When Will Hillary Quit the Race?

Senator Pat Leahy called on Hillary to drop out of the race because she can't win, and the Democrats need to take John McCain on sooner rather than later. "She has a right to run" he said, "but not a very good reason."

Billary said they were in it to the end, again. But politicians always say that, until they announce they aren't in it anymore. The question is, when is that likely to happen with Hillary?

I don't think it will happen in some scenario of party elders going to her and asking her to. A Saturday NY Times story suggests that people in her campaign will tell her it's time to drop out if she loses PA or, two weeks later, she loses Indiana.

But she might not quit even then. It might take a movement of super delegates to seal the nomination for Obama in May.

But there are circumstances under which she could decide to quit. The first is if she doesn't have enough money to go on. That's how the calls for her to quit, and the stories that she can't win, really hurt: they hurt her fundraising. I doubt that many of those millionaires who back her can legally contribute any more.

The second depends on whether she wants a career in the U.S. Senate from New York, or any political office in that state. If she does, she will be watching the polls--not everywhere, not even in upcoming primaries, but in the state of New York. If she sees voters there turning against her, she will have to pay attention to that. She can't afford to continue a long-shot run for the presidential nomination at the cost of alienating voters from returning her to the Senate, or for a possible run for governor of New York. If she stays in the race too long, and her attacks lead to Obama's eventual defeat in November, her political career as a Democrat could be over.

Barack, "The Bus" and the Immaculate Receptor
(Bob Casey, Jr. in the background) and the new
blue Terrible Towel in Pittsburgh Friday.

PA in Play?

The surprise endorsement Friday of Barack Obama by Senator Bob Casey, Jr. of PA was the latest and potentially most powerful move that has put PA more in play than perhaps it was last week.

First of all, note the strength of the endorsement. "I believe in this guy like I've never believed in a candidate in my life, except my father." Casey's father, Bob Sr. was the very popular two-terms governor of the Commonwealth in the late 1980s. (Casey's speech is here.)

The politics of this going forward is fascinating. This Bob Casey is also Catholic and a moderate Democrat, conservative on some social issues. He ran for governor in a Dem primary against the current governor, Ed Rendell, and lost, before beating Rick Santorum in 2006 for the U.S. Senate. In Casey's race against Rendell for governor, Rendell won by piling up huge majorities in Philadelphia and surrounding southeastern PA, while Casey beat him everywhere else. For this primary, Rendell is backing the highly favored Hillary--but Obama is strongest in the same Philly area that backed Rendell. So now with Casey campaigning for him, Obama can reach into areas of the commonwealth, and into constituencies, that like Casey but that are Hillary voters---so far.

Obama started his barnstorming bus tour of PA Friday in Pittsburgh, where he appeared with possibly even more important supporters locally: Pittsburgh Steelers icons Franco Harris and Jerome "the Bus" Bettis. They presented him with a replica of the "Terrible Towel," another Steelers icon, but in Obama's campaign colors.

Another sign of PA in play was the Obama campaign assigning the guy who ran their successful Iowa campaign to run their campaign in PA.

Once again Hillary was forced to announce she's still the race after Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont suggested she drop out because she can't win. Howard Dean suggested strongly that the race should be over by no later than early July, and the sooner the better.

Meanwhile, the effort by Clinton big money supporters to essentially blackmail Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi into backing off her support for super delegates endorsing the delegate leader coming out the primaries seems to have backfired. While MoveOn became the first organization to push back with its own financial power, several reporters said that super delegates were offended by the letter, and were less and less inclined to back Clinton. One writer suggests that some are keeping quiet only because they fear political retribution by Clinton and her party supporters. But leaders like Bob Casey, Jr. and Bill Richardson who took those risks to endorse Obama may help them declare.

And all this came at the end of a week in which polls had mostly bad news for Clinton, and the last Gallup poll of the week showed Obama regaining his largest lead of 8 points over Hillary. And the good news is likely to continue Saturday when Texas Democrats in county and state senate district conventions complete the final step in that state's primary/caucus process, and Obama officially wins Texas.

As for PA, Obama is still the underdog, and the goal is to come close and to win delegates. One supporter (not connected with the campaign) suggested to the New York Times that a 5 point loss is a win. Others have said under 10 points. I expect the crowds Obama gets on this bus tour--even though there is only one big rally on the schedule so far, at Penn State on Sunday--will help gauge the potential for Obama.

The PA primary election will be a test of the power and perhaps the depth of committment to Clinton in the PA Dem party machinery, versus the Obama coalition--and who comes out to vote. And it's still more than three weeks away. From the Times story: “This is like a symphony,” said Clifford Levine, a Pittsburgh lawyer, fund-raiser and chairman of Mr. Obama’s western Pennsylvania steering committee. “You don’t start with a crescendo when you have five weeks. You start with a softer sell. We’ll build things up, and once there’s support and people get to know him, you start in with the big crescendo.”

Today's News--and Maybe Tomorrow's

The Tuzla Doozy--also being called Snipergate--continued to fill up the morning hours Wednesday. Al G. also found a recording of a radio interview with the actual pilot of the flight into Tuzla, who said quite reasonably that if there had been any danger of sniper fire, they simply wouldn't have landed, and definitely wouldn't have let anyone off the plane.

A video making fun of Snipergate became the number 1 vid on YouTube, replacing Obama's speech on race.

But Hillary's bad day was just getting started. While she and Bill pumped up the volume about how she was going to stay in until the convention, and all this fighting was a good thing, and Obama wants to disenfranchise voters in Michigan and Florida, but really pledged delegates as a result of such elections don't really mean anything, etc., the news shifted to a surprising NBC poll that showed in the past two weeks--with the Rev. Wright reel playing on a closed loop on TV, etc.--it was Hillary, not Obama, who took a big hit:

As expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think. Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

This poll was taken Monday and Tuesday, as the Snipergate story was getting TV attention. Another poll in just California, that didn't get national attention yet, shows the same trend, only more so. Some 61% have a favorable impression of Obama, but only 45% of Hillary (who won the state primary.) Her unfavorable rating is 52%. The poll also shows another Obama-friendly trend: people want change, across the board.

Other findings in the NBC poll and in a Gallup poll show that nearly a fifth of Obama voters and a fourth of Hillary voters would rather vote for McCain than the other guy. This adds more fuel to the growing Dem party and super-delegate fire. Some uncommitted and Hillary-backing supes who talked to an NBC reporter said they were increasingly upset by her campaign's tone, they don't like her using Rev. Wright to "scare white people," and they were definitely pissed about Bill Richardson being called a Judas. What's a bit different about this report is the end: " But some said they were increasingly in touch with Clinton campaign officials to say their support is in jeopardy."

Still, while restless supes are talking to the media, nobody seems to be doing anything to avert disaster: the bitter, damaging campaign, and the prospect of it going on to the convention. But one guy is stepping up: Phil Bredesen, Gov. of Tennessee, formally uncommitted, who proposes that right after the last primary the supes convene for a couple of days and vote until they put one of the candidates over the top--and his preference is the one who has the most votes from the primaries and caucuses.

So much for Wednesday news. But something may be bubbling up for the day and days ahead. Yesterday when I heard Hillary say that Rev. Wright would not be her pastor, I thought: if I'm a reporting listening to this, my next question is, well, who is your pastor?

In that context, I noticed on Huffington Post today, not one, not two, but three new posts on Hillary's affiliation with a shadowy, scary-sounding religious group called "The Fellowship" and sometimes "The Family." These posts (one of which referred to a new MSNBC report) follow one from a few days ago by Barbara Ehrenreich called "Hillary's Nasty Pastorate" that begins: There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama."

Well, now she's opened herself up to scrutiny on this, and if half the stuff Ehrenreich and the others at Huffpost are saying proves out, we may be hearing more about Hillary and the Family/Fellowship soon, and often. But even if the media doesn't pick up this thread immediately, there's a new book about to be published that exposes The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Publication is for May, which means publicity starts soon--soon enough for the PA primary.

This is potentially pretty dark stuff--an outfit with a long history that reaches back to Nazis, South American death squads and today features such American exemplars as Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe, Rick Santorum and former Senator George Allen of VA. All led by Doug Coe, who Hillary has called (in writing) "a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide..." Do you think maybe somebody is looking through his videos?

Snipers

Hillary may not have actually had bullets flying over her head in Bosnia, but she was under fire big time on Tuesday. Apparently the evening news on all three broadcast networks led with her Tuzla Tale, and had even more video to show how absurd her version was. Al G. at the Field had the video for CBS and ABC.

This repeated lie opened the door wider to examination of other exaggerations and lies, such as Hillary's repeated assertion that she was against NAFTA. MSNBC demolished that one. (Again, Al has the video.)

Print press was no kinder. Why wasn't the truth good enough for Hillary Rodham Clinton? was the lead for an AP report, called "Hillary's Flight of Fancy." Dan Kennedy in the Guardian put it all in perspective, and senses that while the media bought the argument that they'd been soft on Obama before Ohio, they are feeling they've been too soft on Hillary since, and that's over. Kennedy was quotably ascerbic about some of this, like James Carville calling Gov. Richardson a "Judas" for his endorsement of Obama: a remark that caused millions to rack their brains over whether they may have missed any Jesus-like qualities in Hillary Clinton over the years. Of course, it's possible that by the time this ends she'll claim to have walked on water. "

Kennedy concludes: "By Monday evening, Clinton was saying that she "misspoke" on Bosnia, which, of course, she hadn't. The only credible explanation for her incredible remarks is that she lied and got caught. Frankly, if she really believes she and her then-teenage daughter had come under sniper fire that day in Tuzla - well, on second thought, keep the red phone away from that woman, please."

But on Tuesday, Clinton tried to change the subject and at the same time go racist in PA (you had to do it in the town where I was born, didn't you, Hillary?) by personally trying to re-ignite the Rev. Wright controversy. It looked to me that cable news bought it, but the networks didn't. But that's really the audience she wanted. She gave the interview in which she first made this Rev. Wright remarks to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the rabid right Scaife daily that was a charter member of the vast right wing conspiracy, having commissioned many stories trying to prove Vince Foster was murdered by Billary. But now, the rabid right are Hillary's allies, and the Pittsburgh Trib-to- Fox News is to be her channel to blue collar white voters in PA. And with the lovely logic of the Manchurian Candidate, she enables hate votes by condemning hate speech.

She also called her Tuzla doozy a "mistake" rather than a "misstatement." Though she of course wound up playing the victim by asserting "it proves I'm human, which for some is a revelation." Once again, she attacks without restraint, but when called to account, she plays the victim.

Unfortunately for her, she then went on to make other exaggerations, and the media--the Times in this case--was all over it immediately.

"He wouldn't have been my pastor," Hillary chides, but the pastor of the church she went to as First Lady defended Wright: "He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize."

But that's clearly also part of the Hillary strategy in PA, where her first television ad has "not a person of color" in it.

Meanwhile, a Rasmussen poll shows Obama now just ten points behind Clinton in PA. And a new Public Policy Polling survey shows that Obama has jumped out to a 21 point lead in North Carolina.

Obama has been catching some rays in the Virgin Islands all this time, but he's back in North Carolina Wednesday. He begins a bus trip across PA on Friday, starting in western PA, in the vicinity where Hillary was Tuesday.

Who Could Like This Monday

What a dull thud of a day. The prevailing media narrative was that the Democratic party is gleefully destroying itself by prolonging this campaign--and as the corrolary, that the Clintons are willing to destroy the party and cede the White House this year if they aren't nominated.

Huffpost identified today's CW as McCain benefits from the long campaign and the bitter conflict in it, which Jonathan Alter on Keith agreed was "the tipping point" being reached, and that 9 out of the last 10 elections, the party that settled on its nominee first won the general.

On the second point, Robert Novak "quoted" a "longtime associate of Billary as saying "They will do anything -- anything -- to get nominated,"and apparently the panelists on Hardball agreed that the Clinton strategy is either to win the nomination or make sure Obama loses the election so Hillary can run in 2012.

No, not a pretty day.

Elsewise, as I predicted somewhere, Hillary had to retract her "sniper fire" recollection about landing in Bosnia, thus keeping the story alive for another day. But she also did it badly--calling it "misspeaking" when it was part of a written speech, and is (or was) on her website, which will keep it alive awhile longer.

It's the kind of thing that gets into the street talk, and I'm guessing that there are some of those white men in PA who are thinking twice about her. Veterans who have been under fire aren't likely to be charitable about someone who wasn't but claims she was. Plus the other part of her story was that she was sent there because it was too dangerous for the President--so the conclusion is that Bill Clinton sent his wife--and his daughter--into mortal danger. That implication isn't going to sit well with fathers. No, even though she's told more substantive falsehoods and exaggerations about her "experience," this is the one people will talk about.

Will Hope Spring?

PA Update: I missed this, but Teresa Heinz Kerry wrote an oped in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Sunday endorsing Obama. I figure the paper itself will endorse him, too.


Meet the Press Sunday tried to keep the Dem race alive, despite GOPer Peggy Noonan claiming that Hillary is "surrounded by people who would adore the chance to be for Obama." Then on another show, a New York Magazine reporter claimed that top Clinton staff told Hillary they won't stick with her if she tries to destroy Obama. Both quotes are here; I happened to see the MTP gabfest replay switching during commercials and halftime on NCAA basketball, and when I wasn't running the vacuum cleaner--and Noonan's comment was quite strange in the context of keeping up the contest talk.

Oddly, I didn't hear them mention Hillary's money problems (unless they did so during the Memphis-Mississippi State action.) Or the tidbit I saw somewhere--that after reaching 1 million donors just last month, the Obama campaign is quietly coming close to 2 million donors.

But what was interesting in terms of that part of the CW that still thinks there is a nomination question is that they weren't talking about Pennsylvania as being decisive, unless Obama wins it. They were looking to North Carolina and Indiana the following week. Once again, Hillary has to win both or it's over, was pretty much the consensus. So now the idea is it could be over in May.

I also saw somewhere that PA Gov Rendell is claiming that in the general, Obama as well as Clinton would win the Commonwealth. He's got Obama to thank already for a lot of new Democrats. Final figures will be out shortly after the registration deadline today (Monday), but already Dems have added at least 100,000 while the GOP has lost 14,000.

But PA is still going to be the political focus, and though the Obama campaign has succeeded in changing expectations, and Obama has been campaigning elsewhere, there seem to be plans for Obama to contest it actively. Obama told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he's planning an Iowa-style campaign: meeting with small groups and talking to people across the state, over the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post hit a couple of VFWs in Harrisburg, one white and one black, and found that racial division is real. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy on several levels, and not all that enlightening. (Although one white guy who won't vote for Obama did give him credit for being loyal to Rev. Wright, so my intuition on that much at least was justified.)

Noting the ugly round number of 4,000 U. S. soldier deaths in Iraq, I blogged over at Dreaming Up Daily about an article called Euphemism and American Violence--the uses of euphemism to mask the lies and realities that allow such wars to start and go on this way. This war and much else of what this government does is so clearly designed to benefit certain corporations and wealthy people that corporate conspiracy theories are usually beside the point. But a diary I just saw at Kos makes a very good point about how media corporations--the corporations virtually in charge of politics, and certainly the major beneficiares of political campaigns--are deciding the issues that the presidency will be decided on. And, this diarist maintains, they're making sure it's anything but controlling corporate power.

The CW Circles Hillary

After the stories Friday, including the one about NAFTA and especially Hillary's preposterous account of her Bosnia trip which may be yet to blossom on cable TV, the media conventional wisdom is circling around Hillary, declaring the game is over. Or as Time's Michael Scherer says "The media referees in the ring are itching to call the Democratic bout."

The chorus grew by two today--Mark Helprin (usually on the conservative side) and Maureen Dowd in the NY Times (hard to characterize her because I just don't read her columns. Even when she's on my side, she's too snide for my tastes.) Here's another take on their takes.

What's prompting this now, besides what's turning out to be a long time between primary contests, is probably not just the bad news about Hillary and her campaign in the past few days, but the evidence that Obama has survived the Rev. Wright cablebombing (the CBS poll yesterday, and his return to lst place in the Gallup daily tracking poll today) and the symbolism of Bill Richardson's endorsement.

There's also beginning to be some admitting that if Obama and Hillary's positions were reversed in the delegate, popular vote and states won leads, the drumbeat for Obama to drop out would have been deafening a long time ago.

The charges and countercharges go on--I'll see your Judas and raise you a McCarthy--but if prominent super-delegates start following Richardson's lead, this could be over even before Pennsylvania, especially if Hillary's money problems are as severe as the financial report suggests they might be. Though I suppose the smart money is still on June.

Night Caps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Midday Read

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday Early: Richardson Hearts Obama

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

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

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

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

Thursday Late and Early

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Afterspeech

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Sixth Anniversary

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

Here is a little of what he said Wednesday:

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

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

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

Five Years Ago

Here at American Dash:

March 14, 2003:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Speech

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

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

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

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

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

Other effusive responses were collected by HuffPost here.

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

Then there was this posted on the Obama campaign site:

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

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

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

Is It (Almost) Over?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call It What It Is

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

Back On His Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obama as Lincoln (as Bobby) in Indiana

In Plainfield, Indiana Saturday, Barack Obama closed his informal speech (20 min., followed after this by 45 min. of questions and answers) with these words:

Let me just close my initial remarks by talking about bringing this country together. You know, Bobby Kennedy gave one of his most — gave one of his most famous speeches on a dark night in Indianapolis. Right after Dr. King was shot. Some of you remember reading about this speech. Some of you were alive when this speech was given. He stood on top of a car. He was in a crowd mostly of African Americans. And he delivered the news that Dr. King had been shot and killed. And he said, at that moment of anguish, he said, we’ve got a choice.

He said, we’ve got a choice in taking the rage and bitterness and disappointment and letting it fester and dividing us further so that we no longer see each other as Americans but we see each other as separate and apart and at odds with each other. Or we can take a different path that says we have different stories, but we have common dreams and common hopes. And we can decide to walk down this road together. And remake America once again.

And, you know, I think about those words often, especially in the last several weeks - because this campaign started on the basis that we are one America. As I said in my speech at the convention in 2004, there is no Black America, or White America, or Asian America, or Latino America. There is the United States of America.

But I noticed over the last several weeks that the forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again. And I’m not here to cast blame or point fingers because everybody, you know, senses that there’s been this shift. You know, that you’ve been seeing in the reporting. You’ve been seeing some of the commentaries of supporters on all sides. Most recently, you heard some statements from my former pastor that were incendiary and that I completely reject, although I knew him and know him as somebody in my church who talked to me about Jesus and family and friendships, but clearly had — but if all I knew was those statements that I saw on television, I would be shocked.

And it just reminds me that we’ve got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country. We’ve got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. But what I continue to believe in is that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of divisions. That this country wants something different.

I just want to say to everybody here that as somebody who was born into a diverse family, as somebody who has little pieces of America all in me, I will not allow us to lose this moment.

We cannot forget about our past, and ignore the very real forces of racial inequality and gender inequality and the other things that divide us. I don’t want us to forget them. We have to acknowledge them and lift them up and when people say things like my former pastor said, you know, you have to speak out forcefully against them.

But what you also have to do is remember what Bobby Kennedy said. That it is within our power to join together to truly make a United States of America. And that we have to do not just so that our children live in a more peaceful country and a more peaceful world, but that is the only way that we are going to deliver on the big issues that we’re facing in this country. We can’t solve health care divided. We cannot create an economy that works for everybody divided. We can’t fight terrorism divided. We can’t care for our veterans divided. We have to come together. That’s what this campaign is about. That’s why you are here. That’s why we’re going to win this election. That’s how we’re going to change the country.