Reaction to Tuesday's Midterms

Some quick reactions from Tuesday's Midterm Elections. Note, when I say "we" that refers to "Democrats" and/or "(Normal) Jews" and/or "(Normal) Americans". This is because, as I said Monday, the current Republican party is bizarrely more evil in intention than the ideas backing the Bush Years:

1. This could have been much much worse. As the dust settles, the Democrats lost only 1 House. Many of the lost seats in the Senate should have been quite safe (PA, Ill-a-freakin'-Noise) and that's a depressing sign. But considering that Teabaggers were defeated in many places, that California stayed Blue, and that Harry Reid's Faustian deal is still under warranty, means that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
   


2. The irony about Reid is that if anyone is responsible for the current failure of the Democrats, it's Reid. As I said in the intro, it's a given that the current GOP is freakishly evil (see below), but the only places where their evil could reign was SCOTUS (which is a lost cause until Scalia and Thomas get incapacitated by their own hatred of humanity), and the Senate. Despite the Dems having a historically high 60 seats, Reid allowed the Senate Republicans to destroy most attempts to repair the economy and help America. It's that bad. And because of the deadlock in congress, more people are out of work than should be, the health care plan is flaccid, and Obama's appointees are stalled in committee. All this evil was hated by the American people who returned their ire on... House Democrats. Who were by and large heroes these past 2 years. If there was any justice, Reid should have lost, the Dems should have kept the Senate - and House.
   


3. Which leads to the most infuriating result of Tuesday. While it's bad enough that the disturbing and malevolent John Boehner will be the new speaker, and that the Teabaggers have renewed vigor, what I'm especially angry about is that the GOP tactic of legislative anarchy worked for their benefit. The GOP is better at "playing the ref" than the Dems, mainly because the GOP is ideologically anti-government! Even when the Dems were trying to stop Bush's evil, in general their party is in favor of legislation. GOPers can take it or leave it. They may have claimed that they were trying to stop laws that hurt the American people, but only morons or fanatics actually believe that was true. Seriously. The proof is that the GOP supported everything they claim Obama stands for when Bush was the president. Every (non-alcoholic/moron) in Congress knew that we needed economic stimulus, health care, and bank reform - the GOP just didn't want those vitally important things to happen under a Democratic president. Which makes them a special type of evil.
   
   Note, this proof is the same one behind the Teabaggers: (1) if you don't like deficit spending, then why did you support Bush's epic/disgusting ballooning of the deficit? Because you want tax cuts and crazy wars? OK, yeah, you do. But it's because they're bigoted fiends; (2) if you hate health care reform, why did you support the Medicare Prescription Drug Boondoggle? I could go on but the pattern is obvious.


The Republicans spent 2 years blocking vitally important legislation - that they supported and knew would help get people jobs, medicine, life - in order to help their electoral chances... and it worked. And the American people fell for it. And I just threw up in my mouth.

And because it worked, the GOP will do it again and it will work again. It's bad enough to know that evil has gone unnoticed, it's worse to know that it will keep happening.


4. It's possible that Obama should be blamed for not strongly broadcasting the GOP evil before Nov 2. It is my biggest cavil with the president: that I want him to fight more. Yeah, it's nice to be 'non-partisan' but evil is evil and must be stopped. However, in retrospect, I have to blame the House/Senate democrats - and thus the DNC - for the responsibility of carrying out that message. It was their gooses about to be cooked and their legislature to be explained, and thus I blame their loss on themselves.
   
   
5. The big silver lining about the election is that - based on the GOP Evil Analysis above - that the hidden enemy of Republican Obstructionism now has a face. Ya see, as I've experienced in my own life, it's part of the American psyche to dismiss the excuses behind loss and failure. Bush lied, stole 2000, so what - he crossed the finish line and now we can move on to the next horse race. So too in Congress - so what if the GOP committed legislative fraud and grand evil over 2 years - it's not visible therefore its not provable. Yet now Bone-nert/Bay-nert/Boonert is the orange face of Congress. And we have a clear, easily spotted - even at night - enemy of Democracy.
   
   
6. Other good news - Massachusetts stayed Blue. The Scott "Nudie Model" Brown debacle of 2009 did not repeat.
   
   
7. On the unknown/bad news front: one piece of info I was looking for in the news organs is probably the most crucial factor of the Midterms - the makeup of State legislatures in those states that will gain/lose Congressional seats because of the new census. As Obama said on the Daily Show, the two biggest anti-Constitutional enemies to the Republic are (1) the filibuster, especially in the hands of the anarcho-nihilistic burglars of the GOP, and (2) gerrymandering of House districts. The GOP has succeeded in the former and may now succeed in the latter.
   
   
8. The last reaction for now has to do with newspapers. I sought out a (free) New York Times on Tuesday morning because I felt that I needed to have a good analysis and breakdown of the effects of the Midterms. Yet, I didn't get one. Not only was the newspaper frozen in time while reporting on a constantly shifting fact landscape, what information they did contain was fluffy and pedestrian. I wanted numbers! I wanted facts about losses and wins and causes and effects. Instead the paper was filled with reaction pieces about mood and feelings. It was useless. The internet wins again - not only because its up-to-the-second in news, but because the possible info is BETTER.

Robert Reich about the 2010 Midterms

This is a great essay from from Robert Reich (at Salon) about how to understand the upcoming midterm election. The key points he makes, under the rubric of advising Obama not to move to the "center":

1. There is no "center" to American politics. The "center" is merely what most people tell pollsters they think or want at any given time. Trying to move to the center by following polls means giving up on leadership because you can’t lead people to where they already are.

2. By the first midterm the public is almost always grouchy because the president wasn’t a messiah and didn’t change the world. No single president has that kind of power. The higher the expectations for change at the start of an administration, the greater the disillusionment.

3. Presidents’ parties always lose the first midterm elections because the president isn’t on the ticket, and the opposing party has had time to regroup and refuel. It’s always easier for the party on the outs to attack -- and to mass troops for the assault -- than for the party inside to defend.

4. The economy trumps everything else, even though presidents aren’t really responsible for it. So when it’s bad -- as it was during the first midterms of Carter, Reagan and Clinton -- voters penalize the president’s party even more than usual. When it’s very bad, the electoral penalty is likely to be that much larger.

But read the whole thing.

Robo-Land, Massachusetts Senate 2010

So Massachusetts is now in one of those teabagger fueled election death-struggles. Which means that for the past week or so we've been getting robocalls every few minutes or so. Robocalls, like mudslinging, turns voters off, not on and the candidates should know that. Karl Rove did - that's why he'd only pay for robocalls for his opponents (I think).

Anyway, the election tomorrow (Tuesday) is between a lackluster Democrat and a pretty-boy GOP walking-teabag cypher. The fact that we're in this place is scary to me, as a Democrat and a supporter of the president, but it's also a testimony to machine politics. We shouldn't be here, but here's why I think we are:

1. Martha Coakley is a poor candidate. Sadly, she's a combination of Hillary Clinton & John Kerry - an unimaginative, and mean, woman whose ambition overshadows her talent. I voted against her in the primary for this reason and were she in any fashion decent, this election wouldn't be so close. A sign of her paucity as a candidate is her desire to go negative early and often. Even when she was leading by double-digits in the primary, she attacked her opponents - one reason why I voted against her. And that undeserved hauteur - a hallmark of Kerry - is undoing her now.

2. Massachusetts screwed up the voting schedule - I said this before - there's a reason to have elections all at the same time. We should have had the primary on the November day and the special election soon after. Rather MA is forcing people to go to vote 3 times in close succession. It's expensive and time consuming. And unlike my fellow pundit-curmudgeons, I sympathize with good faith reasons for being unable to vote (with our 3 kids we're forced to find a babysitter or work out a way to switch places and go to the polls - not easy, and we both have time flexible jobs!) And voting in January in Massachusetts?! In-freakin-sane! The inevitable low-voter-turnout of the bad scheduling favors the crazy, under-employed, and committed - and in an off-year that means that opposition party.

3. Obstructionism Works - The GOP are better obstructionsists that Democats for a number of reasons: (a) conservatives, almost by definition, are against change which means they WANT to stop things, (b) the GOP is against government (pretty much) and so stopping legislative movement is part of their ideology, (c) the party, since Newt's time, has had remarkable voting unity - which helps obstructions.

In any case, the GOP obstructionism has given the view to the electorate that Congress isn't capable of doing anything and that helps the GOP depict themselves as the loyal opposition. Of course the truth is that they are continuing the despicable practices of their 2000-2008 reign... but most voters seem unable to capture that right now - aided by Coakley's hacky negativity.

Tomorrow may determine the end of the Obama era - just like Clinton's Democrats let him down from 1993-1994, so the stupid Democrats of 2009-2010 may end Obama before he can really begin.

Briefly stated, we need to get rid of the filibuster - it's become unconstitutional. Beforehand, the Senators, knowing they had a terrible weapon, only used it for the most severe cases. But the current GOP, like the gun-toting hillbillies who make up their core electorate, are using their weapons for everything. Sadly, it's time to take the gun away. I'll say more anon about that, though.

Ezra Klein - How liberal is Obama?

All I can say about this Ezra Klein piece from today is 'Amen Brother.' Obama's critics from the loony left irk me no end: Ezra Klein - How liberal is Obama?:

The first year of the Obama presidency has been a long tutorial on the difference between liberal ends and liberal means. If I told you America has a president determined to pass large amounts of Keynesian stimulus spending (that's particularly concentrated in impoverished areas), a near-universal health-care plan, and a bill addressing climate change, you'd say liberals had recaptured the White House. Ambitious liberals, even.

But though Obama's program is quite liberal, he doesn't seem to care much how it's achieved. A public option would be nice, but if it's not there, then that's fine, too. Full auction of permits is a good idea, but if most get given away to corporations, then that's how it goes. Infrastructure spending is good, but if tax cuts are the price of passage, then tax cuts there shall be. The best description of the administration's ideology probably came from Rahm Emanuel when he said, 'The only nonnegotiable principle here is success.'

You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama. At the executive level, it might be the case that being too liberal is a liability to, well, liberalism.

H.t. Sullivan.

Chelsea Clinton Is Engaged (to a Tribesman)

The NYTimes is announcing that "Chelsea Clinton Is Engagedto her longtime boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky..." The story goes on to say:

Mr. Mezvinsky, 31, works at Goldman Sachs and is the son of two former Democratic members of Congress, Edward Mezvinsky of Iowa, who served from 1973 to 1977 but was later convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to seven years in prison, and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania, who served from 1993 to 1995 and lost re-election after voting for President Clinton’s budget program.

A quick wikkiing, shows that shver Ed is Jewish (and I assume Margolies is, duh).

So, will Chelsea pull an Ivanka? Maybe if Hillary were still a NY Senator, she would.

But along with Gore's daughter, and Howard Dean, this is an interesting 'high-placed Democrats marrying Jews' thing. That and Gore's elected VP, makes a nice pattern of the party and Jews. True, Bush was grrrrreat for Israel, but there's more to listen to than assertions of ignorant Fox-News-Frummies.

Pic from the Times.

State of the Parties

Soon may be the day when the largest party affiliation will be no party:


h.t. to Sullivan for the chart

More Thoughts on the Victory

Some points on the incredible victory:

1. We just elected a black guy with a Muslim name president. Just gotta say that, over and over, until I fully understand how incredible this all is.
   
   
2. I see the Obama election as a type of 'virtual impeachment' of Bush. We won't get the chance to do the real thing - we still may be able to put the SOB behind bars - but the election of a brilliant, articulate, African-American, Muslim-named, liberal intellectual Constitutional scholar is a point-by-point repudiation of the stupid, mush-mouthed, pampered patrician rich-boy Texas oil-millionaire, white-bread legacy Christian conservative incurious human rights abuser.
   
   
3. Democrats haven't had a win like this since 1964. And as a result of that election, we received Civil Rights and the Great Society. And even if you think the latter was bad or flawed, you have to take into account how bad it was to be in America *before* those programs were enacted. 1964 ushered in a state of civility and greatness - as the names declare - to America. And that's great change. And that's what we can do in 2008.
   
   
4. For my fellow Hebrew brethren who are worried that Obama's win will bring about the destruction of Israel, or whatever: There is no support or proof for your fears. The fears are based on innuendo, ignorance and in some cases racism. The worst thing to happen to Israel in the past few years wasn't Oslo (which was a mitigated disaster), nor the Clinton Camp David Accords (whose blame can be laid on Ehud "the Other" Barak's feet), rather the worst has been the legitimizing election of Hamas to the Palestinian leadership and the subsequent creation of a pure terrorist state in Gaza. And that was all Bush, baby. Bush also created a terrible threat to Israel vis-a-vis the Iraq war - which has strengthen Iran (taking away it's biggest foe, replacing it with a sympathetic Shiite regime) and emboldened Tehran to pursue nukes. All Bush. And McCain would have continued this insanity. Even if Obama turns out to be like Carter - which isn't borne out by evidence - Carter was better for Israel than Bush!
   
   
5. It's a press axiom - which naturally means its boneheaded - that Obama's toughest job now begins: the cleaning up of the nation. Blah blah blah. No. That was not the toughest job. Becoming the first black president, as a first term Senator with a Muslim name, defeating both the Clinton machine and the Republican party, was the toughest job. Cleaning up the country will be not be as tough. Why? Well, first of all because it's just an obvious point. But second of all, because most of our problems were CAUSED, they didn't just 'happen.' Bush created this fate. All Obama needs to do is not be a horrible person/executive and it's already an epic win.
   
   
6. I'm disheartened by the possibility that Coleman and Smith may have been re-elected. While the landslide for president is a nice thing, if Obama's coattails weren't enough to defeat Republicans in blue states, then its a bad sign.
   
   
7. It's so sweet that Elizabeth Dole was spanked by her opponent, Democrat Kay Hagan. Dole ran a disgusting race and deserves to have lost. It's ironic: her husband ran for president in 1996 and conducted a comparatively clean and honorable race. Yeah, he lost, (159-379, see map to the left) but he kept his dignity, soul, and the good graces of history. I've long said that 1996 was one the only years where both major tickets had great candidates such that a victory either way would have been palatable for the country (as opposed to, lets say, 1988 which was wretched either way). So Bob Dole ran with respect and his name can be seen as a watchword for how to lose with grace. Then came Dole's doppelganger, John McCain. Another war-hero, Senate lion, known for bipartisanship and moderate views (note: McCain's rep was largely myth while Bobdole's was true)... and McCain ran a shameless, horrid campaign (see more below). And "Liddy" Dole chose, for her defeat, to be like McCain instead of Bob. And her name is mud.
   
   
8. The great victory for America, and the world, has a the concomitant benefit of validating the clean, respectful style of Obama and repudiating the sewer methods of McCain-Palin. That will have far-reaching consequences and all for the best. After Bush-Rove won dirty in 2000, and dirtier in 2004, it seemed we were doomed to a future of sleaze and fear every election cycle. Not anymore. True, many unregenerate Goopers will believe that were it not for the cratering economy etc. the slash-burn tactics would have worked. I disagree (for the billion reasons I've written about before), and the Goopers may not learn from their mistakes (considering they are now the party against science, evidence, and expertise), but I trust cooler brains will prevail.
   
   
9. Related to the horrible Republican tactics, and the paradox of the McCain campaign, was the McCain concession speech. So odd. Just like how John Kerry and Al Gore spoke with fire and talent at the Democratic convention - and many of us asked where these people were when they ran their national campaigns! - so too with McCain last night. What a gracious and honorable speech. And it was delivered so well! With clarity, confidence and decency. We should ask "where was this guy on the campaign trail?" but also note that any person who sounds better when no longer campaigning (Gore, Kerry, McCain) obviously has mental reservations, and a fundamental problem as a politician. Does this 'mental game' automatically presage defeat? Not sure; which successful politician sounded better when out of office than in? I can think of a number, successful pols, who were better while running than not. Something to inspect.
   
   
10. And, of course, at that same concession speech we heard the base of the Republicans booing Obama's name, shouting and bellowing out who-can-imagine-what craziness. The crowd was the embodiment of the McCain campaign, the speech was the embodiment of the mythical McCain that the press apotheosized and who I had liked back at the beginning of the millennium.
    
    
11. Let's not forget Joe Biden. I am very happy for him; I genuinely like the guy. And - speaking as a rabbi and a budding scholar of the sociology of religion - the president-elect is just another Protestant, but we just elected our first Catholic VP, and only the second non-Protestant in the White House. Wow.

More later.

Scorecards!

Click on the map, print it out, and use for 'scoring' tonight!

My predictions here are based on the following categories:

1. (8) Solid Blue: CA, HI, IL, DE, DC, NY, VT, MA (132)
   
2. (5) Very Blue: MD, NJ, CT, ME, RI (39)
   
3. (5) Recently Blue: WA, OR, MN, WI, MI (55)
   
4. (3) Big Swing: PA, OH, FL (68)
   
5. (4) Small Swing: NM, NH, IA, NV (21)
   
6. (3) Recently Swing: CO, MO, VA (35)
   
7. (5) Swing only in 2008: MT, ND, IN, NC, GA (47)
   
8. (4) Clinton Republican: WV, AR, LA, TN, KY (39)
   
9. (5) Solid South: TX, SC, AL, MS, (57)
   
10. (9) Solid Red: ID, UT, AZ, WY, SD, NE, KS, OK, AK (46)

Legend:# before the title = how many states in the bloc, # after the title = electoral count for the bloc. The list is in descending order, more likely to go Obama to least likely. It'll be odd to see the 'redder' category states going to Obama before the 'bluer.' The prediction variation I had earlier is based on recent polling that show the 'recently' swinging actually being a possibility.

The "Clinton Republican" category was originally called "the Racist Democrat" category... these are states that went for Clinton in 1992 or 1996 but are blood red today. The "Solid Red" used to be called "Libertarian or Christian States," for obvious reasons.

In 2012, when Obama runs for re-election, the deeper red categories may actually be in play. But first, lets see what happens tonight!

Update:Here's another good 'scorecard' from 538:

Henry Wallace

As I've been immersing myself in electoral politics, especially in the 20th Century, it's important to look at the decisions made by the major parties and how they won in critical years.

For each party, there's usually one president who embodies the modern party. For Republicans it's Ronald Reagan, and for Democrats it's either JFK or FDR. The two are similar in that they are both charismatic liberals, Machiavellian intellectuals, and defense hawks. Because JFK carries a lot of modern day baggage (his wacky adultery, Vietnam, Bay of Pigs), I prefer looking at FDR as the model Democrat. Not only was he the most successful president (4 wins!) but he created the modern United States as the combination of free-market and state-support, a belief in helping every citizen and also watching out for the world. OK, he should have done more to help my relatives escape the Holocaust, but I doubt Wendell Willkie would have been any better (given that the Republicans in 1940 were pretty happy staying out of the War).

Anyway, the crucial election for understanding FDR's success is 1940 - when he broke with the unwritten rule set up by George Washington that a president should only run for two terms. FDR dropped his VP of the previous two terms, John Garner, who pretty much defined the stereotype of a useless VP. Garner said the immortal phrase about the Vice Presidency "not worth a bucket of warm piss." Tell that to Grand Moff Cheney.

FDR chose Henry A. Wallace as his running mate in 1940 - dumping Garner, a Texas conservative Democrat and former speaker of the house. Wallace had been the secretary of agriculture from 1933-1940. Before that, he was, I think, a farmer. Also a Buhddist. Or something. He was definitely a wacko.

Note, when the 1944 Election came about, the Democratic party bosses insisted that the pro-Communist freaky-deaky Wallace be dropped as VP in favor of someone who could actually, ya know, lead the country in the case that FDR would drop dead (which had been expected at any time by those in the know).

I bring up these footnotes to history in order to understand the present day, especially the choices facing Americans in a wartime election (like 1940 & 1944) in a disastrous economy (like 1932) and with a sick old guy who could die sooner than later (FDR vs. McCain). Specifically, how does FDR's decision to reject Garner, accept Wallace, then reject him for Truman compare to the selection of Palin, Biden and even Quayle. Anon.

Meaningless Prediction: The Possible Maps

I linked below this week's 538 map which shows, I believe, the very highest number of states that McCain will get and lowest for Obama.

The stats are, Obama at 273, McCain 265. GOP gets Florida, Michigan, Virginia according to current polls and Ohio is a dead 50/50 heat.



I have developed two maps showing what I think will happen in November. Scenario is the best I can hope for if current trends continue. By this I mean that given Obama's strengths as a campaigner, and given the unobstructed field (no more Hillary), I believe Obama will be able to pick up these states: MI, VA, NV, OH, MO, and 1 seat in Nebraska (it doesn't go winner-take-all). I'm also wagering that heavy campaigning in Florida will bring it to the fold, but that's the biggest toss-up I see in November, given current trends.

Scenario 1 Total: Obama 320, McCain 218


Scenario 2 is what *could* happen if the Democratic party gets it's act together and McCain is as terrible in November now as he was Tuesday night. Also this scenario projects maximum damage from Bob Barr's Libertarian campaign which may pick up protest votes in the deep South from people who hate McCain as much as they do Obama. Ron Paul doesn't seem to be mounting a third party run, but if he did, that would just go into the Barr spoiler camp.

The pickups in Scenario 2 are GA & NC from the Barr nonsense, North & South Dakota and New Hampshire from Barr and GOP implosion. The final tallies are:

Scenario 2 Total:Obama 387, McCain 151


Note, if the Republicans had run Romney and/or if the Democrats had run an Edwards-Obama ticket like I expected, it would have been possible that we would have had a massive landslide, possibly picking up Arkansas, West Virginia, Tennessee, and others in the South. Ah well.

What Hillary Wants

John Heilemann in NYMag should get credit for a great title: What Hillary Wants, and Why She’s Jesse Jackson ’88. Yet, I think he's dead wrong. Heilemann, in his predicition of Hillary behavior is based on these three ideas: (1) that Hillary is, and has been throughout the primaries, a rational actor, (2) that Hillary wants to set the stage to run in 2012, and (3) that Hillary believes that Obama is doomed in November.

The refutation of these points is simple: (1) and (3) are contradictory, and (2) follows from (3). The "rational behavior" assumption is thorny because logic is ultimately concomitant on perception. Hence there's an argument in epistomology (at least the one I employ) over whether an illogical person has a problem with logic or with perception and evaluating evidence. A person who weighs evidence in a kooky way (e.g. a person who denies there's a fire burning because a rabbi told them there wasn't, even though it's right in front of their eyes), may still come to 'logical' conclusions, despite the data being bad. Which is why I posit that (non-psychotic) insanity isn't about whether someone thinks logically, but whether they are able to perceive reality. If someone acts "insane" we often come to that conclusion because the person has acted "illogically" yet it's more likely because that person cannot perceive reality with confidence and reproducibility.

As an example, take Heilemann's idea that Hillary thinks Obama is doomed:

As I’ve written many times, Hillary believes with every fiber of her being that Obama is going to lose this year. (And so does her husband.) So her aim is to put herself in the best position possible to stand up on November 5 and say, if perhaps a tad more subtly than this, "I told you so."

Now, I've also read (can't remember where) that - contrapositive - Hillary believes that the situation in '08 is so favoriable for Democrats that whomever becomes the Democratic nominee will automatically win in November.

Since we have no quotes from her on the matter (and who'd trust 'em if we had 'em?), we need to use behavior as our guide to thought. If she believes that Obama is doomed to fail in Novemeber, what is she basing that on? As I said a few moments ago, the overwhelming evidence is that the Democrats will win no matter who the nominee is. And while ordinary educated Americans may not see this yet, political junkies (like me) and more importantly actual politicians know this to be true. All indicaters point to a slaughter. That's why it's much more plausible to say that Hillary believes that she needed to win the primary at all costs because that was the actual contest (like primaries in New Haven, where I live, the Republican candidate is a foregone loss and as such the real election is the Democratic primary).

If Heilemann wants to say Hillary is logical, then she can't belive that Obama will lose in Novemeber. So, he contradicts his premises.

Her behavior, logical or not, comports much more to a deep belief that the primary was the whole game.

However, in Heilemann's partial defense, I don't think she has been acting 'logically' but mainly because of her known personality flaws, her past behavior, and from sociological analysis of campaigns.

Anna Marie Cox, the Wonkette, put it best a few months ago (can't find the link yet, sorry) that a campaign (and especially a losing one) is so tumultuous, huge, complicating and personally-draining that what most people from the outside think are conspiracies are actually just blind chance. Sure, there are certain things that can be determined (like speeches, announcements) but these are boxing-jabs not billiard bank-shots.

I take Wonkette's point further about Obama and Hillary; both of them have been through a hell of scrutiny and stamina that has not been seen in the modern era outside of warfare. Both of them, I believe, have been reduced to their basest elements through the monthslong stress and exposure. Hillary has been revealed to be a petty and small-minded narcissit. Obama has been seen as a resiliant and cool-headed gamesman. I don't think her behavior has been rational primarily because it's unlikely than anyone who has been taking the pounding in public that she has will ever remain rational.

Her constant attacks on Obama, her tone-deaf race-baiting, her unthinking strategizing, shows a person on the brink. So no matter what she may want out of the process, I think her rationality has been burned away over the past few months and she's just operating out of her limbic system.

Anyway, Heilemann gives a Q&A for how the next few days/months play out. His answers and mine, based on the analysis:

1. Is she going to quit sometime soon or fight on to the convention? Heilemann: "my guess is that she might very well be out of the race by the end of next week. For Hillary to be the Democratic nominee in 2012, she must limit the extent to which she’s seen as having caused Obama’s (in her mind, inevitable) loss this fall. And setting off on a scorched-earth march to Denver runs in diametric opposition to that goal."

News to Heilemann, it's too late not to run a scortched earth campaign. That bridge has been burnt already. I believe she will at best 'suspend' her campaign - but keep open the fundraising to help relax the astronomical debt. Her behavior, according to my limbic - fight or flight - theory above, will be to take the next few days to let the adrenaline drain from her body. Since she believes that Obama will win, she's going to try to extort from him as much as possible to get as powerful a position she can in the next Democratic administration.

If it looks like he will fail - against the odds - then she will do to Obama what she did in Kerry in '04; just walk away. But if she thinks Obama will win, she'll use the weapons at her disposal to be a kingmaker, or at least an idispensible power broker.

That's why she's still ginning up feminist resentment; why she's claiming her people are the only true Democats, why she's stoking their desire to see her raze Denver to the ground, why she's claiming she'll march on. All of this is to keep the pressure on Obama to accede to her demands.

2. Does she want to be offered the VP slot?
Heilemann: "No, she does not. If it’s offered, she has to take it, because turning it down would be a signal to her supporters that she doesn’t support Obama (see above). And if she’s on the ticket and Obama goes down (again, as she’s convinced he will), she is then complicit in the loss, and her prospects in 2012 are damaged. Does Hillary want be the next John Edwards? The question answers itself."

Dumb. She will take the VP in a shot! It's power, baby, power. And she and her husband can engineer scandals in 2010 that could force Obama to resign. See my food-taster comment below. I don't think she'll get offered it, because Obama is a smart guy and why would he want all of Hillary's negatives and none of the positives?

3. So what’s with all the leaks that Bill wants her on the ticket? Heilemann: "He probably does. The idea of Hillary as veep must sound like a sweet deal to him: It would be history-making, it would cement the Clintons’ status as one of America’s great political dynasties, and in the second-fiddle job his wife would pose no danger of overshadowing him." On this we agree.

4. Will she work hard for Obama or undermine him in the fall?
Heilemann: "Implicit in all this analysis is that Hillary Clinton is a cold-eyed rationalist, and despite the occasional shard of evidence to the contrary, this is true. She’s aware that even as she’s become a much larger figure in the course of this race in one segment of the party, her reputation has taken a beating in another. She thinks it’s unfair, but she knows it’s the reality, and also that whether Obama wins or loses, it’s difficult to imagine a promising future for herself without repairing her standing among those who regard her poorly. I suspect there won’t be many louder Obama cheerleaders this autumn — or more insincere ones."

You see how crazy that is? If she was *rational* about a 2012 run, she would have dropped out earlier (citing the real money problems) and did what Heilemann is suggesting. However, he could be correct, that she will be a cheerleader etc, but only according to my analysis - that she'll do so only if Obama is seen to be winning and she will do so with a maximum focus on how she will deliver the women, white-males, whatever. Which means to me that Obama needs to neutralize her quick by announcing Sebelius as his VP (or whomever it is) BEFORE the convention.

5. If Obama wins, what will she do next?
Heilemann: "One rumor going around New York is that she’ll run for governor — an eventuality only marginally more likely than my pursuing that office. HRC cares not a whit about state government. She loves Washington, thinks of it as home, and of Albany as hell... No, in all likelihood, Clinton will head back to the Senate and take her place as arguably the most powerful member of that body. There are those who say the hard feelings of this race will cripple her with her colleagues. What a crock. Having campaigned in all 50 states and won millions of votes in the process, Clinton will surely be the most sought-after fund-raiser in all of Democratic politics besides the putative President Obama."

Right wrong wrong. He's right about governor; because the Senate is the sweetest job around and governor is only meant to be a stepping stone to the White House (which she doesn't need now). And like she cares about NY. Please.

He's wrong about Hillary being powerful and that there won't be hard feelings. She has burned WAY too many bridges. The polls show that she would have lost California and New Jersey had the vote taken place in April or later. And if Obama plays things right, he will construct a Democratic coalition based on pre-and-post-Clintonians (but anyone can join). Note, that's been his support so far from the Senate/House: Democrats who came onto the scene before 1992 and after 2000. The post-2000 don't owe the Clintons anything and the pre-92s have that and also resent the fact that while the Clintons built power for themselves, they didn't help the party at all (not only did we lose in the midterms under him, but we lost 2000 and they were nonexistent during the Bush administration, when we needed them the most!)

Hillary will be marginalized by the gamesman, Obama, and if she plays nice, she will be given the chance to spearhead the health-care through the Senate. If she doesn't play nice, then Obama may have enough power to silence her on purpose, echoing her silence from 2000-2006.

h/t Fallows.

The Jacket Can Come Off

Obama has (putatively) won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in what may be the biggest upset in (modern) American political history. Now the jacket comes off. Two jackets, really. The first jacket is doffed when gentlemen prepare for fisticuffs. Or a duel. Of all Republicans, McCain is a gentleman, and we know over and over that Obama is, so this battle of two men of honor will be as bloody as a hillside duel, but it portends to be on a higher level than other contests in the past.

The other jacket is a straight-jacket that Obama has had to wear since Hillary announced her intention to run for president. Bill Clinton was enormously popular in America and even moreso in the Democratic party, where he was the Democrat to leave office as popular and powerful (contrast to Carter, LBJ, Truman; this point was first made by Marshall). And the Clinton's fought dirty.

Obama was straight-jacketed, hamstrung, shackled by having his opponents be the most popular Democrats in a generation. And Hillary compounded the trouble by invoking female-disempowerment at every slight. Her "unconcession" speech last night - a disgusting display of narcissism, hubris, and neurosis - contained an especially galling line in this vein. I was fortunate to hear the line uttered live (we get only one TV news channel, it was showing her speech, and I could only listen to her for a minute or two at a time), transcribed passage from here:

You know, I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? ... I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.

What's galling about the 'invisible' line is that it is red-meat to angry feminists who have cried 'sexism' at every criticism of Holy St. Hillary.

I won't refute the 'invisible' remark because it is beneath contempt; I bring it up to show the lines of the straight-jacket that has now been removed. Other bindings that have been loosed: now every single Democrat can, with full voice, support Obama. Many have been silenced because (a) they don't want to unleash the Clinton fury or worse (b) the fury of Clinton voters. So Reid, Pelosi, Webb, Emmanuel, Salazar, Gore - all big names with set constituencies who have had to remain 'neutral' can now plaster the walls of America with pro-Democratic, pro-Obama words and ideas.

As a number of smart commentators have noted, until last night McCain was at the highest point he could be and Obama the lowest. McCain enjoyed a unified GOP and comparitively little press scrutiny while Obama had a deeply divided party and attacks coming from three sides (GOP, Clinton Democrats, the Press) with only 1/4 of a defense (his part of the party). No longer.

McCain and Obama may be in a dead-heat today, but now that Obama is unrestrained? It's going to be a slaughter.

As an anonymous blogger from the Economist online (UK) wrote last night, comparing the speeches of all three candidates:

At the risk of bolstering the reporters-mooning-at-Obama stereotype, if this evening's speeches were a video game, a wrinkled wizard would be hollering "Finish Him!" to Barack Obama while a dizzied John McCain wobbled. And Hillary Clinton would be frenetically mashing the buttons on an unplugged controller.

The biggest proof that Obama will destroy McCain comes from simple structure. The same structure that elected Harding in 1920 and Carter in 1976: that when the populace has had enough of the status-quo, they will elect the other party.

The only person, truly, who could have screwed that up this year was Hillary. Because she's so divisive, so hated, and quite frankly such a bad campaigner, that it would have been possible for the Democrats to have lost. It would have been a repeat of '04, when an unpopular incumbent was ALMOST unseated by a deeply flawed, lackluster candidate. And while I'm no fan of Kerry, he didn't prompt the deep visceral hatred that Hillary can and does. We just dodged the bullet.

Ah, but I hear you cry, what about Obama's weaknesses? The ones that are skin-deep, if you catch my drift. Well, 16 months ago, I thought the strongest ticket for the fall was Edwards-Obama, and I claimed that I didn't think America would vote for an inexperienced Black man with Hussein for a middle name. But, uh, he won. He won over whites, blacks, hispanics, in all the states.

Yeah, but he lost Ohio and Pennsylvania! Yes, and no. As I said earlier, he lost *closed primaries* in those states. A closed primary has no bearing on the fall general election. All a closed-primary proves is that he's not as popular to Democrats. And while, intuitively, that may bother people (how can a guy win when his party doesn't like him as much as another), it also repudiates the biggest weakness of the primary process which is that it rewards the extremists of each party, which give a rather poor general election contender.

More open primaries may have spared us from Dukakis and Kerry. And if PA/OH were open, I would wager that Obama would have won them handily, like he did in Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota (all open).

Obama is a very strong candidate, which is how he beat the Clintons. Let that settle into your skin for a moment: he beat Bill and Hillary Clinton. Nobody beat the Clintons since 1980! And Obama is inspiring, a historic orator, a gifted thinker, a talented writer, and damn near perfect campaigner. He has also just campaigned in all 50 states - something not done in any previous primary - which means he has already run a general election campaign once. From now til November, it's just picking up the lost sheaves.

And the structural reason why Obama/Democrats will win? The Iraq War is enough. And McCain, god love him, has decided to embrace the Iraq War as his running mate. It's the one thing which may be more unpopular than Bush, and McCain's embracing it?! And he embraces Bush, too. Why else would McCain reject the improved GI Bill? In an election year, the Republican nominee rejects a veteran-friendly piece of pork, a rejection not shared by his party but only by the incumbant president who enjoys the lowest approval rating since Andrew Johnson.

And you think McCain can win? Running on a platform of "I like the Iraq War and Bush's treatment of the country!" The only way Obama can lose now is if there's a crippling scandal. Could happen, sure. But I don't play lotto, and I don't bet on long-shots when the stakes are this high.

The twin jackets are now off. It's a great day for America.

It is Over

The news is spotty but consistent. Obama has the magic number of delegates. He is the presumptive nominee (he loses the presumptive at the convention in August). It is a glorious day for the Democratic party, for America, and I'd say the world.

Sullivan has been posting different Youtube videos of celebration. Here's my favorite:

Noonan, Too

Peggy Noonan, like George Will, has been a conservative critic of the Bush administration (yet another unrepentant Reaganite - someone who remembers what real conservatives think and act like), and as expected from a 1990s culture warrior, no friend of the Clintons. However, her analysis of the GOP and Hillary has been often been so close to mine that I have to declare that she is smart and sane (at least on these issues).

So she too remarks on the "white americans" comment of Hillary and brings in some more data as well:

... The Democratic Party can't celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender.

Here's the first place an outsider could see the tensions that have taken hold: on CNN Tuesday night, in the famous Brazile-Begala smackdown. Paul Begala wore the smile of the 1990s, the one in which there is no connection between the shape of the mouth and what the mouth says. All is mask. Donna Brazile was having none of it.

Mr. Begala more or less accused the Obama people of not caring about white voters: "[If] there's a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn't need or want white working-class people and Latinos, well, count me out." And: "We cannot win with eggheads and African Americans." That, he said, was the old, losing, Dukakis coalition.

"Paul, baby," Ms. Brazile, who is undeclared, began her response, "we need to not divide and polarize the Democratic Party. . . . So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I know . . . how Democrats win, and to simply suggest that Hillary's coalition is better than Obama's, Obama's is better than Hillary's -- no. We have a big party, Paul." And: "Just don't divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary's camp because I'm black, and I can't stand in Obama's camp because I'm female. Because I'm both. . . . Don't start with me, baby." Finally: "It's our party, Paul. Don't say my party. It's our party. Because it's time that we bring the party back together, Paul."

In case you didn't get what was behind that exchange, Mrs. Clinton spent this week making it clear. In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? "Even Richard Nixon didn't say white," an Obama supporter said, "even with the Southern strategy."

If John McCain said, "I got the white vote, baby!" his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.

To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical "the black guy can't win but the white girl can" is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.

"She has unleashed the gates of hell," a longtime party leader told me. "She's saying, 'He's not one of us.'"

There's more.

h/t TPM. Pic from WSJ.

P.S. Not this Noonan.

Top Notch George Will

George Will is still an unrepentant Reaganite, but there are time when he can nail a column. He is a fierce critic of the lawless GW Bush - from the Right - and he has even less love for the Clintons. Today's column is a scorcher. Some choice lines:

After Tuesday's split decisions in Indiana and North Carolina, Clinton,... will, creatively argue that she is really ahead of Barack Obama, or at any rate she is sort of tied, mathematically or morally or something, in popular votes, or delegates, or some combination of the two,...

Or perhaps she wins if Obama's popular vote total is, well, adjusted, by counting each African-American vote as only three-fifths of a vote. There is precedent, of sorts, for that arithmetic (see the Constitution, Article I, Section 2, before the 14th Amendment).

"We," says Geoff Garin, a Clinton strategist who possesses the audacity of hopelessness required in that role, "don't think this is just going to be about some numerical metric." Mere numbers? Heaven forefend. That is how people speak when numerical metrics -- numbers of popular votes and delegates -- are inconvenient.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur said that every military defeat can be explained by two words: "too late." Too late in anticipating danger, too late in preparing for it, too late in taking action. Clinton's political defeat can be similarly explained -- too late in recognizing that the electorate does not acknowledge her entitlement to the presidency, too late in understanding that she had a serious challenger, too late in anticipating that she would not dispatch Barack Obama by Super Tuesday (Feb. 5), too late in planning for the special challenges of caucus states, too late in channeling her inner shot-and-a-beer hard hat.

Most of all, she was too late in understanding how much the Democratic Party's mania for "fairness," as mandated by liberals like her, has, by forbidding winner-take-all primaries, made it nearly impossible for her to overcome Obama's early lead in delegates.
...
Tuesday night must have been almost as much fun for John McCain as for Obama. The Republican brand has been badly smudged by recent foreign and domestic policies, which are the only kinds there are, so McCain's hopes rest on the still-unattached cohort called "Reagan Democrats," who still seem somewhat resistant to Obama.

McCain's problem might turn out to be the fact that Obama is the Democrats' Reagan. Obama's rhetorical cotton candy lacks Reagan's ideological nourishment, but he is Reaganesque in two important senses: People like listening to him, and his manner lulls his adversaries into underestimating his sheer toughness -- the tempered steel beneath the sleek suits.

Will shows he's smart because he recognizes that Obama is consistently underestimated - which people may do less since he has just defeated the most talented political couple since FDR-Eleanor - and that he is very much like a liberal Reagan. Go-bama! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Feinstein Instead of Pelosi

In an earlier post I claimed that it would be Pelosi who'd ask Hillary, politely and with due deference, to sit down and shut up. Turns out that Senator Feinstein is doing it instead of Pelosi. Via TPM, it's reported that Feinstein has publicly asked Hillary to explain her plans for the rest of the primary (longhand for: "can you just stop it, please?").

Marshall says clearly that this is the signal we've been waiting for. I'm glad it's Feinstein and not Pelosi. Feinstein is

1. a woman
   
2. fellow (and senior) Senator
   
3. an early supporter of Hillary
   
4. in a blue as blue can be state that Hillary won in the primaries.

Pelosi, although from the same state, is more powerful than Hillary is right now, is the de-facto leader of the party, and has remained "neutral;" so her shutting down the Clinton machine would have meant that heavier weaponry was necessary. I hope Feinstein's plea will work.

John Cole and the Start of the General

Even though Hillary hasn't stopped her machine, the consensus is that she is done. So John Cole, of Balloon-Juice (a daily-read for me) kicks off the general election with this coda for Hillary, praise for Obama, and seething contempt for the GOP. I will intersperse his statements with commentary when appropriate:

At any rate, I feel a profound sense of relief the whole nomination process is finally over.

The Styx is saving relief for when Hillary finally walks off the stage or Obama goes over 2025.

I guess I am just not used to the messy way you all do things here in the Democratic party, but these past few months have been excruciating. The primary, for me at least, was over after March 5th, when she failed to blow him out in the firewall state of Texas, but as a new member of the party I guess I am in the wing where "firewall" and "math" still mean things.

Just to emphasize, this was a new experience for many Democrats and a singular product of Hillary Clinton's psyche. I don't remember anyone quite as disgusting, empty and narcissistic in the party since, uh, since Woodrow Wilson? William Jennigs Bryan? Hmph.

So I endured another month of listening to certain wings of a party (that, again, I am a newcomer to) do their best NRO and Weekly Standard impressions and talk about electability, stealth Muslims, lapel pins, patriotism, new new delegate math, Rev. Wright, and whatever else they could dream up.

Whatever. She threw everything she had at him. He weathered the storm. Consider him vetted. Consider Rev. Wright kicked in the junk. Consider me relieved. Now, can we get to the very serious business of dismantling the GOP? I have a very serious axe to grind, and it is deeply, deeply personal for me. There are a bunch of frauds, crooks, and phonies with whom I have a serious grudge that I want to settle. You see, I still have my “Peace Through Strength” button from when I campaigned for Reagan. I believed in limited government, I believed in a strong national defense, I believed in fiscal restraint and balanced budgets and I believed in personal integrity and individual liberty and personal freedom.

I am pissed. I want the frothing nutters, the fraudulent hucksters, the race-baiters, the anti-science frauds, the anti-intellectuals, the gay-bashers, the big-money cheats, the torture fetishists, the religious nuts, the tax and spenders, the xenophobes, and the phonies to pay. I want payback. I want the people who ruined my former party relegated to permanent minority status. I know I am a newly minted Democrat, and, as such, it is ballsy for me to start telling you what I want from the party, but this is my website and you are just going to have to deal with my opinion.

I am under no illusion I will buy into everything Barack Obama puts forward, but I am damned sure convinced he is a decent man who, at the very least, will restore a sense of competence to the national stage. I am willing to meet most Democrats half-way, and I am already doing everything I can to get this man elected. I think Obama will act in good faith for this nation, and I am responding in kind. His policies are not outlandish or crazy or uber-left- they reflect a rational, and I would argue, a decent and progressive way forward out of the mess I helped to create. I won’t like all of them, and I will not agree with all of them, but there is no chance that I will ever be President, so perfect agreement is never a possibility.

And don’t get me wrong- I am not for Obama because of what I am against. I am for Obama because he is a decent man, a break from the past, and really a once in a lifetime opportunity. He has treated us like adults throughout this primary, and it is time to act like adults. There will be times we feel he lets us all down, but we are not electing a deity. We are electing a leader, and Obama is that leader. It is time to get past the bullshit of the last 20 years, the battles I am really tired of fighting, and time to turn our attention to the really important issues of the day- the economy, the budget, our international presence, our crumbling infrastructure, our military, medicare and medicaid and social security, and on and on and on.

If Barack Obama was not your your preferred candidate, I am sorry that person did not win, but it is time to remember that the target is John McCain and the Bush/Cheney way of doing things. If you can not accept that and help move us forward, please at least get out of the way.

Well done. And, play ball!

The Purple Rule

I've referred to this rule a few times in my blogging, so this entry is to make it easily indexed. The purple rule states that the Democratic president should not appoint into his cabinet a sitting office-holder of a swing ("purple") state for fear that the Democrats will not be able to get another party-member in that office. This is especially critical for the Senate, where every one of the 100 votes matters for filibusters and other nonsense.

Application of the purple rule: Pennsylvania and Virgina are especially vulnerable. Otherwise appealing candidates like VA Governor Kaine and Senator Webb and PA Sen. Casey are thus rendered un-nominate-able by the Purple Rule.

Kennedy-Johnson & Hillary-Obama?

One of Sullivan's readers points out why making the SAT analogy of Obama:Clinton = JFK:LBJ isn't true (emphasis/bold mine):

Kennedy/Johnson and Obama/Clinton don't compare. Johnson was not a serious contender for the presidency against Kennedy in the way that Clinton is against Obama. The "hatred" between Kennedy and Johnson was ideological and political but not formed in battle, so to speak, as is the case with Obama and Clinton. Kennedy's major opponent was not Lyndon Johnson. It was Hubert Humphrey. And even then, one has to use "major opponent" loosely. Kennedy steamrolled everyone in the primaries. Kennedy racked up 85 percent of the vote in NH, 64 percent in IL, 92 percent in MA, 71 percent in PA, 81 percent in IN, 88 percent in NB, and 70 percent in MD. Another thing is that Humphrey wasn't even a consistent second place contender for the presidency. He ran second to Kennedy only in Wisconsin (Kennedy 56.5/Humphrey 43.5) and West Virginia (Kennedy 60.8/Humphrey 39.2). The only contests Humphrey won were DC and South Dakota where Kennedy, apparently, was not on the ballot. Johnson's biggest vote total in the 1960 primaries was 3.9 percent.

Humphrey's totals in the other primaries was usually in the low single digits. When Humphrey dropped out Lyndon Johnson was considered the only serious contender but again "serious" has to be used loosely. In the primaries, Johnson was a statistical nothing. The only reason that Humphrey and Johnson were favored is because, in spite of the primaries, the smoke-filled room was still the way things were done and party bosses really chose the nominee and that's where I see a comparison between the election 1960 and election 2008. The party bosses could not ignore Kennedy's impressive primary wins much as the superdelegates will not be able to ignore Obama's admittedly less impressive pledged delegate and popular vote lead.

I haven't checked the facts, but it sounds plausible.

Pic from this freaky conspiracy site (sorry). Backpost finished 2009-12-07.

The Story of the Campaign So Far

A seven minute overview of the Democratic nomination race from Slate magazine. Very very good:


(Bonus: my brother-in-law is on screen for a few seconds, cool).

h/t Sullivan.