Kevin Sullivan

Young Hillary

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Pretty funny stuff (and hey, it’s the dude from Sliders!):

We’re Running Out of Firewalls

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Jay Cost plays devil’s advocate for Hillary:

What happens to “It’s Over” if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that states since March 4th have averaged, that would imply a net of about 290,000 votes for Clinton. That puts her within striking distance of a reasonable popular vote victory. “Over” will be over as we turn our attention to Puerto Rico.

There are good reasons not to take Puerto Rico lightly, even though the press has continued to do exactly that. I would note: (a) Puerto Ricans vote in large numbers (2 million in the last gubernatorial election); (b) Puerto Ricans have never had this important a role in United States presidential politics; (c) Puerto Rico’s politics is focused at least partially on how (if at all) to adjust its relationship with the United States; (d) Puerto Rico’s is an open primary, and the residents of the Commonwealth, who are United States citizens, do not see themselves as Republicans or Democrats.

The inference I draw is that Puerto Ricans could turn out in huge numbers. If they do, and they swing for Clinton in a sizeable way, the popular vote lead could swing, too. Add 290,000 votes from West Virginia and Kentucky to 250,000 votes from Puerto Rico, account for expected losses in Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, and you get Clinton leading in many popular vote counts, some of which are really quite valid. If she has one of those leads when the final votes are counted on June 3rd, the race will go on to the convention.

Obama Made the Pie Higher

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I’m not certain, were I Hillary Clinton, what I would do at this point.  I’m not hung up on the personal loan to her campaign, because she still has debts that will need to be paid regardless.  It’s difficult to figure out the rationale for her campaign from this point forward.  Todd Beeton sees the opportunity for some kind of “unity tour,” but that strikes me as a concessionary plan.  More like a farewell tour than a unity bid.

This race has been spliced a million times over by now, so I won’t add too much to the pile.  I think the big winner here is the emerging Democratic coalition.  The media harped on all of the identity politics surrounding Barack Obama’s candidacy, paying less attention to the shifting party coalitions that were in conflict during these primary contests.  Clinton’s post-Super Tuesday rationale became a retro act of sorts.  Her bid represented the last gasp of the “New Deal Coalition,” which had become synonymous with the Democratic Party itself (causing much consternation for my friend Dheeraj).  Obama has ostensibly reorganized the coalition, uniting black voters, young voters and college-educated whites behind his message.  It’s not clear yet if Clinton’s support base will return home to the party, but I think it’s safe to say that the Democrats need these new voters pulled in by Obama’s candidacy.   

In short, Barack Obama has made the pie higher. 

UPDATE: Just in case there’s any confusion, the title is a Bush joke. 

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Knock on Wood

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Is it over?

The Clintosphere Jumps the Shark

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I have to agree with Kyle on this one (although I’m feeling like BooMan as of late).  Perhaps Jeralyn Merritt could explain how losing your job is not a weight on one’s pride.

Has the woman ever lost a job?             

Excelsior!

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Steven Stark on the need for a new Draft Gore movement:

Therefore, if the Democrats want to have their best chance to win an election in November that six months ago it looked like they couldn’t lose, they may have only one option at this point: they can turn to Al Gore.

In truth, Gore would be a stronger candidate in November than the two front-runners. He knows what it’s like to run in a tough presidential campaign, which, as we’re finding out with Obama, is a huge advantage. He is, after all, a Nobel Prize winner; he has the advantage of now running from outside Washington even though he’s as experienced as John McCain; and he might be able to pick off a Southern state or two. He’s already won once – with an asterisk. And he could put the electoral focus back on the economy and the Republican record of the past eight years – which it will rarely be as long as Clinton or Obama is the nominee.

Sure, Gore’s entry would obviously not be greeted with waves of enthusiasm by Obama supporters. Still, he is quite popular with one of the Illinois senator’s principal constituencies: the young.

Let me just say, if Al Gore had run in earnest six months ago, I’d be among his supporters today.  Stark goes on to explain some possible scenarios for this plan to work, but they all involve undercutting the democratic Democratic process that has gone down to this point.  Yes, Gore the man has a broad appeal that cuts into both Clinton and Obama.  However, by stepping in now as a party apparatchik, he risks alienating all of those respective supporters; much in the way the Liberal champion Hubert Humphrey did in 1968.  You can’t be the candidate of the Left, the young and the new, and be the institutional choice.  Just ask Senators Clinton and Obama.

Spin the Ballot

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Victor Davis Hanson shares with us his “oh boy, I can’t wait to run against the black man” hubris wisdom:

The Democrats are tottering at the edge of the abyss. They are about to nominate someone who cannot win, despite vastly out-spending his opponent, any of the key large states — CA, NJ, NY, OH, PENN, TX, etc. — that will determine the fall election. And yet not to nominate him will cause the sort of implosion they saw in 1968 or the sort of mess we saw in November 2000.

Hillary won’t quit, since she knows that Obama, when pressure mounts, is starting to show a weird sort of petulance, and drops the “new politics” for snideness. And at any given second, a Rev. Wright outburst, an Ayers reappearance, another Michelle ‘never been proud’ moment, or another condescending Obamism can cause him to nose dive and become even more snappy.

I find this McGovern meme kind of interesting, and it’s certainly going to be exploited by the Clinton campaign in the days and weeks to come.  I’m amazed, however, by the way a little spin can turn a progressive gain in Pennsylvania into a gluttonous and doomed spending spree (do we all remember when Republicans were rationalizing Romney’s Spend-to-Fail ratio, because he needed to top McCain’s strong brand, his name ID, his grassroots operation, etc.?).  The overall gap that Obama closed in the last couple of months there is rather remarkable, and although there are no moral victories in delegate counting, you could make the case for a more prolonged and consistent Obama trend in the polls.  The assumption made by Hanson (and the one undoubtedly required for Hillary to stay in this thing) is that these voters would simply never support Obama in the required numbers, which is just silly.  Many of these voters are dyed-in-the-wool types, and would no doubt come home to the Democratic Party if Obama can secure the nomination (the opposite is not the case with Obama’s supporters and Hillary).

However, my snark aside, I think Hanson’s latter point holds some validity.  Obama’s message has been saturated to the point of parody.  There are only so many times people can hear “hope” and “change,” and he’s obviously suffering from being the front runner.  But once again, we can flip this around.  Clinton’s support may be a backlash vote, an inherently conservative reaction to what has been portrayed in the media as an Obama juggernaut (this is why I laugh when the Clintonistas talk about Obama’s relationship with the media; there’s such a thing as killing someone with kindness).  Many of these primary states have been ignored in previous election cycles, so you might have a kind of New Hampshire-Iowa dynamic here.  One state picks the ideological hotshot, whereas the other hits the brakes with their ballots. 

So the question then becomes, will the coalition hold for Obama?  Can he take the nomination with his base of upper-class whites, college kids and independents, and then pull the hard hats back into the fold for the general?

I say yes and yes.

More at memeorandum

Judas is Taken

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So what timely and pertinent cultural reference can James Carville use to express his Mafioso-like displeasure with Robert Reich for endorsing Obama?

This reminds me of a discussion I was having with a friend about VP possibilities, were Obama to secure the nomination.  I have long proposed Gen. Wesley Clark, who, despite my policy differences, would make sound electoral sense for Obama.  He has military experience, and he is a white old man (Yes, I think this is a factor).  Unlike Clinton, I believe Obama would need to essentially find himself a Dick Cheney–an old, experienced party elder with presumably no aspirations for Obama’s job.  Rather than a potential successor, Clark can represent the wise “advisor” that could balance out the senator’s youth and inexperience.

My friend, however, protested.  “Clark would never do it, he’s a Clintonite,” he said.  Well, I think Bill Richardson and perhaps Robert Reich have proven that the Clinton Whip operation isn’t all that it’s, uh, cracked up to be.  If Obama wins the nomination, look for the machinery to crack and crumble there.  James Carville will be a “Hope Monger” in no time. 

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Video Splicing on Day One

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The idea that one activist concocted video tells us anything about Hillary Clinton’s relationship with the media is ludicrous.  For every Keith Olbermann tirade we’ve had instances of Clinton support, like her appearance on SNL, or her more recent appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ show (where I think she did quite well, actually).  I’m sure some clever clip cutting could produce an equally irrelevant video of pro-Hillary gushing, were someone so inclined to make it.

I am not.     

Sour Grapes on Day One

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There is so much that’s terribly wrong with Sean Wilentz’s Salon piece on why Clinton should supposedly be winning the Democratic nomination.  Here is the basic crux of his argument: 

If the Democrats ran their nominating process the way we run our general elections, Sen. Hillary Clinton would have a commanding lead in the delegate count, one that will only grow more commanding after the next round of primaries, and all questions about which of the two Democratic contenders is more electable would be moot.

Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats in primary states choose their nominee on the basis of a convoluted system of proportional distribution of delegates that varies from state to state and that obtains in neither congressional nor presidential elections. It is this eccentric system that has given Obama his lead in the delegate count. If the Democrats heeded the “winner takes all” democracy that prevails in American politics, and that determines the president, Clinton would be comfortably in front. In a popular-vote winner-take-all system, Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama’s 1,257. If she splits the 10 remaining contests with Obama, as seems plausible, with Clinton taking Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Puerto Rico, and Obama winning North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Oregon and Guam, she’d pick up another 364 pledged delegates. She’d have 2,107 before a single superdelegate was wooed. You need 2,024 to be the Democratic nominee. Game over. No more blogospheric ranting about Clinton “stealing” the nomination by kidnapping superdelegates or cutting deals at a brokered convention.

I believe this is kind of like me retroactively demanding a lucrative baseball contract were I capable of throwing a nasty splitter today.  Shorter shorter shorter Sean Wilentz: “If we could change the rules of the nomination process today, we would totally be winning this thing.”

The problem with this argument is that it assumes the Obama campaign would’ve run the exact same campaign were the delegates in each state decided in a winner-take-all setup.  They obviously would not, as their strategy clearly would’ve adjusted to the bigger states, and away from the caucus states that Hillary has otherwise ignored.  Money and manpower would’ve been utilized differently; the targeting strategy would’ve looked different.  The northeast–considered an acceptable stronghold for Clinton under the current proportional rules–would become crucial.  Thus it’s safe to assume that Obama’s team would’ve dumped more energy into these states, directed more advertising there, and probably would’ve lobbied harder for endorsements and support there.  A voter miscount favoring Senator Clinton in Harlem would have been national news; as opposed to the slight blip on the radar it received following Clinton’s commanding win in the state.  If the delegates were winner-take-all, Senator Obama would’ve likely camped himself out in strongholds like New York City; turning the race for the state into a defacto mayoral race moving borough-to-borough.  The GOTV operation in New York alone would’ve looked very different.  And that’s just New York.

This is yet another example of Clintonian entitlement and indifference.  Everyone loves the rules until the rules screw them, and that’s pretty much all Wilentz is saying here.  His theory that Hillary is running a winning general election strategy assumes that Hillary Clinton would still be a ballot factor in an Obama/McCain match up.  She won’t be, and many (if not most) Democrats will come home to their party in the face of a McCain presidency.  Those who might stray will be targeted and cajoled into voting the right way.  Obama’s campaign staff is probably flexible enough to adjust their strategy in the general.  I’m assuming, dare I sound too presumptuous, that the campaign understands the differences between the two races.  But that’s just a guess. 

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