What was a top national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney doing in Georgia shortly before Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's troops engaged in what became a disastrous fight with South Ossetian rebels -- and then Russian troops?
Not, according to the vice president's office, what you might think -- if your thinking takes you into the realm of Cheney giving his blessing to the Georgian's military operation.
To be sure, Cheney has been a leader of the hardliners in the administration when it comes to standing up to Russia -- to the point that the man who ran the Pentagon as the Cold War came to an end during the administration of the first President Bush has been seen as ready to renew that face-off with Moscow.
It was Cheney who visited the Georgian embassy in Washington last week to sign a remembrance book as a demonstration of the administration's support.
And yes, Joseph R. Wood, Cheney's deputy assistant for national security affairs, was in Georgia shortly before the war began.
But, the vice president's office says, he was there as part of a team setting up the vice president's just-announced visit to Georgia. (It is common for the White House to send security, policy, communications and press aides to each site the president and vice president will visit ahead of the trip, to begin making arrangements and planning the agenda.)
The White House disclosed on Monday that Cheney would hurry over to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy next week, almost immediately after addressing the Republican National Convention on Labor Day.
And so it was that a team from the vice president's office, U.S. security officials and others were in Georgia several days before the war began.
It had nothing to do, the vice president's office said, with a military operation that some have said suggests a renewal of the Cold War.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Crisis reveals West's lack of leverage over Moscow
The Kremlin's decision Tuesday to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway enclaves deepens what has become Washington's worst crisis with Moscow since the end of the Cold War — a crisis that has revealed the West's lack of leverage over a confident, aggressive Russia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's declaration, announced in a nationally televised address, was immediately denounced by leaders in Washington and several European capitals. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the Kremlin's decision "extremely unfortunate."
Western nations, however, have failed to find the right language or set of measures to prevent Russia from tightening its grip on Georgia, a U.S.-allied former Soviet republic that Russia invaded and occupied after Georgian leaders launched an attack Aug. 7 on one of their country's Kremlin-backed separatist enclaves, South Ossetia.
During the nearly three-week crisis, the U.S. and its European allies have threatened Russia with exclusion from the World Trade Organization and the Group of Eight club of industrialized nations, as well as a freeze in relations with NATO. President Bush has warned that Russia risks international isolation if it persists with its actions in Georgia.
Those responses from the West have held virtually no sway with Moscow, which believes Russia has positioned itself well enough in the world economy to make isolation all but impossible.
"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War," the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass quoted Medvedev as saying. "But we don't want it, and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners. ... If they want to preserve good relations with Russia in the West, they will understand the reason behind our decision."
With the Kremlin's recognition Tuesday of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist province on Georgia's Black Sea coast, Russian leaders reiterated their confidence that their actions would not lead to Russia being cut off from international institutions it covets.
With hundreds of billions of dollars stashed away in reserves as a result of record oil prices, the Kremlin has convinced itself that the time is right to reassert itself within the landscape over which it once reigned during the Soviet era, analysts say. And, it believes its economic and political ties with Western Europe are durable enough to prevent Western condemnation from turning into punishing consequences.
"I don't think we should be afraid of isolation," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "I don't think this should be a doomsday scenario. I think common sense should prevail."
On the surface, Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has little practical value.
Both enclaves aligned themselves with Moscow years ago, after bloody civil wars with Georgian forces in the late 1990s left them functioning as unrecognized, de facto independent states. Moscow has kept separatist fighters in both provinces armed for years, sustains their economies and has made most of their populations Russian citizens.
But by recognizing the statehood of both provinces, Russia opens itself to criticism that it is violating a cease-fire agreement brokered by the European Union to end the fighting between Russian and Georgian troops. That six-point agreement, signed by Medvedev and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, requires the preservation of Georgia's territorial integrity.
Leaders in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Lithuania also issued statements condemning Russia's decision. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the move "contradicts the principle of territorial integrity." Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Russia's decision "dramatically escalated the crisis between Russia and the rest of the world."
In explaining the Kremlin's decision, Medvedev said Georgia forfeited its right to keep the two enclaves within its borders when Saakashvili ordered an all-out assault Aug. 7 on South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali. Russian tanks and troops quickly pushed Georgian forces out of the enclave and later pushed their way deep into Georgian territory. At one point in the conflict, Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers were stationed just 30 miles west of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.
"This is not an easy choice to make," Medvedev said in his address, "but it represents the only possibility to save human lives."
The Kremlin's confidence is buoyed by the West's inability to reach any consensus on how to rein in Russia's actions in Georgia.
European countries are far from united on their views of the conflict. Countries such as Germany, France and Italy, which have strong economic ties with the Kremlin and a heavy dependence on Russian energy, have been more careful in their criticism than nations like Poland and the Baltics — newer NATO and EU member nations once ruled by the Kremlin during the Soviet era.
As Russia continues to aggressively exert its influence in the Caucasus and other regions it once ruled, European countries may decide that a unified resolve to force the Kremlin to reverse course is the right tack. An emergency European Union summit on Georgia is scheduled for next week.
So far, however, any agreement among European capitals on handling Russia has yet to emerge.
"There's a lack of unity among Western nations that prevents them from acting resolutely and jointly toward Russian policy in the Caucasus," said Yevgeny Volk, an analyst with the Moscow office of the Heritage Foundation. "Russia's influence in Europe is very strong, and there are nations that, because of their dependence on Russian energy, are more vulnerable to Russian pressure."
Volk said the Kremlin might rethink its strategy if the consequences of its actions strike at the pocketbooks of Russia's political and business elite. Western nations could freeze their assets, which he said amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. and European banks. Or, as it has done with some of the world's worst autocrats, the West could impose travel sanctions on top Russian officials.
"These are the kinds of steps taken against countries like Iran and Belarus," Volk said. "The question is, is the West really ready to regard Russia as a rogue state."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's declaration, announced in a nationally televised address, was immediately denounced by leaders in Washington and several European capitals. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the Kremlin's decision "extremely unfortunate."
Western nations, however, have failed to find the right language or set of measures to prevent Russia from tightening its grip on Georgia, a U.S.-allied former Soviet republic that Russia invaded and occupied after Georgian leaders launched an attack Aug. 7 on one of their country's Kremlin-backed separatist enclaves, South Ossetia.
During the nearly three-week crisis, the U.S. and its European allies have threatened Russia with exclusion from the World Trade Organization and the Group of Eight club of industrialized nations, as well as a freeze in relations with NATO. President Bush has warned that Russia risks international isolation if it persists with its actions in Georgia.
Those responses from the West have held virtually no sway with Moscow, which believes Russia has positioned itself well enough in the world economy to make isolation all but impossible.
"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War," the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass quoted Medvedev as saying. "But we don't want it, and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners. ... If they want to preserve good relations with Russia in the West, they will understand the reason behind our decision."
With the Kremlin's recognition Tuesday of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist province on Georgia's Black Sea coast, Russian leaders reiterated their confidence that their actions would not lead to Russia being cut off from international institutions it covets.
With hundreds of billions of dollars stashed away in reserves as a result of record oil prices, the Kremlin has convinced itself that the time is right to reassert itself within the landscape over which it once reigned during the Soviet era, analysts say. And, it believes its economic and political ties with Western Europe are durable enough to prevent Western condemnation from turning into punishing consequences.
"I don't think we should be afraid of isolation," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "I don't think this should be a doomsday scenario. I think common sense should prevail."
On the surface, Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has little practical value.
Both enclaves aligned themselves with Moscow years ago, after bloody civil wars with Georgian forces in the late 1990s left them functioning as unrecognized, de facto independent states. Moscow has kept separatist fighters in both provinces armed for years, sustains their economies and has made most of their populations Russian citizens.
But by recognizing the statehood of both provinces, Russia opens itself to criticism that it is violating a cease-fire agreement brokered by the European Union to end the fighting between Russian and Georgian troops. That six-point agreement, signed by Medvedev and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, requires the preservation of Georgia's territorial integrity.
Leaders in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Lithuania also issued statements condemning Russia's decision. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the move "contradicts the principle of territorial integrity." Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Russia's decision "dramatically escalated the crisis between Russia and the rest of the world."
In explaining the Kremlin's decision, Medvedev said Georgia forfeited its right to keep the two enclaves within its borders when Saakashvili ordered an all-out assault Aug. 7 on South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali. Russian tanks and troops quickly pushed Georgian forces out of the enclave and later pushed their way deep into Georgian territory. At one point in the conflict, Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers were stationed just 30 miles west of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.
"This is not an easy choice to make," Medvedev said in his address, "but it represents the only possibility to save human lives."
The Kremlin's confidence is buoyed by the West's inability to reach any consensus on how to rein in Russia's actions in Georgia.
European countries are far from united on their views of the conflict. Countries such as Germany, France and Italy, which have strong economic ties with the Kremlin and a heavy dependence on Russian energy, have been more careful in their criticism than nations like Poland and the Baltics — newer NATO and EU member nations once ruled by the Kremlin during the Soviet era.
As Russia continues to aggressively exert its influence in the Caucasus and other regions it once ruled, European countries may decide that a unified resolve to force the Kremlin to reverse course is the right tack. An emergency European Union summit on Georgia is scheduled for next week.
So far, however, any agreement among European capitals on handling Russia has yet to emerge.
"There's a lack of unity among Western nations that prevents them from acting resolutely and jointly toward Russian policy in the Caucasus," said Yevgeny Volk, an analyst with the Moscow office of the Heritage Foundation. "Russia's influence in Europe is very strong, and there are nations that, because of their dependence on Russian energy, are more vulnerable to Russian pressure."
Volk said the Kremlin might rethink its strategy if the consequences of its actions strike at the pocketbooks of Russia's political and business elite. Western nations could freeze their assets, which he said amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. and European banks. Or, as it has done with some of the world's worst autocrats, the West could impose travel sanctions on top Russian officials.
"These are the kinds of steps taken against countries like Iran and Belarus," Volk said. "The question is, is the West really ready to regard Russia as a rogue state."
Friday, June 13, 2008
The numbers Hillary didn't count on - Latest Obama news
A lot of people, mostly men, just don't seem to understand why so many of us, and we are not all women, are so upset about the treatment of Hillary Clinton. It is not just because she lost, although of course many - myself included - wanted her to win. Nor are we suggesting, as some commentators have speciously suggested, she lost because she is a woman.
She lost because of serious mistakes in her campaign and because she allowed herself to be outmanoeuvred by the unexpected star candidacy of Barack Obama. What we are upset about is the way the American (and much of the Australian) media became foot soldiers for the Obama campaign in vicious, hate-filled and often gender-directed coverage that denigrated and damaged Clinton's candidacy.
Rather than being congratulated as the most successful woman in American political history, she has been scarified for not leaving the race sooner. In previous contests, second placegetters Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown all stayed in the race until the very end, longer than Clinton, but were never subjected to a similar pelting. In fact, the pressure on Clinton to be a good girl and get out of Obama's way started back in March and continued unabated despite her winning nine of the 16 contests since then.
She could not take a trick with a virtually unanimous media putting the most negative spin on her every utterance. She was accused of being manipulative for crying, of "pimping" her daughter by having her on the campaign, for denying her gender by wearing pants suits and of being racist for simply pointing out the fact that millions of white people had voted for her.
She had to endure one male television commentator calling her a "she-devil", another stating she reminded him of "everyone's first wife standing outside probate court"; one who found her "castrating, overbearing and scary" while another fine specimen of the American punditocracy said, "When she comes on television … I involuntarily cross my legs."
None of these comments go to her policies or her political skills. They are outright misogyny. They infuriated fair-minded people who have been distressed at the way sexism has become a political weapon in a way we've never seen before - and which Obama did nothing to discourage.
Clinton ran a flawed race. From being the presumptive candidate in January, she found herself outpaced by Obama with his strategy of positioning himself as the candidate for change, of going to the grassroots and winning caucuses and by tapping millions of individuals for small donations on the internet.
( from a Hillary fan )
She lost because of serious mistakes in her campaign and because she allowed herself to be outmanoeuvred by the unexpected star candidacy of Barack Obama. What we are upset about is the way the American (and much of the Australian) media became foot soldiers for the Obama campaign in vicious, hate-filled and often gender-directed coverage that denigrated and damaged Clinton's candidacy.
Rather than being congratulated as the most successful woman in American political history, she has been scarified for not leaving the race sooner. In previous contests, second placegetters Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown all stayed in the race until the very end, longer than Clinton, but were never subjected to a similar pelting. In fact, the pressure on Clinton to be a good girl and get out of Obama's way started back in March and continued unabated despite her winning nine of the 16 contests since then.
She could not take a trick with a virtually unanimous media putting the most negative spin on her every utterance. She was accused of being manipulative for crying, of "pimping" her daughter by having her on the campaign, for denying her gender by wearing pants suits and of being racist for simply pointing out the fact that millions of white people had voted for her.
She had to endure one male television commentator calling her a "she-devil", another stating she reminded him of "everyone's first wife standing outside probate court"; one who found her "castrating, overbearing and scary" while another fine specimen of the American punditocracy said, "When she comes on television … I involuntarily cross my legs."
None of these comments go to her policies or her political skills. They are outright misogyny. They infuriated fair-minded people who have been distressed at the way sexism has become a political weapon in a way we've never seen before - and which Obama did nothing to discourage.
Clinton ran a flawed race. From being the presumptive candidate in January, she found herself outpaced by Obama with his strategy of positioning himself as the candidate for change, of going to the grassroots and winning caucuses and by tapping millions of individuals for small donations on the internet.
( from a Hillary fan )
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Clinton intentions remain a mystery - Latest Barack Obama news and views
the narrow but decisive loser of the Democratic nomination for president, is refusing to quit refusing to quit.
Her defiant victory speech Tuesday night and her campaign’s silence this morning have Clinton’s aides and supporters asking the same question she asked herself last night: “What does Hillary want?”
“She’s holding out for something – but I’m not sure what it is,” a usually well-informed campaign advisor who spoke to Clinton yesterday told Politico.
Other Clinton supporters, meanwhile, pressed her case for the Vice Presidency in a variety of forums, with congressional supporters led by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida considering a letter to Obama pressing that case, Wasserman-Schultz’s chief of staff said.
But they were slowed by the lack of a clear signal from the candidate herself.
Clinton is the strongest runner-up in the history of Democratic politics, a status that gives her an unusual amount of leverage on her rival, Barack Obama. But she’s also hemmed in by the reality that to be seen as a half-hearted campaigner for Obama, or worse, as causing his defeat, would be political suicide.
She especially needs help restoring support from an African-American community that had been her base – assistance that can only come from Obama’s fulsome embrace. She could use Obama’s help raising money to retire her debts, something she signaled with an aggressive online appeal for cash last night. Her supporters assume she has earned the prime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention that Obama can bestow.
Those around her say that beyond the mundane negotiating points – a half hour in Denver, help raising money – there is a more personal, less tangible demand that she be accorded the respect she feels she earned in an historic bid that brought her closer to the nomination than any other second-place Democratic finisher.
Despite sending a strong signal Tuesday afternoon that she’d be open to a vice presidential nomination, Clinton aides said yesterday that while she may want to be Vice President, she understands that she can’t force Obama’s hand.
“It’s not something you can demand,” said an aide.
Nevertheless, Clinton appeared Tuesday to free her supporters to press her case, and Wasserman-Schultz wasn’t the only one considering an appeal. Aides made no effort to intervene in former Clinton aide Lanny Davis’s impromptu press conference Tuesday night, at which he announced he’d be circulating a petition to put Clinton on the ballot. Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson told the Washington Post that Clinton herself cleared his own appeal to House Majority Whip James Clyburn for a joint ticket.
“There’ll be an intricate tango between the two campaigns as they figure out a way to choreograph this so that she has her held high,” said Jonathan Prince, a former Clinton aide who advised former Senator John Edwards this cycle.
Her defiant victory speech Tuesday night and her campaign’s silence this morning have Clinton’s aides and supporters asking the same question she asked herself last night: “What does Hillary want?”
“She’s holding out for something – but I’m not sure what it is,” a usually well-informed campaign advisor who spoke to Clinton yesterday told Politico.
Other Clinton supporters, meanwhile, pressed her case for the Vice Presidency in a variety of forums, with congressional supporters led by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida considering a letter to Obama pressing that case, Wasserman-Schultz’s chief of staff said.
But they were slowed by the lack of a clear signal from the candidate herself.
Clinton is the strongest runner-up in the history of Democratic politics, a status that gives her an unusual amount of leverage on her rival, Barack Obama. But she’s also hemmed in by the reality that to be seen as a half-hearted campaigner for Obama, or worse, as causing his defeat, would be political suicide.
She especially needs help restoring support from an African-American community that had been her base – assistance that can only come from Obama’s fulsome embrace. She could use Obama’s help raising money to retire her debts, something she signaled with an aggressive online appeal for cash last night. Her supporters assume she has earned the prime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention that Obama can bestow.
Those around her say that beyond the mundane negotiating points – a half hour in Denver, help raising money – there is a more personal, less tangible demand that she be accorded the respect she feels she earned in an historic bid that brought her closer to the nomination than any other second-place Democratic finisher.
Despite sending a strong signal Tuesday afternoon that she’d be open to a vice presidential nomination, Clinton aides said yesterday that while she may want to be Vice President, she understands that she can’t force Obama’s hand.
“It’s not something you can demand,” said an aide.
Nevertheless, Clinton appeared Tuesday to free her supporters to press her case, and Wasserman-Schultz wasn’t the only one considering an appeal. Aides made no effort to intervene in former Clinton aide Lanny Davis’s impromptu press conference Tuesday night, at which he announced he’d be circulating a petition to put Clinton on the ballot. Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson told the Washington Post that Clinton herself cleared his own appeal to House Majority Whip James Clyburn for a joint ticket.
“There’ll be an intricate tango between the two campaigns as they figure out a way to choreograph this so that she has her held high,” said Jonathan Prince, a former Clinton aide who advised former Senator John Edwards this cycle.
Obama-Clinton ticket: a dream or nightmare?
Picture a cozy weekend at Camp David for President Obama, Vice President Hillary Rodham Clinton and their lively spouses.
They'd talk policy and politics in the confines of the rustic retreat. After the long campaign and all the bruised feelings, Michelle Obama could finally reach out to Bill Clinton, as she recently said she's been wanting to do.
To be exact, she said: "I want to rip his eyes out."
Then added: "Kidding."
They could bring along Obama's national security adviser, let's say Samantha Power. She's the foreign policy specialist who had to leave the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster."
Now that Clinton is angling to become Obama's running mate, the question arises how two frosty rivals and their seething camps might come together without sticking flag pins into each other.
It's all pretty awkward right now.
Clinton's aides and surrogates are boldly pitching her for the No. 2 spot even as many of them, like her, refuse to acknowledge she's failed in her quest for No. 1. Instead, she said she's open to being Obama's running mate.
For months, she's cast her rival as wet behind the ears and herself as the one to be trusted to deal with crises in the middle of the night.
In an Obama-Clinton White House, he'd take the 3 a.m. call. She might or might not be awakened.
For his part, Obama has painted Clinton as a figure of another time and himself as a clean break from all that's past and passe about Washington. He'd be eager to bring in his own team, to bring "change," the coin of his realm.
Then there's Bill, a man of deep experience, in-your-face opinions and more baggage than a boxcar.
Even so, some Democratic strategists are salivating at the prospect of Obama and Hillary Clinton joining forces.
They are fixated on her electoral strengths and not at all on Oval Office atmospherics or what might be done about her husband.
Obama's side is trying to tamp down the veep speculation that threatens to overshadow his historic achievement as the first black presidential nominee, but in a way that does not seem dismissive of her and does not rule out the chance of offering her the position.
They can't afford to dismiss her, or, more precisely, the more than 17 million voters who turned out for her, including masses of blue-collar voters in swing states, Hispanics and older voters, especially women.
Obama picked his words with exquisite care when he talked about Clinton with supporters, directly addressing his but really speaking to hers.
"You can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country - and we will win that fight - she will be central to that victory," he said.
Clinton, of course, has already fought that fight for another president, her husband, and lost. She's also assailed Obama's health care plan, which does not mandate universal coverage, as seriously deficient.
Obama purposely did not address in what capacity she might take another run at health care. It's unlikely he knows. He and Clinton have yet to talk in a serious way.
The Illinois senator is famously willing to meet with difficult people, even Iran's hard-line, terrorist-underwriting, nuclear-developing, anti-American president.
But a sit-down with Clinton isn't coming together too quickly, days after he proposed that it happen once the dust settled.
After he secured the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, he called her in the evening, missed her and left a message.
She got back to him.
Then they ran into each other backstage Wednesday between delivering speeches at a Washington conference. Obama said they'd have a conversation in "coming weeks."
It's an awkward time.
And then there's Bill.
They'd talk policy and politics in the confines of the rustic retreat. After the long campaign and all the bruised feelings, Michelle Obama could finally reach out to Bill Clinton, as she recently said she's been wanting to do.
To be exact, she said: "I want to rip his eyes out."
Then added: "Kidding."
They could bring along Obama's national security adviser, let's say Samantha Power. She's the foreign policy specialist who had to leave the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster."
Now that Clinton is angling to become Obama's running mate, the question arises how two frosty rivals and their seething camps might come together without sticking flag pins into each other.
It's all pretty awkward right now.
Clinton's aides and surrogates are boldly pitching her for the No. 2 spot even as many of them, like her, refuse to acknowledge she's failed in her quest for No. 1. Instead, she said she's open to being Obama's running mate.
For months, she's cast her rival as wet behind the ears and herself as the one to be trusted to deal with crises in the middle of the night.
In an Obama-Clinton White House, he'd take the 3 a.m. call. She might or might not be awakened.
For his part, Obama has painted Clinton as a figure of another time and himself as a clean break from all that's past and passe about Washington. He'd be eager to bring in his own team, to bring "change," the coin of his realm.
Then there's Bill, a man of deep experience, in-your-face opinions and more baggage than a boxcar.
Even so, some Democratic strategists are salivating at the prospect of Obama and Hillary Clinton joining forces.
They are fixated on her electoral strengths and not at all on Oval Office atmospherics or what might be done about her husband.
Obama's side is trying to tamp down the veep speculation that threatens to overshadow his historic achievement as the first black presidential nominee, but in a way that does not seem dismissive of her and does not rule out the chance of offering her the position.
They can't afford to dismiss her, or, more precisely, the more than 17 million voters who turned out for her, including masses of blue-collar voters in swing states, Hispanics and older voters, especially women.
Obama picked his words with exquisite care when he talked about Clinton with supporters, directly addressing his but really speaking to hers.
"You can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country - and we will win that fight - she will be central to that victory," he said.
Clinton, of course, has already fought that fight for another president, her husband, and lost. She's also assailed Obama's health care plan, which does not mandate universal coverage, as seriously deficient.
Obama purposely did not address in what capacity she might take another run at health care. It's unlikely he knows. He and Clinton have yet to talk in a serious way.
The Illinois senator is famously willing to meet with difficult people, even Iran's hard-line, terrorist-underwriting, nuclear-developing, anti-American president.
But a sit-down with Clinton isn't coming together too quickly, days after he proposed that it happen once the dust settled.
After he secured the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, he called her in the evening, missed her and left a message.
She got back to him.
Then they ran into each other backstage Wednesday between delivering speeches at a Washington conference. Obama said they'd have a conversation in "coming weeks."
It's an awkward time.
And then there's Bill.
On a night when Obama made history, Clinton's reaction was dangerously abrasive and selfish
The lead story tonight - my "lede," as we spell it here - should have been about the remarkable fact that a black man has been nominated by a major party to lead a developed Western nation for the first time in the history of the world. A man - in whose lifetime people with his shade of skin were denied the right to vote and to use public accommodations - who is now on the cusp of the presidency. It says something good about America, and I would like to have been able to dwell on it.
But no. Once again, it's all about Hillary Clinton, who delivered the most abrasive, self-absorbed, selfish, delusional, emasculating and extortionate political speech I've heard in a long time. And I've left out some adjectives, just to be polite.
Here's an interesting point for you. Barack Obama's speech, which featured a long and gracious nod to Clinton toward the beginning, was posted on various websites as early as 8:10pm East coast time. That means that Clinton - who didn't start speaking until 9:31pm, noticeably missing her introductory cue - and her staff had more than an hour to read Obama's speech and see that he was going to be more than kind to her.
But Clinton, who did not post her speech in advance, gave Obama a much briefer and more perfunctory nod. She congratulated him on his well-run campaign, but not on his victory, which is historic and assured. She told her crowd that, though she is now defeated, she "will be making no decisions tonight." She urged her voters - naturally nudged up to 18 million, which exaggerates the matter by about a half a million votes - to visit her website and send her messages, a piece of demagoguery that merely ensures that a week hence, if she wants to, she'll be able to say, "more than 10 million of my supporters have written to encourage me to go on to Denver". And speaking of the convention city, when her audience began chanting its name, she did not of course try to stop them and say that a convention fight was not in the interest of party unity.
What's her game? It's this, I think. It's not merely to be vice president. Although apparently it is that. I take it she and Bill have decided that being Obama's vice-president for eight years is the most plausible path to the presidency. But she did not on Tuesday night merely try to make a case for herself as a good vice-presidential candidate. She held a rhetorical knife to Obama's throat and said, in not so many words: I'm still calling some shots, buddy. You offer me the vice-presidency, or I walk away. But she has also forced Obama into a situation whereby if he chooses her now, he looks weak. So that's the choice she is hoping to impose on the nominee: don't choose me, and Bill and I will subtly work to see that you lose; choose me, and look like a weakling who can't lead the party without the Clintons after all. Now that's putting the interests of the party first, isn't it?
Democrats had better understand what this means, and they'd better not kid themselves. With any person other than a Clinton, this whole thing would have been over in late February - that is, any other candidate who lost 11 primaries in a row and ran out of money would have been shamed out of the race at that point. Or if not then, after May 6 (North Carolina and Indiana), when it became obvious that she could not come within 100 delegates of Obama, no matter what happened with Florida and Michigan.
But the Clintons know no shame, and more importantly, there has been no referee who could end this game, no one who could say to a Clinton, "Enough now." Well, Democrats have to say it. Now. Enough.
I really wanted to write a happy piece tonight. I wanted to write about Obama's amazing victory and about Clinton's tenacity being finally tempered by an acceptance of reality - reality that she'd lost and reality that, while there are indeed good arguments for her being on the ticket, the person who won the nominee has the right to choose the running mate.
Obama, after a slowish start, ended up giving a good, fiery speech aimed at John McCain. And McCain's speech, though flat in delivery, laid out his themes reasonably well. A race between these two men will be a race between two people who - whatever you think of their politics - are presenting substantive cases to the country and asking the people to choose. That's going to be a good show. But someone has to send that sore loser on the sidelines off to the showers once and for all.
But no. Once again, it's all about Hillary Clinton, who delivered the most abrasive, self-absorbed, selfish, delusional, emasculating and extortionate political speech I've heard in a long time. And I've left out some adjectives, just to be polite.
Here's an interesting point for you. Barack Obama's speech, which featured a long and gracious nod to Clinton toward the beginning, was posted on various websites as early as 8:10pm East coast time. That means that Clinton - who didn't start speaking until 9:31pm, noticeably missing her introductory cue - and her staff had more than an hour to read Obama's speech and see that he was going to be more than kind to her.
But Clinton, who did not post her speech in advance, gave Obama a much briefer and more perfunctory nod. She congratulated him on his well-run campaign, but not on his victory, which is historic and assured. She told her crowd that, though she is now defeated, she "will be making no decisions tonight." She urged her voters - naturally nudged up to 18 million, which exaggerates the matter by about a half a million votes - to visit her website and send her messages, a piece of demagoguery that merely ensures that a week hence, if she wants to, she'll be able to say, "more than 10 million of my supporters have written to encourage me to go on to Denver". And speaking of the convention city, when her audience began chanting its name, she did not of course try to stop them and say that a convention fight was not in the interest of party unity.
What's her game? It's this, I think. It's not merely to be vice president. Although apparently it is that. I take it she and Bill have decided that being Obama's vice-president for eight years is the most plausible path to the presidency. But she did not on Tuesday night merely try to make a case for herself as a good vice-presidential candidate. She held a rhetorical knife to Obama's throat and said, in not so many words: I'm still calling some shots, buddy. You offer me the vice-presidency, or I walk away. But she has also forced Obama into a situation whereby if he chooses her now, he looks weak. So that's the choice she is hoping to impose on the nominee: don't choose me, and Bill and I will subtly work to see that you lose; choose me, and look like a weakling who can't lead the party without the Clintons after all. Now that's putting the interests of the party first, isn't it?
Democrats had better understand what this means, and they'd better not kid themselves. With any person other than a Clinton, this whole thing would have been over in late February - that is, any other candidate who lost 11 primaries in a row and ran out of money would have been shamed out of the race at that point. Or if not then, after May 6 (North Carolina and Indiana), when it became obvious that she could not come within 100 delegates of Obama, no matter what happened with Florida and Michigan.
But the Clintons know no shame, and more importantly, there has been no referee who could end this game, no one who could say to a Clinton, "Enough now." Well, Democrats have to say it. Now. Enough.
I really wanted to write a happy piece tonight. I wanted to write about Obama's amazing victory and about Clinton's tenacity being finally tempered by an acceptance of reality - reality that she'd lost and reality that, while there are indeed good arguments for her being on the ticket, the person who won the nominee has the right to choose the running mate.
Obama, after a slowish start, ended up giving a good, fiery speech aimed at John McCain. And McCain's speech, though flat in delivery, laid out his themes reasonably well. A race between these two men will be a race between two people who - whatever you think of their politics - are presenting substantive cases to the country and asking the people to choose. That's going to be a good show. But someone has to send that sore loser on the sidelines off to the showers once and for all.
Delusional Clinton Speech with an eye on VP post - Latest Barack Obama news
I'm sure plenty of people had strong reactions to that speech Hillary just gave. For my money, the two most outragerous sentiments expressed were (and this is from my rough contemporaneous notes):
1.) "What does Hillary want? ... I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, no longer to be invisible." Then, a little later, "...Opportunity--that's what I want for every single American… It is a fight I will continue until every single American has health care, no exceptions, no excuses."
When Hillary says she wants her 18 million voters to be respected and heard, but opportunity and health care for every single American, she seems to be saying, pretty unambiguously, that not giving her the nomination--not privileging the will of her voters--would be an illegitimate outcome. (Otherwise, why not say you want every single American "respected and heard"?) That's a pretty inflammatory comment.
2.) "To the 18 million people who voted for me, and many other people out there… I want to hear from you… I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders, to determine how to move forward, with the best interests of our party and our country in mind."
So she's going to leave it to her voters to decide whether she should accept defeat after having, you know, lost? What if every losing candidate left it to their supporters to decide whether or not to accept the outcome of a race? Who would ever accept defeat?
What good could possibly come of this? With Hillary proclaiming herself the legitimate winner, they're clearly going to say "keep going." If she actually does keep going, that's a disaster for the Democratic Party. And if she doesn't, you've just drawn a ton of attention to the fact that a large chunk of the party doesn't accept Obama as the legimiate nominee. No, worse: you've encouraged them to think that, then drawn attention to it.
What a disaster.
Update: Here's the precise version of the first quote:
You know, I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? What does she want? Well, I want what I have always fought for in this whole campaign. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible. ...
This nation has given me every opportunity, and that's what I want for every single American. ... And it is a fight I will continue until every single American has health insurance. No exceptions and no excuses.
A commenter expressed confusion about my point here, so let me put it slightly differently: Taken by itself, it's a little unclear what Hillary means when she says she wants the 18 million Americans who voted for her to be respected, heard, not invisible. Wanting people to be respected, heard, etc. is a legitimate desire, just like wanting them to have health care and to live up to their God-given potential. It's when Hillary says she wants the latter for everyone, but the former only for her supporters, that things start to get weird. That's how you know she's essentially saying, "Those 18 million votes should make me the nominee."
And here's the second quote:
But this has always been your campaign, so to the 18 million people who voted for me and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you. I hope you'll go to my website at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can.
In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.
1.) "What does Hillary want? ... I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, no longer to be invisible." Then, a little later, "...Opportunity--that's what I want for every single American… It is a fight I will continue until every single American has health care, no exceptions, no excuses."
When Hillary says she wants her 18 million voters to be respected and heard, but opportunity and health care for every single American, she seems to be saying, pretty unambiguously, that not giving her the nomination--not privileging the will of her voters--would be an illegitimate outcome. (Otherwise, why not say you want every single American "respected and heard"?) That's a pretty inflammatory comment.
2.) "To the 18 million people who voted for me, and many other people out there… I want to hear from you… I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders, to determine how to move forward, with the best interests of our party and our country in mind."
So she's going to leave it to her voters to decide whether she should accept defeat after having, you know, lost? What if every losing candidate left it to their supporters to decide whether or not to accept the outcome of a race? Who would ever accept defeat?
What good could possibly come of this? With Hillary proclaiming herself the legitimate winner, they're clearly going to say "keep going." If she actually does keep going, that's a disaster for the Democratic Party. And if she doesn't, you've just drawn a ton of attention to the fact that a large chunk of the party doesn't accept Obama as the legimiate nominee. No, worse: you've encouraged them to think that, then drawn attention to it.
What a disaster.
Update: Here's the precise version of the first quote:
You know, I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? What does she want? Well, I want what I have always fought for in this whole campaign. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible. ...
This nation has given me every opportunity, and that's what I want for every single American. ... And it is a fight I will continue until every single American has health insurance. No exceptions and no excuses.
A commenter expressed confusion about my point here, so let me put it slightly differently: Taken by itself, it's a little unclear what Hillary means when she says she wants the 18 million Americans who voted for her to be respected, heard, not invisible. Wanting people to be respected, heard, etc. is a legitimate desire, just like wanting them to have health care and to live up to their God-given potential. It's when Hillary says she wants the latter for everyone, but the former only for her supporters, that things start to get weird. That's how you know she's essentially saying, "Those 18 million votes should make me the nominee."
And here's the second quote:
But this has always been your campaign, so to the 18 million people who voted for me and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you. I hope you'll go to my website at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can.
In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.
Questions To Ask About The Unity Ticket - Latest Barack Obama news
(1) Does Clinton want to be vice president?
It's clear that she is open to the possibility, as she says; it's probable that she hasn't had the time to contemplate the question with attention to all of the personal, professional and psychic ramifications -- what it would mean for her, her family, what she would do, what Bill would do? A person very close to Clinton, someone who talks to her regularly, someone who is reliable, said that Clinton ultimately does not want, in the sense of an affirmative desire, to be vice president, but would never turn down an offer.... in other words, she is an American and a patriot and a loyal Democrat and would not refuse a chance like that to serve her country.
(2) Would Clinton accept the vice presidency if it were offered?
At this point, yes, say her aides and advisers. She wants to do what's necessary to unite the Democratic Party, and the consequences of refusing an invitation would be pretty terrible.
(3) Would Obama consider her, seriously?
At this point, no. Judging by the attitude of those who are advising him, what turns Obama off the most about the Clintons generally is the sense that the party was hers and her sense of desert that she is owed something. Some Obama advisers were very much turned off by the presence of vice presidential talk yesterday although they attribute this more to Clinton's advisers than to Clinton. From my first interviews with Obama advisers and members of his family, I've gotten an overwhelming sense that President Clinton's Oval Office dalliance with Monica Lewinsky deeply offended them and that the incident, its effect on the country, and its aftermath, shape in many ways the Obama family's view of the Clintons today. (It is certainly true of some of his staff members.)
The thinking in the Obama campaign is that the party will, over the next few weeks, coalesce around Obama; that the fervor to put her on the ticket will diminish; that right now, the active phase of speculation is driving most of the unity talk, and if Obama, by mid-summer, has a comfortable lead in the polls, the demands will die down, especially if he treats her with respect.
(4) So how does he treat with respect?
He vets her, or he indicates that he will vet her, and he vets at least one of her supporters -- perhaps Gov. Strickland of Ohio; he promises her a prime-time speaking slot; he offers to let her shepherd his health care plan through Congress; he promises her regular input in his decisions.
(5) There will be lots of pressure on Obama to change his mind, though.
Unquestionably. And since we're in the moment, a lot of it is to be expected. You can be sure that Obama will do nothing rash, and that whatever he decides, he's going to take lots of time. If the pressure on him does not abate and if the support of a good chunk of the 17 million Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton does not migrate to him by the middle of July, then Obama might find himself in a quandary.
(6) So basically, the answer to the original question is: if Obama can coalesce the Democratic Party before he needs to pick a vice president, there's almost no chance that he will pick Hillary Clinton.
That's pretty much it, yes.
(7) What's the next step?
Well, Clinton wants a one-on-one meeting with Barack Obama at his soonest convenience to discuss her exit from the race.
You can expect some of her supporters to very aggressively and almost ungraciously spout the opinion that she is owed the vice presidency. I do not know whether Clinton herself will sanction these endeavors.
There may be a movement by her supporters to place her name in contention for the vice presidential nomination even if Obama nominates someone else.
It's clear that she is open to the possibility, as she says; it's probable that she hasn't had the time to contemplate the question with attention to all of the personal, professional and psychic ramifications -- what it would mean for her, her family, what she would do, what Bill would do? A person very close to Clinton, someone who talks to her regularly, someone who is reliable, said that Clinton ultimately does not want, in the sense of an affirmative desire, to be vice president, but would never turn down an offer.... in other words, she is an American and a patriot and a loyal Democrat and would not refuse a chance like that to serve her country.
(2) Would Clinton accept the vice presidency if it were offered?
At this point, yes, say her aides and advisers. She wants to do what's necessary to unite the Democratic Party, and the consequences of refusing an invitation would be pretty terrible.
(3) Would Obama consider her, seriously?
At this point, no. Judging by the attitude of those who are advising him, what turns Obama off the most about the Clintons generally is the sense that the party was hers and her sense of desert that she is owed something. Some Obama advisers were very much turned off by the presence of vice presidential talk yesterday although they attribute this more to Clinton's advisers than to Clinton. From my first interviews with Obama advisers and members of his family, I've gotten an overwhelming sense that President Clinton's Oval Office dalliance with Monica Lewinsky deeply offended them and that the incident, its effect on the country, and its aftermath, shape in many ways the Obama family's view of the Clintons today. (It is certainly true of some of his staff members.)
The thinking in the Obama campaign is that the party will, over the next few weeks, coalesce around Obama; that the fervor to put her on the ticket will diminish; that right now, the active phase of speculation is driving most of the unity talk, and if Obama, by mid-summer, has a comfortable lead in the polls, the demands will die down, especially if he treats her with respect.
(4) So how does he treat with respect?
He vets her, or he indicates that he will vet her, and he vets at least one of her supporters -- perhaps Gov. Strickland of Ohio; he promises her a prime-time speaking slot; he offers to let her shepherd his health care plan through Congress; he promises her regular input in his decisions.
(5) There will be lots of pressure on Obama to change his mind, though.
Unquestionably. And since we're in the moment, a lot of it is to be expected. You can be sure that Obama will do nothing rash, and that whatever he decides, he's going to take lots of time. If the pressure on him does not abate and if the support of a good chunk of the 17 million Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton does not migrate to him by the middle of July, then Obama might find himself in a quandary.
(6) So basically, the answer to the original question is: if Obama can coalesce the Democratic Party before he needs to pick a vice president, there's almost no chance that he will pick Hillary Clinton.
That's pretty much it, yes.
(7) What's the next step?
Well, Clinton wants a one-on-one meeting with Barack Obama at his soonest convenience to discuss her exit from the race.
You can expect some of her supporters to very aggressively and almost ungraciously spout the opinion that she is owed the vice presidency. I do not know whether Clinton herself will sanction these endeavors.
There may be a movement by her supporters to place her name in contention for the vice presidential nomination even if Obama nominates someone else.
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH US SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
SPIEGEL: Senator Hagel, your friend and Republican presidential candidate John McCain says that the United States Army has a moral obligation to stay in Iraq. Is he right?
Hagel: We have responsibilities, no doubt about it. We invaded Iraq, we are occupying Iraq and we have made Iraq dependent on us. By our actions we have done terrible damage to our own country and undermined our interests in the world.
SPIEGEL: What are the consequences?
Hagel: Our first moral obligation is to our own people whom we keep sending back to Iraq again and again. Four-thousand US soldiers have given their lives, over 30,000 have been wounded, many seriously. I just got an e-mail today from the father of a helicopter pilot. His son is going back to Iraq for the fifth time. That is not acceptable.
SPIEGEL: The question is: Should the US go or should it stay?
Hagel: We need to get out, but responsibly. Much depends on how we are going to engage Iran. That spills over into the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. It spills over into Lebanon. It spills over into the relationship with Syria. We need a regional strategy, and in my view that means a permanent Middle East conference in which all Middle East nations participate. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more difficult it becomes to implement such a process. Many of the Arab nations don’t trust us.
SPIEGEL: You would bring back diplomacy? That was certainly not one of the strengths of President George W. Bush.
Hagel: That was a fundamental error. In the end it will be a diplomatic solution that will bring the Iraq War to an end. General David Petraeus has also said that.
SPIEGEL: John McCain clearly places much more emphasis on the military than you do. Are there any further differences?
Hagel: We must engage Iran and reach a point where we can begin to negotiate. I do not see an alternative. What has American involvement accomplished so far? The Middle East is as combustible and as complicated as it has ever been. Our policy has been disastrous. We now must apply all the instruments of power -- diplomatic power is part of that, as is trade and economic development. Certainly the military is a part of that and so is intelligence sharing. We have to build relationships and define common interests. Only then is stability and security possible.
SPIEGEL: You are, then, an advocate of America relying more on soft power than on the military?
Hagel: That's the way we will make progress. We have to use our economic and also our cultural strength. Trust is the crucial currency in international relations. We willfully diminished the value of this currency and we now have to rebuild it. Trust is more important than anything else. North Korea was a part of the Axis of Evil, but now the United States is using the instruments of diplomacy in the Six Party talks.
SPIEGEL: But that would mean that you are closer to Democrat Barack Obama than to your own party as far as foreign policy is concerned?
Hagel: Well, that’s right, but I don’t develop my position on foreign policy based on which politicians I support or do not support. I was espousing this position on Iraq and Iran before Obama even got to the Senate.
SPIEGEL: You didn’t follow him, he followed you?
Hagel: (laughing) He has accepted my position and my direction.
SPIEGEL: That may be an important prerequisite should you want to become a member of his cabinet later on.
Hagel: I don’t expect to be in anyone’s cabinet. I think I will be on the outside of government.
SPIEGEL: Your name has been mentioned in connection with the offices of Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State in an Obama administration. You don't like such speculation?
Hagel: I appreciate people having confidence in me. But I don’t expect to be in any government.
SPIEGEL: What should the Europeans expect from the next American president?
Hagel: Both candidates will have a new approach, more cooperation, a greater emphasis on alliances. Whichever candidate is elected, our European allies will see a president forging a stronger relationship. It was a grave mistake to alienate the allies. Both candidates realize that the challenges today are global and we can only deal with these challenges working together with our allies.
SPIEGEL: And what does America expect from the Europeans? George W. Bush has been an easy president, because it was easy for Europeans not to follow him, for example in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagel: A strong America is in the interest of the world. I often meet with foreign leaders and they know that the world is more dangerous when America is stumbling, bumbling and weak. America should lead, but through consensus and common interests.
SPIEGEL: Does the next president owe the Europeans an apology for America’s solo in Iraq and for belittling the West Europeans as “old Europe”?
Hagel: I do not think we should relive those times. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is disgraced and gone. Anybody who had anything to do with that is gone. There are books being written about them. Let’s go forward.
SPIEGEL: Do you also see a silver lining on the horizon when you look at the US economy? The United States has huge public debt and huge private debt. America consumes the most, but does not export enough. How can the United States restore its economic power?
Hagel: All the points you make are correct. We are the greatest debtor nation in the world. We have an enormous trade deficit. I look at it like a business -- you have a balance sheet: We are by far the largest economy in the world and the most flexible; we have ideas; the debt represents only a very small percentage of our gross domestic product. But you cannot continue to spend $600 billion a year that you do not have. We are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone. And we are going to have to do something about our steadily increasing costs for entitlement programs. The European nations have all had to deal with that.
SPIEGEL: What precisely do you want to change?
Hagel: We need to reform Social Security, reduce our costs for prescription drugs. I have submitted legislation in the Senate on every one of these issues.
SPIEGEL: Economically, America today is doubly dependent on China. China finances the enormous trade deficit and China supplies the country with a huge number of vital consumer goods. Is China a rival or a partner?
Hagel: It is the same question you can ask for America and Germany. Are we trade rivals? Yes. Are we partners? Yes. Are there tensions? Yes, there are.
SPIEGEL: You're comparing Germany to China?
Hagel: No. What I am trying to say is that every country has a multitude of dimensions. Foreign relations are always complex. I do not see China as a threat. It is a competitor who could turn out to be dangerous if the relationship is not managed right. If both sides are not attentive they could become, down the road, enemies.
SPIEGEL: It doesn’t look good for your own party. After seven years of George W. Bush, 81 percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track and only 27 percent have a favorable view. What went wrong?
Hagel: The party is in terrible shape and it is because we did not do a very good job of managing this country. We have gotten into two wars. We have run up a third of the national debt in the last seven years. So we have controlled the government and we have made a lot of mistakes. All the same, McCain and Obama are within the margin of error in the polls.
SPIEGEL: Is the era of the hawks in your party definitely over?
Hagel: I hope so. That segment of the Republican Party, the so-called neocons, held the Republican Party hostage much of the time. What this element has done to our party is clear now and I would hope that it will come back to the party of Eisenhower, even the party of Ronald Reagan. Today’s party is no longer Ronald Reagan’s party, who, contrary to his reputation, governed from the center. But he sat down with the Soviets, the great evil empire, and was able to get results, for example in nuclear disarmament.
SPIEGEL: You write in your new book about former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visiting you in your office in the Senate, chain-smoking and complaining that “there are no more great leaders." Do you agree?
Hagel: Today, I don’t see any great global leaders of the stature of Reagan, Kohl, Mitterand and Thatcher. They were important, whether you agreed with them or not. But as Schmidt also told me in my office, there will come a time when we will find those new leaders again.
SPIEGEL: A lot of Germans hope Obama is that someone.
Hagel: He could be. But until he is in office, you don’t know.
Hagel: We have responsibilities, no doubt about it. We invaded Iraq, we are occupying Iraq and we have made Iraq dependent on us. By our actions we have done terrible damage to our own country and undermined our interests in the world.
SPIEGEL: What are the consequences?
Hagel: Our first moral obligation is to our own people whom we keep sending back to Iraq again and again. Four-thousand US soldiers have given their lives, over 30,000 have been wounded, many seriously. I just got an e-mail today from the father of a helicopter pilot. His son is going back to Iraq for the fifth time. That is not acceptable.
SPIEGEL: The question is: Should the US go or should it stay?
Hagel: We need to get out, but responsibly. Much depends on how we are going to engage Iran. That spills over into the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. It spills over into Lebanon. It spills over into the relationship with Syria. We need a regional strategy, and in my view that means a permanent Middle East conference in which all Middle East nations participate. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more difficult it becomes to implement such a process. Many of the Arab nations don’t trust us.
SPIEGEL: You would bring back diplomacy? That was certainly not one of the strengths of President George W. Bush.
Hagel: That was a fundamental error. In the end it will be a diplomatic solution that will bring the Iraq War to an end. General David Petraeus has also said that.
SPIEGEL: John McCain clearly places much more emphasis on the military than you do. Are there any further differences?
Hagel: We must engage Iran and reach a point where we can begin to negotiate. I do not see an alternative. What has American involvement accomplished so far? The Middle East is as combustible and as complicated as it has ever been. Our policy has been disastrous. We now must apply all the instruments of power -- diplomatic power is part of that, as is trade and economic development. Certainly the military is a part of that and so is intelligence sharing. We have to build relationships and define common interests. Only then is stability and security possible.
SPIEGEL: You are, then, an advocate of America relying more on soft power than on the military?
Hagel: That's the way we will make progress. We have to use our economic and also our cultural strength. Trust is the crucial currency in international relations. We willfully diminished the value of this currency and we now have to rebuild it. Trust is more important than anything else. North Korea was a part of the Axis of Evil, but now the United States is using the instruments of diplomacy in the Six Party talks.
SPIEGEL: But that would mean that you are closer to Democrat Barack Obama than to your own party as far as foreign policy is concerned?
Hagel: Well, that’s right, but I don’t develop my position on foreign policy based on which politicians I support or do not support. I was espousing this position on Iraq and Iran before Obama even got to the Senate.
SPIEGEL: You didn’t follow him, he followed you?
Hagel: (laughing) He has accepted my position and my direction.
SPIEGEL: That may be an important prerequisite should you want to become a member of his cabinet later on.
Hagel: I don’t expect to be in anyone’s cabinet. I think I will be on the outside of government.
SPIEGEL: Your name has been mentioned in connection with the offices of Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State in an Obama administration. You don't like such speculation?
Hagel: I appreciate people having confidence in me. But I don’t expect to be in any government.
SPIEGEL: What should the Europeans expect from the next American president?
Hagel: Both candidates will have a new approach, more cooperation, a greater emphasis on alliances. Whichever candidate is elected, our European allies will see a president forging a stronger relationship. It was a grave mistake to alienate the allies. Both candidates realize that the challenges today are global and we can only deal with these challenges working together with our allies.
SPIEGEL: And what does America expect from the Europeans? George W. Bush has been an easy president, because it was easy for Europeans not to follow him, for example in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagel: A strong America is in the interest of the world. I often meet with foreign leaders and they know that the world is more dangerous when America is stumbling, bumbling and weak. America should lead, but through consensus and common interests.
SPIEGEL: Does the next president owe the Europeans an apology for America’s solo in Iraq and for belittling the West Europeans as “old Europe”?
Hagel: I do not think we should relive those times. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is disgraced and gone. Anybody who had anything to do with that is gone. There are books being written about them. Let’s go forward.
SPIEGEL: Do you also see a silver lining on the horizon when you look at the US economy? The United States has huge public debt and huge private debt. America consumes the most, but does not export enough. How can the United States restore its economic power?
Hagel: All the points you make are correct. We are the greatest debtor nation in the world. We have an enormous trade deficit. I look at it like a business -- you have a balance sheet: We are by far the largest economy in the world and the most flexible; we have ideas; the debt represents only a very small percentage of our gross domestic product. But you cannot continue to spend $600 billion a year that you do not have. We are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone. And we are going to have to do something about our steadily increasing costs for entitlement programs. The European nations have all had to deal with that.
SPIEGEL: What precisely do you want to change?
Hagel: We need to reform Social Security, reduce our costs for prescription drugs. I have submitted legislation in the Senate on every one of these issues.
SPIEGEL: Economically, America today is doubly dependent on China. China finances the enormous trade deficit and China supplies the country with a huge number of vital consumer goods. Is China a rival or a partner?
Hagel: It is the same question you can ask for America and Germany. Are we trade rivals? Yes. Are we partners? Yes. Are there tensions? Yes, there are.
SPIEGEL: You're comparing Germany to China?
Hagel: No. What I am trying to say is that every country has a multitude of dimensions. Foreign relations are always complex. I do not see China as a threat. It is a competitor who could turn out to be dangerous if the relationship is not managed right. If both sides are not attentive they could become, down the road, enemies.
SPIEGEL: It doesn’t look good for your own party. After seven years of George W. Bush, 81 percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track and only 27 percent have a favorable view. What went wrong?
Hagel: The party is in terrible shape and it is because we did not do a very good job of managing this country. We have gotten into two wars. We have run up a third of the national debt in the last seven years. So we have controlled the government and we have made a lot of mistakes. All the same, McCain and Obama are within the margin of error in the polls.
SPIEGEL: Is the era of the hawks in your party definitely over?
Hagel: I hope so. That segment of the Republican Party, the so-called neocons, held the Republican Party hostage much of the time. What this element has done to our party is clear now and I would hope that it will come back to the party of Eisenhower, even the party of Ronald Reagan. Today’s party is no longer Ronald Reagan’s party, who, contrary to his reputation, governed from the center. But he sat down with the Soviets, the great evil empire, and was able to get results, for example in nuclear disarmament.
SPIEGEL: You write in your new book about former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visiting you in your office in the Senate, chain-smoking and complaining that “there are no more great leaders." Do you agree?
Hagel: Today, I don’t see any great global leaders of the stature of Reagan, Kohl, Mitterand and Thatcher. They were important, whether you agreed with them or not. But as Schmidt also told me in my office, there will come a time when we will find those new leaders again.
SPIEGEL: A lot of Germans hope Obama is that someone.
Hagel: He could be. But until he is in office, you don’t know.
The dream ticket - Latest obama news and views
Putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket for vice president creates a ménage-à-trois. Bill will be the unexpected roommate. Even if a President Obama can discipline Hillary and get her to play second fiddle, there is not the remotest chance that he can get the former president to accept such rules. Even if Bill Clinton wanted to rein in his newly prolific public expressions of rage and frustration, there is doubt that he is any longer capable of doing so.
Hillary, who likely desperately wants to be tapped for vice president, is going about it in exactly the wrong way. She seems to be demanding a kind of coalition government between herself and Obama, a definition of the vice presidency not likely to appeal to the president. It reminds me of 1980 when there were discussions of a ticket with Reagan as the presidential nominee and former President Gerald Ford as the vice president in a coalition government where the VP would have extraordinary powers.
Intended to reassure voters who were panicked by Reagan's "extreme" conservatism, the arrangement never came to fruition, a development which gave us the House of Bush.
Instead of conceding defeat and campaigning for Obama, auditioning for the spot of loyal teammate, Hillary insists on keeping her options open and vies for the spotlight with Obama, exactly what you do not want a vice president to do.
Last night, when Obama went over the top in delegates and could claim the nomination as his, Hillary organized a rally of all of her supporters, directly competing for airtime with the newly minted nominee.
Adding Hillary to the ticket would not bring Obama a single vote (except possibly for Bill's). Her supporters are divided into two distinct categories. The original Clintonistas were strong Democrats, party faithful, pro-choice, middle-aged and up, largely female and all white. But Hillary's recent backers have been downscale whites of both genders who were turned off by Obama's pastor, wife and other associates and were afraid he might be a Muslim in disguise. Unhappy about voting for a woman, they never really liked Hillary but turned to her when the alternative was Obama.
If Hillary had won the Democratic nomination, these latent backers of Hillary in the primaries might still have voted for McCain in the general. Their support of Hillary is purely linked to her opposition to Obama. Were she to join the ticket, they would vote for McCain anyway. After all, Obama will still be black and the Rev. Wright will still be nuts.
But adding Hillary to the ticket brings, along with her, Bill.
The public Bill Clinton has morphed over the past few months from a statesman and philanthropist to a petulant, angry, cursing, spoiled narcissist, accusing everyone of being sleazy and biased and in so doing fashioning himself as a foil for Obama. This unattractive image is not the right one for the bottom of a ticket in a presidential race. And make no mistake, Bill comes along with Hillary.
But the more serious problem is the public record that Todd Purdum, an excellent journalist, laid out in his Vanity Fair piece. Bill's relationships with billionaires, his pursuit of financial gain, his alliance with the emir of Dubai, and his acceptance of speaking fees and income from some of the least savory of types is not what you need to carry around with you in a presidential race. To put Hillary on the ticket is to confront nagging questions about donors to the Clinton Library and Bill's refusal to release them. It would be to inherit a load of baggage that Obama does not need as he tries to position himself as the candidate of change, antithetical to the corrupt and corrupting ways of Washington.
On her own, Hillary would be no bargain as vice president. She would never accept direction and never sublimate her ambition or agenda to Obama's. But with Bill in tow, her candidacy becomes even more fraught with peril should Obama be inclined to bow to pressure and put her on the ticket.
Hillary, who likely desperately wants to be tapped for vice president, is going about it in exactly the wrong way. She seems to be demanding a kind of coalition government between herself and Obama, a definition of the vice presidency not likely to appeal to the president. It reminds me of 1980 when there were discussions of a ticket with Reagan as the presidential nominee and former President Gerald Ford as the vice president in a coalition government where the VP would have extraordinary powers.
Intended to reassure voters who were panicked by Reagan's "extreme" conservatism, the arrangement never came to fruition, a development which gave us the House of Bush.
Instead of conceding defeat and campaigning for Obama, auditioning for the spot of loyal teammate, Hillary insists on keeping her options open and vies for the spotlight with Obama, exactly what you do not want a vice president to do.
Last night, when Obama went over the top in delegates and could claim the nomination as his, Hillary organized a rally of all of her supporters, directly competing for airtime with the newly minted nominee.
Adding Hillary to the ticket would not bring Obama a single vote (except possibly for Bill's). Her supporters are divided into two distinct categories. The original Clintonistas were strong Democrats, party faithful, pro-choice, middle-aged and up, largely female and all white. But Hillary's recent backers have been downscale whites of both genders who were turned off by Obama's pastor, wife and other associates and were afraid he might be a Muslim in disguise. Unhappy about voting for a woman, they never really liked Hillary but turned to her when the alternative was Obama.
If Hillary had won the Democratic nomination, these latent backers of Hillary in the primaries might still have voted for McCain in the general. Their support of Hillary is purely linked to her opposition to Obama. Were she to join the ticket, they would vote for McCain anyway. After all, Obama will still be black and the Rev. Wright will still be nuts.
But adding Hillary to the ticket brings, along with her, Bill.
The public Bill Clinton has morphed over the past few months from a statesman and philanthropist to a petulant, angry, cursing, spoiled narcissist, accusing everyone of being sleazy and biased and in so doing fashioning himself as a foil for Obama. This unattractive image is not the right one for the bottom of a ticket in a presidential race. And make no mistake, Bill comes along with Hillary.
But the more serious problem is the public record that Todd Purdum, an excellent journalist, laid out in his Vanity Fair piece. Bill's relationships with billionaires, his pursuit of financial gain, his alliance with the emir of Dubai, and his acceptance of speaking fees and income from some of the least savory of types is not what you need to carry around with you in a presidential race. To put Hillary on the ticket is to confront nagging questions about donors to the Clinton Library and Bill's refusal to release them. It would be to inherit a load of baggage that Obama does not need as he tries to position himself as the candidate of change, antithetical to the corrupt and corrupting ways of Washington.
On her own, Hillary would be no bargain as vice president. She would never accept direction and never sublimate her ambition or agenda to Obama's. But with Bill in tow, her candidacy becomes even more fraught with peril should Obama be inclined to bow to pressure and put her on the ticket.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Barack Obama news : Hillary Clinton is her own worst enemy
Context, as in "you've taken my words out of context," is the last refuge of a politician caught with foot in mouth. That's where Hillary Clinton is today, alternately explaining and apologizing. But with both feet in her mouth, she doesn't have a leg to stand on.Gravity is the toughest opponent of all, even for a Clinton hellbent on a comeback.
Of course the meaning of words can be distorted if they are lifted from their surroundings. The problem for Clinton is that her reference to the assassination to Robert F. Kennedy is just as outlandish when everything she said before and after is taken into account.
There is no question she was citing the RFK murder of 40 years ago in the spirit of "anything can happen" and thus as a reason she should stay in the race against Barack Obama.
Which means she was thinking of murder as a momentum changer. Not a pretty thought in any context.
But the full context works against Clinton for a larger reason, too. The assassination remark is the latest evidence that her increasingly erratic campaign suffers from a severe case of split personality disorder.
One day it's a focused machine, gobbling up votes in numbers big enough to stave off Obama's nomination triumph. The next day the same machine spews out gaffes and B.S. as though it's been sabotaged.
Dr. Jekyll, meet Mr. Hyde.
Consider the last three months. Fresh off big popular vote wins in Ohio and Texas in March, she shot herself in the foot with a tall tale about coming under sniper fire during her trip to Bosnia as First Lady. Only when she became the subject of ridicule, with a videotape showing her smiling and accepting flowers from a child in Bosnia, did she confess to being wrong.
In April, her top strategist, Mark Penn, was caught working both sides of a key issue in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Among Penn's private clients was the government of Colombia, which was pushing for approval of a free-trade agreement at the same time Clinton was denouncing the idea. When Clinton fired him, he was her second campaign honcho to get dumped.
May brought more of the same, even before the RFK reference. The day after disappointing results in Indiana and North Carolina, she trotted out the race card, saying "Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." She went on to landslide wins in West Virginia and Kentucky by tapping that very demographic.
The headline-grabbing blunders stopped her from scoring big gains against Obama, even though he was wounded by the Jeremiah Wright issue, his "bitter" comments about small-town values and growing concerns about his kumbaya foreign policy overtures. The delegate deficit is a hurdle for her, but she had a potent argument about his vulnerability in the general election.
Instead of cashing in, Clinton repeatedly stepped on her own story. And with finger-wagging Bubba piping up with frequent off-message zingers, the prospect of the restoration of the Clinton presidency has been a political wash at best.
She's now so toxic she's probably doomed any hope of being named Obama's running mate. He didn't want her to start with; now he won't have to take her.
This one matters most because the notion of Obama being assassinated has been much discussed. He is the first black candidate with a real chance to be President, and, not incidentally, received the endorsement of Ted and Caroline Kennedy, making him the symbolic heir to the Camelot legend that was twice felled by assassin bullets. She couldn't have picked a worse point.
Still, myths aside, Obama is looking weak. In addition to Clinton's pounding him in key states, President Bush and Republican nominee John McCain have taken turns using Obama as a piñata. His yes-we-can crusade has been reduced to explaining why he wants to meet personally with the leader of Iran, whose militias are killing American troops in Iraq and who pledges to wipe Israel off the map.
Obama's views on the Mideast are so muddled the appeasement label is starting to stick, but Clinton is in no position to benefit. That's the impact, full and final, of her mentioning murder in a political context.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Hillary the Evil - Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.
SICK. Disgusting. And yet revealing. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.
It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn't deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.
Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.
Her lame explanation that she brought up the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy because his brother Ted's illness was on her mind doesn't cut it. Not even close.
We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?
It's like Tanya Harding's kneecapping has come to politics. Only the senator from New York has more lethal fantasies than that nutty skater.
We could have seen it coming, if only we had realized Clinton's thinking could be so cold. She has grown increasingly wild in her imagery lately, invoking everything from slavery to the political killings in Zimbabwe in making her argument for the Florida and Michigan delegations. She claimed to be the victim of sexism, despite winning the votes of white men.
But none of it was moving the nomination needle, with Obama, despite recent dents, still on course to be the victor.
So she kept digging deeper, looking for the magic button. Instead, she pushed the eject button, lifting herself right out of consideration.
Giving voice to such a vile thought is all the more horrible because fears Obama would be killed have been an undercurrent to his astonishing rise. Republican Mike Huckabee made a stupid joke about it recently. Many black Americans have talked of it, reflecting their assumption that racists would never tolerate a black President and that Obama would be taken from them.
Clinton has now fed that fear. She needs a very long vacation. And we need one from her.
Say good night, Hillary. And go away.
It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn't deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.
Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.
Her lame explanation that she brought up the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy because his brother Ted's illness was on her mind doesn't cut it. Not even close.
We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?
It's like Tanya Harding's kneecapping has come to politics. Only the senator from New York has more lethal fantasies than that nutty skater.
We could have seen it coming, if only we had realized Clinton's thinking could be so cold. She has grown increasingly wild in her imagery lately, invoking everything from slavery to the political killings in Zimbabwe in making her argument for the Florida and Michigan delegations. She claimed to be the victim of sexism, despite winning the votes of white men.
But none of it was moving the nomination needle, with Obama, despite recent dents, still on course to be the victor.
So she kept digging deeper, looking for the magic button. Instead, she pushed the eject button, lifting herself right out of consideration.
Giving voice to such a vile thought is all the more horrible because fears Obama would be killed have been an undercurrent to his astonishing rise. Republican Mike Huckabee made a stupid joke about it recently. Many black Americans have talked of it, reflecting their assumption that racists would never tolerate a black President and that Obama would be taken from them.
Clinton has now fed that fear. She needs a very long vacation. And we need one from her.
Say good night, Hillary. And go away.
barack obama news: Voters just don't trust Hillary
Is Hillary Clinton the victim of a Vast Misogynist Conspiracy? Have her efforts to breach the ultimate glass ceiling in the world's labour market been destroyed - as in the end we're told all women's efforts inevitably are destroyed - by a lethal combination of sneering chauvinism and locker-room clubbiness?
To the cynics this US presidential election was always going to be a race to the bottom between racism and sexism. As the Democratic party continues to writhe through the final agonies of Senator Clinton's collapsing ambitions, her people think they know the real winner. They are muttering angrily that she is the most high-profile victim yet of sexual discrimination in the workplace. A favourite theme among them now is that Mrs Clinton is a kind of sacrificial figure: the woman who so obviously should have won the presidency but was denied by woman-hatred, the one whose efforts were not enough to conquer the legions of male bigots but whose sacrifice has made it possible for future women to scale the mountaintop. Henceforth, as it were, all generations shall call her blessed.
Before ascribing this sentiment to a particularly powerful case of sore loser syndrome, we ought to acknowledge that it surely has a little merit. There are things that are said all the time about Mrs Clinton's manner, her speaking style, assumptions that are made about her motivations, even the vocabulary in which she is described, that are, shall we say, certainly gender-specific. The cultural allusions played out with tired regularity to describe her campaigning style conjure the worst female images that lurk in the darkest corners of the male brain. She's Lady Macbeth and The White Queen and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction rolled into one.
And yet, are we truly expected to believe this is why Democratic voters have rejected her? I've no doubt that there are still some men who physically recoil at the thought of a woman in a powerful job but do people really think that there were not other - good - reasons for denying Senator Clinton her prize?
In the end the beauty of the “We only lost because people are sexist/racist/homophobic/stupid” argument is that it can't really be rebutted. The only way to deal with it is to explain patiently and with great understanding that there were valid reasons why millions of intelligent, thoughtful and tolerant Americans decided to run a million miles from the idea that this woman - this woman - should become the most powerful person on the planet.
The principal reason voters give for not liking Senator Clinton is that they don't trust her, that they sense that someone who would do or say anything to get elected is not someone who should be entrusted with the presidency. If anything has been demonstrated in the two long years in which she has been actively campaigning for the presidency, it is how right they are.
As she ratchets up her final efforts to wrest the nomination from Barack Obama's grasp, she has finally cut herself free from the frayed moorings that connected her campaign with honesty and reality. This week, as Senator Obama moved closer to securing a majority of delegates needed for the Democratic nomination, she was insisting with more urgency than ever that the votes cast in Michigan and Florida must be counted.
These states, you'll recall, broke the Democratic Party's rules and went ahead with their primaries earlier than they were supposed to. As a result the Democratic Party - not the Republicans, or the Supreme Court or the Bush Administration - decided to disqualify those states from the process. In Michigan, Senator Obama was not even on the ballot papers, yet now Senator Clinton not only insists those votes must count towards the final vote totals, but says it would be a terrible denial of Americans' civil rights if they did not.
She compared her effort to overturn the decision not only to Al Gore's controversial defeat in Florida in a disputed recount in 2000, but to the victims of tyranny throughout history - from enslaved blacks in pre-Civil War America to the cheated voters in the election in March in Zimbabwe.
This is, truly, disturbing. It matters not whether it is a man or a woman saying it. It is not only hyperbolic and cynical. It is inflammatory nonsense. But it is at least of a piece with her increasingly desperate struggle.
Mrs Clinton has received much credit for the fighting posture she has adopted of late. She has found her voice, it is said, as she fights to win votes in the remaining primary states among predominantly low-income, white voters. Yet what is this voice? It is a voice that explicitly appeals to white working-class solidarity and implicitly suggests that people outside that demographic cannot be president. It plays on the worst populist instincts of Americans, issuing threats to obliterate Iran and attacking the Chinese for poisoning Americans with toxic toys.
To see how completely Senator Clinton has changed in the course of her campaign, we have only to consider how the Democratic race was viewed two years ago as it got under way. Back then, when Mr Obama's campaign was merely a twinkle in his own eye, the question on Democrats' lips was: who could possibly beat Hillary? The assumption was that Senator Clinton would be the candidate of the elite, liberal, progressive types and African-Americans who in the end, as it turned out, flocked to Mr Obama.
Her problem, it was assumed back then, was that she would not be able to appeal to the white working class with its more conservative instincts and values. And so the discussion about potential rivals revolved around candidates who might appeal to those voters - Mark Warner, the former Governor of Virginia, John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. Instead, Senator Obama became her main rival and outflanked her on the Left and outranked her among the progressives. So with barely a change of step, she pivoted and turned herself into the candidate of the hardworking ordinary Americans.
Now, there is much talk that if Mrs Clinton cannot be president she must be Mr Obama's vice-presidential nominee. But in her most recent speeches and actions she has surely demonstrated how dangerously unfit she would be. It would not be sexism or chauvinism but the clear-headed decision of a wise statesman, if Senator Obama brought this particular woman's presidential hopes to an unmourned end.
To the cynics this US presidential election was always going to be a race to the bottom between racism and sexism. As the Democratic party continues to writhe through the final agonies of Senator Clinton's collapsing ambitions, her people think they know the real winner. They are muttering angrily that she is the most high-profile victim yet of sexual discrimination in the workplace. A favourite theme among them now is that Mrs Clinton is a kind of sacrificial figure: the woman who so obviously should have won the presidency but was denied by woman-hatred, the one whose efforts were not enough to conquer the legions of male bigots but whose sacrifice has made it possible for future women to scale the mountaintop. Henceforth, as it were, all generations shall call her blessed.
Before ascribing this sentiment to a particularly powerful case of sore loser syndrome, we ought to acknowledge that it surely has a little merit. There are things that are said all the time about Mrs Clinton's manner, her speaking style, assumptions that are made about her motivations, even the vocabulary in which she is described, that are, shall we say, certainly gender-specific. The cultural allusions played out with tired regularity to describe her campaigning style conjure the worst female images that lurk in the darkest corners of the male brain. She's Lady Macbeth and The White Queen and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction rolled into one.
And yet, are we truly expected to believe this is why Democratic voters have rejected her? I've no doubt that there are still some men who physically recoil at the thought of a woman in a powerful job but do people really think that there were not other - good - reasons for denying Senator Clinton her prize?
In the end the beauty of the “We only lost because people are sexist/racist/homophobic/stupid” argument is that it can't really be rebutted. The only way to deal with it is to explain patiently and with great understanding that there were valid reasons why millions of intelligent, thoughtful and tolerant Americans decided to run a million miles from the idea that this woman - this woman - should become the most powerful person on the planet.
The principal reason voters give for not liking Senator Clinton is that they don't trust her, that they sense that someone who would do or say anything to get elected is not someone who should be entrusted with the presidency. If anything has been demonstrated in the two long years in which she has been actively campaigning for the presidency, it is how right they are.
As she ratchets up her final efforts to wrest the nomination from Barack Obama's grasp, she has finally cut herself free from the frayed moorings that connected her campaign with honesty and reality. This week, as Senator Obama moved closer to securing a majority of delegates needed for the Democratic nomination, she was insisting with more urgency than ever that the votes cast in Michigan and Florida must be counted.
These states, you'll recall, broke the Democratic Party's rules and went ahead with their primaries earlier than they were supposed to. As a result the Democratic Party - not the Republicans, or the Supreme Court or the Bush Administration - decided to disqualify those states from the process. In Michigan, Senator Obama was not even on the ballot papers, yet now Senator Clinton not only insists those votes must count towards the final vote totals, but says it would be a terrible denial of Americans' civil rights if they did not.
She compared her effort to overturn the decision not only to Al Gore's controversial defeat in Florida in a disputed recount in 2000, but to the victims of tyranny throughout history - from enslaved blacks in pre-Civil War America to the cheated voters in the election in March in Zimbabwe.
This is, truly, disturbing. It matters not whether it is a man or a woman saying it. It is not only hyperbolic and cynical. It is inflammatory nonsense. But it is at least of a piece with her increasingly desperate struggle.
Mrs Clinton has received much credit for the fighting posture she has adopted of late. She has found her voice, it is said, as she fights to win votes in the remaining primary states among predominantly low-income, white voters. Yet what is this voice? It is a voice that explicitly appeals to white working-class solidarity and implicitly suggests that people outside that demographic cannot be president. It plays on the worst populist instincts of Americans, issuing threats to obliterate Iran and attacking the Chinese for poisoning Americans with toxic toys.
To see how completely Senator Clinton has changed in the course of her campaign, we have only to consider how the Democratic race was viewed two years ago as it got under way. Back then, when Mr Obama's campaign was merely a twinkle in his own eye, the question on Democrats' lips was: who could possibly beat Hillary? The assumption was that Senator Clinton would be the candidate of the elite, liberal, progressive types and African-Americans who in the end, as it turned out, flocked to Mr Obama.
Her problem, it was assumed back then, was that she would not be able to appeal to the white working class with its more conservative instincts and values. And so the discussion about potential rivals revolved around candidates who might appeal to those voters - Mark Warner, the former Governor of Virginia, John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. Instead, Senator Obama became her main rival and outflanked her on the Left and outranked her among the progressives. So with barely a change of step, she pivoted and turned herself into the candidate of the hardworking ordinary Americans.
Now, there is much talk that if Mrs Clinton cannot be president she must be Mr Obama's vice-presidential nominee. But in her most recent speeches and actions she has surely demonstrated how dangerously unfit she would be. It would not be sexism or chauvinism but the clear-headed decision of a wise statesman, if Senator Obama brought this particular woman's presidential hopes to an unmourned end.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Why it went so wrong for Hillary - Latest Barack Obama news on American elections
A year and a half ago, a senior Clinton ally, speaking privately to reporters, made the following prediction: "She's the favorite, but Obama's so good. Hillary only needs to make one or two mistakes and he'll be the the nominee."
To attribute the state of the race to Clinton's mistakes alone is to discount the quality of Obama's campaign and the depth of sentiment for change that exists in the Democratic party.
But Clinton insiders and analysts say the former first lady's missteps have contributed mightily to Obama's nearly insurmountable lead in overall delegates.
Here are 10 reasons the once-prohibitive frontrunner is finding herself on the verge of elimination:
1. MULTIPLE POLITICAL PERSONALITY DISORDER (MPPD). While Obama has stuck with an elegant hope-and-change message from start to finish, Clinton skittered from theme to theme before settling on a successful populist-with-a-punch formula.
One of Clinton's first hires was top strategist Mark Penn -- a cautious pollster known for slicing and dicing the electorate into "soccer moms" and other demographic niches. Penn's approach, campaign insiders say, was a fragmented, a la carte campaign whose message varied widely from day to day, leaving voters with a blurry image of an already complicated candidate.
"I like Mark but to have the same guy collect the data and interpret it was a big mistake," a longtime friend of both Clintons told Newsday. "Penn was a good match with Bill in the White House because Bill could warm things up and humanize Penn's strategy. Hillary doesn't have those same skills. It was a bad fit."
Penn's insistence that Clinton emphasize her toughness caused an internal tug-of-war over her image, with communications chief Howard Wolfson urging Clinton to stress her softer side.
2. THE INEVITABILITY FALLACY Clinton and her inner circle, including then-campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, simply believed there was virtually no way she could lose.
One longtime Clinton confidant said top staffers began to realize Obama was a "serious threat" by the early fall of 2007 but that "the candidate herself didn't really believe she could be beaten" until her third-place finish in Iowa.
"The original sin for Hillary was the sin of pride," said Ross Baker, a politics professor at Rutgers University.
3. NO GROUND GAME Overconfidence led to under-planning. After spending an estimated $25 million in Iowa, the Clinton campaign focused on big prizes on Super Tuesday -- New York, California, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
But those impressive wins masked a cash shortage and a catastrophic failure to plan for caucuses and primaries in smaller states. Even a modest effort in February would have resulted in significant delegate pickups and stopped Obama from racking up 11 straight wins -- which netted him 123 delegates, a healthy percentage of his current lead.
4. GOING OFFLINE When Clinton was assembling her campaign team in late 2006, strategist Joe Trippi sat down with Clinton advisers for a job interview. Trippi, who would later run John Edwards' campaign, suggested that Clinton center her campaign on a Web-based effort to collect $100 each from 1 million women around the country. Clinton's staff rejected the plan, opting to mix some online solicitations with a more traditional pitch to big donors.
Obama adopted his own version of the Trippi plan and changed the rules of the fundraising game. He's out-earned Clinton by $233.8 million to $172.8 million through April.
5. WHY WOULDN'T SHE BAN LOBBYIST DONATIONS? For more than a year, John Edwards and Barack Obama battered Clinton for not joining them in eschewing donations from federally registered lobbyists -- even though such donors made up a relatively small percentage of her take.
People close to Clinton say she thought the idea was silly and cynical. Yet by refusing to symbolically reject the Washington establishment, Clinton allowed her foes to paint her as a creature of the beltway and missed a chance to side with the forces of change.
6. STICKING WITH SPITZER Clinton .reluctantly backed former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's disastrous proposal for illegal immigrants driver's licenses.
Her inability to clearly articulate her opinion on the plan led to a game-changing meltdown at an Oct. 30, 2007, debate in Philadelphia, triggering her slide in the polls.
7. SINBAD, SNIPERS AND HILLARY'S TRUSTWORTHINESS No single event more compromised Clinton's legitimacy than her off-handed remark that she had braved sniper fire during a goodwill trip to Bosnia in the mid-1990s as first lady.
Clinton stuck with her story even when reporters pointed out 1) that comedian Sinbad and daughter Chelsea were on the trip and 2) videotape existed of her landing on the runway, greeting children and .walking cheerfully to her motorcade.
8. SENDING BILL TO SOUTH CAROLINA The former president's disastrous week in the Palmetto State began with him angrily defending his quip that Obama's anti-war record was a "fairy tale" -- and ending with his suggestion that Obama's campaign would suffer the same fate as Jesse Jackson's quixotic efforts in the 1980s.
The result was a wholesale defection of black voters to Obama and the ravaging of the former president's reputation with a vital party constituency.
It's possible that Clinton's failure to retain even a fraction of African-American support could provide Obama with the final edge in the nationwide popular vote. Nearly 20 percent of South Carolina blacks voted for the former first lady on Jan. 26 -- but fewer than 10 percent backed her in North Carolina three months later.
9. SETTING UP A "WAR ROOM" INSTEAD OF MAKING PEACE WITH THE PRESS Hillary Clinton's biggest contribution to national political tactics was her invention of the "War Room" -- a rapid response team to deal with negative press stories during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign. But that approach, many in her camp now recognize, did little to warm her relationship with a skeptical, sometimes hostile press.
The campaign's early habit of denying reporters access to the candidate -- and haranguing scribes who asked tough questions -- added to an already tense atmosphere.
10. IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAQ AFTER ALL Even though the economy has supplanted Iraq as the top issue, Clinton's support of the 2002 resolution authorizing the invasion created a hard-core constituency of anti-Clinton Democrats.
Without Clinton's longtime support of the war, Obama would have had a tougher time galvanizing his core supporters: online donors, students and anti-war groups like MoveOn.org, experts say.
"I think it's pretty clear his opposition to the war enabled him to stand apart from her," Baker of Rutgers said. "It was a major rationale for his candidacy in the first place."
To attribute the state of the race to Clinton's mistakes alone is to discount the quality of Obama's campaign and the depth of sentiment for change that exists in the Democratic party.
But Clinton insiders and analysts say the former first lady's missteps have contributed mightily to Obama's nearly insurmountable lead in overall delegates.
Here are 10 reasons the once-prohibitive frontrunner is finding herself on the verge of elimination:
1. MULTIPLE POLITICAL PERSONALITY DISORDER (MPPD). While Obama has stuck with an elegant hope-and-change message from start to finish, Clinton skittered from theme to theme before settling on a successful populist-with-a-punch formula.
One of Clinton's first hires was top strategist Mark Penn -- a cautious pollster known for slicing and dicing the electorate into "soccer moms" and other demographic niches. Penn's approach, campaign insiders say, was a fragmented, a la carte campaign whose message varied widely from day to day, leaving voters with a blurry image of an already complicated candidate.
"I like Mark but to have the same guy collect the data and interpret it was a big mistake," a longtime friend of both Clintons told Newsday. "Penn was a good match with Bill in the White House because Bill could warm things up and humanize Penn's strategy. Hillary doesn't have those same skills. It was a bad fit."
Penn's insistence that Clinton emphasize her toughness caused an internal tug-of-war over her image, with communications chief Howard Wolfson urging Clinton to stress her softer side.
2. THE INEVITABILITY FALLACY Clinton and her inner circle, including then-campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, simply believed there was virtually no way she could lose.
One longtime Clinton confidant said top staffers began to realize Obama was a "serious threat" by the early fall of 2007 but that "the candidate herself didn't really believe she could be beaten" until her third-place finish in Iowa.
"The original sin for Hillary was the sin of pride," said Ross Baker, a politics professor at Rutgers University.
3. NO GROUND GAME Overconfidence led to under-planning. After spending an estimated $25 million in Iowa, the Clinton campaign focused on big prizes on Super Tuesday -- New York, California, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
But those impressive wins masked a cash shortage and a catastrophic failure to plan for caucuses and primaries in smaller states. Even a modest effort in February would have resulted in significant delegate pickups and stopped Obama from racking up 11 straight wins -- which netted him 123 delegates, a healthy percentage of his current lead.
4. GOING OFFLINE When Clinton was assembling her campaign team in late 2006, strategist Joe Trippi sat down with Clinton advisers for a job interview. Trippi, who would later run John Edwards' campaign, suggested that Clinton center her campaign on a Web-based effort to collect $100 each from 1 million women around the country. Clinton's staff rejected the plan, opting to mix some online solicitations with a more traditional pitch to big donors.
Obama adopted his own version of the Trippi plan and changed the rules of the fundraising game. He's out-earned Clinton by $233.8 million to $172.8 million through April.
5. WHY WOULDN'T SHE BAN LOBBYIST DONATIONS? For more than a year, John Edwards and Barack Obama battered Clinton for not joining them in eschewing donations from federally registered lobbyists -- even though such donors made up a relatively small percentage of her take.
People close to Clinton say she thought the idea was silly and cynical. Yet by refusing to symbolically reject the Washington establishment, Clinton allowed her foes to paint her as a creature of the beltway and missed a chance to side with the forces of change.
6. STICKING WITH SPITZER Clinton .reluctantly backed former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's disastrous proposal for illegal immigrants driver's licenses.
Her inability to clearly articulate her opinion on the plan led to a game-changing meltdown at an Oct. 30, 2007, debate in Philadelphia, triggering her slide in the polls.
7. SINBAD, SNIPERS AND HILLARY'S TRUSTWORTHINESS No single event more compromised Clinton's legitimacy than her off-handed remark that she had braved sniper fire during a goodwill trip to Bosnia in the mid-1990s as first lady.
Clinton stuck with her story even when reporters pointed out 1) that comedian Sinbad and daughter Chelsea were on the trip and 2) videotape existed of her landing on the runway, greeting children and .walking cheerfully to her motorcade.
8. SENDING BILL TO SOUTH CAROLINA The former president's disastrous week in the Palmetto State began with him angrily defending his quip that Obama's anti-war record was a "fairy tale" -- and ending with his suggestion that Obama's campaign would suffer the same fate as Jesse Jackson's quixotic efforts in the 1980s.
The result was a wholesale defection of black voters to Obama and the ravaging of the former president's reputation with a vital party constituency.
It's possible that Clinton's failure to retain even a fraction of African-American support could provide Obama with the final edge in the nationwide popular vote. Nearly 20 percent of South Carolina blacks voted for the former first lady on Jan. 26 -- but fewer than 10 percent backed her in North Carolina three months later.
9. SETTING UP A "WAR ROOM" INSTEAD OF MAKING PEACE WITH THE PRESS Hillary Clinton's biggest contribution to national political tactics was her invention of the "War Room" -- a rapid response team to deal with negative press stories during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign. But that approach, many in her camp now recognize, did little to warm her relationship with a skeptical, sometimes hostile press.
The campaign's early habit of denying reporters access to the candidate -- and haranguing scribes who asked tough questions -- added to an already tense atmosphere.
10. IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAQ AFTER ALL Even though the economy has supplanted Iraq as the top issue, Clinton's support of the 2002 resolution authorizing the invasion created a hard-core constituency of anti-Clinton Democrats.
Without Clinton's longtime support of the war, Obama would have had a tougher time galvanizing his core supporters: online donors, students and anti-war groups like MoveOn.org, experts say.
"I think it's pretty clear his opposition to the war enabled him to stand apart from her," Baker of Rutgers said. "It was a major rationale for his candidacy in the first place."
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
What is Clinton's argument now?
Hillary Clinton does not lack for victories. She has had several recently.
What she lacks is a way to make her victories meaningful. What she lacks is an argument.
What is the game-changing argument that will cause the superdelegates, who will decide the Democratic nomination, to vote for her?
That she has won Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky in the last few weeks? OK, yeah, they know that. They saw that on TV.
That she can win key states in November? Yep, so she says.
That she leads in the popular vote? Well, that depends on how you do the math.
That she continues to win white, working-class voters? Yawn.
Hillary Clinton won a huge victory in Kentucky on Tuesday night, and you know what happens next? Nothing probably. Nothing good. Not for her, anyway. Not if the past is prologue.
Last week, Clinton won West Virginia by an incredible 41 percentage points — a quadruple landslide! — and since then Barack Obama has picked up 22 superdelegates and Clinton has picked up four.
And when you are in a place where your victories don’t matter, then you are in a very bad place.
The party insiders look at her victories and shrug. They see a different math. They see what Obama sees: a pledged delegate victory that will not be overturned by the superdelegates.
Obama put it in a measured way Tuesday night in his speech from Des Moines. “We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people,” he said, “and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.”
Clinton’s victory speech was tough — almost defiant — when she promised to continue to campaign “by never giving up and never giving in.”
But it also had the elements of concession speech. “No matter what happens, I will work as hard as I can to elect a Democratic president this fall,” she said. “We will come together as a party, united by common values and common cause. And when we do, there will be no stopping us. We won’t just unite our party, we will unite our country.”
Even though Obama won Oregon on Tuesday night, he chose to make his victory speech in Iowa for symbolic reasons: Iowa, the very first contest of the primary campaign season, is where his victory put the first chink in Clinton’s “inevitability” armor.
Gordon Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party who had endorsed Obama when he was trailing in the polls last year, told me Tuesday night: “Some candidates under the harsh spotlight and intense scrutiny actually wilt, but let’s face it, Obama has grown, and his coalition has grown, but his Iowa win gave him the rocket fuel he needed.”
Obama, in his speech near the Iowa state capitol, was extremely gracious to Clinton (though it is easy to be gracious when you’ve virtually won). “The road here has been long, and that is partly because we’ve traveled it with one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office,” Obama said. “No matter how this primary ends, Sen. Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age.”
What she lacks is a way to make her victories meaningful. What she lacks is an argument.
What is the game-changing argument that will cause the superdelegates, who will decide the Democratic nomination, to vote for her?
That she has won Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky in the last few weeks? OK, yeah, they know that. They saw that on TV.
That she can win key states in November? Yep, so she says.
That she leads in the popular vote? Well, that depends on how you do the math.
That she continues to win white, working-class voters? Yawn.
Hillary Clinton won a huge victory in Kentucky on Tuesday night, and you know what happens next? Nothing probably. Nothing good. Not for her, anyway. Not if the past is prologue.
Last week, Clinton won West Virginia by an incredible 41 percentage points — a quadruple landslide! — and since then Barack Obama has picked up 22 superdelegates and Clinton has picked up four.
And when you are in a place where your victories don’t matter, then you are in a very bad place.
The party insiders look at her victories and shrug. They see a different math. They see what Obama sees: a pledged delegate victory that will not be overturned by the superdelegates.
Obama put it in a measured way Tuesday night in his speech from Des Moines. “We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people,” he said, “and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.”
Clinton’s victory speech was tough — almost defiant — when she promised to continue to campaign “by never giving up and never giving in.”
But it also had the elements of concession speech. “No matter what happens, I will work as hard as I can to elect a Democratic president this fall,” she said. “We will come together as a party, united by common values and common cause. And when we do, there will be no stopping us. We won’t just unite our party, we will unite our country.”
Even though Obama won Oregon on Tuesday night, he chose to make his victory speech in Iowa for symbolic reasons: Iowa, the very first contest of the primary campaign season, is where his victory put the first chink in Clinton’s “inevitability” armor.
Gordon Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party who had endorsed Obama when he was trailing in the polls last year, told me Tuesday night: “Some candidates under the harsh spotlight and intense scrutiny actually wilt, but let’s face it, Obama has grown, and his coalition has grown, but his Iowa win gave him the rocket fuel he needed.”
Obama, in his speech near the Iowa state capitol, was extremely gracious to Clinton (though it is easy to be gracious when you’ve virtually won). “The road here has been long, and that is partly because we’ve traveled it with one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office,” Obama said. “No matter how this primary ends, Sen. Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age.”
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Obama wins Oregon - Clinton Takes KY. - Latest Obama news
Barack Obama took a long stride toward history Tuesday, capturing a majority of pledged delegates to the Democratic convention even as he lost Kentucky by a wide margin to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama's big win in Oregon, combined with a share of Kentucky delegates, left him fewer than 100 shy of the 2,026 delegates needed to clinch the party's presidential nomination.
But Obama -- vying to become the first African American to head a major-party ticket -- staked no claim to the nomination, and Clinton showed no sign of standing down.
Instead, Obama celebrated the delegate milestone -- important both psychologically and mathematically -- with a Tuesday-night stop in Iowa, traveling full circle to the state where his candidacy took off with a win in the caucuses that began the nominating fight.
Standing in front of the gold-domed state Capitol, which glowed in the darkness, Obama declared: "Tonight, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States."
He offered a salute to Clinton -- "one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office" -- and urged Democrats to unify once the contentious nominating season had ended. "While our primary has been long and hard-fought," Obama said, "the hardest and most important part of our journey still lies ahead."
Clinton, appearing before cheering supporters in Louisville, Ky., reiterated her intention to keep running at least until the final primaries were held June 3. Describing the contest as "one of the closest races for a party's nomination in modern history," Clinton said she was "more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot counted."
But the New York senator commended Obama and called for a cessation of hostilities after the nomination is settled. "While we continue to go toe-to-toe for this nation, we do see eye-to-eye when it comes to uniting our party when it comes to electing a Democratic president," Clinton said.
She defeated Obama 65% to 30% in Kentucky. Obama was leading 58% to 42% in Oregon, with about half of the returns counted.
Each state was suited to the candidates' respective strengths. Kentucky is heavily rural, white and filled with the kind of working-class Democrats who have strongly favored Clinton throughout the nominating fight. Oregon is home to large numbers of independent-minded, highly educated and more-affluent Democrats, the sort who have embraced Obama in large numbers. Tuesday's voter surveys showed that pattern repeating itself.
But the vote totals and demographics were less significant than the delegate math, which gave Obama 1,949 delegates to Clinton's 1,769 in incomplete returns, according to the Associated Press. It takes 2,026 delegates to clinch the nomination at the Democrats' August convention in Denver. The party has two kinds of delegates: pledged, or those awarded through primaries and caucuses, and so-called superdelegates, who are free to support whomever they choose.
Increasingly, these last primaries seem like an afterthought as Obama turns his focus to the general election against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The two spent the last week sparring long-distance over foreign policy, Social Security and the influence of Washington special interests.
At the same time, the Democratic Party began to coalesce around the Illinois senator. A day after Clinton won West Virginia in a 41-percentage-point landslide, Obama picked up the endorsement of erstwhile rival John Edwards as well as the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America.
For her part, Clinton has scaled back her criticisms of Obama on the stump and pulled the plug on TV ads criticizing her rival. But that does not mean surrender. Today, she plans to campaign in Florida, a trip she scheduled after Obama announced his intention to spend the next three days in the Sunshine State.
The trip is driven by a simple calculation: Clinton's faint hopes of winning the nomination largely depends on seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan. Clinton won the popular vote in both states, though neither seriously competed and Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. The Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet May 31 to discuss whether to seat delegates from the two states, which broke party rules by scheduling their primaries too early.
The Clinton campaign hopes to shave Obama's lead to fewer than 100 delegates by June 3, at which point she would argue to superdelegates -- members of Congress and other party insiders -- that she would be the stronger general election candidate. There are about 175 uncommitted superdelegates remaining, though any of the 800 or so could switch sides at any time.
One Clinton aide, granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the campaign, said: "I don't want to sound naive or foolish, but if she's willing to play this out for two weeks to see where she gets . . . then those of us who believe she'd be a better candidate in the fall don't want to give up too soon."
Three contests remain: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Together, they offer 86 pledged delegates.
Obama's big win in Oregon, combined with a share of Kentucky delegates, left him fewer than 100 shy of the 2,026 delegates needed to clinch the party's presidential nomination.
But Obama -- vying to become the first African American to head a major-party ticket -- staked no claim to the nomination, and Clinton showed no sign of standing down.
Instead, Obama celebrated the delegate milestone -- important both psychologically and mathematically -- with a Tuesday-night stop in Iowa, traveling full circle to the state where his candidacy took off with a win in the caucuses that began the nominating fight.
Standing in front of the gold-domed state Capitol, which glowed in the darkness, Obama declared: "Tonight, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States."
He offered a salute to Clinton -- "one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office" -- and urged Democrats to unify once the contentious nominating season had ended. "While our primary has been long and hard-fought," Obama said, "the hardest and most important part of our journey still lies ahead."
Clinton, appearing before cheering supporters in Louisville, Ky., reiterated her intention to keep running at least until the final primaries were held June 3. Describing the contest as "one of the closest races for a party's nomination in modern history," Clinton said she was "more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot counted."
But the New York senator commended Obama and called for a cessation of hostilities after the nomination is settled. "While we continue to go toe-to-toe for this nation, we do see eye-to-eye when it comes to uniting our party when it comes to electing a Democratic president," Clinton said.
She defeated Obama 65% to 30% in Kentucky. Obama was leading 58% to 42% in Oregon, with about half of the returns counted.
Each state was suited to the candidates' respective strengths. Kentucky is heavily rural, white and filled with the kind of working-class Democrats who have strongly favored Clinton throughout the nominating fight. Oregon is home to large numbers of independent-minded, highly educated and more-affluent Democrats, the sort who have embraced Obama in large numbers. Tuesday's voter surveys showed that pattern repeating itself.
But the vote totals and demographics were less significant than the delegate math, which gave Obama 1,949 delegates to Clinton's 1,769 in incomplete returns, according to the Associated Press. It takes 2,026 delegates to clinch the nomination at the Democrats' August convention in Denver. The party has two kinds of delegates: pledged, or those awarded through primaries and caucuses, and so-called superdelegates, who are free to support whomever they choose.
Increasingly, these last primaries seem like an afterthought as Obama turns his focus to the general election against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The two spent the last week sparring long-distance over foreign policy, Social Security and the influence of Washington special interests.
At the same time, the Democratic Party began to coalesce around the Illinois senator. A day after Clinton won West Virginia in a 41-percentage-point landslide, Obama picked up the endorsement of erstwhile rival John Edwards as well as the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America.
For her part, Clinton has scaled back her criticisms of Obama on the stump and pulled the plug on TV ads criticizing her rival. But that does not mean surrender. Today, she plans to campaign in Florida, a trip she scheduled after Obama announced his intention to spend the next three days in the Sunshine State.
The trip is driven by a simple calculation: Clinton's faint hopes of winning the nomination largely depends on seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan. Clinton won the popular vote in both states, though neither seriously competed and Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. The Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet May 31 to discuss whether to seat delegates from the two states, which broke party rules by scheduling their primaries too early.
The Clinton campaign hopes to shave Obama's lead to fewer than 100 delegates by June 3, at which point she would argue to superdelegates -- members of Congress and other party insiders -- that she would be the stronger general election candidate. There are about 175 uncommitted superdelegates remaining, though any of the 800 or so could switch sides at any time.
One Clinton aide, granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the campaign, said: "I don't want to sound naive or foolish, but if she's willing to play this out for two weeks to see where she gets . . . then those of us who believe she'd be a better candidate in the fall don't want to give up too soon."
Three contests remain: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Together, they offer 86 pledged delegates.
Warren Buffet endorses Barack Obama - Latest Obama news - Hot Obama election news updates
Warren Buffett, a longtime friend of both Hillary and Bill Clinton, told CNN Monday Barack Obama would be his choice for the next President of the United States.
Speaking with CNN's Becky Anderson, the billionaire investor said he would gladly vote for either candidate, but said it is clear the senator from Illinois will be the party's nominee.
"So it would be Barack Obama, — [he] would be my preference," Buffett said.
Buffett had refused to take sides in the prolonged Democratic presidential race. The Nebraska Democrat hosted million dollar fundraisers for both last summer, and had previously held back on endorsing one over the other. Though he reportedly said at the Clinton fundraiser that the New York senator is "the person to run the country."
Buffett also has offered Clinton informal advice on the economy, and the two led a question-and-answer session about the economy with voters at a San Francisco campaign event in December.
Buffett, the world's richest man according to Forbes Magazine, runs Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The company's assets total more than $260 billion.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Obama rops in 8 Edwards delegates
At least six of John Edwards' pledged delegates in South Carolina will throw their support to Barack Obama following Edwards’ endorsement of the Democratic frontrunner, bringing the total number of delegates switching to Obama on Thursday to eight.
One Edwards delegate from Iowa, Machelle Crum, came out for Obama on Thursday morning, as did New Hampshire delegate Joshua Denton. Crum made the decision after receiving a phone call from Edwards supporters encouraging her to make the switch.
In South Carolina, Daniel Boan, Christine Brennan-Bond, Robert Groce, Susan Smith, Mike Evatt and Lauren Bilton — all elected as pledged delegates for Edwards following his third place finish in the primary there on January 29 — announced Thursday they will follow Edwards’ lead and pledge their support to Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August.
John Moylan, the Columbia attorney who directed Edwards’ campaign in the state and is now serving as an alternate delegate for Edwards, appeared on CNN’s “American Morning” Thursday. He stated his support for Obama and hinted that more members of the Edwards delegation would follow later in the day.
“I didn't reach all eight of them, but I can tell you that at least six of the eight are prepared to endorse Senator Obama,” Moylan said this morning.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
How best to punish Hillary Clinton - Options for Barack Obama
After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place.
Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator 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.”
So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her?
It is, verily, a sticky wicket.
One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that, despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats, a fusion ticket could backfire because “Americans can’t handle too much change at once.”
But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket?
As president, he could announce that, because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously, taking the title “Vice” literally, he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its “bucket of warm spit” Constitutional prerogatives — presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia.
He might also neglect to give Bill (whose acronym would be SLOTUS, Second Lad of the United States) full White House access.
Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with, there wouldn’t be much joy in Hillaryland.
The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty. And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream, derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places.
As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions.
But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates?
On a positive note, maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out.
Obama’s other option, laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday, is to go with someone who wouldn’t be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics.
Teddy told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.”
That would be smart for another reason: Hillary has a strange, unnerving effect on Obama, and whenever he is around her, he’s unable to do his best. Probably, it’s because she’s furious, always shaking his hand off her arm, ignoring him, giving him the evil eye and emasculating him, and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment.
In the last few days, as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight, he has been more like his old self, flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time, joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor, taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood.
“James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about,” he told Terry Moran on “Nightline.”
Obama will never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers. She’s Jane Jinx to him. It’s a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn’s star athlete and her supercilious fiancé have in “Pat and Mike.”
The fiancé is always belittling Hepburn, so whenever he’s in the stands, her tennis and golf go kerflooey. Finally, her manager, played by Spencer Tracy, asks the fiancé to stay away from big matches, explaining, “You are the wrong jockey for this chick.”
“You know, except when you’re around, we got a very valuable piece of property here,” he says, later adding, “When you’re around, she’s no good, she’s dead, see?”
The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself. He’s no good around her, see?
Edwards slaps Hillary over racial comments
Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday that Hillary Rodham Clinton probably didn't choose her words carefully when she suggested Barack Obama was losing the white vote.
Edwards also hedged on whether he might still endorse one of his former rivals, but said he thinks Obama will be the nominee. He cautioned that in Clinton's continued push for the nomination, she "has to be really careful" not to damage the Democratic Party's prospects in November.
"I know how hard it is to get up and go out there every day, speak to the media, speak to crowds, when people are urging you to get out of the race. I mean, it's a very hard place to be in. But she's shown a lot of strength about that," said Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who dropped out of the race in January.
"But I think the one thing that she has to be careful about ... going forward, is that, if she makes the case for herself, which she's completely entitled to do, she has to be really careful that she's not damaging our prospects, the Democratic Party, and our cause, for the fall," he said in a taped interview broadcast on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Clinton pledged to stay in the race after losing to Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina and barely winning in Indiana, which cemented his status as the front-runner. She touts her overall electability in a general election and, pointing to demographics, she recently told USA Today in an interview:
"There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working — hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
Some accused Clinton of reintroducing race into the campaign. Edwards seemed to give her a pass.
"She's in a very tough, very competitive race that's been going on a long, long time. And you know, she didn't probably — I'm sure she feels like she didn't choose her words very well there," he said.
"What I think is, at the end of the day, when this is over — and I think it is likely, certainly, at this point, that Senator Obama will be the nominee — that the Democrats will unite. We'll all be behind our nominee. And we'll be out there campaigning our hearts out," Edwards said.
David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist, disputed Clinton's assertion.
Axelrod said Obama and Clinton split Indiana voters who make $50,000 a year or less, and that Obama performed better among non-college-educated voters there. He said the same was true in North Carolina.
"The words weren't well chosen, but the thesis was wrong," Axeldrod said on "Fox News Sunday.
Meanwhile, on the subject of an endorsement, Edwards said he "might" still, but "I don't think it's a big deal, to be honest with you."
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Hillary's five big mistakes or how Obama outplayed her.
For all her talk about "full speed on to the White House," there was an unmistakably elegiac tone to Hillary Clinton's primary-night speech in Indianapolis. And if one needed further confirmation that the undaunted, never-say-die Clintons realize their bid might be at an end, all it took was a look at the wistful faces of the husband and the daughter who stood behind the candidate as she talked of all the people she has met in a journey "that has been a blessing for me."
It was also a journey she had begun with what appeared to be insurmountable advantages, which evaporated one by one as the campaign dragged on far longer than anyone could have anticipated. She made at least five big mistakes, each of which compounded the others:
It was also a journey she had begun with what appeared to be insurmountable advantages, which evaporated one by one as the campaign dragged on far longer than anyone could have anticipated. She made at least five big mistakes, each of which compounded the others:
1. She misjudged the mood
That was probably her biggest blunder. In a cycle that has been all about change, Clinton chose an incumbent's strategy, running on experience, preparedness, inevitability — and the power of the strongest brand name in Democratic politics. It made sense, given who she is and the additional doubts that some voters might have about making a woman Commander in Chief. But in putting her focus on positioning herself to win the general election in November, Clinton completely misread the mood of Democratic-primary voters, who were desperate to turn the page. "Being the consummate Washington insider is not where you want to be in a year when people want change," says Barack Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod. Clinton's "initial strategic positioning was wrong and kind of played into our hands." But other miscalculations made it worse:
2. She didn't master the rules
Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?" And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign now acknowledges privately:
3. She underestimated the caucus states
While Clinton based her strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that "caucus states were not really their thing." Her core supporters — women, the elderly, those with blue-collar jobs — were less likely to be able to commit an evening of the week, as the process requires. But it was a little like unilateral disarmament in states worth 12% of the pledged delegates. Indeed, it was in the caucus states that Obama piled up his lead among pledged delegates. "For all the talent and the money they had over there," says Axelrod, "they — bewilderingly — seemed to have little understanding for the caucuses and how important they would become."
By the time Clinton's lieutenants realized the grave nature of their error, they lacked the resources to do anything about it — in part because:
4. She relied on old money
For a decade or more, the Clintons set the standard for political fund raising in the Democratic Party, and nearly all Bill's old donors had re-upped for Hillary's bid. Her 2006 Senate campaign had raised an astonishing $51.6 million against token opposition, in what everyone assumed was merely a dry run for a far bigger contest. But something had happened to fund raising that Team Clinton didn't fully grasp: the Internet. Though Clinton's totals from working the shrimp-cocktail circuit remained impressive by every historic measure, her donors were typically big-check writers. And once they had ponied up the $2,300 allowed by law, they were forbidden to give more. The once bottomless Clinton well was drying up.
Obama relied instead on a different model: the 800,000-plus people who had signed up on his website and could continue sending money his way $5, $10 and $50 at a time. (The campaign has raised more than $100 million online, better than half its total.) Meanwhile, the Clintons were forced to tap the $100 million — plus the fortune they had acquired since he left the White House — first for $5 million in January to make it to Super Tuesday and then $6.4 million to get her through Indiana and North Carolina. And that reflects one final mistake:
5. She never counted on a long haul
Clinton's strategy had been premised on delivering a knockout blow early. If she could win Iowa, she believed, the race would be over. Clinton spent lavishly there yet finished a disappointing third. What surprised the Obama forces was how long it took her campaign to retool. She fought him to a tie in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests but didn't have any troops in place for the states that followed. Obama, on the other hand, was a train running hard on two or three tracks. Whatever the Chicago headquarters was unveiling to win immediate contests, it always had a separate operation setting up organizations in the states that were next. As far back as Feb. 21, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was spotted in Raleigh, N.C. He told the News & Observer that the state's primary, then more than 10 weeks away, "could end up being very important in the nomination fight." At the time, the idea seemed laughable.
Now, of course, the question seems not whether Clinton will exit the race but when. She continues to load her schedule with campaign stops, even as calls for her to concede grow louder. But the voice she is listening to now is the one inside her head, explains a longtime aide. Clinton's calculation is as much about history as it is about politics. As the first woman to have come this far, Clinton has told those close to her, she wants people who invested their hopes in her to see that she has given it her best. And then? As she said in Indianapolis, "No matter what happens, I will work for the nominee of the Democratic Party because we must win in November." When the task at hand is healing divisions in the Democratic Party, the loser can have as much influence as the winner.
Clinton may be the possible running mate of Barack Obama
Barack Obama on Thursday did not rule out selecting rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate if he ultimately defeats her in a race in which he has an almost insurmountable lead.
"There's no doubt that she's qualified to be vice president, there's no doubt she's qualified to be president," Obama told NBC News.
In a CNN interview, he said he had not wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination, but when he does, he will start going through the process of selecting a running mate.
"She is tireless, she is smart. She is capable. And so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate," said Obama, who inched closer to winning the nomination by routing Clinton in North Carolina and almost defeating her in Indiana on Tuesday.
Some Democrats are saying Obama and Clinton would be a formidable team against Republican John McCain in the race to the November election.
According to a CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, a majority of both Obama and Clinton voters say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket" involving both candidates.
The Clinton campaign has deflected such talk. Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters on Wednesday that it was premature to discuss such a ticket and he had not heard her express any interest in the vice presidency.
"There's no doubt that she's qualified to be vice president, there's no doubt she's qualified to be president," Obama told NBC News.
In a CNN interview, he said he had not wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination, but when he does, he will start going through the process of selecting a running mate.
"She is tireless, she is smart. She is capable. And so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate," said Obama, who inched closer to winning the nomination by routing Clinton in North Carolina and almost defeating her in Indiana on Tuesday.
Some Democrats are saying Obama and Clinton would be a formidable team against Republican John McCain in the race to the November election.
According to a CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, a majority of both Obama and Clinton voters say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket" involving both candidates.
The Clinton campaign has deflected such talk. Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters on Wednesday that it was premature to discuss such a ticket and he had not heard her express any interest in the vice presidency.
Hillary Clinton eyes 2012 ticket by degrading Obama
Why Hillary contnues to fight?? It is because she's eyeing the 2012 ticket by the destruction of Obama in this election.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is staying in the presidential race despite losing among elected delegates, facing a slimming lead among superdelegates, losing the popular vote and behind by 2-to-1 in the number of states carried. She slogs on, hoping against hope for a sudden turnaround in the race.
Apart from the psychological reasons for her stubbornness, is there a more subtle political calculation going on?
Is she continuing her race so as to have a platform from which to continue to bash Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the hopes of so damaging him that he can’t win the general election? Is she doing this to keep her options alive for the 2012 presidential race?
Hillary is obviously entitled to keep running until Obama has secured the votes necessary for the nomination, and it is certainly understandable that she would want to run until the last popular vote is counted. But must she run a negative, slash-and-burn campaign? Must she use her time on the platform and on television to belittle, mock, deride and try to destroy the man who will eventually be the candidate of her own party?
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) felt similarly justified in staying in the race for the Republican nomination until Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reached the majority threshold required for nomination. He contested the Texas primary vigorously, even though his earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida made it most unlikely that he could win the nomination. But he chose to run a positive campaign. He didn’t knock McCain. He just articulated the case for his own candidacy.
But Hillary won’t avail herself of that option because it does not serve her long-term fallback position: a shot at the nomination in 2012. If Obama is elected this year, he will seek reelection in 2012 and Hillary would have to face taking on an incumbent in a primary in her own party if she wanted to run, a daunting task. But if McCain wins, the nomination in 2012 will be open. And it might be worth having. McCain will be 76 years old and the Republican Party will have been in power for 12 years. Not since FDR and Truman has a party lasted that long in power. When the Republicans tried to do so, in 1980 and 1992, they fell flat on their face.
Hillary is using white, blue-collar fears of Barack Obama to try to stop him from getting nominated or elected.
She is playing on his “elitism” by hammering him on blue-collar issues and is mincing no words in painting him as a stranger to blue-collar white America.
Hillary is attracting the votes of cops, firefighters, construction workers, union members. Are they in love with Hillary? They can’t stand her. But they are terrified of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and the various influences to which Obama seems to be subject. By playing on those fears, Hillary is undermining Obama’s ability to get elected.
This is not a byproduct of her continued candidacy — it is the goal. She, the consummate realist, must know that she has no practical shot at the nomination herself after her numbing loss in North Carolina and her paper-thin margin in Indiana. But she welcomes the opportunity an ongoing candidacy offers to bash Obama and to drive a wedge between him and the voters he must have to beat McCain.
The question is how long Democratic primary voters and the party leadership let her go on hitting their ultimate nominee. Will they bring Hillary up short and speak out about the harm she is doing to their party’s prospects by way of her refusal to recognize reality?
Hillary doesn’t have to pull out. She is entitled to run in the remaining states. But she should curtail her negative campaign and adopt the Huckabee strategy: Maximize your own vote share, but don’t beat up the party’s nominee. Unless, of course, that is her goal all along.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is staying in the presidential race despite losing among elected delegates, facing a slimming lead among superdelegates, losing the popular vote and behind by 2-to-1 in the number of states carried. She slogs on, hoping against hope for a sudden turnaround in the race.
Apart from the psychological reasons for her stubbornness, is there a more subtle political calculation going on?
Is she continuing her race so as to have a platform from which to continue to bash Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the hopes of so damaging him that he can’t win the general election? Is she doing this to keep her options alive for the 2012 presidential race?
Hillary is obviously entitled to keep running until Obama has secured the votes necessary for the nomination, and it is certainly understandable that she would want to run until the last popular vote is counted. But must she run a negative, slash-and-burn campaign? Must she use her time on the platform and on television to belittle, mock, deride and try to destroy the man who will eventually be the candidate of her own party?
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) felt similarly justified in staying in the race for the Republican nomination until Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reached the majority threshold required for nomination. He contested the Texas primary vigorously, even though his earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida made it most unlikely that he could win the nomination. But he chose to run a positive campaign. He didn’t knock McCain. He just articulated the case for his own candidacy.
But Hillary won’t avail herself of that option because it does not serve her long-term fallback position: a shot at the nomination in 2012. If Obama is elected this year, he will seek reelection in 2012 and Hillary would have to face taking on an incumbent in a primary in her own party if she wanted to run, a daunting task. But if McCain wins, the nomination in 2012 will be open. And it might be worth having. McCain will be 76 years old and the Republican Party will have been in power for 12 years. Not since FDR and Truman has a party lasted that long in power. When the Republicans tried to do so, in 1980 and 1992, they fell flat on their face.
Hillary is using white, blue-collar fears of Barack Obama to try to stop him from getting nominated or elected.
She is playing on his “elitism” by hammering him on blue-collar issues and is mincing no words in painting him as a stranger to blue-collar white America.
Hillary is attracting the votes of cops, firefighters, construction workers, union members. Are they in love with Hillary? They can’t stand her. But they are terrified of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and the various influences to which Obama seems to be subject. By playing on those fears, Hillary is undermining Obama’s ability to get elected.
This is not a byproduct of her continued candidacy — it is the goal. She, the consummate realist, must know that she has no practical shot at the nomination herself after her numbing loss in North Carolina and her paper-thin margin in Indiana. But she welcomes the opportunity an ongoing candidacy offers to bash Obama and to drive a wedge between him and the voters he must have to beat McCain.
The question is how long Democratic primary voters and the party leadership let her go on hitting their ultimate nominee. Will they bring Hillary up short and speak out about the harm she is doing to their party’s prospects by way of her refusal to recognize reality?
Hillary doesn’t have to pull out. She is entitled to run in the remaining states. But she should curtail her negative campaign and adopt the Huckabee strategy: Maximize your own vote share, but don’t beat up the party’s nominee. Unless, of course, that is her goal all along.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Obama wins North Carolina, Clinton takes Indiana
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split crucial presidential contests in Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday, pushing Obama closer to securing the Democratic nomination but keeping Clinton's faint hopes alive.
CBS News projected Clinton's win in Indiana, which preserved her slender chances in a prolonged Democratic duel that now moves to the next contest in one week in West Virginia. Other networks had not made a projection with more than two-thirds of the vote counted and Clinton leading 53 percent to 47 percent.
"I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton on what appears to be a victory in the great state of Indiana," Obama told supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Obama swamped Clinton in North Carolina, righting his campaign after a rough patch fueled by his comments on "bitter" small-town residents and a controversy over racially charged comments by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Indiana and North Carolina, with a combined 187 delegates to the Democrats' August nominating convention at stake, were the biggest prizes left in the Democratic race. Only six contests remain.
The two Democrats have battled for months for the right to represent the party in November's presidential election against Republican John McCain.
Obama, a 46-year-old Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, has an almost unassailable lead in pledged delegates who will help select the Democratic nominee.
His win in North Carolina will move him closer to the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination and reduce the chance Clinton will be able to overtake his lead in either pledged delegates or popular votes won in the state-by-state nominating battle.
CBS News projected Clinton's win in Indiana, which preserved her slender chances in a prolonged Democratic duel that now moves to the next contest in one week in West Virginia. Other networks had not made a projection with more than two-thirds of the vote counted and Clinton leading 53 percent to 47 percent.
"I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton on what appears to be a victory in the great state of Indiana," Obama told supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Obama swamped Clinton in North Carolina, righting his campaign after a rough patch fueled by his comments on "bitter" small-town residents and a controversy over racially charged comments by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Indiana and North Carolina, with a combined 187 delegates to the Democrats' August nominating convention at stake, were the biggest prizes left in the Democratic race. Only six contests remain.
The two Democrats have battled for months for the right to represent the party in November's presidential election against Republican John McCain.
Obama, a 46-year-old Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, has an almost unassailable lead in pledged delegates who will help select the Democratic nominee.
His win in North Carolina will move him closer to the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination and reduce the chance Clinton will be able to overtake his lead in either pledged delegates or popular votes won in the state-by-state nominating battle.
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