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BHO, JSM advisers tweet-debating tech policy tonight. Useless—like Twitter. How debate with 140 char limit? http://tinyurl.com/6ypjh8 about 0 minutes ago from Trailhead
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Barack Obama’s decision yesterday not to take public financing came as a surprise to no one. But it has still earned him scorn. The New York Times editorial page, a longtime proponent of public financing, tweaked him for renouncing the system. The AP declared that Obama “chose winning over his word.” David Brooks mocked the “two Obamas”—one pointy-headed idealist, one conniving pragmatist.
Let’s side the question of whether Obama went back on his word—he did—and focus on whether it tarnishes him or not. No doubt Obama has handed John McCain a big weapon. But it’s not a cudgel—it’s a nerf bat. McCain can pummel Obama as much as he likes, and it won’t hurt him. Here’s why:
No one knows the difference. Barack Obama drew sneers when he called his fundraising operation a “parallel public financing system.” There’s a huge difference between the taxpayer-funded system that relies on $3 nonpartisan donations and caps campaign spending, and Barack Obama’s seemingly unlimited Internet-driven cash supply. But the sneers came from people who know what public financing is. As John McCain has himself admitted, not many voters base their decision on campaign-finance issues.
No one would honestly have done any differently. Who expected Barack Obama to set up the most effective fundraising operation in history and then throw it away? As First Read points out, there’s a word for that: dumb. However you look at it, being able to outspend your opponent 3-to-1 is more valuable than having the moral high ground on an issue few voters care about—even if you’ve devoted much of your career to it.
Democrats want to win. There’s always a push-pull dynamic when it comes to idealism and pragmatism, but Democrats have swung heavily toward pragmatism of late. Losses in 2000 and 2004 have soured them on moral victories. If Obama had taken the $85 million and proceeded to lose the general election, the rage among Democrats would eclipse the current fervor. He would just be another high-horse loser who didn’t know how to play the game.
It reassures Democrats who thought Obama is naive. One subtext of Hillary Clinton’s pugilistic campaign strategy is that she would take the same warrior’s approach to the presidency. “I'm in this race to fight for you ...” she told Pennsylvania voters. “You know you can count on me to stand up strong for you every single day in the White House.” Likewise, this shows Obama can perform a simple cost-benefit analysis. No one wants a president who isn’t a little calculating. It’s the weighing of ideals against necessity that makes a leader. Of course, one can also argue that sacrificing ideals makes true leadership impossible.
None of this is to say Obama shouldn’t be criticized for his decision. (Nor is it the first time Obama has made a flagrantly calculated choice.) The point is, he expected criticism, but thought forgoing public funds was worth it anyway.
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It’s only fitting that the most bizarre press conference of
this political season had an equally bizarre coda. Larry Sinclair, the man who
claims to have had a naughty encounter with Barack Obama back in 1999, stood at
a podium at the National Press Club, rattling off a litany of increasingly detailed minutiae
about the incident before taking questions and exiting the building. He was arrested
on his way out.
Sinclair’s rap sheet is well-documented.
He has been charged with everything from larceny to theft to forgery, and drew
a 16-year prison sentence in Colorado
in 1987. He was released in 1999. Now it looks like he’ll be facing a new
charge: Larceny, this time in Delaware.
Two members of the U.S. Marshals’ Regional Fugitive
Task Force took him into custody after the press conference was over, says
his lawyer, Montgomery
Blair Sibley. The extradition hearing was scheduled for late this
afternoon. If Sinclair gets bail, he can travel to Delaware himself to turn himself in to
authorities. If not, he’ll have to travel in federal custody.
Sibley said he believes someone tipped off the Delaware authorities. “Obviously,
Larry’s presence in D.C. was not a surprise or secret,” he said. “They put two
and two together.”
He said he didn’t know the specific charge, but was told it
was some form of larceny.
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John McCain is taking heat right now for reversing his
position on the federal ban on coastal oil drilling, as if flip-flopping itself
were the cardinal sin here. But the biggest problem is the notion that lifting
the ban will affect gas and oil prices in the short term.
With gas prices topping four dollars a gallon, McCain
explains his switch as an attempt to give Americans relief at the pump. Florida
Gov. Charlie Crist justified
his late conversion in similar terms: “Floridians are suffering.” A Rasmussen
poll released today showed
that 61 percent of Florida
voters agree drilling would bring down the cost of oil and gas.
The problem is, it won’t—at least not
for the next seven years. Here’s the reason, per the Wall Street Journal:
With the disputed areas long off-limits even to exploration,
neither government nor industry experts know exactly how much oil and gas is
there, how best to get at it, or even where it is. And although the industry's
environmental record is much improved since headline-grabbing oil spills of
earlier eras, risks remain, and addressing those risks could delay production
for years.
So the notion that it’s going to affect oil prices in the next
few months is pretty outlandish.
But even long-term, drilling doesn’t fix much. America’s
coastal regions have an estimated 19 billion barrels’ worth of oil. The biggest
prize—California’s
southern coast, with an estimated 5.6 billion barrels of oil—has been declared
off-limits by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The next-biggest score, in the Gulf of Mexico, is estimated at 3.7 billion barrels. The United States
consumes 20
million barrels of petroleum a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Which means even the maximum amount of drillable oil would only get the U.S.
about two and a half years’ worth of fuel. Realistically, we’d get a lot less.
Even Karl Rove has dissed
McCain for spouting "economic nonsense." (Rove goes after Obama, too.) McCain’s
rationale for drilling doesn't inspire either.
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Now that Barack Obama has opted out of public financing for the general, it means John McCain is the only one taking cash from the public coffers. So if you checked off the $3 donation box on your tax returns—the source of national public campaign financing—your money is going to McCain and McCain alone. What happens to the cash Obama would have gotten?
It stays in the coffers. The Treasury maintains a Presidential Election Campaign Fund that rolls over from year to year. When you select the $3 check-off option on your annual tax returns, it goes directly into the fund, which gets allocated to primary candidates, general candidates, and the party nominating conventions. The amount each candidate receives in public funds depends on the amount raised. This year, each general-election candidate is eligible to receive $84.1 million in public funds.
So how much money is left over now that Obama is out? The fund’s balance at the end of May was $192.6 million, according to FEC spokesman Bob Biersack. That means the FEC will have more than $100 million left over to fund this year’s conventions and future campaigns.
In other words, taxpayers don’t have to worry (or celebrate) that their money is going only to John McCain. He’s not getting a larger portion of the $3 donations—the extra cash just gets allocated to other areas.
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The National Press Club has been taking some heat for allowing Larry Sinclair, the wanted, formerly incarcerated crazy person who claims to have engaged in certain deviant behaviors with Barack Obama, to hold a press conference in its Washington, D.C., building today. Critics cite the dubious nature of Sinclair’s accusation and wonder why a respected institution would give Sinclair a platform.
But here’s another angle: Is the Press Club enabling slander? When a newspaper runs an ad or column it knows to be libelous, the publication can be held legally accountable for defamation. Does the Press Club hold equal responsibility for Sinclair’s views?
David Heller, a lawyer for the Media Law Resource Center, says the Press Club is probably in the clear for three reasons. First, libel (or, when it’s spoken, slander) by definition requires that someone espouse views they know to be untrue, or show a reckless disregard for the truth—the general standard known as "actual malice." Sinclair’s charges are absurdly flimsy—he even failed a polygraph test—but no one knows them to be false. Second, publications are often able to invoke a "neutral reportage privilege" that says they reported a defamatory but newsworthy claim accurately and objectively. Some states have such a privilege; others don’t. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear cases on the question. And thirdly, the Press Club can immunize itself by dissociating from or disagreeing with Sinclair’s claims. Talk radio hosts will often respond to a slanderous caller by pointing out that "we don’t know that" or "that hasn’t been proven" just to defend against potential law suits. Similarly, the Press Club can distance itself from Sinclair. And it has. Sylvia Smith, the club’s president, told Politico that Sinclair’s allegations "don't seem very credible."
So merely providing a forum for Sinclair is unlikely to get them in trouble. If the Obama campaign wants to hold someone accountable for Sinclair’s views, it will probably be Sinclair himself.
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Barack Obama has always acted suspicious of his own popularity, as though he suspects that the ability to inspire adolescent worship is not, shall we say, presidential. He has a special word for the way he feels about himself when he sees thousands of otherwise dignified adults melting in real time: imperfect.
“Ultimately I am an imperfect vessel for your hopes and dreams,” Obama told a crowd in Ames, Iowa, exactly one day after announcing his candidacy. And again, in a Father’s Day speech yesterday at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago: “I say this knowing that I have been an imperfect father—knowing that I have made mistakes and will continue to make more.”
To be clear, Obama does not think he’s Mr. Perfect.
Of all the adjectives Obama could have tapped to summarizing his humility, imperfect falls on the flattering end. It’s much more “I am human” or “I am mortal” than “I make a lot of errors” or “I have flaws.” And it has strong constitutional credentials; the phrase “a more perfect Union” falls 12 words into the Preamble and shows up in the Federalist Papers. If you don’t buy this allusion, please refer yourself to Obama’s highly regarded speech on race relations, titled “A More Perfect Union.”
In that speech, Obama bestowed the highest possible praise on his former pastor Jeremiah Wright: “As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.” A few minutes later, he turns the word back on himself: “I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy—particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.”
Again, at a “Compassion Forum” on April 13: “And, you know, pastors are imperfect. Certainly, the membership is imperfect. I, as somebody who is sitting in the pews as a sinner, is imperfect.” The Obama is not without original sin.
Michelle Obama picked up the baton a few days later at a Women for Obama event: “Barack, as I tease, he’s a wonderful man, he’s a gifted man, but in the end, he is just a man. He is an imperfect vessel and I love him dearly.”
In one word, the wordsmith in chief has neatly compressed the combined brand of his candidacy: He is extraordinary but humble, messianic but human, imperfect but constitutional.
I, for one, would like to see Obama supporters embrace this emblem. Rather than pollute flat surfaces with “Hope” and “Change,” let’s see them fill a room with signs that all read “Imperfect.” The rest of us should forgive Obama all his shortcomings. No one’s perfect.
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Last week, John McCain made a comment that still has everyone scratching their heads. During his speech in New Orleans, he described ways in which our country should prepare for natural disasters, including this one: “We should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies.” (Video here.)
The questions are so numerous, it’s hard to know where to start. Why give hot water to babies? Wouldn’t they prefer cold water if they’re dehydrated? Would you heat the water before bottling it, or after? Wouldn’t that melt the plastic slightly? These questions and more have been pondered across the blogs.
It’s especially bizarre because the word hot isn’t in the text of the speech. McCain inserted it himself.
We asked around for possible explanations. Perhaps babies need to have their liquids hot before a certain age? “No,” said Dr. Jeffrey W. Hull, a pediatrician in Decatur, Ala. “Babies don’t need to drink their stuff hot. … He might be thinking in terms of warm water for cooking food for babies.” But not to drink.
In fact, babies under six months aren’t supposed to drink water at all. Babies’ kidneys aren’t mature, which means sodium can get flushed out when they drink, putting them at risk of water intoxication, Dr. Jennifer Anders told Reuters last month.
But maybe disaster relief organizations sometimes deliver hot water, right? Red Cross spokeswoman Lesly Simmons, who was in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, says she’s never heard of that. “Bottled water, that’s something we tend pass out,” she said. “But hot water’s never been a focus of a disaster relief operation.” Emergency-relief vehicles will drive around distributing food, snacks, and drinks. Sometimes the water is chilled, but it’s never hot. “It’s always too hot to be giving out hot water,” Simmons said.
Maybe McCain meant to say boiled water? “You certainly want to give babies clean things,” said Jane Crouse of La Leche League International, an organization devoted to breast-feeding. “So if there is a question as to the water’s purity, what are you supposed to do in an emergency? Boil your water.”
Of course, that doesn’t explain the bottles. Or the babies. Or the fact that he said “hot,” not “boiled.”
The McCain campaign did not respond to e-mails asking for comment.
Update June 16, 3:03 p.m.: Fray contributor Arthur Ether offers a plausible explanation:
Older Americans know what a "hot water bottle" is...it's rubber, you
fill it with hot water and use it to ease your aches and pains at
night. Perhaps McCain saw the words "water" and "bottle" and scrambled
it up from there.
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Ralph Nader rocketed back into the spotlight Wednesday after disgraced ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy alleged that Game 6 of the 2002 Lakers-Kings series was rigged—a charge Nader (and, well, just about everyone with a pair of eyes) has been making since it happened. Now, with his umpteenth presidential campaign gearing up, Nader has managed to turn his moment of vindication into a media tour. He announced via press release that “even when it comes to the NBA playoffs, Ralph was right.” He spoke to ESPN about his crusade to reform sports officiating. He even found time to share some thoughts with Trailhead.
Nader slamming the NBA sounds much like Nader slamming any malfeasant company: It’s a “corporate dictatorship” that cares more about the bottom line than its consumers—or in this case, fans. The problem, he explains, is “there’s no process to explain to the fans when the line has been crossed.” Players can be fined for objecting to a ref’s call. Coaches and owners get penalties, too. “If you have pattern of behavior not inscribed by law,” he says, “it becomes insidious, there’s no way out.”
Nader has a solution. He’s urging the NBA to create an independent panel that would review referee selections. Company men would be sussed out; fans would feel reassured. But should the NBA really have the government meddling in its officiating? Nader says it’s all about the consumer: “Without the fans, there wouldn’t be an operation.” Likewise, he recommends that the nondisparagement clause—the NBA rule that prohibits players from complaining about a call—should only apply during the season, not the finals.
The timing for Nader couldn’t be better. A recent survey showed the independent presidential candidate polling at a not-inconsiderable 6 percent. It looks as if he’ll be on the ballot in Colorado, and he has applied to appear on the ballots of at least three other states as well.
Nader doesn’t expect to make sports officiating a big part of his platform—at least no more than any other local issue. But it’s certainly higher on his priority list than on his opponents’. “They’d never get involved in a local sports issue,” he says. “That’s considered a total loser. Hillary was for the Yankees and the Cubs, right?”
Meanwhile, Nader is pushing to be included in this year’s debates, particularly the summer town halls being negotiated by Obama and McCain, as well as debates hosted by Google. He dismisses concerns that he’d be a spoiler for the Dems: “I’m concerned about the votes I lose to them,” he says. “If I have an equal right to run for election, there’s no concern. None of us are spoilers or all of us are spoilers.”
And this year, Democrats can’t blame Nader alone for upsetting the two-party system. Bob Barr is running on the Libertarian Party ticket, which could presumably suck away GOP voters. Nader points to a double standard: “How can liberals say Nader shouldn’t run without saying Bob Barr shouldn’t?”
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Yesterday, Ralph Nader had a moment of vindication. In a court filing, disgraced ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy claimed that Game 6 of the 2002 Lakers-Kings playoff series was manipulated by two of the three referees. Guess who has been saying that all along?
Back in 2002, Nader wrote a letter urging NBA Commissioner David Stern to investigate the controversial game, in which the Lakers scored 16 of their final 18 points at the foul line thanks to some heavy-handed officiating. Nader’s interference drew scorn, but then again so did everything he did back then. People were still miffed over the 2000 election results, for which many Democrats blamed him.
Charles Barkley called Nader an “idiot.” One San Bernardino Sun columnist mocked the “clang-clanging of a howling Ralph Nader just audible below the din.” The Daily Oklahoman editorial board laughed at the “perpetual crank”:
[W]ho else but the most boorish fan—well, other than Ralph Nader—would call on the league office for an outside investigation of the referees, or even more silly, of the referees' collective intent?
Who indeed.
For Nader, the timing couldn’t be better. In case you didn’t hear the first time, he’s running for president again. “This whole thing has lit up our funds today,” spokesman Chris Driscoll told me. Meanwhile, Nader’s office sent out a celebratory e-mail blast: “We tell our kids that sports teaches lessons about life. The lesson we learned from the 2002 NBA Playoffs—Ralph was right.” At last, Ralph Nader can get the respect he deserves!
Well, not quite. Even in his moment of glory, ESPN killed the mood, describing him as a “former presidential candidate.” No doubt another example of the corporate-owned media trying to push him out of the race.
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It wasn’t in his prepared remarks, but John McCain couldn’t resist one of his favorite economic anecdotes today. A minute into his speech to the National Federation of Independent Businesses he paid his respects to Meg Whitman, his campaign co-chair and the former CEO of eBay. He thanked her for her contributions to the global economy, most notably that “1.3 million people around the world make a living off eBay.”
As Daniel Gross wrote in Slate a few weeks ago, this is total bunk. The 1.3 million statistic is actually a reflection of how many people “use eBay as their primary or secondary source of income.” About half of those 1.3 million people are Americans, according to a report, and there’s no telling how many are making a living off eBay or merely exercising a hobby. But that hasn’t stopped McCain (or Whitman, who mentioned the same stat in her address to the NFIB conference a day earlier).
For Republicans, the eBay example is a handy one to pull out of their back pocket whenever they start yammering about the economy. The Web auctioneer is governed largely on conservative principles—the company provides a framework for a market, and buyers and sellers take it from there. The auction system means that the market’s prices regulate themselves, without much regulation from a higher power.
Even better, a market providing eBay services has naturally emerged to complement the traditional eBay market. If you’ve got a limited-edition Beanie Babies hippo you need to sell but can’t keep up with the demand, you can pay somebody else to do it for you. This injects middlemen into the transaction, which, in an ideal world, brings revenue to even more people. Voila! A new market deriving from another market. As far as Republicans are concerned, the more free markets the better.
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In case you're still feeling a void in your heart where Hillary Clinton and the boys once lived, Slate humbly offers an eight-minute recap video of the entire Democratic race. Keep it handy; you may want to show it to your grandkids some day.
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Every four years, campaign reporters dust off the old metaphor kit. Some phrases reappear—the "horse race," the "coronation," the "salvos" and "barbs" and "verbal hand grenades" being "fired" and "traded" and "lobbed." Other riffs are specific to a particular election, like this year’s endless Rocky analogies or the analysis of Clinton’s "Tonya Harding option."
But the best campaign metaphors are often provided in real time by life itself. Here’s a rundown of the season’s best.
7. Mike Huckabee’s emergency landing. On Feb. 7, Mike Huckabee’s press plane made an emergency landing so harrowing that one reporter thought the aircraft might flip upside down. Once they were on the ground, a co-pilot left "visibly shaken." A week later, Huck’s van ran out of gas. Twice. A month later, so did his campaign.
6. Obama’s waffle. At a Scranton, Pa., diner, Barack Obama bristled at a reporter’s question about Jimmy Carter’s meeting with Hamas: "Why can’t I just eat my waffle?" The response quickly became shorthand for Obama’s occasional bouts of prickliness. When reporters ribbed him about it later, he was unamused.
5. John Edwards’ breakdown. The last thing a stalling campaign needs is for its bus actually to stall out—especially in the middle of a 36-hour, cross-state "Marathon for the Middle Class" bus tour. But that’s exactly what happened to John Edwards the day before the Iowa caucus. His staff pleaded with reporters not to write up the low-hanging metaphor. They couldn’t resist.
4. Clinton’s inferno. In mid-April, just when Clinton was stoking the embers for a big comeback in Pennsylvania, her office in Terre Haute, Ind., burned to the ground. Investigators ruled out arson. A month later, she just barely eked out a victory in the must-win Hoosier State. But by then her campaign was all but engulfed.
3. Obama’s 37. When Obama first bowled a 37 at the Pleasant Valley Recreation Center in Altoona, Pa., he laughed it off: "I was terrible." But soon the score became a symbol of his aloofness from hard-working Americans. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called the senator’s performance "dainty." Never mind that he hadn’t bowled all the frames himself. Suddenly he was the latte-sipping, arugula-munching, flag-pin-shunning elitist who rolls gutter balls. Clinton rubbed it in by challenging Obama to a "bowl-off" on April Fools' Day.
2. Clinton headquarters reduced to rubble. Back in February, the Clinton camp moved its home base from a fancy K Street pad in Washington, D.C., to a medicine cabinet of a building in Arlington, Va. The original digs were slated for demolition to make room for new condos. Hard to get more symbolic than wrecking balls.
1. Eight Belles’ last race. Two days before the Kentucky Derby, Clinton urged supporters to put their money on Eight Belles, the only filly competing. But on the day of the race, the girl horse placed second behind an inexperienced yet favored young colt named, of all things, Big Brown. Eight Belles crossed the finish line, but only after breaking both front ankles. She had to be euthanized on the track. Critics blamed the rough terrain. Big Brown went on to win the Preakness but inexplicably faltered in the final contest, the Belmont Stakes. Trainers are still scratching their heads. Instead, the winner was a horse named Da’ Tara—although, let’s be honest, it might as well be called Grizzled Old Veteran.
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It’s the first full week of the general election, and John McCain is already getting shredded for plagiarism. Not copying, exactly, but framing his candidacy as a reaction to Barack Obama’s.
It started Tuesday night, when McCain chose to orient his speech around the refrain, "That’s not change we can believe in." As one commentator put it, that’s just taking Obama’s slogan and saying no. Today, William Kristol chides McCain: "Even hardhearted Republicans think a general election message should be a bit more positive than that."
Later last week, National Journal’s Hotline pointed out that McCain’s new imagery mimics Obama’s logo. And McCain’s new slogan—"A Leader We Can Believe In"—is a direct response to Obama’s.
Despite the criticism, McCain seems prepared to run with the phrase. The camp has introduced a new blog called The McCain Report, subtitling it "A Blog We Can Believe In." Today, Obama kicks off his two-week economy tour with the sales pitch, "Change that Works for You." The McCain campaign sent out a response, concluding that "Barack Obama doesn't understand the American economy and that's change we just can't afford."
By co-opting Obama's language, McCain is essentially ceding the "change" label. Things will change under Obama, he’s saying, just not for the better. In what everyone seems to agree is a "change election," that seems like a risky idea. Hillary Clinton stumbled when she tried to turn Obama’s slogans on him—remember her "change we can Xerox" line, or her chanting of "Yes, we will." These moments felt more derivative than clever and tacitly acknowledged that Obama’s message had connected. Similarly, McCain is agreeing to begin the competition on Obama’s turf. Plus, however mawkish Obama’s image can sometimes be, attacks on "change" and "hope" just sound bitter. No moment has failed quite like Clinton’s sarcastic riff that under Obama "the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect." McCain should take note.
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When Hillary Clinton didn’t concede to Barack Obama Tuesday night, members of the media reacted as if she had run over a puppy. MSNBC’s Russert/Matthews/Olbermann triumvirate were dumbfounded that she didn’t acknowledge that Obama had sealed up the nomination. Jon Stewart depicted her speech as a series of “I wants” and “I needs” and “I dids.” On CNN, Jeffrey Toobin attributed her refusal to concede to “deranged narcissism.”
But at today’s rally in Washington, D.C., her previous resistance started to make sense. Rather than bow out amid the furor of Obama’s victory, she wanted to exit on her own terms. She thanked her supporters for their hard work. She urged them to unite behind Obama. (She even managed a “Yes we can!” without gritting her teeth.) She painted her candidacy as a world-historic successor to the suffragists, the abolitionists, and the civil rights movement: "[F]rom now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the President of the United States," she said to cheers. "And that is truly remarkable." And why not? She wanted a party, not a funeral.
Elizabeth Brown, a supporter from Frederick County, Virginia, called Clinton’s approach “brilliant.” “The people who volunteered for her and gave to her need time to heal,” she said. “These people count. She validated our support of her.” Brown hasn’t decided whether to vote for Obama yet, but was turned off by the glee with which the media rushed to coronate Obama. “Some of us may come around, just give us time,” she said.
“Not all of us,” a woman standing nearby piped up. Indeed, a small but vocal minority of the audience made clear they’d rather eat glass than vote for Obama. Linda Mahoney from Silver Spring had a computer print-out sign taped to her back saying “Remember in November, vote present”—a riff on Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois senate. It was her partner’s idea, she said, pointing to the woman behind her. Mahoney was visibly sickened by the notion of an Obama presidency. “He’s a do-nothing.” But would she really prefer a McCain administration? “It bothers me a lot, but at least we can unelect him in four years.” Later, when Clinton endorsed Obama, Mahoney and her partner stormed out.
Clinton anticipated this sort of reaction. “[W]hen you hear people saying – or think to yourself – ‘if only’ or ‘what if,’ I say, ‘please don’t go there,’ ” she told the audience. “Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.”
The message didn’t get through to everyone. Tyrone Gray, a young guy from D.C., said he has already donated to McCain and would campaign for him unless Obama picked Clinton as his vice president. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’m one of those angry voters.” His distaste for Obama was matched only by his revulsion toward the media, on whom he blamed Clinton’s loss. He wasn’t alone. When I approached a Clinton supporter named Gretchen, she nearly threw holy water on me. “You’re part of the problem,” she said. But I hadn’t even asked her a question yet, I pointed out. “It’s what you represent,” she said.
Clinton, for her part, did her best to craft a happy ending. She re-told the story of Florence Steen, the 88-year-old woman who had waited all her life to vote for a woman and died right after casting her ballot. As some media outlets pointed out (ahem), Steen’s ballot didn’t count. But that wasn’t the end, Clinton said: “[H]er daughter later told a reporter, ‘My dad’s an ornery old cowboy, and he didn’t like it when he heard mom’s vote wouldn’t be counted. I don’t think he had voted in 20 years. But he voted in place of my mom.’ ” It was a sweet ending to a sad story, but also a subtle dig at the media. Even though they said Steen’s vote wouldn’t count, her loved ones made sure it did.
Clinton left her supporters with the message that her candidacy and Obama’s are both historic—but that this moment is his. “I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next President and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort,” she said. The cheers drowned out the boos.
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Hillary Clinton will suspend her campaign Saturday. But what does it mean to “suspend” your operation rather than drop out?
The question comes up every four years, and the answer remains largely the same: It lets the candidate hold on to his or her delegates. In 2000, Slate’s Ted Rose explained:
The two national parties set the rules for the selection and responsibilities of their delegates. (All states have their own laws regarding delegates, but in recent decades the U.S. Supreme Court has struck them down, ruling that the parties can set the policies.) Democrats dictate their policy from the top down: All delegates are pledged, but not bound, to reflect the conscience of the candidate they were chosen to represent.
For Clinton, “suspending” allows her to keep adding to her delegate totals. Some caucus states still haven’t held their state conventions. (Iowa’s is June 17.) By “suspending” rather than dropping out, Clinton can continue picking up delegates who might not be named yet.
It also lets her keep her promises to delegates she picked to attend the Democratic National Convention in August. If she dropped out entirely, she would keep her district-level delegates but lose control over statewide delegates. By suspending, she keeps both.
That doesn’t mean she’ll wield much power at the convention. Any decision made about the party platform or rules still requires a majority vote, which means Obama’s in charge. But Clinton’s delegates could still try to influence decisions. “If some of her supporters were greatly exercised about one particular issue and it was important to her political future that she extract a concession on the platform,” then she could exert some pressure, explained William Mayer of Northeastern University. But that’s unlikely to happen. Once you endorse the nominee, you’re effectively telling your delegates to support him or her on all counts.
Some people think it also helps Clinton continue to raise funds to pay off her more than $20 million in debt. But the FEC’s Bob Biersack said it makes no difference. “The word suspend doesn’t have any campaign-finance implications,” he said. “Even if she said she’s withdrawing from the race, she could continue to raise money to pay off her debts no matter what.” If she had opted for public financing, then suspending vs. withdrawing would matter, since you can’t take matching funds for money raised after you drop out. But this year, only John Edwards chose to take public funds.
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It’s a perennial problem for political campaigns: How do you tamp down scurrilous rumors without appearing to dignify them?
In Barack Obama’s case, the strategy has been direct and forceful denial, with some jokes mixed in. At Wednesday’s AIPAC conference, Obama addressed the rumors, mostly propagated over the Web, that he is a Muslim: “I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country," Obama said. "They're filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for president. And all I want to say is—let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty scary."
Yesterday he was forced to deny a new rumor about Michelle Obama supposedly using a derogatory word to refer to white people—a claim for which there’s no evidence but that has picked up steam on blogs. When a reporter for McClatchy asked him about it, Obama bristled: "Frankly, my hope is people don’t play this game," he said. "It is a destructive aspect of our politics. Simply because something appears in an e-mail, that should lend it no more credence than if you heard it on the corner. Presumably the job of the press is to not to go around and spread scurrilous rumors like this until there is actually anything, an iota, of substance or evidence that would substantiate it."
Compare that with John Edwards, who did his best not to address the National Enquirer report that he had fathered a child with a former campaign worker. When a mainstream reporter asked him about it, Edwards’ gave a curt response—"Tabloid trash, completely false"—and moved on. He kept the quote short and noncontextualized, presumably to make it harder for the networks to report it. Obama, by contrast, spoke in full paragraphs, making it practically impossible not to report it.
The decision to address the rumors rather than to ignore them is deliberate. It suggests an optimistic view of Americans—a belief that truth always wins out. "The American people are I think smarter than folks give them credit for," Obama said in response to a question about the e-mail campaign at a debate in January. But that might be overly generous. News reports during the final primaries found the Muslim rumors have penetrated deep into voters’ consciousness. In one video, a reporter tries to reassure a Hillary supporter that Obama says he’s not a Muslim. "I know he does," the woman says. She just doesn’t believe him.
In cases like that, denial is useless. Not only because some voters are determined to believe the rumors, but because repetition will only strengthen their conviction. Psychological studies have shown that denying false information can contribute to its resiliency. The Washington Post's Shankar Vedantam wrote last year that "once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it." Barack, meet hard place.
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Talking Points Memo points to a bizarre little detail on John McCain’s Web site. The front page currently promos four things: the “Decision Center,” the “General Election,” “Obama & Iraq,” and “Golf Gear.” Click on that last tab, and it takes you to the campaign store, where you can buy your old man a “Father’s Day McCain Golf Pack.”
There’s just one problem here. George W. Bush gave up golf out of respect for the troops: “I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.” (Stories like this may have also influenced his decision.)
Yet here’s McCain, practically shoving golf clubs into our hands during a time of war. Granted, you won’t find McCain playing much golf himself. “I hate golf,” he told reporters on his bus last year. “Churchill said, it’s a good walk wasted.” *
Perhaps this is just another count—like his stances on Katrina and global warming—on which McCain intends to distance himself from Bush.
*Update 6:55 p.m.: A reader points out that McCain misquoted Winston Churchill. Churchill famously said that "Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even
smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose." It's Mark Twain who is quoted as saying that "Golf is a good walk spoiled."
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If the first day of the general election foretold anything about the rest of the contest, it’s that McCain will be struggling daily to avoid "senior moments."
Yesterday, McCain had not one but two such moments. At a press conference in New Orleans, he claimed to have voted for every investigation into Hurricane Katrina, when in fact he voted twice against establishing a commission to investigate levee failures. "I don’t know exactly what you are describing at this moment," he told the reporter. Then, when asked why he called for divestment from Iran but never signed onto the divestment bill Obama introduced last year, he pled ignorance: "I am not familiar with it at all. I do not know if it passed the Senate or had any hearing or anything else."
Don’t discount superficiality, either. McCain’s age was on display Tuesday as he addressed a few hundred supporters in New Orleans. His speech gleamed on the page, but came off stilted and shaky in the reading. The garish green background and shoddy sound system didn’t do him any favors, either. (A colleague compared it to "bingo night at the hospice.") Compare that with Obama’s honeyed baritone and photogenic mug addressing a crowd of 20,000, and it almost doesn’t matter what either of them said.
McCain’s in a tough spot. There’s guaranteed to be a double standard when it comes to memory lapses, teleprompter snafus, and other stumbles mental and physical, as the media treats McCain’s pratfalls as part of a larger narrative. (No one blinked when Obama once referred to the "57 states"; if that had been McCain, it would be all over YouTube.) The McCain campaign knows this. That’s why his staffers released 1,173 pages of the senator’s health records. Also see Mark Salter’s heated response when Obama said McCain was "losing his bearings." "He used the words ‘losing his bearings’ intentionally, a not-particularly-clever way of raising John McCain’s age as an issue," Salter wrote. "This is typical of the Obama style of campaigning."
But if youth and inexperience are fair game, so should be age and too much experience. This year, the first national estimate on cognitive impairment found that more than one-third of people age 71 and older have some diminished mental function. McCain will turn 72 in August. Recall and mental agility are important qualities for younger politicians, too. But with McCain, everyone's senility-dar will be especially sensitive.
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Hillary Clinton has finally announced that she will drop out—but not till Saturday. Thus Clinton departs as she campaigned, dragging it out to the last possible moment. After more than two months of daily odds-making, we sink Clinton to her final resting place of 0 percent. So it goes.
The last 36 hours felt like something out of the DSM-IV.
Faced with defeat Tuesday night, Clinton gave a defiant speech with no
recognition that Obama had locked up the nomination. Fans encouraged her to fight on.
Late Tuesday, Clinton staffers were still spinning against the wind.
Hillaryland went from professional campaign operation to alternate
reality in which conventions are contested, skeletons emerge from
closets, and superdelegates experience group epiphanies based on vague
electability arguments.
But after Clinton held a conference call with top supporters Wednesday
afternoon, things wrapped up quickly. That evening, Clinton announced
she would "express her support for Barack Obama and party unity" this
weekend. John McCain called Obama to congratulate him. The spin machine rested. ...
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.
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After Obama’s speech at AIPAC this morning, ABC News noted
what appeared to be new language on the subject of meetings with Iran:
“But as President of the United
States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled
diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my
choosing – if, and only if – it can
advance the interests of the United
States.” [E.A.]
ABC describes Obama’s position as “evolving” ever since his original
statement in the YouTube debate that he’d be willing to meet with the leaders
of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela “without preconditions. “But
now,” ABC writes, “Obama has put a major condition on his willingness to meet
with Iran: he will meet only
if such a meeting advances the interests of the U.S.”
Isn’t this sort of circular? Would a U.S. president ever meet with another leader if
he didn’t think it advances the interest of the United States? You could argue he’s
wrong, but it’s not like Obama has any other
reason to sit down with Ahmadinejad.
This is all part of a larger debate about whether or not
Obama is walking back his original stance. ABC has argued that Obama’s stance
has grown “nuanced” and pointed to surrogates parsing words like
“preconditions” ("I would not say that we would meet unconditionally,”
said Tom Daschle) and “leader” (not necessarily Ahmadinejad, said adviser Susan
Rice).
But the Obama campaign insists
that his stance has been consistent all along. According to them, it turns on
one word: “willing.” The campaign points out that the YouTube questioner asked Obama
whether or not he would be “willing” to meet with those leaders—a distinction
from saying he would meet with them. He
said, “I would.” Of course, that could mean either “I would meet with them” or
“I would be willing to meet with them.” The Obama camp says it’s the latter. Back
in November, the senator told
Tim Russert, “I did not say that I would be meeting with all of them. I said
I'd be willing to.”
This is pretty high-level (or maybe it’s low-level) parsing.
But picking apart words seems to be the main method of campaign warfare right
now. See the McCain camp bickering
over tenses when it comes to “pre-surge levels,” or Obama stressing the
difference between “preconditions” and “preparation.” But when nitpicking is
the norm, the campaigns are forced to nitpick back. Who knew the job of communications
director also included etymologist, lexicographer, and semanticist?
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Barack Obama is speaking right now before a roomful of Jewish leaders at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, and Hillary Clinton’s up next.
Clinton isn’t expected to concede today, but imagine the favor she’d be doing Obama by stepping aside and pledging her full confidence in him in front of a group whose support Obama has struggled to win over. Remember how Mitt Romney dropped out at the Conservative Political Action Conference, two days after a slew of losses on Super Tuesday? He praised John McCain's policies in his withdrawal speech, knowing it would help McCain to be lauded in front of conservative skeptics.
Clinton will eventually be forced to unify, and unify hard. That means rounding up voters with whom she performed better than Obama. Some have proposed that Clinton hold a big rally and call it “Women Voters for Obama.” She might also massage relations between Obama and her Hispanic supporters. A productive first step would be backing him in front of the Jewish community.
Update 11:32 a.m.: And praise him she does:
"Let me be clear: I know Senator Obama understands what is at stake
here. It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him," she
said. "I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel."
"I know that Senator Obama shares my view," she said, that America
must remain a staunch Israeli ally, "our stance non-negotiable" and
that "the United States stands with Israel now and forever.
(via Ben Smith)
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The presidential campaign—well, one in particular—has introduced a new greeting to the political world: the fist pound (also known as dap). Last night, we saw perhaps the most high-profile pound of all time, as Michelle and Barack Obama bumped fists on national television before he took the stage. (Video here.)
What’s hilarious is watching the formal, AP Stylebook-loving media trying to figure out what to call it. In an article about Obama’s body man Reggie Love, the New York Times called Love’s preferred greeting a “closed-fisted high-five.” Last night produced other assorted references:
“Taking a fist-pound from wife Michelle, Obama stepped to the podium Tuesday”—MTV.com
“Michelle Obama (L) gives her husband, Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Senator Barack Obama, a knuckle-bump as a sign of support before he speaks to supporters.”—Monsters and Critics
“At 09:09:27 Central Time, Michelle Obama gave Barack Obama a pound in St. Paul, Minnesota.”—Lola New York
“I never realized how romantic and respectful and mutually appreciative and loving a frat-tastic fist bump could be. Could it be the new peck-on-the-cheek?”—The Frisky
“... Obama, who was joined on stage by his wife Michelle, with whom he shared a celebratory fist-bump.”—Reuters
“Obama, began with a loving fist to fist thumbs up with Michelle.”—Capitol Hill Blue
“Michelle is not as ‘refined’ as Obama at hiding her TRUE feelings about America—etc. Her ‘Hezbollah’ style fist-jabbing ...”— Commenter, Human Events*
“I loved that moment, when they touched their hands together like that.” --Commenter, bjkeefe
*Correction, June 10 2:40 p.m.: This article originally linked to Human Events without specifying that it was a commenter who made the " 'Hezbollah' style fist-jabbing" remark, not the columnist Cal Thomas, whose article was linked.
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With Montana and South Dakota reporting, Clinton netted 3,000 votes tonight, according
to Real
Clear Politics. That hardly changes her argument that she’s winning the
popular vote. You still have to count Michigan
to make that case.
But you might have noticed that her overall number went from
“17 million” a couple of
days ago to “18 million” today. That bounce came from Puerto Rico, which bumped
her up from 17.4 million (counting Michigan)
to 17.7 million. Round that bad boy up!
Update 12:59 a.m.: A reader points out that the numbers aren't all in just yet. I'll update the item when they are.
Update 8:51 a.m.: As expected, new numbers. Obama nets about 9,000 votes from the two states' totals. And now Clinton actually breaks 18 million, if you count Michigan and the caucus states that didn't officially report popular votes.