Stereotypes in 2008

Today, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in Washington suspending her campaign and throwing her support to Barack Obama. Unsurprisingly, journalists, bloggers and political analysts have spent much of this past week analyzing why Clinton's campaign failed. After all, she started out as the big favorite with significant advantages.

Many of her most fervent supporters believe that Clinton was a victim of overt media bias and sexism. For example, a number of bloggers have been linking to this video highlighting the disturbing sexism and misogyny in the media. In linking to this video, Judith Warner wrote on June 5:

... if similarly hateful racial remarks had been made about Obama, our nation would have turned itself inside out in a paroxysm of soul-searching and shame.

Is this basic analysis correct?

Was Hillary Clinton victimized in a way that Barack Obama was not?

Allow me to review some of the lowlights of this past campaign. I'll ignore informal reports of racism on the campaign trail. Let's pretend the voting demographics don't matter and overlook the role Obama's black church played in the campaign. Instead, I'll focus on the same kind of verbal snippets used in the video.

Joe Biden, February 2007:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,"
Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Billy Shaheen, December 2007:

"one of the things Republicans are certainly going to jump on is his drug use."..."It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Bill Clinton, January 2008:

"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88," Clinton said at a rally in Columbia. "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Hillary Clinton, January 2008:

"Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done,” she said. “That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it and actually got it accomplished.”

Bill O'Reilly, February 2008:

"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down."

Geraldine Ferraro, March 2008:

" "I got up and the question was asked, 'Why do you think Barack Obama is in the place he is today" as the party's delegate front-runner? "I said in large measure, because he is black....If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Ron Fournier (AP), March 2008:

Arrogance is a common vice in presidential politics. A person must be more than a little self-important to wake up one day and say, "I belong in the Oval Office." But there's a line smart politicians don't cross — somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step. He's bordering on arrogance....both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.

Hillary Clinton, April 2008:

Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and they are out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans. Certainly not the Americans that I know - not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York.

Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY), April 2008:

“I’m gonna tell you something. That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,”

Mike Huckabee, May 2008:

Appearing in front of about 6,000 gun rights activists, Huckabee's speech was interrupted by a loud noise. The former Arkansas governor said, "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he -- he dove for the floor."

Hillary Clinton, May 2008:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

HRC was correct about one thing she said in May, "There's a pattern emerging here."


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Clinton's raison d'être?

This is not good:

ABC News' Kate Snow Reports: In an interview with the Argus Leader, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., took the unusual step of invoking the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy, D-N.Y., when discussing reasons why she was staying in the presidential race.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," Clinton said.

Did you see "The Daily Show" on May 14? They had some West Virginia voters commenting about candidate Obama here (the worst starts at about 1:45, though the entire piece is good).

None of them made death threats, but others have. Still, this seems to be in bad taste -- Did she jump the shark?

Just yesterday, I know some Democrats who think this was pretty bad news. Now, that seems mild.


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Hillary's Hypocrisy

These days, Hillary Clinton has only one or two thin straws left to grasp in her efforts to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Voting is about to end -- Barack Obama has secured a majority of elected delegates even though Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico will still select 86 delegates.

Likewise, the Superdelegate "primary" -- which she was once winning by a sizable margin -- has turned away from Clinton. Obama has seized the lead among those convention participants and seems to add several more delegates each day. He currently leads the superdelegate race by 25 to 30 delegates. Just over 200 are yet to declare their allegiance.

By the math long accepted in this race -- Clinton too once agreed that the number for victory was 2025 -- Obama needs only about 60 more delegates to secure the nomination. Given proportional representation, he's going to get at least half of those from the remaining three electoral contests even if Clinton wins Puerto Rico by a 3-to-1 margin.

To get to the magic number assuring victory, Obama will likely need the support of fewer than 30 of the remaining 210 unpledged superdelegates.

So, where is Clinton making her last stand?

The answer is in Michigan and Florida, states where Clinton won both primaries.

However, Democrats agreed in 2007 not to campaign -- and not to count the delegates from those states. The states are being penalized harshly by the Democratic National Committee for moving their primaries to early dates, which competed for attention with traditional opening contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Back in 2007, none of the candidates wanted to offend early voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Here's the Clinton press release from September 2007:

"We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process," Clinton's campaign said in a statement. "And we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role."

The Clinton campaign, like the campaigns of Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd, signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina," as drafted by the DNC.

Note that this was not merely a pledge not to campaign. This was a promise not to participate in an election. Can one claim victory if such an election occurs? All the candidates save for Clinton and Dodd withdrew their names from the Michigan ballot. The DNC had already invoked the penalty. Clinton certainly agreed when she was campaigning in New Hampshire:

...she told a New Hampshire public-radio audience, "It's clear, this election [Michigan is] having is not going to count for anything."

Moreover, the DNC is not some disinterested third party. Hillary Clinton supporters were the mainstream of the Democratic party when these penalties were imposed. Some of her highest profile supporters helped make the DNC decision:

On Aug. 25, when the DNC's rules panel declared Florida's primary date out of order, it agreed by a near-unanimous majority to exceed the 50 percent penalty called for under party rules. Instead, the group stripped Florida of all 210 delegates to underscore its displeasure with Florida's defiance and to discourage other states from following suit. In doing so, the DNC essentially committed itself, for fairness' sake, to strip the similarly defiant Michigan of all 156 of its delegates three months later. Clinton held tremendous potential leverage over this decision, and not only because she was then widely judged the likely nominee. Of the committee's 30 members, a near-majority of 12 were Clinton supporters. All of them—most notably strategist Harold Ickes—voted for Florida's full disenfranchisement. (The only dissenting vote was cast by a Tallahassee, Fla., city commissioner who supported Obama.)

By the way, Clinton now has the support of 13 members of the DNC, to 8 for Obama, with 9 unaligned.

To hear Clinton talk now, however, voters from Florida and Michigan are comparable to the voters in authoritarian states, who are ruled by thugs who do not care about their concerns:

Speaking in Sunrise, Fla., Clinton said: "You heard Diana talk about coming from a country where votes don't count. People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded. We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe -- tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote."

I wonder what Clinton thinks of elections in single-party states, where voters are given ballots that do not reflect electoral choice?

In the former Soviet Union, the state's sanctioned candidate used to get over 90% of the vote; Clinton managed only 55% in Michigan. Uncommitted ran a strong second -- with 40%.

Clinton has also been making the argument that she should be the nominee because she leads the popular vote:

We believe the popular vote is the truest expression of your will. We believe it today, just as we believed it back in 2000 when right here in Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren’t counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner. The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear. If any votes aren’t counted, the will of the people is not realized and our democracy is diminished. That is what I have always believed.

Independent sources that track the vote count reveal Clinton's hypocrisy on this issue.

Obama won a number of caucuses that do not report traditional vote counts. Would Clinton not want to count those votes? She won Michigan where Obama was not on the ballot. Indeed, the only calculations that give Clinton a popular vote lead are those that fail to count every vote -- by ignoring caucus results or by counting votes in states where voters had no chance to register their support for Senator Obama.

Make a reasonable estimate of the caucus results and exclude Michigan where Obama was not on the ballot, and the popular vote results do not favor Clinton. Barack Obama has not only secured more delegates than Hillary Clinton, he's ahead in the popular vote as well.

This would be a nice opportunity for Al Gore, who was genuinely wronged in 2000, to step forward and silence Clinton's latest argument. Failing that, this is likely to be resolved on May 31. It now appears that Obama's delegate lead is insurmountable, meaning that he's going to win the nomination even if Michigan and Florida delegates are seated. Democrats from those states have presented plans to the DNC that would not hand Hillary Clinton a last minute victory.


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Election day in Kentucky

Some anecdotes as we wait for results from Kentucky (and Oregon):

1. Today, as I voted in Louisville, a well-dressed 50-something women turned around in the voting booth next to mine and cried out, "Hey, Barack Obama is not listed on my ballot."

The poll workers reminded her that she had requested a Republican primary ballot and told her that she could not vote for a Democrat until the November general election.

The woman turned back around and muttered under her breath, "But I don't want any of these guys." She may have said "losers" instead of "guys." Her voice was trailing off.

2. In the past five days, I've received 2 phone calls from the Obama campaign asking me if I planned to vote for him and reminding me where to vote. Sunday, my spouse received one of those calls too. Yesterday, we also received 2 tape-recorded calls from his campaign that reminded us to vote. Today, a kid from my daughter's high school knocked on our door to remind us to vote for Obama. We were also apparently canvassed by an Obama worker last week when I was not home.

We received no calls from Hillary Clinton's campaign, though some months ago we did receive mailed requests for donations to her campaign.

Moreover, as of last Friday, our local Obama office was completely out of yard signs. I've also seen a number of Obama TV commercials, but none that I recall for Hillary Clinton. Our neighbor has a Hillary sign, as do a few other people on the street. Nonetheless, I think Obama is winning my block and neighborhood.

That said, Hillary or Bill Clinton have been on the front page of the local newspaper almost every day for the past week because of community or state appearances. Obama was in town once and his spouse came through as well. She did not make the front page. The paper had a long piece about Chelsea Clinton, but it was in the opinion section.


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Delegates

By all accounts, Hillary Clinton is going to win today's West Virginia Primary.

At stake? 28 delegates to the Democratic presidential nominating convention.

If Clinton wins the state by a 75-25 landslide, she'll pick up 21 delegates while Barack Obama will receive 7. That's a net gain of 14.

Meanwhile, since last Friday when I last posted about the then-nearly tied Superdelegate "primary," Obama has picked up 14 more superdelegates, while Clinton has added one and lost one.

Indeed, Obama has now gained a net of 29 superdelegate endorsements since last Tuesday and has clearly taken a lead in that battle.

Don't be surprised tonight if the talking heads covering the election spend as much time talking about superdelegate endorsements as they do about West Virginia returns.


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The Superdelegate Primary

This week, including Monday, Barack Obama has gained commitments from 17 Democratic superdelegates.

Hillary Clinton has gained 3 new commitments, but has also lost 2 as Obama's additions include 2 delegates that previously committed to Clinton.

That means Obama has added 16 more delegates to his lead this week, which is about as many as he advanced his overall lead on Tuesday in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

ABC News is reporting that Obama now leads the "superdelegate primary."

With these [latest] endorsements, Obama has the support of 267 superdelegates and Clinton has 265 superdelegates.

...Clinton’s advantage among superdelegates was once massive and has been dwindling steadily since Super Tuesday, when she was ahead by over 60 superdelegates.

Other news organizations still report Clinton with a narrow lead, but the slow trickle may yet become an avalanche.

Apparently, Obama is now free to put together a "winning coalition" against John McCain.


Update at 6pm ET: The AP is now reporting that Obama gained 9 superdelegates today, including one that used to support Clinton. The AP's count (and DCW's) shows that the race for supers is now essentially tied.

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Bargaining time

Virtually everyone agrees the Obama-Clinton race for the Democratic nomination is over. Today's NYT:

The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC.

Expect a superdelegate avalanche to start growing more pronounced this week.

The next stage of the contest is a negotiation and Hillary Clinton loses much of her leverage if she stops campaigning altogether. Thus, she is making appearances in West Virginia today. She might crush Barack Obama in West Virginia and both sides know it. Presumably, both sides also know that while this result would look bad for him, it would do almost nothing for her electoral chances.

Thus, both sides should be talking now about the terms of her withdrawal from the race. HRC has personal debt to retire and will have concerns about delegations from MI/FL, the platform, and perhaps the Veep. She likely wants to place some of her staff on Obama's campaign and may want the power to name some potential Cabinet members.

My guess is Obama caves on the debt question and figures out a way to seat the delegations for MI/FL. However, he will reveal less interest on most of the other demands. He will accept some Clinton staffers who are known to his people.

The McCain-Obama race has started.


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Clinton: 50 years may be enough

While many Democrats have piled on Senator John McCain for saying that it would be OK for the US to spend "maybe 100" years in Iraq, few have taken note of Senator Hillary Clinton's similar comment. Mark Kleiman has this from a "Face the Nation" transcript in February 2005:

Senator McCain made the point earlier today, which I agree with, and that is, it's not so much a question of time when it comes to American military presence for the average American; I include myself in this. But it is a question of casualties.

We don't want to see our young men and women dying and suffering these grievous injuries that so many of them have. We've been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We've been in Europe for 50-plus. We're still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II.

You know, we have been in places for very long periods of time. And in recent history, we've made a commitment to Bosnia and Kosovo, and I think what is different is the feeling that we're on a track that is getting better and that we can see how the Iraqi government will begin to assume greater and greater responsibility. The elections were key to that. The training, equipment, equipping and motivating of the Iraqi security forces is key to that. But so is our understanding that if we were to artificially set a deadline of some sort, that would be like a green light to the terrorists, and we can't afford to do that.

I suspect, as does Kleiman, that a Clinton candidacy would dramatically reduce Democratic options concerning Iraq against McCain in the fall campaign.


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Clinton hypocrisy on tax relief

I just watched a Hillary Clinton surrogate on MSNBC praising the $70 that average people might save this summer if her gas tax holiday is achieved. The surrogate said that Senator Obama might find that amount to be trivial, but that it was important to ordinary Americans.

So, I went to google investigating the Clinton campaign's response to the "Bush" stimulus. This is from April 28 on a CNN blog:

The federal government started depositing the stimulus checks Monday into bank accounts of 800,000 Americans hoping the extra money will encourage people to spend.

Between now and July, the treasury will distribute more than $110 billion to at least 117 million low and middle income homes.

[Bill] Clinton said the fundamental issue is most people need the checks to pay off credit debt and bills. “Even if it’s all spent the way the president and Congress hoped it would be,” the current housing crisis would dwarf any possible gains.

I think this demonstrates Senator Obama's point -- the gas tax holiday is a "phony" idea "calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems."



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The Taboo

Political Scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt received a lot of heat for their recent work about the power of the Israeli lobby inside the United States.

Mearsheimer and Walt raised issues that are rarely discussed in the United States. Indeed. some describe this topic as "the third rail" of US foreign policy debate.

Now that the power of "the Lobby" has been made part of the US public debate, Israel's nuclear weapons program should also be scrutinized more publicly. Ordinarily, that subject is taboo.

Lew Butler (who used to chair the Ploughshares Fund) explained in an op-ed in the SF Chronicle, November 30, 2007:

Estimates are that there are probably as many as 200 [nuclear weapons] in the Israeli arsenal, including thermonuclear (hydrogen) ones.

What is surprising is that there is almost never any public discussion in the United States, and certainly none in the White House or the Congress, about these weapons.

...Clearly, the Bush administration is not going to talk publicly about our understanding, if any, with Israel about its nuclear weapons. And no member of Congress is rushing to get into a subject as politically delicate as this one. That leaves it to those of us in private life to begin the debate, for the sake of the United States and Israel.

Part of the reason nobody wants to talk about Israeli nuclear weapons is that any debate would quickly reveal American hypocrisy. How can the US put pressure on Iran or North Korea about their proliferation if it turns a blind eye to Israel?

The unspoken basis for U.S. policy about Israel's nukes seems to be that we don't want our enemies to have such weapons but we don't worry as much if our friends, like Israel, Pakistan and India, have them.

However, the lack of debate about Israel's arsenal occasionally causes US political leaders to make careless and immoral threats. Hillary Clinton's recent warning that she would "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel led me to note the following in comments:

I don't know why Israel's nuclear force isn't sufficient to deter Iran's. Estimates suggest that it has 100s of deliverable weapons, some in the form of accurate cruise missiles on relatively invulnerable submarines.

Butler asks a set of related questions

Is there any understanding between Israel and the United States, its principal source of military aid, about their use? If so, does the understanding cover "no first use," similar to the policy advocated in the United States at the height of the Cold War? What would the United States do if Israel were ever under an attack that might lead it to a nuclear response? Has the United States ever talked with Israel about its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? For Israel, are the weapons more of a danger to its security than a defense?

I see no reason to avoid public debate about these issues.

An honest discussion about Israel's arsenal might lead the US to adopt policies that would reduce its hypocrisy. For example, achieving genuine nonproliferation in the Middle East might require Israel to abandon its reliance upon nuclear weapons. Alternatively, perhaps the US and the regional states could embrace some kind of mutual deterrence based on Iran maintaining a secure second strike force. Iran does not currently have a nuclear-armed ally willing to extend deterrence on its behalf.

How would the US respond if Russia announced that it would obliterate Israel if it used nuclear weapons against Iran?


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Email as echo chamber

I've known about Sidney Blumenthal's emails for some months, but did not write anything about them because I lacked first-hand evidence. I am not on Blumenthal's email list. However, I did link to a Newhouse New story about the email list back in mid-February when I discussed the Barack Obama-as-messiah smear.

Peter Dreier, who gets the material via a forward, explains how it works:

Former journalist Sidney Blumenthal has been widely credited with coining the term "vast right-wing conspiracy" used by Hillary Clinton in 1998 to describe the alliance of conservative media, think tanks, and political operatives that sought to destroy the Clinton White House where he worked as a high-level aide. A decade later, and now acting as a senior campaign advisor to Senator Clinton, Blumenthal is exploiting that same right-wing network to attack and discredit Barack Obama. And he's not hesitating to use the same sort of guilt-by-association tactics that have been the hallmark of the political right dating back to the McCarthy era.

Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama's character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations. The original source of many of these hit pieces are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications. But they aren't being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers -- including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, academics, policy entrepreneurs, and think tankers -- in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists. One of the recipients of the Blumenthal email blast, himself a Clinton supporter, forwards the material to me and perhaps to others.

Blumenthal has gone from critic of "right wing conspiracy" to enabler. Apparently, some of the stuff he's circulated is comparable to the "Clintons-killed-Vince Foster" crap from the 1990s.

Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News named some of the recipients back in February:

the list of those receiving Blumenthal's e-mail included reporters John B. Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic; Joe Conason, national correspondent for The New York Observer and columnist for Salon.com; and Gene Lyons, columnist with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and author of "The Hunting of the President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton."

Dreier names more:

Among those whose names show up as recipients of Blumenthal's emails are writers and journalists Craig Unger, Edward Jay Epstein, Thomas Edsall (Politics Editor of the Huffington Post), Joe Conason, Gene Lyons (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist and author of The Hunting of the President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton), John Judis, Eric Alterman, Christine Ockrent, David Brock, Reza Aslan, Harold Evans, and Josh Marshall; academics and think tankers Todd Gitlin (Columbia U sociologist), Karen Greenberg (NYU law school), Sean Wilentz (Princeton historian), Michael Lind, William M. Drozdiak, and Richard Parker; and former Clinton administration officials John Ritch, James Rubin, Derek Shearer, and Joe Wilson.

Mark Kleiman is fairly disgusted that the journalists kept this to themselves.

I think this is why some Obama supporters so actively want to find a politician who are

"hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin."

On substance, there's very little separating Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The former is a bit better on health care and some other domestic issues, while I like Obama's foreign policy better.

On political process, I see big differences. Blumenthal has been sending this stuff around for six months.


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Clinton: When to obliterate Iran

I have some security question fors Senator Clinton. First, what policy choices should the U.S. pursue so as to avoid "doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic."

CLINTON: Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I am president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that. Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that. Because that, perhaps, will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.

Certainly, Dick Cheney was wrong pretending that deterrence cannot work against Iran.

However, it is morally reprehensible to talk lightly of obliterating a society. Would the U.S. really punish millions of innocent people if their government acted reprehensively? How could this be consistent with just war theory? Just think about proportionality for one moment.

Do all the Catholics in Pennsylvania who apparently voted for Clinton know about this?


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The DISH: Borat, Clinton and $$$

"In Kazakstahn we think America technologely very good, and now I see is a very primitive." -- Borat.

From Broadcasting & Cable, March 17:

A new Ku-band satellite that was to be used by satellite-TV service Dish Network to increase its slate of HD channels failed to reach orbit after being launched from Kazakhstan Friday...

Regardless of the reason for the launch failure, the loss of AMC-14 casts significant doubt on Dish Network’s plan to expand from its existing 50-odd HD channels to 70-100 in order to better compete with DirecTV, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett said. In a research note to investors, Moffett declared that the competitiveness of Dish’s HD offering has “suffered a major blow.”

“Dish Network had made it clear that HD featured prominently in their own future plans, and that they did not plan to cede ‘video superiority’ to anyone,” Moffett wrote. “Given the long lead times involved in contracting for, building, and launching a satellite, however, it could take years for Dish Network to fully recover.”

As you may know, money related to business deals involving Borat's homeland is tangentially tied to the US presidential race.

Anyone interested in the web of connections might want to consider that the deal behind this failed satellite dates to 1994 and the Clinton administration, which brokered US business and Kazakh ties. The NY Times reported in February 1994: "a Russian rocket will use the Baykonur space center in Kazakhstan to launch an American communications satellite."


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Delegate math

When I should have been finishing a paper, I played around this morning with the Democratic delegate numbers for a few minutes..

Using CNN's delegate counter, it is VERY difficult to engineer a Hillary Clinton victory from the remaining contests.

I gave her huge 60-40 victories in PA, WV, IN, and KY, a 2 to 1 win in Puerto Rico and a 3 to 1 rout in Guam.

I limited Barack Obama to a very narrow margin of victory in NC (+3 delegates, a 51/49 vote split) and declared MT, SD and OR virtual ties (tilting 1 odd delegate to Clinton).

In my scenario, which seems incredibly optimistic for Clinton, she has to win the remaining superdelegates 221-130 to get to the current magic number, 2025.

Conversely, if Obama earns the delegates he expects to win in the coming states, then he only needs to garner support from 131 of the 351 remaining unpledged superdelegates.

The Obama projections look very reasonable to me, though I suppose Clinton could earn bandwagoning momentum in the race if she pulls off a huge victory in PA. His team projects a win in Indiana, which means they think Gary is far more important than the Ohio/KY part of the state.

What about Florida and Michigan? The Slate delegate calculator has the ability to add FL and MI. Give Clinton all the optimistic scenario results from above, make MI and FL 60-40 for her, and she still needs 216 of the 351 remaining unpledged delegates to win.

Her magic number of superdelegates needed to win does not drop much at all even with FL and MI because she is currently quite a distance behind in pledged delegate support (53.6% to 46.3%) and the overwhelming majority of pledged delegates have already been committed.

Everyone knows that, right?

I'm trying to figure out if the people giving Clinton money realize it?


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Free campaign advice

The political calendar, packed with weekly events since the start of the new year, is now about to take a spring break. The next scheduled primary is in Pennsylvania, April 22. By then, my classes will be over for this term!

Can the main Democratic rivals continue for nearly six weeks without destroying each other? Events of the last week suggest that this might be a big problem. Surrogates from both campaigns have made unfortunate word choices to describe the opponent camp's candidate.

One significant reason the battle between Obama and Clinton has become so personally destructive is that the candidates agree on a heck of a lot of issues. Highlighting their images, personal narratives and approaches to politics is about the only way for the candidates to distinguish themselves from each other.

Sure, they disagree about some policy details.

And yes, to policy wonks, many of those details are important.

However, to the average voter the campaigns probably sound very much alike. They both want to create health insurance plans that would offer universal coverage, to move forward on global warming, to renegotiate NAFTA (to take into account labor and environmental interests), and to withdraw from Iraq.

It's a popular Democratic agenda and the loser's supporters should naturally navigate to the other candidate in the fall.

To avoid the potential self-destruction of identity politics, the Obama campaign should turn its focus toward presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the next month or so. Because he has more delegates, constituting a virtually insurmountable lead after 40 state elections, Obama can afford to campaign differently.

By focusing on McCain, Obama can illustrate that one of Clinton's central attacks is wrong. She says he's not ready to be President, especially on matters of national security. Obama could spend the next month disproving that very point -- by debating McCain through speeches and ads.

Based on the exchange they had about al Qaeda of Iraq a couple of weeks ago, McCain seems more than willing to engage this debate.

By demonstrating his security acumen and debating an opponent with major differences on these issues, Obama can highlight more clearly that he is the change that his supporters want him to be.

Such a campaign strategy would indicate that Obama is "ready on day one" to take on the heavy hitters he is going to face from the Republicans in Congress and embedded in think tanks. On substance, Obama will make a lot of points that Democrats want to hear -- about the war's failings, about energy policy, etc.


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Obama's problem

In recent days, Hillary Clinton's campaign has seemingly backed Barack Obama into a corner. They've been pounding him with various attacks about his foreign policy leadership -- even comparing him unfavorably to John McCain.

"Sen. McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign; I will bring a lifetime of experience; and Sen. Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002," Clinton said today after her event with the military leaders.

If Obama strikes back, in a conventional negative counterattack, that action would arguably undermine the central argument he's been making throughout this campaign about bringing a new kind of politics to Washington.

If Obama ignores the attacks, he runs the risk of the losing the nomination.

What should the campaign do?

I think Obama has to go negative in a way that is completely consistent with the arguments he's been making about the need for a new kind of politics.

Here's a line from one of his fall stump speeches:

Hillary Clinton is a colleague and a friend. She's also a skilled politician, and she's run what Washington would call a "textbook" campaign. But the problem is the textbook itself.

It's a textbook that's all about winning elections, but says nothing about how to bring the country together to solve problems.

At the time, Obama was criticizing Clinton for offering calculated campaign promises, designed to win narrow majorities.

Now, he could use that line to highlight the Clinton team's divisive and negative campaigning. Sure, there's some danger that he would reinforce the negative ads, but some scholars of political communication describe an "inoculating effect" of this tactic. Tell voters what they are going to hear from the opponent, and explain it away, even before the opponent makes the case. There's still time to do this in Pennsylvania and other remaining states (including perhaps Florida and Michigan)

The first part is actually fairly easy. Obama could readily list a few of the points Clinton has been making in regard to his alleged foreign policy inexperience.

Then, however, Obama must inoculate himself and that is going to be somewhat harder. Obama needs to make an argument about his own foreign policy experience that resonates. Ideally, he wants to make some comparisons that won't get either one of them in trouble against McCain in the fall.

What are his options?

1. Obama could highlight his form of smart leadership -- acting on issues that matter most, in an innovative way that brings together a broad political coalition. Recall, in 2002, he was opposed to a dumb war, rashly and cynically pushed by ideologues to distract from other issues.

In the Senate, Obama has linked himself to Republican Dick Lugar on the question of Russian nuclear weapons -- making site visits, cosponsoring key nonproliferation legislation, etc. There must be tape of Obama shaking hands with Russian military leaders. Perhaps a campaign commercial or youtube video could highlight this policy endorsement from Lugar:

I'm enthused and encouraged by Senator Obama's commitment to adding his strong voice and creativity to the nonproliferation challenge.

I want to see more photos like this in circulation with those words.

2. Obama could (though this might be risky to the Democratic base) point out some failed policies of the Clinton administration -- and even more explicitly use a variant of the "dumb wars" leadership argument he made in 2002 against the Iraq war.

It would be most tempting to attack from the left -- Clinton's failings on human rights (ICC and land mine ban) and global warming, perhaps. Bill Clinton's administration outsourced some of these policies to the Pentagon. Perhaps this is why Hillary Clinton is now surrounding herself with generals and admirals!

However, the "tough/dumb" point would probably work better. The Clinton administration in many ways let Afghanistan fester for years even as it signed the Iraq Liberation Act, presaging the current war. That ties HRC's 2002 vote to a longer history of failure and misunderstood priorities.

Somewhat more problematically, some Obama surrogate might want to laugh off his opponent's responsibility for these Clinton administration failures. After all, "Mrs. Clinton" served admirably as her husband's first lady for 20 years (12 in Arkansas). Can we really blame her for his mistakes?


Note: I forgot to reference an even more egregious statement by Hillary Clinton. Hilzoy is on it.


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Dress up day

Apparently, today is officially "dress-up" day on the presidential campaign.

Drudge is highlighting a photo of Barack Obama from one of his foreign trips a couple of years ago. To some eyes, it might seem like a Taliban Halloween costume.

Drudge claims that the photo was circulated by Obama's main Democratic rival -- even as he points out the hypocrisy of such an act.

Indeed, if this was from Hillary Clinton's campaign, then someone will probably be fired for distributing it.

Take away the mudslinging angle and this is an opportunity to enjoy the costumes.

For example, take a look at this snapshot of Clinton with Benazir Bhutto in 1995. Here she is with one hat or another.

While those are good, I think they compare unfavorably to this one of cowboy Obama.

One thing is certain. It is too bad that Rudy Guiliani cannot be considered for this competition.


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Electability

Hillary Clinton tried to downplay Barack Obama's "red state" electoral victories this past week:

"It is highly unlikely we will win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho or Nebraska," she told reporters. "But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan ... And we've got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma."

On Monday, the former first lady went a step further saying that it would take a "tsunami change in America," for Democrats to carry some of Obama's red states. "It's just not going to happen," she told ABC7 and Politico.

If Clinton thinks she can win Oklahoma or Texas in November, then I doubt her political instincts.

Likewise, I seriously doubt that candidate Obama would lose Massachusetts, California, or New York. Those are fairly solid blue states.

Still, Clinton's underlying point has some merit. Has Barack Obama been winning the overall delegate count by sweeping a bunch of red states that won't vote for the Democratic candidate this November?

Even more importantly, which candidate is doing best in the so-called purple states?

This is the data to-date:

Red states (13, Obama 11-2)
Alabama: Obama
Alaska: Obama
Arizona: Obama
Georgia: Obama
Idaho: Obama
Kansas: Obama
Louisiana: Obama
Nebraska: Obama
North Dakota: Obama
Oklahoma: Clinton
South Carolina: Obama
Tennessee: Clinton
Utah: Obama

Blue states (11, Obama 7-4)
California: Clinton
Connecticut: Obama
Delaware: Obama
District of Columbia: Obama
Illinois: Obama
Maryland: Obama
Massachusetts: Clinton
Minnesota: Obama
New Jersey: Clinton
New York: Clinton
Washington: Obama

Purple states (9, Obama 5-4, nearly 5-2-2)
Arkansas: Clinton
Colorado: Obama
Iowa: Obama
Maine: Obama
Missouri: Obama
Nevada: Clinton (Obama won delegate count)
New Hampshire: Clinton
New Mexico: Clinton (nearly tied)
Virginia: Obama

Obama's delegate lead is likely inflated by his wins in the red states, but the candidate has proven that he can win blue and purple states that the Democrats will need in November to win the 2008 election.

Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are important purple states with upcoming primaries.


Notes:

Two very critical purple states may need to vote again to be counted. Clinton "won" a Michigan primary that was not supposed to count -- and Obama was not on the ballot. She also won Florida, which was not supposed to count, but where Obama was on the ballot. The DNC penalized these states for moving their primaries to early dates. All the candidates pledged not to campaign in those states -- and they did not campaign. No delegates were awarded.

One could make an argument that both Minnesota and Tennessee should be swing states. New Jersey and Washington might also be considered swing states by some measures. Those states went 2-2 for Obama-Clinton.


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Where's the beef?

In the 1984 election cycle, former Vice President Walter Mondale (the well-known and well-funded establishment candidate) faced insurgent charismatic newcomer Gary Hart. To stress that Hart's impressive-sounding ideas lacked substance, Mondale jokingly used a line from a popular Wendy's commercial: "Where's the beef?"

In her effort to stop the Barack Obama juggernaut, Hillary Clinton's campaign has borrowed this tactic from Mondale's 1984 campaign. To my ear, it's not as simple or elegant:

"That's the difference between me and my opponent. My opponent makes speeches. I offer solutions. It is one thing to get people excited. I want to empower you," the New York senator said....

"Now, over the years, you've heard plenty of promises from plenty of people in plenty of speeches. And some of those speeches were probably pretty good. But speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank, or fill your prescription, or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night," Clinton said.

I put the most incendiary sound bite in red -- look for it in Republican commercials next fall.

Based on the economic content Obama added to his stump speech today, I do not expect this charge to stick.


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Rally around the winner?

According to many pundits, the Obama-Clinton Democratic nomination contest is doomed to a 50-50 delegate split that will be decided after a long string of state elections by superdelegates at the convention.

Before criticizing these pundits, I'll admit to reporting this possibility myself -- in a Thursday, February 7, post at the Duck of Minerva.

However, that post also noted the possibility that Barack Obama's post-Super Tuesday success may make him the "inevitable" front-runner based on a "rally-around-the-winner" affect. He's raised far more money than Hillary Clinton since January 1 (winning January 70-30) and is poised to have a great February with voters -- from yesterday's victories in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state and the Virgin Islands to Tuesday's likely big victories in DC, Maryland and Virginia and beyond.

Clinton is currently ahead in Wisconsin according to one recent poll (ARG), but the actual election result my be influenced by what happens in the leadup to that February 19 contest.

Today's caucuses in Maine might go Clinton's way, but local rules provide that heavy snow could delay results until later in the month. At 12:30 pm ET: "It is snowing there now, with four to eight inches expected from snowfalls last night and today. In western Maine, there could be as much as a foot of snow."

I'm not trying to focus exclusively on the horse race, as opposed to the issues, but some Clinton campaign staff are apparently in a "state of panic" right now.

Part of the problem with the coverage is that these candidates are not that far apart on the issues and the Democratic platform is likely to be very similar whichever one wins the nomination. Clinton has perhaps been a bit to the right on foreign policy (voting with Joe Lieberman to call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terror organization; opposing some minor openings toward Cuba, etc.).

Domestically, Clinton's health plan includes mandates for universal coverage, while Obama's does not. Both of them will likely borrow good ideas from the failed John Edwards campaign -- on college education and corporate responsibility, for example.

The general election is still almost 9 months away, so there's plenty of time to contrast the Democratic position on major issues with the view espoused by the Republican candidate (likely to be John McCain).


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