February 11, 2008
Haven’t been here in a while and don’t have much time today, besides it’s a lot more interesting watching this whole thing play out then listening to people trying to get inside the head of superdelegates [Washingtonpost.com]. I know it’s great to have a real ‘race,’ but it could get pretty disgusting if things stay like this until August and “party loyalists” end up deciding.
And by ‘this’ I mean incredibly intense. Obama’s momentum seems to be perfectly matched right now by Hillary’s…well…Clintonism. She’s shaking up her campaign today [FinancialTimes.com], but somehow it doesn’t feel desperate and I think most people are too focused on the next set of results to care. Things seem to be at a tipping point, but looking at the states left to decide, it’s hard to imagine Clinton being able to overcome Obama’s momentum [politico.com] and gain ground beyond the few big-delegate states that she has been confident in for months [Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania].
If it comes down to anything, it’ll come down to state’s like Virginia and Obama’s ability to steel some delegates in the liberal pockets of the above ‘Hillary’ states. Or perhaps John Edwards’ endorsement [Fox News] will tip things? Or how about a return to the negative campaigning? [Guardian UK]
And speaking of negative, how about one last link to support my ‘it got personal with Mitt Romney‘ theory [Time Magazine, thanks JDS].
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Clinton, Democrats, Edwards, Obama, Romney | 
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Posted by Andrew Bennett
January 8, 2008
Big day tomorrow but before you vote (or watch the networks predict someone else’s vote) check out these resourceful links:
Electoral-Vote.Com: Back for another election to provide more than you need to know about the state by state races and polling and en ethos for every blogger should aspire to (thanks, CM).
The Technology Voter’s Guide From CNet News: Interviews with candidates on issues of technology policy like net neutrality, Government Wire Tapping, and Digital Copyright - McCain, Paul, Edwards, Clinton, Obama and Dodd are there (though the latter’s no longer a candidate).
The interviews are interesting - despite the fact that they are questionnaire-based and overly-crafted, you still get candidates who sometimes by their own admission don’t know jack about the Interwebs and others who show a keen understanding of the issues. John Edwards is particulalry good - particularly compared to Ron Paul whose web-policy knowledge does not seem to match his massive web-based support.
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Democrats, Edwards, New Iowashire, Polls, Republicans, Ron Paul | 
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Posted by Andrew Bennett
January 7, 2008
Thanks to CNN for re-airing Saturday’s debates - these are fun, but not 4 hours of my Saturday night fun. Good times too, with Charlie Gibson doing a great job, some actual contrast emerging, and some really interesting strategic and perhaps not so strategic fencing. The latter refers to the Republicans ganging up on Mitt Romney. I suppose everything is strategic, but this felt personal. It wasn’t the typical ‘going after a high-profile candidate’ (remember, he’s no longer leading in New Hampshire) and the body language (by all) and laughs (by McCain) bordered on fiendish, particularly at the end when Romney wondered around behind the tables while the other candidates shook hands and embraced. Also, I recall a few commentators saying things like “the other candidates simply don’t like Romney.”
On the Democrats’ side, I thought things were more restrained and there was some nice back-and-forth on issues and some of the candidates even managed to differentiate themselves: Richardson on his experience (finally), Richardson on Iraq, Obama/Edwards on Health Care, and Hillary on the rhetoric of the other candidates. That last move by Clinton was bold and seemed emotional and unscripted - I know, probably impossible in these debates, but check it out again (for the third time) from the transcript:
Clinton: Now we’re all out on the campaign trail talking about taking the tax subsidies away from the oil companies, some of which were in that 2005 energy bill.
So, you know, words are not actions. And as beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are, they are not action.
You know, what we’ve got to do is translate talk into action and feeling into reality. I have a long record of doing that, of taking on the very interests that you have just rightly excoriated because of the over-due influence that they have in our government.
That was directed at Edwards and there was another on “change” directed at Obama.
For his part, Obama did a good job of not getting into it too much with the other candidates and I thought he did a great job of speaking to New Hampshire independents, here’s the culmination:
Obama: But the larger point is that we have to get back to a notion that opportunity and bottom-up economic growth is what the president should be fighting for.
And what we’ve had is a top-down agenda that is skewed toward the wealthiest Americans. It is making worse some of the trends of globalization that are already out there.
And one of the benefits of this campaign has been to listen and talk to the folks all throughout New Hampshire who are tired of it and want to see something change.
Now it probably had a lot more to do with Iowa than how he was received by independents on Saturday, but lo and behold Obama just got a big bump in the polls - now with a double-digit lead.
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Clinton, Debates, Democrats, Edwards, New Iowashire, Obama, Polls, Richardson, Romney | 
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Posted by Andrew Bennett
December 27, 2007
There is bigger and sadder global news at this, but the holiday schedule delays a blog post un-related to today’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto:
Plenty of magazine reading on holiday transit - it’s a shame that the one week you have all the time to read, the weeklies just cram a year’s worth of human interest stories or type that can’t be aged. Anyway, a piece by Matt Cooper in Cond Nast on John Edwards the phony populist, get a lot better in the context of Clive Crook’s op-ed in the FT today:
A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC found that 58 per cent of Americans think that globalisation has been bad for the US and that only 28 per cent believe that it has been good…
…the rising tide of economic populism makes the prospects for meaningful trade liberalisation and an intelligent resolution of the immigration conundrum even more bleak. Beyond next year, the real question is what happens in 2009, when (let us suppose) the main obstacles to a populist turn in policy have been removed. How far left, in economic policy, might America then veer?
Compare this to Cooper’s soothing tones for the American globalist:
Edwards is the most populist of the major presidential candidates, and there’s an understandable tendency on the part of business executives to recoil from him…
But should business really fear a President Edwards? I don’t think so. His public record and private comments suggest someone who’s less than a ferocious populist and more like the moderate Southern Democrat he was known as before this presidential bid…
When it comes to trade, Edwards is only marginally more protectionist than Clinton or Obama.
Crook’s data and interpretation add to some polling I’ve posted on this blog that shows that American’s are increasingly favoring a protectionist policy when it comes to immigration, trade, and military entanglement. Meanwhile, as Cooper and other reveal, even the most populist of the candidates is not really a populist. Maybe the voters are really smart and know Edwards is phony populist - so why the popularity for Clinton/Obama or even Giuliani/Romney on the other side? Where’s the true populist who can run with the growing protectionist sentiment in the electorate?
Uh oh.
I think both Crook and Cooper are focused solely on one of the more tangible components of populism: the restraints it offers voters who fear the market is going too far. But populism is also about zeitgeists, illusions, and…well…varments:
In fact, Huckabee said, not only had he hunted varmints himself — in addition to deer, ducks, antelopes and, now, pheasants — but he also was an experienced varmint-eater, having downed his share of fried squirrel, biscuits and Coke as a college student.
“I figured out you could put grease in a popcorn popper and heat that thing up, and you could cook anything,” he said in an interview. “So we fried squirrel.”
And with that the contest for the world’s most powerful job centered not on policy and substance in the run-up to next week’s Iowa caucuses, but on the question of authenticity.
No Comments » | Edwards, Huckabee | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
December 19, 2007
At this point in the campaign circuit you get the sense that the press, in all its fair and balanced goodness, is going out of its way to give each candidate their day in the spotlight before January 3. With that spirit of skepticism in mind, I
hereby
dub
today
John Edwards
day.
No Comments » | Edwards, Press | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
November 13, 2007
Just saw Edwards on CSPAN speaking at Politics and Eggs in New Hampshire. A solid speech with a good overview of his objectives and policy plans, particularly strong on his core domestic issues, solutions to poverty and health care. But during the question and answer segment he was pressed on what he would do about curbing government spending and a key challenge for Edwards, particularly in the Live Free or Die state, presented itself.
Edwards, as best he could in New Hampshire, made it clear that reducing the deficit was no a priority for him and an Edwards presidency would involve quite a bit of spending (how else can a populist Democrat tackle poverty and health care?). This is when you realize how difficult the primary system makes an Edwards run, particularly one in which a state like New Hampshire that is almost militantly against big government. Edwards has practically established residency in Iowa and has made inroads there, but his answer to the spending question makes it clear that he’ll be hard-pressed to crack the top-two in New Hampshire -he’s currently trailing Clinton by 23 points and is 10 behind Obama.
No Comments » | Edwards, New Iowashire, Polls | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
October 19, 2007
Humayun’s last post broke it down nicely, John Edwards desperately needs Iowa or New Hampshire and to be close in the one he doesn’t get. His campaign strategy thus far signals his awareness of this as he has practically lived in Iowa for the last year and his wife is practically based in New Hampshire and touring for her husband constantly. While he continues to hang on in Iowa, the numbers don’t look good for him in New Hampshire. While it looks like he has enough money to compete, my guess is it will be a losing cause, and a bit of a tragic one because I for one saw a lot of promise in the Edwards ticket going as far back as 2003.
Yesterday, I was privileged to hear New York Times Magazine writer Matt Bai speak about poverty in America, the policy debate around its solutions, and John Edwards’ place in that debate. First of all, Bai was an engaging speaker with a mind and heart for the topic, demonstrating an astounding grasp on U.S. economic policy with a solid theoretical and historical grounding. Bai got it and made clear that in his Times Magazine piece on Edwards he was curious to see if the candidate got it as well and, more importantly, if he could deliver it to the voters. In the final analysis, Bai doesn’t have much confidence that Edwards is up to the task, but that it may also be an impossible task.
A campaign centered around economic (and health) policy aimed at ending poverty in America is not exactly the easiest path to the presidency. However, we should challenge every candidate to take on such issues that, despite what you may have been told, are very important to people of every class in this country. Edwards took on that challenge and that may cost him states like New Hampshire. It probably helped get him the SEIU endorsement too, but the fact of the matter is that Edwards isn’t convincing the rest of America that there is a way to help our least fortunate rise up and the more I hear, the less confident I am that he even knows what that way is.
No Comments » | Edwards, New Iowashire | 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 7, 2007
A great post from Dan Baltz at Washingtonpost.com that nicely sums up the mess within the democratic party:
This power of the antiwar sentiment has been evident in the battle for the Democratic nomination today. Antiwar anger among progressive Democrats has pushed the candidates to the left in what has threatened to become a bidding war over who can offer the most provocative plan for ending the war.
It has led New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to call for removing all U.S. forces, a plan that Democrats like Sen. Joseph Biden call totally implausible, given security needs to protect U.S. civilians in Baghdad alone.
It has led Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Chris Dodd to vote against legislation to keep funding the war. It has led John Edwards to taunt his Senate-based rivals to stand up and just stop the war now — although his own plan falls somewhat short of that.
In an email with a friend last week, I said I was a little tired of Edwards’ rhetoric and was ready to discover if the guy actually has some plans and policies and some realistic implementations. While most candidates are lacking in such substance, I think Baltz is on to something above: the discombobulation across the party is the discombobulation within its candidates. I don’t think even John Edwards knows which way he wants to go on Iraq (and not just because he’s one of the democrats who “need to apologize”). Luckily for us voters, there’s a certain report due out next week that will force the candidates into some more substantive statements on when to get out of Iraq and how.
No Comments » | Democrats, Edwards | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
