The Political Fiend

Bill Ayers. Yes, that guy. As much as I hate to admit it, Bill Ayers was the name of the game tonight. Let’s just face it. Maybe six months ago this would have been big news. Maybe at an earlier time McCain could have capitalized on the tenuous relationship between Obama and the former member of the Weathermen. But timing in politics, as in so many other disciplines, is everything. Tonight was too late. The moment Ayers’ name rolled off McCain lips signalled the death knell of his presidential aspirations. Sure, our recent financial troubles laid the lid on the coffin, but McCain’s reliance on Rovian attacks such as his Ayers rhetoric and Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” remark pounded in the nails.

None of these were smart moves, though they arguably became necessary after Obama started creeping ahead in the polls. Obama’s surge put McCain in a tailspin. He went negative to distract the public from his policy weaknesses; the less time he spent discussing policy issues, the more time he had to devote to negativity, and so a cycle was born. It rings of a Coen Brothers plot; blunders get covered by bigger ones until a hilarious tragedy results. Not so funny for John McCain. Especially since the biggest complaint among undecided voters is that McCain spends too much time on meanness, and not enough on actual issues.

Until McCain brought up the Ayers issue tonight, I’d say that he was winning the debate. Obama came off as nervous, cagey even. But he addressed the Ayers question in stride, visibly irritating McCain. Thereafter McCain wouldn’t let the issue go, and therein lay his folly. Bill Ayers was in no way a major part of the debate, as far as substantive discussions go. But he served as McCain’s breaking point, exposing his desperation, and more importantly, his frustration with a failing campaign built on a lifetime of legislative experience and political will.

And now, a brief rundown of the debate questions:

Question 1: How is your economic plan better?: Winner: Tie

• Obama relied heavily on his talking points, came off as over-rehearsed
• But he was able to lay out his tax plan in a clear concise manner

Throughout this election cycle, the GOP has offered us the worst mishmash motley crew of potential execs since we were served up with Bush Lite in late 1999: Huckabee obliterates the competition at the Iowa caucus, and slowly emerges as a knucklehead with limited Bible Belt appeal and an insane plan to do away with the Federal Income Tax. Giuliani, of course, tried to ride the wave of 9/11, and wiped out in a big sort of way. I have nothing to say about Mitt Romney, or his hair. Thank goodness for Fred Thompson. Sure he didn’t have any palpable platform, but hell, he could talk. That man dropped more old timey, grandpappy-esque sayings than your crazy uncle Zeke after two mason-jars of moonshine, and he did it with style.

McCain of course was dead in the water. Now he’s the nominee and just orates like he’s dead. So what’s he do? He brushes ex-Dem Lieberman off his shoulders and goes with the anti-Hillary. What’s the point of this piece? To give a sideways look at the last 8 months, and to say that only Hillary can save us now.

Pundits are coming out and lamenting that it was a misstep for Obama to bypass Hillary for the veep slot. Of course, they’re only saying this now that McCain has drafted Palin. Had McCain gone with a more traditional running mate (see: “White Dude”), no one would have come out and said ditching Hillary was a mistake. Rightness or wrongness aside, I doubt she would have been part of the conversation, and the necessity of her loyalty would likely have been limited to her role at the convention. The DNC would have enlisted Hillary to sew up any wounds left open by the primary season, and that would have been the end of it. But that’s not going to cut it anymore.

Hillary Clinton holds the future of the party in her hands, but maybe not for the reasons that any of us would prefer. It will come down to this. We need Hillary because she is a woman, and because she is exponentially more interesting than Joe Biden. Simply put, the voting public IS that stupid. McCain’s biggest PR problem? He’s boring. He has zero tonal inflection; so he picks his opposite. Obama’s biggest problems? Race and perceived inexperience. In theory Biden was a good pick: older white dude who’s been around the political block. The problem is that voters get their info from local network news; as a result, I’d be willing to bet that the average American now thinks they know more about Sarah Palin than they do about Joe Biden. By skipping Hillary, the Dems walked into the most well laid bear trap.  What strategist could have foreseen the Republicans playing the sexism and elitism cards?

How did Sarah Palin become bulletproof? Because of America’s twisted way of dealing with gender and race issues. You are a racist if you discuss the issue of race. You are a sexist if you discuss the issue of gender. While questioning Palin’s decision to go on the campaign trail in wake of her son’s birth was undoubtedly sexist, questioning her handling of her daughter’s pregnancy was decidedly not, as it is intimately intertwined with her stances on abortion and contraception. Biden, unfortunately, will not be able to touch this issue, because he’s a man, and the issue is bait for sexism spin. Joe Biden has the impossible task in the VP debates of simultaneously being both merciless and slight. If he makes a meek showing, he’ll be criticized for being patronizing. If he comes out swinging, I guarantee the RNC will spin things to make Palin out to be the victim of a bully. Either way, the allegations will fly, and people will buy it.

Where’s that leave us? Three letters. H.R.C. She needs to take the gloves off and wail on Sarah Palin, without mercy. For the good of the party, and the good of the country. Even if it means temporarily overshadowing the ticket itself. Many of my friends are getting nervous about the chances of a Democratic victory in November. But it’s only been a handful of days since the Palin shakeup. So relax, everyone. Atticus Finch had this great line in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, possibly one of the greatest, simplest, truest things a father could say to his children in the face of a crisis: “It’s not time to worry yet.” And it’s not, because Hillary has not yet begun to fight.

Photo by Matthew Reichbach used under a Creative Commons license.

This morning Obama delivered his much anticipated speech on race relations in the U.S. He couldn’t have timed it better than he did. Throughout the primary season there had been murmurs that Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, could become some kind of political liability; that exact thing happened when Wright was caught saying, essentially, that America asked for the 9/11 attacks, as a consequence of our international misdeeds. Smooth. Wright’s statements combined with Hillary’s recent victories and her comments on Obama’s national security credentials created an atmosphere of anxiety surrounding Obama’s next offering.

The speech was a long one, running just over forty minutes, and it’s tone was decidedly different than his usually rally fare. There was no sea of supporters at his back; he cracked no jokes, and rarely smiled. This was Obama on the defensive, aiming to rack up points by addressing with due gravity what he presented as a grave issue. His treatment of the issue of race in America was both delicate and urgent. He took great care to note that the economy above all else has served to equalize blacks and poorer whites, placing them side by side in unemployment and welfare lines. He made pleas to all races to give credence to the concerns of all Americans, regardless of their background. He observed that until the realities of race were dealt with, they would continue to serve as a ‘distraction’ from greater issues.

He also said a little something about religion. Or rather, he didn’t. In addressing his relationship with his inflammatory pastor, he tried to illustrate their familial relationship, likening it to that shared by many Americans and their pastors, priests, or rabbis. He notably left out the relationship shared by Americans and their “imams”, subtly admitting that the accusations that he is a Muslim are still too new and volatile to be explained away effectively.

In all, Obama’s speech was not only highly effective at dealing with the media’s reaction to the Jeremiah Wright debacle, but it had a transcendent feel about it; it dealt with far more than one candidate’s political woes by advancing the public discourse on race relations in a realistic and honest, albeit totally non-controversial way.

Public domain Photo used under a Creative Commons license.

It’s time that this stopped. Hillary Clinton has lost sight of the goals of the Democratic Party and has ventured off onto her own hubris filled path of destruction. This is the stuff epic poems are made of; the warrior so obsessed with with his own destiny that he falls into madness, destroying those around him in the course of a lustful pursuit of the end prize. Hillary Clinton, brilliant and capable as she may be, is essentially killing the Democratic Party’s chances of defeating John McCain come November. I’ll list my beeves:

1). Clinton has implied that McCain surpasses Obama with regard to national security know how; Nancy Pelosi has since pointed to Clinton’s statements on this issue as being the most telling sign of the unfeasibility of a joint-ticket.

2). Clinton made race an issue in the early states by claming LBJ was responsible for the Civil Rights legislation of the ’60s, essentially forcing an Obama response on the issue in an attempt to brand him as the ‘black candidate’.

3). Clinton has done little if anything to correct the statements of Geraldine Ferraro, who stated that Obama’s success is largely a function of his race. Though there is certainly an element of truth to this, Ferraro sounds more and more like a Republican as this thing grinds forward; her statements essentially dismissed all of Obama’s qualifications, making him out to be an affirmative action charity case arising from white liberal guilt.

4). Clinton has pushed for a redo of the primary elections in both Michigan and Florida after having campaigned there in spite of the DNC’s censure of both states for moving up their primary dates.

5). In a radio interview with NPR on March 13, 2008, Clinton did not outrightly support the notion that super delegates should pledge their votes to the candidate who garnered the most support throughout the primary season. When asked whether she’d be okay with the super delegates acting contrary to the primary results, she totally dodged the question.

HRC will no doubt hang on for dear life until the convention. It’s bad enough that this is costing Clinton and Obama tens of millions of dollars; does Clinton really have to cost the Democrats the presidency? Does she not see the fallacy of her ways; with so few states remaining, the likely result is an Obama nomination; after that then what? Will she make half hearted attempts to back him as the most qualified man for the job? Will anyone believe her if she does? Where is Al Gore, and when will he give Clinton a tap on the shoulder?

Photo by Barbara Kinney used under a Creative Commons license.

Now we’ve really got our hands full. Between the superdelegates and the situation in Michigan and Florida this is gonna be one for the history books–and maybe future constitutional law textbooks. Hillary’s big wins on Tuesday night did two things; 1) they complicated the superdelegate situation by giving her a credible argument for why the superdelegates should line up behind her, and 2) they reignited the arguments over what the DNC should do with the votes cast in Florida and Michigan.

The superdelegate problem always boils down to the same basic question. Should they side with the candidate that has won the greatest number of votes, or should they support the one who will likely have the greatest momentum going into November? Some would even argue that the role of the superdelegate is not a confirmatory one, but rather that of a steering committee, and that they should pledge to the candidate that they believe to be best for the party, regardless of what voters think. The safest bet would be to go with whoever’s leading the popular vote, anything else and we might have riots on our hands come convention time.

Onward. There’s no way in hell those Florida and Michigan votes are going to be counted. Not without major lawsuits being filed anyhow. Michigan and Florida were stripped of their delegates as punishment by the DNC for moving up their primaries. Now the DNC is paying for it. In punishing both states, the DNC managed to disenfranchise anyone who actually bothered showing up at the primaries, and now that Clinton has a shot at making a comeback she’s pushing for the votes cast in each state to count. Problem is that Obama and Edwards played by the rules, and in respecting the DNC’s decision, they pledged not to campaign in either state. Clinton did, and managed to win decisive majorities. So what are the DNC’s options, and with what results?

Option 1: Keep the status quo and don’t honor the votes cast in Florida and Michigan.

Option 2: Hold a re-do election, and allow the votes to count toward delegates.

Option 3: Try to translate the votes already cast in each state’s primaries into a delegate count.

Results: A flood of Equal Protection lawsuits based on systemic disenfranchisement a la Bush v. Gore, a whole lot of kicking and screaming from the Obama camp, and a whole lot of grins and high fives on the Republican side. If the DNC doesn’t drastically retool its procedures after this mishap, I’m moving to Canada.