Frank Rich's column a week ago made some very good points about the contrast between Senators Clinton and Obama:

As Mrs. Clinton would say, let's have a reality check. The exit poll of those who voted on Tuesday — not to be confused with the pre-primary polls that misfired — showed that Democrats are still looking for change (54 percent) over experience (19 percent) and that they overwhelmingly associate Mr. Obama with the former and Mrs. Clinton with the latter. By change, they don't mean merely a tuneup. As the Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey of both Democrats and Republicans found last month, the percentage of voters who favor "small adjustments" in America (24) or "moderate corrections" (29) is swamped by the 46 percent who seek "major reforms" and a "brand-new" approach...

However unpredictable the race as a whole may be, the vision thing still seems central to the Democrats' change sweepstakes. Whether you regard it as inspirational or pablum, Mr. Obama's vision has been consistent since the 2004 convention speech that introduced him to the country well before his presidential candidacy: a hopeful reconciliation of red and blue Americans joined in a united effort to address and heal the domestic and international cancers that have metastasized during the bitter partisanship of the Bush-Rove years...

In Mrs. Clinton's down-to-earth micropolitics, polls often seem to play the leadership role. That leaves her indecisive when one potential market is pitched against another. Witness her equivocation over Iraq, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and even Cubs vs. Yankees. Add to this habitual triangulation the ugly campaigning of the men around her — Mr. Penn's sleazy invocation of "cocaine" on MSNBC, Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" rant falsifying Mr. Obama's record on Iraq — and you don't have change. You have the acrimonious 1990s that the Republicans are dying to refight, because that's the only real tactic they have.

---------------------

January 13, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Haven't We Heard This Voice Before?

By FRANK RICH

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/opinion/13rich.html

SHE had me at "Well, that hurts my feelings."

One cliché about Hillary Clinton is true. For whatever reason — and it's no crime — the spontaneous, outgoing person who impresses those who meet her offstage often evaporates when she steps into the public spotlight. But in the crucial debate before the New Hampshire primary, the private Clinton popped out for the first time in the 2008 campaign. She parried a male inquisitor's questioning of her likability by being, of all things, likable.

In his Op Ed today, I think Krugman's taking one sentence way out of context.  Obama is no fan of Ronald Reagan, but he's smart enough to see how clever Reagan was in appealing to a broad swath of Americans to advance his agenda.  Obama wants to do the same thing -- ironically, to largely undo that agenda!

Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.

---------------------

January 21, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Debunking the Reagan Myth

By PAUL KRUGMAN

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21krugman.html

Historical narratives matter. That’s why conservatives are still writing books denouncing F.D.R. and the New Deal; they understand that the way Americans perceive bygone eras, even eras from the seemingly distant past, affects politics today.

And it’s also why the furor over Barack Obama’s praise for Ronald Reagan is not, as some think, overblown. The fact is that how we talk about the Reagan era still matters immensely for American politics.

Why Obamamania? Because He Runs as The Great White Hope.

I normally wouldn't share such a wrong-headed article, but it appeared in the Washington Post (8 days ago) and echos Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" accusation, so it's worth rebutting.  In it, David Greenberg, in trying to explain Obama's support among white voters, does a superficial analysis and comes to erroneous, even silly, conclusions:

Ultimately, it is a fantasy of easy redemption. America's racial history -- mixed into our culture at its foundation -- will be with us always, even as personal prejudice recedes and inequality is chipped away. For all we know, a President Obama might make the so-called underclass his top priority. But Obamamania -- the phenomenon, not the man -- leads us to believe that if only we vote for an African American, an avatar of "change" and healing, we can slough off the burdens of our past -- the burdens of finding answers to problems such as the rising number of out-of-wedlock births, the obscene size of the black male population behind bars, the rotten state of city schools, the simmering white resentment about affirmative action, the black-white gap in life expectancy and the cascade of government failures that turned Hurricane Katrina from a breakdown of emergency relief into a disgraceful racial scandal.

Obama's boosters are not fired up about finally confronting those intricate and intractable problems, for which the answers lie not in identity but in politics and policy. Inspiring and exhilarating as it is, Obamamania allows us to sidestep the hardest challenges, at least for now.

Where is his evidence that Obama's white supporters are so foolish as to believe that merely having a black President will magically solve all of our nation's "intricate and intractable problems" of racism, poverty, inequality, etc.?  He presents none because there isn't any.

 

This is a topic I've done some thinking about, which I wrote about last February (see below):

A friend recently asked me, "Honestly, what percentage of your support for Obama has to do with him being black?"  I had to think about that for a moment.  Would I be enthusiastically supporting an inexperienced WHITE Senator with an interesting personal history and a gift for oratory?  The obvious answer is not nearly to the same degree, but that's not because I want to feel good about myself by "proving" I'm not a racist or because I support affirmative action or something like that.  There are a number of reasons:

---------------------

Why Obamamania? Because He Runs as The Great White Hope.

By David Greenberg
Sunday, January 13, 2008; B04

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011101414_pf.html

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's upset victory in the New Hampshire primary last week was every bit as impressive as Sen. Barack Obama's Iowa caucus breakout five days before -- if anything, more impressive, since his win was predicted and hers unforeseen. But the reactions to the two events couldn't have been more different. Obama's Jan. 3 triumph let loose a giddiness bordering on exhilaration among voters and, especially, media commentators, who hailed his triumph as "historic," even though he was not in fact the first African American to win a major presidential nominating contest. (Jesse Jackson won 13 primaries and caucuses in 1988.) By contrast, when Clinton overcame long odds to become the first woman in U.S. history to win a major-party primary, no leading news outlet trumpeted this landmark feat. Many failed to mention it at all.

This startling difference underscores one of Obama's advantages heading into the do-or-die Feb. 5th contests. "Obamamania" sputtered in the Granite State, but it is far from dead. Many of the voters and pundits who were thrilled by Obama's compelling Iowa speech 10 days ago remain intoxicated, heady with the hope that he can deliver not just "change" -- any candidate running would do that -- but a categorically different kind of change from Clinton or the Republican candidates. So what explains the magic?

Sen. Obama gave a truly magnificent speech today

Sen. Obama gave a truly magnificent speech today -- see below.  You will not regret taking the time to read it.

 

Here were the highlights for me:

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives.

But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.

We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

And this:

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

And, finally, this poignant story literally brought tears to my eyes.  It is so very wrong that we are alone among developed countries in failing to provide basic health care for all of our citizens:

The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight.

They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect.

Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

-----------------------

Obama Addresses Ebenezer Baptist Church

Embargoed Remarks Provided Below

Atlanta, GA— Senator Barack Obama deliverd the following speech today at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

As Prepared for Delivery:

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama

The Great Need of the Hour

Ebenezer Baptist Church

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Atlanta, Georgia

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/obama%20ebenezer%20Baptist%20Church.htm

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through...

What an AWESOME article by Nick Kristof!

The point is not that experience is pointless but that it needn’t be in politics to be useful. John McCain’s years as a P.O.W. gave him an understanding of torture and a moral authority to discuss it that no amount of Senate hearings ever could have conferred.

In the same way, Mr. Obama’s years as an antipoverty organizer give him insights into one of our greatest challenges: how to end cycles of poverty. That front-line experience is one reason Mr. Obama not only favors government spending programs, like early-childhood education, but also cultural initiatives like promoting responsible fatherhood.

Then there’s Mr. Obama’s grade-school years in Indonesia. Our most serious mistakes in foreign policy, from Vietnam to Iraq, have been a blindness to other people’s nationalism and an inability to see ourselves as others see us. Mr. Obama seems to have absorbed an intuitive sensitivity to that problem. For starters, he understood back in 2002 that American troops would not be greeted in Iraq with flowers.

----------------------

January 20, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Hillary, Barack, Experience

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/opinion/20kristof.html

With all the sniping from the Clinton camp about whether Barack Obama has enough experience to make a strong president, consider another presidential candidate who was far more of a novice. He had the gall to run for president even though he had served a single undistinguished term in the House of Representatives, before being hounded back to his district.

That was Abraham Lincoln.

This judge's ruling yesterday in Nevada is very big news, not only for improving Obama's chances of winning there, but because of the story behind it.  In short, the teachers unions are burning their bridges with Obama, which will have profound -- and wonderful -- implications for education reform should he become President. 

 

Here's the latest news:

A union with ties to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton failed in court Thursday to block the state party's plans to hold caucuses at special precincts inside casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

I'll give you three guesses which "union with ties to...Clinton" was behind the lawsuit...  You got it: the TEACHERS UNION, as the article notes below:

Nevada State Education Association President Lynn Warne denied the case was linked to the Clinton campaign and said there would be no appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

What's going on in Nevada is really important because when one examines which unions are backing which candidate, it's clear that this is shaping up as a fight between high-paid government workers (teachers and clerks) and private-sector low-wage workers, whose kids are forced to attend failing schools.

 

In addition, such desperate attacks on a Democrat -- especially one who's been such a great friend to labor! -- are highly unusual and underscore how threatened traditional unions are by the change Obama represents.  The teachers, in particular, are much more swayed by Clinton's "35-year history of change" (yeah, RIGHT!)because they like the status quo just fine and especially just want to make it to retirement without much changing.

-------------------------

Judge Dismisses Nevada Caucus Challenge

By KEN RITTER – 8 hours ago

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gyvInzNqbVlZRinR5LP_RYQ8CU1AD8U81ESG3

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A union with ties to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton failed in court Thursday to block the state party's plans to hold caucuses at special precincts inside casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

Unions bitterly divided in Democratic race

This article captures the union split -- and how those backing Clinton are pulling out all the stops to attack Obama (I've heard that not only is AFSCME importing members/organizers from California to defeat Obama in Nevada (as the article below notes), but the California Teachers Assoc. is doing so as well):

The intensity of the struggle between the Culinary Workers and AFSCME is matched by controversies inside AFSCME.

Seven board members have protested the degree to which their union is backing Clinton, including running what they described as negative ads in Iowa and New Hampshire about Obama's healthcare proposal. The seven wrote union President Gerald W. McEntee on Jan. 4 saying they were "shocked and appalled to learn that our union . . . is squandering precious resources to wage a costly and deceptive campaign to oppose Barack Obama."

They said the ads threatened unity among labor needed to defeat Republicans in November and undermined the union's reputation. Obama's supporters say his position on healthcare is closer than Clinton's to the union's own position, which opposes a universal mandate such as she has endorsed.

AFSCME, which has only a few thousand members in Nevada, is relying heavily on paid workers from outside the state, a practice virtually all national unions employ when they need reinforcements.

But the Culinary Workers' Taylor criticized the scale of the effort: "I have never heard of such an intensive member education movement in my life."

-------------------------

Unions bitterly divided in Democratic race

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-unions13jan13,1,5201798.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&track=crosspromo

Teachers Divided

This article captures the likely generational split among teachers, why older teachers will fight change fiercely, and how teacher compensation needs to change:

First, consider older teachers. Not only are they of Clinton’s generation, they also tend to dominate the teacher unions — the very unions that are at the base of her party-mainstream support. While the National Education Association hasn’t yet endorsed a candidate, its New Hampshire affiliate came out for Clinton (and Huckabee on the Republican side). (The Iowa union kept its powder dry.) When you hear about the “Democratic establishment,” think teacher unions; their members regularly constitute some 10 percent of all delegates at the Democratic National Convention, after all. As the “establishment” candidate, then, Clinton is and will likely remain the teacher unions’ favorite.

Everybody knows that those unions’ leaders and most active members tend to be older. Why? Simply because senior teachers have the most at stake. After toiling in the classroom for decades for modest pay, they are finally nearing their big pay-off: a plush retirement with full family medical benefits. Protecting this retirement is teacher unions’ number one priority. They want a candidate who signals a steady course, promises job stability, and isn’t going to rock the boat. Clinton fits the bill.

 

The calculus is much different for younger teachers. Not surprisingly, they are much more open to change — Obama’s theme song. A few years ago, Public Agenda found that a majority of new teachers (55 percent) believed that districts should be able to use other indicators beyond years of experience and higher education to reward good teachers; yet only a third of veteran teachers felt the same way. And newbies were almost twice as likely to believe that merit pay would be effective in recruiting more of “the best and brightest” into teaching. So Obama’s (mild) flirtation with performance pay is much less threatening — and perhaps even exciting — for these younger teachers.

-------------------------

Teachers Divided
Older teachers support Clinton, while younger teachers vote for Obama.

By Michael J. Petrilli

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDhhNGIxYWQ0NWNkMjUxNjBiNjgxNWE3NjE2M2U0NWU=

Obama's change also threatens the old guard of the civil rights movement.  This article has it exactly right: it is indeed "amazing" (horrifying, really) that the civil rights leadership isn't pulling out all the stops to elect a black President:

The most amazing thing about the 2008 presidential race is not that a black man is a bona fide contender, but the lukewarm response he has received from the luminaries whose sacrifices made this run possible. With the notable exception of Joseph Lowry, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference veteran who gave a stirring invocation at Obama's Atlanta campaign rally in June and subsequently endorsed him, Obama has been running without much support from many of the most recognizable black figures in the political landscape.

That's because, positioned as he is between the black boomers and the hip-hop generation, Obama is indebted, but not beholden, to the civil rights gerontocracy. A successful Obama candidacy would simultaneously represent a huge leap forward for black America and the death knell for the reign of the civil rights-era leadership -- or at least the illusion of their influence.

The most recent example of the old guard's apparent aversion to Obama was Andrew Young's febrile YouTube ramblings about Bill Clinton being "every bit as black as Barack Obama" and his armchair speculation that Clinton had probably bedded more black women during his lifetime than the senator from Illinois -- as if racial identity could be transmitted like an STD. This could be dismissed as a random instance of a politician speaking out of turn were it not part of an ongoing pattern.

-------------------------

As Obama Rises, Old Guard Civil Rights Leaders Scowl

By William Jelani Cobb
Sunday, January 13, 2008; B01

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011102000_pf.html

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when "black president" was synonymous with "president of black America." That was the office to which Jesse Jackson appointed himself in the 1970s -- resigned to the fact that the actual presidency was out of reach. In 2003, Chris Rock wrote and directed "Head of State," a film about the first black man to win the presidency. (It was a comedy.) And in the ultimate concession, some African Americans have attempted to bestow the title of black president upon Bill Clinton -- a white man.

In the wake of his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Sen. Barack Obama has already permanently changed the meaning of that term. It is no longer an oxymoron or a quixotic in-joke. And this, perhaps more than anything else, explains his tortured relationship with black civil rights leaders.

From a friend in NH

From a friend in NH:

Obama is in it to win it and his supporters are too. Let me summarize your fears by saying that all of my Republican friends and colleagues are hoping for Hillary to win the nomination. I would have voted in the Republican primary if I had not met Obama. He'll win the primary and he is the reason I will be voting Democrat in the general

I was right that Clinton's remark about MLK would come back to bite her.  I've met Jim Clyburn and think very highly of him -- he's recently become a loud voice in favor of charter schools and public school choice:

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, said he was rethinking his neutral stance in his state’s presidential primary out of disappointment at comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that he saw as diminishing the historic role of civil rights activists.

Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.

“We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. “It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.”

--------------------

Civil Rights Tone Prompts Talk of an Endorsement

By CARL HULSE

Published: January 11, 2008

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/politics/11clyburn.html

The Clintons are doing damage control, but don't be fooled -- while Hillary's comment may have been innocuous (as I noted earlier, it simply reflects her Washington-centered worldview), judge for yourself whether Bill's comment about "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen" referred only to the Iraq war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDx4NZr2u4

The Clinton campaign moved Friday to try to quell a potentially damaging reaction to recent comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that have drawn criticism from African-Americans just as the presidential primary campaign reached Southern states with significant numbers of black voters.

In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton’s nationally syndicated talk radio show, Mr. Clinton said that his “fairy tale” comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Mr. Obama’s overarching message or his drive to be the first black president.

“There’s nothing fairy tale about his campaign,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s real, strong, and he might win.”

--------------------

January 12, 2008

Clintons Move to Tamp Down Criticism From Blacks About Recent Comments

By CARL HULSE and PATRICK HEALY

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/us/politics/12clinton.html

MSNBC analyst: Rove Obama attack close to 'outright racist'

Karl Rove -- surprise! -- is up to his dirty tricks again:

"No official endorsements for Senator Clinton today," Olbermann stated, "but it sure appeared as if Karl Rove was back to backing the candidate he'd love to see beaten ... writing an op-ed in the now Murdoch-owned Murdoch Street Journal, in which he explains why Mrs. Clinton won in New Hampshire and otherwise eviscerates Senator Obama, saying of the Illinois Democrat's performance at the debate Saturday, 'His trash talking was an unattractive carryover from his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard, and capped a mediocre night.'"...

Of the Rove editorial, Wolffe stated, "Talking to some of Obama's aides, I think they detected a pretty ugly undertone in Rove's op-ed there. The 'trash-talking.' The 'basketball.' The 'lazy' thing. Is he suggesting that there's some sort of color aspect to Barack Obama's behavior that he's getting at? It was uncomfortably close to the edge of being plain-out racist."

"That's Karl," said Olbermann.

The racist slant of Rove's op-ed has already been widely noted among bloggers, with one of the more vehement writing, "When you take into consideration the malevolent genius of Karl Rove - The god damned Johnny Appleseed of fear harvesting - and understand that the higher echelon of the Republican base is being spoon-fed a concoction that consists of a feminist-socialist lesbian wife of a shill president or a lazy, jive-talking, b-ball playing huckster boy politician from Chicago ... Rove's ability to triangulate issues and interweave them with subtle strereotypical imagery would be fun to read if it was fiction. Unfortunately in real life, the fat master has stirred and is testing the waters to see if his style of politics still plays."

--------------------

MSNBC analyst: Rove Obama attack close to 'outright racist'

David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Friday January 11, 2008  

 

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/MSNBC_Analyst_Rove_Obama_attack_almost_0111.html

Keith Olbermann began a segment on the presidential primary campaign with a disclaimer about the irrelevance of endorsements, saying the last time one may have made a decisive difference was when William Jennings Bryan backed Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

I don't think Obama will win NY, but even a strong second would be a boost:

--------------------

Obama Giving Clinton a Race in Her Backyard

By SAM ROBERTS

Published: January 12, 2008

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/us/politics/12york.html

With Senator Barack Obama vowing to challenge Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on her home turf, the Democratic presidential primary in New York on Feb. 5 is shaping up as the state’s most competitive since 1992, when Bill Clinton took up a rival’s mantra of change to all but cinch the nomination.

Mrs. Clinton was re-elected a little more than a year ago by better than two to one. Before the Iowa caucuses, she had so dominated opinion polls and endorsements by elected officials and powerful unions that many considered her home state impregnable to political interlopers.

But if Mr. Obama wins the South Carolina primary in two weeks, he could develop enough grass-roots support among young people, liberals and black voters in New York to pose a serious threat to her claim to the state’s rich delegate lode, allies of both candidates say. 

NH Analysis by Jeremy Goldberg

My friend Jeremy Goldberg shared many interesting thoughts in an email after NH -- see below.  Here's an excerpt:

Hillary’s surprising victory last night is a testament to her skills as a politician and the talent behind her campaign.  You really can’t ever count the Clintons out.  This election is really a challenge to their leadership of the Democratic Party which has lasted twenty years, and it’ll be a battle.  But you have to give her and her team a lot of credit for pulling last night off…

It wasn’t just the pundits and the Obama camp that were surprised.  Hillary’s people didn’t see this coming either (her internal polls showed an 11-point lead of Obama). They had already leaked a shakeup of the campaign, bringing on her former chief of staff, Maggie Williams.  Second, you can’t tell me that Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s spokesman, expected to go on air and declare victory, as Ben Smith pointed out.  Did you see his sweater?   I have been blackmailed by friends who have pictures of me wearing similar sweaters…

So what explains Hillary’s victory, that no one really saw coming?

--------------------

Hi all:

So I should have known it wouldn’t be this easy…You don’t go from underdog to frontrunner in two weeks without expecting a fight…I mean, Jimmy Smits didn’t defeat Alan Alda on The West Wing in two episodes….

But it’s amazing how spectacularly wrong people were about New Hampshire (you can include me in that group). 

Lots of observations to share:

• Hillary’s surprising victory last night is a testament to her skills as a politician and the talent behind her campaign.  You really can’t ever count the Clintons out.  This election is really a challenge to their leadership of the Democratic Party which has lasted twenty years, and it’ll be a battle.  But you have to give her and her team a lot of credit for pulling last night off…
  
• It wasn’t just the pundits and the Obama camp that were surprised.  Hillary’s people didn’t see this coming either (her internal polls showed an 11-point lead of Obama). They had already leaked a shakeup of the campaign, bringing on her former chief of staff, Maggie Williams.  Second, you can’t tell me that Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s spokesman, expected to go on air and declare victory, as Ben Smith pointed out.  Did you see his sweater?   I have been blackmailed by friends who have pictures of me wearing similar sweaters…
  
• So what explains Hillary’s victory, that no one really saw coming?
  

·       Clearly, women broke in a big way for her, a gender gap that Obama had closed in Iowa.  Some have attributed this to her tearful moment, which humanized her for voters and helped women identify with her.  I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, but I do think the moment helped people relate to her more…I’ll leave aside the debate as to whether it was calculated or not (I tend to not think so--incidentally, heard that women that made Hillary cry actually voted for Obama).  I think undecided women largely broke to Hillary in response to a perception that the media and the other candidates were ganging up on her and pronouncing her campaign over.

1       She had a tremendous on-the-ground operation.  Obama had a better ground game in Iowa (remember, Bill Clinton never campaigned in the Iowa caucus—he was up against Iowa Sen. Harkin in 1992, and was not challenged in 1996).  But the Clinton’s had tremendous ties to New Hampshire and was able to leverage these relationships (and sentimentality) to victory.

2       Voters didn’t want to decide the election.  New Hampshire voters knew that an Obama victory meant a clear path to the nomination and they weren’t prepared to just give it to him.  I saw this same dynamic in Iowa, where voters literally told me that they’d vote for Obama because they realized that a Hillary victory in Iowa would likely mean her coronation.

3       It’s possible that Obama’s huge leads in the polls encouraged independents to vote for McCain, who seemed to be in a closer race.  John Zogby, the eminent pollster, advances this possible explanation as well as other interpretations of the results.

4       I know Chris Matthews on MSNBC has been focused on the possible Bradley effect.  This is the argument that voters mask their true intentions when an African-American candidate is running, saying to pollsters one thing but voting differently.  But you’d have to believe that white women in New Hampshire decided they couldn’t vote for an African-American candidate.  I think that’s a discredit to Hillary, whom I think they actively decided to support.  Plus, if this dynamic existed, you’d expect to see it in the general election, not the primary.  Certainly something to watch…

• So are their longer term trends that one can draw from these results?  It’s clear that Obama has to close the gender gap to give himself a shot.  He did that in Iowa, but he’ll need to do that elsewhere to win.  Young voters will also be a wildcard—it appears that they did turnout in NH, but they just represented a smaller percentage of the population than in Iowa.  Will they turnout elsewhere—huge turnouts in the first two contests suggest that the desire for change is prompting higher levels of engagement across the board.  Lastly, two important segments of the Democratic primary population—African-Americans and Latinos, have yet to really participate, but they will be critical in Nevada and South Carolina and in the Feb 5^th contests. 
  
• Stepping back, Obama has to be happy where is…It’s amazing how expectations shape the interpretation of results.  If three weeks ago, anyone had said that Obama would win Iowa by 8 points (and Hillary would finish third) and then finish second in New Hampshire (39-37%), that would be seen as a huge victory for the Obama campaign.  But as the media’s narrative shifted after Iowa and polls predicted an Obama coronation, a narrow Hillary victory in a state where she always had an advantage is seen as generating momentum for her.  I think the candidate that is seen as the underdog may be better off given the important role that expectations play.
  
• The biggest loser of last night:  Edwards.  I think his campaign is effectively over.  Edwards was already at a disadvantage because he decided to take federal matching funds, which means he can’t raise any more money and probably has less than $15 million to spend through the convention.  His strategy to win post-Iowa was predicated on Hillary’s quick collapse as a candidate prior to the Feb 5^th “Super-duper Tuesday”, leaving a two-man race and Edwards to benefit from all the media attention.  Now, it’s inconceivable how Edwards can compete nationally in 22 states on February 5^th, regardless of how he does in South Carolina.  Does this mean he’ll drop out?  He says he’s in it to the end.  Regardless, it doesn’t appear he’ll be a real threat on February 5^th, which is good news for Obama, as Edwards supporters are likely to gravitate to him.  That’s not to say that Edwards can’t compete in Nevada (union-heavy) and South Carolina (he won in 2004), but that there’s almost no ability to carry that over.
  
• No doubt the big winner of last night was Hillary, as she saved her campaign.  But I also think that the Democratic Party comes out a winner.  It’s clear that whichever Democrat emerges, they will have been tested.  A quick victory for Obama would have left him open to GOP attacks for months, and I think he’ll be a much better candidate for going through the adversity of a campaign.  If his post-NH speech is any indication, he’s ready for the challenge.
  
• Nevada is the next big test, on Saturday, January 19^th.  It’s a caucus, which is a format that worked to Obama’s advantage in Iowa.  Unions are critical there, and it appears that Obama has earned the endorsement of both the Culinary Union and the Nevada chapter of SEIU this morning.  The Latino vote is also critical, and it’ll be interesting to see how that breaks.  Unlike the African-American community, where the Clinton’s have longstanding ties to the community, Hillary doesn’t go into the community with predisposed support.  At the same time, I remembered reading this WSJ article discussing the lack of knowledge about Obama in the Hispanic community.  It’s worth watching who wins the Latino vote and whether that may suggest a trend for the Feb 5^th states.
  
• South Carolina is the other big test, on the 26^th (I’ll be down there leading up to MLK day).  Can Obama win over the African-American vote, as recent trends suggest?  If he does, it bodes well for him across the South for the Democratic primaries.
  

·       Winning Nevada and South Carolina is important for the potential momentum it will generate for the Feb 5^th states.  It’ll be fascinating to see how the campaigns approach the 22 primaries/caucuses. 

·       First, Obama may focus on those states with open primaries, where independents and Republicans can vote (I think at least half are?). 

1       Second, Hillary goes into February 5^th with an advantage, in terms of her name recognition, as voters are just getting to know Obama. 

2       Third, unlike the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire, the February 5^th contests will largely be fought in the media, TV/Radio/Online advertisements, large rallies, and televised debates.  Obama’s incredible speeches may prove to be an advantage here, particularly if he continues to hold his own in the debates.  People (myself included) have always remarked that they like Hillary when they see her in person, but voter contact will be much more difficult given the nominating schedule. 

3       Fourth, Obama’s response to Hillary’s political machine is the tremendous volunteer support he’s built up around the country.  He’s leveraged this support to raise money, and now the focus is on field operations.

4       Fifth, Obama has established operations in more states, and earlier, than Hillary’s campaign.  I love this video from my friend Matt Weinstein, who joined the campaign a few months ago to help run the North Dakota operation.  Obama’s campaign manager maintained that this head start will be critical in the six caucus states on Feb 5^th, which proved the case in Iowa.

• My prediction:  This election is still not decided by February 5^th.  Too many states and the results will likely be inconclusive.  This may go into April before it is settled. 
  
• Interesting aside:  Somehow, amidst the craziness of the campaign, Obama was able to find the time to try and mediate the troubling political situation in Kenya  He is the real thing….
  
• On the Republican side, McCain had a big victory last night.  Observers have commented that McCain is the toughest general election candidate for the Democrats, and that may be true.  But the polls also show that immigration is the top issue for  Republicans in many states around the country.  He’s on the wrong side of this issue for the base, and that may really impact turnout come November.  It may also be an Achilles heel in the primaries, starting in South Carolina.
  
• And for a last random thought.  President Bush is visiting the Middle East this week.  I was shocked to learn that this is his first visit to Israel as President, as well as Saudi Arabia…says a lot about why our Middle East policy is where it is…
  

That’s all I got…

Best,
Jeremy

Jeremy Goldberg
Jeremy@jeremysgoldberg.com

My tone toward Sen. Clinton

A friend on this email list who supports Sen. Clinton asked me to tone down my negativity on her because if she wins the nomination, it might make it difficult to throw my support to her, as all of my old writings are posted in perpetuity on my blog (http://tilsononobama.blogspot.com/).

 

Here was my reply:

I'll keep this in mind, but let's be clear: I REALLY want Obama to beat her.  I think he'd be a better President, and equally importantly, to your point about caring most about getting a Dem elected, I think she has such high negatives that she could easily lose to a Rep, whereas Obama is MUCH less likely to do so.  He's proven -- even in his NH loss -- that he can draw huge support from independent and Rep-leaning voters, who are the ones who decide the general election.  Clinton, in contrast, has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she can NOT draw such voters.

 

I hope I'm wrong but I'd rather not find out.

 

As for some of the negative stuff, you'll find that most of it is when I'm quoting comments shared by friends -- I'm not writing it.  You could, of course, argue that I shouldn't send it out, but I think it's important for people to know how much negativity there is about her (but not about him).

 

As for my views, it was only Saturday that I sent out the following (http://tilsononobama.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-emails-and-views-on-sen-clinton.html):

Another friend asked my why I "dislike Hillary so much." I don't at all. As I've said many times before, I think she's been an excellent Senator and would be a very good President, so if she wins the Democratic nomination, it will be a no-brainer for me to support her vs. any of the Republicans -- just not nearly as enthusiastically as if Sen. Obama's the nominee. The only wild card would be if Bloomberg runs -- I think I'd support him over her, unless I thought he had no chance to win.

To the point about drawing independent and even normally Rep. voters, I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten like this one from yesterday: "While I’m a registered Republican, I would consider crossing the aisle to vote for Obama."  I have never once heard this sentiment about Clinton.

Obama in NYC and my thoughts

I saw Obama at a NYC fundraiser two nights ago for the first time since April and was blown away (again).  My feelings are captured nicely by Pulitzer-Prize winning Berkeley author Michael Chabon, who at a rally in SF said (according to this article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=23347):

"You know what I needed to do before I could decide to support Barack Obama for president? I had to give myself permission to feel hope. That's almost kind of sad, isn't it? I had to tell myself that it is OK. That it would be all right if I allowed myself to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation. That we can aspire to be more than merely secure or predominant. That we could apsire to build and to heal not just to patch and prop up. We can aspire to come together not just come to terms."

Suffice to say that one rarely gets to hear an internal monologue during an endorsement rally...which might explain why a couple of the TV cameras clicked "OFF" about this time. Nevermind them, Mike. Preach, brother!!

"I had to allow myself to do something that felt really weird, something I had never done before in my entire life -- to believe in a candidate for the president of the United States."

The crowd starting yelling "We believe!"

"I do, I do believe. I do believe in Barack Obama. But I don't believe in him blindly or unquestioningly. He's no demogogue or figurehead. He's a man, not a symbol. But he does stand for something, something I can believe in. The way I believe in the comfort I take in my family and the pleasure of good company, and the blessings of peace and liberty and in anything that requires me to put my trust in the best part of myself and of other people."

In his remarks, Obama made some great points about losing New Hampshire.  He said (I'm paraphrasing from memory) it was good news ("and I'm not spinning you") because it all seemed too easy -- and it shouldn't be and we shouldn't have expected it to be.  The forces of the status quo aren't going to be vanquished without a fight, so even though you (speaking to his supporters) may feel disappointed and exhausted, he needs us to buckle down and keep up the fight.

Comments on NH

Some very interesting comments on the NH race from a friend:

As a NH resident and Obama supporter, I can give you the following observations:

I think the surprising results were due to a confluence of events:

-Independents thought that McCain needed them more, based on the pre-election polls, and many of them might have voted for Obama
-Women felt that Obama and Edwards were ganging up on Hillary
-The Portsmouth teary moment resonated with women...it humanized her, and people could feel her sincerity in saying she just wanted to do good things for the country
-Many young people at local colleges were not back from break to vote
-We heard that some people did not come out to vote for Obama because they thought he would have an easy win
-He came across as a bit too self-assured at the end...
-Bill Clinton really hit Obama hard this weekend....though unfairly

You can see Bill Clinton's attack ("the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen") at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDx4NZr2u4

 

Another friend added:

Well -- a tough night, but what a great and inspiring speech by Obama.

My wife and I as long time political people have seen many speeches and both thought he was almost better last night than in Iowa. Too bad that the news was all about how wrong the polls were. Yes we can!

Columns like this make me say a little prayer: "Please, please, please don't let me ever become the subject of a Maureen Dowd column" -- LOL!

There was a poignancy about the moment, seeing Hillary crack with exhaustion from decades of yearning to be the principal rather than the plus-one. But there was a whiff of Nixonian self-pity about her choking up. What was moving her so deeply was her recognition that the country was failing to grasp how much it needs her. In a weirdly narcissistic way, she was crying for us. But it was grimly typical of her that what finally made her break down was the prospect of losing.

As Spencer Tracy said to Katharine Hepburn in “Adam’s Rib,” “Here we go again, the old juice. Guaranteed heart melter. A few female tears, stronger than any acid.”

The Clintons once more wriggled out of a tight spot at the last minute. Bill churlishly dismissed the Obama phenom as “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen,” but for the last few days, it was Hillary who seemed in danger of being Cinderella. She became emotional because she feared that she had reached her political midnight, when she would suddenly revert to the school girl with geeky glasses and frizzy hair, smart but not the favorite. All those years in the shadow of one Natural, only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural?...

Yet, in the end, she had to fend off calamity by playing the female victim, both of Obama and of the press. Hillary has barely talked to the press throughout her race even though the Clintons this week whined mightily that the press prefers Obama.

Bill Clinton, campaigning in Henniker on Monday, also played the poor-little-woman card in a less-than-flattering way. “I can’t make her younger, taller or change her gender,” he said. He was so low-energy at events that it sometimes seemed he was distancing himself from her. Now that she is done with New Hampshire, she may distance herself from him, realizing that seeing Bill so often reminds voters that they don’t want to go back to that whole megillah again.

Hillary sounded silly trying to paint Obama as a poetic dreamer and herself as a prodigious doer. “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” she said. Did any living Democrat ever imagine that any other living Democrat would try to win a presidential primary in New Hampshire by comparing herself to L.B.J.? (Who was driven out of politics by Gene McCarthy in New Hampshire.)

Her argument against Obama now boils down to an argument against idealism, which is probably the lowest and most unlikely point to which any Clinton could sink. The people from Hope are arguing against hope.

At her victory party, Hillary was like the heroine of a Lifetime movie, a woman in peril who manages to triumph. Saying that her heart was full, she sounded the feminist anthem: “I found my own voice.”

-----------------------

 

January 9, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?

By MAUREEN DOWD

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/08dowd.html

DERRY, N.H.

When I walked into the office Monday, people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see: Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes.

George Miller endorses Obama

Nobody paid much attention to this, but I've met George Miller and think very highly of him, so I'm delighted to see him behind Obama:

"Barack has the skills and experience that's necessary to really challenge the status quo in Washington, D.C.," Miller said before a press conference Wednesday in San Francisco. "I'm very encouraged by the energy of the people responding to him and his vision of how people can come together to solve the problems that confront us."

Despite being in the House for 30+ years, Miller's actually quite a reformer and is one of the leading (only?) Dems focused on improving and renewing NCLB.

-------------------------------------------

George Miller endorses Obama

 

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Article Launched: 01/09/2008 03:01:33 PM PST

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7924179?nclick_check=1

Veteran legislator Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, has endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for president.

"Barack has the skills and experience that's necessary to really challenge the status quo in Washington, D.C.," Miller said before a press conference Wednesday in San Francisco. "I'm very encouraged by the energy of the people responding to him and his vision of how people can come together to solve the problems that confront us."

Miller cited Obama's extensive grassroots fund-raising campaign, first-place win the Iowa caucus and strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, leadership style and opposition to the Iraq War.

In other East Bay congressional districts, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has come out in support of Obama, while Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, is supporting Clinton. Reps. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and Pete Stark, D-Fremont, have not endorsed anyone.

Contra Costa County Supervisor Susan Bonilla also announced her endorsement of Obama during Wednesday's event.

Miller's decision to back Obama comes as no philosophical surprise, although the congressman had indicated several months ago that he might not endorse in the Democratic primary.

Both men have been opposed to the Iraq War since its inception, one of the hallmark issues in Miller's progressive Bay Area district.

But Miller is also a renowned champion of women in politics -- he is a top advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco -- and it would not have appeared too odd if he had thrown his name behind the first woman to seek the presidency, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"Why not help elect the first woman president?" Miller said. "That can be argued. But why not elect the first African-American?"

As for the experience factor that has been the bedrock of Clinton's campaign, Miller, who has served in the House of Representative for more than 30 years, says that longevity in Washington does not always translate into leadership.

"Obama's experience in looking at the evidence led him to conclude that the Iraq War was not a war we should engage in, while Clinton looked at the same evidence and concluded that we should engage in it," Miller said.

"The number of years in (office) is neither here nor there. What matters is the leadership to reach the scores of independent voters and across the political lines to make change.

"I've watched both campaign and I know both candidates and I believe Obama offers us an opportunity to truly change the way we do business in Washington."

Miller also looked at the candidacy of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards but says he did not "see the people responding (to Edwards) in a way that will make his campaign viable in the general election. This is about putting together a campaign in the primary that can win in the general election."

Some very interesting insights on the NH surprise from a pollster:

But another possible explanation cannot be ignored — the longstanding pattern of pre-election polls overstating support for black candidates among white voters, particularly white voters who are poor...

Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews...

Certainly, we live in a different world today. The Pew Research Center has conducted analyses of elections between candidates of different races in 2006 and found that polls now do a much better job estimating the support for black candidates than they did in the past. However, the difficulties in interviewing the poor and the less well-educated persist.

Why didn’t this problem come up in Iowa? My guess is that Mr. Obama may have posed less of a threat to white voters in Iowa because he wasn’t yet the front-runner. Caucuses are also plainly different from primaries.

-----------------------

January 10, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor

Getting It Wrong

By ANDREW KOHUT

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/opinion/10kohut.html

Washington

THE failure of the New Hampshire pre-election surveys to mirror the outcome of the Democratic race is one of the most significant miscues in modern polling history. All the published polls, including those that surveyed through Monday, had Senator Barack Obama comfortably ahead with an average margin of more than 8 percent. These same polls showed no signs that Senator Hillary Clinton might close that gap, let alone win.

Kerry Endorses Obama

Nice to get an endorsement from Kerry:

“Who better than Barack Obama to bring new credibility to America’s role in the world and help restore our moral authority?” Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a rally at the College of Charleston. “Who better than Barack Obama to turn a new page in American politics, so that Democrats, independents and Republicans alike can look to the leadership that unites to find common ground.”

-----------------------

 

Kerry Endorses Obama as Campaign Goes Nationwide

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: January 10, 2008

www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/us/politics/10cnd-campaign.html

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator John Kerry embraced the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama here on Thursday, saying Mr. Obama “had the greatest potential to lead a transformation, not just a transition.”

Iowa Elec Markets

I suspect there has never been such volatility in the history of the Iowa Electronic Markets.  With a few days, Obama went from a 22% chance of winning to 70% on the day of the NH vote to today's 42% (that's a screaming buy right now!), while Clinton went from 65% to 23% to today's 55%.  (See graph at: http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_DConv08.cfm).  On the Rep side, McCain continues to surge and is up to 38% vs. 25% for Giuliani, 19% for Huckabee and 14% for Romney (at: http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_RConv08.cfm)

Granny Obama

A funny report from my mom, who lives in Kenya:

We’re rooting for Obama in South Carolina, Nevada and beyond.  By the way, there have been several BBC radio features about Granny Obama.  She sounds great and says very supportive things about her grandson – but she does need a TV with a satellite dish.  She tries to follow his achievements via BBC radio and occasionally a newspaper.  Maybe someone could donate a bit of the modern world!