Obama May Have Won More Delegates Tuesday, Narrowing Hillary's Lead

UPDATE, FEB. 20: More examples of Hillary taking the gloves off: her campaign originated the "Obama's like a cult leader" theme to the media, and will file suit to gain the nomination if she can't win it with voters. I'm not kidding.

UPDATE, FEB. 14: THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL: Hillary Clinton has taken the gloves off today: since she's losing the popular vote, her "firewalls" with women and Latinos (who increasingly are supporting Obama), and maybe even her edge in superdelegates, she's now pushing to have Florida's and Michigan's delegates seated.

Why's this a big deal? Because both states were told their delegates wouldn't count if they moved their primaries up on the calendar; both states did it anyway; Hillary conducted stealth campaigns in those states while Obama and the others stayed away as the party's rules required; Hillary even put her name (the only Dem name) on Michigan's ballot; of course, she won huge in those states, so seating their delegates will make her appear to have won the popular vote when what she's really doing is cheating.

Worse, there are movements in both states to re-hold their primaries or caucuses, so that their delegates can be seated without dispute -- but the Clinton campaign is undercutting those efforts to do the right thing by maneuvering to have the flawed delegates seated instead.

It's a mess -- it's undemocratic and dishonest -- it could hand the nomination to someone who didn't actually win it, the same way Bush "won" the Presidency in 2000 -- and it says a lot of bad things about Hillary's character and her hunger for power that exceeds her sense of decency, fair play, party loyalty, or -- given multiple polls showing that Obama is much more electable than she is -- even her concern for the country as a whole. Her actions suggest she'd rather run and lose to McCain, than lose honestly to Obama and see a Democrat in the White House. Again, more about this here.

UPDATE, FEB. 12: If you like this post but want more up-to-date info, please visit the Vichy Dems home page when you're done here. Especially do so if you're curious or concerned about the increasing "superdelegates" controversy , the ongoing brouhaha between Paul Krugman and Barack Obama, or each candidate's electability against John McCain. Thanks!)
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OK, I'll admit it. By 10:30 pm Tuesday, after Obama lost both NY (expected) and California (contested), my very rough math suggested Hillary walked away with more delegates, widening her lead. But as I also explained at the time, the delegate allocation process is extremely complicated, discounting any candidate with less than 15% of the vote in any given Congressional district and (contrary to the winner-take-all, state-by-state process preferred by Republicans), assigns Democratic delegates on a Congressional-district-by-Congressional-district basis. (Alabama shows how strange the process is -- Obama won with 56% of the vote, but received only 20 delegates to Hillary's 21.)

After doing all the math, district-by-district, the powers that be are concluding that Obama not only won more states -- including, significantly in my mind, a large swath of middle America, right through the Midwest and northern states -- but may also have taken more delegates, actually reducing the gap with Hillary -- great news for Obama supporters and for anyone who'd like to see a real horserace, demonstrating that the race isn't always to the personally wealthy and well-connected. As CNN puts it this afternoon: "Senator Barack Obama won a majority of the states, but Senator Hillary Clinton won bigger states and the delegate count was very close, even as the party tried to figure out its complicated maths of who won what, where." Here's a state by state breakdown including number of delegates each candidate appeared, as of Wednesday morning, to have won. However, note that the numbers are inconsistent. For instance, Time projected the Feb. 5 result was 845 delegates to Obama, 836 to Hillary, while CNN here (at least at the time this is posted; it's not a permalink) says Hillary won on Feb. 5, with 580 delegates to Obama's 571. (UPDATE, FEB.8 9:39 Pacific: the previous link now says Hillary leads Obama in SuperTuesday delegates, 790-767. No indication whether that includes their projection of New Mexico; it shouldn't, though, because New Mexico continues counting provisional ballots, with Obama down by only about 1,000 votes.)

Also, news that Hillary and Bill are adding $5 million of their own money to the race. Obama doesn't have that kind of personal cash -- one of the reasons I prefer him to Hillary, who's not only rich but also has the backing of big-$ donors including Fox News' Rupert Murdoch and (normally a good guy) George Soros -- but is outraising Clinton lately, largely from small donations. It would be nice if Obama could quickly match the Clintons' personal $5 million injection, to show that U.S. elections aren't only for the personally wealthy and U.S. democracy isn't actually a plutocracy -- so if you support Obama, or even just want a fair race, please consider donating to Obama here at VichyDems' ActBlue page. No spam, no mailing lists, just an easy way to donate money.

Finally, keep your eye on those problematic "superdelegates" -- party insiders who comprise 40% of total Democratic delegates and who DON'T HAVE TO FOLLOW THE POPULAR VOTE AT ALL. It's said that to become the nominee, either Clinton or Obama needs 2,025 delegates -- but 20% of all delegates -- i.e., 40% of the total a candidate needs to secure the nomination -- are superdelegates, which means that each candidate needs far fewer "popular" or "pledged" (read: democratically elected) delegates to win the popular vote, but that the winner of the popular vote isn't automatically the nominee: they then have to persuade the "Democratic" party to actually live up to its name instead of handing the election to its favorite daughter. (Hillary unquestionably has the lead in superdelegate preference, largely because she has bought support by lavishing money on those superdelegates during their own elections and because of Bill's connections.) Allowing a small elite to hand an election to someone other than the one the popular vote selected -- sounds sort of 2000ish, doesn't it? It's how Bush got appointed to office, and it's neither democratic nor Democratic. For voters, the key at this point is to make enough stink, BEFORE the convention, that the party is shamed into doing the right thing and muscles the superdelegates into supporting the voters' choice.
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Super Tuesday Results Watch: Ongoing

UPDATE FEB. 12, 2008: Contrary to what it looked like Tuesday night, it appears that Obama did win more delegates on Super Tuesday than Clinton did, tightening the race. Please visit the VichyDems home page and then check the "recent posts" links in the right margin for up-to-date, and regularly updated, info.

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I'm tracking the more reliable exit polls and other election feedback, and will post it periodically below. (For those still seeking substantive info on the candidates: VichyDems' posts on polls and electability, strange connections to Fox News, etc. are immediately below this one and can be accessed here.)

Feb. 5, 10:30 PM Pacific: FINAL BEFORE-BEDTIME WINS/LOSSES/STILL COUNTINGS; ROUGH DELEGATE COUNTS; AND SOME ANALYSIS:

Here's where things stand on a national basis, with most states being called one way or the other:

Technically, 2,025 delegates are needed for a Democratic candidate to clinch the nomination. However, 40% of those -- 842 -- are "super delegates", influential current and former office holders who can vote however they want rather than being "promised" to one particular candidate. "Super delegates" are not included in the totals below. (I'll post soon about the unbelievable antidemocratic bias that the super delegate system creates, but that's for later.) For the present, all it means is that (according to my math; I may be a few off) there are only about 3,208 "promised" delegates at stake in the 'democratic' part of the process, meaning that a candidate must win something like 1,605 delegates in the primaries and caucuses to lock up the nomination (barring meddling by the superdelegates). Delegate counts below are extremely approximate, based solely on percentage of statewide vote, when in actuality the calculation is "winner takes all" by Congressional district, percentages under 15% in any district don't count, etc. Also, "percentage" breakdowns are, in most cases, preliminary (based on less than 100% of returns).

But ballpark figures are better than nothing -- so here are the standings as of now, using NPR's figures:

CLINTON:
Delegates previously won: 232
Arizona, 56 delegates ( 50%- 41%)
Arkansas, 35 delegates (72%-23%)
California, 370 delegates (54%-33%)
Massachusetts,93 delegates (59%-38%)
New Jersey, 107 delegates (55%-43%)
New York, 232 delegates (62%-35%)
Oklahoma, 38 delegates (55%-30%)
Tennessee, 68 delegates (61%-30%)
DELEGATES WON SO FAR TONIGHT: approximately 534
TOTAL DELEGATES: approximately 766

OBAMA:
Delegates previously won: 158
Alabama, 52 delegates (62%-36%)
Colorado, 55 delegates ( 67%- 32%)
Connecticut, 48 delegates (50%-47%)
Delaware, 15 delegates (52%-43%)
Georgia,87 delegates (61%-36%)
Idaho, 18 delegates ( 81%- 17%)
Illinois, 153 delegates (65%-32%)
Kansas, 32 delegates (71%-29%)
Minnesota, 72 delegates (65%-33%)
North Dakota, 13 delegates (61%-37%)
Utah, 23 delegates (51%-31%)
DELEGATES WON SO FAR TONIGHT: approximately 425
TOTAL DELEGATES: approximately 583

JURY STILL OUT:
Alaska, 13 delegates ( %- %)
Missouri, 72 delegates ( %- %)
Montana, 16 delegates ( %- %)
New Mexico, 26 delegates ( %- %)

NOTES:

--Check out the map: Obama swept the midwest and northern states, proving what his Iowa win suggested: that he resonates with middle America. He also took a couple of key Southern states with large black populations. Clinton won mainly in the Northeast, deep South (does racism run deeper than misogyny?) -- and California. Clinton's win in California presents particularly serious problems. Previous polls showed a closer race. However, exit polling today suggests that as much as 29% of the people actually showing up at polling places are Latino, a group that strongly supports Hillary and that she considers her "firewall." This should put Obama's feet to the fire: as I've said before, I don't think he can afford to wait until the convention to take drastic action to stop that Latino bleeding. For instance, he could at least leak, if not announce, a strategic choice of running mate, such as Hispanic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who could recover some of those Latino votes that, in terms of their own self-interests, should be swarming to Obama rather than Clinton.

--Obama's strategy heading into today's races -- targeting states with caucuses rather than primaries; smaller states; and states Hillary expected to win but appeared weak -- appears to be working as planned, though the total number of delegates gained that way is much smaller than those Clinton is racking up tonight.

--More on Super Delegates: Bloomberg: "Clinton has an edge among so-called super delegates, Democratic officeholders and party officials who get a vote at the convention and aren't bound by election results. Coming into today, Clinton had 190 of those delegates in her corner, compared with 104 for Obama, according to The Green Papers."

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EARLIER UPDATES:

4:47 PM Pacific: Brian Hartman, ABC News: "[C]hange continues to be a powerful draw for Democrats, who rank the ability to bring about change their top attribute for a candidate by 2 to -1 over other concerns. Democrats — most important attribute: bring needed change 52 percent; best experience 23; empathy 13; best chance to win 9." [My note: this bodes well for Obama, who's suffered in "experience" but kicked tail in "change".]

MyDD poll watch

Talking Points Memo poll watch

2/05/08 4:38 PM Pacific: The Times [of London] Online: "Exit polls suggest Barack Obama's recent momentum had propelled him to victory in a swath of early results and is locked in a too-close-to-call race with Hillary Clinton in other, delegate-rich states. Mr Obama won the first contest of the night – Georgia – at a stroll and is also expected to win another Southern state, Alabama, by a landslide with black voters, who accounted for half the turnout, supporting him by a margin of four-to-one. He was headed for an easy victory in his own state of Illinois. More worryingly for Mrs Clinton are signs that she was narrowly behind, or neck-and neck, in a series of states running down America's east coast. These included New Jersey – where she had led polls until recently – Connecticut, Delaware and Massachusetts. Mrs Clinton, however, appeared on course for victory in New York – for which she has been a senator for the past seven years – Arkansas, where her husband was governor, and Oklahoma. Exit polls suggested she may also win in Tennessee but Missouri and Arizona, as well as California – the biggest prize of all – appeared to be tighter fights. The AP survey's findings, leaked to The Times tonight before polls closed, should be treated with caution because they have been wrong before."

2/5/08 4:05 PM Pacific: Heard on NPR: "NPR is projecting that Barack Obama will win [Georgia] over rival Hillary Clinton."

Jason Zengerle, The New Republic: "The perils of posting these are obvious (President Kerry and all that), but the exit poll results that I've seen show: Obama trouncing Hillary in Georgia, Alabama, and Illinois; Hillary trouncing Obama in Arkansas and Oklahoma; Hillary with leads in New York and Tennessee; and Obama with leads in Delaware and Utah (although there's only one wave of exit polls for Utah). Everywhere else--including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Arizona, and California--is extremely close."

Jim Kuhnenn, Associated Press: "Barring a remarkable sweep of most of the 22 states in play, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama will end the day with a mix of wins and losses. And each will accumulate delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer, but neither will have enough to secure the nomination. *** The campaigns, like sports teams that have clinched a playoff spot, already have been looking to the contests ahead. Obama has been advertising in states with primaries and caucuses over the next seven days. Clinton strategists are looking over the horizon into March and April when Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania hold primaries.*** [T]he two candidates have essentially divided the electorate into two component parts. He gets young voters, educated voters, black voters. She gets women, working-class voters and Hispanics. *** In Tuesday's balloting, Obama appeared to be encroaching on Clinton support, according to preliminary data from exit polls of voters in the 16 states holding Democratic primaries. Clinton had only a slight edge among women and with whites, two areas where she has generally dominated Obama. Obama had a small advantage with men _ including with white men, a group with whom he has struggled for votes in most previous contests. As usual, Obama had a decisive lead with blacks, with about eight in 10 favoring him, the early national figures showed. But Clinton was getting support from nearly six in 10 Hispanics, a group that could be pivotal. *** With voting under way, Clinton led Obama in the hunt for delegates, 261 to 202, on the strength of so-called superdelegates. Those are members of Congress and other party leaders not chosen in state presidential contests. Clinton aides said Tuesday that Obama might win more delegates on Tuesday than Clinton, but that they would emerge from the voting with more delegates overall."

Chris Cillizza, WashingtonPost.com: "At stake in today's contests for Democrats were 1,681 pledged delegates -- more than half the total of those delegates nationwide. A total of 2,025 delegate votes are needed to win the nomination at the party's convention. Of 4,049 total delegate votes to be cast at the convention, 3,253 will come from the "pledged delegates" that are awarded on a proportional basis to presidential candidates in the primaries and caucuses. Heading into today's contests, Clinton was leading Obama, 261 to 196, in total pledged and unpledged delegates, according to a tally by the Associated Press. Democrats use a proportional system to award their delegates, with any candidate taking over 15 percent in a congressional district qualifying. What that system means in practical terms is that unless either Obama or Clinton is able to overwhelmingly win a congressional district, the two candidates will receive the same number of delegates - ensuring neither builds too large a delegate lead. *** Each candidate has several states that seem almost certain to wind up in his or her column. For Clinton, that list included her home state of New York as well as Arkansas and Oklahoma. For Obama, Illinois and Georgia seem very likely wins. At issue are a handful of battleground states where both campaigns have spent heavily and campaigned in over the last weeks. Included in that list are: New Jersey, Massachusetts, Missouri and Arizona. The first polls to close will be in Georgia at 7 pm. Eastern time. Four hours later, California, the last of the major states, will conclude its voting."

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Quick Links for Super Tuesday Browsing

OK, it's Super Tuesday, and no one cares about Bill Richardson today, which makes it a bad idea for a post about him to be on top. For Democratic Super Tuesday browsers, here's a short list of links to my more recent posts relevant to Obama, Clinton, and today's decision:
Electability: Do We Want to Win By a Touchdown, or a Safety?
Electability: Six [Poll] Points
Overview: Why Nominating Hillary Is a Bad Idea
HRC & Fox News: Goat Herders' Kids Know About Foxes. Hillary, Not So Much. (with update today)
Electability: Zogby: Hillary Would Lose
Women's Vote: Hillary's "Feminism" and Hillary's Friends
Donate to Obama (easy, no spam)

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Is Obama-Richardson in the works?

UPDATE, MAR. 21: Barack Obama has snagged Bill Richardson's endorsement, despite Clinton's best efforts. (More here.) This should help Obama fend off Clinton's ongoing effort to persuade Superdelegates to back her even if voters don't. Since the Texas and New Mexico primaries are done, and the only heavily Latino state left is Puerto Rico on June 7, Obama no longer stands to gain as much electorally as he would have earlier by breaking with tradition and floating the idea of Richardson as his running mate -- but I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. As the post below explains, Obama-Richardson still makes a great ticket.

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UPDATE, FEB. 12: Though he couldn't know he would be out of the race by the time it was published, Richardson both burnishes his foreign policy credentials, and demonstrates why he'd be tremendous either as a veep or as Secretary of State, in this article in the current edition of Foreign Affairs magazine. And the position he stakes out -- that U.S. foreign policy should be grounded in our nation's ideals -- sounds more Obama-ish than Clintonian.

ORIGINAL POST: When John Edwards was still in the race and positioning himself to be a power broker at the national convention, I boosted the idea of an Obama-Edwards ticket as a way of tilting the primary conclusively away from Hillary Clinton before Super Tuesday. Now that Edwards has bowed out and seems to be lowballing his power by angling for an Attorney General post, and it's too late for eleventh-hour Super Tuesday surprises, it’s time to rethink.

NPR just made a correction on-air, withdrawing their statement that former Democratic Presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson had endorsed Hillary Clinton. Actually, they said, while Richardson did watch the Super Bowl with Bill Clinton, he has not chosen who to endorse. Then, intriguingly, they reported that he said he has been having many telephone conversations with both the Clinton and Barack Obama camps.

Hmmmm. Watch the Super Bowl with one candidate’s proxy, take lots of calls from both sides, play coy about who you actually support. Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a courtship? Kind of like the college scouts flocking around Smash Williams on Friday Night Lights? And not just a courtship for an endorsement; they wouldn’t pull a big gun like Bill off the campaign trail simply to gain an ex-candidate's endorsement. No: it sounds like both sides may be courting Richardson as a running mate. Same principle as my Obama-Edwards proposition, but with Richardson instead.

So I did some homework, and it seems that Vice President Richardson isn't out of the question. Over a year ago, Leo Brown at WesternDemocrat proposed an Obama-Richardson ticket as an alternative to his first choice, Richardson-Obama. Once Richardson dropped out, Brown renewed the idea of Obama-Richardson, pointing out that Hillary's negatives are strong in Western (as in cowboys-and-Indians western, not Los Angeles western) states. (That fact makes Richardson a good choice for either candidate: he could help Hillary negate her negatives in an increasingly influential part of the country, or he could help Obama widen Hillary's gap in that region; ergo Bill's Super Bowl appearance in New Mexico.) But Obama may have the edge. For one thing, most of Richardson’s inner circle of political advisors have endorsed Obama. Yesterday -- the same day Bill and Bill were dipping chips in the same guacamole while watching the game -- one Richardson advisor even let slip an admission that an official Richardson endorsement of Obama may already have been cut.

For another, Richardson and Obama may already have engaged in politically sophisticated delegate-trading in the Iowa caucuses to maximize both candidates' performances against frontrunner Hillary; Richardson denies that, but if it's true it suggests that Obama's a more sophisticated, savvy and tough pol than his detractors claim -- a true Chicago pol and an heir to JFK (who wasn't above machination, which is different than triangulation). I want a candidate who can win, and a President who can get his policy initiatives through Congress -- and Obama may be that guy after all. And Obama has shown kindness (!) to Richardson during a debate, when Richardson was still in the race:

"I had just been asked a question -- I don't remember which one -- and Obama was sitting right next to me. Then the moderator went across the room, I think to Chris Dodd, so I thought I was home free for a while. I wasn't going to listen to the next question. I was about to say something to Obama when the moderator turned to me and said, 'So, Gov. Richardson, what do you think of that?' But I wasn't paying any attention! ... I wasn't about to say I wasn't listening. I looked at Obama. I was just horrified. And Obama whispered, 'Katrina. Katrina.' The question was on Katrina! So I said, 'On Katrina, my policy . . .' Obama could have just thrown me under the bus. So I said, 'Obama, that was good of you to do that.'"

A deal with Richardson -- especially one making Richardson veep, though slotting him as Secretary of State or Interior also might work -- would make sense, especially for Obama. For one thing, Obama is doing surprisingly poorly among Latino voters. Getting a better grip on the Latino vote would help him significantly, especially in California and other Western and Southwestern states that are becoming increasingly important – the Ohios and Pennsylvanias of the future -- as well as in Florida and New York (currently Clinton territory). (And, while I wish this weren’t an issue, Richardson could do so without making the ticket look too "minority": he’s only half Latino, has an Anglo name, and played amateur baseball in the Cape Cod league -- a big deal among those who know baseball -- and at Tufts University in Massachusetts.)

In addition, Richardson has strong foreign policy credentials, which both Obama and Clinton, (though she pretends otherwise) lack: he holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs, is the former Ambassador to the United Nations and has successfully negotiated for the release of American servicemen and political prisoners in Cuba and North Korea. He even negotiated personally with Saddam Hussein in 1996 to obtain the release of American hostages help by Iraq. These last credentials both steal some of McCain’s “prisoner of war” luster – who’s the bigger hero, an American who was captured by an enemy, or a man who successfully negotiates such prisoners’ release?– and lends credibility to Obama’s much-attacked statement that he would negotiate with unsavory world leaders if doing so would be in America’s best interests.

He’s also an experienced politician and statesman, having been a Representative, the Secretary of Energy (for Bill Clinton), chair of the National Governors’ Association, and chair of the 2004 Democratic National Convention (where Obama first rose to national prominence with a stunningly inspirational speech), as well as current governor of New Mexico. A running mate with that background could help neutralize the “inexperienced” label Obama’s been saddled with. Toss in some experience with energy companies, a partnership with Richard Branson to create a spaceport in New Mexico, and other business credentials, and the fact that he's married to a woman he met in high school, and he could be a real asset -- to Obama or to Clinton.

So while I’m not ready to make a prediction, I am keeping my eyes open for indications that Richardson, not Edwards, may wind up being on either Clinton’s or Obama’s ticket. At a minimum, look for trial balloons.

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Do We Want to Win By a Touchdown, Or a Safety?

Photo: New England Patriot bumming after losing the big game yesterday, which everyone assumed they were going to win. Moral: this can't be the Democratic Party on election day 2008.

(Update, Feb. 12: Please visit VichyDems' home page for more up to date info and analysis of the primary race, including on "electability." Thanks!)

(Update, Feb. 14: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery -- even if it's just coincidental: ""I've got two great quarterbacks. One can win the game for me by three points, one by a touchdown. I'm very pragmatic, so I'm going for the one who can win by a touchdown." (Texas Rep. Charles Gonzalez, on why he's backing Obama.))
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IN A NUTSHELL: Even with McCain surging, Obama still can beat him by seven points -- a touchdown -- while Clinton, at best, would win by two points -- not even a field goal, but a safety. The close Super Bowl yesterday was fun, but this isn't a game. Close isn't fun. If we want a Democrat in the White House -- if we think that electing a Democrat is more important to our nation right now than which specific Democrat we elect -- then we need to win big. Long-time readers know that I don't consider Obama perfect by any means, though I do prefer him to Clinton for a number of reasons. But only one reason matters now: by the critical test of "who can win big?" Obama's the intelligent choice.

HERE'S WHY: In my last post, I emphasized how important the six-point spread between Obama's and Clinton's electability is, because, let's admit it, six points is within the margin of error in a national election: a last-minute Swiftboat-style ad campaign, a disaster (natural or terrorist) that increases people's patriotism and support for the (Republican) incumbent, or fraudulent manipulation of Diebold's touch-screen voting machines can easily swing the vote count by that much. We don't want a candidate who can barely beat the Republican; we want the candidate who can beat him by the largest margin possible. Hell, we won the popular vote in 2000 and still lost the election! What we should try for is a blowout, because if the Democrat wins by a lot then he/she has a mandate, and because even if something goes wrong, we may still eke out a victory.

Today let's look at the key state for Democrats: California. It's practically impossible for a Democrat to with the Presidency without taking California. There, as well as nationally, McCain's looking increasingly strong in hypothetical matchups against both Clinton and Obama, but Obama still has a significant edge over Clinton in electability and remains the Democrat most likely to beat the Republican, according to a Field Poll cited in the S.F. Chronicle yesterday:

The head-to-head matchups between the Republican and Democratic candidates highlight both Clinton's loosening hold on California voters and McCain's growing strength in the state. Clinton now clings to a bare 45 to 43 percent lead over McCain in a projected California presidential vote, down dramatically from her 17 percentage point margin just two weeks ago. Obama now holds a stronger 47 to 40 percent margin over the Arizona senator, but that's only half the 14 percentage point advantage he had in mid-January.

I don't like the fact that McCain's gaining on both, but that's temporary -- once a front-runner emerges in a primary, he or she always gets a short-term bounce as people jump on the bandwagon. The important thing is that even as McCain gains ground -- and he's going to gain more once tomorrow's voting locks in his nomination -- Obama clearly retains more traction: not only does he retain a much larger seven point advantage over McCain, but he's slipped less in proportional terms: once McCain broke out as the Republican front-runner, Clinton lost FIFTEEN POINTS -- losing 88% of her advantage!! -- while Obama lost only seven points, or 50% of his advantage. Versus McCain, he's falling "less fast" than Clinton, which both suggests he he will have less ground to gain back once the novelty of McCain-as-the-nominee wears off and the real grind begins, and that he has more traction with voters with which to do so.

After tomorrow, I predict McCain will beat Clinton in hypothetical matchups, but Obama may still retain an edge, which is a very big deal. And during the general election grind, Obama will do better: it's becoming a truism that time is Obama's friend, that the more people see of Obama the more they like him and the more they see of Clinton the less they like her, a trend supported by Obama's ongoing surge among undecided voters and independents.

So again: we don't have the luxury of squabbling about details. The Republicans have utterly screwed up our nation, we're heading for a serious recession, job losses already have started, the Iraqis aren't making any significant political progress, et cetera et cetera et cetera. It's much more important that we elect a Democrat to start cleaning things up than which Democrat it is. What we need isn't a woman or a black or a liberal or a moderate, but a winner. It doesn't matter which quarterback we like; it matters which quarterback is playing best against the other team. Or, as James Carville might say, "it's the electability, stupid!"

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P.S.: Here's how you can donate easily to Obama...

... if you want to, via VichyDems' ActBlue page. (No, I don't get a cut.) Please read the posts below to see some reasons why.
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Six Points.

UPDATE, FEB. 12: Since I posted this, the "electability" issue is growing, and there's new data confirming that Obama's electability edge over Clinton just keeps growing. For more recent posts, please visit VichyDems home page and start surfing, or click to the specific posts here, here, and especially here. Thanks!
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Let me tell you about my mom, who's a nurse. My mom is (a) extremely smart, (b) very hard working, and (c) has excellent gut instincts about people. She's also (d) a die-hard and lifelong Republican, daughter of lifelong Republicans, granddaughter of lifelong Republicans; (e) not as well educated as she deserves, and (f) a sucker, at least temporarily, for conservative bumper-sticker slogans and policies that sound idealistic but really work against her own best interests.

In other words, she's a great litmus test for what the average American voter is thinking.

I wasn't surprised two days ago when she told me that she hates Hillary with a passion, thinks McCain is much more moderate than liberals believe and would be a good President, and she'd absolutely vote for McCain over Hillary.

I was surprised when she added that she hopes Obama gets the Democratic nomination, because she'd vote for him over McCain.

That, in a nutshell, is why we need to nominate Obama: people like my mother, who will never vote for Hillary, will vote for him. And people like my mother are precisely the ones that matter -- like the Democrats who voted for Reagan in 1980, there are Republicans who will vote for Obama in 2008. Hillary, on the other hand, won't swing a single Republican vote.

And, of course, if Obama can swing Republicans, he certainly can win Independents -- which is what the polls are showing, too: Independents significantly prefer Obama to Hillary.

Polls also show Obama beating McCain in the general election, and Hillary losing to him. The most recent poll, released by ABC/The Washington Post today, reveals:

LOOK AHEAD -- It's still early for a look ahead to November, but current preferences indicate close contests between McCain and either Clinton or Obama; against Romney the two Democrats -- and especially Obama -- start with more of an edge.

Among the general public overall, it's a 49-46 percent McCain-Clinton race and a 46-49 percent McCain-Obama race; those 3-point differences are not enough to constitute a lead for either McCain vs. Clinton or Obama vs. McCain, given sampling tolerances. Clinton-Romney standings are 53-41 percent, Obama-Romney, a wider 59-34 percent.

McCain would beat Hillary by 3 points; Obama would beat McCain by 3 points. And three points is within the "sampling tolerances." But look behind those numbers: the important statistic is that Obama performs six points higher than Hillary in a matchup against McCain.

Six points. Think the general election is going the be within six points? Think the no-paper-trail Diebold touchscreen voting machines can alter the outcome by six points? Do you think, maybe, that we should choose the candidate (Obama) who has a built-in six point advantage over the likely opponent (McCain) compared to the other candidate (Clinton)? And the Clintons (Hillary and Bill) have been running a negative campaign against Obama; think his stock will rise even further with the general electorate when other Democrats stop attacking him and line up behind him instead?

Let's set aside policy differences and think big picture. Seven of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republicans. Even if we count Ford appointee John Paul Stevens as a "liberal" -- a label he himself rejects -- he turns 88 next month, and at least one of the two Democrats almost certainly will retire next term. We can't afford to have a Republican -- any Republican -- in the White House next term, if only so that the last two Democrats on the Court can be replaced by other Democrats (and Roe v Wade, which currently is one vote away from being overturned, can retain its validity).

If we want a Court with any Democrats at all -- if we believe in women's privacy -- if we want change of any kind -- then we need a Democrat in the White House. And if that's the bottom-line goal, no one who's watched the last few Presidential elections can honestly think we can afford to throw away six points. Is Hillary electable? No. Is Obama electable? Yes. Q.E.D.

UPDATE, FEB. 3 9:43 PM PACIFIC:

Obama shows even stronger against McCain according to the Zogby poll released today:

Looking at the general, McCain leads Clinton in California, 45-43%. That is NOT a good sign for her electability. Obama leads McCain 47-40%.

Or, as James Carville might have told Bill Clinton if he were still a good guy: it's the electability, stupid.
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Overview: Why Nominating Hillary Is a Bad Idea

(Photo: Hillary Clinton and Rupert Murdoch, ultra-conservative founder of Fox News, at Fox News' 10th anniversary party. Murdoch later threw a Fox News-sponsored campaign fundraiser for Clinton!)

I'm working on a sort of "ten reasons" list why it would be a huge mistake to nominate Hillary Clinton -- who's really doing a fine job as NY's Senator and ought to stay there -- as the Democratic Presidential nominee. Top among those reasons are that (a) multiple polls show she's not electable against McCain, whereas Obama is; (b) while she claims she'll stop the Iraq war, the truth is that she has consistently supported it and has never backed down from that position; and (c) she's got a lot of ties to conservative donors and power brokers, not because she's so conservative but because she's a Washington insider who will just keep playing the game the way it's always been played without actually being an agent of change.

But till I get that done, here are links to some of my earlier posts showing why Hillary's not the right one:

Zogby: Hillary Would Lose

Hillary's "Feminism" and Hillary's Friends

A Late Catch, But... A "Who's Who" of Vichy DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) Is Backing Hillary

Just What I Was Afraid Of

That's just a sample, but it'll help you get the idea. Thanks for swinging by!

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Goat Herders' Kids Know About Foxes. Hillary, Not So Much.

UPDATE, SUPER TUESDAY, FEB. 5 2008: Hillary Clinton -- who attended Fox News' tenth anniversary party, for whom Rupert Murdoch threw a campaign fundraiser, and who's the only leading Democratic Presidential candidate violating the informal boycott of Fox News' slanted talking head shows -- now is challenging Obama to debate her -- on, surprise, surprise, Fox News. (Hat tip: Kos.)

Take money from the man who helped smear your husband and urged his impeachment; give aid and comfort to neoconservatives' main propaganda outlet by appearing on it, helping it appear "fair and balanced"; and now challenge your more progressive opponent to a debate moderated by conservatives who secretly have reasons to support you, on the ultimate conservative home ground. That's really helpful to the party, Hillary. You're really standing on principle. I'm so glad to hear you say that you're a progressive who will challenge the Washington establishment and how this campaign is all about ideas, not your greed for power. Murdoch bought a hell of a lot of Senator -- and maybe President -- for his money!

ORIGINAL POST:

One recurring theme on media- oriented liberal blogs (and some Air America shows) is the need for Democrats to simply decline to appear on Fox News' talking head shows. Fox slants these supposedly "fair and balanced" discussions against the Democrat in everything from the questions posed, to interrupting and playing "gotcha" with Democrats more than with Republicans, to the time the hosts and producers allow each guest to speak, to the post-discussion post-mortem.

You can't win in that setup -- so the best remedy is to go on strike, ie, for ALL Democrats to simply refuse Fox's invitations. Fox can't even pretend to be "balanced" if the left scale is empty, can it? All there'd be is some conservative bloviating into empty air, which the network knows drives viewers away in droves. Imagine "Hannity and Colmes" without that milquetoast Colmes pretending to represent the best the left can offer, and you see what I mean.

Now, middle-rank Dems fighting for their political lives are likely to seize any opportunity to get airtime, so the boycott isn't likely to be absolute -- but the front-ranking ones, at least, should be able to muster the backbone to "just say no", right?

Right.

Fox's flagship Sunday-morning talking heads show is Chris Wallace's "Fox News Sunday." For some indication of how conservative that show is, recall that before Wallace, Tony Snow anchored it -- before leaving to become Bush's press secretary.

Of the three leading Democratic Presidential candidates, two have declined to appear on "Fox News Sunday" -- but the third accepted.

Any guesses who's who? Might it, perhaps, be the candidate who attended Fox News' anniversary party and (separately) been thrown a fundraiser by Rupert Murdoch? You know, the one who voted for the Iraq war and still has never recanted, who started her (oops - gender-based spoiler alert!) campaign already "running to the middle"? (And by "started her campaign" I'm referring to the day after this candidate's husband passed his expiration date -- I mean, was elected to his final term -- and she began planning her own ascension to the throne.)

You guessed it: Hillary Clinton has appeared on "Fox News Sunday." Barack Obama and John Edwards, to their credit, haven't, and poor Chris is all upset about it:

“I think the Democrats are damn fools [for] not coming on Fox News,” Wallace said. “And my guess is that once you get a nominee, they probably will come on, because they know that we get a lot of voters they are going to need if they are going to win the election.”

So far, Wallace has interviewed Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; both Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. Edwards have declined.

I will admit -- being fair and balanced and all -- that Hillary whupped Wallace's butt in that interview. But still, the fact that she even appeared gave Wallace a chance to put up biased graphics about the cost of health care and to underscore the "Democrats always raise taxes" meme etc., and, again, allowed the network to promulgate the false perception that it delivers serious news rather than propaganda.

So isn't "who appeared on Fox" a trivial thing? Sure. But one that nicely illustrates what the candidates stand for, as well.

P.S. to Lucretia, per her comment to an earlier post: I was a Deaniac, too. I'm not head over heels in love with Obama: there are plenty of posts here like this one wishing he hadn't supported Lieberman over Ned Lamont in the Connecticut primary, or meddled in other Democratic primaries. And I like Edwards in many ways, especially his consistent support for working stiffs. But I believe that Democrats, given the option to nominate a woman or a minority for the first time, probably won't nominate another Southern white male, which makes Obama the only person positioned to block Hillary. And my bottom-line position -- which I came to reluctantly, because I think she's more just self-serving than a true Vichy -- is simply ABC: Anyone But Clinton. If it's Edwards rather than Obama, great -- just so long as Edwards and Obama don't split the anti-Hillary vote and hand the nomination to her.

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Zogby: Hillary Would Lose

Update Feb. 4, 2008: Please read this post, but there's also more up-to-date polling info -- showing a tighter race now but with Obama still definitely more electable vs. McCain than Clinton is -- in the top few posts at the top o' the blog here.

********

Here's a question: what do you most want in a Democratic Presidential candidate?

a) A progressive.
b) For the first time in our history, a black man or a woman.
c) Someone who can actually beat the Republican.
d) All of the above.

Personally, I'll go with "d." Which, according to a Zogby poll, means -- NOT HILLARY:

"General election match-ups show the New York Senator would lose against every top Republican

UTICA, New York – A new Zogby Interactive survey shows Democrat Hillary Clinton of New York would lose to every one of the top five Republican presidential contenders, representing a reversal of fortune for the national Democratic front–runner who had led against all prospective GOP opponents earlier this year. Meanwhile, fellow Democrats Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina would defeat or tie every one of the Republicans, this latest survey shows."

Yeah, but that survey's unreliable, right? Right. (What, you thought Hillary was above hypocrisy?)

If either Obama or Edwards is more electable than Hillary in the general election, how would an Obama-Edwards ticket do? I'll tell you: it would be choice (d), above: progressive, diverse, and electable.

Even if you prefer Hillary to either of those two, you have to remember that we don't live in a perfect world. We don't want to mirror the Republicans' mistake, when they ran Bob Dole because it was "his turn." We don't want to nominate a Michael Dukakis, someone we like but who is unelectable. We want to WIN, dammit. And besides, ideological purity and Rovian pragmatism actually coincide for a change: Obama-Edwards would be both more progressive and more electable than Clinton: Q.E.D.

Even from a purely feminist perspective, this poll -- and the direction of this poll, showing Hillary on a downward trend against all her Republican doppelgangers -- should nudge people out of Hillary's camp. Here's why: Justice Stevens (a Ford appointee who considers himself a "moderate conservative" but nevertheless is pro-choice) is 87 years old; Justice Ginsburg (one of only two Democrats on the Court) is 74 and a cancer survivor. SEVEN of the current justices were appointed by Democrats; the other seven are Republican. So what's better for women: running Hillary and having a Republican nominate the next one or two justices and putting a stake in the heart of Roe v Wade, or electing Obama and allowing young progressive judges to take their places, preserving Roe, and maybe even gaining a third seat on the Court if one of the Republican justices dies or needs to retire in the near future?

But if we want to win the Presidency in '08, we can't wait until after Iowa and New Hampshire, let alone all the big media-market states that have moved their primaries forward in order to favor the front-runners, to stop Clinton. The other Dems have to stop pretending they're electable and put their support behind a unified anti-Clinton progressive coalition NOW, or it'll be a waste of time.

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Bad Dogs.

Vichys, DINOs, Blue Dogs: different species, same genus, and it's about time to start explicating the role the Congressional Blue Dog Coalition plays in the social economy of Vichyism. The immediate impetus for this post is this good essay (in HuffPo) by Representative Major Owens (D-NY) (in turn inspired by this WaPo editorial) on how the Blue Dogs (note: specifically the Blue Dogs, not merely "conservative Democrats") are pushing porkbarrel spending that helps agribusiness, not family farmers.

My rule of thumb on farm legislation: if it doesn't help Wendell Berry's neighbors in Port Royal, KY, it's not really a farm bill. But both articles are worth reading, even if you don't care about esoterica like farm bills, because they help explain how the Blue Dogs can block truly helpful policies from taking hold (and Vichys hold on to power).

Here's a clip from Owens' essay:

Who are these Blue Dogs? Why are they the most powerful caucus in the Congress? Be advised that two of their Democratic founders were so conservative that they voted even for the impeachment of President Clinton. They are so clever that, despite their long-term demonization of the poor and Civil Rights, they now have four members of the Congressional Black Caucus in their ranks. This is the body that sponsored Harold Ford III's challenge to Nancy Pelosi when she ran for Minority Leader. So many members have been clamoring to get in that the Blue Dogs now operate like an Ivy League fraternity. You must be sponsored by five members and you must write an essay to achieve membership.

In other words, the horror of the facts of the farm program waste can never be understood without examining the power of the agricultural industrial complex which has its center of command in the Blue Dog Coalition....

Now, I'm not against Democrats moving right to gain election in conservative districts. That's politics, and while it smacks of triangulation when a faux-progressive national candidate like Hillary Clinton does it, it's actually a good thing in the House of Representatives. It's small-d democratic and "representative" (as in, we want Congresspeople generally to represent their constituents' interests, if not always their media-influenced views).

What's more, I'm ecstatic to have anyone oppose the Democratic Leadership Council's neoliberal policy on free (but not fair) international trade. I'm glad the "Blue Dogs" were able to help the Dem party make electoral gains in the South. I'm aware that if the Blue Dogs all shifted allegiance to the Republican Party, as many of their forebears did in the 50s and 60s when the Democratic Party started embracing civil rights legislation and as the founders of that coalition did just a few years back, then we wouldn't have majorities in both houses. But, as I've asked before, what good does it do to gain the majority, and then weep and cry and wring our hands about winning in the South and holding together the "Big Tent" instead of actually taking action to end the war, rescue Afghanistan, start rebalancing the budget, help homeowners avoid foreclosure, and stave off the pending recession (depression?)? If the Blue Dogs and other Vichys helped us gain the majority but now are stopping us from accomplishing any of the things voters expect Democrats to accomplish, then what the hell's the point? It's just more lukewarm spit (scroll down to point 2.5), and it just confirms voters' impression that Democrats are gutless on everything from domestic policy to the war on terror. And gutlessness wins neither hearts, nor minds, nor elections.

Here's the point that Democratic "centrists" can't seem to get: one can be a fiscally responsible, socially moderate, troop-supporting, pro-agriculture, slow-progress (as distinguished from no-progress), relatively protectionist Southern or Midwestern Democrat without opposing the election of anti-war Democrats, opposing mortgage foreclosure relief legislation, making it harder for working folks to declare bankruptcy when job loss or medical bills create catastrophic debt, or supporting the more racist forms of immigration reform -- let alone voting to impeach Bill Clinton or even flipping to the Republican Party (all of which Blue Dogs are currently doing or have done recently).

And what the hell are the Blue Dogs -- whose one legitimate policy stance is "to promote what they see as fiscally responsible budget reforms and accountability for taxpayer dollars" (Wikipedia) -- doing supporting a fiscally disastrous war, or lining the pockets of big agribusiness at the expense of real farmers? Maybe the Blue Dogs need saving from their own devolution into crony conservatism as much as the overall Democratic Party does...

(Image credit: copyright George Rodrigue. Mr. Rodrigue is not associated in any way with the Blue Dog Democrat Coalition. The founders of that coalition happened to meet in offices decorated with Mr. Rodrigue's wonderful "Blue Dog" paintings, and misappropriated the "Blue Dog" name without his permission.)

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Hillary's "Feminism" and Hillary's Friends

(Photo: Maureen Dowd, NYT)

Hillary's "Feminism": (or jump to "Hillary's Friends")

Over at Atrios' place a while back, I took a lot of flack from another poster who accused me of misogyny because I expressed doubts about Hillary's values and effectiveness, as if anyone who opposes the potential first female President must be doing so because they're an antifeminist. I countered that a true feminist would expect a female candidate to be evaluated without regard to gender. After all, most of us didn't like Reagan's BFF Margaret Thatcher, right? Was that misogyny? And was it anti-feminist to celebrate when liberal Labor's Tony Blair took over 10 Downing Street (back before he became Bush's lap puppet in Iraq, of course)?

So it's nice to read this in Maureen Dowd's column (note: she's a feminist!) in today's NY Times:

[In a speech in Iowa, Hillary said] that “there is one job we can’t afford on-the-job training for — that’s the job of our next president.” Her aides confirmed that she was referring to Obama.

Pressed to respond, Obama offered a zinger feathered with amused disdain: “My understanding was that she wasn’t Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, so I don’t know exactly what experiences she’s claiming.”

Everybody laughed, including Obama.

It took him nine months, but he finally found the perfect pitch to make a trenchant point.

Her Democratic rivals had meekly gone along, accepting her self-portrait as a former co-president who gets to take credit for everything important Bill Clinton did in the ’90s. But she was not elected or appointed.... And the part of the Clinton administration that worked best — the economy, stupid — was run by Robert Rubin. Hillary did not show good judgment in her areas of influence — the legal fiefdom, health care and running oppo-campaigns against Bill’s galpals.

She went on some first lady jaunts and made a good speech at a U.N. women’s conference in Beijing. But she was certainly not, as her top Iowa supporter, former governor Tom Vilsack claimed yesterday on MSNBC, “the face of the administration in foreign affairs.”

She was a top adviser who had a Nixonian bent for secrecy and a knack for hard-core politicking....

Obama’s one-liner evoked something that rubs some people the wrong way about Hillary. Getting ahead through connections is common in life. But Hillary cloaks her nepotism in feminism.

“She hasn’t accomplished anything on her own since getting admitted to Yale Law,” wrote Joan Di Cola, a Boston lawyer, in a letter to The Wall Street Journal this week, adding: “She isn’t Dianne Feinstein, who spent years as mayor of San Francisco before becoming a senator, or Nancy Pelosi, who became Madam Speaker on the strength of her political abilities. All Hillary is, is Mrs. Clinton. She became a partner at the Rose Law Firm because of that, senator of New York because of that, and (heaven help us) she could become president because of that.”

UPDATE, FEB. 9, 2008: Pauline Park at The Visible Vote has similar thoughts on this topic, in a good essay entitled Gloria Steinem & the Faux Feminism of Hillary Clinton. Her whole post is worth reading, but here's a teaser (emphasis mine):

[T]he single act that has arguably had the most impact on the lives of women — and African American women in particular — over the last decade is the so-called Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which Bill Clinton championed and signed into law. It is no coincidence that the welfare ‘reform’ act had the full support of Newt Gingrich and the right-wing Republicans to whom Bill and Hillary Clinton handed control of Congress in 1994, because the welfare ‘deform’ law (as many progressive activists call it) was straight out of the Republican playbook. The Clintons played into the discourse of poor women of color as ‘welfare queens’ and the Clinton administration’s policies not only did nothing to help them, Clinton policies deepened poverty among poor women of color and their children. The PRWORA had and still has the full support of Hillary Clinton, which tells one all one needs to know about Hillary’s politics. And yet, this is the kind of politics that Gloria Steinem apparently considers feminist and progressive — which demonstrates clearly that neither Gloria Steinem nor Hillary Clinton are either feminist or progressive.

Hillary Clinton also served on the board of Wal-Mart while the corporation engaged in massive and systematic discrimination against women and people of color — something else that, in my view, fails to qualify Hillary as a feminist or a progressive. *** [Note from Thersites: article about HRC's boosterism of WalMart here.]

The false feminism that Clinton and Steinem articulate is one in which the mere election of a women to elective office is held to be an intrinsically transformative moment. But having lived for two years under Margaret Thatcher’s iron-handed rule, I can assure you that Thatcher was no feminist and her election represented no victory for women, let alone for feminism. It is no coincidence that Ronald Reagan called her “the best man in England.” ... Maggie ... wielded power just like a man, and if anything, was tougher and more ruthless than any of her male predecessors — which is, of course, precisely how she rose to the premiership and how Hillary will seize the Democratic nomination this year if she does succeed in capturing it.

*********************

Hillary's Friends:

A good way to judge a person's character is by the enemies they make and the friends they embrace. Cicero said, "A friend is, as it were, a second self." So who are Hillary's "second selves," those whose support she has not rejected and who therefore give us insight into who her true "self" is?

- Fox News owner and arch-conservative Rupert Murdoch, who threw a fundraiser for her Senate re-election (which really was a fundraiser for her Presidential run, since she already had plenty of money and her re-election was secure). Every other Democratic candidate would have told Murdoch to go to hell.

- Henry Cuellar, "D"-TX, who's so conservative that he sat on the R side of the aisle during the State of the Union and enthusiastically hugged Bush afterward with the stupidest look of glee on his face.

- Jane Harman, "D"-CA, who knew about the administration's warrantless wiretapping program for years, supports it, and berated the NY Times for daring to tell the American people that their government is spying on hundreds of thousands of them in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

And we can now add both George and Laura to the chorus of bad people supporting Hillary, which sure suggests they know either (a) she's the most beatable in the general election, or (b) she's as pro-corporate as they are, and won't seriously rock the boat in ways that matter most to the brokers whom most of Washington serves (I favor this second interpretation). Dowd again:

President Bush is not so enamored of Obama’s foreign policy judgment. He gave a plug to Hillary on ABC News last night, calling her a “formidable candidate,” even under pressure, who “understands the klieg lights.” ... Laura Bush also gave Hillary a sisterly — and dynastic — plug when she told the anchor that living in the White House and meeting people everywhere would be “very helpful” to a first lady trading up.

I've had my doubts about Obama, but if George Bush thinks Obama's foreign policy is bad, it must be great. And if George and Laura, Henry Cuellar, Jane Harman, and even Rupert Murdoch support Hillary -- and she accepts their support! -- then there's something really wrong with her, and it's probably wise to run away. Fast.

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White Chocolate City

(Photo: Bush "visits" New Orleans at 2,000' after Katrina)

OK, so for some reason I woke up thinking about New Orleans, sad that such a beautiful and iconic city has been devastated and trying to imagine how difficult every Thanksgiving must be for all those people who've lost everything. Then I got to thinking about the fact that the Bush administration has so comprehensively screwed up every possible opportunity to make things better that I might even think it was intentional, if I were one of those unprofessional, dishonest, untrained-in-journalism "bloggers" I keep hearing about in the MSM (thank God I'm not one of those! They sound icky). And then I saw today's headlines, and vaguely remembered someone saying something about this some time ago...

Today's news: whites take a majority of the New Orleans City Council for the first time in decades; whites have returned to the city in much larger numbers than minorities; whites voted in much higher numbers than minorities; minorities seem to have given up on the city; this is seen as the biggest shift in New Orleans' political demographics since Reconstruction; and it's a predictor of how New Orleans, and Louisiana, are likely to vote in future Congressional and Presidential elections (ie, Republican).

And that vague memory of "someone" (ahem) predicting this? From VichyDems, February 23, 2006: "I really don't have a position on New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City" comment, other than t note that (a) it was politically unskilful, (b) New Orleans should be rebuilt and repopulated to be as close as possible to what it was before, which incidentally means majority people of color, (c) the efforts to rebuild the city so far have been criminally inept, and (d) I'm shocked, shocked to realize that those failures may result in the transformation of a Democratic stronghold in the South into just another Red commercial center."

April 24, 2006: Operation Sherman's March is Going Swimmingly: Here's the problem: a 'chocolate city'... Democratic stronghold in the land ... that God, in the Year of our Lord 1964, promised to the Republicans, otherwise known as Dixie... Hey, here's an idea! Don't upgrade the dikes and levees that protect the city .... When a world-class hurricane is announced, allow the middle-class and wealthy white people to leave early on clear roads, but do nothing to evacuate the poor who don't own cars (and who are afraid to leave their homes in high-crime neighborhoods). After the storm, respond clumsily, inconsistently, and late. Concentrate the survivors into camps ... and ... stadiums with little food, no health care, and no security. Then, when they're sick to their souls of the whole damned clusterfuck, give each of them just enough money to move away -- but not to move back...."

And Mary Landrieu , former D (now V for Vichy; or is it S for Stupid?)-LA, actually voted against filibustering Alito in exchange for the White House's promise to speed up aid to Katrina-stricken New Orleans. Stupid suckers who can't see the big picture don't deserve to represent us in high office, so Landrieu is high on the list for replacement in the next Democratic primaries. At least most of New Orleans' white population won't be voting in those...

Anyway, here's Parliament's "Chocolate City" for your listening pleasure. It's all New Orleans' African-American community has left: a dream, in an old song that only Ray Nagin remembers.

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A Late Catch, But... A "Who's Who" of Vichy DINOs Is Backing Hillary

This article's from last September -- and, Lord, I hate sending you to Fox News' site, but I can't find the article on AP -- but it's still timely. Not only does Fox News' Rupert Murdoch support Hillary, but so do some of the worst anti-Progressive "Democrats" the party has, including the hated Henry Cuellar (who sat on the R side of the aisle during the last State of the Union and hugged Bush ecstatically) and Jane Harman (who knew years earlier about the NSA wiretapping program and yet disclosed nothing -- then criticized the NYTimes for running the story when it found out about it -- and who Robert Dreyfuss lumps with Hillary (buncha links in that one post), Joe Lieberman (don't need links; see VichyDems' mission statement, above), and Rahm Emanuel as "weighing down" the Dem Party so much that it's "utterly incapable of anything like bold new thinking on national security").

These are not good people. Edwards would have told any of these people where to stick their endorsements, and even Obama -- with whom I've got my problems -- wouldn't truck with Murdoch, for God's sake. (Imagine what the Republican base would do to a R candidate who attended a fundraiser thrown by George Soros or even Barbra Streisand, and you'll see how ridiculous it is for Dems to tolerate Hillary taking money from Murdoch.)

So I say again: it can't be Hillary. It's not just this tiny White House Papers brouhaha -- hell, that's a red herring compared to her true antiprogressive credentials. And while I have my concerns with Barack, he's the ONLY one with the potential to beat her now, given that the big states have moved their primaries forward (which means that, no matter how much lip service we pay to democratic principles, only the two richest primary candidates have any shot at landing the nomination, because only they can afford huge TV ad buys this early in the campaign).

And the only way for Barack to beat Hillary is for him to form an Obama-Edwards ticket NOW, and for all the other Dems to drop out and put their support behind that ticket. Then we could have Obama for two terms, with Edwards in a good position to take the two terms behind that. Isn't that a much better option than Bush I - Clinton I - Bush II - Clinton II?

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Just What I Was Afraid Of

OK, so the Democrats took control of Congress -- and immediately Nancy Pelosi ruled out any possibility of impeachment, they reauthorized funding of the war, and they even passed a resolution written by uber-Vichy Joe Lieberman to call Iran a sponsor of terrorism, learning nothing from being burned by Bush in Iraq.

Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer vote to support Bush's new AG nominee, even though he won't admit waterboarding is torture.

And Hillary Clinton -- who is backed by Rupert Murdoch and Fox News (seriously!), who voted both for the Iraq war and now for the Iran terrorism resolution, who supports the (now-disproven) DLC position on free trade (ie, free trade without insisting on fair trade, killing the American worker), etc. -- is the front runner in the Presidential race even though most Democrats would prefer someone else and many Americans have strong feelings against her, putting our otherwise-guaranteed win in the '08 Presidential race at risk.

Good article/poll results on where Hillary really stands here.

I predicted this a year ago, dammit. And I'm tired of seeing our party wimp out and consistently either (a) sell out to corporate interests vs. real Americans, and/or (b) pander to an imaginary conservative/moderate center. So I haven't been posting to VichyDems; why bother? We had a great opportunity to really lead the nation, and we're blowing it yet again.

Here's what I'd love to see -- what would energize me: for all the Democratic Presidential candidates besides Hillary to huddle together and make a bold, outside-the-box move: decide that the best ticket would be Obama-Edwards, based just on current standings. Have Obama commit that every other candidate including Hillary will be offered a meaningful post in his administration. Then have every other candidate bow out of the primary race and urge their supporters to fully back Obama, consolidating the anti-Hillary position behind one candidate instead of allowing it to splinter (as, predictably, it will if they don't do something bold like this).

Doing so wouldn't reduce voter choice; it would increase it, by allowing voters a meaningful opportunity to choose a real progressive instead of a pro-corporate candidate who triangulates so much that she makes Richard Nixon look like a political naif.

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Strange Bedfellows

The last time I reported on politics making strange bedfellows was when I noted that Fox News was sponsoring a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's Senate re-election campaign -- a surreal occurrence that's never been adequately aired in either MSM or even Democratic Party circles, let alone explained.

Now here's another one, from the recent NY Times story about Barack Obama's (apparently innocent) investment in risky stocks also boosted by some of his largest donors.

I honestly don't care about what stocks Obama invested in. What caught my eye was this nugget, buried in the second half of the story:

[T]he stock purchases raise questions about how he could unwittingly come to invest in two relatively obscure companies, whose backers happen to include generous contributors to his political committees. Among those donors was Jared Abbruzzese, a New York businessman now at the center of an F.B.I. inquiry into public corruption in Albany, who had also contributed to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that sought to undermine John Kerry’s Democratic presidential campaign in 2004.

I try to keep discourse on a reasonably high and erudite level here, so let me calmly and politely ask: WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS A SWIFTBOATER DOING GIVING SIGNIFICANT $ TO OBAMA, AND WHAT'S OBAMA DOING TAKING HIS MONEY?

This isn't an attack on Obama -- despite some misgivings I still like him a hell of a lot better than I like Hillary, and I'm glad he's giving her a run for her money, hopefully turning the nomination into a real horserace in which the candidates will actually have to listen to Democratic voters -- but these questions needs answering. Fox raises money for Hillary? Swiftboaters give money to Obama? Yet no one seems to be asking the obvious followup questions.
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Under Saddam, Tolerance. Under Bush, Genocide.

Just damned sad. That's all I have to say about it.
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"You Are Not Free, And You Are Not Safe"

In 1900, the United States was a creditor nation: we loaned money to others, and invested both at home and overseas. We exported far more than we imported, in both raw and finished commodities. And we were on our way to becoming the most powerful nation on earth -- economically, militarily, and morally.

Fast forward 100 years. We are the world's largest debtor nation. We import far more than we export, with China being our largest source of overseas imports. And our entire economy is based on borrowing from other nations, with China being our second largest foreign creditor.

If you'd like to lie awake tonight, ask yourself: what would happen if China declined to buy any U.S. bonds whatsoever at the next bond auction, effectively declining to continue refinancing the national debt? Answer: our economy would collapse, Great Depression-style.

Or, for a less extreme example, ask yourself: what would happen if China unilaterally decided to discourage investment in its own stock market, depressing Chinese stock prices? It would be pretty to think that a slide in the internal stock market of a nominally insular, Communist country would be largely irrelevant to the capitalist West. But the truth is harsher, as demonstrated by today's worldwide slide in stock prices. China's government makes a decision about its own stock market, and our stock market takes a slide. Tomorrow, things will either continue to deteriorate, or China will take steps to reassure Western investors -- but which way things go will mainly be up to China, not to us.

Essayist and poet Wendell Berry, in his excellent collection of essays Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, wrote this: "If you are dependent on people who do not know you, who control the value of your necessities, you are not free, and you are not safe." Until we can become self-reliant again -- not isolationist, but self-reliant, capable of controlling our own destiny as a nation -- we will remain unfree, and we will remain fundamentally unsafe, no matter how many nukes we possess. And that, in large part, is why free-trade, DLC Democrats are nearly as dangerous to America's well-being as the free-trade, corporatist Republicans they are copying.

UPDATE, MARCH 3: Next-day rise in US indexes notwithstanding, it's not over yet....

UPDATE, MARCH 4: Still not over... Others are acknowledging that China's woes are the world's woes (so is it "protectionist" to want to loosen that connection?)... And as Treasury yields decline, there'll be less incentive for people to buy them (i.e. to finance the continual expansion of the national debt), which means the face yield of G-bonds will need to increase, which will increase the national debt even more (just like your credit card balance will go up if the interest rate rises but you keep just paying minimums), and pressure will increase on our policymakers to eventually allow higher inflation to artificially reduce our debt load in real dollars. You can't take away just one card from a house of cards...
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Tim Russert and the Fall of the Fourth Estate

Okay, I'm cribbing a title from a 2005 post at my calmer blog, NeoProgBlog, where I pointed out that the Washington media rely on access to power, rather than investigation of it, to get their stories. Then, Exhibit A were "reporters" Bob Woodward and Judith Miller. Yesterday, it was NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, who admitted at the Scooter Libby trial that his conversations with politicians are presumptively off the record rather than on it (as the law and journalistic custom provide). Dan Froomkin does a good job blasting this. Props to Atrios for spreading the word. It remains to bloggers to be the outsiders digging for the uncomfortable truths; that isn't right, but it's true, and it remains our responsibility.

On that topic, by the way, the best reporting on the Libby trial is (surprise, surprise) being done by a blogger, Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake, who has been credentialed and is in the courtroom every day. It's well worth following.
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So IS Hillary Inevitable? Maybe Yes...

UPDATE, SUPER TUESDAY, FEB. 15 2008: In the original post, I argued that Hillary Clinton's nomination was inevitable UNLESS people "recognize her campaign for what it is, and fight for fair primary elections as hard as they're fighting for fair general elections." Back then, I thought the biggest danger was moving the large states' primaries early in the primary season, which would give a huge boost to the candidate with the most money to buy TV advertising. (Small states, and states with caucuses, are won with local activists and grassroots work; large states and states with primary elections are won with big advertising buys.) Back then, HRC had the most money, by far.

I didn't foresee that Barack Obama would raise enough money -- largely, no matter what Hillary says, from grassroots donations -- to compete with her financially, turning it into the two-candidate race I hoped for. But I was correct that Clinton still may get the nomination because the primary process is unfair. The unfairness, it turns out, is in the Superdelegate system and in Hillary's switch from supporting the disqualification of Michigan and Florida, to stealth-campaigning in those states, to now pushing to have them seated (guaranteeing her the APPEARANCE of having won the popular vote).

If you'd like to read more -- and see the evidence; I always cite my sources -- about this, either visit VichyDems' home page and surf from there, or follow these links:

--On Superdelegates, and the Michigan/Florida problem: Feb 14, Feb. 14 again, CNN, and USA Today (but y'all open those last two in new tabs and come back here, OK?)
-- On HRC's History of Trying to Rig the Election Before it Even Began: March 8-9 '06, March 11 '06
--On why Obama is the more progressive candidate, including the overworked "but Lieberman is his mentor!" meme that even I fell for, a year ago: April 3, Updated Feb 10;
--On electability, and why electability really matters this time around (think: McCain appointing two more Republicans to the Supreme Court, making it 100% Republican for the next 20-30-40 years?): Feb. 9 , Feb. 4, Feb. 11, Feb. 12, and the Wall Street Journal today
--General lists of links on these topics: Feb. 5, Feb. 2

Hope this helps. Thanks!
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ORIGINAL POST:
Matthew Yglesias has a good, but incomplete, analysis of the Hillary juggernaut on his site. His conclusion is that her receiving the Dem nomination is not inevitable. Mine is that it IS inevitable unless people recognize her campaign for what it is, and fight for fair primary elections as hard as they're fighting for fair general elections. And, as I explain in a comment I left on Matthew's site, the current front line in the battle to make Hillary Just Another Candidate (which is my only goal, not to take her down completely), is the movement to move California, New York and Illinois to the front of the primary schedule.

Yglesias writes:

There's been a slightly weird "speaking truth to non-power" moment recently in the blogosphere where MYDD's Chris Bowers has been joining Team HRC in trying to convince us all that Hillary Clinton has a daunting advantage in the upcoming primary race. I'm not buying it and neither is Jonathan Chait who notes correctly that her polling isn't nearly as good in the early primary states as it is in big, vague national polls...

I responded:

You're forgetting the recent move, which I can't but be suspicious about, to advance big-market states like NY, CA and IL in the primary calendar. On its face, this sounds small-d democratic, letting states with large percentages of the nation's population help make the decision. But actually, it's the Iowa caucuses that are most democratic, because they let real people get down with the candidates as people, one-on-one. The only way a candidate can deliver a message to meaningful numbers of people in large markets is through large media buys, which cost more money than most candidates have early in the primary season.

The real impact of making the large states important, early, is that it will favor candidates with early money. Edwards can't compete in California's expensive media market the way Clinton can. In fact, no one can compete, financially, with Clinton. Which is why I am suspicious of the early-big-state-primary movement: it smells like an attempt by insiders to stack the decks in favor of HRC. Which, if true, would be just another instance of her un-small-d-democratic tactics to secure the nomination as by right, as opposed to by fair election.

If you're in one of the big states that's vying for an early primary, please contact your state representatives and explain why that's a bad idea for democrats and Democrats alike. If the Democratic Party can't let the small guys have a fair chance, rather than just the wealthy and well-connected, then what the hell are we really about?
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