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[digg-reddit-me]Sometimes, it’s hard to have faith in democracy, in people. The same people who, in their wisdom, elected George W. Bush to a second term.

At the time though, I felt there was even a wisdom in that decision, even as it may have been unintentional; because a John Kerry presidency would not be able to fully repudiate the legacy of Bush, both because Kerry had campaigned as a hawk and because the public had not come around to see the disaster that was the Bush administration. As the fallout from the Bush administration’s incredible arrogance and ineptitude shook the country during Bush’s second term, I could only imagine a President Kerry, were he elected, and the values he stood for, getting some portion of the blame for the foreign policy setbacks, for the civil war in Iraq, for the economic crises, for the falling dollar – none of which would have been reversed by anything less than a radical overhaul of America’s domestic and foreign policies. A President Kerry would not have been in a position accomplish anything except make Bush’s disasters hurt us a little less.

It was better that the blame was placed on the right shoulders, on the right ideology – especially as a liberal president would not have been able to fully take on Bush’s legacy without the overwhelming support of the American people. Today, there is that overwhelming support to root out the Bush legacy. And with the support for Barack Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and even to some extent Mike Huckabee and John McCain, there is obviously support for stepping away from the Clinton legacy of triangulation as well.

It is hard to have faith that on February 5th, voters (who actions will account for over 40% of the delegates to the Democratic convention) will make a wise choice. Democracy is clearly a flawed method of choosing a president, even if may be the best. Fraud is always possible; the media coverage is generally less than exemplary; many people seem to make up their minds on a whim. It will be a struggle to redirect this election and this primary back where it belongs – on making a fundamental choice about the direction America is headed. The choice we face is not about policies or style, but about who we are as a nation – about restoring the processes and balance that allow Americans to be free; about bringing the country together to face the long-term challenges to our way of life; about restoring America’s voice in the world community, and creating a more sensible foreign policy based on our shared values. It will not be easy – either to win or to accomplish these changes.

But worthwhile change should be hard. In a democracy, there should be no coronation, no inevitable victories. The silver lining on yesterday’s loss is that the Democratic nominee has to fight to get much of the country behind him or her before he or she is declared the nominee. No longer are we relying on New Hampshire and Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina to decide our options. Now the fight moves on to California and New York; to Connecticut, Kansas, Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Georgia, New Jersey, Tennessee, Colorado, Illinois, Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah. Now we need to prove that we can mobilize to bring real change across America, instead of in a few rural states.

It won’t be easy. But it shouldn’t be. Change is hard.

Register to vote in New York State. Donate to Barack Obama’s campaign. Or to whoever you support. Volunteer.

First of all, congratulations to Hillary on her win last night.  A win all the more shocking because almost every poll leading up to it showed her behind by double digits, because her own campaign staff had privately conceded defeat, and because Obama had such incredible momentum.

But now,we have a real race.  Unfortunately, it looks as if Edwards is being pushed aside in this debate – and instead of debating whether community-building and consensus or partisanship and government force are the best means of achieving lasting change, we will debate Hillary and Barack, gender and race, experience and judgment.  The intellectual debate is diminished.  But the stakes are now higher than ever.

A few positive notes: Now that Hillary has something to lose, will she still go negative across the country against Obama?  There was widespread acknowledgment that this would be her only strategy to stop him if he won in New Hampshire.  I was concerned about how she might try to take him out – and that, if nothing else, she would increase his negatives going into a hotly contested general election.  Now though, her options have changed.  If the postulates about why Hillary won New Hampshire are correct – that she got a sympathy vote from many women, as opposed to a change in the view of the issues at stake, or in the perception of Obama or herself – then New Hampshire shouldn’t change the fundamentals of the next three weeks.  If Obama is able to maintain his lead in South Carolina, and win there; and if he still receives the endorsement of the Culinary Union in Nevada as expected, he seems likely to win in the union-dominated caucuses there.  Hillary will win Michigan because she is the only major candidate on the ballot – the Democratic National Party having asked all the candidates to withdraw, and write-ins are not permitted.  The contest will continue until February 5th. Having won New Hampshire and Michigan, and assuming she places 2nd in South Carolina and Nevada (which is not a safe assumption), she will go into February 5th as a co-front-runner with Obama.  Given this, attacking Obama too harshly will risk her support as well as his – although I think she has more to gain from it than Obama has to lose, at least in the primary.  (Her negatives are already high, and her voters know this, and have overcome them.  Obama’s voters, for all their dedication, have not had to deal with negative stories about their candidate for the past dozen years.)  Still, I think she will start running a front-runner’s campaign again – because it is prudent.  She might show emotion a bit more; and there will certainly be a few groups financed by wealthy Clinton supporters that will run negative ads against Obama in any battleground states.

The question now is simply: what are the facts on the ground in the February 5th states.  We won’t have a clear answer on that until next week probably, as polls take into account the Iowa bounce and the New Hampshire bomb.  A national campaign will probably benefit Hillary – as she is better known; although the internet and the net roots may now play a bigger role in organizing which would benefit Obama as Hillary generates almost universal dislike and distrust among the netroots and internet-savvy public in general and Obama is viewed sympathetically.  The final point: If this election comes down to the fundamentals – if it comes down to people trying to decide the direction of the country – then Barack wins.

[digg-reddit-me]Drudge is reporting a massive turnout for Democrats. Many New Hampshire towns are reporting that they are running out of ballots. MSNBC is also reporting this with less details.

It seems likely that such a massive turnout is probably good for Obama’s chances. The question on my mind is what will the margin be. In the unlikely event that it is over 15% with unprecedented turnout, I think it’s time for Hillary to call it quits. If it’s 10% or over, Obama is in a very, very strong position.

Regardless of the results here though, expect the Clinton to come out vicious. As Bill was today. And as Hillary was yesterday. The only way for Hillary to win is to bring Obama’s negatives up as high as possible.

If Obama wins New Hampshire impressively, the question becomes, where will Hillary choose to make her last stand – in South Carolina or on Super Tuesday.

I’ll keep updating as news comes in.

[digg-reddit-me]Matt Yglesias comments today that:

I think it bears mentioning that it’s always worth trying to not overread the trends. A month ago, it looked like Hillary Clinton would probably win the nomination.

Although I agree with Matt’s fundamental point, I think he misses a few essentials. He made a few assumptions, as did much of the “chattering class”, that were called into question by the Iowa results:

• that the approximate 50%/50% split between red and blue America was a result of fundamental differences; or at least that this split would not be able to be bridged by a single candidate;
• that fundamental change was not possible (which makes a lot of sense for someone whose life has included a Bush, then Clinton, then Bush, and perhaps another Clinton in the White House);
• that Hillary’s and Mark Penn’s spinning had any basis in reality.

While it is true that the inevitability of a Hillary victory was the conventional wisdom among “the chattering class”, and that this meme was passed down to that portion of the country that was paying attention, it was not accepted by several astute political observers. First, I should point out that I have great respect for Matt, having following him from his initial blog to the TPMCafe to The Atlantic; I do not consider him to be a political commentator on the level of “the chattering class”. There are many examples of the chattering class who comment gamely about politics on air, generally discussing slight variations on the so-called conventional wisdom – and these include almost anyone included on television “debate” or “discussion” shows or podcasts, most especially those who are regular commentators. I do not especially fault these men and women – many of them do not even suggest they pay close attention to politics; I only fault a system which gives these dolts’ opinions disproportionate weight. But there are exceptions among them – opinion-spouters who also are opinion-shapers, and more importantly, who see politics through their own eyes. In this case, I would like to especially point out Andrew Sullivan, Frank Rich, David Brooks, and George F. Will. ((I have problems with each of them, and at times, each certainly has fallen victim to tidal waves of opinion. But in this instance each clearly saw something their peers were blind to.))

David Brooks first called on Barack Obama to run in October of 2006. Frank Rich also was talking about the potential of an Obama candidacy in 2006, and as much as endorsed him just as Clinton’s inevitability argument started to fall away. George Will called on Obama to run in December 2006 – not because he supported him as a candidate – but because Will saw that Obama needed to reach for his moment. As Will said, “if you get the girl up on her tiptoes, you should kiss her…[Obama] is nearing the point when a decision against running would brand him as a tease who ungallantly toyed with the electorate’s affections.” All of these men continued to see Obama as the logical Democratic candidate even as the rest of their peers fell for Mark Penn’s bull about inevitability.

Finally, and most influentially, Andrew Sullivan has been blogging about Obama for since…I can’t remember when this British conservative’s published his first fawning post about the liberal senator. It was a long time at any rate. Sullivan suggested as early as May 2007 that Obama was “A man…meeting the moment.” He also wrote a cover story for The Atlantic pushing Obama’s candidacy at roughly the same moment Hillary was peaking. Sullivan explained that:

The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama is not, in the end, about Barack Obama…[T]he most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse. Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us.

Andrew Sullivan concluded:

The paradox is that Hillary makes far more sense if you believe that times are actually pretty good. If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do…But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America’s estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind’s spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.

I hate to quote so much from another person – but Sullivan’s arguments have done much to supplement my own support for Obama. More than anyone else who might be considered a card-carrying member of the chattering class, Sullivan has made the case for Obama.

I am sure there are other prescient individuals who cautioned against the accepted consensus of the opining class that Hillary was inevitable. But these four – from their perches in the establishment media saw hype for hype and could see how this moment in history was made for Barack Obama.

At least so far.

Obama concluded his momentum-taking Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech by saying:

I don’t want to spend the next year or the next four years re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don’t want to pit red America against blue America. I want to be the President of the United States of America.

And if those Republicans come at me with the same fear-mongering and swift-boating that they usually do, then I will take them head-on. Because I believe the American people are tired of fear, and tired of distractions…we can make this election not about fear, but about the future, and that will not be just a Democratic victory, that will be an American victory, a victory that America needs right now!

I am not in this race to fulfill some longheld ambitions or because I believe it’s somehow owed to me. I never expected to be here. I always knew this journey was improbable. I am running in this race because of of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.” Because I believe that there’s such a thing as being too late, and that hour is almost upon us.

Barack Obama was virtually assured the Democratic nomination in the decade.  If he had just waited his turn!  The powers that be saw Obama as “the future”.  But a fundamental understanding of the fickleness of the public mood, an understanding of the immediacy of the crises that face America, a fierce but closely held ambition,  and to cite, Martin Luther King, Jr., “the fierce urgency of now” led Barack to seek the White House ahead of all schedules.

And America now faces a choice.

[digg-reddit-me] First of all: yes, I was sitting at home on a Saturday night watching the Democrats debate in New Hampshire. Second, here’s why I started clapping and cheering in the middle of the debate – something those of you who know me know I would tend not to do:

Senator Clinton had obviously made the judgment that she could get Senator Edwards to team up with her against Obama during tonight’s debate. It is a strategy I think she regretted rather quickly. She accused Senator Obama of attacking Edwards as being unelectable, and accused Obama of switching positions on health care (a characterization Obama clearly refuted just before this exchange which Senator Edwards refers to as “some Associated Press story”.) Right now, all I have is the transcript which is below.

After Hillary attacked Obama for attacking Edwards, Senator Edwards responded:

Any time you speak out powerfully for change, the forces of status quo attack. That’s exactly what happens. It’s fine to have a disagreement about health care. To say that Senator Obama is having a debate with himself from some Associated Press story, I think is just not – that’s not the kind of discussion we should be having. I think that every time this happens – what will occur every time he speaks out for change, every time I fight for change, the forces of status quo are going to attack. Every single time. And what we have to remember — and this is the overarching issue here – because what we really need in New Hampshire and in future state primaries is we need an unfiltered debate between the agents of change, about how we bring about that change, because we have differences about that. But the – the one thing I do not argue with him about is he believes deeply in change and I believe deeply in change. And anytime you’re fighting for that, I mean, I didn’t hear these kinds of attacks from Senator Clinton when she was ahead. Now that she’s not, we hear them. And anytime you speak out – anytime you speak out for change, this is what happens. [my emphasis]

(From the New York Times. The full exchange after the jump… )

Hearing Edwards respond, I literally started cheering. If they had both teamed up against Obama, the night would have been very different. But as Hillary glared at Edwards, it seemed as if the forces of history were aligning in Obama’s favor.

Again.

…

I should say though, my judgment about the probable motive of Edwards’ comments has changed since my immediate reaction. Looking on it with an hour’s hindsight, it seems clear that Edwards is trying to knock Hillary out of the race and make it a two-man race – with him facing off against Obama. Especially after listening to him tonight, I want that as well. I want the Democratic party to have a debate about how to accomplish change – and I am confident Obama will win.

Here’s a video of Hillary just after the exchange described above getting a bit heated:

Edit: In an unfortunate, but predictable turn of events, the highlight of the debate is not John Edwards’s truly moving performance – both here and throughout – or Obama’s cool demeanor and parrying of every attack, including those by the Republicans on the stage immediately before him – but Hillary’s angry outburst – the one found at the very end of this clip. Drudge is already linking to this. And Jake Tapper of ABC News sees this as the key event of the night. If anyone can find the clip of Edwards talking about the “agents of change” that I referenced above – I’ve been looking for it and I’d love to put that in here. To me, that speech changed the course of the evening – not Hillary’s outburst.

Edit: Clip found. Poor quality, but gets the point across. Thanks.

I’ve been critical of John Edwards – and I do not believe his strategy for achieving change is the right one for today.

But his response to Hillary in the debate going on now was priceless – not least of all because he was defending Obama as an agent of change despite the fact that it must be in his self-interest to go after him.

Video and a transcript will be up as soon as it’s available.

“This feels good. It’s just like I imagined it when I was talking to my Kindergarten teacher.”

Obama in New Hampshire after yesterday’s victory (referencing Hillary’s accusation that he has been planning on being president since Kindergarten.)

Final results:

Senator Barack Obama : 37.58%

Senator John Edwards : 29.75%

Senator Hillary Clinton : 29.47%

From tunesmith at the Daily Kos:

Barack Obama won tonight, and I take it as a lesson for the blogosphere/netroots, because he staked his approach on something that the more partisan amongst us have scoffed at for a few years. He convinced his opponents to give him power.

From the National Review’s Rich Lowry before the big win:

I’ve been an Obama skeptic, but…there was a sense in the room that maybe, just maybe you were witnessing the beginning of something historic.