What happened in Wisconsin

John Kerry won the primary with about 40% of the total vote. John Edwards got about 34%, with Howard Dean getting only about 18%. Edwards' better-than- expected second place showing (of course we called that part) was probably due to a set of conditions and situations that won't be repeated for the rest of the primary season. (Which is not to say that he won't do well or even win some other states.)

Wisconsin allows voters to choose which primary-the Republican or Democrat-- they want to vote in, regardless of their party registration. That doesn't happen again, at least not in any of the big states coming up. Edwards got a lot of Republican votes and a sizeable number of Independents. Kerry did about as well with Democrats (nearly 50%) as he has in most other states, and his numbers in the various exit poll categories (by race, etc.) remained about the same.

Does Edwards' strength with non-Democrats say something about his appeal in the general election? Not necessarily. None of the media bobbleheads mentioned this, and we haven't seen geographical breakdowns yet, but we're guessing he got a lot of votes in Madison and Milwaukee from students and others who were voting to keep the process going---that is, to not settle on the candidate quite yet. Though Howard Dean might have expected to get that vote, probably it went significantly to Edwards. Edwards had the not-Kerry buzz in the past few days. (He was endorsed by the biggest newspapers in Milwaukee and Madison.) Kerry's percentage was down between one and five points from pre-election polls, but Edwards' was up considerably, indicating that he probably took more votes from Howard Dean than from Kerry.

Another factor clearly was his anti-NAFTA emphasis in the final week of campaigning. NAFTA is a weird issue. It resonates both with the anti-globalism left and with the Pat Buchanan far right, who couple it with being anti-immigration. As the only candidate on either ballot (including Bush) talking the anti-NAFTA talk in a state that has lost jobs, some to Mexico and other countries, Edwards was a magnet for disaffected voters of both kinds. Besides, with Kerry's string of victories and the fact that he is the presumptive nominee, voters are beginning to talk about casting "symbolic" votes, because they don't think those votes will matter, Kerry will win anyway.

The media bobbleheads were falling all over themselves early praising Edwards, salivating for a close race and a chance to dis Kerry, but by the end they had to admit that tomorrow's headline would be that Kerry won (which it is, in the NY Times and USA Today, with Kerry's picture on page one.) They talked about Edwards' appeal and eloquence as a speaker, which is frankly lost on us. As we said, he doesn't wear well. They dissed Kerry for giving the same victory speech as he has for weeks, and they were right to do that---he really needs to retire a good bit of it. But there were differences, he did emphasize jobs and trades more, earlier in the speech than usual. And Edwards isn't saying anything new really; they're just paying attention for once.

The political play of the evening was the order of after-election speeches. Howard Dean went first, and the networks covered his every word, just in case he might make news by dropping out, but he didn't say much new---just emphasized what his movement has accomplished and that it will go on, which suggests what some were saying today, that he's looking for a way to retire as a candidate but stay in it as head of a kind of issues oriented Internet Army movement.

But just as Dean was coming down the home stretch, John Edwards leapt on his stage and started talking and pumping his arms and grinning, and the networks abruptly abandoned Dean to cover what an Edwards aide had billed as the most important speech of his political life (for at least the second time so far). Apparently he had planned to speak long before this, when he was a good deal closer in early returns, but the room at his headquarters was half-empty and his people delayed his appearance until they could scare up more of a crowd from a nearby bowling alley. He got out one good line, that the message of the primary vote was : "Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear."

But just as Edwards was getting started, John Kerry appeared on the stage of his headquarters, and every one of the networks and cable stations switched to him giving his stump speech (since by then he was clearly the winner), effectively erasing Edwards' "give me a second look" speech.

Edwards had probably started his momentum with his NAFTA talk and a moment in the debate when he caught Kerry talking like the nominee already, saying "I" will beat George Bush. "Just a minute, John Kerry," Edwards said, and with that became the "let the process go on" candidate. But the mishandling of the timing of his speech may have cost him almost as much as his showing gained him.

Earlier in the day, a distracted looking Kerry had said something to a reporter about candidates not cherry-picking one state or another to run in, that like him they should campaign in every state. He's said this before but in the context of the Edwards showing, some bobbleheads acted as if they hadn't heard it before. But he had a point in Wisconsin, because Edwards really did direct a lot of resources there. He spent more time there than Kerry, and even outspent Kerry on media advertising.

For that he gets the chance to reap some free exposure with media that have little else to report on for a couple of weeks until Super Tuesday, when Edwards' candidacy will be duly slaughtered. (Kerry will actually have a few more victories next week, in small states.) A lot depends on how much money this showing will inspire. But Edwards is still probably not going to be competitive in many of the Super Tuesday states, like California and Minnesota. He's apparently looking to mount special efforts in Georgia (the one Southern state of that day) and New York State (campaigning in the upstate industrial cities with his anti-NAFTA song); the test of his appeal will probably be in Ohio. If he can win an industrial heartland state, then he’s shown something.

Kerry is probably kicking himself for not spending more in Wisconsin but the challenge should energize him and alert his campaign. (Maybe even inspire them to write a new speech.) It should also alert his voters, that this is no time for symbolic votes. His fundamentals in Wisconsin were undamaged---the 50% of Democrats, the 80% of all voters who said they would be satisfied with him as the nominee, including 70% who voted for Edwards. At this point Kerry is still likely to win most of the Super Tuesday primaries and enough delegates to be within mathematical striking distance. It gets a little tricky the week after Super Tuesday with a slate of Southern primaries, but he may have enough by then to wrap up the nomination even if he doesn't win several of these states outright.

Several things to watch in the next week or so: more talk of Edwards as v.p.? More media coverage of his campaign? And especially, do the expected endorsements of Kerry, by the AFL-CIO and politicians like Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania, materialize on time? One thing the media will watch because every story has to have an ending: what Howard Dean decides to do on Thursday. But whatever he does is unlikely to be much of a factor at this point. He's very unlikely to endorse anyone if he drops out, and Kerry will benefit as least as much as Edwards.

One other potentially interesting decision will be CNN's candidate debate (moderated by Larry King, as he so often reminded us for the past couple of weeks of primary coverage): they may decide to not invite Al Sharpton or Dennis Kucenic, which according to the rules they could (because they haven't gotten the threshold percentage of votes). If Dean has dropped out by then, it could be John Edwards' fond desire: a two-person debate. That would be pretty interesting, and not at all certain that it would really be so good for Edwards. But they are two very smart guys, both of them former trial lawyers, so it could be fun to watch.

A brief word on a subject that deserves longer treatment, but it does cut to the chase: the debate this week raging among the media bobbleheads and in the august pages of various Times about G.W.'s service record during the Vietnam war largely misses the point. The element that makes this an important consideration (though not an "issue") is that G.W. Bush supported the war in Vietnam---he thought it was morally right and good policy for the U.S. to be fighting in Vietnam---just as long as it wasn't his ass on the line. He had, as Cheney described his own absense, "other priorities." He got his congressman father to jump him over 500 or so applicants ahead of him to get into the National Guard, well known as a draft dodge in 1968, and he got promoted to second lieutenant with lightning speed, for no apparent reason. That is, he avoided participating in a war he supported, and used influence to do it. It isn't that he didn't fight. It's that he wanted others to fight, but not him. That's what is so reprehensible about what he did. And why it is relevant to his fitness for the presidency now, when he has shown no compunction about sending others to die in a war of aggression he began on false pretenses.


Now, just before voting in Wisconsin begins, we risk our perfect primary record with another hunch: that John Edwards will get enough of a late surge to come in second to John Kerry, instead of third behind Howard Dean, as the most recent polls predict.

However, that said, Edwards is becoming a less attractive candidate every day. His one-note campaigning and slumped-smile demeanor isn't wearing well. We suspect his v.p. stock is also falling. So though it's likely he will be the last man standing whose name isn't Kerry, he may have a share in the spotlight for only a few more weeks, until he gets his two-man race on Super Tuesday, and doesn't do all that well.

There is also the possibility, however remote, that Howard Dean's genial demeanor at the debate did not, as the media bobbleheads concluded, signal his surrender, but was a clever play for a more sympathic image. Which might translate into votes in Wisconsin.

The day before Wisconsin...

Howard Dean's campaign chairman let it be known yesterday that after Wisconsin he would announce his support for John Kerry (he'd worked on a Kerry Senate campaign.) Today he is no longer the Dean campaign chairman, which seems to indicate that Dean is going on in some way, even after his defeat tomorrow.

John Edwards got another newspaper endorsement in Wisconsin, and people are pointing out that the poll numbers for he and Dean put together would make a competitive candidate. But he's running third in the latest polls. Will he and Dean strike a deal? Only if the deal is for Dean to pull out and support him. It will never go the other way.

We just saw C-Span coverage of a rally in Madison in which Teresa Heinz Kerry spoke. Stories about her have split, some emphasizing her outspokenness and eccentricities, others rhapsodizing her skills as a campaigner. In Kerry's victory speeches she's just been this little figure to the side in the front row on the stage, seldom in one of those waving embraces that usually characterize the shots of the Political Couple. But hearing her speak, and watching the audience, it's obvious why they say she is such a great campaigner. She speaks in a soft, accented voice, yet her audience was utterly rapt. She is not packaged, she's alive up there, cogent and eloquent. Her theme was, no more cynicism. Allow America to be the living symbol of possibility again, as it was when she grew up in East Africa. She's funny and feisty, intelligent, and you sense this individualized combination of sensuousness and elegance and a touch of wildness. She's real. And she must have that power of presence, because that audience---assembled for a rally, and therefore pumped up---hung on her every word, and was totally with her in feeling. It was something to see.

Ted Kennedy spoke next. He's 71, and has weathered well. He's slimmed down, looks healthy, sounds on top of his game, and looks pretty happy. Apparently his relationship with both Kerrys is more than political. He and his second wife befriended Teresa when she moved with Kerry to Boston. So the Kennedy continuity, a very real element that will become more important as the campaign goes on, is a living one. The Republicans can paint Ted Kennedy as the liberal devil all they want, but on President's Day in the U.S., the Gallup organization says that when asked what President in U.S. history they admire the most, it's a two way tie: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

Within the past few weeks, both John Edwards and Howard Dean declared Wisconsin a must-win state for their campaigns. They both backed off that stand, but if neither of them gets even a quarter of the vote, which now looks likely, they may have to avail themselves of at least a semi-withdrawal from the race. Look for Dean or Edwards or both to announce they are "suspending" their campaigns but not releasing their delegates. This gives them that remote possibility of a collapse of the Kerry campaign, or actually it would have to be a collapse of Kerry, so the convention has to turn to another nominee.

Dean is the most beleaguered. His staff is in virtual revolt, and it's likely that he will have to replace key staffers with volunteers if he is to continue his campaign in any form. John Edwards left the campaign trail to attend fund-raisers several times in the last week, so there's a real question whether he can afford to go on. Clearly neither has the money, or will get the money, to even begin to be competitive in the ten states voting on Super Tuesday, which include California, New York and Ohio.

On Saturday John Kerry won the caucuses in Nevada and in D.C. D.C. had previously given Dean his only "win" in a non-binding caucus. This however was the real one. The candidate's debate today in Wisconsin was notable for Dean backing off the opportunity to hit Kerry on special interest money, after the Bush campaign made it the subject of its first official ad (though Internet only). The Washington Post congratulated the Bushies on their nerve, for the amount of special interest money from major corporations and wealthy donors flowing into the Bush campaigns, and the obvious payoffs to past contributors, is a major Bush vulnerability. Meanwhile several public interest groups agree that when all special interest contributions are added up, Kerry ranks 92nd out of 100 Senators. He has taken less lobbyist money in this campaign than Dean, Edwards or any other Democratic candidate. Even if the total amount featured in the Bush ad is correct---$640,000 over 12 years for Kerry---it pales in comparison to Bush who took in $6.5 million in 2003 alone.

Kerry, the media bobbleheads all agreed afterwards, looked "presidential."

Another interesting moment in the Wisconsin debate was after John Edwards made his usual somewhat disingenuous pitch that he "understands" the problems of working people better because he comes from a working class background, although he doesn't dispute that Kerry and Dean would be just as sensitive to the issues of jobs and poverty. Al Sharpton debunked Edwards simply by saying that good people are good people, it doesn't matter what race or whether they went to prep school or not. Clarence Thomas is black and comes from a similar background, but he and Sharpton come to completely different conclusions on the issues, Sharpton said.

campaign update

General Wesley Clark's endorsement of John Kerry just a few days after he dropped out of the race is something of a surprise. (It's scheduled for Friday.) Though Clark was polling in the teens for the Wisconsin primary, his endorsement probably won't end up adding much more than would have gone to Kerry anyway, likely to be half or more of those numbers. The endorsement comes as Clark is being mentioned more often as a v.p. candidate, and there's a report going around that Kerry isn't real interested in Edwards. On paper, Clark is a strong v.p. choice, just as he was a strong choice to do well in the presidential primaries, on paper. The problem is that he isn't on paper. Out on the campaign trail, on his good days he was great, and on his bad days he was alarming. The Kerry campaign doesn't need a v.p. who is as likely to be a liability as a help. We hope Kerry comes up with a better choice. (The fact that insiders are mentioning him could be a trial balloon, or just to compliment him and keep him motivated, but isn't a serious consideration.) Our bet is that Clark won't be the v.p. If Kerry thinks Edwards hasn't shown enough strength in the south to warrant being on the ticket, why would he pick Clark, who has shown less? It would have to be that Kerry believes Clark has what it takes to be president should that be necessary, which reportedly is a stronger consideration for Kerry than it is for people who like to speculate and don't actually have the responsibility for the choice.

Howard Dean is now running third in Wisconsin polls, and since those polls have come out he's again changed his public position on what he will do after the primary. First he said he would be out if he lost,then he said he would stay in until the end no matter what, but at least one reporter has him saying he will go home to Vermont and think it over. He's gone negative on Kerry and it's not helping. He's apparently angry over some ads in New Hampshire by a third party that he suspects the Kerry people had something to do with, though they've denied it. Angry enough perhaps to quit the race, and endorse John Edwards.

stats of the day

proportion of voters in Virginia Democratic primary
who believe John Kerry can beat G.W. Bush...........85%

proportion of votes in TV poll on the Lou Dobbs
Moneyline conservative cable TV program who believe the payroll records
released by the White House answer all the questions
about G.W. Bush's National Guard service...........5%

who believe they don't....................................95%



Wesley Clark gave the best speech of his campaign in thanking the voters of Tennessee, but he'd come in third, and was barely above 10% of the vote in Virginia, so Wednesday he will formally announce he's dropping out of the race.

Senator John Edwards gave a variation on his homily of last week, which was at once an extraordinary moment in American politics---like you'd imagine Jimmy Stewart playing him---and also kind of weird. He'd talk about the dire straits of a worker who had to tell his young daughter he'd just been fired, and his crowd would roar and he would smile that Jimmy Carter smile.

Senator John Kerry appeared more tired and more serious than usual, and wasn't as effective in his victory speech, which hasn't varied much, but that hardly mattered. He did make sure to include the lines that the media would transform into the soundbite of the night---that America had voted for change, in the east, in the west, in the north, and now the south. In Virginia he again got more than half the votes cast. Edwards was credited with a "respectable second," though he was thirty points behind Kerry. Edwards did about the same in Tennessee but Clark was about 10 points stronger there, and Kerry was in the mid 40 percentiles.

On to Wisconsin. It's possible these three candidates will be in the race until after the last primary, and possibly until the convention. Edwards is planning on a two man race but he was running behind Clark in this week's Wisconsin polls. He doesn't automatically pick up Clark's support (as he might in a southern state) so Wisconsin will be his last real test to take his campaign to the next level. Right now Dean is running second, and he's vowed to keep on going no matter the outcome. He may pick up some of the Clark "outsider" vote, but a lot of Clark's support will probably go to Kerry. Another 50%+ win is not out of the question. That they're contesting Wisconsin is good for Kerry. He's proven something different each week. Wisconsin is the first state so far to allow Independents and Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary. That will be the headline next Tuesday.

(There will be some tempted to suggest Clark as the v.p. on a Navy-Army ticket. Bad idea. Clark is still too much of a, if you'll pardon the expression, loose cannon. He can be incisive and very effective, but sometimes his competitiveness gets the better of him. )

Dean and Edwards can continue to pick up some delegates in Super Tuesday's 10 primaries, and if Edwards has surged into second place across the board, he may pick up more in the next block of Southern primaries in mid March. But nothing short of a revelation that John Kerry started out life as Johanna is likely to stop him, and victory after victory becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy that he's a winner.

But it's not true that voters are voting for him just because he won the previous contests. The exit polls show the voters overwhelmingly believe he is the one to right the economy, to right foreign policy. In a year that seemed to be repeating the recent trend of voters going for novelty and the "outsider" candidate, primary voters cite Kerry's experience as an important reason they're voting for him, and an important reason they believe he can stand up against and beat Bush. Defeating an incumbent president who has taken the nation to war requires a candidate with stature, and Kerry is now the only candidate in the field who qualifies.

These primaries suggest that another bit of conventional wisdom may be faulty: a Massachusetts Democrat can't win in the South. We believe that Kerry's performance in the primary puts Virginia in play as well as Tennesee, along with Arkansas, Louisiana and---above all---Florida, where the African American vote is going to be huge, assuming they are permitted to vote this time. (Media bobbleheads who claim a Democrat can't win Virginia should notice that Kerry was standing next to the Democratic governor of Virginia, who had endorsed him and introduced him for his victory speech.

The only fly in the ointment so far: apparently all this corporation bashing has cut into the soft money that the Democratic party wants to raise, to counter the upcoming onslaught of slick negative advertising the Republicans must already be putting together. So we'll see if Americans can still be swayed into voting against their own interests by fifteen seconds of slick deception, repeated a hundred times a day.

Waves

On the eve of the Virginia and Tennesee primaries that are likely to turn the rest of the Democratic presidential nominating process into a formality, it's worth pausing for a moment to look at the dynamics of the upcoming months of contention between John Kerry and G.W. Bush.

For Bush and the Republicans, the dynamic is quite different than it has been for the past two years plus. Two sorts of things have happened. The first could be called the chickens coming home to roost, or the reality catching up with the illusion. The rationale for the war in Iraq, and by extension the way the Bushies choose to run the war on terrorism, is at best now in question. Readers of AmericanSamizat will not be surprised by the "revelations" of the past weeks regarding WMDs, a war forced for political reasons rather than in defense of America, and so on. Neither will they be surprised that Bush economic policies have devastated lives all over the country, and threaten to do so for generations yet to come. The only news about all this is how and when these situations were revealed. No one could have predicted it would have been now.

The second thing is related to the first but not completely dependent on it. It is that the media and the media audience are now receptive to hearing the reality falling like a ton of bricks on the Bushies' manufactured illusions. In part this too was inevitable, though the timing could not be predicted. For years the media was acting as if hypnotized, and in a way they were. The media powers are located in New York and Washington, and any time we talk to people from there, it is clear how deeply traumatic 9/11 was, in deeply personal ways. That's the charitable reading of why the news media became the propaganda arm of the Bush administration. Feeling themselves under attack, they rallied behind their king to defend their country. They competed only to wave the flag higher than each other. But somehow, somebody counted to three , and they woke up from that hypnosis. They are appalled at what they did, and the extent of their loss of reason and skepticism is partly reflected in the power of their skepticism now, aimed at Bush. Now Time magazine has a cover suggesting there is a Bush credibility gap. And as usual when he is really under pressure, Bush is wilting.

That's part of what's happening with the media. There's also the nature of story: you can only go so long with the same plotline. There has to be a reversal at some point or the story becomes boring and no one will watch or read or buy it. The rise has to be followed by the fall.

Together these two elements created a massive wave that is now washing across the political and media landscape. By fortunes of timing, John Kerry is riding that wave. His rise in the primaries, his message at its high point of articulation, the primaries themselves and how the candidates are behaving, the behavior of the voters, have all contributed to an extremely fortuitous force. Now Kerry is the New hero, while Bush, the emperor of an hour ago, looks weak, without clothes.

But it's best not to entirely buy into the media bobbleheads' latest tune. Just a month ago they were saying Bush would ride easily to re-election. Now they are saying doom, for they don't believe things will get better in Iraq or the economy will generate enough jobs to blunt that growing issue.

But events could intervene. What would the capture or death of Osama bin Laden do to everyone's political calculations? What if Iraq pastes together an actual government in July that doesn't fall apart by October? It's widely believed that a significant terrorist attack on the U.S. or its allies would hurt Bush, but that's not necessarily so. It would give him the opportunity to look strong again. Why people bought that the first time is hard to understand, since it costs Bush nothing to act strong and he has plenty of people around him to pump him up. He's never in any real danger from terrorists or Saddam Hussein. He's in danger from Tim Russert and the voters, and he looks it.

The tide may continue to favor Kerry. He's good in ways Gore wasn't, and maybe he'll also stay lucky. Certain elements of this current tide are likely to keep building, like the jobs issue and particularly health care. Kerry is capable of making the deficit more of an issue than the bobbleheads believe, along the lines of the moveon ad that shows children working on the assembly line to pay for the Bush tax cut for the wealthy. That is, the future will be paying. He'll also point out the massive cuts in social programs and infrastructure that Bush has scheduled for after the election. If Kerry can tie in what's happening right now in states and municipalities, as they cut services and people lose jobs, this issue will continue to build. Kerry will also add new issues that resonate: energy and the environment.

The Bushies are counting on their huge hoard of campaign money to fill the airwaves with charges against Kerry that can't be simultaneously answered because they're made in ads. They'll go after him as a liberal, for proposing tax increases (which was obviously part of the whole idea of cutting taxes on the rich, so that when Democrats tried to get that money back Republicans could say they were increasing taxes). Perhaps they'll raise the "special interests" issue, or go after him for throwing or not throwing his medals in protest. (He's been criticized for throwing his medals on the steps of the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam war, but he threw his ribbons and kept his medals. So he's also been criticized for NOT throwing his medals, but the medals of other soldiers who asked him to.)

They'll try to do to Kerry what they did to John McCain in the 2000 primaries, and what Bush the First did to Dukakis. Why not? It's always worked before. In a way, we're glad they're thinking that way, because we believe there's a very good chance that this time it won't work. The voters are tired of it, they may not even hear it this time, and Kerry is very good at defending and counterattacking.

But the Bushies will keep doing it whether it works or not because it is all they know. They believe that perception is reality, that the photo op is more important than the duplicity afterwards. You can see it in everything Bush says---he just keeps repeating the same bald assertions and lies, even when it's clear he knows they're now falling flat, and being so obviously contradicted by reality. But they'll keep doing it---and hope that with enough stage managing, with the right pictures and music in the flow of their campaign ads, they'll get away with it yet again. It's the ultimate in cynicism. But this time it's old, and maybe it's too old to work.

That Bush was king especially to Republicans has thrown the party into confusion as his feet of clay are exposed. Their ideological differences are being revived by his more outrageous policies, and their identity is no longer quite so clear . They have nowhere else to go but Bush, of course, but at a time that Democrats appear to be energized and united, even some sluggishness could be costly, and a few well placed survivalist agendas could be disastrous.

There are lots that can happen to turn the tide, or to turn the whole process into a series of whirlpools and rocks. The biggest danger we see is that something happens to absorb the media, something big enough to get them competing with each other on a single story or a single obsession, so that what Kerry is saying and doing out on the campaign never gets covered. That's the truly scary thing about the media these days, even apart from deliberate control by a small number of conglomerate corporations. The media no longer feels a responsibility to cover the candidates for president, to print or show what they say on issues. They can fill their airtime talking to each other, debating their own self-generated ideas and scenarios. What's very sad about this especially is that the process hasn't yet reached bottom. You can go for weeks and months without seeing an experienced, intelligent and relatively sophisticated adult newsperson on cable TV, unless you really look for the few that have regular slots. But you see all of the surviving ones covering elections. It's like finding a tribe that was supposed to have vanished---where are they keeping them, we didn't know so many were still around. Try watching CNN's election coverage and switching for a moment to CNN Headline News and you'll see exactly what we mean. Headline News has become MTV News Lite. They even put one of their last remaining adults in a hockey shirt with USA across it the other day, to report the news. (He was wearing a shirt and tie under it.)

So the dynamic has changed considerably, and that's good for Kerry now---and of course we believe good for the country, the world and the future. Maybe this is just the beginning of a long term change that will last into the election and beyond. Our resident intuitives believe it will. Our resident skeptics aren't so sure. But our majority agrees on one thing: this particular wave will eventually break. Let's hope there's another bigger one just like it right behind.

Primarily Inside Politics

Stat of the day

annual increase
In U.S. health care costs.......10%

Annual increase
In U.S. health insurance
Costs...................................15%


John Kerry won the Washington state and Michigan caucuses Saturday, in each case with around half the votes cast. Today he'll likely win the Maine caucus. He is leading in preliminary polls in both Virginia and Tennessee, two sort-of southern states where John Edwards and Wesley Clark now appear to be fighting for second place on Tuesday. Apparently what's going on with them is an elimination bout to see who gets to be the last candidate standing, other than Kerry. Howard Dean, who got seconds on Saturday, will stake his claim on that role in Wisconsin.

That's how the dynamic has changed, and it’s not exactly a big change: it's for the right to be the alternative to Kerry. Edwards and Clark are splitting the non-Kerry votes (and attacking each other) in Tuesday's southern states. If he's second in both states, Edwards seems to have the money to go on and contest Wisconsin. Clark may not, and it’s unlikely that he will squeak a second over Edwards in both states. Unless he has a win Tuesday, we expect Clark will drop out of the race.

What's likely to happen we feel is this: Edwards emerges from the south with respectable showings but no wins, Clark fades into inconsequence with thirds. Dean fights for a win in Wisconsin but doesn’t get it. Right now the only question is whether Edwards can finish there ahead of Dean. If he doesn’t---if it’s Kerry, Dean, Edwards, nobody has emerged as the single alternative, and they all check their bank accounts and their agendas for their futures to decide if they want to go on to Super Tuesday just to be the last man losing.

That's the inside baseball. The significance of the primaries so far is this: turnout in every primary and caucus has been high, and in most it broke records; Democratic voters (and in New Hampshire, Independents who comprised 40% of the voters in the Democratic primary) are focused on defeating G.W. Bush. They are not demanding perfection on their most cherished issues, they are not nitpicking voting records (a strategy that Clark is trying, as are advance snipers of the Republican right guard, and a strategy that used to work...but it sure isn't right now.) The voters are voting overwhelmingly for John Kerry. He has won a major industrial battleground state in Michigan, a major industrial battleground border state in Missouri, a far western state in Washington, two small states in two very different parts of the country--- North Dakota (big state, small population) and Delaware. If he wins Virginia, he will add a state of the Confederate south. If he wins Tennessee, it will not only take all the air of his primary opponents, it will shake the confidence of Republicans in the effectiveness of their “northern liberal” tag for Kerry, which is the best they’ve come up with so far.

campaign junkie update

Shaping up as the states to watch over the next couple of weeks are Tennessee next Tuesday (2/10) and Wisconsin on February 17.

Both John Edwards and Wesley Clark are devoting time and resources to Tennessee, and both have something of a home field advantage. But as of now, John Kerry is leading in the polls. With another string of victories likely this weekend, he will be taking on the math of inevitability by the 10th as well as the air of inevitability. So two things could happen to slow Kerry's momentum, apart from voters who simply favor another candidate: voters who want to slow down the process, or voters who assume Kerry will be the nominee and doesn't need their vote, so they can vote for Edwards because he used to practice law in the state and is a southerner, or Clark because he shook their hand or something. But right now it looks like: Kerry, Edwards, Clark in that order. If that holds, Clark would essentially be finished (and it would probably be a great relief to him, because he's not very good at this and probably knows it by now, and he appears not to really have the stomach for campaigning over the long haul.) Edwards stays alive with a win or possibly a close second.

The last battlefield could be Wisconsin on 2/17. Howard Dean is making his last stand there. If he doesn't win it, he may very well get out of the race. Edwards has chosen Wisconsin as the place he needs to show he can win outside the south. If he doesn't win there, especially if he has not won another state besides South Carolina, he may concede. Kerry would go into March 2 Super Tuesday essentially unopposed. Again, voters in Wisconsin could simply try to keep the race going by coming out for Edwards or Dean. But it is highly likely that they will split that vote. Unless Edwards comes out of 2/10 with momentum from two southern victories (which is unlikely as of now) he probably couldn't be the focus of the non-Kerry voters, but he does have the best chance at the moment to survive. There's also the possibility that the Dean activists will pull out all the stops for at least a symbolic victory in Wisconsin, achieving at least some emotional satisfaction. But it is more likely that they will have their moment at the Convention when Dean speaks (as he certainly will.)

The problem for these candidates is that they need clear victories over Kerry, and that is highly unlikely. He is going to pick up almost as many delegates in these states, even if he is a few percentage points off the top spot. And he is going to be winning every other state in contention. Winning Michigan, Washington and Maine will be huge. And for the other candidates this is just a strategy to stay in the race until Super Tuesday. Wresting the nomination from Kerry is even more of a long shot. The only surprise since Tuesday so far is how much money these candidates claim they continue to raise. The Democrats are benefitting from this primary race in getting attention for their agenda and point of view. It's not certain that the money going to these campaigns would be available to the Democratic ticket anyway, but if it would be, there may be reason down the road to regret spending it now on candidacies that have no realistic chance.

Side note: we don't see Letterman much anymore but apparently candidates have been doing Top Ten Lists for him lately. John Edwards did "ten things you'll never hear candidates say." #3 was "Lady, that is one ugly baby." #1 was "Read my lips: no new wardrobe malfunctions."

The Results

John Kerry won primaries and caucuses in five states; in the largest and most important primary (Missouri) he got a majority of votes cast in a field of 7 candidates, as he did in the North Dakota caucus. In South Carolina, which John Edwards won by about 15 percentage points, he got a quarter of the votes cast, and more than that in Oklahoma, where Wesley Clark was the apparent winner, just a few hundred votes ahead of John Edwards. In addition to Missouri and North Dakota, Kerry won Delaware, Arizona and New Mexico. So he has won in every region of the country except the traditional south, and today he has shown strength among black and Latino voters, who were not present in significant numbers in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Apart from the total delegates that Kerry won, the most significant number of the night comes from the exit polls. Asked if Kerry was an acceptable nominee even if they didn't vote for him in the primary, 80% in 3 of the 4 primary states said yes. In Oklahoma, where he ran slightly behind Clark and Edwards, it was 70%.

Joe Lieberman dropped out of the race, while Howard Dean polled behind Al Sharpton in South Carolina. John Edwards' strong win in South Carolina, and his eloquent stump speech in victory (which moved the MSNBC panel to high hosannas), raised his campaign, which had staked everything there, outspending Kerry by 5 to 1. Senator Edwards of North Carolina was born in South Carolina, and used that to his advantage. Wesley Clark, as off-putting in victory as he is in defeat, claimed a great victory in Oklahoma, where he camped out since New Hampshire. Clark is from neighboring Arkansas, and was perceived as conservative because he's career military. Edwards did better than expected in Oklahoma, principally because he was endorsed by Barry Switzer, the famed Oklahoma football coach whose endorsement is credited with electing the current governor. (The source of this information was the Edwards campaign.)

Edwards' victory may result in a cash infusion. If so, he can mount campaigns in the next round of southern states, and then he is hoping to break out of the south with a win in Wisconsin. Clark will also need inspired contributors to mount any sort of challenge, although it's not clear where he will be able to challenge Kerry.

Kerry asserted that he was the only candidate to campaign in all seven of the Feb. 3 states, and is committed to campaigning in every primary and caucus state in the future. This is not only a good strategy for the frontrunner, it's an appropriate practice if the party is to test for its best nominee. Edwards is likely to be his final viable opponent in the weeks ahead. We've been saying since before Iowa that his "two Americas" theme is a winner. He is eloquent, intelligent and straightforward. But he may look a little too much like Jimmy Carter, a good man not prepared to swim with the sharks. Lack of experience has become a qualification, but maybe the tide has turned on that as it may have on many other knee-jerk truths from recent elections.

South Carolina was the first state to report, so Edwards got his media moment early in the evening. At that point the media bobbleheads were touting his chances based on the "domestic themes," of jobs, health care, education and so on, whereas Kerry's appeal as the war hero was as a leader on "foreign affairs," which they once again denied would be the deciding factor against Bush. But they don't quite understand Kerry's appeal as a war hero---because he is also an anti-war hero. His war hero image does reinforce his foreign policy experience as a U.S. Senator who has been very active in debating policies and making law in foreign and military affairs. His anti-war hero image does reinforce his ability to distinguish bad wars from necessary actions, and his resolve to not involve American young people in unnecessary military adventures, let alone kill the innocent of other countries in order to make wealthy people more wealthy. But his warrior in war and peace image translates to those domestic issues as well. He will fight for jobs, for health care, for education, and stand up to the very powerful oligarchy of corporations and entrenched interests.

Most importantly to Democrats now, this peaceful warrior image means he will give Bush and the Republicans a fight to the finish, which is what voters dearly want. (A large percentage classified themselves as either "angry" or "dissatisfied.") In his evening interviews, you could see this quality: no criticism went unanswered, and he repeated that he looked forward to the fight for the nomination and the election.

Kerry is battle tested, in war, in the war against the war, and in the political wars. Kerry won a very tough election for the Senate against a very popular Republican Governor---and in Massachusetts you had to be very popular to be both Republican and governor--- Bill Weld. Here's what one of Kerry's Navy buddies told New Yorker reporter Joe Klein: "John's at his best under pressure, when he's being seriously challenged. He gets really cool, very calm. He really is a warrior---he just loves it. I took one look at him as he was walking into Faneuil Hall for one of the last debates and I thought, Bill Weld has no idea what's about to hit him."

That's what Democrats are looking for in a nominee. Not somebody who seemingly changes his entire personality from debate to debate, like Al Gore apparently did, giving the woeful George W. Bush an opportunity that probably surprised even him. Wesley Clark's basic message is fine with most Democrats. John Edwards message, eloquence and intelligence will inspire most Democrats, as did Howard Dean's. But Democrats want the nominee who will beat George Bush, and beyond the Democratic party (but including those in it), voters want somebody who is equipped to be President from Inauguration Day, who can deal with foreign challenges and get America back into the international community, while making sense of our affairs at home. That's why John Kerry won seven primaries and caucuses out of nine, and why he's going to win in Michigan and Washington state later this week. Kerry's campaign slogan, a nasty cooption of Bush posturing, is "bring it on." He means it.

More vice presidents from Speculation Central: John Edwards continues to deny interest in being the v.p. nominee, and who can blame him? Of course it is something he has to say at this stage, or no one would donate money to his campaign. If he is asked, and he does accept, he would be a strong v.p. candidate because of his eloquence, intelligence and energy. Coming from the south may not add a lot.

As we mentioned before, Kerry could choose a Midwesterner like Gephardt, to help win the crucial industrial states. Or Jennifer Granholm, the very popular governor of Michigan, a key battleground state. That she's a woman will also help, especially since the Republicans aren't going to be able to portray Kerry as a wimp (or as those Arnold clones on Saturday Night Live used to say, a "girlie man.")

Or Kerry could look to a southwestern strategy, and choose Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, a Latino, and former ambassador to the UN in the Clinton administration. Richardson himself is a proponent of such a strategy, so he wouldn't have to be convinced it's a good idea. Richardson mentioned the environment as an important issue in the west, and though this crucial area has barely been mentioned in the campaign so far, Kerry is very strong on environmental issues.

A musical note: One beat after Kerry finished his victory speech in New Hampshire, the ballroom speakers boomed with the Boss, singing "No Retreat, No Surrender," a great, great song. Tonight in Washington state, the same timing but a different song: native son Jimi Hendrix: "(Let Me Stand Next To Your) Fire."

(Reminds me of the best commercial I saw on the Super Bowl-a very young Jimi in 1953 chooses a bottle of Pepsi from a blue machine outside a music store, with electric guitars in the window (everything about the Pepsi bottle and machine were vintagely correct, but not the guitars.) He had passed on a Coke from the red machine across the street, also in front of a music store, but with accordions in the window. The soundtrack treated us to a few notes of "Foxy Lady" on each instrument. "Good choice" was the conclusion.)

(Yeah, I saw that, and most of the actual game, but during the infamous halftime show I was watching C-Span 2, and a fascinating interview with Franklin Toker-met him a few times in Pittsburgh---about Fallingwater. And I do not regret it, having already seen the Latoya model of the Jackson breast in Playboy. Same model, probably, from the same surgeon.)

the day before

National poll numbers today are shaking the assumptions of the media bobbleheads. The numbers show Bush more than vulnerable both on Iraq and on the economy---specifically on jobs. His approval rating has fallen below 50% for the first time, and John Kerry has a 7 point lead in a head to head matchup for November. This just after a weekend in which bobbleheads pooh poohed Iraq as an issue, and gave the economic issue to Bush. They also talked about the Democrats hurting each other on the campaign trail, but that turned out not to be so: because the media covers conflict, the Democratic message got repeated by all or most of the contenders, so it made an impression.

But here at Speculation Central we don't think the primary campaign is going to be all over tomorrow, and that's a good thing. Judging from Kerry's last two days of scheduling, he may have concluded that John Edwards is going to win South Carolina, and Oklahoma may go to Wesley Clark. Our barely educated guess is that he's looking at 5 outright victories out of 7, and will come in second in the other two. If Edwards wins South Carolina by 5 points or more, and shows a consistent second place in other states, he remains enough of a contender to satisfy the media, who will then keep covering the race. Howard Dean will need outright victories before March 2 to remain legitimate and not just an annoying spoiler. By the March 2 primaries it's likely that Kerry's opposition will be token, unless Edwards has run up some victories beyond the South. Right now, the national polls show him not as strong against Bush as Kerry. That of course could change as he becomes better known. But Howard Dean is unlikely to recover as a viable candidate. He is shown losing to Bush by a clear margin in the new poll.

Kerry is in striking distance in all seven states tomorrow. If voters are still strongly motivated by electability and they see these poll numbers, it could be enough to give him the additional two or three victories. But this may also be a time that voters want to pause and take a second look at other candidates. The frontrunner has the powerful appeal of a winner, but also the prominent position as target and symbol for whatever negative messages voters want to send. Our gut feeling is that he does not win South Carolina or Oklahoma. If he doesn't, it's not necessarily a bad thing, and doesn't really slow down his pace to the nomination. If he does, it's a strong message that voters are focused and powerfully motivated to get rid of the Bush.

Primaries: Weekend notes

With a solid lead in Missouri, a good lead in two other states, and the potential to win all seven states on February 3, John Kerry is in position to be the only candidate with a realistic chance to win the nomination by accumulating delegates in the primaries.

Several candidates will stay in officially, and should. The Democratic message isn't going to get attention unless there's some kind of a race for reporters to cover. Joe Lieberman will have to leave the race before March 2, or face almost certain defeat in the primary in his home state of Connecticut. The race won't lose much if Wesley Clark gets out by March. At the moment he has a chance of winning Oklahoma on February 3, but the chance diminishes with each passing day.

John Edwards may win South Carolina, but even though he's said that it is a state he must win, he now may stay in the race anyway. Al Sharpton will stay in, and should, for his candidacy adds a lot to the process. There's no reason for Dennis Kucenic to drop out either, and the longer he stays in and gets media coverage, the more likely it is that he can help win his home state of Ohio, which is crucial to the Democratic nominee this year. Kerry is going to need Howard Dean's supporters, so even though Dean no longer has a realistic chance of the nomination, even at the convention (should something unforeseen happen to the Kerry candidacy), how he is handled will be important.

The hot talk among Republicans as well as Democrats is about the formidable but only theoretical Kerry-Edwards ticket. Edwards has said he wouldn't run as vice-president, but so far there doesn't seem to be any bad blood between him and Kerry, so with a realistic chance to unseat Bush, he might change his mind. Another possibility is Kerry-Gephardt, which could help in the industrial Midwest where the election may be decided. In terms of balance, both of these tickets are Washington and legislature oriented. A Senator Kerry- Governor Dean ticket is geographically unbalanced, and probably wouldn't work anyway.

Dark horses for v.p. might include the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, although Kerry’s wife Teresa is well known and loved in PA, where she campaigned with her late husband Senator John Heinz, so she can help win that important state. Florida’s Bob Graham is going to be mentioned, and older v.p.s seem to be in vogue.

One ticket we aren't going to see is Kerry-Hilary Clinton. Why would Hilary go back to the White House with less power than she had as First Lady?

Hope

In November, the editor of Governing Magazine, Alan Ehrenhalt, addressed the American Enterprise Institute. His politics are not known hereabouts, but since the Institute is a right wing think tank, we presume he's no leftist. According to a short piece in American Prospect, he told the tankers that the upsurge of the conservative movement since 1968 has peaked, although this is obscured by its dominance in Washington and its now-establishment institutions. He told them that Democrats have become "a party of minorities and people to listen to NPR, but that's not far from a majority." He warned the right wingers against the arrogance he saw in them. "To this the assembled conspirators replied with, well, arrogance," the Prospect said. They rejected his analysis.

The right believes it has won the battle of ideas, but it's possible to detect two problems they have: a dearth of new ideas, and a new-found ability of the people they attack to effectively counter their charges.

You can see hints of this in the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. In terms of ideas and articulation of those ideas, this year's field is superior.
John Kerry is very specific about the Bush foreign policy, what he will do in domestic policy, and who the enemies are. He uses rhetoric that would have been radical even four years ago, but it has the same power and directness as the conservative rhetoric of the 1980s. (He speaks of "Benedict Arnold corporations" who send their jobs overseas.) But he keeps rhetoric more familiar to Democrats (instead of "people working for the economy, we need an economy that works for people.")

Key to all this is understanding the appeal of the attacks and quickly repelling them. When George Bush I and his minions used racist code to attack Michael Dukakis, he didn't know how to respond. But last night Howard Dean pointed out that George Bush II used the word "quotas" several times in a single statement, identified this as a racist code word, and said on the basis of playing the race card alone, Bush should be defeated.

Contrast this with the rhetoric coming from the Republicans and the Rabid Right. They got plenty of air time thanks to their media minions repeating the charge against Kerry that he has a more liberal voting record that Teddy Kennedy, which makes Kennedy the conservative Senator from Massachusetts. But other reporters expressed doubts that this old "liberal" tag has the power it once did. That's probably partly because it is so old that it's become meaningless, and partly because it's hard to know what liberal means when the conservative government runs up the highest deficit in history. (And Teddy Kennedy doesn't scare people anymore. He's become a more universally cherished figure.)

So far the best that the Rabid Right can do in criticizing Kerry---which means attempting to demonize Kerry---is to say that he "looks French" (I'm not kidding) and that he went to school in England. The baseness of this is obvious, as is the utter poverty of ideas. Yet in their arrogance they think this stuff will still work.

Maybe it still will, but there are signs it won't. Another good sign besides the clarity of the candidates is the attitude of Democratic voters so far. They aren't floundering around, expressing general dissatisfaction with the field, or choosing on either strict ideological purity or superficial whim. The polls in Iowa and New Hampshire confirm that they like all the candidates but are voting for the one they believe is strongest in being able to defeat Bush: "electability."

Also, the candidates are so close on the issues that final unity should not be difficult to achieve, at least on that basis. If Kerry's big win in New Hampshire (YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!) is confirmed with three or more primary victories on February 3 (including Missouri), it is likely that the field will significantly narrow. They'll probably all stay in until February 5, but after that when there is no more money to go on, even winners in one state or another will drop out or scale back.

All that the Democratic candidate has to do is to win what Al Gore won and just another state or two. (Like Florida.) There is an additional factor: there will be no "Gush or Bore" "you can't tell the difference" between the candidates rhetoric. It's unlikely there will be candidates in most states either from the Green party or right-of-Bush parties. The Florida ballot should be much less complicated.

Defeating Bush will take skill, persistence and vigilance. There is no manipulation the Bushies aren't capable of, include interfering with voting and voting rights, and pulling some phony national security or terrorism-related surprise. But everyone has seen it all before, and that may be the key.

New Hamp Election Day Update

Because American Samizat fans are probably checking the site every few minutes, this bit of fuzz before the polls close in New Hampshire:

Since Senator John Kerry is expected to win, both the Dean campaign and the media are spinning expectations about how close Dean has to get to be the "winner" in second place, a NH tradition. But this year it doesn't work. When Bill Clinton came in second, he went on to states especially in the south where he already had a constituency. Even if Dean comes within 10 points of Kerry, it's hard to see where he does well next, and where over the long haul he will pick up support if he is not the perceived frontrunner. What he had going for him before Iowa was the perception of inevitability. He doesn't have that now, even if he were to win New Hampshire by a few points.

But a close second will keep Dean's campaign going, as it will keep the money flowing in. A third place finish, behind John Edwards, is possible, or a near-tie with Edwards: say, ten points between Kerry and Dean, and 3 points between Dean and Edwards, and there's real problems ahead for Dean.

The candidate in the absolute best position, apart from Kerry should he win by a big margin, is likely to be John Edwards. He's going into states he can win. Nothing but a bad 4th place in NH will likely damage him.

It will take a strong third place to keep Wesley Clark's chances alive, although he has the money to go on. It's possible he will learn quickly how to be a good candidate, but he didn't learn it in the past week. He just continued to demonstrate that he's not ready for prime time.

Forecast: a big Kerry win and a third place Dean finish makes this a Kerry and Edwards race. If Kerry and Dean finish close to each other with Edwards a strong third, it's a three candidate race for awhile longer, and the danger for Kerry is that while he and Dean are slugging it out, Edwards looks better to voters. Only if Clark or Lieberman do way better than expected will they be factors in the next round. Missouri will be the next key race.

We picked the 1-2-3 finishers in Iowa (yeah we didn't do it on the site so how do you know?) so this week we'll ruin our record and say, since the turnout is reportedly heavy, a big Kerry win in NH.

Stat of the Day
brought to you by ...The Bush Brothers

Number of votes G.W. Bush won the presidency by......1 (Scalia)
Number of votes G.W. Bush "won" Florida by
according to the Supreme Court..... 537

Number of primarily African American voters
illegally purged from the Florida voting rolls
in 2000, as ordered by Governor Jeb Bush ....... 91,000


Democratic candidates have won the popular vote for President in the last three elections. There are many good reasons that the Democratic candidate in 2004 should as well, with enough electoral votes to stop Bush from doing any more damage. But there is growing evidence of serious trouble in the electoral machinery, and growing suspicion that the subversion of the very process of voting successfully used in Florida will be repeated in various ways, in Florida again, but also in several other states. In particular, the new touch-screen voting systems, widely regarded as unreliable, adopted in several key states at the behest of the Pentagon, are coincidentally manufactured by companies with strong ties to Bush and the Republican party.

Now is the time for citizens to be aware of this, and to ensure the integrity of this last possibility for any semblance of democracy. If voting becomes corrupted on this scale, nothing can save the United States of America.

Stats of the Day

percentage of Americans without health
insurance who have jobs.........................80

Number of Californians without
health care coverage.............6.4 million

Number of Californians without
health coverage whose income
is over $50,000 a year...... 1.6 million

...over $70,000 a year.....640,000

Stat of the Day

Number of British troops on the ground in Iraq...... 9,900
Number of private military contractors
on the ground in Iraq...... 10,000

Proportion of the $87 billion for
Iraq and Afghanistan going to corporations...... 1/3

Amount of Halliburton Iraq contracts..... $5 billion+

Instant Analysis

The Iowa results: Kerry wins, electability a big factor. John Edwards a strong second, his "two Americas" theme resonating, along with positive campaign and attractive personality. Howard Dean a distant third, Dick Gephardt so far out that he is withdrawing from the race.

The spin: the same on every network, the animus against Howard Dean by the media came rushing out. They called him mean and unlikeable, and criticized him for not having his wife and children campaigning. The spite was not even disguised, it was blood in the water time.

The change: New Hampshire now becomes a Kerry (Mass.) v. Dean (Vermont) race. If either of them wins, it keeps them going---for Kerry it becomes confirmation, for Dean a comeback. But if Edwards or Wesley Clark wins, it throws the race into a turmoil because neither is a favorite son of a neighboring state. An Edwards win with South Carolina next would be a huge boost to his campaign, and would probably get him the money to play out the race to the end.

Here's hoping: We're anxious to see Kerry campaigning, for the results indicate he's starting to connect, which he hadn't done before. Whoever goes up against Bush has to be at the top of his game, and so far that's been Dean. But obviously Kerry and Edwards have made great strides in the past week or two.

A Kerry-Edwards ticket could be the strongest the Democrats could hope for.

Judging from an interchange W Clark had on CNN, he's not ready for prime time. Candidates with an edge do seem appealing---that is, ones that might self-destruct but don't. Clark seems like he could self-destruct completely. The one with the least risk of that is Edwards.

Howard Dean defined the race so far, and pushed these candidates to be strong against Bush, and to define a real vision. Even if he doesn't become the candidate, he's done a great service. So has Gephardt, who left his expediency back in Washington and became passionate on the campaign trail. He should still be looked at as a v.p. candidate.

There was some cooperation between the Edwards and Kucenic campaigns in Iowa. Look for Dennis, if he drops out soon, to support Edwards. We doubt Gephardt will endorse anyone when he drops out on 1/20.

The Quotegeist

"It's very hard to draw the line now between oil and the military."
--Kevin Phillips on C-Span

"Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction."
--Dr. James Forbes, Riverside Church NYC

Numbers of the Week


Total number of American soldiers killed in Iraq......... 500

Number of Americans who die each year
because they have no health insurance ........ 18,000

Global Week in Review 1/2/04

PHINEAS
Sappy blue ear!

CHRISTOPHER
What's this 'let old acquaintance be forgot' stuff? I never understood that. Forget your friends, it's a new year? Who wrote that song? Lobbyists?

THERON
It's the Alzheimer's Anonymous fight song.

PHINEAS
How quickly we degenerate.

MORGAN
It must be time to talk politics.

PHINEAS
Conventional wisdom is, it's going to be Bush vs. Dean. What does this tell us?

MORGAN
After Bush vs. Gore? That the major qualification to run for President is that you have four letters in your last name?

PHINEAS
Conventional wisdom also is, Dean loses.

CHRISTOPHER
O Canada!

MORGAN
I'll take Italy. At least they get mad about their corruption.

THERON
The GOPers would like to make Dean into a McGovern, and since they've got the media in their pockets, maybe they will. But it depends on whether Dean has a coherent image and message from the convention on. And picks a good v.p. Right now I'd say a Dean-Gephardt ticket could really shake things up. If they fight hard. Pull no punches. Craft a message, stick it relentlessly, and take no crap.

CHRISTOPHER
That would be fun.

PHINEAS
But if not Dean, who?

MORGAN
What did we say last time, anybody but Lieberman? I'll refine my position: if Bush were running against a toad, I'd vote for the toad. If Lieberman were running against a toad, I'd vote for the toad. But if Bush is running against Lieberman, I'll vote for Lieberman.

PHINEAS
Any other v.p. ideas for Dean?

THERON
Clark and Edwards have said they won't do it. Kerry is also New England. Graham of is a supposedly politically astute choice because he's from Florida, but that stuff doesn't work anymore, does it?

PHINEAS
Gore couldn't carry Tennessee and he was the top of the ticket.

THERON
Right. Graham's a good enough guy, but he looks boring.

MORGAN
On the other hand he's got heart problems, and that seems to be a new qualification for vice president.

PHINEAS
Gephardt can mobilize the industrial Midwest, Pennsylvania. Maybe some farm states.

THERON
The way to win Florida is for a black organization to go down there right now and work on registering people. Stay the course, be at the polls on election day. Make sure the votes count this time.

PHINEAS
Any other predictions for 04?

MORGAN
It will be discovered that G.W. Bush is the bastard grandchild of Mussolini. He has genetically confused Iraq with Ethiopia.

GABRIEL
Morgan's been writing too much science fiction.

CHRISTOPER
Speaking of which, I have some predictions for the expanded DVD version of the last Lord of the Rings movie. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there will be no new battle scenes---just another three hours of endings. Twelve additional endings in all. Forensic evidence on cause of death of the Darth Vader guy, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame monsters.

MORGAN
And the Klingons in the ships?

CHRISTOPHER
Right. Then the signing of the treaties among the victors. The lawyers alone supply six of the new endings. Then there's Frodo's new life in San Francisco.

MORGAN
Which leads to a new series, Fellowship of the Mings, in which Frodo, Flash Gordon and Luke Skywalker all come out, and do a cool makeover of the Emperor Ming's palace.

PHINEAS
And this is the kind of year we can expect?

THERON
If we're lucky.

The Right Christian

By Theron Dash

While some of you contemplate an early moment in the Christian gospels, I have been thinking about the final moments in one of them. The Apocalypse. And I've come to the conclusion that it's all true. The anti-Christ is here. His name is George W. Bush.

It doesn't matter if he is sincere, if he is a "good person" in his denying heart. He fulfills the prophesies. He sows discord in the Middle East. He brings destruction through deception. He has somehow convinced Americans that the Republicans are against Big Government and for Fiscal Responsibility as he inflates federal power and plunges the nation into debts and it will take generations of suffering to recover from---and that's the best case scenario.

He has apparently convinced ordinary Americans that he is on their side, as he impoverishes them, yokes their very health and livelihoods to the whims of conscienceless corporations. He convinces them he is protecting them even as he abandons them with impunity. And he tells them he's born again.

He ignores global heating, defiles the air, delivers the water to corporate bullies, slices away the lungs of the planet. He has managed to get Congress to pass a law that allows him to invade Denmark if he doesn't get his way with the International Court at the Hague. He is bringing on the apocalypse, grinning all the way.

If you think capturing Saddam has turned things around in Iraq, just wait awhile. He seems to have bullied Europe into talking concessions on loans, but payback is inevitable. You can bully people when you're strong, but few bullies get much help from their victims when they themselves are hurting.

He is getting plenty of help from Democrats who still would rather fight among themselves than win an election. And he still has his minions, who are smart, ruthless and will do anything to win. Expect Saddam's trial to be televised during the Democratic Convention this summer.

It's not hopeless. But it's essential to understand that we're dealing with Biblical proportions.

What's Really Going On Part 2

The first part of the domestic Plan has been obvious for awhile. The Bush Conspiracy found a way to reward its rich supporters and corporate cronies with a huge tax cut (the richest bunch of them will reap $8 million this year just on the cut) and thereby forcing government to "shrink" (that is, turn over its legitimate functions to corporations) because state governments and the federal government won't have enough tax money to meet the needs of the people.

It had to be done this way because voters haven't fully bought into the GOP message of destroying government. They like the rhetoric all right, but when it comes down to the decisions, they'd rather have the services, the protections, the functions of government that seed the economy, encourage a vibrant society, fulfill our common commitment to justice and a civilized society.

But the GOP of today has also found their fatal flaw---people want a robust government but they don't want to pay the taxes that support it. So promise them everything, especially tax cuts. It's a very successful strategy that can't last any longer than the machinations of Enron, and it will have even more tragic results. But that's all right, because the corporate interests that Bush represents will make plenty of money anyway. That's the second part of the Plan that we didn't quite understand.

Because the basic conundrum is obvious to everybody: if the rich keep stealing from the not rich, they will have all the money, and nobody will be making enough to buy the consumer products that currently drive the economy. So pretty soon the consumer economy will collapse and lots of corporations will stop making profits. Can't they see this?

We got the answer from James K. Galbraith in an article in the October issue of The Progressive entitled "Why Bush Likes A Bad Economy." "The oil, mining, defense, media, and pharmaceutical firms who form the core of their constituency rely on monopoly power, patents, and the control of public resources for their profits," he writes. "They do not depend, very much, on strong consumer demand."

So we have seen the future and it is called Urinetown. The premise of the play of that name is that all public and private toilets are controlled by corporations, who demand a fee. That's what will happen as government is forced to shed social security, education, social services, etc. and they are picked up by private interests, who will display all the compassion and cost efficiency of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Of course the Bushies know which focus group buttons to push. They prey on the apparent common sense notion that business can be more efficient than government, because a profit motive is incentive to cut waste and fraud, and to please customers. You know, what would buying a Big Mac be like if government was in charge of hamburgers? Pretty scary, right?

In the real world however we all should have learned by now that pleasing customers is hardly necessary for making profits, and that the method of choice for many huge corporations is fraud on a scale no government bureaucrat could dream of. Lying, manipulating, bilking people out of their life savings, their future and their very lives is standard procedure these days, as long as the quarterly report is favorable. For even making a profit isn't the main goal---the goal is SHOWING a profit, quarter by quarter, stock blip by stock blip.

They make money by manipulating the systems---the financial systems, through favorable laws, secret deals and simply pushing money around. There are billions to be made that way once they get their hands on Social Security.

Then there are the unfortunate differences between businesses and government, one of which is a very painful lesson for a town in California, as reported on Friday's "Now" on PBS: businesses can move somewhere else, but governments can't. In this case it was the biggest corporation and most successful retailer in the world, Wal Mart, that extracted millions of dollars from a local government for the construction of its store in their municipality, promising that government even more in tax revenues over the long run. But the long run never happened. The month the government made its last payment to Wal Mart, the corporation announced it was closing that store and building a couple more in nearby municipalities. So Wal Mart stole the money, and now will add further injury by further destroying the remaining tax base as it drives smaller retailers out of business.

That's how consumer businesses are surviving these days: by cutting costs the Wal Mart way: paying way less than a living wage to employees, treating them shamefully, forcing mini-management to act unethically and illegally, and when they aren't making a "competitive" profit (that is, enough money to keep expanding like a nightmare cancer) they go elsewhere. In this of course they follow the shining example of manufacturers and now service businesses that take their plants and office parks to other countries where wages are miniscule and health, safety and environmental regulations are even more fictional than they've become in America.

Yes, it's likely that Governor Arnold would prefer to move his government to South Korea, but unfortunately it's stuck in California. Maybe he'll get a nice payoff loan from Bush in exchange for trying to deliver the state’s votes to him in November, but in the meantime the schools are quickly dwindling to a state of depressed disorganization, the vitality is being leached out of the bones of public institutions that will cripple California for years to come. And it's happening in most other states as well, though perhaps less dramatically.

In California the Governator precipitated a crisis by cutting the motor vehicle fee increase (which was actually a reinstating of fees that had been cut just a few years ago when the state was flush.) That money had been destined to go to hard-pressed localities to support basic services. So it meant cutbacks in fire protection and police, and the now famous basic function of government: the roads don't get fixed. And health and social programs incidentally would have also suffered, along with thousands of children, elders and sick people.

But the Governator dramatically rescued the state from his own destructive act. Sort of like how the Terminator is the bad guy in the first movie but comes back as the good guy in the second movie? In this case, the Governator issued an emergency order to fund the localities out of other state revenues, specifically by making additional cuts in the budgets of the two state university systems. Very dramatic, perhaps illegal, but hey, he was elected to be an action hero, and a little dictatorial power is part of the script.

In the meantime, the universities have been hacking away at themselves for several years already, and are looking at cuts of up to 30% next year, even before this last bit. Now there are rumors that the most prestigious state funded universities are looking for ways to go private. If UC Berkeley and UCLA, for instance, succeeded in doing that, the collapse of state higher education for the middle class would probably follow in a big hurry. This might result in a reverse Gold Rush, except, where are people going to go? South Korea?

What's Really Going On, Part 1

They said it couldn't be done, but the Dash Brothers have been walking around in stunned silence, thanks to the increasingly tragic and increasingly surreal situation in Iraq.

"The hallmark of the Bush foreign policy has been a naïve radicalism married to an operational incompetence," writes Robert Kuttner in the November American Prospect. "A small clique with a preconceived blueprint took advantage of a national emergency and a callow president, blowing a containable threat into war while dismissing more ominous menaces. These people are out to remake the world, with little sense of risk, proportion or history."

Of course we've been saying all this for months, and as we've also said, one remarkable feature of this context is that the above analysis has quickly become the conventional wisdom among several if not nearly all of the Democratic candidates for president, as well as the established "liberal" or what's left of the Left within the ruling class, from Washington to Hollywood, the Nation magazine to Doonesbury. It took years for this kind of critique made by outsiders demonized as radical leftists to enter the public commentary of establishment liberals during the Vietnam sixties and seventies.

And if this analysis has any impact on the 2004 presidential election, we suspect political historians will refer to this past week as a key moment. That's because two sets of events happened almost simultaneously. One set was a series of almost incredible missteps and disasters for the Bushies.
Just hours before Bush himself was scheduled to get on the phone to heads of state of France, Germany, Canada and Russia, to pitch them on forgiving debt to Iraq and otherwise help the U.S. get out of this mess without going into bankrupt Depression, the Pentagon announced that major reconstruction contracts would be banned from going to companies in France, Germany, Canada and Russia. This carries the policy of preemptive destruction to new heights.

The fallout from this appalling act has already caused international furor, and will likely lead to incalculable consequences, probably in a number of small and subtle ways that will add up to real damage to U.S. internal security and interests in the world. But it may have greater consequences domestically and politically. There are lots of people supporting Bush in Iraq who don't have the resources to ignore consequences to themselves. The Bush government may feel free to plunge the country into massive debt, and strain society to the limit by sending thousands of National Guard weekend warriors to get picked off one by one in the Middle East, but American families will feel the real pain. Nobody except well paid ideologues are going to be happy that the U.S. is alienating allies who could help and share the burden. Now it will take a change of administration for that to happen.

Stories in the Boston Globe and elsewhere are already charging that this policy, ostensibly to reward Bush's allies among other nations, is more likely to reward only Bush's allies in U.S. business, because the countries excised from consideration are precisely the countries that have companies with the capabilities to compete for major contracts.

Shortly after this Pentagon announcement, another Pentagon office announced that Halliburton, one of the two U.S. companies to benefit most richly from the occupation of Iraq, has overcharged the government for gasoline. Every report mentions that Halliburton was headed by vice-president Cheney.

These reports hurt immediately because they say that things are not likely to get better in Iraq in the future. Other reports dramatized how wrong things are going right now. Besides the guerrilla war and terrorist bombings, the growing suspicion that more civilians are being killed and injured and the charges that information about all of this is being covered up, there was the report that between a third and half of the recently recruited new Iraqi army has quit. We assume this is going to set back the timetable for turning over security and so on to Iraqis.

That's the first set of events. The second set concerns the political opposition. Al Gore, whose timing was suspect in his own 2000 campaign, came up with a thunderbolt of timing and surprise. He unexpectedly endorsed the candidacy of Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination, before even the first caucuses in Iowa let alone the first primary in New Hampshire.

The endorsement by the man who won the popular vote in 2000 is politically powerful, but what's more important is the basis for it. Gore said it was because of Dean's position on foreign policy and the war in Iraq specifically. Until now, the zeitgeist was unsure what issue was going to be emphasized in the election, the war or the economy. Of course they are related and they will both be debated, and no one knows which will be more important to voters ten months from now. But Gore's endorsement put Iraq at the top for the political moment. He emphasized its importance by saying he endorsed Dean now because the issue is so important, Democrats need to be uniting behind one candidate with this message ASAP. And the events described above as the first set, all happened shortly afterwards, making Gore's move not only bold but prescient.

Dean had other good news this week, solidifying his position at the frontrunner. But even if another candidate emerges later, Gore's endorsement has set the bar. And if it happens, this week may have been crucial to ending the Bush reign in 2004.

The Speed of Right and the Right to Lie


With a little historical memory, the speed of change in what you hear through the media about Iraq is really amazing. It took years for members of Congress (except for the few usual mavericks) to gingerly question the Vietnam war, and they were very careful just how much they could challenge. Even George McGovern in 1972 had to be fairly circumspect. And almost anyone from 1965 to 1974 who condemned leaders for the war risked being pilloried for being unpatriotic. Questioning the motives of Nixon and Kissinger was left to anti-American radicals and radical playwrights.

Six months ago we were writing in these columns about the post Iraq war freeze on criticism, citing the most feeble notes of questioning by reporters who were summarily quashed.

But try listening to a bona fide presidential candidate, a retired army general yet, Wesley Clark. He is saying out loud what only the most “extreme” (i.e. knowledgeable and sensible) observers and experts were saying just before and just after Iraq II, about weapons of mass destruction, motives for going to war, the overall highjacking of the post-9/11 emotion, the perils of occupation and “reconstruction.” He’s questioning the veracity of the President and his puppets (or puppeteers.)

The amazing thing isn’t so much that all these folks were right, and we’re forced to watch the tragedies inevitably unfold as U.S. violence injects growth hormones into anti-western insurgencies. The startling thing is that the opposition critique has become establishment so quickly.

But that’s an observation without much effect, for it doesn’t change things much, and unless one of several Democrats is elected President, it never will. Part of the reason is that no matter how fast the truth catches up, lies are faster. And lies work.

There probably isn’t a more salient or depressing fact about American politics these days than that: lies work. Get enough powerful officials with powerful rich friends to say the same thing over and over, and lies work. You get the war you wanted, a cynical and dangerous fraud instead of real health care help. Buy enough TV time and tell the right lies, and you can convince poor people in Alabama to vote against tax reform which would benefit them more than any other group. That’s what happened in the referendum there, and the role of TV is particularly clear in the companion fact that a higher proportion of poor voted against reform than did the rich, who were going to see their taxes go up. So were corporate taxes, which even after being raised would be nowhere near what corporations pay in other states, and that’s where the money for all the lying ads came from.

Lies work also because there is no legal, moral or cultural opposition to them. Lies of all kinds get on the air as long as they’re in political advertising, with no legal penalty or remedy. Lies are so outrageous and frequent that there is no cultural sanction—the public isn’t scandalized by them, especially if the lies are exciting enough. The excitement is more important than the truth. Besides, these are focus group tested lies. They are lies crafted to evoke particular fears, or play to particular prejudices.

Political lies paid for by corporations don’t get newspapers too upset. After all, their existence depends on pages full of corporate lies called advertising.

The Right to Lie is the lifeblood of the Rabid Right. It’s become a kind of science: the rapid-fire attack of one lie after another, the more sensational and provocative and outrageous the better, because that gets more attention. By the time a lie can be confronted, ten more have replaced it (gone but not forgotten.) This is augmented by the slick lie, the well-done lie by highly paid and highly skilled professional liars in concept and execution. There is a gleeful excitement to all this. Lying is great for the adrenal glands. Lying brings people together. Can you top this one? How did you get them to fall for that one? Let’s work together and blitz them with one Big Lie. Repeat it and repeat it. They’ll try to refute it, but by next week we can refer to it as if were proven truth. Because everybody will remember it. Lying is fun. It’s the game of politics. It’s how you win the right friends and influence the right people. So you won’t wind up being one of those wimps sitting on the sidewalk singing Kumbaya, or living in a hovel or a cardboard box. No more sniveling: lie your way to power. It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s oh so profitable.

So maybe some folks are getting away with telling some uncomfortable truths. But don’t worry, there are more lies on the way. The Bushies will have a quarter of a billion dollars to play with, and that’s just the A team. Corporations have trained us and acculturated us to the thematic lie, the specific lie, the implied lie, the bold lie, the narrated and dramatized lie, the visually dazzling lie. Crash some images together, create the right emotion and the same corporations that sell you drugs you don’t need will sell you the candidates who will make sure that those drugs stay really really expensive.

They’ve dumbed down the country, shafted schools to build prisons, and they’re busy sealing the deal with all morons all the time television. But you can’t blame the victims here. Most people know they’re being lied to. It’s just hard to live thinking the worst of the people running your world. And the lies are so many, and they are so good at finding the vulnerabilities, that they still work. As long as lies and liars get a free ride, we’re going nowhere but down the drain.

Democracy? Or Something Else?

President G.W. Bush has done his vision thing. He claims that his vision is to bring democracy to the Middle East. But his record in Iraq tells a different story. There he is bringing a particular kind of imitation democracy: the kind with pay-to-play elections, and above all, one dominated by the military corporate political complex, with global corporations as the dominant governors and beneficiaries. It is a corporate democracy without labor unions, or protection for workers, families or the environment.


What's going wrong in Iraq? Bloody political struggles, vicious guerilla warfare, the chaos of the tragically unforeseen or just inadequate planning, the accumulating consequences of self-righteousness and hubris---all these are widely reported and discussed. But just reading the newspaper and surfing the net yields another answer, as bitter as any and more familiar than most: greed.

The dots are there to be connected. They outline a portrait of corporate greed, arm-in-arm with political greed, an all-too familiar marriage in America, now being exported instead of democracy.

The United States government has taken on the responsibility of running and rebuilding Iraq. But even now, some 70% of the Iraqi workforce is unemployed. High unemployment preceded the war to some extent, but there were government subsidies for basic needs that now are gone. The army of some 400,000 men was disbanded, without pay or pension. The country's manufacturing has shut down. Basic services like electricity and water are still spotty and uncertain. For a society with a substantial middle class, with an urbanized and educated population, this is catastrophe. This is slow motion forest fire, combined with daily earthquakes.

And, of course, it is recipe for violence. For the angry and desperate, modern arms are easily obtained. It is apparently easy to steal as well from virtually unguarded American ammo dumps; military manpower has reportedly been diverted to searching for phantom weapons of mass destruction. This is not to claim that all the violence is spontaneous and unorganized, nor to attempt to identify any of the perpetrators.

What is the American occupation doing about all this? Apart from recruiting for a security force and hiring a few Iraqis to pick up trash and scour sewers for paltry wages, the U.S. is providing a huge object lesson in how corporate democracy works.

Most of large contracts for Iraq's reconstruction have gone to a small number of U.S. corporations, and as the Center for Public Integrity recently reported, most were large donors to the Bush 2000 campaign. The corporations with the closest ties to Bush and members of his administration are among those reaping the biggest benefits.

San Francisco based Bechtel and its subsidiaries alone got 10 contracts worth more than $1 billion. (Several of its officials serve on important Bush administration boards, and former Bechtel executive and Bush advisor George Shultz remains on its board of directors.) But the star so far is energy conglomerate Halliburton, which vice president Cheney ran until 2000. Thanks largely to its Iraq contracts, Halliburton's sales rose 39% in the third quarter this year to over four billion dollars. The profits of its Kellogg, Brown and Root unit operating in Iraq quadrupled on an 80% increase in sales. In just three months, KBR delivered an operating profit of $34 million on revenues of $900 million. Its contracts in Iraq were worth more than $2 billion.

These profits were registered while two U.S. Members of Congress accused KBR of importing gasoline into Iraq at inflated prices, with U.S. taxpayers footing the bill. (This is not the first time KBR has been accused of gouging the U.S. government. In 1997 the company was sued for overcharging the U.S. army on plywood.) Iraqi importers are bringing in oil and gasoline for much less, as Halliburton itself admits. Which raises a very interesting question: why are U.S. companies getting contracts to do what Iraqi companies could be doing? After all, Iraqi companies and professionals built much of what needs to be re-built. Wouldn't the sane-not to mention the decent-thing be to give Iraqis these contracts, and employ Iraqi workers?

One answer is that this may be happening, in a way. Bechtel claims to be employing some 30,000 Iraqis. Iraqi companies are indeed subcontracting to do reconstruction work, but these contracts are controlled by huge American corporations. According to at least one usually dependable as well as eloquent Iraqi blog ("Baghdad Burning" at www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com) these Iraqi firms are doing so often at much lower costs than U.S. corporations estimated. The documented case of the Iraqi gasoline importer lends credence to this generalization. But the blog goes on to assert that savings doesn't go either to the Iraqis or back to U.S. taxpayers. It goes in the pocket of the corporations that overestimated the costs and got the contracts. This is certainly worth investigation by American journalists.

There are other disquieting assertions. U.S. companies are importing unskilled labor from Southeast Asia and elsewhere to work on their projects in Iraq. Officially this is because of security concerns, but getting workers at less than Iraqis would be paid adds to corporate profits. Labor journalist David Bacon has also charged that the Bush administration is systematically destroying labor unions in Iraq, and ignoring labor rights in its planning for Iraq's future. "Baghdad Burning" reports that Iraqi businesses must go through the KBR corporation, rather than the provisional government, in order to do business in their own country. This observer within Iraq concurs with western journalists who conclude that there is a concerted effort to privatize even basic services in Iraq, so global corporations rather than any Iraqi government will essentially control Iraq.

Journalist Bacon claims that none of the $87 billion just appropriated by Congress will go to Iraqi workers or to the Iraqi unemployed. (Others assert that there is no indication within the bill of how the figure of $19 billion for reconstruction was arrived at, nor are there provisions for how it will be spent.) If workers and the unemployed are left out, at least the Bush administration is consistent. That $87 billion is money that will not go to the unemployed in America (and despite the purported spurt in growth this quarter, more jobs were lost). None of it goes to hard-pressed workers or their families: to the parents who will see their Social Security dwindle and the children who will have their futures mortgaged by deficits. Short-sighted greed rules here in the U.S. as well. Yet no one will be surprised if those same corporations currently at the trough for Iraq, soon pony up again to contribute to the Bush war chest, expected to exceed $200 million for the next campaign.

What might be expected of the American electorate is a complex question. But even considering the other factors operating in Iraq, it's not hard to see how such bold greed would contribute to the kind of violence and tribulation we are probably just beginning to see there. It also provides a picture of what the Bush Vision truly means.

Global week in review: the Dash Brothers of the Roundtable


PHINEAS
Gathered again at the old Drink & Think, to mull over the events of the week, with some mulled wine perhaps.

GABRIEL
Weak mulled wine.

MORGAN
Very weak.

CHRISTOPHER
Any good news?

THERON
Depends. Civilization continues its increasingly swift decline into self-annihilation accompanied by tragic self-parody. Is that good or bad?

MORGAN
The Yankees lost.

PHINEAS
There you go.

CHRISTOPHER
What's the first legalese phrase any of us learned?

GABRIEL
Any rebroadcast of the pictures and accounts of this game without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball is strictly prohibited.

CHRISTOPHER
You got it.

THERON
The war against terrorism got clarified. According to one of the Generals, it's the Christians against Islam.

CHRISTOPHER
The Crusades 2003. Another sequel.

MORGAN
It's more like Judeo-Christianity/Islam against Buddhism. That's the real conflict, in effect. On every level.

THERON
I don't know, you've got to give Dick Cheney credit. He said there were al qeda in Iraq and sure enough, there are.

GABRIEL
A whole new meaning to self-fulfilling prophesy.

THERON
Pretty soon there'll be WMD too.

PHINEAS
Speaking of Halliburton, our reconstruction money is not only going to good old lobbyist-heavy American companies instead of the Iraqi companies and professionals who built the stuff in the first place-you know, the stuff we bombed-but our efficiency minded companies there are hiring cheap labor from really poor countries to improve their bottom line, while half of the Iraqi workforce is unemployed.

THERON
Lessons in free enterprise don't come cheap.

PHINEAS
The Red Cross got bombed. The idea that wars had rules was always absurd in a way. But now that wars don't have rules---

THERON
Like pre-emptive defense?

PHINEAS
Exactly--then it's beyond absurd. It's not absurd horror. It's pure horror.

CHRISTOPHER
That's what we've got cable news for--absurd horror.

GABRIEL
How about them Democrats?

MORGAN
It's Anybody But Bush. And Lieberman.

GABRIEL
Look at the best seller list--all those liberals.

MORGAN
Only if you have "lies" in the title. The public may not know much. The public may not want to know much. But they know everybody is lying. And they want everybody to know that.

THERON
So to sum up: Iraq is fiery chaos, as are southern California suburbs and the sun. You know, the solar flares thing. Anything else?

CHRISTOPHER
The Kansas City Chiefs were kind of fun to watch this week.

PHINEAS
We're coming closer and closer to some ultimate understanding of our place in the universe.

MORGAN
And some woman at a coffee bar will get the final insight just as the Vorgons destroy the planet to make way for a cosmic bypass.

PHINEAS
Something like that. Though truth is stranger than even science fiction.

THERON
Happy Halloween!

Here it comes...

Here's Allen Ginsberg in a 1982 interview talking about his sudden realization of 1958: "And so in 1958, on Independence Day, I wrote an essay saying that America was going to have a nervous breakdown, and that part of the cause of it could be located in that year's 30 billion dollar military budget and the growth of the military police state; that one aspect of it was the persecution of the junkies and the drug people who were basically sensitives who may or may not have been fucked up but needed compassion and medical care rather than Swatsika-like police agencies chasing them down with guns, calling them fiends, which is a terrible violation of the human spirit to create a class of people in America called fiends,--I mean, it's diabolical...once you realize you've got a class of armed police calling another group fiends you've really got a situation so surrealistic and hallucinatory and violent that there could be no outcome but some massive nervous breakdown in America when people find out that they've not only been lied to but drawn into a dream of reality which is not only false but painful and bitter and murderous."

So you notice that the total military budget he's talking about is about half of what Bush is asking for the military for Iraq alone this year. Thirty billion could buy you a nuclear arsenal in those days. And now we have the ongoing War on Some Drugs, which is the war on the class of fiends, losers, non-white cultures and non-corporate capitalists. Maybe the junkies today are more than proportionately more dangerous in some ways, but likely mostly to themselves.

What's interesting here is: how long has it been since anybody has called this a violation of the human spirit? Who talks like that anymore? Here in this false and painful and bitter and murderous nightmare of reality. Maybe it's a stretch to see the street junkies as sensitives, but on the other hand, many addicts are, or were. We hear a little more about treatment now thanks dubiously to Rush Limbaugh, but basically the war goes on.

How did we avoid that nervous breakdown? Denial is apparently a very powerful thing, aided by shopping. Our prisons are chock full of black men, but of course no racism is involved. The poor were joined by the working poor and now by the lower middle class and the middle middle a family crisis or two behind in being driven to insolvency and therefore homelessness by medical bills. But to talk about the rich paying a fair share of taxes is to engage in class warfare.
We dare not ask why terrorists find supporters in their countries, any more than we ask why people in our cities and towns turn to drugs. Well, they sure can't turn to us.

Think about this: everybody knows that more people are murdered in America than anywhere else. (We don't count revolutions and genocides of course.) So we get tough on crime and we watch cop show after cop show after cop show, all those tough smart guys solving homicides and struggling with the perverse legal system to make the bad guys pay because somehow this helps the dead victims. But what we don't know, can't admit, sure can't face, is that there are fewer homicides in America than suicides.

(cue: song) Here it comes...here it comes...

Film at 11

by Morgan Dash

On the night that the conglomerate media candidate claimed victory, the Turner Classic Movie Channel happened to be running all three Boris Karloff Frankenstein films. A fine counterpoint and counterpart to what must have been shown on the cable news channels.

I expect to be watching the Turner Classic Movie Channel exclusively for the foreseeable future. Thank you and goodnight from California.