Print Version
On the November 27, 2007 Charlie Rose Show, John McCain said of Iraq:
“This is a classic counterinsurgency we are engaged in right now. This is not a new strategy. General Petraeus has updated it, but the fact is it’s a classic counterinsurgency.”
Political journalists and observers paid little attention to this particular remark, seeing it as a vague generalization. People familiar with military matters, on the other hand, knew McCain was referring to something very specific — military publication FM – 3-24 — “The US Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual”.
This publication, written by General Petraeus along with Lt. General James Amos and Lt. Colonel John Nagl, was widely described as revolutionary when it appeared in December 2006. It was rapidly downloaded over 1.5 million times from the internet and generated more commentary than any other modern military publication. Most frequently, it was cited as the basis for Petraeus’ new strategy behind the “surge”.
FM -3-24 is a statement of military doctrine. It presents a “common language and common understanding of how army forces conduct operations” and in two important respects it does indeed represent a radical departure from the past.
First, the Counterinsurgency Field Manual represents a very dramatic break with the “Powell Doctrine” that emerged out of the disillusionment with the war in Vietnam. The Powell Doctrine held among its directives that, for the use of regular Army and Marine forces (1) there must be a clearly defined mission, (2) that force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy and (3) that there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.
The application of the “Powell Doctrine” was clearly evident in the conduct of the first Gulf War and commanded wide approval among U.S. military commanders at the time. From this perspective, anti-guerilla campaigns were perceived as a very distinct kind of military operation that could best be handled by Special Forces and other highly specialized and uniquely trained troops.
The new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, in very stark contrast, defines anti-guerrilla warfare as a central task for the regular Army and Marines. The bibliography of FM-3-24 specifically cites books dealing with the strategy of post-World War II anti-guerrilla campaigns in Malaya, Kenya, Algeria and Indochina as the principle models upon which the new strategy is based.
Along with this radical change in doctrine, the manual also takes a very strong position on a major military debate left over from the Vietnam War — a debate between the advocates of using virtually unrestricted firepower and military force – symbolized by terms like “carpet bombing” and “free-fire zones” and the advocates of an alternative approach identified with the slogans of “Winning Hearts and Minds” and “Vietnamization”.
FM -3-24 very aggressively and systematically champions the second approach. It defines counterinsurgency operations as nothing less than “armed social work” and bluntly asserts that such campaigns cannot win unless they succeed in protecting the civilian population and rebuilding the economy. More specifically it lists four major objectives (1) Security from intimidation, coercion, violence and crime; (2) Provision of basic economic needs, (3) Provision of essential services such as water, electricity, sanitation and medical care; (4) Sustainment of key social and cultural institutions

Read more…

It’s anybody’s guess at the moment whether Hillary Clinton still really sees a path to the Democratic nomination, or just wants to pick up anticipated wins in West Virginia and Kentucky to increase her convention and general election leverage and then fold her tent. If she does intend to push on until such time as she is mathematically eliminated, her biggest problem now isn’t so much the pledged delegate or popular vote totals, but the strong pressure mounting on superdelegates to wrap this thing up (perhaps, so goes the CW, next Wednesday, when Obama is expected to win in Oregon).
Her strongest argument with the supers right now would be that Obama isn’t electable. I say “would be,” because general election polls continue to show Obama running as well as or better than her against John McCain. The latest, a new ABC/Washington Post survey, shows Obama leading McCain 51-44, while HRC’s lead is 49-46 (it also has Obama with a 12-point national lead over HRC for the Democratic nomination).
Sure, the Clinton campaign can and will make a complicated argument that the battleground-state distribution of her vote in trials against McCain makes her the stronger candidate. But she needs more than that to sway the supers. Clear evidence that she is likely to win, and Obama is likely to lose, against John McCain remains the piece still missing from her case for the nomination.

William A. Galston’s and Pietro S. Nivola’s Sunday New York Times Magazine article, “Vote Like Thy Neighbor” notes an interesting demographic development that should have significant implications for GOTV campaigns and political advertising:

Our research concludes not only that the ideological differences between the political parties are growing but also that they have become embedded in American society itself…Most strikingly, political polarization has become akin to political segregation. You are less likely to live near someone whose politics differ from your own. It’s well known that fewer states are competitive in presidential races than in decades past. We find similar results at the county level. In 1976, only 27 percent of voters lived in landslide counties where one candidate prevailed by 20 points or more. By 2004, 48 percent of voters lived in such counties.

The authors discuss the reasons for the shift and note that “majorities tend to become supermajorities.” They add “When states become more homogeneous, presidential campaigns begin by conceding a large number of contests to the opposition, disheartening their supporters in those states and increasing the majority’s electoral advantage.”
Nivola and Galston are OK with the resulting “hard-hitting partisan competition,” but lament the ill-effects of growing “hyperpartisanship,” which they believe can do damage to “public trust and confidence in government.” In his blog at theAtlantic.com, Matthew Yglesias responds to their article, arguing that the more partisanship, the better and he sees “a merited decline in trust” in government, given recent government abuses of civil and human rights. “Why would we pine away for a shift that would make government less accountable but more trusted?,” asks Yglesias. A fair question. But distrust of government practices/policies can morph into generalized government-bashing of the sort that enabled the rise of reactionary ideologues like Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich and empowered them to do their worst.
In any event, there is not much that can be done about halting the increasing geographic concentration of people with similar political attitudes, short of hoping that better-educated generations to come will lead to more progressive communities everywhere. Until then, Dems should take note of the trend and target their ads and GOTV efforts accordingly.

James Vega is a strategic marketing consultant whose clients include major nonprofit organizations and high-tech firms
Print Version
I. Understanding the “pro-military, but anti-Bush’s war” voters
Because of the number and variety of questions they ask on a single topic, the surveys produced by Democracy Corps provide Democrats with data of unique value. They make it possible to begin to visualize some of the larger political perspectives into which voters specific opinions are organized.
The recent D-Corps survey and analysis of opinion on National Security, for example, makes it possible to get a feel for the size of two broad groups — the firmly partisan anti-war Democratic “base” voters and the firmly partisan pro-Bush’s war, pro-military” Republican “base” voters.
On the one hand, about 27% of the respondents in the D-Corps survey agreed with every one of the following five statements
Firmly Partisan Anti-War Democrats
• The Democrats will do a better job “insuring a strong military”
• The Democrats, more than Republicans “respect the military”
• The surge was “a mistake”
• In Iraq, America should “reduce the number of troops”
• Bush’s policies have “undermined America’s security”
On the other hand, about 45% of the respondents agreed with all five of the following statements
Firmly Partisan Pro-Bush’s War, Pro-Military Republicans
• The Republicans will do a better job of “insuring a strong military”
• The Republicans, more than the Democrats, “Respect the military”
• The surge is helping to “win the war”
• America must “Stay the course”, “finish the job” and “achieve stability”
• Bush’s policies have “increased America’s security”
The most important fact that emerges from this comparison is the very substantial number of respondents – about 30% — who do not fall in either category. They agreed with some of the five statements but not others.
But what do these “inconsistent” voters actually think? Among the respondents to the D-Corps survey as a whole, the main distinction was between responses to the first two questions and the final three.
On the one hand, only about 27% of all respondents to the D-Corps survey thought the Democrats would be better at “insuring a strong military” or “respecting the military”. About 55% thought the Republicans would be better.
In contrast, about 54% of all respondents agreed that “the surge was a mistake”, that “we should reduce the number of troops” and that “Bush’s policies have reduced America’s security”. Only about 44% thought we should “stay the course”, that “the surge was working” and that Bush’s policies have “increased America’s security”
In short, while a majority of Americans think Republicans are more favorable to the military, many are also strongly opposed to Bush’s policies. It is this significant “pro-military, but anti-Bush’s war” group that is the critical swing vote on national security.

Read more…

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, has a New York Times op-ed that merits a careful read by all Democratic candidates, especially Senator Obama. Kohut warns that “The personal and social resistance of older voters to the party’s likely nominee could well keep a Democrat out of the White House and reverse the nationwide Democratic trend,” and he provides polling evidence to make his case. Kohut cites an 8 point advantage (51-43) for McCain over Obama in favorability ratings by seniors in recent Pew Research Center polling, and notes,

…older voters — many of whom supported Democrats over the years — seem reluctant to support Mr. Obama. Hillary Clinton has carried the vote of people over 65 in 26 primary elections. And looking forward to the general election, the national polls now show John McCain running better against Mr. Obama among this older age group — as well as among middle-aged voters and younger voters.

The senior vote is becoming more important every election, because it is growing and because of seniors’ high turnout rates. The Kiplinger Retirement Report notes, for example, that “In the 2000 elections, people age 65 and older cast 25% of the votes although they made up only 12% of the U.S. population.”
In his Newsweek article “Generation Gap: Obama is trailing with older voters. Can he win them over?,” Jonathan Alter writes that “40 percent of the voters in Pennsylvania were over 60, which is not surprising considering that Pennsylvania trails only Florida as the oldest state in the union.”
Senator Obama is well-aware of his shortage of senior voters. Alter quotes Obama: “If you look at the numbers, our problem has less to do with white working-class voters [than] with older voters.” Alter agrees:

Obama did better among seniors in Pennsylvania, where he lost 59-41 percent, than in Ohio, where Hillary crushed him by 41 points in that age cohort. That 69-28 drubbing tells us almost everything we need to know about why Hillary won Ohio by 10 points on March 4.

Kohut points out that “significantly more older voters hold the highly conservative social opinions” on social issues like equal rights, iinterracial dating and immigration. He also provides April polling data showing McCain has an edge over Obama in the perceptions of RV’s 65 and older regarding characteristics such as: ‘patriotic’ (91-57); ‘tough’ (71-46); ‘honest (76-57); and ‘down to earth’ (68-51). However, Obama is more ‘inspiring’ to seniors by a margin of 53 to 39 percent.
Obama probably can’t make much headway with seniors who like McCain mostly because of his age/character/bio or conservative values. But Obama can make inroads into McCain-leaning senior voters who care about policy. Obama, like Clinton, has more agreeable policies for seniors regarding critical issues like Social Security, health care and Iraq. McCain will hit hard on tax cuts in appealing to seniors. But if Obama’s messaging on the aforementioned issues is sharp and well-targeted, he should be able to win a healthy portion of the senior vote. As Alter observes of McCain:

His problem is Social Security. McCain recently told The Wall Street Journal that he continues to support President Bush’s idea for private accounts. Whatever one thinks of that proposal on the merits, it’s a pitiful loser politically. Every place Bush visited in 2005 when he was stumping for his plan saw a decline in his popularity numbers when he left town…When Social Security gets discussed this fall, McCain had better duck. If anything, with the market down, privatization is even less popular now than in 2005. All the Democratic candidate has to say is, “If Senator McCain’s idea had been adopted, you would have lost a chunk of your retirement in the stock market.”

Alter is more optimistic about Dems’ chances with older voters, and believes “…Grandma and grandpa are likely to return home in November and vote Democratic, regardless of the nominee.” And given their unrivaled turnout rates, seniors — especially those who can be described as ‘high information’ voters — just may provide Obama’s margin of victory.

One way or another, this Democratic primary will be done very soon, and barring an unthinkable tragedy or scandal, Hillary Clinton will be making a decision about how to end her campaign for president.
She’ll give a speech where she’ll reflect on the victories she won and the barriers she broke. She’ll thank her campaign staff, her activists, and her donors. She’ll try to pay her debts, conduct an audit for the FEC, and then return to the Senate to think about what might have been and what might one day still be.
And that’s it, right?
Not exactly.
No matter what the office, every campaign is about building a network of support. The end result might be a collections of names written on index cards and bound with a rubber band or it might be data for a million supporters in a voter vault.
But for the presidential campaigns, it also includes the sometimes small but actively engaged networks they’ve built on sites across the Web.
Hillary Clinton has 198,664 friends on MySpace, 155,486 supporters on Facebook, 13,851 subscribers on YouTube, and 3,793 followers on Twitter.
Each of them represents a person who made a conscious decision to connect with Clinton and her campaign. They deserve the dignity of an appropriate goodbye and thank you.
Unless, that is, Clinton has an idea about what she wants to do next.
She began her bid for the presidency with a YouTube video where she called for a national conversation about the challenges facing the country. That doesn’t have to end just because her campaign does. Particularly online.
The Web offers Clinton (and every other politician) the opportunity to connect with people directly, without the filters of the mainstream news or the impersonality of a campaign rally. That’s a valuable resource no matter what Clinton’s future holds. She would be smart to continue developing it.
But if she does choose to close up shop, she should take a careful look at what John Edwards did and learn a lesson.
As he ran for president, Edwards carefully built a presence on more than twenty social networking and media sites. He updated them regularly right up until the day he suspended his campaign. And then all of a sudden, there was nothing. His last update on Twitter still reads:

On my way to Finley hospital in Dubuque, Iowa to talk with nurses and local SEIU members. Then I’m off to a community meeting in Montice

That’s a big mistake and one that’s undone some of the good will he’d managed to build online.
A loss is always hard, but a politician who wants to campaign online can’t just walk away when the race is done.

For any of you who may be hard-core HRC fans dismayed by all the “it’s over” talk in the news media and the blogosphere, RealClearPolitics’ Jay Cost offers a ray of hope: a self-consciously “contrarian” analysis of how blowout wins in WV, KY and PR could still give Clinton a plausible argument that she’s won the cumulative popular vote.
The only problem with Cost’s scenario is that it requires superdelegates to stay on the fence until after Puerto Rico votes. It’s true that the stampede of superdelegates to Obama that many observers predicted after his NC win hasn’t occurred just yet, and some have made it clear they’ll hold off announcing their intentions until the voting’s over. But still, a Clinton victory remains the political equivalent of a full-court shot at the buzzer.

Over at TNR’s The Plank, a variety of people have been invited to debate about the advisability of an Obama-Clinton “unity ticket.” As it happens, Alan Wolfe and yours truly were the first to send in submissions, both supporting the “unity ticket.”
I tried to be sensitive to the various arguments against the “unity ticket,” especially those of Obama supporters who view this possibility as a self-repudiation of Obama’s message and the very rationale for his candidacy. I also made it clear there are plenty of practical obstacles to an Obama-Clinton collaboration, most notably the fact that we don’t know if either principal is open to it at all.
But in the end, my own conclusion was that a unity ticket would most efficiently resolve the candidate-centered divisions in the Democratic Party that have grown ever more apparent as the primary contest has dragged on, allowing the party to briskly move on to a tough general election campaign. I’m sure other participants in the debate will argue otherwise, and as always in these extracurricular essays, I was speaking for myself, not TDS.

With all the talk about the consequences of Barack Obama’s big victory in NC, there’s been less analysis than usual about how, exactly, he did it.
Tuesday morning, there were a lot of people who believed that the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in North Carolina would be close. There were rumors that Obama’s support among white voters had plummeted, speculation that turnout among African-Americans might be down, and just days before Clinton predicted that North Carolina would be a “game changer.”
Then, the polls closed and the networks immediately projected Obama as the winner. On MSNBC, the language used to describe the victory was “decisive.”
So what happened?
Demographics.
Race
A Democrat needs a biracial coalition to win just about any race in North Carolina — particularly a primary. Clinton’s support among blacks was just 7 percent. As Matt Yglesias cheerfully pointed out, George Allen got 15 percent of African-American voters in neighboring Virginia in 2006. In the exit polls, black Democrats made up a third of the electorate on Tuesday. To offset that advantage Clinton needed to get better than 70 percent of the white vote, and it didn’t happen.
Geography
For a big part of the state’s history, by agreement, the governor’s mansion rotated back and forth between politicians from the east and politicians from the west. Each governor was limited to a single term and the state party was often controlled by a machine, so the transition was easy. But modern political history has been dominated by the eastern part of the state, which has provided a political base for governors like Jim Hunt and Mike Easley, senators like Jesse Helms and John Edwards, and even legislators like Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight. Obama won the east easily, and that region made up a quarter of the state’s vote.
Cities
Everyone know that Obama was going to do well in North Carolina’s urban areas. To offset that advantage, the Clinton campaign dispatched the former president on a tour of the state’s rural areas, hoping to drive up the vote there.
It didn’t work.
The vote was so high in some cities that voters were still standing in line and waiting to vote even after CNN had called the race for Obama. Obama won the Charlotte area by 11 points, the Greensboro area by 16 points, and Raleigh/Durham by 30 points.
By the way, Obama also won the rural part of the state by a 52-45 margin.
Education
There’s been a lot said about Obama’s need to win “beer track” voters, but in North Carolina, those with at least some college education made up 70 percent of the electorate last night. Those with college and post-graduate degrees made up almost half of all voters. Obama won every single education group by double digits, but his margins among the college educated allowed him to run up the score.

Take a break from the rat-a-tat-tat of the horse race, and give a gander to Rob Capriccioso’s “Game Changer: Nationwide No-Excuse Absentee Voting” over at Campaigns & Elections Politics website. Absentee balloting has become an increasingly important factor in campaigns in recent years, with huge percentages of voters casting early ballots in states like California. But the patchwork of state laws regarding absentee voting falls well short of serving all voters who find it difficult to get to the polls on election day. As Capriccioso explains:

Currently, 21 states plus the District of Columbia restrict voters’ ability to vote absentee. In such states, the elderly, individuals with disabilities or an illness, and those who serve in the military are eligible to vote by mail. Excuses, like having to work, a lack of childcare, or jury service don’t cut it. Twenty-eight states now offer voters the option of voting by mail for any reason, and Oregon conducts its elections entirely by mail.

To help address the problem Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) has introduced the Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act, which would permit every voter in every state the right to vote absentee for any reason whatsoever.
Some believe the bill would benefit the GOP. But as TDS co-editor Bill Galston points out in Capriccioso’s article:

“The traditional argument is that the more open the system is to people who are less strongly attached to it, the more likely you are to increase the share of young adults, first-time voters and moderates,” Galston said. “To the extent that that’s true, those factors would work to the advantage of Democrats.”

The legislation would likely lead to changes in the way campaigns are organized, as Capriccioso explains:

Instead of planning for one Election Day in November, campaigns would have to be prepared to compete in a series of mini-rolling elections in every single state. And the audiences they would be playing to would likely be more diverse, since younger voters, moderates and elderly voters often disproportionately take advantage of absentee voting, if it’s available.

The bill has been approved by the House Administration Committee. Similar legislation is expected in the Senate.