September 25, 2007
We don’t have a category for Al Gore, so I’m throwing him in with “The Others,” but Christopher Hitchens keeps the dream alive:
I am only guessing here, but I think that when Gore wakes up early and upset, he isn’t whimpering about the time that the Supreme Court finally ruled against him in 2000. He is whimpering about the time in 1992 when he left the field open to Bill Clinton, a man he secretly despised. Can he really stand to watch yet another Clinton walk away with a nomination that could have been, or could still be, his? To move, then, from a consideration of elevated politics to a reflection upon the baser motives, we have to ask if Gore can possibly be content to be a “citizen” when he could still be a contender.
And if David Brooks is right about the waning influence of the “Netroots” crowd, then Hitchens’ prescription of Gore might just be an attractive one for Democrats made sick by the recent discourse led by party frontrunners:
I remind you that Gore was once a stern advocate of the removal of Saddam Hussein, and that in office he might well not be the coward or apologist that the MoveOn.org crowd is still hoping to nominate. One has the very slight sense that he contains some unexpended political energy and has acquired some dearly bought political experience. At any rate, nothing could be worse than the present dreary political routine, and if it takes a Scandinavian kick-start to alter the odds, then for once one can hope that the heirs of Alfred Nobel will have a more explosive and catalytic effect than they had intended.
No Comments » | 
Democrats, The Others | 
Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
September 25, 2007
Not at Columbia University - at Morgan State University:
The Republican candidate “All-American Presidential Forum” moderated by black journalist and talk-show host Tavis Smiley will feature GOP presidential candidates but not the party’s frontrunners—former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.
The four candidates all cited scheduling conflicts as the reason for their absence. The top Democratic presidential contenders attended a similar event in June at Howard University. Republican leaders are saying they’re concerned that the party appears to be ignoring communities of color.
Smiley’s “All-American Presidential Forum,” which will take place at Morgan State University in Baltimore and is scheduled to air Sept. 27 on PBS, is not the first debate the GOP presidential contenders have skipped. Only McCain accepted an invitation from Spanish-language network Univision to attend its GOP presidential forum. Republican candidates did not participate in the gay-and-lesbian television network LOGO’s presidential forum. And they skipped the annual conferences of the NAACP, National Council of La Raza, National Association of Latino Elected Officials, and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
I’m watching Tavis Smiley right now, he’s discussing the non-debate with Jack Kemp and they’re both simply astonished, frustrated, and disapointed. There’s no vitriol against ‘racist Republicans’ or anything like that, just pure shock that these guys would pass up such an opportunity and just plain embarrass their party. This is simply incomprehensible and politically inept.
1 Comment | 
Debates, Republicans | 
Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
September 21, 2007
It says something when the media struggles to even consistently frame their debate coverage. Listen to this discombobulated report on last night’s AARP debate from NPR.
Obama missed that debate and this vote - yes, the vote was a bit ridiculous (so was the ad), but why not just show up? Seems like this will be difficult to rationalize if other candidates really start pressing Barack on it.
We haven’t been able to report on anything regarding Giuliani outside of his over-hyping the terrorist threat in about 6 weeks.
Apparently Mitt’s willing to follow Rudy’s lead when it comes to such hyperbole. They also do a nice job of writing another page in the playbook that continues to confuse America about who was responsible for Sept. 11th.
And Fred Thompson just can’t seem to get his off-screen life as a consultant in order. It’s amazing that Fred is doing better than just surviving in the polls, because he seems to be stumbling all over the stage since he drew the curtain on his candidacy. The polls are nice, but the Republican base that has so much riding on Thompson’s candidacy can’t be too enthused.
No Comments » | Clinton, Debates, Fred Thompson, Giuliani, Obama, Polls, Romney | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
September 21, 2007
A few months ago, when the dust finally settled after both Clinton and Obama announced, I remember thinking (and hoping) that the presidential election would not be framed solely in terms of race and gender. For a while, I got the sense that the initial shock and awe of the top two contenders for the Democratic nomination being a black man and a white woman had worn off. An article crossed my desk earlier today that reminded me of just how naive I am. I’m pretty sure that it’s well off the beaten path for many of you, so here is the link. It’s a lengthy article entitled “Barack Obama is the Superior Choice for African American Voters” which appeared in a recent edition of the Journal of Black Higher Education.
As an African American, I was initially turned off by the title because it predicates the voting selection of a large group of people upon race. Because I’m black, I should vote for Obama? I could just as easily vote for Hilary because I’m a woman. At the outset, I was ready for the author to pull the race card with little in his hand to back it up.
However, he makes some compelling points, especially with respect to his argument that Clinton has gained a reputation for being tuned in to the black population based largely on perceptions and popularity rather than policy. While he didn’t sell me on his theory, he did make me pause a second once he began to delve more deeply into Obama’s policy initiatives. They are (naively) ambitious, which Cross acknowledges, but he feels like Obama should gain some traction in the black community simply by virtue of having put the bold initiatives forward.
Despite not having convinced me to vote for Obama by the article’s midpoint, Cross had at least gained my respect. That is, until he fell back on the same old tired argument we’ve been hearing for months. Yes, I’m referring to the “Gee, just think of what it will mean to the black community to have a black President!!!” argument. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that on the same day thousands descend on a small town in Louisiana to demand a race-blind legal system, I read an article by a black man that essentially argues for a race-concious electorate?
1 Comment | Clinton, Obama | Permalink
Posted by hilljunkie
September 19, 2007
Wow…it’s been a while since I’ve been moved enough by presidential race to actually make a public comment on a current event. I hope you all missed me.
I need to air out some thoughts on Clinton’s campaign finance “scandal.” I use quotes because the whole media frenzy over the last week or so has me feeling the same way I have for years about Communism—I still feel like I must have been out sick the day my 7th grade Social Studies teacher explained why Communism was “bad” to our entire class. That digression aside, why is the fact that the Clinton campaign took bundled contribution from alleged felon Norman Hsu interesting enough to warrant 4 days of front page coverage? He funneled some cash to the campaign, and they gave it back when they found out he might be a criminal. End of story. As far as I’m concerned, the issue should be framed in terms of the criminal allegations against Hsu, and not in terms of some scant whisper of possible ethical violations on Clinton’s part.
On the flip side, the Ted Stevens scandal (not in quotations because this is actually a newsworthy corruption story) has barely seen the light of day recently. As more information comes to light, I continue to be shocked by the blatant exchange of money/services/goods in for access to power in which Stevens was engaged. Check this out:
“Former VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen admitted Friday to using company funds to pay some of the construction costs associated with Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) home remodeling project as well as using a small number of company employees to do the work. Allen, testifying in federal court as part of a state-level bribery case, also said he gave Stevens furniture for the home. Additionally, Allen admitted to paying Stevens’ son, Ben, $4,000 a month while the younger Stevens served in the state Senate.”
Now that’s a story! Stevens got a home remodel job, free labor, and free furniture, while managing to get his son a nice chunk of change per month.
I would think that, after all the criticism mainstream media has been receiving about its choice of coverage lately, i.e. Lohan v. Bagdad, the media would start giving non-stories the (lack of) coverage they deserve.
No Comments » | 
Clinton, Money | 
Permalink
Posted by hilljunkie
September 18, 2007
Karl Rove is among the “people in Washington” I had in mind when I posted this morning about Hillary Clinton’s challenge in selling America on her health care plan. Predictably, Rove was more than ready to begin firing back at Hillary’s plan this morning and the Wall Street Journal (predictably) allowed him space for it:
All around America, families are grappling with health-care concerns. They wonder if they’ll have insurance at a price they can afford. They worry about how much out-of-pocket health costs take from the family budget. They question if they’ll be able to pick their own doctor. Some feel trapped in jobs they don’t like out of fear of losing their health insurance.
As the latest government-heavy plan announced by Hillary Clinton yesterday once again shows, the answers politicians offer on health care highlight the deep differences between liberals and conservatives. This is a debate Republicans cannot avoid. But it is one we can win — if we offer a bold plan. Conservatives must put forward reforms aimed at putting the patient in charge. Increasing competition will ensure greater access, lower costs and more innovation.
Liberals see the concerns of families as a failure of private insurance, and want the U.S. to move toward a government-run, single- payer model. This is a recipe for making problems worse. Socialized medicine inevitably leads to poor quality, inefficiency, rising taxes and rationing. The waiting lines and poor care that cause people from other countries to come here for treatment are not the answer…
…Mrs. Clinton may think Americans want to trade freedom and innovation for the illusory security of government regulation and surrender control of their health decisions to government bureaucrats. My bet is 2008 will teach us something different if Republicans make health care a centerpiece issue.
[Note: WSJ, unlike the New York Times still has a vault, so no link to this article]
The bold above is mine, the subtle jabs at a Hillary-specific plan are Karl’s. Most of what he has to say is what we would have expected and he lays out a plan himself that he does a good (though predictable) job of contrasting with the Democrats. But the real takeaway should be how Hillary offers a little something extra (”scars” as she calls them) for him to jab at.
1 Comment | Clinton, Health Care, Republicans | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
September 18, 2007
We’re all well-aware that Hillary Clinton has dabbled in health care reform before, but what we may not know is whether voters associate Senator Clinton with the issue as negatively as those inside the beltway. The Christian Science Monitor explores:
Now, the former first lady is seeking to turn that failure into a positive – and, so far, is succeeding. A recent poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation shows that, among all the presidential candidates, voters see Clinton as placing the biggest emphasis on healthcare. She tops the list with a plurality of 27 percent, followed by Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois with 6 percent. Among Democrats, Clinton is also by far the candidate seen as best representing their views on healthcare, with 35 percent. Among Republican voters, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was the top choice, with 8 percent.
“Senator Clinton starts off with an edge on health,” says Dean Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s “not because the voters have scrutinized the details of anyone’s plan, and obviously she’s only released pieces of hers so far, but just because they so closely associate her with the issue.”
On the stump, Clinton herself often refers to her abortive healthcare reform in the ’90s, a failure that played a significant role in the voters’ rebuke of her husband during the 1994 midterms, when the Republican Party seized control of both houses of Congress. But she tries to spin that failure into a positive, telling voters that her efforts show how deeply she cares about the issue and that she has “the scars to show for it.”
Clearly Clinton’s betting that these are the impressive type of scars, not the scary type. What a conundrum for the voters, it’s like deciding whether to hire someone who was fired by your competitor…I’m sure there are plenty of dating analogies too…
Whatever voters decide though, you have to respect Clinton’s straightforward approach and clever brinkmanship on an issue that she knows could bite her. I think most people in Washington assumed health care would in fact haunt Clinton and would make easy fodder for her opponents. But Clinton’s numbers on the issue may prove pretty resilient, 27% identification and 35% approval on the issue are huge and may be proof that voters dig scars.
1 Comment | Clinton, Health Care | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
September 17, 2007
Thomas Friedman has a column up on the Times website that seems to be putting the nail in the coffin of his grand aspirations for Arab democracy. It is interesting that he notes that Bush is “delusional” now when he speaks of a “democratic ally” fighting “jihadist extremism”; to my mind the label is apt, but it could just as easily be extended to the larger notion of creating democracy in the Arab world through brute force. What is particularly interesting from the perspective of the 08 campaign, however, is that after outlining three policy points he urges the Democrats to adopt, he maintains that:
the overriding foreign policy message that still comes across from them to many Americans…is that Democrats are simply “anti-Bush, antiwar and antitrade.” Be careful: despite the mess Mr. Bush has made in the world, or maybe because of it, Americans will not hand the keys to a Democrat who does not convey a “gut” credibility on national security.
This is a theme that pervades discussion of the 08 presidential campaign—that the Democrats whether it is Obama, Edwards, Clinton, Kucinich, or whoever–do not portray a “tough enough” stance, that they are weak flip floppers on national security–but it still remains somewhat mysterious to me. What precisely are the components of a “gut” credibility on national security? Bush represented himself as just the sort of guy who acts based on the gut, who decides, who takes strong, affirmative, ruthless action against the terrorists over there so they don’t attack us here. And by and large this image was accepted by the public and an acquiescent media even though Bush and his deputy had stayed away from the Vietnam war (the latter admitting to “other priorities” at the time) when they could show their true colors So we have had leadership that was deemed to possess “gut credibility.” But what has that accomplished? Don’t we know better now than before the consequences of judging foreign policy decisions by our leaders on such school yard notions as “this guy talks in a Texan twang and speaks of good and evil and therefore will be better at fighting the terrorists”? If not, then let me reiterate the consequence: wars that not only don’t solve the problem but actually make them worse while the real and dangerous enemies out there proliferate in number.
It is fantasy to believe that the Democrats are any less committed to fighting terrorism simply because they do not use the cowboy rhetoric of the current White House occupant. Or that because Fred Thompson has that manly demeanor or Giuliani has that Brooklyn street cred they are born anti-terrorist activists. What matters in foreign policy just like anywhere else are policies pronounced and followed, and judging those policies based on cost-benefit analysis. Is it utopian to expect the average American voter to assess a presidential candidate on those terms? Perhaps—no wait a minute: probably. But what that means is that the media and the intellectual community have to stop regurgitating Republican talking points such as “the Democrats have no credibility on foreign policy” and simply reporting the news for what it is and letting the Republicans engage in misleading propaganda without aiding and abetting it.
No Comments » | Clinton, Democrats, Edwards, Foreign Policy, Giuliani, Kucinich, Obama | Permalink
Posted by AAH4
September 14, 2007
Follow-up to yesterday’s post on mash-ups, more on democratizing technologies:
A new study released this week found that young people are more likely to vote by 4.2 percentage points if they receive a text message reminding them to show up to the polls.
The survey found that most of the recipients, and especially Hispanics, found the message helpful — unlike their reaction e-mail. But here’s the result that could be the most compelling to the campaigns: Each additional vote generated by the text message cost an average $1.56.
And this is really valuable, considering candidates have been stumbling to get hip to the Internets and mash-up debates are basically mashless talking-points delivered to Charlie Rose’s demographic:
…While turnout among young adults ages 18-29 is typically 20 to 30 points lower than that of older adults, concentrated efforts to reach this group have shown significantly higher voting rates. With voters ranging in age from 18-31 likely to comprise a quarter of the electorate in 2008, candidates are increasingly trying to reach out to this group, as evidenced by the proliferation of candidate profiles on social networking sites and low-dollar fund-raisers.
The down-side, more Dennis Kucinich debate-infomercials where he constantly chatters about what we should be texting and to whom:
Already, candidates have been SMS-ing all over the place. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich asked us to “text PEACE” for delivery to the Pentagon, and hardly a day goes by when we don’t receive a twitter message from Senator Barack Obama or John Edwards.
You can see the full report, academic jargon and all, here.
No Comments » | Campaign Advertising | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
