The two big questions among Democrats at the moment are (1) whether there is any way to avoid a presidential nomination contest that extends at least into June, and (2) whether this extended contest might ultimately be a good thing.
Given the remorseless mathematics of the nomination process (the link above refers to Chris Bowers’ exhaustive account), this basically boils down to a much simpler question: at what point, if ever, do Democratic Party poohbahs, exercising their power via the news media and superdelegates, force Hillary Clinton out of the race?
Clearly, there are those who think this should have already happened–that HRC’s odds of winning the nomination on the basis of primary and caucus results have gone down to the longest of long shots, leaving her with the Hobson’s Choice of going negative in a destructive way or losing quickly.
The reason it hasn’t happened is pretty simple. What HRC most needed after the March 4 primaries was a hit on Obama that didn’t have her fingerprints. And that’s exactly what she got with the Jeremiah Wright controversy. While you can make the argument that Obama’s dazzling speech in Philadelphia last week mitigated the damage, and just as importantly, may have cauterized the wound by taking the issue off the table for the future, it still represented an unforced error that gave HRC’s campaign some hope that Obama might “crater” without a divisive push from her rival.
On the other hand, the second big development after March 4, HRC’s apparent failure to secure a “do-over” or ratification of the MI and/or FL primaries, is a major blow to her ability to plausibly argue she will wind up the primary/caucus season with a pledged delegate plurality (almost impossible now), or an acknowledged popular vote plurality (still possible but increasingly remote).
But so long as HRC is winning primaries–particularly if Obama’s sag in general election trial heats with McCain continues–Party Poohbahs are very unlikely to intervene to administer a coup de grace.
So: to answer the $64,000 question as to when a concerted effort might be made to squeeze Clinton out of the race, the most compelling answer is that it will happen about fifteen minutes after she loses another primary. Like the participants in the NCAA basketball tournament, she’s into single-elimination territory now.
The good news for her is that it might not happen soon, and theorectically might not happen at all.
If you look at the rest of the primary calendar, after PA, which everyone expects HRC to win, there’s IN and NC on May 6. Obama’s currently favored in both, but not by large margins, and neither is exactly hostile territory. West Virginia on May 13 ought to be Clinton Country, as is KY on May 20. OR also votes on May 20, and Obama’s favored there, but not by a big margin. Obama’s narrowly favored in two of the three final states–MT and SD, voting just after an assumed Clinton win in Puerto Rico.
There’s zero margin for error here for HRC, and even if she ran the table, she probably would not win by big enough margins to take the lead in pledged delegates, and would struggle to gain a popular vote plurality. Moreover, there’s the example of past candidates who won big in late primaries (e.g., Ted Kennedy in 1980 and Gary Hart in 1984) but couldn’t win the nomination. But that’s the strategy she’s left with, and until such time as she loses, don’t expect her to be forced out of the race.

It’s a pretty fair assumption that Democrats looking towards the general election are feeling exceptionally conflicted right now. On the one hand, the extended Clinton-Obama competition, which could easily extend into June and could possibly remain unresolved until the convention in August, is clearly inflicting damage on both candidates’ general election prospects while giving John McCain an enormous breather. In a very unhappy article in The New Republic today, Noam Scheiber argues that it may take a relatively early superdelegate intervention to nail down an Obama nomination and give Democrats a shot at victory in November.
But on the other hand, there remain certain fundamental factors that are almost certain to boost the Democratic nominee down the road and create some serious problems for McCain. Chief among them is the economy. At Bloomberg.com, Alison Fitzgerald reminds us that incumbent parties have rarely if ever managed to hold onto the White House in a recessionary atmosphere. Moreover, John McCain’s relative ability to avoid association with the record of the Bush administration does not necessarily extend to economics; even his own campaign concedes that his chief economic talking point is support for making Bush’s tax cuts permanent.
Beyond the economy, the belief of many conservatives that McCain is going to win by making the election a foreign policy referendum centered on Iraq is exceedingly strange. Yes, the tactical successes associated with the “surge” in Iraq have made this issue less deadly for Republicans, but there’s simply no evidence that Americans are shifting towards support for perpetual war or a reconsideration of the judgment that the invasion was a mistake.
In other words, there’s almost no doubt that John McCain will be fighting a powerful, historically high “wrong track” sentiment that may actually grow stronger in the fall, particularly if gas prices rise to over $4 a gallon and the collateral damage from the subprime mortgage disaster continues to play itself out. It’s always possible that McCain’s battered-but-intact “maverick” reputation compounded by unhappiness over the views of the retired pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ will trump these fundamentals. But the fundamentals are not going away.

After reading a couple dozen different takes on Obama’s Philadelphia speech (NYT’s Janny Scott has the latest installment here and WaPo has a handful of articles today linked here), I am now prepared to render the judgement that it did him more good than harm. Shucks, no need to commend my vision and candor — the glory goes to Obama.
What I have been wondering for the last week is how one large and pivotal constituency, the white working class, including it’s subgroup the “Reagan Democrats” received Obama’s heartfelt oration, or even if any such broad generalization, pro or con, could be made. I’ve seen no post-speech poll cross tabs that lay it out clearly, although the latest Gallup polls since Obama’s March 18 speech show Obama holding steady against McCain. My assessment is also anchored in the collective shrug from that key constituency, other than a few paragraphs in comments sections following articles. What we don’t hear/read about is a chorus of complaining workers exploded in man-on-the-street round-up articles, or otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong. Obama’s speech was excellent, as measured by clarity, persuasive power and delivery. It is exactly the sort of speech that generates future royalties for the speaker when reprinted in ‘Great Speeches’ anthologies, chapters on ‘The Explanatory Speech.’ But I’m not sure it was a great campaign speech in the sense of winning hearts and minds among undecideds in general or the blue collar constituency in particular.
The speech was necessary — he had to respond in some way to the fuss about Rev. Wright. And speechifying is most definitely Obama’s strong card as a candidate. It was a wise decision to address the problem this way instead of issuing a press statement and then being subjected to endless media interviews in which he is less skilled and in which he would be vulnerable to attacks from the press. Ditto for debates, in which Clinton is a little sharper. Now he can just say “Well, I’ve already discussed that thoroughly in my speech, and don’t really have much to add.” No one will blame him, because most voters of all races are more interested in how a candidate is going to help get their kids educated, protect their retirement assets, fix the health care mess and get us out of Iraq.
Although Obama’s speech may not have won many new hearts and minds, it did the job well enough, which was to counter-balance the negative buzz about some of Rev. Wright’s sermons and what Obama thought about them. For that, hats off to David Axelrod, or whoever was responsible for the strategy and speechwriting for jobs well-done, as well as to the candidate himself for masterful delivery.
As a practical matter, however, campaign speeches are probably best measured by their fallout. This one was a winner in that regard, with more positive than negative buzz, even if most of it comes from the choir. When was the last time anybody got so much good ink from a speech? All in all, yet another impressive example of Team Obama’s edge in strategy and tactics.

Lurking in the background of the interminable dispute over the Democratic Party’s handling of outlaw primaries in MI and FL has been the fear that keeping these two states unrepresented at the convention in Denver could hurt the ultimate nominee’s ability to win either or both in November.
Up until now, this fear has been largely subjective and anecdotal. But earlier this week, three Florida media outlets published a poll suggesting that Florida Democrats are indeed feeling invested in the controversy, with a significant number of them currently inclined to punish the national party for its alleged disrespect.
More specifically, 14% of respondents say a failure to seat the Florida delegation would make them “much less likely” to support the presidential nominee in November, with another 10% saying it would make them somewhat less likely to do so. It’s also worth noting that only 28% of respondents blame the Republican governor and legislature for the mess, with 25% blaming the DNC and another 20% blaming the Florida Democratic Party.
There’s clearly some intraparty factionalism affecting these results, since Clinton supporters are roughly twice as likely to want the original primary results to stand as Obama supporters (Obama’s support, BTW, has gone up modestly since the primary).
This is all interesting, and perhaps questionable. Given the high odds of a polarizing general election, and the certainty that the Democratic nominee will campaign heavily in the Sunshine State, you’d have to figure some of these bruised feelings among Florida Democrats would abate by November.
But on the other hand, if the Clinton campaign continues to make its championship of MI and FL primary voters a centerpiece of the case for her nomination, and particularly if there is a Credentials Committees fight before or during the convention, then this issue is likely to remain front-and-center in Florida political coverage for quite some time. If HRC wins the nomination, this particular problem might largely go away. But if the nominee is Obama, and he wins after fighting tooth-and-nail against any seating of Florida delegates, then we should all hope someone in Obama’s political braintrust is already devoting some long-term thinking to what the candidate can do during the General Election to heal the wounds. A fly-around to key media markets in Florida, and perhaps Michigan, the day after the convention, might not be a bad idea. Maybe he could distribute some of those convention goodie-bags the unseated delegates will have missed.

I didn’t cross-post an article I wrote for TPMCafe on the religious dimension of the Jeremiah Wright controversy and Barack Obama’s handling of it, in part because it overlapped with earlier observations I made on this site, and also because I’ve tried to keep TDS relatively free of my various non-political interests (hence, no posts, much as I’ve been tempted, about Georgia football or basketball).
But given the apparently endless nature of the Wright controversy, at least among conservatives, and the heavy emphasis placed on religious factors by Obama’s critics, you might want to give it a read, particularly if you are a Christian in search of relevant if non-momentous Holy Week reading material.

On the heels of Adam Nagourney’s survey yesterday of Hillary Clinton’s difficult strategy for winning the nomination, Ben Smith of The Politico gets deep into the math of HRC’s effort to claim a majority of the overall popular vote. He concludes, like many observers, that absent a deal to “count” popular votes from MI and FL, HRC’s goal of a popular vote majority depends on either big landslide wins in the upcoming states she’s expected to do well in (PA, KY, WV and PR), or surprise showings in states where Obama is thought to be leading (e.g., NC, OR and IN). Complicating the picture even more is the fact that four caucus states (IA, NV, ME and WA) have not reported, and may be incapable of tabulating, actual raw votes.
Smith also links to a useful if complicated chart at RealClearPolitics that displays various popular vote configurations. It has Obama up by just over 700,000 votes without FL, MI or the four non-popular-vote-reporting caucus states, three of which were won by Obama.

The March issue of Campaign & Elections ezine, Politics has a freebie cover story by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. “Tuned Out: Cultural Libertarians Are A Growing Force in America. But Just How Can you Reach Them?”
Much of the article is a plug for Republican/Libertarian Ron Paul as a prototype presidential candidate of the future, without even a mention of Paul’s disturbing flirtation with white supremacist groups/ideology. But the authors do shed some light on Paul’s popularity with Libertarians, if not racist groups.
There’s also a fair amount of dubious speculation about “long-tail marketing” being the wave of the future in politics, as well as the economy. The authors cite a study of public opinion polls indicating that “15 percent of the electorate can more or less be described as Libertarian,” which doesn’t tell us much about what they actually do at the ballot box.
The merit of the article, in terms of Democratic strategy, is that it illuminates a significant ideological minority that divides its voters between Democrats, Republicans and the Libertarian Party and sheds light on what they think about a host of issues in current context. The sidebar, “7 Ways to Win Our Vote” limns current Libertarian preferences regarding online gambling; internet tax proposals; eminent domain; Iraq; immigration; medical marijuana; and health insurance. Democrats have an edge with Libertarians on most of these issues and other issues concerning personal and lifestyle freedom. Republicans will do better with Libertarians who are more focused on taxes, shrinking government and expanding unfettered trade.
It’s unclear whether the Libertarian percentage of American voters will grow in the years ahead. No doubt, Democrats can bite off a healthy chunk of the Libertarian-leaning constituency with the right kind of candidates. My guess is Obama would have a better chance than Clinton to win Libertarian votes in this cycle, although neither one satisfies the inflexible standards of free-trade ideologues. One suspects that many, if not most self-described Libertarians are not all that rigid on all their issues, so there is likely not much benefit in tailoring a strategy to win their votes.

Surely one measure of the judgment of politicians who have supported and continue to support the Iraq War and those who didn’t and/or don’t is the overall cost, generally estimated at $2 trillion. That’s calamitous enough, as Joe Conason explains, given the original cost estimates:

How mistaken were the war’s optimistic promoters in 2003? The official line on the expected cost of rebuilding Iraq after ousting Saddam was just under $2 billion, according to testimony provided by Bush administration officials. That estimate did not include the likelihood, according to Paul Wolfowitz, the then-deputy secretary of defense, of whether Iraq’s oil reserves would cover the entire cost of invasion, occupation and reconstruction. Five years later, the estimated cost of the war to American taxpayers is well over $2 trillion, including the care we must provide for wounded Americans over the next few decades. Much of the Iraqi oil, of which production remains sporadic, is being stolen and smuggled away.
The difference between an estimate of $2 billion and a cost of $2 trillion could be considered a significant miscalculation, even in a Republican government.

But that’s not all:

Yet those figures don’t quite reckon with the real costs, which should include the rise in the price of oil from around $36 a barrel in March 2003 to well over $100 a barrel this month. Some economists go further, blaming the subprime mortgage collapse — and the ensuing deluge of bad paper that may capsize the world economy — on the effects of the war.

No matter how broad or narrow your estimates, the costs of this war have to cast a pretty heavy shadow on John McCain’s reputation for fiscal probity, and should make his obsession with appropriations earmarks–mostly peanuts as compared to a week or so of this war, which he supported from the beginning and wants to continue indefinitely–pretty laughable.

In a minority view, Chris Bowers thinks the Obama campaign’s decision to resist a deal or “re-do” for Michigan could invite a credentials fight in the DNC and at the convention, on grounds that the required majority of delegates may arguably be based on a count that includes MI and FL.

Adam Nagourney of The New York Times has a good summary of Hillary Clinton’s current strategy for winning the Democratic presidential nomination:

She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in Pennsylvania next month to buttress her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states.
She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June.
And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.

But the growing unlikelihood of a “re-do” or a delegate deal for MI and FL is a big obstacle to the second goal, which may be the key to an HRC claim to superdelegate supremacy.

The fight over Florida and Michigan is just partly about delegates. Victories in new primaries in those states are among the only realistic ways for Mrs. Clinton to erase Mr. Obama’s advantage in the total popular vote.
Mr. Obama’s edge over Mrs. Clinton is 700,000 votes out of 26 million cast, excluding caucuses and the disputed Florida and Michigan results. About 12 million people are eligible to vote in the remaining contests.
Aides to the two candidates said even with the best possible showing for Mrs. Clinton in the states ahead, it was hard to see how she could pass Mr. Obama without Michigan and Florida.

That’s why (as Ed Kilgore has argued here) it’s in Clinton’s interest to accept absolutely any deal she can get on delegates for FL in particular, to preserve her 300,000 popular vote win there. And that may be why the Obama campaign seems increasingly committed to the status quo, despite the risks that involves for the general election.
The other big thing to watch is whether Obama quickly recovers from the polling “swoon” that seemed to hit him when the Jeremiah Wright controversy exploded. If his speech on the subject was as effective with the public as it was with most of the media, that should begin to happen soon.