Salvation Saturday

Tomorrow Nevada Democrats caucus, South Carolina Republicans vote in their primary. Chastened by their faulty judgments about New Hampshire, and helped by a hard to read caucus system, the media muted their predictions about the Democrats. Hillary leads narrowly in a couple of polls, and according to the reporter you pick, things are either moving her way or they are moving Obama's way in the final hours. The Clinton people are already making excuses for why they lose if they lose, but they did that in New Hampshire, too. Bill has been angry, as he was in the final New Hampshire days. Hillary, instead of tearing up at a lunch counter, appeared on Tyra Banks talk show--which needless to say many men have never heard of--where she talked about getting through Bill's infidelities with prayer and concentration on what was best for her. So their game plan is the same.

One ventured opinion that seems to have some numbers behind it is that if there is a huge turnout, it favors Obama, but not even that is certain. Democratic party officials were variously quoted as expecting 30,000 participants and hoping for 60,000. However, if you hear estimates tomorrow of anything over 40,000 participants, it looks pretty good for Barack. But both the low and high figures quoted add up to many new participants, and nobody knows how that will go.

Conventional wisdom on the meaning of the outcome in Nevada is that a Hillary victory is big for her, but a loss is bigger. Obama figures to go into Tsunami Tuesday with the final victory, in South Carolina. If he can win in Nevada as well, there could be movement in his direction. Nothing like the wave that looked to be building when a double digit victory in New Hampshire seemed likely, but enough to make Bill even madder.

In South Carolina among the Republicans, McCain and Huckabee are virtually tied in the latest polls, and movement is said to be towards Huckabee, but an unusual snowstorm is forecast for a part of the state where a lot of his Evangelical supporters live, so this one may depend on what they used to call an act of God.

CW on this is that McCain gets a huge boost if he wins, a huge blow if he loses, but if Huckabee wins, it's almost as good as if Thompson were to win: in other words, utter chaos. In another state with more Evangelicals than the norm, if Huckabee loses, he's probably finished. (There are GOPer caucuses in Nevada, too, but Mitt Romney is about the only one who campaigned there.)

Stories on final Dem campaign appearances in Nevada were again contradictory--one reporter said Hillary was getting large, enthusiastic crowds, another said her appearances have been lackluster. Obama however was said to be upbeat and joking, though his wit had a sharper edge:

Obama began by recalling a moment in Tuesday night's debate when he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork _ something his opponents have since used to suggest he's not up to managing the country. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America.
"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, 'What's your biggest weakness?'" Obama said to laughter from a packed house at Rancho High School. "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, `Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'"

Rather than dwell on the continuing distortions by the Clinton campaign (Okay, one of them--in a thoughtful answer to a question, Barack Obama said that the GOP was the party of ideas for ten or fifteen years in the 80s, they went against the conventional wisdom, they were bad ideas and now they're stale ideas. But taking the "party of ideas" sentence out of the statement, Hillary and Bill both criticized Obama for saying the GOP was the party of good ideas. Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to believe that? Not that they would say it--because they did, and it's fully in character--but that anyone would believe that Obama, a lifelong Democrat with endorsements from major Democrats, would say that. Meanwhile, Hillary is saying nice things about Joe Lieberman, a former Dem who now supports McCain.), I'll end with a few selected quotes from Obama's interview with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board.

Asked his reaction to an angry outburst by the former president - who in Oakland Wednesday suggested the at-large system was "rigged" - Obama laughed. "This caucus process was designed by the Democratic Party of Nevada in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee," said Obama. "I, as somebody who's not part of the establishment of the Democratic Party, had no say in the rules ... (but) individuals like Harold Ickes, Clinton's key adviser, were a part of making these rules. And some of the people who filed the lawsuit were a part of making these rules.

"President Clinton now suggests they didn't understand the rules that they designed," Obama said. "This is coming from the campaign of extraordinary detail and thoroughness and experience. "But somehow, they didn't know what these rules were," Obama said. "Six days before the caucus - two days after I received the endorsement of the Culinary Workers (Union), suddenly these rules are grossly unfair and a violation of 'one person, one vote.' And a lawsuit is filed that would disenfranchise mostly Latino maids, dishwashers and bellhops." Obama said that was "an implausible argument before the court rules. I am glad the court bought none of it. I think it took about an hour for the court to decide that this lawsuit had no merit. "And I think at this point we should go out and persuade the caucus-goers of Nevada who the best candidate is," he said.


Here are more Obama answers in the "Quotes Only" part of the Chronicle story:

On whether he has the experience to handle the toughest challenges as president:
"If the question is, do I have the internal fortitude to make tough decisions and take on tough issues, I would say throughout my career I have dealt with very difficult issues. Sen. Clinton keeps touting her experience, but has no management experience that I can see in her resume. It's presumed through osmosis, as a consequence of having been first lady.

But I would point to this campaign, where I went from zero, starting from scratch, to compete with a legendary political organization 20 years in the making built by a former president. That's not an accident. It shows my capacity to put together a team and point it in a direction that I think is important.

"The skill sets that are required to move the country are not different from the skill sets that are required to move somebody across the table. It means listening to them, it means having very clear principles - what you're willing to fight for, where you're willing to compromise. And it means being willing to walk away from the table. "Those skill sets are the ones, I think, I am most confident I can apply ... where I think I have an edge over Sen. Clinton, who I think has a tendency - when confronted with somebody who doesn't agree with her - to demonize them or push them away."


On his foreign policy experience:
"There's going to be a lot of repair work to be done internationally. This is an area where Sen. Clinton and others have suggested they are most concerned about my experience. It's actually the area where I most trust my judgment, because I've lived, traveled, have family overseas. If you look at my track record over the last three or four years on big issues - like opposition to the war in Iraq, the need to engage directly with Iran, our approach toward Pakistan and putting all the eggs in the Musharraf basket - on big strategic issues, I've been right and the conventional thinking in Washington has been wrong."

On how an Obama presidency would change the country:
"The day I'm elected and sworn in, not only does this country look at itself differently, but I think the world looks at itself differently. And that's not just symbolic. When I go to a poor country and talk to them about America's obligations, but also that poor country's obligations to help itself by dealing with corruption or to reduce ethnic tensions, I do with credibility as somebody with a grandmother who lives in a small village in Africa without running water. If I convene a meeting of Muslim leaders ... I do so with the credibility of somebody who lived in the most populous Muslim country on Earth for four years and has a sister who is half-Indonesian. ... That will allow me ... to be an effective spokesperson for a different version of American foreign policy."