Saturday, January 5, 2008

Glenn Hurowitz: John Edwards's Knockout Blow. John Edwards will need a virtuoso performance at tonight's debate to achieve the dramatic come-from-behind win he needs to stay alive. He's facing an opponent in Barack Obama who proved with his amazing Iowa victory that he is an extraordinary organizer, possibly a strategic genius, and above all an inspiring presence who captured Iowans' hunger for change. And he's got momentum. And let's not forget Hillary Clinton, who can count on lots of money, a ruthless campaign operation, and real affection for her and Bill Clinton in the state. But Edwards can definitely win - with a slight retooling of his message. - Give us a little hope The first thing Edwards has to do is combine his anti-corporate message with an inspiring vision of a hopeful future. Anti-corporate attacks, though they strike a chord with many Democratic voters, can only go so far. You also need to give voters a great hope that you can do better, especially now that most Democrats and most Americans are feeling excited about the possibility of real change that the Iowa result represented. Obama has been very effective at wrapping himself in hope. Reviving Edwards's successful 2004 speech line, "Hope is on the way," would be a great start. - Talk about Bringing People Together, but the Right People Obama's message about "bringing people together" to achieve real change clearly resonated with voters. But too often in the past, Obama has brought together the wrong people: corporate executives and right-wing Republicans, resulting in his support for items like expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru, nuclear power, liquid coal, George Bush's 2005 energy bill (full of billions in subsidies to oil, coal, and nuclear companies). Edwards needs to talk about bringing people together too, but say that he's bringing ordinary Americans together to achieve the transformative change this country needs. After all, Edwards is the guy who somehow managed to win the endorsement of both the anti-coal Friends of the Earth and the coal loving United Mine Workers (in addition to the Steelworkers, Transport Workers, Carpenters and SEIU locals), a really stunning Blue-Green alliance. - It's about specifics, not about power Especially of late, Edwards has resorted to broad oblique criticisms of his opponents, saying for instance, that, "You can't nice these people to death," a reference to Obama's repeated willingness to make massive accommodations to corporate executives. These attacks are just to oblique and lots of voters won't connect the dots. They really remind me of Howard Dean's ineffective and overly raw paeans to power in the last days of the 2004 Iowa caucus fight. Rather than saying that Hillary Clinton is too close to lobbyists and Barack Obama is too accommodating of the corporate executives responsible for America's problems, Edwards has to show it. Obama's record is full of dangerous capitulations to corporate executives (which I wrote about here and here). And Hillary Clinton directly lobbied to let International Paper poison New Hamsphireites by burning tires. Also, when you criticize on specifics rather than generalities, it usually seems like a sincere comparison rather than a gratuitous attack. It seems like Edwards's campaign is starting to talk more specifics, but Edwards himself will have to do it himself to make the message really resonate. An Edwards win - or a very strong second place showing - is possible, but it's going to take something big and new to make it happen. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 4:55:14 PM    comment []

Lott seals the deal on new lobbying position.. ThinkProgress reported in November that outgoing Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) may have been negotiating a future lobbying position with former Sen. John Breaux in potential violation of Senate ethics rules that take effect this year. At the time, Lott claimed, “I’m not really involved in negotiation. I’ve tried to stay away from that.” But now, just two weeks after resigning from the Senate, Lott announced that he is indeed joining with Breaux to form a lobbying group: Putting weeks of speculation to rest, former Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux (D-La.) confirmed Friday they plan to file paperwork next week to form a powerful lobbying partnership called The Breaux Lott Leadership Group. [Think Progress] 10:53:04 AM    comment []

Romney Re-Introduces Himself As "Candidate Of Change". Mitt Romney has shifted his stump speech from discussing the "four walls" that keep America strong to now arguing that he is a candidate who can bring about change and deliver results. Romney told a crowd of 250 Manchester citizens that he announced his presidential run in Detroit Michigan because he "wanted the symbolism of change to be a part of my campaign." "I think people recognize that sending the same people back to Washington is not going to change Washington. If you want to see change in Washington it's going to take someone who knows how to change things," he added. Ranging from his time in Salt Lake City to helping establish universal healthcare in Massachusetts, Romney offered a laundry list of accomplishments to argue that he is the best candidate to change Washington D.C. The former Bay State Governor ended his speech by telling voters "You can bring change." Click here to read more from New Hampshire Presidential Watch. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 10:49:33 AM    comment []

Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds warn of "social unraveling" if Obama loses. (updated below) Over at National Review, Jonah Goldberg has a "theory" about what might help Obama win in the general election. After noting that Obama will be "the first serious mainstream black contender for the White House," Goldberg warns (emphasis added): I think it's worth imagining a certain scenario. Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he's the nominee -- and then imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. I wonder: in Jonah Goldberg's "imagination," which (ahem) "certain segments" of the American population exactly will "become completely unhinged" if Obama loses and thereby spawn "social unraveling"? And who are the people who are going so deeply to fear this "social unraveling" that they vote for Obama just in order to keep those "certain segments" in line and well-behaved? Goldberg, of course, doesn't have the courage to say explicitly who he means -- he just implies it with ugly innuendo -- but Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds helpfully fills in the gap, approvingly quoting and praising Goldberg's warning ("He's right"), and then adding that if Hillary "outmaneuvers" Obama to win, "that'll probably alienate a lot of people and cause them to stay home in November." Just to make sure the meaning is clear, he then links to one of his own prior posts warning that a Hillary win might anger "black voters" and cause them to abandon the Democrats. The last time I can recall a "certain segment of American political life" becoming "completely unhinged" and causing "social unraveling" in connection with a national election was this episode in Miami, during the 2000 recount: The "bourgeois riot" celebrated by Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot helped stop the announced manual recount of the 10,750 undervote in Miami-Dade County. Instigated by an order from New York congressman John Sweeney to "shut it down," dozens of screaming GOP demonstrators pounded on doors and a picture window at elections headquarters. The canvassing board, which had already found a net Al Gore gain of 168 votes, reversed a decision it had made a couple of hours earlier to begin a tally of the undervote. The mob gang-rushed a local Democrat carrying a blank sample ballot. They threatened that a thousand Cubans were on their way to the headquarters to stop the count. Several people were "trampled, punched or kicked," according to The New York Times. The canvassing board chair at first conceded that mob pressures played a role in the shutdown -- which cost Gore the 168 votes as well -- but later reversed his position. . . . . Instead of condemning the Dade tactics, W. himself called the victory party that night to praise them, and Republicans invoked the specter of Jesse Jackson, who'd merely led peaceful protests outside election offices. The "certain segment" creating "social unraveling" and blocking vote-counting in 2000 with their thug tactics wasn't quite the same as the "certain segment" which Goldberg and Reynolds are ominously warning will riot in the event of an Obama loss: Most of those fist-waiving, threatening protesters were actually aides to GOP establishment figures, including Fred Thompson, Tom DeLay, Jim DeMint, and the NRCC, shipped to Miami to create a climate of intimidation and thus prevent pro-Gore votes from being counted. By stark contrast, those "certain segments" of pro-Obama supporters about whom Goldberg and Reynolds are warning had their own Florida protests over actual voter suppression in the 2000 election, and those were peaceful and lawful. It seems that Goldberg and Reynolds missed the Bill O'Reilly Show where O'Reilly educated his viewers that, shockingly enough, African-Americans actually behave like human beings, waiting for their food, using silverware and napkins and everything. There's a prevailing sense that Obama is not as offensive to the right-wing GOP faction as other Democratic and liberal candidates in the past have been, or that he's less "divisive" among them than Hillary. And that's true: for now, while he tries to take down the individual who has long provoked the most intense hatred -- literally -- among the Right. But anyone who doesn't think that that's all going to change instantaneously if Obama is the nominee hasn't been watching how this faction operates over the last 20 years. Hatred is their fuel. Just look at the bottomless personal animus they managed to generate over an anemic, mundane, inoffensive figure like John Kerry. At their Convention, they waved signs with band-aids mocking his purple hearts while cheering on two combat-avoiders. There will be more than enough of that intense hatred to go around if Obama is the nominee. For now, most of the racial commentary about Obama's candidacy on the Right is confined to the sort of cringe-inducing, painfully condescending self-congratulations of the type Bill Bennett spat out on CNN Thursday night: Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, wins this for the Democrats. I have been watching him. I watched him on "Meet the Press," I've watched him on [Anderson Cooper's] show, watched him on all the CNN shows -- he never brings race into it. He never plays the race card. Talk about the black community -- he has taught the black community you don't have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don't have to act like Al Sharpton. You can talk about the issues. Great dignity. And this is a breakthrough. And good for the people of Iowa. But if Obama is really the nominee, and is the one standing in the way between the Right and ongoing control of the Government, the idea that there's going to be civility and respect is pure delusion. Rush Limbaugh's continuous race-based mockery of Obama and the types of "warnings" issued here by Goldberg and Reynolds of the social unrest "Obama supporters" will cause is but the tip of the rancid iceberg [just the other day, Reynolds promoted a post warning that an Obama win (like a Huckabee win) will mean "the jihadis will not have done too badly"]. From a Free Republic posting after Obama's Iowa victory: Is Hussein Obama the weakest Dem for the General election? By sending forth Hussein Osama out of Iowa, Democrats have unwittingly weakened their general election prospects. Hussein's exotic mixture of radical liberalism, Kwanzaa Socialism, antipathy towards the unborn, and weakness against his jihadi brethren will all come back to destroy him against almost any Republican opponent, even the snake-grope from Hope. . . . As defenders of this great Republic, and of the pinnacle of Western civilization that it represents, we should all come together tonight and agree on a common strategy that will keep the White House from becoming a madrassa. As Andrew White, who also posted that Free Republic piece, wrote: "If Obama continues and becomes the presumptive Democratic nominee (and his chances got a lot better last night) it is going to get ugly. Real ugly." It would be just as ugly with Clinton or Edwards as the nominee, but that's the point. Scare tactics and fear-mongering are all the Right knows, and their whole electoral strategy since Richard Nixon has been grounded in culturally tribalistic and racial appeals. The kind of subtle bile pouring forth from Limbaugh, and from Goldberg and Reynolds last night, is just a tiny preview of what is to come. UPDATE: Jon Swift has an incisive and darkly amusing post about the punditocracy's collective analysis of the Iowa results, including this summary of self-praising commentary about Obama from that night: The other big winners were white voters and white members of the party establishment. By voting for Barack Obama, they were able to prove that they are not racist. The fact that Obama is young, charismatic, inspiring, a mesmerizing speaker, has fresh ideas and appeals across the partisan divide will make no difference in the general election where it is a well-known fact that the American people will be afraid to vote for a black man with a funny name who is inexperienced and might secretly be a Muslim. By letting him win this one, and giving us a historic moment that we can tell our grandchildren about, we can all feel better about ourselves. That was pretty much what Bill Bennett and so many others said exactly. UPDATE II: Perhaps some of Giuliani's support is motivated by a fear that "certain segments" might become "completely unhinged" in the event of a Giuliani loss and cause "social unraveling," sort of like this: In September 1992, [Giuliani] spoke to a rally of police officers protesting Mr. Dinkins's proposal for a civilian board to review police misconduct. It was a rowdy, often threatening, crowd. Hundreds of white off-duty officers drank heavily, and a few waved signs like "Dump the Washroom Attendant," a reference to Mr. Dinkins. A block away from City Hall, Mr. Giuliani gave a fiery address, twice calling Mr. Dinkins's proposal "bullshit." The crowd cheered. Mr. Giuliani was jubilant. "If you're acculturated to like cops, you don't necessarily see 10,000 white guys who don't vote in the city, don't write political checks and love you for the wrong reason," an aide said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is working with the Giuliani presidential campaign. Mr. Dinkins has not forgotten that sea of angry cops. "Rudy was out there inciting white cops to riot," Mr. Dinkins said in a recent interview. "I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Giuliani enormously in 2008." [Salon: Glenn Greenwald] 10:48:07 AM    comment []