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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: May 2008

The Lion in Winter

I have to agree with Digby that it’s a little unseemly to be delivering eulogies for Ted Kennedy, while he is still alive. Still it was kind of moving to see his fellow Senators of both parties expressing their love and best wishes for him. Senator McCain was right on target in calling Kennedy “the last lion.” But hold the eulogies. Ted Kennedy is a tough guy, who has the kind of fierce spirit physicians like to see in patients with serious illnesses. There are good reasons to hope he will win this battle.
So often we don’t express or even feel our appreciation for people until after they are gone. So it’s a good thing that he is getting his due now. He certainly deserves it. There is no question that Ted Kennedy has been one of the greatest U.S. Senators ever, maybe the greatest, and his tangible accomplishments during his 45 years in the Senate surpass even those of his revered brothers, whose lives were cut short by assassinations.
It’s been many years since Ted Kennedy has been considered a serious contender for the presidency. But he has nonetheless left his mark on just about every piece of progressive legislation introduced in the Senate since he was first elected in 1962. Certainly no Senator has been a more steadfast opponent of efforts to roll back the clock of progress. Throughout his career, Kennedy has been the Senate’s most tireless advocate for the disadvantaged and downtrodden and a ringing voice for the powerless.
I had to smile when I saw a video-clip of Senator Byrd saying that Kennedy didn’t really need a microphone. I once saw Kennedy deliver the keynote address of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday service in Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, a sanctuary well-accustomed to the highest standards of American oratory. Kennedy grabbed the podium like he owned it and rang the rafters with a fiery call to action on behalf of the poor and oppressed that provoked gales of cheering and shifted the amen corner into overdrive. I remember thinking “That’s the loudest man I have ever heard.”
America still needs that voice, and the Democratic Party needs it more than ever. For me Ted Kennedy will always be the emblematic Democratic Senator, the one you point to in showing rookies “this is how it’s done.” Add my prayers for his complete recovery to the many being expressed to his family. Get well, good Senator. You’re still needed on the front lines.


More of the Same

HRC’s landslide win in KY today was almost exactly what one might have expected based on last week’s results in WV. In other words, two weeks of media talk about Obama’s inevitability aren’t moving any votes in states where both demography (a predominance of relatively less educated and less affluent white voters, many of them Appalachians, along with the familiarly huge HRC margins among white women) and ideology (relatively large numbers of self-identified Democratic moderates and conservatives) are cutting against him. This latter factor is somewhat new; in most of the early primaries, there was virtually no ideological factor dividing Clinton and Obama voters. Obama did post one of his better performances in KY among the 11% of voters who were self-identified indies, losing them only by 7 points. But Clinton crushed him among moderates (67-30) and conservatives (73-18). These two categories reresented 63% of primary voters. And the stated willingness of Clinton voters to support Obama in the general election, while a bit better than in WV, remained low, with about a third saying they’d vote for McCain, and only a half saying they’d stick with the Democrat.
Oregon, of course, will be a different story; early media hints about the exit polls (or more accurately, phone polls of mail-in-ballot voters) indicate a very comfortable Obama win that will, according to his campaign’s math, and that of most media observers, clinch a majority of pledged delegates (excluding MI and FL). But going forward, the Obama campaign definitely needs to come to grips with the potential threat of an odd combination of progressive women, older voters of various ideological hues, and self-identified Democratic moderates and conservatives, who are at least open to the idea of defecting or taking a dive in November. There’s plenty of time to deal with this challenge; potential Democratic defections will undoubtedly decline as McCain’s views become more apparent; and Lord knows Barack Obama will have the rhetorical and financial resources to change the dynamics of a general election in which he’s already running ahead of or even with McCain in early polls. And moreover, the putative-nominee-loses-late-primaries phenomenon is hardly new or unique. But Obama’s team would be well advised not to completely dismiss the implications of HRC’s recent wins.


Liberalism’s Future

Over at TPMCafe, we’re having a conversation about Eric Alterman’s new book, Why We’re Liberals, a sweeping analysis of liberalism, its successes and failures, and its future as a successful political ideology. Eric offers an introduction to his book in an opening post, and so far, rejoinders have appeared from Joan McCarter of DailyKos, from libertarian Brink Lindsey, and from yours truly. (Digby will participate at some point as well).


Tonight’s Non-Dramatics

Today’s two presidential primaries are not expected to provide many fireworks. Clinton is heavily favored in KY, as is Obama in OR (though her percentage margin in the former is likely to significantly exceed his in the latter). OR’s all-mail-in-ballot system will get some television attention. Because OR requires mailed ballots to be received by election day, its system won’t delay the count as is often the case in neighboring WA. But it certainly makes exit polling more of a challenge (presumably, the phone interviews of voters that will be used as the functional equivalent of exit polls will be done by pretty early today).
There were rumors last week that Obama would all but claim victory in his primary night event in IA, on grounds that he would have clearly won a majority of pledged delegates. But as part of his continuing effort to let HRC exit the race gracefully, he’s made it clear there will be no official victory claims tonight. Meanwhile, HRC is sticking to her argument that the pledged and overall delegate targets must be adjusted to include MI and FL, a measure by which Obama still has a ways to go. Meanwhile, Clinton is already claiming a popular vote lead, based on a measurement that includes FL and MI and excludes four caucus states where raw votes have not been reported. We’ll hear more about that from her tonight. But don’t expect any dramatics.


McCain Flops the Flip in #1 YouTube

Brave New Films has produced a must-see video-clip at therealmccain.com, depicting John McCain’s amazing record of flip-flops on key issues and shattering his “straight talk” image. Viewers are left with the indelible impression that this guy will say anything to get elected, and thinks nothing of contradicting himself within seconds. The flick has gone viral and reached #1 in YouTube’s “News & Politics” category, and has elicited more than 600 reader comments at the website thus far.
In addition to the devastating main feature, the website also presents a collection of video clips of McCain’s ‘greatest hits,’ including “Bomb, Bomb Iran” and spotlighting his cozy relationships with fat cat lobbyists and his failure to support educational benefits for vets.


The Problem With A Bipartisan “Unity Ticket”

Having gone out on a shaky limb to endorse the idea of an Obama-Clinton “unity ticket,” I will hasten to raise objections to the very different idea of a “unity ticket” between Obama and a non-Democrat.
This idea was raised most recently by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who argues that Obama’s post-partisan campaign pitch can best gain credibility through a ticket that includes Chuck Hagel or Mike Bloomberg.
Ignatius clearly doesn’t understand that Obama’s own “unity” message is about mobilizing voters across party lines to demand change, and then to extend to Republicans in Washington an iron fist/velvet glove proposition, offering political cover for cooperation and threatening retribution for obstruction. It’s not about organizing some big barbecue of Democratic and Republican solons and striking split-the-difference compromises on legislation. To put it another way, Obama has embraced High Broderist goals, but not High Broderist methods, when it comes to bipartisanship.
Sure, you can make the argument that putting a Republican like Hagel or an ex-Republican like Bloomberg on the ticket would resonate with those non-Democratic voters Obama really does want to reach. But these names don’t necessarily perform magic outside Nebraska, which Obama can’t win, and New York, which Obama can’t lose. And such a gesture would legitimately honk off a lot of Democrats, who figure that an all-Democratic ticket ought to be able to win in a strongly pro-Democratic election year.
To be crassly political about it, there’s no percentage in excessively angering the Democratic base with a vice-presidential choice unless it’s a clear game-changer. Had John Kerry convinced John McCain to leave the GOP and run with him in 2004, the step would have produced a king-hell backlash from Democratic activists, particularly those in the labor and feminist movements. But arguably, it would have pretty much ended the general election in Kerry’s favor, and victory, like love, covers a multitude of sins. None of the names being kicked around by people like Ignatius have anything like the electoral clout that McCain might have had four years ago. Sure, Bloomberg has an incredible amount of personal wealth, but money isn’t exactly Barack Obama’s biggest handicap in a general election.
The odd thing I can tell you about from personal conversations with Obama supporters after my Obama-Clinton pitch is that a lot of the same people who would seriously consider hara-kiri if HRC’s on the ticket seem entirely open to a non-Democratic running-mate. And some of these same people dislike the Clintons in the first place because of their supposed lack of loyalty to the Democratic Party and its principles.
For all the legitimate objections to an Obama-Clinton “unity ticket,” it would be decidedly strange if a coalition of Beltway Bipartisans and lefty Obama-ites convinced the putative nominee to diss Democratic unity in favor of a “unity ticket” that compromised Obama’s case for progressive change, without a whole lot of return on a questionable investment.


Nebraska As Kingmaker, Role Model

MyDD‘s Jonathan Singer flags a Poblano post discussing a scenario in which, Nebraska, as one of two states (yes, Maine is the other) that do not have the anti-democratic winner-take-all system of allocating electoral votes, could actually cast the decisive electoral vote that puts Obama in the White House.
It’s an unlikely scenario, admittedly, since Dems haven’t won a Nebraska electoral vote since LBJ. But it is not an implausible one. Although McCain is up 11 points state-wide in a new Rasmussen poll, Poblano and Singer crunch the poll numbers, including the 2004 election data, and see Obama running close to even in NE’s 2nd district (Omaha), with an outside chance to take NE-1 (Eastern Nebraska). Poblano then plugs these potential wins into one plausible scenario, and voila, Nebraska is a king-maker.
In any event, hats off to Nebraska and Maine for rejecting the winner-take-all electoral votes system — which ought to be a high priority for democracy-loving state legislatures everywhere. Plaudits to NE, also, for their unicameral state legislature, arguably more democratic with a small “d.” Now, if Nebraskans will just vote right in November…
Photo Alert: Campaign ’08 is not likely to produce more glorious photographs from a Democratic perspective than the shots of the huge Obama rally (75K) at Portland’s gorgeous Waterfront Park (See here, here and here.).


McCain’s Dog Whistles

There’s a front-page story by Krissah Williams in today’s Washington Post that focuses on Democratic women who say they’d rather see John McCain become president than vote for Barack Obama, mainly due to anger over perceived insults to Hillary Clinton during the nominating process.
Any of you who happen to fall into the category of feminists-for-McCain should give a gander to a new article by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker slicing and dicing a recent speech by the putative Republican nominee that represented an extended dog whistle to anti-choicers and other cultural conservatives regarding judicial appointments.
Toobin begins by noting that McCain’s May 6 speech at Wake Forest University was timed to draw extremely limited attention from the news media and the public at large. Moreover, Mr. Straight Talk’s pithy remarks were loaded with code language explicable only to lawyers and to conservatives obsessed with the supposed liberal conspiracy to use the courts to destroy faith, family and country. Aside from the usual stuff about “activist judges” and “separation of powers” (the latter being pretty rich at a time when the primary threat to the separation of powers is coming from the Bush administration), you’ve got an oblique reference to a Supreme Court decision that laid the constitutional groundwork for Roe v. Wade, and another oblique reference to an opinion by Justice Kennedy that conservatives love to cite as evidence that the Court is determined to extinguish U.S. sovereignty.
Here’s the money quote from Toobin:

Might [McCain] really be a “maverick” when it comes to the Supreme Court? The answer, almost certainly, is no. The Senator has long touted his opposition to Roe, and has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments; the rhetoric of his speech shows that he is getting his advice on the Court from the most extreme elements of the conservative movement. With the general election in mind, McCain had to express himself with such elaborate circumlocution because he knows that the constituency for such far-reaching change in our constellation of rights is small, and may be shrinking. In 2004, to stoke turnout among conservatives, Karl Rove engineered the addition of anti-gay-marriage voter initiatives to the ballots in Ohio and other states; last week, though, when the California Supreme Court voted to allow gay marriage in that state, only hard-core activists were able to muster much outrage. When it comes to the Constitution, McCain is on the wrong side of the voters, and of history; thus, his obfuscations.

It’s been obvious for a while that John McCain’s presidential ambitions depend on maintaining the exaggerated and ephemeral reputation for “moderation” and “independence” bestowed on him by the news media in 2000, while quietly reassuring conservative activists that he’s their man. That’s why exposing the dishonesty and implicit extremism of McCain maneuvers like his Wake Forest speech are important. And it’s also why Hillary Clinton supporters who think it makes sense to help McCain become president are actually in danger of betraying everything the New York Senator stands for.


Military Strategy for Democrats – Part 5 – How the Democrats Can Argue with McCain and the Republicans about Military Strategy and Win

Print Version
To summarize the argument thus far:
There is an important “pro-military, but anti-Bush’s war” voter group. Winning their vote is critical for Democratic candidates at every level of the 2008 election.
To win the support of these voters Democrats need do three things:

1. Democrats must demonstrate to these “pro-military” voters that they sincerely honor and respect the value system of the American military.
2. Democrats must distinguish and clarify to these voters that they completely support what most members of the armed forces see as their basic mission – protecting America from another terrorist attack. They must make clear that this is emphatically not the issue on which Democrats and Republicans disagree.
3. Democrats must learn how to express their ideas in the language and framework of military strategy – to win the debate with the Republicans within the “strategic” conceptual framework in which “pro-military” voters want policies regarding Iraq to be discussed.

In previous sections three basic ideas about America’s military strategy in Iraq have been presented.

1. That the conflict in Iraq is now a full-scale civil war, not an insurgency
2. That in many civil wars. short-term cease fires often just temporarily postpone deeply-rooted religious and ethnic conflict – and even make the ultimate violence even worse
3. That “staying the course” or “finishing the job” in Iraq implies not only refereeing the bitter civil war for many years but also profoundly changing the nation’s society and culture. These are objectives that will require long years, more soldiers, constant casualties and that – without using brutality, reprisals and direct US military rule – probably still will not be achieved.

Many “pro-military, anti-Bush’s war ” voters have already reached some version of these key conclusions by themselves, based on their own common sense and their daily observation of the news on TV. This is what underlies their view that (1) “the surge was a mistake”, (2) that Bush’s policies have “undermined America’s security” and (3) that we should “reduce the number of troops”.
So how can Democrats present speak to these voters — offering them an approach expressed in the language and conceptual framework of military strategy?
Most pro-military Americans will agree that there are three basic things any politician owes to the American people — and even more to the men and women of the armed forces themselves — before he or she proposes to send or keep American troops in combat.

1.A clearly defined mission and objectives
2. Sufficient resources to do the job
3. An explicit exit strategy

Most Americans, whether pro-military or not, will agree that if a politician cannot or will not provide these three things, he or she simply does not deserve the support of the American people.
Let’s look at each of these in turn:


Hindsight on HRC

If you like insider accounts of political campaigns, you’ll probably love Michelle Cottle’s latest TNR report on her soundings of Hillary Clinton staffers about “what went wrong.” What’s remarkable about this article is how little agreement there appears to be among folks “on the inside.” There’s a fair amount of anger expressed towards former chief strategist Mark Penn and former campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle (which you’d expect, since they were the people in charge of message and organization, respectively, during HRC’s fall from inevitability to second place), but beyond that, the explanations of “what went wrong” are all over the place.
This analytical disarray may just reflect the small and probably random sample of HRC staffers willing to talk to Cottle, even on a strictly off-the-record basis. But another factor is probably in play: the natural human tendency to play what-if, and attribute political setbacks to correctable internal “mistakes” rather than uncontrollable external forces.
What’s largely missing from the insider accounts quoted by Cottle is a recognition that Barack Obama’s campaign surprised virtually everybody in politics. It’s hard to remember this, but there was an extended period a few months after Obama entered the race when the CW was that he was a flavor-of-the-month who had created some excitement but was rapidly losing steam against the powerful, disciplined Clinton Machine. One of the post-mortems quoted by Cottle suggests that HRC’s big mistake was in not going nastily negative on Obama from the get-go. But that’s pure hindsight: a negative campaign made no sense for a candidate with Clinton’s poll standings and resources prior to Iowa, a state whose Democratic caucus-goers are notoriously averse to intraparty attacks. And after Iowa, when it became obvious that Obama’s was generating previously unimaginable numbers of volunteers and cash, and building a never-seen-before electoral coalition, Clinton’s campaign was already in desperate survival mode. Another little fact that a lot of people seem to have forgotten is that a couple of days before the NH primary, the chattering classes were busy writing HRC’s political obituary, in anticipation of a blowout Obama victory that would have nailed down the nomination then and there.
Perhaps the Obama phenomenon was predictable, but not many political experts actually predicted it in any detail. (I certainly include myself in this assessment; the only aspect of Obama-mania I anticipated was the rapid and massive shift of African-American support to him after Iowa). So it’s a little strange that so many people inside and outside the Clinton campaign are so sure her initial strategy should have been based on improbable developments instead of the lay of the land as it first appeared. Sure, the acid test for any political campaign is the ability to adjust to the unforeseen, but given HRC’s success in avoiding electoral extinction again and again during the primaries, you have to admit she showed some deft footwork.
The bottom line is that “what went wrong” with Hillary Clinton’s campaign was the emergence of a once-in-a-lifetime politician whose particular assets made him very nearly unbeatable once he established himself as a viable candidate. Here’s hoping that John McCain’s brain trust goes with a high-percentage game plan like HRC’s, and underestimates Barack Obama’s ability to change the rules.