The buzz in Iowa Democratic circles today is over Barack Obama’s decision, made about a month ago, to skip tonight’s AARP candidate forum in Davenport. TAPPED’s Garance Franke-Ruta, who’s been covering Iowa closely, refers to it as “Obama’s big mistake.”
The timing is interesting, since earlier this week Obama unveiled a tax reform plan that included, among other things, a provision eliminating federal income taxation entirely for seniors earning less than $50,000 annually. You’d think he’d want to talk about it in front of an especially receptive audience. Maybe he’ll get lucky and the questioners at the AARP forum will ask the other candidates about it.

Chris Bowers at OpenLeft has a very useful post up analyzing the various factors that might boost and limit post-IA/NH “bounces” in national polls for presidential candidates in 2008. Be sure to follow the link to Mark Blumenthal’s more general discussion at pollster.com of the relevance of primary polling.
It’s worth remembering as an additional note that advance polling in the one “unbounceable” state, Iowa, is notoriously difficult, since it’s hard to really establish an accurate “screen” for likely caucus-goers. Iowa’s complex caucus rules, which can produce results significantly out of line with statewide opinion, present another problem for pollsters.

Whatever traction the GOP had in sliming Democrats as troop-bashers because of MoveOn’s General Petraeus ad has been replaced by spinning wheels as a result of the Senate Republicans’ vote against the Webb amendment. Webb’s proposal would have provided American soldiers serving in Iraq with guaranteed time at home at least equal to their length of service in Iraq, before being sent back into battle. (For complete vote tally, click here).
The MoveOn ad was a non-issue even before the Webb amendment vote, based on the GOP’s trying to equate the organization with the Democratic Party. It’s one thing for an independent liberal organization to criticize one general, rightly or wrongly. It’s quite another for all but six Republican Senators to vote against giving our soldiers in Iraq a much needed break. Every Democratic Senator voted for the Webb amendment, which was supported by veterans’ organizations. The inescapable conclusion is that when it comes to providing substantive support and relief for our troops, only one Party shows up, and it sure ain’t the GOP.
Republicans will still try to trot out the MoveOn ad as somehow indicative of Democratic disrespect for our soldiers serving in Iraq. But it will have a very hollow ring from now on, since the GOP blew its best chance to show meaningful support of our men and women in battle.
Outgoing Republican Senator John Warner, performed the ultimate flip-flop on the Webb Amendment, saying “I endorsed it…I intend now to cast a vote against it.” He isn’t running for re-election next year, but the Republican running for his seat will likely reap a bitter whirlwind. As WaPo’s Dana Milbank noted in his report on the Webb amendment vote, “Pro-war Republicans, who had been grumbling about Warner’s perfidy for weeks, suddenly celebrated him as an American hero.”
As one commenter on Milbank’s article, SarahBB, put it “The tolerance for hypocrisy in the Republican party, the art of saying one thing and doing the opposite, or projecting that which you do onto others, is truly staggering.” Another, Joy2, said it this way:

Shame on Senator Warner! I certainly thought he held the best interests of the troops in the foremost. But, alas, loyalty to the Bush administration and their continued bungling took precedence. He will have to live with the consequences as our troops burn-out and die in greater numbers.

Virginia veterans and their families will certainly remember which Senator — and which Party — was there for them when it counted. The Republicans stopped Senator Webb from getting a fillibuster-proof majority. But in so doing, they handed Webb — and all Democratic candidates — a potent example of GOP hypocrisy when it comes to supporting our women and men in uniform.
Meanwhile, Democrats can be proud of Senator Webb, and our troops have no greater champion.

We published a staff post earlier this week briefly discussing Dr. Tom Schaller’s Salon piece suggesting that Democrats should stop “pandering” to white male voters, especially in the South. Schaller’s essay is continuing to draw attention, probably because Salon chose to give it a provocative title (“So Long, White Boy”), and also because conservatives are predictably beginning to pick up on Schaller’s rhetoric to suggest that Democrats hate Bubba.
A closer look at the Salon piece reveals a well-written article using impeccable empirical data in the service of an intraparty argument against a position that hardly anyone actually takes.
Schaller’s absolutely right to point out that the white male working-class preference for Republican presidential candidates can no long be written off as a temporary aberration. He’s also correct that white men are a declining percentage of the electorate, albeit a rather large one for the foreseeabe future. And he’s right as well that “Super-Bubba” Bill Clinton didn’t win in 1992 or 1996 by working any particular magic with white male voters north or south.
So who, exactly, is Schaller arguing with? Apparently, with “centrist Democrats [who] continue to urge the party to find new ways to lure white male voters back into the fold. Bill Galston, former domestic policy advisor to Bill Clinton and one of Washington’s sharpest analysts, is a proponent of a Democratic reinvestment in white male voters.”
Schaller then takes a brief look at a six-year-old article by Galston (a co-editor here at TDS) from Blueprint Magazine analyzing the collapse of Democratic support among white male voters in elections through 2000, mainly in order to turn Galston’s numbers on their head. But he doesn’t seem to have noticed that Galston’s main point was to suggest a conflict between progressive moral commitments and major gains among white male voters that simply couldn’t be wished away. Here’s the money quote from Galston’s piece:

In sum, the most realistic strategic objective is to diminish the intensity of white male opposition to the national Democratic Party while retaining the support of key minority groups and bolstering suburban gains, especially among white women. To execute this strategy, embracing moderate positions on cultural issues based on mainstream values is a necessity. But for today’s Democratic Party, neither cultural conservatism nor an anti-government stance is an option. If that is what it takes to regain full competitiveness among white men, the price is too high.

As in much of Schaller’s writing about Democrats and the South, he seems eager to suggest that anyone interested in cutting disastrous Democratic losing margins in certain segments of the electorate is arguing for “pandering,” the abandonment of Democratic constituencies, or a “turn to the right” on key issues. The only choices on the table are to lust after Bubba or spurn him.
There’s actually plenty of variation among Democrats, centrist or non-centrist, in their assessment of whether and if so how Democrats can do a bit better among white men. The only notable Democratic figure who actually seems to match Schaller’s account of “centrists” demanding a Bubba-centric political message is Mudcat Sanders, who often serves the same straw man function in Schaller’s writings about the South.
And that’s why it’s interesting to note that Schaller considers John Edwards’ refusal to engage in Bubba-lust one of the leading indicators that Democrats are finally wising up about the political incorrigibility of white men. Edwards’ campaign often suggests that its candidate might do better among white men than his leading female, African-American, and Latino rivals, particularly in the South. And the Edwards spokesman most often making this argument is none other than Mudcat Sanders.
Maybe Schaller and Sanders should just take their argument outside.

Today one of the big prizes in the presidential candidate bid for labor support will be up for grabs, as the Service Employees International Union board is meeting to consider an endorsement. By all accounts, John Edwards is the front-runner, but given SEIU’s unhappy experience with an early 2004 endorsement of Howard Dean, there’s some sentiment for delaying any nod.
At SEIU’s candidate forum earlier this week, Barack Obama’s speech was generally rated as the best, with Edwards’ a close second. And Bill Richardson, whose own speech drew strong applause, had the worst moment when he said to the crowd, “Thank you, AFSCME,” an unfortunate reference to SEIU’s main union rival for public employee members.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

Today we’ll be publishing a post from guest blogger James Vega, who will probably appear here now and then in the future. Vega is is a strategic marketing consultant whose clients have included some of America’s leading nonprofit institutions and high-tech firms.

In the movie “A Few Good Men” the rookie JAG lawyer played by Tom Cruise cleverly exploits his own lack of military experience and bearing by using it to provoke a deep contempt in the crusty general played by Jack Nicholson. In response to Cruise’s skillful baiting, Nicholson explodes in an on-the-witness-chair meltdown that leaves him sputtering futilely and blurting out the critical evidence of his own misconduct.
“A Few Good Men” is not the only Hollywood movie that ends with a similar meltdown of a military “bad-guy” at the hands of a quintessentially liberal journalist/attorney/citizen (one who invariably has only “the truth” on his or her side). Kirk Douglas, Gene Hackman, Burt Lancaster, George C. Scott and a bunch of other A-list actors have all played the heavy in this particular bit over the years.
And amazingly, in real life as well, exactly the same thing has happened… let’s see…….um, well, gee, when you get down to it – Never. Not once. Not in this bloody universe. Not even close.
On the contrary, military men testifying before Congress invariably come off better then their interrogators – William Westmorland, Oliver North and now General Petraeus never even break a sweat while the legislators questioning them probe and thrust haphazardly like rookie public defenders who misplaced their case notes and are bluffing their way through a cross-examination, hoping the cop they are questioning will suddenly develop amnesia or some other miracle will fall in their lap.
Now the truth is that everybody knows perfectly well that this is the way it always works out in real life and everybody — not just communications specialists — knows exactly why.
It’s not just the uniform, although that’s profoundly important. A military career obviously suggests a vast range of admirable messages about the person and his values – patriotism, self-discipline, bravery, technical mastery, cool-headedness, a commitment to something larger then money (Politicians, in contrast, generally embody…. Oh never mind).
But even more important, a high-ranking military officer testifying before Congress is presenting something more then just a particular viewpoint or opinion. He is outlining a military strategy – a coherent plan that includes the goals and objectives being sought, the general plan for achieving them and the results of technical analyses and feasibility studies drawn from a whole series of sub-fields – logistics, transportation, force structure, intelligence, and many others.

Read more…

Midway through reading Matt Bai’s New York Times Magazine profile of Mark Warner in March of 2006 (the one accompanied by the famously unflattering cover photo of the Virginian), I opened an instant message from a friend who said, “Matt Bai is great at writing about conventional wisdom a couple hours after it becomes conventional wisdom.”
But in The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, Bai has penned an unconventional and fascinating account of the various elements of the recent insurgency movement inside the Democratic Party, based on three years of close personal observation.
He was one of the first journalists in Washington to see the now famous Rob Stein PowerPoint presentation charting the rise of the “Right Wing Message Matrix.” He was the only writer in the room when some of the richest donors in progressive politics committed to build the Democracy Alliance. He was the first reporter to book a seat at the inaugural YearlyKos convention. And when Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Jerome Armstrong went on a tour to promote their book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, Bai rented a car and drove them the length of California.
All of which is to say that Bai was way ahead of the collective wisdom on this one. The mainstream media recognized something was up, but from top to bottom, everyone was slow to grasp that the new activists in the Democratic party weren’t like the old constituent groups. They weren’t content to raise money for a little access. They weren’t patient with authority. And whether they liked to admit it or not, they weren’t happy with the Clinton legacy.
Bai captures all of that artfully. Armstrong and Kos emerge from the book as complex individuals, not as representatives of an “angry blogger” stereotype. Important figures unused to the profile treatment, like Gina Cooper (the woman who organized the first YearlyKos) and Rob Stein (the man who convinced some of the wealthiest people in the country to commit millions of dollars to the Democracy Alliance), are rendered candidly and sympathetically. And the scene where Bill Clinton finds himself in a heated disagreement with one of the donors from the Democracy Alliance smolders with significance.
Though I’ve heard some of the stories he describes before, all of this feels fresh — perhaps because, with the exception of Crashing the Gate, The Argument is the first thing I’ve read to give book-length treatment to this whole phenomenon. That said, you expect all this from a writer as talented as Bai. What you don’t expect are the insights all these details provide.

Read more…

Sue Sturgis of Facing South flags one of the better strategy ideas being kicked around in her post “Help Bring a Presidential Debate to New Orleans.” It’s a simple idea, and Democrats have everything to gain by debating in the Big Easy. They can showcase their specific policies for revitalizing the Gulf Coast, in very stark contrast to the GOP candidates’ vague, insubstantial boilerplate. It’s also a great way for Dems to show the South they care about the region’s future.
The campaign for a Big Easy Debate is being sponsored by “Women of the Storm,” a coalition of Louisiana women whose lives were affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. The group is working with Dillard, Loyola, Tulane and Xavier universities to persuade the Commission on Presidential Debates to hold a presidential debate at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. The proposed New Orleans debate has been endorsed by the Washington Post, New York Times, New Orleans Times-Picayune and the six U.S. Senators running for president.
Friends of New Orleans, which also works to support rebuilding the Gulf Coast, is conducting an e-mail campaign supporting the debate on its website. Sending a message takes about 30 seconds.

Lord ‘a’ mercy! For the self-styled Party of the Godly, the GOP is certainly having a lot of religious issues with its presidential field. There’s Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. There’s Rudy Giuliani’s rather tenuous relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. There’s the question as to whether Fred Thompson is a member of the conservative Church of Christ or the progressive United Church of Christ, or doesn’t go to church at all. There’s Sam Brownback’s conversion from Methodism to Catholicism via the controversial Opus Dei organization. And for those Republicans, if there are any, who are scrupulous about separation of church and state, Mike Huckabee’s position as an ordained Southern Baptist minister might raise a few eyebrows.
And now we learn via AP that John McCain has suddenly started telling people in heavily Baptist South Carolina that he’s not, as he has always been identified, an Episcopalian, but a Baptist, having attended a Phoenix-area Southern Baptist Church for about 15 years.

The Associated Press asked McCain on Saturday how his Episcopal faith plays a role in his campaign and life. McCain grew up Episcopalian and attended an Episcopal high school in Alexandria, Va.
“It plays a role in my life. By the way, I’m not Episcopalian. I’m Baptist,” McCain said. “Do I advertise my faith? Do I talk about it all the time? No.”

This news apparently led AP reporter Bruce Smith to do a little googling, and he promptly turned up a rather interesting personal tidbit about McCain from a few months ago:

In a June interview with McClatchy Newspapers, the senator said his wife and two of their children have been baptized in the Arizona Baptist church, but he had not. “I didn’t find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs,” he said.

Well, you’d think anyone who’s been attending a Baptist Church for 15 years might have caught wind of the fact that the denomination, as its name suggests, believes rather adamantly that baptism is necessary for salvation, a reasonably important “spiritual need” by most measurements.
And no, it wouldn’t cut any ice with his fellow-Baptists if it turns out that McCain, like most Episcopalians, was baptized via sprinkling as an infant. Any kind of Baptist I’ve ever heard of holds that only a “believer’s baptism” (i.e., at an age of consent) through full bodily immersion is valid. That’s why their theological ancestors in Europe were contemptuously dubbed “Re-baptizers,” or “Anabaptists.”
I don’t know why McCain has chosen to wander into this particular thicket. But the only way out I can imagine is if he asks Huckabee to baptize him during the next candidate debate.