JUSIPER
Friday, January 30, 2004
GOP buggers?
(from JUSIPER friend and NPR political analyst Brian)
Anybody who harbors doubts about the GOP’s dedication to confirming right-wing judicial nominees at any cost and at any price must read this article in today’s Boston Globe.
GOP staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee hacked into Democrats’ computer files to learn about the Democrats’ strategy. They used this information both to plan their own strategy and to attack the Dems in the press, releasing the material to conservative newspapers and columnists, including Robert Novak.
5:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, January 29, 2004
News from Michigan
Today the Detroit Free Press endorsed John Kerry. CNN is reporting, meanwhile, that the UAW will not endorse anyone prior to the Michigan primary. Part of the reason for the union decision, it would appear, is member sympathy for John Edwards' working class background. Either way, none of this is good news for Dean's success in what it now appears will be his last stand.
5:10 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Rudy awakenings
The Washington Post today: "There were many opportunities to stop the 9/11 plot". Meanwhile, MSNBC reports that Bush is considering balancing his ticket in the general election with real 9/11 leadership. Fat chance that the right will let a liberal Republican into their White House, but I suppose Bush thinks that just floating the rumor will score him a few points with moderates.
9:52 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Substance vs. style
Jack Beatty of the Atlantic calls John Edwards "the real real deal, but William Saletan says he's little more than a "confidence man".
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Monday, January 26, 2004
Clark: Cohen did it
Yesterday's Henneker rally yesterday was slightly different from the rally we saw Saturday in Portsmouth in that it was opened up to questions and answers. One of them was from an undecided voter who wanted to know more about the circumstances of his firing. Clark's response is ordinarily a discreet but rather emphatic statement that he did his job well, and that frankly he'd like an answer as much as anyone else.
Not yesterday.
At Henneker yesterday Clark said that the Secretary of Defense at the time was a Republican and that he took marching orders from congressional Republicans. So it would appear that Clark's current line is that this was a political decision made by Republicans. I don't know if this is the first time he has said this, but it was certainly the first time I had heard it.
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New Hampshire Notes
A few quick notes before returning to New Hampshire this morning.
1. The Northeastern Democratic establishment is effectively closing ranks around Kerry. His noon event yesterday in Nashua drew the entire Massachusetts congressional delegation, former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy and a fellow former Gephardt supporter. It is true, on the one hand, that many of these folks had already endorsed their favorite son. However, Kerry¹s campaign now has momentum and is perceived to be a favorite. Furthermore, southern New Hampshire, where the bulk of Democratic primary voters live, shares the Boston media market. So these congressmen¹s names are very well known here. Voters comforted by endorsements by familiar names will come home.
2. As Robert Novak noted during the week before the Iowa primary, Kerry¹s rallies are full of firefighters and veterans. If you want big organization on your side, you want a major union like the Teamsters or AFSCME or the AFL-CIO. If you want to look good to undecided voters, the best union to have on your side is the firefighters'.
3. Kerry looks experienced and dignified. He is doing a spectacular job of making voters feel safe. It's not just the foreign policy experience or the fact that he is a decorated war hero or that fact that he has decades of experience in public life. His campaign event yesterday began with a lengthy introduction by friends and family, his stepson and wife. Midway through the introduction, Max Cleland wheeled onto the stage, provoking a spontaneous standing ovation from the crowd and a hug from Kerry. The amount of affection on stage between such a vast group of people and Kerry has the effect of sending that subliminal "Father of the Nation" vibe, and that is enormously powerful.
4. Edwards does appear to be surging. I would guess that the bulk of undecided voters may end up moving in the same direction they did in Iowa towards Kerry and Edwards. His stump speech remains spectacular and continues to draw larger than expected crowds.
5. Clark, on the other hand, is drawing smaller crowds. His incredible event at Henneker was a copy of his earlier event in Nashua with David Dinkins and Charlie Rangel and former Governor Hodges of South Carolina.
6. It sounds to me as if Clark has written off New Hampshire. His wife Gert started the day off noting that they would be going on to South Carolina no matter what happened.
7. Clark¹s stump speech is only improving. He has no notes but does have a basic outline that doesn¹t change. As a result, the little details of each lecture do vary and can often be rather poignant. Yesterday he mentioned his father¹s death and how the gem on his ring today comes from his father¹s old ring. And he closed his lecture by mentioning his minister¹s words to him when he asked about running for president: that he should do anything that matched "your country¹s greatest need with your heart¹s greatest desire."
8. Because there are so few policy differences between candidates and because the electorate has become so pragmatic, they seem to be choosing based on electability and style. The New Hampshire electorate, according to some poll I saw, has decided that Kerry is the candidate with the best chance of beating George Bush. And it's not close: 56% think so, and the next closest candidate is Dean with 16%.
9. Dean's core remains strong, particularly among Democratic voters. I don¹t think many undecideds are going to move his way at all, however, so his chances of victory depend on horrible weather on Tuesday.
10. I remain unconvinced of the intensity of support for the other candidates; I am not sure people are as interested in this race in New Hampshire as they were in Iowa. This, again, could benefit Dean.
9:55 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, January 24, 2004
The Dean Affair
A few thoughts on the Dean campaign before JUSIPER travels to New Hampshire today.
1. The media consensus is that Dean is toast. It is certainly true that no amount of negative campaigning by other candidates could manage what Dean did to himself Monday night. It was an act of political suicide on live television that permanently changed the dynamics of the presidential race in a way we could never have imagined even one week ago.
2. The media were very unfair to Dean. Dean’s outburst was not insane either—it was tongue in cheek and a poignant moment of exuberance and self-mockery. It was preceded by an even funnier moment, when he said the campaign would win in Massachusetts, and in North Carolina. And in Arkansas, and in Connecticut. The moment that distilled everything that was great and funny and outrageous about the campaign was when Dean couldn’t stop there and added, goaded by an audience member, "And New York, and Ohio." Given the circumstances, a third place finish which must have been heartbreaking for the thousands of young people who poured their heart out to help that campaign, the litany that followed was a leader’s natural response. Unfortunately, it was also, for many in the nation, their introduction to Dean.
3. The Washington media never liked Dean. The rightwing media hated him, even though Dean was their candidate of choice to run against. His action turned into a meltdown in part because both these groups saw their opportunity.
4. At the same time, it is important to note that a large segment of the country believes the President should be a figure of dignity and propriety. While it may amaze many on the left, they see that dignity in George W. Bush. They did not see it in Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky affair. To this significant portion of the population, Dean destroyed himself that night. More importantly, Dean destroyed himself among those with friends or family members in that group. For with that moment came a realization: that many among their loved ones, even those sympathetic to Democratic causes, would now never conceive of voting for Dean because he lacked "the temperament for the job."
5. New Hampshire voters are independent and happen to share a border with Vermont. If there is any state Dean can come back in, it’s New Hampshire. It is not impossible for Dean to come back, although at this point it would take a Kerry disaster of Dean proportions.
6. The problem for Dean is that the race leaves New England after Tuesday. A victory would be seen as a legitimate comeback, but he will not win a single February 3rd state even if he wins New Hampshire.
7. If Dean comes in 2nd or 3rd on Tuesday, cognizant of this reality, he will begin considering his options. He has the money to continue, but so did Phil Gramm in 1996. I believe Dean will be dismissed as a factor in this race by February 4th and may be out by the 11th.
11:31 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Thank you Iowa
On Jan. 12, I emailed Sini a news item on the big push union supporters were going to make for Howard Dean on caucus day, and I wrote: "Between this and his own organization, if Dean doesn't win big in Iowa, I will really wonder about his chances in the general."
Now, two days after his campaign's dismal first performance, I feel like I've awakened from a months-long dream only to realize it might've been a nightmare. I'm beginning to see things through other eyes, and the world looks a little different now, as if everything's off by a few degrees and I need a double-take just to focus in. I was never a die-hard Dean supporter - I had my own reasons for liking his candidacy. But now I'm realizing better why Dennis Kucinich favors John Edwards, out of all of them. And I continue to have concerns about John Kerry's public style, but I'm listening more closely to the arguments that cast his experience as an important asset. And the glowing picture I'd had of Wesley Clark is becoming tainted, ever so slightly, by my new view of Dean. I need more time to figure out who Clark is. And so, I think, do a lot of other Democrats.
For the time being, then, I'm agnostic.
But one thing, a departing call from the previous me: the candidates whom Dean tagged as Washington insiders were the very enablers of his rise. Let that lesson be remembered, and let it be a cause for both humility and a clear, spirited defense of liberal values - values that they hold at least as dear as Dean does.
12:09 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Tested, and Bested
Iowa was Dean's test. Two of his greatest presumed strengths in a general election failed him at an early stage: the organization that was supposed to vault him over the edge, and the ability to resist attacks. On his way to New Hampshire, he'll no doubt try to whip out his tax reform plan, the one I'd waited for so long, in order to attract some of the anti-tax feeling that some say helped Kerry and Edwards. But I can't help thinking it's just too late.
5:41 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tested, and Bested
Iowa was Dean's test. Two of his greatest presumed strengths in a general election failed him at an early stage: the organization that was supposed to vault him over the edge, and the ability to resist attacks. On his way to New Hampshire, he'll no doubt try to whip out his tax reform plan, the one I'd waited for so long, in order to attract some of the anti-tax feeling that some say swelled support for Kerry and Edwards. But I can't help thinking it's just too late.
3:04 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Michael Moore: Nader will run in 2004
In 2000 lefty hero Michael Moore gleefully supported Ralph Nader at campaign stop after campaign stop, while teaching stakeless, rich, white adolescents that Bush and Gore were the same. Now, like the rather more respectable Michigander Madonna, he supports a general of unknown personal political beliefs.
Three days ago in Pembroke, New Hampshire, Michael Moore broke the news that could make George Bush's year. Ralph Nader will be making a run for president this year. "I told him this week you will shatter your legacy," said Moore while stumping for a candidate who sure knows his guns. Funny, I thought Moore and Nader shattered their legacies four years ago. See video here.
2:39 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, January 19, 2004
Scarborough: Kerry's post NH plan
You think there are veterans in Iowa for Kerry? Wait till the campaign goes South and Southeast.
9:37 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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MSNBC Entrance polls
75% oppose the war. Among them
27 Kerry
25 Dean
21 Edwards
10 Gephardt
9:34 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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CNN entrance polls: Kerry leading
That's what Wolfie says. More soon.
9:02 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Frank Luntz' focus group on Hardball
I hate them in a general election, but they are fascinating when it comes to primaries. And his focus group showed a hemorrhage of support from Dean and Gephardt towards Kerry and Edwards. Dean has evidently lost a lot of Iowans on character issues; one woman noted that she could just picture him at a state dinner with Jacques Chirac and just losing it. Another woman left Gephardt for Edwards because he represented Democratic principles and had more "enthusiasm." One man left Dean for Kerry because of the weekend event with the veteran Kerry saved. Republican Luntz said, "So the weekend photo op convinced you. It was a photo op." The man replied, " There were real feelings. And it wasn't just a photo op. I was there."
MSNBC will have entry poll results within the next hour, for what it's worth. In the meantime, C-SPAN has great real time coverage of a few caucuses. For what it's worth, the one they showing seems very well attended but not quite flooded with young people, though I did see a few orange hats.
8:51 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Carville: Edwards 1) is the best ever, 2) may skip NH
This morning on CNN, an interview with Carville:
HEMMER: Is Howard Dean an underdog right now?
CARVILLE: I think that if he wins, he will be perceived as to have faced adversity and come back from something. I think a win is actually, oddly enough, more valuable for him tonight than it was three weeks ago...
[...]
HEMMER: As a strategist, who do you think has run the best campaign?
CARVILLE: I think that Edwards is the best stump speaker I've ever seen run for president.
HEMMER: You think so?
CARVILLE: Yes. I don't know if it's the best campaign, but he is the best stump speaker. His stump speech I saw on C-SPAN is unbelievable. I saw him talk to a bunch of journalists who I really respect. They all concur in that opinion.
I think Kerry's got the best story, the best comeback of any of the candidates. We don't know when we get to New Hampshire, Clark and Lieberman are not here so we've got to wait and see if their decision was right to pass up Iowa. I think Howard Dean has run the most influential campaign that I've seen in the Democratic Party. He's brought enormous -- Joe Trippi (ph) and Steve McMann (ph) have done a beautiful job of bringing new people into the party and if Dean is not the nominee, how these people are dealt with and how the nominee keeps them enthusiastic is going to be a real challenge of political skill.
[...]
So, you know, it -- this is a pretty doggone interesting race here.
HEMMER: Thirty seconds left here. Fill in the blank.
What would a blank candidacy mean to the Democrats? What would a Howard Dean candidacy mean for your party?
CARVILLE: You know, it worries me a little bit. I do a little -- I think he sometimes is, on his campaign at times has been brilliant and some of his messages have been brilliant. He says some things that bothered me. I've always doubted if he'd be our strongest candidate in the general election.
[...]
[Dick Gephardt is a] real statesman in the party. It would be a big surprise if he won Iowa. He'd obviously have a lot of momentum. He thinks he has a chance. Most people don't. He deserves a chance to make his case.
HEMMER: John Kerry?
CARVILLE: It'd be a hell of a story. He'd be tough as garlic and milk, really tough.
HEMMER: John Edwards?
CARVILLE: Tough, too.
HEMMER: Did you say tough as garlic...
CARVILLE: Garlic in a milk shake. He's strong as garlic in a milkshake.
From another interview:
Look, it's very interesting, I mean the General Clark's decision not to compete here. One of the things that a lot of people are talking about, which I think is an interesting question, if John Edwards, as I suspect he will, does well tonight in Iowa, does he bypass New Hampshire and go to South Carolina where he's always maintained a healthy standing in the polls? I don't know.
4:57 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The return of Jerome Armstrong
The estimable Jerome Armstrong has been posting again at Kos, and it is great to have his commentary again, for however limited a time.
UPDATE: Here's a must-read that's up there with his best.
1:53 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The pre-results post-Iowa preview. And that annoying question.
Every year we are all greatly annoyed by the question trotted out by commentators anxious to display their savviness. "Do you think there will be a brokered convention and they will choose (usually noncandidate) X? This year the beneficiary of these questions is Hillary, but in the past it's been Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley and a host of others.
We've all gone through a number of iterations of the post-Iowa situation. It is fair to say that at this point Dean is still ahead in New Hampshire by 3-8 points, while Kerry and Clark are second in a statistical dead heat, Clark probably marginally ahead.
If Kerry unexpectedly wins, it will be a HUGE media story, largely because the commentariat (based on my viewing of at least four Sunday morning talk shows) has decided that Gephardt and Dean's on the ground advantage is so great that it would be an upset if someone else even came in second. Even fellow Kossacks seem to agree. If Edwards were to win, the story would only be huger; it would propel him in big ways not only in New Hampshire but, more importantly, in South Carolina and other February 3 states that have barely heard of him but where he might be appealing: Oklahoma and North Dakota, to start with.
Either of these scenarios assumes a Gephardt loss in Iowa, which would lead to his departure from the race (He will probably depart after New Hampshire either way unless he wants to have a last moment of glory in Missouri.). Where will his support go? If Dean doesn’t win Iowa, Gephardt’s support will go to Edwards, Clark and Kerry. The dynamics of the presidential race have changed profoundly in the last three months; half of Dean’s appeal to unions stemmed from his inevitability. His personal appeal to union members will certainly not outmatch Kerry’s, Clark’s or Edwards’.
In short, at this point Dean’s candidacy is dependent on winning Iowa and New Hampshire, and winning them very big. A loss in Iowa (particularly to Kerry) could lead to a loss in New Hampshire. A loss in both will end his candidacy; he will not compete will in South Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma; his relatively high polling in those states is largely due to name recognition. One or two new faces with massive media exposure, one of whom is certain to be a veteran, and one of whom is likely to be a Southerner, would then defeat him handily when the race leaves the Northeast.
And here’s the thing: everybody knows it. At this point, February 3 will be competitive even if Dean wins both Iowa and New Hampshire because inevitability was his greatest advantage. Dean will not be the nominee unless he wins most of those states. His only chance for that happening is for the field to be spread as thinly as possible. He needs a four car pileup in New Hampshire and in Iowa. At this point, that is his only chance. In a competitive race, he is unlikely to get more than 30% of the vote.
This takes us back to the annoying initial question. Democrats have, superdelegates aside and more or less, a PR system. It is mathematically possible for a candidate to win all 50 states with 30% of the vote in a four-way race (and I haven’t even gotten to Sharpton). But that will still only leave you with 30% of the delegates. In the last week, the media has decided (now using Iowa voters as proof, despite only the most marginal proof from Zogby’s polling) that Dean is too mean and too superficial to be electable. That (partly) media-fueled perception is probably part of the reason that his candidacy has floundered, and the mutual animosity is such the dynamic is not likely to change. And this is one of the first times one can imagine a convention where a few candidates with possibilities choose to stay in the race till the end. And would it really be such a bad thing for all fifty states to hear Democratic candidates telling the truth about Bush, raising the public consciousness and having a race exciting enough to actually bother voting on? Particularly if every candidate pledges to support the eventual nominee?
Yes, that is an unlikely scenario (tantalizing though it may be for us, not only because we love intelligent public debate by worthy advocates but because I love to see carefully laid structural plans such as Terry McAuliffe’s compressed primary schedule demolished by, of all things, voter interest). It is now possible to trace routes to the nomination for four candidates; this seemed inconceivable two weeks ago. While the likelihood is that after New Hampshire we may only be able to do so for three, I am not certain.
The so-called “Nine Dwarves” have given way to four major candidates. They are not giants, not yet anyway. But a funny thing happened this week in Iowa: everyone suddenly begun to think that they could be.
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FOX--Now creating crime to spin
(From Brian Murphy.)
Here’s an interesting piece of news from the field in Iowa, where Dean’s campaign has launched the Bloggerstorm to tell the story of the caucus.
Seems that a bunch of Bush/Cheney people showed up at a relatively small Dean rally waving their signs, shouting down Joan Jett and Janeane Garofalo and shredding some Dean signs.
Classy. People with crew cuts and suits (the garb de rigueur among GOP Youth) disrupting Democratic rallies before a Democratic caucus.
Why am I telling you this?
Because Fox News cameras just happened to be there. At this little rally. Just before the Bush League showed up.
Coincidenza?
12:41 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, January 17, 2004
Pickering supported Mississippi Sovereignty Commission
(More from Brian, this time on the Pickering affair.)
We read today that President Bush, the uniter (not a divider), signed a recess appointment to Judge Charles W. Pickering to the federal appeals court in the Fifth Circuit.
Pickering, a protégée of Trent Lott, was not confirmed by the Senate after Democrats threatened a filibuster because of Pickering’s uneven record concerning racial matters, including cross burning.
Yet Republicans have hailed Pickering as a courageous defender of the rights of all.
Their explanation can be found in the NYT article on the appointment:
…Republicans argue that it is unfair to talk about the past when Judge Pickering has demonstrated his commitment to racial reconciliation in recent years. His friends have called him a good and honorable man. They note that he testified against members of the Ku Klux Klan at a murder trial in the 1960’s, when it was dangerous to do so. After that, he lost a race for re-election as a local prosecutor.
Perhaps I am asking too much of my president to nominate federal judicial candidates for whom testifying against the Klan would be a sought-after act, rather than one grudgingly undertaken and later claimed as a bragging right.
Yet, even the Times has missed a point.
Pickering testified against the Klan in the 1960’s; specifically, in 1967. Pickering had already served three years of a four-year term as a county prosecutor in Mississippi. And he did indeed lose re-election in 1968. But Pickering did not suffer for work following this defeat; rather, he became a municipal judge in Laurel.
So, for as much as we have been told that Pickering’s anti-Klan position (conversion?) was detrimental to his political career, apparently it didn’t impede his long-term political viability in local political circles.
Republicans’ support of Pickering is predicated on a narrative of a man who overcame his racial milieu to embrace civil rights and racial harmony.
But the record of Pickering, banished to the Mississippi state senate in 1972 after becoming politically radioactive from his Klan hostility, indicates that he supported Mississippi’s Sovereignty Commission, which attempted to undermine desegregation and the Civil Rights Act.
Pickering, according to an , asked to be “updated” on their activities.
Pickering, under oath at his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for his appointment to the federal district court, said he was never involved with the Commission.
Perjury rewarded with a spot on the federal appellate bench?
More on this to come.,,
5:27 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, January 15, 2004
DC Post mortem
(A belated post-mortem on the DC primary from our friend Brian. JUSIPER readers in Boston who love public radio will be able to listen to Brian provide updates on WBUR-FM the night of the New Hampshire primary.)
My suspicion is that Moseley Braun's unexpectedly early departure today may well strengthen Sharpton's hand when the race heads south and that he remains a candidate worth watching.)
There’s little mention of Tuesday’s D.C. primary in the national news this morning, and the New York Times makes much of Sharpton’s showing while the Washington Post prefers to discuss the event in terms of voting rights within the district.
Isn’t it interesting, however, that 17,000 people (43%) showed up to vocalize support for Howard Dean in a non-binding primary? Or that Dennis Kucinich won only 8% of the vote? This could be an indicator that despite Dean’s middle-of-the-road record, his insurgent style has made converts of the lefty wing of the party, depriving Kucinich (and hopefully Nader) of support from people who feel they have nowhere else to go.
Sharpton won 34% of the vote, proclaiming it a victory for himself. No surprise there from the man who once had a megaphone surgically attached to his palm. Carol Moseley Braun stole some of his thunder, drawing 4,000 votes, and leaving the Rev. Al with 14,000. Considering that Sharpton campaigned in D.C. for this event, we can only conclude that there is not a consensus within the black community on Sharpton’s candidacy. Though such a consensus will be stated as if obvious by Tim Russert and Chris Matthews later in the week.
Here are the results.
9:27 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Rating the surrogates
Dean has gotten most of the important political endorsements this time around, to an extent that should give Democrats favoring other candidates some pause.
But when it comes to showbiz surrogates, much as I admire the Meathead's films and the TV President's Catholic liberalism, John Kerry's got Dean beat.
Long before she changed the rules for women in popular music in 1970's, Carole King wrote some of popular music's most enduring songs. She is almost certainly one of the five greatest female artists of the rock era.
Watching King at a campaign event for her chosen candidate John Kerry this evening, I was amazed at what was surely the most detailed and nuanced grasp of mountain state political issues ever delivered by a popular musician on C-SPAN. She is one of the most effective campaign surrogates I have ever seen. The general better watch out, because she's coming the New Hampshire too. Check it out.
LATE UPDATE: In related news, Michael Bolton has agreed to appear for Dick Gephardt.
9:10 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Dean's victory? Or someone else's defeat?
Today may prove to be one of the most significant days in the 2004 primary season, but didn't get any notice at all, even on CNN's Inside Politics, which focused on the Iowa horserace, Lieberman's presence in New Hampshire, and a rather devastating clip of Wes Clark (furnished by an undisclosed rival campaign) talking about the link between Saddam and Al Qaeda a year ago.
Today is the Washington, DC presidential primary, a contest in which there are only four candidates: Dean, Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton. Frankly, I don't know enough about the dynamics on the ground to participate in the Kos lottery, although a 10% turnout would naturally benefit the most organized candidate, and I imagine that accounts for the Dean forces' confidence.
Here's what I do think. Tomorrow is the first and only early test of candidate strength among African-Americans. Among the white candidates, only Dean and Kucinich chose to contest; I am guessing the others didn't less out of respect for Iowa and New Hampshire than out of fear that Dean's organization would best them in a race that would have enormous implications for electability in the South.
I suspect that Al Sharpton’s intervention in yesterday’s debate had less to do with Iowa or New Hampshire or even organizing in next month’s South Carolina primary than with what must be a horrifying fear that Howard Dean could walk away with a plurality or even a majority of the vote in a city (though not electorate) that is 60% African American.
Sharpton has shown a greater propensity for electing Republicans than Democrats in his home state. Indeed, the typically smarmy Republican racists behind sites like these surely know little about how much Sharpton has done for their interests in the past.
Donna Brazile must be in heaven right now; tonight’s results may be beyond even the wildest imagined success of her ”favorite sons” strategy. For indeed, if Al Sharpton places behind both Carole Moseley Braun and Howard Dean in the Washington, DC primary, he may well be finished as a national political force. If he remains in the race till the end and contests New York (with a local African-American political establishment endorsing other candidates) and then loses where it matters, it may be the end of him as a local political force as well.
The thought must keep him awake at night.
Finally, it’s worth considering that these results should also be a (likely unheeded) wakeup call to a media establishment that tends to assume that African-Americans vote en masse for anyone just because they are black. They are a slap in the face to those who continually denigrate Jesse Jackson’s extraordinary performance in the 1988 primary, in which he received 92% of the African American vote, by saying that his vote was foregone conclusion (it wasn’t in 1984, when he received a far lesser proportion (77%) against Walter Mondale). Jackson’s remarkable 1988 performance, indeed, may never be repeated in Democratic primary politics.
I will leave another interesting conclusion, that this primary season may ultimately mark a shift in power from New York to Chicago in African-American Democratic politics, to Peter, who suggested it to me last night.
6:26 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The Brown and Black Forum
This post comes to JUSIPER courtesy of our friend Brian, an exuberant doctoral student in history and member of that rare breed of academics who would also excel at politics.
Iowans got one last look at the Dem 9…er…8 (Gen. Clark was a no-show) last night in the Brown and Black Forum. If you watched NBC's Today show, you saw that Al Sharpton's roast of Howard Dean made it to the No. 1 news story of the day, bumping Paul O'Neil and George W. Bush's war lies to No. 2.
Apparently, if it bleeds it doesn't necessarily lead. But it's apparent that NBC (based on Tim Russert's weekend commentary and Lisa Meyers's hatchet job of "The Dean Tapes") has its own agenda in inserting itself into the contest.
There were worse moments for the Democratic field, however. Here are my Top Five All-Time Desert Island Worst Moments of the Brown and Black Forum.
1. The Sharpton Factor
Okay, we get it. Vermont has a lot of white people.
Here's Sharpton's exchange with Dean:
The Rev: "Do you have a senior member of your cabinet that was black or brown?"
The Doctor: "We had a senior member of my staff on my fifth floor."
The Rev: "No, your cabinet!"
The Doctor: "No, we did not."
The Rev: "Then you need to let me talk to you about race in this country."
Casting aside the ridiculous notion that Al Sharpton needs to lecture anybody on race relations, wouldn't the best response be to ask Sharpton how many whites advise him?
And it's unclear why there was a news peg here. It's not as if Dean had claimed that he had an all-black cabinet? Focusing on Sharpton's grandstanding yet again emphasizes that people inside the Beltway might be the only people who give Sharpton so much credibility. The moment also led the Des Moines Register to lead with the headline: * "Dean Defends His Record On Race."
Unbelievable.
2. The Lieberman Vacuum
When given a chance to ask a question of his fellow Democrats, Joe Lieberman kicked off with a lame joke before wandering into a monologue that discussed finance reform and voting rights.
At this point, somebody should have wondered aloud just what the hell Lieberman is doing up there on that stage. He has nothing to say at all. And he did a nice job of supporting Bush on the O'Neil comments regarding Bush's disengagement with his job. Nice work, Joe. You just might get that cabinet post yet.
3. That Pesky Flag
Edwards, joining the pile-on on Dean's Confederate flag remark, stressed that it is not just offensive to African-Americans, but to "all Americans."
If that's so true, why has the GOP run gubernatorial races stressing such nice but vague issues as "our heritage," or "Southern values," or "our symbol."
There's a problem with the Confederate flag in this country, but the most persistent problem may be that nobody wants to acknowledge that there is a problem.
4. Gephardt's Washington-ness
5% for this, 10% for that. Add it up and it might seem like a policy proposal, but he still looks like the straw man and sounds like the tin man. No courage, no heart. And this is the guy who won Iowa in 1988!
5. The Pack vs. Dean and Braun
Hooray for Carol Mosley-Braun for pointing out that Edwards is being a bit disingenuous by calling Dean a hypocrite when the senator has voted with Bush more than 50% of the time.
But jeez, Edwards responded by saying that of the members of Congress on stage (aside from Kucinich) , he had the fewest votes in support of Bush. Which means that Kerry, Lieberman, Gephardt may have supported the Administration's policies more than 60% of the time.
Yup, at a time when voters complain that there's no apparent difference between the two parties, that's just what we need. Bush-lite.
11:44 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, January 07, 2004
More news on a Dean tax cut
Yesterday, news that a Dean tax cut is in the offing came in the final paragraph of a Washington Post story; today it's on the front page of the Boston Globe. The paper doesn't say what form it'll take (whether or not it'll be a reform of the regressive payroll tax system) but it does say that Dean's team of economic advisers are the source of the idea.
Ruy Texeira has been saying for a while that Dean would be vulnerable in the general election on taxes. I think he's right.
The dilemma for Dean is going to be reconciling any tax cut proposal with (1) his pronounced fiscal hawkishness and (2) his strategy of offering a clear alternative to Bush. Shifting the burden around in payroll taxes (a move that could pay for itself, and could still allow him to say he's going to repeal all the cuts under Bush) may be precisely how he intends to maintain the apperance of staying true to both.
1:26 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, January 06, 2004
A Dean Tax Cut!
I've been waiting for this. Buried, in the last paragraph of a Washington Post story:
A top aide said Dean is considering a tax reform plan for the general election that includes a reduction in payroll taxes. If Dean rolls out such a plan, it could offset what many strategists see as a big liability: his support of what amounts to a nearly $2 trillion tax increase by calling for a repeal of Bush's tax cuts.
Now all Dean has to do is say that he'll pay for it by raising that regressive income ceiling for Social Security contributions (a notion he floated earlier this year, I think on Meet the Press) and he'll have a populist proposal John Edwards would be proud of.
Is it just a coincidence that Dean's also about to be endorsed by former tax reformer extraordinaire Bill Bradley?
8:48 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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