Clinton to China

Is she taking a new approach to China with her? Hopefully, so we'll have less columns like this one by Robert Kaplan, where the natural assumption appears to be that military conflict between China and the U.S. is inevitable.

Legislative Update II

Given incoming-President Obama some early victories, Congress approved the release of the final $350 billion of bailout money and the House passed the SCHIP expansion which President Bush had vetoed. The Senate also passed a bill outlawing the sale and counterfeiting of inaugural tickets and several Obama cabinet picks went before Senate committees. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton got a 16-1 vote out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and even Attorney General-designate Eric Holder (who exclaimed that "waterboarding is torture" and that President Obama will follow through on closing Gitmo) looks like he will not have the opposition once predicted due to his approval of President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.

Privacy

We have strange notions about privacy in this country. The right to "privacy" is central to key Supreme Court decisions pertaining to matters of the family and sexual and reproductive freedom. But in the consumer context, privacy means something different altogether. Corporations can use data mining techniques to compile financial dossiers on American consumers, or preserve records of sensitive financial transactions that are then promptly stolen by identity thieves thanks to lax security standards. Frequently consumers are given the choice only to opt-out of doing business with the corporations that keep records of their transactions (good luck with that, since they all do it.) They must also battle the presumption that everything in their credit record is accurate, thanks to standards that make it difficult for consumers to remove inaccurate information or punish any of the credit reporting agencies for failing to follow even those lax standards. Employers and insurance companies now also seem to think a credit or health record is necessary to either employing you or extending you insurance (of course you can opt out of this as well, by not applying for that job you want or not carrying insurance.) And now, the NY Times reports that banks are compiling financial data and selling it back and forth to each other in a way that permits them to target debtors who are still struggling from the consequences of having too much debt:

Using techniques that grew more sophisticated over the last decade, businesses comb through an array of sources, including bank and court records, to create detailed profiles of the financial lives of more than 100 million Americans.

They then sell that information as marketing leads to banks, credit card issuers and mortgage brokers, who fiercely compete to find untapped customers — even those who would normally have trouble qualifying for the credit they were being pitched.

These tailor-made offers land in mailboxes, or are sold over the phone by telemarketers, just ahead of the next big financial step in consumers’ lives, creating the appearance of almost irresistible serendipity.

These leads, which typically cost a few cents for each household profile, are often called “trigger lists” in the industry. One company, First American, sells a list of consumers to lenders called a “farming kit.”

This marketplace for personal data has been a crucial factor in powering the unrivaled lending machine in the United States. European countries, by contrast, have far stricter laws limiting the sale of personal information. Those countries also have far lower per-capita debt levels.

In other words, farming of financial records is simply a symptom of out of control lending practices. But a comprehensive privacy approach to privacy would have the benefit of reducing such practices. Unfortunately, privacy seems to be one of those issues that comes in a variety of contexts and that no one legislative response seems to exist for, thanks largely to a lack of political leadership. One exception to this rule has been Hillary Clinton, who first proposed legislation that would address this issues in a speech to the American Constitution Society in 2006 (a speech I had the pleasure of hearing.) Unfortunately the PROTECT Act that she proposed languished in Congress, and there are no prospects of revival. I can only speculate, but I imagine that between the powerful financial interests that lobby against such legislation and the scattered reports that American consumers receive through the media about violations of their privacy, the former is considerably more persuasive to members of Congress.

Just Doesn't Get It

My co-bloggers Adam and Nat-Wu are familir with my raging contempt for the left-wing blog "TalkLeft", and most particulary for one of its two bloggers, Big Tent Democrat. BTD is one of the most witless "liberal" bloggers in the entire blogosphere, and he demonstrated that time and time again during the primary season as he engaged in the most shallow, superficial and thoughtless analysis of the campaigns to criticize Barack Obama for every action he took or every minor connection to notorious people (Wright, Rezko, Ayers...you name it) while all the time proclaiming to support Obama for President. BTD is infected with the sort of knee-jerk contrarianism (with a healthy heaping of condescension to boot) that he mistakes independent thought, and he seems to regard himself as some sort of hero for not being in the tank for the Democratic Party like the rest of the progressive blogosphere supposedly is. Here he is today, writing about a piece by Matt Stollers and Chris Bowers who discuss why the progressive blogosphere doesn't get more respect from Democratic politicians:

Therein lies the problem. Most of the Left blogs work for politicians, not for issues. THAT is why the Netroots gets no respect.

Bowers is making the point that progressive bloggers should not expect Democratic politicians to come running to them because the bloggers support them. Which is entirely sensible. But not enough for BTD, who feels the need to indict the whole left-wing blogosphere for uncritically supporting Democrats:

To gain respect, fight, with the truth, for what you believe. Not the politician you believe in (as I said it is a mistake to believe in any politician). The "Netroots"/Left blogs stopped doing that for the most part. They became a Wurlitzer for Barack Obama, during the primaries against Hillary Clinton and now of course during the general election - without regard to issues.

When it comes to McCain, the choice is easy it seems to me. While I strongly disagree with Palinpaloooza for political reasons, I must say that I owe the Netroots a modicum of respect because they are acting in detriment to Barack Obama's political fortunes because they despise Sarah Palin. Palin seems standard issue to me and I REALLY despise John McCain and what he stands for so it is easy for me to do the politically smart thing - focus on McCain.

This is beyond stupid. The reason many in the progressive blogosphere came around to Obama is because they believed Obama to the be the more progressive candidate based on their evaluation of the candidates stances on the issues, which anyone who read progressive/liberal blogs from last year on would easily realize (for an example see us in our endorsement of Obama, where we laid out a list of reasons-based on the issues-for why we supported Obama over Clinton; we were not alone in this regard.) BTD is so clueless that he doesn't even realize that his point leaves the reader wondering exactly what criteria he progressive blogosphere used to select Obama over Hillary. In BTD world, liberal and progressive bloggers unfairly hitched their wagon to Obama over Hillary at the outset (for unknown reasons) and then never wrote a critical word about Obama again. Reading that, you might be startled to see BTD write this:

It surprises many people to know that I supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I considered the two to be identical on the issues (except for health care, where I felt too ignorant to take a position on which of the two positions was superior) and preferred Obama because I believed him to be more electable. Weak tea for many people I imagine, but that was my view of the race.

Why does this surprise people? Because I have been extremely critical of Barack Obama since 2005 and was before, during and after the Presidential primaries.

The reason people are surprised by this is because BTD has never written anything indicating he supported Obama over Hillary other than the words "But I support Obama over Hillary"which he appended to the end of every post wherein he attacked Obama. Everything, and I mean almost literally everything, he has written about the primaries has been critical of Obama, or critical of the left for supporting Obama. What little actual analysis of their positions he offered is epitomized by this gem, wherein he argues that Obama demonstrates his naivete by stating that nuclear weapons don't deter terrorists. He says he thinks Obama is more electable, but this appears to be the case only if certain conditions that he demands are met, such as Obama selecting Clinton for VP, or the Democratic Party allowing FL and MI to revote (otherwise the Democratic party would be torn asunder and McCain will most assuredly win.) And now he lambasts the progressive blogosphere for being uncritically supporting of Obama and praises himself for his own critical eye, when the progressive blogosphere time and again detailed the differences between the two candidates in a thorough and informative manner, while BTD wrote post after post explaining why Obama wouldn't win based on his silly and superficial analysis. 

Although I have written my co-bloggers many times to complain and criticize BTD's witless condescension, I've refrained from criticizing him or TalkLeft in general on the blog because frankly there are too may other things to write about, the idiocy of left-wing bloggers is low in the hierarchy of things to be concerned about and I enjoy far more training my sights on idiotic right-wing bloggers. But idiocy is idiocy, and is not to be tolerated even from supposed "allies." BTD insults the progressive/liberal blogosphere with his comments, and he insults our blog in particular. I consider us members of that community (if not prominent ones) and we have done nothing but illustrate over and over again why we think Obama was the better candidate based on the public stances and comments that both Obama and Clinton made on the issues, and it is an insult to us to state otherwise. And I don't lightly take insults about my intellectual integrity from people who are clearly far stupider than I. 

It's Official

Though Obama has already secured the Democratic nomination, Clinton has confirmed she will not oppose him any further and has indicated her campaign will come to an end on Friday. ABC News has a handy retrospective of the race, if you find yourself waxing nostalgic already.

Obama Secures Nomination

Now it's official: Barack Obama has secured enough delegates to claim the Democratic Party nomination for president. Hillary Clinton has not conceded, but neither has she indicated that she will dispute the results. It would appear that the long and sometimes very heated Democratic nomination process is finally over.

Concession/No Concession

CNN rushed to report that Clinton will acknowledge tonight that Obama has secured the delegates necessary to win the Democratic presidential nomination, based apparently on this AP report which suggests that she will concede tonight. Clinton adviser Terri McAullife then rushed out to correct that misimpression, stating Clinton has no intention of conceding in her planned speech tonight following the close of the last Democratic primaries. Now, contradicting the CNN story I linked to above, the AP reports based on their own calculations that Obama has obtained enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. There's no word as to whether Clinton will acknowledge such (unlikely) or concede (even less likely) but I'm sure other media organizations are rushing to confirm the AP's results. We'll see what they say, maybe as early as this afternoon or tonight.

UPDATE: The AP has updated their report. Their figures are based on a tally of public and private commitments by super-delegates, as well as the pledged delegate total (at least as I can best make out.) The report still indicates that Clinton will acknowledge Obama's lead, but not that the she will either terminate or suspend her own campaign.

UPDATE II: A colleague of mine who's in a position to know indicates that Clinton is preparing to concede to Obama (though not tonight.) She seems to have little choice, as Obama appears poised to secure the necessary delegates and her last hope would be a challenge to the delegation allocation at the Democratic convention. It's more likely that lightning will strike Obama than that she will secure the nomination in this manner. This updated AP report would seem to confirm the news of a soon-to-be concession as well; according to the report, Clinton is now prepared to discuss the possibility of taking the VP slot alongside Obama. Truly, nothing would make me happier.

Concession?

Is it all about to finally be over? Nobody knows for sure, but there are tantalizing hints that the long nomination process will come to an end and Clinton will concede to Obama shortly.

Would Hillary Lose the Black Vote?

There are a lot of arguments against the super-delegates handing Hillary the nomination at the close of the primaries if she continues to trail in the delegate and popular vote totals (as she is likely to.) But according to Michael Dawson, another might be the loss of the black vote if insider shenanigans are seen to rob Obama of the nomination:

A "prominent Republican" interviewed for the story claimed that Obama's biggest weakness was that he was black and therefore had a significant percentage of the November electorate already predisposed against him. Such glaring numbers may persuade still uncommitted superdelegates that Obama is unelectable in November.

Should that happen, the Democratic Party will face the Herculean task of trying to mobilize its most loyal constituency – black voters -- in the face of deep and widespread black bitterness and active campaigns in the black community encouraging black voters to defect or abstain. You can already hear the angry comparisons. Just like in 2000, the protests will go, an election will have been "stolen." But this time from within the party! Malcolm X's quote about how the rules are changed when blacks start to succeed will also, I bet, be prominently displayed.

Many will argue that if a candidate with as much multi-racial appeal as Obama cannot be treated fairly, then there is truly no hope of any black in the U.S. (with perhaps the exception of a black Republican) to win the nation's top office in the foreseeable future. My own prediction, should we head down this road, is that the already worrying statistic of 79 percent of blacks who believe that racial equality for blacks will either not be achieved in their lifetime or at all in the U.S. will jump to an even larger percentage (see my website for how this percentage has changed over the past few years). Should this happen, Democrats would risk losing traditionally safe states with large black populations, leaving them with amuch more difficult, perhaps impossible, road to victory.

I have no doubt in my mind that if Obama fails to win the nomination thanks to the super-delegates, many voters of all colors will be furious. But black voters in particular would be likely to take it as a sucker punch to the gut. I don't know how many of them would stay home though. Black voters are in the same position as conservative evangelicals are in the Republican Party; complain though they may, they have nowhere else to go (though of course, conservative evangelicals have considerably more power within their party than blacks do within theirs.) But might they stay home in significant enough numbers to cost Obama electoral votes in close states? Perhaps. Would they be wrong to do so? Not in their minds, since they'd probably feel the Democratic Party no longer represents them. Who could convincingly argue that they'd be wrong?

A belated opinion on Obama's and Clinton's heath care plans

A key point of contention between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has been on the issue of health care reform, often brought up in debates in the past (and likely again in future ones). Though about 95% of their plans are the same, Sen. Clinton has tried to make any issue of the fact that Obama's health plan does not include a mandate on adult individuals to have health care similar to the mandate states require for auto insurance (this is central to the health plan Gov. Mitt Romney and the Democratic legislature instituted in Massachusetts). The political point she makes is that without a mandate, Obama's plan would not achieve universality. Of course, a more intellectually honest point would be to say that while Obama's plan does not guarantee universality as Clinton's does by forcing a mandate on individuals, but universality could still be achieved if, as Obama believes, people are more likely to get or purchase health insurance under his plan (he and Clinton offer almost identical government subsidies and benefits). His political point is that people aren't uninsured because they aren't forced to be insured, but because they can't afford it. So simply making it more affordable will push Americans towards universal coverage.

In a nutshell, that has been the debate between the two candidates. Now, let me say that while I support Obama and his health plan over Clinton's, I personally favor a single-payer system (Obama has also stated in the past that he would favor this if he could start from scratch). But I recognize the political realities make the prospects of such big reform small in the near future (look at how difficult it has been to try and expand SCHIP, which has some 70% support among the American people), even with a Democratic president and expanded Democratic majorities in Congress. (As a side note, this is why I have cared more about the candidates' different foreign policy views which is truly the realm of a president, than their domestic plans that must have Congressional approval and more or less overlap anyway).

As a result, in distinguishing between the two candidates' health plans, my question is which is the one that approaches the goal of universal care but has the most likelihood of being passed into law? I've already said that there's little real difference between the two plans outside the individual mandate for adults, and Obama's clearly wins out to me on the latter point. Why? For one, I have my general faith in Obama's ability to unite partisans together and push through tough legislation, and specific to this issue, we have seen Hillary Clinton fail on this issue before in the early 90s. But more importantly, I believe the individual mandate would doom it to certain death in Congress. In order to enforce a mandate, you have to have some kind of enforcement mechanism in place, such as garnishing people's wages if they didn't get health care. This has caused problems in Massachusetts, and quite frankly, I think that is actually less politically palatable than simply having the government tax people and provide them health insurance directly.

While I hope Democrats achieve the 60-seat, filibuster proof Senate they are trying for this year, I think it is wise to factor in the need for a decent amount of Republican support at this time. I believe we have seen a bipartisan movement in the direction of something similar to Obama's plan. Last year, Sen. Ron Wyden, laid out a proposal that has drawn support from both sides of the aisle. The bill, still awaiting action in the Senate Finance Committee, has 14 co-sponsors that include many moderate Democrats and conservative Republicans. The Health Americans Act has several differences with Obama's plan, but is in the same general vein, as Sen. Wyden himself details here. Now I should point out Sen. Wyden is not planning on endorsing either candidate before the Oregon primary because he doesn't want his plan identified with either of the candidates' plans lest he risk the impressive bipartisan coalition that exists behind his bill.

But I do think this, in general, illustrates how a plan like Obama's might be better positioned to get passed. As Sen. Clinton says herself, we ought to be looking at who can actually bring about the "change" we seek, right? On the issue of health care, I believe Sen. Barack Obama again better meets that standard.

No realistic path for Clinton to win Democratic nomination

From Politico:

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

The article goes on to discuss the media psychology behind pushing this notion of this race as something close to even right now. But let's analyze just this point.

Slate's delegate calculator shows that Sen. Clinton must win the next 10 Democratic primaries by a wholly improbable 28 point-margin of victory in order to catch Sen. Obama in pledged delegates. She'd also have to win unrealistically big in each state to overtake him in the popular vote, especially with no re-votes forthcoming in Florida and Michigan.

Despite the Clinton camp's effort to use the Rev. Wright controversy (which isn't working with voters) to influence the super delegates in overturning the results of the primaries, longtime Clinton appointee and friend Gov. Bill Richardson endorsed Barack Obama after he gave his historic speech on race this past Tuesday. This reflects another trend of momentum on the side of the supers, as Obama has gained almost 50 since Super Tuesday and Clinton barely escaped having a net loss (and her overall lead among super delegates is actually due to the support of un-elected party members, while Senators, Governors, and Congresspersons are actually split between the two candidates). And while Richardson didn't explicitly call for Clinton to exit the race, he did say that Obama was the clear front runner and that Democrats ought to start uniting behind a nominee.

So, as the above articles state, Hillary Clinton faces a situation in which the only way she can win is by taking Obama's comments on race out of context (and hypocritical coming from the right) and questioning his patriotism and asserting he hasn't passed some "commander-in-chief" test and hoping they can convince party elites to overturn the will of voters. This will, of course, assure that African Americans, legions of young and/or apathetic voters, and well, pretty much most people who supported Obama in the primaries won't vote for Hillary Clinton making winning the nomination no more than a Pyrrhic victory for her.

Hillary Clinton has a right to stay through the last primaries on June 3rd, but if she fails to meet the hurdles required to overtake Barack Obama she needs to drop out. Trying to convince the supers to overturn the popular will is not acceptable, and she couldn't win the general election afterward anyway. But given the actions of the campaign so far, it does not look likely she will choose to exit this gracefully and avoid a brokered convention in August (unless super delegates make their decision known in June). In the interest of having a Democratic nominee who can beat John McCain in November, let us hope her campaign comes around and does not choose to take the entire party down with them.

The Shot Gets Longer

Adam Nagourney, writing in the NY Times, explains the difficulty Clinton faces in securing the nomination at this point:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needs three breaks to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Senator Barack Obama in the view of her advisers.

She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in Pennsylvania next month to buttress her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states.

She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June.

And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.

There's little doubt that Clinton will win in Pennsylvania (current polls have her up by as much as 16%, accounting for the margin for error.) The question is whether her win will be that large, larger, or smaller. An overwhelming win buttress her argument that she can win the "big" states, but as we've seen this is a convincing argument only to those who fail to stop and think things through.

As for popular vote totals, some estimates put her ahead at the end of the primary season (including Florida and Michigan, whose status is questionable at best.) But those are generous estimates, reliant upon the predictive power of polling and the assumption that those polls won't change as the candidates campaign which, as we've seen, is not a safe assumption when it comes to Obama.

Wright could have been the controversy that put a crimp in the Obama campaign (though I never thought it was enough to derail him) but Obama parried that with his masterful speech on Tuesday. I think I'm only going slightly out on a limb when I say that the Wright controversy is now dead.

If Clinton can pull out the popular vote, then she can make a legitimate case for why the Super-delegates should vote for her even Obama retains the lead in pledged delegates. But this will be counter-balanced by the fact that Obama still does better nationally and in key states again McCain than Clinton does, and the fact that his general campaign is likely to focus on more states rather than the tried-and-failed Democratic strategy of half-the-electoral-vote+1.

Debunking the "big state" and "electability" myths propagated by the Clinton campaign

Hillary Clinton's campaign has recently been making the case to "super delegates" that because she has won several "big" state primaries she would be a stronger candidate in the general election. The flaw in this thinking is that she has won among Democrats in these states, and you need to win more than just Democrats to win a state in the general. So just as Barack Obama is very unlikely to win Idaho in November even though he won 72% in a Democratic primary there, primary results in a swing state such as Ohio do not tell us that any Democrat would win the state in the general (especially since John McCain also won a primary election there), nor is it likely that Barack Obama would not win a solid Democratic state like Massachusetts simply because Democrats in that state favored Hillary Clinton in the primary.

New state match-up polls released from Rasmussen Reports confirm this to be true:

New York:

Obama 51, McCain 38 - Obama by 13
Clinton 50, McCain 38 - Clinton by 12

Connecticut:

Obama 50, McCain 38 - Obama by 12
Clinton 47, McCain 44 - Clinton by 3

Florida:

McCain 47, Obama 43 - McCain by 4
McCain 47, Clinton 40 - McCain by 7

Ohio:

McCain 46, Obama 40 - McCain by 6
McCain 46, Clinton 40 - McCain by 6

California:

Obama 53, McCain 38 - Obama by 15
Clinton 46, McCain 39 - Clinton by 7

So a quick sampling of these polls show the following: Obama does significantly better than Clinton in California despite the fact that she won that state handily in the primary, and does just as well as her in New York. Obama does a lot better in a state he won, Connecticut. Both Obama and Clinton lose Ohio by the same margin to McCain, and Obama does slightly better than Clinton in Florida. Overall, these particular poll findings actually show that Obama does better in "big" states than Hillary Clinton in a matchup against McCain, despite the fact that Democrats favored her in most of these primaries.

Of course, polls change, so no one can say this tells us what will happen. But, as it stands right now at least, the Clinton camp doesn't have any hard evidence that supports their claim of a general election advantage. In fact, all of the data has supported the conclusion that Barack Obama is actually the more electable candidate. But again, this is all very far off.

Unfortunately, John McCain is kicking ass in polls right now. He has closed the gap with Obama in national match-ups, and is leading in must-win Democratic-lean states Michigan and Pennsylvania according to Rasmussen. However, this is reflective of the fact that McCain is the firm Republican nominee, while Democrats are still torn between Obama and Clinton. Once we have a nominee, Democratic advantages in these states should resurface (barring a complete party meltdown at the convention, of course!).

Of course, I believe the strategy of trying to win the hardcore Democratic states, plus either Ohio or Florida, is foolish since it failed in both 2000 and 2004. Gov. Mark Warner derided it as an attempt to "launch a national campaign that goes after sixteen states and then hopes that we can hit a triple bank shot to get to that seventeenth state."

But how will we ever win without these "big" states? After spending just a few minutes playing with an electoral vote calculator, I found several easy combinations of states won by Gore in 2000, nearly won by Kerry in 2004, and/or noticeably trending Democratic since that can get us to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency without Ohio or Florida (using Kerry-won states as a baseline):



-Virginia, Iowa
-Virginia, Colorado
-Virginia, New Mexico
-Virginia, Nevada
-Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado
-Iowa, Nevada, Colorado
-Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico
-Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico
-Missouri, Nevada, Colorado
-Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado
-Missouri, Iowa

And, of course, winning these states does a lot more for expanding the party base, helps out Dems in other elections, and, I believe, gives the incoming president a greater mandate... Not only that, it currently looks as it is *more likely* Democrats would win most of these states than either Ohio or Florida. Looking back at the SurveyUSA polling released last week, Barack Obama is the stronger candidate of the two in almost all of these states.

So if some of the supers actually think, as the Clinton campaign wants them to, that maybe the voices of the voters isn't the criteria by which our nominee should be picked but who they think is the more "electable" candidate, might I recommend Senator Obama. He does better in most of the above southern and western states, and the same or better in Florida and Ohio as Senator Clinton. What other criteria should we be looking at?

Texas Dems Reject Verification/No FL Do-Over

Texas Democrats have responded to threatened legal action by the Clinton campaign over allegations of illegalities in the March 4th primary by rejecting calls for a "verification" of those who participated in the evening precinct caucuses. Here are excerpts from a statement released by the Texas Democratic Party:

The overwhelming majority of problems reported in Texas do not affect the legitimacy of delegate allocation. It is important to remember that the precinct conventions are just the first of three steps where delegates and alternates are selected. "Final results" will not be determined until June 6-7 at the Texas Democratic State convention. And at each convention step, Texas Democratic Party rules provide a credentials process to address problems and provide an avenue to register complaints and make formal challenges

For that reason, the Texas Democratic Party will not do as suggested by one campaign and circumvent Party rules to set up an unnecessary, ad hoc "verification" process that could effectively disqualify delegates selected at their precinct conventions after the fact. The Party has never stated any intention to set up a verification process of this nature because Party rules already provide for "verification" through our credentials process. Candidates who wish to disqualify delegates must pursue formal challenges based on evidence filed appropriately in accordance with our party's rules.

Fair enough, in my opinion. As I stated yesterday, there is no evidence that any shenanigans at the precinct caucuses benefitted one candidate over the other, nor is there any showing that a verification of all the signatures of the one million participants in the caucuses. The Clinton camp should not be permitted to stop-down the process simply in an effort to undermine the legitimacy of Obama's delegate lead in Texas. Clinton hacks will spin this predictably, but as far as I'm concerned Texas Democrats have rightfully stood up to the Clinton campaign.

In other news, there will apparently be no do-over in Florida. Florida Democrats having already rejected a full do-over of the primary, also rejected the mail-in ballot proposal that had been floating around for a few weeks. Now it is left to the campaigns the DNC to try and figure out what to do with the delegates from Florida. As you can probably imagine, Clinton will fight to have the delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention, and Obama will fight to have them seated in some manner that reduces their value to Clinton.

UPDATE: A do-over in Michigan appears to be in danger as well. The AP reports that talks are hung up on a proposal to ban from the do-over voters who voted in the Michigan Republican primary, even if they were Democrats or Independents voting in the Republican primary because Barack Obama was not on the Democratic ballot. However, Marc Ambinder is reporting that talks on a do-over are almost completely dead, making it more likely that there will be no re-vote in Michigan at all and the two campaigns and the DNC will have to hammer out a compromise for both Michigan and Florida.

UPDATE: Carrie Giddens, in the NY Times writes concerning the Michigan and Florida do-overs:

There is no such thing as a do-over. Do-overs are what you get when the end results don’t matter. Do-overs are what children do on a playground. Adults accept their mistakes, learn from them and move on.

Ouch.

Clinton Campaign Stalling For Time

The Clinton camp has threatened legal action if Texas Democrats don't act to verify all of the signatures obtained on the precinct convention sign-in sheets that were used to allocate delegates at the March 4th caucuses:

As final results from the Texas Democratic caucus remain unknown, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign wants signatures from the March 4 contest verified before party conventions are held around the state later this month.

In a letter sent to the state Democratic Party late Friday, the Clinton campaign requests the March 29 count and state Senate district conventions be postponed until the eligibility of an estimated 1 million caucus-goers are double checked.

he Clinton campaign wrote they received more than 2,000 complaints of violations following the historic Texas turnout, which was perhaps the nation's largest caucus ever.

With about 41 percent of precinct caucuses reported, rival Barack Obama was ahead with 56 percent to Clinton's 44 percent.

"It is the Party's responsibility to ensure the integrity of the precinct convention process by making sure that the Rules were followed," the letter states.

Well, yes. However, it would be silly and naive to assume that Clinton is interested in simply assuring that the rules were followed. Clearly, this is part of an effort to undermine Obama's delegate tally in Texas, where he holds a slender lead over Clinton. I have seen no allegations that the chaos that ensued at a tiny minority of precinct conventions benefited Obama over Clinton, but this is less about reversing Obama's win and more about undermining the legitimacy of the results and muddying the waters even further. These are hard-nosed tactics that nobody should be surprised to see, but neither should anyone think that this has anything to do with ensuring democracy for Texas Democrats.

UPDATE: Clinton's strategy, explained more thoroughly.

Obama "Can't Win The General Election"

Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist Mark Penn made the case today that Obama can't win the general election because he hasn't won the "big" states like Ohio. This follows a statement from another Clinton advisor, Harold Ickes, who argued that Obama's wins in numerous traditionally "red" states also means little in the general election. For those who can't immediately see the flaw in making predictions about the general election that are based on primaries decided solely by Democratic voters, Karl-Thomas Musselman at Burnt Orange Report explains:

Yes, Clinton winning the Texas primary (wait, we can't say that yet) means she will win the state in November! Of course, polling says otherwise and suggests that Obama currently has the state in a tie with McCain while Clinton trails. But maybe that's just because Obama won Texas by the delegates that decide the nomination (wait, sorry, keep forgetting we can't talk about that).

But ok, let's accept that measure of reasoning seeing how history has shown it to be true (insert eye roll). Let's count numbers based upon the states that have been won (without debate or contest, which takes NV & TX (which each claim) and MI & FL off the table for now).

Hillary Clinton Electoral Votes: 180
Barack Obama Electoral Votes: 195

Please be aware that John McCain faces some problems winning the general election because Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have now made it impossible for him to win 18 states this November by winning their primaries. His only saving grace is that he won most of the big states in the Republican primary (which does seem to raise a bit of a problem because it is my understanding that those are guaranteed Clinton states in November since she won them in the Democratic primary). Hmm. This seems to be a problem! How can both nominees win the state in the general if they won them in the primary?

In other words, this is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that Obama won some states that are traditionally red and are not likely to go Democratic in the fall should not be overstated. But somehow Clinton is in a better position to the win the general election because she can win states that are borderline or traditional Democratic strongholds against Obama? Where's the support for that? Polls for one flatly contradict such an idea, especially when they suggest that Obama is clearly the better candidate to compete in traditional red states. And states that are reliably Democratic are not likely to suddenly turn red simply because Obama is on the ticket.

Really, this is all just an attempt to muddy the waters. Obama leads in the delegate count and in the popular vote, and this is unlikely to change. The Clinton campaign would like to play with the numbers to convince you that their victories bode well for November, but Obama's do not. But it's simply not true. Obama remains in the best position to win in November.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that I think this strategy is aimed primarily at the super-delegates. No doubt arguments about "electability" and experience are for the primary voter's consumption as well, but the average voter is less likely to sit here and figure out whether Clinton's strong showing in such-and-such state means she's more likely to win the general election. But it is something the super-delegates are probably thinking about...at least those who are inclined to vote against the candidate who has amassed the most pledged delegates and the most votes. I honestly don't think it takes that much thought or brainpower to see through the spin, but then I'm not a Democratic party insider.

UPDATE II: Brendan Nyhan links to other bloggers that try to explain the same concept in more words, but it still comes down to the simple fact that primary results do not translate predictably (if at all) into results in the general election. It just ain't so.

UPDATE III: The Clinton Camp expands on this theme in a memo they released a couple of days ago. Team Obama responds with almost line-by-line rebuttal evidencing great disbelief at the Clinton claims.

No really...Sinbad

Team Obama unveils their latest defense against Clinton's attacks on Obama's foreign policy experience...Sinbad (the comedian, not the pirate.) A sampling:

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

More proof Obama pulling in non-Democratic voters

Nat-Wu sent me this DMN article and suggested I post about it.

Backers of both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned out with passionate support for their candidate in last week's Texas primary. But once they got in the voting booth, they did something different.

Obama supporters were more likely to vote in the presidential race and then skip the other contests than Clinton supporters, who tended to continue voting down the ballot, a Dallas Morning News analysis finds.

More than 80 percent of Democratic voters in the Texas counties where Mrs. Clinton had her largest victory margins went on to vote in the U.S. Senate race, the leading statewide contest on the ballot after the presidential race.

By contrast, only 71 percent of voters in Mr. Obama's strongest counties did. In Dallas County, where Mr. Obama got nearly two-thirds of the vote, the falloff was nearly 30 percent.

What this means is while Clinton is getting many Democratic partisans (who go on to vote in other Democratic rates), Obama is continuing to bring new, apathetic, and crossover voters into the Democratic column. The question is, will they show in November to vote for Clinton, or only if Obama is on the ballot? Given that most polls show Obama beating McCain, but Clinton tied or losing to McCain, due to him winning among independent voters, this seems likely.

While it is certainly possible Clinton could win based on the strength of the Democrats in this election season alone, the safer bet seems to be on Obama, who wouldn't just win but also expand the party's base in unprecedented ways.

Arrogance

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been making statements recently suggesting that Obama needs more "experience" and should be Hillary's VP instead. This is nothing but a cynical ploy by the Clintons who know they will need Obama's voters to win the general election should they convince the super delegates to vote for her over him even though he's won twice as many states, more elected delegates, and a higher percentage of the popular vote. I hope it backfires.

Also, John Kerry and Tom Daschle make great points:

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who has endorsed Obama, derided that suggestion. "The first threshold question about a vice president is, are you prepared to be president?" Kerry told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

"So on the one end, they are saying he's not prepared to be president. On the other hand, they're saying maybe he ought to be vice president," Kerry said...

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, an Obama backer, mocked the idea.

"It may be the first time in history that the person who is running number two would offer the person running number one the number two position," Daschle told "Meet the Press."

Damn straight.

You know, I'm not a person who hates Hillary Clinton and never wanted to use this blog as means to go after her like many of our fellow co-bloggers do against Obama, but ever since she started losing primaries to Obama her campaign has gotten worse and worse with the "3 am" ads and statements like these. Do they really want to sour so many Obama supporters whom they will need to win?

Tax Returns

Absent allegations of actual fraud, why exactly would the public need to see the Clintons' tax returns? What are we supposed to find there? The Clintons have a lot of money, and are entitled to do a lot of things about their taxes that wealthy people get to do that you and I don't. This means what exactly when it comes to her qualifications to be President?