Category: Election 2008

Local color

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

At this point, close followers of the Clinton-Obama race will have noticed that Ms. (“Texas has a primary and a caucus?”) Clinton doesn’t seem to have invested much in either of the states she is now counting upon to save her campaign on March 4 – Texas or Ohio. The New York Times plays into this with their headline “Pieces of Texas Turn Primary Into a Puzzle.” Certainly, Ms. Clinton, along with most pundits, has been heard to publicly puzzle over the Texas system in the past few weeks. While Senator Barack Obama’s campaign seems to have planned for this from the start. Presuming that I’ve already made the point about how arrogant and unprepared Ms. Clinton has been in this campaign, I direct your attention to this ~~juicy~~ bit of local color from the Times‘s piece on the Texas primary:

Ben Kerr, 66, a medical clinic administrator in Waco who was eating lunch there Friday at a venerable old diner that serves Tater Tots, shakes and dripping burgers but is incongruously called the Health Camp. Mr. Kerr described living for many years east of Houston in Port Arthur, which he said many people considered the true capital of Louisiana because of its Cajun population. But he now considers himself a man of Central Texas, and as part of a smaller area around Waco with a deeply independent bent.

Election 2008 Obama Politics The Clintons

The political tide

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

In stark contrast to my post about why Senator Hillary Clinton should stay in the race, Op-Edna writes that Ms. Clinton can unite the country by dropping out now.

Op-Edna concludes:

Hillary isn’t helping herself by damming a tide that seeks to change this nation. For the good of her nation, she should stand down. And, if, in the interest of her self-centered-ness she needs another reason, let it be to protect the legacy she touts, and that of her husband, before they find themselves doomed, like Jimmy Carter, to stand for their failures and not their many successes.

But I think she’s making my point here. Ms. Clinton – who I have argued practices an especially self-centered politics – should withdraw now, or soon after March 4th, in order to preserve her legacy. But, if Ms. Clinton were to look to the best interests of her party and her ideals, she would turn herself into the villain she has been painted as and campaign against Mr. Obama with a vengeance.

Election 2008 Politics The Clintons

A telling comment…

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

Ms. Clinton during Tuesday’s debate:

I still intend to do everything I can to win.

Election 2008 Obama Politics

Not a revolution

Tyler Cowen in last week’s New York Times tries to encourage a realistic set of standards by which to judge the change Mr. Obama will bring:

To put it simply, the public this year will probably not vote itself into a much better or even much different economic policy. To be sure, the next president — whoever he or she may be — may well extend health care coverage to more Americans. But most of the country’s economic problems won’t be solved at the voting booth. It is already too late to stop an economic downturn. Health care costs will keep rising, no matter who becomes president or which party controls Congress. China is now a bigger carbon polluter than the United States, so don’t expect a tax or cap-and-trade rules to solve global warming, even if American measures are very stringent — and they probably won’t be, because higher home heating bills are not a vote winner. A Democratic president may propose more spending on social services, but most of the federal budget is on automatic pilot. Furthermore, even if a Republican president wanted to cut back on such mandates, the bulk of them are here to stay.

Commenting on the strengths of democracy:

Rather than being cynics, we should be realists. Democracy is reasonably good at some things: pushing scoundrels out of office, checking their worst excesses by requiring openness, and simply giving large numbers of people the feeling of having a voice. Democracy is not nearly as good at others: holding politicians accountable for their economic promises or translating the preferences of intellectuals into public policy…

And Mr. Cowen concludes with this prescription:

…spend your time studying foreign policy, where the president has more direct power, and the choice of a candidate makes a much bigger difference. Second, stop worrying and get back to work.

Election 2008 McCain Politics

Renegade and Romantic

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 26, 2008

David Brooks sees another two sides of Mr. McCain. (Last week Ryan Lizza saw two different sides.)

The Davis-Weaver rivalry has lasted for so long because John McCain has a foot in each camp. McCain is, on one level, a figure of the Washington mainstream. He admires Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger. He appreciates a steady manager like Davis.

But McCain is also a renegade and a romantic. He loves tilting at the establishment and shaking things up. He loves books and movies in which the hero dies at the end while serving a noble, if lost, cause. He loves the insurgent/band-of-brothers ethos that Weaver exudes.

Both Mr. Brooks and Mr. Lizza are trying to explain the same phenomenon: how Mr. McCain can survive, and even thrive, in Washington for a quarter of a century while appearing to many as an outsider trying to reform the system.

Election 2008 Liberalism Obama Politics

Transformational politics

Eric Schneiderman of The Nation has a must-read article for all aspiring political strategists, and all those who cannot explain their strong support for Mr. Obama called”Transforming the Liberal Checklist.”

The essence:

I respectfully suggest that if we want to move beyond short- term efforts to slow down the bone-crushing machinery of the contemporary conservative movement and begin to build a meaningful movement of our own, we need to expand the job descriptions of our elected officials. To do this, we must consider the two distinct aspects of our work: transactional politics and transformational politics.

Transactional politics is pretty straightforward. What’s the best deal I can get on a gun-control or immigration-reform bill during this year’s legislative session? What do I have to do to elect a good progressive ally in November? Transactional politics requires us to be pragmatic about current realities and the state of public opinion. It’s all about getting the best result possible given the circumstances here and now.

Transformational politics is the work we do today to ensure that the deal we can get on gun control or immigration reform in a year–or five years, or twenty years–will be better than the deal we can get today. Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities. It requires us to root out the assumptions about politics or economics or human nature that prevent us from embracing policies that will make our lives better. Transformational politics has been a critical element of American political life since Lincoln was advocating his “oft expressed belief that a leader should endeavor to transform, yet heed, public opinion.”

Election 2008 Obama Politics The Clintons

Why Hillary Clinton Should Stay in the Race

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 26, 2008
12 Comments on Why Hillary Clinton Should Stay in the Race

At least for a while longer.

[digg-me]Welcome everyone from unsolicitedadviceforhillary.com…

Towards the end of January, I called on Ms. Clinton to withdraw from the presidential race. At that point, she still had to be favored to win, but there were fundamental flaws in her candidacy, and it was clear that a Clinton victory in the primaries would hurt the Democratic party in the 2008 general election. Today, while she still has a strong chance to win the Democratic nomination, Ms. Clinton is no longer the front-runner. Her campaign has been horrendously managed, and she has been flat-out out-campaigned by Senator Barack Obama. Her hopes are now pinned on winning the three remaining big states – Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania – by solid margins. And even then, she will not be able to win the nomination easily.

Now, with increasing calls on Ms. Clinton to resign, my contrarian impulse is kicking in – and my sense that Ms. Clinton’s presence in the race can provide an important opportunity. I believe it is to the Democratic party’s, and Mr. Obama’s, benefit for Ms. Clinton to stay in the race. Even more, I want a ‘Hillary’ who will unleash every possible line of attack against Mr. Obama – including “the kitchen sink” as today’s New York Times reports. I want Ms. Clinton to insinuate:

that Mr. Obama is “a secret Muslim“;
that people will say he was a drug dealer;
that his church is racist;
that he’s corrupt;
that he’s too liberal;
that he’s too centrist;
that he cannot win as a black man in America;
that’s he’s naive;
that his supporters are insane;
that he’s not ready to be president;
and anything else she can think of.

I want Ms. Clinton to make every one of these arguments her own in a desperate attempt to beat back the political tide that is washing her hopes of a return to the White House away.

I would even be happy to see Ms. Clinton fight all the way to the convention – railing on about Mr. Obama’s scandals and inadequacy. The more Ms. Clinton puts her name and weight behind these stories, the less inclined the media will be to respond to them in the general election and the easier it will be for Mr. Obama to shrug them off then. If Ms. Clinton can air all the so-called “dirty laundry” before she is vanquished, it will leave Mr. Obama a stronger candidate.

Part of Mr. Obama’s appeal is the belief that he can overcome the gutter politics that distract people from the real issues at stake without engaging in gutter politics himself. As Glenn Greenwald wrote over at Salon:

[T]he question isn’t whether Obama will be relentlessly pelted by the sprawling appendages of the Right-wing edifice and its media allies with the most grotesque, bottom-feeding, substance-free, personality-based attacks. Of course he will be – ones as ugly as, if not uglier than, anything we’ve seen yet.

Up until now, Obama has received relatively sympathetic treatment from the two-headed right-wing/media monster because he’s been the anti-Hillary, and hatred for her resulted in affection (or at least restraint) towards him. Once he’s no longer the anti-Hillary, but instead becomes the only thing standing between John McCain/GOP power and the White House, he’s going to be the target of all of that bile and much, much more. As the Right begins to believe that he very well might be the enemy this Fall, and they thus pressure the media to begin its attacks, this week one got a small glimpse – a tiny fraction – of what is to come. So the question can’t be whether the Right and the media will behave differently. They can’t and won’t.

The real question is whether Obama, as he did this week, will be able to render these attacks impotent, even cause them to backfire, because they and their propagators will appear to be so ugly and small and irrelevant in light of the type of candidate he is, the rhetoric he produces, the vision to which he aspires. I have no idea whether Obama’s transcendent charisma or the historically demonstrated efficacy of low-life right-wing attacks will be more potent – I think it’s a much more difficult challenge than many Obama supporters (by virtue of understandable desire, rather than objective assessment) have convinced themselves it will be — but there probably aren’t very many priorities more important than cleansing our political process of this type of dirt and petty distraction.

There’s a fine line between playing “hard” and playing “dirty” – but it is essential to stay on the fair side of that line. Mr. Obama realizes that; the Clintons forgot it long ago.

I don’t mean to count Ms. Clinton out – she still has a chance to win the primary, and a slimmer chance to win the general election after that. But the best service she can do to her party now is to play the villain – to refuse to exit the race with the grace and honor, but instead to fight dirty until the “last dog dies.”

I have no love for Ms. Clinton – but no abiding ill will either. If Ms. Clinton wants to help her party win the White House this November, she can give Mr. Obama the “vetting” she claims he lacks, and with ever increasing histrionics, throw every smear, every false allegation, every innuendo at him. She can make her name synonymous with the sleaze she throws at him; she has proven that she is capable of a viciousness reminiscent of a Karl Rove. And by playing the villain, she can discredit and de-fang the many attacks that are sure to come at Mr. Obama after he secures the nomination.

This will allow Mr. Obama to unite the Democratic party, to rally independents to his side, and to gain the grudging respect of the conservative Hillary-haters.

So, Ms. Clinton – please stay in the race. At least until July.

-Joe Campbell
a committed liberal, Democrat, and Barack Obama supporter

Election 2008 Obama Politics

Trial lawyers and telecom immunity

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 26, 2008

In an article full of smears by Karl Rove, this one stands out for its egregiousness:

[Barack Obama] won’t break with trial lawyers, even when they demand the ability to sue telecom companies that make it possible for intelligence agencies to intercept communications between terrorists abroad.

It’s classic Rove. Those commonly referred to as “trial lawyers” aren’t pushing to hold telecom companies responsible for breaking the law – civil libertarians are. But technically, any lawyer who goes to trial is a trial lawyer – even though the term generally refers to personal injury attorneys when used in a political context. So, by definition, anyone seeking to hold the telecom industry responsible for breaking the law – because no law enforcement agency is pursuing the matter – must be a trial lawyer.

Yet Mr. Rove manages to insinuate, in a manner difficult to entangle, that the only reason Democrats are opposing telecom immunity is that their supporters – the “trial lawyers” are just after more ridiculous verdicts. At the same time, Mr. Roveis sowing discord among two important groups that make up the Democratic coalition if Mr. Obama tries to make the distinction between what the telecom companies want and what the civil libertarians want. It’s win-win for Mr. Rove.

Election 2008 History Obama Politics

Idealism in the service of realism

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 26, 2008

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor for Mr. Clinton, has been a prominent blog-supporter of Mr. Obama’s – stating from the beginning that he saw more potential in Mr. Obama and his ideas than he saw in a return to the Clinton presidency or in Ms. Clinton’s plans. Last Saturday, Mr. Reich discussed his personal relationship with Mr. Clinton and described the historical context of his choice to back his old friend’s current nemesis:

Neither John F. Kennedy nor his brother Robert were idealists. They were realists who understood the importance of idealism in the service of realism. They grasped the central political fact that little can be achieved in Washington unless or until the public is energized and mobilized to push for it; the status quo is simply too powerful. The ideals they enunciated helped mobilized the nation politically. That mobilization contributed to the subsequent passage of civil rights and voting rights laws, Medicare, and environmental protection. For purposes of practical electoral strategy as well as high-minded moral aspiration, they never tired of reminding the nation of its founding principles – most fundamentally, that all men are created equal.

Domestic issues Election 2008 McCain Politics

McCain and ‘the Bad Guys’

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 25, 2008

Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard:

McCain’s method in domestic matters no less than in foreign affairs is military: He surveys a set of facts, identifies a villain, fixes him with his steely gaze, and then goes after him. McCain’s longstanding efforts to tighten regulations on the campaign finance system also contain an important personal component. At first it was a reaction against the accusations of impropriety that dogged him in the Keating Five scandal of 1989, and then, after 2000, against the attack ads, paid for by Bush allies, that damaged his presidential campaign. Here the villains were PACs, lobbyists, and freelance partisans who bought political advertising during an election–and had to be stopped. More recently, he has championed a “patients’ bill of rights” to tighten regulations on the HMOs, insurance companies, and employers he considers to be stingy with health benefits. Pharmaceutical companies should be reined in, he’s said, because they’re the “bad guys.”

I think this characterization of Mr. McCain is dead-on. It’s both part of his charm and part of what makes it scary to see him as president after Mr. Bush.