Night Caps

A couple of previous scavenges turned out to be the stories of the day, apart from the obvious (Richardson's endorsement, and possible fatal blow to Billary.) One was the Politco story about Hillary's 10% chance, which shaped the talk on the cable shows all day, and the other was the campaign financial reports for last month that showed Obama with $30 million left at the end of the month, but Clinton with just $3 million-- 10% again. (So that's MY number for the day, Chris Matthews, who WRONGLY said today that Obama had been in the pews when Rev. Wright gave his "goddamn America" sermon.)

Hillary took some other hits Friday, to her credibility. Her increasingly dramatic description of her arrival in Kosovo as First Lady (ducking the sniper fire!) is judged a "whopper" by the Washington Post Fact Checker (gaining the uncoveted max Four Pinocchio's.) The evidence against her account comes from others who were there (including reporters), plus audio and even video. Meanwhile, the ABC fact check desk finds her claim that she was really against NAFTA as F.L. increasingly incredible, thanks to appointment logs and recollections of others in position to know.

(Bill Richardson told a TV interviewer that he'd called Hillary to tell her he was endorsing Obama, and there were some "heated words." Hillary stayed out of the public eye Friday. Richardson's endorsement had lots of people talking about him as a possible v.p. for Obama. Though his experience and passion as well as his identity as a southwestern governor and Latino both qualify him and provide some political attraction, his interviews already suggest that he's prone to gaffes and going off-message that could be a problem in the general election campaign. )

On the question on everyone's minds for awhile, the impact of the Rev. Wright videobombing and Obama's speech on race, the poll evidence was mixed, due perhaps to how questions were asked. First was Rasmussen: The Rasmussen poll showed that 84% of likely voters saw at least some of the speech, with 51% of that group saying it was good or excellent, 26% saying it was fair, and 21% rating it poor. On the other hand, 56% say they remain somewhat or very "concerned" about his relationship with Wright.

TMP compared this to an earlier Fox poll with a different question: Fox also asked respondents whether they had doubts about Obama because of his association with Wright. The results: 35% Yes, 54% No, with the numbers standing at 26%-66% for Democrats, 27%-61% among independents, and 56%-33% with Republicans. In general, By a 57%-24% margin, registered votes do not believe that Obama shares Wright's controversial views. The internals show only 17% of Democrats saying Obama shares Wright's ideas, along with 20% of independents and 36% of Republicans.

But the last poll released Friday seemed the most definitive, from CBS: A new CBS poll shows Barack Obama receiving high marks for his speech on race relations. The poll shows 69% of registered voters saying Obama did a good job of addressing race relations, and 71% said he did a good job explaining his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. The poll also showed 63% saying they agree with Obama on race relations.
Among voters who have followed the Wright controversy, only 14% said they were less likely to vote for Obama as a result — with an equal 14% saying they were more likely to vote for him, and 70% saying it would make no difference.

Within those numbers are individual stories, which are starting to come out, like this one at Kos. (There were also a flurry of excited diaries from people who had met Obama as he campaigned in Oregon.)

And to put a cap on this whole extraordinary week, there were the videos and subsequent follow-up stories that put some of those Rev. Wright moments in the context of what else he was saying in the particular sermon, and the bizarre morning show on Fox, in which the usually predictable rant on something Obama said taken out of context got an on-air rebuke from one of Fox's senior reporters (Chris Wallace), and caused a co-host to walk off the set in frustration at the continuing relentless distortion. What could possibly happen next?

And thanks to two of my readers for saying hello in the comments. Those are two of the names I knew, which leaves maybe one more. Hey, BT aka Lemmuel Dash, how ya doin?

Midday Read

Bill Richardson endorsed Obama in Portland, calling for Democrats to unite behind him as their nominee. He said that a major factor in doing so now was Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia Tuesday.

And as should always be expected, the Clinton campaign immediately dissed Richardson, whose endorsement they long sought. But: One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives. The race is being kept alive by the media, desperate for ratings and political advertising dollars in a sinking economy.

And Richardson's endorsement may just be the first of a series. Dan Balz in the Washington Post is among those who suggest why the Richardson endorsement is important.

The New York Times printed a photo of Bill Clinton with the Rev. Wright at a prayer breakfast in the White House. Hillary's schedule says she was there, too.

News about the passport security breaches continued to be sketchy, but apparently Hillary and John McCain were among many other victims. Obama called for thorough investigation, including by congressional committees.

Three new Obama ads begin airing in PA. A story on campaign contribution filings for February suggest that the Clinton campaign was virtually broke by the beginning of this month. They have $30 million but it's for the general, which likely means that it represents donations by people who've maxed out their primary limit, and suggests the amount they said they raised for the primaries last month was exaggerated.

Friday Early: Richardson Hearts Obama

I have so few readers here that I suspect I know most of their names. So Mike in PA, this is for you, since I figure you might be checking this when you arise in a few hours:

Governor Bill Richardson will endorse Barack Obama for President today in Portland Oregon. According to this story: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership.

I've been less than kind to Richardson's temporizing, especially since his endorsement could have been a deciding factor in Texas. But this is a pretty good moment, too. As pols are watching the polls, and Clinton operatives are telling super-delegates that the Rev. Wright flap has rendered Obama unelectable, this endorsement is very, very big news.

And of course, it's one more super-delegate for Obama.

Thursday Late and Early

Late Thursday the story was breaking that there had been three unauthorized viewings over the past three months of Barack Obama's passport records within the State Department, potentially violating the Privacy Act and suggesting the possibility of some kind of political skullduggery.

The State Department officials who briefed reporters had very little information, though they insisted the breaches were of no significance, due to individual curiosity. This insistence, as a frontpager at Kos demonstrated, was also the early claim in 1991 when Bill Clinton's passport files were breached, and turned out not to be true.

The State Department is of course controlled by the Republican Bush administration. There's also the reported fact that the head of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (the responsible agency) during the first two incidents was a former official of the Clinton administration. But really at this point nobody knows anything--not the names of the perpetrators, and nothing about them except that they were outside contractors, the first two were fired and the third (who breached the records just last Friday) is suspended. But that's also part of the point--there was no immediate investigation, as there should have been.

This story will pop on Friday and if there's much more to it, there could be months and even years of investigation, with a congressional committee hearing very likely in the near future. The committee most likely to do that, according to Al G. at The Field, is the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Joe Biden chair, and other Dem members include Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Bob Casey, Jr. (of PA)...and Senator Barack Obama. Could be a pretty interesting hearing.

Two notes concerning the PA primary. While Clinton continues to soar in the polls there, and Gov. Rendell is marshaling every conceivable Democratic party official to endorse Clinton, there's some stirring outside the establishment--and the party. The Obama campaign is making a concerted effort to register voters in PA, especially Independents and sympathetic Republicans who need to register as Dems in order to vote for Obama in the primary. Seems it may be working--reports of big increases in voter registration, particularly in areas of the Commonwealth (Philly area, central PA) where Obama could do well, and needs to do well.

It definitely worked with this guy---the Patriot-News in Harrisburg reports that the Republican mayor of Camp Hill, PA has registered Dem in order to vote for Obama. "I'm sick and tired of the politics of fear in this country. He's the only one who doesn't do that," Thieblemont said of Obama. "He's the only candidate who's said he'd talk to our enemies and try to get some common ground."

Earlier on Thursday, Obama gave his third major speech this week, on the connection between the war in Iraq and the economy and well-being of America. He was in West Virginia this time, and this is part of what he said:

The costs of war are greatest for the troops and those who love them, but we know that war has other costs as well. Yesterday, I addressed some of these other costs in a speech on the strategic consequences of the Iraq war. I spoke about how this war has diverted us from fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from addressing the other challenges of the 21st Century: violent extremism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease.

And today, I want to talk about another cost of this war – the toll it has taken on our economy. Because at a time when we’re on the brink of recession – when neighborhoods have For Sale signs outside every home, and working families are struggling to keep up with rising costs – ordinary Americans are paying a price for this war.

When you’re spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you’re paying a price for this war. When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war.

When a National Guard unit is over in Iraq and can’t help out during a hurricane in Louisiana or with floods here in West Virginia, our communities are paying a price for this war.

And the price our families and communities are paying reflects the price America is paying. The most conservative estimates say that Iraq has now cost more than half a trillion dollars, more than any other war in our history besides World War II. Some say the true cost is even higher and that by the time it’s over, this could be a $3 trillion war....

The truth is, this is all part of the reason I opposed this war from the start. It’s why I said back in 2002 that it could lead to an occupation not just of undetermined length or undetermined consequences, but of undetermined costs. It’s why I’ve said this war should have never been authorized and never been waged. ...

Instead of fighting this war, we could be fighting for the people of West Virginia. For what folks in this state have been spending on the Iraq war, we could be giving health care to nearly 450,000 of your neighbors, hiring nearly 30,000 new elementary school teachers, and making college more affordable for over 300,000 students....

Instead of fighting this war, we could be freeing ourselves from the tyranny of oil, and saving this planet for our children. We could be investing in renewable sources of energy, and in clean coal technology, and creating up to 5 million new green jobs in the bargain, including new clean coal jobs. And we could be doing it all for the cost of less than a year and a half in Iraq...

These are the investments we could be making, all within the parameters of a more responsible and disciplined budget. This is the future we could be building. And that is why I will bring this war to an end when I’m President of the United States of America."

Afterspeech

After all the responses to Obama's speech on race throughout the day Tuesday, the media had mostly moved on by Wednesday.

The Michigan re-vote proposal apparently died the same death as Florida's: it's impractical if not impossible to organize in time. Hillary rushed to Detroit to try to save it, but Chuck Todd said on Keith that her appearance, as well as the appearance of a list of donors willing to subsidize another primary--all Hillary supporters--probably did more harm than good, because it made the idea a politically partisan one.

Records of Hillary's official schedule as First Lady were released, and after satisfying some prurient interests on where she was while Bill was being bad, journalists by day's end were beginning to uncover evidence that "often she was far from the site of decision making during some of the most pivotal events of Bill Clinton's presidency."

Hillary got endorsements from two super-delegates--her first announced pick-ups since February--but Hotline noted that in the interim, Obama had picked up 61--and then listed them.

Obama won the straw poll at the meeting of the progressive political organization, Take Back America--by 72% to 16% for Clinton.

But what everyone is waiting for is some idea of how the endless loops of Rev. Wright and Obama's speech on race will play out. A New York Times piece suggests that Clintonians view the effect of this as her only hope for the nomination.

Some polls show Obama slipping down. Clinton won the daily Gallup tracking poll, outside the margin of error for the first time in awhile. Other polls showed Obama's negatives up.

However, a CBS survey on race and gender, taken March 15-18 (in the midst of the Wright loops, and perhaps including Obama's speech) showed 62% of American voters professing that America is ready for a black President, and that 56% believe people they know would vote for a black President (including 55% of whites.) Respondents see racism as a much more serious problem than sexism (42% to 10%). These are not overwhelmingly encouraging numbers, but they are a pretty good floor.

Obama's speech on Iraq has been noted. The Iraq war version of the Winter Soldier hearings are ongoing, covered almost exclusively by Democracy Now! Now as then, the stories are tragic and real, while the media ignores those brutal realities and some people want to suppress this knowledge. When will we ever learn.

No Sixth Anniversary

On the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Barack Obama gave a speech on the war in the context of foreign policy. On Thursday, he'll address the impact on the economy and the health of the nation.

Here is a little of what he said Wednesday:

" History will catalog the reasons why we waged a war that didn't need to be fought, but two stand out. In 2002, when the fateful decisions about Iraq were made, there was a President for whom ideology overrode pragmatism, and there were too many politicians in Washington who spent too little time reading the intelligence reports, and too much time reading public opinion. The lesson of Iraq is that when we are making decisions about matters as grave as war, we need a policy rooted in reason and facts, not ideology and politics.

It is time to have a debate with John McCain about the future of our national security. And the way to win that debate is not to compete with John McCain over who has more experience in Washington, because that's a contest that he'll win. The way to win a debate with John McCain is not to talk, and act, and vote like him on national security, because then we all lose. The way to win that debate and to keep America safe is to offer a clear contrast, and that's what I will do when I am the nominee of the Democratic Party – because since before this war in Iraq began, I have made different judgments, I have a different vision, and I will offer a clean break from the failed policies and politics of the past.

So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden– as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer. "

Five Years Ago

Here at American Dash:

March 14, 2003:

Just a matter of days... Before children die because some leader wants to convince some other leader to go away, or die.

Before our young die because the only solution our leader can fix on is to eradicate the Evil in his eyes. Before we begin paying and paying with our sweat and time for the means to begin and then continue for who knows how many years this reckless, destructive and self-destructive venture, and all that will follow from it.

Before he lets loose the dogs of war. And dogs eat dogs. A self-fullfilling prophesy, making the world the way they think it is.

But it isn't, not necessarily. It doesn't have to be. A new world is creating itself, within the skin of the old.

We, I, and even humanity, may not live long enough to see it walk the earth, if it ever gets that chance.

Are we then witnessing the partial-birth abortion of hope?

The Speech

I did a piece on the content of Barack Obama's address on race in Philadelphia Tuesday here at Dreaming Up Daily, and the possible future response. I wanted to add a little about the immediate response and the politics here.

The response has been phenomenal. Even those who disagree on the political impact mostly agree that it was a landmark speech. Babe Buchanan and Rachel Madow agreed. Conservative and liberal Christian ministers agreed. Jon Stewart and former Clinton/GOP advisor David Gergen independently remarked that Obama talked to Americans as adults. (About the only person who didn't praise it was Hillary, who said she was too busy--grinding her teeth perhaps--to see or read it yet.)

Almost all of the bloggers at Huffington Post wrote about it, and virtually all lauded it. "Senator Barack Obama displayed a quality in his speech today that the Democratic Party desperately needs in its nominee in 2008: Fearlessness," began RFK biographer Joseph Palermo. He added later: Obama's honesty is like oxygen for our democracy, especially after years of the political farce we've had to endure...There was an audible echo of America's greatest leaders ringing throughout Obama's speech today. As a biographer of Robert F. Kennedy, I could not help but be struck by the similarity in sentiment Obama expressed. His courageousness and honesty reminded me of some of RFK's greatest speeches on race relations."

"Barack Obama spoke like an enlightened leader from 2008 instead of like the fake cowboy from 1885 that most politicians evoke or like a pharmaceutical salesman talking about change, but "not that much change" at a team building exercise in Tahoe," wrote Adam McKay. "In other words, he didn't pass the buck to save his own ass. It was a monumental moment in modern American politics. He didn't distract, deflect, or attempt to frighten. He didn't accuse, declare war, or get angry. He didn't game play, scape goat, or blame. Can you imagine? We need to engrave this shit onto a commemorative coin fast."

This morning's New York Times (whose editorial board endorsed Hillary before Super Tuesday) editorialized this, under the banner Mr. Obama's Profile in Courage: "Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state. Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better."

Other effusive responses were collected by HuffPost here.

Over at Daily Kos, Obama partisans were ecstatic. One reproduced photos of audience members at the speech with tears in their eyes--including Michelle Obama, and commenters described their own tearful responses. Another described watching it at a suburban auto dealership with a range of strangers, all of whom were riveted and responded positively.

Then there was this posted on the Obama campaign site:

After today's speech, I got a call from my dad -- a retired, gun-owning Republican Vietnam veteran who still lives in the little broken down central PA town where I grew up. He happened to turn on the tv today and saw the speech. Immediately afterward he called me at work (which is unprecedented) to say that he was moved and had decided to give Obama $100. That's a lot of money for my dad.Today's speech was supposed to inspire people like me -- a liberal, thirtysomething lawyer, Philadelphia resident, and longstanding member of the Obama bandwagon -- but when it gets to my dad, you're really on to something. He's McCain's base.

But now everyone holds their breaths to see what the polls will say. At least one commentator on CNN felt that the endless re-running of Rev. Wright's most extreme moments on, among other channels, CNN, had doomed Obama beyond repair. But because the speech got so much attention and was so brilliant--and will be followed up Wednesday and Thursday by major addresses on Iraq and the economy-- there are three possibilities: the Wright impact, which has yet to show up negatively in any polls, will show up and will persist through polls taken after the speech, thus giving Hillary hope that super-delegates will decide Obama is unelectable and flock to her. 2.) The speech, which may have introduced Obama to many voters, will be so well received that it will essentially assure him the nomination. 3.) The whole controversy will turn out to have little impact.

Of course, there are gradations of those possibilities but my point really is that two out of the three are pretty good for Obama. If it had been a less well received speech in the media, there might be more chance that 1. will prevail. But now it's clear that nobody could have done better, and if the Civil War continues, it will only because a lot of people didn't recognize Lincoln when they heard him.

Is It (Almost) Over?

Senator Obama is giving a major address in Philadelphia Tuesday on race and related matters, trying to bring the media and the people they can alarm so easily back to sanity after their feeding frenzy over Rev. Wright. Judging from the words he spoke in Indiana the other night, he is going to use this as an opportunity to restate his themes and his vision, when a lot of people will be listening. We'll see how it plays out, but if it goes especially well, he may propel himself even further towards the nomination.

With all this time before the next state votes, the pressure has shifted to Hillary and the discomfort of the Democratic party with the spectre of divisive and expensive campaigning that is increasingly unlikely to bring her any closer to the nomination.

In a widely circulated post called The Clinton Civil War, Kos defined the situation in stark terms (reproducing his bold print:)

First of all, the only path to victory for Clinton is via coup by super delegate. She knows this. That's why there's all the talk about poaching pledged delegates and spinning uncertainty around Michigan and Florida, and laying the case for super delegates to discard the popular will and stage a coup. Yet a coup by super delegate would sunder the party in civil war.

Clinton knows this, it's her only path to victory, and she doesn't care. She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.
If the situations were reversed, and Obama was lagging in the delegates, popular vote, states won, money raised, and every other reasonable measure, then I'd feel the same way about Obama. (I pulled the plug early on Dean in 2004.) But that's not the case...

To reiterate, she cannot win without overturning the will of the national Democratic electorate and fomenting civil war, and she doesn't care.

That's why she has earned my enmity and that of so many others. That's why she is bleeding super delegates. That's why she's even bleeding her own caucus delegates (remember, she lost a delegate in Iowa on Saturday). That's why Keith Olbermann finally broke his neutrality. That's why Nancy Pelosi essentially cast her lot with Obama. That's why Democrats outside of the Beltway are hoping for the unifying Obama at the top of the ticket, and not a Clinton so divisive, she is actually working to split her own party."

On this final point, Monday provided additional evidence: a CNN/Opinion Research poll that shows a majority of Democrats favor Obama: 52% of registered Democrats "say the senator from Illinois is their choice for president, with 45 percent supporting Clinton."

But perhaps more to the point, two more stories Monday pointed out that super-delegates trending towards Obama: Chuck Todd at NBC wrote: By our count, the Clinton campaign hasn’t publicly announced the support of a new superdelegate since just after February 5. Indeed, since Super Tuesday, Obama has gained 47 new superdelegates, while Clinton has lost seven (including Eliot Spitzer). Does Clinton have a bigger problem on the superdelegate front than folks realize? Why do we think party leaders -- who saw the Democrats lose governorships, state legislatures, and the control of Congress during the Clinton years -- suddenly jump on board the Clinton campaign? Isn't this the reason the Clinton campaign has only been able to keep uncommitted supers from climbing board Obama's bandwagon but they haven't been able to woo a new super to their side in a month? ? Isn't this also an explanation for why the Clinton campaign has done so poorly in the caucuses? The caucuses are made up of the activists who follow this stuff closer and think about things like electability and who can help the party keep Congress, etc. If Clinton's not winning over caucus activists, why should we believe she'll win over a large enough chunk of superdelegates to overcome Obama's pledged delegate lead?

New York Times online piece calculates the endorsements somewhat differently, but comes to the same conclusion: Obama is getting more than twice as many super-delegates.

Clinton was also predicating her final dash to the nomination on following a big win in PA with victories in the last contests, the re-votes in Michigan and Florida. But Monday, Florida formally threw in the towel--they aren't going to hold any kind of primary or caucus, and leave the whole thing up to the Dem Party credentials committee. Marc Armbinder at the Atlantic sees this as a blow to Clinton's strategy: there will be no big Florida victory in June for Clinton, no huge ending momentum swing, no big reduction in earned delegates.

Michigan has a re-vote plan now being vetted, but it's got problems. Armbinder again says that some 32% of those who voted in the Michigan Republican primary were Democrats and Independents, perhaps voting in their primary because they couldn't vote for Obama (his name wasn't on the ballot) or because they knew the Dem primary didn't count. Now they apparently can't cross back in a re-vote: double jeopardy or something. This may scuttle the plan. Some observers are saying that the two campaigns are already talking about a solution that will allow Florida to be seated--halving the delegates, coming up with a formula for how to proportion the delegates between them, something like that. They may wind up doing that with Michigan, too. In any case, Clinton is unlikely to net many delegates.

Call It What It Is

Why does the rabid right and the media's continue to exploit statements by the Rev. Wright while utterly ignoring equally offensive if not worse statements by preachers who John McCain has welcomed into his campaign? There is only one reason. The Rev. Wright is black and those other preachers are white.
It is racism and the exploitation of racism. And it is outrageous.

Back On His Game

The speech I quote below was something of a climax to a two-day burst of activity that showed that, after a fairly quiet time after March 4, Obama is back, and he's taken his game to a new level.

This speech followed the statement and interviews about Pastor Wright and his trip to Chicago to answer literally every question that reporters at both Chicago dailies had about his past relationships with Tony Rezko, which left both newspapers (the Chicago Tribune, and the Sun-Times) entirely satisfied that there is no story anymore. And the reporters clearly came away respecting and admiring Obama.

Obama also released a list of the "earmarks" he'd requested as a Senator, while Hillary Clinton--making big noises about the need for such disclosures--would not release hers.

Obama taking control of the ongoing stories, and turning the threat of deep racial division back to the strongest point of his candidacy--his insistence on including everyone, listening to everyone--is the work of a statesman and a master politician.

And even while all this furious nonsense was happening, Obama was quietly increasing his delegate lead (a gain of as many as 10 delegates from Iowa Saturday in the second part of their caucus process), super-delegates and endorsements (including the Oregon ASFCME, breaking with the national union that long ago endorsed Clinton.)

Summarizing this elsewhere yesterday, I mentioned the comment by House Speaker Pelosi that if super-delegates go against the election results, the party would be harmed. Now according to today's New York Times, this is the prevailing sentiment among uncommitted super-delegates--that they won't go against election results. And according to this story, at least one of them have said so to Hillary Clinton's face.