization of illegal aliens aren't core positions either--perhaps because, heeding Rule 1, they've been convinced by the people they are condescending to. (Obama is clearly a ways away from that moment.)

3) Emphasize the common goal: A companion to rule 2. If Obama thinks Pennsylvanians will stop clinging to God and guns and ethnic prejudices once they have a real prospect of getting national health insurance--well, talk about national health insurance! Let the prejudice take care of itself (if you really think that's what's going to happen).

4) Where you have to disagree, have the respect to do it forthrightly: A modern national Democrat, contemplating religious small town Pennsylvanians, won't want to concede, say, that homosexuality is immoral. Westerners, contemplating the Muslim world, won't want to tolerate stoning adulterers or honor killings, certainly not among Muslim immigrants to the West but not in the East either. Free speech and inquiry aren't things we think Chinese Communists might be right about. In these cases, the only thing to do is to honestly say "Yes, we think you are wrong and that you'll eventually come around."

I'm not sure rules like this really dispel the stench of condescension. Rule #3 seems like a PR gambit--hiding what you really think, maybe by keeping troublesome bloggers out of your San Francisco fundraisers. And even #4, don't the Chinese know we think we're not only "right" on a specific issue but "better" in some sense--more advanced, further along on the arc of history? I don't know that it helps if they feel the same way about us.

If anyone has the answer-even Charlie Rose!--I'm all ears. 2:44 A.M. link

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Yes, we are all waiting to see who Chuck Hagel endorses! The excitement builds. ...

P.S.: He might not endorse anyone at all! That would say so much. ... 5:38 P.M.

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Voyage to Mars almost over. Prediction: No water I was going to predict that Hillary will win Pennsylvania by 8 points--defying Newsweek and the wishful thinking about an Obama surge/surprise. But with some national polls now moving against Obama and the state polls still looking Ohio-esque, that isn't a very courageous call. So how about a double-digit Clinton win? Cling! ... Pay no attention if it's wrong. ... Note also that while reporters and bloggers may have moved past the stage where they are totally exhausted with the race and into that stage where they achieve a sort of giddy high--and then past that into the stage where they are totally exhausted again--many PA voters may not even focus on the race until two days from now. What they see on TV on Monday will be bizarrely important. ... P.S.: She's got her Mutnemom on: "I have to win." Maybe she'll cry! ... 12:01 A.M. link

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Friday, April 18, 2008

Jerry Brown's War on Suburbs: The once and maybe future Gov. Moonbeam, now California's Attorney General, thinks suburbs cause global warming and he's filing lawsuits to force more density. Jill Stewart questions the underlying science. ... P.S.: Didn't Brown get into trouble with his appointment to the state Supreme Court of Rose Bird, whose jurisprudence would have led judges to make lots of decisions now made by elected legislators? Brown seems peculiarly ill-positioned to litigate his way into the governorship. ... P.P.S.: How many thousands in campaign contributions is Brown going to accept from apartment-house developers who are dumbfoundedly ecstatic to find left-wing greenies suddenly on their side. ... It's win-win!

Update: SacBee's Dan Walters notes that while Brown "has been suing, or threatening to sue, just about anyone who doesn't immediately adhere to his vertical vision,"

his personal commitment is somewhat suspect since he and his wife, citing crime fears, moved from an urban loft in Oakland to a comfortable home in the Oakland hills after he took office last year.

Crime is for the non-visionaries! Let them fight global warming. ... 10:55 P.M.

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Kate O'Beirne on Peggy Noonan's recommendation that McCain promise not to run for a second term:

Should John McCain pledge to do 3 or 4 big specific things in his one and only term, he would have a mandate.

Hmm. I think I know what one of those 3 or 4 big specific things would be. [Secure the borders!--ed Right] ... Without "comprehensive" immigration reform, does McCain even have 4 big things he wants to do? Iraq, Iraq, entitlements, Iraq? ... P.S.: The real genius behind a one-term pledge is that voters are near-desperate for an end to Republican rule. The pledge would be a signal to them that they could safely act on their anxieties about Obama, confident that they were only giving the GOPs a short-term lease extension. ... The McCain chant would be: "Just Four More Years!" ... 5:14 P.M. link

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How to tell GM's successful cars: When struggling General Motors finally builds a car people actually want to buy, why does the plant that builds it always seem to become the target for a UAW strike? It's happened with the company's popular crossovers (GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook) and with the new Chevy Malibu. I can't tell if this is a case of UAW leaders seeking out the few successful operations of GM in order to extract maximum gain, or if the strikes at successful plants are just the only strikes that get publicized. But you have to wonder whether the UAW understands how strongly consumers might not want to buy cars made in strike-riven factories? ... P.S.: I think the answer is that the national UAW probably understands this, but the union's decentralized structure gives lots of power to the locals. That's another reason--an idiosyncratic one--why the UAW has been a disaster for the American auto industry. ... 4:22 P.M.

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It's Too Late for Make-Up Calls Now, Arianna! How guilty does the pro-O HuffPo feel about breaking the news that made Obama's week miserable? Very, to judge by the compensatory pile-on of ABC-bashing on her home page after Gibson and Stephanopouos' persistent questioning of Obama. (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10 ....) ... 2:21 A.M.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

I Knew That! Several journalists have emailed me questioning whether Obama's answer on affirmative action last night represented any sort of new position, given that he'd suggested a year ago on ABC's This Week that his daughters "probably" shouldn't benefit from race preferences. See update below for why I think last night's statement was a significant strengthening of his position, and potentially a big deal. ... I will now go check the Web to see if he's backtracked yet. ... [You're getting zero pickup on this. You seem to be the only person on the planet who thinks it was significant.--ed The official post-debate story line, laid down by The Curve himself, has to do with ABC's negative questions and Obama's reaction to them. Fair enough. The MSM isn't thinking about affirmative action and doesn't want to think about affirmative action. That doesn't mean it's not significant. Check back in a couple of months.] 5:23 P.M.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Note to HuffPo: "Screw 'em. You don't owe them a thing" isn't condescending! It's not friendly, but it's something you say about opponents who are social equals. ... 'There, there, you poor people cling to God to explain your frustrations'--that's a violation of social equality. ... Backfill: Allahpundit made this point at 4:30. ... Maguire notes that Hillary was saying 'screw 'em' this in defense of traditional liberal policies (which were said to be alienating "Reagan Democrats.") But I don't see why that makes it different from Obama's comment. Obama is advocating traditional liberal policies too. ... P.S.: The full passage is still a timely reminder of what a rebuke the 1994 election was to Hillary's disastrous pursuit of health care reform before welfare reform. As David Plouffe would say, experience does not necessarily equal judgment. ... 9:10 P.M.

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Philly Debate watching--Pivot Now! Am I crazy or has Obama just opened up a potentially huge Pivot Possibility on affirmative action? His proposal: Allow individualized consideration of "hardship," with overcoming race discrimination being one of the possible hardships that you get points for overcoming.. ... The problem, I suspect, is that this interesting intermediate position (between banning any consideration of race and having race be an automatic plus factor) would, if honestly applied, exclude a huge portion of the current beneficiaries of race preferences (who tend to be the sort of affluent African Americans who, like Obama's daughters, have a more difficult time making an individual "hardship" case). Will Obama now be denounced by the civil rights establishment? Will that help him in Pennsylvania? It would certainly get rid of the Cling. ... Developing! ... Rick Kahlenberg, you're up! ... Note: I think last night's statement adds to what Obama has said before. See below.

P.S.: Aside from that, I thought Obama got the worse of it in the debate. He was on the defensive, and non-inspiring. Hillary was fairly palatable,** despite a few rough moments. ... I have no criticism of Gibson or Stephanopoulos. A relentless focus on negative character attacks can be revealing--and it was. That's especially true in this campaign, where the actual policy differences between the candidates have been small and often tedious. ...

Update: Here's a transcript of what Obama said about race preferences [E.A.]:

And race is still a factor in our society. And I think that for universities and other institutions to say, you know, we're going to take into account the hardships that somebody has experienced because they're black or Latino or because they're women --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if they're wealthy?

SENATOR OBAMA: I think that's something that they can take into account, but it can only be in the context of looking at the whole situation of the young person. So if they look at my child and they say, you know, Malia and Sasha, they've had a pretty good deal, then that shouldn't be factored in. On the other hand, if there's a young white person who has been working hard, struggling, and has overcome great odds, that's something that should be taken into account.

So I still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination, but I think that it can't be a quota system and it can't be something that is simply applied without looking at the whole person, whether that person is black or white or Hispanic, male or female.

What we want to do is make sure that people who have been locked out of opportunity are going to be able to walk through those doors of opportunity in the future.

"Shouldn't be factored in." Potential game changer! Hello? A nuclear weapon aimed like a laser at Hillary's white working class base! ... Now if only some enterprising reporter will get Jesse Jackson to take umbrage at Obama's heresy. Is that so hard? (And if Jackson approves of Obama's answer, that's news too.)*** ... My fear is that the civil rights establishment will get to Obama in private, and he'll wuss out and walk it back. ...

Nathan Thurm Memorial Update: I know that Obama said a similar thing about his daughters a year ago on George Stephanopoulos' This Week show. But

1) He hasn't been saying it a lot since, so there was always a question as to whether he meant it or would backtrack, etc. His heretical position isn't featured on his Web site--it ducks the issue, as far as I can see (which itself is suggestive but not exactly clarifying). Even if he had simply repeated his This Week statement it would be significant. But he didn't.

2) On This Week he said:

"I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged, and I think that there's nothing wrong with us taking that into account as we consider admissions policies at universities. I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed. So I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive."

Note that this year-old passage doesn't say his daughters race shouldn't be taken into account at all. He seems more to be saying everything should be taken into account. That, plus the "mutually exclusive" language, led skeptical commentators to speculate that he just wants to layer on another preference for disadvantaged whites--as opposed to taking it away from affluent blacks. ...

Last night, however, he certainly seemed to say race would not be a factor at all for "advantaged" blacks like his daughters. ("Shouldn't be factored in.") That seems like a further step--a big one. Wiping out the race preference for upper class blacks would in practice wipe out most race preference admissions at elite schools, no? It strikes at the core of the actual, practical race-preference constituency. If Hillary said it, there would be a firestorm from the civil rights lobby, I think.

**--I was watching the tiny Webcast picture. Maybe she looked worse full-sized. ...

***--If Obama could simultaneously arrange for race-blindness champion Ward Connerly to denounce him--because Obama's plan still allows race to be taken into account when it causes "hardship"--so much the better. Triangulation! ... 6:45 P.M. link

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