Joy-Zee
A few days ago, a Republican friend of mine up on Capitol Hill emailed me and asked if I had any idea what the hell Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) was thinking challenging incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) after Lautenberg had basically lined up the entire New Jersey Democratic political establishment behind him. But TPM Election Central's Eric Kleefeld took a look and says Andrews' bid may not be quite as quixotic as it looks.
Remember, the key to understanding this race is that the Republican nominees are such a collective trainwreck (a libertarian ideologue, a genuine fascist and a failed trust fund baby) that it doesn't seem like there's much of a way the Democratic nominee can lose.
Late Update: Hmmm, seems just today a non-certifiable Republican is hinting he's getting into the race.
--Josh Marshall
"Almost All," All Around
Earlier today we told you that we were trying to find out details about how much of Sens. Clinton's and Obama's March money hauls were for the primary and for the general. Earlier today, Sen. Obama's campaign told us that "almost all" their $40 million was for the primary. And now we've just heard from Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson who says that "almost all" of their $20 million was for the primary too.
--Josh Marshall
M.J. Rosenberg, on why the presidential candidates so rarely broach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
--David Kurtz
McCain?
Okay, that wasn't so hard. Now can we have McCain's tax returns?
--Josh Marshall
What A Goof
Mark Penn on his Colombia trade deal lobbying: It was an "error in judgment."
--Josh Marshall
Don't Believe the Hype
Winding its way through this year's primary process is a continuing concern that Republicans are somehow gaming the Democratic primary process. It was raised early on against Obama -- that his substantial support from independents and crossover Republicans was evidence of trying to saddle Democrats with the weaker nominee. More recently we hear again and again from Obama supporters that Hillary Clinton's victories on March 4th and perhaps going forward are padded with the votes of Republicans who Rush Limbaugh has gotten to vote for her in an effort to derail Barack Obama's candidacy. Today a long time TPM Reader even asked whether I didn't think it was possible that Barack Obama's huge fundraising numbers weren't made possible by Republicans trying to make him look stronger than he really is.
Since these questions come up a lot let me say for the record that I think all of these claims are nonsense. Some more than others of course. I'm about as sure as I can be of anything that Republicans aren't engaged in a massive clandestine effort to pump Barack Obama full of record-breaking amounts of campaign cash. But I'm also pretty sure all of Limbaugh's yapping hasn't made any substantial difference in the Democratic vote totals. Certainly, there's a possibility of this once one side's primary process is over. But while a few true political obsessives may engage in this sort of too clever double-bank shot voting, I've never seen any evidence that large numbers of people will turn out at the polls to vote for people they don't actually support.
It's hard to prove a negative. And this is just my opinion, though somewhat educated, I think. But I just don't think these sorts of things ever turn out to be true. They're unproven and largely undisprovable speculations that partisans on all sides use to paper over outcomes that don't conform to their assumptions and desires.
If you don't agree, I'd like to see the evidence.
Late Update: TPM Reader DS knows it sounds nutty but thinks there may be something to it ...
While I certainly don’t believe that Republicans are donating loads of money to Obama to make him look stronger, I am positive that the Republicans are trying to garner more support for Hillary to keep this race close and bloody Obama up. As for evidence, I probably have as much as you have to argue the contrary. . . . .none. All you need to do is listen to Rush’s show any day as he gloats about “operation chaos” as he calls it. He even has made merchandise regarding it. Not only are callers calling in and telling to the entire country that they are voting for Clinton in large numbers, they are also being selected as county and state delegates, possibly even delegates that get to go to the convention. It has gone even further though. He is in the process of coordinating a text messaging system or something that allows Limbaugh and the selected delegates to coordinate their efforts in some fashion. Listen, I know how this sounds, but all you need to do is go through his transcripts and listen to his show. Can Limbaugh’s minions make a difference, maybe or maybe not? In a close race like this a handful of delegates can be all that matters, especially if it goes to super delegates. Check it out for yourself.
Later Update: TPM Reader KA disagrees too: "Well I have to admit that as a Kansan, I often voted in primaries as a Republican to offset votes for someone I didn't want. And I know lots of people who do. Whether large numbers do, I don't know. If you are in a state where your party NEVER wins (or rarely), voting becomes more of a free for all."
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Mortificationathon
I must say that it's rather ironic that our April 1st bloopers reel episode of TPMtv, partly in honor of the one year anniversary of TPMtv, is ending up to be one of our most popular episodes ever. Maybe we shouldn't spend so much time worrying about flubbed words or ambulance sirens. Anyway, in case you missed it ...
--Josh Marshall
Show Us the (Primary) Money
After the Clinton and Obama campaigns announced their March fundraising totals yesterday, a number of readers asked for that further important level of detail -- how much of the haul was for the primary and how much for the general election. Money raised for the general is irrelevant for evaluating how much each campaign has for contesting the remaining primaries.
We're asking. But so far neither campaign has responded to our queries.
We'll keep you posted.
Late Update: The Obama campaign has now told us that "almost all" their $40 million is for the primary. Still somewhat vague. They say they'll have full details when they do the filing in a couple weeks.
Late Update: In case you needed evidence that the protracted race is really taking a toll on some people, we note this email from TPM Reader JK ...
JoshYou wrote:
"Money raised for the general is irrelevant for evaluating how much each campaign has for contesting the remaining primaries."Why you felt the need to say that is once again evidence of bias.
It IS relevant for how much a candidate will have for the general. There is no guarantee or expectation that the same contributors will pony up as much in the general. That is where Clinton's good judgement shows in saving some for the general.
Perhaps Obama can just put it on his Visa card if he's the nominee.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
Would the Bush administration politicize an intelligence report? Don't answer that.
The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq says the surge is working, but Dems think it's funny that the report omits the Iraqi government's recent failed offensive against Sadr's Mahdi Army.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Campaign 2008 Roundup #18
In today's episode we examine the contending theories for how racialized voting may be affecting the Democratic primary race ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
Mark, Mark, Mark ...
Just out from the Wall Street Journal ...
Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn't there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm.
The firm has a contract with the South American nation to help promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department.
There are so many reasons why candidates should be paying Mark Penn to stay as far away from their campaigns as possible. But this is yet another. Having your key campaign advisor also be an international man of mystery-cum-PR-lobbyist-cheeseball is fairly problematic. But for Hillary's sake, when her political future is on the line in a state like Pennsylvania, wracked by the loss of industrial jobs for decades, you think he could have waited a few more weeks before prancing off to help get a new free trade pact passed?
--Josh Marshall
Finally an Indiana Poll
Hillary by 3. Details here.
Thanks to TPM Reader JW for the tip.
--Josh Marshall
New CBS/NYT Sounding
There's a new CBS/NYT poll out; but I haven't yet seen a write-up of the campaign details. So a few nuggets, which will be followed later with a write-up at TPM Election Central.
The internals look significantly better for Obama than Clinton. For instance, Democrats overwhelmingly think Obama's the stronger general election candidate -- 56% to 32%. On favorable vs. unfavorable ratings, Obama has the biggest net positive of all three candidates -- 19%. Clinton has a net negative 1%.
On "shares the values of Americans", it's Obama (70%-21%), McCain (66%-27%) , Clinton (60%-34%). But the numbers are fairly close.
One thing that jumps out at me if the question of who particular candidates would favor -- rich, middle class, etc. Obama does 'better' than Clinton. But 53% of voters think McCain would favor the rich -- and only 23% say he'd treat all economic classes the same.
Still there's good news for Hillary and Dems across the board in the horse-race number. Both Dems beat McCain by five points (Obama 47%-42% and Clinton 48% to 43%).
Late Update: The Times now has up their own write-up of the results, which paints a more mixed picture for Obama. Here's the Times pdf of the poll internals. Here's the one from CBS. I'd be curious to hear what others think after looking at the crosstabs. There's a notch down in Obama's favorables among Democratic primary voters. And a chunk of Democratic primary voters who had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton appear to have moved into the undecided column. Overall, though, in most of the key measures that people are now watching, the internals pretty much all look good for Obama and he appears to have been damaged very little by March. But, again, take a look at the internals and let me know your thoughts.
--Josh Marshall
More Than Just Race
A number of TPM Readers have written in to suggest that in my posts today about racialized voting I seem to be treating it as an assumption that whites voting for Clinton are doing so because they're not willing to vote for Obama because he's black. So to dispel any confusion that's definitely not what I'm saying. There are any number of reasons voters are voting for Hillary Clinton. And I don't just mean that as a throwaway line. The one that stands out to me more than any other is her self-identification as a fighter, which puts her in line with recent Democratic candidacies much more than Obama's. That stance appeals to a lot of people not only because that's how they think of politics but because that's how they experience their lives.
So I think it is acceptable and important to note the broad differences in how different demographic groups vote, especially because the percentage of the white vote that Obama gets has varied greatly from state to state. We can ask that question without assuming that one group of people is voting for candidate A only because of candidate B's race.
But here's the thing. If I'm not mistaken that's actually pretty much exactly the argument the Clinton camp is now making both to reporters and super delegates. Namely, that if Barack Obama fails to make serious inroads with working class white Democrats in Pennsylvania that will mean that these voters actually refuse to vote for him either because he is black or because of the Wright issue, which is in many respects a proxy for the issue of race.
So in many respects it seems to me that Clinton is the one who in her current argument is reducing her candidacy to being largely about race.
--Josh Marshall
Hot on Their Heels
Paul Kiel interviews NYT reporter Eric Lichtblau, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting on the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program, about his new book, Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice.
Lichtblau knows this stuff as well, if not better, than anyone outside of the government. His discussion of what is known about the parameters of the warrantless wiretapping and data mining programs is worth your time.
--David Kurtz
Yoo, Me?
In an Esquire interview, John Yoo seeks to put some distance between his legal memos and the policies later based upon them.
--David Kurtz
The 'Salience' of Race
As we all know, there have been repeated claims over the course of this election season that the Clinton campaign has 'injected' race into the campaign in order to build up their voting advantage among white voters.
Let's start by setting aside whether that's true or not and focus on what it means and whether it actually would matter. I frequently get emails from readers who say, in so many words, hey, what does it even mean to 'inject' the issue of race or Obama's race into the campaign. Everyone knows that Obama is black. It's not a secret, etc.
There's a superficial logic to this point. But for those who make this argument seriously (and I think many just use it as a cudgel) you can only do so if you are indifferent not only to common sense and a great deal of data in social psychology. Even if we're not steeped in the data, I think we've all seen discussions of psych experiments where respondents' answers and opinions can be changed if certain statements are told to them or pictures are shown to them before the experiment starts. Simple suggestion that keys into different thought patterns.
It's easy to make a straw man of it. No, people aren't controlled like robots if one candidate starts saying race, race, race. Black, black, black. But focusing a political contest on race can make a difference. At least there is a very, very long history of it.
--Josh Marshall
A General, Not a Primary
We've been digging through a lot of numbers over the last two days, mainly focusing on how voting patterns are affected by race. But through all this we need to remember the obvious, which is that the dynamics of a primary election are not the same as those of a general. So, for instance, if we assume for the sake of discussion that working class white Democrats in Pennsylvania are going to vote disproportionately for Clinton, what does that mean for the general if Obama's the nominee? Will the premium, as ugly a word as it may be in this context, of being a white candidate overcome party affiliation? Or more concretely, will a white voter who wouldn't vote for Obama over Clinton nevertheless vote Obama over McCain?
I think there's an instinctive desire not to be naive and say, 'no'. If they won't vote for a black candidate in the primary they won't vote for a black candidate in the general either.
But the truth is that we don't know. What's more, these calculations aren't figuring in gender either. There is no question that women are turning out in big numbers to vote for Hillary Clinton. If Obama's the nominee, how will the lack of that opposing draw on the other side affect him in a race against McCain?
--Josh Marshall
Obama Ahead Among ... Well, Just Read
Barack Obama has now pulled even with Hillary Clinton in endorsements of elected officials who are also super delegates, according to the count of Bloomberg news at least. As Bloomberg puts it, "Barack Obama has pulled even with Hillary Clinton in endorsements from top elected officials, with a surge in support from congressional freshmen and governors from Republican-dominated states."
(ed.note: The key on the super delegate count is, once again, whether you count Florida and Michigan. Remember, those states didn't just lose their pledged delegates. Their super delegates are disqualified too.)
Late Update: This post originally, and incorrectly, stated that Obama was now ahead in super delegates. That was my error (to some degree helped along by Bloomberg's lead). He's ahead among super delegates who are elected public officials rather than Democratic party officials. But really super delegates are super delegates; and she's ahead with about 30.
--Josh Marshall
Damn Statistics
Last night we noted David Sirota's "race chasm" argument for explaining where Barack Obama has and has not done well this year. In particular, David's post contains a chart which appears to show Obama doing well in states with black populations of less than 5% and more than 15%. Between 5% and 15% is the 'chasm'.
Meanwhile, Brendan Nyhan has posted a lengthy critique of his own which also includes copious graphs. Nyhan takes a number of steps to organize the data in more sophisticated ways. He orders the states by their black populations rather than by their national ranking of black populations. And he removes caucuses from the mix to control for whatever distorting effect there may be from this different method of holding the contest. Finally, he looks at the percentage of the white vote for Obama across the different states. And what he finds is not Sirota's 'chasm' but a fairly straightforward "negative linear relationship between Obama's white support and black population." In other words, the more black voters in the state, the worse Obama does among white voters.
Looking over the evidence, however, I'm not sure this apparent disagreement is anything other than the same point expressed a different way. What I take to be implicit in Sirota's argument is that racially polarized voting increases with the size of the black population in a given state. That leaves Obama winning a lot of states with few blacks. But once the black population gets into the high single digits, racialized voting kicks in and Obama then can't get enough of the white population to win. Only when blacks approach 20% of the population does the black population get large enough to make up for and often overcome the increased white resistance to voting for Obama. (After all, I don't think Sirota is saying that Mississippi and Louisiana are models of racial harmony.) Of course, these are Democratic primaries, not general elections. And that is the key. Because that means that in most cases the percentage of the black electorate is roughly double what it is in the general election.
Take that all together and Sirota's numbers look just like Nyhan's, only pushed through the strainer of a Democratic primary.
--Josh Marshall
A "Race Chasm"?
Earlier we discussed the question of why Barack Obama appears to do better in some red states than in some purple states -- at least in their Democratic primaries. More specifically, we looked at the question of whether the pattern doesn't show Obama doing well in states with small and large black populations but not in those states in the middle -- with black populations roughly in line with the national average, which is just over 12%. It turns out that David Sirota makes a strong argument for this pattern over at TPMCafe today. And he even backs it up with a chart that suggests a pretty strong correlation.
Obama does well in states with under 5% black population and over 15%. Between those two percentages, though, his record in Democratic primaries is poor.
I have some questions about David's methodology. He looks at 33 of the 42 states that have voted so far, setting aside the three states where one candidate arguably had a home state advantage, 2 states where John Edwards played a substantial role, one state (Michigan) where only Clinton was on the ballot, and four states where a substantial Hispanic population complicated the racial landscape.
I want to take a closer look at whether excluding those states covers over any complexities or contradictions in the argument. But on its face the pattern is striking. And his argument is definitely worth your time to read.
--Josh Marshall
Must Read
Don't miss TPM alum Spencer Ackerman's cover piece in the new issue of the American Prospect: The Obama Doctrine.
--Josh Marshall
Always Read the Footnotes
The AP did*:
For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.That view was expressed in a secret Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view.
The October 2001 memo was written at the request of the White House by John Yoo, then the deputy assistant attorney general, and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time. The administration had asked the department for an opinion on the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity.
The 37-page memo is classified and has not been released. Its existence was disclosed Tuesday in a footnote of a separate secret memo, dated March 14, 2003, released by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
''Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations,'' the footnote states, referring to a document titled ''Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States.''
*Or rather the ACLU did and sent out a press release.
--David Kurtz
How's It Play, Part II
We've noted this issue before. But a number of readers have brought it up in response to the post below about red state Democrats endorsing Obama. In so many words, perhaps the pattern is that Obama does well in states with large black populations (at least in terms of primaries) and states with very small black populations. The problem is in states with substantial but not particularly large African-American populations in which you have a deep-seated and pre-existing racial politics that ends up playing in Clinton's favor. This, if the theory is right, would explain why Obama does well in the Mountain West and the South but has a harder time in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
I think this is part of an explanation. But I don't think it adequately deals with all the admittedly small set of data we have. How, for instance, does it account for Obama's victories in Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut among other states? The first three of those in particular suggest that the pattern is not that simple.
In the highly unlikely event that Obama wins Pennsylvania, perhaps we'll decide the whole pattern was a mirage, based only on the outcome of Ohio. But the pattern does seem to apply particularly to states that not only have a racial make-up similar to the population of the country as a whole but are also in the rustbelt. If that pattern holds perhaps it's more the almost combustible and simmering mix of race and class divisions.
Meanwhile, TPM Reader JB has a completely different take on the question ...
I have a simple answer for the question as to why Obama's getting endorsements from red and purple states: it has to do with Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, together with Obama's strategy of campaigning everywhere, as opposed to the Clinton/McAuliffe strategy of focusing resources on a few key states.(Yes, I know that Dean is officially neutral, but his style fits better with Obama's than with Clinton's).
Simply put, Democrats in places like Montana or Wyoming are going to be better off this fall, for their own races, with Obama's people running the party than with Clinton's people, despite any concerns over Rev. Wright. They'll get more resources thrown their way, and an emphasis on grassroots fundraising instead of reliance on a bunch of billionaire friends of the Clintons will also send more resources their way. And that remains the case even if Obama winds up falling short.
The Clintonites will scream about squandered resources, because for them, the resources run out when all their friends have kicked in their $4600. But if you run in more places, you can actually raise revenue from people who wouldn't have considered contributing before.
--Josh Marshall
CINC
The Clinton campaign just unveiled another 3 AM ad, this one about Hillary's ability to be the "commander-in-chief of the economy", as the accompanying press release puts it.
Personally, I will not rest easy until we have a generalissimo of health care, monetary and fiscal policy with plenary powers to marshal the armed forces and set aside congressional enactments to preserve America's vital interests.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: The Argument
In today's episode we look at news that the Clinton camp is discussing Jeremiah Wright in conversations with super delegates and how the press and spinners on both sides are reacting ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
The Lawyers
In an exquisitely timed piece on Bush administration torture policies, Vanity Fair reports on a visit to GITMO in the fall of 2002 by Cheney's chief counsel David Addington, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes and CIA lawyer John Rizzo. There they met with interrogators and "brought ideas with them which had been given from sources in D.C.," a general tells VF.
--David Kurtz
How's It Play?
Yesterday Harold Ickes told TPM's Greg Sargent that Jeremiah Wright and his relationship with Barack Obama were coming up as a key topic in his discussions with superdelegates, trying to woo them over to Hillary Clinton. It was left unclear in the interview just who was bringing Wright up. But whoever is bringing it up, it's hardly a surprise that it would be a topic of discussion. If there's one vulnerability of Obama's it seems very likely Republicans would hit on in a general election, that's it.
In fact, since I think the Wright thing is a real liability for Obama (for many reasons, not least of which is the way it simply reinforces the race issue), I would expect that the pols to the Ickes argument would be folks from red and purple states. And yet my impression is that that's not what's happening. If anything, just the opposite.
Since January Obama has been able to score endorsements that really don't square with the idea that he's a loser in the general or someone who'd hurt Dems down ticket. The names I think of are Tim Johnson, Ben Nelson, Claire McCaskill, Bob Casey, Lee Hamilton, etc. (To be sure, Pennsylvania has been consistently Democratic over the last few cycles, if only by small margins. But I put Casey in since a lot of his base is in the redder parts of the state.)
Today you've got Wyoming Gov. Freudenthal (D) endorsing Obama. Now, Wyoming's not going to be in the Democratic column, to put it mildly. So in itself Freudenthal's endorsement isn't an above-the-fold news story. But if it's not that significant nationally, I'm sure Freudenthal gave it a good deal of thought for how it would affect him and the Democratic party in his state.
So why is it the Democrats from the reddest states and many from purple states seem to go for Obama over Hillary Clinton? If nothing else it seems to me that these people are voting with their feet on Ickes argument and they're not convinced.
--Josh Marshall
What's Worse Than Being a Democrat?
Monica Goodling -- former Justice Department liaison to the White House who admitted to Congress that she "crossed the line of the civil service rules" -- is under investigation by DOJ for her role in the firing of a department lawyer who was rumored to be a lesbian. "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat," a Republican source told NPR.
--David Kurtz
Uh-Oh
From the Detroit News ...
The co-founder and former CEO of the liberal-progressive Democracy Radio and husband of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow was caught in February by a Troy police sting aimed at catching prostitutes, according to a police report.Thomas L. Athans was stopped Feb. 26 by undercover officers investigating a possible prostitution ring in a room at the Residence Inn near Big Beaver and Interstate 75. Athans paid a 20-year-old prostitute $150 for sex in a Troy hotel but was not arrested, according to police reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Detroit News. The police report said officers observed Athans enter a room under surveillance and leave 15 minutes later. Detectives followed and stopped Athans' silver 2002 Cadillac DeVille on Interstate 75 near Square Lake Road.
--Josh Marshall
Keep An Eye On It
In this post The Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder notes that top lobbyist Doug Davenport is joining the McCain campaign as one of its ten regional campaign managers. He also, as Ambinder notes, one of the founders and current chief lobbyist for the DCI Group. Now, as long time TPM readers know, DCI is the Republican outfit when it comes to 'astroturf' (i.e., phoney) grassroots campaigns and sundry campaign bamboozlment.
Separate from his affiliation with the key GOP slimesters, there's also the issue of Davenport's being another top tier lobbyist helping run McCain's campaign. And with reference to that, I found this line from Marc's post particularly revealing: "Davenport's new position is certain to precipitate complaints from rivals that McCain is packing his campaign with the lobbyists whose conduct he has denounced. McCain's advisers have said that McCain's credentials as a reformer are solid and can overcome any optics problem that comes along with hiring lobbyists."
To be clear, I think he is accurately conveying the McCain line here. But look what it's actually saying: that McCain's reputation as someone who won't truck with lobbyist is so strong that it can overcome the fact that he's staffing his campaign with top dollar lobbyists, i.e., my reputation trumps the evidence.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
No surprise here. The Must Read is the Yoo torture memo.
Paul Kiel runs down the history of the memo and the fight for its public release.
--David Kurtz
Poll Watching
There are two new polls out on Pennsylvania. Quinnipiac's is in line with the other polls that have come out this week, showing Obama gaining on Clinton but still significantly behind. They have him 9 points back. Meanwhile Public Policy Polling, which has had a solid record this year, shows Obama taking a narrow 2 point lead. For the moment, the PPP poll has to be seen as an outlier, though it is important to note that the PPP poll is the most recent survey.
But look at these internals from the Q poll, which will certainly get highlighted by the Clinton campaign, clipped from the Q poll release memo
Florida: Clinton 44 percent - McCain 42 percent; McCain beats Obama 46 – 37 percent;
Ohio: Clinton beats McCain 48 – 39 percent; Obama gets 43 percent to McCain’s 42 percent;
Pennsylvania: Clinton tops McCain 48 – 40 percent; Obama leads McCain 43 – 39 percent.
And to add to the equation, the Q poll memo suggests a significant racial dynamic in the voting when McCain is placed against the two Democratic contenders.
--Josh Marshall
PPP: Obama Takes Lead in Penn
I believe this is the first poll showing Obama up in Pennsylvania: Obama 45, Hillary 43. That's a 26-point swing since PPP's last poll two weeks ago.
--David Kurtz
QPAC: Hillary Up 9 In Pennsylvania
In addition to showing Hillary leading Obama in Pennsylvania, the latest round of polling has her doing better than Obama against McCain in general election matchups in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
--David Kurtz
Shocks the Conscience II
TPM Reader KM, reacting to release of the Yoo memo:
This is genuinely chilling. What shocks the conscience is that a legal scholar from one of our most prestigious institutions of law and higher learning could in his own mind on behalf of a government seeking to find a way around legal obstacles offer the same banal rationale for perpetrating unspeakable acts of torture and cruel treatment as all other totalitarian regimes: The ends justify the means. Why? Because someone cloaked with authority says it does.All humans self-justify. This is our nature. Our nation was founded as one of laws rather than men for the very reason of establishing limits on the worst excesses of human imagination, lust for power, and the capacity to self-justify. Perhaps such a sociopathic mindset fails to rise to the standard Yoo offers for criminal prosecution of torture only when “inspired by malice or sadism,” but this distinction is a matter of degree rather than kind and an incredibly fragile thread on which to hang our national humanity and reputation, to say nothing of the destroyed lives and sufferings of the victims.
What also shocks the conscience is that we have reached such a profound state of exhaustion or indifference to such shocking revelations that disclosure of the Yoo document is unlikely to cause much of a ripple in the news cycle.
Likewise, from TPM Reader SK:
What shocks the conscience is that John Yoo, who wrote that legally, morally, ethically unacceptable garbage, is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a respected "talking head" in the national media. The First Amendment protects his right to have such repulsive opinions, but a healthy society would not so eagerly reward enablers and defenders of torture.Scooter Libby lost his license to practice law for far less.
Late Update: TPM Reader RF:
My parents were Hungarian holocaust survivors.The question most asked them about that era was, "how could it happen? What could have been done?
My mother's reply was that tyranny takes little steps. People get upset, and then accept it. Then another little step. A few more little steps and you have death camps.
Yoo's defense of torture is one more little step moving us away from civilization and closer to madness. Where is the outcry?
--David Kurtz
Shocks the Conscience
Late today, in response to longstanding congressional demands, the Justice Department released a declassified version of one of the original legal underpinnings for U.S. government-sanctioned torture, a March 14, 2003 memo written by the Office of Legal Counsel's John Yoo.
From the Post:
The memo--which was rescinded just nine months after it was issued--provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war, contending that numerous laws and treaties that forbid torture or cruel treatment should not apply to the interrogations of enemy combatants overseas. …"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," Yoo wrote. "In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."
Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a "national and international version of the right to self-defense," Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations -- that it must "shock the conscience" -- that the Bush administration advocated for years.
"Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification," Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted.
--David Kurtz
Brilliant
Within less than a week the Basra offensive has gone from "a defining moment" in Iraqi's history, in the President's words, to an operation conceived by Maliki that the U.S. didn't plan, had little warning of, and couldn't control.
--David Kurtz
Match Day
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gets on board with the proposed July 1 deadline for super-delegates to make their preferences known.
--David Kurtz
Clinton Discussing Wright to Woo Super-delegates
In an interview with TPM Election Central, Clinton éminence grise Harold Ickes discusses Obama's Rev. Wright problem, the wooing of superdelegates, and whether Hillary will take the fight over the Michigan and Florida delegations to the convention floor.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Not All Fun & Games
We've resisted the urge to foist fake news on you in honor of April Fool's Day. But today we've decided to bring you some of my own true moments of foolishness. You may think putting together TPMtv is just a walk in the park. But try keeping a straight face with Florida Rep. Bob Allen's claim that rather than soliciting the guy in the next bathroom stall for sex he was actually trying to offer his assistance in case his stall mate had been struck by lightning. Not an easy thing. So today, in honor of the one year anniversary of TPMtv we're bringing you some of our favorite moments from the cutting room floor ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
The Admiral Who Can't Shoot Straight
It doesn't take much to gain a reputation in Washington as a straight-shooter, and it takes a lot to lose it.
Adm. Mike McConnell came in as the Director of National Intelligence with a rep for being professional and non-partisan, a calling card the Bush Administration has put to its own uses. He has been the point man in what Marty Lederman has correctly identified as the Administration's standard operating procedure when caught in conduct of dubious legality.
It starts, Lederman notes, with sending to Congress "messengers who the Intel committees trust -- solemn, serious, professionals, often uniformed military officers." That's McConnell to a T.
In his first months as DNI, McConnell did plenty to undermine that rep. He told Congress that three German terrorism suspects had been arrested due to intercepts made possible by the then-new Protect America Act when in fact they were obtained under the old FISA law. Soon after, McConnell offered a especially misleading account to Congress of a supposed FISA Court ruling that had delayed the U.S. from spying on the kidnappers of U.S. troops in Iraq. And throughout congressional debate on a surveillance law he claimed that the debate itself endangered American lives.
Then earlier this year, he suggested that a questioner at a public event at Johns Hopkins was "disappointed" that the U.S. hadn't suffered additional terrorist attacks. And now McConnell has really let lose, framing the Senate debate on the surveillance bill as being between those who think "we shouldn't have an Intelligence Community" and those who do. That has prompted a letter from Sen. Russ Feingold demanding an apology for those false characterizations of the debate.
It's an enviable track record in "straight-shooting."
So what does it take to get knocked from that lofty Capitol perch occupied by so-called "straight-shooters"?
Here's a promising sign. The L.A. Times reports today, in a piece headlined "Intelligence Director McConnell is Cast as a Lobbyist," that Dems on the House intel committee are no longer buying McConnell's schtick.
At a secret meeting with the committee last month McConnell was going through the usual motions of Lederman's step one above, trying to promote a "calmer atmosphere" for future debate. But things deteriorated from there, and the Times reports that "the event ended with a series of acrimonious exchanges":
Democrats accused McConnell of making exaggerated claims and of doing the bidding of the Bush administration, according to officials who attended the event. McConnell bristled at the Democrats' charges, and chastised members of the committee for failing to defend the intelligence community amid a barrage of bad press.
It's easy to overstate the role of individual personalities in politics, but it's probably no accident that the sheen of McConnell's reputation has dulled just about the same time as House Dems have stood up to the White House on the surveillance bill.
--David Kurtz
Dream Ticket
I've never been persuaded that this so-called Dream Ticket of Obama/Hillary or Hillary/Obama makes any sense politically for either candidate, no matter who is the top of the ticket. But setting my skepticism aside, it is interesting to see that Gallup has polled on this question and that Dems greatly prefer Obama as her VP to Hillary as his VP.
Gallup explains that the vast majority of Obama supporters would rather him pick someone else as VP, rather than Hillary, whereas Hillary supporters are generally favorably disposed to her tapping Obama as VP.
The question is phrased in such a way that I think it reduces the concern that the result is a reflection of supporters of either candidate not being ready to concede defeat.
It's certainly more fodder, too, for the debate over which candidate is likely to lose more opposing Dems to McCain or to indifference in the general election.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The administration has signaled that it's "open to negotiation" on the surveillance bill, but it's not at all clear what the administration is willing to give up.
--David Kurtz
Slipping?
Rasmussen is just out with its latest poll, showing Hillary's lead in Pennsylvania is down to 5 points.
In the same poll a week ago, it was a 10-point spread.
Late Update: SurveyUSA also has new Pennsylvania poll out, showing Hillary with a still-healthy 12-point lead, although that, too, is down, from 19 points in the last poll.
--David Kurtz
What Can We Possibly Add?
From the publisher's description of Ralph Reed's soon-to-be-released 'political thriller' Dark Horse ...
After the Democratic presidential nomination is stolen by Senate Majority Leader Salmon Stanley in a bitter credentials fight at the nominating convention, Bob Long, the moderate Governor of California, shocks the political establishment by launching an independent bid for the Presidency. The FBI and the Justice Department launch a full-blown criminal probe of the credentials dispute, and prosecutors empanel a grand jury that indicts the campaign chairman of Senate Majority Leader Stanley for perjury and obstruction of justice. The Republican candidate, the incumbent vice-president, appears to be coasting to victory in the topsy-turvy three-way presidential race. But the morning after he accepts the presidential nomination in a stirring speech, he is murdered in a violent terrorist attack. David Petty, his lackluster replacement, the first African-American presidential nominee in history, is hobbled by a grassroots rebellion led by a politically savvy and occasionally demagogic television evangelist.The campaign ends in a cliff-hanger finish, with the outcome in several states too close to call. As a result, the election is thrown into the House of Representatives. The shrewd and devious Speaker of the House, torn between his own voracious ambition and his constitutional duty, presides over this constitutional crisis. All this takes place against the backdrop of the war on terrorism and a looming conflict with a newly nuclear Iran. The lame-duck President, seeking to avenge the murder of the late Vice President, plans a military strike against Iran, but stops short when the government grinds to a halt while the House chooses his successor. Described by a veteran of seven presidential campaigns with a quarter century of experience as a political strategist, Dark Horse sizzles with authenticity and reads truer than non-fiction. Offering a looking-glass into presidential politics on the eve of the 2008 election, Dark Horse contains characters, plot twists, and rare insight that will no doubt be relevant to the real-life presidential campaign now underway.
Guess it beats scamming Indian tribes ...
--Josh Marshall
Got Cred?
A number of questions came up over the weekend about just what the credentials committee is and how its membership is choosing. Usually it's a meaningless rubber stamp, like almost all modern party conventions. But this year, that's the committee that will have the final say on which state delegations get seated. So if we're still arguing about the non-sanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries in August, the credentials committees is the group that gets to make the final determination. Greg Sargent explains just how it works.
--Josh Marshall
Stickin'
There's been a fierce and now apparently fading argument over the last week over whether Hillary Clinton should drop out of the nomination race or, more pointedly, whether she's under some sort of obligation to do so. Not just in this race but in general I've always taken a dim view of people trying to muscle candidates to drop out of campaigns, usually on the basis of long odds or when it comes from insider pundit types pushing the idea that there's something undignified about keeping a campaign going after it looks like you probably won't win -- something I've never understood and don't agree with.
So when people have asked me whether I think Hillary should drop out I've said I don't think she's under any obligation to do so but that I do think, with her odds now this long, she should not be running a campaign that seems to go out of its way not simply to compete but to damage the likely nominee as a general election candidate and attempt to discredit the nomination process itself.
But when I was writing out my take on her interview over the weekend with Post, I realized that I hadn't made clear enough in what I'd written, or even really in my own head, how much the two things are really combined.
As I said in that post, I don't think Hillary's claim that she's going to stay in the race through the convention in Denver is really about Denver, or staying through August or even till June. It's about keeping her troops motivated and confident so that she can keep in the game through April and May.
And here I think we see the pattern. Hillary doesn't want to run for president in 2nd or 3rd gear. It's beneath her dignity. And I don't mean that sarcastically. It really is. She's a powerful United States senator, former First Lady, etc. She wants to win. And if she's still in it she wants to run full bore with the money you need to run a serious campaign, the crowds, poll numbers, etc. She's not some Huckabee figure who's going to hang around with little chance of winning
It really is all or nothing. You've got to convince your supporters, donors and to at least some degree the media that you're really in it, and in it with a shot. Otherwise you face the classic problem of a cascade failure. Poor fundraising generates bad press stories, which depress turnout at rallies, which create more bad press stories and eventually no press stories, etc. It's no different from the precarious position any campaign faces when the odds aren't looking good.
And so we have this vicious cycle in which the longer Hillary's odds become the further she has to up the ante to keep her candidacy credible -- in other words, the more forcefully she has to question the legitimacy of the nomination process and the more aggressively she has to push the idea that Obama can't win the general election or is not qualified to be president. (For example, the argument that the Clinton campaign now appears to be making to funders and the press is that Obama literally cannot win the general. And thus she's not only entitled but actually obligated to do whatever it takes to ensure that he's not the nominee.) Without making real progress on one of those fronts, the premise of the candidacy just becomes too difficult to sustain. And when that fails just throw up lots of nonsense about the popular vote in primary states or blue states or significant states, or whatever.
I think there are a lot of people who would actually like to see the race play out as long as neither candidate is going out of their way to make their opponent unviable in the general. But thinking over what I've said above, I'm just not sure how realistic that is.
--Josh Marshall
Last Refuge ...
PA Gov. Ed Rendell on Fox News coverage of the Democratic primary campaign ...
I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present -- FOX has done the fairest job, and remained the most objective of all the cable networks. You hate both of our candidates. No, I’m only kidding. But you actually have done a very balanced job of reporting the news, and some of the other stations are just caught up with Senator Obama, who is a great guy, but Senator Obama can do no wrong, and Senator Clinton can do no right.
Late Update: Here's the video:
Hat tip to the Politico.
--Josh Marshall
Losing the Narrative
Brown econ prof Glenn Loury: Obama "wants to put an end to . . . the anger, the disappointment and the subversive critique of America that arises from the painful experience of black people in this country."
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Should She Stay or Should She Go?
Calls for Hillary's exit and her fighting response was the big topic on the Sunday shows, with Obama supporters reeling back some of their more aggressive calls from earlier in the week. We bring you the highlights in today's Sunday Show Roundup ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
Should Have Used the Office Freezer
Supreme Court refuses to hear Justice Department appeal of ruling that its search of Rep. Bill Jefferson's congressional office violated the Speech and Debate Clause.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The parallels are striking: Determined to secure his political position, he launches an ill-advised military action that ends in stalemate and dramatically weakens him politically.
Maliki, not Bush.
--David Kurtz
Oops
Racial healer Lou Dobbs explains how he's sick of "cotton pickin'" black leaders telling him how he can and can't talk about race (he catches himself at the last minute -- sorta) ...
Special thanks to TPM Reader AR for the catch.
Late Update: Whenever we do posts like this, we'll have a certain amount of readers who write in and say, 'hey, what he said wasn't racist'. So just so we're clear: we're not saying it was. Many of the videos we publish, like the Rep. Sestak one on Friday, or this earlier one about the Obama surrogate from Texas who couldn't come up with a single Obama accomplishment when asked, are just funny moments on TV that we share for a mix of news and entertainment value. As someone who's done some TV I certainly know that all sorts of things can come out of your mouth when you're ad-libbing. But in this case, when Lou Dobbs is railing against African-Americans like Condi Rice and Barack Obama for having the temerity to say that race is still an issue in America and the first adjective that pops into his head to describe them is "cotton-pickin'", we think it deserves a little tweak.
--Josh Marshall
MF Looks for an Exit
From TPM Reader MF ...
In the end, I don't believe the superdelegates are going to decide this. I think finances are. We'll see what happens next month, but it's my guess her fundraising figures are going to be WAY down. She's already in trouble financially, and at some point, her backers have got to see that this is just throwing good money after bad. Lately, I've been asking my Hillary supporting friends to play around with the Slate delegate counter. They fool around with it for a few minutes, and they invariably come away saying, "She really can't win this, can she?" That's a sad conclusion for those who have put so much time and energy into Hillary's campaign (Bill and Hillary included), but the fact is, the time for fighting hard was long ago. She's trying to somehow get a do-over for the mistakes she made at the beginning of the campaign. It's too late.This is the scene in the movie where the doctor is standing over the patient, desperately trying to revive someone who's already flat-lined on the monitor. Eventually, someone tells the doctor, "The patient's gone,
doctor. It's over."The problem now is to figure out a way to get her to leave the race honorably and gracefully. She could do a lot of damage to the party on her way out the door. Possibly worse damage than her Huckabeean campaign is already doing. But telling her to leave the race is only pissing all of them off. There's a better way. I hope someone figures it out soon.
--Josh Marshall
Klobuchar To Endorse Obama
From the WSJ (sub.req.) ...
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say.
Thanks to TPM Reader TF for the heads up.
--Josh Marshall
Their Honest Broker?
Leila Fadel reporting for McClatchy ...
Acting in response to a direct appeal by parliamentarians from the Shiite parties that govern Iraq and the intercession of the Iranian government, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr on Sunday ordered his Mahdi Army militia to halt its resistance to a government offensive, leading Iraqi members of parliament said.Sadr's Mahdi Army militia took heed of the order in Baghdad, and the Iraqi government announced it would lift the 24-hour curfew starting early Monday in most parts of the capital. But fighting continued in the oil hub of Basra, where the government offensive against Shiite militias went into its sixth day with only limited gains.
...
The backdrop to Sadr's dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday to Qom, Iran's holy city and headquarters of the dominant Iranian clergy, by Iraqi lawmakers.
There they held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.
--Josh Marshall
Fascinating ...
From TPM Reader DS ...
Many Clinton supporters find the current attempts to muscle her out of the race despicable. Maybe now is the time for Obama to take one for the team and accept her offer of the VP slot. It is the position he is better qualified for, would end a situation that is supposedly hurting the party, and would put him in a better position to run next time. Clinton has no “next time,” so it makes more sense for Obama to be the one to step aside.If the convention is held too late in the election cycle for the presidential nominee to campaign effectively, perhaps the date of the convention needs to be changed. The solution cannot be for viable candidates to set aside their ambitions long before a nominee has been clearly chosen.
--Josh Marshall
Follow Up on HRC's Interview
Going back over the emails that have come in on last night's post, I see I was less clear than I should have been when distinguishing between why she's staying in the race and what her rationale is for staying in the race. When I say, it's all about Florida and Michigan now, I mean that's her new rationale.
Having said that, what is this new gambit for her about? Is she really serious about taking her case to the convention's credentials committee -- which seems almost certain to have a majority of Obama supporters -- and trying to get them to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates on her terms?
I don't think whether Hillary means it or doesn't mean it is even really the point. In a sense, I suspect both are true. Like her earlier gambits along these lines, the point is to play for time. Hillary is like Dickens' Wilkins Micawber, always hoping, certain that "something will turn up." Who know what it will be. But she needs to stay in to be around for it to happen. And to stay in she needs both money and press attention. So she needs to dispel any doubts about her longevity in the race and shore up confidence in her ability to win.
So, from my view, saying she's in it till August isn't about August. It's not even about June. It's about stamping out doubts about her viability and determination to stay in so she can still be in the game in April and May.
--Josh Marshall
Brazile Explains Credentials Committee
Donna Brazile was on This Week this morning and explained how the credentials committee works. If she's right, and I'm sure Brazile knows this stuff like the back of her hand, it's even worse for Clinton than I thought. According to Brazile, in addition to the twenty-five members of the Committee appointed by Howard Dean, the rest of the committee will be made up of 3 members apiece from each state. In other words, it works sort of like the senate, where all states are counted equally, regardless of their size. Since Obama has won far more states than Clinton, that should mean he has a decisive majority on the credentials committee.
One thing Brazile didn't mention explicitly is just how the individual state delegations choose which delegates to put on the committee. The logic of Brazile's statement suggests it's done by majority vote within those delegations. But again, she didn't say that explicitly. So I'm curious to hear more.
Late Update: Here's a post Greg Sargent wrote up back in February which suggests that Brazile's actually wrong on this -- that the members are allocated to states through a formula that mixes population and past Democratic ballot performance, which is what I'd expect. A number of readers have said the same thing. Brazile is such a creature of the inner-mechanisms of the Democratic party that I have a hard time believing she'd be off on this. But perhaps she is. We'll update you when we have this nailed down.
Later Update: Here's an excerpt from a piece Tad Devine and Anthony Corrado wrote at pollingreport.com. It suggests an even more complicated set of rules and factors but one that seems to end up in a similar place to what Brazile suggests ...
The committee with jurisdiction over the seating of delegates -- the Credentials Committee -- is one of the three standing committees to the national convention (the other two being the Rules Committee and Platform Committee). It will be composed largely of members elected on the basis of the results of state primaries and caucuses. In this inside fight, should it come to that, Senator Obama enjoys an important advantage. In total, 161 of the 186 members of each standing committee are selected from states, and 20 states and the District of Columbia have only one representative on each of the committees.By winning so many states and thereby controlling so many state delegations, the Obama campaign can weight their selections towards the Credentials and Rules Committees, the places where a procedural or credentials battle will be fought in the maneuvering prior to the convention. By picking Rules and Credentials seats in state after state where his campaign will be entitled to 2 out of 3 standing committee seats, Obama can gain an important and possibly decisive advantage in the pre-convention skirmishing.
The other player in this unfolding drama is Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. Under the rules, the chairman can make 25 at-large appointments on each standing committee. In the past, the party chairman’s at-large appointments have been worked out with the putative nominee’s camp, so that they effectively became the choice of the nominee, not the chairman. In 2008, the chairman announced his selections early in the year and the nominees were approved at the January 11th DNC Executive Committee meeting. Thus, even under a scenario where Obama’s campaign moves forcefully to put as many of their appointments as possible on the Rules and Credentials Committees, Chairman Dean’s appointees may still hold the balance of power. So the chairman may be able to exert enormous influence over whether or not delegates from Florida and Michigan are represented on the convention floor.
--Josh Marshall
Minds Changing
Richard Mellon Scaife now says he has a "very favorable" impression of Sen. Clinton.
--Josh Marshall
