Vichy Democrats

I Was Born A Poor Black Child

2011-12-13T08:47:00.000-08:00

Forbes contributor Gene Marks is making waves with his envelope-pushing advice that if he were a "poor black kid" he would lift himself by his bootstraps by "work[ing] to make sure I got the best grades possible" and buying himself a computer at TigerDirect.

I'm sure that's fine advice, but personally, if I were born a poor black child, I'd learn to play banjo or invent a little flying buttress to keep people's eyeglasses from sliding down their noses, because that worked so well for Steve Martin:

Oh, also: Gene Marks is a jerk.

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The 9/12 Mentality

2011-09-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

Late in the day on September 11, 2001, a day tumbled in a swash of unhappy and roiled emotions, I sought to escape by sitting down and collecting my thoughts instead. What emerged was a letter to the editor of the (Portland) Oregonian newspaper.

On 9/12, I was surprised when I opened my newspaper and found my letter, under the heading "Leaven Outrage With Reason," leading the day's letters, at the top of the Op-Ed page. It read:

Now there will be an outcry to "do something" -- as we should, by punishing those responsible and strengthening our nation's defense and intelligence installations in effective ways.

However, I hope our anger does not make us react unwisely. I fear these tragedies soon will be cited to justify "hawkish" actions such as withdrawing from peacekeeping missions or overspending on missile defense, at the expense of our other commitments.

To do so would please these terrorists almost as much as killing our people. I hope our leaders are resolute enough to punish those responsible swiftly and terribly, and wise enough to leaven their outrage with reason and a larger view of the nation's and the world's best interest.

Remaining true to our principles, supporting those around the world who honor democracy, healing our economy, and in general "staying the course" is the best and bravest response to those who wish us harm.

Re-reading that letter today, I am struck not by my prescience, but by my naivete.

I chose the word "hawkish" rather than "conservative" that day because I did not want to alienate my conservative compatriots. Like most liberals, I instinctively sought to place partisan and ideological divides behind me. Conservatives, I believed that day, were my allies against the people who wished us harm. And so I chose to narrow my concern to "hawks" rather than broaden it to "conservatives," even though "conservatives" was the first word that came to my mind.

And my perception even of that subset of conservatives, "hawks," was relatively mild back on September 12, 2001. On 9/12, the worst I could imagine of America's "hawks" was that they might lobby for us to withdraw from peacekeeping missions or waste a few billion dollars on an unneeded weapons program. I correctly feared that conservatives would seize the opportunity to advance military-industrial goals; but I did not conceive that they would so rapidly conflate Al Qaeda (evil people intending us harm) with the Taliban (ignorant rural yahoos generally content with destroying Buddhist bas-reliefs and oppressing their own wives and daughters). I could not imagine that they would launch us into the longest war in America's history; that they would persuade our own citizens that Saddam Hussein somehow was involved in the attack and start a new war there; or that their greed for war profits would contribute substantially to their bankrupting the nation, doubling the national debt and launching the Great Recession. I did not, on 9/12, realize how bad these people are.

Now I do.

Conservatives love to remind us how, on 9/12, we suspended our political and ideological differences and, briefly, considered ourselves to be one nation, indivisible and undivided. But the consequences of that suspension of ideology have been terrible: because of 9/11, liberals allowed conservatives to launch two wars, alienate a world that (on 9/12) universally supported us, pass the Patriot Act, steal money from education and healthcare to give to "defense" (i.e., offense), create new espionage and warmaking institutions, and turn our national self-image inward just when it should have been turned outward by injecting the Orwellian, totalitarian word "homeland" into our lexicon.

Liberals, Progressives and even Libertarians did not serve our nation well by adopting a "9/12 mentality." Quite the opposite: the 9/12 mentality -- well-intentioned, unable to conceive how deeply malevolent the Dick Cheneys of the world are -- allowed those malevolents to harm America far more mortally than Osama bin Laden ever could have.

On the tenth anniversary of 9/12, then, we on the Left should calmly but firmly reject the calls to adopt the 9/12 mentality again. We are not, today, as naive as we were ten years ago -- and America cannot afford for us to allow ourselves to be fooled again.

Shoot the People Who Ignored the Message

2011-08-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

(Updated thrice below)

Before you start screaming at Standard & Poor's for downgrading U.S. debt for the first time in history, remember this: they warned G.O.P. leaders, very specifically, that U.S. credit ratings were at serious risk of downgrade EVEN IF the debt ceiling was lifted. In fact, S&P warned on July 14, and then reiterated on July 15, that a deal in the $1-2 trillion range (like the one that was enacted) would be insufficient, and kicking the can down the road (as the "Joint Committee" does) would be insufficient, and a deal that doesn't demonstrate that the G.O.P. is a serious partner in bending the debt curve (i.e., one that doesn't contain immediate new revenues as a sign of "seriousness") would be insufficient.

[Update, Aug. 5, 10:33 PT: full text of S&P's two "downgrade" press releases can be read at this link.]

On July 15, I wrote the following for PoliticusUSA:

The credit-rating agency Standard & Poors has released a statement that says, among other things, that merely raising the debt ceiling is not enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States’ credit rating, triggering market instability and causing the interest rate on U.S. debt to skyrocket.

On July 18, I expanded on S&P's warnings in a piece for Alternet:

Late Thursday, the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's released a statement announcing that merely raising the debt ceiling will not be enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States' credit rating for the first time in seventy years, potentially causing the interest rate on both government and private debt to skyrocket and destabilizing the entire economy. Remarkably, the statement also prescribed the specific numbers and conditions that would allow the U.S. to avoid such a catastrophe: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some "mix" of spending cuts and tax increases, and must involve concessions by both sides (a strong hint that the G.O.P. must consider closing tax loopholes, as well as a repudiation of Eric Cantor's assertion that merely attending negotiations is the only concession the GOP intends to make).

In short, Standard & Poor's has put G.O.P. lawmakers on notice that if they take the easy way out instead of making the "Grand Bargain" that Obama has advocated for, including tax increases, they may be responsible for disrupting the U.S. economy.
The S&P statement clearly states that merely raising the debt ceiling, or implementing a deficit-reduction package in the $1-2 trillion range, will not be enough to prevent a costly rating downgrade, because it would show that the country is not serious about tackling the deficit....

And on July 19, here on VichyDems, I discussed S&P's July 15 warning, which neither I nor any MSM reported had noticed immediately:

A Standard & Poor's report dated July 15, the day after it threatened to downgrade U.S. debt if a debt-bending deal is not reached, underscores what I've been writing about: that merely lifting the debt ceiling, or authorizing a so-called "Debt Commission" to propose further spending cuts by the end of the year, is not enough to ensure that U.S. debt is not downgraded to AA status, with enormous "knock-on" effects to the rest of the economy.

I don't blame S&P for doing its job (identifying borrowers that are no longer as reliable as they used to be). Does anyone on Earth believe the U.S. is, indeed, as safe and reliable a borrower as it was in, say, 1999, when we had both a balanced budget and enough of a budget surplus to begin re-investing in education and infrastructure? In fact, by trying to warn U.S. politicians of the problem and avoid a downgrade, S&P was actually bucking pressures to aggressively downgrade flimsy AAA debtors, because there's currently far too much false AAA debt in the market right now. (That fact also answers the correct but irrelevant complaint that S&P and the other major credit-rating agencies contributed to the bad economy by failing to correctly identify the riskiness of AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities in the past. True, the agencies blew that call -- but the lesson they (properly) learned is to not take healthy-looking debtors at face value. A wise agency, burned once by a AAA credit bubble, should be more willing to downgrade AAA debt in the future -- exactly as S&P has just done.)

Standard & Poor's is just the messenger. It did exactly what it said it would do (and tried to avoid doing). The House G.O.P. is who refused to endorse a "clean bill" early, before S&P became an issue; the House G.O.P. is who refused to accept the "Great Compromise" that both Obama and S&P clearly wanted; the House G.O.P. is who refused to accept any new revenues in the immediate deal (though new revenues starting in 2013 are embedded in the plan), thereby showing S&P that they were not (in S&P's word) "serious."

Don't shoot the messenger. Shoot the people who ignored the message.

UPDATE, Aug. 5, 7:00 pm PT: Harry Reid, at least, is seeing the political leverage this provides; his office just issued the following statement:

REID: S&P ACTION SHOWS NEED FOR BALANCED APPROACH TO DEFICIT REDUCTION
Washington, D.C.- Nevada Senator Harry Reid issued the following statement following the decision by S&P to downgrade the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+:
“The action by S&P reaffirms the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners. This makes the work of the joint committee all the more important, and shows why leaders should appoint members who will approach the committee’s work with an open mind - instead of hardliners who have already ruled out the balanced approach that the markets and rating agencies like S&P are demanding.”

UPDATE, Aug. 8, 2011: Standard & Poor's held a conference call this morning to explain its decision. Full audio of that call can be found here, as well as an excerpted clip of S&P's global Managing Director of Sovereign Debt Ratings saying that S&P's "upside scenario" is for the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy to expire. That alone, said S&P, would restore the U.S. rating from "outlook negative" to "outlook stable."

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The Democrats' Powerful Negotiating Advantage

2011-08-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

Some otherwise-savvy people are obsessing on how awful the debt ceiling/budget-bending deal is, and are especially hung up on the fact that the Deal contains no new taxes (whether cast as "new revenues," "canceling tax expenditures," "revenue increases," "closing loopholes," "tax reform," etc.). In reality, however, the Deal not only has new taxes embedded in it, but it's slanted heavily to the Democrats' advantage in future negotiations. Both the new taxes and the negotiating advantage are so obvious to me that I almost suspect some Progressives feel such a disconnect between the nearly infinite promise Obama displayed in the heady days of 2008, and his actual, imperfect performance when confronted with the actual demands of office, that they are emotionally unable to admit that, this time around, Obama may have negotiated a really good deal for Democrats.

Don't get me wrong: I agree wholeheartedly that, emotionally, this doesn't FEEL like a good deal for Democrats. But as Stephen Colbert explained brilliantly in his very first show, it's conservatives who make decisions based on how the truthiness feels; if liberals have anything going for them, it's the ability to understand and accept truth even when it doesn't feel like truth. So, as a professional mediator who trusts that liberal prefrontal cortices are beefier than liberal amygdalas, let me try to explain why Democrats are in a pretty darn good negotiating position right now:

Let's start with the reasonable assumption that Congress doesn't have the stomach to get into a huge new budget/tax brouhaha before the Joint Committee created by the so-called "Satan Sandwich" has a chance to meet and make its recommendations. (Avoiding such a fight is why Congress punted to a committee in the first place.) That means that the Committee's likely outcome is the main variable affecting the final outcome.

There are three broad options available to the Joint Committee: a mutual agreement that may affect entitlements but also raises taxes; a deadlock; or a Democratic cave-in. (Note that I didn't consider a G.O.P. cave-in; it's not their style.) Let's look at each option in turn:

OPTION ONE: The Committee does its job and agrees on a mutually-painful package of additional spending cuts (possibly including entitlement "reforms" of some kind) plus tax reforms, including closing loopholes and canceling tax expenditures, to increase revenues.

Liberals will disagree about whether any Democratic concessions were reasonable, and it is entirely possible that the Democratic negotiators will surrender too-large cuts to social programs or entitlements -- but any deal that raises taxes unquestionably will infuriate the GOP's Tea Party base and would seriously compromise its ability to demagogue budgets/deficits/Big Gubmint in the 2012 election. Regardless of how the Democratic base feels about Democratic concessions, any deal that allows the Dems to claim equal credit for fiscal responsibility, while stoking Tea Partiers into apoplexy over the GOP "traitors" who've whored away their tax-purity pledge, would be so palatable to independents (and bond-rating agencies) and so destabilizing to Republicans that Obama would almost be guaranteed reelection and Nancy Pelosi could well be restored to the Speaker's chair.

That's why I've referred to even a tiny tax increase as a "wafer thin mint": the GOP's House majority would explode if they brooked it. And if Dems control the House, then under the Constitution they get to initiate all spending, and the remaining nine years of this illusory "ten year plan" would suffer terminal defenestration.

Option One: net win for Democrats.

OPTION TWO: The Republican delegates to the Joint Committee refuse to do anything that the Tea Party might construe as "raising taxes." The Democratic delegates refuse to do anything liberals might consider harmful to entitlements. Both sides hang tough. The Joint Committee stalemates.

In the event of a stalemate, the "triggers" set forth in the Satan Sandwich automatically go into effect. Those cuts hit both sides -- but they don't hit Democrats in any vital organs. In fact, in electoral terms, they hurt Republicans more than they do Democrats.

(I don't want to get bogged down in discussions of cuts here, but in brief: the "triggers" include nasty cuts in domestic discretionary spending -- but, under the explicit terms of the Deal, Social Security and Medicare are exempt from those cuts, except for a 2% reduction in payments to providers, who primarily are a Republican constituency. But while the Democrats' key constituencies among Social Security and Medicare recipients would be relatively undisturbed, key Republican constituencies -- defense contractors and Tea Party-dense, military-dependent communities located primarily in conservative states and districts -- will be subjected to deep, automatic cuts.)

But the action's not on the cuts side of the equation, folks: it's on the revenues side. Republican negotiators entered the debt ceiling negotiations under the assumption that current tax rates were the baseline for measuring the next decade's tax impacts. If a deal simply continued current rates for the next ten years, it was "revenue neutral" in their eyes.

But that's not what current law says! Current law slates the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012. What Republicans considered a "tax neutral" baseline actually would have been a huge tax cut when compared to the rates current law prescribes from 2013 forward. And that, in a nutshell, is why Obama and Boehner couldn't agree on a deal that raised taxes today: they don't even agree on what ruler to use.

But the law is the law, and the truth is the truth: if Congress is so dysfunctional that it does absolutely nothing but name post offices between now and 2013, tax rates will increase dramatically. Obama didn't need to gain a single concession from the Republicans in order to win "new revenues"; to both prevent a Presidency-jeopardizing economic collapse and win the "new revenues" he said he wanted, all he needed to do was exit the negotiations with a deal that prevented the nation from default and left current law in place.

Let me repeat that, because people don't seem to realize its importance: Current law slates the 1991 and 1993 Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012. Obama didn't need to gain a single concession from the Republicans in order to win "new revenues" -- all he needed to do was exit the negotiations with a deal that prevented the nation from default and left current law in place.

Which, of course, is what this deal does.

So here's what Option Two (Joint Committee deadlocking) really does: it imposes spending cuts on both domestic spending that Democrats favor and defense spending that Republicans fetishize; it nevertheless protects the entitlements that are totemic to the Dem base; in electoral terms, it gores the Republicans' ox more than the Democrats'; and it results in automatic, across-the-board tax increases totaling roughly $3.5 trillion over the next decade.

Option Two: win for Dems.

[UPDATE, 8/3: Dave Weigel confirms here and here that the bill itself mandates current law, not current rates, as the baseline. See comments for discussion of some interesting, I think unintentional, consequences of this.]

It's hard to imagine even the most azure canine conservaDem not getting giggly over this kind of negotiating advantage. If the Committee reaches agreement that includes tax hikes, the GOP loses its base. If the Committee deadlocks, taxes return to pre-Bush levels and the budget balances itself in just a few years. Those are two very good outcomes for Dems.

Or, of course, there's what the Left's Cassandras expect to happen:

OPTION THREE: The Republican delegates to the Joint Committee demand both spending cuts and entitlement "reforms" that painfully cut benefits to the poor and the elderly. The Democratic delegates ask for tax hikes in return, but the Republicans steadfastly refuse. Despite the clear advantages that simply announcing "hung jury" would bring them, the Democratic delegates instead simply cave in.

There's no real reason why they would cave in, except for the fact that (as Paul Krugman keeps saying and Glenn Greenwald has painstakingly cataloged) Obama and those in his camp actually are closet Republicans who love spending cuts and know nothing about John Maynard Keynes and don't believe in fiscal stimulus and have decorated their private bathrooms with little framed cocktail napkins signed by Arthur Laffer and probably agreed with Ralph Nader back in 2000 that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and, I suppose, think that John Kerry really was a coward in Vietnam, too. [UPDATE 8/03: In fairness to GG and PK, yes, I'm speaking hyperbolically -- but not as hyperbolically as I wish.]

In this view, it's a given that the Democratic delegates will give away the farm in exchange for absolutely nothing of value, because that's what Krugman and the folks at FireDogLake say Obama Dems always do. Option Three is inevitable, because Democrats suck and Obama is governing "to the right of Richard Nixon" and his supporters are "the dumbest motherfuckers in the world." And then, even though Barack Obama retains the power to veto a bill that gives the Republicans everything and the Democrats nothing, he doesn't veto it. Because, again, he's a terrible negotiator who secretly hates liberal ideals anyway.

Option Three: Democrats suck, and (as the Teapartiers have said all along, but in reverse) Obama's a Manchurian candidate bent on selling us out, so of course the Republicans win, as always. Sigh.

___________________________

Of course, the endgame probably won't be decided by the Joint Committee at all. The Committee will meet and issue a report, but there's plenty of time for the parties to negotiate a different compromise after the Committee reports but before either the automatic triggers or the automatic tax hikes go into effect. And there's some legitimate fear, based on Obama's past less-than-steely negotiating history over the public option and the last extension of the Bush tax cuts, that here is where a bad deal for Democrats may be made.

But the contours of any alternative agreement will be shaped by the likely outcomes of the "triggers" scenario -- what we mediators call the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, or BATNA. In other words, neither party is likely to negotiate an agreement that's worse than the outcome of NOT reaching an agreement.

Under the deal President Obama just negotiated, Democrats' BATNA is a survivable set of spending cuts, a diminished Pentagon budget that hurts Republican home states and districts, automatic tax hikes that almost guarantee a balanced budget in less than a decade (reinforcing the Democratic narrative that, as Bill Clinton showed, Democratic Presidents are better fiscally than Republican ones), and a Republican base that's furious -- as an election looms -- at its own representatives for allowing those tax hikes to occur.

With a good BATNA like that, even poor Democratic negotiators almost can't help but cut a good deal for themselves. And (flipping around and looking at things from the other perspective), with a lousy BATNA like theirs, even the hardest-nosed, most regressive Republican negotiators have little choice but to accept some sort of spanking -- for instance, by letting Dems raise taxes on the richest Americans while preserving low tax rates for the middle class.

Yes, Option Three might happen -- if D.C. Dems are the utter fools a few pundits claim them to be. And if they let themselves be beaten that badly as this plays out, I'll be among the first to label them fools.

But Options One or Two are far, far, FAR more likely. And instead of wrapping themselves in sackcloth and ashes, crying in woe and beating themselves up for their leaders' factitious sins, Progressives would be wiser to join ranks and work together to pressure Reid and Pelosi with one simple, bridge-building demand: that the Democratic side of the Joint Committee be represented by reasonably intelligent liberals who understand how much leverage their President has given them in this deal -- and have the toughness to play out that good hand.

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Why It's a NOUGAT-FILLED Satan Sandwich

2011-08-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Deal is clumsy and unsatisfying, kicks the can down the road, and is an embarrassment to a supposedly functional democracy -- a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich." But it's still a Democratic win, because it leaves the probability of Republicans, suicidally, at election time, either agreeing to tax hikes (in the Joint Committee) or allowing tax hikes to happen (by letting the Joint Committee deadlock, causing all Americans' taxes to increase automatically).

That is, it's a Democratic win IF progressives can keep their sh*t together, stop the idiotic and nonproductive internecine warfare between so-called Firebaggers and Obamabots, and pull together to demand that the Joint Committee include true Democrats who'll hold firm rather than Blue Dogs and Vichies who'll surrender on the electorally all-important new revenues issue.

Here, in a highly sophisticated graphical format developed after over one minute of communications-strategy research and diligent labor, is why the Satan Sandwich contains a nummy, pro-Democrat nougat center:

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The Christian-Rock Roots of the G.O.P.'s "No Compromise" Rigidity

2011-07-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

In a televised speech on July 24, Barack Obama said that Americans are "fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word." But some Americans believe that "compromise" is not just a dirty word, but a sinful one -- a belief that is rooted at least partly in conservative Christian theology and Christian rock music.

In politics, there always have been varying degrees of acceptable compromise, depending on the individual and the issue. And, yes, some people are less flexible (1964's Barry Goldwater, preaching that "extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice!", comes to mind), and some issues are less negotiable, than others. On the other hand, the purist absolutism of "no compromise whatsoever" seems to be a modern phenomenon -- and the refrain "no compromise" has exploded since Barack Obama was elected President.

In October 2010, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said that earlier Republican majorities had allowed "altogether too much compromise" and promised that “there will be no compromise” if Republicans took control again (as they did). John Boehner, discussing how he would work with Barack Obama if he became Speaker, promised purity: "This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles.” Darrell Issa tried to redefine the term into meaninglessness: "You know, the word 'compromise' has been misunderstood,” he said, clarifying that his job will be “Getting America back to the center right where it exists.” And those leaders' "no compromise" stance has seeped its way down to the grassroots, so that, for example, a gun-rights advocate can write, "One of the reasons our system of government has lost its way is legislators fail to stand on principle and instead give into compromise."

The refrain is at the heart of the current debt ceiling impasse. Ron Paul: "“What you and I need is someone who stands for conviction over compromise.” Eric Cantor, asked "is there any compromise you can make on taxes?," answered "No"; his position is that merely showing up at negotiations is compromise enough. Michelle Bachmann is sending signals that no compromise is acceptable. Rush Limbaugh, quoting Ayn Rand, asked "where do you compromise between food and poison" and, later, advised the G.O.P. to hang tough, saying, "winners do not compromise" -- a statement Fox News calls an "epic rallying cry." A right-wing blogger states straightforwardly, "Republicans must never attempt to compromise with Democrats."

No compromise. No compromise. No compromise. That phrase sounded oddly familiar -- and then I remembered why.

In 1982, I was college roommates, and good friends, with a born-again Christian. My friend (I'll call him "Matt") was a very good guy: a hard studier, wryly and intelligently funny, an exuberantly bonecrunching flag football player, always happy to pop open a few beers on a sunny afternoon or do serious damage to a bottle of V.O. while we played cards. Although he was a "born-again," conservative in his interpretation of the Bible, and sincere about his faith, he wasn't intolerant of others -- and, significantly, his faith didn't infect his politics; the professional Christian Right simply hadn't advanced that far yet. (Once, when we listened to some audiotapes of a then-unfamiliar Jerry Falwell, he agreed with me that Falwell was strangely shrill and theologically unsound, and was uncomfortable with his God-and-Mammon blending of religion, politics, and fundraising.)

But while Matt wasn't an extremist back then, he was at least a prototype of future extremists -- the subject of an early-Reagan-era experiment in conservative religio-political engineering. Early political fundamentalists like Falwell, Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson, and related groups like Young Life and Dobson's Focus On The Family, were starting to use Christian radio and books and campus organizations, not to save souls, but to see whether the religious integrity of good people like Matt could be twisted into political servience -- whether, by cleverly marketing certain issues that blended morality and politics, like abortion, people like Matt could be convinced that conservative politics and conservative Christianity were branches of the same vine, so that they would sweat, bleed and even die for conservative politicians as if they were angels of the Lord Himself.

Of course, they succeeded.

An early sign of the religiopolitical messaging that was pushed on people like my friend back in the late '70s and early '80s was a seminal album by the immensely talented and influential Christian musician Keith Green: 1978's "No Compromise."

"No Compromise" was tremendously successful on the Christian rock charts, helped establish Christian rock as an economically viable market, and influenced countless later musicians. After Green died in a plane crash in 1982, both his biography and a tribute album also were named "No Compromise," the phrase Green believed summed up his entire religious philosophy:"No Compromise is what the whole Gospel of Jesus is all about..." And, apparently disregarding copyright laws, innumerable later Christian musicians gave their albums the same name.

Although the surface meaning of Green's "No Compromises" statement may have been religious, it always had political overtones. The original album cover didn't show a Christian refusing to bow down to a pagan idol, along the lines of Robert Service's poem "The Soldier of Fortune." Rather, it showed a crowd bowing down to some kind of political leader, a king or pasha of some sort -- and the Christian in the image is refusing to bow down to him. In other words, "No Compromise" always promoted political wilfulness and resistance, not just religious integrity.

My roommate had that album, of course, as well as a T-shirt with the same slogan and a cross. And he talked a lot about what it meant, which to him was that a person of integrity should not only refuse to compromise his faith, but refuse to compromise any of his ideals, in any circumstances. Over time, his fondness for the phrase turned him from a reasonable, spiritual person into a rigid, inflexible moralist -- with "moral" being defined only by the people and ideas he considered authoritative. Sadly, the very independence that he had (rightly) treasured as a moral good had been twisted, psychologically, into the very subservience to worldly men that he considered unfaithful to his God and wanted passionately to avoid.

Since then, "No Compromise" has continued to serve as right-wing religionists' version of "No Fear!" or "Just Do It!" -- but it also has spread to the political world. The slideshow below has a sampling of "No Compromises" images, showing how the phrase has expanded from a niche Christian pop album, to church youth groups and advertisements, to Tea Party and anti-immigration symbolism, and even to become the logo of an international military weapons manufacturer. And, to the extent it has shaped the ethics of a generation of (now middle-aged) social conservatives who now serve, lobby, petition, and fundraise for the G.O.P., how it has become the Republican Party's counterproductive maxim for how to govern in a diverse, secular democracy.

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The Debt Ceiling Debacle, Explained in Popular Video

2011-07-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

You've all been extraordinarily patient with my how-many-angels prognostications and general debt-ceiling wonkiness. And I understand that some people (timid, weak-minded souls, or without access to unlimited Valium) might consider the prospect of the collapse of the world's greatest democracy and the implosion of the global economic system to be A Bad Thing. So, I've decided you deserve a bit of cheering up.

Nearly all my recent, wonky posts on the D.C. debacle have contained links to video clips that help illustrate my points. Below, I've collated these clips (and a couple of new ones) into a sort of "tick tock" or "explainer" of the debt ceiling debate as it stands today. Enjoy! Learn! And don't tell the M.P.A.A.!

Barack Obama offers the Republicans everything they could ever want in a bill, so long as they also accept just one tiny little tax hike (that the Tea Party would rebel against). C'mon, just one little tax hike -- "It's wafer thin!" (originally in this post)

The G.O.P., which initially thought it was being clever by linking the debt ceiling to spending cuts, begins to realize that it has made a classic blunder. (originally in same post as previous)

John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, and Grover Norquist begin to realize what a trap Obama set for them, and hold this meeting (secretly videotaped) to brainstorm clever ways out. ("Put that thing away, you're gonna get us all killed!") (originally in this post)

The parties play chicken, racing each other to that August 2 deadline. As the cliff approaches, Boehner suddenly realizes both that his own caucus won't support his bill -- and also that maybe it wasn't such a great idea to buy that cool motorcycle jacket with the extraneous strap on the sleeve. (originally in this post)

With Boehner locked upstairs in his bedroom crying, serious Wall Street Republicans missing in action, and the Tea Party (lacking adult supervision) breaking into Boehner's liquor cabinet, jumping on the nation's couches and watching "GGW" on pay-per-view, the previously-unified House G.O.P. splinters into combative, ungovernable factions that can't agree on what bedtime should be, let alone on a plan to save America from default. ("Splitters!") (originally in this post)

But never fear: Arthur Jensen will now explain why, no matter how Boehner or the Tea Party squirm and squeal, the debt ceiling WILL be lifted and the markets WILL be saved. ("I have seen the face of God!") (originally in this post, from 2006)

So keep your chin up! I'm confident that even our dysfunctional government will muddle through somehow. Meanwhile, don't panic! Instead, just remember to always look on the bright side of life.

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How Prime Minister Pelosi and the American Parliament Can Solve the Debt Crisis

2011-07-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

The main functional difference between the U.S. Congress and a parliament is that in Congress the coalitions are formed before the election, while in a parliament they're formed afterward. Many Americans envy the plethora of parties found in parliamentary democracies (Labour! Conservatives! Christian Democrats! Greens! The People's Front of Judea!), without realizing that we have just as many minor parties as they do.

The truth is, American politics are as rife with factions as anyone else. Religious-conservative Prairie Muffins have nothing in common with the uber-rich hedonists who fund the Heritage Foundation, but both are Republican; union autoworkers have no natural affinity for Birkenstocked environmentalists, but both tend Democratic. What we call "The Right" actually is a grab-bag of paleoconservatives, Tea Partiers, Christian Dominionists, Libertarians, gun nuts, and a handful of LaRouchies (who, like Zoroastrian fundamentalists or Bruce Willis, don't realize they're ghosts yet). On what we call "The Left," nominally like-minded liberals perpetually respond to electoral success by devolving immediately into warring clans: Obamabots versus Firebaggers, resurrected New Democrats (who, I gather, seem to have snipped the labels out of their Izods) shoving things to the right while Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader pray for someone to primary Obama from the left.

In a Parliament, each of these groups would comprise its own political party: Democrats, Republicans, New Democrats, Greens, Tea Partiers, Dominionists, etc. And before the Parliamentary election, they would be studiously separate. Each would win some seats in Parliament, but most of the time none would win an absolute majority, so after the election, coalition-building would begin: Republicans and Democrats alike would woo the Libertarians by pitching small government and personal freedom, respectively; Dems would send Jim Wallis as an envoy to try and peel off a few Dominionists by appealing to social justice issues.

Sometimes the politics of Parliamentary coalition-building make very strange bedfellows, as in the British Parliament today (where the governing coalition was formed by what in America would be Republicans and Greens). But horses would be traded, a majority would be cobbled together, and that strange coalition would elect the new Prime Minister.

In America, we think we do things differently -- but we don't. We simply conduct our coalition-building and odd-bedfellow-matchmaking BEFORE the popular election instead of afterward. This is clearest during Presidential primaries, where each candidate effectively represents a minor sub-party (e.g., Romney representing the center-right, Bachman the Tea Party, Pawlenty the often-overlooked Boring Vote). Those sub-party primary candidates fight not only to win the nomination, but also to claim a place for their constituents in the final administration. (That's why can't-win candidates still find it worthwhile to enter the fray.) As each back-runner drops out, he or she horse-trades with the front-runners, exchanging their endorsement (and their faction's votes) for some position or increment of power in the new regime. That's how primary losers wind up being Vice-Presidents or Secretaries of State: they have traded their own coalition's support to help form the governing majority, in exchange for a slice of the power. And whoever builds the largest coalition wins the election. It's the same as Parliament, but done before the popular election rather than after it.

That's a long introduction to a very short thought, which is this: sometimes Congress can function like a Parliament, with the coalition-building occurring after the body is constituted. Whenever Republicans win the votes of Blue Dog Democrats, that's Parliamentary-style coalition-building. Whenever Democrats peel off the moderate Maine Twins, that's Parliamentary-style coalition-building.

It's very possible that late this week or early next, the U.S. House of Representatives will transform itself into the House of Commons. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is in a death spiral: unable to control the Tea Party branch of his own caucus, bearing most of the popular blame for the debt ceiling debacle, stalked from behind by Eric Cantor, reduced to griping publicly about how much his job sucks, his grip on the Speakership itself slipping away -- and, since no one really fears the threats or trusts the promises of a soon-to-be ex-Speaker, he seems to have lost the clout even to pass his own weak debt-ceiling bill through the house he nominally leads. In short, his coalition is falling apart.

In a parliament, this is precisely the moment when someone would shout "no confidence!" and call for new elections. The factions would reshuffle: the Tea Party would support Eric Cantor for Speaker, but more adult Republicans, aware of how deathly serious a default and debt downgrade would be, would look elsewhere for a champion. And if a No Confidence vote were held in the House of Representatives today, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans would have a simple majority.

But if the Republican brand is failing, there remains one faction in the House that could form itself a majority government:

Adults.

You know, serious politicians who are able to look into the abyss and have the sense not to plunge into it.

Congress-turned-Parliament would allow allow the factions in Congress to reshuffle, create a new majority comprised of strange bedfellows allied for a common (if sadly ephemeral) purpose, prevent a catastrophic default next Tuesday, and possibly even hammer out a deal to bend the medium-term debt curve so that Standard & Poor's and Moody's don't downgrade the U.S. debt by the end of the summer (which they will do if we only lift the debt ceiling). All it would take is for Nancy Pelosi to step up, craft a reasonable, non-punitive debt ceiling/spending bill, and pitch it to the adults in the room.

A good Pelosi "grown-ups" bill would do three things:

1) Lift the debt ceiling until after the elections;

2) Sail into Standard & Poor's non-downgrade safe harbor by both cutting $2.5 trillion or so in spending over the next decade and by raising slightly under $1 trillion in new revenue by simply closing some of the more egregious tax expenditures and loopholes and trimming back the spendthrift Bush tax cuts on the rich (goring both liberals and conservatives -- but like it or not, S&P's threat must be responded to); and

3) Firewall any significant cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare until at least 2013.

That bill could be supported, albeit with predictable griping, by every House Democrat. And it already is privately supported by many 24 House Republicans; all that Pelosi needs is to get 24 of them to step up and support it publicly.

The Tea Party would scream bloody murder. Rush Limbaugh would lambaste the "traitorous twenty-four." So what. For some Rs, the remaining good and serious ones, those blasts would be badges of honor.

Yes, Boehner could prevent a Pelosi solution from coming to the floor -- but Boehner, with nothing left in his toolkit, the world's economy on the bubble, his "friend" Eric Cantor at his throat, his Speakership (if not his seat) already lost, 24 Republicans begging him to get out of their way, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which is on Obama's side in this fight) instructing him to damn well get out of the way, may well allow such a bill to be voted on. Again, he doesn't love the Tea Party; he hates it, and he is beholden first to Wall Street, which has been collaborating with Obama to force Boehner into this precise predicament to hobble the uppity Tea Party. Push come to shove, Boehner would (probably tearfully) allow the vote.

And if he did, then he and those 24 "turncoat," patriotic Republicans would save the nation's economy, and possibly the world's. Boehner would, most likely, see that his Speakership is lost, and retire. The 24, depending on their districts, would either win re-election as common-sense pragmatists and move on to brilliant careers as pragmatic, common-sense centrists, or would lose their seats and move on to lucrative jobs offered by an eternally grateful Wall Street (which, again, is firmly in the "solve this problem" camp). For all of them, life would go on.

Democrats plus 24: that's all it takes to solve this problem. All it would take to make it possible is for Pelosi to recognize that as the Republican caucus crumbles into its constituent factions, Congress briefly becomes the House of Commons -- giving her the chance to craft a new majority from the rubble of the G.O.P.

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Reprise: How Obama is Pwning Boehner in Debt Talks

2011-07-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

As I watch Barack Obama, live, telling the nation that John Boehner has walked out of debt negotiation talks, I am feeling both optimistic and prescient. For convenience, I'm excerpting the "predicting the future" portion of this post (on this same site) from July 13, which I believe is holding (and will continue to hold) true:

Admittedly, Obama might not be able to pull off his hat trick. In particular, if the House were to cut its losses, abandon negotiations altogether and unilaterally pass a clean, stand-alone, two-year debt ceiling increase, it would be hard for Harry Reid not to allow a similar bill to pass the Senate, and even harder for Obama to veto it (though if he has nerves of steel he could do so, and force the House Republicans to accept a package of spending cuts and tax increases in the minutes before their midnight deadline). But in the meantime, Obama will keep slapping pucks at the G.O.P.'s beleaguered orange goalkeeper, trying to go three for three.
If winning a landslide reelection and reclaiming the House are indeed his true objectives, look for Obama to do the following:

1. Keep Taking Republicans to the Boards: At this point, this is full-contact politics. Look for Obama to keep up the hard play. Today's body blow: Obama rejected one version of a debt ceiling increase, "insisted on one comprehensive deal" (i.e., one including tax increases), threatened to veto any short-term approaches, promised to "stake his presidency" on the issue, and walked out of a meeting with Canter. Look for more of the same.

2. Divide and conquer: Obama's game depends on splitting the Tea Party Caucus from the Wall Street gray eminences, and foolish ideologues like Cantor from pragmatists like Boehner. Look for him to exploit every opportunity to drive wedges -- as he did today when he walked out of a meeting with Cantor, to Boehner's almost certain aggravation. If Obama's plan is working, on the other hand, look for ideological freshmen like Mike Lee (R-UT) to stop saying stupid, divisive things -- a sign that their elders are explaining how the world really works. And also look for the better strategists on the G.O.P. side to air increasingly desperate plans to avoid being forced to raise taxes -- which will, in turn, bring fresh waves of outcry from party purists.To aggravate Republicans' internal divide, also look for Obama to uncharacteristically toss darts and jibes at the TeaParty to aggravate it further, at least until the deal's down to the short strokes.

3. Move to the Right on Debt: If the G.O.P. suggests a clean debt ceiling increase, Obama will co-opt the "debts matter" argument and, with less-politically-savvy purists like Paul Krugman screaming epithets at him, will demand budget cuts (and, by the way, just one wafer-thin little tax increase!) as part of any deal. He will reiterate, over and over, that if not now, when? He will, to the dismay of the people at FireDogLake, adopt Frank Lautenberg talking points, crying that he does not want Sasha and Malia to inherit debt simply because John Boehner isn't willing to cut spending (with, again, just one tiny, insignificant tax increase attached).
4. Appear to be Caving on Cuts and Entitlements: Perversely, if Obama is focused on retaking the House, he will temper his hard-line position on tax increases by being almost ridiculously open to spending cuts and entitlement "reform" that his base considers intolerable. There are several reasons for this. First, the "raising taxes" pill is so poisonous that nearly any sacrifice that leads to them swallowing it is worthwhile. Obama is willing to eat a lot of garbage in exchange for the Republicans swallowing one teeny, tiny little tablet of cyanide. Second, any major cuts that pass the House must still pass the (Democrat-controlled) Senate. Finally, regaining both Houses of Congress opens the possibility of Democrats repairing any damage to entitlements that today's deal causes.
5. Almost inexplicably, keep avoiding a "clean vote" on the debt ceiling: Even down to the last minute. Good games of chicken take it all the way to the edge of the cliff.

Finally, how will we know if Obama has completely pwn3d the G.O.P.? Easy: the House of Representatives will, before the default deadline, pass a negotiated package that lifts the debt ceiling, contains something that can be characterized by wingnuts as a tax increase, and infests the G.O.P.'s 2012 platform's "debt hawk" plank with so much dryrot that it will be unsafe for them to stand on it.

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Standard & Poor's Underscores: Merely Lifting Debt Ceiling is NOT Enough to Preserve AAA Credit

2011-07-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

A Standard & Poor's report dated July 15, the day after it threatened to downgrade U.S. debt if a debt-bending deal is not reached, underscores what I've been writing about: that merely lifting the debt ceiling, or authorizing a so-called "Debt Commission" to propose further spending cuts by the end of the year, is not enough to ensure that U.S. debt is not downgraded to AA status, with enormous "knock-on" effects to the rest of the economy. The salient portion, with my emphasis added:

The action on the U.S. government's 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term ratings reflects our view of two issues: the failure to raise the federal debt ceiling so as to ensure that the government will be able to continue to make scheduled payments on its obligations, and our view of the likelihood that Congress and the Obama Administration will agree upon a credible, medium-term fiscal consolidation plan in the foreseeable future. (See "United States Of America 'AAA/A-1+' Ratings Placed On CreditWatch Negative On Rising Risk Of Policy Stalemate," published July 14, 2011.)

As it stands, we see at least a one-in-two likelihood that we could lower the long-term rating on the U.S. within the next three months-–by one or more notches, into the 'AA' category–-if we conclude that Washington hasn't reached agreement on the latter of these two issues.

Let's repeat that: S&P is likely to downgrade U.S. debt if the nation either fails to lift the cap or fails to reassure ratings agencies that it's serious about "credible, medium-term fiscal consolidation" -- i.e., bending the debt curve. And S&P's earlier report clearly defined "credible, medium-term fiscal consolidation plan" as one in the roughly $4 trillion range, involving some "mix" of spending cuts and revenue enhancement, involving compromises by both parties, put in place sooner rather than later.

In other words: not the McConnell plan (which merely lifts the debt ceiling, albeit in a complicated way); not the Reid-McConnell plan (which lifts the debt ceiling and makes small spending cuts but otherwise kicks the can down the road to a so-called "deficit commission"); and not "Cut, Cap & Balance" (which is pure showmanship, not designed to pass).

Meanwhile, the bad news isn't limited to the government itself. The foreseeable "knock-on" effects are already happening: New York Life, Northwestern Mutual, and other blue-chip insurers, and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and home and farm loan banks were placed on notice of possible downgrades Friday, and Moody's placed five states (Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Tennessee) on downgrade notice today. Because, as S&P says, "no financial institution can carry a higher rating or outlook than its sovereign," the entire U.S. economy will be degraded, either directly or indirectly, if the U.S. government is downgraded.

Far from being bad actors, the ratings agencies are trying very hard not to downgrade U.S. debt, even though there is increasing concern in financial markets that there is too much nominally AAA debt out there already. No, the agencies are not the bad guys here; like Paul Revere, they keep sounding the warning (as here, here and here).

Is anybody in Washington listening?

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Financial Heavyweights Tell G.O.P. to Raise Taxes -- But They're Not Listening

2011-07-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

As the president and Congressional Republicans squabble over how to avoid a default on the nation's financial obligations, the financial world's heavy hitters are increasingly signaling that they want the G.O.P. to embrace the $4 trillion "Grand Bargain" preferred by Barack Obama, including revenue increases that some Republicans consider politically suicidal. Yet G.O.P. lawmakers don't seem to be listening, steering instead toward a politically easier solution that appeases the Tea Party but may not be enough to avoid economic catastrophe.

Late Thursday, the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's released a statement announcing that merely raising the debt ceiling will not be enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States' credit rating for the first time in seventy years, potentially causing the interest rate on both government and private debt to skyrocket and destabilizing the entire economy. Remarkably, the statement also prescribed the specific numbers and conditions that would allow the U.S. to avoid such a catastrophe: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some "mix" of spending cuts and tax increases, and must involve concessions by both sides (a strong hint that the G.O.P. must consider closing tax loopholes, as well as a repudiation of Eric Cantor's assertion that merely attending negotiations is the only concession the GOP intends to make).

In short, Standard & Poor's has put G.O.P. lawmakers on notice that if they take the easy way out instead of making the "Grand Bargain" that Obama has advocated for, including tax increases, they may be responsible for disrupting the U.S. economy.

The S&P statement clearly states that merely raising the debt ceiling, or implementing a deficit-reduction package in the $1-2 trillion range, will not be enough to prevent a costly rating downgrade, because it would show that the country is not serious about tackling the deficit:

"U.S. political debate is currently more focused on the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation than it has been for a decade. Based on this, we believe that an inability to reach an agreement now could indicate that an agreement will not be reached for several more years. We view an inability to timely agree and credibly implement medium-term fiscal consolidation policy as inconsistent with a 'AAA' sovereign rating...."

Standard & Poor's bombshell capped a week filled with communiques from the financial world telling politicians in general to stop posturing and Republicans in particular to be more flexible on taxes. On July 7, a blistering editorial in The Economist took Republicans to the woodshed:

"[T]he Republicans are pushing things too far. Talks with the administration ground to a halt last month, despite an offer from the Democrats to cut at least $2 trillion and possibly much more out of the budget over the next ten years. Assuming that the recovery continues, that would be enough to get the deficit back to a prudent level. As The Economist went to press, Mr Obama seemed set to restart the talks.

"The sticking-point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical."

The Economist even advocated for the tax hikes that Obama has demanded (and which many House Republicans have staked their political careers on refusing):

"This newspaper has a strong dislike of big government; we have long argued that the main way to right America’s finances is through spending cuts. But you cannot get there without any tax rises. In Britain, for instance, the coalition government aims to tame its deficit with a 3:1 ratio of cuts to hikes. America’s tax take is at its lowest level for decades: even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so.

"And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look. Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence. The White House is offering an 83%-17% split (hardly a huge distance) and a promise that none of the revenue increase will come from higher marginal rates, only from eliminating loopholes. If the Republicans were real tax reformers, they would seize this offer."

Last Tuesday, nearly 500 U.S. business leaders, including solidly conservative groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Financial Services Forum, signed a letter urging both sides to make "hard choices" to adopt a long-term solution, not just a temporary extension of the spending cap. The next day, the rating agency Moody's also warned of a downgrade unless lawmakers negotiated a "substantial and credible" debt-reduction deal.

Thursday, as Obama dismissed negotiators to decide over the weekend how they wanted to proceed, Standard & Poor's issued its warning to the federal government, then followed Friday with additional warning that it also may downgrade the credit ratings of several blue-chip financial firms that are heavily invested in U.S. Treasuries, including New York Life Insurance Co. and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., simply because "no financial institution can carry a higher rating or outlook than its sovereign," and those of some other financial services organizations (including Federal Home Loan and Farm Credit System banks and the mortgage loan guarantee companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that have "direct links to, or reliance on, the federal government." Those warnings are likely to reverberate into the rest of the financial sector over the coming week.

Standard & Poor's remarkably prescriptive warnings, which sound more like World Bank admonishments to a fiscally irresponsible Third World nation than an assessment of the most secure investment on Earth, would seem to be the final blow to beleaguered Republicans' ability to resist any semblance of new taxes. And some senior Republican statesmen have, indeed, been trying to educate the party's junior members about the seriousness of the problem. Former Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici, who helped negotiate the nation's last balanced budget under President Bill Clinton, has teamed with former George H.W. Bush Treasury undersecretary Jay Powell to issue a report saying that tax purists like Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann are "wrong" and calling for Republicans to embrace some tax hikes. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, originally a Bush appointee, warned House Financial Services Committee that a failure of U.S. Treasury bonds "would throw shockwaves through the entire global financial system."

But the message does not seem to have penetrated the Republican caucus, which appears irreconcilably split between economic pragmatists and anti-tax ideologues and therefore is continuing to pursue economically inadequate, but politically palatable, solutions:

Asked by Obama Thursday to return by Saturday with at least a general idea of what direction they would like to pursue, House Republicans let the deadline slip and instead plan to spend the next week passing a "Cut, Cap & Balance" bill and balanced budget amendment that do not address the immediate problem and have no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate. In the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reportedly are continuing to work on a "hybrid" plan to temporarily raise the cap and enact smaller spending cuts without tax increases -- precisely the sort of plan that Standard & Poor's has said would result in a downgrade of America's debt -- plus a "debt commission" that would consider further deficit reduction measures later, which may or may not demonstrate the kind of "seriousness" that the financial markets say they want. And Senate Minority Whip John Kyl (R-AZ) continues to parrot anti-tax talking points, referring Sunday to the president's "absolute obsession with raising taxes" and "[j]ob-killing taxes." At the other extreme, budget hawk Tom Coburn (R-OK) said Sunday that he will offer a plan that closes some tax loopholes -- but his plan seeks to cut a massive $9 trillion by making punitive reductions to entitlements and social programs, and he acknowledges it stands no chance of passing.

The debt ceiling question has become a proxy war over the soul of the Republican Party, pitting old-school pragmatic conservatives who understand how complex the financial system is against anti-tax and Tea Party ideologues. Wall Street clearly is allying itself with the pragmatists, even if doing so means that Republicans may suffer electoral setbacks in 2012. Rank-and-file Republicans appear to be struggling to decide which of their impulses is stronger: the desire to help the economy recover, or the desire to retain control of the House of Representatives in the face of Tea Party wrath over tax hikes. If they follow their current course, and if Standard & Poor's keeps its promises, they may wind up with neither.

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Standard & Poors to G.O.P.: "We'll Downgrade U.S. Credit Rating If You Don't Accept Obama's Offer"

2011-07-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

Holy cow. This is mind-blowing (and confirms my contention that Barack Obama has been working closely with "Big Money" to pressure the G.O.P. to commit what may be electoral suicide):

The credit-rating agency Standard & Poors has released a statement that says, among other things, that merely raising the debt ceiling is not enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States' credit rating, triggering market instability and causing the interest rate on U.S. debt to skyrocket. What's more, S&P is attaching numbers and conditions to its statement: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some balance of cuts and revenues (ie, tax increases), and will involve concessions by both sides (a thinly-veiled repudiation of Eric Cantor's assertion that merely attending negotiations is the only concession the GOP intends to make).

In short: the G.O.P. must grow up and accept Obama's offer, including politically suicidal tax increases, or the U.S. economy will tank.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business leaders already have written to tell John Boehner to stop screwing around and take a deal, the credit-rating agency Moody's had threatened to downgrade U.S. debt, and a blistering editorial in The Economist last week took Republicans to the woodshed:

"[T]he Republicans are pushing things too far. Talks with the administration ground to a halt last month, despite an offer from the Democrats to cut at least $2 trillion and possibly much more out of the budget over the next ten years. Assuming that the recovery continues, that would be enough to get the deficit back to a prudent level. As The Economist went to press, Mr Obama seemed set to restart the talks.
"The sticking-point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical."

The Economist even advocated for the tax hikes that Obama has demanded (but which the GOP knows may cost them control of the House of Representatives in 2012):

"This newspaper has a strong dislike of big government; we have long argued that the main way to right America’s finances is through spending cuts. But you cannot get there without any tax rises. In Britain, for instance, the coalition government aims to tame its deficit with a 3:1 ratio of cuts to hikes. America’s tax take is at its lowest level for decades: even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so.
"And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look. Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence. The White House is offering an 83%-17% split (hardly a huge distance) and a promise that none of the revenue increase will come from higher marginal rates, only from eliminating loopholes. If the Republicans were real tax reformers, they would seize this offer."

Coming on top of this, S&P's remarkably detailed statement -- almost a prescription for what Congress must do, much as the World Bank instructs third world nations to adopt austerity measures -- may be the final blow to beleaguered Republicans, who are tasked tonight and tomorrow with deciding which way to proceed with debt ceiling negotiations -- but who now appear to have little choice in the matter.

A fascinating side question is whether the Obama administration had a role in whether or when S&P issued its statement -- and when Obama knew that the statement would be issued. It's already been reported that the Obama Administration primed the financial community months ago to put pressure on the G.O.P. (There's some benefit to having Wall Street insiders on the Cabinet!)

Earlier today, Obama appeared to retreat from his previous hard-line, must-raise-taxes position, and asked Republicans to choose which of three options they preferred: (1) work toward $4 trillion in total debt reduction over the next decade, including some tax increases and closed loopholes; (2) settle for a lower, $1.5-1.7 trillion debt reduction without tax increases; or (3) Mitch McConnells' complex plan that essentially simply raises the debt ceiling without any deficit reduction.

While Obama was making that seemingly-generous offer, however, Standard & Poors was preparing to issue its report announcing that options (2) and (3) would be ruinous to financial markets and to the nation's ability to borrow -- i.e., that only Obama's first option, the $4 trillion, must-increase-taxes plan he has pushed for all along. Taking it all together, I strongly suspect Obama knew the S&P report was coming and timed the day's events perfectly, coming away looking more reasonable than ever while making sure that the Republicans' box is getting smaller and smaller.

The key portion of the Standard & Poors report is printed below:

"We expect the debt trajectory to continue increasing in the medium term if a medium-term fiscal consolidation plan of $4 trillion is not agreed upon. If Congress and the Administration reach an agreement of about $4 trillion, and if we to conclude that such an agreement would be enacted and maintained throughout the decade, we could, other things unchanged, affirm the 'AAA' long-term rating and A-1+ short-term ratings on the U.S.

"Standard & Poor's takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might agree on. But for any agreement to be credible, we believe it would require support from leaders of both political parties.

"Congress and the Administration might also settle for a smaller increase in the debt ceiling, or they might agree on a plan that, while avoiding a near-term default, might not, in our view, materially improve our base case expectation for the future path of the net general government debt-to-GDP ratio. U.S. political debate is currently more focused on the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation than it has been for a decade. Based on this, we believe that an inability to reach an agreement now could indicate that an agreement will not be reached for several more years. We view an inability to timely agree and credibly implement medium-term fiscal consolidation policy as inconsistent with a 'AAA' sovereign rating, given the expected government debt trajectory noted above.

Further delays in raising the debt ceiling could lead us to conclude that a default is more possible than we previously thought. If so, we could lower the long-term rating on the U.S. government this month and leave both the long-term and short-term ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications pending developments."

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It's The Election, Stupid: How Obama is Leveraging Debt Ceiling Negotiations to Win Reelection and Regain the House

2011-07-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

The drama unfolding in Washington the past few days has nothing to do with the debt ceiling. It doesn't even have to do with the federal budget. Barack Obama's noble, President-of-both-parties overwillingness to compromise since 2009 seems to be giving way to a leaner, meaner, more Machiavellian campaign mindset, and Candidate Obama appears to have his eyes set not only on his own reelection but on engineering a Democratic re-takeover of the House of Representatives, using the debt ceiling negotiations as his chosen, and carefully pre-surveyed, battlefield.

The G.O.P.'s Three Weaknesses:

Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the G.O.P. has had a very good run in Washington: they have persuaded Americans that "liberal" is a dirty word, retained the "fiscal conservative" moniker despite octupling the national debt, and rebounded after presidential setbacks in 1992 and 2008 by exploiting Clinton's and Obama's nonexistent "coattails" to gain impressive new Congressional majorities. But while the conservative juggernaut has been formidable, the Republicans have made three blunders in the past thirty years that exposed their vulnerabilities and knocked them profoundly off their pace.

Here are the G.O.P.'s three "classic blunders," the errors that for them are the political equivalents of getting involved in a land war in Asia:

1. Running a weak Republican for President against a charismatic, Kennedy-esque young Democrat;

2. Shutting down the government, as Newt Gingrich did in 1995-6; and

3. Breaking a promise not to raise taxes (which cost George H.W. Bush reelection in 1992).

The G.O.P. can't help but repeat blunder number 1 in 2012: the G.O.P. field is weak, and Obama will be the Democratic candidate. Obama is now maneuvering to force them to make blunders 2 and 3, as well -- a "hat trick." If he succeeds, the result -- and, most likely, his objective from the start -- will be not only his reelection, but Democratic control of the House of Representatives as well.

Here are the clues, tea leaves and puzzle pieces that support this analysis:

1. Obama Finds a Spine and Keeps Insisting on Raising Taxes: Until now, Obama has been over-quick to buy in to Republican frames. Republicans argue that the debt is too high (even though it's not); Obama agrees that the debt is too high and counterproductively supports budget cuts during a recession. Republicans say that healthcare should still be paid for privately; Obama agrees and doesn't even allow singlepayer advocates a seat at the healthcare reform table. Republicans argue that tax cuts are the key to an effective stimulus package; Obama agrees and squanders nearly half the stimulus on tax cuts.

But now Republicans are screaming that taxes shall not be raised -- and Obama, for the first time, is pushing back and insists that a tax increase is his one non-negotiable. Yet, strangely, Obama is not adamant about how large the tax increases ("revenue enhancements") must be; he is blithely willing to accept spending cuts that are disproportionately larger than any tax increases; all he really demands is that there must be some tax increases. He even signals a willingness to carve large, bloody chunks out of sacred cows like Social Security and Medicare and throw them on the grill for Republicans' dining pleasure -- if only the Republicans will just accept some itty, bitty little tax increases. And, at the same time, the G.O.P. suddenly seems panicked about the issue.

Why is Obama so hell-bent on increasing taxes, when conventional wisdom in an election (and a recession) says that's suicidal? And why is the G.O.P. suddenly turning pale and insisting gaspingly that it "will not, will not, will not EVER!" submit to increasing taxes, like a maiden hopelessly proclaiming her eternal chastity before a horde of slavering Mongols?

Poppy Bush.

In 1988, the first President Bush won the White House largely on the strength of a single, clear promise: "read my lips: no new taxes." Then, being a well-educated, old-school Republican and a pragmatist (who had called Reagan's supply-side theories "Voodoo Economics"), he adapted to changing circumstances and agreed some tax increases were necessary. His base exploded, his supporters stayed home on election day, and Bill and Hillary evicted George and Barbara after only one term.

The entire G.O.P. freshman class has, in more or less identical words, taken the same pledge as George H.W. Bush, and the Tea Party, like Grover Norquist but without his political sophistication, has made "no new taxes" its latest line in the sand. It's a binary, black-white, either-or test: either you increase taxes or you hold the line, and if you choose wrong, we will jettison you and back someone with more commitment to the anti-tax cause. And because a larger than usual proportion of the current G.O.P. majority are freshmen, and because freshmen are especially vulnerable in their first reelection, the G.O.P. majority is highly vulnerable to being overturned in 2012.

Obama knows this -- and so do the G.O.P.'s (relative) grown-ups, who now realize they're in a box and are looking desperately for a way out. That's why Boehner complained bitterly today that the only thing Obama is inflexible on is "these damn tax increases." That's why, as Brian Beutler has astutely observed here and here, even anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist has figured out what's happening and is moderating his absolutism to help the Republicans escape Obama's trap. That's also why the Wall Street Journal, always the oracle of Big Money and even more so now that it is part of Rupert Murdoch's propaganda machine, is defending Mitch McConnell's strange debt-ceiling proposal (which is simply a device for surrendering to Obama without having to raise taxes, made intentionally overcomplex in hopes that the Tea Party rank-and-file won't realize what's going on).

Obama is forcing the G.O.P. to pull a Poppy and break their pledge. The G.O.P. knows that it will pay a terrible price if it does so. But, when the final seconds tick their way to a default, those wiser G.O.P. heads also know that they will follow the financially-sensible bidding of Big Money rather than the suicidal bidding of the spoiled children who think they run the Tea Party, and will do what Obama (and Wall Street) demand -- after which they will start privately telephoning friends in important places to look for job openings beginning in January, 2013.

2. In a Tie, The Call Goes to the Democrat: But, you say, isn't Obama under the same pressure as Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, so that he's as likely to hit the brakes as they are before the nation drives off the cliff?

Nope.

True, Obama doesn't want the U.S. to default. But he has skilfully positioned himself as the more reasonable player by offering tax cuts much larger than his proposed tax increases, by leaking to the Washington Post and others that he is willing to alienate his base by gouging Medicare and Social Security, and by manipulating the Republicans into huffily walking out of negotiations (and into Obama's trap). The majority of Americans will blame Republicans, not Obama, for any default -- and both sides know it.

History bolsters this conclusion. The last time a Democratic President and an ideologically purist Republican Congress allowed a stalemate to shut down the government, Republicans lost in the public's mind (and those Republicans, the infamous "Contract With America" class led by Newt Gingrich, was then voted out of office, allowing Democrats to regain the House). A default now will be much, much more harmful than the brief shutdown that occurred in 1995-1996 , and the negative consequences for Republicans will be proportionately worse as well.

In the leadup to the current negotiations, Boehner tried to position the G.O.P. differently than Gingrich did in 1995, but he clearly has failed. Politically, Obama has less to lose than the Republicans do -- and, as one of my father's truisms says, you should never get in a fight with someone who has less to lose than you do. In Boehner's nightmares, he could go down in history as the man who allowed the nation to double-dip into the Second Great Depression and permanently stripped the G.O.P. of the "fiscal grown-up" label it has claimed since before WWII. He won't take that risk.

3. Wall Street will not allow the G.O.P. to cause a default: Pundits and talking heads keep focusing on the Tea Party's likely reaction to a tax increase, forgetting that fiscally there is another, more deeply imbedded, subtler but infinitely more mercenary influence on Republican politics: Big Money. Big Money -- Wall Street, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the myriad networks of individual donors and independent campaign ad funders and potential post-Congressional-career employers that are the G.O.P.'s (and, to be fair, half of the Democratic Party's) true constituents -- calmly allows its minions to showcase and speechify and engage in tiny, irrelevant acts of political theater to meet the needs of the political moment, but the ground of Big Money's existence is the integrity of the financial system. Are big banks about to go under? D.C. is mobilized overnight, ideology is set aside, and supposed free marketeers like John Boehner tearfully beg Congress to intervene in the free market to bail them out.

If Big Money can make conservative congresscritters scramble to serve its will when a few banks are on the bubble, what do you think it can accomplish when the integrity of the U.S. government -- the ground of the U.S. financial system's being, the issuer of public tender and surety of U.S. businesses' credibility in world markets -- is in jeopardy? Answer: anything it wants. Big Money can tell Boehner to step down and retire, and he will. It can tell Paul Ryan to jettison his budget, and he will. It can tell Eric Cantor to back down from his hardcore rhetoric, and Ron Paul to silently brook a larger federal government, and they will.

The pressure's already building -- the normally pro-Republican U.S. Chamber and other business leaders, carefully prepped and cultivated by the Administration well in advance of this crisis (!), already have started leaning on Republicans to take a deal, and Moody's is threatening to downgrade U.S. securities. If Obama can sustain his bluff to the bitter end, the G.O.P. will do whatever it takes to prevent a default, because their masters are telling them to do so. (And don't believe Cantor's assertion that passing a bill raising taxes is impossible: the unofficial "Wall Street Caucus" has always been larger than the Tea Party Caucus, and combined with House Democrats, who outnumber Tea Party Caucus members three-to-one, can easily pass whatever is needed.)

The process of persuading the G.O.P. to accept the inevitable has already begun; it's precisely the slowly-dawning realization that Republican control of the House is at stake that's making G.O.P. leaders look so shaky lately. It's why Mitch McConnell has, remarkably, proposed an alternative bill that would actually increase the power of a Democratic president -- and why Obama has rejected the offer. It's why the White House adamantly refuses to accept any short-term, pressure-relieving solutions.

Admittedly, Obama might not be able to pull off his hat trick. In particular, if the House were to cut its losses, abandon negotiations altogether and unilaterally pass a clean, stand-alone, two-year debt ceiling increase, it would be hard for Harry Reid not to allow a similar bill to pass the Senate, and even harder for Obama to veto it (though if he has nerves of steel he could do so, and force the House Republicans to accept a package of spending cuts and tax increases in the minutes before their midnight deadline). But in the meantime, Obama will keep slapping pucks at the G.O.P.'s beleaguered orange goalkeeper, trying to go three for three.

If winning a landslide reelection and reclaiming the House are indeed his true objectives, look for Obama to do the following:

1. Keep Taking Republicans to the Boards: At this point, this is full-contact politics. Look for Obama to keep up the hard play. Today's body blow: Obama rejected one version of a debt ceiling increase, "insisted on one comprehensive deal" (i.e., one including tax increases), threatened to veto any short-term approaches, promised to "stake his presidency" on the issue, and walked out of a meeting with Canter. Look for more of the same.

2. Divide and conquer: Obama's game depends on splitting the Tea Party Caucus from the Wall Street gray eminences, and foolish ideologues like Cantor from pragmatists like Boehner. Look for him to exploit every opportunity to drive wedges -- as he did today when he walked out of a meeting with Cantor, to Boehner's almost certain aggravation. If Obama's plan is working, on the other hand, look for ideological freshmen like Mike Lee (R-UT) to stop saying stupid, divisive things -- a sign that their elders are explaining how the world really works. And also look for the better strategists on the G.O.P. side to air increasingly desperate plans to avoid being forced to raise taxes -- which will, in turn, bring fresh waves of outcry from party purists.To aggravate Republicans' internal divide, also look for Obama to uncharacteristically toss darts and jibes at the TeaParty to aggravate it further, at least until the deal's down to the short strokes.

3. Move to the Right on Debt: If the G.O.P. suggests a clean debt ceiling increase, Obama will co-opt the "debts matter" argument and, with less-politically-savvy purists like Paul Krugman screaming epithets at him, will demand budget cuts (and, by the way, just one wafer-thin little tax increase!) as part of any deal. He will reiterate, over and over, that if not now, when? He will, to the dismay of the people at FireDogLake, adopt Frank Lautenberg talking points, crying that he does not want Sasha and Malia to inherit debt simply because John Boehner isn't willing to cut spending (with, again, just one tiny, insignificant tax increase attached).

4. Appear to be Caving on Cuts and Entitlements: Perversely, if Obama is focused on retaking the House, he will temper his hard-line position on tax increases by being almost ridiculously open to spending cuts and entitlement "reform" that his base considers intolerable. There are several reasons for this. First, the "raising taxes" pill is so poisonous that nearly any sacrifice that leads to them swallowing it is worthwhile. Obama is willing to eat a lot of garbage in exchange for the Republicans swallowing one teeny, tiny little tablet of cyanide. Second, any major cuts that pass the House must still pass the (Democrat-controlled) Senate. Finally, regaining both Houses of Congress opens the possibility of Democrats repairing any damage to entitlements that today's deal causes.

5. Almost inexplicably, keep avoiding a "clean vote" on the debt ceiling: Even down to the last minute. Good games of chicken take it all the way to the edge of the cliff.

Finally, how will we know if Obama has completely pwn3d the G.O.P.? Easy: the House of Representatives will, before the default deadline, pass a negotiated package that lifts the debt ceiling, contains something that can be characterized by wingnuts as a tax increase, and infests the G.O.P.'s 2012 platform's "debt hawk" plank with so much dryrot that it will be unsafe for them to stand on it.

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How Much More French Can You Get?

2011-05-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush says that when Obama called to tell him that Osama bin Laden had been killed, "I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies."

Rise Nº1 in Dallas (www.risesouffle.com) sounds like a very nice restaurant. And Rise's "chef extraordinaire, Chef Cherif" probably grills a mean ribeye on his day off. But as Rise Nº1's own homepage shows, nothing says "French" like a good Texas soufflé:

So when that arugula-nibbling, stealth-Muslim Kenyan imposter Barack Obama was double-tapping bin Laden, the man on whose watch 9/11 happened (and whose first oil company was funded by the bin Laden family) was dining on puffy eggs rather than steak and Freedom Fries.

How much more French can you get?

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A Friend Buys Into A Fox News Meme; I Reply

2011-03-03T18:37:00.000-08:00

A conservative friend, a fellow search-and-rescue volunteer, blasted out the following email today, cut-and-pasting a new Fox News Channel/conservabot email meme about Congressional pensions and federal-worker student loan forgiveness. Normally I just chuckle and delete, but because this person is tremendously goodhearted and well-intentioned in all things, in this case I researched and replied. Since my reply (and especially my written-to-persuade-rather-than-fight dissection of Fox News, at the very end) might help someone else, I figured I'd post the exchange.

First, my buddy's email:

Subject: 28th Amendment to the Constitution

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get 50% of their pay. While politicians hold their political positions in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and receive full pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.
Monday on Fox news they learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?

35 States file lawsuit against the Federal Government, Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on. This is an idea that we should address.
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Health Care Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.

My reply:

Hi, [SAR-buddy-old-pal]. I know we have different political views, which is something I love about [SAR unit] (and America!). However, I've been pretty immersed in political journalism since 2008 -- mainly writing about the inside politics of how journalists spin the news. I love the saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts -- and this email has its basic facts wrong.

The real story is that highly-qualified new hires like staff lawyers, forensic accountants, etc. often have large student loan burdens that often prevent them from taking jobs in the public sector, which pays them much less than the private sector does. If you're a newly-graduated, Harvard-trained lawyer with $300,000 in debt, will you take a job as a federal judicial clerk ($54,000) or with a Wall Street law firm ($170,000)? Even if you want to work in the government, you might not be able to afford to.

To help them recruit those top-level workers, federal agencies are allowed to offer student loan forgiveness -- but only if the employee doesn't quit or get fired, performs adequately, etc. There are similar proposals for inner-city schoolteachers, public health nurses, etc. And the agency has to make the loan payments itself, i.e., if the agency didn't pay the loan it likely would need to increase the salary so the employee can pay the loan. http://www.myduhawk.com/2011/03/03/congress-gets-student-loan-cuts/. And there's a cap on how much can be forgiven. It's still a good deal for a lot of kids fresh out of school, but it's nothing evil.

Similarly, it's not true that Congresscritters get 100% of their salary in pension after one term. Congresspeople contribute to their own pensions; to get any pension benefit at all they must serve at least 5 years (so, yes, a senator earns minimal benefits in his first term, but representatives don't earn any until their third term); they can't earn the maximium amount (80%, not 100%) until they've served longer periods; and they don't draw anything until they reach retirement age (which varies according to a years served/age of retirement formula). There are 535 members of Congress at any given time; turnover in the House (where members must be re-elected every 2 years) is fairly high; there are lots of former Congresspeople; yet only about 400 former members of Congress TOTAL were receiving pension benefits as of 2006 (the year of the study I saw), and the average pension of those retiring under the system that's been in place since 1987 (and is still in place) was only $35,952. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm; http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30631.pdf. It's still a pretty kick-ass pension, and I'd love to have it, but it's not giving away a gold mine.

I think part of the problem here is that not everyone understands what Fox News was designed to be: a political actor, not a journalism or news outlet. Don't get me wrong: I have no objection to them having an editorial slant -- everyone has one, and at least Fox admits it! But internally, and among journalists, Fox itself is pretty open about their main job being to package "news" in a way that influences elections and sway public opinion. Fox News' president, Roger Ailes, has no background in journalism at all: he was a political consultant for Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Giuliani. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes. Rupert Murdoch, of course, is a money guy, not a news guy. It's not even a secret; Fox postponed starting a news channel in Canada while it tried to get a law against lying on news shows repealed -- and is abandoning that project altogether now that Canada has decided to keep that law in effect. (Imagine if we had that law!) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/fox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html.

So the bad news is, Fox News is not a reliable source of information, and wasn't ever intended to be one. Double-check everything. The good news is, the world's not going to hell in a handbasket as fast as you thought.

Hope you take this in the spirit in which it's offered!

S.

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Ding, Dong, the DLC is Dead.

2011-02-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

The Democratic Leadership Committee, flagship of incremental, triangulating "centrist" liberalism since the 1980s, is closing its doors, thank God. Now if only its ideas would die. (Yes, I'm talking about you, ThirdWay.)

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Eleventy-Dimensional DADT Chess

2010-10-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

(Updated below, Nov. 17, 2010)

It's certainly possible that Barack Obama plans to appeal District Judge Virginia Phillips' ruling holding Don't Ask, Don't Tell ("DADT") unconstitutional. Doing so would be a strong, and historically conventional, assertion of the Presidency's ultimate right as Commander in Chief to decide how the military will operate.

But a White House threat to appeal the federal court ruling doesn't necessarily mean that the White House will appeal that ruling. Nor does the White House's request today for a temporary stay of that ruling while it "decides" whether to appeal. The United States has 60 days to appeal any ruling against it, and it might be wise for it to pretend it may appeal the ruling until the last minute, to increase pressure on conservative Democrats to toe the party line and vote to repeal the entire DADT law during the upcoming, post-election "lame duck" session of Congress.

Obama has made no secret of his preference for overturning DADT legislatively rather than through the courts. A single trial judge in California can be dismissed by conservative pundits as "activist" and demagogued endlessly in tomorrow's culture wars. What's more, a single judge's ruling has no precedential value should other courts be asked to decide similar but jurisdictionally distinct issues in the future. A legislative decision to overturn DADT, on the other hand, could only be reversed if both a future Congress and a future President chose to re-impose military bigotry, after gay soldiers already are incorporated openly into the military and over the predictable filibuster. In other words, the Congressional solution Obama seeks would be better from a P.R. perspective AND stronger legally than merely letting the District Court ruling bear the weight alone.

But even though it would be better for Congress, the President, and the federal courts all to condemn DADT rather than have the decision made by a single judge, the problem of how politically to obtain that sweeping condemnation remains.

The political problem is that if the Justice Department doesn't appeal Judge Phillips' injunction, the pressure on Congress to repeal DADT dribbles away. Remember that just last month, Democratic senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor voted against ending the GOP's pro-DADT filibuster -- but only after reserving their votes until the very end of the hearing, and confirming that the motion would fail anyway. In other words, they likely would have voted to repeal DADT if there had been a chance of actually succeeding, but chose not to rile their more conservative constituents in a lost cause.

If DADT is already dead by court order, conservaDems and moderate (or precariously closeted) Republicans aren't likely to go out on a limb during the "lame duck" session by voting to drive another stake through its already-dead heart. But if they believe the court's order may not stand, they still may be susceptible to pressure to repeal the underlying law outright. Will they succumb to that pressure, and do the right thing? No one knows, though Lincoln's and Pryor's delay in voting last month is a good sign that those two, at least, are secretly in the "repeal" camp. What is for certain, though, is that the chances of Congress repealing DADT next month are maximized by the White House's pretense of appealing -- or even, if still more pressure was needed, by actually appealing, since that appeal could be dismissed later.

Bottom line: the DOJ's and White House's saber-rattling about appealing Judge Phillips' ruling does not necessarily mean they will appeal. Even an actual appeal of that ruling wouldn't necessarily mean the White House is actually unwilling to let Judge Phillips' decision stand in the end. The White House's behavior so far is equally consistent with a negotiating strategy aimed at ramping up pressure on Blue Dogs and other Congressional Panderers-to-the-Right to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell for good. Only time will tell which one it really is.

UPDATE, NOV. 17, 2010: DADT repeal remains alive in the Lame Duck Congress -- and the GOP, if no one else (you listening, Dan Choi?), knows that having another crack at it is important to Senate Dems, and therefore is putting a high price tag on letting hearings happen: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/dadt-not-dead-yet

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Where should I focus my writing?

2010-05-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

Over the past 5 years I've blogged in four different places. I'd like to winnow it down, both to bring myself some focus and possibly to work on a blog-to-book project. I know this will take some time, but I would very much appreciate my friends' thoughts on the subject. Here's an overview of my blogging career, and the question that I'm hoping to answer:

The NeoProgressive: First came The NeoProgressive, an only mildly partisan, idea-based blog arguing for a resurgence of true Progressivism -- not the way the word's used now, as a safer synonym for "liberal," but it the early 20th century sense. A NeoProgressive, in my view, could tend liberal or conservative but would nevertheless be committed to the values that beat back the robber barons and made America great over its second 100 years. You can get a sense of what that blog stands for in A Neoprogressive Philosophy, Collated.

If I were to rejuvenate that blog, my NeoProg philosophy might address such disparate issues as helping Democrats rediscover a unifying base of ideas (as opposed to the "GOP-lite" faux-pragmatist pollwatching that drove the DLC) and exploring ways the populist component of the Teaparty movement (as distinguished from many of its corporate-funded organizers and leaders) could be enlisted to fight against the Citizens United decision, socialization of corporate liabilities (BP), etc. A book growing out of NeoProg could appear to reasonable people across the spectrum, not just Democrats, and would make some use of my "real" training in law and mediation.

VichyDems: Then came this blog, VichyDems -- fairly rabid at times, definitely opinionated and partisan, and focused mainly on helping identify and oust those "Democrats" who often work against Democratic principles in the name of "pragmatism." VichyDems dislikes the Democratic Leadership Counsel, hates Rahm Emanuel and reviles Joe Lieberman without restraint. A good example of VichyDems can be read here, in Obama, Teddy, and the Perils of Governing Without Conviction.

In light of Godwin's Law, it's important to point out that VichyDems has never advocated for "purity tests" -- quite the opposite! The test of a Vichy, IMHO, isn't their political ideology, but their actions in wartime. There are relatively conservative Democrats, especially in purple states, who still believe in moving the cause forward. Bless them, and let's not primary them. But there also are Dems, some reasonably "liberal," who consistently help the other side. They are the Vichies I oppose.

The Vichy analogy was very intentional: in occupied France there were many conservative French people who agreed with much fascist ideology but who nevertheless resisted the Nazi occupation -- I'd liken them to some of the more conservative, but still party-loyal, Democrats. Then there were the Vichy French who collaborated with the Nazis. No one cared about their political views; the problem was that they gave aid and comfort to their people's enemy. The test of a Vichy, then and now, is emphatically NOT their ideology, but whether they assist the enemy. It's a misunderstood distinction but one that needs to be repeated nowadays as much as ever, especially as fights spring up among liberals over when it's OK to oppose Obama and when it's important to support him (Exhibit 1: the fervent disagreement over how to characterize Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake).

Sort of a sideline, but an important one, was VichyDems' early efforts, in 2006, to press Dem senators to filibuster Samuel Alito. Along with Bob Fertik, we did something no one had done before: tracked the position of every senator, developed game plans for lobbying them, and published their contact information (including their local offices, linking to fax services, etc.). Those strategies are common now, but at the time they were brand new -- MoveOn's use of those tactics followed ours. We succeeded in swaying two senators' votes -- Diane Feinstein, who admitted her vote changed due to unexpected constituent pressure, and Hillary Clinton, who denied her vote had changed even though we documented that it had. But, of course, we lost the war.

And even though I strongly supported his later candidacy, VichyDems was among the first to reality-test a new face on the Democratic stage. On January 26, 2006 I wrote:

Apparently Barack Obama, hero of the last Democratic Convention and the front runner for first African-American President, is OPPOSING a filibuster "for strategic reasons."

Bullshit. The only strategy the Democrats need to hear is this: YOUR BASE DEMANDS A FILIBUSTER, AND YOU CANNOT WIN WITHOUT YOUR BASE.

Lordy, I'm starting to think they're all Vichys. We need a hero. I had hoped Obama was it.

And that's VichyDems' position in a nutshell: even if a pol's in "our" camp, we still can push them to do better, and will. A book growing out of VichyDems would rally the base and call for a leftier Democratic Party, explaining why that's a good (and electorally practical) idea.

Off The Bus: During the 2008 election, I was invited to become a national correspondent for The Huffington Post's "Off The Bus" citizen-journalism project, and jumped at the chance. Working with tremendous editors including Amanda Michel and John Tomasic, and overseen by Marc Cooper and Jay Rosen, a dozen or so of us, including Mayhill "Cling To Their Guns" Fowler and Dawn Teo, covered the 2008 election as quasi-professionals. I rode Clinton's campaign bus, was myself filmed by CNBC as I covered Hillary (look, ma, I'm famous!), and attended the Denver Democratic Convention. Huffington Post has been very good to me, and I still have posting privileges there that I will continue to use -- but my regular slot for Off The Bus, called "Warranted Wiretaps," covering the campaigns' press releases and press conference calls, isn't active now.

Warranted Wiretaps: Finally, I started my own edition of Warranted Wiretaps on typepad. There, as I did for Off The Bus, I still try to provide readers with access to primary-source news material that normally is available only to what Marcos calls "gatekeepers." My belief is that the American people are smart enough, and interested enough, to listen to entire press conferences etc. and reach their own conclusions about it. But, while I believe that's an indispensable resource in a modern democracy -- and while Wiretaps is the closest thing I have to a true journalistic project, rather than an opinion blog -- I can't keep it going by myself; for Wiretaps to continue, I'd need to find a way to evolve it (and finance it!) into a multiperson endeavor. Wiretaps isn't unopinionated, but in the end its goal is to give access and lets readers decide. Relatively dry, meta-journalism-y posts can be found here and here; at the other extreme, an example of how powerful a Wiretaps post can be (drawn from its doppelganger on OffTheBus) concerned death threats to ACORN employees.

So: NeoProg is nonpartisan, though liberal; it's relatively calm, thoughtful, and looks for ways to build bridges that will result in a more progressive America. VichyDems is partisan, and sub-partisan; it seeks to build the American Left, not as an end in itself but because our country does better when its people have strong beliefs and fight for them. Warranted Wiretaps is an experiment in journalistic transparency: it explores what happens when the gates come down and citizens can see/read/hear raw information for themselves; but it's not sustainable unless it grows. And Huffington Post remains a resource for occasional publication, for which I still and always say, thanks and God bless.

I love them all. Each reflects a side of myself. At least two of them (NeoProg and VDems) are good subjects for books (which I'd love to write -- Glenn Greenwald's "How Would A Patriot Act?" showed that blog-to-book can be a great method, if the blog's focus is discrete enough).

But I can't do it all, at least not by myself. Should I pick one fast horse and ride it hard? Should I pick two, one for my serious-journo side and the other for rants & opinions? Should I combine them all into one multichannel site of some kind, or would that just window-dress my problem? Should I look to join one of the better small-group blogs out there? Or just diary at DKos?

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions!

-Scott

Obama, Teddy, & the Perils of Governing Without Conviction

2010-01-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

Four years ago, I wrote a pair of meditations on my irascible old blog, VichyDems, warning of the harm that would occur if Democrats regained national power without first abandoning the incrementalist, centrist approach advocated so unsuccessfully by the Democratic Leadership Council and instead returning, consciously and assertively, to their traditional, liberal roots. On the one year anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Obama, and the day after Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat was lost to a conservative male pinup with a pickup truck, my fears about the dangers of trying to govern without referring to fundamental principles seem to be coming true.

In the first of those posts, dated March 17, 2006 and titled An Overlong Dissertation on Courage, Strategy, Populism, and Respecting the Base, I expressed my fear that governing without boldness and conviction would do more harm than good to Democrats' electoral longevity. I began by explaining why the conventional distinction between "pragmatism" and "purity" is misleading:

Some "liberal" bloggers and commenters (and many, many "concern trolls" who love to give bad advice to the enemy) express "concern" (it's almost always that word, "concern") that targeting and ousting "Vichy" Democrats will cost us seats we need to win back one or both houses of Congress.

My usual response is this: I don't believe that's the case, because [politicians like] Joe Lieberman ... are more trouble than their seats are worth and if we unseated them, the rest of the caucus would sit up, take notice, and start acting cohesively again, which ultimately will win us a lot more seats than we lose.

The Republicans won complete control of government not by running to the center, but by running to the right and persuading the media and the American public to shift right with them. They don't tolerate defections from the party line; they stick to centrally-distributed talking points and abide by rigid party discipline enforced by a man nicknamed "The Hammer." They don't fall silent when discourse turns discordant; they trot out the Big Lie and repeat it so often that it becomes Truth in the same way that big mountains create their own weather. They won by doing the exact opposite of what the DLC crowd preaches we need to do to win.

It's as if the Democratic leadership doesn't understand how mirrors work: the key to Republican success wasn't in the fact that they ran to the right (and that we similarly must shift right if we want to win); it's in the fact that they ran AWAY from the center -- became more extreme -- and in doing so earned both the support of their base and the trust of centrist voters, who respect people who can articulate and adhere to principles even if they don't agree with all of them. Copying the Republican formula for success doesn't mean becoming more conservative.... [I]t means becoming more liberal and being proud of it. Articulating, and expecting some reasonable degree of adherence to, a unifying party platform is a good way to articulate principles and win elections, and if that means tossing one or two enablers like Lieberman overboard, good riddance; they're dead weight anyway.

Then I pointed out the danger of Democrats winning power without first reinventing their party along more principled, and more vigorous, lines:

But in addition to the above response, which I believe is true, I have a second reaction to the concern that attacking Vichy Democrats will cost us a potential majority: that until our "leaders" start listening to their constituents and acting like Democrats again, they (and we) don't deserve to be in power. Until we have our act together and are prepared to govern in a coherent, articulate, unified way, we should stay the hell out of it.

Our nation is facing tremendous problems; only a drastic change in course can possibly reverse them. If we Democrats are not prepared to change America's course, however, then it's better for the inexorable collapse to occur on the Republicans' watch than on ours. My preferences, in this order, are: (1) a dialed-in, unified, energized, liberal Democratic Party in power, correcting American's course and restoring her fortunes; (2) a faltering, dissipating, weakening Republican Party in power, living or dying with the consequences of their past actions while real Democrats continue to rebuild our party in the wings; and (3) a faltering, dissipated, weak Democratic Party in power, demonstrating once again to voters that we aren't ready for prime time and possibly being blamed for a nationwide economic, military and social collapse created by the Republicans but foisted on us.

A lot of intelligent, energetic grassroots activists are working to make sure that (1) above comes true. Most of the Democrats in Congress are working hard to see that (3) above comes true, even though they're too struck with Beltway Blindness to realize that's what they're doing. If they don't catch a clue and start working with us, (2) above is going to occur again in November, and then either (2) or (3) will occur in 2008. And that's simply not good enough. Democrats deserve better. America deserves better.

The reckoning is coming in 2010, not 2008, but otherwise, the crumbling of the national party is occurring exactly as I feared -- and for exactly the reason I predicted. On healthcare, Afghanistan, Wall Street reforms, LGBT rights, and every other issue where they hold both the moral and the policy high ground, the White House and Senate have waffled and compromised.

Even worse, they not only have allowed Joe Lieberman to continue pretending that his interests and goals are even minimally aligned with theirs -- letting him caucus with them, retain his chairmanships, and counting him among the fetishistic "60 votes" Reid supposedly possessed until Tuesday -- but they also have allowed his rebellion to infect others in the caucus. (The reason you remove bad apples from the barrel is that they ruin the apples next to them; Ben Nelson would never have the courage to block healthcare reform by himself.)

By allowing Lieberman to block passage of an institutional public option instead of affirmatively blocking his games by using reconciliation or by mimicking the Republican threat to declare filibusters unconstitutional, as they arguably are; by increasing troop strength (twice) in Afghanistan instead of bringing our troops home; by deferring a decision on Don't Ask Don't Tell, and naming Wall Street insiders Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to oversight posts; by constantly courting the center, placing comity above principle, triangulating instead of leading, and seeking incremental advances instead of bold new deals -- by all these concessions, Obama and Senate leaders have forgotten that courage begets voter confidence and voter confidence begets electoral success. To the extent the debacle in Massachusetts is a referendum on anything besides Martha Coakley's execrable and lazy campaigning, it is a referendum on Democratic leaders' failure to hew to liberal principles.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who knows no legislative strategies besides "compromise", bears much of the blame, as do other senior Senate Democrats. (The House side's coffee is noticeably hotter than the Senate's these days.)

But the ultimate responsibility for the Democratic Party's tepidity, and its electoral setback Tuesday, rests with Barack Obama, who for one year now has governed with an unseemly timidity. In his first year, Obama did not issue an executive order eliminating discrimination against gays in the military, as the Commander-in-Chief unquestionably has the right to do (and as Democrat Harry Truman did to desegregate the military in 1948). He did not go to bat for the public health insurance option when it was on life support in the Senate Finance Committee and again on the Senate floor. He elected (twice) to increase troop strength in Afghanistan instead of acknowledging that Afghanistan is no longer Al Quaeda's base and bringing our troops home. Instead of appointing agents of real change, he named Wall Street insiders Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to key oversight positions and appointed a consummate triangulator and centrist, Rahm Emanuel, as his Chief of Staff.

The bragged-about fact that Obama passed 97% of his Congressional agenda this year demonstrates merely that he played it too safe. As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

There is a divide among Democratic activists today, between those who urge unity and support for Obama, and those who advocate dissenting at least enough to stop Obama from taking his base for granted and force him to shift left. What some people don't realize is that this divide, between progressive ideals and the pseudo-pragmatic impulse to compromise, is part of Obama's nature itself. The man himself doesn't seem to know which camp he belongs to.

In Joe Lieberman: Barack Obama's "Mentor In The Senate"?, which I wrote on April 3, 2006 in response to then-Senator Obama's embrace of Joe Lieberman over challenger Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary, I discussed the contrast between Obama's progressive potential and his predilection for overcautious triangulation. The questions I asked about Obama's political soul back in 2006 -- about whether Obama would choose the old-school Democratic path of triangulation and compromise, or would save the party by leading a resurgence of Progressive ideals and courage -- are even more pressing today:

I want to like Barack Obama. His riveting, energizing speech at the last Democratic National Convention converted him from an attractive Senate candidate into the leading Democratic candidate for first African-American Vice-President and, eventually, President. His statement that "we worship an awesome God in the blue states" not only articulated the beliefs of that misunderstood, underrepresented and vital majority of Democrats and Independents who possess some sort of religious faith, but his use of evangelical "code" language -- "awesome God" -- reclaimed territory we had ceded to the Republicans and showed that not all Democratic politicians are tone deaf to religious nuance. I really want to like Barack Obama.

But then I read things like the following, which comes from an otherwise-delightful New York Times article about Democrats ignoring and even booing Joe Lieberman at a recent event:

[H]owever, the audience was riveted as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the guest speaker at the $175-a-plate dinner, stood on the podium and began the customary round of recognition of candidates and incumbents in the room.

When he got to Mr. Lieberman, who is his mentor in the Senate and who helped recruit him to speak at the event, the applause again was muted.

"I know that some in the party have differences with Joe," Senator Obama said, all but silencing the crowd. "I'm going to go ahead and say it. It's the elephant in the room. And Joe and I don't agree on everything. But what I know is, Joe Lieberman's a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America."

Then, with applause beginning to build, he finished the thought: "I am absolutely certain that Connecticut's going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate."

Joe Lieberman -- gutter of bankruptcy protection for working people facing disastrous health emergencies, supporter of an illegal war that's killed over 2,000 working-class Americans, apologist for hospitals that deny birth control to rape victims -- secretly has a "good heart" and "cares about working families"?

Yow.

Here's what's good about Barack Obama: despite his relative youth and political inexperience, he is in the first ranks when it comes to political astututeness. He understands the game, plays all the angles with a skill approaching genius. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be better than Bill Clinton.

Here's what's bad about Barack Obama: at an age and place in his career where he should still be known for idealism, he instead is known for political astuteness. He has mastered the game instead of the ideals, applies his genius to playing the angles instead of changing the world for the better. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be worse than Bill Clinton.

NOT being a "Star Wars" geek in any way, I hate to say this, but some analogies just leap out at you: Barack Obama is the Anakin Skywalker of the Democratic Party. He's an incredibly gifted young man whose gifts who will do either incredible good or incredible harm to the Democratic Party and to the nation. ***

This incident is not the only one; Obama also spoke out against the Alito filibuster, working against us behind the scenes by trying to persuade other senators not to rock the boat, and he likewise is lobbying others not to support Russ Feingold's censure resolution. Obama looks good on the outside, but in his short Senate career he has come down on the wrong side of nearly every issue this blog's readers care about.

Notwithstanding the above, I think Obama can be saved. What's needed is for [him to take] ... a nobler path than the one outlined by Bill, Hillary and Joementum. When we progressives recapture the soul of our party, the party may recapture the soul of Obama. Then Obama may be a tremendous force for good. But we need to show him that the path he's currently walking is a dead end.

Please understand: I'm not trying to undercut Obama. As regular readers know, I supported him vigorously in both the 2008 Democratic primary and in the general election, because I believed he was the best, and potentially the most progressive, candidate. I don't regret that choice. I want him to succeed. Hell, I cried when he won in November, and again when he was sworn into office one year ago.

But that doesn't mean I've smoked the hopium. Party unity is essential, but so is competent, courageous leadership. I want Obama to be the best leader he can be; at present, he's falling short. If, as Howard Zinn said, dissent is the highest form of patriotism, then dissent with one's own party's leaders is the highest form of loyalty to that party. (That's why, in my VichyDems days, I blogged under the pseudonym "Thersites"; in the Iliad, Thersites was the courageous soldier who dared to speak the truth about the failings of his own side's leader, Agammemnon.)

For exactly one year now, Obama has been keeping his powder dry, apparently without realizing that, in fact, he has almost no powder left. Political capital unused tends to dissipate like the dew; to be preserved, let alone compounded, political capital -- which Obama had a surplus of just one year ago -- must be invested if it is to be preserved. The fact that Obama's late effort to save Martha Coakley in Massachusetts failed, and that a state that overwhelmingly elected him in 2008 just handed Teddy's seat to a conservative Republican, demonstrates the truth of this assertion. There's a reason Teddy Kennedy held onto his seat for 46 years: he leavened his practicality with principle. If Obama and D.C.'s other Democrats want to retain their seats the way Kennedy did, they need to follow his example.

It's not too late yet for Obama to deliver the change he promised -- and to salvage as much as possible of Democrats' Congressional advantage next November. For example, he doesn't need Congress to eliminate DADT; he simply needs to act like the Commander-in-Chief, order an end to discrimination, and tell his soldiers (including the general staff) to follow his orders.

Likewise, healthcare reform can be salvaged without any disrespect to Massachusetts voters by the simple expedient of pushing House progressives to pass the Senate bill as-is, with a promise to effect further reforms later this year (via reconciliation if necessary). If that fails, a bold, principled Obama could rock the GOP's world by immediately pushing a singlepayer plan through the budget reconciliation process -- which could be accomplished well before the November elections and re-establish Democrats as a party with the courage of its convictions -- after which Obama could negotiate with conservatives to replace that (to Republicans) intolerable law with a reasonable compromise, including a strong public option, that they would not dare to filibuster (because that would leave singlepayer in place) and that would not be subject to reconciliation's ten year sunset provision. (Mark Kleiman wrote brilliantly on that negotiating strategy here.)

Obama could even do what the GOP threatened to do three years ago by dispatching Joe Biden, as President of the Senate, to declare the filibuster unconstitutional and simply call a vote on any healthcare reform package that can win a simple 51 votes. That may seem crazy, and it may be overreaching, but as a lawyer who's examined both sides of the Constitutional argument, I've concluded that Kevin Drum arguably is right about this and that the "nuclear option" could be exercised -- or at least threatened -- in colorable good faith.

Most readers probably disagree with some or with all of these proposals. That's fine. The point is, bold options remain open to Obama. It's not too late.

But he's losing his window. His choice -- the direction his presidency, and his political soul, will take -- must be made soon. As he surveys the debacle his party has made of Teddy Kennedy's legacy in Massachusetts, and embarks on his sophomore year as President, it's past time for Barack Obama to finally decide what sort of leader, and what sort of man, he chooses to be.

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A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp, Or What's The Presidency For?

2010-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION: This is a repost of a piece I originally wrote, under my then-pseudonym, on April 3, 2006.

Originally, it was in response to the widely-misunderstood (including by me) report that the then-still-Democratic Joe Lieberman was Senate "mentor" of a brand-new senator, Barack Obama. Most assumed that title reflected a close personal relationship, when actually every new senator is assigned a more senior colleague to show them the ropes -- a relationship that may become friendship, but is not necessarily so. At the very least, Lieberman's formal "mentorship" of Obama should not have been held against Obama.

Obama's embrace of Lieberman's candidacy, on the other hand -- and his lackadaisical effort for Ned Lamont once Lamont wrested the nomination from Lieberman and Lieberman betrayed Democrats by running against Lamont as an independent -- was legitimate ground for criticism. And the points I made in 2006 about Obama's political soul, my questions about whether he would choose the path of triangulation and compromise and centrism, or would instead strike out boldly to lead Progressives back into dominance of the Democratic Party, were spot on.

I supported Obama in both the 2008 Democratic primary and in the general election, because I believed he was the best, and potentially the most progressive, candidate. I don't regret that choice.

But that doesn't mean I've smoked the hopium. Obama is not a perfect leader, and the caution that stood him so well in the campaign is not serving him so well as President. It's undeniable now (though many still do deny it) that Obama never seriously strove to have a public option included in his healthcare bill; that was a burst of chaff designed to distract GOP attackers, and both they and we liberals fell for it. He and his familiar, Rahm Emanuel, constantly pressured Congressional progressives to compromise, while applying little or no pressure on Congressional Democratic conservatives like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln (let alone playing real hardball with Joe Lieberman). Yes, he passed 97% of his Congressional agenda this year -- but that demonstrates only that he played it safe. As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

Could Obama still lead? Absolutely. He's not dead in the water yet. But he has been keeping his powder dry, apparently without realizing that, in fact, his powder's almost completely gone already; power unused tends to dissipate with the dew, while power invested tends to compound, like money.

It's not too late yet for Obama to simply declare DADT dead, by executive order, and then to send a message of firm discipline by dishonorably discharging any homophobes who refuse to respond in good faith with the changed situation. They're soldiers; they should follow orders, period. Likewise, if this weak-tea healthcare reform bill fails, as it still might, then it's not too late for Obama to immediately push through a bold singlepayer plan, without fear of filibuster, via the budget reconciliation process -- which could be accomplished well before the November elections and re-establish Democrats as a strong party instead of a bunch of weak wafflers -- after which he could negotiate with conservatives to replace that (to them) intolerable law with a strong public option that would not be subject to a ten year sunset provision. (Mark Kleiman wrote brilliantly on that negotiating strategy here.) (The other excellent components of the current bill, like the elimination of preexisting conditions, are popular enough to be passed over any filibuster threat.) It's not too late for Obama to fire Rahm (as he should), or to demand that Harry Reid change the Senate's filibuster rules at the start of the 2011 session (when only a majority, not a supermajority, is needed to do so). It's not, in short, too late for Obama.

But he's losing his window, and his choice -- the direction his presidency, and his political soul, will take -- must be made soon.

To explain again what exactly is the decision Obama faces, I'm reprising this old (and in places anachronistic) VichyDems post from four years ago -- and urging that now, at the end of his freshman year as President, a chastened and wiser Obama finally make the decision of what sort of leader, and what sort of man, he chooses to be:

ORIGINAL POST:

I want to like Barack Obama. His riveting, energizing speech at the last Democratic National Convention converted him from an attractive Senate candidate into the leading Democratic candidate for first African-American Vice-President and, eventually, President. His statement that "we worship an awesome God in the blue states" not only articulated the beliefs of that misunderstood, underrepresented and vital majority of Democrats and Independents who possess some sort of religious faith, but his use of evangelical "code" language -- "awesome God" -- reclaimed territory we had ceded to the Republicans and showed that not all Democratic politicians are tone deaf to religious nuance. I really want to like Barack Obama.

But then I read things like the following, which comes from an otherwise-delightful New York Times article about Democrats ignoring and even booing Joe Lieberman at a recent event:

[H]owever, the audience was riveted as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the guest speaker at the $175-a-plate dinner, stood on the podium and began the customary round
of recognition of candidates and incumbents in the room. When he got to Mr. Lieberman, who is his mentor in the Senate and who helped recruit him to speak at the event, the applause again was muted.

"I know that some in the party have differences with Joe," Senator Obama said, all but silencing the crowd. "I'm going to go ahead and say it. It's the elephant in the room. And Joe and I don't agree on everything. But what I know is, Joe Lieberman's a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America."

Then, with applause beginning to build, he finished the thought: "I am absolutely certain that Connecticut's going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate."

Joe Lieberman -- gutter of bankruptcy protection for working people facing disastrous health emergencies, supporter of an illegal war that's killed over 2,000 working-class Americans, apologist for hospitals that deny birth control to rape victims -- secretly has a "good heart" and "cares about working families"?

Yow.

Here's what's good about Barack Obama: despite his relative youth and political inexperience, he is in the first ranks when it comes to political astututeness. He understands the game, plays all the angles with a skill approaching genius. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be better than Bill Clinton.

Here's what's bad about Barack Obama: at an age and place in his career where he should still be known for idealism, he instead is known for political astuteness. He has mastered the game instead of the ideals, applies his genius to playing the angles instead of changing the world for the better. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be worse than Bill Clinton. ***

NOT being a "Star Wars" geek in any way, I hate to say this, but some analogies just leap out at you: Barack Obama is the Anakin Skywalker of the Democratic Party. He's an incredibly gifted young man whose gifts who will do either incredible good or incredible harm to the Democratic Party and to the nation. And if Joe Lieberman indeed is his mentor, then Lieberman is the Senator Palpatine to Obama's Anakin -- a moderate-seeming, soft-spoken statesman who pretends to want only the good of the Republic but actually serves those who would destroy everything it stands for -- and who seeks to magnify his influence by exerting a maleficent influence over a young politician whose skill, electability, political prospects and even ambition far exceed his own.

This incident is not the only one; Obama also spoke out against the Alito filibuster, working against us behind the scenes by trying to persuade other senators not to rock the boat, and he likewise is lobbying others not to support Russ Feingold's censure resolution. Obama looks good on the outside, but in his short Senate career he has come down on the wrong side of nearly every issue this blog's readers care about.

Notwithstanding the above, I think Obama can be saved. What's needed is for his elders in the party to lead the young Senator down a nobler path than the one outlined by Bill, Hillary and Joementum. When we progressives recapture the soul of our party, the party may recapture the soul of Obama. Then Obama may be a tremendous force for good. But we need to show him that the path he's currently walking is a dead end.

Step one is to send a message to him, and all similar triangulators and accommodationists, by forcefully and overwhelmingly jettisoning his "mentor in the Senate," Joe Lieberman. Please donate to Lieberman's Democratic challenger, Ned Lamont, here.

And may the Force be with you.

(My kid brother is going to be so proud of this post! But I'm not making another Star Wars reference for at least a year, I promise.)

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VichyDems Is Covering the Dem Convention!

2008-08-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

(Photos: separated at birth?)

It's time I shared a dark secret:

I have a good twin (I'm the evil one). He looks exactly like me, acts like me, and shares my political views. Our fingerprints, retinal scans, and DNA are identical. So are our shoe, hat, and suit sizes. He even happens to be married to my wife, and we have the same kids. Needless to say, we're very, very close.

But there are differences. He's saner. He writes better than I do. I proudly bear the names our parents gave me (Thersites D. Scott, or, over at Atrios' pad, "T.D. Scott" or "T2"). But my good twin, for some strange reason, has abandoned his birth name (Ulysses Navinski Scott, or "U.N. Scott") to take the boring, predestrian nom de plume "M.S. Bellows, Jr." -- which sounds, I don't know, like the name a lawyer would have in the real world. Ugh. Most people call him Scott, though.

M.S. Bellows, Jr. began writing occasional pieces for The Huffington Post's "Off the Bus" citizen journalism page back in February, often asking me to cross-post them here. Two or three months ago, they asked him to start writing a regular column, "Warranted Wiretaps," with his basic beat being the campaigns' regular telephonic conference calls. He was one of the first three they asked (another was Mayhill Fowler, who, for good or ill, famously broke the "Bittergate" story).

For Off the Bus, my good twin has ridden the press bus following Clinton in Oregon, covered (as press) several campaign appearances by both Democratic candidates, BEEN covered on national cable by CNBC, asked questions during press conferences that have been covered by the MSM, honed his writing skills (with good editorial help from Huffington Post's professionals), and now been chosen to be one of a handful of writers given credentials and all expenses to cover the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week. The only thing that he isn't doing is get paid for his writing -- but he's hoping to fix that soon, too.

So while I stay home and sulk over his good fortune (our parents, and even our shared wife and kids, now openly acknowledge that they love him more!), he'll be posting regularly at Off the Bus all next week. And Twittering. And possibly posting audio or even video (Reuters is providing videocams and professional editing). And accepting IMs from those who want to send him ideas (or invitations to the coolest parties, hint hint). And using his free pass to do yoga and get aromatherapy at HuffPost's Oasis.

Off the Bus is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus/
M.S. Bellows, Jr.'s posts will all be collated here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows
His other contact info is:

Twitter: msbellowsREMOVE
AIM: bellowsmsREMOVE
Email: REMOVEmsbellowsREMOVE@gmail.com

Sure, I'm jealous of him -- I feel like I might as well just disappear! -- but still, I love him, so please show him lots of love while he's on his big adventure.

Thanks, everyone!

Thersites D. Scott

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McCain: "The Rights of the Unborn Are As Important as the Rights of the Born."

2008-06-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

In a "virtual town hall" Saturday designed specifically to boost his standing with independents and disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, John McCain did his best to project a moderate, bipartisan image - but wound up enunciating policy stances that sharply conflict with positions held by Clinton -- and by most women, and by most Democrats -- on such things as women's right to choose, gay rights, the composition of the Supreme Court, America's role in using force overseas, and even the importance of intelligence and academic success in a good President. Instead of effectively wooing social moderates, McCain instead has clearly delineated some significant differences between his views and those normally considered "moderate" -- and may have given those voters who were thinking of sitting out the November election, or of crossing party lines to vote for him, some new and compelling reasons to actively oppose his election instead:

McCain on Roe v. Wade:

"Roe v. Wade, we obviously will have a disagreement. I think it was a bad decision."

McCain on abortion rights:

"[W]e have to change the culture of America. We have to convince people of our view that the rights of the unborn are as important as the rights of the born."

McCain on medically necessary late-term abortions:

"I am unalterably opposed to partial birth abortion."

McCain on the two or more Supreme Court appointments the next President is likely to make:

"I would find people along the lines of Justice Roberts."

"I wouldn't have selected Justice Ginsberg or Justice Breyer."

"I believe that interpretation of the Constitution, and only that, should be the criteria for Supreme Court justices."

McCain on gay rights and "don't ask, don't tell":

"Don't ask, don't tell: I want to rely on the advice and counsel of our military leaders. As President ... I will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go back and review that and other policies to see whether those policies are appropriate, and I do rely on them to a large degree because they're the ones we entrust the leadership of the lives of our young men and women in our military. And I'm sure you may have a disagreement with that policy."

McCain on his own intelligence:

"You don't have to be real smart. I stood fifth from the bottom of my class at the naval academy, which shows in America anything is possible."

McCain's on what makes America great:

"We're the only country in the world that has over time sent our young Americans to shed our most precious asset - American blood - in defense of someone else's freedom."

I'll supplement this post later with more details, and with audio when it becomes available - but for Clinton supporters wondering what the effects on America would be if they either voted for McCain in November or simply stayed home and allowed him to be elected, just the few quotations given above - again, delivered in a setting designed to woo social moderates, not extreme conservatives - may be a powerful indication of how deeply reactionary a McCain administration is likely to be.

I tend to think that the DNC talking point that McCain would be "a third Bush term" is oversimplistic. On the other hand, though, in just one public appearance McCain has announced that he is pro-life, anti-Roe v. Wade (and other privacy rights), would appoint Supreme Court justices just like those that Bush appointed, is blindly instead of wisely patriotic and doesn't know his history (America is the ONLY country that's ever shed blood in defense of someone else's freedom?!?), and is dismissive of his own poor grades in a superb university that his family connections got him into. If that's not "Bush III," I don't know what is.

Anyone who thinks Obama is running against the pro-choice, fiscally conservative, socially moderate John McCain that we all respected in 2000 had better check behind the house for pods, because the John McCain of 2008 is nothing like the straight-talking "maverick" we used to know. And anyone who feels estranged from the Democratic Party by the unfortunate divisiveness of the primary season should look very, very carefully at John McCain - ver. 200.8 - before indulging any shortsighted inclination not to cast their vote for the Democratic alternative next November.

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Edwards Endorses Obama!

2008-05-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

The day after Hillary Clinton won a solid victory in West Virginia but lost 7% of the vote to a candidate who wasn't even running any longer, that candidate -- John Edwards -- has come off the fence and endorsed Barack Obama.

This endorsement is huge, not just in itself -- a white man, from a neighboring state, with strong rural support, who still has a strong following in the most recent primary state and nationally -- but also as a huge reality check -- "check" as in hockey -- to Clinton and as a hint of the direction Obama's Vice Presidential choice might go.

On racism: 20% of West Virginia Democrats voting yesterday said that the candidates' race played a role in their decision. And of those, 85% voted for Clinton -- ie, this is not black voters supporting the first serious black candidate (or female voters supporting the first serious female candidate), but white voters intentionally voting AWAY from the black candidate. That's 20% of West Virginia Democrats admitting they're at least somewhat bigoted -- meaning at least another 20% more actually are, since pollsters have long known that people are reluctant to admit to socially unacceptable views, even anonymously.

On the veep slot: pressure's being put on Obama to consider Clinton for a running mate -- and Clinton isn't closing that door; her campaign spokesmen refused to that possibility out (or, admittedly, in) at a telephonic press conference this morning. But Clinton doesn't help Obama with his electoral map in November, which (as Roy Romer explained yesterday) is very different than Clinton's "one state solution" map. (Obama's path to the White House involves winning states like New Mexico, Colorado, and the Dakotas, whereas Clinton simply wants to win the states Democratic Presidential candidates have always won, plus either Ohio or Florida. That's why there's so much infighting between them on the "kinds" of states each one wins: Obama has won twice as many states as she has, indicating his ability to win his map, while Clinton has won the "big states" of Ohio and Pennsylvania, proving her ability to win her map. But the two maps don't really intersect.)

And, of course, it would be galling -- and look weak to voters -- for Obama to curry favor with what Clinton's campaign openly calls "the white electorate" by tapping the very woman who, far more than Rev. Wright did, has destroyed his standing with the boilermaker-drinking class of whites.

What Obama needs is a running mate who can help him win his map -- or who can help repair the (fairly recent and definitely not fundamental) rift with white voters -- or both. And in those regards, two names pop to the top:

Bill Richardson: helps Obama court the West, including his home state of New Mexico and the adjacent states of Colorado and -- taking the fight right into McCain's backyard -- Arizona. Plus, Richardson would draw the Latino vote throughout the West and in many Northern cities as well, and he has tremendous foreign policy credentials. (A more thorough explanation of why Richardson would rock as a veep here.)

John Edwards: strong in the South, strong with precisely the rural voters Clinton has been baiting, superb on healthcare (blunting any harm Clinton's done to Obama there), well-respected on both sides of the aisle. And Edwards was the first candidate to clearly connect the war with the economy, an equation that helps Obama and blunt's Clinton's claim to be better on the economy than Obama is.

The other option for Obama is to choose a Clinton acolyte, perhaps Evan Bayh, who could help him win Indiana. That might appease some of Clinton's backers and lure them back into the fold. But contrary to how it might seem on some blogs, Clinton's supporters are fervent, not rabid; upset, not petulant and self-destructive; grieving, not suicidal; and most of all, progressive, not conservative. Obama can't take their support for granted, the way Hillary has said she CAN take black support for granted, and he'd be wrong to neglect to mend fences. But Obama can assume that nearly all Clinton supporters are reasonable, open to logic and persuasion, and more interested in the common weal than in nursing their own disappointment. They don't have to come around, but Obama will reach out to them in meaningful way, after which they will come around. The alternative is to allow the remaining two Democrats on the Supreme Court to be replaced with Scalito clones, and for all privacy rights to go away -- not just abortion choice, but all Constitutional privacy rights including the right to be gay, the right to have oral sex with your spouse in private, and the right of married couples to buy condoms, all of which would be stricken under the judicial philosophy of Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and the kinds of judges McCain recently promised to appoint. Seriously: these judges want to reverse Griswold v. CT (1965), the basis for all these rights. States could make gayness, oral sex, and condom use illegal again, along with abortion. Again: seriously.

Clinton's supporters won't let that happen. Which means that while Obama needs to take concrete steps to make peace with the "Clintonistas" (said with fondness), and will do so, he doesn't need to bribe them to support him with something as precious as the running mate slot. Reach out to them, yes. Bribe them, no. They're better Americans than that. He's free to pick a running mate who he honestly wants to work with and thinks will help him win, which could be Clinton or one of her supporters, but doesn't have to be.

So now Obama not only has the nomination locked up mathematically, but with Edwards' endorsement has now also made up a lot of the demographic ground he lost in recent weeks. And possibly, quite possibly, this also may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship -- an example of what a "dream ticket" would really look like.
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Former Clinton-Gore Campaign Chair: "This Race Is Over, Over."

2008-05-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

In a telephonic press conference this morning, Roy Romer – a former Colorado governor, former Democratic National Committee ("DNC") chair, co-chairman of the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign, and a superdelegate – announced his endorsement of Barack Obama as the Democratic Presidential nominee. Despite what he called “affection for Senator Clinton,” Romer said that “[t]he math is controlling. This race is over, over. Sen Obama has accumulated a lead in caucuses, primaries, and superdelegates that cannot be overcome.”

Redrawing the Electoral Map: Romer explained that his endorsement was based largely on his belief that Obama has a better chance of beating McCain in November, which he said Obama could do using a different electoral map than the one Democrats have used in the last few elections and which Clinton is continuing to advocate: “As I watched the campaign unfold it was obvious there was a different kind of winning possibility that Senator Obama was presenting to the party.... This nation is evolving. Colorado is one of those states you call a red state... [but] I don’t think Colorado is the same state it was 20 years ago. I think we need to get out of the straight jacket, ‘this is a red state, this is a blue state’.... We need a candidate who can appeal to the evolving nature of U.S. politics.” Plouffe added, “we’ve won a heck of a lot of battleground states,” including Washington, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina, and stated that Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, and North Dakota “all could be competitive in the fall.”

Not Pressuring Clinton, Just Giving Her Information... Romer denied that his announcement was intended to put pressure on Sen. Clinton to drop out of the race, explaining that his goal instead was to eliminate any uncertainty about where he stood so that Clinton had more information on which she could base her own decision, and calling on other undeclared superdelegates to do the same: “All superdelegates would help the party by making [their endorsements] known as quickly as they can. That’s not forcing [the Clinton campaign] out of the race, that’s giving them facts that they can then base their own decisions on.” He later added, “it’s important for her [Clinton] to know where we [superdelegates] are so she’s not misled.”

... But the Information Says the Race Is Over: However, Romer also believes the time has come for Clinton to make a decision about whether the nomination is achievable. While the extended primary campaign has helped the party in some ways, Romer added that “there is a time that we need to end it and to direct ourselves to the general election. I think that time is now.... At some point in time all of us have got to say, ‘where are the numbers? where is the math?’”

Michigan and Florida: Seat, But With Consequences: As a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Romer also had firm opinions about the contentious issue of seating delegations from Michigan and Florida, which the DNC's Rules & Bylaws Committee unanimously voted to disqualify after those states tried to increase their influence in the primary process by moving their elections to dates earlier than those allowed by DNC rules. Romer said, “I was chair of the party. The party has to set rules, and the party has to have some control over the timing of the primary races... you can’t just excuse that and say everybody has the same delegates they used to have.” He added, “They need to be seated, but there needs to be a penalty for failing to follow the rules” in order to preserve the party's ability to set primary schedules in the future: “This party has got to find a solution to seat those delegates, but it’s got to do that in a way that says to all states in the future that we mean business when we say there are rules... you can’t have a party that’s effective in modern politics unless you have rules that you can enforce.”

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also observed that the Clinton campaign, not the Obama campaign, was blocking the resolution of the Michigan problem: “The Michigan and Florida situation will be resolved. There is a proposal from Michigan.... [and] we’re open to that proposal. [But] the Clinton campaign rejected it out of hand.” (The current Michigan proposal would give Clinton a net of ten more delegates than Obama.) Plouffe added that he does not believe Obama will be unable to compete in those states in the general election, citing polls showing Obama beating McCain in Michigan and running even with him in Florida.

Defining, and Approaching, the Finish Line: Plouffe also ruled out the possibility of the Obama campaign “declaring victory” after winning the majority of pledged delegates, which probably will occur during the Oregon primary on May 20. Plouffe said that winning the majority of pledged delegates would be “an important moment” because it will reflect “the will of the voters” and because most superdelegates have said they will endorse the candidate who wins the pledged delegate race. However, he denied that the campaign would be over at that point: “we’re definitely not going to declare victory... we still have three contests after that.”

Instead, the Obama campaign will continue until it reaches 2,025 delegates, which Plouffe said was close: Obama is only 147 delegates short at this point, which Plouffe characterized as “a very achievable number.” Ever since the Indiana and North Carolina primaries last week, the Obama campaign has been portraying the race less as a head-to-head, state-by-state matchup between the two candidates and more as a countdown to a 2,025-delegate finish line. In today's teleconference, Plouffe said that “our focus is on getting to that 2,025 number as quickly as we can.”

Not Poaching Superdelegates: Plouffe was asked to comment on the decision by Maryland superdelegate Jack Johnson to switch from Clinton to Obama; he replied, “Sen. Clinton’s camp has said on occasion that [even] pledged delegates are fair game... [but] we have not approached any of her delegates” to persuade them to defect. He added that Johnson “made that decision on his own.”

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A Passing Thought On Burma's Cyclone, China's Earthquake, and America's Katrina

2008-05-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

Remember the old Sesame Street song, “which of these things is not like the others? Which of these things just doesn’t belong?” Let’s play that again, just for fun. Which of these governments is not like the others? Which of these governments just doesn’t belong?

1. China, 2008, after earthquake, paranoid Communist government: “China expresses welcome and gratitude for the earthquake relief aid from the international society, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said here Tuesday at a regular press conference.... [China has] opened special channels for receiving foreign aid. China welcomes aid from international society and is willing to keep contacts with foreign nations and organizations, [an official] said.” (Xinhua)

2. Myanmar (Burma), 2008, after cyclone, military dictatorship: “Burmese officials are still denying U.S. emergency help for hundreds of thousands of people in dire need of help in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.... Burma has allowed some Asian neighbours -- such as Thailand and India -- to help. But its ruling junta apparently fears other nations may take advantage of the situation for nefarious reasons.” (CTV.ca)

3. Gulf Coast, United States of America, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, Bush Administration: “In separate Washington press briefings, both the White House and State Department spokesmen this week downplayed the Cuban government’s offer to send some 1,600 medics, field hospitals and 83 tons of medical supplies to ease the humanitarian disaster.... White House spokesman Scott McClellan scorned the Cuban proposal last Thursday when asked if the president would consider accepting the Cuban help.” (NBC)

A paranoid and inept U.S. government resembling the oppressive Burmese military junta and actually making China's government look open by comparison: one more reason to remember why we need to support the Democratic nominee in November, whoever that is, instead of indulging our own pettinesses by petulantly staying home because our preferred candidate didn't win.
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Bill Clinton to Oregon Voters: "Trust Me to Deliver Your Ballots"

2008-05-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

I've been unable to confirm certain key assertions in this post, so I've withdrawn it. Even unbathed, unshaven guys in pajamas who drink beer and stale coffee mixed together at 7 am while blogging from their parent's basement have some journalistic standards! Please check out my more recent posts, following the link below.

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Clinton's Hail Mary

2008-05-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

The 2008 Democratic Presidential primary is down to the short strokes today, and unless you have the luxury of hanging out in front of a laptop and cable news all day, you're likely to miss the rapidly evolving or devolving (depending on your perspective) conclusion of this fascinating race.

As I write this, Obama’s on the Hill meeting with "a swarm" of "completely star struck" Superdelegates and party insiders -- a hero’s welcome. Earlier today, Obama met with a group of “Blue Dog” Congressional Democrats – anti-progressives, every one, and not normally in the same camp as the “most liberal Senator,” but eager to associate with a winner and critical to a candidate who seriously intends to actually win Southern states that in the past have gone Republican but this year have registered recordbreaking Democratic turnouts. John Edwards’ campaign manager has just endorsed Obama, and Edwards himself – the last challenger to drop out of the race and an important voice – is appearing on “The Today Show” early tomorrow morning, possibly to finally pick a side. The new "Time" magazine cover shows Obama grinning, with the headline "And The Winner Is..."

In the last 24 hours, a probable deal has materialized that would resolve the Michigan primary debacle by giving Obama just ten delegates fewer than Clinton – an irrelevant dent in his huge delegate lead – instead of denying him any Michigan delegates whatsoever, as the Clinton campaign still insisted upon just yesterday. Obama has even appeared on his campaign jet in blue jeans for the first time – not cravenly reaching out to blue-collar voters, since he wore them on his own plane and not while standing in the bed of a pickup truck, but rather a sign that he’s relaxing a little before shifting into full-blown general election mode.

Obama’s chillin’.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s self-destructing. An unidentified campaign insider has admitted she can’t hold out past mid-June. One of her key supporters, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has started questioning her support. Yet another Clinton superdelegate has switched his allegiance to Obama. Former President Jimmy Carter has gone public with a call to wind things up. All the pundits – even George Stephanopolous, the longtime Clinton supporter who tilted the last debate so far her way that his own career as a legitimate journalist was endangered – are calling the race over. (On MSNBC, Chris Matthews just told Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson, "you guys are like those Japanese soldiers, still fighting in 1953.... After the Battleship Missouri signing ceremony [ending WWII], you're still holding on.") Facing a campaign finance disclosure deadline, she has been forced to admit loaning her campaign over $6.4 million in the last month – bringing the total to over $11 million – and hasn’t ruled out more self-administered life support.

And yesterday, her campaign staff managed to undercut one of her few remaining liberal credentials by explaining her loss in North Carolina and her slender win in Indiana in expressly racial, almost racist, terms, repeatedly boasting of her performance among the “white electorate” and describing that electorate as the one most critical to Clinton’s “electability” and Obama’s supposed lack of it. If they were unsure whether their strategy of making Bill Clinton their official Ambassador to Bubba was enough to destroy any remaining fondness of the black community for the Clintons, or if they wanted to start driving non-black minorities out of their shrinking tent, this new express focus on “the white electorate” was it. This is not the kind of ham-fisted P.R. we expect of a Clinton. [UPDATE: Clinton herself amplified the mistake today, referring twice to how well she's doing with "white" voters in a single short clip playing repeatedly on cable news: “Senator Obama’s support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans is weakening again, and ... the whites in both states who had not attended college were supporting me....”]

And so earlier today, faced with the prospect of their Michigan card going away, and with indispensable Congressional superdelegates literally sitting in a meeting with Obama and deciding which way they'll swing, the Clinton campaign has scrambled – I’ll tell you how we know they scrambled in a sec – to release, very publicly, and in electronic form suitable for beaming to Superdelegates' Blackberries mid-meeting, an open letter to Obama, daring him to support the seating of Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates according to the results of those states' flawed primaries, which both candidates previously swore to discount.That letter is a picture window into the post-rational mind of Hillary Clinton in the waning days of her lifelong dream.

The letter was hastily prepared. We know this because, in a game where letters like this are planned and stockpiled weeks ahead of time and then magically appear in reporters' emails when the timing is exactly right like Athena springing full-armored from the head of Zeus, this key letter has not one, but two typographical errors. I can't remember any other Clinton press release, even the workaday ones reporting the candidate's schedule, containing a typo – but this one, intended for broad public consumption at a critical juncture, has two. It obviously was cranked out in a hurry, more like a pajama-clad blogger trying to scoop the Associated Press from his parents' basement than a well-planned chess move in a Presidential campaign. Athena's armor is on crooked.

The fact that it was hastily prepared means that it is a response to unforeseen events – specifically, the prospect that Michigan will be resolved sooner, and more evenly, than Clinton expected.

The possibility that the Clinton campaign hadn’t seriously considered the possibility of an uncontested resolution in Michigan is stunning, and suggests how deeply out of touch with political and mathematical reality the Clintons have become.

Every other significant party leader and respectable (!) pundit has said all along that Michigan and Florida’s delegations will be seated by August – just not in any way that would alter the outcome of the nominating contest. The DNC has even reserved hotel space in Denver for those delegations. But Clinton has been saying, with increasing fervor, that not only would Michigan and Florida be seated – but seated exactly as they voted in January, with Clinton receiving a large majority of Florida's delegates and Obama getting no Michigan delegates at all, since his name wasn't even on the ballot. (That disingenuous Michigan math, by the way, is how Clinton was able to claim, for a brief period, that she had won more popular votes than Obama had nationwide: she didn’t count caucuses, and she gave him no votes in Michigan since, technically, someone not on the ballot can get none.)

In the past, when Clinton stood firm on her “Obama gets no delegates from Michigan” stance, I assumed she was merely being tough and calculating. No sensible person reasonably expected the party’s elders to give Obama zero delegates if they seated Michigan. And Clinton’s own campaign staff seemed to admit yesterday that she could not win the race for elected delegates even if Michigan and Florida were counted the way she wanted them to be. Of course I didn’t believe that Hillary Clinton herself could believe her own press releases.

But now I think that maybe she did. If today’s desperate open letter to Obama reflects panic that Michigan may be seated in a fair rather than disproportionate way, then perhaps she actually has believed until now that Michigan would save her. Which means she actually has believed, until now, that the superdelegates will flock to her at the last minute. Which means she actually has believed, until now, that she really is the only electable candidate, and perhaps that fate has willed her to be President the same way George W. Bush believes God willed him to be President.

Remind me: which candidate has the Messiah complex, again?

It’s unreasonable to believe Clinton can still win in 2008. Given the political savvy she’s usually credited with, I’ve assumed she understood the math and the practical politics, and so have concluded that her recent actions were early groundwork for her 2012 campaign, not sincere efforts to salvage her 2008 campaign. But maybe I’ve been giving her too much credit. We’ve already seen that, as a campaigner, she’s no Bill Clinton; maybe she’s no Hillary Clinton, either. Maybe, just maybe, she’s sincerely deluded. Today’s flawed Hail Mary letter suggests she is.

Of course Clinton's letter isn't exactly accurate: for instance, last Fall Clinton herself said this about the Michigan primary: "It's clear: This election they're having is not going to count for anything. I personally did not think it made any difference whether or not my name was on the ballot." There was no revote in Michigan primarily because powerful Michigan Senator Carl Levin opposed it, not because Obama did. And, of course, Clinton campaigned stealthily in Florida after swearing -- literally signing a pledge -- not to compete there, yet later began insisting on recognizing the results of that election and even opposed a proposed caucus re-do in Florida to that end. Her hands aren't clean, and the intelligent, politically sophisticated Democrats in Michigan and Florida know full well that today's letter is simplistic and misleading. But it's the timing of the letter, and the otherwise-unremarkable mistakes it contains, that tell the real story here.

Here’s another way of understanding today’s letter, with its typos and factual misrepresentations and flat-footed play for the sentiments of Michiganders and Floridians who already understand the complexities of the issue in far more depth than Clinton’s letter assumes: football.

I know that sports cliches get old, but Clinton has portrayed herself as Rocky, battered but unbowed. (She forgets that after Rocky and Apollo Creed batter themselves insensible, Rocky loses.) Bill Clinton has said that if Obama didn’t want to get hit, he shouldn’t have suited up. They're right that sports are a good analogy; they've just got the game's situation wrong:

It’s late in the fourth quarter; maybe a minute to go. Obama is up by three touchdowns. All he really needs to do is drop to a knee four times to run the clock out, and he wins. The police are restraining the fans from coming onto the field; the announcers are naming the production staff. But Clinton doesn’t believe it’s over. She believes she still can win – after all, it’s not mathematically impossible for her to score on a Hail Mary, kick the extra point, successfully recover an onside kick, then do it all twice more, all in one minute. It’s never been done, but it theoretically could be.

And then she does what all inferior quarterbacks do under pressure: she tries that Hail Mary pass – today’s letter, trying to salvage a lopsided delegate count from Michigan – but, under pressure, she isn’t paying attention to fundamentals any more. She isn’t watching for the secondary receiver; she isn’t using her peripheral vision; she isn’t making a firm plant before releasing the ball; she throws away Latino and Asian and black votes by repeatedly emphasizing the importance of "the white electorate"; she isn’t even running SpellCheck on important documents. There’s not enough time! There’s not enough time! The candidate herself repeats her staffers' racist blunders; the important "open letter" is issued to thousands of media outlets with two typographical errors. The ball leaves the quarterback’s hand with a slight wobble ... the defender wants to end the game, and his eyes and his reflexes are sharp ....

Or we can return to Clinton's Rocky analogy. There's a reason fights have referees, and fighters have trainers who are authorized to throw in the towel: the boxer who's high on adrenaline and dizzy from being pummeled doesn't always realize how badly she's being beaten or how much she stands to lose by continuing. In some fights, when the fighter won't quit but should, it's completely proper -- humane for the fighter, and healthy for the sport itself -- for someone to stop the fight. Not because they're afraid of the fight continuing, but because they see, even if the fighter doesn't, that it's actually already over.
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Clinton's Open Letter to Obama re: Michigan and Florida

2008-05-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

On a day when it appears that the Michigan controversy may be resolved in a way that's fair to all parties -- but not in a way that gives Hillary Clinton all that state's delegates and Barack Obama none, as her campaign insists -- Clinton has just upped the ante by issuing an open letter to Obama, pretending that he is the sole obstacle to a fair resolution of the Michigan and Florida brouhaha and that she has always supported revotes (neither of which is accurate). (And, of course, she said this about Michigan in an interview last fall: "It's clear: This election they're having is not going to count for anything. I personally did not think it made any difference whether or not my name was on the ballot.") There's lots to discuss, but the letter itself is more than adequate fodder:

May 8, 2008

Senator Barack Obama

Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

Dear Senator Obama,

This has been an historic and exciting campaign. Millions of new voters have been brought into the process and their enthusiasm for the Democratic Party and the principles for which you and I have fought and continue to fight is unprecedented.

One of the foremost principles of our party is that citizens be allowed to vote and that those votes be counted. That principle is not currently being applied to the nearly 2.5 million people who voted in primaries in Florida and Michigan. Whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee will be hamstrung in the general election if a fair and quick resolution is not reached that ensures that the voices of these voters are heard. Our commitment now to this goal could be the difference between winning and losing in November.

I have consistently said that the votes cast in Florida and Michigan in January should be counted. We cannot ignore the fact that the people in those states took the time to be a part of this process and to make their preferences known. When efforts were untaken [sic] by leaders in those states to hold revotes to ensure that they had a voice in selecting our nominee, I supported those efforts. In Michigan, I supported a legislative effort to hold a revote that the Democratic National Committee said was in complete compliance with the party's rules. You did not support those efforts and your supporters in Michigan publically [sic] opposed them. In Florida a number of revote options were proposed. I am not aware of any that you supported. In 2000, the Republicans won an election by successfully opposing a fair counting of votes in Florida. As Democrats, we must reject any proposals that would do the same.

Your commitment to the voters of these states must be clearly stated and your support for a fair and quick resolution must be clearly demonstrated.

I am asking you to join me in working with representatives from Florida and Michigan and the Democratic National Committee to arrive at a solution that honors the votes of the millions of people who went to the polls in Florida and Michigan. It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee.

Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Related news coverage here, here, here, here and here.
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Clinton Campaign Defines Victory In Racial Terms

2008-05-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

In a telephone press conference Wednesday, the Clinton campaign firmly reiterated its intention to keep seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination, spinning both her striking loss in North Carolina and her slender win in Indiana yesterday as positive developments -- while also appearing to admit that she is not going to win a majority of elected delegates even if Michigan and Florida's delegations are counted -- and parsing yesterday's primary results in starkly racial terms that are likely to exacerbate her increasingly significant troubles reaching out to minority voters.

The conference, called by Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson to discuss "the state of the race," was also attended by Geoff Garin, chief Clinton strategist, and Phil Singer, the campaign's Deputy Communications Director.

Wolfson seemed to rule out any possibility of Clinton suspending her campaign in light of Tuesday's primaries. Asked whether there had been any internal discussions about not going forward, an unidentified voice loudly replied, "NO!" When a reporter asked who had just spoken, Wolfson replied, "That was my declarative self." Several times during the conference, campaign spokesmen reiterated their belief that the drawn-out primary was a good thing for the Democratic Party and that voters want the campaign to continue. Apparently moving not the finish line but the starting line, Wolfson also described next week's West Virginia primary as "the first key test" of the campaign's momentum.

Putting the best face on a day that nearly all commentators are calling a significant win for Obama, Garin described the results in Indiana and North Carolina as "an outcome about which we feel very, very good." Indiana, where Clinton won by a scant 51 percent - 49 percent margin, "represents significant progress for Senator Clinton and .... is a good victory under challenging circumstances" because her narrow victory there was "the first time ... that Senator Clinton has come from behind to victory," according to Garin. And North Carolina, where Clinton lost to Obama by 14 points, "represent[s] progress for us," he said, underlining the campaign's focus demographic, because Clinton improved her performance with "the white electorate" compared to polls taken two weeks before the election. Wolfson, too, put a positive spin on yesterday's results, saying that Indiana and North Carolina were "two states we were supposed to lose" but "we won one." According to Wolfson, although Indiana was a near-tie, "Senator Clinton [was] making up ground in Indiana, and Senator Obama losing ground."

The Clinton campaign's analysis of yesterday's results was largely based on exit polling and a careful parsing along demographic -- mainly racial -- lines that seemed to track the campaign's recent strategy of dispatching Bill Clinton to speak to small groups of rural, almost exclusively white, Southern voters. Wolfson emphasized Clinton's support among white voters, saying, "in North Carolina among the white electorate we started even... and ended up with a 24 point advantage with that part of the electorate." Comparing Clinton's relative performance among white voters in North Carolina yesterday with her weaker performance with white voters in Virginia earlier in the race, Garin said: "Virginia is the closest white electorate in the country to the electorate that participated in North Carolina. We lost the white electorate in Virginia... [but] ended up with a significant vote" among whites in North Carolina. Garin continued by emphasizing other demographic groups that Clinton is targeting, saying, "Taking the two states together, Senator Clinton continues to run very strongly among people who are likely to be the swing voters in the November election... non-college-educated voters, seniors, Catholics...."

At points, the Clinton representatives' demographic parsing bordered on surreal. Wolfson seemed to imply that gasoline prices are primarily a white issue, suggesting that Clinton's proposal for a gas tax "holiday" had helped her with white voters and promising that she would continue urging that proposal on the stump. In response to a pair of questions about whether African Americans would support Clinton in the general election, Wolfson repeatedly referred to Obama's "passionate supporters," seeming to conflate the two.

In terms of campaign strategy, the Clinton camp almost expressly admitted that her presidential aspirations now lie in the hands of Democratic Party operatives, including the party committees that will determine the fate of the currently disqualified Michigan and Florida delegations and the undeclared superdelegates who theoretically could still give the nomination to Clinton. Although he described Clinton as focused on the last few primaries, Wolfson -- in terms redolent of Bill Clinton's infamous "it all depends on what the definition of 'is' is" -- admitted that she likely would not win the majority of elected delegates: "We expect that when we get to June 3rd we'll have a close result. It raises the question of how close is close."

Phil Singer seemed to admit that even Michigan and Florida are not likely to alter her probable loss in both the elected-delegate and total-delegate races, saying that seating both states would at best bring Clinton to "fewer than a hundred elected delegates, excuse me, total delegates" of the nomination. Nevertheless, Clinton is urging not only that delegations from those two states be seated, but seated in full (and without Obama receiving any delegates at all from Michigan, where his name was not on the ballot). Wolfson described Clinton's performance in both states' primaries -- in which neither candidate overtly campaigned -- as "significant victories" and disagreed with suggestions that the delegations be seated at half-strength as a penalty for knowingly advancing their primaries earlier than Democratic Party rules allowed: "Our feeling is that the delegations should be seated in full, that they should have full votes" "commensurate with the results from those primaries." Clinton also plans to keep making an electability argument to superdelegates, including in a meeting with undeclared superdelegates planned for Wednesday night.

Wolfson also was asked about Clinton's financial ability to continue the campaign. He described Clinton as having raised "an awful lot of money" but admitted Obama is doing the same: "We had a very good fundraising month last month, but Senator Obama had a better fundraising month." He acknowledged that Clinton had loaned her own campaign $5 million in April, another $1 million on May 1, and $425,000 on May 5. He declined to rule out the possibility of Clinton making additional loans to keep her campaign afloat.

Wolfson declined to speculate about the possibility of a "unity" Obama-Clinton ticket, calling it premature and stating, "we have not had any conversations with the Obama campaign about such a ticket" and "I have not heard her evince any interest in such a ticket."
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Harry Reid on The Daily Show

2008-05-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

I don't normally liveblog TV -- research, reporting, analysis and hopefully a little erudition are more my speed -- but I'm watching Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," and can't resist jumping on the laptop. Reid's the single worst interview I've ever seen on the program, utterly lackluster, a fact that I find politically relevant.

Despite his regular email blasts mistitled "Give 'Em Hell Harry," Reid has been the weakest, least successful Majority Leader in recent Senate history. Reid is, of course, one of the party leaders who's not stopping the self-destructive Clinton-Obama civil war, but that's the least of his flaws. The leader of the Senate majority -- not the minority, but the majority -- actually whined to Stewart, "I'm as disappointed as the American people are we haven't had more change," blaming the Republican minority for merely THREATENING to filibuster Democratic legislation -- yet he hasn't ever forced the Republicans to actually follow through with a real filibuster, let alone punished them in the public eye for doing so. He's weak, weak, weak -- a Minority Leader who proved unable to use the filibuster to block the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, yet (perversely) a Majority Leader who's proving unable to prevent the mere threat of filibuster from stymying every initiative his party was elected to accomplish. (Reid's failure to block the Roberts and Alito nominations are underscored by John McCain's announcement today embracing the neoconservative judges Reid, a pro-lifer, inexcusably allowed Bush to appoint to lifetime posts.)

And now, watching Reid on Stewart, where vigor and humor and a lively intelligence are expected, I can see why: he's old, not necessarily chronologically but physically; and tired, and passive, and patently, ridiculously weak. Those who read me with any regularity know I don't usually stoop to ad hominem criticisms like this -- but American lives and American families are at stake in this time of war and recession and seven years of obscene mismanagement of the nation's government, and this is the wrong man to accomplish the critical tasks the American people desperately need their leaders to accomplish. It isn't just his lack of charisma; it's his lack of energy, of wit, even of interest in current events. It's even his lack of knowledge of Senate rules: listening to him on Stewart, it sounds like he doesn't even realize that Senate rules would allow Dems to keep the majority position at least until January even if they were to kick Joe Lieberman out on his Vichy ass -- an important technicality I didn't know about until recently, but which I'd expect the Majority Leader to have close to the front of his mind at all times.

Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, R.I.P. (figuratively, not literally, please). Step down. Time for new blood. It would help your party in this election; it would help your nation in this time of trial.
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Text of Obama Speech on Gas Prices and the Economy

2008-05-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Following a couple of weeks of media obsession about a man who's not his pastor, debates over debates (one that wasn't, and one that everyone wishes hadn't been), endless speculation over "banked" superdelegates, an 18-year-old mumble caught on film, and other distractions, Barack Obama gave a speech today at Lawrence High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, that returned attention to issues that matter, especially gas prices and the Main Street economy.

Before posting the text of that speech, I have a favor to ask, designed to maximize the level of discourse: before commenting, please read the speech. (Seems like that would be a good rule for all posts!)

Here's what Obama said in Indiana today:

"When I began this campaign for the presidency, I said I was running because I believed that the size of our challenges had outgrown the smallness of our politics in Washington – the pettiness and the game-playing and the influence-peddling that always prevents us from solving the problems we face year after year after year.

"I ran because I believed that this year – that this moment – was too important to let that happen again. And I had faith that you believed that too – that you were ready for something different; that you were hungry for something new.

"Fifteen months later, we’re already doing what none of the cynics in Washington thought we could do. In the face of a politics that’s tried to divide us and distract us and make this campaign about who’s up and who’s down and who-said-what-about-who, we’ve built a movement of Americans from every race and region and party who desperately want change in Washington.

"I have no illusions about how far we have to go. Our road is still long. Our climb is still steep. But fifteen months later, I also know that our mission is even more urgent because the challenges facing people across Indiana and the country are growing by the day.

"I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.

"You don’t have to turn on the news or follow the stock tickers or wait for all the economists and politicians to agree on what is or is not a recession to know that our economy is in serious trouble. You can feel it in your own lives. And I hear it everywhere I go. Like the young man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job but can’t afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one. Or the woman from Anderson who just lost her job, and her pension, and her insurance when the Delphi plant closed down – even while the top executives walked away with multi-million-dollar bonuses. Or the families across this country who will sit around the kitchen table tonight and wonder whether next week’s paycheck will be enough to cover next month’s bills – who will look at their children without knowing if they’ll be able to give them the same chances that they had.

"But here’s what Washington and Wall Street don’t get:

"This economy doesn’t just jeopardize our financial well-being, it offends the most basic values that have made this country what it is: the idea that America is the place where you can make it if you try. That no matter how much money you start with or where you come from or who your parents are, opportunity is yours if you’re willing to reach for it and work for it. It’s the idea that while there are no guarantees in life, you should able to count on a job that pays the bills; health care for when you get sick; a pension for when you retire; an education for your children that will allow them to fulfill their God-given potential. That’s who we are as a country. That’s the America most of us here know. It’s the America our parents and our grandparents grew up knowing.

"This is the country that gave my grandfather a chance to go to college on the GI Bill when he came home from World War II; a country that gave him and my grandmother – a small-town couple from Kansas – the chance to buy their first home with a loan from the government.

"This is the country that made it possible for my mother – a single parent who had to go on food stamps at one point – to send my sister and me to the best schools in the country with the help of scholarships.

"This is the country that allowed my father-in-law – a city worker at a South Side water filtration plant – to provide for his wife and two children on a single salary. This is a man who was diagnosed at age thirty with multiple sclerosis – who relied on a walker to get himself to work. And yet, every day he went, and he labored, and he sent my wife and her brother to one of the best colleges in the nation.

"That job didn’t just give him a paycheck, it gave him dignity and self-worth. It was an America that didn’t just reward and honor wealth, but the work and the workers who helped create it.

"And we are here today looking for the answer to the same question:

"Where is that America today?

"How many veterans come home from this war without the care they need – how many wander the streets of the richest country on Earth without a roof over their heads? How many single parents can’t even afford to send their children to the doctor when they get sick, never mind to four years of college? How many workers have suffered the indignity of having to compete with their own children for a minimum wage job at McDonalds after they gave their lives to a company where the CEO just walked off with that multi-million dollar bonus?

"And most of all, how many years – how many decades – have we talked and talked and talked about these problems while Washington has done nothing, or tinkered, or made them worse.

"There is no doubt that many of these challenges have to do with fundamental shifts in our economy that began decades ago – changes that have torn down borders and barriers and allowed companies to send jobs wherever there’s a cheap source of labor. And today, with countries like China and India educating their children longer and better, and revolutions in communication and technology, they can send the jobs wherever there’s an internet connection.

"I saw the beginnings of these changes up close when I moved to the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago to help neighborhoods that were devastated when the local steel plant closed. I saw the indignity of joblessness and the hopelessness of lost opportunity.

"But I also saw that we are not powerless in the face of these challenges. We don’t have to sit here and watch our leaders do nothing. I learned that we don’t have to consign our children to a future of diminished dreams – a future of fewer opportunities. And that’s why I’m running for President today. Politics didn’t lead me to working people – working people led me to politics.

"I’m running because we can’t afford to settle for a Washington where John McCain gets the chance to give us four more years of the same Bush policies that have failed us for the last eight. More tax breaks for CEOs who make more in a day than some workers make in a year. More tax breaks for the same corporations that ship our jobs overseas. More of the trickle-down, on-your-own philosophy that says there’s nothing government can do about the problems we face – so we might as well just hand out a few tax breaks and tell people to buy their own health care, their own education, their own roads, their own bridges. That hasn’t worked in the past, and it won’t work for our future.

"We can’t afford to settle for a Washington where our energy policy, and our health care policy, and our tax policy is sold to the highest-bidding lobbyist. We can’t keep taking thousands of dollars of their money year after year, election after election. Senator Clinton says they represent real Americans, but you and I know who they really represent – the oil companies and the drug companies and the insurance companies who keep us from bringing down the cost of our premiums and our prescriptions and investing in renewable fuels.

"We can’t afford to settle for a Washington where politicians only focus on how to win instead of why we should; where they check the polls before they check their gut; where they only tell us whatever we want to hear whenever we want to hear it. That kind of politics may get them where they need to go, but it doesn’t get America where we need to go. And it won’t change anything.

"Some of you might have seen that Senator Clinton’s spending a lot of money on a television ad that attacks me for not supporting her and John McCain’s idea of a gas tax holiday for the summer. Now, this is an idea that will save you – altogether – half a tank of gas. That’s thirty cents a day. For three months. That’s if the oil companies don’t simply jack up their price to fill the gap, as they’ve done when this was tried before. Does anyone here really trust the oil companies to give you the savings when they could just pocket the money themselves?

"It’s a shell game. Literally.

"In a moment of candor, her advisors actually admitted that it wouldn’t have much of an effect on gas prices. But, they said, it’s a great political issue for Senator Clinton. So this is not about getting you through the summer, it’s about getting elected.

"And this is what passes for leadership in Washington-- phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems.

"Now Senator Clinton’s been using this issue to make the argument that I’m somehow “out of touch.” Well let me tell you – only in Washington can you get away with calling someone out of touch when you’re the one who thinks that thirty cents a day is enough to help people who are struggling in this economy. I’ll tell you what I think – I think the American people are smarter than Washington gives us credit for.

"I wish I could stand up here and tell you that we could fix our energy problems with a holiday. I wish I could tell you that we can take a time-out from trade and bring back the jobs that have gone overseas. I wish I could promise that on day one of my presidency, I could pass every plan and proposal I’ve outlined in this campaign.

"But my guess is that you’ve heard those promises before. You hear them every year, in every election. And afterwards, when everyone goes back to Washington, the game-playing, and the influence-peddling, and the petty bickering continues. Nothing gets done. And four years later, we’re right back here making the very same promises about the very same problems.

"Well this year you have a choice. If you want to take another chance on the same kind of politics we’ve come to know in Washington, there are other candidates to choose from.

"But I still believe we need to fundamentally change Washington if we want change in America. I still believe this election is bigger than me, or Senator Clinton, or Senator McCain. It’s bigger than Democrats versus Republicans.

"It’s about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this country, at this moment, will continue to stand by while the wealthy few prosper at the expense of the hardworking many, or whether we’ll stand up and reclaim the American dream for every American. It’s about whether we’ll watch the Chinas and the Indias of the world move past us, or whether we’ll decide that in the 21st century, the home of innovation, and discovery, and progress will still be the United States of America.

"Reclaiming this dream will take more than one election. It will take more than one person or one party. It will take the effort and sacrifice of a nation united. And that’s the truth.

"We can provide relief that’s more than a holiday to families who are struggling in this economy. I’m the only candidate who’s proposed a genuine middle-class tax cut that’s paid for in part by closing corporate loopholes and shutting down tax havens. It would save nearly every working family $1,000, eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000, and provide a mortgage tax credit to struggling homeowners that would cover ten percent of their mortgage interest payment every year.

"I also have a health care plan that would save the average family $2,500 on their premiums and provide the uninsured with the same kind of health care Members of Congress give themselves. That’s real relief, but we can only pay for this if we finally rollback the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans who don’t need them and weren’t even asking for them.

"We may not be able to bring back all the jobs that we’ve lost to trade, but we can create tomorrow’s jobs in this country. I happen to believe in free trade. But we do the cause of trade no favors when we pass agreements that are filled with perks for every special interest under the sun and absolutely no protections for American workers. There’s absolutely no reason we should be giving tax breaks to corporations who ship jobs overseas. When I’m President, I will eliminate those tax breaks and give them to companies who create good jobs right here in America.

"We can also create jobs if we finally get serious about rebuilding our crumbling and decaying national infrastructure. A few years ago, one out of three urban bridges were classified as structurally deficient, and we all saw the tragic results of what that could mean in Minnesota last year. It’s unacceptable. That’s why I’m proposing a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years and generate nearly two million new jobs – many of them in the construction industry that’s been hard hit by this housing crisis. The repairs will be determined not by politics, but by what will maximize our safety. And we’ll fund this bank by ending this war in Iraq. It’s time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead.

"And if want to take a permanent holiday from our oil addiction, we can finally get serious about energy independence and create five million new green jobs in the process – jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. We’ll do what I did when I went to Detroit and tell the automakers it’s time they raised fuel mileage standards in this country. We’ll make companies pay for the pollution they release into the air, we’ll tax the record profits of the oil companies, and we’ll use that money to invest in clean, affordable, renewable energy like solar power, and wind power, and biofuels.

"I’ll be honest – this transition to a green economy won’t come without costs that all of us will have to pay, but it’s the only way we’ll free ourselves from the whims of Middle East dictator; the only way we’ll make sure we’re not talking about high gas prices five years from now and ten years from now; the only way we can pass on a planet that’s still recognizable to our children and their children.

"And if we want our children to succeed in this global economy – if we want them to be able to compete with children in Beijing and Bangalore – then we need to make sure that every child, everywhere gets a world-class education, from the day they’re born until the day they graduate college. That means investing in early childhood education. It means that we need to recruit an army of new teachers by not just talking about how great teachers are, but rewarding them for their greatness with better pay and more support. And it means that in this country – in this global economy – we will not create a small class of the educated few by allowing thousands and thousands of young people to be priced out of college year after year. We are better than that. When I’m President, we’ll create a bargain with every American who wants to go to college: we will pay for your tuition if you serve your country in some way for two years after you graduate.

"Real relief for middle-class families, seniors, and homeowners. Lower premiums for those who have health care and coverage for everyone who wants it. Five million green jobs right here in America. A world-class education that will allow every American to reach their God-given potential and compete with any worker in the world.

"All of this is possible, but it’s just a list of policies until you decide that it’s time to make the Washington we have look like the America we know – one where the future is not determined by those with money and influence; where common sense and honesty are cherished values; where we are stronger than that which divides us because we realize that in the end, we rise or fall as one nation – as one people.

"It was forty years ago this May that Robert Kennedy took his unlikely campaign to create a new kind of politics to Indiana. And as he campaigned in Fort Wayne, he laid out a vision that America we know. He said, “Income and education and homes do not make a nation. Nor do land and borders. Shared ideals and principles, joined purposes and hopes – these make a nation. And that is our great task.”

"It is still our task today.

"We’ve always known this wouldn’t be easy. The change we’re looking for never is. Generations before us have fought wars and revolutions; they’ve struggled and they’ve sacrificed; they’ve stood up and spoke out and marched through the streets for the opportunities that we enjoy.

"And that’s why the only way a black guy named Barack Obama who was born in Hawaii, and started his career on the streets of Chicago, can win this race – if you decide that you’ve had enough of the way things are; if you decide that this election is bigger than flag pins and sniper fire and the comments of a former pastor – bigger than the differences between what we look like or where we come from or what party we belong to.

"And if you do – if you decide that this moment is about what kind of country we’ll be in the next year and the next century; about how we’ll provide jobs to the jobless and opportunity to those without it; about health care and good schools and a green planet; about giving our children a better world and a brighter future – then I ask you to enlist your neighbors, and knock on doors, and work your heart out from now until Tuesday. In the face of all cynicism, and doubt, and fear, I ask you to remember what makes a nation – and to believe that we can once again make this nation the land of limitless possibility and unyielding hope – the place where you can still make it if you try. Thank you, and may God Bless the United States of America."
*******
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Obama Files F.E.C. Complaint Against Pro-Clinton "Swiftboat" Group

2008-04-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Obama campaign has filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against the American Leadership Project, a “527" group that Obama campaign chief counsel Bob Bauer described this morning as a “Swiftboat wannabe” and suggested was affiliated with the Clinton campaign. The American Leadership Project, which reportedly is led by the son of one of Hillary Clinton’s Indiana state co-chairs, has been running what the Obama campaign described in a press release as “a misleading attack ad against Obama” on Indiana television.

In a press conference call this morning, Bauer explained the difference between what he called “normal political committees,” which are subject to limits on the amount and sources of campaign contributions and most regularly file reports with the Federal Elections Commission, and so-called “527s,” groups organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code and which are not subject to most election laws. According to Bauer, the FEC announced new rules in 2006 designed to reduce the impact of groups like the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, which fatally damaged John Kerry’s presidential hopes with widespread negative advertising impugning his military service. The new rules require any groups that are set up expressly to support or oppose a particular candidate, like the American Leadership Project, to follow the limits and reporting requirements of “normal political committees,” Bauer said, calling the American Leadership Project’s actions “flatly illegal” under federal law.

Bauer went on to explain that one of the campaign’s main purposes in filing the FEC complaint was to send a message that 527 groups were not free to ignore the law as the campaigns head into the general election. He also took a swipe at the Federal Elections Commission, which has not been as proactive as many would like, suggesting that the complaint against the ALP would be a test of whether the FEC intends to enforce its rules. Asked by a reporter whether the FEC has the resources to investigate the complaint, Bauer said it did – and that it had the ability to impose “very, very stiff penalties for knowing and wilful violations” of federal law, citing “fines of millions of dollars” imposed by the FEC against other 527 groups in 2006. Bauer also pointed out that the FEC also has authority to refer complaints to the Department of Justice for investigation.

The question of whether the FEC will pursue its investigation aggressively is an important one, given how little time is left before the last primary elections. Bauer believes the ALP is deliberately flaunting the law, saying, “this organization has made the decision that it will run this risk and try to run out the clock ... to give it the advantage of spending without having to shut down before the last penny is spent.” However, he suggested that even beginning an aggressive investigation would help mitigate that, suggesting that “[t]he FEC has a choice to make here ... of doing what they said they would do... immediately contacting the donors and the principals and bringing them in,” which he said would itself be a significant deterrent.

Indiana State Representative Matt Pierce, an Obama supporter, also participated in the conference call. He talked about seeing a negative ad by the ALP on local television yesterday, and said that such ads were "poisoning" the election process. Describing the high levels of public participation and excitement among Democrats this year, he added, "I think we lose that if we let these 527s run amok."
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A Big Win in Pennsylvania -- But Not Nearly Big Enough to Change the Math

2008-04-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

Update, May 6: Obama wins North Carolina, squeezing Clinton mathematically even more than this post predicts. Big voter turnouts in both NC and Indiana, which bodes well for Obama (and the party's chances in November).

Americans, schizophrenically, love two things: winners, and quixotic heroes who do great things in a losing cause. Last night in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton was both: the winner of what in an ordinary election year would be a tremendous victory, and the protagonist of an unequivocally lost cause.

Clinton won Pennsylvania. But in the national Democratic primary election overall -- and by that I mean the go-to-a-polling-place-and-cast-a-ballot part of the nominee-selection process -- Pennsylvania put the last nail in Clinton's hopes of winning anything resembling the popular vote or popular delegate count nationwide.

Before I go further, please understand: this post isn’t about hating Hillary, but about math. It’s no secret that I support Obama, -- but I honestly can’t help but admire any candidate who can win Pennsylvania by ten points (which, as of the time I'm writing this with 99% of precincts reporting, appears to be Clinton's margin of victory). It’s a great victory in anyone’s book.

And yet mathematically, Pennsylvania didn’t move her forward; it actually put her further behind. That’s what makes her win there tragic.

In a post the day before the Pennsylvania primary, I explained in detail what margins Clinton needed in order to win the majority of elected delegates before the last primary election occurs on June 3. This election is like a footrace, I explained; with a relatively small handful of primaries left, and a finite number of delegates remaining to be won, she needs to gain ground with every primary if she wants to make up the ground she lost in the first 40-plus contests.

Before Pennsylvania voted, Clinton trailed Obama in the elected-delegate count by 162. With only 566 delegates left to be won in the remaining contests, some fairly simple math showed that to catch Obama, she needed to win everything from Pennsylvania forward by 28 points – i.e., to win 64% of the elected delegates to Obama’s 36% in all the remaining contests (with the exception of North Carolina, where she currently trails by 17 points; all my math asked her to do there was tie). Again, this isn’t pessimism or misogyny, it’s just a calculation. Here’s the algorithm: (Remaining delegates) - (Obama’s lead in delegates) ÷ 2 + (Obama’s lead in delegates). You can do the math yourself.

If she didn’t win Pennsylvania (or any other primary) by 28 points, she’d only fall farther behind. If she won Pennsylvania by ten points, Clinton would actually have lost ground. In my post before the vote in Pennsylvania, I explained it this way:

Think of it like a hundred yard dash. Catching up to Obama after a ten point “victory” in Pennsylvania would be like standing on the starting line and expecting to win the race – with your opponent having a 36 yard head start. And every step you take that doesn’t gain you ground puts you closer to defeat: every time Clinton falls short of the requisite 64% or 68% or even higher margin, the margin she needs in the remaining states goes up even more. Or, as Richard Durbin put it, Clinton is “running out of real estate.”

Hillary didn’t win 64% of the vote in Pennsylvania. She only won about 55% to Obama’s 45% – the ten-point spread I predicted, about two-thirds short of the 28 point spread she needed. Accordingly, she’ll only net about 16 delegates (87 for her, 71 for Obama) – not enough to stay on pace to win. After her win in Pennsylvania, Clinton now has to win 68% of the vote in all the remaining primaries -- up four points from the 64% she needed just two days ago.

In the real world, this is an insurmountable problem for Clinton. In some states, she may have had a little wiggle room; if she fell a little short in Indiana she might make it up by winning extra delegates in Puerto Rico. But Pennsylvania was Clinton’s best shot at a big win in a populous state – her “if you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere” test (apologies to Sinatra). A month ago, a PPP poll showed Clinton leading in Pennsylvania by 26 points. Pennsylvania’s primary came after the Reverend Wright and “bitter” brouhahas. Clinton has family in Pennsylvania; her father and brother went to school and played ball in Pennsylvania; she spent vacations in Pennsylvania; her grandfather taught her to shoot in Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania has one of the last great Democratic political machines – read this frustrated post by Chuck Pennacchio, a great Democratic candidate who lost a Pennsylvania primary because that machine was aligned against him, if you want a taste of how powerful the Pennsylvania machine is – and that machine was overwhelmingly in Clinton’s camp. If she couldn’t make the requisite margin there, she won’t be able to make it in state after state after state, without any major slips, from now til the end of the campaign. (In fact, even if Michigan and Florida were miraculously counted in Clinton’s favor, she still would have needed 12 point wins from here on out – but she fell short of even that lower standard. So not even Michigan and Florida could help her win the nomination democratically.)

No: Pennsylvania was her best shot, and she fell short. Hope is a wonderful thing, but no amount of blind optimism can change the reality: Clinton’s not going to win the majority of democratically-elected “pledged” or popular delegates. More broadly: no logical person can continue to argue that Clinton can win in any popular or democratic sense of the word; it’s inevitable that she will lose the popular vote and the popular delegate count.

That doesn’t mean she can’t win the nomination. It does mean that the only way she can win the nomination is if the unelected Superdelegates overwhelmingly and unexpectedly decide to disregard the wishes of their collective constituents and hand the nomination to the candidate who lost the popular delegate count (and the popular vote, and the majority of states).

Here’s the important thing to take away from Clinton’s win/loss in Pennsylvania: because she no longer has any realistic chance of winning the “election” phase of the nominating process, the rest of us need to insist that the politicians, pundits and prognosticators stop putting so much undeserved attention on the upcoming primaries, and focus instead on the single issue that could decide this election in Clinton’s favor: the likelihood, the moral right, and the wisdom of allowing the Democratic Party’s aristocrats to override the will of millions of Democratic voters.

Personally, I don’t think it’s likely, moral, or strategically wise for the Supers to exercise a veto of the voters’ choice. I think Obama has already won this election, and inevitably will win the nomination, and that Clinton’s just the last one to realize it. But I also understand that many of her supporters disagree, and feel strongly that it’s both meet and proper for the Supers to do whatever they want. I’m willing to agree to disagree on that question, at least for now; I don’t really want to have that argument today, because it, too, is a distraction at this point.

Instead, all I’d like, from Clintonites and Obamanuts alike, is an agreement, based on simple logic, that the issue is no longer whether Clinton can win the election – she can’t, even if we count Michigan and Florida – but rather whether she can, and should, win a contrary outcome via a Superdelegate override.

Polls and predictions no longer count. Michigan and Florida, and Indiana and Puerto Rico and North Carolina and my own Oregon, no longer count, simply because their primaries can’t realistically alter the outcome of the election. The only remaining issue is the propriety and wisdom of Superdelegates overriding the voters. So let’s talk about that from now on, instead of wasting time and energy on distractions that make money for CNN and MSNBC and play into the candidates’ spin but aren’t actually relevant to the decision that’s being made.
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A Struggling American Distillery Breaks Its Silence on Hillary's Preference for Canadian Whisky

2008-04-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Bigwig multimillionaire politicians talk and talk about us regular folks – but do they ever really stop and think about the impact their actions have on the little guy?

For instance, when Hillary Clinton tried to establish street cred with the cool kids by tipping back a beer and a bump at Bronko’s Lounge in Crown Point, Indiana last week, did she realize the hardship her choice of an imported whisky made in Gimli, Manitoba might cause to the U.S. blended whiskey industry?

And when she picked Crown Royal as her “whisky” of choice, did she stop to consider how her elitist, big-city, pro-NAFTA favoritism for Canada might make the employees of small, rural, American whiskey distilleries feel?

Ever mindful of the little guy, I asked the employees of a small, rural, American whiskey distillery for their thoughts. Jeff Arnett, their Master Distiller himself, got back to me – and his story of a struggling American industry neglected by the free-trade Washington fat cats is so touching, I had to share it:

Dear Mr. Scott,

Your message from last week was sent to me, and I'm happy to respond. I'm sorry it has taken a few days to get back to you.

Down here in Lynchburg, Tennessee, we've been following the recent Whiskeygate story with interest. We're glad that Senator Clinton has a taste for whiskey. We're just puzzled as to why she's drinking a Canadian brand instead of a good American whiskey. Especially when there are nearly 200 registered voters here in Lynchburg proper, and, last time I checked, there won't be any Canadians voting in our Presidential election.

Sincerely,

Jeff Arnett
Jack Daniel's Master Distiller

Your friends at Jack Daniel's remind you to drink responsibly.

Sure, Crown Royal is so sweet and silky-smooth that even girls can drink it. Sure, it leaves the “e” out of the word “whiskey,” which is nifty in a Continental kind of way. Sure, it comes in a pretty, cushy-soft, purple velvet bag with fancy gold trim that’s fun to keep marbles in. And I'm not one of the many, many very smart thinkers who suspect that The Society of the Crown is an offshoot of Skull & Bones. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to hate America! The next time she taps the bar and calls for a boilermaker, Senator Clinton needs to stop and think – think about the small, struggling Tennessee business she neglected, the American jobs she put in jeopardy – and those 200 American voters she turned her back on.
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The New Zell Miller: Why the Democrats Need to Boot Joe Lieberman Before the Conventions

2008-04-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Carpetbagger Report has a neat nutshell analysis of the precarious balance that keeps Joe Lieberman in the Democratic caucus, even though he isn't a Democrat any more: he lost the Democratic nomination last cycle to a great newcomer (Ned Lamont), split Connecticut's Democratic vote by running as an Independent, is endorsing and campaigning with John McCain, was considered as Don Rumsfeld's replacement for Bush's Secretary of Defense, had his Superdelegate credentials pulled by the Connecticut Democratic Party, and may be giving the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention. Why haven't the Democrats booted him? Because right now the balance between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate is exactly even, and if Lieberman ditched the Democratic Party then Dick Cheney would effectively become Majority Leader. Which, of course, would be a very bad thing.

All the above is a mess, but things may get even more complicated as we approach the two national Conventions and the general election. A win by either of the Democrats could have "coattails" that also helps downticket candidates for the House and Senate. Obama, in particular, is very likely to help Democrats add a couple more Senate seats, because his strategy in both the primaries and the general election is to win more, if smaller, states while Clinton is aiming at the larger, voter-rich states. (Those two approaches -- more states with fewer voters versus fewer states with more voters -- add up to be roughly equivalent in terms of total electoral college votes for President, but since small states and large states alike have the same number of Senators -- two -- the candidate who wins hearts and minds in a greater number of states, regardless of size, will give coattails to more of his party's Senate candidates, as well. Incidentally, this is another reason I don't think the Superdelegates will override the popular vote and hand the Dem nomination to Hillary, but that's another post.)

If the Dems can gain just one more seat next November, then they don't need Lieberman to retain a majority any longer; he'd lose his ability to blackmail them with the threat of a Cheney-dominated Senate, and Lieberman would lose both his remaining political pull and his committee chairmanship. Hopefully he'd retire at the end of his term, leaving the path open for Ned Lamont to take his rightful seat.

The problem is that Lieberman knows this math better than anyone -- and he's self-centered and manipulative enough to take steps to secure his power. How? By making sure that the Democrats don't win in November. And what's the most helpful thing he could offer the Republicans? It's obvious: for Al Gore's vice-presidential running mate from 2000 to announce that his beloved Democratic Party has abandoned common sense and is weak on defense and hates Israel and loves terrorists yadda yadda -- then cap his betrayal by giving the Republican National Convention's keynote address.

Or, even worse, to do all of the above, then become John McCain's running mate, and the first person in U.S. history to run for Vice President in both parties, giving McCain a very strong shot at winning moderate and independent voters who don't realize that Lieberman is as conservative a war-hawk as they come.

This exact scenario, where Lieberman retains an undeserved ability to blackmail the Democratic party, is why my blog, Vichy Democrats, started calling for the party to throw Lieberman on his keister more than two years ago -- BEFORE he became an indispensable brick in our tenuous majority, BEFORE he was in position to pretend he was leaving the Democratic Party instead of being forcibly ejected and parlay his supposed "Democrat" status into something that helps the Republicans. (Note VichyDems' mission statement, above.)

We should have kicked him out of the Democratic caucus back then. And the Democratic leadership still should kick him out now, before he can hurt us further. I say this even though it would cost us the Senate majority for the next nine months: the current crop of Superchicken Democrats running the Congress now -- especially Harry Reid -- are just waiting for Bush's term to expire instead of taking the good fight right to the neocons anyway, and there's nothing harmful the Republicans could accomplish in less than a year so long as House Democrats refuse to kowtow on legislation and so long as Senate Democrats -- for a change of pace -- hang together to form well-disciplined, cloture-proof supermajorities that are able and willing to filibuster any bad Republican initiatives and nominees.

As I wrote back in March 2006:

Some "liberal" bloggers and commenters (and many, many “concern trolls” who love to give bad advice to the enemy) express "concern" (it's almost always that word, "concern") that targeting and ousting “Vichy” Democrats will cost us seats we need to win back [now I'd say "retain"] one or both houses of Congress.

My usual response is this: I don’t believe that’s the case, because Joe Lieberman and Henry Cuellar are more trouble than their seats are worth and if we unseated them, the rest of the caucus would sit up, take notice, and start acting cohesively again, which ultimately will [net] us a lot more seats than we lose. *** Copying the Republican formula for success doesn’t mean becoming more conservative ***, it means becoming more liberal and being proud of it [as Newt Gingrich's radical Republicans were proudly conservative]. Articulating, and expecting some reasonable degree of adherence to, a unifying party platform is a good way to articulate principles and win elections, and if that means tossing one or two enablers like Lieberman overboard, good riddance; they're dead weight anyway.
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Defining What Would Constitute a "Win" for Clinton In Pennsylvania

2008-04-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, APRIL 23: Post-Penna-election analysis here, though this post is a really good foundation for that one.

UPDATE, PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY DAY, APRIL 22: So far, it's looking like a Clinton win, as expected -- but the more numbers come in, the lower her margin gets. Again: if her margin's under 28%, she's losing ground -- and the spinmeisters, on MSNBC at least, aren't recognizing that fact. Hang on for more.

As politics junkies prepare for the Pennsylvania primary tomorrow, the pundit class and the candidates’ spinmeisters are endlessly debating what, exactly, would constitute a “win” for Clinton. Both campaigns are trying to manipulate people’s expectations; Clinton’s people are playing down her lead so that a 4- to 7-point victory will seem like a huge shift in her political fortune (and a double-digit victory, which polls consistently showed was well within reach until just a couple of weeks ago, will seem like a blowout), while Obama’s camp is portraying his support as being so low that anything under a 10-point win by Clinton will be anticlimactic.

But at this late stage of the Clinton-Obama primary, perception is not reality. Elections are a matter of counting votes, and counting is a matter of mathematics, not expectations or spin. Each candidate has won a precise number of delegates so far, and there are a finite number of delegates yet to be won. Instead of acting like Bush Republicans, responding to fear and greed and spouting bumper-sticker slogans and truthiness, Democrats can behave like real members of the Reality-Based Community, rejecting blind cries that “Clinton can still win!” or “There’s no way Clinton can win!” and crunching the numbers instead – in this case, analyzing the electoral data to determine what, precisely, would constitute a “win” for Clinton in Pennsylvania so that we can reject any spin, from any source, that isn’t grounded in reality.

Calculating Clinton’s necessary margin of victory is important for at least two reasons:

(1) Clinton’s ongoing, uphill battle for the nomination almost certainly is cutting into Obama’s yearlong lead over McCain in hypothetical head-to-head matchups; if her campaign isn’t actually viable, and she doesn’t actually have any realistic chance of winning the nomination, she should shut it down now so that Obama can focus on the general election. Conversely, if Clinton does have a good chance of a comeback, all Democrats should support her right to continue to fight. Objectively settling the “viability” issue would be a significant step toward resolving the question of whether Clinton should or should not bow out, and could reduce friction between the two candidates’ supporters.

(2) Even if the Clinton campaign’s viability isn’t conclusively resolved one way or another, the question of how she can and can’t win could be; in other words, her chances of winning the nomination with or without winning the popular vote, with or without Michigan and Florida, and with or without a counter-democratic “override” by Superdelegates could be winnowed down. If Clinton has no realistic chance of winning the elected-delegate race, then everyone should put much less emphasis on the final ten primary elections. If Michigan and Florida wouldn’t affect the outcome, then Michigan and Florida probably should be seated without alienating them further. If the only way Clinton can win is with a Superdelegate “override” of the popular vote, then we should be focusing like a laser on the principles and practicalities of allowing the candidate to be selected in contravention of the voters’ will – i.e., whether that outcome matches our democratic principles and how it might affect turnout by the disaffected candidate’s supporters in the general election, how it might affect independent and crossover voters’ perceptions of the nominee, and ultimately what the impact of a brokered outcome would be on the Democratic Party’s Presidential and Congressional chances in November. If Clinton still has a genuine chance of winning the majority of elected delegates, on the other hand, then no one has the right to question her right to continue her campaign. Evaluating the probability of the various combinations of scenarios will allow us to focus, hard, on the variables that actually will control the outcome – and to tell the spinmeisters to take a hike.

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS: So I’ve crunched the numbers, looking primarily at how big a win Clinton needs in Pennsylvania tomorrow to remain a viable candidate in the “democratic” portion of the election (because if she’s not viable in terms of winning the popular vote, then we all need to shift our perspectives and start seriously discussing the principles and the practicalities of her trying to override the popular vote with Superdelegates). And what I’ve learned is that Clinton needs to win 64% of the vote tomorrow to Obama’s 36% – beating Obama by a 28-point spread – to have any chance of winning the popularly-elected delegate count. The TV pundits and campaign spinners may be talking about the relative merits of a six-point, ten-point or even fifteen-point spread – but it’s all smoke and mirrors: hard numbers say anything under 28 points represents an overwhelming Clinton loss. Aggravating for Clinton backers? Of course – and, in all seriousness, I’m sympathetic. But those are the numbers. Here’s why:

Pennsylvania is the largest remaining primary state. It has 158 elected (aka “pledged” or “popular”) delegates – delegates assigned democratically by the votes of the people. TV talking heads keep mentioning the possibility of a ten-point spread. If Clinton wins Pennsylvania’s primary by ten points (i.e., Clinton gets 55% of the popular vote, Obama gets 45%), then she’ll get 87 elected delegates to Obama’s 71 – a 16-delegate gain for Clinton. Obama’s current 162-elected-delegate lead will be reduced to a 146-elected-delegate lead. If she wins Pennsylvania by ten point, the TV talking heads will blather endlessly about her tremendous win – but in reality, a ten-point win would be a terrible loss, putting Clinton mathematically even further behind than she is now.

As of today, before Pennsylvania, Clinton needs to capture 64% of all the remaining delegates (including Pennsylvania’s) to catch up to Obama. Every time she wins a state by less than that, she falls farther behind. After Pennsylvania, there will be nine remaining primaries carrying a total of 408 elected delegates. If Clinton wins Pennsylvania by only 10 points (55%-45%), then the mathematical reality is that she’ll have to win more than 277 of those 408 remaining delegates to beat Obama. That’s 68% – worse odds than the 64% she needs today.

Think of it like a hundred yard dash. Catching up to Obama after a ten point “victory” in Pennsylvania would be like standing on the starting line and expecting to win the race – with your opponent having a 36 yard head start. And every step you take that doesn’t gain you ground puts you closer to defeat: every time Clinton falls short of the requisite 64% or 68% or even higher margin, the margin she needs in the remaining states goes up even more. Or, as Richard Durbin put it, Clinton is “running out of real estate.”

Does Clinton have a rational chance of winning all the remaining contests by at least 28 points? Reality check: according to a pollster.com mashup of nearly 60 polls, Clinton has 48% of the Pennsylvania vote – 16% less than the 64% she needs just to avoid losing even more ground – and to make things worse, she’s been trending downward (though I expect her to get a bump tomorrow that’s not predicted in the polling data, as conservative Undecideds finally make up their minds for Clinton at the last minute):

Wait: it gets worse for Clinton than that. After Pennsylvania, the most delegate-rich primary is North Carolina on May 6, with 115 delegates. According to pollster.com’s mashup of 45 polls (24 in 2008 alone), Obama’s not just projected to win North Carolina, but to win it by over 17 points – AND he’s widening his lead over time:

It’s unrealistic to predict that Clinton go from an overwhelming loss in North Carolina (garnering only 36% of the vote) to winning it overwhelmingly (nearly doubling her base of support to 64%). In general, Obama closes gaps with her as elections near, not the other way around. But since we’re doing thought experiments anyway, let’s throw her a bone and say she somehow manages to come back from a 17 point deficit to tie in North Carolina, splitting those 115 delegates evenly with Obama. If she can tie North Carolina, then once again she’ll need to pick up 68% of all the remaining delegates, including Pennsylvania’s, to gain any ground at all.

So that’s where it stands, not as a matter of hope or faith or wishing really really hard or running up the Philadelphia museum steps like Rocky, but in hard numbers: unless Clinton can win Pennsylvania tomorrow by 28 points, and make up a 17-point deficit to tie in North Carolina, and win 68% of all the remaining delegates, she simply can’t, by any reasonable analysis, catch up to Obama, let alone beat him, in the upcoming elections. And the first hurdle in that triple-jump comes tomorrow: again, if she doesn’t win Pennsylvania by 28 points, then she can’t win the election democratically; her only hope would be a near-unanimous sweep of the undecided Superdelegates plus a mass defection of many of the Superdelegates currently endorsing Obama – which ain’t likely. And if anyone believes there is a serious possibility of such a mass migration of Superdelegates, prepared to engineer an outcome opposite of the one chosen by their collective constituents, then we need to stop pretending that it even matters whether Clinton can “win elections” and re-focus the debate on whether it’s wise or proper for party officials to override millions and millions of its members.

“But wait!,” someone’s hollering at their computer, “what about Michigan and Florida?!?” A legitimate question; let’s talk about Michigan and Florida.

First, some practical politics. Like it or not, even Clinton's most ardent supporters have to admit there’s almost no chance that those delegations will be seated at the Convention in the way Clinton wants. Sure, they’ll be able to participate at the Convention – why alienate their voters more than we already have? – but with Howard Dean as Chair of the DNC and the Rules Committee unanimous in their earlier decision to disqualify them, any agreement to seat their delegations will be negotiated after the Supers wrap up the nomination contest in June – or they’ll be seated under an agreement to split their votes more or less evenly – or their votes will be counted after all the other states’ delegates and Superdelegates at the Convention instead of in alphabetical order, so that they don’t affect the outcome. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, just talking practical politics: there isn’t a snowball’s chance in heck Clinton will manage to get credit for all the delegates she claims she won in those states.

But even if it’s ridiculously improbable, let’s imagine it anyway: that those delegations are seated and that they give Clinton every vote she’s asking for. In Michigan, where Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot, that would mean a net Clinton gain of 18 delegates. In Florida – where Clinton told a crowd on election night (though she wasn’t “campaigning” there) that she had won a “tremendous victory” – her perfect outcome nets her 38 more delegates over Obama. How would those 56 additional Clinton delegates affect the math?

Answer: it would affect it significantly enough to make the Pennsylvania election more interesting, but probably not enough to make a difference in the outcome. Giving Clinton every delegate she’s claiming from Michigan and Florida, and additionally assuming that she can recover from her huge deficit to manage a tie in North Carolina, would reduce Obama’s lead from 162 to 106 with nine contests to go. Yet even with such incredible good juju, Clinton would still need to make up a 56 delegate deficit to catch up to Obama in the pledged-delegate count by winning 254 of the remaining 451 elected delegates, or 56% to Obama’s 44%. In other words, even with impossible breaks going her way, deus ex machina, Clinton could only win by managing a 12-point spread across all the remaining contests, starting (but emphatically not ending) with Pennsylvania.

The important thing about these numbers is that while the politicians are playing the expectations game, and the TV pundits will proclaim a stunning victory if Clinton wins by five or more, and Howard Wolfson will talk about how Obama’s on the ropes, the numbers will let us focus on the issues that matter, according to how well Clinton does in Pennsylvania:

If Clinton wins Pennsylvania by 28 points or more, then every Democrat should acknowledge that her candidacy is unquestionably viable and stop squawking at her to bow out, at least unless and until future elections changed the calculus.

If she wins Pennsylvania by more than 12 points but less than 28, then the only way she can win the nomination without some kind of Superdelegate gamesmanship – which almost certainly would have some blowback for the Democratic Party in November – is if the Michigan and Florida delegations are seated as-is. Even though I don’t think there's any chance that's going to happen, a Clinton win in the 12 - 28 point range would definitely put the debate over what to do with those two states back on the front burner, with the heat turned up high.

If she wins Pennsylvania by fewer than 12 points, let alone loses it, then Clinton can’t win the race for pledged delegates even if Michigan and Florida are handed to her on a platter. Pennsylvania’s one of her strongest states, with an immensely powerful pro-Clinton Democratic machine and where every significant politician but one has endorsed her; if she can’t make the necessary margin there, then she’s lost the "election." And if she can’t make that margin, but still doesn’t drop out, then her plan necessarily is to win the nomination by persuading Superdelegates – and maybe, according to her unusual interpretation of party rules, even some non-Supers pledged to Obama – to override the democratic choice, effectively making all of the primaries and caucuses utterly irrelevant. If that’s the case, we need to stop wasting our energy pretending that the elections actually matter, and stop talking about Michigan and Florida, and start focusing, hard, on the real issue, which is whether we’re OK with our nominee being chosen by aristocrats instead of voters.

My purpose in presenting this analysis isn’t to pick a fight with Clinton supporters. I considered publishing this post AFTER the Pennsylvania primary, showing why the outcome – assuming it doesn’t meet the 28-point margin I believe actually governs Clinton’s chances – means Clinton can’t win. But I’m not interested in playing “gotcha” with Clinton backers, who mean well, share most of my values, and hopefully will support any Democrat running against McCain in November. Instead, I’m interested in determining whether Clinton has a serious shot at winning, how she might win (democratically or with a Superdelegate override), and using tomorrow’s election results to help focus the discussion among different cadres of Democrats who need to resolve their differences and learn to work together so we can start the serious and vital business of whupping John McCain, in a unified way, as soon as our nominee is chosen. And if Clinton does manage to pull a stunning upset in Pennsylvania – which in my book requires her to win by 28 points, and in everyone’s book should require her to win by at least 12 points – then I’m perfectly willing to eat crow, admit she’s still in the game, and rethink my positions. Hopefully every Democrat who sincerely cares about regaining the White House, whichever side of this debate they’re on, will be willing to do the same.
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Why Clinton HAS to Pack It In Now.

2008-04-16T16:47:00.001-07:00

Let's stop pretending: it's over. Done. Nice run, but time to hit the showers. Tonight's debate -- in which Clinton, to her credit, generally refrained from the kind of egregious negative campaigning her campaign focused on before the departure of Mark Penn -- eliminated any possible remaining doubt, not because Obama "won" but simply because he didn't destroy himself.

Clinton’s only real chance to win the nomination was for Obama to make a tremendous gaffe – so tremendous that he self-destructed and all the remaining Superdelegates turned to Clinton as the savior of the party – and the only place a hyper-intelligent guy like Obama would possibly slip up is in a highly public, unscripted setting like tonight’s debate. But he didn’t slip up, and it’s starting to look like there won’t even be any more debates. At this point the entire endgame is predictable. Clinton, like a good chess player, can easily see that the remaining moves inevitably lead to checkmate; it’s time for her to tip over her King and concede defeat.

“But wait!” some furious Clintonites are saying. “It’s not over til it’s over! She’s Rocky!” But waiting will do Clinton no good, and it will do the Democratic Party’s chance of winning in November a lot of harm:

• Clinton has zero chance of winning the popularly-elected delegates. Obama has a 162-pledged-delegate lead. The remaining primaries (Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana, South Dakota) offer a total of 566 pledged delegates. That means Clinton needs to win over 64% of all the remaining delegates – basically 2/3 of every delegate remaining – to gain the nomination democratically. Up until now, she’s won only about 49%; only 42% of Democrats nationwide prefer her to Obama; and even in Pennsylvania, the biggest remaining state and the one she’s most likely to win, she’s only polling at 50%. She’s not going to get two-thirds of the vote in Pennsylvania, let alone anywhere else. She. Can’t. Mathematically. Win. The. Popular.Vote.

• Absent some disastrous act of self-immolation by Obama, the Democratic Party won’t let the Superdelegates override the popular vote. Why not? Because doing so would tick off so many Democratic voters, who might stay home in November in a huff, that not only would McCain take the general election in a cakewalk, but the Republicans could actually pick up at least one seat in the Senate – costing the Democrats their current tenuous majority. There’s no way the Party’s power brokers will give up the White House, the Senate, and the chance (which goes with the White House) to appoint replacements for one or two Supreme Court justices (since one or two almost certainly will retire next term).

• Plus, every member of the House of Representatives, and 1/3 of the Senate, is up for re-election in November – and if Democratic voters stay home, lots of their seats could be in jeopardy. Every one of those incumbents is a Superdelegate. Even those who’ve pledged loyalty to Clinton will vote the same way as the public rather than risk losing their seats. No: the Supers aren’t going to save Clinton if she can’t win the popular vote. And she can’t win the popular vote.

• Clinton’s continued campaign is hurting Obama’s chances of winning in November without boosting her own. Check out these two graphs from pollster.com, showing how each candidate has fared in over 130 head-to-head matchup polls for over a year. The first shows Obama, who had polled significantly higher than McCain for a full year, suddenly dipping below McCain when Clinton switched to negative campaigning (calling Obama unready to be Commander in Chief in her 3AM ad, for example) -- then, thank God, starting to recover:

The second shows that while Clinton temporarily managed to bring Obama’s numbers down, she hasn’t brought her own numbers up: she’s never beaten McCain by much, and she's consistently polled behind (below) him since late last year, even after her campaign announced brazenly that her new strategy was to "throw the kitchen sink" at Obama -- and her electability, which got a bump almost (but not quite) to McCain's level when she first started dissing Obama, plunged down again almost immediately to an all-time low:

What do these graphs mean? That Obama has always been more electable than Clinton; that Clinton still isn’t electable; and Clinton is dragging Obama down. (A Reuters/Zogby poll released today continues this trend, showing Obama leading McCain in a head-to-head but Clinton merely tying him; and another poll shows that 62% of Democrats consider Obama more electable, despite all Clinton’s efforts to kneecap him.) All Clinton’s doing is hurting the Democratic Party’s chances of making gains in all three branches of the federal government, without helping her own. Anyone who truly believes that it’s more important to elect a Democrat, any Democrat, would be stepping aside after looking at these numbers. And Clinton -- whose campaign manager until last week is a professional pollster -- has, unquestionably, looked at these numbers.

• As if the 130 polls graphed above weren’t enough, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 59% of American voters don’t consider Clinton "honest and trustworthy." 59% – and falling fast, as well – and that’s BEFORE the Republican smear machine gets hold of her. Here’s some basic math: you can’t win an American election if over half the voters don’t trust you. You just can’t. Hillary’s “I’m more electable” line is just that: a line, not based in reality.

• The Republicans are picking up on every single Clinton attack. For instance, Clinton’s been hammering Obama for truthfully saying that working-class Americans have been screwed by the D.C. establishment and are angry and bitter about it; now McCain’s running that ball. She’s giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and the enemy’s happy as clams at high tide to let her. That’s why billionnaire rightwing wingnut Richard Mellon Scaife, who was behind most of the attacks against both Clintons in the ‘90s, supports Hillary. That’s why Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, supports Hillary. That’s why John McCain himself supports Hillary. It’s time for us Democrats to get real, grow up, and stop enabling Hillary to run the Democratic Party’s chances into the ground.

Here’s the real math behind Clinton’s continued campaign: 60 + 4 = 64. Clinton’s 60 years old. She knows she won’t get the nomination, or the Presidency, eight years from now when she’s 68 (only 3 years younger than McCain is now). But she can get it in 2012, when she’s only 64 – unless Obama’s already in the White House, in which case he’ll almost certainly be renominated. If Obama wins this election, Clinton will never be President. If he loses, Clinton gets another shot. So Clinton strings this thing out – and does everything she can to pull Obama down – while Republican strategists cheer her on, not because she realistically believes she can win in ‘08, but to preserve her shot at ‘12.

Will the Democratic Party’s power brokers give up the White House, the Senate, lots of House seats, and one or two Supreme Court slots, all so Hillary can have a second bite at the apple in 2012? Not a chance. Is it smart to keep priming the pump for the Republican campaign against Obama, given the reality that he’s going to be the nominee? Absolutely not. The good of the party, and the country, are more important than the Clintons’ egos and sense of entitlement. Hillary needs to bow out gracefully now – preserving her Senate seat, her good name, her standing in the party, and possibly a shot at one of those seats on the Supreme Court. That should be more than enough for anyone. And if she won’t, it’s time to pull the plug, whether she likes it or not.

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Clinton Downs a Beer and a Bump to Impress the Cool Kids -- And This Dad's Not OK With It

2008-04-14T12:12:00.001-07:00

As a father of daughters, I've got a big problem today with Hillary Clinton.

Let's be clear: I've got no problem with a President who occasionally chases down a slice of pizza with a cold brew or a shot of whiskey -- or both. Like most Oregonians, I'm particularly fond of our state's great microbrews and small wineries; I'm no prude about liquor (or much of anything else). And, of course, our current teetotaler President has been a disaster. (I'm put in mind of Lincoln during the Civil War: when an advisor complained that the North's most successful general was drinking too much, Abe ordered a barrel of the general's favorite whiskey sent to each of his other commanders.)

So if Clinton likes an (imported) Crown Royal, neat, back on the campaign plane at the end of the day, or -- without fanfare -- tips back a cool one with supporters at a pizza joint, I'm good. But that's not what she did Saturday night at Bronko’s Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point, Indiana Saturday night. No: she bumped back a boilermaker to make a point about Barack Obama being "out of touch" with blue-collar voters, playing off his comment about some middle Americans being "bitter" at being ignored by Washington insiders.

Hillary Clinton is not normally a brew-and-a-bump kind of gal; she's just not. But she is a political animal, through and through -- and drinking boilermakers as a strategy for reaching Pennsylvania's working-class voters was even discussed jokingly in a segment of MSNBC's Hardball earlier this month, which Clinton's campaign staff wouldn't have missed. No: Clinton intentionally chose to do a particularly unhealthy kind of drinking -- chugging beer and whiskey at once, a combo designed to make you drunker, faster -- to increase her popularity with people she really has nothing in common with so that they'll vote for her.

Politics is politics, but it's not OK for Hillary Clinton or anyone else in public life to flaunt heavy public drinking in order to be more popular.

I'm the father of two beautiful, brilliant, creative, loving, sometimes gloriously self-confident, sometimes tragically insecure daughters, ages 12 and 14. Both are deeply engaged and opinionated about politics (at a John Kerry rally, my then-8-year-old tugged my arm and said, "hey, Dad, isn't that Peter DeFazio?"). And both, like everyone their age, are sometimes too concerned with popularity.

The older one will start high school next year -- where, I know full well, she'll start making delicate decisions about boys, alcohol, drugs, and the whole dangerous balance between exercising independence and experimenting with life, on the one hand, and remaining safe, on the other. I'm no fool: I know she'll make some decisions I won't agree with. My hope is that she'll be able to draw on varied sources of wisdom to help her make decisions that are still sound, still sensible, even if they aren't exactly the ones her dad would choose. And as she does that -- as she tries to figure out how to grow up and move beyond my paternalistic rules to become a wise and self-sufficient and complete woman -- I'd like her to be able to look to accomplished, self-confident, successful women like Hillary Clinton as role models.

If one of my daughters, trying to win Student Body President, showed up at a keg party and got drunk in order to score points with the "populars" (ask your kid if you don't know who they are), I'd be incredibly disappointed -- and angry, and concerned. Should I feel any differently when Hillary Clinton does it?

Fortunately, my daughters already know that what Clinton did is wrong. At a supposedly irresponsible age, they know it's not cool to misuse alcohol to "fit in." Even for adults, even to win a big election, it's just. not. cool.

But Hillary Clinton -- the candidate who trumpets her experience and worldliness as predictors of her supposed good judgment -- doesn't seem to have figured that out. She's drinking in public to look cool and win votes. For the first woman with a serious shot at the White House to trumpet an unhealthy kind of drinking in order to gain publicity points, is to display either an utter tone-deafness to her role as a model for America's girls (and even adults), or a culpable willingness to ignore her moral compass in order to win. She's either inexcusably foolish or inexcusably calculating; take your pick.

Either way, she deserves to be grounded by the responsible adults in the Democratic Party, not elected Student Body President.
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(Photo credit: AP)
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U.S. Leadership Contact Info

2008-04-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

White House: 202-456-1111; comments@whitehouse.gov

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: (202) 225-4965; AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: 202-224-3542; http://reid.senate.gov/contact/

Sen. Hillary Clinton: (202) 224-4451; http://clinton.senate.gov/contact

Sen. Barack Obama: (202) 224-2854; http://obama.senate.gov/contact/

Sen. John McCain: (202) 224-2235; http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

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Let's Send the Dalai Lama to the Olympics

2008-04-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

The world’s leaders should pressure China to recognize the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama by saying they’ll only attend the Olympic Ceremonies if China lets him attend as well. And we citizens should pressure our leaders to make that happen! (You'll find contact info for the White House, Presidential candidates, and Congressional leaders at the bottom of this post if you want to read it -- or you can skip my blathering and jump to contact info here. Thanks!)
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UPDATE, APRIL 10: The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a resolution calling for China to change its position on Tibet -- ticking China off. The Secretary General of the United Nations won't be at the opening ceremonies -- but only for "scheduling" reasons. The Dalai Lama is in Seattle. But so far, the only thing being demanded of China is talk -- which is cheap -- so it's important to get leaders to at least consider the idea of the Dalai Lama actually attending the Olympics (as he said he wants to do). So please use the contact info below to make calls and send emails! Thanks.

ORIGINAL POST: China’s decades-long occupation, and recent violent suppression, of Tibet isn’t an easy problem to solve. On the one hand, any halfway objective person knows that China’s invasion of Tibet in 1950 was wrong, its imprisonment and murder of tens of thousands of peaceful Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople is wrong, its insistence that all other Buddhists in that country disown the Dalai Lama and swear allegiance to the “Panchen Lama” picked by the Communist government (after it kidnapped and presumably killed the child identified by the Dalai Lama as the true one) was wrong. China’s suppression of Catholic Easter services near Tibet was wrong, its exclusion of journalists from all places where dissent might occur is wrong, its continued suppression of the Falun Gong religious sect is wrong, and on and on. China doesn’t deserve to host the Olympics, with the boosts to its economy and to its reputation that such an honor bestows. Ergo, the protests surrounding the Olympic torch.

On the other hand, most Chinese sincerely believe that Tibet is and always has been part of China and that all pro-Tibet sentiment actually is thinly concealed anti-Chinese prejudice. In foreign affairs, China’s leaders are almost as paranoid, and their thinking is almost as skewed, as North Korea’s, a reality that most Americans don’t fully appreciate. It’s easy to hurt their feelings and stir their nationalist sentiments. And that wouldn’t be a good idea: China is the second-largest of America’s foreign creditors, and one of America’s largest trading partners; if China got really angry it could elect not to buy any U.S. Treasuries at the next quarterly bond auction, and potentially plunge our economy from recession into a full-blown depression. We’ve come to rely on China’s goodwill far, far too much, with the result that we are not free, and we are not safe. But since we can’t extricate ourselves from that dependence right away, especially under the current Administration, we do need to tread carefully.

There are a number of ways countries could respond to China’s latest human rights violations, ranging from meaningless verbal expressions of outrage (President Bush’s response) to a full-blown boycott like the one Jimmy Carter called on the Moscow Olympics when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (an invasion that led, more or less directly, to 9/11 and to our occupation of Iraq). One alternative falling somewhere in the middle of that range is for other nations’ leaders to personally boycott the Opening Ceremonies, which would be a significant slight to the Chinese government’s self-image. When unrest in Tibet flared up again a month or so ago, Bush twice ruled out such a personal boycott, saying that while he hoped the Chinese would show restraint, he still would attend the Olympics’ opening ceremonies because the Olympics are just a sporting event. But suppression has continued; U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced he won’t attend the Opening Ceremonies unless he sees serious dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama, and Hillary Clinton (after ducking the issue for too long, and still without calling for the Administration to reinstate China to the U.S.’s list of human rights violators (they were removed just this year) has correctly called for Bush to boycott the Ceremonies.

There’s a big problem with the “we’ll boycott the Opening Ceremonies unless you open real dialogue with the Dalai Lama” approach, though: talk is cheap. The Chinese could “dialogue” with the Dalai Lama until the Olympics were over, then return to their old views as soon as the Olympics were over. That approach gives good “cover” to both China and to Western leaders who need to appear outraged but who don’t really want to rile the Chinese – but it won’t do Tibet any good. No: any threat to boycott the Opening Ceremonies – or even the Olympics themselves, which I favor; we could hold a “Freedom Olympics” elsewhere so that the world’s athletes could still compete – must be coupled with something much more tangible than “dialogue.” The question is, what would be a tangible, and significant, way for China to signal a serious change of policy toward Tibet?

In comments this morning, the Dalai Lama himself may, probably inadvertently, have given us the key: he would like to attend the Opening Ceremonies.

That’s brilliant, and we should seize it: The rest of the world’s leaders should announce that they will do as the Dalai Lama does: if the Chinese allow him to attend the Games, they will attend the Games; if China won’t let Tibet’s rightful head of state attend, then no other world leader will attend.

To understand the huge significance such a simple thing would mean for China, we have to understand China’s policy toward the Dalai Lama. Consistent with his spiritual role in Tibetan Buddhism as the embodiment of Compassion itself, the Dalai Lama has said that China is entitled to hold the Olympics – and even that he doesn’t want full independence for Tibet, just real freedom of religion and government. Many of his followers think he’s being too passive, and when he passes away all possibility of such a modest settlement of its dispute with Tibet will probably disappear, but the Chinese government continues to demonize the Dalai Lama, calling him a tyrant, accusing him of conspiring with Muslims to destroy China, and other downright silly claims. The last thing the Chinese want to do – and the thing they should be eager to do – is recognize the Dalai Lama’s legitimacy, and to bolster his leadership of the Tibetan community worldwide, so they can snap up the once-in-a-lifetime (literally) compromise he offers.

So one goal of an Opening Ceremony or even Games-wide boycott could be to obtain clear Chinese acceptance of the Dalai Lama as the legitimate political, as well as spiritual, leader of Tibet. That would be a huge victory for Tibet, given that the Dalai Lama hasn't returned to China or Tibet since he fled in 1959, and there are Tibetans in Chinese jails at this moment merely for possessing his photograph. To give him any credibility at all would be a wrenching change for Chinese policy. And the Olympic Games present a perfect opportunity to make recognition happen. Conditioning a boycott on China granting permission for the Dalai Lama to travel freely to the Games would put the entire matter squarely in China’s lap: if they care more about suppressing internal dissent, then they will lose their standing in the international community, and if they care more about their world standing, then they will have to alter their “internal” policy on Tibet. And having the Dalai Lama appear on TV as the leader of Tibet during the Olympics would be an irrevocable recognition of his leadership – galling, but irrevocable.

So let’s help the Dalai Lama get what he wants, by calling for President Bush and the rest of the world’s leaders to condition their attendance at the Opening Ceremonies on the Dalai Lama’s own attendance. And let’s not just blog about it; let’s make our voices heard, by telling both the President and our other leaders what we’d like to see: that WE GO ONLY IF THE DALAI LAMA GOES:

White House: 202-456-1111; comments@whitehouse.gov

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: (202) 225-4965; AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: 202-224-3542; http://reid.senate.gov/contact/

Sen. Hillary Clinton: (202) 224-4451; http://clinton.senate.gov/contact

Sen. Barack Obama: (202) 224-2854; http://obama.senate.gov/contact/

Sen. John McCain: (202) 224-2235; http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Have fun, and please post comments to indicate how those contacts go!
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Clinton Finally Agrees to Debate in North Carolina

2008-04-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

Back on March 13, Barack Obama accepted nearly-simultaneous offers to debate in both Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Clinton immediately also accepted -- in Pennsylvania. No mention of North Carolina. ("North Carolina? Where I expect to lose?" Crickets.)

Now, though, Obama's position in Pennsylvania polls is moving steadily upward. If Clinton doesn't win big in PA, she's a goner with any Superdelegates she still hopes to pull her way with her spurious "electability" argument. The only way she could survive a close shave in PA (let alone a loss, which was unthinkable back on March 13) is for her, by some miracle, to take North Carolina, which Obama expects to win -- and/or for Obama to make some huge, unexpected gaffe, which he's unlikely to do in scripted appearance. And, of course, if her campaign's so far in debt that she can't even pay her own staff's medical insurance premiums or the bills of the small businesses she hired to set up stages and lighting for her campaign appearances, and raising so little money that she's ~~afraid to even release her March fundraising numbers~~ [UPDATE: a few hours later, she changed her mind and released them -- half what Obama raised], these next primaries are her last chance to pull something out of a hat (all her protestations about going "all the way" aside).

So, seeing Pennsylvania (and her shot at President, at least this election cycle) slipping away, Clinton's folks announced a little over an hour ago that she WILL debate him in North Carolina as well.

This isn't transparency: back in March, Clinton kept challenging Obama to more debates (20 wasn't enough) -- yet 22 was too many? No: it's strategic. She'd only debate where she expected to win, until she expected to lose, at which point she might as well debate where she expects to lose in the long-shot hope that she'll win.

Complicated? Yep. But then, so is Hillary's electoral math -- and all sleight of hand requires some complicated distraction.

The Pennsylvania and North Carolina debates should be a lot of fun, at least. In their last debate, Clinton was still playing nice, even plagiarizing John Edwards and saying that she was "proud" to be on the same stage as Obama. But now her campaign has not only announced that it intended to "throw the kitchen sink" at Obama, but has tried its best to do so. The gloves are off, Obama has shown that while he won't attack he will vigorously defend -- and this may be Obama's best chance to, in his statesmanlike way, put Clinton down for the count. Which, after a good run but for the greater good of the Democratic Party at this point, is where she belongs.
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Hillary Clinton and the Opaque Politics of Porkbarrel Spending

2008-04-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, APRIL 3 PART 2: And six hours later, she changes course and releases her March numbers. Strong public opinion favoring an open democratic process is a great thing, ain't it?

UPDATE, APRIL 3, 2008: In another example of oversecrecy: Hillary Clinton's campaign won't release its (presumably dismal) March fundraising figures until forced to do so by election laws -- which isn't until 2 days before the critical (for her) Pennsylvania primary. Couple this with her (hopefully unsuccessful) effort not to release her 2000 through 2006 tax returns until three days before that primary, her campaign's strenuous effort to encourage absentee voting in PA (so that people will have cast their votes before any bad news is released), and her foot-dragging on disclosing her earmarks (discussed in the post below), and you have a candidate working hard NOT to let voters have full information until it's too late. Which isn't transparent -- and also suggests she's artificially propping up her "electability" argument, when in fact she probably will be significantly less electable than she is now (which ain't saying much) after all facts are known.

ORIGINAL POST: Transparency is essential to a democracy. When Bill Clinton assembled timber company executives, environmental advocates, scientists, and lawmakers in a public forum in Portland, Oregon to hammer out a consensus agreement on timber policy, that was transparent. When Hillary Clinton met with a similar group representing those interested in healthcare reform, but behind closed doors, that was not transparent -- and her signature healthcare reform proposal failed. When Dick Cheney assembled a similar, even more secret energy task force, it was not transparent. Basically, we like and will support transparent initiatives and candidates; we (legitimately) distrust opaque initiatives and candidates.

When Barack Obama put all his tax returns for the years 2000 through 2006 online a little over a week ago, that was transparent. If Hillary Clinton keeps her promise to put her tax returns online this week, that will be transparent. If she blanks out major portions of those tax returns (as she whited out entire pages of her First Lady schedules), that would not be transparent -- and I'll bring it to your attention. (John McCain hasn't produced his tax returns and hasn't given any indication that he'll do so, but that's no surprise -- today's Republicans generally are allergic to transparency.)

There's another important area where our candidates need to be transparent: earmarks. Earmarks are specific spending requests made by individual Senators that bypass the normal competitive bidding process for government process and/or remove the Executive Branch's discretion on how to allocate money generally allotted by Congress for categories or kinds of spending. (They're named after the ancient practice of placing unique cuts in the ears of livestock to show ownership.)

Earmarks can be helpful, because Senators should be aware of what their own state's spending needs are and it may be very efficient for them to target federal money to directly meet their state's needs, and also because they help prevent a President from rewarding or punishing individual members of Congress by spending or withholding money from particular projects that are important to them and their constituents. But earmarks also are dangerous in a democracy, because they're the most direct way a Senator can reward a supporter: construction contractor makes campaign donation, Senator earmarks federal spending on a road project that said construction contractor is positioned to be awarded, said construction contractor makes back 100 times its original "investment." Connecting campaign contributions (which are fairly transparent) to earmarks is an invaluable way of determining whether a politician is using the citizens' own money to get the same citizens to re-elect him or her -- ie, whether a politician is on the up-and-up.

But there's a problem: under one of those strange rules that only the U.S. Congress could evolve (like filibuster and cloture and "holds"), earmarks are confidential: a Senator can direct that federal tax money be spent on a particular project without the public knowing about that Senator's involvement. That rule is a travesty -- it's our money! They're our employees! -- but that's the way it is.

Understanding that this rule is unfair, and wanting voters to know what spending projects he considers important, Barack Obama has "released" -- surrendered his privacy regarding -- his earmarks. John McCain, to his credit, doesn't do earmarks at all.

But Hillary Clinton not only engages in earmarking, but she voted against a proposed bill to make earmarks public and has refused to make her earmarks public. We know how many she placed, and we know their total cost, but we don't know specifically what they are. While she's nowhere near as bad as Republican Thad Cochran of Mississippi ($892 million in non-defense earmarks), she's still a pretty big spender: she was the second highest "earmark" spender in the Senate in the 2008 Defense Appropriations bill. She's no slouch when it comes to non-domestic spending either: the annual Pig Book report on porkbarrel spending released today by the group Citizens Against Government Waste (reported by CNN) reveals that:

"Sen. (Barack) Obama had 53 earmarks worth $97 million dollars, and Sen. (Hillary) Clinton had 281 earmarks worth $296 million. Sen. Obama recently said he would not request any project for this upcoming fiscal year," said Tom Schatz, the president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

"And of course Sen. (John) McCain has never requested them and he won't be doing so in 2009. So now the question is if Sen. Clinton will join the other major candidates in saying that she will not request any earmarks for 2009."

C.A.G.W. is wrong about one thing: the immediate question isn't whether Clinton will join McCain and Obama in pledging not to engage in secret earmarks next year. The immediate question is whether she will release her earmarks for this year (and for all prior years), so voters know what -- and who -- she spent nearly one-third of a billion dollars of our money on.

Again: McCain doesn't engage in earmarking. Obama is a modest earmarker, and has made his public. Clinton is a much larger earmarker, is opposed to making earmarks transparent, and has refused to identify the specific 281 projects she spent our money on in the last year alone.

That's secretive, not transparent. It's Cheney-esque, not Democratic. Clinton should release not only her tax returns, but also her earmarks, a.s.a.p., to let voters know where her priorities -- and her loyalties -- can be found.
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Breaking News: Clinton Clearly Promises to Produce Full Tax Returns Next Week

2008-03-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

In a lengthy and wide-ranging telephone press conference today called by Hillary Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson, Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer, and Policy Director Neera Tanden, I asked the following question:

I’ve seen reports that Senator Clinton will be producing some kind of financial information next week, but the details have been a little vague. Will Senator Clinton be producing her complete 2000 through 2006 tax returns, including all schedules, next week?

Wolfson responded:

Sen Clinton said ... that she would be producing her tax returns within the week, and we are endeavoring to do just that. And as to – I’m not fully conversant enough to know what the distinction is between schedules and other tax information, so I don’t want to give you an answer that is incorrect, but I am quite confident that all of the information that the public needs and that reporters need to make very, very informed judgments about their finances will be made available.... [O]f course they have filed annual financial disclosure forms while Senator Clinton was in the Senate that details [sic] the sources of their income, and obviously tax returns will provide additional information, and I am confident that you and others will have ample opportunity to look at them and if you have followup questions of course we’ll be available to answer them, but I am quite confident that all information that is necessary to make very good judgments about their finances will be made available.

I asked a followup:

Scanning and posting tax returns is a fairly simple process. Why is there any delay at all in making her returns available?

Wolfson responded:

You know, why was there delay in Senator Obama’s making his returns available....? You know, we’ll have them within the week, you’ll have an opportunity to look at them, you can turn a skeptical eye to them as you may care to and if you have followup questions about them we’ll be happy to answer them, but they’ll be available online.... and people will be able to take a look at them.

I admit it: I’m a cynic. I saw no news reports or press releases in which Clinton herself promised to produce tax returns next week – but maybe it just wasn’t publicized. I still don’t understand why it takes more than 24 hours to have a staffer scan and post tax returns; some bloggers and commentors have articulated fears that the Clintons are using this time to have their returns doctored, and while I don’t share those fears, posting the returns immediately after Obama did would have snuffed out any such speculation. It also strikes me as a little funny that someone as well-informed and sophisticated as Wolfson doesn’t know what tax schedules are – they’re simply the attachments that go with the Form 1040 whenever a taxpayer itemizes his or her deductions or has investment income, as the Clintons (and Wolfson) certainly do. And the length and repetitiveness of his answer makes me mindful of the Queen’s comment in Hamlet: “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” As one person has exegised the line, “[s]omeone who is telling the truth [usually does so] ... rather plainly and shortly. Someone who is assuring too much is usually lying either to herself or to the audience”– ie, it implies that “the lady” “will break her word.”

But I’m tired of being cynical, and I’m going to trust that the lady’s word is good. I’m looking forward to next week, when we’ll all know exactly how good it is.

To those who encouraged Clinton to do the right thing by participating in the “Tax Fax” grassroots campaign (outlined on both The Huffington Post and VichyDems) by faxing copies of their own tax returns, with personal info deleted, to Clinton’s campaign offices – you can stand down. THANK YOU, and GOOD WORK!
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Hillary Clinton's Plan for the Economy Isn't for Us; It's For the Superdelegates

2008-03-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

(Update, April 3: More economic plans, no new news.)

SOME POLITICAL CANDIDATES come up with new ideas and new initiatives because they really want to help people. Yes, we've all become cynical -- but there are still some of that good kind.

Then there's the more pedestrian, and plentiful, kind of candidate, the one who will say things and present new initiatives not so much to help people (though that's a nice side effect), but to make him- or herself look good -- to give the impression that they're problem-solving go-getters instead of poll-tracking, focus-group-reading, self-seeking hacks.

Hillary Clinton claims Barack Obama is the second kind: all words, no substance. She's not just wrong; she even knows she's wrong, and is making those accusations just to win, but a lot of people still don't see it. I've been paying a lot of attention to this specific issue -- substance vs. posing -- even, unlike more casual bloggers, listening in and sometimes asking questions during both candidates' regular press conference conference calls and reading all their campaign press releases. I even initially had some reservations about Obama (feel free to search this blog for my older posts about Obama), but the more I see of him, the more I see that he is the real thing. And "the real thing," in politics, is so rare that sometimes we can't even remember what it looks like. And as the campaign drags on, I also see more and more proof that Clinton is the second kind of politician: one who only does things if they'll help her, who wants to win more than she wants to do good. But, as I said, that's hard to show.

But sometimes we get lucky:

Today both candidates are giving major economic addresses . But last Thursday, in an effort to counter Obama's excellent speech that morning about how the Iraq War is dragging down the economy, her campaign emailed me (and 8,600 or so other media outlets) a preview that demonstrates how Hillary Clinton really looks at things -- and how little she actually cares about the real people trapped by the foreclosure crisis.

The Clinton press release is titled, "Must Read: Business Week: Hillary Targets the Credit Crisis. She's stepping up with measures aimed at voters' pocketbook woes." And at first I thought, wow, that's pretty powerful! A major business magazine sees her as the candidate who's taking the lead to really help people facing hard times in a tough economy! But then I actually read it.

Clinton's press release consisted entirely of excerpts from an article in Business Week. Not the whole article, understand -- just the parts that the Clinton campaign thought it was must important for reporters to read -- the "must read" parts, in Clinton's terms. And I was brought back to the sad reality that all Clinton really cares about is the election.

Boiling it down, here are the two things the Clinton campaign people really, really wanted journalists to take note of (bold emphases are mine):

1. Clinton Is Only Helping Citizens In Order To Win Votes -- Of Superdelegates:

"Clinton plans to discuss the details of her stimulus plan in a speech on the economy set for Mar. 24. Further initiatives are likely in coming weeks. The idea, of course, is to show voters exactly what Clinton would do to head off the crisis if she were in the White House. ...

"With Clinton's emphasis on pragmatic plans and pocketbook issues, analysts say she could get a bump up if she can convince voters she's better prepared to handle the economy's deepening problems. With the next big primary set for Apr. 22 in Pennsylvania, 'she's got five weeks to show she can really dominate this issue,' says Daniel Clifton, a political analyst at investment firm Strategas Research Partners. 'This could be a huge opportunity for her to rack up big margins.'...

"The fight over Pennsylvania, which has a struggling industrial base, a large population of blue-collar workers, and rising foreclosures, will be critical. Even if Clinton tallies big victories in Pennsylvania or other remaining states, she will probably not emerge with a delegate lead. Yet by nurturing the perception that she's the one to save voters' jobs and homes, she could sway the critical superdelegates to her side. 'Her only case is: I've got the lunch-bucket votes, and we can't win in November without them,' says pollster John Zogby."

2. She's Not Doing Anything For the Economy That Obama's Not Doing, Too: As if to underscore the fact that Clinton's initiatives are just for show, the excerpts that Clinton chose to distribute make clear that there's no substantive difference between the candidates, who both are carefully watching the "Main Street" economy and supporting legislation to help unemployed people, homeowners, and local communities:

"Obama's advisers say that he, too, is studying further plans to address the economy's problems, including measures to extend unemployment benefits and aid communities that have suffered a loss of tax revenues through foreclosures. Like Clinton, he backs congressional plans to refinance homeowners who need cheaper mortgages. 'If conditions remain bad or worse, those are the things we'll push,' says Heather Higginbottom, Obama's policy director."

There's an important nuance here. The Clinton folks didn't write the Business Week article. But they did choose which parts of it they wanted to emphasize -- and they intentionally chose the parts that showed Clinton as a shrewd political operator (that unelected Superdelegates hopefully will think is a good match for John McCain), ignoring the parts that might have showed her as being a true stateswoman working for the common good.

Why would they choose to emphasize the "she's a manipulative politician playing the angles" parts? Because that's actually what her campaign wants the press to hint at -- that she's trickier than Obama. Why? So that despite the mathematical reality that it's statistically impossible for her to catch up with Obama in the popular vote, and despite the polls that confirm more Democrats want Obama to be the nominee than Clinton (polls she's working hard to change by slamming Obama at every opportunity), she can still snag the nomination in August by getting the Supers to ignore the voters and select her -- just like the Supreme Court ignored the will of the voters and selected Bush President in 2000.

I dislike the fact that Hillary Clinton is a manipulative, win-at-any-cost, last-generation, faux-progressive, pro-corporate pol whose chief campaign strategist is a pollster and who is jeopardizing the whole Democratic Party's chances of winning the White House by taking her husband's advice last December to "attack" Obama -- even if doing so means making false allegations; even if doing so means McCain will win in November.

But even more than that, I dislike the fact that she's not only not trying to hide her true nature, she's actually subtly bragging about it in order to win the over a small but critical subset of Superdelegates -- those who aren't just party activists, but party insiders who are so circumscribed by their Inside-the-Beltway worldview and so beholden to the Clinton machine's favors that they would actually ignore the popular will and broker the convention instead.

The first fact merely shows what she is; the second fact shows that she doesn't even have the decency to show some shame about it.
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A Judge Makes an Irrelevant Ruling on a Minor Part of Michigan's Primary Law -- and Clinton Starts Spinning

2008-03-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

Let's just dispose of this quickly, and move on:

A federal judge in Michigan has just ruled that a minor part of Michigan’s primary law is unconstitutional. That ruling says that either everyone is entitled to see voter records (not just the two major parties), or no one is. It’s a correct ruling, but totally irrelevant to the question of whether, and how, Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates should be seated at the National Convention. (Background here; more reports on the ruling here, here; blogs sane and otherwise here, here, here, here, here.)

Yet within minutes, the Clinton campaign issued a press release calling again for Michigan’s current delegates to be seated (even though Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot), or for a revote (which, with the Michigan Legislature on recess, is now an impossibility).

Let’s be clear: it bites that Michigan and Florida moved their primaries up. It bites that the Democratic National Committee – including fervent Clinton supporter and advisor Harold Ickes – decided unanimously to disenfranchise their voters as a result. But none of that is Barack Obama’s fault.

Now may we all please go back to copying and faxing Sen. Clinton copies of our (redacted) tax returns, to encourage her to make her own 2000 through 2006 returns public the way Obama has?

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Activism You Can Do: Help Clinton Produce Her Tax Returns By Sending a “Tax Fax”

2008-03-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, 3/27: STAND DOWN! In a Clinton press conference today, I asked her Communications Director, Howard Wolfson, whether Clinton would produce all her returns next week. He promised she would. I take him at his word. Stop faxing (unless you want to send a one-pager saying "Thank you!") -- and check back here next week when we'll see what exactly shows up. GREAT WORK, AND THANK YOU!!

~~UPDATE, 3/26:~~ ~~No additional fax numbers yet. Thanks!~~
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Hillary Clinton, who claims to be “the most transparent” politician in America, isn’t. There’s a long history of her withholding documents relating to her personal history, her days as First Lady, and her financial records (for instance, why did she wait until after the important primary in NAFTA-hating Ohio to release her daily schedules as First Lady, which show all the work she did to help NAFTA pass?) ~~(For those who are interested, I'll add more detail about Barack Obama’s unusual frankness and transparency, and Clinton’s lack of it, at the bottom of this post as soon as I can.)~~

Today the issue is tax returns. It’s become customary for Presidential candidates to release copies of their returns so voters can see how they’ve made their money -- and who they might owe favors to.

Barack Obama released his tax returns to the media a year ago. Today he went even further and posted all his returns from 2000 forward on his campaign website. You can get .pdfs of them here.

But Hillary Clinton – who is rich enough that she’s personally loaned at least $5 million to her own campaign to keep it afloat – hasn’t produced any tax returns since her husband left office. That’s seven years during which she and Bill went from being civil servants to becoming incredibly wealthy – yet she won’t tell the public where her newly-acquired millions came from. (At first, she ignored the issue. Then, she said she wouldn't produce them until she actually received the nomination. Next, she said she would produce them sometime "around" April 15. Now, she's agreed to produce something tax-wise, but not until 3 days before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22 -- nearly a month away, and not leaving Pennsylvania voters much time to really thing about any issues her returns might raise -- and won't say exactly what she'll provide: for instance, will it be just the 1040s, or also the schedules and attachments that contain the actual details?)

A more cynical person than me might suspect those tax returns contain something Clinton would rather hide -- but Senator Clinton has a simpler explanation.

Why hasn’t she done what every other candidate has done, and made copies of her tax returns available early enough to make a difference? Because, she claims, "I'm a little busy right now" – as if she personally needs to rummage through her filing cabinet, run to Kinko’s, and look up the fax number for the Associated Press.

Personally, I think it's easier to photocopy a tax return than Clinton thinks. In fact, since 2007's returns are due in less than a month, everyone in America has just finished, or soon will be, filling out, copying (for their own files), and sending off a tax return. In other words, we’re all doing exactly what Clinton claims she “doesn’t have time” to do!

So here’s an idea: LET’S ALL SHOW HILLARY HOW EASY IT IS, BY SENDING HER COPIES OF OUR OWN TAX RETURNS. It’s ridiculously simple:

1. Grab this year’s tax return, and some past years’ returns too if they’re handy, and copy them.

2. Take a Sharpie and black out any personal information like your name, social security number, etc. – we don’t want any identity theft!

3. Scribble a brief note, maybe in huge Sharpie letters on the first page of your return, saying something like: “Hey, Hil: if I can do this, so can you. Please produce your 2000-2006 returns NOW.”

4. Fax to one of Clinton’s campaign offices. (I say fax, not mail, because all mail to Senators has to be screened for anthrax before it’s opened.)

That’s it! Grassroots activism at its best (and simplest!). Again: photocopy, Sharpie, note, fax – and you’re a “netboots” activist (informed by the Internet, but taking action, "boots on the ground"). Feel good? It should!

Here are three important guidelines to make sure you’re just sending a message, not harassing or interfering with her campaign:

1. Please keep your cover note polite and to the point.

2. Don’t send faxes to Clinton’s official Senate offices (either in D.C. or in New York); those numbers are for her real work, and we don’t want to interfere with that in any way.

3. Do your best to fax a local campaign office, not the national one. That way, the load will be spread among many fax machines, rather than jamming up a few important ones and making them unusable for campaign business. Again: we’re sending a message, not doing a dirty trick by jamming her lines.

Contact information for Clinton’s various campaign offices can be found on her website’s “States” page. If her local campaign office shows a telephone number but not a fax number, give them a call and ask politely what their fax number is (and please share that info in the comments section of this post so others in your area can use it). If her website doesn’t give any local information for your state (e.g., she has lots of info for Pennsylvania, where she expects to win, and none for North Carolina, where she doesn’t), then you don’t have much choice, and need to use one of her other numbers. Only for those who don’t have a local office to telephone or fax to, here are some fax numbers you can try:

National Campaign Headquarters (Virginia): 703-962-8600
Pennsylvania Headquarters: 215-625-0379
New York Headquarters: 212-213-3041

If I can get more fax numbers to spread things out, I’ll post them here -- so please check back if the numbers above get too busy.

Thanks for playing “help the candidates be transparent!” – and let us know how it goes!

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Chinese Government Bans Tibet Catholic Easter Service

2008-03-23T12:11:00.001-07:00

(Photo: nave of the Catholic church in Cizhong, China, where Easter services are being curtailed by the Chinese government.)

It isn't just Buddhists whose religious freedom is being curtailed by the People's Republic of China. Chinese of all faiths, from Buddhists to Taoists to Falun Gong to Christians and others, face the same kind of government "editing" of their faith that Tibetan Buddhists do -- and now, there's news that China has even ordered many Tibetan area Catholics not to celebrate Easter today.

First, a quick background: When it seized power in 1949, China's Communist government, consistent with its atheistic philosophy, originally tried to extinguish religion altogether. However, it recognized fairly quickly that religion can't be completely suppressed -- and cleverly, if not wisely or laudably, shifted to a "co-opting" strategy instead. Probably the earliest example is Chairman Mao's famous "Little Red Book" of Communist aphorisms and rules for living: much of the book is nothing more than traditional Confucian proverbs, twisted to fit Mao's agenda. Sayings that Chinese grandparents had been repeating for hundreds of years suddenly seemed, to a new generation of Chinese, to support the Communist doctrine they were learning at school and elsewhere, helping Mao become as venerated, in the new State, as Confucius was in the old.

Similarly, the Chinese government co-opts all other forms of religion as well. Buddhist monks must disown the Dalai Lama and swear allegiance to the State over their religion before being allowed to study in monasteries. When the Dalai Lama, as is traditional, designated the successor to the Panchen Lama, Chinese authorities whisked the boy away, never to be seen again, and named their own "Panchen Lama." In a show of cynicism so transparent that it would be funny if it weren't so sad, a group of official "Living Buddhas" have even issued a statement supporting the government and condemning the protests in Tibet as the actions of drunk monks.

But such meddling isn't limited to Buddhists. On Easter, it is meet and proper to recall the plight of China's Christians, too. The Catholic Church is a prime example. In the 1950s -- at the same time as Maoists were clamping down in Tibet -- the Chinese government abolished the Catholic Church and replaced it with a "Patriotic Catholic Association," whose bishops are all state-appointed and which teaches loyalty to the State above loyalty to the Pope.

China's interference with Catholic worship is alive and well this Easter day, as well, in Rome as well as China. Pope Benedict, who has been trying to open dialogue with China over Catholic religious freedoms, instructed that the illustrations for the Way of the Cross procession in Rome today be done in Chinese style. He also apparently instructed the archbishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, to tone down the written meditations he wrote to accompany those illustrations, to omit any direct criticism of the Chinese government.

And now China -- newly-removed from the Bush Administration's list of human rights violators, awarded the right to host the Olympics this summer, which George Bush will visit soon no matter how it abuses its power in Tibet, and handled with kid gloves by the Catholic Church -- has ordered some Tibetan Catholics not to celebrate Easter this year:

CIZHONG, China (AFP) — The Tibetan Catholic Church in Cizhong, a Christian enclave on the threshold of the Himalayas, has seen its Easter services curbed after anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa caused the region's deadliest tensions in two decades.

As a result, this tiny community of less than 1,000 souls located in amid picturesque mountains in an overwhelmingly Buddhist area has been affected by the recent unrest where it matters the most for them -- religion. ***

This Easter has been especially important as Father Yao Fei, a short bespectacled ethnic Mongolian in his late 30s, only arrived in Cizhong in February.

This made him the first permanent priest to live here since French clergymen were expelled shortly after communist China was established in 1949.

Since then, Catholic priests were only periodically dispatched to Cizhong for special occasions such as Christmas and Easter....

However, following the deadly March 14 riots in Lhasa, police from Diqing Tibetan prefecture, in the northwest of Yunnan province, told church officials to restrict Easter services to fewer than 100 people.

They did not say why ....

"We are only expecting about 80 followers from (Cizhong) village to attend Easter services as the worshippers from other villages will not be allowed to come," Yao told AFP on Good Friday.

Understand: no protests have occurred in Cizhong. Cizhong isn't even located inside Tibet. The unrest in Tibet is directly related to China's interference with Tibetan Buddhism and has nothing to do with Catholicism or any other religion (though the Chinese government is now even accusing the Dalai Lama of "collaborating" with Muslims). There's no reason to fear this small village on the Mekong River, or its neighbors. And yet, a paranoid government that fears all religion uses unrest in Tibet as an excuse to bar Cizhong's first priest in 59 years from celebrating his first Easter service with the majority his parishioners. He is Risen, Indeed -- but not this year, for the faithful around Cizhong -- or so China hopes. (Of course, adherents of all faiths, and even those who adhere to no faith but who stand in awe of the human spirit, know otherwise.)

So why should Christian or Jewish or Unitarian or Muslim or atheist Americans care about persecution of Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet? Because we have the imagination and compassion to care about people who are not like us -- but also, in case anyone needs a more practical reason, because persecution never stops at "the other"; it always creeps, cancer-like, to infect "us" as well. China is not only persecuting Buddhists and Christians and Muslims; ridiculously, it's even afraid of the Boy Scouts. John Donne famously, and accurately, wrote in Meditation XVII:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Finally, a political note, because politics is where ideals and action should intersect: it's hard to find anyone showing moral leadership on this issue. Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants us to go easier on China. All three Presidential candidates have issued written statements decrying events in Tibet and asking China to show restraint -- McCain's and Obama's fairly strongly worded, Clinton's weaker and talking more about herself than about the problem -- but all are "just words", not very different from the similar statement issued by President Bush, whose actions -- having China removed from the list of human rights violators, affirming he will travel to the Olympics no matter what happens in Tibet -- show his true level of concern.

I also asked Clinton's representatives directly, during a press conference, whether they would advocate returning China to the human rights violators list; they won't. She's far more interested in talking about her disputed role in the Northern Ireland peace talks -- which her campaign frankly admitted, in a press conference, is largely an effort to curry favor with Pennsylvania's large Irish Catholic community -- than she is in actually taking action for peace for Tibet's Buddhists -- or China's Catholics. I find that hypocritical, since Clinton has bragged so much about her commitment to peace processes and has criticized Obama so soundly for spouting "mere words" when that's all she appears willing to do with regard to China's suppression of religious freedom. (I've also written to the Obama campaign, asking about their position, and haven't received a reply.) So far the strongest position of any American politician has been taken by Nancy Pelosi, who is asking for an international investigation into the protests in Tibet.

It's reasonable to call all the candidates' local campaign offices and ask them to take a firmer stand -- to move beyond mere words. And it's also reasonable to contact China's embassy and consulate, and China's Olympic officials, to protest the treatment of Tibet's Buddhist, Cizhong's Catholics, and everyone else whose freedom to practice their faith is constrained by a paranoid and brutal regime. That contact information can be found here. Other information on Cizhong can be found here and here.
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The Privacy Act of 1974, Criminal Penalties, Verbatim

2008-03-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, MARCH 25: The Justice Department, quite properly, gets involved.

ORIGINAL POST: On three separate occasions, dating back to January, employees of contractors working for the State Department accessed -- and did God knows what with -- presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport records, which ordinarily include not only information on a person's international travels but also a good deal of private personal information. It could be relatively innocent; it could be a Nixonian effort to find dirt on Obama. Yet the State Department's Inspector General, who is responsible for looking into such things, was not notified until today -- and before he was notified, and therefore before he had a chance to investigate what really happened and why, lower-level State Department employees made the determination that the employees had not violated the Privacy Act of 1974, and therefore that the matter did not need to be referred to the Attorney General's office.

That's not the sort of decision that's normally made at such a low level, especially when the person whose privacy was violated is prominent -- for instance, a sitting Senator and Presidential nominee like Obama. The cover-up, and the regularity with which it happened, and the fact that Obama's office was not told about any of the incidents until today, all suggest that it's possible -- of course not probable, nor likely, but in a town like D.C., definitely possible -- that some skulduggery is behind this.

The statute that almost certainly was violated (whether the State Department thinks so or not) is the federal Privacy Act of 1974, passed in the aftermath of Watergate, the relevant provision of which (5 United States Code section 552a(i)(1)) reads as follows:

Criminal Penalties. (1) Any officer or employee of an agency [note: also includes agency contractors and their employees], who by virtue of his employment or official position, has possession of, or access to, agency records which contain individually identifiable information the disclosure of which is prohibited by this section or by rules or regulations established thereunder, and who knowing that disclosure of the specific material is so prohibited, willfully discloses the material in any manner to any person or agency not entitled to receive it, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $5,000. ...

(3) Any person who knowingly and willfully requests or obtains any record concerning an individual from an agency under false pretenses shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $5,000.

Why is it so important to pursue a criminal investigation, if there is any suggestion that a violation occurred? Because, in the course of that investigation, the poor, low-level saps who actually did the deeds almost certainly will tell everything they know -- which probably is that they were merely satisfying their own prurient curiosity, but which might be that they passed the information on to someone who would much rather remain anonymous. And both Obama and the American people have the right to know definitively which one it is.

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China May Talk With Dalai Lama About Tibet Protests, Future

2008-03-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

British officials are reporting that the Chinese government may be willing to engage in talks with the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists worldwide. (Dalai Lama's official website.) This announcement comes in the middle of a Tibetan Uprising movement that is moving past its epicenter, the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, to cover the entire Tibetan Plateau with peaceful protests, occasional violence, and both overt and covert retribution by Chinese police and military forces. (Pressure on China to act deliberately is, of course, undercut by Bush's repeated assurances that he will attend the Olympics -- which he considers merely a sporting event -- regardless of how China abuses human rights.)

News from Tibet is being suppressed by government officials, but some still leaks out, including this video from a tourist.

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Contact information for all Chinese embassies and consulates in the U.S., and Chinese officials responsible for next summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, can be found here. It's a critical time to keep the pressure on China, so please make some polite calls to say, "the world is watching."

Previous VichyDems posts about the situation in Tibet: 1) Background and description of initial events; 2) Hillary Clinton's refusal to object to Administration removing China from annual list of human rights violators.
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Clinton Campaign Ducks a Simple Question About Tibet

2008-03-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

Today the Clinton campaign took advantage of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day holiday to hold a press call discussing Hillary Clinton’s disputed role in the nearly decade-old Northern Ireland peace talks and her intention to work to “bring peace to different parts of the world.”

During the Q&A following that call, however, Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Lee Feinstein, ducked my question about the Bush Administration’s decision last week to remove China from its list of human rights violators – a decision made right in the middle of escalating tensions in Tibet that have culminated in riots in Lhasa, a military crackdown on protests and media nationwide, and according to some reports, upwards of 100 deaths.

I asked Feinstein a simple, direct question: whether, in light of events in Tibet, Mrs. Clinton would call on the Bush Administration to re-list China as a human rights violator. He didn’t answer the question, referring instead to a statement Clinton issued on the events in Tibet and saying that she has a long history on the issue and has talked with the Dalai Lama in the past.

I asked again, directly, whether in addition to whatever she says in that statement, Clinton would call to restore China’s name to the Administration’s list of human rights violators; Feinstein answered that he had nothing to add to Clinton’s prepared statement (which, incidentally, hasn’t been issued to the press yet and which isn’t in any obvious place on her campaign website).

Three facts may factor into her waffling:

1. Biographical note: Clinton formerly served on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart, the largest U.S. importer of goods from China.

2. Calendar note: this summer, China will host the Olympics in Beijing.

3. Economic note: the Chinese government is a significant creditor of the U.S., effectively financing our ongoing deficit spending (including the war in Iraq) by purchasing U.S. government securities – and it could destabilize our economy simply by ceasing to purchase those securities.

So it’s a complicated issue, calling for nuance – but while Mrs. Clinton boasts about disputable and decade-old foreign policy accomplishments during her husband’s administration, why does her campaign lack the courage to take a direct and meaningful stand for human rights when they are being abused today, right now, as you read this? Is her "3 a.m." foreign policy expertise limited to events in the past (a questionable role in Northern Ireland, a speech she gave in China a decade ago) and about words (in a statement that apparently hasn’t even been issued yet) – or is she willing to take a principled, effective stand on a religious and human rights conflict that’s actually happening today?

More simply: is Hillary Clinton only committed to talking about human rights in the past tense, or does she actually have a vision and a commitment that extends to the present -- and the future?

More on events on Tibet -- and contact information for China's embassy, consulates and Olympic organizers, so you can voice your concerns -- can be found here at VichyDems.
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