Identity Politics Over?

Andrew Sullivan thinks so:

Yes, there do appear to be some older white voters in Appalachia and other
pockets of the country who simply will not vote for a black man.But unless we
are all drastically shocked on November 5, the broader truth is that vast
numbers of white Americans are prepared to vote for a black candidate.

Not so fast. It's not just the older generation of white voters who will not vote for a black man. From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

...Johnson, a lanky 20-year-old white man who works as a meatcutter at a
grocery store, starts to talk about an issue that has persisted throughout the
campaign: race.It is not just that Obama is black, Johnson says. He has heard
that Obama is Muslim. (Obama is Christian.) He also has heard rumors that Obama
refuses to salute the American flag, and that Obama has promised that black men
will have more rights than white men. (Independent fact-checking groups say
these rumors are false.)

The Polls and McCain and Obama

Someone asked me today my thoughts on the tightening of the polls. Here's my take:

I think the polls are wildly inaccurate in this election. Two reasons:

As George Will has pointed out, the polling models don't take into account the new voters Obama will bring. Remember, most polls are predicated on "likely voters" which is based on past elections. 2008 will not be like past elections.

Countering that is the number of people who won't vote for Sen. Obama because of his race. I know people, back where I come from, who are life-long Democrats who have never voted for a Republican but who have said they are voting for John McCain. That factor is also unlikely to be picked up by the polls.

Do these trends balance each other out? Dunno.

Exit McCain, What Then?

David Brooks writes this about the McCain scandal today:

At his press conference Thursday, McCain went all-in. He didn’t just say he didn’t remember a meeting about Iseman. He said there was no meeting. If it turns out that there is evidence of an affair and a meeting, then his presidential hopes will be over.

Which got me thinking...what happens if in the next few weeks the affair is somehow proven? They find the straight talk equivalent of the blue dress?

Does the GOP go forward with McCain? If not, what? Does Romney step back in? An opening for Bloomberg?

Can we see the 2008 presidential campaign get any more unusual and interesting?

I have a feeling that, yes, we can.

Ready on Day One

Let's see what "Ready on Day One" gets you:

1. 10 defeats in a row.
2. Out fundraised two to one
3. Had to fire campaign manager
4. Had to fire state campaign chairman for making sleazy attack
5. Oops, didn't file enough delegates in Pennsylvania
6. Didn't understand the primary rules in Texas
7. Alienating the party's African-American base
8. Supported the most disastrous foreign policy blunder since WWII
9. Can't keep spouse on message
10. Failed to have a "Plan B" when coronation strategy didn't work
11. Resorted to Giuliani Plan to win in Texas and Ohio after that tactic failed miserably for Rudy only weeks ago
12. Losing support of key constituency to a candidate your campaign has described as a "fairy tail" who is all fluff and no substance.

Yep. She's ready, alright. Ready to remain the Jr. Senator from the state of New York.

Enter Bloomberg?

But wait -- didn't we try this already?

The theory among those urging him to run for president is that a businessman who rose from Wall Street to build his own financial information empire might be particularly appealing as the fiscal crisis worsens.

Willard Mitt Bloomberg, anyone?

Voting

After all the words I've devoted to Obama here I finally got to vote for him in the Potomac Primary (or Chesapeake Primary or Crabcake Primary as I've heard it called).

I was expecting a huge crowd but there was only a small line. I worry -- is it because I live in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood and they're sitting it out? Or maybe because there's only one race on the ballot things are moving quickly?

I see a neighbor. Are there more younger African-Americans in line than I usually see? I think so. A reporter is interviewing a white woman. She's for Barack.

On the way to work (driving, this morning) I hear Bill Clinton on the local news talk station. He's good. The low income working families who really need change are for Hillary...it's the people who have it made want to ignore the accomplished one and bring in fresh leadership. Or so he says. I've seen Bill close the sale for Hillary in Nevada and he is a good closer. If I were undecided and I heard him I would probably vote for her. The news announcer says Sen. Kerry and Sen. Kennedy will be on later for Obama. Are these really good closers for him in the DC area?

I'm nervous.

The Results

On the Dem side, it went pretty much as expected and we leave Super Tuesday without clearly victorious nominee, though Hillary still has the edge.

We seem to be going through a seesaw. First Obama wins big (Iowa) Hillary ekes out a response victory (NH). Then Obama wins big (SC), then Hillary ekes out another victory (FL, big supter Tuesday states). And I'm getting dizzy...

I would have liked Obama to have picked up a surprise victory in the NE or California. Still, his narrow win in "bellwether" Missouri was something.

Gays went for her two to one in California.

The one thing that will unite Republicans behind John McCain will be Hillary's nomination.

Stupidest thing I heard on the coverage last night: Keith Olberman: on Tennessee going for Hillary: "It was too early to call, but now it's later." No kidding.

And it's later than you think. And my fear is the Dems will nominate the retread.

But next week it's my turn to vote. Does anyone know where I can get my Obama yard sign?

She REALLY Doesn't Get It

Good Lord...Has the woman no shame? Okay, that was a rhetorical question. The Associated Press catches the Chameleon Clinton in the act:

It wasn't long ago that Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign scoffed at the notion that young voters would deliver an election. How quickly thing can change.

Just seconds into her speech Friday morning, Clinton was declaring herself the candidate for America's youth,,,

That's why after her third-place finish in Iowa, Clinton got off her plane in New Hampshire and declared: "This is especially about all of the young people in New Hampshire who need a president who won't just call for change, or a president who won't just demand change, but a president who will produce change, just like I've been doing for 35 years."

Obama had the prescience to note last night in his victory speech that his message has stayed the same all along.

I have confidence the New Hampshire voters will know a phony when they see one.

And when is someone going to ask Hillary what "change" she is talking about? And if she's been doing it for 35 years then isn't she part of the establishment? She's trying to have it both ways.

Oh, but she is a Clinton. Of course she is trying to have it as many ways as she can get it.

Wasn't eight years of that enough?

Bill Clinton's 9 to 1 Advantage

Bill Clinton is stumping for his wife. Small problem:

But reporters who have tallied his words say that he talks more about himself than about his wife -- at a ratio of about 9 to 1.

But he does admit Hillary is a "world class genius." After all, she was smart enough to marry Him, right?

Action and Tangible Commitment, Not Political Correctness

A reader writes that Obama's inclusion of rabidly anti-gay ex-gay Donnie McClurkin on a gospel tour disqualifies him as credible on DOMA repeal. I was hoping someone would bring up the McClurkin thing, as it's an old controversy and I have been thinking about it.

I would rather support a candidate who will bring about real, beneficial change even if he or she hangs out with people I don't like or agree with. Hillary is very politically correct, goes to the right dinners, hangs with the right crowd and obviously has won the well, support I guess (you can't call it affection) of a great deal of the establishment, including the gay establishment (read: HRC). So she may not have ruffled any gay feathers but she won't stick her own neck out either on behalf of the gay community.

Obama has and is -- by telling the black religious establishment that they are wrong about their homophobia.

Obama is not perfect and he has flaws like any other candidate or human being. I'm not nominating him for saint (I happen not to believe in them). But I am considering giving him my vote (I still have until Feb. to make up my mind).

Here's Obama in his own words defending his record on gay issues as well as stating plainly that he will legalize federal marriage benefits for gay couples in civil unions. I cannot imagine Hillary being so direct.

Durbin Predicts Iowa will go for

Obama.

I'm still hoping for something to stop the Hillary juggernaut. Remember how invincible Howard Dean seemed in the fall of 03.

Still, Hillary is not Howard. However, there was that flap earlier this year about debate within her campaign about pulling out of Iowa. So we shall see.

I would like to see a tighter race between Hillary and Obama. We need a protracted debate about America's foreign policy and civil rights. We won't get it on the Republican side.

And despite the survey (below) that says Rudy is my man: no way, no how. He'd rip the Constitution to shreds.

Hillary's Sopranos Video

Pretty clever, methinks...it got me, an anti-Hillaryite...to watch it twice and post it on my blog.

But...Celine Dion?????!!?

Bloomberg

A step closer to throwing his money in the ring?

Counterfeit Man

Richard Cohen sticks it to Mitt Romney today, calling him a counterfeit man, saying :

If he were a coin, a vending machine would spit him out.

I think the voters will ultimately spit him out, too. But Cohen's larger point, that our system allows extremists on both sides (the radical right for the GOP, unions for the Dems "economic pressure groups like teacher's unions" -- although in 2007-8 I would argue the fringe on the left is the Move-On-Out of Iraq-now crowd) to dictate who the nominees would be.

In playing that game, Cohen points out, Romney is showing his true cynical self. Concluding, he writes:

Since all politicians, like lovers and mattress salesmen, lie a bit, we do not expect purity. But Romney has taken things too far. I don't know whether he has any respect for himself, but he sure as hell has none for us.

A Gore Surge?

Is Al Gore the dark horse Dem candidate of 08? Consider this story of Gore's visit to Idaho from The Hill:

Former Vice President Al Gore came to town, appearing at the Frank Church Conference on Public Affairs at Boise State University. You know, the little school with the big football team. Gore and his “Inconvenient Truth” road show sold out a 10,000-seat auditorium faster than Bruce Springsteen’s last concert there. People were actually scalping tickets in the parking lot to hear a politician talk about global warming.

Sure, the movie version has been nominated for an Academy Award and, yes, Al Gore is the biggest political name to visit the Gem State in some time. But this is a state where logging trucks rule the road, every pickup has a gun rack and an American flag decal and you can’t raise crops without gas for your tractor and fertilizer for your fields. It is a state full of those who hunt and fish, but not environmentalists