Knockout or Scorecards

As you all know, the Pennsylvania primary held last Tuesday was considered to be a must-win contest for Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), with a loss certain to end the race and crown Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) as the Democratic nominee against Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the fall. As you probably also know, Senator Clinton won by a substantial margin, winning 55-45, nearly echoing her must-win in Ohio last month. So, with Senator Clinton proving to be one of the toughest outs in politics, and Senator Obama proving unable to win the states that he has to win, the Obama camp has ratcheted up its efforts to call for Senator Clinton to end the race, perhaps because she is embarrassing him with that pesky ability to win primaries.

However, my question is this: when has the candidate who is behind ever been expected to drop out of the race after posting double-digit victories in key swing states? The Obama campaign is acting indignant and arguing that Senator Clinton can't win. However, if that is the case, why not make her get out? The Obama campaign has pushed the Clinton campaign to a must-win status in six states in the primary season (New Hampshire on 1/8, California and New Jersey on 2/5, Ohio and Texas on 3/4, and Pennsylvania on 4/22), but she manages to survive because the Obama campaign has lost all six. Yes, it is true that Senator Clinton pushed Obama to that point once and failed to win (South Carolina on 1/26), but the point is that if you want credit for the knockout, you have to win the knockout. I have heard Obama supporters argue that this is a different standard. No, it isn't! The standard is 2024 delegates at the national convention. What is changing the rules is trying to argue that a campaign that is still winning has no legitimate reason for being in the race.

Well, she is still in the race for a reason, and that is because the voters have made it clear that we do not want this primary to be over just yet (Disclaimer: I voted for Senator Clinton in the PA primary). Each candidate has a substantial base of support that the other has proven unable to erode. Maybe the reason why the Obama campaign is worried is because they realize that the longer this election drags on, the longer the Clinton campaign shows its strength.

That being said, if the Obama campaign wants to get the knockout, here's a simple idea: get the knockout! There are three states left that are must-wins for Senator Clinton: Indiana on 5/6, West Virginia on 5/13, and Kentucky on 5/20. If Senator Obama wins any of these, he can rightly claim that he has done what he needs to do to prove himself worthy of the nomination. Still, if outspending your opponent nearly 3:1 and still losing big leads to tough talk like that, maybe that is showing desperation. Are they worried about a Clinton surprise showing in one of the states that Senator Obama is expected to win? Are they worried that her ability to win will lead to her having more days like her fundraising tsunami after winning the Keystone State? Either way, if you want to treat this like a boxing match, if neither candidate can get a knockout, the fight goes to the scorecards. I don't think that a TKO would prove satisfying to anyone. Senator Clinton has no reason to throw in the towel, and Senator Obama's supporters have no right to ask. There is a way to end this before Montana and South Dakota, but the ref will have to count to ten.

No Difference? Really?

Oh, what a strange two months it has been. John McCain beat Mitt Romney in enough winner-take-all states on Super Tuesday to make his way clear toward the Republican Presidential nomination while the Democratic race plays out like an epic boxing match with neither unable to land the knockout blow. (Interestingly enough, there were also arguments in Michigan by the Obama people that somehow it will disenfranchise voters to have a revote, and that this will not hurt him in Novmber should he be the nominee against McCain, as arguments continue as to whether or not it's even possible at this point for Senator Clinton to catch Senator Obama to win the nomination.) However, one thing that should come as a surprise to no one, is that Ralph Nader (Egomania) is going to make yet another run for President.

By now, anyone with a pulse who has followed American politics over the last decade or so can recite Nader's pitch almost verbatim: the two parties are beholden to special interest money, they are trying to keep him out of the debate, we need more than two options, no difference between the two major parties, etc. However, one thing that has changed between Nader's 2000 run and his 2008 run is the fact that we have seen what happens when one thinks that there really is no difference between the two major parties. Well, let's look at the things that have happened under President George W. Bush and ask whether or not those would have occurred under President Gore.

Taxes and the Budget Deficit President Bush's first major legislative accomplishment was the passage of his $1.35 trillion tax cut which saw nearly 40% of the benefits go to the top 1% of income earners in the United States. Before the passage of this tax cut, I remember arguments that we were actually paying off the national debt too fast. At the time of the 200 Presidential elections, I remember that Vice President Gore talked about paying off all national debt not dedicated to Social Security and Medicare by 2012. Now that we are getting closer and closer to that date, it looks like the national debt will probably double instead.

Economy I will not pretend that many millions of Americans were left behind by the economic boom of the 1990's. However, for the first time in a long time, things were looking up for those at the bottom of the economic totem pole. By the end of the Clinton Administration, real wages (amount non-salaried workers made adjusted to inflation) increased for the first time since 1978. The poverty rate declined steadily every year. There were more millionaires and billionaires created in those eight years than in any other time in our nation's history combined. However, since then, the economic rebound for the working-class has ended, poverty has increased dramatically, the shift of income to the top has only accelerated, and with the collapse of housing and the dollar, one dreads what would be required to get us out of this fiscal mess, which would make what FED Chairman Paul Volcker did to end the inflation of the 1970's and the recession of the early 1980's seem tame in comparison.

Health Care In 1993-94, President Clinton, and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, attempted to bring about universal health insurance for Americans. As we all know, that plan failed. However, there were other accomplishments during that era, such as the passage of S-CHIP. When President Clinton took office, there were 37 million Americans uninsured, or 14.2% of the total population at the time. By the end of his term in office, that number had risen to 39 million Americans, but it had actually fallen as a percentage of the population to 13.8%. In the past seven years, the number made it to 47 million, and a percentage of the population at 15.7%.

The Environment Considering that Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket in 2000, you would think that Nader and his supporters would have taken some pause at the argument that George W. Bush, the Texas oilman son of a Texas oilman who allowed Houston to overtake Los Angeles as the smog capital of the world in 1999 (A title that was returned to L.A. in the early 2000's), was really no different than the author of Earth in the Balance, the man who held global warming hearings in Congress as early as 1977, succeeded in the fight to clean up nuclear energy disposal in 1978, and was one of the key advocates of the Montreal Accords, which effectively solved the CFC crisis of the 1980's. However, the fact that global warming has gotten worse while Former Vice President Gore went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 shows me that maybe it wasn't about the environment after all.

War in Iraq President Bush made an effort to rally the nation to war in Iraq as early as the "axis of evil" speech during the State of the Union in January 2002. In September of that year, Al Gore stood up and said that there was no reason to go to war with Iraq. In November 2002, when asked about what he would have done differently in the "war on terror" by David Letterman, he replied that he would have kept a force of at least 35,000 in Afghanistan as a peacekeeping effort, something made impossible by the efforts of President Bush to siphon funds to Iraq instead of Afghanistan.

There you have it, on every major issue, things have gotten worse over the last eight years. On every one of those issues, Vice President Gore was right, and Governor Bush was wrong. However, for Ralph Nader, this never mattered. An article posted on Slate one week before the 2000 election tells us all that really mattered to Nader all along:

This depraved indifference to Republican rule has made Nader's old liberal friends even more furious. A bunch of intellectuals organized by Sean Wilentz and Todd Gitlin are circulating a much nastier open letter, denouncing Nader's "wrecking-ball campaign--one that betrays the very liberal and progressive values it claims to uphold." But really, the question shouldn't be the one liberals seem to be asking about why Nader is doing what he's doing. The question should be why anyone is surprised. For some time now, Nader has made it perfectly clear that his campaign isn't about trying to pull the Democrats back to the left. Rather, his strategy is the Leninist one of "heightening the contradictions." It's not just that Nader is willing to take a chance of being personally responsible for electing Bush. It's that he's actively trying to elect Bush because he thinks that social conditions in American need to get worse before they can better.

Nader often makes this "the worse, the better" point on the stump in relation to Republicans and the environment. He says that Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt was useful because he was a "provocateur" for change, noting that Watt spurred a massive boost in the Sierra Club's membership. More recently, Nader applied the same logic to Bush himself. Here's the Los Angeles Times' account of a speech Nader gave at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., last week: "After lambasting Gore as part of a do-nothing Clinton administration, Nader said, 'If it were a choice between a provocateur and an anesthetizer, I'd rather have a provocateur. It would mobilize us.' "

The article goes on to state Nader's desire to defeat all kinds of Democrats in close states, even liberal heroes such as the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI). So, it was never to pull Democrats to the left; it was to start a movement of the Green Party with Nader as the head of the new left-wing major political party in America.

Now, of course, Nader is trying to insist that he wasn't the one who swung the election to Bush after all. (I guess there are only so many donors you can lose because of your real motives before you drop that tune, at least publicly.) Even if it really was the Supreme Court that did it in Florida, let's look at the math. Al Gore "lost" Florida by 537 votes in the 2000 election, swinging the Electoral College to George W. Bush by a margin of 271-267, meaning any one state would have made the difference in giving the election to Gore. There were two states where Bush's margin was exceeded by Nader's vote total: Florida and New Hampshire. In the case of the latter, Gore lost by 7000 voters with Nader receiving 22,000 votes, meaning that in the exit poll question of Nader voters of who they would have voted for with Nader out of the election, Gore, Bush or none of the above, Gore would have had to have beat Bush on that count by a net of 32%. In other words, if every Nader voter would have voted for one or the other, Gore would have had to have been the preferred choice of at least 66% of the voters. It is possible, but not the most likely scenario, so let's ignore it for now and assume that Bush would have won New Hampshire anyway.

Which brings us back to Florida. The official margin was 537. Ralph Nader received 97,419 votes, which makes this scenario much more likely. So, let's go to the exit polls in Florida. The final percentages: vote for Gore, 37%; vote for Bush, 21%; other/not vote, 42%. In other words, a net of 16% of Nader voters that would have certainly gone to Gore, or a total of 15,587 votes for Gore. If you add that to his margin in Florida, he would have won the state by 15,050 votes, and it would have been impossible for the Supreme Court to take that victory away. So, yes, Ralph Nader swung the 2000 election to George W. Bush, which is just what he wanted.

So, to all the Nader supporters out there, was it worth it? How have these last eight years worked for you? I have heard a lot about the things that Nader accomplished as a young man, and they were indeed important. However, I've been unable to find anything that he has accomplished since 1980, when he publicly distanced himself from Nader's Raider Joan Claybrook for taking a job with the Carter Administration. (Public Citizen, the group Nader founded and Claybrook heads, removed his name from their masthead as founder emeritus in 2004, and reminded supporters that Nader had nothing to do with the organization after 1980.) As someone who will have back pain for the rest of my life because of Bush's war, can any of you give me an honest answer as to why I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning most every day without a sharp pain in my back (caused by armor plating that didn't fit, and only arrived after I was in the theater of operations for 264 days) if it would have been Al Gore in the White House? If not, can I at least receive an apology for your act of vanity? As Randi Rhodes told Nader four years ago, "We can't afford you!"

Thanks a Lot, Early States!

With this being Super Sunday, and Super Tuesday coming upon is in a mere two days, I think that now is a good time to look at just much we have been screwed by the first four states that narrowed down our Presidential choices to two: Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL). When this process started, there were six candidates who were making an honest effort to win the nomination. (I exclude Congressman Dennis Kucinich [D-OH] and Former Senator Mike Gravel [D-AK] because they didn't make an effort to compete in key states, which included Congressman Kucinich sending out an e-mail asking people to vote for him in the MySpace primary a mere two days before the Iowa caucuses.) Iowa, by breaking hugely in favor of only three canididates, ended the campaigns of Senators Joe Biden (D-DE) and Chris Dodd (D-CT), both seasoned Democrats and committee chairs in the Senate, with the former serving 35 years in the Senate, and the latter serving 27 years in the Senate and six in the House, and both doing so with distinction. The 7% he received in the entrance polls and the 2% he received in the caucuses, despite polling at 12% only three days earlier, would turn out to be a fatal blow to Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), albeit one that took New Hampshire's 5% to deal the final blow for a man who had served 14 years in Congress, four as a Cabinet-level official and five as Governor of New Mexico, the closest swing state of the last two elections, where he won re-election in 2006 with nearly 70% of the vote.

Then, once Governor Richardson was gone from the race, I realized that the best candidate of the three remaining was Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC). He was talking about poverty, and he could do so while standing up to corporations in a way that could lead to Democrats taking a firm stand and winning in November. Not only that, but I thought that he could realign politics in a way that FDR did in 1932, and he was the man who led the field in bold proposals for health care and the minimum wage. (Governor Richardson led the field on global warming and Iraq. See, when Democrats talk about changing the face of politics, we talk about those who did it in a positive way.) However, the lack of money ruined several campaigns, and his funds dried up after disappointing showings in Nevada and South Carolina.

So, we are left with the two worst candidates we could field. One with a tendency to talk about things in a way that hurts the party against Republicans, and one who refuses to apologize for some of the wrong votes that she has cast in the past. One whose supporters insist that his opponent voted for the bankruptcy bill, when he did so as well. The other who will do anything to win, even if it means crippling her opponent should he be the general election nominee. So, thanks a lot, early states! You really screwed us. Let's talk about some of the ways.

Health Care Anyone who read my last post on this blog knows that I am not happy about the language that Senator Obama has used in describing health care. However, it seems to have only gotten worse. For the latest evidence, one needs to only look at this entry from Talking Points Memo shows the new mailers that Senator Obama is using that channel the infamous "Harry and Louise" ads run by the health insurance industry to scare people away from the proposal on health insurance in 1993-94. When reading comments, I have heard such pathetic defenses as "How do we know that this comes from the Obama campaign?" (Answer: when the last page is enlarged, it clearly says "Paid for by Obama for America" and has an address blacked out, so this is legit.) or "He is destroying the argument the right will use against the eventual nominee" (Answer: all he is doing is reinforcing the GOP talking point, which will be used against either Democratic candidate in the general election, which will only be worse because it is coming from a Democratic candidate.) that makes me question whether they are thinking at all about anything other than his ability to give a pretty speech.

For further debunking of the Obama proposal on health care, Paul Krugman gives a nice summary of the recent research that documents the need for mandates if anyone wants to have anything near universal health coverage. Much like why so many Democrats abandoned Senator Joe "Zell" Lieberman (I-CT) for remarks that delegitimized any opposition to the Iraq War, I wonder if this line has been crossed.

Foreign Policy Everyone knows that Senator Obama gave a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq War while Senator Clinton voted for it. However, their votes in the Senate have been identical since 2005, when both were in the Senate. One point of contention was Senator Clinton's vote in favor of the Kyl/Lieberman resolution last year that declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist entity, which many believe will give President Bush authorization to go to war with Iran. However, Senator Obama was not there when the vote came up on the floor.

So, the differences seem to be mostly about style. Senator Clinton is trying to paint a picture of being tough, while Senator Obama considers talking to foreign leaders without preconditions. We have seen the danger in both approaches. I am not saying that we should continue the policy of only talking to those who like us, but there has to be some way to figure out what the dialogue is supposed to produce before agreeing to talks. Talking for its own sake won't do any good, but neither will isolationism or the go-it-alone style we have been used to seeing.

The Environment Here, you have a case of Senator Clinton virtually copying (once again) the proposal of Senator Edwards. Senator Obama has mostly done that, but he has also capitulated to the coal industry, proposing liquid coal, and pretending that he only wanted to do so if it meant a reduction in CO2 emissions (The Bunning/Obama bill had no such provision), so neither candidate shines through.

Corporate Influence Senator Clinton infamously said at last year's Daily Kos debate that corporate lobbyists were a positive force, and she sat on the corporate board of Wal-Mart for six years. This is where we need a fighter. Once someone insists that everyone can get along, there is no place to negotiate or to push for reform.

So, there you have the case for where we are now. Where is Stephen Colbert when you really need him?

Where Things stand for Dems

With Edwards out, Super Tuesday is only between two candidates, Obama and Clinton. Here are some of the latest polls (with Edwards included) across the country from Rasmussenhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifMass.: :Clinton leads 43-37 %
Conn: 40-40.
California: Clinton 43 to 40.

Edwards dropping out makes a significant difference here but it is too soon to tell how his supporters will break.

The McCain Advantage

This I found to be curious. McCain is leading both democratic candidates. Is he enjoying the white male vote bump from an Edwards bid drop? To summarize: McCain stands at 48% to 40% to Clinton among Likely voters. Against Obama it is 47% to 41%. Of course these change- after all McCain was losing to both of them just last week.

Delegate Watch

Here's a good Website for real election observers. This year looks like we may have to look beyond February before we know who the nominee is (and here's hoping!) so keep track of what the real numbers are for this primary year.

An Edwards Surge?

Latest Reuters/C-Span/Zogby Poll shows Edwards coming up with a late surge in South Carolina. But is a second place finish really what his campaign needs? I will say yes. Here's why: Edwards may be a long shot to get the bid and failed to nudge his way into a two-way debate with Barack after Iowa, but he can collect delegates along the primary season and later on affect the bid outcome to his liking (which may be his only option.) Even if he were to win or come in second in SC he faces tough odds in southern states where his most likely base would be. Here are the latest in Georgia and Alabama. Edwards motivation in this fight may be to win, but a reality will set in and he will have to consider what objectives he wants to fulfill with his campaign.

Update: I just wanted to note, that intense campaign focus has yet to hit these Super Tuesday states but still Clinton and Obama are hitting the airwaves in not just the south but everywhere NY TIMES has the story.

Obama is "Present"

On Monday's MLK debate in South Carolina (watchhere), Hillary Clinton and John Edwards bot dogpiled on Barack Obama's 130 votes of "present" while in Illinois. (I don't believe that Obama was expecting that one.) AP has an interesting article regarding the votes. Most interesting was this part:

Several involve abortion — a ban on certain late-pregnancy abortions, a requirement that a minor's parents be notified and restrictions on a type of abortion where the fetus sometimes survives for short periods.

"A woman's right to choose ... demands a leader who will stand up and protect it," said one Clinton campaign mailer.

But the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council says Obama's "present" votes were actually part of a careful strategy to prevent those restrictions from passing.

President Pam Sutherland said the group feared several senators were going to vote "yes" on the legislation because of attacks from Republicans over their past opposition. Sutherland says she approached Obama and convinced him to vote "present" so that the wavering senators would do the same. For their purposes, a "present" was as good as an outright "no" because it kept the bills from reaching the majority needed to pass.

Hey a lesson learned in Illinois state politics!

Losing the Battle Before It Starts

It has been a long time since I have posted on this board. (A transition from part-time to full-time student will do that.) However, I have a little bit of free time now, and I am going to post about some of the things that I see in the candidates for the Democratic primary. The controversy du jour comes from the statements that Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) made to the Las Vegas Sun earlier this week. For anyone who hasn't seen them, the quote that generated the controversy was the following paragraph:

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. ... I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing. (emphasis added)

I know that the Obamamaniacs are going to be upset at me saying this, but do we really want a nominee who is speaking off of the page of the Republican National Committee. The Republican Party has spent the last 20 years making a concerted effort canonizing, if not deifying, Ronald Reagan. Yes, it is true that Ronald Reagan did change the country in a serious way when he got elected to the Presidency in 1980. However, I could not think of many Presidents who have changed America for the worse. He has given this country a debt that will never be repaid. He presided over the worst and longest recession (16 months, 1982-83) as well as the highest unemployment (10.9%) that this country has seen since the Great Depression. He opposed civil rights and opened his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, MS, the site of the 1964 Freedom Summer murders, where he extolled the virtues of states' rights. (Anyone from the South or a border state knows what this really means.) He cut benefits for the hardworking people of this country, and set in motion the process that has seen the average CEO make hundreds of times what the average employee makes, all while cutting their taxes while raising taxes on working people.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Senator Obama has spoken from the GOP hymnbook. When discussing the health care proposals of his rivals who are actually making a serious effort to win the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC), the major difference is that his proposal does not require that everyone gets health insurance (although he does so for children). When asked the reason he did so, Senator Obama argues that "we can't force people to get health insurance from the government." Well, if you are someone whose ultimate goal is some form of single-payer health insurance, that is exactly what you want to do. It has been pointed out that not mandating health insurance will only cover about half of the uninsured at best, leaving 24 million Americans uninsured. The proposals by Senators Clinton and Edwards both offer mandates (although Senator Clinton's proposal borrowed heavily from the proposal made earlier by Former Senator Edwards), which will lead to coverage of 98-99 percent of the American people. I am opposed to seeing anyone uninsured in this country, but seeing 3 to 6 million uninsured is much less of an atrocity than seeing 24 million uninsured. Also, this is the same argument being used by Republicans against Democrats who have proposed any expansion of government-provided health insurance. There are those who argue that Senator Obama is simply being practical, but he is sacrificing potential long-term gains for questionable short-term advantages. At a time when universal health insurance is once again in the political conscience, we cannot afford to see someone squander this rare opportunity.

Even worse is Senator Obama's suggestion that "everything should be left on the table." This has been used for years as a talking point by Republicans who want to privatize our retirement. By doing this, Senator Obama is leaving himself open for charges of dishonesty by Republicans when he refuses to put everything on the table. After all, if he takes privatization off the table (as he has done in Democratic debates when called on this kind of rhetoric), the Republican is going to have a field day. They have figured out how to wield the flip-flopper charge like a club in the 2004 election, and they will do it again. I can imagine the ad now, "Barack Obama SAYS he wants to put everything on the table when dealing with Social Security. However, he has said that he won't let the American workers have the chance to invest their own money. [Insert Republican nominee here] WILL give people this option. Barack Obama: all rhetoric, no substance."

You see, by saying that everything should be on the table and arguing from the right, he is allowing himself to be outflanked in November. By insisting that it is a bad thing to insist on universal health insurance, he is opening up himself for Republicans to call him on any effort to improve health insurance. By praising Reagan against the "extremes" of the Great Society era, he is continuing the myth that Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents. Harry S Truman famously said that given a choice between voting for a Republican and a Republican, they will take the Republican. Giving into their rhetoric gives the American people this choice.