"The Burden of Command"

MSNBC interview with NY News reporter James Gordon Meek.

Owning Two Wars -- and the Presidency

A few weeks ago in the WSJ, Peggy Noonan wrote of the moment in which a President 'owns' his Presidency. (The context was, in typical Noonan fashion, passive/aggressive partisanship: At what point does the public make Obama responsible for the economy? Her answer: right about now.)

In the last two weeks, it appears that Obama has taken ownership of the role of Commander-in-Chief. In the early morning of Thursday, October 29th, the President paid a late night visit to Dover Air Force Base as the bodies of 18 American servicemen who had died in Afghanistan were returned home.

A week ago, on Thursday, November 5th, thirteen people were killed (and almost 30 wounded) by alleged gunman Nidal M. Hasan. Although Obama's immediate response was criticized by some, his speech on Tuesday at the Fort Hood memorial service was well-received.

And finally, yesterday, he laid a wreath at Arlington for the first time as President, and then stopped by Section 60 of the Cemetery; the visit was recounted in a moving piece by a journalist who was there "off duty."

Against the backdrop of a pending decision on strategy in Afghanistan, Obama seems to have grown into the role of C-in-C this past fortnight.

And his actions over the past few weeks bring into sharper relief the outrageousness of the "dithering" statement by former VP Dick Cheney.

Back to the Future?

Courtesy: Library of Congress.

"Did I Hit Something?"

With the John Edwards and NARAL (insert your own ironic expression here) endorsements yesterday, here's what the current state of the Democratic race looks like, as imagined by Martin Scorsese in 1:55:

The End of the Beginning?

Democrats hoping that the primary race will end soon would do well to focus on this map:


















(Courtesy: Jay Cost and Sean Oxendine.)

The area outlined is "Appalachia", which will vote today (in West Virginia) and in one week (in Kentucky).

Fill in the remainder of the outline in dark blue, and one might expect +30 point wins tonight and next Tuesday. And if those wins materialize, is that likely to allow Hillary to make a graceful exit (as some suggest) from the race, or only embolden her and her core supporters to make the argument that the Democratic "base" -- personified in Appalachia -- is not supporting the presumptive nominee?

While Obama is already moving (based on his campaign schedule) to a national calendar (he's in Cape Girardeau, MO, today), how does he explain the drubbing that he seems likely to receive as the end of the primary calendar draws near?

Obama is still in position to win the nomination, but it seems likely that there will be at least one more plot turn before it's all over.

Nothing is Over...Until We Decide It Is

For the third straight Primary Day, the press (and to some extent the Obama campaign), are buying into the construct: "If he can just win ________ [Ohio/Pennsylvania/Indiana/West Virginia] then this race will be over."

Unfortunately, such wishful thinking has prevented the Campaign from thinking strategically over the past six weeks (since Ohio/Texas on March 4th).

Obama's campaign needs to confront the unstated truth: Hillary is likely to stay in until the only vote that matters -- the one in Denver at the DNC (traditionally, in 'uncontested' conventions, this vote would be choreographed for Wednesday night; this year, with both candidates likely to arrive in Denver looking for the nomination.)

If the Clintons want to fight past June 3rd -- and don't forget, Bill Clinton popularized the concept of fighting "until the last dog dies" -- who's going to stop them? DNC Chair Howard Dean? Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Leader Harry Reid?

And what if Hillary listens politely and say, "No"?

Then what?

But if you assume she's in until August 28th -- the last day of the DNC Convention -- and work backwards, you might make different choices than spending a day in Altoona bowling a 37.

Meanwhile, John McCain -- despite the difficulties that any Republican would have in being elected at a time when the two-term incumbent's popularity is in the low 30s -- has open field in front of him as he tacks to the center.

Former DNC Chair Joe Andrews -- an erstwhile Hillary supporter -- wrote last week as he announced his switch from Hillary to Obama:

I ask the leaders of our Party to come together after this Tuesday's primary to heal wounds and unite us around a single nominee. While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our Party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us. John McCain, without doing much of anything, is now competitive against both of our remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him and distracting Americans from the issues that really affect all of our lives.

How does the process end?

She DOES Call Herself a 'Fighter', After All...

ABC's Jake Tapper reports that an anonymous DNC staffer coined a new metaphor for the 'kitchen sink' strategy that the Clinton campaign is falling back on in order to try to deny Obama a nomination victory:

"Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" the official said. "Is that really what we Democrats want?"

Harding, of course, conspired with her ex-husband to hire thugs who took down Nancy Kerrigan in the weeks leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics; more recently she ended her professional boxing career with a 3-3 record.

Sniper Fire from the MSM

The Obama campaign has been trying to get observers in the MSM to unpack Hillary Clinton's 'experience' argument for the past few weeks -- ever since the aftermath of Texas/Ohio -- without much success. Greg Craig's memo was not really echoed, and even Sinbad's (the comedian) comments on the USO trip to Bosnia was pretty much ignored.

But when the MSM went back and reviewed its own video of the then-First Lady's trip to Bosnia in 1996, which she recounted in a speech last week, the proverbial 'worm' has turned. While the Clintons had a sketched out a path to the nomination (albeit risky), the press this week has been writing the it's-all-over-but-the-margin-of-victory stories.

After a bad week for Barack Obama and Rev. Wright, it's Hillary's turn to be roasted in the YouTube universe. And the Clintons' argument that she is getting a raw deal from the press can't stand up to the video.

As Richard Pryor once said, in a different context: “Who you gonna believe, baby — me, or your lyin’ eyes?”

THAT Greg Craig?!?!

A new Obama-campaign memo has been getting a lot of attention this morning, with a step-by-step refutation of Hillary Clinton's assertion that she has been in key foreign policy decisions, such as Northern Ireland, Rwanda, and Bosnia.

The Northern Ireland summary from the memo closes with this:

Brian Feeney, an Irish author and former politician, sums it up: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn’t on it.”

The memo is written by Greg Craig, who is described as a Obama foreign policy advisor, and the "former director, Policy Planning Office, U.S. State Department" during the Clinton Administration. And Craig did serve in that capacity.

But Greg Craig also has some other connections to the Clintons. He is a partner at Williams & Connolly, where his bio includes this tid-bit:

In September 1998, President Clinton appointed Mr. Craig to be Assistant to the President and Special Counsel in the White House where Mr. Craig served as quarterback of the President’s team that was assembled to defend against impeachment. Mr. Craig was also a member of the President’s trial team in the United States Senate and presented the President’s defense with respect to Count One during that trial.

Finally, in a stranger coincidence, Craig, Hillary, and Bill Clinton were contemporaries at Yale Law School in the fall of 1971, when he sublet his apartment in New Haven to Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton for $75 per month.

Geraldine Ferraro, Meet Isiah Thomas

Actually, Geraldine Ferraro probably has met Isiah Thomas somewhere in the comings-and-goings of New York City.

Ferraro, a former congresswoman from Queens, currently practices with a New York City law firm; Isiah is of course, a former Hall-of-Fame basketball player with the Pistons, and is the current coach and GM of the Knicks.

Ferraro recently told told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, CA:

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position.

Meanwhile, back in 1987, Isiah (albeit after a tough playoff loss to the Celtics), was famously quoted as saying:

If [Larry] Bird was black, he'd be just another good guy.

The Chicago Way

The Big Winner

The undisputed winner last night was John McCain.

McCain wrapped up the nomination last night. He will receive the formal endorsement of the President this morning at the White House.

Meanwhile, the Democratic race will now go on for at least six more weeks. And the possibility that the single most unifying figure for the GOP -- Hillary Clinton -- may be his fall opponent has significantly increased.

And yet the speech McCain gave was a pivot to the...right.

McCain gave his conservative audience red-meat, from his discussion of the two-front war, to his promise to lower taxes, to this remarkable paragraph about the health care cost crisis:

I will leave it to my opponent to propose returning to the failed, big government mandates of the sixties and seventies to address problems such as the lack of health care insurance for some Americans. [Note: emphasis as delivered, see 9:13 of clip] I will campaign to make health care more accessible to more Americans with reforms that will bring down costs in the health care industry down without ruining the quality of the world's best medical care.

But with at least six more weeks -- and a Democratic race that will likely get uglier -- McCain may have time to repair his image with moderates and independents.

Fuzzy Math in Texas?

At 9:48pm ET, CNN is reporting the following results in Texas:

Obama: 579,152
Clinton: 506,197

Total votes: 1,085,349

Yet, only 6% of precincts have reported results.

By that math, more than 18 million Texas Democrats would be voting in today's election.

The total population of Texas is 23 million.

Hmmmm...

Update: The consensus is that the early numbers reflected "early voting." Late deciders broke overwhelmingly to Clinton (61-38%).

Irony

Halfway through tonight's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton proposed a freeze on interest rates:

So I would put a moratorium for 90 days, to give us time to work out a way for people to stay in their homes, and I would freeze interest rates for five years. Because these adjustable-rate mortgages, if they keep going up, millions of Americans are going to be homeless. And vacant homes will be across the neighborhoods of Texas and America.

There was another American politician with national stature who once proposed a freeze on wages and prices.

(And a young attorney, just commenced on a "35-year" career of service, worked on the impeachment of that very politician.)

Of course, that was during a time of high inflation and high unemployment. "Stagflation" they called it.

Not like today.

The Alamo or the Battle of Wisconsin Heights?

There are already indications that the Clinton campaign is re-thinking its strategy of ceding Wisconsin to Obama.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported this morning:

After sending out mixed signals about its seriousness here, the Clinton campaign took several steps Monday that it said underscored its commitment to the Wisconsin contest. It launched its first TV ads, almost a week after Obama went on the air. It announced that former President Clinton will campaign Thursday in Wisconsin. It announced that Sen. Clinton will be in the state from Saturday night through Tuesday morning, the day of the primary.

Will the Clinton forces retreat to a last stand in Texas (shades of the Alamo) or try to duplicate the successful raid known as the Battle of Wisconsin Heights?

He Covered

And then some. The 2-1 margin of victory was well beyond what anyone in either the Obama or Clinton camp could have imagined, or feared.

The victory speech capped off an historic week. One paragraph that has seemingly been missed:

That is the country I see. That is the country you see. But now it is up to us to help the entire nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.

He engages the listener on a much deeper level than a politician normally does; your fears of change are what is preventing us from accomplishing it.

The rhetoric through the rest of the speech is now almost moving behind the Clintons, who are reminders of all the partisan gridlock that Obama is running against. (Whether this proves to be 'too-much-too-early' is basically immaterial; it is clear that that is the way he can win.

Covering the Spread

Halfway through the regular season, the Patriots were 8-0, and even more impressively, were 8-0 against the 'spread' -- the Vegas line indicating the number of points by which a favorite should beat an underdog.

In the second half of the season, as bettors tuned into to how dominant the Patriots had become, the spreads on each game widened, such that the Pats have been just 2-7 in their last nine games (covering only against Buffalo (16 point spread; 46 point margin) and Pittsburgh (-10.5, won by 21)).

And its clear that Vegas has learned. The Pats were installed as 14-point favorites for next week's "Big Game"(*), but the line has slipped to 12, where it sits today. (Quick review: the line dropped because more bettors took the Giants and the points than the Pats (minus the line); Vegas makes money when there is approximately the same amount of money on both sides of the bet.)

But while the Vegas odds-makers have learned their lessons, political odds-makers have not. For the third week in a row, Barack Obama is perceived to be a heavy favorite going into an election.

On January 8th, Hillary Clinton escaped political death by pulling out a close victory in the New Hampshire primary when the pre-election polls had her trailing by double-digits. On January 19th, the endorsement of the Nevada Culinary Workers, together with a judge's decision to allow caucusing at the casinos (over a Clinton-supported, if not -financed, lawsuit) was supposed to insure Obama's victory. Instead, Clinton won the 'popular' vote in the caucuses, although Obama apparently eeked out a narrow 13-12 victory in national delegates awarded; regardless, the press considered Hillary to be the winner.

Now in South Carolina, Obama is again burdened by high -- and perhaps unrealistic -- expectations in the press. Hillary abandoned SC this week to campaign in the Super Tuesday states, leaving 'only' Bill Clinton and Chelsea behind. The presence of a significant African-American vote in SC is also supposed to be a huge advantage to Obama, although the Clintons have long been overwhelmingly supported by the black community.

The reality is that any win in a state where Obama trailed badly less than a month ago should be seen a 'victory'; after all, this was supposed to be an unstoppable coronation of Hillary as the Democratic nominee. But reality may not be what the press -- and the blogosphere -- has 'baked in' to the expected results.

For that matter, if the Patriots win next Sunday to go an unprecedented 19-0, whether they win by 1 point or 13 will make no difference.

At least outside of the sports books.

The Debate We REALLY Want to See

Hillary Clinton has taken to defending her husband's (un-Presidential, to some) conduct on the campaign trail with a variation on 'everyone's-doing-it':

[From Monday's South Carolina Debate]

CLINTON: Now, I just -- I just want to be clear about this. In an editorial board with the Reno newspaper, you said two different things, because I have read the transcript. You talked about Ronald Reagan being a transformative political leader. I did not mention his name.

OBAMA: Your husband did.

CLINTON: Well, I'm here. He's not. And...

OBAMA: OK. Well, I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes.

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: Well, you know, I think we both have very passionate and committed spouses who stand up for us. And I'm proud of that.

It's true that all three spouses are 'passionate' and 'committed', but only one has the megaphone of being a former POTUS.

So, while there's a debate next week at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles among the three remaining candidates (Hillary, Obama, and Edwards), there's still time to schedule a debate among the Democractic spouses:




Now that would be Must-See-TV.

SC Debate with Super Tuesday Looming

A truly wide-open debate, with personal attacks between the two leading contenders -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- that opened up new avenues of attack.

Obama seemed to handle the incoming flak well, except for his failure to concisely explain the "Present" votes that are apparently part of normal legislative process in Illinois. He was also the victim -- like Hillary was in the New Hampshire debate -- of some double-team attacks, including the "Present" votes. The question is whether viewers are paying attention to the details of the debate, or rather taking a more general view of whether a candidate (in this case, Obama) is strong enough to handle the pressure of a campaign -- or office.

On the health care debate, the apparent failure of Obama's plan to explicitly start out with 100% coverage, also seems to be a debating point for Hillary (and Edwards, for that matter). Again, however, getting Obama to engage in any of the policy details -- as opposed to a more general discussion of how to achieve his stated goal of a "working majority" in Congress.

Hillary's core argument is that she is up to the attacks that the Republicans will bring, because she has been handling them for the "past 16 years." Obama responded with a strong criticism, from someone "who will say anything to get elected."

Obama took on directly the fundamental question in the debate: what is the legacy of the Clinton (42) presidency? In a Democratic primary, it is extremely difficult to criticize Bill Clinton, the first two-term President since FDR. Yet while the risks are immense to Obama, he may have no choice -- if he allows Hillary to frame the politics of the 1990s as successful, it may be impossible to prevent a third Clinton term, at least in the Democratic primary. Further, Obama may have needed to be sure that SC voters -- and especially the large black contingent -- would understand that he would stand up to both Clintons, and for himself.

The national press corps seems to be coalescing around a narrative that has the Clintons (especially the ex-POTUS) doing a good job of lowering expectations. In both New Hampshire and Nevada, the press was surprised by a positive Clinton showing. But with the accelerated primary schedule -- and with Super Tuesday looming -- we are into uncharted waters here.

If the delegates are awarded pro rata (as all Democratic delegates are now awarded, and not with 'winner-take-all'), it is probably impossible for Hillary to have a knock-out on Super Tuesday. Although about half the delegates will be selected on a single day (February 5th), it is possible that the split will reflect the early results -- very close between Hillary and Obama. And with both Hillary (with 210 delegates (including superdelegates, or 10%) and Obama (123 delegates, or 6%) only a small part of the way towards to the nomination, it is possible that neither will be at more than 35-40% of the way.

One factor that has not been fully explored: the role that Latino voters will play. With Governor Bill Richardson out of the race, there is no 'natural' home for Latinos, and that may have played a role in the results in Nevada. Many February 5th states will have significant Latino populations. Finally, there are the tensions between black and brown communities, which differ in different parts of the country.

Edwards, although often reduced to being a bit player in tonight's debate, seemed to be the one who stood above the fray, although when he did jump in (on the "Present" votes and the health care debate). Whether that helps him substantively, after a poor showing (4%) in Nevada, is a question yet to be answered.

The Super Bowl of Politics

With two major American spectator sports -- pro football and Presidential politics -- colliding on television this January, it is worth a closer observation.

In football, the rhythm of the regular season gives way to Wild Card Weekend, followed by the Divisional Playoffs and (this upcoming weekend), the Conference Championships. All of that excitement, with TV bringing us a new game from a new location each weekend, leads up to the preeminent sporting event in professional sports: the Super Bowl.

With locations picked years in advance (get your plane tickets for Supe XLV, to be held in the Dallas Metroplex), the location becomes -- for the week leading up to the game -- the sports and entertainment capital of the world. The telecast itself is the ultimate marketing spot for consumer advertisers. Anyone out there remember Bud Bowl?



Presidential politics, in contrast, begins (at least on TV) with the "Super Bowl": Iowa, and to a greater extent, the New Hampshire Primary. While Iowa is dispersed and the caucus system is archaic, New Hampshire (especially this year) provided everything a political junkie could want: two competitive races, a navigable city (Manchester), and a primary that ended up with a surprise ending.

Fox and CNN come up weeks in advance to build elaborate sets and backdrops. You can't drive for 5 minutes in Manchester on the weekend before the Primary without running into a candidate or a national political journalist -- or both. The campaigns themselves, having been in the states for well over a year before Election Day, secure the best venues for their election night speeches. The whole week becomes an elaborate set-piece that culminated with John McCain reprising his NH win in the very same hotel room where he claimed victory in 2000.



But now that the political Super Bowl is over, its off to the equivalent of Wild Card Weekend. The locations move each night, and the campaigns are put together with tape and baling wire. Instead of elaborately staged victory parties, even Mitt Romney looked spontaneous last night with his sleeves rolled up and his hair (or at least 3 strands) slightly askew:



The wildness will continue for at least three more weeks, to February 5th. At that point, perhaps the writers' strike will have been resolved.