Liberal Values

Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation–yeah I know, blame the writers for the character; Wil was just the young actor who wound up playing him) does not like Hillary Clinton. He writes:

The thing about all of this is that, with a Clinton victory in the primary about as likely as jumping off the roof of your house and landing on the moon, it’s become clear that this whole thing isn’t about Democrats or beating McCain (who is inexplicably running for Bush’s third term) or saving our country from the catastrophic failure of the Bush years. No, it’s all about her. It’s about her ego. It’s about refusing to admit that she did her best, but voters (except those encouraged by Rush Limbaugh to cross party lines and fuck with our primary) have pretty clearly said “No thanks. You’re a good senator, but we want something different now.”

It’s been crystal clear for weeks, yet she refuses to put party and country over personal ambition and drop out of the race, forcing Barack Obama to not only run against McCain and the Media, but also against her. It’s particularly galling, because she can only win if her campaign can force Democratic superdelegates (one of the worst creations in the history of politics) to tell millions of Democratic voters — many of them first time voters who, like me, finally feel truly inspired by someone — to go fuck themselves.

It’s driving me crazy, and I hope that someone sits her down with a calculator so she’ll make this primary that is just strengthening McCain — who, I feel obligated to point out again, is running for Bush’s third term. That would be George W. Bush, the most universally hated president in American history.

Along these lines of someone who refuses to quit when it is over, Wil links to the following characterization of her as Hillary Clinton: The Psycho Ex-Girlfriend of the Democratic Party:

Despite all the math counting her out, Hillary Clinton fervently remains in the race to become the Democratic nominee for president in 2008. She has become the Democratic Party’s psycho ex-girlfriend, and she’s not going away without a restraining order.

It’s 2:31 AM. The Democratic Party is sleeping peacefully when it hears its phone buzz on the night stand. It rolls over and sees “Hillary” on the caller ID. It pauses briefly, considering pushing “END” and not dealing with this shit tonight. The thought is appealing but the Democratic Party knows that if it doesn’t take this call, another one is only minutes away.

DEMS: …Hello?

Hillary: Hey baby.

DEMS: C’mon Hillary. Enough with this.

Hillary: Don’t you get it? You NEED me.

DEMS: No, I don’t. It was fun while it lasted but I’m with Barack now. I made my choice, it’s done.

Hillary: You can’t really mean that. How can you say that after all the good times we had?

DEMS: To be honest, I started hanging out with you because Bill’s pretty awesome.

Hillary: But I’m just like Bill!

DEMS: No, you’re not. Bill is charismatic, inspiring, and gets me really good weed.

Hillary: Fuck you. You’re elitist!

DEMS: I’m going back to sleep.

Hillary: No, no, wait. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Listen… there’s still got to be a chance. Remember when people told George W it was all over. When the numbers were against him?

DEMS: Yeah but…

Hillary: Remember?! And remember how everyone said America didn’t really want to be with George W? But they stuck it out anyway?

DEMS: Yeah and they’re really fucked up now, Hillary.

Hillary: But WE’LL make it work. Forget Barack, baby. Just take me back and we can forget this ever happened.

DEMS: Look, I think you’re a really good Senator… let’s just keep it that way, OK?

Hillary: …I’ll see you at the convention.

DEMS: No! Hillary I told you…

CLICK

DEMS: Dammit. Crazy bitch.

This has been posted all over the internets today, with some Clinton supporters coming out with cries of sexism. This is a joke about relationships and not letting things go, not sexism. Or to be more blunt, I’ll quote Wil again who wrote, “I’m not sexist. This isn’t sexist. That’s a stupid straw man, and if you try to make that claim, I will point and laugh at you.” If that doesn’t convince you, some of the arguments of sexism are coming from Big Tent Democrat. If you want to take the same side as Big Tent Democrat on virtually anything, you really deserve to be pointed at and laughed at. Besides, calling Hillary a psycho ex-girlfriend is nowhere as bad as comparing her to Hitler in the bunker.

When Arianna Huffington wound up in a dispute with John McCain she was fortunate to have two members of The West Wing’s fictional Bartlet Administration on hand to back up her story. On Monday Huffington wrote that John McCain told her at a dinner party that he had not voted for George W. Bush in 2000. McCain denied this. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have printed stories in which Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), and Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler), have backed up Arianna’s account.

Maybe McCain is much slyer than he is given credit for. While some Republicans might object, it could help McCain to have stories such as this demonstrating that even he realized that Bush was dangerous and he didn’t trust him.

Yesterday I noted that presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama had pulled within 8.5 superdelegates of Clinton per the count at Politico. The stampede away from Clinton continues and this morning Obama only trails by 3.5 superdelegates by their count. (The half comes from Americans abroad where there are four delegates with one-half vote each, and one remains uncommitted.)

Due to uncertainty as to where each superdelegate stands, different news organizations have different numbers. By ABC’s count, Obama has taken the lead over Clinton 267-265. Several other news organizations still show Clinton with a narrow lead, but this is unlikely to last much longer. The superdelegates clearly are not convinced by Clinton’s funny math which falsely claims to place her in the lead in the popular vote and the superdelegates are not going to ignore the results of the full set of primaries and caucuses.

Besides picking up more superdelegates, Obama is picking up more union support. The American Federation of Government Employees has endorsed Obama.

Update: As of Friday afternoon, Politico now has Obama leading by 1.5 superdelegate. The New York Times gives Obama an edge of three superdelegates.

This is both accurate and hilarious. (Subtitles not safe for work).

I never thought it was very likely that the superdelegates would bring about a result different from the decision of the voters. Superdelegates certainly have the prerogative to vote for whoever they desire. An individual superdelegate can vote their conscience and vote for a candidate other than the national winner and different from the winner in their state or district. While some individuals will do so, as a group the superdelegates are followers. Enough of them realize that it would be disastrous to over rule the voters and will prevent this from happening.

Clinton started out with a strong lead among superdelegates, dating back to the time when her nomination (and election) were considered to be inevitable. Since Super Tuesday Obama has been picking up the vast majority of superdelegates. This includes superdelegates from the ranks of the uncommitted and even some defectors from Clinton. I’m not aware of any going in the opposite direction.

Obama already has a lead over Clinton among elected superdelegates, with Clinton having more party insiders backing her. We are now at the point where it might be only a matter of days before Obama takes the lead among all superdelegates. Clinton’s lead is down to 8.5 superdelegates. Soon Obama will have the majority, and very well might have enough total delegates to clinch the nomination by May 20, when he expects to have a majority of elected delegates (going by the DNC’s magic number, not the Clinton imaginary magic number). Politico has a good listing of where the supedelegate race stands.

It appears that everyone except for Hillary Clinton and her more fanatic supporters realize that for all practical purposes the nomination battle is over and Barack Obama has won. AP describes Clinton as a “dogged but deluded also-ran.” She has yet one more ridiculous argument in considering West Virginia a test, thinking that a win in a state where she is expected to win will somehow make people forget that Obama has already won more delegates, states, and votes than she does.

Just as Clinton is continuing to argue that certain states (i.e. those she did not win) do not count, she is also arguing that winning the black vote does not count. In an interview with USA Today, Clinton said:

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that 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.”

Clinton dug an even deeper hole during the same interview when she justified her concentration on white voters by saying, “These are the people you have to win if you’re a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that.” What’s next? Will argue that blacks only county as three-fifths of a person and recalculate all the primary results to to make herself the winner on this basis?

There’s already been plenty of discussion of the racial implications of this interview around the blogosphere today. Simply looking at this as a matter of political strategy her argument does not hold up very well. No More Mister Nice Blog notes:

According to CNN’s 1996 exit poll, Bill Clinton lost the white vote (Dole 46%, Clinton 43%, Perot 9%). He lost the white male vote by an even larger margin (Dole 49%, Clinton 38%, Perot 11%). And he lost gun owners badly (Dole 51%, Clinton 38%, Perot 10%). However, Clinton won the popular vote overall 49%-41%-8%, and he won 70% of the electoral votes.

In 2000 — when Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes — he lost white males to Bush by a whopping 60%-36%, according to CNN’s exit poll. He lost men overall 53%-42%. He lost whites overall 54%-42%. He lost gun owners 61%-36%. He lost small-town voters 59%-38% and rural voters 59%-37%. He lost the Midwest overall 49%-48%.

Democrats should certainly hope to do better than this, but this does demonstrate the weakness of Clinton’s argument. What Clinton ignores in claiming to be more electable is that her support which is largely based upon the backing of the elderly and the uneducated is hardly a blue print for long term victory. Even if we take the most benign possible interpretation of Clinton’s argument, it remains flawed if she is discounting the black vote because they consistently vote Democratic. If it is a weakness to only bring in safe Democratic voters such as the black vote, Clinton suffers from this problem far more than Obama.

Obama’s support goes well beyond the black vote which normally votes Democratic. He brings in the young voters and independent voters to add to the Democratic base, while Clinton’s support is merely a subset of the Democratic base. Most of these core Democratic voters who back Clinton will continue to vote Democratic regardless of who wins the nomination, while the new voters backing Obama will be far less likely to turn out for Clinton.

Clinton has been claiming that her greater strength among working class voters makes her more electable, but fails to understand that her turn to populism has been counterproductive. She has picked up more working class votes, but these voters are going to back Obama over McCain. However, in deriding the affluent, educated voters who support Obama she has guaranteed that most will either stay home in November or vote for McCain. Democrats can only win a national election when they have a candidate who can win the support of both wings of the party. Obama can do this, but Clinton cannot.

Karen Tumulty listed The Five Mistakes Clinton Made. She writes that Clinton made “at least five big mistakes, each of which compounded the others.” All five listed by Tumulty are significant, and well worth reading in full, but as she acknowledges there are others. These include the failure to understand the need extend her base beyond long time Democratic voters. Another mistake (which is closely related to Tumulty’s first Clinton mistake) was to fail to understand that running a dishonest and negative campaign not only would not be effective but acts to make Democrats see even more reason to back Obama. The dishonesty of the Clinton/Bush Dynasty made Obama a viable candidate this year, and resorting to Rove style politics guaranteed that Obama would win the nomination.

Despite being behind in number of delegates, the popular vote, and number of states won, Hillary Clinton continues to believe she is entitled to the nomination. It is her turn within the pattern of the Bush/Clinton Dynasty and matters such as the will of the voters must not be allowed to interfere with the planned succession.

Clinton has tried taking her case to the Democratic National Committee. Unfortunately for Clinton, she still does not get it. She continues to use Michigan and Florida as rational for her to remain in the race. As Matthew Yglesias has pointed out, “this makes no real sense. Nothing would do more to help resolve the Florida and Michigan issue than for Clinton to drop out and endorse Obama.” If Obama didn’t have to worry about Clinton trying to use Michigan and Florida to steal the nomination he would have no reason not to seat the two delegations.

Her argument, like virtually every other argument made by Clinton during this campaign, does make no real sense. The never ending flow of nonsense arguments has only increased questions about both her integrity and competence. Her arguments with regards to Michigan and Florida have been pretty transparent lies which only her die hard followers  believe–similar to those Republicans who still believe what George Bush has said about Iraq.

The DNC is especially unlikely to be impressed by these arguments considering that they are based upon Clinton supporting violations of the rules made by the Democratic National Committee. When Clinton appeals to the DNC for support based upon Michigan and Florida she is in essence saying, “I am a liar and a cheater, therefore you should support me for the nomination over the person who has won fair and square.” That is simply not an argument which will go anywhere.

One good thing about Clinton using this argument is that she has made it very difficult for herself to compete in a future nomination battle. In backing Michigan and Florida she is demonstrating a disregard for Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as other states more recently moved to the start with permission of the DNC. The manner in which she did not take up this cause until after Iowa and New Hampshire voted further demonstrates her dishonesty. Unless the primary and caucus calendar is totally overhauled, the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire will most likely put a quick end to any future campaigns.

After last night’s devastating loss for Hillary Clinton, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama can now begin the general election campaign against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. I previously noted how the media has begun declaring Obama the winner, beginning with Tim Russert, Chuck Todd, and Matt Drudge. This continued on the morning news shows, increasing the sense that the nomination battle is over. Even George Stephanopoulos managed to break free of Hillary Clinton’s grasp on his balls and say, “More superdelegates will come out today for Barack Obama –they will come three, four, five at a time, and this nomination will be locked up.”

For Hillary Clinton it now comes down to preparing the exit strategy. There are reports (along with denials) that she is canceling public appearances, perhaps to give her more time to come up with reasons to justify remaining in the race. She might want to continue a battle which has now come down to satisfying her ego, but the decision might be made based upon the money. After initial denials, it has become known that Hillary Clinton, the new hero of the common working man, has loaned herself another 6.4 million dollars on top of the earlier five million dollar loan. With contributions drying up, for all practical purposes she must resort to self-financing if she is to continue. At this point she might remain in the race a little longer only to attempt to raise a little money to offset her debts, or perhaps to make a deal with Obama to assume her campaign debts.

Update: The exodus of Clinton supporters has begun. Former Clinton backer George McGovern is calling the Clintons to urge Hillary to drop out of the race and inform them of his decision to now endorse Obama. I expect many more to switch in the next couple of weeks.

Hillary Clinton was right. Tuesday night was a game changer, but not as she had hoped. Obama is winning in North Carolina by 15% and Indiana remains too close to call (despite Clinton’s earlier victory speech). It is no longer possible for Clinton to win a majority of delegates or win the popular vote. Obama has withstood a couple weeks of primarily bad news and still beat expectations in both states. Clinton threw everything she had at Obama, proving she is willing to do anything to win, without success. Clinton has lost any chance she might have had of convincing the superdelegates that Obama is no longer electable.

The media might have pretended that this was a real race long after it was mathematically over, but now the news media is getting ready to declare a winner. The New York Times says that Clinton’s options are dwindling. Drudge’s headline declares Obama The Nominee. Tim Russert (video above) and Chuck Todd have come to the same conclusion. Clinton might hold of on conceding a while longer, but for all practical purposes it is over.

It is a new era in politics, and the dirty politics of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and Hillary Clinton is no longer the way to win. Two families have shared control of the government for the past twenty years and have become virtually identical. The Clinton/Bush Dynasty is finally coming to an end.

How things have changed since 1992. Back in 1992, Bill Clinton cited endorsements from economists as reason to support him in a campaign ad (video above–hat tip to David Kurtz).

In 2008 Hillary Clinton not only ignores the economists after she adopted John McCain’s idea for a gas tax holiday. She even brags about ignoring economists.

A group of economists has responded. Bloomberg reports:

More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a letter rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a summertime gas-tax holiday.

Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, former Congressional Budget Office Director Alice Rivlin and 2007 Nobel winner Roger Myerson are among those who signed the letter calling proposals to temporarily lift the tax a bad idea. Another is Richard Schmalensee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was member of President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The moratorium would mostly benefit oil companies while increasing the federal budget deficit and reducing funding for the government highway maintenance trust fund, the economists said.

“Suspending the federal tax on gasoline this summer is a bad idea, and we oppose it,” the letter says. Economist Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution is among those circulating the letter. Aaron said that while he supports Obama, the list includes Republicans and Clinton supporters.

This issue has allowed Barack Obama to create a sharp contrast between himself and his two like-minded opponents after going through several weeks in which the race was distracted by non-issues ranging from flag pins to Reverend Wright. This issue highlights both the weakness of Clinton’s economic views and her willingness to say anything to get votes. Obama, and not McCain, also shows who the real straight talker is.

David Brooks also noted this difference between Obama and Clinton, accusing Clinton of “shameless spin.”

She peddled her sham gas-tax holiday and repeated her attempt to blame Indiana’s job losses on outsourcing and Nafta. Stephanopoulos asked her to name a single economist who thinks a tax-holiday plan would work, and the daughter of Wellesley and Yale took the chance to shove the geeks into their lockers: “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

When Stephanopoulos pointed out that Paul Krugman, a Times columnist, has raised doubts about the plan, Clinton lumped Krugman in with the Bush administration and said she wasn’t going to listen to the people responsible for the last seven years.

This wasn’t just shameless spin, it was shamelessness with a purpose. Clinton signaled that she wasn’t going to concede even an inch to the vast elitist conspiracy. She wasn’t going to feel guilty about ignoring the evidence. She was going to stomp on it, flay it and leave it a twisted mass of jelly quivering on the ground. She was going to perform the primordial duty of an alpha dog leader — helping one’s own.

James Hrynyshyn attended a Clinton rally and after seeing the “appeal to an anti-intellectual strain” fears she would give us “more of the last eight years.”

Not only did Clinton’s speech avoid anything remotely resembling a respect for the challenges and contributions that science poses and offers society, but she seemed to go out of her way to appeal to an anti-intellectual strain that her advisers must have told her holds sway in the largely Republican county in which she found herself.

First there was the repetition of her support for a gas tax holiday, which, as Jake has ably pointed out at Pure Pendantry, is perhaps the stupidest idea yet mooted in this campaign. How she squares this with her not-quite-a-plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2050 is beyond me. Or anyone else, I would think.

Such an idea is, as an educated friend of mine who very much wants to support Clinton told me as we waited for Clinton to arrive, an insult to her intelligence. But then, there was Clinton, insulting the intelligence of her audience every chance she got. The only common theme to emerge from the 30-minute ramble was an attack on our enemies. China is the enemy for selling us lead-contaminated toys and poison pet food. The Saudis are the enemy for exploiting our addition to oil. The rest of OPEC, too. And worst of all are those evil, parasitic “middlemen” who pop up in every corner of the economy, ready to take a cut and give back nothing.

Only ordinary Americans, and, because this Clinton campaign stop was in a rural corner of the state, only small-town Americans, can be trusted to do what’s right. It’s sad, really. Not only is everyone else the enemy, but intelligence itself is suspect. What we need, she seemed to be saying between the lines, is someone at the top who’s just a simple yokel. More of the last eight years, in other words.

Yesterday’s appearance by Hillary Clinton on This Week has received the most coverage for her once again supporting the gas tax holiday and saying she’s not going to listen to all the economists who disagree with her. Even someone asking a question at the Town Hall realized she was pandering:

I have — Sen. Clinton, I actually make less than $25,000 a year, so talking about gas prices is not academic for me. I really do feel pain at the pump.

However, I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax. I don’t think that it’s really a reasonable plan, and call me crazy, but I actually listen to economists, because I think that they know what they studied.

Robert Reich responded on his blog, comparing Clinton to George Bush:

In case you’ve missed it, we now have a president who doesn’t care what most economists think. George W. Bush doesn’t even care what scientists think. He rejects all experts who disagree with his politics. This has led to some extraordinarily stupid policies.

I’m not saying HRC is George Bush. And I’m not suggesting economists have all the answers. But when economists tell a president or a presidential candidate that his or her idea is dumb – and when all respectable economists around America agree that it’s a dumb idea – it’s probably wise for the president or presidential candidate to listen. When the president or candidate doesn’t, and proudly defends the policy by saying she’s “not going to put my lot in with economists,” we’ve got a problem, folks.

Even though the summer gas tax holiday is pure hokum, it polls well, which is why HRC and John McCain are pushing it. That Barack Obama is not in favor of it despite its positive polling numbers speaks volumes about the kind of president he’ll be – and the kind of president we’d otherwise get from McCain and HRC.

Haven’t we had enough of politicians who reject facts in favor of short-term poll-driven politics?

The Town Hall received controversy even before it occurred due to being hosted by George Stephanopoulos. The show did not help Stephanopoulos’ reputation as an independent journalist. Hillary Clinton spent most of the show ignoring the planned format of having the two seated. Instead she stood and grabbed Stephanopoulos by the balls. Ok, only the first part of that is true as was noted at CBS’s blog:

The interview was billed as a “town hall” where Indiana voters would get a chance to ask Clinton questions. Minutes into the interview, Clinton decided to ditch her chair, preferring to stand and address the audience. What ensued was an awkward interaction between Clinton and Stephanopoulos when the ABC host was forced to ask a few questions from his chair while Clinton loomed over him. (In fairness to Stephanopoulos, oftentimes in seated interview settings the journalist and/or the guest have their microphone cord taped to the chair, restricting one’s movement.)

Stephanopoulos tried to recover by standing alongside Clinton, but was forced to stand in a strange position as he remained tied to his chair.

After the first commercial break, the two were seated again, but within seconds Clinton decided she had had enough, forcing Stephanopoulos to stand, again.

The interview took another unpleasant turn when Stephanopoulos tried to pin down Clinton over her position on NAFTA, a trade program introduced by her husband during his presidency. Clinton has come out against the plan saying it was not good for American workers. Stephanopoulos said, “The Clinton administration didn’t do enough to address the downside of globalization and therefore failed the workers in Indiana and the workers of the West?”

Clinton clearly took offense to the tone of the question and while answering, decided to take a jab at the host.

As Joe Gandelman pointed out, “On most NEWS shows the interviewer is supposed to set the rules about where guests sit and the format. And the interviewer/journalist is supposed to be the one in control of the setting.” He concluded that, “Stephanopoulos finishes the day being perceived by some as a former Clinton employee still seemingly intimidated by his former boss.”

If Hillary Clinton was a prisoner of war and was offered a deal to be released before those captured after her, does anyone think Hillary would have refused an early release as John McCain did?

Has Bill Clinton totally lost his mind? From AP:

Former President Bill Clinton is cracking wise about his ability to make people faint, telling voters in North Carolina he didn’t think he still had it in him.Clinton was campaigning Sunday for his wife’s presidential bid on a hot and sunny day in western North Carolina. The state’s primary is Tuesday.

After one person fell during an event in Lenoir, Clinton joked: “Somebody faints at nearly every one of these things now. At my age, I didn’t think I could make anybody faint anymore.”

I guess joking about people fainting isn’t as bad as threatening to obliterate other countries.

Hillary Clinton has been trying to get the superdelegates to vote contrary to the majority of voters in Democratic primaries and caucuses by making a number of false claims. One of her recent tactics is to claim that there is a backlash against Obama which makes him unelectable. Hillary Clinton is right that there is a backlash but is wrong about the target. Writing in The New York Times, Charles Blow shows how there is an anti-Clinton backlash which might make it hard for her to beat John McCain.

Blow looks at the claims that Obama is losing support among white Democrats. He finds that Obama’s unfavorability rating is up five points among whites from last summer, but that his favorability rating is up by the same amount. On the other hand, Clinton’s favorability among black Democrats has fallen thirty-six percent during the same period. Blow writes:

If Hillary Clinton should defy the odds (and the current math) and secure the nomination, she would be hard-pressed to defeat John McCain without the enthusiastic support of black voters, stalwarts of the Democratic base.

Getting that support could now be tricky.

Many blacks are aghast that their extraordinary support of Bill Clinton in the past would be repaid by the Clintons with racial innuendo (in a Times/CBS News poll after the salacious 1998 Starr report was released, his unfavorable rating among whites climbed to 52 percent; among blacks it was only 10 percent). Some who stood by him then now apparently feel betrayed.