The 10 Worst Predictions for 2008

Foreign Policy has the full list. Here are some highlights:

1. “If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she’s going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her, then. … Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.”

—William Kristol, Fox News Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006

After Iowa, Kristol lurched to the other extreme, declaring that Clinton would lose New Hampshire and that “There will be no Clinton Restoration.” It’s also worth pointing out that this second wildly premature prediction was made in a Times column titled, “President Mike Huckabee?” The Times is currently rumored to be looking for his replacement.

2. “Peter writes: ‘Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?’ No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money out. … Bear Stearns is not in trouble. I mean, if anything they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear! That’s just being silly! Don’t be silly!”

—Jim Cramer, responding to a viewer’s e-mail on CNBC’s Mad Money, March 11, 2008

Six days after the volatile CNBC host made his emphatic pronouncement, Bear Stearns faced the modern equivalent of an old-fashioned bank run. Amid widespread speculation on Wall Street about the bank’s massive exposure to subprime mortgages, Bear’s shares lost 90 percent of their value and the investment bank was sold for a pittance to JPMorgan Chase, with a last-minute assist from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

3. “[In] reality the risks to maritime flows of oil are far smaller than is commonly assumed. First, tankers are much less vulnerable than conventional wisdom holds. Second, limited regional conflicts would be unlikely to seriously upset traffic, and terrorist attacks against shipping would have even less of an economic effect. Third, only a naval power of the United States’ strength could seriously disrupt oil shipments.”

—Dennis Blair and Kenneth Lieberthal, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007

On Nov. 15, 2008 a group of Somali pirates in inflatable rafts hijacked a Saudi oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels of crude in the Indian Ocean. The daring raid was part of a rash of attacks by Somali pirates, which have primarily occurred in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates operating in the waterway have hijacked more than 50 ships this year, up from only 13 in all of last year, according to the Piracy Reporting Center. The Gulf of Aden, where nearly 4 percent of the world’s oil demand passes every day, was not on the list of strategic “chokepoints” where oil shipments could potentially be disrupted that Blair and Lieberthal included in their essay, “Smooth Sailing: The World’s Shipping Lanes Are Safe.”

Hopefully, Blair will show a bit more foresight if, as some expect, he is selected as Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence.

5. “[A]nyone who says we’re in a recession, or heading into one—especially the worst one since the Great Depression—is making up his own private definition of ‘recession.’”

—Donald Luskin, The Washington Post, Sept. 14, 2008

The day after Luskin’s op-ed, “Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line,” appeared in the Post, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and the rest is history. Liberal bloggers had long ago dubbed the Trend Macrolytics chief investment officer and informal McCain advisor “the Stupidest Man Alive.” This time, they had some particularly damning evidence.

10. “I believe the banking system has been stabilized. No one is asking themselves anymore, is there some major institution that might fail and that we would not be able to do anything about it.”

—Henry Paulson on National Public Radio, Nov. 13, 2008

Unfortunately for Paulson, shortly after his vote of confidence, Citigroup’s stock price plunged 75 percent in one week, closing below $5 for the first time in 14 years.

My own worst predictions for 2008:

1. Bill Richardson would become president. (I even put money on that one.)
2. Bill Richardson would become Secretary of State.
3. John Edwards would become president. (I even put money on that one.)
4. John Edwards would become Attorney General.
5. I would win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
6. Liam would win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
7. Liam would at least finish has dissertation.
8. Hillary Clinton would become president.
9. The Beatles would finally re-unite.
10. Big Brown would win become the first Triple-Crown winner in 30 years.
11. Obama would win the popular vote in the Texas primary, putting an end to the Clinton campaign.
12. My wife would throw me out of the house for listening to Waylon Jennings so much. (Thanks, dear.)
13. Spain would find a way to lose the Euro2008 Finals match against Germany. (Viva España!)
14. The Democrats would find yet another way to lose the presidential election. (Viva Obama!)
15. Fred Astaire and/or Lester Young would finally be recognized with a National Holiday.

Change We Can Believe In #27

Obama gives the word and Joe Lieberman gets to keep his chairmanship of Homeland Security.

Obama wants Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State.

Obama wants Larry Summers, Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, to be his Treasury Secretary.

Obama wants Eric Holder, Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General, to be his Attorney General.

Obama hires about 40 other former Clinton staffers to be in his administration.

Obama meets with John McCain, reportedly offering him Secretary of Defense.

Wait, no, George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense is going to be Obama's Secretary of Defense.

Next up, Obama asks George W. to stay on as Secretary of Education. Karl Rove will run Health, Education and Welfare.

The United States will be one big happy family.

So, get used to it.

Or else.

Obama's Got Pander!

Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee for President last Tuesday.

The very next day, as if to prove that he could pander with the best/worst of them . . . . well . . . .

Jon Stewart on Obama, McClain and Hillary Clinton pandering their little hearts out at the annual conference of AIPAC, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States.

How Hillary Can Still Win

Forget the number of pledged delegates.

Forget the number of Super-Duper delegates.

Forget the popular vote.

(With or without Florida and Michigan.)

There are a few other scenarios we haven't considered in which Hillary can still win.

What Went Wrong? The Clinton Campaign Dissects Itself

The process to choose a Democratic presidential nominee hasn't finished yet, though it seems highly likely that Barack Obama will be the candidate.

I'll believe it's over when Obama actually has 2,025 delegates. Until then, I feel like I'm watching the last few minutes of a horror film, when the dumbass on the screen thinks he's killed the monster, whereas you know the beast is about to spring forth for one last attack.

Actually, observing a lot of Democrats, pundits, and bloggers (myself included), I'm reminded of another film analogy - the "Bring out your dead" routine in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Hillary: I'm not dead.
The Media: What?
The DNC: Nothing. Look, Edwards endorsed Obama.
Hillary: I'm not dead.
The Media: 'Ere, she says she's not dead.
DNC: Yes she is.
Hillary: I'm not.
The Media: She isn't.
The DNC: Well, she will be soon, she's very ill.
Hillary: I'm getting better. Look at West Virginia.
The DNC: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Media: Well, I can't take her like that. It's against regulations.
Hillary: I don't want to go on the cart.
The DNC: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Media: I can't take her.
Hillary: Obama won't get any white votes!
The DNC: Oh, do me a favor.
The Media: I can't.
The DNC: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? She won't be long.
The Media: I promised I'd cover McCain's campaign.
The DNC: Well, when's your next round?
The Media: May 20, the Kentucky and Oregon primaries.
Hillary: I think I'll go for a walk. I'm inevitable!
The DNC: [To Hillary] You're not fooling anyone, you know.
[To the Media] Isn't there anything you could do?
Hillary: I feel happy. I feel happy. I'm going all the way to the convention!
[The Media glances up and down the street furtively, then silences Hillary with a whack of his club]
The DNC: Ah, thank you very much.
The Media: Not at all. See you in the General.
The DNC: Right.

Evidently, though, several people in Hillary's own campaign know the end is near, and they've started dissecting the corpse of their losing effort before the breath has even left the body.

Michelle Cottle, at the New Republic has a fascinating article called (surprise) "What Went Wrong," which pulls together statements from more than a dozen members of Hillary's staff, "from high-level advisors to grunt-level assistants, from money men to on-the-ground organizers."

Here's a good chunk of the article - I suggest, however, reading the whole thing:

One respondent sent in a list of Top 25 screw ups, the first three being:

1. Patti
2. Solis
3. Doyle

Patti Solis Doyle

While from another corner came another list, reading:

1. Mark Penn
2. Mark Penn
3. Mark Penn

PROBLEMS AT THE OUTSET

"Bottom line: I just don't think she was hungry enough for it in the beginning. It wasn't really until the ten-in-a-row loss that she started doing stuff like Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart. In the beginning, it was hard to get her to do those things. Early in the campaign, she spent much more time in the Senate than the campaign would have liked. It took the threat of a real loss to get her hungry enough for it. But time was lost. If you ask the Iowa folks, I'm sure they would tell you she wasn't there enough."

"Clearly [Obama] was a phenomenon. He was tapping something really different than anyone had ever seen before. ... Months and months before Iowa, he was getting record crowds. I just think they should have really gone after him back in the summer and in the fall. I know it would have been a difficult decision to make back then. She's the leader of the party, the standard bearer, the big dog. Everyone thinks she's gonna win and walk away with it. Why go picking on Barack Obama? But that's just something the campaign should have done sooner."

"We didn't lay a serious glove on him until the fall. We tried to a little bit, but we weren't successful. We did silly stuff, like talk about David Geffen. It wasn't the substantive contrast we needed to make."

"Devastating vulnerabilities such as Obama's associations with Wright and Ayers were not unearthed by the campaign's vaunted research team in time to be fully taken advantage of--despite being readily available in the public domain."

"Running as an incumbent, as the inevitable candidate, was probably our biggest mistake, particularly in a time when the country is really hungry for change."

"There was not any plan in place from beginning to end on how to win the nomination. It was, 'Win Iowa.' There was not the experience level, and, frankly, the management ability, to create a whole plan to get to the magical delegate number. That to me is the number one thing. It's starting from that point that every subsequent decision resulted. The decision to spend x amount in Iowa versus be prepared for February 5 and beyond. Or how much money to spend in South Carolina--where it was highly unlikely we were going to win--versus the decision not to fund certain other states. ... It was not as simple as, 'Oh, that's a caucus state, we're not going to play there.' That suggests a more serious thought process. It suggests a meeting where we went through all that."

"Harold Ickes's encyclopedic understanding of the proportional delegate system was never operationalized into a field plan. The campaign inexplicably wrote off many states entirely, allowing Obama to create the lead of 100+ delegates that he has today. Most notably, we claimed the race would be over by February 5, but didn't devote any resources to the smaller states that day and in the weeks that followed, allowing Obama to easily run up margins and delegate counts on the cheap--the delegate margin he will win by."

PROBLEMS WITH THE PERSONNEL

"Hillary assembled a team thin on presidential campaign experience that confused discipline with insularity; they didn't know what they didn't know and were too arrogant to ask at a time early enough in the process when it could have made a difference, effectively shutting out even some long-time Hillaryland loyalists. Her innermost circle of [Patti Solis] Doyle, [Mark] Penn, [Mandy] Grunwald, [Neera] Tanden and [Howard] Wolfson formed a Board of Directors with no single Chairman or CEO; nobody was truly in charge, nobody held truly accountable."

"[Original campaign manager] Patti and [her deputy] Mike [Henry] sat up there in their offices and no one knew what they did all day. Patti's a nice person who was put in a job way over head. She was out of her element. Mike Henry was hired because he was the flavor of day, the catch everyone wanted. I'm sure he was really great, but presidential politics require a unique skill set and knowledge."

"[Policy Director] Tanden and [Communications Director] Wolfson, the HQ's most senior department heads, had no real presidential campaign experience, and no primary experience whatsoever. Notoriously bad managers, they filled key posts with newcomers loyal to them but unknown to and unfamiliar with the candidate, her style, her history, her preferences."

Mark Penn

"Probably our second biggest mistake was much more operational: Making our chief strategist our one and only pollster. It is impossible to disagree and have a counter view on message when the person creating the message is also the person testing the message."

"She never embraced the mantle from the beginning of being a different kind of candidate. Why did the campaign not do that? Because Mark Penn wanted to do it a different way. Read his book. He thought that you have a list of policy prescriptions. Voters are into that, and that's how you win. This came at the expense of--and it's a decision he really pushed for--saying to folks, 'Yes, she's a pretty inspiring figure herself.' ... There's no reason why she's not a change agent also. But once the CW is set, it just doesn't change."

"There were so many consultants, instead of full-time staff who would have spent their entire time focusing on this. . . . There were too many people that had too much else going on on the side."

"[Bill's] behavior that started off in Iowa, carried on in New Hampshire, and culminated in South Carolina really was the beginning of the end. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he just kind of imploded. I think, if I had to look back on it, it became more about him than about her. It really was destructive overall."

PROBLEMS WITH EXECUTION

"There were more themes in this campaign than anything I've ever seen."

"Our message in fact was working very well through September. What we failed to do is pivot when we needed to. We stuck on the same thing. ... We didn't say, 'OK, everybody gets that she can do this job.' We never pivoted to what kind of change she could bring. We repackaged the old message and sent it back out. Instead of 'Ready on Day One,' we changed to 'Solutions.' It was a very IBM approach."

"Keeping the same team in place [after New Hampshire] meant that pre-Iowa planning and strategic errors continued nearly unabated, were not corrected. ... Too much damage had been done by the time Maggie Williams took the helm."

"There were a number of people who advised the Clinton campaign back in the spring of '07 that this could easily become a longer battle--a war of attrition. She needed to build a broad base of supporters beyond the virtually limitless number of Clinton friends and supporters who they counted on to not only max out, but to use their not inconsiderable Rolodexes to help her. That would have been fine if this thing had ended Super Tuesday. It didn't, and she ran out of money."

"There was financial mismanagement bordering on fraud. A candidate who raised more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the years had to pump in millions more of her own money to stave off bankruptcy."

"If you have no cash because you totally mismanaged the budget, you have no money to go up on TV; you're getting crushed on TV and in direct mail because Obama has so much more money--that is a huge problem. Who was looking at the money? The financial situation was a disaster. That's the reason [Howard] Paster had to come in and clean shit up."

PROBLEMS WITH THE CANDIDATE

"If you look at this campaign as a 15- or 16-month gambit, the public turning point was the Philadelphia debate. Her non-answer on the driver's license issue. Again, it spoke to the character issue: The sense that she will say anything and do anything to get elected. It drove the Obama narrative of her home."

"The Senator is as loyal as she is smart. And I think that removing Patti is where those two things came into conflict. She knew the right thing to do. At same time, she was very loyal to Patti, who had been very loyal to her."

PROBLEMS IN IOWA

"We placed a huge financial bet on Iowa and raised its importance by sending senior staff there. And because we didn't plan for a national campaign, we couldn't point to an operation that could withstand an Iowa blow the way Obama could after New Hampshire."

"It was obvious talking to people on the ground there that they simply did not get the Iowa caucus from a field perspective. That's where the thing was lost. They didn't have a good idea of the horse-trading that makes caucuses work for you."

"Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald dismissed the possibility of youth turning out heavily in Iowa for Obama, saying on the record after the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, 'They don't look like caucus-goers.'"

"Penn was preoccupied with the national polls. We were up in the national polls, but Iowa was always a challenging thing for us. Early, early on, our internals showed us a significant number of points behind. ... In Iowa, Penn consistently would show polls that were of the eight-way. That was basically meaningless because it wasn't going to be an eight-way race. The candidates that were the second-tier candidates were not going to reach the threshold [of 15%]. The real race was the three-way. But he always focused on the eight-way when we'd start going over the numbers in Iowa. It was frustrating to the state staff and other people as well. It just showed a lack of understanding and a disconnect."

PROBLEMS WITH THE PRESS

"We ran a press operation that lost all credibility with the press through endless and pointless memos like, 'Where's the Bounce?' and polling memos that cherry-picked only positive polls when we were up and ignored polling when we were down."

AND, FINALLY...

"Her people spent all of 2008 making lists blaming each other (but never themselves) rather than lists of solutions."

Actually, I can tell you "what went wrong" with Hillary's campaign in one word - IRAQ.

She supported (and supported and supported) Bush, Cheney & Co. and their sickening war loooong after the vast majority of people in her own party had turned against it. I remember the absolute fury my liberal friends felt towards Clinton because of the war, and I wondered at the time how she was going to win in the primaries when die-hard Democrats were lumping her in the Axis of Evil with Bush and Cheney.

Important groups like MoveOn and CodePink weren't going to support her. Most of the increasingly powerful blogosphere, like DailyKos and Huffington Post, hated her. The grassroots of the Democratic Party, who had organized themselves protesting the war, abandoned her. (One of the reasons the Clintons had such a hard time at the field level and in caucuses.)

As David Halberstam discusses in The Best and the Brightest, the classic Democratic presidential campaign strategy is to run to the Left in the primaries and move to the Center in the general election.

But Hillary couldn't run to the Left, because she betrayed them.

So she ran to the Right - giving us race baiting and reactionaries in a completely Republican-style campaign.

"I have a lifetime of experience I will bring to the White House," Hillary claimed. "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. . . .

And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002."

Yeah, well . . . with all due respect, Mrs. Clinton, if you had made a similar speech in 2002, you'd be the nominee right now.

If you had done what was right, if you had done what was just, if you had stood up against a war that the majority of the people in the world and in your own party tried to stop, we'd have our first woman president of the United States in 2008.

And maybe we would've prevented that catastrophic invasion.

Misreading Endorsements

John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama yesterday. It's a crucial endorsement for Obama, but I've been amazed at how badly the pundits are misreading the situation.

Actually, I shouldn't be amazed at all, because they did the same thing with the endorsements of Ted and Caroline Kennedy earlier in the contest. In fact, some of them still don't get it. New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg is quoted in a Caucus blog post today: "Mr. Obama was not greatly helped when Caroline Kennedy, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other big-name Democrats supported him earlier this year."

Pundits like Rutenberg usually point to the fact that Kennedy didn't magically win the state of Massachusetts for Obama or bring in lots of Latino voters on Super Tuesday, February 5th. But votes were never the main point of the Kennedy endorsement.

Instead, the support of Ted and Caroline Kennedy sent out a clear signal that major figures within the Democratic Party establishment were getting behind Obama. That was absolutely essential for a relative newcomer to the national scene like Obama to have any chance against the well-oiled, deeply entrenched, and and far-reaching machine of the Clintons.

Bill and Hillary were furious at Ted Kennedy for not staying neutral. They knew even then that it meant the Democratic establishment wasn't fully behind them. (Nobody, as far as I know, has ever analyzed why the Democratic establishment was never fully behind the two most public figures in the party - a two-term Senator married to the only two-term Democratic president since FDR. Funny that.)

I would argue, in fact, that the Kennedys' endorsements and the stunning overall results for Obama on February 5th were major factors in dismantling the inevitability argument of the Clinton campaign.

Now, the pundits are failing again - and miserably - in regards to the Edwards endorsement. Last night, I listened to one pundit after another talking about John Edwards helping Obama with those less-educated white voters making less than $50,000 a year. This morning, I stared in disbelief at a headline on the Yahoo homepage that said: "John Edwards brings blue collar voters to Barack Obama." (That's totally one person's opinion, and an opinion that's not even based on evidence. Yet it goes out as "news." Is this post-Bush journalism?)

Sorry folks, but John Edwards ain't gonna magically bring the white working class over to Barack Obama. Nor will he suddenly make the Kentucky primary competitive next Tuesday. The pundits have made a truly asinine assumption: 1) Obama has a problem with white voters who make less than $50,000 a year and have lower levels of education. 2) Edwards is white, has the support of the Steelworkers Union, and talks about poverty. 3) Therefore, Edwards' endorsement will resolve Obama's problem.

But as I pointed out earlier in the primaries, Edwards message about poverty never actually resonated with the poor. Nor with the under-educated.

Edwards came in second place in Iowa, winning 30% of the vote. Among people who earn less than $15,000, Edwards did terribly, only getting 17% of the vote. (Obama got 37% of their vote and Clinton got 30%.) Edwards' best numbers, in fact, were among those making over $100,000. He also did badly among Union Households, coming in third with only 24%, compared to 30% each for both Obama and Hillary.

So in Iowa, his best performance, Edwards underperformed significantly among the very groups the pundits now say he's going to somehow deliver to Obama.

There was no education level information in the Iowa polls, but in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Edwards did poorly. He received 17% of the vote in New Hampshire but only got 11% of the vote of Democrats who didn't finish high school. In South Carolina, he received 18% of the overall vote but only got 14% of those without a high school diploma.

And, as in Iowa, he did badly again among those making less than $50,000, especially among the poorest, who made less than $15,000, and he underperformed in Union households.

So, can someone please point to actual evidence that Edwards' endorsement will make much difference with the kind of voters who thoroughly rejected Obama in West Virginia and will do so again in Kentucky?

This isn't to say that Edwards endorsement isn't important. It is. But the pundits are setting up a bad situation for Obama by making it appear that Edwards should help him with working-class whites next week in Kentucky. Tuesday night, when Obama is getting his ass kicked by Clinton, get ready for all the "Aha, Edwards endorsement didn't mean anything!" crap.

It's an important point, because Obama does have a problem with this group of voters, and it's going to hurt him in the general election unless he can figure out a way to bridge the gap more. What will not help him are blaring and endlessly repeated comments that Obama must really be in trouble with these voters because even John Edwards' incredible influence on blue-collar voters somehow couldn't erase a 30-point lead in 5 days. Look for this narrative to play out Tuesday night and beyond.

Edwards' endorsement helped Obama yesterday, primarily because it obliterated (brilliantly) a continued discussion of Hillary's crushing victory in West Virginia. (41 points! - 41 points! "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!")

And it was important because, like the Kennedy endorsements earlier, it sends a clear signal from major Democratic Party figures - in this case, that the contest is over.

Or, at least, that they want it to be over.

(I don't think the Clintons will agree.)

Partly because of the endorsement, look for more and more super delegates to move over to Obama in the next few days. He won't close the 30-point gap he's facing in Kentucky, but he will continue to lengthen his lead among super delegates.

After Oregon, he will also secure the majority of pledged delegates.

The only major metric he still has to worry about is the popular vote. And he should worry about that, because his abysmal showings in West Virginia and Kentucky are going to make the race much closer than it had to be.

Analyzing the Clinton Metrics For Winning

Which states are "insignificant," according to the Clintons? Which voters count more? Is the nomination process about delegates or the popular vote? And what time of day is most important for votes to matter?

Keith Olbermann takes a look at the various metrics the Clintons have used up to this point in the primaries for what defines winning.

Accepting a Unity Ticket

Whatever my reservations about a compromise/unity ticket in the past, I think it's clear by now that both Obama and Clinton need to be considered on a ticket.

I had a sudden revelation while listening to some of the candidates pander talk about the gas tax this weekend:

From Talking Points Memo Election Central:

George Stephanopoulos asked her a direct question: Could she name a single economist who agrees with her support for the gas tax holiday?

Hillary sidestepped the question, and tried to use the complete dearth of expert support for the idea to her advantage, pointing to it as proof that she's on the side of ordinary folks against "elite opinion" -- a phrase she used twice.

From The New Republic's blog, The Stump - Hillary vs. Pointy Heads:

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Clinton said... We've been, for the last seven years, seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans."

Anti-intellectualism, success in obscure rural areas--when exactly did Hillary become Mike Huckabee?

And from The Plank, "How To Beat Gas Tax Demagoguery":

The Clinton and McCain campaign have defended their plan to suspend the federal gasoline tax in strikingly similar terms.

John McCain, when asked about New York Times columnist Tom Friedman's opposition to the tax suspension, replied:

"I understand in New York City that you don't really drive a long way most of the time," McCain said. "But -- and then maybe you're chauffeured."

The common thread here is anti-intellectual, populist demagoguery.

A flash of understanding! In addition to the gas-tax pandering, consider the following:

1) Hillary wants to "obliterate Iran." John McCain wants to "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran."

2) They both voted to invade Iraq and supported the war long after most Americans wanted us to withdraw our troops.

3) Hillary made it clear that only she and McCain have passed the "Commander-in-Chief threshold."

4) Hillary is already running a Republican-Karl-Rove style campaign. She wouldn't even have to change her current strategies.

5) Hillary and McCain are said to genuinely like each other. And both are said to genuinely dislike Obama.

6) After 15 years of railing against Richard Scaife for coordinating the "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her and Bill, Hillary reconciled with the conservative hit man in order to win the Pennsylvania primary. Think of the possibilities of a Clinton-Scaife team in taking on Obama!

7) The Clintons already have ample experience ramming Republican policies down our throats: See NAFTA, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, The Telecommunications Act of 1996, and efforts to privatize government, the military, etc. Bill has been called "The best Republican president since Eisenhower." Now Hillary won't have to worry about that being a joke.

8) Hillary Clinton's chief strategist (until recently) Mark Penn is CEO of the DC-based PR firm Burson-Marsteller (Blackwater's PR firm!). Charlie Black, John McCain's top adviser, is chairman of BKSH, Burson-Marsteller's lobbying firm. Imagine the savings on lobbyists and campaign advisers!

9) The Clintons and Joe Lieberman are all part of the Democratic Leadership Council gang, whose objective was always to turn Democrats into Republicans Lite. Lieberman finally ditched the Democratic Party and is currently campaigning hard for McCain. Now, he and Hillary and Bill could all be together again as one big happy family!

10) By joining McCain, Hillary and Bill won't have to hide their race-baiting anymore, which has to be stressful, trying to keep so many Liberals from figuring out what they're doing. She's already locking up reactionary beer-drinking, gun-toting bowlers. Now she can really tell those intellectual arugula-eating, latte-drinking Obama-loving elites to kiss her white, "working-class" ass.

McCain-Clinton 2008!

The Clintons vs MoveOn

More Democratic fratricide this week . . . .

Celeste Fremon at Huffington Post reports on remarks Hillary Clinton made recently about MoveOn.org during a closed-door fund-raiser:

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and It's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

Eli Pariser, from MoveOn, responded:

"Senator Clinton has her facts wrong again. MoveOn never opposed the war in Afghanistan, and we set the record straight years ago when Karl Rove made the same claim. Senator Clinton's attack on our members is divisive at a time when Democrats will soon need to unify to beat Senator McCain. MoveOn is 3.2 million reliable voters and volunteers who are an important part of any winning Democratic coalition in November. They deserve better than to be dismissed using Republican talking points."

Ironically, MoveOn got its start in 1998 by organizing support for President Clinton during the Impeachment process. They created an online petition called "Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation."

A few months ago, at a MoveOn-sponsored forum, Hillary praised the organization:

I also want to thank you for being such lively participants in American democracy. You started from the very fundamental premise that in our democracy everyone should have a voice and that given the power of the internet, we now have millions of voices that are part of our debates. I personally welcome that because for nearly a decade you've been asking the tough questions, you've been demanding answers, you've been refusing to back down when any of us who are in political leadership are not living up to the standards that we should set for ourselves and that you expect from us. I think you have helped to change the face of politics for the better, both online and in the corridors of power. So although some of your members may be a little surprised to hear me say this, I am grateful for your work. I remember when you started and how important it was and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the years ahead on the important issues facing our country and the world.

Matthew Yglesias, at The Atlantic Monthly, sees a larger Clinton pattern at work:

[T]he bad dynamic between Clinton and MoveOn is a reminder of one of the fundamental problems with her candidacy. The Clintons, and many of their key supporters, come out of a school of political analysis which holds that the problem with the Democratic Party in the United States is that progressive institutions are too strong. Only by curbing the influence of these institutions, the theory goes, can Democratic Party politicians engage in the tactical repositioning necessary to win elections.

Whether or not that was true in 1988-92 or, indeed, whether or not it remains true today, this is clearly not a long-term strategy for progressive politics. This "crush the left, move to the right" theory of electoral political may or may not work for politicians in the short run, but to create big change you need to strengthen progressive institutions and move the entire spectrum to the left.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about MoveOn. But I don't see the ultimate good in attacking an energized and increasingly important group of activists within your own party.

My guess is that the Clintons are appealing again to reactionary Democrats, especially in Pennsylvania, by distancing themselves from those terrible "progressive" nuts. Once more, they're playing the Republican song, this time using a falsehood that Karl Rove already used a few months ago.

But even if bashing MoveOn were to help them in the Pennsylvania primary, wouldn't they need these same people in a general election? They assume that MoveOn will come around later. And given how loyal MoveOn is to the Democratic Party - and how nasty MoveOn and DailyKos are to any mention of third-party attempts - the Clintons are probably right about that. At least to a degree. The organizations might come around and help them raise money. But individual voters within the groups might defect.

In any case, it's one more example of the Democrats working hard to lose what should've been a winnable election.

The Other Phone Call at 3 AM

From The Jed Report's "Look who's really calling Hillary Clinton at 3AM":

Politico's Ken Vogel has the details on Clinton's debt problems, saying that her campaign has earned "a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles." And it's not just the embarrassment of being a deadbeat -- Clinton's money trouble is yet another indicator of a campaign struggling to survive.

"If Richardson is Judas, which Clinton is Jesus?"

Can't believe it took two weeks for someone to come up with that line.

Joel Connelly, at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, finally did, in his column yesterday (h/t The Jed Report):

AS HER ham-handed handlers insult entire states, and her self-absorbed husband indulges in red-faced, finger-wagging outbursts, Sen. Hillary Clinton soldiers on.

It is a joyless campaign, with stump speeches that carry tales of woe and get delivered in a booming voice that could open a wall safe.

A full three months after the Iowa caucuses, nearly two months after Washington's caucuses, the Clintons seem bent on turning the Democrats' fertile ground into scorched earth. . . .

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, holder of two Cabinet-level posts in the Clinton administration, bounded into a Portland rally two weeks ago to endorse Sen. Barack Obama.

The retaliation was swift, furious and self-defeating.

Clinton backer James Carville, noting that Richardson made up his mind during Holy Week, opined: "Mr. Richardson's endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

If Richardson is Judas, which Clinton is Jesus? . . .

The official Clinton reaction to Richardson's endorsement was condescension.

"The time (Richardson) could have been effective has long since passed. ... I don't think it is a significant endorsement in this environment," declared Clinton "chief strategist" Mark Penn.

Sound familiar? After Super Tuesday, Penn declared that Obama had won only one "significant" state, his home base of Illinois. Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri -- and Washington that Saturday -- are dismissed by Hillaryland.

The campaign stumbled on, trying to explain the candidate's false statement that she landed under fire while on a visit to Bosnia as first lady. The TV footage of the event showed a standard-issue welcoming ceremony.

Come Wednesday, Richardson's endorsement was back on ABC News. Hillary Clinton was quoted as disparaging Obama to Richardson, saying: "He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."

She was denying the statement Thursday.

The defections must stick in the craw of the Clintons. Bill Clinton watched the Super Bowl with Richardson in New Mexico, seeking the very endorsement that is now dismissed. . . .

When left to her own devices, Hillary Clinton can be a highly impressive human being.

She delivered a superlative, insightful briefing on global warming in the Arctic, after a 2005 tour with Sen. John McCain. At a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas, a man shouted that his wife was "an illegal." "No woman is illegal," Clinton shot back, earning days of rancid abuse from right-wing pundits. . . .

The miscalculations and misjudgments -- which likely have cost Hillary Clinton the nomination, and Bill Clinton much of his reputation -- are the campaign's own doing.

In years past, the Clintons showed an amazing knack for getting themselves into binds, then escaping tight corners. It has deserted them.

Obama and Hillary Clinton will appear Saturday night when Montana Democrats hold their annual Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner in Butte. It won't be hard to tell which candidacy carries the most baggage.

The Two Bills (Clinton and Richardson)

Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle report on Bill Clinton's "meltdown" at a private meeting with superdelegates during the California state convention last weekend. "Bill Clinton's tirade stunned some delegates":

"It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended," one superdelegate said.

According to those at the meeting, Clinton - who flew in from Chicago with bags under his eyes - was classic old Bill at first, charming and making small talk with the 15 or so delegates who gathered in a room behind the convention stage.

But as the group moved together for the perfunctory photo, Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate who now supports Hillary Clinton, told Bill how "sorry" she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a "Judas" for backing Obama.

It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade.

"Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that," a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.

The former president then went on a tirade that ran from the media's unfair treatment of Hillary to questions about the fairness of the votes in state caucuses that voted for Obama. It ended with him asking delegates to imagine what the reaction would be if Obama was trailing by just 1 percent and people were telling him to drop out.

"It was very, very intense," said one attendee. "Not at all like the Bill of earlier campaigns.

When delegate Binah - still stunned from her encounter with Clinton - got home to Little River (Mendocino County) later in the day - there was a phone message waiting for her from State Party Chairman Art Torres, telling her the former president wanted him to apologize to her on his behalf for what happened.

Still, word of Clinton's blast shot all the way back to the New Mexico state Capitol, where Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley reiterated Tuesday that his boss had never "promised or guaranteed" Bill and Hillary his endorsement.

In happier times? The two Bills watch the Super Bowl together on February 3, 2008.

Yesterday, just two days after Clinton's tirade, Bill Richardson published an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, entitled "Loyalty to My Country":

My recent endorsement of Barack Obama for president has been the subject of much discussion and consternation -- particularly among supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Led by political commentator James Carville, who makes a living by being confrontational and provocative, Clinton supporters have speculated about events surrounding this endorsement and engaged in personal attacks and insults.

While I certainly will not stoop to the low level of Mr. Carville, I feel compelled to defend myself against character assassination and baseless allegations.

Carville has made it very clear that this is a personal attack -- driven by his own sense of what constitutes loyalty. It is this kind of political venom that I anticipated from certain Clinton supporters and I campaigned against in my own run for president.

I repeatedly urged Democrats to stop attacking each other personally and even offered a DNC resolution calling for a positive campaign based on the issues. I was evenhanded in my efforts. In fact, my intervention in a debate during a particularly heated exchange was seen by numerous commentators as an attempt to defend Sen. Clinton against the barbs of Sens. Obama and John Edwards.

As I have pointed out many times, and most pointedly when I endorsed Sen. Obama, the campaign has been too negative, and we Democrats need to calm the rhetoric and personal attacks so we can come together as a party to defeat the Republicans.

More than anything, to repair the damage done at home and abroad, we must unite as a country. I endorsed Sen. Obama because I believe he has the judgment, temperament and background to bridge our divisions as a nation and make America strong at home and respected in the world again.

This was a difficult, even painful, decision. My affection and respect for the Clintons run deep. I do indeed owe President Clinton for the extraordinary opportunities he gave me to serve him and this country. And nobody worked harder for him or served him more loyally, during some very difficult times, than I did.

Carville and others say that I owe President Clinton's wife my endorsement because he gave me two jobs. Would someone who worked for Carville then owe his wife, Mary Matalin, similar loyalty in her professional pursuits? Do the people now attacking me recall that I ran for president, albeit unsuccessfully, against Sen. Clinton? Was that also an act of disloyalty?

And while I was truly torn for weeks about this decision, and seriously contemplated endorsing Sen. Clinton, I never told anyone, including President Clinton, that I would do so. Those who say I did are misinformed or worse.

As for Mr. Carville's assertions that I did not return President Clinton's calls: I was on vacation in Antigua with my wife for a week and did not receive notice of any calls from the president. I, of course, called Sen. Clinton prior to my endorsement of Sen. Obama. It was a difficult and heated discussion, the details of which I will not share here.

I do not believe that the truth will keep Carville and others from attacking me. I can only say that we need to move on from the politics of personal insult and attacks. That era, personified by Carville and his ilk, has passed and I believe we must end the rancor and partisanship that has mired Washington in gridlock. In my view, Sen. Obama represents our best hope of replacing division with unity. That is why, out of loyalty to my country, I endorse him for president.

Blues All 'Round My Head

Blind Willie McTell, bluesman extraordinaire

I've been sick for the last two weeks. The fun included two trips to the doctor and a mind-numbing 6-hour gig at the Emergency Room one beautiful Sunday. (All for very simple issues.)

But that's not why I haven't been blogging.

Basically, I haven't had anything to say. It seems that I've got . . . well . . . the blues.

The War in Iraq reaches another horrific milestone - 4,000 dead American soldiers. (Not to mention hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians.) But nobody really cares or wants to hear about the war:

The War Endures, but Where’s the Media?

Iraq coverage by major American news sources has plummeted, to about one-fifth of what it was last summer, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Meanwhile, the race for the Democratic nomination has devolved into a bitter, ridiculous, and seriously damaging battle. I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Hello, President "Walnuts" McCain!

Things are so bad, I'm linking to a David Brooks article: "The Long Defeat," from today's New York Behind-the-Times.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound. . . .

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance?

The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

So, Bill Richardson endorsed Obama. A few weeks too late.

And James Carville called Richardson "Judas" for betraying the Clintons. Then he refused to apologize.

Thank God! I'm so sick of all these surrogates calling each other names and then having to quit or say they're sorry. If you're going to resort to schoolyard taunting, then buck up and stick by your nasty names for God's sake!

“I was quoted accurately and in context, and I was glad to give the quote and I was glad I gave it,” Mr. Carville said. “I’m not apologizing, I’m not resigning, I’m not doing anything.”

For the record, I think Hillary Clinton is a "monster." And I'm not resigning either. Deal with it.

(Well, at least she and Bill together are some form of monster species.)

Don't even know where to begin with the Jeremiah Wright stuff and Obama. Liam had a good post on it. If everyone in the U.S. was as intelligent and thoughtful as Liam, there wouldn't be a problem for Obama. (Though if everyone were like Liam, we'd have a lot of other problems! We'd all have to root for the Utah Jazz, for one thing. On the other hand, we could finally appoint Nick Cave as Ambassador to Groove-istan.)

But this is the country that re-elected George W. Bush. The country where half the Democrats don't think what Geraldine Ferraro said might be considered racist and insulting. Personally, I think the Wright stuff has probably done in Obama's candidacy. And I don't know why he didn't deal with all of this way ahead of last week. It was a major shit storm waiting to go Level 5 at any moment, yet they seemed surprised. Whatever. I'm a lousy prognosticator, so I hope I'm wrong.

Did I mention that the economy's in the toilet?

Ah . . . But at least I have the Blues. Since I didn't feel like blabbing away on my blog, I spent time creating a new playlist at Finetune: Blues All 'Round My Head.

It's still in progress, but check it out anyway.

And though I've got the blues, my face did brighten when I saw this wonderful poster today and read about the DVD release of The Phantom Empire:

For indigenous American surrealism, it’s hard to beat the Saturday matinee serials of the 1930s, and I’m not sure that “The Phantom Empire,” a 1935 release from the Poverty Row studio Mascot, can be beat at all. Very likely the world’s first singing-cowboy science-fiction adventure, this 12-episode chapterplay, directed by Otto Brower and Breezy Easton, features Gene Autry in his first starring role — as “Gene Autry,” the proprietor of Radio Ranch. This curious institution seems to be at once a working cattle concern and a full-scale broadcasting business from which Gene and his pals (including his longtime sidekick Smiley Burnett) send out a daily program of country-western songs.

Life is sweet at Radio Ranch until a band of “renegade scientists” arrives, looking for the massive radium deposits of the secret underground nation Murania, the gateway to which happens to be located in a canyon behind Gene’s ranch. Before too long, Gene and his two l’il pardners (the child actors Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross) find themselves caught between the rampaging savants and the legions of Wagnerian Thunder Riders (accompanied by appropriate sound effects) and lumbering mechanical men (whimsical robots built for a production number in MGM’s “Dancing Lady” but cut from the final film) sent forth by Murania’s “She”-like Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) to prevent her land of peace and plenty from being invaded by rapacious “surface men.” It’s a lot for Gene to handle, particularly since he has to get back to Radio Ranch by 2 p.m. every day for his broadcast, which he carries on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

It is said that Wallace MacDonald, one of the serial’s five credited writers, came up with the concept while under the influence of nitrous oxide at his dentist’s office. That seems quite possible, given the screenplay’s furious imaginings, which include an interesting kind of television that requires no cameras (but has an inconvenient, floor-level circular screen) and “radium bombs” posed to destroy the entire planet.

Absurdity saves the day!

And now, back to Blind Willie McTell and Lonnie Johnson. . . .

Olbermann on the Ferraro Mess and the Clinton Campaign

When Democrats Are Racists and Reactionaries

Another African-American male given preferential treatment. His very own Waiting Room!

I didn't think it would be possible to be surprised any more by the crap emanating from the Clinton campaign. But I was so angry after watching clips of Geraldine Ferraro's comments last night that I had a hard time getting to sleep.

Folks, this is not good. We are dealing with a level of racism on the part of the Clinton campaign that every Democrat, liberal, or simply intelligent human being should be ashamed of.

In fact, I'm calling you Clinton fans out. I want one of you to explain to me how it's possible for someone to belong to a party that espouses civil rights, justice, and fairness out of one side of its big mouth while trying to nominate a candidate who has consistently engaged in racism and fear-mongering in order to get elected.

And before you start blaming Barack Obama for bringing up race, tell me when Obama has ever mentioned the subject in his campaign when he wasn't responding to the bilge coming from one Clinton surrogate or another. Find a speech. Maybe there is one. But I think you're going to have a hard time.

Ferraro's comments are being directed at the kind of of angry white male (and, obviously, female) that I foolishly thought belonged mostly on the right-wing. But, evidently, the old racist Southern Democrat mentality still exists within other areas of the Democratic Party. In Pennsylvania, perhaps? Could it be that Ferraro and the Clintons know exactly who this kind of spiritual diarrhea appeals to? And that a good number of those people happen to be in the next primary state?

Yes, it could be.

In fact, that's the point. Piss-off people like me, so I'll react; create a big stir in the media, because so many are disgusted with an obvious race-baiting tactic; which lets loose the barely suppressed racist rage of angry white folks who will then blame the smooth-talking black guy for bringing up race. And he probably got into Harvard over some poor, lily white girl who was smarter.

And I fall for it, and the media falls for it, and the Clintons have accomplished their purpose. It doesn't matter who's right or wrong on the question. The only thing that matters is outrage and the inevitable reactionary response.

I know that voice Ferraro used, and I know exactly who she's talking to. I've heard their whispers and their open racist comments around me my whole life. From Texas to New York City to Long Island. They're the guys in Billie's Tavern who say, "Long Island is the last bastion of white people in America." They listen to Ferraro and know exactly where she's coming from. Poor, victimized white people. They're one or two drinks away from donning a white robe and going after one of the few blacks who live around here, or after the Mexican immigrants.

And if you want a Democratic Party that leans on racism and reactionaries, then heed Ferraro's words.

Otherwise, I suggest you contact some of the big-shots in the Democratic Party and tell them: ENOUGH!

Tell them that this is not what the Democratic Party stands for. The ongoing race-baiting and fear-mongering on the part of the Clintons is doing tremendous and probably long-term damage to the the party, not to mention to the country.

Here's info for some major Democrats not yet affiliated with either campaign. If anyone has Al Gore's contact page or email, let me know. And if you think of anyone else in the party who should be contacted, please chime in.

Howard Dean (DNC)

Nancy Pelosi: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Bill Richardson

John Edwards: press@johnedwards.com

UPDATE: Liam found contact info for Al Gore (thanks):

Honorable Al Gore
2100 West End Avenue
Suite 620 Nashville, TN 37203
Fax: 615-327-1323
Phone: 615-327-2227
For press interview requests, email Al Gore’s spokesperson, Kalee Kreider at Kalee@carthagegroup.com

Gasp! More African-American men getting preferential treatment. His very own water fountain!

Meanwhile, I'll let Shark Fu (AngryBlackBitch) give you her take on Geraldine Ferraro.

As a side note, AngryBlackBitch was just named one of The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs by The Guardian. Congratulations!

Dear Geraldine:

This is not an attack.

This is a response.

I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning thinking about you, Geraldine.

I lay there listening to my sorta-beagles snore and wondered if you really think that Senator Obama is still in this race solely because he is a black man.

I don’t know you, Geraldine, and I don’t assume a person is decent simply because they hold a certain status in the Democratic Party and feminist history. This bitch has never met you, but I sure as shit know what it is like to have someone attribute my success to my being black.

It’s the freakiest mind fuck out there to have someone treat what has been the source of oppression like it is the “it” benefit of 2008.

But you know that, don’t you…Geraldine?

Let’s get real, Geraldine. You don’t give a flying shit whether you offend the hell out of some people as long as your message gets through to the right people. The kind of people who hear a quote like that and are thankful that someone said it…fucking cheer when they hear it then eagerly e-mail it to five friends…and can’t believe you’re catching hell for it.

Those people…

…who you need to fire up and are confident the tried and true fuel of 'gender trumps race' will get it done and bring in some money.

This trifling ass shit has left me unable to imagine a scenario where I cast the vote people risked their lives and died to achieve for me for a candidate who's campaign insults what I stand for and the principles I believe in.

And next time don’t bother with the “and if he was a woman (of any color)” pander, okay?

I haven’t been caught up in that unified sisterhood concept yet, honey...and your verbal malfunction didn’t help with that shit one bit.

I’m not attacking you because you are white.

This is coming at you because you’re wrong…

Still more preferential treatment for African-American males! Why do they get to play with the ropes while the poor white folks only get to watch the fun?!?!?

UPDATE: Geraldine Ferraro resigned from her position on Hillary Clinton's finance committee.

And she still doesn't get it.

Going out with the same lack of grace that got her into this mess to begin with, she once again blamed Obama for her own dumbass, bigoted remarks:

"I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign," Ferraro wrote. "The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen."

Sunday Morning Cartoon

From Weyant's World, in The Hill.

Andrew Sullivan Dissects the Clinton Campiagn

Frank Rich took his turn this morning. Now, Andrew Sullivan investigates the wreckage.

Granted, the race is by no means over. Anything is possible. As Sullivan says, "I suppose [the Clintons] could somehow still find a brutal, soul-grinding path to the nomination."

But, more and more, I get the sense that Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008 will be historical, though not for the reasons she hoped it would be. People are going to study the campaign for some time to come. They're going to write books about what went wrong, about What Not To Do. Depending on who writes the books, they might even sell better than the ones on what Obama did right.

So, yes, anything is possible. But her main arguments are breaking down. "All that bullshit about Day One and experience? In retrospect: laughable."

Here's "The Clintons' Last Stand":

Watching senator Clinton attempt to regain some lift as she paraglides into history is almost enough to evoke pity. Almost. The Clintons come with their own boundless reserves of self-pity so further reinforcements seem unnecessary to me. And I suppose they could somehow still find a brutal, soul-grinding path to the nomination. But we've learned something important these past couple of weeks.

Clinton is a terrible manager of people. Coming into a campaign she had been planning for, what, two decades, she was so not ready on Day One, or even Day 300. Her White House, if we can glean anything from the campaign, would be a secretive nest of well-fed yes-people, an uncontrollable egomaniac spouse able and willing to bigfoot anyone if he wants to, a phalanx of flunkies who cannot tell the boss when things are wrong, and a drizzle of dreary hacks like Mark Penn. Her only genuine skill is pivoting off the Limbaugh machine (which is now as played out as its enemies). Her new weapon is apparently bursting into tears. I mean: really.

It's staggering to me that she blew through so much money for close to nothing (apart from the donuts). Without that media meltdown in New Hampshire, she would have been forced to bow out much earlier. She didn't plan for contests after Super Tuesday. She barely planned for any before that. She was out-organized in Iowa and South Carolina, and engaged in the pettiest form of politics in Florida and Michigan. Her fundraising operation was very pre-Internet. She has no message that isn't about her and the Republicans. Her trump card - Bill - managed to foment a 27 point loss in South Carolina. The Clintons, we can now safely say, got lazy. Or rather their old and now forgotten lackadaisical attitude toward governing returned like a persistent flu to campaigning. We tend to forget that their entire governing agenda after 1994 was essentially finessing Gingrich and battling impeachment. (Their entire agenda before 1994 was successful Eisenhower economics, and disastrous Hillarycare). It's been fifteen years since the Clintons actually stood for a coherent message, and it turns out they had forgotten that you kind of need that for a presidential run.

How did they come this close to losing this? They had all the money, all the contacts, all the machine levers, the entire establishment, the biggest Democratic name in decades, and they've been forced into a humiliating death-match by a first-term black liberal with a funny name. It seems obvious to me that the Clintons blew this because they never for a second imagined they could. So they never planned to fight it. Once put in a fair contest, they turned out to be terrible campaigners, terrible politicians, bad managers, useless executives, wooden public speakers. If you're a Democrat, that's good to know, isn't it? All that bullshit about Day One and experience? In retrospect: laughable.

Pink Floyd Versus Hillary Clinton

Pink Floyd elucidates some of the problems with Hillary Clinton's accusations against Barack Obama at her strange press conference yesterday.

h/t to Kevin C. Murphy at Ghost in the Machine. Kudos to jedreport for the video.



Obama himself responded to her attacks. This from MSNBC's FirstRead:

Saying that the mailers had been out for weeks, Obama suggested that Clinton’s fiery reply this morning may be a political stunt rather than a genuine reaction. “I am puzzled by the sudden change in tone. Unless these were just brought to her attention, it makes me think that there’s something tactical about her getting so exercised this morning."

He added: “And unlike some of the attacks that have been leveled about me that have been debunked by news organizations, these are accurate. Sen. Clinton, as part of the Clinton Administration, supported NAFTA. In her book, she called it one of the Administration’s successes. And we point that out in a state that has been devastated by trade and has been deeply concerned about the position of candidates on trade.”

UPDATE: Here's a clip of Obama responding yesterday during a speech in Akron, Ohio.

Just doing a little digging around on LexisNexis, I found a November 15, 1993 article from Business Wire entitled, "National Association of Women Business Owners endorses the North American Free Trade Agreement," which details Hillary Clinton's White House meeting with the organization to discuss NAFTA. Hard to imagine Clinton speaking out against it, considering NAWBO endorsed the plan a few days later.

On Nov. 10, 1993, Aldape and a large contingent of NAWBO members, met with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and other members of the Cabinet at the White House for a briefing on the NAFTA. The First Lady underscored the importance of the support of women leaders in an issue of such importance to the nation, and the importance of their being part of the debate. On behalf of NAWBO, Aldape presented the First Lady with an NAWBO pin.

We might know more about this meeting and other Hillary Clinton efforts on behalf of NAFTA during the critical push by the administration in the autumn of 1993, but her White House records from that time period, including her closed-door work on Health Care reform, are still being kept from the public. (See this Los Angles Times article from last August: "Hillary Clinton White House records still locked up. Achivists say former first lady's documents can't be released until after the '08 election despite promises of transparency.")

More interesting to me than the attacks, which are just more of Clinton's desperation tactics like the ridiculous plagiarism issue, was her demeanor during the press conference yesterday. The stark difference between her supposedly "warm" and conciliatory moment at the end of the debate on Thursday night and her raging countenance yesterday exemplifies some of the internal divisions within her campaign over how to deal with Brack Obama - play nice or go dirty. Personally, I think it makes her and her campaign staff all look schizophrenic and unstable.

Could yesterday's press conference be her Howard Dean moment?

And, really, Karl Rove? This coming from the Clintons? But I'll let others go into more detail on that regard.

Liam has had enough. The man is always much more rational and even-keeled than I am when it comes to politics, so I take his rage to be a sign of something. Not sure what, but I know it has to be important.

Kevin at Ghost in the Machine chronicles several of the ways in which the Clinton campaign has dipped into the Karl Rove playbook.

The Audacity of Hopelessness

In his Sunday column, Frank Rich provides a good portrait of how Obama has out-campaigned the Clintons. Like Bush's misadventure in Iraq, Hillary declared victory early (It would "be over by Feb. 5") and wasn't prepared for the aftermath: "[T]here was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup."

Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.

But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall — the March 4 contests — she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid. . . .

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

Bill Clinton knocked states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because “they disproportionately favor upper-income voters” who “don’t really need a president but feel like they need a change.” After the Potomac primary wipeout, Mr. Penn declared that Mr. Obama hadn’t won in “any of the significant states” outside of his home state of Illinois. This might come as news to Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Iowa, among the other insignificant sites of Obama victories. The blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has hilariously labeled this Penn spin the “insult 40 states” strategy.

The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists’ union, derided Obama supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies.” Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters.

If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama’s “plagiarism.” And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall. . . .

The single biggest factor in Hillary Clinton’s collapse is less sexism in general than one man in particular — the man who began the campaign as her biggest political asset. The moment Bill Clinton started trash-talking about Mr. Obama and raising the specter of a co-presidency, even to the point of giving his own televised speech ahead of his wife’s on the night she lost South Carolina, her candidacy started spiraling downward.

What’s next? Despite Mrs. Clinton’s valedictory tone at Thursday’s debate, there remains the fear in some quarters that whether through sleights of hand involving superdelegates or bogus delegates from Michigan or Florida, the Clintons might yet game or even steal the nomination. I’m starting to wonder. An operation that has waged political war as incompetently as the Bush administration waged war in Iraq is unlikely to suddenly become smart enough to pull off that duplicitous a “victory.” Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts in January alone, this campaign simply may not have the cash on hand to mount a surge.

The implosion of her campaign is taking its toll on those around her. From the New York Times lead article this morning, "Somber Clinton Soldiers On as the Horizon Darkens":

There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers, though, that a comeback this time may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary — a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do — you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.

Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time. Some have grown depressed, be it over Mr. Obama’s momentum, the attacks on the campaign’s management from outside critics or their view that the news media has been much rougher on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.

And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as “donors,” to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal to the Clintons.