washington, dc

The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Ed Kilgore

Hillary’s Enduring Legacy, Part 2

Yesterday J.P. Green did a post discussing the legacy left by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, focusing on her glass-ceiling-battering example to women in politics and government.
While that’s probably her most important legacy, there are others. And today the American Prospect has published a colloquoy on Clinton’s contributions to the progressive cause, featuring essays by feminist blogger K.A. Geier, Prospect Co-Editor Paul Starr, Chris Hayes of The Nation, Salon‘s Rebecca Traister, author Kai Wright, Moira Whelan of the National Security Network, and yours truly.
I focused (rather counter-intuitively) on HRC’s positioning on Iraq, which helped resolve what looked, a year ago, like a horribly corrosive intraparty disagreement over withdrawal plans and appropriations cutoffs. Others talked about Clinton contributions ranging from health care policy to the politics of gender and race.
Check it out.


The Challenge

As we all anticipate Hillary Clinton’s speech tomorrow suspending her campaign and endorsing Barack Obama, the immediate challenge that she and her former Democratic rival face was helpfully underlined by John McCain in media interviews yesterday. As Michael D. Shear and Jon Cohen explain in the Washington Post, McCain has “set his sights” on wooing disaffected Clinton supporters:

“There’s a lot of Senator Clinton supporters who would support me because of their belief that Senator Obama does not have the experience or the knowledge or the judgment to address this nation’s national security challenges,” McCain told reporters Wednesday.

In other words, the McCain campaign is going to mine Clinton’s comments about Obama–not to mention exit poll findings–during the nomination contest for arguments to her supporters that he’s a safer bet in November.
Such arguments, of course, will have to overcome the vast gulf of policy differences between Clinton and McCain:

On the issues, it is unclear how McCain would appeal to Clinton’s female or working-class voters. McCain’s record is not much like Clinton’s, as the Republican repeatedly pointed out during his primary battles. He opposes government-run health care [sic], supports continuing the war in Iraq, wants to extend President Bush’s tax cuts and is a committed foe of abortion rights.

That’s why McCain’s wizards are already placing heavy emphasis on Obama’s alleged “elitism,” and the Republican’s alleged “maverick” credentials:
McCain strategists predict their candidate will do a better job of siphoning away Democratic votes because of two factors: what they say is Obama’s inability to connect to some key parts of the Democratic coalition, and McCain’s reputation as a maverick.

Republicans plan to describe Obama as an elitist from the Hyde Park section of Chicago, where liberal professors mingle in an academic world that is alien to most working-class voters. They plan to make sure Clinton’s voters do not forget about Obama’s comments that working-class people are bitter and cling to their guns and religion as a way of dealing with the economic uncertainty they face.
“The cling-to part about religion and guns is where the McCain campaign is going to hammer home on,” said Kevin Madden, a GOP analyst who was the spokesman for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s presidential bid.

If, indeed, the two most important McCain talking points to Democrats involve a single, out-of-context quote from an Obama fundraising event, and a grossly exaggerated “maverick” reputation that’s about eight years out of date, then the Democratic rebuttal shouldn’t be that hard to develop.
But it definitely needs to begin tomorrow with Hillary Clinton’s speech.


Obama’s Money Advantage

In all the early speculation about the contours of the general election campaign, one factor that surprisingly gets little attention is another historic aspect to Barack Obama’s candidacy: he will be the first Democratic nominee since LBJ to enjoy a major financial advantage over his GOP opponent.
And the word “major” may significantly understate that advantage.
In the Politico today, Jeanne Cummings puts it bluntly:

With Hillary Clinton’s campaign coming to an end this weekend, Barack Obama’s rise as the Democratic nominee brings serious bad news to a new group: John McCain’s finance team.
A review of campaign finance data offers not one ounce of good news and barely any hope for the McCain campaign’s ability to compete with Obama’s fundraising prowess.

The numbers are indeed daunting for McCain. Assuming he carries out his pledge to accept public financing for the general election campaign, that will give him a budget of about $85 million between now and November. The Republican National Committee has raised another $40 million, much of which will be spent to promote the presidential ticket.
As for Obama:

[C]ampaign finance experts and Democratic fundraisers say a conservative estimate of Obama’s general election fundraising potential hovers around or above $300 million.

Cummings underscores the conservative nature of that estimate by noting that if two-thirds of Obama’s existing donor base of 1.5 million were to “max out” with a $2,300 contribution, he could raise $2.3 billion.
Moreover, the Obama campaign now has five months to tap a vast new fundraising source: Hillary Clinton’s contributors.
The conventional wisdom is that a presidential general election is the one contest where “earned media” is typically more important than paid media. But the size of Obama’s money advantage is such that it may become very meaningful, particularly in terms of enabling the Democrat to effectively respond to attack ads and generally control the tone of the campaign. Moreover, there’s no substitute for money in setting up a general election infrastructure around the country, and Obama is also likely to have a big advantage in the other leading factor, enthusiasm.
As Cummings puts it:

In the general election, Obama could afford to set up large operations in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, New Mexico and a host of other states — maybe even McCain’s own Arizona.
That would force McCain to pick the midsize-state battles he could afford while also trying to hold off a free-spending Obama in essential big states such as Ohio, Missouri and Florida.
“McCain has to make every dollar count in the general election, and Obama will have money to burn,” said Evan Tracey, co-founder of Campaign Media Analysis Group.

So in assessing a general election campaign that currently looks like a cliffhanger, add financial resources to partisan identification trends, the issue landscape, and the mood of the country, as factors that should give Obama an edge. These factors do not in any way guarantee a Democratic victory, but it sure doesn’t hurt to have so many aces in the hole.


So Who Won the Popular Vote?

I’m not terribly inclined to weigh in on the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s non-concession-speech last night, for the simple reason that we won’t understand what it portended until she announces her next steps, which might well include precisely the kind of gracious concession she withheld at Baruch College.
To be sure, some of HRC’s supporters don’t seem interested in folding the tent, including those who chanted “Denver! Denver!” when she alluded to her future course of action.
And then there’s the always-hard-to-over-the-top Terry McAuliffe (per Michael Crowley):

When asked about the reality outside the bunker—that Obama supporters were in a minor rage over Hillary’s speech– McAuliffe looked at me incredulously. “Tonight was Hillary’s night!” he exclaimed. “We won tonight! We won in South Dakota! We keep winning!”

But aside from what she left unsaid, the only thing HRC actually said last night that needs to be questioned at this point is her final, triumphant claim that she won the total popular vote during the nominating process.
The short answer is “Nobody knows,” followed by a quick “It really doesn’t matter.” Nobody knows because four states did not report popular votes, and because one primary–Michigan–was set up in a way that obscured candidate preferences, and also disallowed a significant number of write-in votes for Obama. It really doesn’t matter because the nominating process was set up to choose delegates by a pretty close approximation of popular votes, but according to an allocation system that is not perfectly efficient. Had it been set up as a popular vote contest, then it’s reasonable to assume that the Obama campaign might have followed a different strategy.
But for those who insist on an answer to an essentially unanswerable and irrelevant question, there are some estimates out there. One last night by Chris Bowers concluded that Obama had narrowly won the popular vote based on a very inclusive definition of “popular votes.” One today by the site FiveThirtyEight reviewed eight different ways of answering the question, and concluded that Obama was the winner in seven of those eight scenarios. And pretty much everyone agrees that the only kind of count that gives Clinton the nod is one that either denies Obama any votes in Michigan, or refuses to use estimates for the four non-popular-vote-tabulating Caucus States.
Even if you accept the narrowest pro-Clinton perspective, the total popular vote was, in reality, about as close as you can get to a tie this side of a Florida 2000 situation. So for either prospective or historical reasons, the Clinton camp really should stop talking about the popular vote “victory.” All that can do at this point is to stir up pointless and destructive grievances.


Big Night A-Building

Since my earlier post today, a lot has been happening in the Democratic presidential contest. The cascade of superdelegate endorsements of Barack Obama that a lot of observers expected for tomorrow or later in the week is happening right now, and having already bagged more than twenty today, Obama now appears in excellent position to claim victory tonight.
Meanwhile, there’s mass confusion in media reports on Hillary Clinton’s plans for tonight, with some saying she’ll acknowledge Obama as the nominee, and others saying “Hell, no!” she won’t. To top it all off, there’s another report that HRC told a group of NY legislators today that she’d volunteer to form a “Unity Ticket” with Obama.
All this turmoil suggests that Obama’s going to have quite a party in MN tonight, and that HRC’s speech in NY will get a lot of attention. The poor voters of SD and MT, meanwhile, will have a hard time getting their primaries noticed.


Over and Out?

Today marks the final two primaries in the Democratic presidential nominating contest (we can pause here for a final horselaugh at those, myself included, who spent months last year deploring the “front-loaded” primary/caucus calendar, and predicting a too-early conclusion). But as the votes are counted in SD and MT, most of the action will be elsewhere: in MN, where Barack Obama is planning a victory rally tonight in the very venue of the Republican National Convention in September; in NY, where Hillary Clinton’s immediate plans will be revealed; and in DC, where we can expect a steady series of superdelegate announcements in Obama’s favor.
Those last voters out west could complicate things a bit. For weeks, it’s been assumed that MT and SD are Obama Country. But the entire Clinton family has been relentlessly campaigning in SD during the last couple of weeks, and a rare poll of the state (from that frequent outlier-producer, ARG) has Clinton ahead there by an astonishing 26 points. MT may be closer than earlier expected as well.
But the real issue for Obama is how rapidly he gains the superdelegate endorsements that will certainly, within a few days if not tonight, put him across the threshold of the 2,118 delegates needed to claim a majority. According to a good Washington Post summary of the state of the race, Obama’s also planning a big northern Virginia rally for Thursday night, where he can show off some new big-name superdelegate supporters, and formally claim victory if he doesn’t do so tonight.
The Clinton camp has put out a variety of mixed signals about what she plans to say and do tonight, and in the days just ahead: she can stay in, withdraw and endorse Obama, or (and I’ve thought for a while this was where she was heading) “suspend” active campaigning while keeping her options open for Denver. There’s no particular reason to think she’ll do anything until Obama’s nailed down a majority, but at that point, a suspension would enable her to keep up a quiet but intense campaign among superdelegates; consider support for a MI or FL Credentials Committee challenge of the DNC decision to halve their voting strength; and most of all, hope for a raft of polls showing Obama in deep trouble in the general election. She could also, of course, withdraw at any point between now and the Convention, particularly if Obama’s general election prospects actually rise, and pressure from party poohbahs for a unity gesture and a “healing” interval become intense.
It’s not at all clear what impact HRC’s immediate plans will have on her core supporters, particularly those who have become convinced of late that she’s been unfairly denied the nomination by media bias for Obama and/or premature pressure to end her campaign. But the signals both candidate send tonight and over the next week or so will be carefully watched by the considerable array of party leaders who want the competition to be over, and any competitor to the putative nominee out.


An Early Battleground Assessment

One of the key political terms in which variable definitions cause a lot of confusion is “battleground states.” In the context of a presidential general election, the term ultimately means states that the two major party candidates target with time and money, particularly as election day nears. In earlier stages of the presidential cycle, the term is more speculative, as reflected in the inveterate promises of this or that candidate to “expand the battleground” by placing more states into play. Early general election polling–particularly now that state-by-state polls have become more common–is often the source of such speculation; that’s why you hear talk from the Obama campaign that the Democrat will at least throw a scare into McCain in such previously invulnerable GOP bastions as Georgia or North Carolina, and why McCainiacs like to tout outlier polls showing him well ahead in PA or competitive in CA.
Over at OpenLeft, Chris Bowers has made an effort to identify the likely 2008 battleground states by a more scientific method: using the close 2004 race as the baseline, and adjusting the numbers to reflect recent demographic trends, with the final ranking also reflecting polling evidence and common sense. Chris also takes the simple but often forgotten step of stipulating a very close general election, not just because he thinks that’s likely, but because the very term “battleground” becomes misleading in an electoral blowout. That’s why he assigns such states as Florida and Pennsylvania–almost invariably described as battleground states in most lists–to McCain and Obama, respectively, on the theory that if McCain’s leading in PA or Obama’s leading in FL down the homestretch, the candidate is probably going to be well ahead nationally. (He also views IA and MN as Obama states in a close race, and WV and MO as McCain states in a close race). This doesn’t mean the campaigns will ignore such states in the general election; it is, instead, a prediction of where the big effort will and won’t be made in the final push.
Chris comes up with a list of eight likely battleground states, with five (CO, NH, OH, NM and WI) leaning to Obama, and three (MI, NV and VA) leaning to McCain.
You can quibble with his list, which Chris acknowleges as very preliminary, but it is based on a sound methodology that generally avoids the pro-Obama temptations of overinterpreting positive 2006 election results or making outlandish assumptions about turnout, and the pro-McCain temptation of giving the Arizonan a thumb on the scales in every state where Obama did poorly in this year’s primaries.
One important point that Chris doesn’t explicitly address, but that we might as well get used to, is the recurring possibility of an election in which the popular vote winner loses the electoral vote, and thus the election. It obviously happened (with an assist from the Supreme Court) to the benefit of Republicans in 2000, and could well have happened to the benefit of Democrats in 2004 (in the latter case because Kerry’s percentage margin of defeat in states like OH, IA and NM was a lot smaller than his overall popular vote deficit). Given the likelihood that Obama will run better in solid red states than is usual for a Democrat, you’d have to guess–and it is just a guess–that he’s the more likely victim of this sort of miscarriage of political justice. But you wage election campaigns with the system you have, and those who fear an electoral vote/popular vote split better get behind the state-based National Popular Vote initiative (which would reward EVs to the national popular vote winner) pronto.


Jon Chait Sledgehammers McCain

One of John McCain’s most important political assets is his reputation as the scourge of congressional porkmeisters. It represents a nice “three-fer” for the Arizonan, by (1) reinforcing his “maverick” image as a man unafraid of malefactors in either party; (2) appealing to conservatives who are convinced that runaway federal spending is the Bush-era GOP’s great sin, evidencing the betrayal of “conservative principles;” and (3) enabling him to support tax policies even more irresponsible than Bush’s, on grounds that he will pay for old and new tax bennies with a brave and vicious attack on federal spending.
That’s why I strongly recommend a short but efficient piece by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic that takes a sledgehammer to McCain’s carefully constructed edifice of fiscal responsibility, built almost entirely on the foundation of the GOP nominee’s famous antipathy to congressional appropriations “earmarks.”
First, says Chait, McCain conflates “runaway federal spending” with domestic appropriations that are in fact the least of our fiscal problems:

In fact, the growth of government under Bush is mostly due to higher spending on defense and homeland security, which have grown from 3.6 percent of the economy to 5.6 percent. Domestic discretionary spending (that is, programs other than entitlements) has fallen as a share of GDP, from 3.1 percent to 2.8 percent.

Second, McCain conflates “excessive domestic appropriations” with earmarks, those infamous “special projects” inserted into appropriations bills by self-promoting members of Congress:

McCain is promising to cut taxes by $300 billion per year on top of the Bush tax cuts, which he would make permanent. In addition to this, he promises to balance the budget in his first term. When asked how he could possibly pull this off, McCain has asserted that he could eliminate all earmark spending, saving $100 billion per year.
I don’t find this explanation persuasive. The first point I’d make is that $100 billion is, in fact, less than $300 billion. The second point I’d make is that McCain won’t even cut $100 billion, or anywhere close. By conventional measures, earmarks only account for $18 billion per year. McCain gets his number by employing an unusually broad definition of what constitutes an earmark. McCain’s definition includes things like aid to Israel and housing for members of the military that are not “pork” as the term is understood. When asked if he would eliminate those programs, he replied, “Of course not.”

Third, when pressed on any particular earmarked project, McCain invariably retreats into an attack on the earmarking process, instead of attacking the project as pork, making his claims of vast future savings completely illusory:

The Washington Post recently did a long reported story on the bear DNA project that McCain has made the butt of so many jokes. (“Three million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable,” scoffs one McCain ad.) The Post found that the project is a tool for measuring the bear population in Glacier National Park and has a sound scientific basis. When contacted by the story’s author, McCain’s campaign gave a familiar reply: “Senator McCain does not question the merits of these projects; it’s the process that he has a problem with.” If McCain won’t even commit to zeroing out his single favorite example of government waste, it’s not clear that he’ll save any money at all.

In other words, that brave pork-fighter and spending tightwad John McCain is actually the worst kind of conventional Washington politician when it comes to fiscal policy, supporting very specific tax cuts that create huge budget deficits, and then railing against “pork” and its congressional purveyors in the abstract, and by meaningless anecdote. In this respect, as in others, he resembles no one as much as George W. Bush.


Puerto Rico and the Popular Vote

Just as everyone is still struggling to absorb the import of the yesterday’s loud but murky DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee ruling on MI and FL, the votes are largely in for the Puerto Rico primary, which Hillary Clinton won by a bit more than a two-to-one percentage margin, and by roughly 140,00 popular votes.
This outcome will once again create a dialogue-of-the-deaf over the officially meaningless but symbolically significant (at least according to HRC supporters) total popular vote issue. Most pro-HRC counts exclude four Caucus states where raw votes were not officially tabulated, and also give Obama zero votes in MI, where his supporters were forced to vote for “Uncommitted.” Most pro-Obama counts include estimates of the four caucus vote totals and either exclude MI as tainted or give Obama all the “Uncommitted” votes. (Another, by RenaRF at DailyKos, excludes primaries or caucuses in jurisdictions that don’t participate in the general election, denying HRC her PR margin and Obama some small victories elsewhere).
There is no such thing as an “official” popular vote count, since again, it really doesn’t matter in the official nomination process. But with only SD and MT–two small states where Obama is expected to win but not overwhelmingly–still left to vote, it’s reasonably sure that both campaigns will claim a total popular vote victory after Tuesday. The two things no one can deny is that it was, in retrospect, an awfully close race, but one in which Barack Obama will finish with a lead in pledged delegates, and barring some implosion in his general-election standing, the nomination. The general feeling is that he’ll cross the threshold to a total majority of pledged and announced-superdelegate votes by the end of this week.


Democrats and Military Strategy: A Series

This year, as always, Republicans will seek to create and exploit an advantage over Democrats in credibility on national security issues, despite George W. Bush’s terrible foreign policy record and John McCain’s identification with the war in Iraq. One recurring problem is that Democrats sometimes fail to fully engage on national security issues, viewing it as a “Republican issue.” And another is that some Democrats simply don’t feel comfortable talking about the larger issues of defense and military strategy.
Strategic consultant James Vega has written a five-part analysis of the challenges and opportunities for Democrats on military strategy.
Part 1 is entitled: How the Democrats can argue with McCain and the Republicans on military strategy and
win
.
Part 2 is entitled: Iraq is not a “classic counter-insurgency;” it’s a full-blown civil war.
Part 3 is entitled: The surge isn’t “working”, it’s just “postponing” — and in the long run it’s making things worse.
Part 4 is entitled: The Republicans do have a military strategy – it’s called “Divide and Rule”, it takes at least 50 years, requires lots of casualties and – the half-hearted way we’re doing it – almost never works
And part 5 is a summary.